An Extract from THE ASHES OF WORLDS

ADMIRAL SHEILA WILLIS

Ten Mantas and one giant Juggernaut cruised across empty space, leaving Earth behind, probably forever. They still bore the markings of the Earth Defense Forces, but the ships no longer served the Hansa. Chairman Wenceslas would certainly call them deserters, mutineers.

How could anyone not feel bittersweet about that? thought Admiral Willis. These were her ships, their crews loyal to her, even if Willis hadn’t been entirely loyal to her commanding officer, General Lanyan. A stuffed-shirt moron.

There’d been a time when she was young and naïve (or perhaps just insufficiently jaded), when she’d thought that decisions were clear-cut, that answers were black-and-white, and that the good guys were different from the bad guys. She had left that attitude behind on Rhejak when Lanyan’s brutality forced her to make a decision she’d never before even considered. Now that she’d seized a whole EDF battle group, she had set wheels in motion — wheels that might well run her over. After dumping General Lanyan, Conrad Brindle, and a handful of hardline loyalists at Earth, now she was taking her ships to Theroc, to King Peter and his Confederation.

No matter how many times she tried to rationalize her decision, though, it still felt like desertion. Her brain was just wired that way.

As the ships cruised along, far from any system, six of the Mantas suddenly broke away from the Jupiter in a coordinated movement. Caught woolgathering, Willis sat up abruptly in her command chair. She sent a questioning look to her comm. officer. “Lieutenant Rengeo?”

“They’ve gone into communication silence, Admiral.”

The six Mantas rapidly streaked out of range of her Juggernaut’s standard sensor sweeps. Now she couldn’t see what they were doing. “Prepare our defenses for an imminent attack.” Willis ground her teeth together, then called for her four remaining Mantas to cluster close around the flagship. “The Jupiter is the biggest prize, so we have to prevent Major Sato from getting us.”

Sato was in charge of the six Mantas that had suddenly flown away; she had promoted him to replace Conrad Brindle as second-in-command of the battle group. Willis narrowed her eyes, watching the screens and trying to guess what the man would do. “There are advantages and disadvantages here,” she mumbled to herself. “Sato is untried, and I don’t even know him very well. That means neither of us has a clue how the other will think or react.”

She decided to send two of her Mantas out in ever-widening patrol circles, hoping they would intercept what was sure to be an oncoming attack, while the other two cruisers remained in front of her with their shields fully up.

“Here they come, Admiral!” shouted Ensign Tinocu, the eager young female weapons officer.

“We can engage before they are within weapons range,” came the gruff voice of Debrovich, the captain of the nearest defensive Manta. “Should we go after them?”

“Not just yet.”

“But they’re coming head on!” cried Tinocu, her fingers anxious on the buttons of her jazer controls. “Sensor signatures blurred. They must be dispersing chaff.”

“All right, Ensign Tinocu, indulge yourself. Fire as soon as you feel the itch come on. Weapons at ten percent.”

Sato’s six Mantas roared closer, unleashing their first blasts, but the two shielded Mantas in front intercepted the low-power beams. From behind the defensive line, the Jupiter’s jazer banks played over the oncoming Blue Team Mantas. Her tactical screens asserted that they had scored two kills within the first five seconds. “Excellent shooting, Ensign. There’s an extra piece of pecan pie for you in the mess hall tonight.”

Then she realized that only four of Sato’s six turncoat Mantas had come in on the straight-line trajectory. “Aww hell, there’s still two cruisers missing. Keep a lookout for –” Suddenly Sato’s last two Mantas appeared directly beneath them and opening fire at the flagship’s unprotected lower hull. Willis felt the thumps and hums as the low-power jazer blasts played patterns across the Jupiter’s underbelly.

“Damn it, you’ve gutted me, Sato.”

“My pleasure, Admiral.” On the comm. screen, the Major couldn’t keep the foolish grin off of his narrow face.

“That’s what these exercises are all about,” she said, still chewing on her words. “I’m pleased to see that even I can still be taught a few things.”

The war games quickly degenerated into a confusion of catcalls and taunts over the comm, and Willis wrapped up the exercise. “All Manta captains to my ready room for debrief. Ham sandwiches for everyone.” She watched the ships settle back into formation as they continued on their way to Theroc.

The combat simulations were imperative to familiarize everyone with actual space combat. Her crewmen had some experience, but not enough. Until recently their training had been focused on tactics against the hydrogues; now, sadly, they had to think about clashing with a more personal opponent, their own EDF ships. This exercise was an uncomfortably apt metaphor, since they might all be facing a civil war very soon.

She scanned the crewmen on her bridge, looking for signs of uneasiness, second thoughts. When she’d asked these people to burn their bridges and join her, Willis was surprised at just how many of her crew had volunteered. So, she wasn’t the only one who had smelled something rotten in the Hansa.

When she presented herself and her ships to the Confederation, she sincerely hoped King Peter could overlook her past actions. The last time she had brought this group of Mantas to Theroc, Willis had been under orders to arrest Peter as an outlaw ruler.

After traveling in a shuttle from his Manta, Major Sato presented himself on the Jupiter’s bridge, and she returned his salute. “Good work, Major. Think the Confederation will want to add these ships to the Confederation’s military?”

“Add them?” Sato scoffed. “I think we’ll be the entire military.”

“Well, that’s one way to ensure yourself a rapid promotion.” Her heart still felt leaden, though. It wasn’t obvious whether King Peter’s Confederation or Chairman Wenceslas’s Hansa was the legitimate government she was supposed to serve.

“Approaching Theroc, Admiral,” said Lieutenant Rengeo.

“Announce our arrival, and be polite. We don’t want them to get the wrong impression and pee their pants when all these warships show up.”

When they entered planetary orbit, however, Willis saw immediately that something was wrong. Her EDF warships seemed to be the least of the Confederation’s problems.

Rengeo’s skin turned prominently pink. “Admiral, it’s total pandemonium down there! Frantic distress calls, screams — they’re being attacked, but I can’t see how.”

The gigantic verdani treeships circling above the clouds thrashed their enormous thorny branches. A flurry of mismatched Roamer ships launched into space and entered erratic orbits. “Ask for more information,” Willis barked. “How can we assist them?”

Then as she watched in horror, one of the thorny tree battleships literally burst into flames, bright yellow-orange fire cracking out of its core and spreading across the branches. Feedback shrieks came over the comm. system, worse than fingernails grating on a chalkboard. On the high-res surveillance scans of the forests below, she saw other bright, intense fires appear, spontaneously igniting and beginning to spread.

Copyright © 2008, Kevin J. Anderson.