Tiamat's Wrath

Chapter Forty-Four: Naomi

The burn was long and it was punishing. Even with the crash couch distributing the pressure along every possible square centimeter of her body, Naomi ached her way through the hours. The only solace was the breaks for food and the head, and she kept those brief.

Laconia was a slightly smaller heliosphere than Sol, with nine planets, only one of them habitable. A single gas giant with somewhere between eighty and a hundred moons, depending on where the line was drawn. Two large planets out past that in the deep, and a rocky captured planet hardly larger than Luna with a retrograde orbit that swung high above and far below the plane of the ecliptic. Five planets in closer to the sun, the second of them being her target and the heart of the empire. A transfer station at the gas giant, and the alien construction platforms that orbited the inhabited world. That was her battleground, and she meant to have her forces diffused through it. On the enemy’s side, the Voice of the Whirlwind at Laconia proper, the Rising Shamal and her sister ship, plus four more Storm-class destroyers.

Her couch on the burn was almost as isolated as her old shipping container. Her time, even if it was painful, was her own. She studied the maps until she could see them with her eyes closed.

And in the back of her mind, Bobbie waited. The memories and habits of decades spent breathing the same air, drinking the same water, being part of the same organism had made the woman a part of her. And the Bobbie in her head had a lot to say.

A campaign like this is an argument. You’re trying to persuade the enemy of something. Talk them into it. And this time, here? You need to teach them that the danger of staying in place is greater than the danger of coming after you. For it to work, every lesson needs to support that one single thought.

The Storm-class destroyer Mammatus ended its assignment in Arcadia system and rotated back to Laconia for resupply. The transit from Arcadia to the ring space was uneventful, apart from the now-familiar annoyance that the most recent set of repeaters had been sabotaged.

The Mammatus’ transit into Laconia was very different. The moment the destroyer emerged into normal space, its sensor arrays were swamped by massive jamming from multiple sources. Half a dozen ships positioned just outside the ring gate flooded the Mammatus with radio and light. It took fewer than three seconds for the ship to reset, but by then five torpedoes—already launched and waiting for a target—were slamming into the ship. Informed by months of analysis of the captured Storm, the torpedo strikes were devastating. The Mammatus lost maneuvering thrusters along her port side and six PDC emplacements. Worse, it began venting atmosphere.

Its counterstrike was late and weakened. The enemy PDCs took out the torpedoes as soon as they were launched, and with its mobility limited and its port vulnerable, the destroyer fled. Its burn toward Laconia and the prospect of safety was the obvious strategy, and easy to foresee. Compromised as it was, it failed to register the field of stealth composite–coated debris in its path until a swarm of uranium micrometeorites peppered its already-stressed hull, peeling back a section of the plating. A maneuvering thruster misfired as the power grid tried to compensate, sending the destroyer into a spin. Despite all that, it took five more torpe-does and a constant stream of PDC fire to kill it. The Mammatus fought well and died ugly, but it died. Everyone in the system saw its last hour, even if the light delay meant they saw it far too late to act.

Lesson one: You can’t rely on reinforcements.

Days under burn stretched. Naomi slept when she could, studied the movements of the enemy and the reports of her fleet when she couldn’t. Her knees ached from being bent just slightly backward by the acceleration. It hadn’t all been in the same direction. Twice now, Alex had shifted them. Not a full flip-and-burn, but a change of vector that brought them closer to the gas giant. The Laconian destroyers in the system started a burn to match, and Naomi’s three Donnager-class battleships—the Carcassonne, the Armstrong, and the Bellerophon—had redeployed as if to make a full engagement just outside the transfer station there. And then they had all broken off, scattering, while a dozen smaller ships dove sunward to the inner planets. The Whirlwind, capable of slaughtering any of them, stayed in place, leaving the chase to the destroyers.

She’d expected the battleships to draw off the Laconian forces, but they didn’t. The destroyers followed her hunt group, pushing them to a long, arcing retreat up above the ecliptic. The destroyers turned back quickly, never venturing past the gas giant’s orbit. It wasn’t the repositioning she’d wanted, but it worked. It would do.

When the burn paused, she took a long moment before she unstrapped, just to enjoy the physical relief of a gentle half g. Walking down the hall to the galley, her legs felt shaky and her neck ached.

The others—her crew—were already there, wolfing down bowls of noodles and mushrooms, talking and laughing. They sobered when she came in. She was the adult. The commander. Who she was mattered less than what.

She didn’t mind that.

She found Alex in the cargo bay, opening an access panel. He looked like he hadn’t showered in days. Probably he hadn’t.

“Issue?” she asked.

“No. We’re good. I was just getting a little less pressure on the water feed to this thruster than I’d wanted. Thought I’d tweak it while I had the chance.”

“Good thought.”

“I was hoping we’d be getting down to the inner planets by now.”

“Early days,” she said. “There’s time.”

The Bhikaji Cama lumbered through the void, well behind the other ships. Its hold was open to the vacuum.

