“Point one light speed. The mobile forces called that right.”
“This is their battlefield, after all.” Gaiene looked at those far-off shark shapes and the vector data displayed under them. “If they don’t change their speed, we’ll have more than an entire standard day to get ready for them.”
Safir smiled again. “It doesn’t seem right to watch your opponent spend twenty-five hours charging at you. Like they’re stuck in something and moving very slowly.”
“Whereas they are actually in nothing and moving very quickly.” Gaiene glanced at Safir. “You have done ship boardings, haven’t you?”
“Only one, as a junior executive. It’s been a while.”
“It’s been too long for all of us,” Gaiene said with mock-sadness, drawing a grin from Safir at the barely masked innuendo. “But we were talking about boarding operations, not personal problems. We ground forces types are out of our element in space. Space is too big, too fast, too strange compared to operating on a planet or an asteroid or orbital facility. So we minimize the time we spend in space for this engagement. We fight here on this ship, then we fight there on that ship. Simple enough.”
“Except that everything that’s simple is very difficult.”
Gaiene nodded with an appreciative expression. “You’ve been reading the classics. Very good. Are you planning to command this brigade?”
Safir smiled again, though gently. “I’m happy as second-in-command.”
“So was I.” The former brigade commander had died in the same action that… Gaiene felt the darkness weighing on his spirit again and tried to shift the topic. “Let’s go over where everyone will take up position inside this large mobile unit. I want the entire brigade ready an hour before our guests come knocking.”
“Yes, sir.” Safir brought up a schematic of the battleship’s deck plan on the display, and they went to work.
Battleships normally carried a couple of thousand personnel. Until very recently, the Midway had only a couple of hundred aboard, and a good proportion of those were outfitters, construction specialists instead of mobile forces personnel. They could have put up a small fight against the kind of boarding party likely to come off of a battle cruiser, but with no chance of success.
But a warship big enough to carry a couple of thousand crew members could also carry a thousand soldiers with room to spare.
“The last of the outfitters have left the Midway and are sheltering inside the dock facility,” the very-young-looking Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos reported to Colonel Gaiene. “If the battle cruiser conducts a high-speed, heavy-braking maneuver as I expect, they will be next to us in just under an hour.”
Like the rest of his soldiers, Gaiene was in battle armor and waiting at the spot inside the battleship from which he would begin the fight. He regarded the youthful Kapitan-Leytenant with an approving look that hid any trace of melancholy or wistfulness. He had been that young once, that enthusiastic once. That had been a long time ago, it seemed, but every once in a while someone like Kontos helped him remember. “Did the outfitters put on a convincing display of panic?” Gaiene asked.
“If I had not known it was an act, I would have believed it myself,” Kontos advised cheerfully. “Between you and me, I suspect some of the outfitters really are feeling a bit panicky.”
“I suspect you are right.”
“Gryphon and Basilisk are two light-minutes away from us. They look exactly like they are waiting for an excuse to run a lot farther and a lot faster. Both cruisers have received offers to defect to Supreme CEO Haris’s forces with promises of wealth, promotion, and happiness beyond the measure of men and women.”
Gaiene smiled again though only with his lips. Anyone who looked into his eyes would have seen no humor there. “Sounds tempting.”
“I don’t think Gryphon and Basilisk will be tempted,” Kontos replied with utter seriousness. “The mobile forces personnel still aboard Midway are all in the citadels. We will seal them when the battle cruiser approaches.” Kontos looked distressed. “I wish I could do more to assist your assault, but if any of our few operational weapons fire, they might well hit your own soldiers.”
“And the battle cruiser would shoot back,” Gaiene said. “We don’t want this pretty new ship of yours banged up. Your President wouldn’t like that, and I am endeavoring to stay on her good side.”
“President Iceni is a great leader,” Kontos replied.
He really believes that. Perhaps he’s right. What he doesn’t realize, because he lacks the experience, is that even great leaders can lead people into great disasters. Hopefully, this won’t be one of them. Iceni is a damned fine woman, though. Too bad she’s never made a pass at me. I wouldn’t dare make a pass at her. If she didn’t kill me, General Drakon would. “She is impressive,” Gaiene said out loud.
“Yes.” Kontos sounded almost reverent.
He worships the woman. Poor boy. I hope the impact when he encounters reality won’t leave too big a crater inside him.
“I have received another transmission from the battle cruiser,” Kontos said, his tone returning to a businesslike cadence.
“Your own offer of wealth, promotion, etc.?”
“No. I have received no such offer, possibly because the enemy commander knows that I would never betray our President.”
Or possibly because the enemy commander doesn’t see the need to offer you anything, believing that this battleship is fruit ripe for an easy plucking. “What are they saying?” Gaiene asked.
“They demand that I acknowledge their last demand to surrender.”
“Tell them no. Tell them that you’ll defend this ship to your dying breath.”
The image of Kontos squinted at Gaiene, puzzled. “I want them to expect strong resistance?”
“What you want,” Gaiene explained patiently, “is to make them expect you to resist as hard as you can. Which shouldn’t be very hard, of course, given how few people they think you have aboard this battleship. But the prospect of determined resistance by your small contingent will cause them to put together a boarding party large enough to quickly overwhelm your skeleton crew. Then, when that boarding party gets here, my soldiers will destroy it and face correspondingly fewer crew members on the battle cruiser itself.”
“Ah. I see. I should act desperate and determined.”
“Absolutely.” Gaiene managed to muster another smile for the young Kapitan-Leytenant.
“I can do that,” Kontos said in a quieter voice. “I know how it feels. At Kane. On this battleship, on this bridge, waiting for the snakes to break through, day after day.”
Gaiene regarded Kontos with a different gaze. The boy has been through a lot. It’s easy to forget. He doesn’t let the scars show very often. But they are there, aren’t they, lad? Sometimes, they fade with time. If you’re lucky. “That was an exceptional job you did at Kane, Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos. After that, this little operation should be easy. It either works very quickly, and we all celebrate, or it fails miserably, and we all very quickly die.”
Kontos smiled in turn and nodded, his eyes on Gaiene. “That is so. I will keep the battle cruiser’s commander entertained and his attention occupied. Let me know if there is anything I can do to assist your actions.”
“Just keep your citadels locked tight. We’ll take care of everything else this time.”
Kontos saluted with formal dignity, then the scene changed to an outside view.
“Just under an hour,” Gaiene told the soldiers of his brigade over the command circuit. “I want full-combat readiness in half an hour.”