Scornful Stars Page 36

  “Drop the wrench!” Jackson shouted back in the same language. “I mean it!”

  Sikander started to push his way forward, but Darvesh threw out an arm like an iron bar to stop him. “One moment, sir,” he said.

  Jackson and Birk advanced slowly, mag rifles trained on their unseen opponents—and then Sikander heard the muffled thud of something heavy and metallic hitting the linoleum. Darvesh lowered his arm, allowing him to continue around the corner; there, he found a crew of five Zerzuran shipyard workers standing by a disassembled ventilation duct. The Zerzurans glared at the Aquilan sailors in confusion and fear, obviously surprised by their appearance. “What’s going on here?” the foreman demanded.

  “We’re seizing the ship,” Sikander told him. “Don’t worry, no one needs to get hurt—we’ll escort you to the station-side airlock and let you go. Leave your tools and gear here.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” the foreman snarled. “This is a Zerzuran warship! You can’t possibly get away with it.”

  “Let us worry about that,” said Sikander. He shifted back to Anglic. “Birk, Jackson, escort these gentlemen to the station, along with anyone else you come across. Secure the station access until you’re relieved, then meet us on the bridge.”

  “Aye, sir,” the two petty officers replied. They gestured at the work crew to lead the way, and headed down the athwartships passage. Sikander and the rest of his party continued forward.

  They found the bridge eighty meters forward of the midships airlock and one deck up, a well-armored compartment in the center of the ship. The hatch stood open, with power conduits and cable runs as thick as Sikander’s arm lying across the sill. Someone on the other side was engaged in an angry conversation in Nebeldeutsch, accompanied by the unmistakable crunching of armored glass breaking and heavy blows of metal on metal. This time Darvesh stopped him with a look before Sikander started to rush ahead. “Allow me, sir,” the Kashmiri said quietly.

  Sikander nodded his assent. Darvesh motioned to the next two sailors in their group—Electronics Tech Tolbin and Gunner’s Mate Waters—to take up position by the hatch. Darvesh risked a quick peek, then stormed into the room with the two sailors just behind him.

  Mag-rifle fire erupted in the compartment, followed by shouts of fear and panic.

  Sikander drew his pistol and started in to back up the first group, but just as he reached the hatch a young-looking Dremish technician bolted out of the bridge in a blind panic and ran into him full-on. He went down on his back with the worker on top of him.

  “Sir! Sir!” the Decisive sailors remaining in the passage shouted, hurrying up to aid him.

  “Damn!” Sikander swore and twisted underneath the fellow, shielding his face and shoving his pistol under his hip to make sure the man couldn’t grab it. The technician flailed and scrabbled, trying to get back to his feet—but before he managed to stand, the two sailors knocked him senseless with their rifle butts and pulled him off Sikander.

  “Er, sorry about that, Captain,” Sensor Tech Diaz said. “I didn’t hit you, did I?”

  “I don’t think so,” Sikander replied, getting back to his feet. He took a moment to catch his breath and examine himself for injury; the back of his head throbbed from hitting the deck when he’d been bowled over, and he’d bitten his tongue, but that seemed to be the worst of it. “For a moment there I was afraid you were going to shoot the fellow while he was wrestling with me. Thanks for holding your fire.”

  He placed his cap back on his head, and stepped over the cluttered hatch into the bridge. Darvesh, Tolbin, and Waters held a group of four Dremish technicians at gunpoint in a bridge that looked like it had just been hit by a K-cannon round. Three more Dremish sailors lay on the deck, unconscious or close to it after point-blank mag-rifle shots. Broken consoles, unconnected ducting, and shattered keyboards littered the space. “Good God,” Sikander murmured.

  “They were busy breaking up the place, Captain,” Petty Officer Tolbin said. “A couple of ’em tried to rush Chief Reza, but that turned out to be a bad idea.”

  “They should regain consciousness soon,” Darvesh said calmly. “They may wish they had not, though. I assume you apprehended the one that fled?”

  “Let’s just say he isn’t going anywhere,” Sikander answered. He looked over at the Dremish who remained on their feet. “Do any of you understand Anglic?” he asked.

