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Chapter Thirty


Spin One


Two weeks to the day after he’d regained consciousness, Kevin Bowden convinced the medics that he was able to stand and walk unaided. After a brief discussion, they decided to allow his release, on the condition that he kept things light for the next week. After promising to do so, he put on the uniform he’d had Fiezel bring him a week prior—it had taken that long to get his feet back under him—and confidently walked out the door.

At which point he’d collapsed against the bulkhead, catching his breath. After resting a minute, he’d continued down the passageway to the refectory. It was between breakfast and lunch, but he was hoping for something a little more solid than the medics had been giving him. After putting together a quick meal and eating it in blessed silence, he was up again and managed to make it to the conference room in time for the second simulator of the day.

Everyone was listening to Fiezel give the mission brief at the front of the room, so he slid into a chair in the back next to Raptis.

She glanced over and her eyes widened. “Are you supposed to be up?” she whispered sharply.

Bowden nodded. “Light duty only, but I figured I’d come watch a simulator before I went and took my mandated afternoon nap.”

“Your face is very white,” Raptis noted. “You don’t look well, yet.”

“I’m getting better every day, and I wanted to come see how things were going.” His eyes scanned the room in front of him . . . and met those of a head turned backward in his direction: Targ J’axon.

Who jumped to his feet and shouted, “Attention! Admiral on deck!”

Despite some initial confusion, the full complement in the compartment stood. Most offered the prolonged, deep nod that was the Hound-Dog acknowledgment of a superior officer. A few actually made a fair showing of a genuine salute. Whether the courtesy was spontaneous or indifferently rehearsed was unclear—and made no difference to Bowden. He stood as steadily as he was able, face grave as he pushed down the small lump trying to rise into his throat. He returned a slow salute, then nodded. “As you were. Carry on, Major Fiezel.”

When he had eased himself back into his seat, he leaned toward Raptis. “Am I still on too many painkillers, or is that T’Barth over there to the right?”

She smiled. “It is. He showed up the day after you got shot, despite the bruises on his throat, and said he was here to do his part. He wanted a leadership slot, as befit his status, but would take whatever we gave him.”

“Seriously? He said that?”

Raptis nodded slowly. “He said he owed you a debt.”

“So what do you have him doing?”

“Leading a section of missile packets.”

“Missile packets?”

“Yes, Murphy told Dave that we would have some packets with missiles mounted to them.”

Bowden’s eyes widened. Out of it for a short while and everything changes. “How many?”

“We don’t know yet. Maybe ten, give or take. We have them in two groups. One led by T’Barth and one led by Teseler.”

Bowden’s jaw dropped. “The two of them? Working together?”

The RockHound chuckled. “They are decidedly not working together. That is why they are each leading a section of missile packets—one on each side of the formation. T’Barth’s Family is fabbing about half of the modifications to the original frames—mining craft—and the Otlethes Family the other half; it only made sense to put them in charge of the platforms they’d made.”

“How is it going with them?”

“Poorly at the start, but it has gotten better. They are both excellent pilots and leaders—”

“T’Barth is a leader?”

“A very good one. His people would follow him to Kulsis if he asked.”

“Wow.” Bowden shook his head. “Who knew?” he muttered.

“Anyway, there were some difficulties at the start as each of them tried to outdo the other for bravery—what you called macho bullshit—but they have settled down now, for the most part. I think each has a grudging respect for the other.”

The pre-mission brief finished, and the pilots stood and began heading to their individual rooms. T’Barth lagged behind the others, detoured toward Bowden. “It is good to see you,” he said. “I am sorry about—”

Bowden held up a hand. “They told me about what happened, and I don’t hold you accountable. I’m just happy to have you here as part of this.”

“But I am accountable. I gave my oath that no harm would come to you in my space, and yet it did.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bowden said, standing. “I hear you’re an excellent pilot. It’s good to have you here. We need all the pilots we can get.”

“I see that. Your way of war is . . . even more different than I thought it would be, and it took some getting used to.” He looked around to see who was behind him, then continued, “But if Teseler can do it, so can I, and better.”

