Original Work Exiled to Glory (Morningstar I)

Chapter Thirty-Four

“Node Five is a total write-off, like I said,” Harris reported, an hour later. “She’s so badly damaged that the only use we’ll get out of her is melting the remnants down for raw materials, and that will take time we don’t have. Node Four is back online, although I would prefer to pull her out and replace her completely.”

He paused. “The outer hull was hit in several places,” he added. “We were lucky the laser beam wasn’t a few metres lower, as it would have opened several sections to open space and put immense pressure on the command datanet. I’ve got teams patching up the hull now, sir, but we really need a shipyard to repair the outer layer. That’s going to be a weak spot from now until then, and I doubt our patches will survive a direct hit.”

Leo nodded, curtly. “And the internal systems?”

“No major damage,” Harris said. “There were some system crashes, in places, but thankfully the redundancies we worked into the network prevented a failure cascade that could have taken the entire system down. Captain Archibald” – he made a face – “if Captain Archibald had remained in command, and he hadn’t insisted on multiple redundancies, the system might well have crashed, leaving us blind.”

“They knew how to target us,” Leo said. That was worrying. The enemy clearly had at least one source on Daybreak itself, although the intelligence they’d received was also out of date. “That was a planned ambush.”

He took a breath, as his eyes swept the room. Lieutenant Halloran, Boothroyd, Harris and Flower, his de facto senior staff. He was tempted to dismiss both Lieutenant Halloran and Harris to their duties, but he needed them to understand his thinking even if he’d declined to convene a full council of war. He would be well within his rights to do so, yet … no. Better to take the final responsibility, and the blame, on himself.

Besides, I am the commanding officer, he reminded himself. I can be blamed for letting myself be outvoted, even if the council voted the right way.

“I asked Abigail to run the data recording from Breen through every analysis tool in the book,” he said, after a moment. “Her conclusion was that the data was faked. A very good fake, to be fair, and one that would likely have fooled anyone, if they didn’t already have reason to be suspicious. The discrepancies could easily be explained away by the shooting, electronic disruption and the limitations of civilian-grade sensors. We might have been fooled to this day, if we hadn’t flown straight to Eden and discovered there’d been no shooting.”

“No,” Flower agreed. “I took a look at the records. There were no indications that any war had broken out, nothing on sensors or intercepted communications or anything. The war simply did not exist.”

“They lured us into a trap,” Lieutenant Halloran said, flatly. “They knew precisely where to find us and came in for the kill.”

Leo nodded, curtly. The enemy plan had been audacious, but that had – perversely – ensured it was more likely to work. He had never considered that he might be flying straight into a trap, not until it had been far too late. The timing had been close, but … he felt a reluctant flicker of admiration. The planner clearly didn’t have a naval background – any experienced spacer would know just how many things would have to go right for the plan to work, creating a multitude of failure points that would render the entire plan worse than useless- and yet, his thinking had paid off for him. And that meant …

“The Deputy Governor was the one who sounded the alert,” he said. “It was one of his ships that brought the fake message, and that means … what?”

“He’s mad,” Lieutenant Halloran said, flatly. “Three light cruisers might have been able to deal with us, but the entire navy? They could send a battlecruiser squadron out here and those cruisers wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Three light cruisers that we know about,” Flower corrected, mildly. “There could easily be more.”

“And if he’s the one backing the pirates … why?” Leo stared at the display. “He would have been funding the capture and destruction of his own ships, and the murder of his crews …”

“The pirate threat did galvanise his determination to build a defence force,” Flower reminded him. “And it gave him the political capital he needed to convince the governor to sign off on it.”

Leo stared at his hands. Gayle’s father had taken one hell of a risk. Had he thought it was just a matter of time before the government traced the links between the pirates, their fences, and the aristocracy? Had he gambled on killing Leo, and destroying Waterhen, in hopes he could quietly make the rest of the evidence disappear? Or had he just panicked and reacted without thinking? A clerk was dead, seemingly by his own hand … a fall guy? Or was he the link between the pirate fences and their masters? Or …

He looked up. “What is he doing?”

“He may be trying to slow incorporation,” Boothroyd offered. “Or even to try to declare independence.”

“Impossible,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “Daybreak would never stand for it.”

“We’re a very long way from home,” Boothroyd pointed out. “Sure, in theory, a battle squadron or two could be dispatched to give him a spanking, and make it clear he isn’t going to get independence, but in practice …?”

Leo said nothing. He’d been taught Daybreak was willing to pay any price to reunite the human race, but that pledge had limits. The navy had hundreds of commitments, and even if it had ten times the number of starships it would have trouble meeting them. It was quite likely a declaration of independence would go unnoticed, at least for a few years, and doing something about it would take longer. It wasn’t impossible that Daybreak would quietly ignore the problem, perhaps even let it go. Or that a man like Bridgerton would think so.

“Or it could be the tip of a very dangerous iceberg,” Harris added. “What if he has help from outside?”

“Like who?” Leo scowled at the table. “Who would be insane enough …?”

“There’s a hundred autonomous worlds that resent their lack of interstellar independence,” Boothroyd reminded him. “Some have shipyards and fleets of their own. It wouldn’t be that hard for them to quietly hand a few ships over to Bridgerton, if he can crew them, and bury their tracks so thoroughly no one will ever know the truth.

“If he can crew them,” Harris put in. “If.”

“There’s a number of missing techs, remember?” Flower spoke, her voice grim. “There’s also a shortage of trained spacers. Bridgerton could have recruited a number of experienced men and used them to crew his secret fleet, fiddling with the books to make it look perfectly legitimate even if it is mind-bogglingly illegal.”

Leo cursed under his breath. It made sense. Daybreak did have enemies, and some were – unwillingly – part of the ever-expanding empire. If someone was trying to covertly undermine the incorporation of Yangtze, perhaps create a crisis that would soak up the navy’s attention or set a precedent that could be used to secure their own independence …

And the Deputy Governor could not be sure of retaining any power, as the incorporation progressed, he reminded himself. He might decide to gamble everything in a bid to save himself.

He took a breath. “We need to deal with him as quickly as possible,” he said. “There’s no time to go corewards and ask for reinforcements, or even to head to the captured base and round up the rest of the fleet. If he realises his gambit has failed, he will act out of desperation and … do what? What options does he have?”

“He has a fleet,” Harris said. “Two cruisers, at least, and probably more.”

“He could hold Yangtze hostage,” Flower said, flatly. “Or fly into unexplored space. Or simply flee to his patrons.”

“Who will likely kill him, once he has outlived his usefulness,” Boothroyd rumbled.

“Quite.” Leo looked from face to face. “We will jump back to Yangtze. Upon arrival, we will report a catastrophic drive failure that prevented us from completing our mission. I will go straight to the Governor and request his approval for the arrest of Bridgerton and his staff, taking them into custody as quietly as possible. Once they are under arrest, we will secure the planetary defences and start a formal interrogation. If they are prepared to turn state’s evidence ... we can strike a deal.”

He ground his teeth. The matter was going to be intensely political. Governor Brighton wouldn’t want to believe the accusations, because it would make him look like a moron who couldn’t spot a plot brewing right beside him. The planetary government would be confused, unsure of which way to jump; Bridgerton, like his Daybreak counterparts, probably had hundreds of clients scattered through the government, not all known to his rivals. And Daybreak itself might not thank Leo for bringing them a ticking time bomb. The Senate might prefer to bury the matter, rather than risk an outbreak of war. Even if Daybreak won, the conflict would be devastating.

And you don’t want to strike a deal, his thoughts pointed out. You want to make him pay for what he tried to do to your crew, and your girlfriend.

He felt his mood darken. Planetary piracy was unforgivable. Bridgerton had supported murder, looting and rape on an unthinkable scale, and for that there could be no mercy. But if they needed him … Leo wondered, sourly, if he could find a loophole, a way to go back on his word, then dismissed the thought. There was nothing he could do, not without fatally compromising his career. To give his word and then break it would ensure no one would ever trust him again.

“We need to move as quickly as possible,” he said. “How long until we can jump safely?”

“Now, if you don’t mind a bumpy ride,” Harris said. “As long as they don’t get a visual of our hull, we should be able to maintain the deception.”

“Let us hope so,” Leo said. Bridgerton might not be a naval officer, but he had naval officers working for him. Was he smart enough to listen to them? Leo had no idea. “We’ll leave in twenty minutes. That should give us enough time to get the bullshit story straight.”

“There’s another possibility,” Harris said. “We can transfer a jump node to a shuttle and send it to the captured base, rallying what support we can. Just in case.”

Leo shook his head. “Too dangerous,” he said. In theory, a shuttle could be equipped with jump drive; in practice, the tiny craft didn’t have the power reserves for more than a single jump. No matter how precise the calculations, there was always some error and a starship could find itself millions of miles off course – or worse. A starship could recycle the drive and jump again, a shuttle would be dead in space, her crew condemned to a slow and thoroughly unpleasant death. “We’ll send a message when we reach Yangtze.”

“The timing might not work out,” Lieutenant Halloran cautioned. “If we get there too late …”

“Then we’ll run,” Leo said. The timing really would be close. The enemy would need to deal with Eden and then hurry back to Yangtze … or would they hasten to Yangtze first? It would be the right choice … would they know it? If word reached Yangtze before Waterhen … “We will hope for the best, and prepare for the worst. Dismissed.”

The three men left, but Flower stayed in her seat. Leo nodded and waited for the hatch to slip closed before he raised his eyebrows, inviting her to speak. She had been oddly quiet during the meeting, something that bothered him. She normally felt free to speak whenever she wished.

“Here’s an important question for you,” Flower said. “Does Gayle know anything about this?”

Leo hesitated, then shook his head slowly. It seemed unlikely. Gayle was a young aristocratic woman on a planet that expected young aristocratic women to look pretty, accept an arranged match without hesitation, bear the man’s children and spend the rest of her life trying to grow old as slowly as possible. Her father had refused to involve her in his legitimate business, and he doubted he’d take the risk of involving her in a conspiracy against sector incorporation. And they were clearly not close … Gayle had defied her father more than once, when she’d bedded Leo, and if she’d known about the conspiracy she might well have chosen to betray it to the authorities. Leo found it hard to imagine anyone betraying their parents, but his father had died when he’d been young and his mother had never tried to force him into her mould, let alone plan the rest of his life for him. He knew other parents who had been far more inclined to meddle with their child’s life …

“Are you sure?” Flower met his eyes, evenly. “She might know something was up …”

Leo bit down on the urge to make the obvious joke. Gayle had welcomed him into her bed … no, she’d done far more than just open her legs for him. She’d taken him to her mansion, she’d arranged for a night at a lodge … she’d even cooked him pancakes! It was impossible to believe someone would do that much for anyone, unless there was some real feeling driving their actions. Gayle hadn’t had to do anything for him, and …

Flower raised her eyebrows. “Did she try to pump you for information?”

“No,” Leo said, sharply. “She and I just … made love.”

“A woman can make love without any real attraction,” Flower pointed out. “She could have …”

“No,” Leo repeated. “There’s nothing to suggest she’s even remotely involved. Her father wouldn’t have brought her into his gang, unless he thought he had no other choice.”

He shook his head. Gayle was trapped in a social system that penalised her for daring to be born without a penis. She might be kept in a gilded cage, but it was still a cage. He couldn’t blame her for wanting to find a way out, even if that involved getting as close as possible to the ranking naval officer in the system. His heart twisted as he realised that her dreams were likely to be shattered, even if she was officially cleared of any involvement. Daybreak vetted immigrants carefully, particularly ones from newly incorporated worlds. It was vanishingly unlikely Gayle would be allowed to immigrate, even as his wife. And if he married her he might see all hope of advancement vanish like snowflakes in hell.

“I hope you’re right,” Flower said. She shot him a sharp look. “You should know better, now, than to let your manhood do the thinking for you.”

