Accord of Honor (13 page)

P
errault was
on the radio less than an hour after the enemy ships made their demands clear.

“Thanks for taking my call,” Admiral Perrault said.

“No worries,” I replied, waving a hand. “I am guessing you’ve got bad news?”

“The United Nations has voted to give in to their demands, Nick.”

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I’d expected as much. No sense getting angry with Barry over it. He didn’t make policy. He was just informing me of it. Still, even though I’d expected them to fall apart like wet paper, to actually see it happen was galling. This was what I was fighting for? Maybe I should just return home and defend Mars where people had more willingness to stand up and fight.

I pretended disinterest. “Not sure what that has to do with me,” I said.

“It means they want you to stand down and surrender,” Barry said.

“And why would I do that?” I said, chuckling a little.

He straightened his jacket a bit. “They’re prepared to offer you amnesty for violating the Accord. You, your crew, and everyone else involved in building your ships.”

That was a hardcore amnesty being offered. There was just one small problem with it. “Barry, they’re surrendering to people who violated the Accords. The horses have already left the barn on that one.”

“I know that, damn it. But they made you giving up a condition for Earth’s surrender.”

“So if I just up and head for Mars, you’re up a creek, hmm?” I asked. I wasn’t serious. I’d never abandon all those people like that.

Barry paled a little. “You wouldn’t.”

“I think you know me better than that,” I said. “I think I will decline the offer of amnesty. Too much at stake to leave it in the hands of politicians.”

“Damn it, Nick. It’s six to one odds out there.”

“I’ve beat those odds before.”

He cut the line.

I knew the enemy ships had to be applying a great deal of pressure on the leaders of the UN stuck down there on Earth. They had to be sweating up a storm, wondering whether my being a loose cannon was going to be held against them. So far, the enemy hadn’t taken any further action against Earth, though. They’d stayed in a cluster together, orbiting about as far away from the Inde and Defender as they could get. Presumably, they were nervous about the losses they had taken near Mars, and didn’t want to chance splitting their force. Our ships could accelerate a great deal faster than theirs could, so as long as they opted to stay together, we simply kept most of Earth’s planetary mass between them and us. If they split up, they could catch us – but then we’d hammer whichever group we ran into first.

It seemed almost like they were still waiting for something. At first I assumed they were hoping Earth’s governments could convince me to stand down my ships so they could take them without a fight. If so, they had a long wait. I wasn’t planning on surrendering.

Earth must have realized they were not getting anywhere with me. They finally broadcast a general call, saying that they repudiated me, that I was outlaw, and anyone aiding me would be included in my trial for violation of the Lunar Accord. Their way of telling the enemy ships that they couldn’t deal with me either. But still, those ships just waited. They knew they couldn’t catch me but they chased around behind me in orbit anyway. What were they waiting for?

Then I found out. “Multiple contacts on long range radar, sir. Closing fast.”

“Update the plot,” I said. Eight new blips appeared on the holotank representing local Earth space. They were still a ways out and decelerating, so they’d be coming in fairly slowly. But they would be here within another day. At twenty to two odds, I couldn’t imagine that the enemy ships would hold off any longer. With those odds, there wasn’t much even Defender’s firepower could do.

“Plot us a course change,” I said. “I want to use the moon to keep us away from the batch of twelve here,” I pointed, “and Earth as a barrier for the new cluster here.”

That would keep the enemy ships from bringing their missiles to bear on us for another day or so, at most, and would bring us into contact with the cluster of eight first. So we could engage the smaller group first and then the larger afterwards. The downside of that course was if we elected to accelerate away from Earth and run for it, we’d still be forced inside the missile envelope of the group of eight. The course left us no choice but to engage that group. Other courses were still open that would let us get away clean, if we moved now. But I wasn’t about to run without at least giving them a taste of steel first.

The new course kept us away from engagement for another twenty two hours so I went off shift to get some rest. I was awakened only four hours later by an emergency call from the bridge. “You’d better get up here, sir,” said Glenn. “More ships inbound.”

“More? How many can they have?” I grumbled, sitting up in my bunk. “I’m on my way.”

