Maelstrom Strand Read online

  “Order arms!”

  As one, the salutes came down and the bay doors began to slide shut.

  “Wholesale Slaughter, fall out to your duty stations.”

  The formation began to melt away, slowly at first, reluctantly. The ones who’d known her didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to believe it was over. The ones who hadn’t didn’t want to abandon their comrades in their hour of suffering, or perhaps, Logan thought uncharitably, just didn’t want people to think they were assholes. But there was work to be done and, at last, even Kammy was gone, leaving him standing in the docking bay beside Katy, Terrin and General Constantine. And his orderly, who still refused to leave his side.

  The general pushed the medic away and stepped up to Logan, hands on his hips. The man still looked about a hundred years old, though the haze had dropped away from his eyes after the medics had cleansed his system of the psychoactive drugs Starkad had forced into him.

  “You’re in no shape for this, sir,” Logan told him. “Give it another few days, get some more strength back.”

  “The hell with that,” Constantine said, dismissing the notion with a negligent wave of his hand. “You think I’m going to do any good staring at the fucking walls back on Revelation, boy?” He snorted a laugh. “That Starkad bitch wanted to squeeze the secrets out of me because she thinks what I know is dangerous, and she’s damn well right it is.”

  Constantine seemed to waver for a moment and Logan thought the man was wandering back into the mental caverns he’d dug to escape the interrogations, but instead, he was crying. It seemed disrespectful to acknowledge weakness in Nicolai Constantine, but Logan hesitantly reached out a hand and clutched the man’s frail shoulder.

  “It’s the drugs,” Constantine insisted, wiping at his eyes but not pulling away from Logan’s touch. “The docs tell me I’ll be prone to mood swings until they’re completely out of my system.”

  Logan tilted his head, unable to keep the skepticism out of his eyes.

  “Oh, all right, damn it, and I owe her something. I owe Lyta my life and, the way I see it, the only way I have of paying her back is keeping you idiot kids alive. And I can’t do that sitting around feeling sorry for myself.” He grinned and while it lacked, the utter, infallible confidence of the Nicolai Constantine Logan had known since childhood, it was close enough.

  “All right,” he decided. “Katy, prep your shuttle and get Acosta. The two of you are going to drop General Constantine on Guajarat.” At her nod, he touched her arm, shooting her a warning look. “Get out quick. We’re too hot to handle right now and I don’t want someone IDing you.”

  “I am a doddering old fool,” Constantine declared as if he were jumping into the middle of a completely different conversation. “This all started with you,” he said to Terrin.

  The younger man started as if he were waking from a dream and Logan thought he’d probably still been lost in memories of Lyta.

  “What?” he grunted, then remembered who was speaking to. “I mean, sir?”

  “This all started when you found Terminus,” Constantine clarified. “It was the spark that lit the fuse.”

  “You think this was all my fault?” Terrin asked, face going white as if the General had put into words something he’d already been considering.

  “No, of course not.” The general waved the idea away. “Someone was going to find it, it was inevitable. But it was just as inevitable that it would upset the balance of power. We,” he waved his finger in a tight circle indicating himself and Logan, “all thought it would be Sparta that kicked it over, but we underestimated Starkad. We all underestimated this Ruth Laurent, wherever the hell she came from. She caught us with our pants down. I’ve been reacting since Terminus, letting Starkad make the first move. That ends today. Today, I’m the one kicking over the anthill.”

  He sneered, and in the cunning, chill hatred of the expression Logan finally saw a hint of the man he knew.

  “She’s going to wish she’d killed me.”

  19

  I feel like this is the second or third time I’ve said this to you since we’ve known each other, Colonel Laurent,” Aaron Starkad said, a thin smile covering what Laurent could guess was cold rage, “but please tell me why I shouldn’t have you taken out and shot.”

  “I deserve it, sir,” she admitted, not flinching from the judgment.

