Battle of Hercules Page 11

   A dozen hulking shapes were pulling back to another firing position; they’d be here for days working them back a piece at a time if something wasn’t done, and they didn’t have the manpower for that sort of attritional campaign. Turning to the dazed fire team, he saw a body floating back towards the entrance.

   “Caldwell,” Goldschmidt said, quietly.

   “We’ll all be joining her if we don’t move. Come on, Second Squad, we need this corridor!”

   Not hesitating to see if any of them were following, he headed after the figures, firing single shots from his rifle, catching one of them in the back and sending him tumbling. They turned, but without cover, they were vulnerable; two more fell to well-placed shots, but Cooper was just as exposed as they were.

   At the last second, two more shots fired from his side – Knight getting another one, sending them withdrawing in disarray once again. With a whoop, Cooper pressed their advantage, pushing hard around a corner into some sort of storage room, another hatch on the floor. He fired again, twice, but both shots missed as the door slammed shut; he quickly raced forward, catching himself on the ceiling and pointing his rifle down at the ground.

   “Keep the hatch covered, Rook,” he said to the approaching trooper. “Goldie, with me,” he said, gesturing down the corridor. Alert for any sign of attack, he carefully made his way along the long corridor, finally coming to an open space – a huge one, hundreds of meters across, filled with gray tanks and pipes.

   “Alamo, this is Cooper.”

   “Cooper?” Marshall’s voice sounded. “Go ahead.”

   “We’re on the second level. I think I’ve found the tanks, sir.”

   “Good work, Private. First Squad is on its way to you now. Hold until relieved.”

   He looked around the massive room, shaking his head at the size of it. Goldschmidt was standing by a monitoring station, which seemed to show the tanks at almost full capacity – enough fuel for Alamo to roam across half the galaxy. After a moment, First Squad dived into the room, Sergeant Forrest at their head; he made a gesture to his men who spread out to cover the massive cavern, searching for traps or ambushes.

   In their wake, Ensign Zabek drifted, “Do you usually disobey orders, Private?” She raised a hand, “And don’t give me any rubbish about my only ordering you to drop Roberts off at the shuttle. You know what I meant.”

   “Sorry, ma’am.”

   She looked around the chamber, then smiled, “If you are going to hit paydirt like this, Private, you can disobey orders a bit more often.”

   “What about Corporal Caldwell, ma’am?”

   Zabek’s face dropped, “I doubt she knew what hit her. With Zapolski and Newark, that’s three dead today.”

   “They’d have thought it was worth it, ma’am.”

   Nodding, she replied, “They’d have been right.” Looking at him up and down, she continued, “Roberts wasn’t badly wounded, she should be back on duty tomorrow; I’m making her Acting Corporal. Fancy being Acting Lance-Corporal?”

   “Ma’am?”

   “I heard you on the tac-net. You gave orders like one; let’s see how you handle the stripe.”

   Cooper managed a salute, bobbing up away from the corridor until Zabek grabbed his leg and pulled him down.

   “Sorry, ma’am.”

   “Happens to the best of us. Now get your squad up to the top level; the wounded back the Alamo, the rest of you can start sweeping through the living quarters. Then file an after-action report. Unless you want to wander off again?”

   “No, ma’am,” he replied, grinning. He smiled as he headed back to his squad; then he caught sight of Goldschmidt tucking Caldwell’s corpse into a body bag, and the smile collapsed from his face as he looked at the floor, his hands shaking as he balled them into fists.

  Chapter 14

   Marshall walked around the lower levels of the ship, lost in thought. He passed a pair of technicians examining the hull, checking over the repairs to one of the areas damaged in the recent battle, and returned their salute automatically, carrying on past them. It was late, well past midnight ship’s time, but sleep had thus far successfully eluded him. One of the maintenance hatches was open, and he decided to climb down, letting circumstance take him on walkabout; he didn’t really have a destination in mind, rather hoping to quiet down a restless mind.