The bridge was busy when I arrived. I walked over to the holo display and saw the new cluster coming in. They were moving along a similar vector to the group of eight – but not quite the same. Something about the angle rang a bell. “Back-track that course, navigator,” I ordered. “Find out where they came from, if you can.”

Whoever they were, they were coming in at an insane speed. There was no way they could flip and decelerate in time to brake into an Earth orbit. They’d need to do a precision aero brake, or they’d blow right by Earth’s orbit in a couple of seconds. It looked like they were lining up for an aero brake, which was pretty insane at that speed too.

“Here’s the back course, sir.” The holo changed, opening a larger view of the solar system and showing the likely path the three ships had taken to get where they are. And that was what had felt odd to me. The vector they were flying on would have taken them dangerously close to my R&D station. I hoped everything was OK out there.

Then the comm tech started laughing, and we all stared at him. There hadn’t been much levity on the bridge in the last few days. He tried to school his face into a more serious look, but the twinkle was still there in his eyes. “Sorry, sir,” he said.

“Well, out with it, man!” I replied. “What’s so hilarious?” Although I was starting to have an inkling.

“You’d better hear it yourself, sir,” he said. He flicked a switch, and the radio broadcast he had been listening to went out over the bridge speakers.

“Attention, all combatants in near-Earth space. This is Captain Thomas Stein of the SSI Constellation. My task force is closing on Earth orbit at this time, and is armed. We understand that Earth facilities have been engaged and destroyed by the enemy. We are here to put a stop to that. SSI ships in the vicinity, we will be making more secure contact shortly. Enemy ships – and you know who you are – you have ten minutes to begin decelerating to velocity neutral with Earth’s movement and prepare to surrender your ships. If you fail to surrender, you will be fired on and destroyed.”

“Well, well,” Glenn said, “the prodigal son returns.”

“I’ll kill the fatted calf for him myself if those ships with him really are armed,” I said. I smiled and meant it for the first time in days. I’d been wrong to try to keep Thomas out. And never so happy to be proven wrong as I was just then.

“Comms, get me a secure laser communication to the Constellation as soon as possible. Nav, plot the time till they are likely in missile range of that group of eight.” That’s who Thomas’s team would intersect with first. I wanted to be able to support them in the first contact. “Boost our acceleration to enter the fight at about the same time.”

The bridge crew scrambled to make things happen. I sat back down in the captain’s chair, smiling. Five to twenty was still not the best of odds, but it was a damned sight better than twenty to two! Now, perhaps we had a fight we could win.

“
W
eapons
, bring the missiles hot,” I said. Meg had come through literally at the last minute. Constellation now had all missile systems live, although she wasn’t sure how long her fix would last. It would work for now, and that was good enough for me. I opened the comm to the other ships. “All ships, fire sequence alpha on my mark.” We’d drilled this on the way. First salvos counted for a lot. “Mark!”

Thirty missiles slashed across the void toward the enemy ships. We were firing volleys of fifteen at each ship, so it would take us four volleys to hit each ship. Four minutes. The first return fire missiles would impact us before then, but – the plot wasn’t showing any return fire! I watched the scans update the battle-space and saw the missile launches from my father’s pair of ships, twenty two missiles in their first volley. The entire massed enemy fire was streaking down on their ships, which were also about two minutes transit away. We fired another two volleys before the first missiles impacted.

The enemy ships were sorely lacking in antimissile defense compared to the SSI built ships. Indefatigable and especially Defender had powerful antimissile defenses that the other ships in the area lacked. Something I had to remember myself. Our first volley tore through their defense. One ship was obliterated outright and the other lost most of its power, acceleration dropping off heavily. The missiles from Dad’s group impacted shortly after that, scattering a bit through the cluster of ships. They finished the bird we had wounded and tore up two others pretty badly.

Then it was their turn. Their first and second salvos had been forty-eight missiles strong. The first wave was directed entirely at Indefatigable. Defenses from both ships tore into the missiles coming at the Inde and deflected most of them. But I could see on the scan that there were multiple impacts and that some damage had been taken.

