Cradle of War (A Captain's Crucible Book 3) (19 page)

“That’s what we want,” Jonathan said.

“Though T1 remains pointed at us
.
”

“But they’re still too far away to cause any damage,” Jonathan said.

The
Artemis
continued to fire missiles sporadically as the laser shot them down. T1 kept its nose pointed toward the
Talon
.

“The targets are approaching the latent missiles,” Barrick announced. Those were the missiles Jonathan had placed at the start of the battle, meant to appear as exhausted mines. “They’re currently ten thousand kilometers away, at a seven o’clock position to the targets.”

Come on, Rail, activate them,
Jonathan thought.

A few moments later Barrick said: “The waiting missiles are eight thousand kilometers away, at an eight o’clock position to the targets.”

Come on, Rail!

He was ready to break radio silence.

“The latent missiles have activated,” Barrick announced.

Jonathan exhaled in relief.

“The targets are turning toward the new threats,” Barrick said.

“That’s right,” Jonathan commented. “Turning their backs on us. Tell Valor he can power us up. Let’s go hunting.”

The red filaments in the bulkheads glowed brightly as the bridge hummed back to life.

“Valor is swinging our nose around,” Barrick said. “He’s accelerating.”

“How far to the enemy?” Jonathan asked.

“Twenty thousand kilometers,” Barrick replied.

“Tell Valor to fire when within range,” Jonathan said.

Barrick nodded. “Valor says he intends to.” He paused. “The missiles launched in a previous volley by the
Artemis
are converging on the targets. They’ll come within range at roughly the same time as the latent missiles.”

“The enemy vessels are going to have to make a choice,” Jonathan said. “Keep their backsides exposed to us so they can shoot down all those incoming missiles, or turn around and take a hit so that they can fire on us.”

“Looks like the escort ship is turning its nose to face us,” Barrick said. “While the laser segment remains aimed at some of the incoming kinetics.”

Jonathan smiled grimly. “The choice has been made...”

He found it hard to still the pounding in his veins. Tinnitus in his left ear pulsed in sync.

Got to get that corrected sometime.

“Enemy range is fifteen thousand kilometers,” Barrick said. “They’re opening fire.”

“Damage?” Jonathan said a moment later.

“They’ve eaten away some of our nose section,” Barrick replied. “But the particle cannon is still intact.”

Jonathan nodded.

Barrick’s eyes defocused. “A missile just impacted the aft section of the escort ship. Another. A third. Another missile just struck the laser segment... Otter says it looks like the escort ship has lost half of its reactors. It’ll take twice as long to recharge their particle cannon. Four minutes, instead of the usual two.”

“Unless they’re bluffing,” Jonathan said. “And purposely shutting down reactors to alter their heat signature. In any case, transmit a message calling for their surrender.”

Barrick took a moment to reply: “Otter says there is no response.”

“I guess there’s no point in maintaining radio silence anymore,” Jonathan said. “
Artemis, Galilei,
do you read?”

Because of the range, and the interference from the radiation belts, and the fact that there were no telemetry drones out there to act as repeaters, he received only a garbled reply.

Three minutes later Barrick announced: “We’ve closed to within nine thousand kilometers.”

“Why hasn’t Valor fired?” Jonathan said.

Barrick shook his head. “I don’t know.”

The seconds ticked past. Jonathan kept expecting the enemy to unleash its particle weapon first, because the four minute recharge interval Otter had come up with had to be an estimate.

Thirty seconds later Barrick announced. “We’ve closed to eight thousand kilometers.”

“Fire, damn it,” Jonathan said.

“He says not yet,” Barrick replied.

Jonathan gritted his teeth. The seconds ticked past. He clenched his gloved fingers.

Fire.

Barrick glanced at him.

“He’s firing,” the telepath said. Then: “They cut the escort ship clean in half.”

Jonathan thought he understood why Valor wanted to wait: to cause as much damage as possible.

“Update me on the laser segment,” Jonathan said.

“Otter tells me it appears heavily damaged from the missile strike,” Barrick replied. “Though of course it’s completely useless without another ship to power it.”

“And the disabled T2?”

“The ship is still floating in the void, six hundred thousand kilometers away. Valor is asking for their surrender.” Barrick paused. “We just got our answer.”

