Cloak of War Read online

  “So you turn it, it focuses, then your target moves away, so you have to turn it to refocus it?” She sounds like one of my professors.

  And I get it. Or I think I do.

  The servos are a bitch. I move either too far or not far enough. My fingers ache as I tap-tap-tap the control. Finally, I see her light. Back outside I go.

  “Now give me the focal reading, wait a minute, and focus once more, and then let me know,” Henna explains slowly.

  I do as she says and scribble it on my arm pad. The minute waiting is tough. The worse the focus is one way, the faster she’s moving away. But if it’s out of focus the other way…well, I might pass her up.

  A minute later, I crawl back out and send her the numbers. Almost dead even.

  “Well, it makes sense. Both halves are about as massy, you have the ordnance and computing, I’ve got the reactors. Didn’t you have basic physics?”

  I try not to explain my boxing-gambling habit at the university.

  “You’ll have to hand-crank open the missile bay doors.”

  “How?”

  Henna sighs loudly. She talks me through the steps as I do it. Luckily nothing is damaged to the point that it won’t open. The cutting torches are on her side.

  There’s an access panel and an old-fashioned crank. I smile and start cranking. Someone even thought of a spot to loop your boots for traction. After a minute of cranking, I stop smiling. It’s barely opened a few centimeters.

  On and on I crank and crank. After what feels like forever, it’s open.

  “Disarm them.”

  “Mind running me through?”

  Again, that sigh. “What did you study? Fraternity scams and insurance salesmanship? People depend on you to do the right thing.”

  I want to argue, to tell her I did the right things, did what I was told. But it’s not going to help me. And she is rather correct. I hardly took my studies seriously. Hindsight’s a bitch.

  “I never did get to insurance salesmanship,” I reply.

  “Sorry, Jager. Here, first hit the release…” Then we walk through the entire process to open, safely disarm, check, and restow a single missile (backward so the jet faces out). An hour later, and I’ve pitched the warhead off on a tangent. About then I realize she’s calling me by name and not by rank. Is that good or bad?

  The thirst is getting to me now. But the squishing reminds me that I can’t drink. Not yet. Though I do discover that Henna has a chamber with atmosphere. At least I can drain the piss and liquid.

  “Start with two dozen missiles. And be quiet. I need to think the math out.”

  I groan but don’t broadcast. Twenty-four is a lot of missiles.

  Four hours later, and my hands ache like someone hit them with a hammer. Though I can definitely say I’m getting better at it.

  “Done,” I call. Still silence for a minute. “Henna?”

  “Shut up, I’m calculating.”

  That’s enough for me. I do my best to look around and be useful. I’m good enough with my math to do a lot of things, but figuring out the thrust layout from a Mark VII missile bank is beyond me. Now doing it blind without the assistance of a computer…

  Henna exhales loudly. “You need to open the missile bank facing me.”

  I groan.

  “Disarm the missile in each corner and flip them out facing me. Got it? Those are how we’re going to steer.”

  “Got it,” I say slowly.

  “You’ll have to hook up the launch console and set it for manual fire and emergency stop. You cut all the blue wires, right?”

  “Right.” I follow directions very well, especially when my life depends on it.

  “Good, that’s the thermal overload. Without it, the tubes would deploy fire retardant.”

  The general plan is I set off one missile on the back side. This is the propulsion that moves me ahead. I’ll gently steer it using the four missiles facing Henna and use the emergency shutoff to cut the burn. When we get close, say halfway, I’ll spin us around using the steering missiles and stop the roll with the other two. After that’s a matter of braking until I get close.

  Sounds easy, right?

  I’m scared shitless.

  “Take it slow. Just a tap, off, tap, off, check the collimator, adjust course. Take your time, go slow.”

  I look around the bridge. I’ll have to lug the battery from one console to the other. First to Dmitri’s to fire the missiles (and stop them), then over to Garibaldi’s to check the course.