  “I do,” one young woman wearing the chevrons of a third-class petty officer answered grudgingly.

  “You and your people can return to Neu Kiel,” Sikander said. “We’ll escort you to the station and turn you loose. Do not attempt to come back on board—my sailors will be standing guard at the station access, and they’ll stop you. Tell the others. Do you understand?”

  “Ja, I understand. But what is going on here? What is this?”

  “We’re confiscating these warships from the Zerzura Sector Fleet. Your commanding officer can tell you more. Tolbin, Waters, show our guests to the door, and come on back as soon as you can. It looks like we have some work to do here.”

  The armed sailors shepherded the Dremish technicians out of the bridge. Sikander took one look at the assorted destruction and partial repairs cluttering the space, and decided that he wouldn’t worry about the condition of the controls quite yet—that was why he had a boarding team of technical experts along. Instead, he keyed his comm device to check on what was going on elsewhere. “Mr. Hollister, this is the captain. We’ve secured the bridge. How are you doing in the engineering spaces?”

  “We’ve secured main control and we’ve got teams sweeping the engine and power rooms, sir,” Hollister replied. “One of the fusion generators is completely disassembled—we won’t be able to do much with that. The others are shut down, but they look intact. I’d guess thirty minutes to bring them online.”

  “The sooner the better, Mr. Hollister. And remember we’re likely to lose station power at any moment, so don’t dawdle.” Sikander switched to the operation command channel. “Mr. Girard, Mr. Shah, status reports, please.”

  Shah replied first. “We have secured Zyklop, Captain. Hardly anyone was on board, and it appears that little work has been done here. I believe the Dremish must have been concentrating their repair efforts on the other ships.”

  “Have you secured the station access?”

  “Yes, sir. We are buttoned up. I am examining the condition of the engineering plant now.”

  “Very good,” Sikander told him. “Mr. Girard, how are you doing?”

  There was a long pause before Decisive’s operations officer replied. “We have Drachen’s main control room, but there’s some organized resistance on the bridge and we’re having a hard time getting in, sir. I think we’ve got all the work crews over here that Mr. Shah didn’t find on Zyklop. We control the station-side airlocks but I’m just not sure how many other people are left on board.”

  “What’s the material condition of the ship?”

  “Good, sir. They’re in the middle of a number of jobs but I think it’s mostly accommodations and habitability at this point—it looks like the engineering plant is operable.”

  Sikander nodded, even though it was only an audio link. He’d thought it likely that the refit work on the three ships might be at different stages of completion. “If you need to, seal the bridge and cut its power, then shift your effort to securing the auxiliary bridge,” he told Girard. “If we can’t remove the work crews without resorting to extreme measures, lock them in and we’ll deal with them later. Mr. Shah, since you’re secure on Zyklop, I want you to detach four of your nontechnical personnel and have your orbiter ferry them over to Drachen. It sounds like Mr. Girard can use a little more manpower over there.”

  “Aye, sir,” Shah answered. “We shall send them over at once.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Girard said. “Do you need help on Meduse, sir?”

  “We’ve got the bridge and the engineering spaces, but we’re still sweeping the ship. I’
ll let you know when we button up,” Sikander replied. “Carry on, gentlemen.”

  “Captain?” Petty Officer Waters called. Sikander turned his attention to the gunner’s mate, who stood by the ship’s weapons consoles. “Sir, I hate to say it, but these are wrecked. The Dremish ripped out the control circuitry and smashed the boards before we got in. It’ll take me hours to fix this, assuming the spare parts are on board and I can find ’em.”

  “I didn’t really expect that we’d need the K-cannons today, Gunner’s Mate,” Sikander told him. “Leave that mess as you found it, and lend a hand with the nav systems and helm.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Waters. He hurried off to join other petty officers working on Meduse’s bridge systems. The Aquilan sailors unceremoniously hauled down the incomplete ductwork and threw it into the passageway aft of the bridge with a loud crash before turning their attention to the ship’s maneuvering controls.

