The Oncoming Storm (7 page)

“Please be seated,” the captain said as she took her seat at the end of the table. There was a rustle as the officers sat down, then a pause as the steward served the captain a mug of coffee. “I would like to start by saying that you have all worked very hard to prepare this ship for departure and I am very proud of you.”

You would like to say? William thought, dryly.

He dismissed the thought a moment later; he’d had some commanding officers who indulged themselves with word games, but Captain Falcone didn’t seem to be one of them. Instead, it was just a clumsy choice of words.

“We have finally received our orders from the Admiralty,” Captain Falcone continued. “We will be departing for Cadiz in two days. Unfortunately, we will also be escorting a convoy of nine civilian merchantmen. It will not be an easy task.”

That was an understatement, William knew. Merchantmen didn’t tend to have the inherent flexibility of military starships, not when their contracts specified that deliveries had to be made by a specific date or penalty clauses would come into effect. One of the bigger shipping firms would hardly be inconvenienced by having to pay out compensation for late delivery, but it could literally ruin a smaller firm—or an independent shipper. Indeed, he would have expected the latter to run through hyperspace on their own, relying on the energy storms to cloak their presence.

The holographic image changed. This time it showed nine bulk freighters, all Rhesus-class. The Rhesus was an old design, dating all the way back to the era before the Breakaway Wars, but it was known for being reliable and—more importantly—easy to refurbish as technology grew more advanced. William would have bet half his monthly paycheck that none of the freighters in the convoy still had anything from their original configuration, apart from their hulls. Even civilian-grade sensors had advanced immensely since the days of the UN.

“It’s four weeks to Cadiz,” the captain continued. “During that time, we will both be handling escort duties and running constant exercises. It is my intention to have this ship ready for battle by the time we arrive at Cadiz. We do not know when war will break out, but it will. We have to be ready.”

William couldn’t disagree. Scuttlebutt around the fleet suggested the Admiralty expected war to break out within the year, although cynics wondered if the whole collection of rumors was an attempt to justify the latest military budget as it fought its way through Parliament. It was true enough that the Royal Navy had claimed a larger share of the budget ever since the Commonwealth had come into existence, but it didn’t take superdreadnoughts to provide convoy protection and hunt down pirate bases. That was a task for frigates or destroyers.

“The latest weather report suggests the presence of a storm moving towards us in hyperspace,” Lieutenant Nicola Robertson said. The navigator looked uncommonly nervous, although that wasn’t too surprising. Predicting the course and duration of energy storms in hyperspace was more a matter of lucky guessing and consulting tea leaves rather than good, reliable science. “We may have to add an extra week to our journey to avoid brushing up against its edges.”

William held his breath, wondering how Kat would respond. Some captains would have understood the point, others would have snapped at the impudent officer who had dared to question their arrangements. Which one, he asked himself, was Captain Falcone?

“Better to take a week longer to reach our destination than try to fly through a storm,” Captain Falcone said simply. She gave Lieutenant Robertson a reassuring smile. “I would prefer not to test the ship’s hull that violently.”

Thank God, William thought. In theory, a low-level storm could be navigated through as easily as an aircar would fly through turbulence in a planetary atmosphere. But in practice hardly anyone would take the risk if it could be avoided. And a high-level storm would rip the ship apart so thoroughly that no one would ever find any wreckage, not even a few stray atoms. Captain Falcone, at least, understood the basic realities of travel through hyperspace, unlike some of William’s former commanding officers. They had seemed to think that their will bent the laws of time and space themselves.

He nodded at Nicola, who looked relieved. She was young—like most navigators, she had learned her trade at Bendix Base, rather than Piker’s Peak—and had little grasp of military formality. Technically, she wasn’t even in the line of command. William had a private suspicion that her informality would get her into trouble one day, although he intended to ensure it didn’t happen on his watch. And she was pretty enough to get into a different kind of trouble on shore leave.

Lieutenant Commander Roach cleared his throat. “Captain,” he said carefully, “are any other warships being assigned to the convoy?”

