a little more complicated than that.
But come to think of it, he had a more immediate situation at hand. He and his people had all been enlisted crew together, and their relations had been informal. Though Severin had been in charge, he rarely had to give an actual order: usually he’d simply point out that something needed to be done, and generally the thing was done without his having to pay more attention to it. When he’d come up with the idea of remaining in the Protipanu system to gather intelligence on the enemy, he’d consulted the crew first, to make certain they agreed—he hadn’t wanted to be stuck on an asteroid for months with people who didn’t want to be there.
Now he was no longer an enlisted man. He was an officer, and even in the small Exploration Service there was a great gulf between officers and crew. He was a lord and a commoner at the same time.
He didn’t even know how to think of himself. What was he, exactly?
Severin realized it was growing warm in the balmy air of the control room. The frost that coated the instruments was beginning to melt, in the asteroid’s low gravity forming nearly perfect spheres on the displays. He shrugged out of his overcoat.
“Engine diagnostics nominal,” the chief engineer reported.
“No sense in hanging around, then,” Severin said. “Release grapples.”
Electromagnetic grapples were released, and for the first time in five months the lifeboat was no longer moored to 302948745AF. Through the melting spears of frost on the view ports the Maw glowed red.
“Pilot,” Severin said, “maneuver us clear of this rock.”
A wild joy surged through him as the maneuvering jets fired and he felt the tug of inertia on his inner ear. Liberation at last.
“Pilot,” Severin said, “take us to the wormhole at a constant one gravity.”
There was a momentary flicker in the pilot’s eye. “Yes, my lord,” he said.
Yes, my lord.Severin felt an unexpected thrill of pride and delight at the words.
The engine fired, and Severin’s pleasure in his new status was doused in a rain of ice-cold water that flew off the displays and hit him in the face.
Laughter broke from his lips. He wiped water from his eye.
Welcome to the officer corps, he thought.
Ships’ cuisine tended toward stews and casseroles when a battle or maneuver was at hand: the items could be kept in the oven for hours without significant harm. Perry had brought from Lady Michi’s kitchen a bowl of bison meat stewed with potatoes and vegetables, along with some hard bread that savored of the metal can in which it had been stored for, no doubt, a great many years.
Martinez ate without interest, his eyes fixed on the tactical display on his office wall. The display was framed by several of those annoying winged children who all stared at it as if something astonishing and wonderful were being revealed. Whether the enemy squadron racing toward Aratiri qualified as astonishing and wonderful was yet uncertain.
Engines flared on the display. Numerics flashed. Martinez pushed his bowl away and watched and tried to remind himself that he was watching an event that had occurred over an hour ago.
The formation that Severin had identified as the Naxid squadron raced around Aratiri, and then steadied on the course for Pelomatan.
A long, reflective sigh passed Martinez’s lips. It would be battle, then. Naxid missiles would be flying up Chenforce’s collective tailpipe, or they would unless he could work out a way to stop them.
His sleeve display chimed. “Yes, lady squadcom?” he anticipated.
Michi gazed out of the display without surprise. “You’ve seen it, then?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“We’ll still have hours and hours to make plans. I’d like you to join me for supper.”
“I would be honored, my lady.” He looked at the screen and frowned. “According to Severin the enemy received two ships as reinforcements. I wish I knew which ships they were, it would make planning easier.”
“Oh.” The squadron commander blinked. “I should have told you. They’re most likely the frigates the Naxids were building at Loatyn—average size, twelve or fourteen missile launchers.”
Slow surprise rolled through Martinez like a tide. “They were building frigates at Loatyn?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You weren’t authorized to receive that information unless”—she made an apologetic gesture—“Unless it became relevant.”
Which stifled Martinez’s next question:how many other ships were the enemy building?
“Very good,” Martinez said. “Thank you, my lady.”
She ended the transmission and Martinez returned to his contemplation of the screen. What, he wondered, were those little painted children seeing that he wasn’t?
The reinforcements were the smallest class of warship: that was something to be thankful for. The original eight were a light squadron from Felarus, frigates with a light cruiser serving as flagship. The total offensive punch for the enemy was just short of two hundred launchers, as against Chenforce with two hundred and ninety-six launchers. That was a comfortable margin in offensive power, but it was balanced somewhat by the fact that the enemy had a couple more maneuver elements, and it still didn’t mean the enemy couldn’t hurt the loyalists badly enough to seriously compromise Michi Chen’s mission.
Or even kill all of Chenforce, if someone like Martinez made a serious enough mistake.
The Naxid torches, he saw, remained at a high intensity. They were really piling on the gee forces. He ran some figures and discovered they were accelerating at a steady twelve-point-one gees.
Everyone in the enemy squadron was probably unconscious by now. The Naxids didn’t take constant gees any better than Terrans.
Martinez reached for his coffee and breathed in its fragrance while he considered the Naxids’ tactics. He decided that knowledge of the enemy commander would be useful, and so he called up the enemy Light Squadron 5 in his database and looked for the captain ofGallant, the light cruiser that had served as the flagship for the squadron before the mutiny.
Gallantwas too small to carry a flag officer, so the whole squadron would be under its commander, a Captain Bleskoth. Bleskoth had graduated first in his class at the Festopath Academy, and was of a distinguished family— there had been a Lady Bleskoth in the Convocation, at least until she’d been thrown off the High City on the day of the rebellion. He had edited the academy journal and was captain of the lighumane team.
After graduation he had risen quickly. While still a lieutenant he had commanded the frigateQuest for several months, its captain being absent on other duty. He’d been promoted to full captain only nine years after graduation. Almost all of his time had been spent on ship duty, the only exception being the three years he’d spent as aide to Fleet Commander Fanagee, one of the great lights of the rebellion who had led their forces at Magaria. He owned a yacht, theBlue Shift, and had won the Magaria Cup two years running. He was clearly on a fast course to higher command, and his appointment to commandGallant, and with it command of Light Squadron 5, had come over the heads of a number of other officers.
Bleskoth had been a part of the rebellion even then, Martinez thought. Fanaghee had recruited him: the young Naxid had gone to Felarusknowing he was going to blow the other ships of the Third Fleet to bits with his antiproton beams.
Martinez considered the enemy captain as he sipped his coffee. Bleskoth was young, decisive, and committed. He led a team at lighumane, a sport that combined long-term strategy with sudden, aggressive violence. He hadn’t hesitated at Felarus. He was a yachtsman, used to hard accelerations and last-minute, decisive actions.
Martinez returned his coffee cup to its saucer. He had his answer.
“They’re trying to convince us that they’re decoys,” Martinez said later, as he reported to Lady Michi at the Flag Officer Station. “They’re going to do a prolonged acceleration and deliberately take some casualties in order to convince us that they’re a badly managed set of decoys and that we don’t have to worry about them.”
Lady Michi drummed her gloved fingers on the armrest of her couch. “That implies they want us to believe some particular set of decoys is in fact the real squadron. Which one?”
Martinez frowned. “I haven’t worked that out yet.”
“Have they worked out that Severin’s given their whole game away?”
Martinez, standing by Michi’s cage and looking down at her, felt a touch of vanity at his answer. “I checked the timing. Everyone on their ships must have been unconscious when the light from Severin’s torch reached them.