“What was it?” Jonathan asked.

“The vessel self-destructed.”

Jonathan tilted his head. “Nice.”

The laser ship detonated a moment later, along with its remaining segments.

A
fter the battle the
Galilei
collected its undetonated missiles, and then the ships gathered to take stock of their inventory. The
Artemis
had expended roughly half of its kinetic kills and mortars, while the
Galilei
had lost only a few mortars. Neither ship had wasted any nuclears, leaving them with three each. Overall it was an entirely reasonable expenditure, considering the victory.

Jonathan reminded himself that luck had played a large role. Nonetheless, he allowed himself some credit for the triumph, because even the best stratagems often involved a roll of the dice at some point.

The journey to the next Slipstream was estimated at six days. Though the
Talon
could have arrived in four and a half at its top speed, Valor agreed to limit the maximum velocity of his ship to that of the corvettes.

When they cleared the radiation belts, Jonathan had the corvettes radio ahead to the Dragonflies hidden behind Anvil Rappel III. A hidden telemetry drone in orbit above the planet relayed his orders to the shuttles, instructing them to move the Gate back to the Slipstream above the nearby Anvil Prime. Galileo promised that by the time the alien-human fleet arrived, the Gate would be in place. Jonathan told the AI that if there was time, a couple of the Dragonflies were to fly down to the razed surface of Anvil Prime afterward and search for survivors. He felt more inclined to render assistance to any refugees there as compared to Prius 3A, given that a) the pursuers had been eliminated, b) NAVCENT very likely knew about the invaders by then, and c) the planet was directly above their route.

The corvettes flanked the
Talon
, keeping a little over thirty thousand kilometers away at all times, well within range of the comm node aboard Dragonfly 1, which remained stowed in the hangar bay. That was closer than the forty thousand klick distance the AIs originally intended to maintain. Jonathan took that as a sign of trust. Either Captains Rail and Rodriguez had managed to sway the AIs to his side, or the actions of the
Talon
in the last battle had done all the convincing that was needed. Then again, at thirty thousand kilometers both ships were still well outside the range of the alien particle cannon.

The AIs had requested he continue the transfer of the full data files, and Jonathan complied. When the transmission finally completed a day and a half later, the AIs thanked him and said not a word more on the matter. They made no mention about his mutiny attempt against Admiral Knox, none whatsoever. He supposed the AIs had concluded the board of inquiry would handle his punishment. And rightly so.

Jonathan remained in the berthing area of the
Talon
for most of the journey. He evolved some semblance of routine. Wake up in the morning. Don the helmet. Unzip the tent. Walk to the open latrine. Relieve himself in the suit. Empty the drainage canister into the latrine. Retrieve the gruel the aliens had left in the airlock. Return to the tent. Zip up the fabric. Take off the helmet. Eat. Immerse himself in VR courtesy of his aReal. Don the helmet and repeat all of the previous actions. Again. Then take a dump and empty the suit’s fecal collector in the latrine. Return to the tent. Sleep. Start the process anew the next day. All under the watchful eyes of the Centurions, and likely the
Talon’s
own AI.

He felt very much like a prisoner. It was a bit of a warm-up, he supposed, for days to come. His current experience wouldn’t be too far removed from being locked up for mutiny, should it come to that.

He missed the philosophical conversations with Robert and Maxwell. The limited AI in his aReal didn’t have quite the conversational abilities of either of them. Sometimes he tried conversing with the combat robots that had stayed behind, and while their AIs were more advanced, they were programmed to kill, not talk. It was like trying to pick up an uninterested girl; the conversations were very one-sided.

Barrick visited occasionally, but their talks were mostly superficial. Jonathan was always glad when the telepath departed.

“How are you holding up?” Rodriguez asked over the comm one time.

Jonathan had to chuckle. “You mean alone, on an unfamiliar ship, surrounded by aliens of questionable allegiance and robots who would rather kill than talk to me, with the only other human aboard a telepath who would probably take over my mind if I ever forgot to wear my helmet before leaving my tent? Good, all things considered.”

Rodriguez’s return laugh arrived a moment later. It took electromagnetic waves a tenth of a second to traverse the thirty thousand kilometer distance between the ships, but factoring in the multiple layers of error-correction and redundancy to account for the packet loss, the lag increased to about a second either way, even with audio only.

