He ordered minor evasive maneuvers for all the ships and then added, “Every ship gets one hour rest, non-acceleration, after course correction. I advise you use it, people. It’s the last chance we’ll get, and we need to be crisp for what comes next.”
He used his hour to float to the mess hall and eat a quick meal of 3d printed, krill-based hamburger with a side of fries. The fries were real, flash frozen and stored by the tonnage. It gave them a mushy taste, but it was better than krill.
Forty minutes later, he was back on the bridge. He strapped to the g-seat and asked Alicante for an update.
“Vortex has opened fire. Torpedoes,” said Commander Alicante. “Perhaps to show Dione they’re still in control of the situation.”
“Good,” said Clarke, “let them waste their ammunition.”
Torpedoes were deadly at small ranges where the point defenses of a ship had less margin of error to shoot them down. At such distance, there was zero risk of those torpedoes hitting their mark.
Still, Clarke’s modus operandi was to avoid unnecessary risks. He ordered three of Hawk’s escorts forward in the formation, so their point defenses would reinforce Hawk’s.
“Captain Riley Erickson hailed us, too,” said Alicante. “COMMO says it’s a pre-recorded message, no virus, neither digital nor memetic.”
“Patch it through,” said Clarke. What could Captain Erickson have to say to them? Asking for their immediate surrender, perhaps. Or a couple choice words at them.
The message did not include Erickson at all. It was a simple recording of Vortex’s sensors. About five minutes of footage that showed an escape capsule gyrating over a starry background. The words Beowulf shone brightly in its hull as Vortex lights illuminated the metallic surface.
Clarke’s hands tightened into fists as he realized what was about to happen. He didn’t see the round that destroyed the capsule. It came apart in silence, torn to pieces too small to recognize.
“Motherfuckers,” Alicante said.
The words “During their escape attempt at New Angeles, the terrorist organization known as EIF killed the crew of the Free Trader it took hostage during their mad rush to Dione…” hovered above the capsule’s debris. The message ended just as Clarke recognized what he was seeing. It was a clip from today’s newscasts at Dione.
Hawk’s bridge went silent. Clarke didn’t see their reactions. He stared at the ceiling, his mind blank. He muttered three words:
“Mann, Gutierrez, Lambert.”
Those deaths are on your shoulders, Clarke, he told himself. Don’t you ever dare forget those names.
He opened a private line to Navathe and told her the news himself. He saw her back stiffen and her gaze go blank as she retreated into herself.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I gambled with their lives when I let Antonov convince me to smuggle him out of Jagal. I gambled with their lives and lost.”
What could Clarke say to that? That it hadn’t been her fault, that it had been Tal-Kader’s? That would be hypocritical—he felt the same way she did.
Sure, Tal-Kader—Captain Erickson—had pulled the trigger that killed Mann, Gutierrez, Lambert, and all other contractors. But that’s what Tal-Kader did. Clarke and Navathe should have known better than to rely on the corporation’s mercy.
“Come to the bridge,” Clarke told Navathe. “You should be present when we kill Vortex.”
That prospect was better than any attempt at quenching their guilt. Navathe nodded weakly and ended the message without saying anything else.
Pascari’s reaction was different. “Open fire on those murderous assholes,” he said. “Open fire right the fuck now. I want Erickson dead!”
Clarke wished with all his heart to follow that order. “We can’t,” he said instead. “Vortex has the planet behind it. We can’t risk to miss a shot and destroy a colony filled with innocent people.”
Pascari’s string of courses weren’t directed at Clarke. Even the vengeful Pascari wasn’t mad enough to order them to take a shot against a populated planet.
Clarke smashed his fist against the foam-based form of his g-seat’s armrest and let fury and frustration wash over him in a wave that threatened to drown his reason.
Erickson’s trying to provoke you, Clarke thought. This is what he wants. To piss us off, make us commit a mistake. He’s planning something right now, and he wants us looking the wrong way.
Clarke forced his feelings away, hid them in a distant part of his subconscious, where he could deal with them later. There was a battle going on, and he had people under his command whose lives depended on him keeping a level head and making the right decisions.
Where’s your hidden strike coming from, Erickson? What are you hiding from me?
Hours later, one of the bridge’s lookouts opened a line with Alicante and Clarke. The young man could barely keep his voice from trembling. “Vortex’s torpedoes came into effective range of our escorts, sir. They’re firing back, sir. The Kite took a direct hit.”
CLARKE BLINKED as his brain processed the meaning of those sentences.
“Torpedoes firing back?” roared Alicante. “What are you saying, ensign? That’s not how torpedoes work!”
“Get me a visual on those torpedoes,” said Clarke, interrupting Alicante’s lecture on the poor lookout. “I want a full scan on them, too, right away.”
The map showed how the green dot that had been the Kite disappeared. The red triangles that represented the enemy torpedoes were still a long way away from Hawk, currently engaged with the two surviving escort ships.
That’s sixteen men and women dead, just like that, thought Clarke, his gaze hovering over Kite’s crew chart. The EIF’s war hadn’t started yet, and people on both sides were already dying.
Alicante ordered the two escorts to pull back into Hawk’s point defense range. As a response, the torpedoes rushed at the Hawk, diving under the ship’s axis in a tightly-cut, inverted parabola, dodging turret fire all the while.
Something is really off about these torpedoes. Their increased acceleration had reduced their striking distance to Hawk to ten minutes from its original half hour. At this point, the Hawk was committed to its course, it wouldn’t be able to change direction without killing all its crew due to excessive g force.
But destroyers’ turrets could deal with dozens of torpedoes. Hawk should be safe.
An alarm blared on the bridge, along with red, strobing lights. “We’ve been hit!” exclaimed an ensign over the public line. She read a short damage report. Turret fire, glancing strike, it had penetrated Hawk’s second layer of armor until the layer’s ballistic gel stopped the bullets.
Comprehension dawned as Clarke parsed the damage report. He knew what the scans would say about those torpedoes. A cold hand caressed his spine.
They couldn’t have dared…
“Commander Alicante,” he said, “those aren’t torpedoes. They’re ships. They aren’t in collision course with us, they’re trying to reach engagement distance.”
“No way, Captain. They’re pulling twenty gs, they have to be torpedoes,” said Alicante. “Their crew would be jelly by now.”
“There’s no crew,” Clarke said. That cold caress again. “Those ships are all dead inside, Commander. They’re AI controlled.”
The weight of his words hung on the bridge like a physical anchor.