Leo flushed. “She’s not like that.”

“There’s a girl I knew in training,” Flower said. Her voice was reflective, with a hint of coldness that reminded him her body was silk covering steel. “She specialised in giving lonely men what they wanted – sex and companionship – and she was good at it, great even, until the money wore out. They expected her to stay and she didn’t, because it was just a role she played … a role they had forgotten wasn’t real.”

“Poor bastards,” Leo said. He was torn between sympathy and disgust. “Why did they believe it …?”

“Because they wanted to,” Flower said. “And the best lies, the most convincing lies, are the lies the mark wants to believe.”

Leo said nothing for a long moment, then looked up. “I don’t believe she’s involved,” he said, quietly. He had to think hard, to convince himself he wasn’t letting his little head do the thinking. “Yangtze is not a paradise for women. Why would she act against her own best interests?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time women have acted against their interests,” Flower countered. “I could name a dozen worlds where women betrayed themselves. And others where men betrayed themselves, for that matter. You may not understand where her real interests lie, Captain, and she may not either. I know women who have continued to support abusive husbands or fathers, simply because they didn’t know they could escape. Or because there was no escape. You need to be careful.”

“I will,” Leo promised. “But the more people involved, the greater the chance of a leak. I suspect there are only a handful of people in the know, at least on Yangtze. If we can take them all into custody quickly …”

“If,” Flower injected.

“… We might be able to put a stop to their plan and find out who’s backing them,” Leo continued. He knew it was perilous, but it was their only chance to end the matter without a shooting war. “And then we can mop up the remainder of their network at leisure.”

“I hope you’re right,” Flower said. She cocked her head, looking thoughtful. “I do trust you won’t object to me taking some precautions of my own?”

“I won’t,” Leo said. He grinned. “You’d just take them anyway, wouldn’t you?”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” Flower teased. Her lips curved into a smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Watch your back, Leo. Desperate men do desperate things – and he committed himself the moment he sent us into that trap.”

Leo nodded. “I know,” he said, standing. He wanted to be on the bridge for the jump. “But we survived, and if he doesn’t know it …”

“Sure,” Flower said. Her tone hardened, as she made the point again. “If.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Jump completed, Captain,” Abigail said. “I’m sending the planned message now.”

Leo tensed, studying the display as it updated rapidly. There was no sign of the ships that had attacked Waterhen, a few days ago, but that was meaningless. The ships could be cloaked, or hiding behind the planet, or simply powered down so completely they were practically indistinguishable from space rocks. Or holding position a few light hours from the planet, ready to jump in if summoned. The timing was far too close for his peace of mind …

Get down to the planet, convince the Governor to arrest the Deputy Governor and head off any trouble before it’s too late, he thought. He’d scanned case studies and most had agreed that, if the plan was nipped in the bud, the unidentified conspirators would pull their heads in sharply and start supporting the dominant power enthusiastically. The Deputy Governor could not be in an unassailable position, not when he had so many enemies amongst his peers. If we can take him out fast, the rest will swear blind they had nothing to do with him.

“Hold position, well clear of the defences,” he ordered. The planetary defences weren’t on alert, but their passive sensors would be good enough to take aim at Waterhen and lock weapons before they opened fire. “Sergeant Boothroyd, dispatch two men to lay claim to a courier boat and send it to the captured base. We may need additional ships.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leo grimaced as he stood, keying the command for his shuttle to be prepped. The timing really was close. They had bare hours, if that, before the message arrived from Eden … if they hadn’t already lost the race. He’d expected to see the planetary defences bristling with firepower, ready to blow Waterhen to dust, if they had … the message they’d sent should be believable, but the enemy had proven they knew how to fake sensor records and that suggested they knew how to spot a fake too. Would they have time to run the message through their datacores, looking for discrepancies? Or would they believe the message at face value because they wanted to believe it? Leo simply didn’t know.

“Lieutenant Halloran, you have the bridge,” he said. “If I do not return, and the planetary defences grow hostile, you are ordered to proceed directly to the captured base, evacuate both ships and crew, and then head to the nearest naval base. My reports are in the datacore, as are written copies of my final orders.”

Lieutenant Halloran looked reluctant. Leo understood. Ordered to retreat or not, few would be happy with instructions to abandon their commanding officer and it was quite likely the flag officer at the nearest base would look down on Lieutenant Halloran for doing it, even though he had been following orders. Leo had been careful not to suggest Lieutenant Halloran could declare himself Captain, because that would make it easier – much easier – for his decisions to be called into question. Leo hoped the flag officer, whoever it was, would promote Lieutenant Halloran anyway. The man deserved it.

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said, finally. “Good luck.”

Leo took one last look at the display, then headed to the shuttle. Flower was already there, wearing a simple spacer’s outfit and carrying a knapsack slung over one shoulder. Leo nodded tersely to her as he stepped past and into the shuttle, feeling nervous as he took the pilot’s seat. The reports were in his private datapad, detailing everything that had happened since they’d departed Yangtze, but … he had no idea how Governor Brighton would react to the news. Would he act fast, with all the speed and decisiveness Daybreak regarded as de rigour for naval officers and distant administrators, or would he hesitate? Would he admit his own failings, in allowing the plot to develop right under his nose, or would he try to cover up the whole affair to protect his career? Leo hated to admit it, but the latter was at least plausible. He had been sent out so far from Daybreak to get rid of him and there was a certain possibility that Governor Brighton had fallen victim to the same mentality, a possibility underlined by the simple lack of support his superiors had given him. One destroyer and a handful of naval support personnel? It wasn’t anything like enough.

He steered the shuttle into the atmosphere, trying not to think of the SAM batteries he’d seen earlier. They might be going live even now, tracking his shuttle and preparing to fire … he liked to think he could evade, if they launched missiles, but he knew better. A missile could fly from the launcher to the shuttle within seconds, too quickly for him to even register an attack. It might have been safer to try to land outside the city, but that would have raised too many eyebrows. He wished, grimly, that he knew what was really going on below. It would be so much easier if he knew what was waiting for him.

No missiles rose to swat them from the air, as he flew over the city, and no guards awaited them on the landing pad. Flower gave him a quick hug, surprising him, then vanished into the shadows as Leo stood and made his way out the hatch. Gayle stood there, waiting for him. Leo felt a twinge of guilt as she smiled at him, all too aware he was about to upend her life beyond all hope of repair. She would hate him for this. How could she not?

“The Governor is waiting for you,” Gayle said. Her face was artfully bland, but there was a glint in her eye that promised … that promised something that would never happen. Not now. “If you will come with me …”

“Thank you,” Leo managed. He would have preferred someone – anyone – else. “I need to hurry.”

Gayle shot him an odd look as they made their way through the corridors, following a path Leo knew by heart. He wondered, suddenly, what Gayle was actually doing in Government House. It wasn’t as if her father trusted her to serve as a secretary, let alone anything more important. And yet, she’d been there from the start.

He cleared his throat. “Why do you get to hang around Government House?”

“My father has high hopes for my marriage,” Gayle said. “And he thinks he can show me off.”

Leo winced as they reached the office. He supposed it made a certain kind of sense. Governor Brighton was unmarried, and Gayle’s mother had died some time ago, and allowing Gayle to serve as the de facto hostess would let her meet prospective husbands without making it obvious. Hell, she could easily set her cap at the governor himself. He might be old enough to be her father, but what did that matter when a marriage could bring all kinds of rewards for her father and his family? Leo felt a stab of bitter sympathy, mingled with something he didn’t want to look at too closely. No wonder Gayle was so desperate to get out. It was only a matter of time before she was married off, willing or no.

He lowered his voice. “Get out of here,” he said, as quietly as he could. “Quickly.”

Gayle blinked. Leo tapped his lips, then stepped into the governor’s office. Governor Brighton looked as if he’d been roistered out of bed, although it was late morning. Perhaps he’d been in bed anyway … it wasn’t as if the sector governor was commanding a starship or running a major military base, something that demanded he keep to a strict schedule. Leo felt a twinge of contempt, mingled with envy. He’d had to get up at the crack of dawn for most of his life and that hadn’t changed, even when he’d finally been assigned to a starship. The governor didn’t know how lucky he was.

“Captain,” Governor Brighton said. He sounded alert, thankfully. “You said it was urgent?”

Get to the point, Leo translated silently. A maid entered, carrying a tray of coffee and biscuits. And, of course, he’s ordering refreshments.

“This is a matter of urgency,” he said, forcing himself to wait as the maid placed the tray on the desk and retreated as quickly as she’d come. If this was what passed for urgency, he’d hate to see sloth. “We were sold a lie.”

He ran through the whole story as quickly as possible, from the faked report of civil war to the desperate battle above Eden, their daring escape and the inescapable conclusions. The governor listened in silence; Leo couldn’t tell if he was allowing Leo to speak quickly, or to shocked to say a word. His career was going to be tarnished, if it wasn’t already on the wane, and there was a very good chance he’d be summarily dismissed for his failure. Leo would have felt sorrier for him, if he hadn’t known the governor’s laxity had put his ship and crew in terrible danger. They’d been very lucky to survive the ambush, and luckier still to make it back before it was too late.

“You need to suspend Bridgerton at once, and charge him with high treason,” Leo finished, pushing as hard as he dared. “If we can shut him down now …”

Governor Brighton met his eyes. “Are you sure?”

Leo looked back at him, evenly. He understood the scepticism. Bridgerton had a lot to lose, including his life. Funding pirates, funding slaughter on a planetary scale, lying to a naval captain and sending his ship into a deadly trap … it was going to be tricky to decide which charge would top the execution warrant. Bridgerton was playing a very dangerous game and yet … it was hard to believe someone in his corporation was manipulating events to ensure he took the blame. No, it had to be the man at the top.

“Yes, sir,” he said, finally. “There is no other explanation.”

The governor said nothing. Leo fumed inwardly as the silence grew and lengthened, cursing under his breath. They had to act now, before Bridgerton realised what had really happened at Eden. Or that Waterhen’s report of catastrophic drive failure was a tissue of lies from start to finish. Bridgerton was no naval officer, but he had experienced personnel under his command. If one realised the report was bunk, his superior might realise what had actually happened. And then all hell would break loose.

“You have to act now,” Leo said. “This is our one chance to salvage the situation before it is too late.”

The governor looked down. “If you’re wrong …”

“If I’m wrong, I’ll take the blame,” Leo said, although he knew that wasn’t completely true. He was a young officer, not even a formal captain, and there were limits to how much he could be forced to shoulder the blame. He certainly had little authority to force the governor to do anything, against the governor’s better judgement. Governor Brighton could easily find himself in trouble for failing to tell the young officer where to go, if he pushed too hard. “But we have to act now.”

A dull thump echoed through the building. Leo swore, one hand dropping to his sidearm. He was no ground-combat expert, but an explosion that close to Government House spelt trouble. Governor Brighton stood and glanced around, his eyes suddenly very wide. Leo swore under his breath as the terminal started to bleep an urgent message, demanding the governor’s immediate attention. The governor didn’t seem in any state to answer. Leo reached forward and keyed the display.

“Report,” he snapped.

“Sir, we have armed troops investing Government House,” a voice said. Leo didn’t recognise the speaker. One of the handful of support personnel, he guessed. Ice ran down his spine as he realised the governor’s weakness. Most of his personnel were locals. The Deputy Governor could have easily inserted his own people into Government House, from the maid who brought the coffee to the guards on the outer walks. “They’re coming in hard …”

Another dull thump shook the building. The voice cut off abruptly. Leo cursed under his breath, mentally kicking himself for not trying to summon help from the ship earlier. He keyed his communicator, only to hear a hiss of static. The planetary communications network was down and channels were being jammed, cutting him off from his ship. By the time Waterhen realised something was wrong, they’d be dead – or worse. Bridgerton really was crossing the line. Whatever he had in mind, the last thing he’d want – or need – would be a living governor and naval officer contradicting whatever bullshit he said.

