Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor Read online

  SACRED HONOR

  Battlecruiser Alamo: Book 7

  Richard Tongue

  Battlecruiser Alamo #7: Sacred Honor

  Copyright © 2014 by Richard Tongue, All Rights Reserved

  First Kindle Edition: July 2014

  Cover By Keith Draws

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

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  With Thanks To: Jon Clivaz, Peter Long, Mark Berryman

  Commandancy of the The Alamo

  Bejar, Feby. 24th. 1836

  To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World,

  Fellow Citizens & compatriots,

   I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken; I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls.

   I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country.

  Victory or Death.

  William Barrett Travis.

  Lt. Col. comdt.

  Chapter 1

   Lieutenant-Captain Daniel Marshall, commander of the Battlecruiser Alamo, looked out across the sea of unfamiliar faces lined up before of him on the hangar bay, the crew of the now-lost Hercules. Even though all of them were wearing freshly fabricated new uniforms, that of the Triplanetary Fleet, there was an obvious bond between them as they stood at attention, waiting for him to start.

   He glanced to his right, where his father – the only one still wearing Martian uniform – stood at parade rest. Catching his son’s eye, he flashed a thin, quick, smile, and Marshall turned back to face the assembled company. Quite a few Alamo crewmembers had gathered to watch the display; while in hendecaspace, this was as close as they were going to get to any sort of entertainment. That, and the food technicians had prepared a processed banquet for them to ‘enjoy’ later. Matsumoto, one of his more experienced sub-lieutenants, was quietly talking to Tyler, his newly-minted Intelligence Officer; he noticed them both making quick glances towards the door. Shaking his head, he smiled, and turned to the crowd before him.

   “Company of Hercules, attention,” he began. “Could you all raise your right hand, please.”

   As one, in a practiced move, they did so. All of them would have done this before, when at the height of the Interplanetary War they swore their loyalty oaths to the Mars Rebellion; now they would have to renew those vows to the Triplanetary Confederation as a whole. Technically, this was a formality Marshall could easily have skipped; the oath they had sworn before still held, he was sure of that. His father had made the point that they needed some sort of renewal, something to make them truly part of their new ship – for with the loss of Hercules, the ship they had come so far to find, they were now a part of his crew.

   “Repeat after me. I solemnly swear to serve the people of the Triplanetary Confederation,” he paused to allow them to speak, a collection of disparate voices that nevertheless somehow became one, “to protect them from enemies internal and external, to stand for freedom and justice, and to defend them from any oppressor, any tyrant, any force that would seek to deny them of their liberty.”

   An oath scribed at the height of a conflict that most of them feared they would lose, a defiant curse against the tyranny of the United Nations, but it still caught a little in his throat as he said the familiar words. As the new crewmen finished, there was a spontaneous round of applause from the Alamo crewmen in the room, and Marshall allowed it to run its course.

   “Officers and crew of Alamo,” he said with a smile, “dismissed!”

   With a loud rumble, the people in front of him stood to attention, saluted, and fell out of the parade formation. He gestured at the two officers closest to him, those who had stood at the forefront of the assembly; Diego and Lane, the two senior officers of Hercules. Excepting his father, of course, who was busy congratulating a trio of Corporals wearing engineering flashes in a corner.

   “That went well, sir,” Diego, the only man wearing espatier uniform, said. “I think it was necessary.”

   “Yes, sir,” Lane agreed, looking at the door; crewmen were beginning to file out towards the mess.

   “Lieutenant-Major,” Marshall said to Diego, “are you sure about this? You’ve only got four espatiers to command…”

   “I think I’ll fit in a lot better in the espatiers when we get home, Captain. My deep space days are over; what I want now is a nice training job. I can be useful there.”

   “If you change your mind before we get back, let me know. As for you, Lieutenant…”

   She produced a datapad from a pocket, handing it to him, “I’ve already prepared my recommendations for the reorganization of engineering. I think Mr. Quinn will make a good deputy with…”

   Shaking his head, Marshall replied, “I’m not displacing an officer doing a good job. You will assume the duties of Operations Officer.”

   “I’m an engineer, sir.”

   Smiling, he said, “I need an administrator a lot more than I need an engineer right now.”

   With a frown, she replied, “As you wish, sir. By your leave?”

   “Dismissed.”

   Marshall’s father ambled over to him as she walked away, clapping him on the back and exchanging smiles with Diego. Most of the crew were still loitering, probably afraid of the culinary experiments of the food technicians – something that Marshall could well understand now that the real food had run out, replaced with whatever could be coaxed from the food fabricators.

   “I wonder why she’s in such a hurry,” Marshall mused; Diego and his father looked at each other and chuckled.

