STARDANCER

by Ed Howdershelt

  L'Sil nodded and said, "Yes, ma'am."

  After a moment, L'Tan said, "Obviously, there was a revolution, but not the kind I was warned to expect. Some of the brass had the idea that the theocracy might be pulled down and replaced by something a bit more democratic. I wonder why they bothered to overrun the Consulate? They didn't seem at all interested in taking hostages."

  "To prevent communications, maybe," said T'Mar. "I heard explosions downstairs when the evacuation began, and they damned sure took the place over quickly. They didn't want anyone leaving the planet, and they were willing to wipe out a city to try to stop the Alliance from leaving. Maybe they weren't sure they had all communications jammed."

  "Assuming that their virus release happened about the same time as our evacuation," said L'Tan, "Or even before then, our communications wouldn't have been that important to them. There's something we haven't thought of yet."

  "What's that?" asked L'Sil.

  "Damned if I know," said a grinning L'Tan. "Like I said, we haven't thought of it yet."

  "Maybe we have, after all," said T'Mar. "The virus seems to have needed six days or so to work. The militaries of a hundred worlds could have their fleets at Eirania in two days or less. Some of them wouldn't have wanted to wait for an investigation."

  L'Sil said, "There's nothing to stop them from coming now. Why aren't they here? Why are we alone out here?"

  L'Tan said, "Some of them are probably ghost fleets by now, if they were in orbits that allowed shuttling to and from the surface. Anyone returning from a visit to the surface or an infected ship could have brought the virus aboard."

  T'Mar had a thought and asked, "If the ones I flagged were carriers, why weren't we infected? I interviewed them and examined them, yet here we are, presumably whole and healthy."

  "You're better equipped to figure that out than I am," said L'Tan. "Maybe the virus had two stages of development."

  "Then it would have had those two stages later, on the planets, and that would have slowed the spread. That doesn't quite work, L'Tan. What if they encapsulated the virus in something else...? Something that would have dissolved after a few days? That would have given the carriers time to get where they were going."

  "Well, maybe they just smuggled it in their luggage," said L'Sil, in an irritated tone. "Maybe they got to a planet and took a pill. Why the hell are we trying to figure out how they did it? Shouldn't we be thinking about what comes next?"

  L'Tan and T'Mar gazed at her for a couple of moments, surprised at her outburst. L'Sil shook her head and put her hands to her temples.

  "Sorry," she said. "I'll shut up now."

  "No," said L'Tan. "You have a right to an opinion, Captain..."

  The hallway alarm went off, startling everyone into silence, then the intercom blared, "Battle stations. All hands to battle stations."

  "Oh, what now?" asked L'Tan. "You two try to find out what's going on. I'll wait right here."

  T'Mar glanced at her, saw her grin, and returned it.

  "Yeah, you do that, ma'am. We wouldn't want you to break a nail climbing out of bed, would we?"

  L'Sil stared at him in shock.

  "T'Mar! She's the Consul! You can't talk to her like that!"

  T'Mar just grinned at her and shook his head, then headed for the door. L'Tan also shook her head and waved to get L'Sil's attention.

  "Loosen up, Captain. I made a joke. So did he. Now, go find out what's going on."

  Until T'Mar introduced L'Sil and himself as 'Consul L'Tan's aides', they were refused admittance to the bridge. Once they were inside, T'Var spotted them and told them to remain by the door and out of the way.

  "Tac, what are they sending us?"

  "Over a hundred vessels are launching, Captain. Most are fighter craft. The ones coming right at us are nuke missiles. It'll take them half an hour to get here. Seven, so far. They appear to be set for proximity or contact. I can start blowing them anytime you give the word."

  T'Var nodded. "Hold that thought, Tac. We'll take on the missiles later. Launch our fighters and use battery two on theirs for now. Comm, let HQ know what's happening. Take the tactical feed from Tac and route it to them in bursts, and tight-beam it so the Eiranians won't know about it. Tac, will the nukes follow us?"

  "I'd say that they'll coast out here, then try to adjust course until their fuel runs out."

  "Good. Let's find out. If they will, we're going to send them back where they came from. Helm, when they stop boosting, take us around them and see if they change course. If they do, try to head us in close to the atmosphere without losing them."

  "Yes, sir. No problem. Their missiles are antiques."

  Captain T'Var loudly slapped the side of his chair, startling everyone on the bridge. He met the Conn Ensign's eyes for a moment.

  "I don't want to hear that word again from anyone. One of those missiles almost vaporized us a few days ago, Ensign. You didn't sound so confident at the time, as I remember. Just keep us well clear of them, please, but lead them if they'll follow."

  "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

  "Trace the guidance signals back to the planet, Tac. As soon as the missiles are turned around, I want you to hit the source with battery one. Wipe it out, and if any more crop up, wipe those, too. Those bastards aren't going to be able to blow their own missiles to save themselves."

  "Captain," said T'Mar.

  Without looking around, T'Var said, "I'm kind of busy, T'Mar. You're only in here to observe."