Governor Brighton staggered as the lights failed, the terminal – and everything else – going dead. The assault force had taken out the power – or, more likely, simply shut it off while they took control. It was the smartest thing to do, Leo thought. They couldn’t be sure there were no surprises loaded into the datacores, no internal defences that weren’t included on the official reports. Safer to shut everything down and then insect the datacores thoroughly before bringing them back online.

The governor sounded unsteady. “What is happening?”

“He’s launching a coup,” Leo snapped. His mind raced, searching for options. There weren’t many. Bridgerton had gifted Government House to Daybreak … he knew the interior as well as he knew his own mansion, and he’d probably ensured the assault team knew it too. There were no hiding places, no panic rooms … even if there were, the enemy would know their location too. There weren’t many loyalist troops and they were heavily outnumbered, if they weren’t already dead. “We have to move.”

He grabbed the governor’s arm and half-dragged him to the door. Government House was big, but not that big. He was surprised the enemy troops weren’t already thundering up the stairs to nap them. The governor seemed too stunned to move properly … Leo found himself seriously considering abandoning the old man, before telling himself not to be stupid. His superiors would not be pleased if he did. A half-baked plan surfaced in his mind … if they could get out, before it was too late, they could head straight for the spaceport, steal a shuttle, and blast their way into orbit. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the only one that came to mind. Boothroyd could have headed into the countryside, and Flower could have blended into the local population; Leo knew, without false modesty, that he couldn’t do either. Their only hope was getting to the ship and fleeing corewards.

And coming back with a battle squadron or two, he thought, drawing his sidearm as he opened the door. Whatever happened, Waterhen would escape. He refused to think about any other possibility. The enemy had gotten lucky with their first ambush and they wouldn’t be able to repeat the trick a second time. Their victory will not last long.

He peered outside, listening carefully. A low rumble was echoing from below, but the corridors on the upper levels were deserted. A trick …? It wasn’t as if they had any easy way out of the mansion. Most administrative buildings had an aircar pad on the roof, but Government House had been built before aircar tech had reached Yangtze and the mansion had never been modified to take them. Gayle had landed her aircar outside the building. A rush of something ran through his mind, a fear for her that was surprisingly strong. If her father became the unquestioned ruler of the planet, at least until Daybreak sent a fleet to teach him a lesson, what would he do to her? Somehow, Leo didn’t think he’d settle for grounding her for the next fifty years …

Someone moved, ahead of them. Leo raised his sidearm, then relaxed as Gayle stepped into view. Her eyes were wide and fearful, her hand was out of sight, her voice …

“What’s happening?”

Leo glanced back. The noise from below was getting louder. He swung around, preparing to sell his life dearly. There was no point in trying to surrender, not when Bridgerton’s only hope of getting away with his crazy plan involved killing both Leo and the governor and blaming it on pirates. There weren’t any other options for him either. In theory, he could condition Leo to lie his ass off; in practice, such conditioning rarely held up under sustained interrogation. Leo would never be the same – mental conditioning left scars and often triggered breakdowns, probably rendering him unfit for future service – but the navy would avenge his living death.

“Your father is doing something stupid,” he said, with what he felt was reasonable understatement. He’d told Gayle to leave. Why hadn’t she left? His mind raced … perhaps they could use her to get to the aircars, or find a way out of the mansion known only to family. Or … he wondered, suddenly, if he should tie her up and let her swear blind he’d knocked her down, to keep her father from blaming her for their escape. “I told you to …”

He looked at her and flinched as he saw the stunner in her hand. Gayle was pointing it at him …?

“Gayle, I …”

Leo started to turn, to bring up his sidearm before his mind had quite registered what was happening, but it was too late. Gayle pulled the trigger and there was a flash of blue-white light, his muscles locking painfully as his awareness started to fade. Gayle had betrayed him, betrayed the governor, betrayed the entire world and sector for her abusive father …

And then he saw it, too late.

Gayle stood over him, her face cold and hard, and pointed the stunner right at his face. Leo couldn’t move, couldn’t speak …

There was another flash of light. The world went away.

 

Chapter Thirty-Six

Leo awoke, in pain.

His head hurt, bright lights stabbing daggers into his mind. He groaned in pain, his memories a jumbled mess. It was hard to think clearly, hard to remember anything … for a moment, he honestly wondered if he’d dreamed everything, from his affair with Fleur to his final, perhaps fatal, mistake. It wasn’t impossible. He’d drunk himself silly twice as a young man and spent two days in a VR chamber, lost in an illusion that had been horrifically seductive even though he’d known it was an illusion. Perhaps he’d dreamed becoming a starship commander, perhaps he’d dreamed …

The pain grew stronger, yanking him back to reality. He was sitting against a wall, his hands cuffed behind his back. His legs were shackled together … the remnants of the illusion vanished, banished behind a wave of head-shattering pain. And yet … a stab of horror rushed through him as he realised Gayle had betrayed him, had been betraying him all along. He’d wondered how she’d been able to bring him to her mansion without her father knowing … the man had known all along. His earlier thoughts returned to mock him. Gayle had had orders to seduce him and he’d fallen for it, so completely he’d never thought twice. Damn it … he’d seen evidence she was smarter, and far more capable, than she looked and he’d never thought it might be proof she was playing him. His head twanged as he recalled how she’d … he wanted to scream as the agony banished his thoughts. Gayle had fucked him in every sense of the word and he hadn’t had the slightest idea, not until it was far too late.

And you were the one who told her something was up, his thoughts pointed out. They sounded like Flower. She didn’t leave Government House. She called her fucking dad instead.

His mood darkened as he tried to clear his head. Gayle was young and pretty, raised on a world that saw women as legal children. No one took them seriously … she’d been there all along, smiling charmingly as she listened to everything, filing it away in her rattrap of a mind. Her father was innovative enough to actually come up with a plan to rebel … how had Leo not wondered, he asked himself, if the asshole was also innovative enough to make use of his daughter? It was the one thing his peers would never expect. And Gayle had played her role to perfection.

And you come from a world where men and women are equals, Flower’s voice pointed out, snidely. You really should have called this one.

He forced his eyes to open and looked around the cell. It was bare and barren, illuminated by a single light cell embedded in the concrete ceiling. The door was solid metal, without even a hatch … Leo guessed there were microscopic sensors embedded in the wall, allowing the prison guards to monitor him without making it obvious. Not, he acknowledged sourly, that there was anything he could do. He was cuffed, chained to the walls, and his uniform was torn and ripped, suggesting his captors had searched him thoroughly. The bastards hadn’t even bothered to buy him dinner first! The thought made him smile, although it wasn’t really funny. If they had any sense, they’d dispose of him immediately.

They have to know how much I know, he told himself. Gayle had been in Government House – and so had a bunch of servants – and it was quite possible the entire discussion with the governor had been overheard. And they have to take out the ship …

The door rattled. Leo looked up, bracing himself. He’d been trained in counter-interrogation techniques, and he’d been immunised to the most common truth drugs, but his instructors had cautioned him that everyone, eventually, could be made to talk. Pirates might use implants to prevent interrogation; the navy regarded such implants as dangerous, liable to fail if they mistook a routine situation for torture. The idea of accidentally trapping his hand in an airlock was bad enough, but the concept of his implant thinking he was being tortured and killing him was worse. And yet … in hindsight, he almost wished he’d requested an implant. It would at least have let him spite his captors one final time.

He allowed himself a dark smile as Bridgerton stepped into the cell. “The conditions in this hotel are just disgraceful,” he said, tauntingly. If he was lucky, his captors would kill him quickly. “You won’t be getting any stars from me.”

“Do you think that’s amusing,” Bridgerton asked, “or are you just trying to get on my nerves?”

His voice was calm and composed, a far cry from the snooty man Leo had met only a few short months ago. Leo studied him narrowly. Bridgerton didn’t seem to think he’d lost, even though his original plan had started to sink and he was now trying to desperately patch up the leaks before the remainder of the plan sank without trace. It was hard to be sure. Bridgerton’s daughter had played her role so perfectly she hadn’t slipped, not once. For all Leo knew, she’d learnt her trade from her father. Their relationship was clearly better than he’d been told.

Gayle played on my prejudices, he reflected sourly. And I never even saw it coming.

“Your daughter got on me, a lot,” Leo said, instead. He tried to sound like a braggart, like a young fool he’d known who’d said much the same in front of the girl’s father and been knocked down seconds later. “Do you want the gory details?”

Bridgerton ignored him. “You have two choices,” he said. “You can join us, or you can die.”

Leo kept his face under tight control. “Don’t you mean join us and die?”

“Gayle is quite fond of you,” Bridgerton said. He sounded as if he were telling the truth, but Leo didn’t believe him. “If you choose to join us, if you choose to work with us, we can make arrangements for the two of you to share a future.”

Leo met his eyes. “And what sort of future do you expect, when the navy arrives to give you a thermonuclear spanking?”

Bridgerton looked irked. “Must you be so crude?”

“No,” Leo said. “Answer my question.”

“The navy will arrive to discover Waterhen has been destroyed by pirate ships, after a brave fight against overwhelming odds,” Bridgerton said. “Those pirate ships will attack Yangtze and kill the governor, only to be destroyed in turn by the planetary defence force. It will be expanded to protect the sector, allowing us to apply for autonomous status within the empire …”

Leo blinked. “Are you sure that crazy plan is going to work?”

“You tell me,” Bridgerton said. “What do you think?”

Leo forced himself to consider the issue coldly and logically. The idea of the sector taking care of its own defence would certainly appeal to the overstretched navy, particularly as the sector would be vying for autonomous status rather than complete independence. There wasn’t much investment in the sector yet, ensuring there’d be no voices back home with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. The combination of a planetary defence force with a proven track record – easy, when one controlled the pirate fleets and could steer them straight into an ambush – and a government more than willing to join the empire on reasonable terms might just be enough. Might.

“The plan is insane,” he said. “Do you think you can fool the Senate?”

“Daybreak is umpteen billion light years away,” Bridgerton pointed out. An exaggeration, but it would still take weeks for word to reach Daybreak and months for any reply, or investigators, to reach Yangtze. “Why would they care enough to investigate, when we are giving them everything they want? We’ll even be reaching out to the big interstellars, asking for investment on reasonable terms …”

Leo shivered. He’d assumed the idea was to declare independence. But …

“You did all this - you killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, you sent my ship into an ambush, you sacrificed your daughter’s maidenhead - just for better status?” It was hard to keep his voice under control. He wasn’t sure if Gayle had been a virgin or not when he’d met her … probably not, all things considered. She’d been a little too experienced, in hindsight, and a little less nervous about sexual contact than a virgin would have been. “You did all that, for this?”

Bridgerton leaned forward. “Do you think us blind?”

Leo blinked. For the first time, there was real anger in Bridgerton’s tone.

“Do you think we don’t know what’s happening, corewards? Do you think we don’t know what happens to worlds that enter your empire, without any way to defend themselves or assume a limited local independence? Do you think we don’t know how those worlds are looted, how their local governments are neutralised and their businesses absorbed by interstellar corporations? Do you think we don’t know …?”

His voice hardened. “The best we could hope for, if we were lucky, is several decades of exploitation before we stood as equals, in an empire in which some worlds are more equal than others. At worst … we would be little more than slaves, drained of our most innovative and capable youths and left behind, as the empire expands further and further into unexplored space. When we were told we were being incorporated, that we had to pay taxes without any sort of representation, we sent agents corewards to determine what fate we might expect, if nothing changed. It was not an encouraging result. Everything I built, everything my ancestors built, would be absorbed, and we would lose everything.”

He met Leo’s eyes. “Would you not gamble on one final roll of the dice, if the alternative was losing everything?”

