In Fire Forged

  For another few seconds Rabenstrange continued to gaze at him in silence. Charles waited; and after what seemed like forever the admiral gave a microscopic nod. “I’ll want a list of those references,” he said.

  “Of course, My Lord,” Charles said. “I have them in an overlaid code on one of my data chips. I can have a decoded copy for you within the hour.”

  “No need,” Rabenstrange said. “The Derfflinger’s cryptologists haven’t much to do right now. They’ll enjoy the challenge.”

  Charles suppressed a grimace, but there was nothing for it but to comply. Opening his data chip holder, he selected one at random and set it down on the table in front of him. “Will there be anything else, My Lord?”

  “Not at present,” Rabenstrange said. “One of the Marines outside will take you to the others.”

  Charles nodded, and once again turned to the door. This time, Rabenstrange let him escape.

  * * *

  To Charles’s relief, Rabenstrange didn’t take him up on the suggestion that he be clapped in irons, or whatever the IAN used in its brigs. On the contrary, as they headed toward Irrlicht it almost seemed that the crew members assigned to watch over the passengers went out of their way to treat him better than they did Mercier or even their own countryman Weiss. No doubt it was all part of some arcane plan on Rabenstrange’s part, pressuring the passengers with lopsided kindness in the hope of forcing open a few interesting and illuminating cracks.

  If that was his goal, it was a waste of everyone’s time. Mercier, no doubt reading the situation the same way Charles was, made a point of not reacting to any of it, but simply maintained his brooding expatriate persona.

  Two days of hyper-space travel later, they reached the Irrlicht system.

  “We’re here,” Rabenstrange announced, swiveling in his command chair to look at the three passengers he’d had brought onto his bridge. “Herr Navarre? Any thoughts?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” Charles admitted. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is the place, but I have no idea where exactly the terminus might be located. Herr Weiss’s analysis suggested it would be two to four light-hours outside the system, but there’s no way to know where. On the other hand, if the Manties have a base in the outer asteroid belt somewhere, we should be able to find it, shielded or otherwise. Once we have the base, we should be able to pull records of the terminus itself.”

  “It’s a reasonable place to begin,” Rabenstrange agreed, swiveling back around again. “Captain Preis?”

  The flag captain nodded and turned to the helm. “Take us in slow—two hundred gees,” he ordered. “Bow and sidewall sensors, set up a crisscross search pattern, starting at null-null. Stern sensors, search outward for anything that might indicate a gravitic or spatial anomaly. Deploy the LACs with similar instructions.”

  Turning toward the faint point of light in the distance that marked the system’s sun, the big ship headed forward.

  There was a breath of displaced air as Weiss stepped to Charles’s side. ”This is it,” he murmured.

  “Yes,” Charles murmured back. “Did I hear Captain Preis mention LACs?”

  “Yes, two of them,” Weiss confirmed. “They came with us from Mischa’s Star, tractored to the hull. They’ll ride escort for us, as well as help with the search.”

  “Ah,” Charles said, nodding. “What was the null-null reference?”

  “That’s zero-zero, the part of the outer belt directly ahead of us,” Weiss explained. “The miners who occasionally come here to try their luck call the belt the Double Diamond because it has two relatively small, relatively dense areas, with the rest of the ring much more open and empty. Since those are the two likeliest places for the Manties to hide a base, we might as well start with one of them.”

  “Yes, that makes sense,” Charles murmured.

  Weiss peered oddly at him. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Charles said. “Just nervous, I suppose.”

  “About what?”

  Charles shook his head. “Just nervous.”

  “Ah.” Weiss studied him another moment. Then, without another word, he drifted away.

  Charles bit back a curse. That bit of unfocused weirdness had probably cost him ten points’ worth of class in Weiss’s estimation. But right now, he couldn’t care less what Weiss thought about him.

  The Ellipsis’s orders, coming from Saint-Just himself, had been to wait at Irrlicht for Charles and Mercier to bring in the Derfflinger or a ship of equal size and status. But Tyler had taken his ship to Mischa’s Star instead, and had furthermore risked the entire mission just to shoot a few missiles at a cruiser and a harmless freighter.