“What do you think we’ll find on the other side of the Slipstream?” Rodriguez said. “King Arthur’s resting place?”

Jonathan smiled. “Hardly. The system is only Avalon in name, not reality. The real Avalon, just like King Arthur, never existed. Only war awaits us on the other side, my friend. War and battle. Such is our fate. And then when we are done fighting, we’ll be arraigned by the same people we fought for. I will be, anyway.”

“Are you always so dour?” Rodriguez said a moment later. “
Arraigned.
It’s an inquiry, not a trial. It’s a wonder Commander Cray can put up with you.”

“It is indeed,” Jonathan said. “He was probably very glad to see me go.”

“Delta Avalon,” Rodriguez said. “Delta. Fourth brightest star in the constellation.”

“That’s right, change the subject.”

Again Rodriguez laughed. “We can keep talking about how your first officer dislikes you, if you want.”

Jonathan grinned. “No.”

“Do you know which constellation Delta Avalon belongs to?” Rodriguez said.

“Avalon, obviously,” Jonathan said.

“Do you know where it is in the night sky?” Rodriguez pressed.

“No.”

“I’ll give you a hint,” Rodriguez added. “It’s not a constellation visible from Earth.”

Jonathan felt his brow furrow. “I thought all stars were named for Earth constellations.”

“Most of them are, but this one is different. You see, after the Foot of the Centaur was colonized, when the first wave of inhabitants looked into the sky they saw a constellation that bore a likeness to an apple tree. They named it Avalon after the fabled island from Arthurian legend that was covered in perennial apple trees. The Avalon constellation. The colonists lobbied the United Systems to have the name officially accepted, and eventually the government capitulated and the involved stars were renamed. It was the first time a constellation visible from another planet superseded the names previously assigned to a set of stars from Earth.”

“I did not know that.”

“The Sino-Koreans have taken that a step further,” Rodriguz said. “Ever since they moved the seat of their government to the Aurora system, they’ve gone ahead and renamed a whole slew of stars, using constellations visible from Aurora Prime.”

“Interesting.”

Rodriguez was quiet for a time. “You’re dreading going back, aren’t you?”

Jonathan sighed. “Somewhat.”

“I wonder how things are at home,” Rodriguez said, apparently sensing that Jonathan didn’t want to talk about the inquiry. “I remember, the last comm drone we received from the United Systems told us that the coup on Aurora Prime had been put down. And that the hijacked Sino-Korean planet killer had been recovered from the rogue faction responsible for the coup.” He paused. “So many factions among humanity. Factions among factions. We humans aren’t so different from the Raakarr, are we?”

“In some things, I suppose not,” Jonathan said. “It would be naive to think an alien race would be homogenous, with every one of their kind exactly the same as the others. It’s not how evolution works.”

“Unless of course that race was extremely bigoted,” Rodriguez said. “And eliminated those others of its kind that were different.”

“We haven’t encountered a race like that yet,” Jonathan said. “But I suppose you’re right, it’s possible.”

“Homo sapiens wiped out the neanderthals,” Rodriguez said.

“That’s what we thought, at one point,” Jonathan said. “Though our discovery in the Elder galaxy might throw that theory out the window. Maybe the Elder snatched up all the neanderthals from the face of the Earth. For their own use.”

“Maybe,” Rodriguez said. He was quiet for a time. Then: “You think tensions are still high between the Sino-Koreans and the United Systems?”

“I know so,” Jonathan said. “And I’ll bet half the higher-ups in the navy are arguing at this very moment that the invaders are simply Sino-Koreans in a new guise, just as Admiral Knox did.”

“You can’t really blame them,” Rodriguez said. “An alien attack is hard to fathom.”

“Yes, well,” Jonathan transmitted. “Hopefully we’ll get our act together soon and unite humanity against the common threat posed by the Raakarr.”

“You really think we will?”

“No,” Jonathan admitted. “The United Systems won’t want to share the technology the Zarafe give us. I’m afraid we’ll be fighting the aliens on our own. It’s going to be a long, fruitless war.”

Assuming that the Elder don’t intervene and kill us all.