“The Empire of Dremark has taken that decision out of our hands, Mr. Chatburn.” Markham stared at the Dremish ships, her face grim, then turned to Randall. “Break orbit and engage Panther, Mr. Randall. If we disable her fast, we might put a stop to this before it gets any worse.”
“Aye, Captain,” Randall replied. “Helm, ahead full! New course zero-seven-zero, up sixty. Bring us to ten thousand kilometers from Target Alpha and commence evasive maneuvering. Main battery, engage Target Alpha!”
“Engage Target Alpha!” Sikander echoed. He released the weapon hold icons on his console; an instant later Michael Girard opened fire from his station.
“Commencing fire!” Girard reported. Hector shivered with the immense power of the K-cannons blasting their deadly projectiles at the Dremish cruiser. At the same time, the deck tilted and the main view showed the planet drawing away as Hector moved to open the range and gain maneuvering room.
“Panther is returning fire!” Sublieutenant Keane called out from the sensor station.
“Understood,” Captain Markham replied. “Mr. Randall, Mr. North, give me continuous fire on that cruiser until she’s disabled. Now that we’re in a fight, I have no intention of losing it.”
“Continuous fire, aye, Captain,” Sikander replied. And God help us all.
21
Royal Yacht Shihab, Silver Sea
This day cannot end soon enough, Ranya el-Nasir told herself. There was simply too much to take in: uncertain alliances, unexpected betrayals, revolutions and coups and invasions … the whole planet was mad today, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what it all signified in the end. She steadied herself with one hand on the seatback of the specialist manning Shihab’s main communications console, rocking with the gentle motion as the yacht lolled in the heavy swells, and tried to understand what the orbital vid feed showed her. She could make out small slivers of light against the blackness of space and tiny bursts of light erupting around them, but its meaning was beyond her.
“Can someone explain what we are seeing here?” she asked the soldiers around her. “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“I beg your pardon, Amira,” the technician said. “Let me see if I can improve the image.” He adjusted the controls, and the view suddenly shifted, zooming in on one of the blurry slivers. It was a warship painted in white and buff, maneuvering frantically as its turrets swiveled to remain trained on target.
“It’s the Aquilan cruiser,” Tarek Zakur said, studying the image alongside her. “They are fighting the Dremish warships.”
Sikander! Ranya drew in a deep breath, doing her best to master her sudden surge of worry. Regardless of what she felt for the Kashmiri officer, she had many more important things to concern herself with than the fate of one man, no matter how much she cared for him. She whispered a swift prayer for his safety, and focused on what she was seeing. “Who is winning?” she asked Tarek Zakur.
“I couldn’t say, Amira. I haven’t seen many space battles.” Zakur looked to the technician. “Where are we getting this feed from?”
“The Montréalais orbital traffic-control station,” the man said. “They are watching the battle with great interest.”
“I’ll bet they are,” Ranya said. She made herself straighten up and look away from the console; she could not afford to spend time watching a battle whose outcome she could not influence in the least. In fact, she didn’t entirely understand why Hector and Panther were firing on one another. Dremark certainly indicated its hostility to the sultanate by attacking Royal Guard strongpoints in Tanjeer and providing fire support for the el-Fasi forces attacking the Khalifa Palace, but as far as she knew Aquila had no obligation to intervene on behalf of the el-Nasirs. They must see a compelling interest of their own in foiling the Dremish schemes, she decided. For the moment, she would have to content herself with the simple fact that the Commonwealth’s interests appeared to align with her own; she’d piece together the consequences once she knew whether the Commonwealth of Aquila or the Empire of Dremark controlled the approaches to the planet. “Update me if it becomes clear that one side or the other is winning the battle in orbit,” she told the technician.
She turned away from the space battle and moved over to study a holo-table map depicting the fighting going on around the planet. Shihab’s command center was a cramped space at the aft end of the main cabin, partitioned off from the luxurious living areas. Four or five people in the room would have filled it, but almost twice that many tried to cram into the room at once: sensor operators manning the yacht’s defensive systems, comm experts trying to maintain secure channels to key Royal Guard commands throughout the world, and high-ranking officers coordinating the response of the sultan’s army as they tried to simultaneously manage the street fighting against extremists in the major cities, Salem el-Fasi’s developing coup, and now the overwhelming firepower of Dremish forces landing at key spots around the planet. So far, it seemed that three major crises held equal importance: the multisided battle for control of the capital, the attack on the Khalifa Palace, and a bold assault against the Royal Guard base in the city of Nador by Caidist forces out of the Harthawi Basin.
Nador does not matter, she decided. Tomorrow she could worry about whether or not Gadira’s second-largest city was under the control of Caidists or not. Nor could she do much about the standoff around the Khalifa Palace. That left Tanjeer. The Royal Guard regiments stationed at the Abdelkadar Barracks seemed to be paralyzed by conflicting orders; perhaps that was something she could sort out—
“Amira, Sultan Rashid wishes to speak with you,” Captain Zakur said, interrupting her train of thought. “The situation at Toutay is becoming more serious.”
More serious? she wondered. There didn’t seem to be much room left for things to get any worse. She steeled herself to maintain a calm demeanor, and simply nodded. “Of course. Which channel?”
“Here, Amira,” Zakur replied. He guided her over to a seat by one of the comm consoles and handed her a headset so that the din of alarms, signals, and people talking loudly all around her wouldn’t drown out her conversation.
Ranya adjusted the headset, and looked into the screen. Her uncle gazed back at her from what seemed to be the passenger seat in a transport; the image shook and bounced, most likely from the hand of whoever held the mobile comm unit. A small trickle of blood from a cut at his hairline streaked the dust on the side of his face. “Ah, there you are,” he said over the channel, and gave her a small smile. “Are you safe, Ranya?”
“For the moment,” she told him. “Where are you? What is happening?”
“General Mirza has informed me he can no longer defend what is left of the Khalifa Palace. We are attempting to withdraw through the mountains above Toutay. The decision has been made to shift command to Ben-Daleh. I am told that it remains in loyal hands.” Someone spoke to Rashid from off the comm unit’s camera; he nodded before looking back into the screen. “We may be out of communication for a while; Shihab will be our primary command center until we reestablish ourselves at Ben-Daleh.”