Walter Williams - The Sundering

He sent the message, as well as the time correction to Mabumba on the engines board. Martinez was still minding the comm board when the call from Kamarullah came.

“Martinez,” he answered. “Make it quick.”

Kamarullah’s image was flushed a brighter color red than it had been before. “Are you aware that you’ve disobeyed a direct order from a superior officer?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Martinez admitted. “Is that all?”

Kamarullah seemed staggered by Martinez’s confession, and was without words for a few seconds. “Are you mad?” he managed finally. “Is there any reason why I should consider obeying this order?”

“I’m beyond caring if you obey my orders or not,” Martinez said. “Do as you please, and we’ll see what a court says afterward. End transmission.”

A few seconds laterCorona ‘s engines fired and delivered a kick to Martinez’s tailbone that threw his couch swinging along the inside of a long arc. This was followed by a series of shorter arcs until the couch finally settled, with Martinez’s suit clamping gently on his arms and legs to prevent his blood pooling, and the iron weights of gravity stacking themselves one by one on his bones.

Coronagroaned, its frame shuddering as the acceleration built, jolting as if a giant were stamping on the deck. The display showed that Kamarullah’s ship had, in fact, obeyed Martinez’s order, and done so correct to the second. Whatever Kamarullah intended, it wasn’t open mutiny.

A few minutes later, Do-faq’s squadron appeared through the wormhole, rotated to two-nine-zero by zero-one-five absolute, and fired their engines. Relief bubbled in Martinez’s heart like the finest champagne.

Do-faq had done as Martinez had asked. Martinez had not ended his career with an act of disobedience.

Martinez was too drained by the five-gravity deceleration to celebrate, and he knew he had work to do. Fighting against the deadening anesthesia the high gee wrapped about his mind, Martinez planned and ordered another series of missile launches that would, as his original plasma clouds cooled and dispersed, reinforce the screen behind which the loyalist squadrons could maneuver.

If he commanded a larger ship he’d have a tactical officer to make these calculations and suggest solutions to problems, but asCorona was only a large frigate he had to do all the work himself.

With gravity dragging at his brain he couldn’t be certain that his calculations were completely correct so he added more missiles just to make certain.

Antimatter tore itself to pi-mesons and gamma rays in the solar wind, and plasma fireballs expanded in the darkness. Behind the torn, hot matter, Do-faq’s squadron plunged onward, unobserved. Martinez, fighting to think as desperately as he fought for breath, launched more sets of missiles.

A little over two hours after entering the Hone-bar system,Corona ‘s squadron made a furious burn across Soq’s south pole, briefly reaching ten gees as every person aboard sank groaning into unconsciousness. When Martinez battled his way to awareness like a punch-soaked fighter swinging wildly at an enemy he could barely perceive, he put all his concentration into forming and sending an order for the squadron to reduce its deceleration to two gravities.

Martinez gasped and rolled his neck as the weight of gravity came off. With the relief of the interminable pressure he could feel alertness pouring back into his brain as if someone had opened a tap. He called up the abstract, perfect virtual display, and watched little burning figures fly across darkness.

Light Squadron 14 had now swung on a course that would cause it to pass close to Hone-bar, inside the most probable course taken by the enemy. The Naxids, for their part, hadn’t altered their course, and in fact had no reason to—they were still two hours from learning of the loyalists’ existence.

Martinez ordered another missile barrage—and ordered one of his light cruisers to make it, a ship with a greater store of missiles than his own frigate. He gave no orders for the missiles to explode, or where—he just pushed them out ahead of the squadron in the expectation that they would be useful later.

The Naxids were most likely intending to stay in the Hone-bar system—their deceleration flares implied that—but it was possible they intended to slip by Hone-bar’s sun and continue on to Wormhole 3 and the Hone Reach. Whatever their purpose, the appearance of Martinez’s squadron on their displays might make them change their plans completely. If they had been ordered to avoid battle, they might blaze away for Wormhole 3 even if their original intention had been to stay. And even if they had been intending to pass on, the sight of a weaker squadron might convince them to engage.

In any case, Kreeku would have to make his decision very soon after detecting Martinez’s arrival. His squadron would be on the verge of passing Hone-bar’s sun when they first saw Martinez’s engine flares, soon to be followed by maneuvers completely obscured by a screen of radiation from exploding antimatter missiles. Kreeku would have to conclude that the maneuvers were intended to bring on an engagement—Martinezmight be intending to obscure a flight for Wormhole 3, but Kreeku couldn’t assume that.

So the question was whether Kreeku would fight or not—and given that the Naxids would believe themselves superior in numbers, Martinez assumed that Kreeku would commit to battle. He would sling his forces around Hone-bar’s sun at a sharp angle and head more or less for Soq.

And then, three hours later when Kreeku finally saw what course Martinez had taken shooting out of Soq’s gravity well, he would have to decide whether or not to react. He would either crowd in toward Martinez, in effect pinning him against Hone-bar, or engage from a distance.How aggressive was he?

Martinez called up Kreeku’s biographical file out ofCorona ‘s data system and saw the career track of a successful officer—a mix of specialties, ship and planetary assignments, staff college. In the public record there were, of course, none of the more candid assessments given by Kreeku’s superiors, nothing to indicate whether he was brilliant, stodgy, dull, or a swashbuckler.

Martinez decided that Kreeku probably wouldn’t react right away. He wouldn’t need to—it would still be hours before the squadrons would clash.

“Message to the squadron,” he said. “Alter course to two-eight-seven by zero-two-five relative, commencing at 27:14:01. Deceleration to remain at two gravities.”

As his spoken words were transcribed into text by the computer he sent them forth. He had ordered the course change “relative,” meaning with relation to the squadron’s current heading, rather than “absolute,” in reference to the arbitrary coordinate system that had been imposed on every star system by the conquering Shaa.

He gave further instructions to the missile barrage he’d sent out ahead of the squadron, and then decided it was time to send another message to Do-faq. “My lord,” he said into the camera, “I am enormously gratified at the confidence you have expressed in me by taking my suggested course. If you will further oblige me by ordering your squadron onto a heading of zero-one-five by zero-zero-one absolute after you pass Soq, I will do my best to provide cover and prevent the enemy from detecting you.

“Thank you again for your trust. I shall try to prove worthy of it. Message ends.”

As he sent the message to Do-faq he was aware of a light prickle of sweat on his forehead. He felt a sudden awareness of how much he was taking on himself, the fate of the Hone-bar system, the lives of thousands of crew. He looked at his displays and hoped that Kreeku wouldn’t prove to be a genius.