Accord of Honor (9 page)

“We will need to leave soon. It won’t be long after you transmit that message that Earth will order you to seize the ship and crew. I don’t want to push our luck or your ability to shelter us,” I said. “I appreciate all you’ve done already.”

Clarke stared at me a moment. “No, we appreciate you and all you have done. All you’ve been willing to sacrifice, because you saw what the folly of others would lead to. I will do what I can to help, Nick. Believe it.” He finished his brandy and stood up. “I should get back to my offices. I do have to get that report out to Earth, and they’ll be calling me back soon enough.”

I walked with him to the airlock. As he stepped off the ship back out to the station, he said “Oh, if any of those station employees want to stay on board with you, you might want to keep them. They’re good people, and I’ve personally vetted their security files.” Then he walked away.

W
e made
good use of the time Clarke had bought us. The crew pushed hard and with the extra hands managed to get a lot of work done on the repairs. Most critically, we’d reinforced the structure enough that the ship could safely manage some good acceleration again, and the damaged missile bays were back in business. My courier arrived from the R&D station. That gave us fresh loads of missiles, decoys, and supplies on board. I took the time to personally thank each of the dozen station crew Clarke had brought over with him, and found that six were interested in staying on with me. I accepted. I was used to carefully vetting my crews, and I didn’t know these men at all. But Clarke said he had checked them out. At some point, I needed to start trusting someone outside of my inner circle, and he seemed like a good place to begin.

I was on the bridge when a com message came through from the station. The com ID said that it was Clarke calling, which probably wasn’t good news. I answered immediately.

“Earth ordering us out?” I asked.

“No,” his face looked tense, and I came alert. “Well, that too, but that’s not why I called. Radar has picked up a ship headed for Mars. Coming fast, faster than any manned ships I’ve seen so far. If it’s the pirates, they have something new. I was hoping it might be one of yours.”

“Beam me the radar data and I’ll check it,” I replied. I wasn’t especially worried. A fast ship incoming could be Indefatigable. Probably was, in fact. I hadn’t seen any evidence that the enemy ships had any sort of superior engines. Scan data began pouring into our computer, and the scan matched the Inde’s signature. I connected to one of the Stein satellites again and tried to punch a laser communiqué out to the ship. A minute later, I got a reply. They were still a good ways out, although they were making excellent time.

“This is SSI Indefatigable, Captain Marks reporting, answering the call via secure company laser.” My heart skipped a beat. Marks? Who was Marks? Where were Acres and Thomas?

“Admiral Stein here,” I said into the comm. “Report your ship condition and the status of Captain Acres and his XO.” And why are you in command, I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Secure comms were never completely secure, and I didn’t want to spill information unnecessarily. While I was waiting, the computer gave me information about Marks. A tech sergeant, weapons man. Good record, nothing wrong, and he was on the Inde’s bridge crew.

“Chief Acres is injured. Requesting to dock at Mars Station to pass injured along to hospital care. XO is not on board at this time, I am acting captain,” he replied. He seemed a little stunned and awed by that last. Not surprising. It wasn’t a role he should have had to take. What the hell had happened out there, anyway?

“We only have a skeleton crew,” he continued, “with casualties including two in critical condition. ETA under two hours.” I sent him a confirmation of receipt, then signed off. I had to work hard to keep the worry off my face. I didn’t want the crew seeing it. What happened out there? Where the hell was Thomas? I made an effort to shove the worries aside. Right now I had to get back on the line with Clarke and see how far I could stretch his good will.

Clarke picked up immediately. “So. That ship legit, or enemy?”

“Legit. She’s Indefatigable, a SSI company...cargo ship,” I said, thinking quickly. Well, she was before I had the hull converted over. “She was attacked by pirates, has some injured but managed to escape. I know I need to take Defender out of here, but will the Inde be welcomed to dock? She has some seriously injured crew and is calling a medical emergency.”