  The question—the crucial, damnable question—was why? What had Tyler thought he could accomplish?

  Had he wanted to stir up the Andies to come charging into Irrlicht? But Charles had already promised he would do that, and Saint-Just had accepted that promise, and that should have been good enough for Tyler. Had he hoped an attack would irritate the Andies into sending a big, important ship to investigate the suspect system? But Charles had promised to do that, too.

  So why had Tyler deviated from the plan? More importantly, were there other such deviations waiting down the line?

  Charles didn’t know. But sometime in the next few hours, he had damn well better figure it out.

  * * *

  “ID confirmed,” the Ellipsis’s sensor officer announced. “It’s the IAN superdreadnought Derfflinger, Admiral Herzog von Rabenstrange’s flagship.”

  “Excellent,” Captain Tyler said, leaning back in his seat and smiling one of his wolfish smiles. It was all going exquisitely according to plan, Navarre’s overall scheme and Tyler’s improvements to it. The Imperials had taken the bait, and now the cousin and close friend of the Andermani Emperor himself was aboard the ship bearing down on him.

  Navarre’s plan had been a bold one: point the Andermani to the Irrlicht system and talk them into sending a ship to investigate; have the Ellipsis “appear” from its supposed wormhole, spot the “unexpected” intruder, and attack under the guise of a Manty ship jealously defending “its” wormhole; damage the Andy as much as possible before his own destruction; and then let nature and Andermani militarist pride take its course. Tyler had never doubted for a minute that it would work.

  But Tyler had now seen the inherent risks of straining his alpha nodes in order to create the fake wormhole footprint. He could do permanent damage to them, and here in the Irrlicht system there was no PRN tender standing by ready to repair that damage. Or worse, the energy surge might blow the impeller rooms and destroy the entire ship. That would end Citizen Navarre’s plan right there and then.

  Besides, wouldn’t it be better if, instead of merely damaging the Andermani ship, the Ellipsis was able to completely destroy it?

  Of course it would. Not only would it enable the People’s Republic to retain the Ellipsis for future service, but the Emperor’s outrage at the Royalists would be orders of magnitude greater.

  So Tyler had taken it upon himself to modify Navarre’s plan. And now, thanks to that initiative, this new, better result was all but guaranteed.

  Because under the original plan, there was no way of knowing which direction the investigating ship might come from. The two large clusters of this so-called Double Diamond asteroid belt were more or less equidistant from New Berlin, and a captain coming from the Andermani capital could basically flip a coin as to which cluster he chose to investigate first.

  But one of those two clusters was on an almost direct line from Mischa’s Star. By creating an additional “Manty” incident there, an incident that would most likely be investigated by the same ship already tasked with the Irrlicht probe, Tyler had given the Derfflinger an obvious choice of which cluster to examine first.

  The cluster that the Ellipsis itself was even now skulking inside, its wedge at low power, its ID beacon silent, its wonderful new Solly stealthing rendering it all but invisible.

/>   “He’s stabilized his approach vector, Captain,” the navigator reported.

  “Acknowledged,” Tyler said, studying the nav display. It would have been even more perfect if he could have known precisely where the Derfflinger would be coming in. Then he could have lain quietly along the Andermani’s approach vector until the Imperial lumbered unsuspectingly into point-blank energy range, where a single salvo of laser and graser fire poured down its unprotected throat would gut even a superdreadnought like a fish. Not only would that have finished him off in a single blow, but it would have had the extra irony of being exactly the same technique the accursed Royalist Honor Harrington had used in her cowardly attack on the People’s task force during her escape from Cerberus.

  But alas, it wasn’t going to be so neat and clean. Even coming from a known position, the Derfflinger had any number of approach vectors to choose from, with no way for Tyler to know where to lie in wait for him.

  Which was why, as far back as the repair work on his Alpha nodes, he’d conceived this new scheme instead.