  She should have been flinching. She should have been sweating and shuddering, because he was very capable of doing just that. Colonel Kuryakin had told her the tales of Lord Aaron’s wrath. But she’d had the entire trip back to prepare herself. A couple of stiff drinks before walking into his personal offices had helped.

  “I failed to anticipate the heir would have the intelligence assets to locate Maelstrom Strand or the military resources to launch a successful attack on it.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t likely, and our military units are spread thin supporting Rhianna Hale, but there’s no excuse for not being prepared. I can make it up to you sir, if you give me the chance.”

  Lord Starkad circled around her, treading carelessly on the real tiger skin rug on his office floor and falling heavily into a leather-upholstered sofa. It was showily casual, but she could sense the lithe agility and strength of the man in the movements. The muscles of his arms and chest played beneath his tight, silk shirt and she understood very well how he’d earned a reputation as a lady’s man. Rhianna Hale had to practically pry herself off him to leave and execute the coup.

  “Tell me,” he urged, gesturing invitingly but not offering her a seat.

  “He’s lost Lyta Randell,” she explained. She tried to keep her eyes off his, instead letting them wander around the opulent trappings of royalty. “She’s been his military advisor and infantry commander from the beginning, and a close personal friend of his and of Jaimie Brannigan before him.” A pair of swords, their blades narrow and curved, their hilts unguarded, were crossed above the sofa, shining in the soft light of the crackling fireplace. “He’s going to be off-balance without her, hurting and itching for a fight to get revenge. If we attack him, he won’t run, he’ll stand and fight.”

  “Attack him where?” Starkad demanded, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees, as if he were about to leap up and throttle her at the wrong answer. “Do you know where he is?”

  A painting of a young woman in an off-the-shoulder white dress, filmy and spectral, carrying a laundry basket on her shoulder beside a river, the frame gilt wood.

  If I tell him he could still have me shot then send his generals in without me.

  “Revelation,” she told him.

  His eyebrow went up and he grinned.

  He always appreciates irony.

  “Oh-ho!” he said. “Returning to the scene of the crime, is he?”

  “He’s gathered together several mercenary companies there, bringing them all under the umbrella of his Wholesale Slaughter cover. He’s been using them to clean out pirates and bandits all across the Periphery and the Disputed Systems.”

  His gaze sharpened, eyes narrowing in realization.

  Just because he’s an egotistical bastard doesn’t mean he’s not smart.

  “You knew this already. You’ve known it for a while now, haven’t you?”

  “I have,” she admitted.

  “Yet you said nothing till now, did nothing.” He seemed more intrigued than enraged. “Why?”

  “Because he was using them to hunt down pirates and bandits, sir,” she said without a hint of apology. “Which is not only the right thing to do, but also frees up any of our own forces which might be called on to deal with them.”

  “The right thing to do...,” Starkad repeated, wonder in his voice, mouth nearly dropping open. “Mithra’s bloody horns, my dear, it has indeed been a day since I’ve heard those words from someone occupying your position. My, my, how quaint.”

  He rubbed his palms together lightly, eyes clouding over in thought for a moment. She thought she knew the man by now, but she still didn
’t know if this was for show, if he’d already made up his mind and was simply toying with her.

  “You did fuck up,” he said, finally, with the gravity of a judge ruling on a case, “but you also gave me Sparta. And a wise man once said, if your subordinates are too terrified to fail, they’ll never try.”

  “Who said that, sir?”

  “I did. Just now.”

  He smiled broadly and hopped up from the couch so suddenly she had to restrain herself from jumping backwards. He went to a polished, wooden bar and retrieved a crystal decanter and two glasses. He poured something amber-colored and alcoholic from the container and handed one of the glasses to her. He offered a toast and the crystal clinked gracefully as the glasses touched.

  “To second chances,” he said, then downed the entire contents of the glass in a single swallow.

  She knew better than to sip it. She tilted it back and drank it as a shot, closing her mouth tightly to keep the burning, bitter taste inside, to keep from coughing it back up.