“Of course,” Clarke said. “Obviously, you’re a raving maniac with missiles and guns and all that, but the rest of your ships are just merchant vessels, cargo haulers like we’ve seen here for years.” Then, rolling his eyes, he added, “Even if they’re several times faster than anything else in space. New drive, indeed! We’ll take their injured to our medical center, and let them be on their way, or stay as needed. I’ve had word from Earth, and they are saying that anyone with an armed ship should be arrested and confined, their ship impounded. Like I have any way of accomplishing that, but that’s their initial order. Unarmed ships are business as usual.”

“I’ll make sure Inde is aware of what we’ve discussed. Thanks, George. We’ll be undocking shortly, but will stay in the area until the Indefatigable arrives. I want a more complete report from her captain.”

I reopened the beam to the Indefatigable and pressed transmit.

“Mars Station will allow docking for all unarmed ships. Please make sure the Inde will pass station required inspection.” I hoped this Marks would get the idea – cover up the weapons on the ship and mask her armed status. I was pretty sure the station ‘inspection’ would be cursory at best, but better to at least hide the visible arms like the rail gun and antimissile gatlings.

Then I sent, “Defender will stay near the station. Prepare a report on recent actions to deliver to me after your casualties are cared for.”

A minute later, he replied with an affirmative and signed off.

I hit the general intercom. “All hands, this is Admiral Stein. Run the checklist, prepare for station separation and return to open space. Bridge crew to the bridge.”

Separation went very smoothly, and we set ourselves up in a wide orbit, hanging out just past the orbits of Phobos and Deimos. I handed the bridge to my executive officer and headed off the bridge, ostensibly for a nap. I wasn’t going to get much sleep, however much I needed it. Intellectually, I knew I couldn’t get any more information about Thomas until the Inde arrived – too much chance of the wrong people listening in. But now that I had nothing to do but sit and wait, all I had left was my desperate fear my son was dead.

W
hen the bridge
called me to inform me that the Inde was here, I all but leapt from my bunk. My eyes felt gritty and sore, and the spot where I bruised my knee during one of the missile impacts ached abysmally. And all that was made worse by the fact that I had not been able to sleep, not even a short nap.

The Inde had arrived in local orbit and was maneuvering for docking with Mars Station. I wanted the details, but I wanted them in person, not over comm lines that could be tapped. I ordered Marks to bring the ship out to link up with Defender as soon as his injured were offloaded. He complied, and it didn’t take him long. It just felt like it did.

I gave the Inde a once over as she came up on us for docking. Overall, she looked whole. They’d rigged some sort of cover for the weapons systems, which probably let them pass for unarmed if you weren’t looking for weapon mounts. There was some damage around the port side airlock. Marks had asked to dock using the starboard lock instead.

“Is Thomas alive?” was the first question I asked as soon as Marks was aboard.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I can give you the full report...?”

An enormous burden lifted with those simple words. Thomas was alive. For a brief moment, nothing else mattered, and I savored the taste of my relief. I brought myself back to the moment as quickly as I could. I had the feeling his report was going to be interesting.

“So Acres was injured in the initial fighting, and my son boarded with more crew to assist,” I said. “They took the enemy ship?” Acres had decades of experience at that sort of work. The idea of my son storming a ship, rifle in hand, was shocking. When had he grown up so much?

“Yes, sir. But not easily. The XO – your son, sir – ordered me to fire missiles into the enemy bridge to take it out. The other enemy just surrendered at that point.”

“Surrendered? Well, that made things easier. Where are these prisoners now?” I asked.

“They’re on the Inde, sir,” he replied. “We’d stowed them so they couldn’t hurt anyone, but they’re bound, gagged, and under guard. Thought you might want them so I didn’t turn them in to Mars Station.” That could cause problems later, I thought. Might be best to turn them over to Clarke and give him a little coup to show his people as a reward for all his help. On the other hand, perhaps I’d be better keeping them – but not aboard a combat ship.