The captain’s face darkened. “No,” she said. “The freighters have a handful of weapons mounts apiece, but we’re the only true warship.”

William nodded to himself in approval. Captain Falcone understood the implications. Judging from the level of communications traffic between Lightning and Naval HQ, she’d also tried to argue with her superiors, requesting additional support. But she’d clearly failed.

Roach put it into words. “Captain,” he said, “we can’t guarantee security for nine freighters in hyperspace.”

“I know,” the captain said. Her mouth twisted, as though she had bitten into a lemon. “We might lose one of our ships in a distortion zone and never realize it.”

She was right, William knew. Hyperspace played merry hell with sensors, particularly long-range sensors. It was quite possible for a pirate ship to shadow the convoy, satisfy itself that it could pick off one of the freighters, then attack during an energy distortion that would make it impossible to tell that something had gone wrong. It would be hours before the freighter failed to check in, at which point it would be countless light years away, being looted by the pirates. The crew would be in for a fate worse than death.

He rather doubted their weapons would make any difference. The big corporations could afford weapons licenses, cramming as many armaments into their freighter hulls as they liked, but it wouldn’t make them effective warships. Freighters wallowed like pigs in mud, their sensors and shields rarely military-grade . . . hell, there were restrictions on selling military-grade technology to civilians, even for the big corporations. There was just too great a chance of it falling into very unfriendly hands.

And it was starting to look as though someone had set the captain up to fail.

“We cannot hope to hide the convoy,” Captain Falcone said. “The scheduled departure date cannot be put back any further. Anyone with eyes on the system will be able to track our numbers, course, and speed, then make a rough estimate of our location. And ten ships are easier to locate in hyperspace than one.”

She took a breath. It was easy to see she was nervous. “I plan to turn our weakness into a strength,” she continued. “Standard doctrine places the escorting warship at the prow of the convoy. I intend to place us at the rear. We will pose as a freighter.”

There was a long pause. No one spoke.

William evaluated it rapidly. It was risky, he had to admit; if they ran into an ambush, the first freighters would be hammered before Lightning even realized they were under attack. But few pirates would dare to take on a heavy cruiser, even if they thought they had the firepower advantage—and few pirate groups had anything larger than a frigate under their command. It was much more likely that they would try to pick off the freighter at the rear of the convoy, rather than challenge a warship directly . . .

And, if the Captain’s plan worked, they would run right into a heavy cruiser instead.

“Workable,” William said. “Do you intend to use drones to ensure that any observers see us at the prow of the convoy?”

“One of the freighters carries a modified Electronic Countermeasures package,” the captain said briskly. “Mother’s Milk will pose as Lightning. She wouldn’t fool anyone in normal space, but in hyperspace sensors are unreliable enough to create reasonable doubt.”

She smiled coldly. “Maybe next time we can have all the freighters posing as warships,” she added. “Make them guess which of us is the real contender.”

“The odds would favor them,” William pointed out.

“We could run a pair of drones forward, if we mounted a control station on Mother’s Milk,” Roach offered. “Their sensors would give us some additional warning if anyone took up position in front of us.”

“Costly,” William pointed out. Drones configured to work in hyperspace cost a cool five million crowns apiece. The bean counters would be furious, even if the drones were recovered and recycled. “They might garnish your wages to pay for them.”

“But worthwhile,” Captain Falcone said. “See to it.”

William made a note of it on his terminal, thinking hard. The captain was from an aristocratic family. She would, if the scandal pages were accurate, have a trust fund, a share in the family’s wealth for her to use as she pleased. Was hers large enough to afford a five-million-crown drone? It was unlikely she needed her monthly paycheck to live a life of reasonable luxury . . . He felt a flicker of envy. Growing up on Hebrides had been far from easy. If his brother hadn’t . . .

He shook his head, forcing the thought to one side. Memories of his brother and what he’d done to feed the family still brought stabs of pain and guilt. Thirty years in the Royal Navy had never quite healed the scars.