Leo looked back at him. “How many died on Morse? How many others did you condemn to slavery? How many young woman are going to be raped, time and time again, until they die; how many young men are doomed to labour as indentured workers, or serve on pirate ships where they will be killed by their masters? Or executed by the navy, for collaboration? How many children were sent to hell, because of you?”

He scowled. “You have a mansion,” he said. “You have everything – and you’re afraid of losing it. But everyone else doesn’t have the safety and security you take for granted, or the inheritance you think you’ll lose. How many are dead because of you?”

“And how many would be condemned to permanent slavery within your empire,” Bridgerton asked, “if we allow the incorporation to proceed without a fight?”

Leo snorted. “There’s a planet which was governed pretty poorly,” he said. He’d forgotten the world’s name, but the basic theme had been repeated time and time again. “The rebels had a very real cause, when they rose against the government, yet they were often so shockingly abusive to their own people that they became worse than the government they fought. You have the same problem, don’t you? You sentenced thousands of people to death for your cause, because you told yourself you had no choice.”

Bridgerton stepped backwards. “Consider this your only chance,” he said. “Join us. Help us fake Waterhen’s destruction. Or instead, support us in our fight against the pirate fleet and endorse our quest for autonomy as the ranking naval officer in the sector. You and Gayle could be happy together …”

“No.”

Leo spoke without thinking, but he knew he wouldn’t change his mind. There was no way in hell he’d betray his ship and crew, particularly when they had an excellent chance of getting away, even if they had to leave him behind. He wasn’t going to sacrifice them to save his life … and besides, he had no doubt Bridgerton was lying. Once he had outlived his usefulness, he would be murdered, his body dumped in an unmarked grave. Bridgerton might think Leo could endorse his bid for autonomy, but … Leo knew better. He was only a Lieutenant-Commander. Daybreak would ask some pretty searching questions when his superiors got the message and …

The irony, he reflected sourly, was that if Captain Archibald had followed orders, Bridgerton would have found him very useful indeed. He had the connections, and the rank, to ensure his endorsement wasn’t questioned so thoroughly. It would be politically embarrassing for his superiors to even try. And his tastes … Leo could easily imagine Bridgerton offering the older man everything he wanted, filming the affair from every possible angle, and then using it to blackmail him. Leo doubted Captain Archibald would care, but his superiors might. Daybreak was pretty lax about such things, as long as they were done between consenting adults in private, yet there were limits. If half the stories were true, Captain Archibald had been pressing against the limits for years.

“If you refuse, it will happen without you,” Bridgerton pointed out. “You can save your life and crew and …”

“No,” Leo repeated. He threw himself forward and had the satisfaction of seeing the older man jump, before the chains yanked Leo back. “I won’t betray my ship and crew.”

Bridgerton sighed. “You Daybreakers insist you are reuniting the human race,” he said, flatly. “And maybe you are, except you are exploiting the worlds too weak to defend themselves and constraining the worlds that can push back. You tell us you are trying to prevent another war, but in truth you’re making a second war inevitable.”

Leo looked back at him. “Do you think your allies will not throw you under the falling rocks when the navy comes to deal with you?”

“If this works, we will have the freedom we need to survive Daybreak’s expansion,” Bridgerton told him. “And if it doesn’t … well, you won’t be around to gloat.”

He stepped back and left the chamber, closing the door behind him. Leo sagged in his chains, all too aware the older man was right. There was no way out, not now. He’d blundered twice and doomed himself … he told himself, firmly, that Waterhen would escape, and alert the navy, and that his death would be avenged. Bridgerton would die, of course, and Gayle would spend the rest of her life on a penal world, along with all the other conspirators. He didn’t care how many secret allies they had, there was no way they could obtain or crew a fleet that could stand up to a battle squadron. The navy would send a squadron or two – if only for a couple of months – and that would be the end. Bridgerton would die, unless he fled. And his allies would be sure to cut his throat, once he became a useless loose end.

The door opened again. Gayle stepped into the room.

Leo looked up, gritting his teeth. Gayle looked warm and welcoming and seductive and … he bit his lip hard, cursing himself for letting his little head get himself into trouble again. He’d thought the pirate raid on Yangtze was odd – it had to have been faked – and if Gayle had reported his words to her father, then they might have decided that he’d outlived his usefulness. And if they managed to delay the investigation into the dead clerk …

Gayle knelt facing him, tilting her body to show the top of her breasts. Leo felt a rush of heat and forced himself to ignore it. Now he knew, he could see all the little signs of manipulation, all the hints that Gayle wasn’t what she claimed to be. He kicked himself, mentally, for feeling sorry for her. She had never been in any real danger, not when she was far more capable than ninety percent of the population. Her husband might inherit everything, but it would be his wife calling the shots. The poor sap wouldn’t even know it.

“Leo,” she said. “I know you’re angry …”

“Fuck off,” Leo managed. It was hard to think straight when she was so close, her scent filling his nostrils … it was all he could do to bite his lip a second time. “You betrayed me.”

“For the good of this world,” Gayle said.

“They always say that,” Leo pointed out. “They’re very good at rationalising everything, at coming up with arguments and excuses to justify doing what they want to do. For the greater good, they say, pretending that the greater good doesn’t involve more money or power for themselves.”

“Daybreak does the same,” Gayle countered.

“Daybreak is generally very good at ensuring the smart people rise to the top,” Leo said. His patron had an entire stable of clients who made him proud – and he was far from the only one. One day, Leo himself would have a small army of clients too … assuming he survived the next few days. “Your system locks out women, and everyone who didn’t choose the right parents.”

Gayle stood, showing her long tanned legs. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” she said. “I …”

“Let me go,” Leo said. It was worth a try. He could write the report to suggest Gayle had been an innocent pawn, rather than an active participant in treason. It wasn’t as if anyone would look too closely, once the plot had been headed off. “You could come to Daybreak with me and …”

“No,” Gayle said. The assurance in her voice surprised him, although he supposed it shouldn’t. Daybreak was far from perfect, but it was his world. “This is my world. And I will do whatever I must to defend it.”

She stepped back. “Goodbye, Leo,” she added. There was a hitch in her voice … Leo told himself, firmly, that it was just more manipulation. “We won’t meet again.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Seven

It was hard, almost impossible, to keep track of time.

Leo had always prided himself on his temporal awareness – it was a skill he’d sharpened at the Academy – but it was still difficult to be sure how much time had passed. He thought he’d slept … had he? The cell was presumably airtight … the guards could have pumped knock-out gas into the air, if they wished, or simply let the remnants of the drugs they’d fed him work their way through his system. His arms and legs ached from the cuffs, and from being trapped in the same position for hours on hours; he wondered, numbly, if they’d simply abandoned him to a slow and agonising death by starvation. He hadn’t eaten much before flying to the planet and nothing since then, and even if they’d fed him a nutrient injection it wouldn’t be enough to keep him going indefinitely. Perhaps they’d just let him die, then fill the cell with concrete. His body would never be found.

And their mad scheme might just work, he thought, grimly. If they convince Daybreak they’re telling the truth …

He tried to think, endlessly gaming out the ways it could go if – when – news reached Daybreak. If they managed to take out Waterhen … he swallowed hard, unwilling to even consider the possibility. He’d thought the captured base to be in a secret location, but in hindsight he’d been dead wrong. The bad guys had funded the damn base … hell, they’d probably noted its location and then erased it from the records. Of course they knew where it was. They’d probably sent their ships to destroy it, either through long-range missile fire or simply triggering a concealed self-destruct charge. It was far from impossible. Leo had ordered the base searched thoroughly, but it was quite possible something had been missed. And that meant …

Despair howled at the back of his mind, despite his training. He’d fucked up badly, and now he was going to die, and all he could do was cling to the hope his ship would abandon him and flee corewards before it was too late. His crew might not have wanted to serve under him, when he’d first taken command, and they would have been more than human if they hadn’t had doubts, but they were his now. It would be bitterly ironic if they died because they refused to abandon him … he swallowed hard, trying to convince himself that his crew would obey his orders. It was harder than he’d thought. They would happily abandon Captain Archibald in a heartbeat, but him?

He swallowed, hard. He’d never really thought he could die, no matter how many training simulations had ended in death and destruction. The idea of an enemy starship scoring a direct hit that took him out was as unthinkable as spontaneous human combustion, yet … he was helpless, chained to the wall and locked into a cell, free only to wait for death. He had no idea where he was and his communicator had been taken from him … hell, he had no idea how long it had been since his capture. He closed his eyes, trying to think of his mother and his sisters. Would they mourn his death? Would they get to see his name emblazoned on the Roll of Honour? Or would the Navy be quietly relieved he was gone.

The door rattled. Leo braced himself. If he had to die, he would spit in their eye before they shot him in the head. Two guards entered, wearing loose suits and helmets that hid their faces. Leo told himself they were scared, unwilling to be recognised for fear they would be arrested and punished for mistreating a Daybreaker. It had happened before and it would happen again, a local government hastily throwing its personnel under the bus to avoid being punished itself. The thought cheered him, even as he prepared for death. The two men were doomed. Their superiors would probably kill them to hide the evidence, or hold then prisoner until they knew if their gamble had worked – or if they would have to surrender the killers to save their homeworld from a far darker fate.

“Captain,” the leader hissed. Leo gaped. Flower? “We’re getting you out of here.”

Leo swallowed hard, feeling a rush of hope as Flower unpicked the cuffs with a device he didn’t recognise and helped him to his feet. His legs felt stiff and unsteady, nearly cramping as they staggered towards the door and out into the corridor. The air outside smelt different … he guessed he’d been fed some kind of gas, even if it wasn’t intended to knock him out. He stumbled along – he hadn’t felt so clumsy in years – as Flower and her companion brought up the rear, taking care to keep him upright. The entire complex seemed deserted … Leo was torn between relief and anger that they wouldn’t have a chance to take out the rebel leadership. If Bridgerton and Gayle were both killed, it was possible the entire plot would fall apart. If.

“This way,” Flower said. “It won’t take them long to realise what we’ve done.”

Leo winced as he saw the tube, leading into the darkness. He wasn’t claustrophobic – years in the Academy had cured him of any such tendency – and yet, the interior seemed extremely thin compared to a starship’s maintenance tubes. The lack of light didn’t help and … he gritted his teeth and forced himself to crawl into the tube, cursing under his breath as he felt the tube start to incline upwards. If he was any judge, at some point the tube would turn into a vertical shaft and … he silently thanked his instructors for their endless climbing drills as he saw the ladder, hanging down from the stars above. The shaft was so smooth it would be impossible to climb alone, which explained the lack of guards, but with the rope ladder … the aches and pains grew worse as he scrambled up, nearly falling twice before reaching the top and flopping into the open air. The shaft was half-hidden in foliage, the lid opened and latched firmly into place. Flower and her companion joined him a second later, the latter pulling back his hood to reveal Boothroyd. The ship hadn’t left!

It should have, Leo’s thoughts pointed out. If they disobeyed orders …

“We don’t have time for a chat,” Flower said. “We have to hurry.”

She untied the rope ladder and let it fall, then latched the lid back into place. It would hide the evidence, at least until someone searched the tubes. Leo had no idea how long it would take for the enemy to realise how they’d made their escape, but it hardly mattered. Flower gripped his arm, letting him lean on her as they started to walk. The foliage rose up around them, making their path difficult to see. Leo hoped the enemy sensors weren’t good enough to pick them out against the background.

“How …” His voice felt rusty, a strange taste staining his lips as he spoke. “How did you find me?”

“Corrupted a few people, asked a few questions,” Flower said. “Officially, Governor Brighton was seriously injured by a pirate revenge attack and his deputy has taken control, at least until the sector governor recovers.”

“Which he won’t,” Boothroyd put in.