“It’s not a competition,” Bowden said. “The only way this works is if we all do our parts. No one is the hero unless we all are.”

T’Barth nodded slowly. “They have been saying that the whole time. I didn’t understand it at first, but I’m beginning to. It is strange . . . but like a complicated dance, when it all comes together, it is a thing of beauty.”

“Exactly.” Bowden smiled. “And just like the dance, you can’t have one person doing what he wants. It will only mess it up for everyone else.”

“I know.” He looked down. “It is hard to temper the urge to rush in, sometimes, and claim the glory of making the kill. To be the one to wield the most sought-after fethshern at the Acclamation.” He paused. “That is our celebration of victorious heroes.”

“I understand,” Bowden said, “but I suspect that there will be enough kills to go around.”

* * *

“You wanted to see me, Boss?” Bowden asked from the door.

Murphy looked up with What now? written all over his face. When he saw Bowden, his jaw dropped, then he stood and waved him in. “Come in and have a seat before you fall down. Do the medics know you’re out of bed?”

“Yes, sir. I got out of the infirmary this morning, and they said I could resume a light duty schedule. When the message came for Fiezel that you were looking for him, he was running a simulator. I figured that coming to talk to you was within the restrictions of light duty, so I shambled on down here to see what we could do for you.”

Murphy winced. “I’m not sure you’re ready for this.”

“I’m not sure I like that intro, but I feel better than I apparently look. What’s up, sir?”

“We just got imagery of the oncoming Kulsian fleet from one of the microsats. It mostly confirms what we guessed: five ferrying frames—two fusion, three nuclear. Between them, they probably carry between forty corvettes and sixty dedicated security ships. Some of the others can also serve in combat roles, of course.”

“And just how many of these ‘others’ should we expect?”

Murphy’s jaw might have twitched. “Normally, those ferries could collectively carry in three hundred lighters, tankers, shuttles, and robotic haulers of various marks.” Murphy smiled. “But I don’t think we’ll see quite that many.”

“Why?” Bowden asked, determined to focus on even the smallest scrap of good news.

“SIGINT suggests that the loss of the coursers—the Kulsian officers often refer to them as ‘bush-beaters’—has disrupted the uniformity of purpose and politics among the Overlords. While the main nation or family collective—Syfartha—remains fairly unified in its objectives and politics, the others of the northern hemisphere seem a bit restive. The good news is that as they were rushing to get the fleet moving, a lot of them were still bitching and pointing fingers. It’s unlikely they got all the logistics lined up for a maximum complement of smaller craft.”

Kevin knew Murphy’s tone. “And the bad news?”

“The Syfarthan Combine has decided to show the rest of Kulsis that they are deadly serious about settling any problems that might exist in this system.”

“Sir, exactly what do you mean by ‘deadly serious’?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Sir, quit stalling and show me.”

“Fine. You asked for it,” Murphy said, tossing a series of pictures onto Bowden’s side of the desk. “Take a look. These were taken right before they flipped over and began their insertion burns.”

Bowden scooped up the photos and flipped through them. A cold sweat broke out across his body, and he knew it had nothing to do with his health. I knew there would be a lot of them, but this . . . “Damn,” he finally said. “That’s more than a lot.” Bowden shook his head. “These pictures aren’t very good for identification—”

“You do realize how far away they are still, right?”

Bowden shrugged. “A long way?”

“A very long way.”

“Okay, tough to recce their types, but it’s easy to see how damned many there are.”

Murphy nodded. “The analysts say there are over a hundred in the lead element, based on the long-range ESM and IR imagery.”

Bowden winced as he sat back in the chair. “A hundred? Surely those aren’t all combatants.”

“No, they’re not. But the numbers are much higher than Yukannak led us to expect.”

Bowden looked up. “They’re scared.”

“Yeah. But they still don’t grasp the full severity of the situation. If they did, there’d probably be more warships. Maybe even a whole fleet of them preceding the Harvesters.”

