Battlecruiser Alamo: The First Duty Read online

   With a barking laugh, the Commandant replied, “You are the only one we caught. That I promise.”

   The two of them began to walk out of the room, but Marshall paused at the door, turning to his interrogators, and said, “What I told you was true. One day you will be prisoners of the Confederation, and I promise you this. You will be treated properly, and in accordance with all international conventions. There will be no revenge for this.”

   “Don’t make me laugh,” Scar said. “You’d do the same as we did. Or your minions would.”

   “Then in that case, you had better fear what is to come.”

  Chapter Two

   Orlova floated in the middle of her cabin, cross-legged, reading the report on her datapad again and again, going over every detail of their mission for one last time, trying to work out if there was anything she could have done differently. Giving the order to leave behind Captain Marshall had been the hardest decision she had ever made, and reading the after-action reports was just making it come alive for her all over again.

   Her second command, the freighter Ouroboros, was coasting home through hendecaspace, and in less than a quarter of an hour, she was going to have to tell Major Marshall that his son was missing, presumed dead, and that she had given the order that had condemned him, to flee the system rather than attempt a rescue. She played the decision over and over again in her mind, trying to work out if she could have done anything differently, but there was nothing. The freighter just wasn’t fast enough to snatch him into safety and escape pursuit.

   Of course, an inability to work out a way to save the day did not mean that it wasn’t possible. It just meant that she wasn’t good enough, wasn’t experienced enough to think of an answer. Caine’s report, submitted this morning, recommended immediate court-martial proceedings on the grounds of dereliction of duty, and she couldn’t bring herself to disagree with the conclusion.

   The voyage home should have been triumphant, a glorious return with their mission accomplished, the captured Espatiers rescued, but it had felt more like a funeral procession. Captain Marshall and Corporal Cooper, the two people who had inspired their expedition, were both lost, the former left to burn up on a falling defense satellite, the latter shot in the back as he tried to get away.

   Cantrell was gone too, stranded too far from the shuttle when they had been forced to take off. Given the situation on the battlefield, she didn’t rate her odds of survival that highly. As the alternative was being sold into slavery, she wasn’t sure which option to hope for. Three people left behind, thirteen rescued. And none of the ones they had lost had even known that they had been successful, that their sacrifice had been worthwhile.

   She looked up at the clock, watched it slowly tick off the seconds before they emerged back into normal space at Hydra Station. At least then all of this would be over, and she could return to her normal duties. Twice now she had been thrown into a position of command, both times against her will, and both times it had been traumatic. Her first command, Hercules, was now a collection of floating debris in free orbit, and the one key decision she had made during her second had condemned three of her friends to death, or worse.

   Still fourteen minutes to go. She had to think of something to say to Major Marshall, something that might explain what happened, might tell him what his son’s sacrifice had meant; she couldn’t pass that responsibility onto anyone else. Letters to Cooper and Cantrell’s parents were already stored in the databank for transmission when Alamo got home; she’d go and see them herself, as soon as she got back, as difficult a thing as that was going to be. Her dead shipmates were owned that much.

   Clicking a button, she pushed back to the start of her report, going back from the top. She’d spent most of the trip home revising and rewriting it, and there was nothing else she planned to do to it, but she wanted to keep it alive in her mind, as though she might think of something else, some way to bring back the dead, or at least keep hold of their memories. As she read, the door chimed.

   “Who is it?” she yelled.

   “Frank,” Nelyubov replied. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

   “Sure,” she said, releasing the lock on the door. “I ought to be on my way up to the bridge anyway.”

   The door slid open, and he drifted in, taking a position opposite her on the wall. He looked around the cabin, then down to her, and shook his head.

   “Don’t take this the wrong way, Maggie, but you look like hell.”

   “Thanks.”

   “You’ve spent too much time in here. It isn’t healthy.”

   “Why shouldn’t I?”

