Malin, his voice calm, pointed. “We have a lot of soldiers tied up watching the prisoners.”
“No. I will not murder the prisoners to free up those soldiers.”
“General, this is a matter of pragmatics,” Malin argued. “If we do not survive, if you do not survive, all we have fought for will be lost.”
Drakon shook his head. “You miss the point, Bran. If I start doing whatever I think needs to be done purely on a pragmatic basis, then I’ve already lost.”
“I can give the order.”
“Outsourcing murder doesn’t outsource the responsibility,” Drakon said. “I want you to evaluate each prisoner holding location and reduce the guards to the minimum number. If we can seal off the entrances to a location and just post guards on each entrance, that will do. See how many we can free up.”
Malin hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, sir.” He bent over the display, eyes intent, hands once more moving rapidly.
Drakon opened a window to see the view from Safir’s armor, immediately giving him front-line perspective again. Safir was moving through the defensive strong points in her brigade’s sectors, personally checking on the soldiers and bolstering their morale. As Drakon watched, Safir’s weapon came up and she joined with a platoon pouring fire at a wedge of attackers charging one of the strongpoints. The wedge shattered under the blows, Syndicate soldiers falling back or going to ground, but another wave came through right behind them.
“How does it look?” Drakon asked Safir.
“Ugly, General,” Safir replied, aiming and firing as she answered. “Wait one. Tanaka! Pull a squad from Badeu’s platoon and shift it ten meters to the left! Here, where I’m designating. Got it? General, they’re breaching the perimeter in spots. We’re sealing every penetration so far, but I’m running out of assets, and ammunition is getting low in many units.”
Drakon looked at Malin, who had straightened up. “Two platoons,” he told Drakon.
“Load them up with ammo from the base stockpiles and send them to Safir. Colonel Safir, I’ve got two platoons with ammo resupply on the way to you. Put them where you need them.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Malin was watching his display. “The Syndicate forces should hit Colonel Kai any second now.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” Standard tactics, trying to get the opponent to shift forces to counter a major assault, then hitting the weakened areas with assaults at least as powerful. Alerts sounded at sector two. “There they are.”
“Kai will hold them if anyone can,” Malin said.
“I know. He’s my rock.” Others had complained about Kai’s slowness, his careful evaluation of aspects before making decisions, his caution on the attack. But, on the defense, Kai would not be moved. “Colonel Kai, let me know if you need anything.”
The view from Kai’s armor showed a mass of Syndicate soldiers coming into view, the attack wide enough to cover most of the second sector’s frontage. “We might need some more ammunition,” Kai said judiciously. “This is a very target-rich environment, General. I’ll let you know if any problems develop.”
Kai’s soldiers and the remaining base defensive weaponry in sector two opened up, tearing holes in the attacking ranks.
Malin was watching, too, and now shook his head. “We need to be prepared to fall back on inner defenses, General. Kai simply doesn’t have the firepower to stop that heavy an assault. The Syndicate commander is sending them in without regard to losses.”
Drakon checked Safir’s status, seeing that her brigade was still being heavily pressed and that no forces could be shifted from her to help Kai. “Set up a plan for the fallback. What are our odds if we have to abandon the outer fortifications?”
“Poor,” Malin said.
“Do the best you can.” Drakon watched the wave of Syndicate troops lapping against Kai’s positions, masses of more attackers crossing the open area behind, saw the ammo status of Kai’s troops dropping far too rapidly, and knew the line would fall within minutes. “Get it done fast.”
He barely had time to notice the alert on his display before several massive explosions erupted outside the base, tearing huge gaps in the forces attacking sector two. The entire base trembled as the shocks rolled through the planet’s upper layers like minor earthquakes.
Malin’s mouth had fallen open in surprise. He shut it with an audible snap. “Orbital bombardment. Kommodor Marphissa must have saved a few bombardment projectiles, General, and managed to get her ships back overhead despite the enemy warships.”
The attack against Kai’s brigade had been shattered, the Syndicate attackers closest to the base suddenly isolated and panicking, breaking off the fight and fleeing into the newly spawned craters where the bombardment projectiles had fallen. Kai’s forces kept firing as long as they had targets, riddling the retreating enemy ranks.
Drakon checked with Safir, seeing the Syndicate attackers falling back there, as well. “I think they’re worried there may be more rocks falling,” Safir announced with glee.
“There probably aren’t,” Drakon said. “Our warships probably just shot their last load. But that one barrage hurt the Syndicate badly.”
“Their CEO has been throwing their lives away to keep the pressure on us,” Safir said. “Unless they’ve got another division in the rear, they’re not going to be able to keep that up.”
“Yeah,” Drakon agreed. “It almost worked, but after the losses they sustained, they’re going to have a hard time hitting us that hard at multiple points again.”
Maybe, just maybe, the situation had swung from hopeless to not-quite-hopeless.
Assuming that Kommodor Marphissa had figured out how to handle that Syndicate battleship.
Marphissa felt a sudden surge of hope as she realized that the new ship had arrived at the jump point from Midway.
It was a big ship.
Pele. It must be the battle cruiser. Pele wouldn’t even the odds, but it would give them more of a chance. “I don’t believe it!” Marphissa cried out loud. “Thank you, Madam President! How could she have known?”
Kapitan Diaz was staring at his own display. “It’s not Pele.”
“What? How can it not be Pele? That’s too big to be anything but—” Marphissa couldn’t say anything else for a moment as Manticore’s sensors produced a unit identification for the new ship. “It’s the Midway.”
Marphissa could hear the bridge crew unsuccessfully trying to suppress cries of joy. Diaz was grinning like a fool. “Our battleship. This more than evens the odds!” Diaz said.
Had they forgotten that Midway’s weapons were still being fitted, activated, and integrated? Would a bluff work again, on the attack? Marphissa was about to dump cold water on the enthusiasm when Midway’s status feed arrived. “Do you see that?” she asked Diaz, amazed. “Look at her status!”
“They’ve got almost all the main armament operational,” Diaz said, still grinning.
“How did they—? How did President Iceni know we would need her? Is it for real?”
Diaz indicated his display. “The weapon status is on the classified feed. Kapitan Mercia would try to fool the enemy with false appearances, but she wouldn’t be sending us that information unless it was true.”
“I knew they were getting close to integrating the weapons into the combat systems and bringing the whole thing online, but she must have really cracked the whip to get them that far that fast.”
On the heels of the light showing the arrival of the Midway came a message addressed to Marphissa.