Cloak of War Read online

  A private comms tone sounds. “Jager.” Captain Hallverson’s voice is smoke in my ears.

  I stop breathing and stare at the maintenance crew through the hatch.

  “This is my ship. It does my will. The crew is mine until I kill the White Queen. Nothing and no one will stop me.” His tone is level, even, without pitch. It is a man reading an execution order.

  “Captain, I—”

  “You will do as I say. Exactly. No orders questioned. I’ve honed them into a weapon, and I will not lose that edge.”

  Through Captain Hallverson’s voice I can barely hear Raj telling me to get in. A destroyer has landed ten thousand kilometers out, too far to hit us yet.

  I just focus on Colby’s face. It is as good-looking a face as any to see before you die.

  “Cross me again, and I’ll kill you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The hatch slides open, and I pull myself inside. It’s barely closed when the starscape shifts.

  The adrenaline seeps out of me. I listen to my heartbeat in the privacy of my suit. All I am now is a tool of Hallverson’s wrath.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  There’s no time to relax. Colby and Sebic help me out of my suit while Hauptmann apologizes over and over. He is so distraught that tears run down his face.

  I blow it off. Or try to.

  Getting left in deep space is haunting. A terrible fate, to drift and die. All I can think is that I’d watch the ship escape and then the hostiles would chase. I’d be left completely, totally, and absolutely alone.

  You always kind of think of it. I figure I’d blow my emergency gaskets and just breathe vacuum for a bit. Far preferable to drifting until you starve or dehydrate.

  Colby ruffles my sweat-thick hair. “C’mon, Jager boy, why so glum?”

  I fake a smile. “Close call.”

  “Man, Mr. Jager, oh God, I thought you were stuck! We just did maintenance on that hatch too. I’ll check it better next time, I will, more grease on that seam, they get tight, ya know,” Hauptmann keeps babbling at me.

  “It’s fine, Hauptmann. No worries, right?”

  Hauptmann gives me a pained smile. “Yeah, yeah, no worries.”

  I stand and then half fall again. The absence of adrenaline is jarring. I’ve never felt the adrenaline like that before. Intense.

  Colby helps me back to my feet and gives me a curious look. “What happened out there?”

  “Just sticky, you know.” I turn away from her. “I need to get to amidships fire control.”

  At that, I leave the tight maintenance bay. The hall is almost cold on my sweat-speckled skin. I pass the aft fire control team and climb through to the center zone. Hartford is at his station near the galley, clutching a can of emergency sealant to his chest.

  “Mr. Jager! We made it!” He smiles with his whole face.

  “Yeah, for now.”

  The smile fades from his face. He reaches out and grasps me on the shoulder.

  I turn away from him.

  “Don’t lose hope, son, not now. Things are changing. I can feel it in the crew. Can’t you?” As he speaks, the smile blossoms again. He has the sort of smile that embraces his entire face.

  “Yeah, things are changing.” I can’t tell him what happened, and I don’t feel like getting into a philosophical debate about happiness. To be honest, I feel stuck. Trapped. Wedged between two shitty places: Captain Hallverson’s funhouse and the inevitability of our mission.

  Henna is right. We are on a ghost ship. And I’m as dead as the rest.

  We stand down a short while later. Without the nose of our ship acting as a beacon, we can simply float in deep space and lick our wounds. Which is exactly what we do.

  We carry damn near every spare part you could imagine. Except armor plate. There isn’t exactly room for a fresh new armored nose anywhere. Instead, we do what Orcas always do. We prowl ahead, listen, wait, and watch the clock tick down.

  At every watch, I relieve Captain Hallverson with the proper words and responses. I am a robot of duty going through the motions. When Yao relieves me, I do the same. After that, I retreat to my bunk, cinch the curtain tight, and sleep.

  I don’t feel like dealing with anyone. Not now. This tour needs to come to an end. I’ve had enough.

  Strangely enough, it’s Hallverson that calls me to his quarters. I march in with my back as stiff as an ironwood plank. He sits at the tiny table that acts both as his office and dining room. On it is a pouch of Tsarist pickled herring and cryovacced black bread.

