The H.M.S. Yorkshire
In Tilleke Space
The escape pod hatch opened with a hiss of over-pressurized air escaping. Cookie and Grant stepped out, blinking in the harsh lights of the Yorkshire’s landing bay. A slender, refined looking man stood there, flanked by four Marines. The Marines were armed with fleshchette pistols, all in hand, though pointing down at the deck.
“I’m Commander Peled, the XO,” the tall man said. “Please come with me, the Captain is anxious to speak to you.”
One of the Marines, a sergeant, stepped forward and spoke to Cookie. “Safe that weapon, soldier, and give it to me. No arms allowed on the bridge.”
“Bugger me! I’m not going anywhere without my weapon,” she bristled. “We had to fight our way off the London. Don’t you guys get it; they’re boarding our ships with commandos!”
“All I know,” the sergeant snapped, “Is that we’ve got an AWOL Marine and some junior officer who ought to be at their posts on the London, but instead ran away in an escape pod. Now put your weapon down or-”
“Belay that, Sergeant!” Grant ordered coldly. He turned to Cookie. “Corporal Sanchez, give me your weapon and go fetch our guest.”
Cookie hesitated, then thrust the rifle into his hands, glared coldly at the sergeant, then turned on her heel and disappeared back into the escape pod. Commander Peled watched impassively, but the Marine sergeant glanced warily at the pod’s hatchway. “I don’t like this, sir. What if she’s getting a weapon in there?” But as he spoke, Cookie returned, walking backwards and dragging the body of the dead Savak commando, which left a long blood smear behind it. She dumped the body at the feet of Commander Peled.
“This is a member of the Tilleke Emperor’s Guard, a creche-born Savak,” Grant said coolly. “We think there are a hundred more like him right now on the London. The London is in enemy hands, Commander. We don’t have time to waste playing silly buggers because there are at least two Tilleke ships out there right now about to put more of these bastards on the Yorkshire.”
Peled studied him for a long moment, taking in the bloodied clothing and the too bright eyes, then glanced down and saw the head wound on the Savak’s body. He looked at Cookie, grimly holding her Bullpup.
“Sergeant Zamir,” he said calmly. “Open the arms locker and distribute arms to as many people as you can. Perhaps the Corporal here will be good enough to assist you in planning a defense against any commando attack. I daresay she has valuable expertise to share. And you,” he said, turning to Grant, “will please accompany me to the bridge.” He smiled. “You may keep your weapon.”
A wave of relief and utter fatigue washed over Grant as he followed Peled out the door. Behind him he could hear Cookie: “…nasty motherfuckers…you’ll need grenades, as many as you have. And they’ve got these fucking swords…”
In contrast to Commander Peled’s urbane dignity, Captain Gur was a short, barrel chested man who looked like he’d been in his share of barroom brawls. His nose had been broken more than once and there was a white scar above his eyebrow that stood in sharp relief to his swarthy complexion. He had hard, shrewd eyes that only a day before would have made Grant nervous.
“Well, Lieutenant,” Gur said coldly. “We are in the middle of a battle in which we are getting our asses kicked. The flag ship of the Victorian task force, led by your father, is sitting in space with its thumb up its ass, and you just dropped by in an escape pod. Now would you be so kind, Lieutenant, as to tell me just what the fuck is going on?”
Grant had to fight the fatigue that wrapped his head in wool and dulled his mind. Part of him wanted to laugh; part of him feared he was going to cry. Without asking the Captain’s permission, he collapsed into a chair and scrubbed his face with his hands. Gur’s face flushed at what he took to be a sign of disrespect.
“I asked you a question, Lieutenant!” he snapped.
Grant nodded wearily. “I am trying to think of a way to explain it that you will understand, sir.”
“Well think fast, mister, because I am just a heartbeat away from having you tossed out the airlock for cowardness and desertion in the face of the enemy,” Gur replied angrily, his chin thrust out and his eyes flashing.
Grant’s face flushed with anger. “Then here it is, Captain. Our fleet was ambushed by a combined force of Dominion and Tilleke ships. Those Duck ships we rescued were a set up. It was a ploy to get them into our formation where they could hurt us once the shooting started. The London was boarded by a hundred or more commandos and is now in enemy hands. And right now, Captain, there are two enemy ships just a few miles away from you. If I’m right, and I know I am right,” Grant said flatly, “a bunch of very bad-ass Tilleke commandos are going to board the Yorkshire in the next few minutes and slaughter every one of you.”
“We don’t have any ships that close on our sensors, Lieutenant. How do you explain that?” Gur demanded.
