Desperate Fire (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 4) Read online

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN “That’s the last of the reporters in their cabins, Captain,” Roach said. “I’m afraid they’re unhappy about their living space.” William waved his hand, dismissively. Sixth Fleet was on the verge of departing McCaughey. The reporters, and everyone else, were under a strict communications blackout. Their complaints would go unheard until the fleet reached its destination, whereupon there would be too many other problems for the government to care about a bunch of spoiled-brat journalists. Didn’t they realize there was a war on? Or that the cabins they’d been given were twice as large as a lieutenant’s cabin? Probably not, he thought dryly. They’re used to five-star hotels. He dismissed the issue as he turned back to the tactical display. Sixth Fleet was slowly altering position, assembling its squadrons for the jump into hyperspace. A handful of drones were already being emplaced to masquerade as the missing ships, hoping to convince any watching eyes that 6th Fleet was

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Admiral Junayd’s words hung in Kat’s mind as the fleet followed its circular path towards the Gap, remaining well off the shipping lanes and taking evasive action at the slightest hint of an unidentified starship. Kat had been a spacer long enough to know that the odds of anyone getting a solid lock on their hulls, let alone an accurate ship count, were minimal, but she understood Admiral Christian’s caution. The less warning the Theocracy had, the less time they’d have to muster a defense or devise contingency plans. She already knew a very hard fight was in store. And we’ll be killing innocents along with the fanatics, she thought. The enemy spacers had chosen to serve, but their civilians hadn’t deliberately put themselves in a war zone. And yet it can’t be helped. “Commodore,” Wheeler said, “the fleet is approaching the minefield. Admiral Christian is ordering the ships to heave to.” “Make it so,” Kat ordered. She sucked in her breath. On the display, the Gap and i

  CHAPTER NINETEEN “I haven’t seen anything of you for a week,” Kat teased as Pat stepped into her suite. “What have you been doing?” “Readying the landing force,” Pat said. He gave her a tight hug, then kissed her. “Yourself?” “Planning the engagement,” Kat said. She’d spent most of the trip working with Admiral Christian and the rest of the planning cell, trying to game out everything the Theocracy could and would do. “I think we’re going to be surprised when we finally reach our target.” Pat nodded. “Is there any sign we’ve been detected?” “Not as far as we know,” Kat said. “But we don’t have any way to be sure.” She sighed as they walked into the admiral’s mess and sat down. They wouldn’t know if they’d been detected until they entered the Ahura Mazda system and began the operation. And even if they hadn’t been detected in transit, enemy spies might have picked up a hint of what was in store or simply noted the disappearance of large numbers of starships from the front. If they had,

  CHAPTER TWENTY “This report is genuine?” “It comes straight from Agent Joshua,” Inquisitor Samuilu said. “His position gives him access to a great deal of enemy data.” Speaker Nehemiah studied the report for a long moment. Agent Joshua had never steered the Theocracy wrong before, although there were odd gaps in what he sent that worried his handlers back on Ahura Mazda. And yet, an all-out attack on Ahura Mazda itself? Such a venture seemed a little unlikely. “I ordered a patrol ship from Croydon to check the minefield,” Samuilu said. “A vast number of mines are missing, blown out of space in a pattern that suggests a large fleet passed through the Gap and into our territory. Assuming a least-time course between the Gap and Ahura Mazda, they could be here within two days at the most.” “And Joshua didn’t tell us until now,” Nehemiah mused. “His sources are not always available,” Samuilu reminded him. “But everything he’s sent us has proven reliable.” Nehemiah looked up at the star char

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE “Captain,” Sonja Robertson whispered, “can they see us?” William found himself torn between anger and amusement. Sonja was a reporter, a woman with long red hair and a heart-shaped face. He wasn’t sure if she was as silly as she acted or not, but she had a positive gift for making people talk to her. “I hope not,” he said. “But we don’t know for sure.” He smiled rather grimly. They’d slid out of hyperspace right on the edge of the system, carefully emerging on the opposite side of the sun from Ahura Mazda. And yet he wasn’t sure if they’d escaped detection or not. Theocratic forces might not be able to afford the immense sensor arrays the Commonwealth used to cover its major systems, but they would definitely have rigged up a network to protect Ahura Mazda. Their homeworld could not be allowed to remain undefended. “You could be wrong,” Sonja whispered. “What then?” William grinned. “You don’t have to whisper,” he said. “They can’t hear you.” He leaned back in his co