  “Sit, Karl.” He beckons to the chair opposite him.

  I stand with a rigid back and stare straight ahead. If my eyes could bore holes in the wall, we’d sound a vacuum alarm.

  Hallverson pops a piece of bread crust into his mouth and chews. His eyes never leave me. I feel them weighing me down. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asks.

  “Because you chose to let me come inside.”

  Hallverson nods slowly. He spreads out one of his massive hands on the table. “But you had free will. You could have remained outside with your morals.”

  I furrow my brow. “Not much of a choice, Captain.”

  “And that’s exactly how I feel. I swore to avenge my family and avenge those who couldn’t seek revenge for themselves. If I stop doing that, I might as well just step out of the airlock.”

  “I think you’re linking two things that aren’t necessarily connected, sir.”

  “To you, maybe. But to me, my life is my revenge. If I compromise on that, then I have nothing.” He leans back in the small chair until his head rests against the wall. “I’m a man of absolutes. My methods are gray, but my duty is black and white.”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do. There’s another reason I need you to stay and the same reason that I need you to snap out of your own self-pity.”

  “Self-pity!” I yell. Now I finally lock eyes with him. “You listen to me, you son of a bitch. A few days ago, you were ready to lock me outside, and now you want me to sit down and eat fucking herring? I don’t have a lick of self-pity. What am I supposed to do?”

  He stands. The little chair screeches on the floor. He cracks his knuckles. “Are you the sort that needs to go a round to settle things?”

  “We’ve already gone a round. You just don’t remember.”

  Hallverson winces. He steps around the table. The man cuts an imposing figure. His barrel chest and glaring eyes alone are enough to make me think twice. On top of that, he is easily a heavyweight. I’m a low-end cruiserweight. He’d tear me apart.

  “C’mon!” he snaps. “I’ll give you first hit. C’mon!”

  There is no way we can function for the rest of our tour like this. Punching him square in the nose would make me feel a helluva lot better, but it’s wrong. Absolutely wrong. As much as I dislike him as a person, I still respect the rank.

  I clasp my hands behind my back.

  “So we have an understanding, then? You have a job to do on this ship.”

  “As do you, Captain Hallverson.” I have to get in a counterpunch.

  He grins an animal grin, like an angry chimpanzee. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

  “Then I’ll tell you how to do your duty. It’s to humanity, your nation, your crew, and yourself.”

  Hallverson looks away at the far wall. We both sit in silence for a few very long, very uncomfortable minutes. I’m about to stand and leave when he finally speaks.

  “Yao can’t run this ship alone. That’s why you’re here. At times I need to…hmm, recuperate? Yes, that would be the word. You’ve seen how it can get. Without you, this ship will fail. We still have a mission, and you still have your duty. If not to me, then the crew.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You bring a certain infectious sort of enthusiasm. My crew seem different. My ship feels different. I’m an old man who doesn’t like change.” For just a second, he looks pained, as if I’ve offended him somehow.
Have I rocked the boat that much just by making people see the future?

  Is this the real Hallverson, just for a split second?

  “Are we agreed?” He extends a hand out to me.

  I look square into his eyes and still don’t know where he stands on all of this. On one hand, he swears to kill me if I do the wrong thing, and then a minute later he tells me how essential I am to the mission. I feel like a mouse batted between a cat’s paws.

  Revenge. It’s the only thing he believes in. I’m being played. I know it. I feel it in my gut. Like Henna says, I need to trust in my gut. But what alternative do I have?

  I clasp his hand with mine. I’ll give him a little trust.

  Hallverson gives me a short nod. “Now, take this, study it off the watches. Where we’re going, you’ll need it.”

  He hands me a battered computer tablet. On the back, in dark-red letters, is stenciled LOG.

  I leave not knowing where I stand with him. Not that it matters anyhow. We just as well could have agreed to disagree and walked. There is a job to be done, and in that we both agreed. Time to focus on my original goal—getting through this mess alive.

  I have a decent stretch before my next watch, so I tuck into my bunk and crack open that tablet.

  Sweet Jesus.