The second waves of friendly missiles hit moments later. Fifty-two missiles targeted six enemy ships. Those ships tried to fire everything they had for defense, and to their credit despite their mediocre systems they still took down half of the missiles. What got through left two ships gutted and drifting, and tore the other four up badly. None of the enemy had escaped unscathed, and already there were more volleys bearing down on them. Inde’s volley seemed smaller, like they’d lost a missile bay, but the other friendly ships were sustaining their maximum rate of fire.

But forty eight more missiles bore down on the Inde as well. This time, I could see that more shots were getting through. The damage to her defenses must have been pretty severe. Dad even tried to maneuver the Defender to better shoot down some of the incoming, but there was nothing anyone could do. I found out later that a SABOT round simply punched through the fission drive. The drive lost containment and blasted the ship to bits. All I saw on my scan was that one moment, Indefatigable was there in space and the next, it was gone.

And then we were past the fight, still headed toward Earth. Too close – dangerously close. Braking against the atmosphere was rough even under controlled conditions, but at the speed we were traveling it was going to be tight. We started our swing around the planet and lost view of the battle. The Defender, of course, still had twelve angry enemy ships on her tail, and it would be several minutes before we’d swung around the planet with a new and slower velocity, and several more before we’d be able to engage the enemy. For the time being, Dad was on his own.

I
ndefatigable was gone
. I had tried to shelter it under our defenses after the initial wave of missiles had crippled her anti-missile defenses, but what Defender had been able to add was still too little. Indefatigable had vanished in a fiery burst along with all her crew. A hot fury I hadn’t felt in a long time welled up in my chest, and I did my best to quell it. The last time I’d allowed myself that sort of self-righteous anger, I’d killed over a billion people in a nuclear explosion.

It was a crime that I’d been hailed as a hero for committing. And one that would forever stain my soul. I’d sworn to never let anger overcome my reason again, and I wouldn’t break that vow now. But it was hard.

We had defeated a large portion of the enemy task force at the same time, so even though the Inde was destroyed all was not lost. Thomas’s ships were swinging around the Earth and would be back to assist us shortly. My main task until then was to keep Defender alive, active, and able to fight while he finished the aero braking and brought his guns to bear.

The twelve ships behind us would be closing into firing range shortly. They weren’t really ‘behind’ Defender, or we’d simply boost to avoid them. Instead they were what was effectively above us on the elliptical of Earth’s rotation. Their course was closer to perpendicular than parallel, and we were going to have a hard time staying outside their missile envelope.

“All crew, stand by for hard acceleration,” I called into the general speakers. Anyone not in their suits and prepped for high acceleration by setting up to breathe the aqueous goop should have been already, but it was my habit to remind everyone anyway. Suddenly boosting to twenty gravities without protection would probably kill someone.

Right about then, the enemy fired. The holotank showed all those missiles as little dots, each tracking toward us.

“Nav, use whatever thrust you need. Get us out of their kill zone. Weapons, ready full countermeasures and buoys. Return fire. Comms, inform me the instant Constellation is back in radio contact.” That would be once they had rounded the Earth and had line of sight again. A chorus of “aye, sir” responded. I had a good crew. It had been good training them and worth every second.

I felt the small jolts through the fluid in my suit as we fired off a volley of missiles at the enemy. We were at the outside of our range, so I didn’t expect a lot of results, and we were accelerating hard away from them, which made it worse. It put us in good defensive stead, however. With the extra boost from the acceleration, our defensive systems had more time to track and eliminate the missiles. This time, none got through.

“Looks like they’re breaking off, sir,” said our radar tech. “Or turning around.”

“Sir, I’ve got radio back with Constellation!”

Which told me what the enemy was turning for. With Thomas’s people momentarily blinded by blackout as they came up out of the atmospheric soup they had used to aero brake, they had no idea that twelve ships were coming about and getting firing solutions on them. No idea that they were about to come up out of the atmosphere into a hail of missiles.

“Flip the ship!” I ordered. “Reverse our course, full acceleration!” I felt rather than heard the change in stress as the ship flipped over endwise and started pushing twenty gravities back in the other direction. We were flying right into the teeth of the storm now as well. But there was no other way. The die was cast, and I’d be damned if I let my son fly into that mess without coming to help!