  Sikander moved over to the tactical display and dragged the dust cover off the console. After a few moments of guesswork, he found the power icon and turned it on. To his relief, he found that the display had been switched over to Jadeed-Arabi, so he could fumble his way through the start-up dialogue and initiate the various system updates it required—while he didn’t think he’d need Meduse’s guns today, he did want to be able to see what was going on around him. Then, while he waited for the systems to warm up, he commed Amelia. “XO, Captain. We’ve got our boarding teams on all three cruisers and we’re in the process of securing them. What’s the situation outside, over?”

  “Confusing, sir,” Amelia answered. “Captain Beck of the Neu Kiel doesn’t seem to understand that we’ve got K-cannons and he doesn’t—he’s demanding that we stop what we’re doing and withdraw immediately. Admiral al-Kassar is on a different channel in what I can only describe as a frothing rage. On a more serious note, the Zerzuran gunboats Penguen and Marti appear to be warming up their power plants and making preparations to get under way from the naval facilities on High Port. The old monitor Rahman is showing signs of life, too. We don’t think she can leave the dock, but she won’t be entirely out of range for some time yet.”

  “Understood,” Sikander replied. He and Amelia had spent some time talking over the possibility of Zerzuran resistance and how Decisive should respond to different threats. The gunboats didn’t worry him too much—their K-cannons were significantly lighter than Decisive’s, and they carried only two each. But if they waited to open fire until they were at point-blank range, they could inflict some serious damage before Decisive destroyed them. The monitor carried two much heavier K-cannons, but she could be neutralized by the simple expedient of maneuvering to keep the shipyard between Decisive and those guns until her orbit carried her away. “Warn the Zerzuran gunboats to stay at least a thousand kilometers away, and send a shot across the bow if you have to. If they press on anyway, engage and disable them. I don’t want to fire the first shot if we can help it, but that doesn’t mean we’ll allow them to stroll up and punch us in the nose before we take action.”

  “Warning first, engage if necessary, understood,” Amelia said. “I’ll try—oh, shit!” A chorus of alarms broke out in Decisive’s bridge; Sikander could hear them over Amelia’s mic.

  “What?” he demanded. “What is it? Decisive, respond!”

  For a long moment, there was no reply. Sikander clapped a hand over his earbud, trying to make out what was happening through the distant chaos of shouts and alarms. Then, just before he bolted out of the bridge to get back to the orbiter and see what had happened to his ship, Amelia came back online. “Sorry, Captain. Rahman took a long-range shot at us, and we had to evade. We’re maneuvering now to get out of her line of fire. The gunboats are getting under way, too. I need to explain a few things to them, if you don’t mind.”

  Darvesh was right, Sikander realized. I’m deaf, dumb, and blind on this damned hulk. I should be on Decisive’s bridge! There was still time to amend that—he could return to the orbiter and have them rendezvous with Decisive. He could be back on board in ten minutes … by which time those gunboats would be close enough to hit the destroyer if he ordered Amelia to refrain from evasive maneuvers long enough to recover the orbiter. No, I made my decision about this scenario when I chose to lead the boarding force in person. Amelia can handle the Zerzurans—she has to. Like it or not, I am stuck here for now.

  “Very well, XO—fight the ship as you need to. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. Meduse, out.” Sikander took a deep breath, forcing himself to slow down and project calm and confidence for the sailors around him before selecting the boarding team’s comm channel. “Meduse prize crew, this is the captain. We are now moving to Phase Two of the operation.

  “Make all preparations to get under way.”

  21

  Dahar Naval Shipyard

  The Aquilan navy’s raid caught Otto Bleindel in yard supervisor Yarbay Gamal Mohamed’s office with Neu Kiel’s repair officer, Kapitan-Leutnant Marisa Kohl. The KBS officer had taken a launch from High Port over to the orbital shipyard first thing in the morning to assess the progress of the refit work on Drachen, Meduse, and Zyklop, a trip he’d made at least once a week for the last month and a half. It had become tiresome by the third visit, but Hanne Vogt insisted that he personally monitor the project, since Marid Pasha had made it very clear that he wanted his squadron as soon as he could get it. She didn’t have the technical background to know what questions she needed to ask the people who were actually doing the work, and so she relied on him to keep her up to date.