  “My father,” Starkad told her, “was a vindictive man, Colonel Laurent. You may have heard stories about me, but you’ll have to trust me when I tell you my father was so much worse.” He shrugged. “I may have picked up one or two of my worst traits from him. And yes, I do know they’re my worst, but a man has to have his hobbies. But I do endeavor to learn from the mistakes of others, and one of Lord Bran’s biggest was the way he kept his generals and admirals terrified of him. Incompetence is never acceptable,” he warned her, raising a finger, “but failure happens when we take risks, and some risks are worth taking.”

  She tried to let herself breathe again, hoping she wasn’t being premature.

  “And if you’re wondering why I don’t correct my reputation,” he said, pouring himself another drink, “it’s because being an ogre is sometimes convenient.” He offered her more of whatever it was and she shook her head. “I’ll task Admiral Longoria with assembling the task force. General Hoenig will be in charge of the ground forces and will have final command, but I will instruct him he should follow your recommendations.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” she said, not having to pretend to sound grateful. “I know he has to die, but I have to admit, it’s a shame. This man, Logan Brannigan or Logan Conner or whatever he chooses to call himself, is a born leader. I wish to Mithra he were one of ours.”

  “If I thought he would accept,” Starkad said, with more forethoughtfulness than she’d believed he was capable of, “I would offer him a position as my vassal. But a man like that would never serve under another. Too much pride runs through those Brannigan veins.” He chuckled and the illusion of personability was washed away in the ruthlessness of it. “Not to mention, we’ve killed the last four generations of them.” He eyed her coldly. “Make sure it’s five.”

  “I don’t know about you guys,” Josephine Salvaggio said, raising her hands palms out, “but I’m totally good with running.”

  Logan eyed her sidelong, remembering Lyta was the one who’d always kept the woman in line and wondering if he was going to have to do it himself now.

  “Now, Josephine,” David Bohardt said quietly, almost gently, “that ship has gone and sailed. We keep running, pretty soon there ain’t going to be anyplace left to run.”

  Josephine? Logan thought. He looked across the conference table at Katy and she nodded in confirmation. Holy shit. When did that happen?

  “We’re making a stand,” Logan declared. “If we leave, they’ll sweep in here and probably leave a garrison, and this place’ll be the property of the Starkad Supremacy in all but name. If they don’t just decide to ship all the colonists to their work camps for cooperating with us.”

  “If they blow up the cities to get to us,” Salvaggio pointed out, “it’s all gonna be the same to the people we leave here homeless and destitute. After we’re all dead,” she added, glaring at Bohardt.

  The other mercenary captains didn’t seem inclined to comment, the ones who disagreed with Logan’s decision content to let Salvaggio speak for them.

  “That’s a point,” Logan acknowledged. “Which is why I propose this.”

  He nodded to Franny and she pulled up a schematic on the operations center’s main display. It showed Revelation City along with the other settlements, but the area to the north, toward the canyon they called the Run, was highlighted in yellow.

  “They’re going to have to come to our strength if they want to break us. We want to preserve as much of the city as we can, so my plan is to use the time we have to dig entrenchments in the hills to the north and set up our heaviest armored forces there. That should draw their mecha outside of town and minimize the damage. We’ll have what heavy weapons emplacements we can spare dug in at the far end, just outside the Run, which is where we’ll keep our mobile reserve.”

  “Starkad will still put ground troops in Revelation City,” Major Lee said. His voice was quiet and reserved, his posture stiff and uneasy. Logan knew the man still wasn’t entirely comfortable taking over from Lyta, but he needed him to speak his mind.

  “They will,” he agreed. “Which is why the Rangers and most of the infantry from our other units…” The mercenaries, he meant, though he didn’t like to differentiate them from his own people because he wanted them to feel part of Wholesale Slaughter. “…and whatever volunteers we get from the Revelation militia will be set up at key junctures to slow them down. You’ll be in command of the infantry units in the city, Major Lee. What I want from your force is mobility. I want them in whatever fighting vehicles we have available, technicals, trucks, all-terrain vehicles, whatever we have. They’re to pin Starkad down for as long as they can, then move on to the next crossroad and do it again. I also want charges planted to block off key intersections to keep the Starkad Marines from flanking our infantry and pinning them down.”

