Accord of Honor (8 page)

Our medical center was a small room, pretty much like the wardrooms crew bunked in around the rest of the ship. Folded cots lined the walls and nominal ceiling, strapped to the bulkhead sturdily. A yank on a pull strap would pop them loose from the wall, and the cot would lock itself out once it had swung to ninety degrees from the base. The floor was left clear, both to store things and for mag boots to work well. Field surgery was a delicate process, and we wanted our medics to be able to lock themselves down to the floor for greater leverage instead of floating about. Zero gee medicine was a tough field.

As I walked in, eight beds were in use. Four of those were bodies wrapped in the long black bags I had hoped we’d never need to use. The other four were crew who were too injured to be returned to duty. I’d been informed on the way down that we had another eight crew who had sustained minor injuries, ranging from sprains to a few minor broken bones, mostly ribs where rounds had smacked into armor. Chief Acres had brought along ten extra troops for the attack in the hopes that we could board the station with them. But our casualties had dropped the effective crew compliment down to twenty four uninjured and eight walking wounded. We could run the ship with half that, but not at peak efficiency. Our margin for another boarding was fairly slim.

Acres was one of the wounded. The field surgeon we had on board was working on someone in another cot right now, so I turned off my mag boots and floated up to where the Chief was laying. He wasn’t conscious. An enemy shot had hit him in the belly. The round slipped between the armored plates there and dug into his gut somewhere. I didn’t know the extent of the damage, but the drainage tube from his gut, ventilation tube into his mouth, morphine drip into his IV, and a couple of other tubes I didn’t recognize made it look pretty bad. As I was taking the sight in, the surgeon spotted me and flitted over.

“It’s bad, but not as bad as you might think if we can get him to a hospital pretty soon. I’ve got one other who’s worse. That one won’t last another day without major surgery. They’re both stable – for now. But it won’t last.”

I winced. “If we turn back now, we lose our window to hit that refit station. Maybe for good.”

He grunted. “I can’t advise you on strategy, Captain,” he said. “All I can do is inform you of the facts. Which are that these two men,” he gestured at Acres and the man nearby he had just been working on, “will both be dead if they don’t get medical attention soon.”

“Are there adequate facilities on the R&D station?” I asked.

“No. These men need Mars or Earth. They need a real hospital, real surgeons! I’ve done what I can, but I don’t have the skill or the equipment to fix these injuries. Acres needs a new liver, and his kidneys are failing from stress. Wilson took a shot to the inside of the thigh that migrated shrapnel up through his pelvis, tearing things to pieces in there. It was all I could do to stop him from bleeding out, but he won’t last long with just my patches.”

I let out a hissing breath. This was Acres! I didn’t think anything could take him down. Seeing him like this shook me. “Thanks, doctor. I appreciate the candor. I’ll do what I can for these men.”

“Take care of your men first. It’s what your father would do,” he replied.

I forced a smile, biting back the angry retort that was my first reaction. The last thing I needed right now was someone telling me what my father would do.

“I thought you weren’t going to give strategic advice, doc,” I said through gritted teeth. He made as if to say something, but I went on. “No, don’t interrupt me. First, I am not my father. What he would do is not relevant here. What I do is. Second, we’re at war, and every person who boarded that ship knew the risk. Myself included. If I have to sacrifice those men to stop the enemy, I will.” With that, I spun myself and pushed down toward the floor. His jaw was still hanging as I grabbed the railing and pulled myself out the door into the hall.

Served him right, but it didn’t do much to make me feel better. The medic was right about my father. Dad would do anything he could for his crew, anything to keep them safe.

To a point. But he would also order men into battle. He would share risks, but he would order people to take risks as well. The question was: how could I save the injured men under my command and still take the fight to the enemy?

I
t took
us a couple of hours to get the fusion reactor kicking out power safely again. It shut down automatically to prevent a catastrophic failure when nearby systems were damaged. The crew rerouted essential systems to backups from the fourth missile bay computers, and were able to bring fusion back on line. That gave us power again, and we were able to warm up the ship and get air circulating again. Good thing too, because our suit air was getting a bit thin by that time.