  A ship’s log is about as dry as a legal document written on sandpaper. It is filled with such heady lines as: contact off SSX-447, engaged armed freighter, lost two crew, headed to refit point delta.

  Look at that. They had a fight in an uncharted star system against an armed Tyrolean ship that cost them two crew members and damaged them bad enough that they had to flee back to safe space. Luckily, in this wonderful modern age, we have video.

  Never before has my off time gone by so quick. At every line, I bring up the video feeds, study the maneuver, and watch the failure, the luck, the dance that keeps the Orca alive. It’s the nectar of five years of cloaked combat distilled into something that fits on my lap.

  I’m so entranced that they have to send Hartford to find me. “Mr. Jager, it’s your watch, sir.”

  “Yes, yes!” It’s what I need to snap out of my funk.

  Hallverson is still an enigma to me. He could have made an amazing mentor, but it seems that just when he was about to create a bond, he felt the need to tear it down. That fragility I sensed earlier, the same that manifested itself in his rages…is he too wounded to get close to anyone?

  “Thank you, Hartford! I forgot to grab a bite; would you be so kind as to bring up some lunch, please?”

  Hartford gives me that warm smile and a touch of a wink. “It’ll be on the bridge shortly!”

  I turn and take a step toward the bridge. The log has me eager to lay out a few practice maneuvers.

  “Oh!” Hartford calls with a look of remembrance on his face. “Bring your fire control kit. We’ll be headed out soon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I walk to the bridge and struggle to get into my fire control suit. The whole thing is a fire-retardant material that acts as a light vacuum suit. Some of our maintenance teams have a much heavier version for truly epic fires. Not that you need it often. An epic fire on an enclosed Orca is usually fatal.

  My thoughts are on that log. It is my key, my road to survival. To hell with sulking. I decide to suck up every nugget of knowledge. Maybe I’m more of a practical learning kind of guy.

  I enter the bridge and give a crisp nod to Captain Hallverson. “Sir.”

  “Mr. Jager, we’ll be breaking through the cordon shortly. Would you be so kind as to take over the amidships fire control?” Hallverson’s voice is rough. He’s half hunched over in his chair with large rings beneath his eyes. I’d have guessed a hangover if I didn’t know better.

  “Aye aye, sir.” I decide to play it cool and by the books. I’ve had enough second-guessing his moods for now. “What do you think we’ll see?”

  Hallverson looks up at the display. We are one short bounce from the exit nexus point. After that, we’re free and in the depths of interstellar space. Even at our range, a few peculiarly strong energy signatures really stick out.

  “We’ll see, won’t we, Mr. Jager?”

  “Indeed, sir.”

  I leave the bridge and make my way to the central fire control station. Hauptmann stands with an eager smile on his face. In one hand is a can of sealant, in the other a heavy-duty flame shield. He seems to almost vibrate with nervousness. “I’m ready! Everything is double-checked, sir!”

  “Plenty of lube on that hatch too?” I clap him on the shoulder.

  “Uh uh uh—”

  “Kidding!” I flash him a grin that seems to set him at ease.

  Our area is twenty meters long. It includes crew quarters, the galley, storage areas filled with Tsarist Combine boxes, and the tertiary torpedo storage. Luckily, the torpedoes are damned near inert until fired. They are better protected then we are.

  “Bounce alert. Action stations. Fire control. Confirm,” the Engineering officer calls over open comms. It sounds like Baskins; he’s usually sleeping while I’m awake.

  One by one, the stations call in. It’s by the book. Orderly. The calm before the storm. That is one thing about the navy: you usually knew when you are about to get shit stomped.

  “Amidships prepared and ready,” I call.

  Hauptmann gives me a nervous smile and exhales loudly.

  “Feeling it, eh, Hoppy?”

  Hauptmann nods. “The last time we were out running blockades, it got pretty messy.”

  “Oh?”

  He doesn’t elaborate. Slowly the smile fades, and he just looks nervous. I know the feeling. That steely core of adrenaline is torn away by the stress of it all.

  “Bounce in two,” Baskins’s voice cracks.