“I’ll call a shuttle. We’ll send them down to corporate headquarters on Mars,” I said. “Quietly. I’d like to keep this information to ourselves for the moment.” Who knew what intel we might be able to coerce from them? I wasn’t about to torture prisoners, no matter who they were. But there were other ways to convince a person to talk.

“Acres was injured badly,” he continued. “The doc said it was get him back to Mars, or he was a goner. Pendelton was even worse. The XO couldn’t see any way to save them and complete their mission at first, but then he had an idea.”

What an idea. My son had taken two thirds of the Inde’s crew and boarded the captured enemy ship. They’d sent the Inde – the better armed and less damaged ship – back to Mars because it was the only ship with the drive speed capable of getting back in time to save the lives of the injured crew. And my son had taken the enemy ship back to the belt station, hoping to fool the pirates there into believing the ship was still on their side. It was a reckless plan, but it might work. Might have worked, I reminded myself. They had set out hours ago and by this time, the plan had probably already either succeeded or failed.

I felt a cold, hard lump in the pit of my stomach. Marks must have seen something dangerous in my eyes, because he paled a bit. I waved my hand reassuringly. “No, not angry, Marks. You did well getting the ship this far. Just worried. There are too many wheels turning here, too much at risk if any one part fails.”

The radio came on right as I was getting up from my seat. My cabin had seemed the best place to have this conference, but I had asked the bridge crew to pipe down any important calls. I keyed the radio to activate it.

“Admiral Stein here,” I said.

“Nick, it’s George. Pull up the news feeds from Earth on your video. We’re getting direct broadcasts from about thirty minutes ago.”

“Why the mystery?” I asked.

“You’ll want to hear this,” was all he would reply. “Mars Station out.”

Annoyed, I popped on the video screen and set it to receive from Earth. Immediately, the image of a huge, smoking crater appeared. I could see fires burning all around the periphery of the impact area, and whatever it was had been massive. I listened intently to the voice over.

“...now have visual coverage of the impact area. What used to be Houston, Texas, is now a smoldering crater in the Earth. We have no reports yet of how many people are dead, but despite the brief evacuation warning, casualties in the millions are anticipated. That makes two strikes inside of the last hour, the first an asteroid strike against the International Space Colony, all but destroying the space station and killing thousands of inhabitants there. We have not yet heard what demands the criminals behind these attacks are making, but we have heard that some government agencies are already in contact with them, negotiating to prevent further attacks. Everyone is asked to please remain calm, and...”

I shut the video feed off. This was as bad as it got. They hit not only the station in orbit around Earth, but the planet itself. A city filled with people, dead. I did some quick math in my head. At the best speeds their ships could make, the attack on Earth could not possibly have been done by the same ships that we fought at Mars. They would still be weeks away. So the attack had been two pronged. I had defeated one branch, but the other had struck a helpless Earth.

The Indefatigable and Defender could be at Earth in days, instead of weeks. And together, we might be able to defeat the enemy ships there. But our other men were still in danger out by the belt station. My son was out there, damn it! An impossible situation. I hesitated. Indecision wasn’t normal for me, but in this case I couldn’t help it. My son had a way of making me second guess myself.

I relaxed with an effort and took a deep breath. Was there really a choice? My son’s fate was already sealed, one way or the other. Either he was able to win through and take the pirate base, or he was already captured...or dead. Even if I went in after him at the best speed our ships could manage, I could not change what had by now already happened.

But I might be able to stop further strikes against the Earth. With our ships on station, we might be able to stop more asteroids from impacting the planet and save millions of lives. The choice was not a palatable one, but it was clear.

I looked at Marks. “You’ve done well so far. I’m confirming your temporary command of the Inde, and transferring over a couple of crew to bring you up to minimum effective crew levels. Drop off those prisoners to Mars Station and then prepare to move out. We’re headed to Earth.”

