March Upcountry

CHAPTER FIVE

Prince Roger's patience had worn thin.

The better part of a day had passed since the crudely repaired, shuddering tunnel drive had kicked off and the in-system phase drive had cut in, and he was tired of being good. He'd been stuck in his cabin, half the time in this ill-fitting vac suit, for three weeks while the repairs proceeded and the ship limped through tunnel space toward Marduk, and the noise and vibration of the patched-up drive systems hadn't been designed to make him any happier about it.

The TD normally emitted a smooth, almost lulling background hum, but the jury-rigged repairs had produced something that whined, shuddered, and sometimes seemed to threaten to tear the ship apart. Pahner and Captain Krasnitsky had been careful to underplay the problems on their infrequent visits to update him, but the repairs weren't much more than "5k cord and bubble gum," according to Matsugae, who'd become friendly with some of the guards. They'd held together, though, and the awful journey was almost over. All they had to do was land on Marduk and commandeer the first imperial ship back to Earth. He might even end up being able to avoid Leviathan completely. Problem solved, crisis resolved, danger past. So Roger, Prince of the House MacClintock, was not by God going to stay cooped up, incommunicado, in his stinking cabin.

He smoothed down his hair, patted a few stray strands into place, touched the hatch control, and stepped out into the passage. The stink in the dim corridor was even worse than in the cabin, and for a moment he considered donning his helmet. But he was obviously clumsy putting it on and taking it off, and damned if he was going to give these Myrmidons a reason to laugh at his expense. He turned to one of the armored guards.

"Take me to the bridge," he ordered in his most imperious tone. He wanted to be absolutely clear that he was done cowering in his cabin.

Sergeant Nimashet Despreaux cocked her head inside her helmet and regarded the prince from behind the shield of her flickering visor. The helmet system was intended to cause the eye to shift away, enhancing the effect of the chameleon camouflage they all wore. But it also made it impossible for anyone on the outside to see a Marine's expression, and, after a brief pause, she stuck her tongue out at him and turned toward the bridge. She also sent a biofeedback command to the radio control and opened a channel to Captain Pahner.

"Captain Pahner, this is Sergeant Despreaux. His Highness is headed for the bridge," she reported flatly.

"Roger," was the terse reply.

It was going to be interesting to be a fly on the wall for this one.

They finally cycled through the double airlock system to the bridge, and Roger looked around. He'd familiarized with the Puller-class at the Academy, but he'd never actually been on the bridge of one before. The company-sized assault transports were the backbone of the Corps support groups, which meant they were under-emphasized by the Academy. An Academy graduate wanted to be posted to Line or Screen forces, where the promotions and the action were, not to an assault barge. Might as well captain a garbage scow.

But this garbage scow had survived the crisis, and that said a lot for the captain and crew, Academy graduates or not.

There was evidence of the damage even on the bridge. Scorch marks on the communications board indicated an overload in the maser com, and most of the front panels were missing from the control stations. Control runs were normally formed directly into the hull structure when a ship was grown, but since military ships had to assume that they would suffer combat damage, there were provisions for bypassing them with temporary systems. In this case, hastily installed relays, some of them even made out of wire, for God's sake, snaked across the floor, and the compartment was filled with the faint pulse of optic transmissions leaking from the joints.

Roger stepped over the cables littering the deck and joined the captain where he and Pahner were examining the tactical readout. The hologram of the system buckled and rippled as the crippled tactical computers struggled to keep it updated.

"How are we doing?" he asked.

"Well," Captain Krasnitsky answered with a grim, utterly humorless smile, "we were doing fine, Your Highness."

As he finished speaking, the General Quarters alarm sounded. Again.

"What's happening?" Roger asked over the wail, and Captain Pahner frowned and shook his head.

"Unidentified warship in the system, Your Highness. They're over a day away from intercept, but we don't know what else might be lying doggo nearby."