  Lee nodded, a thin smile of appreciation spreading across his narrow, hard-edged face.

  “Not bad,” he admitted. “Starkad will constantly be taking and retaking the same ground and never accomplishing anything.” He shrugged. “Eventually, they’ll get tired of chasing their tails and just wipe out the whole city, though.”

  “If they have the available firepower to do that,” Logan reminded him, “then they’ll have already defeated our armored and air assets and we’ll have already lost.” He waved at the representation of the town on the display. “The infantry fight is to keep them occupied.” He gestured to the pilots, clustered in a tight group, Spartan Navy and mercenary flyers, all Wholesale Slaughter now. “The fight in the air is to keep them occupied. The real fights are going to be the Armored assets on the ground, and our warships in space.”

  “I’m worried about that, bro,” Kammy admitted.

  He was in his utility fatigues, but the top was pulled down to his waist, exposing a sweat-soaked tank top. Kammy was too large for the heat down here planetside, even with the best the locals could do with indoor climate control, but Logan had wanted the big man here in person for the planning session. The Shakak’s captain had been keeping to himself since Lyta’s funeral, hiding in his cabin whenever he wasn’t on duty, and Logan needed to make sure he was engaged with the defense strategy.

  “The Shakak is a better ship than anything the Supremacy has,” Kammy went on, “but you’ve been there, you’ve seen what happens when we have to face multiple capital ships and we can’t maneuver.”

  “It’s the power source,” Terrin interjected, finally finding something within his area of expertise. “I think if we had antimatter power for the drive field, nothing in the whole Dominion could touch us. But all we have is a fusion plant, and the field isn’t strong enough to hold up when a lot of energy is poured into it from the outside. It’s inherently unstable to begin with, for practical reasons if nothing else, since a stable expansion field would mean nothing could ever come close to the ship so no one could enter or leave it. But that means it wants to collapse and it needs constant, stable energy input to keep it from
collapsing.”

  “Bottom-line it for us, Terry,” Kammy urged.

  “We can outrun anyone,” Terrin declared. “Nothing out there with a conventional fusion drive can keep up with us, not even a ship-killer missile. But when we’re trying to stay in one place and defend a position, we’re vulnerable. They can just sit back and pour missiles and lasers at us until the field collapses.”

  “We have the destroyer,” Katy pointed out. “We have the cargo ships the other mercenary units came here with.”

  “Those cargo ships won’t last a damned minute,” Salvaggio opined. “You’d be better off sending them off to hide, because anyone who crews them and tries to take on Starkad cruisers is committing suicide.”

  “The destroyer can help,” Kammy admitted. “But it can’t take on a cruiser by itself. Our best bet would be to have Nance sit back in a LaGrangian point and take potshots at them, keep them distracted. But it all depends how many ships they bring after us.”

  Logan chewed on his lip for a moment, moving chess pieces around in his mind and coming up with a gambit he was sure no one would like.

  “We’re all agreed the cargo ships are part of the Wholesale Slaughter TO&E, right?” he asked, meeting the eyes of Bohardt, Salvaggio, and the other mercenary commanders.

  TO&E, Table of Organization and Equipment, was all the gear and weapons native to a unit. They’d understand the reference, all of them being former military.

  The others shared uncomfortable glances, all of them finally settling on Bohardt as their spokesman.

  “We signed on with you, Boss,” he assured Logan. “But if we lose those ships, we ain’t getting anyone out of here, win or lose.”

  “We’ll hold two of them back,” Logan decided. “The Venture and the Wayfarer will head out by the ice giant, powered down.” Those were the most lightly armed and armored of their cargo ships, the least likely to survive a space battle. “They’ll each carry a couple of our drop-ships. We won’t be able to use them for the fight anyway. That way, if we need it, we’ll have a way out.” He looked around the conference table. “Any objections?”