W
e had
the bridge more or less back in running order. The heaters weren’t working quite right, so it was still a bit chilly – I could see my breath when I exhaled. We left the hatch to the rest of the ship open to get a little warmth into the bridge from elsewhere, but it barely seemed to help. Lots of systems were the same way – working badly, or held together with hope and duct tape. The communications station had been wrecked. One of the missiles had torn it apart as it passed through the ship. The arrays outside the ship were still intact, however, so we jury rigged a new console to give us back basic comm functions.

The key to this mission was in the ship’s main computer, which we were spending considerable effort hacking right now. With a little luck, we’d soon have the codes and passwords needed to dock at the captured base. If not, we’d have to improvise something. Weapons were still working, and the weapon station was manned with one battery of missiles ready to fire. We’d almost gotten the second missile line back up. My explosives had really messed up the line, but we were slowly making progress.

So here I was on the chilly bridge of a captured ship, heading to their base. We’d take the place back, rescue any hostages they had at the site, and remove their ability to use it as a base of operations. If we succeeded, it would cripple the pirates’ activity in the area. It seemed worth the risk.

In the back of my head, I worried that I was just doing this in the hopes of rescuing Keladry. I tried to rationalize my way around that. Yes, I hoped to find her. That wasn’t why I was doing this. We had a shot at surprising them right now, but that wouldn’t last for long. The Indefatigable had the speed to get our dying crew members back to Mars, hopefully in time for surgeons there to save their lives. This ship didn’t. It was slower than the Inde even if it hadn’t been smashed up. There was no way it could have gotten Acres back in time.

On the other hand, it was the ideal choice for the deception I had planned.

The captain of this ship had been named Choi, from some Asian ethnic background or other. His body was presumably mixed into the pasty mess left on the bridge by the SABOT rounds. There wasn’t enough left of any of the bridge crew to make identifications, or even to count them. Enough left to make myself and some of the rest of my crew almost retch in our suits, though. The cleanup was a low point in a day already filled with sensory overload. No rest for the wicked. This ship would be expected to report back soon, and we had to meet their expectations.

I was pretty sure there were other pirates back on the repair station ahead of us. That’s where this ship had come from. The story we would tell is that the ship we tried to board was an armed ship – the station radar would surely have spotted that anyway. After ‘we’ had grappled the ship, it fired on the second ship, blowing it apart. Then while the crew kept us from boarding, they fired SABOT missiles at ‘us’, killing the captain and bridge crew. But in the story we’d constructed, the Indefatigable’s crew was unable to board, and instead broke off and ran for home after we had fired missiles back at them. Then we returned to the base as soon as we had made some essential repairs.

The story ought to hold. It would nearly match the radar data, anyway. Tracking the number of missile impacts and which were launched by whom and hit whom would have been tough when the two ships were docked against each other. So the story that the Inde ran because it had taken hits should be plausible. We’d made emergency repairs and then returned to base.

With luck the story would be enough to let us get close to the station, maybe even dock with it. Of course, what we did then was going to depend on a lot of factors. How many other ships were there? How many pirates? Were there hostages? Lots of questions, not a lot of answers. Yet. And way too many ‘shoulds’ and ‘coulds’ in this plan for my taste. It was the best I could do just then.

When we were still a good distance out, the main ship’s computer finally cracked under the pressure we were applying, and disgorged some of its contents. The nav chip melted itself down completely. Some sort of safety precaution against being cracked. There was no way we were going to get a record of where the ship had been, which was critical information. I remembered what Acres had said about the pirates having another base, somewhere. That was what we needed to find, and the failsafe had burned out the chip which might have given us a clue.

But the comm unit was still OK, and contained all their most recent frequency and code information. I had one of our techs plug that data into the new comm computer we installed. They’d be calling us soon enough. Best we be able to talk to them.

