Rebel (42 page)

The cruisers had just reached the crud field and closed up, dividing their secondaries between shooting at destroyers and doing their best to sweep the space ahead of them.

They were not prepared for 18-inch guns with the best dialed-in fire control systems in the fleet.

Two cruisers vanished as if grabbed by the fist of an angry god of old. Other cruisers were staggered as they took hits not intended for their class. Some wandered into explosives they hadn’t noticed or reacted to in their distress. Others settled on
a straight course as bridge crews were distracted by more pressing matters.

The second broadside was worse than the first.

Four cruisers vanished in the blink of an eye.

“We’re getting surrender offers from two, no three,” Commander Blue said. “No, make that all of the cruisers.”

“Comm, connect me with Admiral von Mittleburg.” The admiral immediately appeared on screen.

“Have your sensors picked up the surrender offers?”

“No.”

“I have. Will you hold your fire while I attempt to negotiate a surrender?”

“Make it quick.”

“Comm?”

“You’re on the guard net.”

“Cruisers on net, who is asking to surrender?”

The reply was garbled as they all tried to speak at once. Admiral Bolesław shouted, “Report in alphabetical order of your ship’s name. Damn it, we don’t have much time.”

“
Bielefeld
,” came through clear and strong, followed quickly by, “
Dusseldorf
,” “
Gdynia
,” “
Krotovo
,” “
Mlawa
,” “
Tychy
.” “
Utena
,” finished up the list.

“Please don’t shoot,”
Utena
pleaded. “We know we don’t stand a chance.”

So, of course, the Empress broke in, screaming invectives and ordering that all traitors be shot. She screamed for the security experts on each ship to shoot the cowardly captains.

No security type appeared on screen to execute the Empress’s rant.

The skipper of the
Utena
rolled his eyes at the overhead. “See what we’ve had to put up with. Who do you think begged me to give up? What do you want us to do?”

“Empty your lasers and do not recharge them,” Admiral Bolesław said. “I’d order you to dump your reactors, but that planet ahead of us is coming up fast. Disable your lasers as best you can.” Bolesław rubbed his chin. “There are a lot of people in survival pods who aren’t going to make it if they aren’t collected. Don’t make me regret this, but you are ordered to pick up as many survivors as you can.”

“Understood. That’s a job I’m glad to accept.”

“Wait one. Vice Admiral von Mittleburg, have you been following my negotiations?”

“I have and am satisfied with what you offered. Tell them that I have personally reserved some 18-inchers for them if they go back on their word.”

“I understand,” said the skipper of the
Utena
. “My leading chief has successfully rendered my fire control system unusable. I have ordered all ships to follow our lead. If someone stupid tries to do something, I assure you it will be as ineffective as possible. Oh, someone just smashed the main bus to the lasers. I swear to God, you have nothing to worry about from us.”

“Commander Blue, can you confirm any of these actions?” Admiral Bolesław said.

“Unfortunately, no, Admiral. However, I can say that the fire control system is down and the lasers have no charge.”

“Let me know if that changes,” Admiral Bolesław said, then turned to the screen with Admiral von Mittleburg. “The cruisers are out of the battle.”

“Then God help the destroyer men. All ships, put those little boys out of action before they hurt one hair on the head of our Grand Duchess.”

Vicky’s destroyers, now picking their way carefully through the cloud of crud and past the cruisers that offered them no opposition, were well out of range of the Empress’s destroyers. The defense of Vicky’s battle line was totally in the lap of the cruiser gun line.

They spoke. The larger 8-inch lasers on the heavy cruisers had a tough time tracking the rapidly jinking destroyers. The light cruisers’ 6-inch main batteries were more nimble. The secondary batteries on all the cruisers had an easier time tracking the destroyers and taking them under fire.

The Empress’s destroyers burned, bled, and exploded.

“I’ve cracked a scrambled net channel,” Commander Blue said.

“On speaker,” Admiral Bolesław ordered.

“We can’t take much more of this.”

“Could we just blast the cruisers? They’re almost in range.”

