In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (17 page)

Regardless, his performance seemed to satisfy Weiss’s curiosity, both the personal and the professional aspects. When lunch was over, he offered his guests a game of cards. Charles accepted; Mercier pleaded fatigue and headed aft to their quarters.

With Mercier gone, Weiss’s casual probing now shifted targets. But Charles was an old hand at this, and even with his mind split between Mercier and the card game he was able to answer or deflect everything Weiss threw at him.

Finally, as the afternoon lengthened toward dinnertime, Charles realized he couldn’t put off the confrontation any longer. His twice-daily milliliter of antidote was due soon, and he needed to leave himself at least a little time beforehand to talk Mercier out of whatever quiet rage or suspicion the other was nursing.

As on the
Ellipsis,
the courier boat’s captain had assigned the two passengers adjoining berths. Charles keyed his door open, and with only a little trepidation walked inside.

Mercier was waiting for him, lying on the narrow bunk with his arms folded behind his head. He seemed perfectly relaxed, but as Charles looked into his eyes he had the sudden image of a snake lurking in the dust by the side of the road waiting for an unsuspecting traveler. “I came for my drink,” Charles said, deciding to try pretending nothing had happened.

“Did you, now,” Mercier said, his voice a perfect match for his coiled-snake eyes. “What makes you think I’m going to give it to you?”

“What did you want me to do?” Charles countered, glancing reflexively around the room. But Mercier had had more than enough time to sweep the place for bugs. “He wanted proof, and I could hardly show him data I didn’t have.”

“And so you throw that little grenade into
my
lap?”

“You don’t know the man, remember?” Charles explained patiently. “You’re a stranger and a renegade, and you could hardly be expected to turn sensitive material over to him just because he asks nicely. That buys us time, and with enough time we can reach Irrlicht and not have to show them any data at all.”

“Is that what you think will happen?” Mercier asked. “That was your plan?”

“That was my improvisation,” Charles corrected. “Improvisation is what happens when plans actually hit atmosphere.”

“Let me tell you what I think.” Leisurely, Mercier pulled himself upright off the bunk. “
I
think you deliberately engineered this little trip, including the part about getting us off Haven without giving me any chance to contact my people.
I
think this was your plan from the very beginning: a way to get you out of reach of the retribution you knew will come crashing down on your head if the plan fails.”

“So I escape from Haven and then die twelve hours later?” Charles demanded. “How does that gain me anything?”

“I don’t know,” Mercier conceded. “I still don’t believe for a minute that this was Weiss’s idea.”

“Then you need to credit him with more intelligence,” Charles said. “And while you’re doing that, I suggest you look past your emotional haze and realize that this is the best possible thing that could have happened. Now, instead of Citizen Captain Tyler having to bear the whole brunt of the scheme’s execution on his own, we’ll be on hand to cover any holes and tweak any glitches at the Andermani end. It couldn’t have turned out better if I
had
engineered it.”

“You talk well, I’ll give you that,” Mercier growled. But the rattlesnake look in his eye was starting to fade. “Fine—we’ll play it your way. Not that I’ve got much choice at the moment. But let me just throw one more item into the mix.”

He reached in his pocket and pulled out his flask. “I have only enough of this stuff to last another month. That’s a trip to Andermani space at courier boat speeds, a trip back to Haven, plus a couple of weeks in the Irrlicht system for the scheme and its aftermath.” He raised his eyebrows. “If the job takes any longer than that, you’re going to die.”

“I understand,” Charles said. “But as Citizen Secretary Saint-Just himself said, only with great risk comes great reward.”

Mercier gazed at him in silence another minute. Then, his lip quirked in a sardonic smile. “You’re a cool one, Citizen,” he said. “I could almost wish you were on our side.”

“I
am
on your side.”

“Only for the moment,” Mercier said. “And only for that hundred million Solly credits.”

Charles shrugged. “Read your history, Citizen Colonel. For the moment, and for profit, is how most wartime alliances are made.”