   The hatch at the bottom opened on the second attempt, and he made a mental note to report that to Quinn; he really needed an assistant to take care of the routine maintenance, he briefly mused before realizing that the engineer would likely view that as an intrusion into his little kingdom on Alamo. The look on his face when he told him that he would temporarily be taking back responsibility for security said everything he needed to know about that.

   He emerged in one of the lower levels, down by the sensor decks, and shook his head at the clutter; they were still trying to eat their way through the extra supplies they’d taken on board at Mariner before setting out on this mission. Some of it really should be transferred over to Hercules to ease the load. Something to deal with in the morning.

   The door to the astrogation suite was open, and the interior was lit; someone else working late, evidently, and he could take an easy guess as to who. He walked quietly down the corridor, stepping into the room, and then his eyes opened in wonder at what he saw; a huge three-dimensional map of uncharted space, about a dozen of the stars lit up in an eerie green glow that crossed interstellar space to link them.

   Mulenga was standing at the control panel, Tyler next to him staring down at a series of monitors flashing images of starscapes. Finally, Marshall coughed, and the two of them turned, Mulenga simply smiling while the midshipman jerked around with a start, snapping a salute.

   “Sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you come in.”

   “That’s fine, Midshipman, I didn’t make any effort to alert you.” He looked up at the display again. “What is this?”

   The smile on Mulenga’s face grew, and he replied, “This, Captain, is the Cabal.”

   “How the hell did you manage that? We still haven’t managed to crack the database on Hercules, and from everything Orlova’s been saying in her reports, there isn’t much prospect of any progress on that front until we get home.”

   “Ah, but a lot of information wasn’t in the restricted section, sir. All of the personal files of the crew, for example, and we are fortunate indeed that a few of them have taken up photography as a hobby.” He glanced down at a monitor, “Some of these are really rather artistic, actually.”

   “What we did, sir,” Tyler said, “was to run a search for any images with starscapes, and match them up using the computer. We’ve established sixteen locations in uncharted space across twelve stars so far, and we still have a quarter of the database to go.

   Mulenga placed a hand on the young officer’s shoulder, “This was all Mr. Tyler’s idea, by the way. He came to me with it earlier this evening, and I think we have rather lost track of time.”

   “We were going to present this to you at the staff meeting in the morning, Captain,” Tyler added.

   Shaking his head, Marshall stepped forward, saying, “This is just outstanding work, gentlemen. Exactly the sort of information we were looking for. I’m going to put you up for a commendation for this, Mr. Tyler; keep this up and you’ve got a good future here on Alamo.”

   “Thank you, sir.”

   “What about the locations themselves?”

   “Mostly planets, and there isn’t a lot we can tell from the photographs other than the obvious. Once we’ve got the star locations sorted out I’ll see what I can do. Hopefully I can put together at least a visual directory of Cabal-controlled space – at least, those worlds that Hercules visited.”

   Nodding, Marshall said, “I see that Jefferson is off by itself at the top.”

   Rubbing his hand across his chin, Mulenga replied, “My sup
position is that Hercules was assigned to a certain patrol area, and that it had no reason to venture beyond it. It’s crew might have had the opportunity to travel a certain distance on leave, but as former Martian officers they would likely be kept on a fairly short leash.” He looked up at the map again, “That necessarily limits this map, at least in some ways.”

   “This is a tremendous achievement, Lieutenant, and it’s going to be extremely useful.”

   “There are other ways we can use the data, sir. Potential ship names, for example, or names of other Cabal citizens.”

   Raising his eyebrows, Marshall said, “Are you angling for an appointment as Intelligence Officer, Mr. Tyler?”

   The young man blushed, and he looked to his side, “No, sir.”

   “Well, you’ve got it. I want you to take charge of analyzing the Cabal data; liaise with Sub-Lieutenant Steele to give you some time off as needed.”

   “Thank you, sir!”