   “Ser...sorry Petty Officer Hannigan, at a guess,” Diego said.

   “Really?” Marshall replied. “I wouldn’t have thought that…”

   “Oh, you’d be surprised,” his father said, looking around. “You know, I rather wish I could have put one of these uniforms on myself. I’m going to have a rather boring trip otherwise.”

   “I’m sure I can find something for you to do.”

   “Are you in need of a cabin boy?” Diego suggested before collapsing into giggles.

   Other in the far corner, Marshall could hear raised voices; Lane had tarried at the hangar bay exit and run into an approaching Quinn, who as usual was wearing a uniform that looked as though he’d slept in it for weeks. Given the damage Alamo had taken in its last battle, that was a realistic possibility; the Systems Officer and his technicians had been working overtime. With a sigh, Marshall walked over.

   “...put you on report!” Lane shouted.

   “Fine. Great. When the hell do you think I’m going to have the time? Keeping this ship flying is a damn sight more important than changing uniforms every five minutes.”

   “You are supposed to set an example for the rest of the crew,” she said, but Marshall interrupted.

   “So are you, Lieutenant, and this isn�
�t much of one. Mr. Quinn, I would prefer that you don’t wander around looking quite as...disheveled as you do. You’ve got technicians to do the dirty work, remember.”

   “I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t, sir.”

   Suppressing a smile, Marshall replied, “Good for you, Quinn. Lane, sometimes on this ship things don’t go exactly according to plan. I suggest you...adapt.”

   Her eyes burning, she looked up at him, “I will be submitting my recommendations for changes to ship procedures to improve efficiency shortly, sir. From what I have already seen there is much room for improvement.” She stalked out, leaving the two of them watching her stride to the elevator.

   “Not another one,” Quinn said. “We do find them, skipper, don’t we.”

   “She is your senior officer, Mr. Quinn. Try and remember that.”

   “As long as she doesn’t mess with my people.” He gestured around, continuing, “Thanks for the extra help, anyway. It’s going to be a bit strange to be overstaffed for once; we’re really shifting through the maintenance backlog. Even stuff that pre-dates the battle.”

   “Actually getting ahead of the game for once? That’s new.”

   Glancing around and hefting his toolkit, Quinn replied, “I’d better get back to work, sir.”

   “You didn’t come here for the party?”

   “One of the elevator airlocks is due for servicing. I can get at everything I need from inside, so I thought I’d get on with it.”

   “And you didn’t give the job to the deck crews because…”

   Sheepishly, he said, “I like to get my hands dirty every once in a while.”

   “Spoken like a true engineer. Carry on.”

   Marshall wandered back over to his father, who asked with a frown, “What was that all about?”

   “Signs of personnel troubles to come, I think.”

   “Lane’s good, son. A good officer. Tends to be rather over-zealous, but I don’t think that is necessarily a problem.”

   Shrugging, he replied, “The bridge crews are going to need a firm hand while we integrate the two crews anyway, and I’m sure Zebrova will curb her worst...excesses.”

   Diego said, “The problem is that the Operations Officer is just close enough to the command chair that they can start to want it, but far enough that they can’t do anything about it. It’s a rather frustrating job.”

   “With the build-up back home, I somehow think that she won’t have long to wait for her own command.”

   “Maybe we ought to head up to the mess,” Diego suggested.

   Shaking his head, Marshall said, “I might skip this one. There’s a lot to do before emergence…”

   “The crew need to see you there, son. If you don’t mind taking some advice from the old man.”

   “Just for a few minutes, then,” he said. “A couple of canapes and a glass of punch.”

   “That’s the spirit.”

   As he began to head towards the exit, Marshall noticed a noise from below, a faint tearing sensation, and then his ears popped, an instant before decompression alarms started to squeal across the deck.

   “Everyone out!” he yelled, gesturing the crowds towards the elevators. A whistling noise began and grew, atmosphere leaking out into space; the crewmen reacted instantly, racing for the door, but only twenty people could leave the deck at once. There had to be two or three times as many here for the ceremony. By the time the elevator cars returned to pick up the second load, all that would be left were corpses.

   Diego was leading the crowd at the front, shepherding them in as quickly as he could with no regard for safety limits; Marshall glanced around the room, already beginning to feel dizzy, and saw Quinn waving at him, gesturing at him to come over. Nodding, he waved his arms up in the air.

   “Everyone to the elevator airlocks! On the double!”

   As those who could escaped the decks, racing to safety on a higher level, he dashed for the nearest shuttle, jabbing his hand on the emergency controls. Crewmen scrambled onto the wingtips, hanging on for grim life; his father was half-carrying a dazed technician, throwing him down into the pit.