Meantime, I busied myself reading more of the captain’s log. He’d been pretty reticent in his writing. Probably intentionally avoiding too much detail, since he was involved in criminal actions. I compared it to my own notes that I’d been writing on our journey and wondered if perhaps I should have been more circumspect. He used code words for various operations, but as near as I could tell, the captain had been hired on Earth for the job and paid an extremely handsome sum. I’d already seen the enemy was well funded; this was just another example. He’d been involved in destroying two mining colonies entirely and in helping to seize the repair station we were headed to right now. He wrote that he was upset about being left there when ‘the fleet’ was sent out to ‘other targets’. I felt the plural was ominous as it implied that the ships Dad had fought at Mars were likely not the only ones.

I couldn’t really get a feel for the total number of ships they had, but in addition to the ‘fleet’ sent out earlier, he expressed some pride that his ship had been sent out to intercept multiple other ships as they tried to reach the Exodus repair station or other bases in the area. His ship was so honored, instead of the ‘other ships’. What I was hoping to see, and didn’t, was an idea of just how many ships the enemy had. Choi’s notes were unhelpful.

We got our first radio signal from Exodus station as we were beginning our deceleration. I had our comm tech send the appropriate coded reply to their message. We must have gotten it right because the next thing I saw was a craggy, gaunt man’s face staring out of our main screen at me. He was of some sort of Amer-European descent. Older; he had white hair with just the faintest remnants of pepper, and a receding hairline. He looked at me with suspicious eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded. “You’re not Captain Choi. What happened out there?”

Never let them see you sweat, right? Easier said than done. If I didn’t play this just right, the best case scenario was that we’d fail to gain access to the base. The more likely result would be this guy would send whatever other ships he had available after us and blow us to bits. The ship I was flying in wasn’t going to outrun or outgun anything, damaged as it was.

No pressure.

“Captain Choi had a fatal encounter with a missile. I took command after the bridge was hit, managed to restore basic function to the ship, and brought her back here for repairs. We took a beating out there.” I said. Then, I took a chance and added, “I thought we were supposed to be the only ships out here with missiles?”

The face in the vidscreen scowled. “Our forces attacking Mars have just reported that they ran into an armed ship. It must be the same one. There can’t very well be two of them. We’ll compare your data readings to theirs when they arrive in a few hours, but I expect we’ll see it’s the same ship. It’s that lunatic, Stein. He’s loaded missiles on a personal vessel and decided to tilt at windmills for a bit. Irrelevant to the main operation.”

I tried to school my face into an angry grimace. “We should have been warned, even so. We should have...”

He cut me off. “You should do what you’re told. If you’d killed that ship instead of letting it get away, we’d have solved the problem. Would even have been worth losing the Stingray for that.” I realized he was probably talking about the other ship that had been sent with this one. “Stein killed three ships and injured two more from the Mars strike force. We’ve sent the entire rest of the active fleet to reinforce the Earth strike force, as well as warn them of the danger. If Stein shows up, they’ll be ready.”

“Should be enough to take out any one ship,” I agreed. My mind was churning through all the data I’d just heard, making connections and trying to plot the best course through this minefield. They were striking Earth! It seemed impossibly audacious, but I remembered what my father had said about how defenseless Earth really was.

“Well,” he seemed a bit less suspicious now. “You’ll bring your ship in next to the ones being refit for fighting. Docking berth three. I’ll want to debrief you in my office after you arrive. If I like what I hear, perhaps you’ll be allowed to keep command of that ship. Exodus Station out.” With that, the signal disconnected.

Exodus Repair Station was coming into view now. I’d been out here before a few times on business trips with Dad. It was a vital waypoint for ships out here in the outer edge of the main traffic patterns of the solar system. The station was built onto an old asteroid that had been hollowed out by the mining process, stripped of precious iron, nickel, and other metals needed for industry in Earth and Mars orbit. What was left over was a hulk of rock barely worth mining. But it had made for an excellent place to stow ships that were in need of repair work. A bit more hollowing left a rock shell as sturdy as the best man made girder and beam array at a fraction of the cost. The rest of the station was then built onto and extending from that rock in concentric rings, and then the entire mess was given a spin to create artificial gravity.