  Just a few more weeks, Bleindel told himself as he watched Kohl and Mohamed argue about whether the power conduits supplying Zyklop’s secondary battery of UV lasers required replacement. Both engineers agreed that it was a job that should be done, but Kohl maintained that it was outside the scope of work outlined by the transfer agreement and therefore a job the Zerzurans ought to take care of themselves at some later date, while Mohamed insisted that the pasha had a right to expect delivery of a fully functional secondary battery that wouldn’t require additional expensive repairs within a matter of months. I’ll take a nice vacation—skiing, perhaps, preferably on some world where I won’t hear a word of Jadeed-Arabi for my entire visit. As far as he was concerned, his work in Zerzura had concluded once he arranged the Meliya affair and provided Marid Pasha just the right amount of prodding to cast his lot with the Empire of Dremark; the Security Bureau had better things for him to do then waste his time and talents serving as Hanne Vogt’s project manager. Then again, staying around long enough to help Sikander North embarrass himself in New Kibris and watching the Commonwealth get expelled from Marid Pasha’s domain was worth a few weeks of drudgery, wasn’t it?

  “Mr. Bleindel, what do you think?” Marisa Kohl suddenly asked, bringing him back to the matter at hand. She was a brilliant engineer but young for her position, and patience was not her strong suit. Yarbay Mohamed’s refusal to moderate his demands brought an angry glower to her face.

  Bleindel refrained from the temptation to tell both officers that he couldn’t care less, and made a show of considering his answer while recalling the course of the conversation over the last few minutes. “Marid Pasha wants these ships ready for service as soon as possible,” he said. “The laser batteries are functional, so let’s not take them apart now. We can cover some of the cost of the future power-conduit replacement when Mr. Mohamed’s technicians find the time to do the work.” That would no doubt lead to a future argument about when and how much, but by then he’d be on his way to a new assignment that made better use of his abilities.

  “That is acceptable, but I would need to have a letter to that effect,” the Zerzuran officer said thoughtfully. “It depends on how much of the cost Dremark is willing to cover, of course—”

  “Security alert, security alert!” the office intercom suddenly announced. “Armed craft are approaching the station! Muster the station defense force!”

  “What in the world?
” Mohamed growled. “There’s no security drill on the schedule!”

  Who puts security drills on a schedule? Bleindel asked himself. People who have no reason to think they’ll be attacked and who haven’t bothered to plan for the unexpected, of course. Complacency was not a uniquely Zerzuran sin—he imagined that plenty of Dremish support facilities and repair depots in quiet backwaters throughout the Empire were similarly unprepared for trouble. That, however, was his professional specialty, and at the first sign of Mohamed’s confusion, he realized something was very much out of the ordinary.

  “It’s no drill,” he snapped, and shot to his feet. The shipyard’s command module, such as it was, was at the other end of the administration block and one deck above Mohamed’s office; Bleindel covered the distance in less than a minute, sprinting past offices and passageways where Zerzuran clerks stood transfixed by the alarms or tried to recall what they were supposed to do in a security alert.

  The command center occupied a small tower with armored windows looking out over the shipyard; the bright orange and mottled green dayside of the planet Dahar gleamed in the viewports across from the main hatch. Half a dozen Zerzuran techs and officers occupied the room, most trying to talk over each other on various comm channels or requesting instructions from superior officers. Bleindel ignored them all and went straight to the traffic-control display. The station’s navigational sensors showed a lean warship in the buff-white-and-red colors of the Aquilan navy standing off a few dozen kilometers from the shipyard, while several small shuttles raced toward the station. Over the center’s speakers, he heard a woman’s voice speaking in Anglic: “—to interfere with our boarding operations will be met with force. Attention, Imperial Navy vessel Neu Kiel. Please instruct any of your personnel currently at work in the shipyard or vessels undergoing refit to stand aside or return to your ship. We have no intention of boarding Neu Kiel or detaining—”