“But ideology is why a warrior is willing to die,” Mercier countered. “People like you never understand that.” He gestured contemptuously and started unscrewing the flask’s cap. “Go get your water. I’ll measure out your dose.”

*
   
*
   
*

The trip from Karavani to Irrlicht took four weeks at the
Ellipsis
’s top speed. Citizen Captain Tyler spent most of the trip rereading his orders, drilling his crew for the task ahead, and brooding.

A suicide mission, Citizen Secretary Saint-Just had called it when he’d first offered Tyler the post as
Ellipsis
’s commander. Certain death, but a death that would bring the war with the Manticore Royalists to a sudden and victorious end. Tyler had accepted without hesitation; for, after all, death in the service of People’s Republic was the highest goal any of her men or women could aspire to.

But he’d had these past four weeks to study the strategy, and to think about the possibilities. Citizen Navarre’s plan was both cunning and brilliant, and it was indeed likely to end in Tyler’s own death. And Tyler was still willing to give his life for his nation.

But if the
Ellipsis
could achieve its goal and yet survive, would that not be even better?

The more he’d considered the question, the more he’d decided that it was neither a violation of command nor ethics to try to achieve that end.

Which was why the
Ellipsis
was no longer in the Irrlicht system, as ordered, waiting for the Andermani to come in response to Citizen Navarre’s tale of an unknown wormhole terminus in their territory. Instead, he was moving with the deliberate slow clumsiness of a light freighter through the Mischa’s Star system, heading on an intercept course toward a small convoy of Andermani freighters.

And as they flew toward destiny, he wondered at the strange name of this ship he’d been given.

Why
Ellipsis
? It was a question that had occupied much of the ship’s officers and crew in their idle moments, first during the trip to Karavani, then during the hasty refitting from their tender after all that damage to their alpha nodes, and finally during the longer voyage to Irrlicht. Was it the fact that its namesake grammatical mark, three periods in a row, was an indication of something unseen or otherwise not there? But the ship had had that name long before Citizen Navarre had been brought aboard.

Unless Citizen Secretary Saint-Just had had Navarre and his contraband Solly stealth system waiting in the wings the entire time. A man as brilliant as Saint-Just should never be underestimated.

Perhaps it was the word itself, derived from the ancient Greek for falling short. Not that the
Ellipsis
would fall short in its duty, but that it was named with the confidence that the Manty defenses that were the mission’s original target would fall short in their efforts to stop it. Or perhaps it was the dots of the grammatical mark themselves, that in the aftermath of the
Ellipsis
’s success the galaxy would connect the dots in a way that led away from Haven.

But that was vain speculation, a waste of the People’s time and energy. What mattered was not the ship’s name, but that its captain and crew would go down in history as the saviors of the People’s Republic.

The convoy was well within missile range now. Not only that, but its escorting heavy cruiser, having been completely taken in by the fake transponder and People’s Commissioner Ragli’s fluent German and expertise in all matters Andermani, was already starting to reposition itself to accept this “lost” newcomer into the convoy’s flight pattern.

“Prepare to launch missiles,” Tyler ordered, feeling his lips pulling back into a tight smile. The first salvo would target the escort, hopefully disabling it before it could respond in any significant way. The second attack would target the largest of the convoy’s freighters.

“Citizen Captain, we’re nearly to identification range,” the sensor officer warned. “Estimate three minutes to tag point.”

“Thank you, Citizen Lieutenant,” Tyler said, feeling the glacial calm whispering through him, the single-minded focus that made for both a good naval officer and a good patriot. The multiple layers of the
Ellipsis
’s false identity would fool the Andermani only so long, after which the People’s ship would be close enough for the cruiser’s sensors to penetrate the sheep’s clothing and detect the wolf lurking beneath it.

But the Andermani would hardly be expecting an enemy ship to come this deep into its territory. In fact, the cruiser’s captain was so arrogantly confident that he was even flying with his sidewalls down. By the time he realized the truth, it would be too late.

“One minute to tag point,” the sensor officer announced.