   He glanced down at the datapad, and said, “They’re dead, Maggie. Maybe not Cantrell, though she might by now wish she was. There is nothing you can do about it, and nothing that you could have done about it.”

   “I missed something. I wasn’t fast enough, wasn’t quick enough.”

   “There was nothing you could have done differently. We were improvising, moving too quickly. What’s important is that we completed our mission, and there are a dozen people down below decks who owe their lives to what we did back there. Go ask them if it was worth it.”

   Turning away, she replied, “I’m not questioning that. The cost, though, the cost was too damn high. More than it had to be. Especially the Captain.”

   “That again?”

   “I should have been the one to go.”

   Shaking his head, he said, “You’d been shot in the arm, Maggie! I was surprised enough that you made it up to the bridge at all. You just didn’t have the strength to do it. None of the Espatiers were up to it either. The Captain knew exactly what he was doing, and when he took that jump, he knew it was a one-way flight. Damn it, he ordered you to go!”

   “But I was in command.”

   “If Caine had been in command, if we’d gone back to rescue the Captain, all of us would have been captured. That isn’t theory, that is fact. You’ve got to realize that. Then what Cooper did back on the surface, and Cantrell as well, would have been thrown away.”

   “I know.”

   “Then why are you sitting here obsessing about it?”

   “Because in about a quarter of an hour, I’m going to have to tell a father that I left his son behind to die. When we had the option to get him back. Hell, we could have sent the shuttle…”

   “Which would have saved him in order for the Cabal to capture him, as well as whoever had been piloting him. The Captain wouldn’t have wanted someone to throw their freedom away for him like that, would he?”

   “I could have asked for volunteers.”

   “You didn’t have the right to do that, and you know that. Which is why you gave the order you did, and why you got the whole crew away. No-one blames you for that.”

   “What about Caine?”

   He sighed, and said, “We both know that she’s a special case. Once she gets hold of herself, she’ll understand. She and Marshall had been close for years, and it can be difficult to hold on to your objectivity sometimes.”

   Orlova’s communicator chirped, and she pulled it over to her ear, “Orlova here. Go ahead.”

   “Bridge here,” Race’s voice replied. “Five minutes to emergence.”

   “I’m on my way. Out.” She looked up at Nelyubov, and said, “Shall we get this over with?”

   As she drifted through the door, he put his hand on her elbow, and said, “He’s a fair man, Maggie. He’ll take it hard, but he will take it.”

   She looked at him, nodded, and said, “Let’s go.”

   The trip to the bridge was a silent one. They rode up in the elevator with a pair of technicians, but no-one even attempted any small talk; when they reached the bridge, Caine was waiting for them, and she threw Orlova an icy stare.

   “You have the bridge, I suppose,” she said, as Orlova settled into her chair.

   “Time to emergence,
Mr. Race?” Orlova asked, trying to ignore the eyes glaring into her back.

   “Two minutes, ten seconds, ma’am.”

   It had been six weeks since they’d left, and they had no way of knowing what was waiting for them here at Hydra Station. Alamo had been in need of major repairs, and would have been defenseless in the event of an attack. A full-sized Cabal fleet could be waiting to ambush them as soon as they emerged into normal space, and there was nothing they could do about it. They’d have no opportunity to escape and evade, and would simply have to throw themselves at the dubious mercy of the enemy.

   Ninety seconds to go. She glanced across to Spinelli at the sensor station, Nelyubov hovering over his shoulder, ready to run the systems as soon as they emerged. Race, the astrogator currently sitting at the helm, had his fingers poised over the fail-safe controls, making sure that the transition would be as smooth as possible. Everyone was poised for action, but there was an underlying sense that somehow they were all just going through the motions.

   “Transition in ten seconds,” Race said.

   “All systems show green,” Nelyubov added.

   “You have the call, Mr. Race,” said Orlova.

   “Two. One. Now.”