  A flash suddenly brightens the inside of the bridge. I crawl to the hatch and stare outside into the darkness. Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Am I losing oxygen? What the fuck? I’ve heard of boxers seeing stars long after a fight; too many head blows and the brain starts flashing neurons at random.

  Then it strikes again, way way off. Someone is shooting survivors.

  “Henna, stay quiet,” I say in a level voice.

  “Why?”

  Do I scare her? It must be bad enough to not be able to see. Yeah, I’d want to know. “Tyrolean ship is popping wrecks. Let’s ride it out.”

  “Ok, ok.” Her voice is scared.

  Hell, so is mine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I wait in the shadows and watch. The only sound my own breathing. At first I stay hidden inside, but as time goes on, I prop myself up onto the hull and watch.

  There’s not much to see. I strain my eyes until they water. There is nothing to focus on; it’s just like staring into the night sky on a cloudy night.

  One starburst explodes. A few minutes later, another. I can’t tell if it is an energy weapon or a kinetic. I can’t imagine they’d waste missiles, not that they used them often.

  As time goes, on the starbursts crawl down the line. At first toward me, then directly aside, and finally past. I feel a terrible relief as they drift off to destroy someone else.

  Pangs of guilt run through me. Those survivors died. I still live. Why? Simply because I was part of a last charge. I shouldn’t have been alive through it all, anyway.

  I can’t say I don’t feel relief. Is that so horrible?

  They’re dead. I’m not.

  How long do I wait? That’s the big question. The Tyroleans won’t hang around any longer than necessary. Why? It’s a graveyard here now. Once they’ve eliminated any salvageable combat assets, away they’ll go.

  The last few explosions go off way down the line, and I wait. And wait. And wait.

  It’s only when I start to get cold that I make my way inside. I pump my arms, feel the blood rushing again, and realize that my life could be over any minute.

  This is it. I’m walking the edge of the razor. One failure, one step off that edge, and I die in space.

  You kind of always go through life feeling like the main character. Then one day, it hits you: You’re not even supporting cast. You’re background noise. In a thousand years, no one will be telling tales of Captain Karl Jager. But how many people a thousand years later are they still talking about?

  Caesar. Henry VIII. Kennedy. Ali. Foreman. Singh.

  Well, fuck it. I can’t say I give two shits. I’ve made it this far; I’ll damned well fight as far as I can.

  It’s a terribly lonely feeling to know that regardless of how hard you fight, no one might know how far you got and failed.

  It’s been a while since any more ships burned up. We have to risk it now. The liquid in my suit is a squishy reminder that I could drown. “Henna?”

  “Oh God.” I hear her sobbing. “I thought that maybe they…”

  “Not yet, but let’s get this tub moving.”

  “I…I have an idea.”

  “All ears.”

  “If we bring the two halves together, I might be able to rig the astrogation console back up so we can bounce.”

  I feel the negative thoughts coming up and zip my lip. It’s a long damn journey back to anywhere we could get help. There might be a resupply base or renegade colony, I guess. If n
othing else, we make for the inner planets in this system and hope one has some breathable atmosphere.

  The thought of going all Robinson Crusoe perks me up. Piña coladas on the beach, a bit of rum mixer…yeah, I do miss my fraternity days.

  I share my thoughts as I crawl back out to check the last missiles. And, you know, to make sure I clipped that wire.

  “Know Robinson Crusoe? We can make for the inner planets here, camp out on the beach, drink coconut juice, and make rum. Sounds nice, eh?”

  “Are you an idiot? Did you seriously go through university with no more thought than where you’d next get drunk?”

  Yes. Well, no.

  “I’m trying to dampen the severity of the moment, Henna. This is stressful on both of us.”

  I hear her sigh and cough. She sniffles. “I’m sorry. This is all…well, it’s pretty hard. I keep bumping corpses when I move about the cabin here. But I dare not throw anything out. I’m so afraid I’ll drift away.”

  “I’m coming, Henna. Then we’ll get out of here.” I really do hope so. “I’m going to try the first burn to align it.”