Two groups of ships, eight in one and fourteen in the other, fired long-range torpedoes at the transfer station. The missiles burned hard, then went ballistic. Slightly fewer than three hundred warheads screamed through the black, all aimed at the transfer station, and all timed to arrive within seconds of each other.

And all of them, of course, were intercepted. Most were killed by the transfer station’s PDCs, but a handful also fell to long-range countermissiles launched from the Whirlwind. It didn’t use its field projector, and wouldn’t. Despite its power, the range was short, and the last time one had been fired in normal space, Sol system had lost consciousness for three minutes. The Laconians didn’t want to risk their defense with a blackout.

When the last of the torpedo barrage died, the expended hunt groups looped back, burning for the Cama. There the crew put on mech suits and loaders, made their way into the cargo ship’s vast belly, and came out with fresh torpedoes and water and PDC rounds.

A week and a half into the campaign, at the time Naomi had specified, the Verity Close—sister ship to the Bhikaji Cama—made the transit into the system and bent its path to the opposite edge of the system and opened its hold.

Lesson two: We have thirteen hundred systems to resupply us. You have one.

“They’re following the Storm,” Naomi said. “I need to split you off.”

On the screen, Jillian Houston scowled. “When the time comes, and you lure that murderous bastard of a ship away from Laconia, you’re still going to have a planetary defense system trying to shoot you down. That’s at minimum. You need me to eat that flak for you.”

“If you’re with the attack group, the Whirlwind won’t budge. Not ever. I don’t like it any more than you do, but your ship used to be theirs. They know it’s the best tech in our fleet. They’re not going to take their eyes off it. They think you’re the number one threat because you are.”

Despite herself, the younger woman smiled. “They’re right about that.”

“I’m redeploying you. Move to accompany the Armstrong. When the time comes—”

“I’ll be part of the bait,” Jillian said. “I don’t love it.”

“It’s a risk. But it’s worth it.”

“Understood,” Jillian said, and dropped the connection. Naomi stretched and checked her system. Eight more minutes before the next burn. She tried to decide if she wanted to wash off or get a bulb of tea. If she didn’t pick soon, she wouldn’t have time for either.

Or maybe she could do both.

“Alex. Postpone the burn for half an hour. There’s something I want to do.”

“You bet,” Alex said.

Naomi went down to her cabin and her private shower, the map of the system in her mind. With the Storm on its own, she could reroute the Carcassonne and fifty or so of the other, smaller ships toward the transfer station. The Roci, Quinn, Cassius, and Prince of the Face would be a minor threat and could loop down sunward, using the innermost planet as a gravity assist.

There was a way that the whole process was like playing golgo. Judging her shot, how the ball would bounce and spin off the other balls, how the next person would react to that. How each decision changed the state of the table. The Bobbie that lived in the back of her head said: A challenge of intellect, technique, and skill.

Naomi saw how easy it would be to forget that the stakes were people’s lives.

When the Laconian capital was surrounded—ships answering to the underground and the Transport Union at every angle through-out the system—the barrage began. The transfer station was forgotten. Not just long-range missiles, but rocks. Cheap, deadly. Every ship in the group sending nukes and accelerated titanium rods and holds full of gravel into intersecting orbits. Some moved fast, some would take months to arrive at Laconia—which was a message in itself about how long the underground was prepared to draw out the fight. Nothing targeted major population centers, but there was no way for Laconia to know that for sure. To be safe, they had to defend everything.

The barrage kept going, day after day. Rock after rock to intercept. Torpedo after torpedo to shoot down. An endless rain of threats, wearing them down hour by hour by endless hour. That was the third lesson: Playing defense means being endlessly ground down. Someday something will get through.

The Whirlwind stayed in its place, guarding the gravity well over Laconia, but the destroyers ranged farther and farther. When the enemy came too near, Naomi’s fleet scattered like children running from the police. Not everyone escaped. The Tucumcari, a rock hopper retrofitted to fight pirates in Arcadia, caught a torpedo on its drive cone and died in a ball of fire. The Nang Kwak, a private security company stealth ship two generations out of date, didn’t dodge a line of PDC fire. Disabled, it tried to surrender. The Laconian ships destroyed it instead. There were others. A handful. Each of them one too many. And every chance Naomi had to strike back at the enemy, to lure them out and end one or two of them, she let pass. It was the cardinal rule that she sent to every ship, all through the system. Laconian military that came out after them went home intact.

Because that was the final lesson she taught her enemy: It’s safe to chase after us. It’s how you’ll win.

And it was a lie.

The first sign of fresh cheese in the mousetrap was the Bellerophon changing its drive signature. The Donnager-class battleship was burning away from Laconia, heading in the rough direction of the Verity Close. Even from half the system away, the drive plume would have been visible to the naked eye, a faint but moving star.

And then, for a moment, it blinked out.

