Battlecruiser Alamo: Take and Hold Read online

  TAKE AND HOLD

  Battlecruiser Alamo: Book 11

  Richard Tongue

  Battlecruiser Alamo #11: Take and Hold

  Copyright © 2015 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved

  First Kindle Edition: March 2015

  Cover By Keith Draws

  All characters and events portrayed within this ebook are fictitious; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Join the Battlecruiser Alamo Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/A9MdX

  With Thanks To: Ellen Clarke and Peter Long

  Admirals all, they said their say

  (The echoes are ringing still),

  Admirals all, they went their way

  To the haven under the hill.

  But they left us a kingdom none can take, The realm of the circling sea,

  To be ruled by the rightful sons of Blake And the Rodneys yet to be.

  Admirals all, for England's sake,

  Honour be yours and fame!

  And honour, as long as waves shall break, To Nelson's peerless name!

  Henry Newbolt, 1892

  Chapter 1

   The concourse was crowded with people, moving around with purpose as they shopped for knick-knacks, headed to one of the bars to meet old friends, worked their way down their duty checklist or reported to their workstation. Logan Winter, latterly commander of Spitfire Station, was the only one just drifting aimlessly through the corridors. As he had expected, he had returned from Haven to find that he had been replaced, an ambitious Senior Lieutenant whose name he hadn’t bothered to learn, who thought this place would do wonders for his career. He’d learn soon enough.

   Logan hadn’t expected not to have any orders waiting for him when he got back. There were plenty of fires he should be putting out, the UN Colonies still dancing around insurrection, the Cabal waiting out in the dark, who knows what else beyond. He smiled, pondering for the moment if this wasn’t his boss gently telling him that he could return to civilian life, but while he had initially longed for it, after a year back in uniform he found it strange to imagine being out of it.

   Commanding a station wasn’t his forte, not really, but there were so many other things he could be doing. A polite inquiry about heading out with the task force had been abruptly rebuffed by Counter-Admiral Tramiel, though he was about on the verge of just sneaking on board one of the ships and facing the music later.

   “Captain Winter!” a voice yelled from the far end of the corridor, and Logan raised a hand, waving the noisy man over. Another one of the new intake, some junior enlisted type pressed into duty as a runner. “Message for you, sir.”

   “Last time I checked, there were such things as communicators,” he replied.

   Looking down at the deck, the panting spaceman replied, “I’m sorry, sir, I was ordered to hand this to you personally by…”

   “Relax, kid. You’ve got a stupid boss, but that isn’t your fault.” He took the datapad, and started to read, his eyes widening as he did so. He looked back up to the young crewman, and said,  “Is this some sort of joke?”

   “No, sir. I mean, I don’t know what the datapad says, but the transmission came through half an hour ago on the Scoutship Viking. I’ve delivered three more of these this morning.” He frowned, then said, “You were the hardest to find, sir.”

   “Who else?”

   “Lieutenant Ryder, Senior Spaceman Harper, and Sub-Lieutenant Chambers.”

   Logan grabbed the young man’s shoulders and said, “Melissa’s on board the station? Since when?”

   “I gave her the orders twenty minutes ago, sir. She was in her quarters.”

   He cursed under his breath in three languages, then said, “Fine, kid. You’ve delivered your message, now run along and tell whoever gave it to you that you couldn’t find me.”

   “What, sir?”

   Logan pushed the datapad into the young man’s hands, and said, “You couldn’t find me, and I don’t know about this yet. I’m sure there’s some sort of reason buried in the regulations about handing these orders to me, and I’m equally sure that they’ll give up and just send the orders directly to me, but I need a little time. Get moving.”

   “Yes, sir,” he replied with a confused look on his face, heading off into the crowd. Logan looked after him for a second, his eyes checking for anyone who might be watching him, then reached into his pocket for his communicator, tapping a hidden button to make sure that no-one could overhear him.

   “Ryder, Harper, Chambers, report to Sub-Level Nine-Alpha, right now.”

   He reached up to an overhead hatch, twisted it open, and dived inside, quickly shutting it up behind him. Looking up and down the maintenance tunnel, he kicked off towards his destination, pushing off from one surface to another to speed his path, swinging around a bulkhead with a convenient handhold and ducking underneath a cloud of debris left over from the last occupant.

   The location he had picked hadn’t been used in years, which made it such an ideal meeting point for covert activities that he’d been forced to install security equipment to protect it, but it was a space where he could work without anyone overhearing him. His office would have been another obvious choice, but it had a new occupant now, one blissfully ignorant of the extra features that Logan had built in.

   Diving past a bored-looking maintenance technician surrounded by a halo of components, he ducked into the side passage he was looking for; up ahead, he could see the green-haired Harper waiting for him, a smile on his face.

   “I figured you’d want to see me as soon as you got the word,” she said. “I’ve been waiting here for a quarter of an hour.” With a smile, she said, “Let me guess; that poor rookie couldn’t find you.”

   “Maybe I didn’t want to be found.”

   “What’s going on?” another voice said from down the corridor; Logan turned to see Ryder heading towards them. “I’ve got some celebrating to do.”

