by Diann Read
They formed a somber double file down each side of the conference table’s length, men and women clad in battle dress uniforms marked only with nametape, rank, and shoulder patch. The patch bore the silhouette of a bird of prey with talons extended: the Kalese spherzah, from which the Unified Worlds’ special operations force took its name.
“Please be seated,” Lujan said, crossing to his place at the table’s head, and when everyone sat he nodded to the lieutenant standing at the podium. “Good morning, Petra.”
“’Morning, sir,” the young woman said. “This situation update is classified Top Secret, releasable to the Unified Worlds.”
She touched the cue on her podium and a map of a peninsula with several locations identified appeared in the holotank behind her. A key in a lower corner included the time zone notation, to which the fleet’s chronometers had synchronized before its arrival in the Saede system.
“During the past night,” she began, “Unified Worlds forces on Saede’s surface began clean-up operations throughout the militarized zone. Exchange of fire at the Assak surface-to-space transshipment depot on the Unkai peninsula had ceased by seventeen-hundred local time yesterday, with the complex under the control of Unified Worlds forces.
“A POW facility has been set up inside Assak’s main depot,” she said, “and prisoner in-processing and interrogation are continuing at this time.” An image of several enemy soldiers being searched by Spherzah captors filled the holotank. “Our troops report little resistance from human and umedo soldiers, but the masuki prefer suicide to surrender.”
“No great loss,” murmured someone at Lujan’s left, and some of the others chuckled.
“They might have provided some useful intelligence information,” Lujan said quietly.
A three-dimensional galactic map appeared in the holotank, showing Saede in relation to the Unified Worlds’ protectorate planet Yan, and the enemy homeworld Issel. “The Cathana Range tracking station on Yan has confirmed that the last Isselan vessels departed the Yan system during the past twelve standard hours,” the briefer said. “Their last known trajectory was toward the Yan-Issel lightskip point. Though Issel suffered heavy losses at Yan, the remaining ships could reinforce other fleets for another attack. Their most probable course of action is to attempt to retake Saede.”
The lieutenant cued up an image of a middle-aged man in an Isselan general’s uniform. “In other developments, sir, the Issel system has been placed under martial law. No reason was given for that action and the announcement made no mention of Sector General Mordan Renier, but a military coup seems the most likely explanation, particularly since the statement was signed by General Manua Ochakas, Commander-in-Chief of Intersystem Operations. We have no further information on that matter at this time.”
A murmur ran up and down the table at that, taut voices reined in to mutters. Lujan stroked his mustache with his forefinger and furrowed his brow at the implications.
“In conclusion, sir,” the briefer said when the murmur subsided, “the following charts provide Isselan fleet status and battle damage assessment to date.” She touched the cue; a column of numbers replaced the Isselan general’s image. “The charts show Isselan space and surface units by troop strength and equipment holdings, and give numbers neutralized and forces remaining.”
She paused to allow the command staff to study the charts, and Lujan spent a few moments on each. “What are our losses?” he asked.
“Lighter than expected, sir,” replied the acting Chief of Operations, Lieutenant Commander Merrel. “We had fifty-two killed in action, two hundred nine wounded, and four are listed as missing. We also lost a troop shuttle and two fighters to surface fire. The shuttle had just finished unloading and was lifting off with a minimum crew of three aboard.”
Somber silence hung over the conference table for several moments, and Lujan turned back to the lieutenant at the podium. She said, “That’s all I have, sir. Are there any questions?”
“Just a request, Petra.” Lujan shifted forward in his chair. “Watch the message traffic for any mention of Sector General Renier. His status could be a factor in determining how Issel will carry out this conflict.”
“Yes, sir.” The briefer nodded. “Are there any others?”
“I have one.” The hologram of Captain Kheyl of the destroyer Hoved raised her hand. “If Issel tries to retake Saede as you project, how much warning time will we have?”
“Five standard days from the time of launch, ma’am,” the lieutenant said.
Kheyl’s hologram nodded.