“I don’t know, sir. But I do know the Tilleke put at a least a company’s worth of troops on the London and we never had a clue. I was sitting right on the bridge; we never saw it coming.”
Commander Peled cleared his throat. “Ah, Captain, the Lieutenant here had a very convincing corpse on the escape pod with him. Commando style battle gear, but most definitely not a Victorian Royal Marine.”
Gur raised an eyebrow in question. Peled nodded. “I am having arms distributed now, sir.”
Grant never felt so frustrated in his life. He knew what was coming, just not what to do about it. He rubbed his eyes. He could hear Emily Tuttle’s voice: I tried to figure out what Grant would want to do, and how Hiram would do it. So, first things first.
“Sir, they hit us first in the Engineering Room.”
“How did they get to Engineering without passing through other ship spaces?” Gur snarled.
Grant shook his head. “I have no idea, sir, but our Mildred did not give us any warning of hull breaches.”
Commander Peled’s normal look of casual indifference was replaced by a sudden look of alarm. “Sir, we’ve heard reports for years that the Tilleke were researching teleportation.”
“Teleportation is a fairy tale!” Gur shot back. “Our best scientists have spent years poking at it and have gotten nowhere.”
“I don’t know how they got on board, but they did,” Grant said softly. “We had fifty Marines on the London, and they overwhelmed us. The Savak are good, and there are a lot of them. You’ve got what, twenty, thirty Marines for the entire ship?” Gur nodded. “We need something better than shooting at them, Captain. If they are transporting aboard, I’ve got another idea.”
The Tilleke krait hovered like a shadow ten miles from the Yorkshire. It was in full stealth mode, with fewer emissions than the ambient space around it. With a nano-technology matte finish that absorbed light, baffles that dispersed its heat signature and running without either radio noise or active sensors, it could only be detected if someone happened to look right at it. The First Sister Pilot studied her sensors. The enemy vessel loomed before them. If all was well, there was another Krait just to its stern. She checked the computer display. Ten seconds more, then eighty of the Emperor’s Imperial Guard would beam aboard and another enemy ship would be theirs.
The timer chimed. She turned to her brothers. “Remember your duty! Glory to the Emperor!” She activated the transporter. Snow began to fall.
“Energy spike!” the Sensors Officer on the Yorkshire yelled. “No, two spikes. One ten miles to port and one three miles behind us. There was nothing there a minute ago, now something big just flared up!”
“Mark those locations,” Gur ordered. He switched to ship broadcast mode. “This is the Captain. Intruder alert! Stay in your assigned posts! Stay alert! Captain, out.” They had been able to arm only one in every five crewmen, and they hadn’t had time to properly group together their new “militia,” as Benny Peled had sardonically labeled them. Too thin on the ground, he fretted.
Beside him, Grant hunched over the video display, which showed a perfectly empty Engineering Deck. Other video feeds showed the docking bay, the first, second and third cargo bays and the ship’s auditorium — anyplace with enough room to transport a couple of dozen armed soldiers who didn’t want to materialize in the middle of a bulkhead. He hunched his shoulders. Cookie was down there, waiting in a corridor just outside the Engineering Deck with fifteen of the Yorkshire’s precious Marines, all of them swathed in ballistic armor and helmets, Bullpups and blasters fully charged.
Come on, he thought irritably, where the hell are you?
Then the video feed from Engineering suddenly sparkled as a swirl of something white — snow? — popped into existence. The snow blew and gusted in a circle, dropping visibility to just a few feet, and then there were ten armed men standing in what had been an empty room. Grant stole a look at the computer. From nothing to full materialization in nine seconds. “Bugger me,” he whispered, awe-struck. “They really can do it. They really can do it.” We need to get one of those little ships of theirs, he thought.
He had been so focused on Engineering that he only now realized the Savak had transported to the auditorium and the second cargo bay as well.
“Chief, vent the Engineering Deck, auditorium and Cargo Hold Two.”
He turned to Captain Gur. “Captain, I would advise that you now turn on your navigation lights and set them to blink mode.” He smiled grimly. “Welcome to the Tilleke navy, Captain.”
Gur gave a shark’s grin, all white teeth and menace. The video screens showed the Savak beating frantically at hatchways, and then slowly collapsing as their air was vented to space. One fell to his knees, shooting his rifle impotently again and again into the bulkhead until he pitched over and lay still. Gur nodded in satisfaction. “How many, Skiffington?”
“A total of thirty in these rooms, sir,” Grant replied. “Computer shows a total of fifty more scattered in smaller groups through fifteen other spaces. But they’re all locked down tight.” His face darkened. “Some of your crew were caught in there, Captain. I’m sorry.”