  My heart beats faster. It’s like entering the ring again. The anticipation. The feeling of knowing you’ll get hit. Have to get hit, no way to avoid it. Sometimes you have to take a punch, or a dozen, to set up for that one perfect strike. You watch the arm, see that muscle get weak, and know that eventually he’ll miss a block.

  Sounds great for boxing. Kind of shitty in an Orca.

  A tone sounds in our ears. A steady neutral ring.

  “Here we go,” Hauptmann mutters.

  The tone stops, and in that moment we bounce.

  What I’d give to see what’s on our screen. It drives me crazy anytime I can’t see the action. Like facing backward while someone else is driving.

  The walls of the ship groan. The cloaking gas flows out of the ship. Well, we’ve gotten this far.

  My nerves are sharp as glass. Every groan and sound sets me on edge. The tiniest thermal expansion sounds ominous.

  “I think we made it in,” Hauptmann says.

  This is the most dangerous moment. You might land right next to some big nasty. Or even worse, a massive minefield that stretches for hundreds of kilometers in every vector.

  “Yeah, me t—”

  About five meters away, a hole opens right into space. As far as holes go, it’s pretty small. Maybe big enough to toss a grapefruit through. But even the tiniest hole is too big. Vacuum gives no shits.

  My face mask immediately seals. “Breach! Amidships, port side!”

  Hauptmann leads the way. He sprays sealant around the edges of the hole. I pick up a bracing plate and push it up against the hull. It buckles into shape. We both spray more sealant until it looks like a blob of solid mayonnaise.

  “Breach sealed!” I call up to the bridge.

  I look over at Hauptmann with a smile of relief on my face. “Well, that wasn’t too bad.”

  “Must’ve been a mine!”

  A frantic reply comes back. “Assist aft hatch!”

  Hauptmann and I run down to the bulkhead. A single tiny window shows the horror on the other side. Flames and debris blast throughout the enclosed space. I can’t see any of the fire control crews. A thick black smoke bellows out from one panel and immediately punches out through the hull.

/>   An odd shimmer of light flickers and dances in the flames.

  “Oh shit, we’re sucking in cloaking gas,” Hauptmann says. “Stay on my back! One, two, three!”

  We push through the hatch with Hauptmann in the lead. He raises up his fire shield and hits the flame points with sealant. A raging inferno pours out of a panel ten meters down.

  I feel the intense heat through my suit. The only sound in my ears is the rasping of my own voice. Whatever spot Hauptmann misses, I spray with more sealant.

  Finally, we reach a secondary oxygen mixing console. It’s a system that helps recycle our air and mixes it back into breathable atmosphere again.

  Hauptmann sprays the fire extinguisher into a ragged hole in the machine. The flames pause for a second and then resume. “Shut it down!”

  I tear away an access panel. A half-dozen handwheels are our only manual control. They are all so hot that the labels are scorched off. How long will the suit protect me?

  “Go!”

  I grab the first and spin it. Every turn, it grates beneath my fingers. Heat flares in, and I release. The flames still spout from the machine. I grit my teeth and hit the next one. This time, I feel my flesh burn, like I’ve grabbed a cookie sheet.

  Hauptmann stands at ready with the fire extinguisher in one hand and the flame shield in the other. He looks like some old Roman god wreathed in flame.

  “It’s too hot!” I call.

  “Do it! It’ll spread upstream!”

  Once the pipes bake past the temper point, it’ll be too late. A rupture will spread to the next pipe coupling, and then we can’t contain it. Oxygen, the one thing we need to breathe, is the one thing the ship needs to burn.

  I scream out, turn the third wheel, and the flames stop. Hauptmann blasts the machine with a steady stream of retardant.

  The pain in my hands is unbelievable. I hold them out before me and drop to my knees.

  Hauptmann turns and sprays both of my gloves, and it feels as if ice cubes soothe my pain. It makes sense: it isn’t that my gloves are that hot, but we are in an almost perfect vacuum so the heat can’t radiate away.

  We install three patches in the hull and find the bodies of that fire control team. Both were off-duty torpedomen.