Lujan turned to his Operations officer. “Have we received battle reports from our fleets at Yan?”
“They hadn’t come in before I headed up here, sir,” Merrel said.
“Marcus?” Lujan addressed his Intelligence chief. “Any initial reports?”
“Not yet, sir,” the commander said.
“I’d like to see them when they do come,” Lujan said. “I’d like to know what kind of impression Admiral Ne’s people had of the masuki in the Isselan attack force. Did they appear to be assets? Or were they liabilities, as they were to the fleet we faced at Buhlig? That flagship had a bridge crew of better than fifty percent masuki, and they killed Captain Mebius when we defeated them.”
“Gutted the man right there on the viewscreen,” said Destrier’s executive officer, Commander O’Keaf, “and then they all committed suicide.” He shook his head. “By the time our boarding party got over there, the bridge looked like a biorecycling plant. Smelled like one, too.”
“I don’t understand that,” said the captain of the heavy cruiser Asgarth. “They killed the captain—a mutiny basically—and then they killed themselves?” He sounded incredulous.
Commander Marcus Ullen, chief of Destrier’s Intelligence section, motioned with one hand. “This is masuk mentality we’re dealing with, remember. It was a mutiny, all right. The people we took off those ships as POWs confirmed that. But it has different implications than a mutiny by a human crew.”
When Asgarth’s captain arched a questioning brow at that, Ullen explained, “The masuki are slave-keepers. They prefer capture to killing because captives mean wealth, either as personal possessions or as profit from the slave market. The only prisoners they kill are those they consider unsalable.” He spread his hands. “Worthless, in other words.
“On rare occasions, however, they’ve been known to use killing as a form of insult. It can go two ways, and I believe that’s what we saw at Buhlig. They killed Mebius as an insult to their Isselan commanders, implying that they’re worthless, and then they took their own lives to insult us, to deprive us of the wealth of slaves.”
Asgarth’s captain snorted. “They have an inflated estimation of their own value!”
“Masuki aren’t subordinate,” Lujan said, “particularly to a race they usually enslave.” He tapped the table top briefly with one finger. “Makes one wonder how long Issel’s alliance with the Bacal Belt can be expected to last, or whether it just ended with a coup.” Several others along the table nodded thoughtfully at that, and Lujan leaned back in his chair to look across at Ullen. “This is something we need to keep under a close watch. Monitor every signal coming out of the Issel system.”
When the other nodded, Lujan turned to Destrier’s captain and more immediate concerns. “Ben, the rest of the staff meeting is yours.”
Captain Benjamin Horsch nodded and looked around the situation room. “According to a communiqué we received during this past night,” he said, “the Sostis Sixth Fleet out of East Odymis is on its way out to relieve us. It should arrive a few days behind our resupply and tender ships.” Glancing down the table, he said, “I’ll be glad to see the Sostish High Command take charge of its own conflict. Unless Issel or the masuki pop something new out of the big empty, we should be able to head for homeport early next month.”
* *
Doctor Moses must have returned from staff meeting only mo
ments before his arrival, Lujan thought as he entered sickbay. She emerged from her office up the corridor ahead of him, pulling her lab coat back on over her uniform. She spotted him as she paused to adjust the coat and waited for him to join her.
“Lujan, you look like a ghost!” she said as he drew up. “If you don’t get some rest soon you’ll be in worse shape than your wounded.”
He responded with a dim smile beneath his mustache.
Doctor Moses shook her head. “You’re a hopeless cause!”
He ignored that; he asked, “How are the wounded?”
“You can go in to see them today,” she said. “Most are sufficiently stabilized now.”
“Good,” he said. “And my family?”
As an empathic specialist trained to read every subtlety of posture, of gesture, of vocal inflection like words on a screen, he knew Moses could sense his unspoken questions. But she probably could’ve done that even without the training, Lujan thought. They had known each other since he was an ensign in the Sostis Space Force, before he even entered the Spherzah, let alone become its Chief Commander.