  “Good luck.” She doesn’t sound convinced in the plan anymore. I can only imagine how stressful it must be for her. All of her friends and colleagues dead, and she can’t do a damn thing.

  She needs something to think about. “Can you do some mental math and figure out how far we can get with our air supply?”

  “Sure, I’ll…” I hear her sigh again. “Yes, I will, no sarcasm or negative thoughts here. But you were just a frat boy, weren’t you?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it over drinks. Now, here we go.”

  The first test is to get the force vector in line with Henna. The collimator shows that she’s drifting away, just a little.

  The first missile burns. I can just see a flicker of light reflecting into the bridge. I count to five and then hit the missile in the opposite corner for just as long. If I get it wrong, and I’m sure I eventually will, the whole thing will start spinning. If that happens, I’m fucked.

  Collimator says a bit more.

  More burn. Twenty count. I think I can actually feel it. Then, just as quick, I hit the opposite missile and do the same count.

  Close. The collimator shows I’m within a couple of degrees. Ideally, I’m within ten minutes of angle, but that just might not be possible with this rig.

  I crawl outside and give Henna an update. That and I want to check to see if that Tyrolean ship is bearing down. Not like I’d know until they fired on me. Everyone has a black coating on their ships, even our freighters and tugs. The only time I ever saw different was the White Queen.

  I crawl back in and engage one of the propulsion missiles.

  This is when my failings in physics becomes a bit obvious.

  I fire one missile.

  For about thirty seconds or so.

  About then, I felt something very odd. Rotational acceleration.

  It seems, as I recall from physics, that by firing one missile, off center, I put a spin on the ship.

  Shit. I should have done a pair like I did when I settled in the angle. I knew it. Knew it. Shit. Shit.

  I’m wobbling like a ninth-round heavyweight.

  In the next hour, I tap it slowly back into place with the steering missiles. I burn, adjust, burn, adjust, and the whole time focus on stopping the roll. I don’t even care where Henna is just yet. I have to stop the roll.

  I crawl back outside. It smells terribly like vomit inside of my helmet, even though I only puked a little bit. “Henna?”

  “Jager.”

  “Turn your light on.”

  “Why?”

  “I need a bearing.” I decide I’ll tell her the rest over piña coladas.

  There she is. Off my starboard quarter. A few more taps and I’ll be back on course. “Gotcha.”

  This time, when I crawl back in, I engage a pair of missiles in opposite corners from each other. I only burn for ten seconds and then check on the collimator. Looking good.

  Slowly, the wrecked ass of the missile boat looms larger. Once I can tell that the ship is growing, I spin it about, carefully, and apply some braking thrust. Henna warned me about pitching too much thrust at the last moment; I’d just blow her half of the starship farther away.

  Then, suddenly, I’m close. The collimator is a section of lenses and mirrors, and as I discover, items in the mirror are closer than they appear.

  I poke my head outside to get a decent look at her half and decide the best way to approach it when I see the Tyrolean ship.

  The destroyer is coal black and glitters like it’s coated in frost. One side of her is lit, barely, while the other is looming shadow. She’s close, and closing. A laser flickers on one side and vaporizes something out near Henna’s ship. A corpse. Or at least now it is.

  “Henna, Tyrol destroyer, coming in!”

  “Where!”

  “Hold tight, I’ve got an idea!”

  There’s a few times I’ve had an idea and muttered that same phrase. They never involved my imminent death. Nor did they usually work.

  I rush back out to the front of the ship and start removing the emergency locks on all of the missiles that haven’t fired. Every time I pull a yellow safety tab, I sneak a glance. The ship is coming closer. Guessing from how it’s quartered, it’s headed for Henna’s half.

  Would they take a survivor? Could they? Why haven’t they fired on the ship yet? This is closer than point-blank range. I don’t intend to find out.

  They fire on two more objects floating nearby.