The tag point was only an estimate, of course, and it wouldn’t be smart to push the numbers too far. Tyler counted down the seconds, watching the screen for any hint that the escort might have realized something was wrong.

The theoretical timer was down to fifteen seconds when Tyler decided it was time. “Fire one,” he ordered.

It was beautiful, in the way that space combat was always beautiful, particularly when taking down a warship from an anti-democratic regime like the Andermani Empire. The missiles shot from
Ellipsis
’s tubes, their wedges flashing into existence as they bore down at a thousand KPS
²
acceleration on the cruiser. There was a balance-point moment as the cruiser’s captain belatedly saw his death approaching and tried desperately to get his sidewalls up in time.
 

The missiles won the race. Their warheads overwhelmed the point defenses and burst into brilliant swathes of X-ray fire that slashed across the cruiser’s hull, burning through electronics, bulkheads, and human flesh alike. The cruiser’s wedge flickered and dropped in strength as its alpha nodes went, then dropped again as one of its fusion bottles went into emergency shut-down.

For a moment Tyler considered seeing if a second salvo would finish it off completely. But he had a limited number of missiles, and there would be much bigger fish to fry soon enough. “Fire two,” he called.

It wasn’t nearly as soul-satisfying to attack an unarmed freighter as it was a warship. But it was still spectacular. The lone missile shot smoothly into the gap between the freighter’s stress bands and sent its energy burst directly into the rear alpha nodes. And since a typical freighter didn’t
have
any beta nodes, that meant the wedge went down completely, leaving the ship dead in space and its crew and cargo helpless against another attack.

Again, Tyler was tempted.
Bigger fish,
he reminded himself.
Bigger fish.
“Helm, veer off,” he ordered. “Full acceleration, minimum-time course to the hyper limit. Com, give me transmission.” He considered. “Make it a tight focus,” he added. “Keep my uniform out of sight.”

He got acknowledgments from both stations. Adjusting his expression into a cool, stern mask, he touched the transmit button. “That was your first and only warning,” he intoned. “The next time we discover an illegal arms shipment on its way to our enemies, we will blow the culprit, its escort,
and
the rest of the convoy out of the sky.”

The commander of the crippled cruiser was starting to sputter a reply when Tyler cut off the transmission. “Time to hyper limit?” he asked.

“Three hours twenty minutes,” the helm replied.

“Good.” Tyler took a minute to study the long-range displays, searching for anything that might be able to catch the
Ellipsis
before he could escape from the system. But he’d planned his attack carefully, and there wasn’t a single thing the Andermani could throw at him.

And with that, all he had to do was take the
Ellipsis
back to Irrlicht and wait.

He smiled as he once again swept his gaze over the long-range displays. Citizen Navarre’s plan had indeed been brilliant.

Now, with a single violent stroke, Tyler had made it even better.

*
   
*
   
*

The
Hase
made one stop, at one of the outlying systems of the Andermani Empire, after which the plan had been to head directly to New Berlin. To Charles’s surprise, though, they had barely reentered hyper-space when Captain Forman announced they were making instead for Mischa’s Star.

He wouldn’t give any reason for the sudden change in course. Neither would Weiss.

It was another two days to Mischa’s Star. Weiss was on the bridge with Forman when they exited hyper-space, and Charles contrived to have a question to ask the attaché that coincidentally required him and Mercier to be there at the same time.

The first thing he noted as they emerged back into n-space was that the
Hase
’s course wasn’t taking them toward the inner system. The second was that the course they
were
taking seemed to lead to a small group of freighters a couple of hours’ travel inside the hyper limit.

The third was that, whatever had happened here, the Andermani were taking it seriously. Seriously enough that they’d sent both a military repair ship and a seven-million-ton
Seydlitz
-class superdreadnought to the scene.

And not just
any
Seydlitz
-class superdreadnought.

“
Derfflinger
to courier boat
Hase,
” the clipped voice of the huge warship’s traffic coordinator came over the
Hase
’s com. “You are cleared for approach. Follow the prescribed vector; a pinnace will meet you at your parking slot to pick up Attaché Weiss and your passengers.”