We Few

A tragedy, he thought, but a necessary one. And not just to tie up loose ends.

Admiral Prokourov spent the ten-minute delay while he waited for Gianetto's response to his own reply dictating messages to his squadron to prepare for movement. He also sent one other message of his own to another address while he waited. When the general's reply came, it was more or less what he'd anticipated.

"You've got the frigging order from me." Obviously, Gianetto had also been giving orders on another screen while he waited, but he snapped his head back to glare into the monitor and snarled the reply as soon as he heard the admiral. "And if you don't think you can do the job, I'll find someone who will! We don't have time to dick around, Prok!"

"Four hours-plus from our current position," Prokourov said with a shrug. "We'll start moving—"

The admiral paused as his shipboard office's hatch opened, and his eyes widened as he saw the bead pistol in the Marine sergeant's hand.

The Marine walked over and glanced at the monitor, then smiled.

"General Gianetto," he said solicitously. "What a pleasant surprise! You may be unhappy to hear this, but Carrier Squadron Twelve isn't going anywhere, you traitorous son of a bitch!"

He keyed the communicator off long before the general even heard the words, much less had a chance to formulate a reply. Then he turned to Prokourov. He opened his mouth, but the admiral gestured at the gun in his hand.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Prokourov said, "but that won't be necessary."

"Oh?" the sergeant said warily, and glanced over his shoulder. There was one other Marine at the hatch, but the rest of the flagship's Marine detachment was spread out attending to other duties, involving things like bridges and engineering spaces.

"Oh," Prokourov replied. "Do you know what's going on, Sergeant?"

"No, Sir," the sergeant replied. He started to lower his bead pistol, then paused, eyeing the admiral warily. "All I know is that we were supposed to do everything we could to prevent Home Fleet from moving to the support of the Palace and, especially, of General Gianetto."

"So what's your chain of command?" the intel officer asked with a frown.

"Du

"Yes, Sergeant," Admiral Prokourov said. "Damn it, indeed. Look, put down the pistol. We're on your side." He looked at the intel officer with a raised eyebrow. "Let me rephrase that. I'm on your side. Tuzcu?"

"I'd sure as hell like to know that whatever's going on has a chance!" The intel officer grimaced. "Certainly before I commit, for God's sake!"

"Sir," the sergeant said, lowering his pistol, "the whole Fleet Marine Force is on the Prince's side. Of the Empress', that is. Sergeant Major Brailowsky—"

"So that's why he was arrested," Prokourov said.

"Yes, Sir." The sergeant shrugged and holstered his pistol. "You serious about helping, Sir?" he added, keeping his hand close to the weapon.

"I'll admit I'm not sure what I'm helping, Sergeant," the admiral said carefully. "What we have right now is a total cluster fuck, and I would deeply like to get it unclustered. And as it happens, I've already contacted Moonbase to see what they have to say."

"I can guess Greenberg's reaction," the Marine growled sourly.

"That's assuming Greenberg is still in command," Prokourov noted. "Which I tend to doubt, since our movement orders came direct from Admiral Gianetto, not the fleet commander. It's possible, I suppose, that Greenberg was simply too busy doing something else to give us a call, but I expect he's suffered a mischief by now. And if he hasn't, you might as well just shoot me with that pistol, because if their pla

"Incoming call from Admiral Prokourov."

"My screen," Kjerulf said, and looked down as Prokourov appeared on his main com display.

"Co

"This is Kjerulf," he said, looking at Prokourov's profile. "I'm sorry, Admiral, but Admiral Greenberg is unavailable at this time."

Prokourov had his pickup off, and was speaking to someone off-screen while he waited out the transmission delay. He didn't appear flustered, but, then, he rarely did, and Kjerulf turned off his own pickup as he noted a blip on his repeater.

"Carrier Squadron Fourteen is moving," Sensor Three reported. "Big phase signature. They're headed out-system at one-point-six-four KPS squared."

"Understood," Kjerulf said, and looked back down at Prokourov's profile waiting out the interminable communications lag. He'd expected CarRon 14 to move as quickly as it got the word, but Prokorouv's CarRon 12 had become just as critical as he'd feared, because Greenberg had changed the lockout codes on the base's offensive missile launchers.

It was another one of those reasonable little safety precations which was turning around and biting everyone on the ass in the current chaotic situation. Modern missiles had a range at burn-out of well over twelve million kilometers and reached almost ten percent of light-speed, and a few dozen of those fired against Old Earth—whether accidentally or by some lunatic—would pretty much require the human race to find a new place to call home, even without warheads. So it only made sense to ensure that releasing them for use was not a trivial process. Unfortunately, it had allowed Greenberg to make sure no one could fire them against any other target—like traitorous ships of the Imperial Navy supporting one Jackson Adoula's usurpation of the Throne—without the command code only he knew. And he was no longer available to provide it.

Fortunately, he hadn't done the same thing to Moonbase's countermissile launchers, so the base could at least still defend itself against bombardment. But it couldn't fire a single shot at anything outside the limited envelope of its energy weapons, which meant the four carriers of Fatted Calf Squadron were on their own. Things were going to be ugly enough against CarRon 14's six carriers; if CarRon 12 weighed in with four more of them, it would be bad. If they continued to sit things out, at least it would only be four-against-six, and that was doable... maybe.

The other squadrons were still too way the hell far out-system to intervene. So far. And they also had longer signal delays. Wu's Squadron Six was all the way out on the other side of the sun, over forty light-minutes from Old Earth orbit. Thirteenth, Eleventh, and Fifteenth were all closer, but round-trip signal time even to them was over forty-three minutes. And, of course, their sensors had the same delay. They couldn't know yet what was happening on the planet, which meant none of them had had to commit yet. But they would. For that matter, they could already be moving, and he wouldn't know it until his light-speed sensors reported it.

He closed his eyes, thinking hard for a moment, then opened them again and glanced at his senior com tech.

"We still have contact with the civilian com net planet-side?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Then look up a number in Imperial city. Marduk... something. House, maybe. Anyway, it's a restaurant. Tell them where you're calling from and ask for anybody who has a clue what's going on! Ask for... ask for Ms. Nejad."

"Aye, aye, Sir," the noncom said in the tone of someone suppressing an urge to giggle hysterically.

"Marduk House," the Mardukan said in very broken Imperial.

"I need to speak to Ms. Nejad," an exasperated Kjerulf said.