He'd scanned his subordinates' faces, reading their despair, but his eyes were determined as he went grimly on.
"We're walking dead, ladies and gentlemen. Face it. Accept it and use it, because we're just as dead whether we spend our lives profitably or not. There's one, and only one, thing we can do for the Fringe now." His finger had stabbed the crazy quilt of warp lines in his nav tank. "Galloway's World. That's what we can give the Fringe . . . by taking it away from the Federation!"
Naomi had stared at him in horror, yet she was his senior "captain."
"But, sir," she'd said softly, "we don't begin to have the strength to seize Galloway's World. Surely you're not suggesting . . . ?"
"That's precisely what I am suggesting," Toshiba had said coldly. "We can gut the shipyards if we get in unchallenged. It's gone too far to stop now. It's war, Commander, war between the Fringe and the Innerworlds, and we both know who holds the industrial trumps. Can we stand by while the Corporate Worlds beat our people to death? No! We're going to hurt them-hurt them now and hurt them badly. We're going to buy time for our people, the one way we can." He'd paused, as if steeling his own nerve. "The only way: a nuclear strike on Galloway's World."
Naomi had wanted to vomit. They were the TFN, sworn to defend humanity against mass murder! And yet, wrong as he was, he might also be right. They were doomed, and they owed their people a chance. She remembered the winter wind howling around the dome on New Covenant and knew she could kill to defend the civilians of her world. But could she kill other civilians for them? She'd looked up and her lips had parted, but Toshiba's voice had marched on ruthlessly, forestalling her objections.
"I know there are bound to be heavy casualties-civilian casualties. The Jamieson Archipelago is the most densely populated area of the whole planet. Only an idiot could think you can nuke a target like that and not kill civilians; only a liar would tell you you could.
"But I also know what we're defending-and so do you! Our own homes, our own societies . . . the kind of societies that let humans be people, not just well-fed, two-legged domestic animals producing for Corporate World masters!"
His vehemence had shaken them all, and Naomi had felt her resistance waver. Then he'd paused and looked at them sadly. When he resumed, his voice was very soft.
"I know what you're thinking. Do we have the right to do this, even in self-defense? I don't know how you'll answer that, but I know how I will. They say a flower will grow toward sunlight even through ceramacrete, and perhaps they're right. But . . . what if everything is covered with ceramacrete? What if the flower finally breaks through, but there's no one left who can recognize a flower when he sees one?"
Naomi had bent over her hands, feeling his eyes on the crown of her head as his will beat against her, and realized how pivotal her own decision was. They'd endured one mutiny-perhaps they had another in them yet. But the first had cost her too much. Whatever God demanded of her, it couldn't be another spasm of the bloodshed which had taken Earnest. Her head remained bent, her eyes locked on her fingers, and the moment for rebellion passed.
"We've got a good chance of pulling it off," Toshiba had said softly as Naomi silently withdrew her opposition. "No one knows we've mutinied. We can put into Galloway's World for new orders, carry out the strike, and run. It's even possible"-he'd tried to sound as if he meant it-"some of us may get home. We're fast and well-armed; we may be able to split up and avoid action. But"-his voice had grown somber once more-"that's not what's important. Whether we can get away or not, we have to do it."
And every rebellious officer in his cabin had nodded silently.
"Transit in five seconds," Astrogation said softly. "Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . . Transit!"
Naomi flinched as the indescribable surge of warp transit gripped her. She knew it was impossible, but in that instant she thought she felt the child within her. Thank God Doc Sevridge had understood. Losing her command would have left her a mere spectator, and no matter what her private purgatory, she had to do something. So he'd wiped the pregnancy report from the data banks with a tired smile.
"Might's well carry mutiny to its logical conclusion," he'd said. . . .
"I have a challenge, Captain!" The voice in Naomi's implant jerked her back to the present. "Standard query for ID and purpose."
"Stand by, Gunnery," she said through dry lips, watching the warp point forts on her tactical display. "Commodore Toshiba will roll the tape any minute now. Then we'll know." Her anxious eyes moved to a secondary screen as the carefully crafted composite of Prien's recorded messages went out over the com channels. It was good, she thought distantly. The electronics boys had done a bang-up job. But was it good enough?
". . . so after the fighting," the dead commodore said from the screen, "we patched up our damage and headed here. Commodore Jacob Prien, Tenth Cruiser Squadron, Frontier Fleet, awaiting orders."
"Good report, Commodore. Excellent!" The florid-faced admiral in the reception screen had a strong Fisk accent. "We had some trouble here, too, when the news first hit, but the local reservists turned the trick. We've got our heel on the scum now, and we're keeping it there! Shape your course for Skywatch Three. They'll have new orders cut by the time you get there."
"Aye, aye, sir," the recorded composite said. "Commodore Prien, out."
"And thank God for that," someone muttered as the admiral disappeared.
Naomi heard but didn't respond. If God were truly kind, that fathead would have been suspicious. They would have had to fight or flee well clear of the planet. She knew she could die happily in a ship-to-ship action, and she found that she'd been secretly hoping for just that.
She watched the plot as Kongo led the squadron in-system. Revenge and Oslabya fell in astern, followed by Naomi's own ship and then the two DDs. It all looked harmlessly normal, but Pommern's battle board glowed a steady scarlet. All but the shields. They still blinked green and amber, for to raise them would raise questions, as well.
The hours dragged endlessly past, Galloway's World looming slowly before them, and Naomi considered the bitter irony which brought Pommern back to the yards which had birthed her in a terrible act of matricide. No one down there would spare a thought for the holocaust lurking in the belly of her ship, she thought bitterly. Fleet missiles were to protect them, not kill them.
And then, finally, Skywatch Three loomed close aboard of them, and she gritted her teeth, watching her board, waiting for what she knew must come.
It came. Command codes flashed over the data net from Kongo. The squadron's shields slammed up. Hetlasers swiveled in their bays. As one ship, drives and engines slaved to the flagship, they charged the orbiting fortress, minnows against its bulk. The external ordnance racks belched their deadly loads, joined by the internal launchers, and Naomi Hezikiah was a spectator as the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, TFN, blew Skywatch Three to half-vaporized rubble in less than thirty seconds.
The com channels went wild as incredulous loyalists realized what was happening. Naomi's battlephone hummed and whined as hastily tuned jammers came on line, fighting to shatter the squadron's datalink, but the cruisers drove onward, drives howling at max as they arrowed towards the planet.
The first defensive missiles lanced out to meet them, and Naomi watched her display as point defense stations spewed counter missiles against them and space burned with detonating warheads. They were fast on their feet, those gunners, but where were the beams?