We Few

Those carriers hadn't gotten off unscathed in the missile holocaust. Captain Julius Fenrec's Gloria was out of it. She'd been shot to pieces—not such a good omen for certain cruiser skippers, perhaps; Demesne's mouth twisted wryly at the thought—and her surviving perso

Of course, in the meantime, there were all those missiles the fighters had sent scorching into CarRon 14's teeth. Which ought to begin arriving... right... about...

"Detonations on the carriers," the assistant tactical officer said. "Multiple detonations! Holy shit, Melshikov is just gone!"

"Admiral," Lieutenant Commander Clinton, at Tactical Two said, coughing on the smoke eddying about the compartment. CIC hadn't lost environment, and she still had her helmet latched back. "Melshikov is gone, and Porter reports critical damage. Everybody else is still intact... more or less."

Victor Gajelis ground his teeth together in fury. Fighters. Who would have believed fighters could inflict that much damage?

He glared at Trujillo's damage control schematic. The fighter strike had concentrated heavily on Melshikov and Porter, and for all intents and purposes, destroyed both of them. Porter was still technically intact, but she'd lost two-thirds of her combat capability, her phase drive was badly damaged, and her tu

"It looks like Gloria is abandoning," Clinton added, and the admiral nodded in acknowledgment. At least they'd gotten one of the bastards in return, but that didn't magically erase his own losses or mean his other four carriers had escaped unscathed. Trujillo was probably the least damaged of the lot, and she'd been hammered hard. She'd lost a quarter of her missile launchers, almost as many of her grasers, and a third of her point defense clusters, and she was still an hour and a half short of Old Earth.

"Sir," Commander Talbert said quietly, "look at Tactical Three."

Gajelis' eyes flicked sideways, and his jaw clenched even tighter as the last of his parasite cruisers was blown apart.

"Three of Fatted Calf's carriers are still intact, Sir," Talbert pointed out in that same, quiet voice. "Prokourov's cruisers will be in planetary orbit in another four minutes—with full magazines—and his carriers will be here in less than two hours."

Gajelis grunted in irate acknowledgment. A little voice deep inside told him it was time to give it up, but he could still do it. Yes, his ships were damaged, but Gloria was gone completely now—the explosion had been bright enough to be picked out clearly at twenty six million kilometers—and the three carriers still guarding the planetary orbitals were as badly damaged as his four surviving carriers. And the Fatted Calf cruisers had been effectively gutted, while their fighters were dodging around for their lives with his own in pursuit. He'd have to deal with Prokourov's cruisers, as well as Atilius' carriers, but it would still have been little worse than an even fight, if not for Prokourov's carriers. Still, if he went back to maximum acceleration, just blew past Old Earth and took out the Palace in passing...

"We have system recon platform access, Admiral," Tactical called out.

"Incoming encrypted message from Moonbase," Communications chimed in.

"Admiral," Tactical went on, without a break, "system platforms report heavy phase drive emissions closing on Old Earth," Tactical called out. "Lots of electronics, Sir. Electronics are encrypted, and we're having a hard time sorting it out. Looks like three squadrons. We're getting IFF off of them. One of them is CarRon 14, but the other two are squawking 'Fatted Calf One' and 'Fatted Calf Two.'"

"'Fatted Calf?'" Julian repeated with a puzzled frown.

"It's t'e pocking Bible," Poertena said excitedly. "You roast t'e pocking patted calp when t'e prodigal son returns."

"Indeed," Helmut agreed with a smile. "Sergeant Julian, you really need to brush up on your general reading." He studied the icons on his repeater plot. "Three ships in one squadron, noted only as Fatted Calf. And all of Twelfth Squadron, which is broadcasting as Fatted Calf Two."

"Intel update complete," Tactical said.

"Admiral La Paz reports a tu

Gajelis looked at his own display as the central computers updated it, then shook his head.

"It's not going to be one of Prince Jackson's forces," he muttered. "Not that big and coming in from there."

"Helmut," Commander Talbert said.

"Helmut," Gajelis agreed bitterly. "Dark Lord of the Sixth. Damn that traitorous bastard!"

Commander Talbert wisely avoided pointing out that "traitorous" was, perhaps, a double-edged concept at this particular moment.

"We'll have to withdraw," the admiral continued.

"Withdraw to where?" Talbert demanded, unable to keep his anger totally out of his voice.

"Arrangements have been made," Gajelis said flatly. "Signal the squadron to break off and head for the TD limit. Flight Plan Leonidas. I need to make a call."

"So much for time," Helmut sighed, and punched a command into his repeater. A much larger hologram came up, covered with icons which were so much gibberish to Julian. "Ah, there's what we're after!" the admiral said, reaching into the hologram and "tapping" a finger through some of the symbols. The hologram's scale was so small that they scarcely seemed to be moving at all, but the vector codes beside them said otherwise.

"What is it?" Julian asked.

"Fourteenth Squadron," Helmut replied. "Well..."

He frowned and brought up a sidebar list and studied it briefly.

"It was Fourteenth Squadron," he continued. "Now, it's Fourteenthmissing two carriers. Took a bit of a beating, apparently, but still the ones we want."

"Why them?" Julian asked.

"People, Sergeant. People," Helmut sighed. "It's not the ships, it's the minds within them. Fourteenth is Adoula's most loyal squadron. Where else would the Prince run to? The one squadron that would beat feet the instant my fleet turned up and Adoula got on board, which is why I had Admiral Niedermayer come in where he did."

"Is it going to work?"

"Well, we'll just have to see, won't we?" Helmut shrugged. "The bad guys aren't precisely where they should be—thanks to the fact that your Prince had to start early. Remind me to discuss the importance of maintaining operational schedules with him." The admiral bared his teeth in a tight smile. "As it is, we'll just have to wait and see. It'll be some time, either way." He banished the plotting hologram and brought up a 3-D chessboard, instead. "Do you play, Sergeant?"

"I wish I could have welcomed you aboard under better circumstances, Your Highness," Victor Gajelis said in a harsh, grating voice as Prince Jackson was shown into his day cabin. The admiral bent his head in a bow, and Adoula forced himself not to swear at him. It had become painfully obvious that Gajelis was not the best flag officer in the Imperial Navy. Unfortunately, all of the ones better than him seemed to be working for the other side, which meant the prince was just going to have to make do.