“We knew there was going to be a butcher’s bill, Lieutenant.” Gur looked at Sergeant Zamir. “Sergeant, take care of the rest. If they are in a space with a live member of our crew, I want you to do whatever you can to save the crew member. If not, you are authorized to vent the space before you enter.” He held up two fingers. “I only want two prisoners, Sergeant Zamir.”
Three hours later, it was done. Gur, Peled, Grant and Sergeant Zamir slouched in chairs in the Captain’s day room. Zamir was blood spattered and grey faced.
“We lost eight Marines and thirty six crew, but we got all of the bastards, sir,” he said wearily. “Two prisoners, like you asked for, but you’ll have to keep them shackled or sedated. They don’t surrender, sir. They keep trying to kill you until you kill them. We only got these two because they were knocked out by grenade concussion.”
Commander Peled said: “We’ve heard from the Kent. They mouse-trapped their Savak like we did, but caught more of them in the first few minutes, so it went pretty well. Rutland didn’t have it so easy. The Savak materialized on the bridge and Captain Sheffer lost most of her bridge crew before they got it under control. Her XO is dead.”
Gur nodded. “So we’ve got three ships we can trust. Sensors report that the Tilleke force has withdrawn towards Arcadia. The London and half a dozen others are still sitting out there, but for how long is anybody’s guess. This deep in Tilleke space, figure we are three full days from home.”
“All we have between us and home is half the Dominion fleet, sir, Commander Peled noted dryly. “Plus, they’ve got the London.”
Gur smiled indifferently. “How many crew to properly run a battleship, Benny? Two thousand? Get rid of the cooks and other non-essentials, you still got nine hundred, a thousand? How many men do you think the Tilleke could put on the London? Skiffington and his sidekick think they put on a hundred or more soldiers, but how many who actually know how to run the ship?”
Peled shrugged. “The AI can run the ship, sir.”
“Yeah, okay,” Gur conceded, “the AI can fly the ship from point A to point B, but the AI won’t fight the ship without the proper voice recognition codes, and those died with the Captain and the XO.” He nodded to himself, thinking it through. “I think they are going to be slow to react, Benny, and there is a very, very fine line between slow and dead.”
On board The Emperor’s Pride, Prince RaShahid nodded in satisfaction. The Victorian fleet had been destroyed as an effective combat force. Close to eighty ships had been destroyed, another twenty captured and twenty had scattered into deep space. The krait, in particular, had been astonishingly effective. The Emperor would be pleased.
This battle was over. The captured ships would be sent to the Dominion forces, as promised. The Emperor was, after all, a man of his word. But it was time for the Tilleke fleet to tend to long overdue business. He gave the necessary orders and the Tilleke ships turned to head towards the worm hole into Arcadia, with its vast resources of Ziridium.
Grant finally found Cookie in the shuttle bay, where they had dragged the bodies of the Savak commandos. The corpses were lined up in long, even lines, as if the orderliness of the process could somehow mask the evident signs of violent death. The corpses were battered, blood-smeared and in some cases, dismembered from grenade blasts. To one side there was a pile of weapons and small cylindrical tanks that Grant had not noticed before.
The Marines — the survivors — were standing around in small knots, gesturing and laughing raucously through the day’s exploits, riding the semi-hysterical high of someone who had just cheated death, but didn’t understand how. More than a few bottles of brandy were being passed around. Sergeant Zamir was nowhere in sight, having wisely decided to let his troops unwind without impediment.
Cookie, brandy bottle in hand, came up and took him by the arm. “C’mere, Grant, I’ve got someone I want you to meet.” She dragged him over to a line of bodies. “This is Bob,” she said, pointing to the first body. “Bob is having himself a bad day, a real b-a-a-a-d day. I killed Bob eight times today, didn’t I, Bob?” She took a hit from the bottle. “Yes, I did. Six times on the London, then that fucker in the escape pod.” A frown knotted her brow. “No, that’s not right; you killed Bob in the escape pod.” Another swig. “Then two more times here on the Yorkshire.” She leaned over the corpse. “Bad day, huh, Bob?”
Grant belatedly realized that all of the “Bobs” looked alike. He looked closer. Not identical, but close enough to be brothers. Each had black hair, heavy dark eye brows and a surprisingly small nose in a large, round face. Each was powerfully built, with barrel chests and broad, muscular shoulders. There were differences, of course, but the family resemblance was unmistakable.
Cookie pulled him down the line. “This is Tom,” she gestured to twenty or more corpses. The Toms were a different model. Sandy hair, narrow face and built like a long-distance runner.
“Bugger me,” he breathed. The rumors were true. “Creche-born soldiers.”