“No,” Flower agreed. “The Deputy has declared martial law and put troops on the streets to keep the peace. Some of his backers have come out in force, but a lot of others are sitting on their hands, waiting to see who comes out on top. They’ll do as little as possible for as long as they can get away with it.”

“Charming,” Leo muttered. “Where was I?”

“An underground bunker, not mentioned in any of the official files,” Flower said, curtly. “It’s positioned under a corporate headquarters, and the main entrance is buried under the basement. Their security was quite good, too good. They were planning this for quite some time.”

“They’re planning to beg for better status,” Leo said. “How can we get back to the ship?”

“I have half a plan,” Boothroyd said. “But we need to get to the shuttle first.”

Leo looked up. The sky was dark, but he could see the first traces of the approaching dawn. Something moved in the darkness … he recalled Gayle talking about dangerous animals and shuddered, feeling naked and defenceless in his tattered uniform. Had she been lying about that too, or was she smart enough to save her lies until they really counted? He feared the former. Gayle was smart, and a smart person would certainly realise the dangers of being caught in a simple – and easy to disprove – lie. It would certainly make it harder for anyone to believe a more important lie.

“How far is the shuttle?”

“Not that far,” Boothroyd assured him. “But we do have to move.”

Leo gritted his teeth and forced himself to keep going, despite the aches and pains. The Academy had insisted in regular exercise, making the cadets run a marathon every two weeks, and yet it hadn’t been anything like enough. He wanted to go back in time and punch his younger self in the nose for whining about the races, instead of realising it was important to be fit and healthy for when the time came to escape a bunch of hunters. He wondered, suddenly, if he’d change more than just that, if he could go back in time; it would save his past self a great deal of trouble, he reflected sourly, if he knew not to get involved with Fleur. But he knew himself too well to think he would listen to any warning …

The sun rose slowly, banishing the cold. Leo felt sweat prickling down his back as he kept going, his thoughts fading as he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, again and again. Flower didn’t seem particularly bothered by the walk and Boothroyd was surprisingly cheerful, although his eyes kept flickering across the skies as if he expected to see enemy aircraft hunting for them. Leo feared they’d see nothing, until the first aircar arrived. The navy had drones that were little bigger than his hand, too small to be spotted with the naked eye, and he dared not assume the locals didn’t have anything comparable. The tech was hardly unique, certainly not exclusive to Daybreak. They could be being tracked right now and they wouldn’t know, at least until the enemy landed on top of them.

He nearly walked right into the shuttle as the foliage parted to reveal a clearing, and a shuttle hidden under camouflage netting. Flower opened the hatch and helped him into the tiny craft, the pilot looking up with relief as Leo stumbled into a chair. Flower ran a medical sensor over him, her face relaxing slightly as the scan revealed nothing threatening. Leo knew he’d be sore for a long time to come, but there shouldn’t be any permanent damage.

“Link to the ship, get the plan underway,” Boothroyd ordered the pilot. “Captain? Are you alright?”

“Gayle fucked us.” It was hard to get the words out, particularly to the person who had raised doubts about his girlfriend, but he had no choice. “She was working with her father all along.”

Boothroyd whistled. “And to think the worst a girl has ever done to me was to sleep with my superior officer, back in the day.”

Flower shot him a sharp look, then looked at Leo. “Told you so.”

“Yeah.” Leo conceded the point, reluctantly. “I should have paid more attention.”

He stared down at his hands as the shuttle hummed to life. Gayle had been so much like … like him. He’d thought her ambitious, he’d thought her determined to escape her confining life … how much had been a lie? She could have sided with him, or she could have taken passage to Daybreak, or even joined a merchant crew … she was smart enough to learn quickly and wealthy enough to convince a captain to put up with an untrained crewman, long enough for her to learn the ropes. Hell, she could probably take the classes on Yangtze and then run … he shook his head. It just didn’t make sense. Even if she would be the power behind the throne, there would always be a certain sense of insecurity.

She’s a patriot, he reminded himself. Her homeworld might not be good to her, but it is still hers.

“We have incoming,” the pilot snapped. “Time to go.”

The shuttle lurched, then jumped into the sky. Leo gritted his teeth as the gravity field shifted, trying not to think about the orbital weapons platforms high overhead. If they were aimed at the planet, instead of deep space, it would be easy for them to pick off the shuttle before the pilot even knew his craft was under attack. There was no reason they couldn’t be rotated … a series of dull thumps echoed through the hull as the shuttle released flares, making it harder for the enemy to get a solid lock. Leo wondered, sourly, just what was coming after them. Aircars? Jet aircraft? Hypersonic flyers? The latter would be a real problem, at least until the shuttle cleared the atmosphere. He didn’t think the locals had bought any, but it was impossible to be sure. They’d bought and deployed a small fleet!

“Missed us,” the pilot said. “We’re heading out now …”

Leo glanced at Boothroyd. “What about the weapons platforms?”

“If everything has gone according to plan, the ship should have taken out the control network,” Boothroyd said. “If not, we’re about to die.”

Leo grimaced as the gravity field twisted again, marking their departure from the planet’s gravity well. He half-expected a laser beam to blast them to dust – the enemy sensors were too good, something else that should have attracted attention – but he relaxed, slightly, as the seconds slowly turned into minutes. The enemy would not have willingly let them go, not after everything they’d done. They were safe, now they were beyond targeting range …

Unless those ships turn up, he reminded himself. What happened to them?

“We’ll be back on the ship shortly,” Flower said. “You need a doctor.”

Leo made a face. “Was there any sign of the enemy fleet?”

“Nothing,” Boothroyd said. “A handful of freighters came and went, but no warships.”

“One of those vessels could have been carrying a message,” Leo mused. “And there’s no way to be sure of just where they were going.”

He scowled, his mind racing. They’d damaged one enemy warship, but the other two should still be jump-capable. He wanted to believe they’d taken more damage than he’d thought, yet it was dangerous to assume anything of the sort and besides, the enemy had had plenty of time to make repairs. His tutors had cautioned him about believing something because he wanted to believe it, a warning that had made little sense until now. He’d let Gayle seduce him because he’d wanted to believe in her … ice ran down his spine. They’d seen three light cruisers, but that didn’t mean that was all the enemy had …

The shuttle docked. Leo allowed Flower to help him to sickbay, where the doctor poked and prodded at Leo and finally pronounced him fit for duty. Leo put up with it as he tried to assess the situation, and decide what he should say to Lieutenant Halloran. It was a difficult question. Technically, Lieutenant Halloran had disobeyed orders, but it had worked out in his favour and the navy rewarded officers who showed initiative. And besides, he had also saved Leo’s life. It would be churlish to log a formal reprimand … or enter anything into the log.

“You should be careful,” Doctor Yin said. “I purged your blood as best as I could, but there were traces of various drugs in your bloodstream and not all worked their way out of your system.”

Leo frowned. “What kind of drugs?”

“One appears a mild sedative, the kind of pill they give passengers who are nervous to clamber onto a shuttle,” Yin said. “The other four appear to be light interrogation drugs, all effectively useless given your immunity. My guess is that they were testing just how far your immunity went, as you don’t appear to have been given enough to have any real effect beyond sleepiness. It’s hard to be sure, of course, but they don’t seem to have pushed it as far as they could.”

“Testing to see what I could take,” Leo said. “Did they put me to sleep more than once?”

“You were a prisoner for three days,” Flower said. There was no condemnation in her voice, but that only made him feel worse. If he’d listened to her, he would have been spared much trouble. “You probably slept without being aware of it.”

“With the right regime of drugs, that would be quite possible,” Doctor Yin added. “You should be fine now, but I’d recommend a few hours of rest before you resume command.”

Leo shook his head. The ships he’d summoned from the captured base should be arriving shortly, giving him enough mobile firepower to counterattack and unseat the new government before it took root. If he were lucky, he could get the fence-sitters to commit themselves; if not, he could use precision bombardment to take out the HQ and force the rest of the rebels to surrender. It wasn’t a very detailed plan, but it would suffice …

The shipboard alarms howled. “Captain to the bridge! I say again, Captain to the bridge!”

Leo tapped the wall-mounted terminal. “This is the captain,” he said. It felt good to say that again. “Report.”

“Sir, an enemy warship has just jumped into the system,” Lieutenant Halloran snapped. “And she’s a heavy cruiser!”

 

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Leo made it to the bridge in record time and practically threw himself into his chair.

The enemy vessel was clearly visible on the display, plunging towards Yangtze with clear – and deadly – intent. No one charged at a planet like that unless they had very bad intentions indeed, and intended to carry them out without delay. Leo cursed under his breath as he assessed the situation. Bridgerton might be on that ship or he might not – there was no way to be sure unless he opened communications – but he might intend to cover his tracks by destroying the entire world. Did he want to bombard the planet, relying on the devastation to take out all the evidence? It was about the only move left to him, unless he wanted to vanish into unexplored space or change his name and take refuge on a primitive and largely isolated world. Leo didn’t want to believe it, but there were no other options. Bridgerton didn’t strike him as a man inclined to give up easily, no matter how bad the situation had become.

And Gayle might have other ideas, Leo thought. In hindsight, Gayle and he had a lot in common. Who’s really calling the shots on that ship? Gayle? Her father? Or their backers?

“She reads out as a heavily-modified Titan, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “Her active sensors are a generation behind ours, and I cannot get a good read on her weapons array.”

Leo keyed his console, checking the files. The Titan class was nearly two hundred years old, but – like the earlier light cruisers – had been designed for refits and modifications to keep them current. The enemy ship might not be a match for a modern heavy cruiser – Leo was sure of it – and her weapons might not be as modern as Waterhen’s, yet she carried enough firepower to more than make up for any technical disadvantages. Leo felt his heart sink as the enemy active sensors swept across his hull, leaving him feeling disturbingly naked as the enemy locked onto his hull. Cold logic told him to retreat, to concede defeat and fall back to the nearest naval base, but it would be a colossal breach of trust. Daybreak had sworn to protect the sector and he would sooner die, than turn tail and run.

“Missile separation,” Lieutenant Halloran snapped. “I say again, missile separation!”

“Stand by point defence,” Leo ordered. The enemy was firing at extreme range … they’d be lucky, very lucky, if their drives lasted long enough to get the missiles into postion to target Waterhen. His eyes narrowed in confusion – and alarm. If whoever was in command of that ship knew what he was doing, he had to know he was just wasting missiles … or was he? A nasty thought crossed his mind. “Confirm their target.”

Lieutenant Halloran swore out loud. “Sir, vector tracking indicates they’re targeted on the planet!”

Leo gritted his teeth. A ballistic missile had about as much chance of hitting a moving target as he had of being elected consul for the year, but the planet couldn’t evade a missile any more than it could be sure of shooting them all down before they reached the atmosphere. The bastards were holding the entire planet hostage, pinning him down … and his window for intercepting the missiles was closing rapidly. Once they burned out their drives and went ballistic, they’d be near-impossible to find until it was far too late. And he had to stop them.

“Helm, move to intercept,” Leo ordered. Their time was very short. Missiles tended to randomise their vectors in the last seconds before their drives burnt out, tiny changes on an interstellar scale but more than enough to make them very difficult to locate and destroy. “Tactical, take the missiles out as quickly as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said.

“And raise the planetary defences,” Leo added. He suspected the bad guys had already taken down the network from the inside, adding to the confusion Waterhen had caused during his rescue, but it had to be tried. “Tell them to go live, and prepare to defend their world.”

His mind raced as Lieutenant Halloran opened fire, picking off a handful of targets. Just who – or what – were they facing? How many locals would be comfortable with the idea of nuking their own homeworld? There were worlds where ethnic hatreds had gone so far that one side would cheer, if the other side was scorched off the surface, but Yangtze was nowhere near so divided. Leo doubted the bad guys were in full control, no matter what they claimed, and even if they were their own people would hesitate to let their world be bombarded. It was insane.