Bowden nodded and looked back at the photos. “What’s this in the lead here? One of their corvettes, followed by a number of their chase vessels?”

Murphy came around the desk and pointed at the ship in the lead. “That isn’t a corvette.” He scoffed and moved his finger to one of the smaller ships alongside the one in the lead. “That is one of their corvettes.”

“Oh,” Bowden muttered. “Damn.” He shook his head again. “That’s a big son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, it is.” Murphy rubbed his chin. “SpinDog analysts say it’s a frigate-sized ship. It’s going to take a lot of killing.”

Bowden’s breath whistled through his teeth. “I’ll say it is,” he muttered. He squared his shoulders, and then muttered, “It is what it is.”

“What is?”

Bowden chuckled. “I always hated that saying: ‘it is what it is.’ Never really understood it. Still, it’s applicable here. The fact that they have a frigate, and we don’t, only means that we have to figure out a way to take it down.” He shrugged. “There isn’t any other option.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. If I had twenty-nine corvettes, and I sent them at it all at once, there’s no doubt I could kill it. Piranhas kill big mammals, after all, and there’s a Chinese torture based on death by a thousand cuts. Can I do it that way? Sure, but I’m going to end up with a lot fewer corvettes in the end. There’s also the fact that I don’t actually have twenty-nine corvettes to send at the moment.”

“You don’t?” Murphy asked. “I was told this morning that the official count was twenty-nine.”

Bowden scoffed. “Not even close.”

“How many do you have?”

“There may be twenty-nine hulls, but there aren’t anywhere close to that many that are fully functional. Burg went and looked at them this morning, and there are only twenty, and that’s if you use the term ‘fully functional’ pretty loosely. It’s probably more like sixteen or eighteen, which is a far cry from twenty-nine. I’ve got three more being outfitted today with equipment coming from the fabbers, and another six that are done but having issues in one form or another. Weapons systems malfunctions and low performance in their propulsion systems, things like that.”

“You don’t have much time.”

“If they’re already in their entry burns, no I don’t.” He tapped his watch. “For those of you scoring at home, this is about a week less than I was promised.”

“Don’t talk to me; talk to the Kulsians.”

“Oh, I will talk to them,” Bowden said, getting up. “I’ll scribble some messages on the missiles I’m going to send them, just like we used to do in the Mog.” He started shuffling toward the door.

Murphy’s voice turned serious. “Are you going to be able to get everything done in time?”

“We’ll get done what we need to,” Bowden said. “To do otherwise means we don’t survive this.”

* * *

“A frigate?” Burg asked, looking up from the imagery. “It can’t be done. Not with what we have, anyway.”

“Don’t let the Hound-Dogs hear you say that,” Bowden said. “I finally got them believing we can do this and working together.”

“But this? This changes everything.” He pointed to the ship. “Not only is this going to have more weapons and armor, it is also going to have better electronics and will serve as an Aegis system for their fleet. It may not be as capable as our Aegis ships, but it will be able to provide their fleet with a communications-and-control capability that is vastly better than what they would have had without it.

“This is, as you say, a game-changer for them. Not only are we not going to be able to kill it, the frigate is also going to make the rest of their fleet far harder to defeat as well.”

“Nothing is unkillable,” Bowden said as he reached out and put a hand over the imagery Burg was holding. “Nothing. Everything has a weakness, and the appearance of this ship doesn’t change anything.” He smiled. “Except for maybe how we allocate some of our defenses.”

“What?” Raptis asked. “New strategy? Use everything we have on the frigate?”

“That’s called the dog-pile approach,” Bowden said with a smile, “and it’s exactly what we’re going to have to do.” He shook his head. “We need to get it away from all the other ships, though, or we’re going to get dog-piled by the rest of their fleet.”

“How many ships do they have?” Burg asked as he started flipping through the photos.

“Enough for us to need a new plan,” Bowden said. He reached over and took back the imagery. “Let’s go over our inventory again. What do we have that isn’t already gainfully employed?”


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