   “Don’t get too excited, son. I’m not commissioning you or anything; this is likely just going to be a lot of extra work for little reward.”

   “That’s fine, sir. I enjoy this sort of thing.”

   “Good,” Marshall replied. “Now head back to your quarters and get some sleep. You’re at least formally on watch in six hours.”

   Looking reluctantly at the data-stream like a child being told he couldn’t watch the late-night holovid, he nodded, saluted again, and made for the door.

   “Good night, Captain.”

   “You too.”

   After Tyler left the room, Mulenga turned to him, “Good kid, that one.”

   “I wonder if I was as...driven as that when I was his age.”

   “When we were his age, we were at war.”

   Marshall walked over to stand beside the astrogator, saying, “My friend, we just finished fighting a battle to capture a ship, and launched an espatier assault on a fueling station. If this isn’t war, it’s a damn close imitation.”

   A frown crept across Mulenga’s face, “I don’t like the implications of that. Do you consider that we are at war?”

   “They captured one of our ships, imprisoned its crew and suborned the rest. They’ve launched pirate attacks on our shipping, and wide-ranging intelligence operations in our territory – all before we knew they even existed! Hell, as little as six months ago all we knew of the Cabal was the name. The war might be undeclared, but it’s real enough.”

   “Then you think war – actual war – inevitable?”

   Shaking his head, he replied, “That depends on them, but I would say not. My reading of the Cabal is that they like to have all their preparations made before they jump. Everything ready, ships mobilized, all the pieces in position. Right now, they have a massive advantage on us in terms of intelligence.”

   Sweeping his hand to encompass the starchart, he continued, “This – and the information on Hercules – will completely neutralize it. Our biggest weapon in this little war is knowledge. If they think they’ve lost the advantage, I don’t think they’ll risk striking. Meanwhile, we can build up our fleets and outposts. Ten, hell, five years from now we’ll be strong enough that they won’t risk it.”

   Mulenga nodded, “You should have said that at the briefing.”

   “It’s only now, talking to you, that I’ve put it into words. I just hope I’m not underestimating them – and that I haven’t underestimated the risk we’re running.”

   “If you are correct, it could be a risk well worth taking.” He paused, then said, “That isn’t why you are awake at this hour of the morning, is it, Captain?”

   He looked at his astrogator with a thin smile, then said, “No, it isn’t. It’s all taking too long. We docked three days ago, and we should be able to be on our way out tomorrow.”

   “The damage to the refueling system?”

   Nodding, Marshall continued, “And now Hercules is reporting problems as well. I had a briefing from Captain Lane earlier. If we left on time, we wouldn’t have the fuel to get home.” He glanced up at the map again, “As soon as the two ships have the fuel to make Spitfire, I’m blazing a trail in the sky.”

   The door behind them slid open, and Carpenter ran in, panting, “Sir?”

   “Calm down, Carpenter,” Marshall said.

   “Sorry, sir,” she said. “Have you read the after-action reports for the assault on the base yet, Captain?”

   “Just Zabek’s and Forrest’s; I’m way behind on my paperwork.”

   “What else is new?” Mulenga interrupted with a grin.

   “I was reading Private Cooper’s, sir – I mean, Lance-Corporal Cooper.”

   “Lance-Corporal?” Mulenga said.

   “Yes,” Marshall replied. “Ensign Zabek promoted him. I haven’t decided whether to sign off on it, but her judgment's pretty good.”

   “Sir,” Carpenter interrupted. “This might be urgent.”

   “Very well, Sub-Lieutenant,” Marshall said. “What is it?”

   “The reports indicate that he came close to some of the enemy forces, sir. Closer than anyone else in the assault force; he was face-to-face with one of them at one point…”

   “That usually means something’s gone badly wrong.”

   “The face wasn’t human.”

   Marshall and Mulenga looked at each other, then the captain replied, “Excuse me?”