  “Prepare to get underway,” he ordered. “Minimal wedge, full stealthing, course as previously laid in.”

  “Yes, Citizen Captain,” the helmsman acknowledged.

  Tyler settled back in his seat. No, this new plan wouldn’t be as neat and clean as a graser ambush. But it would be just as spectacular.

  And in the end, the Derfflinger and Admiral Rabenstrange would be just as dead.

  * * *

  The Derfflinger was six hours into the Irrlicht system when she spotted spotted the wedge.

  “Given its current vector, and assuming constant acceleration and heading, it has to have come from right about here,” the superdreadnought’s tactical officer said. She tapped a command into her console, and a blinking icon appeared on the flight deck’s master plot.

  “Even if they’d been under complete emissions control, the recon drones’ active sensors should have picked it up when they swept that area,” Captain Preis pointed out.

  “Yes, sir,” the officer agreed. “Best explanation is that it was shielded somehow.”

  Preis grunted and turned to the communications display which linked his position on Derfflinger’s command deck to Rabenstrange’s flag bridge.

  “I think, Admiral, we may have found our camouflaged Manty base. If they got some kind of super stealth that can hide a starship, I don’t see any reason it couldn’t hide a basing facility just as well. Especially if the facility’s built into an asteroid, as well.”

  “Perhaps,” Rabenstrange agreed. “Any ID on the ship?”

  “Configuration, emissions, and impeller signature are consistent with a Manty Star Knight-class heavy cruiser,” the tactical officer reported. “So far, nothing else.”

  For a moment Rabenstrange sat quietly. Then he gave a short nod, as if he’d come to a decision. “The base can wait,” he said. “Plot an intercept course with that ship. If they’re the ones who hit Mischa’s Star, we’re going to want to have a serious conversation with them.”

  There was a flurry of acknowledgments, and the maneuvering plot shifted as the big superdreadnought began altering its course. In the midst of all the activity, Charles caught Mercier’s eye and gave a small nod toward a relatively unoccupied part of the bridge. Mercier frowned, but nodded back, and began drifting that direction. Charles did likewise, feeling the eyes of the silent Totenkopfs on him the whole way, and a moment later he and Mercier were as alone as they were going to get.

  “What exactly is he doing?” Mercier murmured.

  “That was my question,” Charles murmured back as he pulled out his reader. “Give me a chip—any chip. We need to look like we’re consulting on something. This isn’t the plan, Mercier. What the hell is Tyler playing at?”

  “Why ask me?” Mercier countered, digging a chip out of his pocket and handing it over.

  “Because he’s your countryman, and you’ve got a better handle on his psychology than I do,” Charles said, plugging in the chip. It turned out to be a collection of classic novels. “Could he have lost his nerve and be making a run for it?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Mercier scoffed. “Besides, if he was, why turn off the stealthing? Unless you think it might have failed.”

  “No,” Charles said firmly, looking over at the tactical display. Mercier was right: if the Ellipsis’s stealthing hadn’t been on earlier, the Derfflinger’s sensors would have spotted it long ago. So why turn it off now?

  Unless Tyler wanted Rabenstrange to see him.

  A hard knot settled into Charles’s stomach as he looked at the display with new eyes. There was no way Tyler could have known exactly which approach vector Rabenstrange would come in on. But what he could do was quietly move the Ellipsis to a particular point, and then time his appearance from stealth in order to nudge the Derfflinger onto a pursuit vector.

  A carefully prepared pursuit vector…

  “Tell me something,” he murmured to Mercier, looking back at his reader. “That tender we brought to Karavani to fix any damage the Ellipsis might sustain in that raid. It was a general supply/repair/ammunition ship, right?”

  “Correct,” Mercier said.

  “Loaded with a typical grab-bag of weaponry?”

  “Again, yes,” Mercier said. “What are you—?”

  “Including a selection of laser-head mines?”

  For a moment Mercier just stared dumfounded at Charles. Then, the corners of his lip twitched. “Excellent,” he said. “Well done, Captain.”