“We could also follow a more evasive course,” Lieutenant Robertson suggested. “If we went off the normal shipping lanes . . .”

“Too great a risk of losing one of the freighters,” the captain said, so quickly that it was clear she’d already considered the possibility. “We couldn’t take the chance.”

“They would have real problems picking up the navigational beacons,” William agreed. “Not every ship has a skilled navigator.”

Robertson blushed, as he’d hoped she would, rather than looking crushed.

The captain cleared her throat. “I will not shed any tears for a destroyed raider,” she said firmly. “However, I intend to capture a raider intact if possible, along with her crew. I have”—her face twisted in disgust—“authority to offer them life on a penal world if they surrender once we have them at gunpoint.”

William shared her feelings. Pirates were the scum of the universe as far as any naval officer was concerned, and the Royal Navy had legal authority to simply execute captured pirates on the spot. In some ways, it was counterproductive—there was rarely any attempt to interrogate prisoners before shoving them out the airlock—but few pirates actually knew anything useful. Their senior officers, well aware of what fate awaited them, often fought to the death.

“There has been a considerable upsurge in raider activity recently,” Captain Falcone continued before anyone could muster an objection. “We need to know if a foreign power”—there could be no doubt which one she meant—“has been supporting the raiders for reasons of their own. Prisoners may be the only way to obtain hard evidence.”

There was a long silence. Roach finally broke it.

“Captain,” he said, “what will happen to the prisoners if they’re not going to be spaced?”

“They will be held in the brig, then transported to Nightmare,” the captain said flatly. “Once they’re on the surface, they can work or die.”

Roach looked pleased, William noted. Nightmare was a marginally habitable planet, its original settlers fighting a losing battle to survive when they’d been rediscovered. The Commonwealth had transported most of the settlers to another world, then turned Nightmare into a penal colony. It was possible that the prisoners could master their new world, the government had argued at the time, eventually creating another member world for the Commonwealth. And if they killed each other there . . . well, they wouldn’t be hurting innocents. Everyone who was exiled to Nightmare thoroughly deserved it.

The captain gave them a moment to assimilate what she’d said, then went on. “We will take tomorrow as downtime,” she said, “then prepare for departure. There’s no time for shore leave, I’m afraid, but there will be reduced duty hours for almost all of the crew. Please don’t overindulge in the still I’m not supposed to know about.”

William concealed his amusement with an effort. There was always a semi-legal still on a naval vessel, producing alcohol that was barely suitable for human consumption. It was tolerated as long as the operators didn’t do anything stupid, but it was generally the XO’s responsibility to keep an eye on it. The captain was not meant to know anything—officially—about the still. But she’d been an XO herself not too long ago.

Captain Falcone rose to her feet. “Dismissed,” she said as her officers rose. “Mr. XO, please remain a moment.”

She waited until the conference room was empty, then turned to face him. “I want you to take some rest too,” she said firmly. “You’ve been pulling double duty since you were assigned to Lightning.”

“It’s part of the job,” William said.

“I know,” the captain pointed out. “But you’re working yourself to death.”

William shrugged, expressively. A few days of leave would be enough to go to the I&I station, or perhaps a more expensive holiday on Tyre if he’d felt like stretching his legs. Or he could have gotten a hotel room and just slept for several days, or found someone young, female, and willing to share his bed. But a day wasn’t enough to do anything, apart from relaxing in his cabin or watching entertainment flicks. He hadn’t been brought up to be lazy.

“If that’s an order,” he said, “I will obey. But . . .”

“It is an order,” Captain Falcone said. There was a thin smile on her face. She’d probably been very like him when she’d been an XO. “Get some rest, Bill. You need it.”

“Bill,” William repeated. The nickname brought back bad memories. His brother had always called him Bill—or worse. “Please just call me William, Captain.”

The captain gave him a sharp look, but nodded. “Get some rest, William,” she repeated. “I think there will be little time for resting when we’re on our way.”

William saluted, then left the compartment. The hatch hissed closed behind him.