“Captain, the enemy vessel is locking weapons on our hull,” Lieutenant Halloran reported, grimly. “They’re opening fire.”

“Deploy half our remaining drones,” Leo ordered. He cursed the planetary defenders under his breath. If they chose to side with him, he could use the orbital sensors to guide his fire while shutting down his own, making it harder for the enemy to track his ship. Instead, they were either out of commission or sitting on their butts, waiting to see who came out ahead. Idiots. Anyone looking at the sensor display should be able to tell their entire world was at stake. “And then add our lone sensor platform.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said.

His console beeped. “Sir, we’re picking up a message from the enemy ship.”

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “Put it through.”

He’d expected to hear Bridgeton, or Gayle. The voice, instead, was flat and atonal. Leo checked his console and cursed under his breath as the analysis program revealed it was completely inhuman, either computer-generated or simply stripped of everything that might point to a single world. Leo hadn’t expected it to be so easy, but …

“Stand down your defences and the world will be spared,” the voice said, flatly. “There will be no second chances.”

Leo felt his mood darken. Waterhen was far more nimble than any heavy cruiser. She should be darting around the enemy ship, nipping in to fire off a handful of shots and then darting away again before the enemy’s superior firepower blew her away. Instead, she was pinned down, trapped against a planet she had to cover … no matter what he did, the range to the atmosphere – and their position – would continue to fall until the enemy could hammer them from point-blank range. His mind raced, searching for options. There weren’t many … his only realistic change, he suspected, was to ram the enemy vessel and call it a draw, something that might end badly if the remaining enemy ships showed up. There were two light cruisers that had survived the engagement at Eden largely, and the third could be repaired by a competent crew. Where were they?

A nasty thought ran through his head. And where are our ships?

He keyed his console. “Sergeant, take the assault shuttle and get control of the planetary defence grid,” he ordered. It was a desperate gamble – he had no idea if the orbital control network could be overridden from the ground, rendering the whole mission worse than useless – but it was their only hope. “Flower, broadcast to the planet. Let their crews see what’s happening up here.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Incoming missiles,” Lieutenant Halloran warned.

“Take them down,” Leo ordered, curtly. “And deploy our drones to shield us.”

“Aye, sir.”

The display updated rapidly, a handful of missile trajectories shifting as if they’d lost their targeting locks. Leo knew it wasn’t as lucky as it seemed. The planet was right behind them and any projectile that missed his ship was all too likely to hit the planet itself. He had no idea what sort of warheads they carried, but it hardly mattered. A missile that hit the world at a reasonable percentage of the speed of light would do immense damage, even if the warhead itself failed to detonate. The enemy had to be mad, he told himself. Or extremely – and probably unwisely – confident in their ability to trigger the self-destructs before it was too late.

It should cause a mutiny, Leo thought, as a handful of missiles vanished from the display. But who is really in command of that ship?

He checked the files. The Titan-class hadn’t enjoyed the extensive automaton worked into modern vessels, but whoever had refitted her could easily have crammed hundreds of automated systems into her hull too. The navy’s projections suggested the ship could be operated, reasonably safely, with fifty crewmen, although if the vessel took heavy damage the lack of manpower would slow damage control to the point of near-uselessness. He wished for a proper analysis deck as he studied the sensor reports, trying to determine just how many missile tubes and energy weapons had been crammed into her hull. She was nowhere near as fast as a modern ship, unless she was deliberately concealing her full capabilities, but it hardly mattered. Her commander had pinned him down. And that meant it was just a matter of time until Waterhen, and the world behind her, took a devastating hit.

“The enemy is firing again,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “They’re closing the range.”

Leo nodded. The closer the enemy ship, the faster the incoming missiles and the greater the chance of a hit. Or a warhead striking the planet itself. His mind raced, considering options, but there were none. Or were there …

The display updated, the planetary defences going active. Leo eyed them warily. The commanders might have seen sense, or Boothroyd had knocked them out and taken control himself, or … or they might be about to stab him in the back. They’d have to be absolutely insane to blast the one vessel trying to save their world, but right now he wouldn’t care to gamble against it. The active sensors swept space with an intensity that betrayed their position to any watching eyes, a handful of gaps – caused by the rescue mission – all too visible. If the enemy wanted to hit the world itself, they’d have no trouble plotting precisely where to aim their weapons.

“Captain, I have a direct link from the planetary defences,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “Sergeant Boothroyd has taken control.”

“Order him to cover the planet,” Leo snapped. The enemy were committed – and unless they were idiots they would have planned for the planetary defences switching sides – and that meant he had only a very short window of opportunity. “Helm, attack pattern delta. Tactical, bring up the phaser array, prepare to engage.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leo leaned forward, bracing himself as Waterhen wheeled about and charged the enemy ship. Lieutenant Halloran tapped his console, unleashing a salvo of missiles and following up with a hail of electromagnetic distortion that might – might – confuse the enemy long enough to let them close enough to do real damage. The enemy ship seemed to explode on the display – Leo knew better than to think she really had destroyed herself – trying to make up for her targeting problems by filling space with missiles and plasma pulses. Leo cautioned himself to be careful as the range closed sharply. There was a very good chance that whoever had refitted her had crammed phaser arrays into her hull. She certainly had the power reserves to fire them repeatedly …

“Evasive action,” he ordered, as two phaser blasts shot past his ship. There was no advance warning, not even the energy emissions he’d used to bluff the enemy in the previous engagement. “Tactical, fire at will!”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said. The lights dimmed as he fired the phasers. “Firing …”

Waterhen rang like a bell. Leo cursed, gripping his chair as his ship was sent spinning helplessly through space. The gravity flickered … Leo braced himself, even though he knew it was pointless. If the compensators failed, they’d be dead before they knew what had hit them. Alarms howled, a fraction of a second too late, as Abigail fought for control. The drive field flickered and failed, only to reboot a second later. Leo breathed a sigh of relief as their flight path steadied, then cursed again as the enemy ship opened fire. They were in no state to evade or shot down another salvo.

He keyed his console. “Damage report!”

“Direct hit, upper hull,” Harris snapped. “The upper weapons array is gone … we’re lucky we got the shot off before they hit us, or the secondary explosions would probably have torn the ship apart. We have multiple hull breaches underneath … I’ve got damage control teams on the way, but I have no idea how long it’ll take to patch the hulls or check the superstructure. The internal monitoring network in that sector is offline.”

Which tells us things we don’t want to know about just how badly damaged we are, Leo thought, coldly. The enemy ship was altering course, coming after them. He had no idea if they thought Waterhen was vulnerable now, or if they thought Leo would decide honour was satisfied and jump out, but it didn’t matter. We might not be able to run even if we wanted to.

“Captain, we damaged her forward hull,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “But she’s already got the venting under control.”

Leo nodded, cursing inwardly. The enemy ship wasn’t crewed by pirates. Her captain knew what he was doing and her crew were well-trained. The shot would probably have taken out a pirate ship, or at least convinced her crew to withdraw before the next shot finished the job, but a naval crew would patch up the damage and keep fighting. He had no idea if the enemy had damage control parties fixing the mess, or if they’d merely sealed the hatches to keep the rest of the atmosphere in place, yet … he shook his head. They’d probably be able to do a great deal of damage if they shot into the gash in the enemy hull, but any captain worthy of the name would do everything in his power to ensure they never got anywhere near the hull breach. And besides, they’d lost their upper phasers.

“Channel power to point defence,” he ordered. The jump drive wasn’t offline, according to what remained of the internal network, but he doubted it could be trusted. They might make one jump, if they were very lucky, and then … there was a very real chance the drive would fail, leaving them stranded in interstellar space. Hell, so close to the planet, the jump might as well be random. They could wind up anywhere, from Earth to Andromeda to the heart of a star … “And prepare to bring us about.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leo watched, grimly, as the enemy ship opened fire again. Waterhen was spinning back towards the planet, gambling the planetary defences would cover her rather than putting a knife in her back, but there wasn’t enough orbiting firepower to cover the ship for long. The enemy ship could keep closing the range, eventually forcing an energy weapons duel Waterhen could only lose, or simply hurl missile after missile at the planet until one got through the defences and struck the surface. Or … the enemy ship could be preparing mass drivers and rail guns, targeting orbital weapons platforms when they opened fire and taking them out with fast, near-undetectable, projectiles. It was standard procedure, laid down in tactical manuals that predated Daybreak. The defenders should be constantly altering position to prevent someone from doing just that, but with all the confusion … he had a nasty feeling it wasn’t being done. The defences wouldn’t last once the enemy ship started targeting them specifically.

Ice ran down his spine. There was only one option left. Just one.

“Helm, bring us about,” he ordered. A low groan ran through the hull as a drive node came back online, the gravity shifting oddly in a manner that left him feeling uncomfortable. “Prepare for ramming speed.”

Abigail gulped. “Aye, sir.”

Leo gritted his teeth and told himself, firmly, that there was no other choice. The fight was increasingly one-sided, and the moment their luck ran out they’d be blown away. The planet would be bombarded immediately afterwards, giving Bridgerton his one chance to salvage something – anything – from the disaster. No doubt he intended to blame everything on the pirates, and credit his militia with driving them off … or, perhaps just as likely, his backers intended to scorch the world to cover their tracks. Their plan had failed, revealing their existence. Daybreak would find them, unless they made damn sure nothing was left for investigators to find. And the only hope of taking that ship out was ramming her.

“Prepare to shift the drive to ludicrous speed,” Leo ordered. It was an old joke, one that dated back to pre-space days, but … he hoped, grimly, the drives could sustain the burst of speed long enough to strike their target. The enemy wouldn’t have time to react, let alone open fire, before Waterhen smashed straight into their ship, vaporising both vessels. “And …”

He felt himself hesitate. He was barely twenty … was this how he was going to die? Perhaps it was what he deserved, after letting his little head get him in trouble time and time again. His crew … they were going to die with him, mostly because the navy had put them under Captain Archibald’s command and Leo had inherited them when the vessel’s captain had decided to abdicate his responsibilities. And … he closed his eyes for a long moment. The navy would honour him, after he was safely dead. Who knew? Perhaps Valerian would get a medal for his foresight, in assigning Leo to Waterhen. Leo couldn’t help smiling at the thought. The Deputy Commandant had played a poor hand very well and deserved his victory.

“Helm …”

“Captain,” Lieutenant Halloran snapped. “Incoming ships!”

Leo swore. Were they about to die for nothing?

“Captain,” Lieutenant Halloran added. “They’re ours!”

 

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“Belay the order for ludicrous speed,” Leo ordered, as the incoming ships lit up the tactical display. The timing could have been better, but it could have been worse too. “Tactical, try to put a command datanet together.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leo leaned forward, torn between excitement and fear. The largest ship in the makeshift squadron was a light cruiser, but her refits hadn’t been enough to allow her to fly and fight without an oversized crew. He wasn’t even sure how many energy weapons or missile tubes had been crammed into her hull, or how many missiles she could actually fire. The pirates were reluctant to risk destroying their prizes, and their backers were equally reluctant to risk giving the pirates something that could be used against them, which meant there was a very good chance the light cruiser was nowhere near as dangerous as she looked. The remaining ships were a mixture of destroyers, frigates, patrol boats and converted freighters, the latter unlikely to pose any real threat to anything that could shoot back. The situation was no longer disastrous, but victory was still uncertain.

“Signal the enemy ship,” he added, after a moment. “Offer to accept surrender, on terms.”

He waited, hoping the enemy would accept the offer and – at the same time – all too aware they would probably refuse, perhaps without even bothering to reply. They might not expect him to keep his word and even if he did, Daybreak might refuse to honour whatever agreement Leo made. And even if they did, inspecting the remains of the heavy cruiser might reveal precisely who had refitted her and crewed her. The crew would be offered every inducement possible – and Daybreak could offer a hell of a lot – in exchange for a full confession. His lips twisted in grim amusement. Ironically, it was the enemy ship that was now pinned down. She had to destroy the planet to cover her tracks and that meant she had to engage his makeshift squadron, rather than departing as fast as possible. It wasn’t as if Leo could chase her down, if she jumped out and ran.