“Darcie’s responding well,” Libby said, “but I’ll have to keep her in isolation for a few days. It took us a while to make the diagnosis. When the usual tests came up blank we ran a battery of gene probes and enzyme studies, and ended up doing a complete immunoglobulin profile as well.”
Lujan stiffened. “What is it?”
“It’s a compound illness,” Libby said. “It looks like she picked up some kind of virus somewhere along the way, probably from the natives she and Tristan lived with all those years. But she never knew she’d been exposed because she didn’t develop any of the usual symptoms of a virus; it stayed dormant. What seems to have been the catalyst was contact with some kind of local fungal spores. Her body’s attempt to fight off a fungal infection triggered the virus.”
Lujan’s heart contracted. “Can it be treated?”
Libby nodded. “Fortunately, yes. She received an injection with a gene-spliced bacillus just after you left for staff meeting. By the end of the week it will have reproduced enough to inactivate the virus, and the broad-spectrum antibiotics we’re giving her will take care of the fungus. Beyond that, she’ll need a few weeks of bedrest and proper diet to regain her normal weight and put her back on her feet.”
“Good,” Lujan said, and allowed himself a sigh of relief. Over the last twenty-four standard hours he’d spent every moment he could spare away from command responsibilities sitting with Darcie or walking the corridor between the cubicles where the wounded troops, including his own son, lay. “What about Tristan?” he asked.
Libby drew a deep breath. “Physically,” she told him, “he’ll mend, too, once he gets over his exhaustion. He and Darcie are both on interferons to accelerate the healing. It’s his mental cargo that concerns me the most. Pretty rough stuff the kid’s dealing with, Lujan, and not too successfully at this point. It may take hypnosis to help him talk it out.” She sighed. “For now I’m using electromagnetic buttons to relieve his anxiety, and I’m giving him a sleep inducer for a couple of nights to block out the nightmares. But he’s also been exposed to that Ganwold virus, and to a few other diseases I thought had been eradicated, so you’ll need to wear a full-protection sterilesuit in his cubicle, too, until I can be sure he’s not a carrier. We can’t risk either one of you infecting the other.”
Everything in Lujan’s chest constricted as he listened. “May I see him?” he asked.
“Yes,” Libby said, and then hesitated as if deliberating over adding something else. “Just keep it short,” she told him.
* *
Tristan looked up at him and swallowed, like a child expecting punishment, Lujan thought, when he paused in the doorway.
“Hello, son,” he said. He found it difficult to speak, looking into the youth’s face. He glimpsed no remnant of the childhood he’d missed, no trace left of the toddler he’d carried on his shoulders and hugged good-bye too many years ago, a few months before the Great War ended.
His duties had detained him in the Enach system following the final battle there, so he’d persuaded Darcie to take some leave, bring Tristan, and come join him. Their transport had vanished several days out of port, and search and rescue teams had never found a trace of it. But a few months ago his wife and son had suddenly reappeared, as hostages in the Issel system, held by Sector General Mordan Renier.
“Tristan,” he said, crossing to the bedside, and felt his throat tighten at glimpsing the youth’s eyes, devoid of trust, and the welts across his broadened shoulders. Lujan wanted to put his arms around his son, to pull him to himself, but that would doubtless cause pain, and Tristan had already experienced too much of that.
“Sir,” his son said.
Lujan tried to smile. “You don’t have to call me that, Tris. ‘Father’ is fine.”
Tristan’s eyes searched his at that, a multitude of questions burning in them, and doubts, and Lujan wondered what to say. Nothing he thought of seemed capable of being put into words. “I’m . . . very thankful . . . to have you back,” he said at last.
Tristan ducked his head, turning his face away. “No, you’re not,” he said. The words were barely audible but Lujan didn’t miss their bitter edge.
He waited several moments but the youth said nothing more, offered no explanation. So he reached out, slowly, and placed a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Yes, I am, Tris,” he said.