  “You think so?” Charles bit out, fighting to hold onto his temper. “Let me set you straight. It may not matter to you whether or not you die today. But if Tyler succeeds in luring us into a minefield, the whole plan will die right here and now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mercier asked, frowning. “Destroying the Derfflinger would be perfect.”

  “No, it would be disastrous,” Charles retorted, gazing intently down at the reader, knowing that every Totenkopf eye was on them. He had to make this look good. “Think it through. The Ellipsis has to be seen coming out of a wormhole—well, Tyler’s screwed that part up already. But never mind. More importantly, he has to be seen in Manty uniform, he has to challenge Rabenstrange with Manty claims to the system, and he has to inflict some serious damage before supposedly popping back down the rabbit hole. All of that requires that he leave some actual survivors.”

  Mercier’s expression abruptly changed. “Oh, hell,” he murmured. “But there would still be escape pods, right?”

  “After a bunch of mines have delivered a down-the-throat X-ray laser barrage?” Charles asked. “You tell me. Besides, a few random engine room or medic staff survivors would be useless—they won’t have seen any of the show we’ve worked so hard to set up. Whatever else happens, the command deck has got to survive intact, or this whole thing will have been for nothing.”

  Mercier swore viciously. “Damn him to hell,” he muttered. “What do we do?”

  “We get off this vector as fast as we can,” Charles said grimly, pointing to a random part of the reader’s display. “Here—we’ve just discovered indications that the wormhole terminus is on a vector about ten degrees starboard of us. That’s what we really want to go look at, not some random marauding Manty ship. Think you can convince Rabenstrange of that?”

  “Why me?” Mercier countered. “You’re the one he likes.”

  “No, I’m the one he doesn’t trust,” Charles countered, thrusting the reader into his hands. “It has to be you.”

  “He’s not going to believe me,” Mercier insisted, his voice starting to sound a little ragged as he took the reader. “What do I show him for proof? A random page from—what is that?—A Study in Scarlet?”

  “It’s overlay-encrypted,” Charles explained patiently. “That’s all you have to say—I gave him that same spiel a couple of days ago. Now go.”

  For a moment Mercier gazed at the reader in silence. “Fine,” he said. “Wait here. I??
?ll take care of it.”

  He headed toward the command chair. The two Totenkopfs standing guard there moved to cut off his approach, stopped at a word from Rabenstrange and allowed him to pass. Mercier stepped to the admiral’s side, and for a minute they spoke together in voices too low for Charles to hear. Rabenstrange nodded, and as Mercier walked away he turned to Captain Preis and murmured new orders.

  “Well?” Charles asked as Mercier returned.

  “He agrees that three vessels will be able to herd the Manty ship more efficiently than one,” Mercier said calmly. “So he’s going to take my suggestion and move the two LACs into flanking positions outside our wedge.”

  Charles felt his mouth drop open. “What?”

  “You were concerned that the Derfflinger might die with all aboard,” Mercier reminded him. “A group of mines facing a superdreadnought and two LACs will certainly ignore the smaller ships, which means there will now be at least two LACs’ worth of survivors. And since Tyler will be delivering his message on broadcast instead of tight beam, they’ll see and thus be able to report everything.” Giving Charles a tight smile, he walked away.

  Charles stared after him, his pulse thudding in his throat. So the Derfflinger would be destroyed, Rabenstrange would be killed, and the Emperor would declare war within hours of hearing the news. All nice and neat and made to order.

  Never mind that Mercier himself would die along with everyone else. From his point of view, this was indeed the ideal solution. True Believer…

  “You all right?”

  Charles started. With his brain and gut tied in knots, he hadn’t even noticed Weiss’s arrival. “No, I’m not,” he said, trying desperately to get his brain on line again. Rabenstrange might not listen to him, but he would certainly listen to Weiss. “I can’t shake the feeling that we’re in danger.”

  “We’re a warship,” Weiss said dryly. “We’re allowed to be in danger.”