  I crawl back in, pulling myself hand over hand with the tether. I’ve got one chance. I spin the ship, fire the engines, and hope like hell I hit.

  I untie my safety harness.

  No second guesses. No time for math. Just a straight-up sucker-punch. I’ll use the upper half of my missile boat to plow right into the Tyrolean destroyer.

  I can see the mass of that black ship sliding outside. Every second brings it closer. I have to wait. They can’t have time to fire back; the missile cruiser won’t last long.

  “Here we go!”

  I engage the entire rear bank of missiles, grab the fire extinguisher, and dive out of the bridge into the emptiness of space.

  My feet kick off the door, and I’m sailing. I turn my head and watch as the missile boat plows past, all missiles firing. It’s like a massive old-school starship, all chemical and violence.

  I only had a split second to gauge where Henna’s half was. It was still too far to guess how my aim was. It had to be close. Had to be. I clutch the fire extinguisher and get ready to use it to steer me toward her.

  The Tyrolean ship fires two lasers at the approaching missile boat. Both flicker for a moment, and an odd phosphorescence lights up the hull. The sparkles of frost melt on the turrets.

  The missile boat misses. By a long shot. Like a haymaker punch in the wrong damned ring.

  Shit.

  Every meter I pass, I expect to feel that burn of laser. It probably won’t hurt, but I imagine it will.

  The missile boat is about half a kilometer away when they finally shoot it. It sparkles as it explodes, just like the rest. Though I’m fairly sure it is a bit more beautiful than the other ones.

  I ponder on what actually blows up and realize it’s the batteries cooking off inside. All that energy is stored up and shorts out. Makes sense.

  “Henna, I’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “I tried to use the front half of the missile boat as a torpedo and hit the Tyrolean destroyer.”

  “Did it work?” Her voice is excited; I can hear the amazement in it.

  “Uh…”

  The coal-black ship spins slowly and brings a full broadside to bear. I wave at it. Maybe a bit of good humor would make up for the fact that I tried to crash my missile boat into them.

  Something flickers past. It’s gone in a second, like I’ve seen a shadow.

  The Tyrolean
destroyer hangs for a split second and then explodes. An icy-white ripple of flames bursts out from the front and rear. Armor plate tumbles outward. A secondary explosion lights up my face shield.

  What the hell just happened? My mind tries to grasp how I’m still alive. Did one of my stray missiles fire? Did my targeting computer somehow get a lock? I’d have seen it. What the hell?

  A piece of glowing wreckage tumbles past me. I watch as it disappears out of view.

  “Someone else…” I grasp the fire extinguisher and give it a little burst to spin myself around.

  There, emerging like a longship from the mist, is a green-hulled starship. Both sides are round like half cylinders, with a distinct rectangle running along the center. A few small torpedo tubes brace the sides. Bits of corrosion flake on the front edge, and the whole thing has the appearance of having spent the last hundred years in the ocean. It’s nothing but verdigris and rust.

  I know it immediately. I’ve seen ships like it a hundred times in the newsfeed.

  “So I lied.”

  “What?” Henna snaps back.

  “I didn’t kill the Tyrolean destroyer.”

  “It’s alive?”

  “Nope.”

  She’s silent.

  The cloaker engages its lights. Twin snow-white beams flicker and brighten my suit. I give it a wave.

  The lights flick on and off.

  Holy shit. They actually see me.

  Then I answer her; it’s no fun to keep her in suspense.

  “An Orca class just appeared. Henna, we’re safe.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the next few hours, I float and watch as the Orca flickers in and out of view. The ship is ugly. No other way to put it. Like a pig-snouted bruiser, a back-alley bouncer, nothing like the prizefighters in the main fleet.

  They briefly come on comms. The signal is so weak I can barely hear them, and they are only a few hundred meters away at best. It’s short and sweet, hold tight.

  The more I think on it, the more sense it makes. Here we are, far out in deep space, where even a weak signal will propagate for a very long time. Is that how the Tyroleans found—and executed—everyone?