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO “Ladies and gentlemen,” Admiral Christian said. “The face of the enemy.” Kat sucked in her breath as Ahura Mazda appeared in front of her, ringed by row after row of defenses. Superdreadnoughts, orbital battlestations, so many automated weapons platforms that the analysts had practically lost count. Their best guesses about gunboats, armed shuttles, and other surprises were flowing up at the bottom of the display, warning that Ahura Mazda could potentially be defended by over a hundred thousand gunboats. Kat rather suspected that was a gross exaggeration, but she had no way of being sure. The Theocracy might have decided to plow vast resources into producing gunboats as the war swung against them. “Our principal target remains Ahura Mazda,” Admiral Christian continued. “Should we lose the engagement, for whatever reason, our flanking units will obliterate the cloudscoops as we retreat. Starving the system of HE3 will certainly do a great deal of harm to their economy

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Admiral Zaskar was not a very happy man. To be told that a major enemy fleet was bearing down on Ahura Mazda, a world he was charged to defend, was quite bad enough. He’d drawn up a number of contingency plans for enemy attack, but none of them had actually been tested. And yet, to be given some very specific orders from the council was worse. He didn’t want to carry out his orders, not given the likely danger to his homeworld, but he had no choice. The Inquisition had already taken his wives and children into protective custody. He had no doubt that one of his own crew would stick a knife in him if he disobeyed orders while his family would bear the brunt of the Inquisition’s displeasure. He paced his command deck, taking bitter satisfaction in watching the operators do their level best to avoid his notice. They might bow and scrape in front of him, but they knew as well as Zaskar did that he wasn’t the ultimate authority on his flagship. That rested in the hands

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR “Commodore, Hammerhead has been destroyed,” Wheeler said. “I’m not picking up any lifepods.” Kat swallowed, hard. Had the enemy gotten lucky? Very lucky? Or had they somehow picked the flagship out of the fleet and marked her down for special attention? But it didn’t matter, not now. Her superior was dead . . . and she had to assume command. “Priority signal to the fleet,” she ordered. “Admiral Christian is missing, presumed dead. I am assuming command as of this moment.” She doubted that anything could have survived the explosion. Admiral Christian wouldn’t have been able to escape, even if he’d run for an escape pod the moment he realized that five shuttles were closing in on his ship. But she couldn’t unilaterally declare him dead, not yet. All that mattered was that he was unable to serve as the fleet’s commanding officer. Mourn later, she told herself savagely. The battle is not over yet. “Fleet datanet refocusing on Queen Elizabeth,” Wheeler reported. “It’s ac

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE So tell me, Pat’s thoughts urged. Whose bright idea was this? Yours, his thoughts answered. He gritted his teeth as the suit rocketed on its ballistic trajectory towards Ahura Mazda, tiny gas jets steering him towards the optimal reentry point. Hundreds of other marines were floating near him, he knew, but he found that hard to believe when they were keeping strict radio silence. They didn’t even dare risk using lasers to communicate, despite knowing that the odds of being detected were ridiculously low. It was chillingly easy to believe that he was
all alone in the vastness of space, utterly dwarfed by the giant planet looming above him. And yet, his suit’s passive sensors kept picking up signs of life, flashing up warnings about chunks of space debris falling into the planet’s atmosphere. It was highly unlikely that he or any of the marines would actually collide with a piece of debris, but the problem could not be entirely dismissed. A large number of marines wer