   “He reports there being something wrong with the face – a bulging forehead, something with the eyes and the nose.” She paused, then said, “He does acknowledge that it was dark.”

   “Cooper was with you when you found the skeleton, wasn’t he?” Mulenga said. “This could just be a case of a trooper with an overactive imagination.”

   “I don’t think so, sir. It’s too big a coincidence.” She took a deep breath, then continued, “I want permission to go over to the asteroid to see for myself.”

   Raising his hands, Marshall said, “Wait a moment. We did find some bodies, three of them, did we not?”

   “Yes, sir.”

   “And all human. Hell, one of them was a former Hercules crewman.”

   She nodded, “Yes, sir.”

   “If you have some idea that I’m going to authorize an expedition into the lower levels,” Marshall shook his head, “Hell, we only hold the top two levels, and Zabek’s worried enough about holding those with the few troops we’ve got. I can’t spare any for anything other than the most critical mission.”

   “This might be, sir.”

   “Carpenter, I agree that it is extremely interesting…”

   “Interesting!” she exclaimed.

   “...but I can’t send you over to an unsecured area.”

   She stood to attention, “I’m willing to take the risk, Captain.”

   “You might be, but I’m not.” He paused. “Tell you what. Go over to Hercules, and have a look there. That ship was operating in Cabal space for nine years, and I suspect that most – if not all – of the people we are fighting on the asteroid came from there. There might be some evidence there, and you won’t need an escort I can’t spare to get it. And I will ask the espatiers on the asteroid to look around themselves if they get a chance. Put together a briefing for them.””

   “Sir…that just isn’t good enough.”

   “Oh?” he replied, his eyebrow arching.

   “I’m your Science Officer, Captain, and as such I must tell you that simply telling a few troopers what to look for isn’t going to be enough. They might miss something; I’ve spent six years studying the primitive human species of Earth, learning from the best in the Solar System, and to imply that I can summarize all of that experience in a short briefing is…”

   “Is what, Sub-Lieutenant?”

   “Frankly insulting, sir. I’m wearing the uniform, and am willing to take the risks that go with it.”

   “Indeed.” Sighing, Marshall r
eplied, “Carpenter, it isn’t that I don’t think what you have found is important. It’s that I don’t think I can risk you – more so, if your theory is correct. You’re the only one we have who has any chance of understanding them, potentially communicating with them.”

   “I...hadn’t thought of that, sir.”

   “That’s what I’m here for, Sub-Lieutenant. My problem is that you are just too valuable to risk. Go over to Hercules and see what you can find there; if you strike a blank, then I might consider sending you over to the asteroid. Contact Ensign Zabek, if you want, and have a word with her – but we’ve got too many people swarming over that place now for my liking, and I don’t want to add any more.”

   “Yes, sir.”

   “Fine. Dismissed, Sub-Lieutenant.”

   Saluting, she turned and sullenly left the room; Marshall and Mulenga watched as the door slid shut behind her, and the astrogator turned to Marshall, a frown on his face.

   “Are you trying to get rid of her?” Mulenga asked.

   Shaking his head, Marshall said, “No. She might be right; I think it more likely that your theory about Cooper’s sighting is correct, but it would explain a few things we’ve found, wouldn’t it. Did you know that we’ve been having problems with radar imaging that asteroid?”

   “Oh?”

   “Caine was pulling her hair out over it on the bridge. Our working theory is…”

   “The reflective paint you found at Desdemona.”

   Nodding, he said. “Yep. Now – that isn’t conclusive, we’ve got teams working on duplicating it now, and they might just have stumbled into the discovery…”

   “But as you say, Captain, it would explain a lot. One more piece of the puzzle.”

   The communicator on Mulenga’s console buzzed urgently, “Captain? Captain Marshall?”

   “What’s up, Ortega?”

   “We just intercepted a signal, Captain! From Hercules down to the moon, tight-beam. If a shuttle hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, we’d never have known about it.”