"What?" Roger yipped, his voice cracking in surprise. "How? But—" He stopped and tried to put on a better face. "Are they part of the sabotage? Could they be waiting for us? And who are they? Not imperial?"

"Captain?" Pahner turned to the ship's commander.

"Currently, who they are is unknown, Sir. Your Highness, I mean." For once, the captain wasn't flustered by the presence of royalty. The overriding necessity to fight his ship was all he had mind for, and the last three weeks of hell had burned out most of his other worries. "Our sensors are damaged, along with everything else, but it's definitely a warship from the phase drive signature. The filament structure is too deep for it to be anything else." He frowned again and thought about the rest of the questions.

"I doubt that they're part of some deeply laid plan, Your Highness. When the tunnel drive was damaged, it threw us badly off our planned flight path. I doubt that the conspirators, whoever they were, could believe we're still alive, and if they'd made preparations to 'make sure of the job,' they would have done so in systems closer to our base course. Marduk is off our baseline by almost a full tunnel jump, almost seventeen light-years. I don't see how anyone could have anticipated our ending up here.

"So, no, I don't think they're 'waiting for us,' but that doesn't necessarily make their presence good news. The drive and emissions signatures look kind of like a Saint parasite cruiser, but if that's so, that means the Saints have had a Line carrier in-system."

"And that means the Saints have probably taken the system," Pahner snarled.

The ship captain smiled thinly and sniffed, tapping the edge of the crippled tactical display. "Yes, it does."

"So the planet is under hostile control?" Roger asked.

"Possibly, Sir. Your Highness," Krasnitsky agreed. "Okay, probably. The orbitals, at least. They haven't necessarily taken over the port."

"Almost certainly," Pahner concluded. "Captain, I think we need a council. Myself and my officers, His Highness, your officers who are available. We have time?"

"Oh, yes. Whoever this is, he waited to bring up his phase drive until we were deep enough inside the tunnel wall to be sure no merchant could make it back out without being overhauled. Which probably means our signature is changed enough from our damage that he thinks we're a merchie instead of an assault ship. But even with our accel towards the planet and his accel towards us, we have several hours to decide what we're going to do"

"What are our choices?" Roger asked. The blinking red icon of the possible hostile cruiser held his eyes like a lodestone, and Krasnitsky smiled faintly.

"Well, there isn't much choice, is there, Your Highness? We can't space out..."

"... so, we'll have to fight," Captain Krasnitsky said.

The wardroom was crowded. Besides Krasnitsky, there were his executive officer, the acting engineer, and the acting tactical officer. On Bravo Company's side of the table there was Prince Roger, who was flanked by Eleanora O'Casey and Captain Pahner. In addition, Pahner had brought two of his three lieutenants. According to the ideal universe of The Book, there were supposed to be seven lieutenants a line company, but that happy state of affairs was rarely found in dreary reality. It was especially hard to find in The Empress' Own, which had even higher standards for its officers than its enlisted men.

In general, the need for an executive officer and "chief of staff" for a company commander was seen as overriding the need for a platoon leader, so Third Platoon was officerless. Its platoon sergeant, who normally would have been in the meeting, was busy getting it prepared for whatever the CO decided to do, and the navigator was on the bridge, bluffing the oncoming cruiser which was looking more and more like a Saint parasite.

"I don't want anyone to have any doubts," Krasnitsky went on. "We might win, and we might not. Usually, I'd say we could take a single cruiser—we've got more missiles, and heavier, and we've got him licked on beam armament." He paused and stared at the deckhead for a moment. "We've got all the normal advantages of a tunnel drive ship. We aren't mass-limited; the drive only cares about our volume, so we can afford to mount ChromSten armor, which he can't. That right there is a major factor, since it will shrug off some of the missiles that get through, whereas ours will all hammer him. And we've got more internal volume, so we can absorb more of the damage that does get through.