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX “Why did they do this?” Junayd studied the images on the display, feeling sick. He’d known it was a possibility, he’d even tried to discuss it with his handlers, but he hadn’t really believed anyone would do it, not really. And yet, he’d never been one of the little people, one of the men who knew nothing but radio propaganda. The men in the town had probably feared for the future of their wives and children if the Commonwealth won; they had probably believed that the women would be raped while the boys were taken away and turned into good little unbelievers. Killing the women and children would have seemed the better course. Kat glared at him. “Why?” “Because they feel they have no choice,” Junayd said tiredly. He had no idea what the common folk had been told in the time since his defection, but he could guess. “They think the women will be dishonored.” “They could just have run,” Kat snapped. “We have plenty of images of people fleeing their homes.” “But that woul

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN “Duck!” Pat dropped to his knees as the hovertank came into view, firing burst after burst of plasma towards the marines. Bolts of brilliant light flashed over his head as he crawled backwards, careful not to attract the tank’s attention. The rifles and machine guns the militia were armed with couldn’t harm the marines, but the tank certainly could. And so could the armored men behind it. One advantage of hovertanks, he thought. They can be moved to any location at speed. “I have a shot,” Corporal Jackson said. “Take it,” Pat ordered. Jackson stood up on his knees, just long enough to fire a missile towards the tank. The craft jerked backwards, but the missile had a solid lock and plowed into its forward armor plating. Pat’s visor darkened automatically as the plasma warhead detonated, burning brightly as it melted its way through armor. A moment later, the tank lurched to a halt. Any crewmen inside would have been killed the moment the plasma fire burned through t

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT “I am truly sorry about the delay,” Janice said as the hovertank made its way towards their destination. “It should have happened sooner.” “It is of no matter,” Junayd assured her. “General Winters was right to be concerned.” He sat back in the tank and forced himself to relax. A week of hard fighting had given the marines a chance to clear an ever-expanding spacehead, ending with the destruction of a PDC near a large city. Now, wave after wave of reinforcements could be landed, allowing the marines to prepare themselves for the final thrust towards the Tabernacle. Junayd hoped there might be a way to avoid the devastation such a campaign would leave in its wake. The thought made him shudder, despite himself. Starship combat was clean. He’d never seen enemy spacers gasping for breath as they were swept out of gashes in starship hulls and thrown into space, nor watched the wounded struggling to survive. A starship might die in agony, her last moments an eternity of

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE “. . . is Admiral Junayd,” Junayd’s voice said. “Reports of my death were falsified.” Kat watched as the speech went on, Junayd calling out his former masters for starting a hopeless war, throwing away so many lives, and finally allowing an invading force to set foot on Ahura Mazda itself. He spoke of a future without war, a future without the clerics, a future where life was free and uncontrolled. And he called on his people to rise up against their oppressors. “A pretty speech,” Commodore Daniel Hawkins said. His image floated in front of Kat, surrounded by the other commodores. The captains hadn’t been invited to the high-level command meeting. “But is it going to be enough?” “Preliminary reports suggest that a number of enemy units have mutinied,” General Winters said. His image looked stern. He’d been reluctant to take part in the conference, pointing out that the situation on the ground needed to be closely monitored. “However, the enemy will soon start claimi

  CHAPTER THIRTY “This,” Sergeant Bones muttered, “is a very weird city.” Pat was inclined to agree. He’d landed on dozens of worlds, from Tyre and Jorlem to a couple of Theocratic worlds, but Samarian was easily the strangest city he’d visited. And perhaps the darkest. The streets were dominated by towering apartment blocks, each one built so poorly that a small explosion might be enough to bring it down. Pat had no love for bureaucrats, but he had a feeling that Samarian would come to regret the lack of building inspectors and quality control. Hell, a strong wind might also do real damage to the city. And you volunteered to lead a patrol to make sure you had a feel for the local environment, his thoughts whispered. Do you like what you see? He shuddered as he saw the piles of rubbish surrounding each of the apartment blocks. The city’s basic services, already primitive, had been cut off entirely in the wake of the invasion, leaving garbage to pile up. A couple of bodies, both wearing r

