Captain Yam hit the table with his fist. “We recover the homeworld,” he snarled. “Let us kick the unbelievers off our land and . . .”
“That would be suicide,” Captain Abraham said. “The enemy is too strong.”
“God is with us,” Captain Yam snapped. One hand dropped to the dagger at his belt. “Or are you afraid to place your faith in Him?”
“That’s the kind of thinking that cost us the war,” Captain Abraham snapped. “Do you want to throw away everything we’ve done, for nothing?”
Admiral Zaskar tapped the table before an actual fight could break out. Captain Yam was a brave man and a terror to his crew, but he rarely bothered to think; Captain Abraham genuinely did think, which had earned him some attention from the inquisitors before the war had come to a sudden and catastrophic end. They went together like fire and gunpowder.
“I have no intention of wasting this opportunity,” Zaskar said firmly. “And we do not have the firepower to win a stand-up fight against four enemy superdreadnought squadrons.”
He met Captain Yam’s eyes, daring him to disagree. It wasn’t just the raw numbers, although thirty-six superdreadnoughts could pump out enough missiles in a single broadside to utterly obliterate his fleet. The enemy’s technology, everything from sensors to point defense and missile targeting, was generally better.
And if I retreat, my crews will grow discontented and my subordinates will plot my overthrow, he thought. Their sheer ignorance was a terrifying problem. The captains have to understand that we have to play our cards carefully.
He keyed the console, bringing up an image. “Judd,” he said. “If the latest intelligence reports are to be believed, Judd still plays host to a considerable population of loyalists. They are held down, of course, by the new government, but they yearn to be free. I think we should give them that opportunity.”
“It is our duty,” Moses agreed.
“We will leave here in two days, taking every ship that can make the journey,” Admiral Zaskar continued. “We will, of course, attempt to escape detection while we’re in hyperspace, particularly when we cross the shipping lanes. We don’t want to accidentally lead the searchers back to our base. Once we arrive at our destination, we will carefully recon the system to make sure the enemy hasn’t assigned a large covering force, then move in and engage the enemy. We will not, of course, take prisoners.”
He smiled, coldly. The last report insisted that the enemy had only stationed a trio of light cruisers in the system. That might have changed, of course, but he doubted it. Judd was practically friendly territory, as far as the unbelievers were concerned. The vast majority of the locals were unbelievers themselves, while the believers had been rounded up and placed in concentration camps. There was no need to assign a large garrison to police the planet’s surface. The locals could do that for themselves.
But not for long, he told himself. Three light cruisers would be no match for his fleet, unless they had some utterly insane weapons system that he’d never imagined. It was possible, he supposed, but unlikely. The Commonwealth had produced a great many new weapons systems during the war, yet most of them had really been nothing more than improvements and upgrades of previous designs. Once we get into firing range, those cruisers are doomed.
“We will land troops, briefly,” he added. “Our goal will be to free the prisoners and cause havoc, not to occupy the planet. We will fall back as soon as that goal is achieved. By the time enemy reinforcements arrive, we will be long gone.”
He looked around the table, silently picking out the men he knew were going to cause problems. The fanatics, the power hungry, the ones who thought they could do better than him . . . they’d always been a problem, but now it was far worse. There just wasn’t any way to keep them under control. Half the internal security systems were still offline.
“We will depart in two days,” he reminded them. “If there are any problems, I want to know about it. This is war, not an opportunity for personal glory. I expect you, each and every one of you, to remember that. Our goal is nothing less than the restoration of the Theocracy and the reinstatement of the True Faith. Dying gloriously will not serve our goal. Dismissed.”
He sat back and watched them leave, wondering again which ones were going to disobey him. It was easy to think that glory was the way to power. Here, they might be right. The Theocracy no longer existed, save in the hearts and minds of his crew. There was no force capable of preventing them from putting someone more energetic into the command chair . . .
“You seem confident,” Askew observed. He hadn’t moved from his chair. “Are you sure you can hit Judd?”
“It’s a convenient target,” Admiral Zaskar told him. The Commonwealth had raided Theocratic space repeatedly during the war. Now the boot was going to be on the other foot. Let them run around trying to smash raiding parties for a change. “Some distance from us, of course, but barely defended.”
“Unless that’s changed,” Askew said.
“We’ll see any reinforcements before they see us,” Admiral Zaskar assured him. “And if they have sent a squadron of superdreadnoughts to protect the planet, we’ll back off.”
“Good thinking,” Askew said. He lowered his voice. “Will you survive?”
Admiral Zaskar smirked, understanding the real question. “Survive my own people? We will see.”
CHAPTER SIX
TYRE
“Well,” William said, “we have ships, and we have crews.”
Tanya studied the manifest he held out to her. He’d moved himself and his possessions, one carryall of clothes and datachips, to HMS Dandelion as soon as the sale had been concluded and the destroyer handed over to her new crew. The captain’s quarters, which doubled as the ready room, were tiny, but at least they were his. Besides, he hadn’t had much time to make