“Don’t you dare waste your main punch.” The Empress was on this net now, screaming like a banshee. “You told me
those ship wreckers of yours could take down battleships! Now you will take down the battleship that little traitor is on! Get that bitch, or I’ll have your heads on pikes right next to those cowardly cruiser men!”

One destroyer fired on a heavy cruiser anyway. One 21-inch pulse laser shook the ship hard, but it held its course.

The Empress’s scream was soul-shaking.

The Empress’s destroyer next to the one that fired took it under fire and blew it to pieces.

Three more destroyers were hit by the gun line and fell off, powerless.

The destroyer that had blown up its mate suddenly came under fire from the two destroyers nearby. It disintegrated in one huge fireball.

“We can’t keep this up,” came a voice on net. “We’ve got to surrender, like the cruisers, or we’ll all be dead.”

Another destroyer turned its fire on the ship beside it.

“Thus to all traitors.”

Two of the destroyers—and four of Vicky’s cruisers—took that one under fire, leaving another glowing ball of hot gas where it had been.

“We can’t keep killing ourselves as fast as they’re killing us. I quit,” said a disembodied voice on net. On screen, a destroyer cut its acceleration down to almost nothing though it continued to dodge.

No one shot at this one.

“Don’t fire at any destroyer that powers down,” Admiral von Mittleburg said on net. On his private channel to Admiral Bolesław, he said, “Are you getting a request for surrender?”

“They’re a bit leery of going on net asking to surrender since the last two to try got shot up by their mates,” Admiral Bolesław said. “Let me see what I can do.”

The admiral turned to Vicky. “You want to stand next to me? It might help.”

“I thought I was the carrot,” Vicky said.

“Maybe I’ll use you as carrot cake. You ever have a slice of one? I loved my mother’s.”

“About that surrender,” Vicky said.

He turned back to the screen. “This is Admiral Bolesław. I
have Her Grace, the Grand Duchess Victoria, at my elbow. We are prepared to offer asylum and protection to anyone who chooses to stop shooting at us. Empty your lasers. Disable the power buses to them and join your brothers on the cruisers picking up any survival pods you can find.”

“All but one destroyer has powered down.”

“Which one is the holdout?”

“The
Following Wind
is still armed and dangerous.”

“Pass its position to the gun line.”

“Passed.”

“There is one of your number who is still loaded for bear. Rest assured, this bear is locked and loaded and aimed at you. Either disarm,
Following Wind
, or you will die on a count of three.”

“One.”

After only a medium pause. “Two.”

Admiral Bolesław shook his head.

“He’s powering down. The
Following Wind
has emptied its pulse lasers and 4-inch guns.”

“Very smart of you,
Following Wind
,” the admiral said.

“We had to persuade our ‘political officer’ that it’s better to surrender to the Grand Duchess than to get blown to bits in the service of that bitch of an Empress we have.”

Said Empress, no matter what her genetic makeup, was now screaming on the net. Commander Blue suggested switching to another channel, and the destroyer men did. There, uninterrupted, they settled the conditions of their temporary parole.

Vicky, however, went back to the channel with her darling stepmommy. “Hello, bitch,” she said when the woman finally had to stop for air.

She waited while Annah screamed to her heart’s content. When she finally had to gasp for another breath, Vicky got some words in edgewise. “You sent your cruisers and destroyers at me. We blew them away, and those that were smart surrendered.”

She had to pause again while her loving stepmum exhausted that breath. “Now we’ll handle your battleships, bring the smart ones over to our side, hunt you down, and put you out of your misery,” Vicky finished.

The Empress went back to her raving. Vicky found herself thinking about what she’d just said.

I meant to say I’d hunt her down and kill you. Instead, I flinched away and settled for putting her out of her misery. Am I going to do the same when
Retribution
has her pleasure barge in its sights?

I’ll need to have a black heart in my chest when that time comes.

CHAPTER 61

“R
ECALL
the destroyers,” Vicky ordered.

“What?” Rear Admiral Bolesław said.