   The atmosphere was fading fast, leaking out into hendecaspace – something else to be concerned about, as exposure to the effects of that strange dimension was definitely not recommended. As a rule, those who didn’t die simply went insane, something which had inspired more than a few cults in the early days of interstellar travel.

   Shaking his head, he struggled to focus, looking around the deck. There didn’t seem to be anyone left, and there was nothing he could do for anyone who was without losing more lives; reluctantly, he released the safety catch, and the doors above him slammed shut, flush to the deck. With a loud hiss, atmosphere began to rush in, bringing the pressure up to ship normal, and he took in deep breaths of the rich, cool oxygen.

   He looked around the cramped airlock; these elevators were designed to hold a shuttle, and perhaps a technician or two; as far as he could see, more than a dozen people were stuffed into the tight space, many precariously balanced on parts of the shuttle’s hull. He tried not to worry about the fact that only a few inches of hull separated them from the madness of hendecaspace. If the lock was to give – not that it should, but if it were – then they would probably never know what happened.

   “Quinn, are you in here?” he yelled.

   “Over here, sir,” came the muffled reply from behind the engine venturi.

   “What the hell happened?”

   “Don’t know, sir. It wasn’t any of the elevator airlocks, though.”

   “Tell me this isn’t the one you were about to start maintaining.”

   “Just a precaution, skipper. Thousand hour checkup. Mostly.”

   “Great,” another, unfamiliar voice said. Marshall struggled to recognize it, finally placing it as Lieutenant Bailey, his new security officer.

   “Look on the bright side,” he replied. “This will give you something to work on right away as soon as we get back into the ship. And as for the rest of you, I suspect we’re going to be safer here than in the mess.”

   “You speak for yourself,” an anonymous voice yelled from the rear. “I’m starving.”

   “Can we at least get into the shuttle?” a gruff voice asked.

   “Not enough room,” Quinn replied. “These airlocks are tight.”

   “How long are we going to be stuck in here?”

   The engineer paused for a moment, then replied, “If it is just a pinhole leak, then a maintenance team will be down in a few minutes. Say fifteen minutes in total to secure the leak, test it, and re-pressurize the deck.”

   “And if it is something bigger?”

   “Regulations stipulate that if it is bigger than three centimeters, then no access to the exposed area is permitted until we complete our jump. In about thirty-one hours time.”

   “Thirty-one hours!” the voice replied. “You’ve got to be joking.”

   “We can last that long if we have to,” Marshall replied.

   “How?”

   “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s just hope we get through all this more quickly. In the meantime, just try and relax.”

   “Relax?”

   “Consider it an order.”

   He snatched a quick glance at his watch, running through possibilities in his mind. If it proved to be longer than half an hour, he’d have to start thinking about sanitation at the very least. Glancing down at the shuttle airlock, flush to the wall, he started to ponder how they might get inside, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

   The seconds crawled by. His left leg, stuffed into a corner, was starting to ache; he tried to extend it but was met with a yelp from someone else; whoever it was had the decency not to swear at his Captain for kicking him in the ribs, but he decided to put up with the aches and stay put.

   “
Anyone getting any signal from outside on their datapad?” asked Gruff Voice.

   Quinn shook his head, “Not in here they aren’t. The data relays don’t work inside the airlocks at the moment.”

   “That’s a bit of a design flaw,” Marshall said.

   “Ran out of spares; I had to cannibalize them. They were on my list of parts to replace…”

   “...during your servicing. Great.”

   Only three minutes had passed, and they seemed to have been an eternity. The air was getting hot; there was no danger of them actually suffocating, but the airlock systems weren’t meant to handle this many people. He tried not to think about what might be waiting for him on the deck above. Five other elevator airlocks, so there was plenty of room for everyone to have got to safety – aside from the twenty or so who would have emerged, gasping for breath, on the sensor decks.

   “They do know we’re here, don’t they?” another voice asked.

   “The alarms went off,” he replied, “so the bridge was alerted. Besides, the ones that got away will have spread the word by know. Relax.”

   “There must be something we can do.”

   “No spacesuits in here.”

   “The shuttle…”

   “Give up on the shuttle,” Quinn said again. “Unless you can squeeze down to the size of a datapad, we’re not getting in.”

   Marshall glanced at his watch again, and heard something from above, a faint rattling noise, which rapidly grew in intensity. The status board on the side of the airlock began to flash, red to green, and settled into a solid green.

   “At last,” Gruff Voice said, and the airlock doors slowly opened, the platform rising to the level of the deck. Marshall rolled off the shuttle onto the floor, tumbling to the feet of Zebrova, his executive officer; he looked up at her stern face with a smile and bounded to his feet.

   “Anyone missing?”