   With a blue flash, the stars appeared on the viewscreen, a brown ball square in the middle, the planet Driftwind. A couple of the points of light nearby would be Hydra Station and Alamo, too small to properly make out from this distance, but Spinelli was already peering over his instruments.

   “Report, Spaceman,” Orlova said.

   “Looks good. I make out Alamo, Hydra Station, a six-satellite defense grid, and a pair of shuttles in transit to the surface, I think. No sign of any other activity in system, and no sign of recent debris fields. I don’t think anything much has changed since we left.”

   Nelyubov nodded, glancing at the screen, then said, “I concur.”

   “Very well.” She might as well get this over with, before she lost what little remained of her nerve. “Hail Alamo, if you please. I want to speak to Major Marshall.”

   “Aye, ma’am,” the technician said, and he began to work his board. After a few seconds, he looked up. “They’re calling us. Major Marshall for you.”

   Taking a deep breath, she said, “Put him on.”

   The face that appeared on the screen was strangely familiar, an older version of the person they had been forced to leave behind. Zebrova and Quinn were standing behind him, and the mood on Alamo’s bridge had been one of celebration until they saw the looks on the faces of the crew on Ouroboros, and Orlova sitting in the command chair.

   “What happened, Maggie?” the Major asked. “Where is my son?”

   “We accomplished our mission, sir. All Espatiers rescued. However, I regret to report that Captain Marshall, Corporal Cooper and Spaceman Cantrell didn’t make it back.”

   The Major’s face grew pale, and he abruptly rose to his feet and walked out of view. After a minute, Zebrova took his position, the bridge crew behind her silent.

   “How did it happen, Lieutenant?” she said.

   Looking down at the deck, Orlova replied, “We had no choice but to leave him behind. He gave his life to save the ship.” Moisture was forming around her eyes, and she looked up, continuing, “As did Cooper and Cantrell, down on the surface. It’s all in my report.”

   Glancing behind her for a second before turning back to the screen, she replied, “You’d better get over here to present that report as soon as you can. Lieutenant Caine can bring her in.”

   “Actually, I have some testimony to present as well,” Caine said.

   “What the hell,” Nelyubov said. “I’ll get Ouroboros home.”

   “Very well, Lieutenant. I’ll see you both shortly. Alamo out.”

   Carefully, Orlova rose to her feet, and said, “You have the ship, Frank.”

   “Don’t worry. This is the easy part.”

   Without another word, she left the bridge, Caine hard on her tail, and the two of them slid into the elevator, staring at each other as it rode down to the shuttle dock. Finally, Caine broke the silence.

   “I’m going to see you court-martialed, Lieutenant. I only hope the Major gets it done immediately.”

   “Don’t you know that I would have given anything to make it different, to get him back?”

   “Then you should have turned the ship.”

   Sighing, she replied, “If I’d done that, his sacrifice would have been for nothing. The same with Cooper and Cantrell – they gave their lives so that the Espatiers would get home. You wanted me to throw all that away?”

   “You ran. There were options.”

   “What? Send the shuttle to rescue him? That would have just doomed whoever was in that ship to capture, and the Captain along with them. How would that have helped?”

   Ostentatiously, Caine pulled out a datapad, and replied, “We’ve got a communications link to Alamo. Right now, the Major is reading my report on the situation, and I assure you that I went into great detail on your deficiencies as an officer. After this, you’ll be lucky to stay in the fleet at all, never mind as an officer.”

   As the door opened, Orlova asked, “What would you have done?”

   “I’d have turned back, and found another way to escape. We still had options.”

   “Sometimes being in the command chair means making the tough calls, Caine. I guess you never had the chance to learn that. I hope you never do.”

   She pushed off into the corridor, and slid comfortably into the pilot’s cabin, locking it down to prevent anyone else accompanying her. Her fingers darted across the keyboard as she lost herself in the easy familiarity of the take-off sequence, then feeling the jolt as she separated from the freighter, kicking the engines into full power to get her back to Alamo as soon as possible.

