“Welcome to you all,” Martinez said. “I am Captain Lord Gareth Martinez, and I have been assigned by Lady Michi Chen to take command of this provisional squadron. I suppose some of you might be surprised to find me in charge of the squadron, and you wonder how I am qualified to command such a group of experienced officers.
“First, I’m an honors graduate of the Nelson Academy. I worked hard as a cadet and a lieutenant, and served on shipboard as well as on the staff of Fleet Commander Enderby. I won the Golden Orb by rescuingCorona from the Naxids.
“And then,” he said, “I married your squadcom’s niece.”
He looked from one blank face to the next.
“You may laugh,” he said.
Only the Cree seemed to find this amusing. Martinez decided he might as well surrender his career as a wit.
“I expect we’ll be working very hard,” he said. “I have been ordered to work up this squadron in a new system of tactics.”
“We’re defying the Supreme Commander’s express orders?”
This from Captain Tantu, the Daimong commander of the light cruiserVigilant . By virtue of his seniority, Tantu had commanded the squadron until now.
“The situation has changed, my lord,” Martinez said smoothly. “The Supreme Commander is out of contact, and we’re following the enemy so closely that it’s unlikely a conventional battle will develop. Lady Michi feels that we should look into different tactical options—those employed at Protipanu, for instance.”
What Tantu thought of this was hidden behind his expressionless Daimong face. Those faces that Martinez could read seemed intrigued.
“The wise worm learns from the worm-eater,” said one of the Cree.
“And the tree rejoices in the night rains,” said the other.
Martinez looked at them. “Ye-es,” he said.
“My lord?”
One of the Terran captains looked at him with a question poised on her lips.
“Yes, my lady?” he said.
“Is this the Foote Formula we’ll be learning?”
He smiled. “No. Something better than that.”
“Ghost Tactics?” lisped one of the Torminel.
Martinez paused for a moment of surprise, in which he deduced that the White Ghost had given their tactical innovations a name that reflected glory on her and left him out of the picture.
Well, he thought. One good turn deserved another.
“Not quite,” he said. “We’re going to practice the Martinez Method.”
Sula was pleased to have her squadron again, though she was sorry at the effort she’d wasted on Carmody. She had to wonder which way he would have jumped in the end.
Still the point of the spear, she andConfidence raced on the track of the enemy. The Naxids had gained something like twenty hours on their pursuers, and Michi wanted to narrow the distance.
Sula approved. Like Michi, she wondered what it was the Naxids were retreating to, and whether there were reinforcements speeding to Naxas or already there.
Whatever the Naxids planned, timing had to be a crucial element. And the faster the loyalists pursued, the more the Naxids would be forced to advance their timing, straining ships and crew and equipment. The more the enemy were stressed, the more likely they were to make mistakes.
Maybe those reinforcements—if they existed—wouldn’t turn up in time.
The price of wrecking the Naxids’ timing was enduring a three-gravity acceleration at least fifteen hours per day. The rest of the time was spent in drills and experiments, working the squadron’s two new ships into the pattern. The only people excused from the drills were the cooks, who produced the meals that the crew gobbled at their action stations.
Michi Chen gave her ships one hour of free time each day, when the acceleration was reduced to one gee and no drills were scheduled, time that allowed people to leave their couches, stretch, and empty the waste collection bags from their vac suits. Never a pleasant job, the crowding at the toilets and waste disposers now made it worse. Sula rejoiced in her private toilet and her private shower. She wasn’t prepared to share them with anyone.
She hardly had to abuse her new captains at all. They had seen what she’d done at Second Magaria, and all were now believers in Ghost Tactics.
She meet Martinez in virtual conferences with Michi and other officers. She was civil. He was civil. He reported progress with his squadron. So did she. Everyone was learning fast, under the pressure of imminent combat. Sula wanted them all to learn their moves before the constant pounding of heavy gravity made them stupid and careless.
There were three systems between Magaria and Naxas, a swollen red giant, a blue-white star boiling off angry radiation, and a neutron star surrounded by the wreckage of a planetary system it had destroyed in a great supernova. The systems were mostly barren, and when the two fleets entered them, their population doubled or tripled.
Chenforce pressed the Naxids and narrowed the distance. The Naxids didn’t respond to the loyalists’ increased acceleration until five hours had gone by, and then they matched their pursuers’ acceleration without trying to increase their lead.
On the second day, on an hour when Chenforce had reduced its acceleration, the Naxids sent a swarm of pinnaces, shuttles, and other small craft to ferry crew away from one of their ships. Michi saw what was happening and ordered a fast, hard burn in pursuit. The Naxids finished their evacuation and raced away. When they were a safe distance from the abandoned vessel, they blew it up with a missile.
One of the damaged Naxid ships hadn’t been able to stand the increased pressure that Michi Chen was applying. That left the enemy fleet with twenty-nine. Sula approved.
The pursuit went on. Sula peeled med patches off her neck and applied new ones. She ate badly and slept badly, her dreams choked with asphyxiation and blood. Casimir called to her from his pilfered tomb.
Once, she felt his warm touch on her skin. She reached to take his hand, and found that the hand wasn’t Casimir’s, wasn’t long and thin, but broad and blunt-fingered, the hand of Martinez—and she woke, eyes wide and staring at the man who touched her, and he wasn’t Martinez but the almost-Martinez, Terza’s son, who gazed at her in malicious triumph from beneath his heavy brows…and then she wokeagain, heart lurching against her ribs, and saw the glowing pastel displays of Command and the crew drowsing at their stations while Haz in Auxiliary Command conned the ship.
Both fleets were going to have to decelerate in order to have a hope of maneuvering in the Naxas system. Until they arrived at the turnover point where the deceleration would normally start, Michi continued her accelerations. The Naxids continued to flee before them. Michi was going to wreck the Naxids’ schedule past all repair.
Sula began to think that Michi should continue the accelerations regardless. Press the Naxids to the point where it was impossible for either side to maneuver in the system, only to flash through it on their way to the next wormhole. The Naxids would have to accept straight-up combat this side of their home planet in order to keep Chenforce from blasting the place en route to somewhere else.
She contacted Michi and made this suggestion. Michi said she’d take a few hours to think about it, and a few hours later sent Sula a message saying she’d decided against the idea.
“We don’t know what’s there,” she said. “Going in slower gives us more time to work out our options.”
Sula shrugged with shoulders three times their normal weight. She concluded that Michi probably had a point.
Chenforce rolled and began its deceleration. The Naxids rolled and decelerated as well. Due to the delay in rollover, gee forces were heavier than during the accelerations. Sula felt as if the big hand of the almost-Martinez had clamped on her throat. Her heart raced to erratic surges of panic. She fought against the fear. In the shower, she scrubbed herself with perfumed soap to scour off the sour odor of spent adrenaline.
The Naxids’ deceleration wasn’t quite as heavy as that of Chenforce. The loyalists were slowly overtaking them. Sula checked the trajectories and matched them against a current map of the Naxas system, which featured eleven planets dotted around the primary. Chenforce would overtake about halfway toward the Naxid home world, having just passed the orbits of three gas giants.
Therewere reinforcements then. Most likely they would sweep around one or more of those gas giants and burn like fury to join the Naxid fleet before the battle.
Sula messaged these speculations to Chandra Prasad. The tactical officer answered that she, Michi, and Captain Martinez had already worked it out, but thanks anyway.
Sula consoled herself with the thought that at least there were a few other keen minds in the squadron.