Cookie raised her bottle in a mocking toast. “Hiram told me about them. Rumor was they are raised to totally obey the Emperor. And when they are just fuckin’ little babies, they do some sort of surgery to their brains to make them…something.” She waived the bottle dismissively. “No one seems to know just why, but they do the surgery alright, just look at the scars on Bob’s temples.” She hiccupped thoughtfully. “Nasty.”
Grant gestured to three other lines of Savak dead. “And those?”
“Dicks and Harries and ten goddamed Janes.” Cookie’s face lit in a slightly drunken grin. “Join the Marines, Grant, and you get to kill every damn Tom, Dick and Harry you meet.” She took another swig. “And Bob and Jane, too.” Her grin vanished, replaced by a look of utter bleakness. “They sure do know how to fight, though. Give ‘em credit for that. Fight until you kill ‘em.” She turned to Grant then, and for the first time he realized tears were streaming down her face.
“Oh, sweet Gods of Our Mothers, how are we ever going to get home?” she asked.
• • • • •
On the captured H.M.S. London, First Sister Pilot sat back, puzzled. She had ordered six of the ten captured ships to head for Victorian space, there to meet up with the Dominion forces. Three ships, the Rutland, Kent and Yorkshire, were apparently still getting organized. But they were taking a long time to do it.
Third Sister Pilot came to her and bowed. “Sister, I have one of the krait pilots on the communicator. She is very troubled and wishes to speak with you.”
The screen filled with the image of a Pilot. As old as First Sister Pilot, but a different model. She bowed and spoke: “I am Second Sister Pilot, 13th Satori Creche, Special Savak Commando. I command the krait vessel that attacked the Victorian war ship Rutland three hours ago.”
“The Emperor’s Blessings to you and your men, Sister,” First Sister Pilot said from the London. “You have achieved a great victory over our enemies!”
“I fear not,” Second Sister said. “My men transported onto the Rutland, and its navigation lights are on and blinking, but…” She stopped, biting her lip.
A cold knot formed in First Sister Pilot’s stomach. Something was wrong. “Speak, Sister! We have no time to waste!”
Second Sister Pilot swallowed. “They do not call me! They should have taken the ship by now, but they do not call me to bring the krait into their loading dock. “And…and-” she dipped her chin in confusion — “there are no bodies!”
And now First Sister Pilot understood. One of the first tasks for the victorious Savak commandos was to herd all the prisoners into the loading bay, then open the loading bay doors and expel them into space. The bodies of the enemy dead would follow shortly. When a ship was taken there should be hundreds or thousands of corpses floating outside within a few hours.
“No bodies? Are you sure?”
Second Sister Pilot nodded. “I have a close visual of the entire area. There are no bodies.” She threw up her hands. “There should be bodies!”
First Sister Pilot cut the connection, waving to get the attention of her bridge crew. “Third Sister, call the krait commanders who attacked the Yorkshire and Kent, tell them to scan the area around each ship and report if they see any bodies. Fourth Sister, locate any kraits in the area who have not already attacked a target and vector them in to these three ships. Hurry!” She turned to the last two of her beloved sisters. “Turn on targeting radar and make ready for missile launch!”
• • • • •
“Targeting radar!” the Sensors Officer shouted. “We have been acquired by targeting radar. Source is the London.”
“That tears it,” Captain Gur said. “Ready all weapons to fire on my command! Flash message to Rutland and Kent to commence firing as soon as they are able.”
Grant was sitting just behind Benny Peled and could watch the preparations. Between them, the Yorkshire, Kent and Rutland had a missile throw weight roughly equal to that of the London, and several more lasers. But the battleship’s anti-missile defenses would be formidable, designed to fight off an enemy flotilla made up of at least one battleship and several cruisers. A lot would depend on who suffered the first damage, for that would make them more vulnerable to the next round of fire, and that could quickly cascade into annihilation.
“Fire all missiles!” Gur ordered.
Grant frowned. Why not use the lasers first?
The holo display suddenly showed several lasers from the London lance out at the Yorkshire, then several more at the Rutland. Damage alarms sounded.
“Our missiles are away. Impact in two minutes,” reported the Weapons Officer.
“Laser hits on the forward magazine and laser turrets three and five,” called the Systems Chief, his voice high-pitched with tension. Everyone on the bridge froze for a moment, collectively holding their breaths. If the forward magazine exploded, the ship would be destroyed. The Systems Chief became aware of the sudden silence and looked around, abashed. “Uh…no fire and no explosion, but the automatic loader is jammed. Missile tubes eight through sixteen can’t reload.”
Grant winced. Half their missile tubes would stay empty until it was fixed. And two of their six lasers were down.