   “Let me guess,” Logan said, “You’ve just been transferred back to the Alamo.”

   She nodded, and said, “Operations Officer, effective immediately.” Shaking her head, she replied, “Should I be thanking you? Look, I know we’ve had our problems, but serving under you has been an experience I won’t forget.”

   “I bet. What about you, Kristin?”

   Waving a datapad in the air, she said, “Apparently I’m a Technical Officer now, and assigned as the Captain’s Administrative Assistant. If this is someone’s idea of a joke, it’s a bad one. I’m not a damn secretary.”

   With a growing smile, Logan said, “If this is a joke, it’s got a lot of levels to it. I got a set of orders myself a few minutes ago. Apparently I’m the new commanding officer of the Battlecruiser Alamo.”

   Harper broke out in near-manic laughter, and Ryder said, “What the hell is this?” Her face darkened, and she said, “With all due respect, you wouldn’t know the first thing about commanding a battlecruiser.”

   “Don’t you think I know that?” he replied. “I’m as baffled about this as you.”

   “They calling you in?” Harper asked. “Cover for a transfer back home?”

   “I thought about that, but the orders didn’t have any of the usual codewords. Besides, there are plenty of nice quiet ways for me to sneak home, we don’t need to resort to this. There’s something else going on here.”

   “It could just be a mistake,” Harper said. “They do happen. You are a Lieutenant-Captain not assigned, and some bureaucrat might have decided to give you the job without looking too deep into the details.”

   “Harper, assigning a commanding
officer to a capital ship is not handled by a minor bureaucrat,” Ryder said with growing exasperation. “To the best of my knowledge, Commodore – sorry, Counter-Admiral Tramiel handles it himself.”

   “Unless he gets countermanded by someone higher up,” Logan replied.

   “Ultimately, Captain,” Ryder said, “You have a job to do.” She shook her head, and said, “Damn it, I was…”

   “Looking forward to leaving me behind and getting on with your career?” he said with a smile. “Am I really that bad to work for?”

   Harper and Ryder looked at each other, and the latter replied, “Yes. I don’t mind people not being by the book, but you flushed it out of the airlock the day you took over here.”

   “Where’s Melissa?” Harper said. “I didn’t even know she was back.”

   “Neither did I,” Logan replied. “Frankly, that surprised the hell out of me; I figured she’d still be back at Callisto, or on her way to something better. I expected her to contact me at the very least.” He pulled out his communicator, playing with the controls again, and said, “Logan to Chambers. Reply at once.” He paused for a moment, then with more urgency, said, “Reply at once.”

   Looking up at Ryder, he said, “I’m going to look for her.”

   “Yes, we are,” Harper replied, reaching into what he had thought was a secret compartment and pulling out a pair of pistols. She snapped one onto her belt with worrying familiarity, and tossed the other over to Logan. “Yours, I think.”

   “How many of these caches have you got stashed around?” Ryder said.

   “Enough. After what happened here on my first day, I thought it seemed like a sensible precaution to take.”

   “I can’t begin to tell you how many regulations you are breaking,” she replied. “Have you got more of them?”

   “I think there’s another one in there somewhere,” he said with a smile. “We’d better stick together. Right down the main access shaft is most likely. We’re down near the bottom, so it seems like a good place to start.”

   “Shouldn’t we call security?” Ryder asked, strapping on her gun.

   “Too dangerous. I don’t trust this new crowd, I haven’t had a chance to get to know their profiles. Most of our people have been shanghaied onto the task force. Come on.”

   He pushed off out of the nook they had been roosting in, out into the shaft, and kicked off back the way he had come. Trying to visualize a mental map of the station, he twisted around a corner and then started to dive vaguely in the direction of Operations, a good eighth of a mile away.  Quietly, he tapped a control on his communicator, opening the frequency and transmitting everything it could hear to the station databanks; if he was reported dead, a lot of people – many of them randomly chosen – would get to hear his last words. Hopefully the screamed name of his murderer.

   Harper and Ryder followed close on him, the former with her pistol drawn and in her hand; she’d obviously managed to get some practice in of late, without telling anyone. Briefly, he wondered if he’d done the right thing in recruiting her, but he reasoned he hadn’t had much of a choice. She’d have recruited herself into Intelligence sooner or later; that was inevitable when she put on the uniform. He just sped the process by a couple of years.

   Something caught him on the cheek as he flew down the corridor, and he reached his hand up to wipe it from his face; his fingers came back red. Blood. He turned down the nearest side shaft and saw Chambers, a gag in her mouth and terror in her eyes, a knife stabbed into her chest.

   “Ryder, look after her!” He yelled, trying to give her a reassuring look as he pushed past, his eyes catching a glimpse of a figure at the far end of the corridor trying to get away. “Get a medical team, right now!”

   As he moved to catch the would-be assassin, he heard Ryder yelling into a communicator, demanding urgent action; Harper was right behind him, as he knew she would be, lining up to be ready for a shot.