The result was a nearly zero gee environment inside the shell with a huge hollow that ships could fly up into from ‘underneath’. The inner ring built onto the outside of the shell was mostly part of the repair process – parts and repair supplies for the hangar just inside the shell. The next ring out was living quarters, comfortable light gravity environments for people who spent most of their working hours in zero gravity. The outermost ring was offices and workstations as well as guest quarters. Here the gravity was about Mars normal, which was a lot more comfortable to people used to being planet bound.

We changed our approach to nose into the hangar area. I couldn’t see any other ships out and about on our near radar. “Radar, keep an eye out for anything unusual. Weapons, scan the station,” I said softly. “Find me heat signature concentrations, if you can.” The bridge crew got to work, and I sat quietly, watching Exodus get larger and larger on my screen.

Radar reported back first. “Scans of the area show no ships in flight. If they’re powered down, we might not see them. But otherwise, it looks like we’re alone out here. I did see an unknown number of ion trails that left the area not too long ago. Sounds like our friend from the vid screen was telling the truth about shipping out the other vessels.”

“Well, that’s one worry away then,” I replied jauntily. “Only about a hundred left to deal with!” I got a few chuckles for my trouble.

“Got heat signatures all over the station, sir,” broke in my weapons tech. “Hard to count them with this gear. Some of these,” he pointed at the red blobs all over a schematic of the station, “may just be mechanical heat from something. This one is worth looking at, though.” It was a particularly large blob of red, which meant some sort of heat source. And it was staying pretty still. Most noteworthy, it was in a conference center on the outer ring. It almost certainly wasn’t machinery, not where it was, not that large. It’s possible the pirates were all having a big meeting, but it seemed more likely those would be the hostages. That would represent both a complication and an opportunity.

The good news, I thought to myself as we slowly slipped into the rock shell of the hangar, was that they were unlikely to suspect who we really were. What we were doing was so crazy that it probably didn’t even register on their threat assessments. The bad news, of course, is that they weren’t going to suspect it precisely because it was an almost suicidal stunt to try.

Coming up into the hangars, the computer plotted the best course to berth three. Berths one and two were occupied by other ships. By the looks of them, they were merchant vessels being converted over. I figured them to be recently captured ships, based on the telltale scorch marks of an explosion on the nose of one of them, and patches that looked like SABOT repairs on the other. And mostly finished with the conversion, from the looks of it. They were both already sporting the dual missile bays typical of the pirate’s modified vessels.

With a loud clang, we came to rest at the dock. Now we were at the tricky part. The threads of our story would start coming unraveled as soon as those doors opened. We needed to act fast.

I tabbed the intercom. “All crew, meet me at the main lock, bring your gear. Ready the big package.”

The gear was our armor and guns, already issued to everyone we had with us. I had brought a total of twenty crew from the Inde over here, leaving her with a skeleton crew, but hopefully giving us the muscle we needed to win here.

The package was a special surprise I had set up for the pirates while we were on the way here.

Our ship’s engines used fission reactors to generate power. That power accelerated ions out the back of the ship. Basically, the way the drives work was that ionized particles were shot out of the ship at speeds that were a high percent of the speed of light, using high powered electromagnets for the acceleration. All that boost requires a lot of energy, and while people had been working on a good fusion solution for over a century, no one had really solved all the problems with it yet. That was at the heart of the importance of Mars to humanity – the red planet held an abundance of fissionable materials, vital to energy production all around the system, from ships to cities.

Anyway, today’s fission engines used much more reliable coolant systems than they once had. Instead of using water, they used hydrogen. Hydrogen was common in space, easy and cheap to gather, and could be cooled by using the cold of space as a heat sink. So liquid hydrogen was used as the primary coolant for our engines, and ships carried a lot of the stuff.