“No response, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “She’s sweeping the squadron with tactical sensors.”

“Pass targeting data to the squadron, and order the ships to attack,” Leo said. The enemy vessel was immensely powerful, compared to his fleet, but she’d have trouble defending herself from attacks that were coming at her from all directions at once. “Helm, take us up to join the fleet.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The display sparkled with red light. The enemy commander had gotten over his shock, Leo noted coldly, and picked out the most likely threat, unloading an entire barrage of missiles on the light cruiser. Leo knew he should be pleased – every missile that was wasted on a single ship was one that couldn’t be fired at him – but he knew it was almost certain to blow the light cruiser to dust. The rest of the fleet spread out around the enemy cruiser and opened fire, hurling missiles at long range and then closing to strike with energy weapons. The heavy cruiser returned fire, targeting the smaller ships as they closed. Leo gritted his teeth as a patrol boat hesitated a fraction of a second too long, only to be sliced in half by phasers before she could dodge enemy fire. The heavy cruiser moved rapidly to the next target, keeping the formation loose and confused. Leo had to admire their skill. The only real threat to the ship was massed missile fire from a dozen different vessels at once, and as long as they kept the formation scattered it wasn’t going to happen.

“Helm, prepare for attack pattern gamma,” Leo ordered, as the range closed rapidly. “Tactical, pull as many ships as possible into the attack formation, target their weapons and sensor nodes.”

He keyed his console. “Engineering, can you divert power to the lower phaser array?”

“Only a trickle,” Harris reported. “The internal power distribution net has been crippled. I can’t charge the phasers rapidly without drawing power from everywhere else!”

“Charge them as quickly as possible,” Leo ordered, curtly. He’d thought the refits would last as long as the ship herself. Clearly, he’d been wrong. He made a mental note to insist on additional redundancy next time, if Waterhen ever saw a shipyard again. It was probably futile – there were limits to how much redundancy they could build into their hull – but he owed it to his ship, and his crew, to try. “We’re going to need them.”

“Sir, I have seventeen ships ready to attack,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “Your orders?”

“Helm, attack pattern gamma,” Leo ordered. “Tactical, fire at will.”

He gritted his teeth as the range closed sharply. The pirate ships weren’t heavily armed, not compared to a proper warship. Their crews really didn’t want to blow their targets away, which meant their weapons weren’t designed to punch through heavy armour and dig deep into the victim’s hull. Any sort of major damage could easily set off a chain reaction or, just as bad for the pirates, ruin the ship’s drives or destroy her cargo. They might as well have been shooting spitballs at the heavy cruiser, for all the damage they’d do to her armour. But if they could crupple her weapons and sensors …

“Firing now,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “She’s returning fire.”

“Evasive pattern,” Leo ordered. “If you can pick out their phaser arrays, hit them!”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “I have one …”

The display bleeped an alarm. Leo cursed as two captured vessels vanished in quick succession, a third spinning helplessly out of formation. The prize crew was infinitively more capable than the pirates – the bar wasn’t set very high – but they’d only had a few weeks to make up for years, perhaps decades, of indifferent maintenance and careless handling. The internal network had clearly failed, the hatches refusing to slam closed when the hull was breached … Leo hoped to hell the crew had been in suits. They’d have a chance to survive if they were, assuming the battle was won. He was pretty sure the pirate ship didn’t have lifepods, and even if she did the heavy cruiser might blow them out of space. It was a war crime, but the enemy had already crossed that line. There would be no mercy after they’d threatened to bombard the planet itself.

“We did some damage,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “Their sensor network appears to be weakened …”

“Bring us about for another run,” Leo ordered. The enemy vessel was rolling over, trying to bring her main batteries to bear. Her sensors too, probably. Leo’s makeshift squadron could draw targeting data from each other, and the planetary defences, but the heavy cruiser was alone. Or was she? The three enemy light cruisers were missing … where were they? For that matter, it was possible she could draw targeting data from the planetary defences too. She might well have the right access codes. “Prepare to engage …”

He broke off as the light cruiser – his light cruiser – jumped dangerously close to the enemy ship, leaving the missiles that had been trying to kill her plunging uselessly into interstellar space. The enemy ship seemed to flinch, then opened fire with everything she had … Leo snapped orders to begin the attack run, targeting the weapons emplacements that had revealed themselves. Too late. The light cruiser was hit in a dozen places, then torn apart in a series of explosions as she tried to ram the heavy cruiser amidships. There were no survivors.

“Shit,” Leo muttered. The heavy cruiser was picking up speed now, and – worse – the planetary network was starting to fail. His earlier thoughts returned to mock him. It looked as if the enemy were picking off the automated defences one by one, sniping from a safe distance as they revealed themselves. “Tactical, signal the fleet to regroup on the flag and …”

Alarms howled. “Sir, we have two incoming starships,” Lieutenant Halloran snapped. “No IFF codes; power signatures match the light cruisers we faced earlier. They’re moving to flank the heavy cruiser.”

“Order the fleet to prepare for another attack run,” Leo ordered. The light cruisers didn’t add that much firepower to the enemy formation, but their point defence would make it a great deal harder for his ships to wear down the heavy cruiser. And their shipboard weapons could tear through the patrol boats effortlessly, if they scored hits. “Target the heavy cruiser.”

He gritted his teeth in frustration. A regular engagement with a regular battle squadron would generally start with eliminating the outflanking starships, cutting down the point defence protecting the heaver warships. He didn’t have a regular battle squadron and it was the heavy cruiser that posed the greatest threat to the planet, allowing him to eke out a victory if he managed to take her out. But ignoring the light cruisers would give them the freedom they needed to inflict horrendous damage on his ships … he wondered, suddenly, if they could prep a pirate vessel to ram and slam her into the heavy cruiser, forcing the light cruisers to withdraw or die for nothing. There was no time …

“Tactical,” he ordered. “Begin the attack.”

The enemy fleet opened fire, their missile tubes switching to sprint mode as the range closed sharply. Leo had a brief impression of the light cruisers moving to shield their bigger brother, a moment before both craft started firing their energy weapons too. The range was a little extreme, and regular warships would have been undamaged, but he had to admit the tactic might just pay off. The pirate ships were in poor condition. Even an underpowered shot might do real damage.

Waterhen returned fire, slamming shot after shot into the enemy hull. Leo grimaced as most of the shots exploded uselessly, even though a handful wiped out sensor nodes or weapons replacements. The enemy ships redoubled their fire as the range narrowed, taking out five smaller vessels and sending a destroyer stumbling away from the battlefield. They launched a missile after her, vaporising her hull before the crew could get the jump drive back online and run. Leo cursed under his breath as another destroyer rammed a light cruiser, both ships vanishing inside a ball of expanding plasma. He was starting to think they’d need to ram the heavy cruiser anyway, just to save Yangtze …

“Sir,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “The enemy ships are picking up speed.”

Leo nodded. He had to admire their single-mindedness. If they scorched Yangtze, they might just cover their tracks. The range was narrowing rapidly, and the planetary defences were getting worn down … Leo had hoped they’d be able to take a bite out of the enemy ship, weakening her enough to give the planetary defences a chance, but they hadn’t come remotely close to the point he could break contact with a clear conscience. The ship would keep closing the range until they could open fire …

A crazy idea ran through his mind. It would be chancy, but it might just work. Might.

“Order the formation to prepare for a final attack run,” he said. He’d captured twenty-four ships and his crews had gotten twenty-one into working order … now, he was down to five and his plans to patrol the spacelanes lay in ruins. So did much of his ship. “Engineering, how do we stand with phasers?”

“I can give you half-power,” Harris said. “But the array is damaged. They’ll see us coming …”

“I’m counting on it,” Leo said. The enemy was smart. They probably knew to learn from their own experiences. “Tactical, on my command, the formation is to attack the surviving light cruiser and pin her down. Take her out if possible, but pin her down ... until I give the order for retreat. At that point, they are to jump back to orbit.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said.

Leo keyed his console, sending a set of specific flight plans to Abigail. The plan might work … if the enemy thought they were bluffing. Would they? Leo wished, not for the first time, that he knew who was in command of the enemy ship. Bridgerton himself? Gayle? Someone he’d never met? Gayle was no naval officer and her father was even less so, but she was smart and capable and she’d pulled the wool over his eyes very neatly. He groaned inwardly, wondering if it would be better if he didn’t survive the battle. No matter the outcome, the navy would not be very impressed by how he’d let himself be duped. Anyone who heard what had happened between him and Fleur would be even less so.

“Tactical, order the formation to begin the attack,” Leo said. “Helm, drop us into attack formation and take us in.”

“Aye, sir.”

Leo braced himself. The timing needed to be precise. They had to let the enemy know they were coming in time for them to react, but not in time for them to think … they had to act as if they were trying to run, taking one last shot at the heavy cruiser before they abandoned Yangtze to her fate. Would the enemy buy it? He counted down the seconds as the range closed, cursing as another icon vanished from the display. It was so bloodless, compared to the cold reality of death. A handful of crew, volunteers all, had just been vaporised. Their bodies would never be found.

“Tactical, give the signal to retreat,” Leo ordered, quietly. “And then bring the phasers online.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “They’re moving to block us …”

Leo grinned, savagely. One way or the other, the enemy ship was going to know she’d been kissed. “Fire phasers!”

The lights dimmed again as phaser beams stabbed into the enemy hull, tearing gashes in the armour even as Waterhen altered course sharply to avoid a collision. The enemy knew Leo had bluffed them earlier, at Eden, and they’d assumed he was bluffing them again … wrong. Dead wrong. Lieutenant Halloran didn’t wait for orders, firing the last of Waterhen’s missiles into the enemy hull at point-blank range. The missiles slipped through the gash in the hull and detonated inside the ship. Leo heard Lieutenant Halloran whoop as the heavy cruiser staggered, her innards ripped to shreds, and exploded. He was tempted to cheer himself. Taking out a heavy cruiser with an outdated destroyer … that had to be one for the record books.

“Sir, the remaining enemy ship has jumped out,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. “I think we won.”

Leo nodded, slowly. The light cruiser wasn’t a major threat on her own … and if she were crewed by Bridgerton’s backers, the odds were good she’d withdrawn completely rather than risk hanging around the system any longer, waiting for a chance to snipe at him. He reminded himself, sharply, that there was no solid evidence Bridgerton had been onboard the heavy cruiser, although if he had intended to blast his homeworld into rubble … he felt his mood darken as he realised there was no proof Gayle was dead either. She might be down on the planet, all too aware her father’s plan had failed and now she was hopelessly compromised, or she might have been on the heavy cruiser … or the ship that had escaped. Leo wanted to believe she was dead, that he would never have to face her again, and yet his instincts insisted Gayle was too smart to have been on the ship when he’d taken her out. Gayle knew him … and she might expect him to ram the heavy cruiser, rather than surrender or retreat.

He let his breath out slowly. It was quite possible he would never know.

“Helm, take us back to the planet,” he ordered. “Tactical, open a wide-beam channel.”

“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “Channel open.”

Leo took a breath, organising his thoughts. “Citizens of Yangtze, this is Captain Leo Morningstar of the Daybreak Navy. You have been cruelly betrayed by Hari Bridgerton, who funded pirates and commanded an assault in your world to empower himself and, when it became clear his plan would not succeed, attempted to destroy your world instead. His ship has been destroyed, and he may well be dead. To those of you who joined him, I offer this one chance to surrender and save your lives; to those of you who sat on the sidelines, or simply didn’t know what was happening, I offer you this chance to overthrow the remnants of his conspiracy, liberate Governor Brighton and put this whole unfortunate affair behind you.”