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE “The cloudscoops are coming into range, Captain,” Cecelia said. “Missiles locked.” William nodded as the enemy stations appeared on the display. They didn’t look that different from Commonwealth designs, although they were bunched up rather than dispersed around the gas giant. The concept struck him as poor planning, if only because a storm below could disrupt all the cloudscoops, instead of just one. But he had to admit that the positioning did make it easier to keep the engineers under control. The skimming he’d seen in facilities elsewhere probably wouldn’t be a problem here. “Communications,” he said. “Send the surrender demand.” “Aye, Captain,” Lieutenant Ball said. William tensed. The attempts to board the enemy shipyards had largely failed, the Theocrats blowing up the facilities rather than allowing them to fall into Commonwealth hands. Thirty-seven marines had been lost before Kat Falcone had vetoed any further attempts to capture the shipyards, choosing ins

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO “So one of your clients lost another ship,” Israel Harrison said as Lucas sat down at the conference table. “To lose one ship may be regarded as a misfortune, but to lose two seems more like carelessness.” “A line your speechwriter gleefully stole from Oscar Wilde,” Lucas snapped. His implants had flagged the quote at once. “But he didn’t get it quite right.” “He’s having an off day,” Harrison said. His eyes narrowed. “I trust you came prepared for the meeting?” Lucas kept his face impassive. The governmental coalition was definitely falling apart as politicians readied themselves for the future. Whoever could make a credible claim to have won the war would have an excellent chance in the next set of elections, assuming the aftermath didn’t wind up costing the crown millions. And yet, the war was not over. Declaring victory ahead of time struck him as dangerously premature. He studied Harrison for a long moment as the Leader of the Opposition turned his attention to

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE “I have the latest report, Admiral,” the operator said. “The 34th Superdreadnought Squadron is only at seventy percent effectiveness.” Admiral Zaskar nodded without turning his attention from the display. The Commonwealth might have taken out the StarComs, but the orders to muster every remaining warship in the Theocracy had been sent before the network had been destroyed. It was taking time, more time than he cared to admit, to rally the troops, yet the fleet was slowly coming together. They could carry out their mission. And they had to succeed. The entire Theocracy was depending on them. “Have engineers sent to assist the crews,” he said. He’d declared that no one would be punished if their ships had problems they couldn’t fix, but he knew from bitter experience that most of his officers probably wouldn’t believe such words. And why should they? Too many officers had previously blamed their subordinates rather than face up to problems caused by their superiors.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR “Commodore,” Lucy said, “Commodore McElney has arrived.” Captain McElney, Kat translated mentally. William had been given a courtesy promotion as soon as he’d boarded Queen Elizab
eth. There could only ever be one captain on a ship. And I don’t want to see him. She closed her eyes in bitter pain. Her father was dead. The man who’d sired her, who’d given her a life well above the ordinary, who’d helped her and taught her and disciplined her, was dead. Her father was dead. She couldn’t quite believe it. He’d always been there for her, even when she’d been determined to stand on her own two feet. And now he was gone. He shouldn’t have died, she thought numbly, unable to move. Duke Lucas should have lived for decades more, thanks to his genetic enhancements. They killed him. She stared up at the display, shaking her head. Her father was dead. The preliminary reports had claimed that a team of sleeper agents, armed with a MANPAD, had managed to down his aircar with an HVM

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE “Transit completed, Admiral,” the operator said. “No enemy ships within detection range.” Zaskar nodded, although he knew the absence of visible ships was largely meaningless. The Commonwealth’s cloaking devices were very good. If there was a prowling enemy ship within sensor range, word of his arrival was already winging its way to Ahura Mazda. But the odds were staggeringly against early detection. He’d brought the fleet out of hyperspace so far from the planet—and on the other side of the star—to minimize the odds of being detected. They haven’t had a chance to set up long-range sensor arrays, he thought as his fleet settled down into combat formation. And if they didn’t need them, they would have tracked down our spies long ago. He kept his face impassive despite the growing tension on the bridge. The clerics had been busy preaching to members of the crew, promising them that this would be the final battle, promising them that God was on their side. And yet, eve