“Get a damage team on it!” Gur snapped. “Missile status?”
“One minute to target.”
“Chaff! London is shooting chaff and its automatic defense systems have engaged. Bird shot, lasers and zone blasts!” Bird shot was the name for a gun that shot thousands of small pellets at very high velocities. They spread out like a shotgun blast; one or two pellets could disable an incoming missile. Zone blasts were war heads that spread out to form a rough globe measuring several miles across, then exploded simultaneously, destroying anything within its center.
“More laser shots from the London! The Rutland is taking a pounding!”
“Weapons, why haven’t our laser batteries fired?” Gur demanded.
“Awaiting your orders, sir,” the Weapons Officer replied.
“Well fire, dammit! You think this is a bloody church social?” Four heavy lasers fired and automatically began recharging. It would be two minutes before they could fire again.
“London’s defense system took out all but two of our missiles. Can’t get a good reading on damage inflicted.”
As Grant watched, the London fired its lasers again, raking both the Rutland and the Kent. But why wasn’t it firing missiles? The London had forty missile tubes. Where were they?
• • • • •
“First Sister! The ship’s computer will not allow access to the missile system without the proper authentication code.”
This had not been anticipated. Once the ship was taken, they did not think they would have to fight with other Victorian ships before joining the Dominion flotilla. First Sister Pilot ran through the technical specifications for the weapons system. All of the Sister Pilots were bred to be engineers, and trained from childhood to memorize prodigious amounts of technical information. She had studied the Victorian weapons’ systems for months.
“The ship’s computer controls only access to the central firing system,” she told her fellow Sister Pilots. “Missiles can be launched individually from their missile bays. The lasers can be fired directly from their turrets. Go quickly! Open fire as soon as you can!”
• • • • •
Close up, the London’s anti-missile defense was awesome to behold. The Rutland’s missiles were blotted from the sky. The Kent’s salvo, coming in on the heels of Rutland’s, fared better, but only five missiles got through and the London’s armor shook them off. More lasers shot out on all sides, a score from the London targeted the Rutland while Yorkshire and Kent returned the favor. Then two missiles salvoed from the London and struck the Kent. Grant stared at the holo in morbid fascination.
“Lost communications with Rutland and Kent, sir,” Sensors reported.
“London is getting its missile system on line, but they must be firing individually. We took out one of her laser turrets,” Weapons chimed in.
“Sensors, have Merlin do a C2C with Rutland and Kent to get a damage report,” Captain Gur ordered. The C2C was a parallel communications system used by the ships’ computers, allowing them to exchange data directly with each other. It was usually used to maintain current data on each ship’s state of readiness, but could be used to communicate if a ship’s primary communications system was knocked out.
“More missiles inbound!” warned Weapons. “They’ve got five up now.”
Yorkshire’s automatic defense system went into action, but it was not as robust as London’s. Four of the attacking missiles were quickly disabled, but the last missile stubbornly plowed ahead until bird shot detonated it less than a mile from the ship. The destroyed missile spewed hundreds of basketball sized shaped charges, a dozen of which struck the Yorkshire moments later, not far from the bridge. The ripple of explosions shook the Yorkshire and alarm sirens hooted, adding to the cacophony. The bridge crew exchanged worried glances.
The junior officer at Navigation shook her head. “It’s a blustery day, Pooh!” Grant just stared at her.
“We’ve got to take out London’s anti-missile system!” Commander Peled said.
“Can we land a boarding party of Marines on London? Give the Tilleke a taste of their own medicine?” Grant asked.
Peled shook his head. “The Tilleke have those bloody transporters, we only have shuttles. London would blow them out of the sky long before they reached her.
“Merlin reports heavy damage to Rutland. It’s lost its aft magazine and fires are reported on several decks. One anti-matter bottle is damaged, but holding. At least for now. Rutland’s Merlin estimates fifty percent chance of failure within the next three hours. Two hundred crewmen dead. Many wounded. Captain Sheffer is requesting we come along side to take off her wounded.”
A thought struck Grant. Far-fetched, but ridiculously simple.
“Commander,” he asked. “If you wanted to shut down the Yorkshire’s anti-missile system, what would you do?”
Peled shot him a puzzled look. “I’d just turn it off.”
“But how, exactly?”
“We can do it manually, of course, but usually we just tell Merlin to shut it down.”
“Will Merlin accept orders from me?” Grant asked.
“Yes, you’ve been logged in as one of the ship’s officers.” Commander Peled’s eyes opened wide. “You think that you can-”
Then a gust of cold air blew against his face, and snow began to fall.
“Intruders!” Grant shouted, snatching up a pistol. Don’t they ever stop?