"The downside is, we're in sad shape. We can hardly accelerate at all, and our sensors and targeting systems are screwed. We're a damned big target, too, so it's not like they're going to miss. All the normal disadvantages of a TD ship, with a few extra thrown in. So we'll take damage, no question. Even if we win, we'll be in worse shape than we are now."

He paused again and looked around the compartment. The Marines, combat veterans all, looked grim but determined. His own people, none of whom had actually been through a ship-to-ship action, looked a bit white, but focused. The prince's chief of staff was trying very hard to look as if she had any idea at all of what was going on. The prince, though... The prince was a sight. It was obvious that, whatever else he'd taken at the Academy, no-win simulations hadn't been on the program. As the briefing had gone on, his eyes had just gotten rounder and rounder... .

"What about punching the assault shuttles?" Pahner asked, leaning a chin on one fist and looking so calm he appeared almost disinterested. Krasnitsky had dealt with some cool Marines in the course of his career, but the commander of the prince's bodyguard was obviously one of those rare people who simply got calmer when disaster loomed. The Fleet officer was willing to bet that the Marine's blood pressure and heartbeat were so low they were dropping off the scale.

"I'd suggest loading them," Lieutenant Commander Talcott, DeGlopper's XO said, "but don't punch them. Putting their additional armor between the Prince and incoming fire would be good, but you'd have a helluva time making the planet without us from here."

"Have we received any transmission from the other ship?" Eleanora asked.

"Not yet," Krasnitsky said. "Lag. The soonest we can expect to receive a com is sometime in the next half hour, and they'll be receiving our own message about the same time. And before you ask: we're the Nebula Lines freighter Beowulf's Gift, out of Olmstead. We've had a tunnel drive failure, and we're looking for a port to await a repair ship."

"Whether they believe it or not," snorted Lieutenant Gulyas, the Second Platoon leader. Since Marine companies were designed to operate independently, which meant their COs needed their own de facto staffs, he also wore the "hat" of intel officer.

"Indeed," Lieutenant Commander Talcott said. "Just as much as we believe them."

"There's no reason for them to suspect us," Captain Krasnitsky pointed out. "With our phase drive damage, we can't make any sort of acceleration, and the damage also masks our tendril signature. Frankly, we do look like a damaged freighter. They'll practically have to do a hull map to tell the difference."

"By which time," Sublieutenant Segedin declared, "we'll have them locked up and ready to blast." The acting tactical officer seemed to be looking forward to the action. Nervous but ready, like a racehorse at the starting gate. "The good news is how long they waited to fire up. They have to be assuming we're a merchie, so they'll come calling for us to heave to or follow them to the planet. We'll play along, but not decel. The closer we get to the planet, the better."

"We're down one missile tube," Talcott commented. "The local server was flattened by the power surges, and we're out of spares, but that leaves us seven. And all the laser mounts are online. Fire control is... spotty. But it should hold for a short engagement."

"So the ship blasts the cruiser," Prince Roger said, twining a golden strand of hair around one finger. "Then what? How do we get back to Earth?"

"Then the port submits, or we drop kinetic weapons on it, Your Highness," Pahner said flatly. "And after that, we wait for a ride home."

"And if the carrier comes back?" Roger was surprised at how calm he sounded. He looked at the piece of hair in his hand as if in surprise, and then patted it back into place. "I mean, the cruiser had to be dropped off by a carrier, right? And a carrier has collapsed armor and even more missiles than we do. Right?"

Pahner and Krasnitsky shared a look, and Pahner answered.

"Well, Your Highness, I think we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. It could just be lying low somewhere. But," he glanced at Segedin, "what about other ships in the system? Other cruisers or destroyers?"

"Right now, we don't detect any," the acting TACO replied. "But if the cruiser hadn't lit off its drive, we never would have detected him, either. There could be a carrier or another cruiser—or a hundred little fighter bastards—out there, and we'd have no idea."