The youth only studied him, his features full of doubt, all the questions back in his eyes. They were questions he would have to answer for himself, Lujan knew, but they wouldn’t come easily, if they ever came at all. The hurt he saw in his son’s face recalled his own grief when Darcie and Tristan were first lost. It had taken him months to put it to rest and years to try to ease the emptiness.
Though Tristan’s reconciliation with his recent experiences would have to come from within himself, he wouldn’t have to deal with them alone, Lujan vowed. He gripped the boy’s shoulder more tightly. “I’ll be here when you need me, son,” he said.
Tristan didn’t answer.
* *
Doctor Moses stood there waiting when he came out into the isolation lock. She activated ultraviolet lights to kill any virus on the sterilesuit. Didn’t speak until he’d removed his head bubble and pivoted to face her. Then she said, “When was the last time you got some real sleep, Lujan?”
He tried briefly to remember and couldn’t.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “You’re spreading yourself too thin between your fleet and your family and what’s happening down there on Saede. You can’t keep going like this much longer.”
He handed her the head bubble. “I’m all right,” he said, and shrugged out of the sterilesuit.
Libby looked him in the eye. “You’re too tired. Your doctor’s ordering you to your quarters for a few hours of sleep.” She pressed a slip of paper into his hand before she bundled the suit into the sterilization chamber. “Take that to the techs’ desk on your way out; they’ll give you what you need. We don’t need you joining your troops on the patient roster.”
Her tone of voice provoked a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
Entering the admiral’s quarters a few minutes later, he strode across the compact living area and paused before one of the three observation panes in the far bulkhead. Each stretched nearly the height and width of a man, and at the moment they admitted the only light in the room, reflected from the blue and green world that revolved beyond them.
The berth in his sleeping cabin resembled a small square cave, built into the bulkhead with stowage compartments for clothing and gear above and below. Lujan peeled the backing from the sleeping patch Libby had prescribed and pressed it to his temple before he removed his boots and shirt and stretched out in the berth. He stared at its overhead, unable to get Tristan’s haunted eyes out of his mind.
He woke in late morning. He felt no residual
drowsiness, just fully rested. With a glance at the timepanel on the bulkhead, he sat up, peeled off the patch, and reached for his shirt.
He tucked it in as he entered his quarters office. Activating the desk terminal, he requested, “Access the ship’s main library and list any items on masuk sociology and military history added in the last six standard months.”
“Accessing,” came the synthesized response. After several seconds the computer said, “There are thirty-seven new items on the topics you requested, sir.” The list ran down the right margin of the screen.
Lujan scanned it, selected half a dozen, and stepped away to fill a mug with steaming shuk from the bulkhead dispenser as the first item appeared on the screen.
He’d just taken the first swallow, had barely seated himself to begin reading, when the commset buzzed. “Open,” he said. “Sergey here.”
The Operations officer appeared in the comm set’s display. “Lieutenant Commander Merrel, sir. Those battle reports have come in. No time-critical items. Do you want them forwarded to your desk screen?”
“No,” Lujan said. “Notify Captain Horsch and the intelligence section. We’ll come down to the CIC.”
* *
When Commander Ullen joined Lujan and Horsch in the Combat Information Center, Merrel said, “The reports are in audio only, gentlemen. We also received a log entry made by Admiral Ne, commander of the Sostis Eighth Fleet out of Ch’on-dok.” He glanced at Lujan. “That may actually provide more information on the masuk question than the formal reports do, sir.” He switched on the audicorder.
“Log entry made at twenty-two-eighteen ship’s time, day thirteen of month two,” it began. “This is Admiral Ne Chong-Son aboard the flagship Aboji, Ch’on-dok Eighth Space Fleet."
Ne’s formal Standard, accented with the inflections of his native language, didn’t interfere with understanding him. “Exchange of fire ceased by twenty-thirty-two ship’s time,” he said. “Eighth Fleet has lost nine ships. Five more have sustained moderate battle damage and eighteen have light damage, but the Isselan attack fleet has been reduced by half, from sixty to approximately thirty ships. I consider it still a dangerous force.