Walter Williams - The Sundering

Without waiting for a reply, Martinez ordered his own force to maneuver. The eight-ship squadron was divided into two four-ship divisions, and he ordered the divisions to separate, as if to catch the enemy between two fires. Shankaracharya’s work had shown the theoretical maximum separation at which overlapping defensive fire remained effective, and Martinez kept the ships within that sphere. In the meantime, he made certain thatCorona kept arcing missiles between Do-faq and the enemy, to provide the necessary screen for the heavy squadron’s approach.

The missile bursts intensified, a continuous drumroll of flashes and dying matter. Point-defense lasers lashed across the darkness, striking at any incoming threat. Martinez felt his heart begin an inexorable climb into his throat as he watched the hot, opaque cloud of explosions roll nearer and nearer.

“Starburst!” he ordered. “All ships starburst!”

No doubt Kamarullah would consider the maneuver premature, but his ship as well as the others rotated and began to burn heavy gees away from the others, getting as much separation as possible before the onslaught that was about to engulf them.

“Defenses on automatic!” Martinez called as the hand of gravity slammed him into his couch. The display told him the pressure on his chest was nine gravities before his vision narrowed, and then winked out altogether.

After a long moment of darkness Martinez fought his way to consciousness, clenching his teeth and swallowing to force blood to his brain. He saw his displays as if through the wrong end of a telescope, a long distance down a dim tunnel. Gradually his vision cleared, and he gave a gasp as he realized what he was viewing.

Do-faq and the heavy squadron had launched a hundred and sixty missiles, all of them screened from the enemy by the erupting missiles and counterfire of Light Squadron 14. These missiles now raced out of the concealing plasma clouds, converging on Kreeku’s force at seven-tenths of the speed of light.

The missile strike was a vast expanding carpet of light, like the phosphorescence on a moving wave, the entire enemy force torn to elemental fire in a few brief seconds. Martinez watched in awe, unable to believe that the Naxids’ end had come so swiftly.

But the battle hadn’t ended with the death of the enemy. Missiles were still weaving through space, dodging the defensive lasers and onCorona ‘s trail. There were several minutes of suspense before the last threat was destroyed by Vonderheydte’s laser fire.

There was silence, and then cheers began to ring in Command. Martinez felt a giddy exhilaration, and repressed the urge to climb out of his cage in the heavy gravity and lead the crew in a delirious stomping dance.

More cheers burst out as other friendly ships emerged from the plasma fog, though it was not for several minutes that it became clear that Martinez had wiped the enemy from existence without a single loss to his squadron.

AfterCorona had finished a pair of high-gee turns around Hone-bar’s sun and another of the system’s gas giants, and after Martinez had reduced his squadron’s acceleration to 0.8 gravities in order to aid the repairs of the two ships that had suffered damage, Martinez was invited to dine in the wardroom by his lieutenants. When he entered the small room with its cramped cherrywood table, his three officers rose and applauded.

“Congratulations, my lord,” Dalkeith said. She had a broad smile on her face, and Martinez wasn’t surprised—the successful action had almost certainly guaranteed her the promotion that had eluded her for the last fifteen or twenty years, all in despite of the fact that her sole contribution to the battle had been to watch from Auxiliary Control and wait for Martinez to die.

He thanked her and sat at the table, and the lieutenants followed suit. The wardroom steward—a professional chef acquired during Captain Tarafah’s regime, and who had stayed in his post while Martinez’s own chef fled—laid down the first course, a savory soup flavored with bits of smoked duck.

By all rights Martinez should have been exhausted, not having slept in twenty-five hours, almost a full day. But instead of yawning over his soup he felt himself coursing with energy, and his brain bubbled with ideas. He felt a ravenous appetite. The lieutenants were exhilarated as well, and the mood sometimes caught even Shankaracharya, who certainly had reason enough to be cast down.

Some of Martinez’s enthusiasm had been prompted by a message from Sula that had arrived mere hours after the battle, a message featuring her elegant formula for fleet maneuvers. Martinez brought the formula with him to the dinner, hoping to stimulate his officers’ thought. To this end—after the dinner was over, and the last toast drunk—Martinez suggested inviting Cadet Kelly, who had participated in the original officers’ discussions that had led to the new tactical ideas.

Such a suggestion, under the circumstances, was something akin to a command. Kelly came into the wardroom with her brilliant smile blazing. She had spent the entire battle in her pinnace, ready to be launched into space alongside a barrage of missiles. Martinez, for his part, had never for a moment considered launching either of his pinnace pilots into the hell of raging antimatter.

Kelly was brought up to speed with a couple glasses of the wardroom’s excellent wine, and Martinez unveiled Sula’s formula. Shankaracharya considered it carefully, tested it a few times with variables drawn from the day’s battle, and pronounced it worthy of further investigation. The officers were discussing tactical applications when Martinez’s sleeve button gave a discreet chime.

He answered, and on the sleeve display saw the face of Warrant Officer Roh, who had been left in charge ofCorona while his superiors were roistering in the wardroom.

“Message for you, my lord. It’s just been deciphered.”

“Transmit, then.”

A look of caution entered Roh’s eyes. “Perhaps you might want to receive this in private, lord elcap. It’s personal to you, from the Fleet Control Board.”

Martinez excused himself from the wardroom and stepped into the corridor outside. “Go ahead and transmit, Roh,” he said.

The message, from the secretary of the Control Board, was brief and to the point. In his musical Cree voice the secretary informed him that the board had decided, on receipt of Lieutenant Captain Martinez’s last communication, that Light Squadron Fourteen should from receipt of this message be placed under the command of its senior officer, Lieutenant Captain Kamarullah.

A burble of astounded laughter escaped Martinez’s lips. He was far too astonished to feel resentment at this outrageous usurpation.They’re going to really feel silly when they hear about what just happened here, he thought. He wondered if they would change their minds.

No. Of course they wouldn’t. They’d never admit they’d made an error in judgment.

And in any case the order needed to be obeyed. “Message, personal to Captain Kamarullah,” Martinez dictated, and tried to suppress any sign of inebriation as he spoke into the silver button-camera on his cuff.

“Orders have just come from the Fleet Control Board placing you in command of Squadron Fourteen. Naturally I will endeavor to comply with any instructions you see fit to issue toCorona. I will immediately inform the other ships of…” He hesitated, having almost saidmy command. “Of the squadron,” he finished. “Message ends.”

He had the message sent, and spent a few moments assembling the words he would use to his other captains.

“My lords,” he transmitted finally, “I must inform you that the Fleet Control Board has decided to place the squadron under the command of Captain Kamarullah. It has been a privilege to command Light Squadron Fourteen during the last month, and to have led you in an engagement which has done great service to the empire. I believe we may view our accomplishments with great satisfaction. I will be honored to serve alongside you under Captain Kamarullah’s command, and I hope that in the future we may score an even greater success against the enemy.”