“Is that line to Vice Admiral von Mittleburg still open?” Vicky asked comm.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Vice Admiral von Mittleburg, will you be so kind as to recall the destroyers?”

“Your Grace, ah, Vice Admiral Peterwald, may I ask what you have in mind?”

“Yes, you may, Vice Admiral. We have just seen how an unsupported attack, cruisers and destroyers against a force of destroyers, cruisers, and battleships came to grief. Just now, our destroyers have no support. Please recall them. Next time we unleash the ship wreckers, I suggest we do it when everything we have is at hand keeping all that the Empress has left very, very busy.”

“Understood, Your Grace, the Grand Duchess Vice Admiral Victoria. Comm, recall the destroyers. Your Grace, they had gotten quite close.”

“So had the Empress’s destroyers, all brave Sailors, Admiral. There is no question I could be making a mistake, but after
what we’ve just seen, the first destroyer attack in some eighty years, I think we need to rethink their use.”

“You could be right, Your Grace. I certainly cannot say that you are wrong. The little boys have turned about and are returning to our fleet.”

“Very good,” Vicky said. “Now, let’s think a bit about what happens next, shall we? I think we have some time.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Empress’s battle line was closing into 18-inch laser range. Vicky and her admirals had gone through several options for handling the coming slugging match. Vicky had discovered how useful her computer could be when it came to quickly running alternative battle plans. They’d watched a good many times as their battle fleet was destroyed.

The plan they were about to execute had been passed down to the smallest ship through coded tight beam. Now they’d see how it worked.

For the moment, Vicky stood before the main screen on
Retribution
’s flag bridge and ordered Comm to hail her opposite number.

A wiry, white-haired man wearing the stripes of a grand admiral took her call.

“I am Her Grace, the Grand Duchess Vice Admiral Victoria, and I command here.”

“I am Grand Admiral Kuznetsov, and I have orders to take your surrender or destroy you. Which will it be, young lady?”

“Uncle Vitaly,” came from a second screen, where Admiral von Mittleburg was observing Vicky’s sally. “Did they drag you out of retirement?”

“Is that you, Heinrich? What are you doing mixed up in a thing like this?”

Admiral von Mittleburg shrugged stoically. “These are difficult times, Uncle. We find ourselves making choices that, on another hand, we would never think of making. Are you really with the Empress?”

“Of course he is,” the Empress said, joining the conversation. “All right-thinking men obey the oaths they have taken. Unlike some brats.”

“Have they got a gun at your back, Uncle Vitaly?”

“I would not quite say that,” the old grand admiral said.

“But he’s got me with him.” The Butcher of Dresden smirked as he stepped up beside the grand admiral.

“How sad to see you again, Butcher,” Vicky said with as much cheer in her voice as she could fake. “How did your officers take to you getting two battleships blown away? Is that why it took you so long to finally come visit us?”

“I’ll finish now what I came here to do,” the Butcher said darkly.

“Enough of this,” the Empress snapped. “Admiral, get on with this.”

Vicky shook her head. She appreciated being called admiral because it jumped her up another rank to full admiral. But to address a grand admiral that way was to demote him. Her stepmother knew nothing of the Navy officers she was bossing around.

“May I have your surrender?” the old grand admiral asked.

“I’m sorry, Grand Admiral Kuznetsov, but no,” Vicky answered, then added, “No doubt you have noticed that my forces are not easily defeated. You have lost all your destroyers and light cruisers and several of your heavies. Many have chosen to surrender rather than fight to their own destruction. Would you be interested in considering the terms I might offer you to surrender?”

“You little shit!” the Empress screamed, but did not become visible on net.

You really do need an anger management intervention,
Vicky thought but did not say.

The Butcher was on the flagship and looked ready to vent his own spleen, but the grand admiral raised a restraining hand.

“You face two-to-one odds, young lady. I have only to cruise along as I am doing, and I will make orbit and capture your station and begin to threaten the people on the planet below. You must come to me. I assure you, I will not make the mistake the destroyer men made of underestimating you.”