With power out, we’d had no way to track the enemy ships, and no way to contact Mars Station. We were blind – I could only guess what was going on out there. We hadn’t been blown to bits while we were helpless, which I hoped meant that the enemy ships had continued their retreat or been destroyed by our last missiles. We hadn’t been picked up by Mars Station rescue ships either though, which could have meant a lot of things.

Once we had the power online, I ordered the helmsman to swing us back toward Mars. We’d drifted a considerable way, and I kept our acceleration low to avoid adding to the structural damage we’d received. I tapped the local satellites immediately to get scan information from the end of the fight and found I had no access. Mars Station had killed my codes. I smiled. Not unexpected. Clarke had to do that. I really hadn’t given him any legal choice. No matter. I re-entered a new set of codes for the back door to the SSI satellites in orbit around the planet, and those still worked fine. Always leave yourself a way to talk to any piece of electronics you manufacture.

I watched the plot. The enemy had fled, leaving Mars local space as quickly as they could. They didn’t even slow down when we lost power, just kept running. Well, we’d taken out half their fighting force before they escaped, so it was understandable. They hadn’t expected any resistance at all, and then had multiple ships blown out from under them. They had to be wondering right now what else they had missed.

I was getting damage reports on my console now, but I already knew the extent of the damage from looking it over personally during those early repairs. Number two and number three missile bays were down and would require extensive repairs. Number three was the worst, where we’d actually had one of our own missiles blow inside the tube. That was just bad luck, but those four tubes were in terrible shape. The number two bay was damaged enough that the fire controls were shot. A repair crew was working on it, and seemed to think they could get it running again soon. That would still leave the ship at seventy five percent of normal firepower though.

We had blown all our decoys and would need to load new ones. The only ones in existence were on the R&D station. One of the antimissile gatlings was fried and needed to have melted metal removed from the frame before it would be able to acquire targets again. Long range active radar was toast, the arrays had simply been blasted off the hull by one of the nukes. Again, something we could repair while under way if we had time. About half our electronics systems were on backups at this point, too.

Most worrying was the stress to the ship frame. Now that the computers were back up, they were doing analysis of the stress damage from repeated impacts. The damned computer coldly announced that it predicted an eighty percent chance of the ship simply coming apart if we tried to accelerate at twenty gravities again. That dropped to a more hopeful fifty percent at ten gravities, and only five percent at five gees. I had us accelerating at one gee, which it said had negligible risk and let our repair crews operate more effectively anyway.

Out of thirty crew, we had suffered ten dead. Most of those had been in the two missile bays that had been hit. Everyone who lived was banged up and bruised to some degree, but amazingly there were no major injuries.

The comm tech looked over his shoulder at me. “Sir?” he said questioningly, “I’m getting a call from Mars Station. Governor Clarke, he wants to talk to you. He seems a bit upset, sir.” A small smile. We’d all done a lot to upset the applecart today.

“Well, let’s not keep the governor waiting,” I replied. A moment later, Clarke’s face came up on the screen in front of my chair.

“Nick, I don’t know whether I should hug you or order your arrest,” Clarke said. “You saved our lives with that stunt of yours, but you’ve opened a can of worms for sure this time. I don’t know that this will end well.”

“Had to be done, George,” I replied. “Evil can only succeed when good men do nothing. I couldn’t let them tie my hands, not when it was so obvious where the Accord was going to lead us.”

“I’m not going to argue with the man who just saved my life. I will have to file all the data from the battle in Mars orbit and beam it to the authorities on Earth, but our main computer needs to coalate the data first, and it seems to have taken some minor damage during the evacuation. Someone thought it would be a good idea to yank the RAM chips out and salvage them, I guess. I’m sure they’ll turn up as we shuttle people back, but it might be hours before I can send the message to Earth, and then another hour before they reply from the light lag. If you take my meaning. In the meantime, I’d be glad to render any assistance Mars Station can provide to your crew. You have any wounded over there?”