The Roci and her three escort ships were on the float, skating on the far side of the sun from Laconia. She’d led them in toward the corona until even with pumping spare water onto the ship’s skin and letting it evaporate, the built-up heat was at the edge of tolerance. Even when the temperature was in the error bars of normal use, it baked the resins and ceramic. The air smelled different, and it left Naomi and the rest of the crew jumpy and uncomfortable. But with Laconia’s fighting ships near the planet, they were in a blind spot. Out of sight.

When the Bellerophon’s drive lit back up, it was dirty. Half a minute after that, it went off again. The way an apex predator lured lesser hunters by mimicking the sound of wounded prey, the Bellerophon called out for help. And Naomi’s fleet answered. The Storm, the Armstrong, the Carcassone, and almost a quarter of the other ships started burning on courses that would meet the Bellerophon. The Bellerophon wasn’t halfway to the Verity Close, but the light delay from it to Laconia was still over seventy minutes.

A malfunctioning ship would be interesting to Duarte and his admirals. An escort fleet coming to its aid looked like something more. It looked like a mistake. And an opportunity.

“Come on,” Naomi said.

“Should I start up?” Alex asked.

“Put us at half a g,” Naomi said. Even if it didn’t work, they’d want to be out of here soon. As comms officer, Ian passed the word along to the other ships, and the Roci eased up from beneath her.

Two hours later, the Whirlwind moved. At high burn, she headed out toward the Bellerophon and the gathering escort ships. For anyone who’d seen the Tempest destroy the combined forces back in Sol, it was like seeing a shark darting toward a beach full of toddlers.

Three hours after that, several hunt groups on the other side of the heliosphere started burning in toward Laconia, and the destroyers went on intercept courses, ready for a slice of their own glory.

There was a point long before any battle came that was her window. Not just how long it would take the Whirlwind to get back, but how long it would have to decelerate before it could even start to reduce the distance to Laconia again. And the same for the destroyers. It was a window of time defined by mass and inertia, thrust, and the frailty of the human body. The time it would take even long-range torpedoes to reach them. Naomi ran the numbers, and she knew when they would see her and her little force diving in from sunward. And that it would be too late.

“Alex?”

“Ready when you are,” he said.

“Let’s go.”

The burn was punishing, and it lasted hours. The distance from the sun to Laconia was slightly less than an astronomical unit. If they’d kept the burn going the whole distance, they’d have snapped by Laconia too quickly to see it. The flip came at the halfway point, and the braking burn was just as bad. Worse, because now the planetary defenses had seen them. Torpedoes darted out toward them, and died in the web of four ships’ coordinated PDCs.

The planet itself was beautiful. Blue and white as Earth, with a greenish cast at its edge that was almost pearlescent. Naomi could make out the clouds. A cyclone forming in its southern hemisphere. The jagged, black-green line of its coast where the forests stood. Naomi fought to keep them in focus. The force of the burn was deforming her eyes.

THE WHIRLWIND HAS TURNED. STARTED ITS BRAKING BURN. IS FIRING LONG RANGE

The message was from the sensor ops. One of the new people. She checked it herself all the same and agreed. If this didn’t work now, it wouldn’t work later. This was her only shot. Fingers aching, she sent a message to Ian, suffering in the next couch over.

SEND THE EVACUATION ORDER. EVERYONE GOES FOR THE GATE NOW

She heard him grunt and took it as assent.

Alex shouted, his voice strangled by effort and the g forces pressing at them. “Rail-gun fire. Brace. For. Evade.”

The Roci bucked, lurched. At this distance, the rail-gun fire could still be dodged. The closer they came, the harder that would become. She pulled up the targeting arrays, and the beautiful blue-green sphere sprouted five red lines, as bent as tree limbs. The platforms. The targets.

TARGET ALL FIRE ON THE PLATFORMS

FIRE AT WILL

It was too soon, but only by a little bit. And there was a chance for a lucky shot. Every second they spent in the firing arc of Laconia was another chance to die. Worse, another chance to fail.

INCOMING TORPEDOES FROM THE WHIRLWIND. ETA 140 MINUTES

“Cut the brake,” she shouted. “Do it now.”

The Roci fell onto the float and snapped around 180 degrees, ready to accelerate again. Ready to flee as soon as the enemy was finished. There would only be one run past the planet. If they missed, they lost.

The ship jerked, and Alex took them out of the path of another rail-gun round. The chatter of the PDCs ran through the flesh of the Roci like the ship was talking to itself and it was angry. Naomi’s jaw ached with the tension and fear and the joy. The small, jagged red lines grew a fraction larger.

“Captain?” Ian said. “I have something.”

“Not as helpful as you think,” Naomi snapped. “What do you have?”

“I’m not sure,” Ian said, and passed the comms controls to her monitor. It was an incoming message from the surface of Laconia, coded with an out-of-date underground encryption schema. An evac request.

Amos’ evac request.

“Alex?” she said, and the ship jumped again, slamming her left and then right again, her crash couch whipping like the seat in a carnival ride. “Alex?”

“I see it,” he shouted. He was out of breath. “What do we do?”