Clarke wanted to tell Mather so many things. He wanted to tell her not to hold her life in such low value; that it should be him inside that ship. That it was his burden to bear, not hers. That enough men and women had died already in this civil war. That she was wrong, goddamnit, Isabella Reiner didn’t need any more commanders. She wasn’t supposed to need an army for anything except her protection. She was supposed to be the key witness to a crime, not the Edge’s conqueror. How could she be such a thing? How could he help her, even if he wanted to? Civil war on a scale unimagined, brother against brother, blood pouring out of the Edge’s spaceports and drowning innocent lives by the millions.
What have I done?
He could’ve said many things. Perhaps he should have. But Mather was facing her death, and she was doing so bravely, and she didn’t deserve to think, in her last moments, that Clarke was making light of her sacrifice.
So what he ended up saying was, “You’re wrong, Mather. You’re not a barely competent commander, you’re one of the bravest soldiers I’ve ever had the privilege to fight alongside with. I’m honored to have known you, albeit for a brief time.”
Mather’s laugh was strained and wet, as the ever increasing g forces collapsed her internal organs. “I bet you say that to everyone—”
Eagle met the torpedo onslaught just as its reactor overloaded. Hawk’s sensors shorted out due to the intensity of the explosion, so bright that it shone as a second sun to the people of Dione for a brief, terrifying instant.
Darkness fell on Clarke.
HAWK DRIFTED, blind and deaf to the world outside. Clarke almost drifted with it, the straps of his g-seat the only anchor tying him in place. He could hear the distant whispers of the bridge officers, and the not so distant voice of Alicante demanding for someone to get him a connection to the engine room.
Without warning, power came back. Light overloaded Clarke’s eyes. He groaned, blinked, fell heavily on his seat as gravity returned.
Communication channels returned one second later, followed by the VCD. The entire blackout must’ve lasted scant few seconds, but to Clarke it had seemed like a lifetime.
Of the torpedo cloud, no trace was left. Eagle and Mather had disappeared too, only the cluster of capsules, anchored together by titanium chords, remained as proof of the ship’s existence.
“Status,” Clarke said.
“Good news. Eagle’s shot intercepted the last kinetic,” Alicante announced. “More good news, we’re still alive. The EMP pulse from the reactor explosion fried the torpedoes and forced our ships’ computers to hard reset. Same goes for Vortex-1.”
“The projectiles?”
“Their guidance system didn’t survive the pulse,” said Alicante. “They went wide.”
In the VCD, Vortex-1 began to regroup as the two destroyers and their escorts shook the aftereffects of Eagle’s sacrifice.
Clarke wasn’t about to let it go to waste. “Sierra-1, turret fire, center at Vortex. Falcon and Hawk, deploy torpedoes after targeting lock. Ten seconds’ wait and fire cannons, ship-killer ammo. Fire at will after that. Hit them with all we’ve got, ladies and gentlemen. For Eagle!”
The g-seat trembled under Clarke as Hawk’s reactor divested its limited power output to all weapon systems. The VCD complained of a thousand different tiny failures as the entire ship was put to the test.
Torpedoes flew among the maelstrom of bullets crossing empty space toward Vortex-1. Hawk’s cannon tubes roared once, waited a few minutes, roared again. A tube overheated on Falcon, another one on Hawk. Half the escorts ran out of ammunition, leaving only a small reserve for the point defense turrets. Clarke held his breath.
Escorts from both sides died as Vortex-1 returned fire. Clarke could see the two destroyers scramble in different directions as their entire squad focused its efforts on protecting the ships of the line from the approaching torpedoes. Many ships died protecting the destroyers, but far too many torpedoes got through.
Vortex managed to fire a cannon salvo in Sierra-1’s general direction. Clarke didn’t bother to confirm with the computer that the shots would miss. He knew it instinctively by virtue of having seen similar behaviors a hundred times before, mostly in historical battle simulators.
They’re breaking, Clarke thought. Erickson, you stupid fool, you bit off more than what your crew could chew.
Even the best sailors in the Universe would have a crippled ship in their hands if their commander asked too much of them too fast. And, right now, Erickson was trying to micro-manage his forces so they’d defend both torpedoes and cannons, shoot back, reload, accelerate away, target, re-target…
Clarke could imagine the Tal-Kader captain’s red face as he bleated order after order to everyone in hearing range.
A cannon ball nicked the last patrol destroyer just above the engine room. The ship-killer bearing failed to detonate, but it carved a terrible wound into the ship. Atmosphere, assorted gases, and debris vented away from the destroyer like blood and entrails, showing the exposed gunmetal bone. It stopped accelerating, Drive dead, though it didn’t explode. The ship kept shooting at the torpedoes, desperately, as a string of escape capsules emerged from whatever decks hadn’t been vaporized by the glancing hit.
Not fast enough, Clarke thought. There was nothing he could do, the time delay to the torpedoes ensured they couldn’t be stopped in time. One struck home, and the destroyer disappeared from the display, along with all its capsules. The reactor explosion disabled most of the remaining torpedoes, but now it was two ships against one.
The bridge erupted in cheers as Hawk’s sailors realized their victory was imminent. Even Navathe and Pascari let out long, tense exhalations in the command channel.
“Commander Alicante, patch me through to Vortex,” Clarke said softly.
“Aye, sir,” Alicante said, matching his tone. He relayed the orders to his CO.
The TRANSMITTING holo materialized in front of Clarke. “Captain Erickson, this is Clarke. It’s over, Erickson. Abandon ship. Don’t let your crew die for nothing.”
“Captain,” said Alicante after Clarke closed the holo, “Vortex is attempting to load kinetics again.”
“Treacherous bastard,” said Pascari.
Clarke smashed his fist against his armrest in frustration. Why, Erickson? Why are you willing to die trying to commit an atrocity?
He didn’t need Captain Yin’s whispering advice in his ear to figure that one out. Erickson feared surviving in Tal-Kader’s hands having failed to do his duty more than he feared dying today. In fact, Erickson feared Tal-Kader so much he was willing to sacrifice his crew even in a desperate attempt to satisfy the conglomerate.
Clarke had thought he was too old, too tired, to feel such a thing as hate. Turned out he was wrong.
If there’s justice in the universe, Tal-Kader has a tall bill to pay.
Vortex couldn’t load kinetics in time. It was simply trying to do too many things at once. Due to the sacrifice of many escorts, it survived the torpedoes.
But not the ship-killer bearing that pierced it longways. This one did detonate. Unlike the nuclear torpedoes, there were remains of the Vortex after the explosion. Two warped pieces of molten metal, no life signals anywhere.