Кристофер Банч - The Return of the Emperor

On-screen, the mushroom's cap started sliding back and forth on the fleet's "stem," like a winding-down toy gyro. Kilgour was beaming at him.

"Dammit, Alex! Quit gamin'!"

"Thae gamin', ae y'put it, i' another suggestion, Boss. Or hae Ah noo leave't' suggest?"

Otho rose. "By my mother's insect-infested beard, we must cure this bickering disease." He owled a prox screen. "Nearest contact… we have lifetimes. Time for stregg, time even for the hangover. I'll get the horns." He palmed a bulkhead door and slid out.

"Sorry, Alex," Sten said.

"Dinnae fash. Y' want't' hear what I was thinkin't? 'Tis jus' a wee thought, Boss. Ah nae hae a scheme."

The mushroom's gyroing, Alex went on, came as he projected near-simultaneous attacks from various directions at the Imperials. "Slide aroun', slide aroun', an' sooner come later, thae'll lose comman' cohesion. All Ah need f'r't't' be a plan is, p'raps, anoth'r two, three hundred ships."

Otho came back with the stregg. Sten had something wandering in his backbrain. He put the horn in its stand untouched.

"My turn," Sten said. "First, I know where to hit them." He touched a point on the fleet's projected overall passage. "Here."

"Good. Thae'll be sloppy then."

"Maybe even how. Clot the ships. Clot the weapons. Clot that they've got all the damned AM2 in the universe. Think about the troopies. Who we going against?"

"Your mind has fled," Otho said. "We are fighting the Empire, and you are lacking stregg. Drink, my Sten."

Sten ignored him and went on. What kind of Imperials were they facing? This was hardtimes and peacetimes. The ships would most likely be officered and crewed by an odd mixture—experienced war veterans/careerists and new, or fairly new, volunteers.

"Thae hae th' facts ae history arguin' wi' you," Alex agreed slowly.

"Second. Their Admiral Whoever. Rules and regulations. Right way, wrong way, navy way."

"Frae one formation? Estimate frae insufficient data. Theory only."

Sten grinned at his stocky friend, who seemed to have found a new avocation as a strange-talking battle computer.

"Formation, yes. Also the response to the trading ship. Destroyer screens shifted… like so. Heavies closed toward area of threat…so. Reaction—one ship to close with unknown, two detached in front of the screen for backup. Just like the fiche tell you in Staff School."

"Still theory."

It was.

"Second. Alex, if I give you… four ships, can you rig two spoofs?"

Alex thought. "Ah kin. But thae'll noo be world-class. No' enow time, no' enow gear f'r a good 'llusion."

"One more time. Think about the troopies."

"Ah."

"Now, won't that get your mushroom slippin' an' slid-in'?"

"Might." Kilgour sank his horn and got up. "But we'll hae't' hit 'em hard an' fast. Ah hae a sudden date wi' a tech. If y'll excuse me?" And he was gone.

Otho winced. Hard and fast. That meant full power and being marooned in space if they did not capture the freighters.

Sten caught his expression. "Don't worry. If we lose—and are still alive but out of power—we'll have Kilgour knock out the ports, issue oars, and we'll row home."

Otho laughed and smacked his lips. The upcoming battle promised to be fast and nasty. He had an addition to the unformulated plan. Would this fleet have a common com-link frequency to the admiral? Very probably. Could it be detected quickly? Almost certainly. Could it be analyzed, pirated into, and blanketed? Given a com with enough power… yes.

"Four of my ships, at the least, have links strong enough to shout from here to Hades in a whisper. That is not a factor," Otho said.

Shout… whisper? Sten put aside Otho's idea of analogies and asked what he had in mind. Otho continued. When he was finished, Sten sat down, drank stregg, and ran the idea through. It was brutal. Bloody. Practical. About what one would expect from a Bhor warrior—or a Mantis operative.

"Service soldiers," Sten thought aloud, "would want revenge. Conscripts… particularly if these people have seen hard times on Honjo, as we've heard. Yes.

"Refill the horn, my friend. My mind is starting to work. One slight modification to your idea, however. We'll need six, maybe eight, of your best and bloodiest…"

Cind went ballistic one nanosecond after getting the orders from her section officer. She was detached for special duties and ordered to turn in her weaponry except for her pistol and combat knife. Then she drew her weapon for this battle—a battle that would be led by Admiral Sten himself. A battle that would win glory for all.

Her weapon was a small camera with a transmitter attached. A joke? No. Because she was human, and those clottin' Bhor never really…No. She was the only human. The other seven beings in this special detachment were Bhor—all of them just as homicidally angry as Cind.

She refused the order. The officer shrugged and ordered her confined to quarters. She relented but wanted to protest the assignment.

" 'Twill do you no good, woman."

"Why not? I've got rights!"

"So file a protest if you like. I was ordered to pick eight of my best shipboard fighters. Eight who were most likely to find themselves in the heart of battle. And eight who might survive the fray. I chose accordingly."

"Clot the compliments! I want to protest."

"As I said, protest as you like. The orders came directly from the Great Otho and Admiral Sten himself."

Cind recovered her chin from where it sat on her collarbone. Sten? Why this shaming?

No. Stop being a child. Sten was Sten.

There must be a reason.

If you can understand Sten's thinking, she told herself, then you may truly be on the Way of the Warrior.

The 23RD Imperial Fleet was attacked less than one ship's day from safety.

Once contact was made with Al-Sufi and the waiting reinforcements, Gregor relaxed. He ordered stand down from General Quarters. Modified Readiness—one third at combat stations—was the new status. The rest of the Imperial sailors were ordered to clean ship and themselves.

Gregor thought himself a humane commander and knew his troops would not want to port looking like tramps. Also, if there were livie cameras there, a formation of slobs would reflect poorly on Gregor himself.

The first attack came as Gregor was luxuriating in the fresher: " All Hands… Battle Stations… Raiders Attacking! "

Gregor found himself on the bridge wearing the full-dress white mess jacket he had laid out—and briefs. He quickly analyzed the screens.

"Sir, I've already ordered the formation shift toward the enemy's angle of attack as per your standing instructions."

Gregor swore at the Officer of the Deck and then punched up the ECM officer.

"Screen the attackers."

The man seemed puzzled, then touched keys slowly, as if he did not have his signal orders memorized as reflexes. Nothing happened. The attackers continued in, coming from the high forward port quadrant. He ran another program… the raiders vanished! Only two ships remained on-screen.

Gregor was about to scream at his flag officer and break the ECM officer when another alarm shrilled. Another formation was coming low forward center—the real attack. Gregor took command and ordered the battle formation shifted down toward the foe.

The mushroom cap seemed to spin as the battleships changed formation and their cruiser and destroyer screens followed. There were two collisions—a cruiser physically "brushed" a destroyer, and two destroyers slammed into one another. The cruiser had some survivors.

In the ECM center, the officer was still following orders and screening the attackers. On his fourth try, just as he was convinced that these were for real, the second set of raiders disappeared. Once more, two ships—the spoofers—remained.