The Captain was an attractive woman in her forties. She looked at Emily shrewdly. “I am Captain Hantman. Since you don’t want any radio transmissions, I assume you want me to turn off my “friend-or-foe” transponder?” she asked innocently.
Emily smiled at having been caught out so quickly. “No, you can leave that on.”
“I thought as much,” Hantman replied. “You are playing a very close game here, Captain. Very close.” She paused. “There is a much better alternative here, Captain: Surrender to me. There is no shame in it. We outnumber you. We’ve captured your home world, and there is little doubt we will overtake your space station and capture it or destroy it.”
Emily blinked in surprise. “You are asking me to surrender?”
“Consider your position, Captain.” Hantman said the word “Captain” with a slight question in it. “The loss of these supply ships will cause us some temporary discomfort, but we have other supply trains, and more war ships entering your Sector with each hour. You have lost this war; now the only question is whether you will die in it.”
“Dominion missiles will arrive in two minutes,” Merlin said.
“Evacuate in ten minutes, Captain,” Emily said harshly, “Or the loss of your crew is on your head.”
Captain Hantman bowed her head slightly. “You are making a mistake, but for the moment it is yours to make. Togo out.” The com screen went blank.
“Ninety seconds,” Merlin said.
Now or never, Emily thought. “All ships, fire off remaining decoys, then go stealthy. Good luck.”
Three hundred and fifty missiles bore down on them. Everyone watched the holo display, unable to turn away. Betty McCann quietly wept. Alex Rudd swallowed convulsively. Chief Gibson stared fixedly at the holo display, as if force of will could make the missiles go away. Seaman Partridge kept nodding, as if everything was going according to plan. Other crew members crossed themselves or fingered religious talismans.
Emily was suddenly seized by terrible doubt. It had seemed such a good idea when Partridge suggested it, but now she watched with growing horror as the missiles relentlessly homed in. She was putting them all, her crew, the entire Coldstream Guards, in terrible jeopardy. Her mistake would kill them.
Emily closed her eyes and said a prayer.
“Sixty seconds.”
Then Chief Freidman swore viciously. “Sweet Gods! The Ducks are running for it!”
The four Dominion supply ships had abruptly turned and accelerated, each of them heading in a different direction. For a moment, the twelve Coldstream Guards ships sat naked before the missile onslaught.
Emily frantically signaled Alyce to open a call to the Togo. “Togo, cut your engines now or we will fire on you!”
Captain Hantman’s face appeared on the com screen. “Fire on us and take a risk that you’ll knock out our friend-or-foe beacon?” she asked in mock astonishment. “I don’t think you’ll take that chance, New Zealand.”
Emily cut off the com, slapping her armrest in frustration. She’d been suckered and then caught flatfooted.
“Pilot, steer to the Togo! Quickly! Tuck in as close as you can,” Emily ordered. “All ships, hug any supply ship you can reach.” But the supply ships had gone to full military power and were pulling away.
“Thirty seconds,” Merlin said calmly. Further proof computers were stupid, Emily thought viciously.
“Full power, Pilot!” The New Zealand seemed to leap forward as Bahawalanzai kicked in all four of the anti-matter engines. The Togo fired its anti-missile weapons at them, but the New Zealand’s armor shook them off and they closed in rapidly. Bahawalanzai killed the engines and deftly nudged the DMB brake. The pitted hull of the Togo once again filled their view screen. The holo display showed ships scattered about, some close to one of the supply ships…some not.
“You are a genius at the helm, Mr. Bahawalanzai,” Emily said fervently.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Bahawalanzai replied matter of factly.
“Five seconds to impact,” Merlin intoned.
“Gods of our Mothers,” Betty McCann sobbed. “Protect your children now in their hour of need.”
The missiles reached them.
Emily had the fleeting impression of shadows flickering on the view screen, then more shadows, then…nothing. The bridge crew looked at each other in wary disbelief. On the holo display the tide of missiles surged past them…and kept going.
“They missed us,” Chief Freidman said, an astonished grin spreading across his face. “By Christ and all the Saints, they missed us!”
But they hadn’t missed everyone. Two flashing Code Omega symbols blinked on the holo display. The cruiser Southampton and the frigate Kilimanjaro were both gone. More than a thousand men and women. Emily glanced urgently at Chief Gibson, who shook his head. “No sign of life boats,” he told her.
A deep wave of coldness washed through her then. She was neither sad nor angry, but her heart ached and part of her wanted to weep with frustration. I brought these people into harm’s way, she thought. My people. And they died under my orders, because I wasn’t clever enough. Hundreds, thousands of men and women who depended on me to keep them alive. And I wasn’t clever enough.
And the cold seeped through her, through her limbs and into her stomach. And finally, blessedly, it reached her anguished heart and gave her respite.
“Lieutenant Tuttle?” Betty McCann said softly. “It’s-it’s the Togo. Captain Hantman wants to talk to you. She says she is prepared to surrender.”
Emily turned and stared at her. McCann fell silent. Emily turned to Alex Rudd and Chief Gibson. They both stared back, then nodded.
Emily opened a channel to the surviving Coldstream Guards. “All ships, fire at will until the supply ships have been destroyed.”
Chapter 58
On the Space Station Atlas,
En route to Refuge
“I’ve got thirty five war ships left,” Admiral Douthat reported. “And almost all of them have damage of some sort or another. The Brisbane is shot to pieces; in normal times she would be sent to the dock for scrap, but she can still fly and still has a couple of operating lasers and missile tubes, so she stays in the game. And we’ve still got the arks, Javelin, Battle Ax, and Kite Runner, with forty five heavy gunboats. I’m saving them for when I absolutely need them,” she said grimly. “The intensity of the fire means that the gunboats won’t last long once they’re committed. We’ll be lucky to get one good attack run out of them.”
“And the enemy?” asked Queen Anne. It was the end of the third day since they had fled from Cornwall. They sat in the Queen’s quarters in one of the hotels that had been taken over by the Queen and the Fleet. Admiral Douthat and Captain Eder were bleary with fatigue, their uniforms rumpled and dirty. Hiram Brill sat in one corner with his tablet, trying to both keep up with the flow of data and information from their patrol ships and reconnaissance drones and remain inconspicuous at the same time. Peter Murphy was there, dressed in a grease-stained jumpsuit that looked out of place among the Fleet uniforms. And sitting next to the Queen was Sir Henry, looking dour and preoccupied. Sir Henry, normally formal and dapper, had not shaved that morning, which Hiram found deeply unsettling.
Admiral Douthat gestured wearily for Hiram to answer. Douthat was running on nerves and coffee; her exhaustion hung on her like a ratty old coat.