"Okay," Pahner said, "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, too." He turned to the Marine lieutenants who were making notes on their pads. The electronic devices would convert the entire meeting to text for reading, but the notes brought out the highlights. "Get the assault boats prepped. Full loadout. When we hit orbit, we should be prepared for a hot drop on the port."

"Are we talking an extended fight here, Sir?" Lieutenant Sawato asked. The First Platoon leader was the senior lieutenant and de facto operations officer for the company. If there was going to be an extended fight, it would be her job to ensure that the plans were in place to support it.

"No." Pahner shook his head. "We'll call on them to surrender. If they do, we'll drop on them like a ton of lead. If they don't, we'll hit them with kinetic strikes, then drop on them like a ton of lead. We'll work up a full mission order around that in the next few hours. Take this as a warning order. "

"Will that be strictly necessary, Major?" Eleanora asked. "I mean, you're the Bronze Battalion, not an enforcement company. It's your job to protect Prince Roger, not to retake planets from people like the Saints. If we hold the orbitals, can't we just wait for reinforcements to arrive and handle the situation on the ground?"

Pahner looked at her woodenly for a moment.

"Yes, Ma'am. I suppose we could," he said finally. "But, frankly, I think it's important that whoever has taken over the system understand that when you dick around with an imperial base, all it gets you is bloody and bruised. More to the immediate point, we might end up hiding on the ground. I'd prefer that base be neutralized if we do."

"You mean if the cruiser's support ship comes back?" Roger asked.

"Yes, Your Highness. Or if it's still around somewhere," Pahner replied shortly.

"Will His Highness be on the assault?" Krasnitsky asked in a diffident tone.

"Yes!" Roger said quickly, his face lighting at the thought of getting off the ship.

"No!" Pahner and O'Casey spoke simultaneously, and it was difficult to say which sounded more emphatic. They looked at each other, then at the prince. The two of them flanked him like lions at the gate, and O'Casey leaned out over the table to fix his eye, since he was steadfastly looking across the table at Captain Krasnitsky.

"No," she said even more firmly.

"Why not?" Roger asked, wincing inwardly as he heard his own whining tone. "I can carry my own weight!"

"It's too dangerous," O'Casey snapped. "The very idea is ludicrous!"

"If we're performing an assault, Your Highness, I can't have my troops guarding you at the same time," Pahner pointed out in her support.

"My troops," Roger said petulantly. He hated the tone, but he didn't know how else to say it. "Mine, Captain. I'm the battalion commander; you work for me." He smoothed his hair and pulled a couple of imaginary wayward strands into place, and Pahner's face turned to clenched-jawed iron.

"Yes, Your Highness, you are." He leaned back, crossed his arms, and gazed impassively up at the deckhead. "What are your orders, Sir?"

Roger had already opened his mouth to protest the next infringement on his prerogatives, and the sudden lack of resistance left him with his mouth hanging wide. He had absolutely no idea what orders he should give, nor did he want to give any. He just wished that people would start treating him like an adult and the commander of the battalion instead of an appendage only important as something to guard. But suddenly the image of a Marine, out of his chameleon suit, exposed to vacuum, sitting on his own vac suited chest, waiting to see if the ship was going to depressurize, flashed across his vision, and he knew he had to find a way out of the corner he'd painted himself into. He thought about the conversation which had been going on around him, to the point of doing a quick check of his toot. The device had been set to a one-minute memory storage, a technique that had stood him in good stead in school and on numerous social occasions, and he felt a surge of relief as he spotted an out.

"Well, Captain, I think we should get started on drafting an operations order while the platoons prep the shuttles. We'll settle who's going to be included on the mission in the operations order." He glanced sideways at Eleanora, but she refused to meet his eye, as did the embarrassed-looking officers across the table. "Do you have anything further, Captain Krasnitsky?"

"No, Your Highness," Krasnitsky said. "I think that's it."

"Very well," the prince said. "Let's get to it!"

Krasnitsky looked at Pahner, who nodded, and with that, the meeting adjourned.