I smiled. When had George gone from someone I worked with occasionally to a friend I could trust in a bind? “I understand completely, and thanks. We have some scrapes and bruises mostly, but a few fatalities as well, and some serious structural damage. If we can slip in and use your repair bays for a bit, I’ll be in your debt.”

“Debt nothing,” Clarke replied. “We all owe you our lives. Mars owes you its station. And a bunch of people on Earth owe you an apology, although you might have a hard time collecting on that last one. Least we can do. Bring your ship on in, I’ll transmit docking instructions as you get closer.”

Once we had slipped into a repair bay at Mars Station, things proceeded pretty rapidly. I was able to radio our R&D base and update them on the situation. I got reports from them on the Indefatigable at the same time. Chief Acres had taken his crew – and my son! – toward where he suspected the enemy ships had been basing from, out in the asteroid belt. They were radio silent, though, to help keep from being detected. And in any event, it would take a bit for radio signals to get out that far. I knew the three ships that had escaped the battle in Mars orbit were headed back out that way, so I hoped the Inde was up for what they were likely headed into.

I was going to have a bone to pick with both Thomas and Acres when I got a chance. I’d given them orders. Thomas was to stay on the station. Now... Damned if he wasn’t back out in the middle of things. I shook my head to clear it. I had bigger fish to fry. I’d have to hope Acres could keep Thomas safe, for now.

The courier Thomas and I took to the R&D station was still out there. I passed orders to load up new missiles, decoys, and other spare gear we might need for the repairs that would be harder to get at Mars Station. The courier took off at maximum speed shortly after we were in dock.

Clarke was still holding off on letting Earth know about the battle and our part in it. His RAM chips were still listed as ‘missing’. I didn’t know where he’d stashed the things, but I was sure they weren’t going to turn up until he was good and ready. He was taking a big risk, helping us. He could even be tarred with the same brush that was headed my way if he wasn’t careful. But I had to admit we needed the help if we were going to get back into action quickly. I could feel the sand slipping through the hourglass with each passing minute.

“Sir, there’s a contingent from Mars Station at the airlock, requesting entry to the ship,” said Marks, who was helping to monitor the bridge.

“Tell them I’ll be right down,” I wasn’t expecting anyone, which made this visit a potential boon or a potential problem. Hard to tell which, but either way I’d be better off dealing with it directly.

I arrived at the airlock hatch that linked us to the station, and looked at a screen showing the external camera pickups. It was George Clarke, with another dozen or so men with him. I opened the hatch and looked out.

“George, this is a surprise. What’s up?” Why are you at my door with all these people, was the unspoken question.

Clarke had a mischievous grin that took a lot of the tension out of my shoulders. He was up to something, but it was going to be good for us. “Well, Nick, these men here volunteered to stay on the station with me until the other crew escaped. We’re still ferrying folks back up, and we’ve suspended unessential traffic until further notice, so they don’t have a lot to do right now. And since they’re all rather grateful about having a chance to see their families this evening instead of being vaporized, they thought they might be able to return the favor and help with some ship repairs. Before you ask, they’re all mechanic certified – everyone who works on Mars Station goes through the basic courses as a minimum in addition to whatever other work they do.”

“I... Thank you. All of you. We can certainly use the help. I think we have a time crunch right now.” Another dozen people working on the repairs would push things along much faster. “I’ll call the engine room and tell them you’re on your way down. George, care to join me in my cabin for a few minutes?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied.

We walked down to my cabin in silence. I popped the hatch. Things inside were a mess, and I realized I hadn’t been back here since before the fight. The room had been jumbled around a bit, but most things were bolted down well enough to stay put. Had to be, on a ship that accelerated as fast as Defender could. I unstrapped a couple of fold out chairs from the wall and popped them open next to the table, which was permanently fixed to the deck. He gracefully took one of the chairs while I opened up a drawer and pulled out a bottle and a couple of glasses. “Don’t know if you drink much, George, but this is good brandy and I could certainly use a glass at this point.”

“I won’t say no,” he replied. “Earth, or Mars?”