   Taking a last look at Ouroboros in the rear display, she shook her head. Her two commands, and so different. There were moments when she longed to be back on the bridge of Hercules, to walk those decks again. This time she never cared if she ever saw the freighter again, though she dreaded the ordeal that awaited her upon her return to Alamo.

   The navigation computer set up a steady, smooth course, but she disabled the autopilot, opting to fly the course herself; she needed the distraction of having something to do, rather than just sitting back and letting the computers do all the work for her. Her report sat on her datapad, still untransmitted, and a part of her couldn’t see the point. At the back of her mind, a part of her agreed with Caine. She had failed, and should pay the price for it. That she still couldn’t think of a way to win was irrelevant.

   Alamo looked well along the repair path, at least. Technicians were working on the hull, replacing armor plating, and a cluster of people were floating by the central laser cannon. Close by, a small satellite orbited – the first of the defense network they’d been planning to put into operation, now obviously almost finished. By the looks of it, Alamo would be heading home in a few weeks, back up to full operational capability.

   She wasn’t sure whether she would be traveling with them, though. Staying in this uniform was going to be hard enough, but remaining on Alamo would be worse; she could imagine the look on the faces of the crew when they found out what she had done. Perhaps Price would take her on as a shuttle pilot over on the station. A change of scene would be good, and she’d liked Driftwind the first time she’d been there.

   “Shuttle Three, this is Alamo,” Kibaki’s voice said.

   “You still on the spot, Joe?”

   “I don’t think I ever intend to leave Gamma Shift, Lieutenant. You have clearance to dock at your discretion; are you planning to remain on manual control?”

   Tapping a button, she said, “I’m not feeling quite that reckless today. You have control for the docking.”

   “Acknowledged. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Senior Lieutenant Zebrova is standing by in t
he hangar deck.”

   “What about the Major?”

   “I don’t know. He’s still in the...in his office. Hasn’t moved since you called.”

   “I see.”

   “For whatever it’s worth, Maggie, welcome home.”

   “Thanks.”

   Now with a mind of its own, the shuttle slowly cruised into position beneath Alamo, thrusters playing from side to side as it settled underneath the elevator airlock. The familiar echoes rang through the hull as the clamps locked into position, pulling it up into the heart of the ship, and atmosphere began to seep in around the side, lights flashing from red to amber to green as she rose to the level of the deck.

   More than a dozen people were waiting for her, shuttle technicians standing by for servicing; there were a few disapproving looks around, and Orlova realized that they had never repaired the battle damage sustained during the rescue; the outside of the shuttle must look rather battered and bruised.

   Zebrova was waiting with them, and as soon as the shuttle was resting on the deck, she walked over to the pilot’s airlock and activated it, leaning in to speak to her. There was no hint of disapproval, merely concern.

   “Permission to come aboard?” Orlova asked.

   “Granted. The Major wants to see you, as soon as possible.” As Zebrova talked, the passenger cabin opened, and Caine strode towards the elevator, ignoring the crowd that had gathered to meet her.

   “I understand,” she replied. “Looks like Caine plans to get there first.”

   “Tell me, Lieutenant. Is there anything you could have done to make it different?”

   Shaking her head, she replied, “I honestly can’t think of a thing, and that’s the problem. I wasn’t good enough, smart enough or quick enough.”

   “Maggie…”

   “I think the best solution is to solve this problem quickly and quietly.” She pulled out her datapad, and said, “I intend to resign my commission.”

  Chapter Three

   Cooper’s eyes opened, and he looked around the now-familiar room. His first arrival there was still a haze, a distant blur in his mind; he remembered a lot of shouting, being dragged over mountains, and then nothing for days. Everything up to being shot was clear, but the rest was a series of flashes, brief glimpses, nothing more. He’d been on his own for hours, lying in a haze, but at least the pain in his back was beginning to abate. Looking across at his artificial hand, he smiled; more and more of him was metallic these days.