He paused, letting the words hang in the air. “If you refuse to do so, I will take whatever steps I must to liberate the governor and restore order.”

There was a second pause. Leo hoped the planet would listen. Daybreak would tolerate much, but not an all-out revolution. If he had to take steps … he was authorised to do whatever he must, up to and including planetary bombardment. And that would be just as bad as whatever Bridgerton had intended to do. He prayed, silently, that the governor was still alive. Daybreak would expect him to avenge the man’s death, if he’d been murdered …

“Choose wisely,” he finished. “There will be no second chances.”

He drew a finger across his throat, signalling for Lieutenant Halloran to close the channel. The enemy had said the same thing – it felt like hours ago – and it brought memories of Bridgerton’s attempt to convince Leo to join him bubbling up. They were not the same and yet … Leo shook his head. They weren’t.

“Contact Sergeant Boothroyd,” he ordered. Hopefully, the remnants of the coup plotters would surrender without further ado. They had to know they’d lost – and their leader had intended to scorch the entire world, murdering millions to cover his tracks. “If the planet refuses to act properly, we will have to act ourselves.”

“Aye, sir.”

 

Chapter Forty

“This is going to destroy my career,” Governor Brighton said. “I’ll be lucky if I get to see out my term.”

Leo kept his thoughts to himself as they sat in the office, in the planetary defence centre. Government House had been recaptured fairly quickly, after the people had come out onto the streets and the neutrals had declared their loyalty to Daybreak, but half the servants had been compromised and the other half had vanished. Governor Brighton would have to pour his own coffee from now on, at least until a new batch of servants could be vetted and allowed to serve in the mansion. They weren’t the only compromised people around, he knew: there were too many noblemen and officials in important places that might be swearing loyalty enthusiastically, but simply couldn’t be trusted in the long run. Who knew what they might do if Gayle was still out there?

“On the plus side, your investigation did reveal the plot,” Leo pointed out. He couldn’t disagree with the governor’s assessment of his chances, but the man had tried to do the right thing. It had been too late to save himself from an uncomfortable imprisonment … his superiors might see the matter his way, if they were pressed. “And the plotters did lose.”

He scowled. “Are we sure the Bridgerton is dead?”

“No,” Governor Brighton said, crossly. “The last reports do say he was en route to board a starship, but there’s no way to be sure he was on the heavy cruiser when you killed it. Gayle, too, was supposed to be on the way offworld, yet”- he shook his head – “we may never know for sure. The reports of missing freighters are not reassuring.”

Leo couldn’t disagree. Bridgerton’s corporations had loaded a dozen freighters with billions upon billions of credits worth of cargo, from starship components to machine tools and datacores that were meant to be heavily restricted. They’d looted the naval supply depot and transferred much of the material to their freighters, before the ships had jumped out of the system and vanished. Leo had half-expected them to attack the former pirate base, in a bid to recover the prisoners before they could be interrogated, but a hasty mission back to the asteroid had revealed the naval crewers had been left unmolested. Leo didn’t like the implications – the plotters had stolen enough material to keep a pirate gang going for years – and his instincts kept insisting Gayle couldn’t possibly be dead. She really wouldn’t die that easily. And who knew what she was doing, out amongst the stars?

“We also haven’t located any trace of their backers, assuming they even had backers,” the governor continued. “The handful of senior plotters we caught knew nothing about the naval side of the plot, and apparently assumed the starships were purchased on the open market. That might actually be true, although … it certainly shouldn’t be. I imagine investigators will be following up as a matter of urgency, trying to see if they can locate the source.”

“We’ll be lucky,” Leo said, darkly. The heavy cruiser and her smaller companions would have passed through so many hands, with records altered or simply destroyed, that it would be difficult to figure out who had refitted the ship or supplied her to the plotters. For all he knew, the vessel had never been on the books, or had been reported decommissioned and sent to the breakers … it was possible, although unlikely, that she’d even been reported destroyed in combat. “But as long as they no longer have someone willing to commit suicide on their behalf, it’s quite likely they’ll pull in their horns for a few years.”

“I hope so,” Governor Brighton agreed. “For what it’s worth, my report credits you with uncovering the plot and defeating it. My failure will not taint you.”

Leo wasn’t so sure. There had been no hiding the simple truth that Gayle had tricked him, that she’d pulled the wool over his eyes so completely he’d never realised how badly she’d treated him until it was far too late. She’d played to his preconceptions and manipulated him perfectly … he scowled inwardly, dreading the inevitable moment when Daybreak would summon him home to account for himself. He might have done well – he knew he had – but he had enemies back home, as well as allies. It had been months since he’d heard anything from his patron. For all he knew, Grand Senator Sullivan had been convinced to let Leo sink or swim on his own.

“The sooner we resume patrols, the better,” he said. Waterhen had been patched up as best as they could, without a shipyard, and he’d laid claim to a handful of freighters that could be converted into Q-Ships, but he was uneasily aware there were too many vulnerable starships and planets out there, open to attack. “We cannot let this slow us down.”

“No,” the governor agreed. “But until we receive reinforcements …”

He paused. “I didn’t see anything wrong with Captain Archibald when I read his file,” he added, after a moment. “I was offended when I was confronted with a mere Lieutenant-Commander. But … it worked out, better than I had a right to expect. You did well, and my report to the navy will express that in the strongest possible terms.”

“Thank you, sir,” Leo said. The governor’s patronage was a decidedly double-edged sword – his career would be in deep trouble, once the news reached Daybreak – but he needed as many high-ranking officials in his corner as possible. “And with your permission, I will return to my ship.”

“Of course, of course,” the governor said. “And thank you, once again.”

Leo nodded, then turned and left the room. The plotters must have rejoiced when they’d read Captain Archibald’s file, assuming they’d had the insight to read between the lines and realise he was about as suited for a naval career as Leo was for the priesthood. Leo could just imagine the wretched man parking his ship in orbit and spending all his time on the surface, while the plotters slowly – but surely – drew their plans against him. Perhaps they’d wonder if they were being tricked, he mused, or perhaps they’d just take advantage of the opportunity to seize Waterhen rather than destroy her. A man so careless might just be fool enough to let a boarding party onto his ship, particularly if it consisted of bare-breasted women. It was the stuff of bad movies, but it might just work.

“Hey,” Flower said, breaking into his thoughts. “How did it go?”

“It could have gone worse,” Leo said. “Did you learn anything?”

Flower fell into step beside him as they made their way to the spaceport. “The interrogations drew a blank,” she said. “Most senior plotters were lynched by their own people; a couple died by their own hand. The survivors are largely all junior personnel, very few having any idea of what was really going on until it was too late. Some may even be able to claim they were harshly judged, afterwards.”

“After they do their decade of hard labour,” Leo growled. He’d intended to make certain the plotters went to the nearest penal world, but he’d changed his mind when he realised most of the survivors hadn’t known what their superiors intended. They still deserved punishment – and his superiors would have overridden him if he’d been too lenient – and yet they didn’t deserve a life sentence. “Are we sure they were innocent?”

“The more people involved in the plot, the greater the chance of someone leaking,” Flower said. “I don’t believe any of the survivors know anything more than they’ve already told us.”

Leo nodded, curtly. “And the rest?”

“The Bridgerton Mansion was burned to the ground, the fire starting immediately after the heavy cruiser was destroyed,” Flower said. “We recovered a handful of bodies, nearly all identified – with varying levels of certainty – as servants. A number of other people should have been in the mansion, but either their bodies were destroyed so completely we couldn’t locate even a single trace or they simply weren’t there at all. We may never know for sure.”

She paused. “And, of course, Gayle may still be alive.”

“I know,” Leo said. “And if she is …”

Flower elbowed him. “If she is, try to think with your big head instead of the little one.”

“Yeah,” Leo said. It was hard to think of anything other than shooting her, but he knew his duty. “Take her into custody, get some answers out of her … and then shoot her.”

“Quite,” Flower agreed. They reached the spaceport and passed through the gates, heading to the shuttle. “Are you glad you came out here?”

“I wasn’t really given a choice,” Leo said. “But yes, I’m glad I came out here.”

He allowed himself a smile. It was funny, now, how he could look back at everything that had happened and laugh. Fleur had been fun, but the relationship could never have lasted … and, ironically, it had ended in a manner that had given him command authority and responsibility far earlier than he could have hoped. His lips twisted in dark amusement. Valerian’s career would be boosted too, in a manner he would owe to Leo … Leo wondered, idly, if the older man would be grateful, or if he would grouse about throwing Leo into a cesspit and watching helplessly as he climbed out, covered in diamonds. It would certainly be an ironic end to a determined attempt to sink Leo’s career once and for all.

Perhaps he should have ignored the whole affair, he thought, as they scrambled into the shuttlecraft. But whatever that did to me, it would have left the people out here hopelessly vulnerable.

The thought comforted him as he returned to the bridge and commanded Waterhen to lead the next convoy out of orbit, starting their trip to the captured pirate base and then to Ingalls. The mining colony would get a vast number of pirate prisoners to work to death, as well as a certain degree of independence from distant corporate masters. Leo suspected the planet would eventually be completely free, or at least as free as any other world within the sector, but there was no way to be sure. Bridgerton had taken out vast loans to fund his endeavours and the investigators had barely scratched the surface of who owned what, let alone what needed to be sold to pay his debts and what could be held in trust for his heirs … assuming he had any left. His will settled everything on Gayle’s future husband, when that worthy put in an appearance. Leo suspected the poor man had been very lucky. Gayle would have completely dominated him, in a manner so subtle he might never have realised he was under her control. Or perhaps he would have been smart enough to play the role of figurehead, while letting her make all the real decisions. Leo doubted it, but who knew? Gayle had been an uncommon woman, on Yangtze. Her husband would need to be an equally uncommon man.

And she’s still out there somewhere, Leo thought. His certainty Gayle was still alive defied logic and reason, as Flower had pointed out, but it was impossible to shake himself of the conviction they’d see each other again. There will be one final confrontation between us, before the matter is truly settled.

The days turned into weeks and then months, Leo and his crew alternating between convoy escort missions and hunting down individual pirate ships. There were fewer of those than he’d expected, a reflection of their success with Q-Ships or, perhaps just as likely, a sign that without outside funding the pirate networks were slowly drying up and dying. Leo didn’t know which was the right answer and he didn’t care, as long as the pirates were going away. A slow and steady approach to the problem had paid dividends … he smiled tiredly as they completed their final jump, returning to Yangtze. The prospect of a few days of leave had enlivened the crew …

“Captain,” Lieutenant Halloran said. “I’m picking up seven warships, holding position near the planet!”

Leo sucked in his breath. They hadn’t identified whoever had backed the plotters – and he was starting to fear they never would. Had they finally made a move? Or …?

“ID?”

“RSS Pompey,” Lieutenant Halloran reported. The remainder of the squadron was quickly identified. “Commodore Alexander Blackthrone in command.”

Leo felt his blood run cold. Oh, shit.

End of Book One

Leo Morningstar Will Return In:

Borrowed Glory

Coming Soon.

 

Hi, everyone

I hope you enjoyed reading this draft. If you have any comments, suggestions, weak spots that need examined, (etc, etc) or simply want to tell me that you have enjoyed reading this, please post a comment here. I don’t intend to leave this thread up forever, as I intend to publish this book, so please follow me on the board and/or join my mailing list.

List information - chrishanger@chrishanger.simplelists.com - Simplelists

I have another small novella to attend to, then I will start work on the next project - Schooled In Magic 27.

Thank you for your time

Chris

 

Maybe a little of him talking to the other ships in his fleet after the battle but before the rest of the navy gets there.

 

Forget about Pike, Kirk, Piccard and Janeway, Morningstar is the MAN! Hell, he beats Reynolds and Solo, too! Lovin' it!

 

Thanks, Chris