“Earth. Kentucky, actually. I have a small stock I save for special occasions. I think surviving today qualifies.” I set the glasses out, poured, and sat down. The flavor was strong, rich, and smooth. I didn’t indulge often, but believed in buying the best, when I did.

George sipped from his glass. “So, what’s your next move, Nick?” he asked. “You held them off here, but I imagine they won’t just give up and go away.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure yet. We suspect they are basing at least partly from of a repair station out near the asteroids, but that can’t be where they built their ships. We’d have heard about them long since. So even if they are using that station right now, they still have another base of operations. Somewhere. In the long run, that’s what we need to find. Speaking of which, did you catch that drifting ship?”

“No,” he grimaced. “As they were fleeing, the pirates fired a volley of missiles into it and blew it to bits. They didn’t stop to check if there were survivors. They just blew the ship.”

“Trying to keep their identity secret, no doubt,” I said. “Trying to keep us from figuring out where they are from, and what their real goals are. Cold though. That can’t have been good for morale.”

“Nick, I thought you should know... We’ve had long range radar looking for explosions out in space. We picked up what looked like some sort of nuclear explosion, maybe a ship blowing up. Out near Exodus Station, in the belt.” he asked.

I felt my pulse jump a bit. That was one direction Acres had been thinking to take the Indefatigable. No reason to jump top conclusions though, and no reason to give Earth more information than they were already going to get when Clarke inevitably filed his report. He was a good man, and was helping us out a lot. But I knew he had his own people to take care of and his own career to shield. He’d already put himself in enormous danger letting me repair the Defender on his station, and I knew a reckoning would be due when the politicians on Earth got around to him.

“Might be worth checking into,” I finally temporized. I knew he’s seen me pause before answering. He was a skilled enough reader of body language to get more meaning from that pause. And he knew that I knew, but he didn’t bring my omission up.

“I’m glad to help you, Nick. But I do need to send out the report to Earth soon. The newsfeeds are covering the story locally, and I’m sure it’s already reached the Earth feeds. There’s going to be hell to pay if I wait much longer. By the way, have you read the feeds yet?” he asked.

I leaned back and sipped the brandy again. It had been a rough day, and far too long since I’d been able to relax. I still wasn’t sure I could relax yet, either. “No, haven’t had time to even think about news reports. Anything pertinent?”

“Oh, nothing too much. You have a screen here,” he pointed at the screen on the wall next to us. “Humor me, pull the feeds up.” He seemed quietly amused by something, and that roused my curiosity.

“Computer, display on.” The screen flickered to life. “Display news bites for Mars Times, Olympus Today, and Red Globe,” I said, picking three major papers at random. The headlines and a one line blurb for each story scrolled across my screen. I started reading them, and almost choked on my drink.

“Pirates Smashed in Orbit,” I read aloud, then “Battle For Mars Won, Mars CEO Defends Station, Hero of the Battle for Mars Saves Lives...” I coughed. “George, where did they get all this stuff? Battle for Mars, indeed.”

“Well Nick, you were broadcasting in the clear when you talked to the station. Anyone who had the gear could hear you. And a lot of local satellites were able to record and transmit data about the battle. They’re already calling it ‘The Battle for Mars’. And somehow, an anonymous informant leaked that you were the hero of the battle and saved hundreds of lives. Maybe thousands. The Globe’s article mentions that if the pirates could chuck rocks at the station, what would stop them from doing the same to the settlements on the planet itself?”

George looked entirely too smug. “You did this. You were the ‘informant’?” I asked.

“Well of course not. That would be entirely inappropriate for a member of government. I would never do such a thing. If one of my subordinates took it on him or herself to leak news like that to the press, that’s not the same thing as an elected official doing it.” He was openly smiling now. “I thought the insinuation about rocks falling on the surface colonies was particularly brilliant, myself.” Then he sobered instantly. “And not entirely impossible either. I’m sure you’re going to have to leave sooner or later, but I have to admit, I wish you were staying. I feel much better about our security while you’re here.”