   “Tell me you aren’t just looking impressive with that thing?” he said as they raced to the turning.

   “I’ve had more practice in the ranges than you have for the last year,” she replied. “Something told me that this was a skill I needed.”

   They turned the corner, and Logan saw the figure pause for a brief second, giving the two of them the window of opportunity they needed. Logic suggested that he should try and take him alive, but he was far enough away that they would only have one chance to get him, and if he was honest, the well-being of the person who had tried to kill his friend wasn’t high on his list of priorities.

   The two guns cracked at the same second, only one of them striking home, catching the man in the neck, sending him spinning to the wall with blood tumbling out of him in bubbles that filled the air. Logan swooped down towards him, looking at the man to try and find a trace of familiarity, hoping to hear his dying confession, but he was dead before he could get to him.

   “Damn,” he said, looking down at the body. “Harper, search him, and run any identification you can get through the computers. Do it quietly, and make sure no-one knows about it.”

   “Will do,” she replied, while he turned back up the corridor. He could hear coughing and choking from around the corner, and turned to see the gag floating in the air, drifting away, and Ryder doing her best to strap a bandage around the chest wound, the contents of a first aid kit all around her. He moved forward, gently holding Chambers still, stopping her from struggling. She looked up and locked eyes with him, and he tried to smile.

   “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “We got the bastard.” Shaking his head, he replied, “I’m sorry for getting you into this mess.”

   Ryder finished her work, rubbing her bloody hands down her uniform trousers, and said, “Medical team will be here in a minute. We’re close to an access point. I think she’s going to live, but it’s a damn bad wound. Who the hell uses a knife?”

   “Someone who doesn’t want to make a noise and doesn’t care about making a mess,” Logan replied. He could hear the sound of a group of people drifting towards them, and yelled, “Over here! Get a move on!” He kept his hand near his pistol, but relaxed as he saw the white uniforms of the medical team.

   “Get this woman to Alamo’s medical bay as fast as you can.”

   The doctor in charge replied, “Sir, our facilities here on the station are a lot better than anything you'll find on the battlecruiser.”

   “Can they treat her there?” he asked.

   “Yes, but…”

   “Then get her stabilized and get her over there on the double. That’s an order.” He looked up at Ryder, and said, “You go with her, every step of the way. Unless anyone senior to you is on board, take command of Alamo for me. I’ll be along as soon as I can. I want maximum security for her, people you trust. Understand?”

   “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll look after her.”

   “Good. Get moving.”

   He watched the group move out, his eyes lingering on Chambers as her limp form was carefully dragged down the passage. The doctors were looking over the Ryder’s work, shaking their heads, but her fate was in their hands now.

   “It’s my fault,” he said.

   “Don’t be stupid, Logan,” Harper replied, coming around the corridor. “We all know the risks we run wearing the uniform. You couldn’t have known that there was someone wanting to kill her.”

   “No,” he replied. “But I’m the one who sent her back home. That might have made her a target. I should have taken the risks myself.”

   “Then we’d miss out on all the fun.” She paused, then said, “Want to know who tried to kill her? I managed to run a trace.”

   “That was quick.”

   “It didn’t take much work. Floating back there,” she gestured around the corner, “is the late Junior Petty Officer Raul Fernandez. Attached to the staff of Vice-Admiral Remek, and I couldn’t begin to guess what he was
doing out here, though his records show him on a three-month furlough.”

   “Three months leave?”

   “Something about attending a civilian technical course. I’ve got all the details, and I think it’s a diploma mill. Phobos Technical Academy ring any bells to you?”

   “Not one of ours.” He shook his head, and said, “I’m guess murder isn’t listed as his specialty.”

   “Life support maintenance. His record looks legitimate enough, though what someone like that would be doing attached to Remek’s staff in the first place…”

   “Maybe she needs someone to adjust the thermostat in her office,” he replied. “Long-term cover, but I’ve no idea who for. That’s something we’re going to need to find out as soon as we get home.” He looked down at the datapad again, and said, “Someone’s arranged for me to get tied down when we get back, and you and the others as well. That’s a message as sure as the knife that almost killed Melissa.”

   “A message?”

   “Someone’s decided that I need to have a battlecruiser at my disposal. My name wasn’t drawn out of a hat, and I don’t believe for one second that this is any sort of administrative mistake. It isn’t just me; someone’s decided to give me you, Ryder and Melissa.” He looked down the passage again, and said, “Hopefully she’ll have a chance to tell me what happened as soon as I get home. You still linked in?”

   “Yes.”

   “Who’s listed as Alamo’s Exec right now?”

   She glanced down at her datapad, and said, “Senior Lieutenant Thomas Watson. Formerly Operations Officer on the Thermopylae, one combat star.” Looking up, she continued, “On paper, he seems like a good choice.”

   “He’s going to have to prove to me I can trust him.” Cracking a smile, he said, “That’s my usual policy, of course. I need you to do me a favor, and you aren’t going to like it.”

   Replying with a grin, she said, “Want me to make a comprehensive mess of his transfer papers? He’s right here on the station. I always love a challenge.”