  "I'm observing, Captain, but I don't see Eirania's moon. Where is it? Why did they choose this particular moment to strike?"

  "Have no fear, T'Mar. The moon isn't missing. It's behind us. Tac?"

  "I've been scanning globally. Nothing there but the moon, sir."

  "Get a visual," said T'Mar. "Sensors can be fooled."

  Tac responded, "By the Eiranians? T'Mar, we have the best..."

  T'Var said, "Do it, Tac. T'Mar, don't issue orders on my bridge."

  "Sorry, Captain. It's just that this setup stinks and I don't know why, yet."

  "Tac? Anything?"

  "Nothing back there, sir."

  "Are the missiles following us?"

  "Yes, sir. Fighters are making contact, sir."

  "Comm. Get me Gold group."

  The Comm officer tapped up the Gold flight leader, who put the call on hold for a moment as he cleared his area. The computer picked out six of the incoming Eiranian fighters and fired a missile at each.

  The tiny missiles were launched at extremely high speed by high-intensity field bursts within the launch tubes. As soon as they were clear of the fighter, they received their targeting information from the fighter's computer and corrected course as necessary using small thrusters.

  Once the missiles had a target lock, their own propulsion systems continued to accelerate them at their targets at ever increasing speed. Six bright blossoms came into being thirty miles ahead of Gold leader's fighter.

  "Gold one. I was busy, sir. Go ahead."

  "Are they putting up much of a fight, Gold one?"

  "They can't, sir. Their fighters and weapons are twenty years behind ours. I don't know why these guys are up here. They have to know they don't stand a chance in hell."

  "Gold one, our civilian advisor thinks that something's not right. So do I."

  "Our what..? Yes, sir. What do you want me..."

  An explosion brightened the sky, then another. Someone screamed that she couldn't see.

  Chapter Nine

  Many more such explosions and smaller ones dotted the space around Eirania, but there were no more screams.

  At length, a woman's tense, but contained voice said, "Green three. Do not engage them at close range. Do not engage them. Take them out at ten miles or more. They were nukes, Captain. Green one and two are gone and I'm nearly blind. I'm going to autopilot. My computer has guidance and fire control...Now."

  T'Var said, "Thank you, Green three. Keep station and we'll pick you up later."
>
  "Captain, Gold one. There's something behind you off your Q3, but I can't get a reading on it. I thought it was a smudge on my screen, but it moves. Repeat: Check your Q3, about three thousand miles out."

  Tac said, "Nothing on screen. Nothing on visual."

  Captain T'Var said, "Assume the worst, Tac. Launch a drone. Helm, hard right, half speed."

  The Ensign at the helm console instantly jabbed one of the bigger buttons in the center of his panel and shoved a throttle slide forward.

  "Hard right, half speed, sir."

  Tac said, "Drone away, sir. We're losing the missiles. They can't keep up with our course change."

  "We'll come back for them. Put the drone on screen four."

  T'Mar watched screen four, as did the others. For long moments, nothing but Eirania's moon on a background of stars was visible, then the drone's proximity alarm sounded and it altered course to intercept the stranger.

  "Incoming," said Tac in a calm voice. "Damn. The computer still can't see it, sir. I can't get a firing solution on it. Sir, it's coming at us a lot faster than those missiles if it came all the way from the moon."

  "Helm, put us between the missiles and the planet. Tac, blow a few of the missiles in a direct path between us and the drone. When it passes through their residue, maybe we'll get a look at it in time to duck. Helm, when Tac says go, take us hard left at full speed."

  "Yes, sir!" the Ensign almost yelled. His right hand was poised tensely above the directional pads and his left was resting on the throttle slide.

  Screen one blossomed stark white as three of the missiles exploded, then tuned itself back to a view of the moon and stars. Almost instantly, something rushed through the periphery of one of the perfectly globular blast spheres.

  "Now!" yelled Tac, pressing three buttons at once.

  The helmsman's fingers jammed hard on the control pad as his other hand shoved the throttle slide fully forward.

  The abrupt sideways motion nearly overcame the inertial compensators, but the ship's computer didn't quite consider the situation an emergency, so it didn't engage the stasis fields.

  T'Mar found himself pinned flat to the wall by the course change and L'Sil almost sailed through the air at him, barely maintaining herself upright. He managed to catch her well enough to avoid injury to either of them.

  The incoming missile couldn't change course fast enough, so it detonated. A blast that dwarfed those of the missiles far above swelled outward as if reaching for the still-accelerating Alliance.

  Screen one whitened again. When the picture came back, it was very poor, grainy and streaked, as the sensors struggled to function.

  The shock wave caught up with the Alliance at twenty-six miles and shoved it hard another ten miles. It happened so quickly that the computer barely had time to deploy blanketing stasis fields throughout the ship.

  When the stasis field released him, the Tac officer pressed a series of buttons and a view of space returned to the screen, but it was at a slightly different angle than before.

  "They just baked our other side, sir. All external sensors and cameras gone from quad one. I've managed to put quad four back online. The missile apparently decided that we were getting away."

  "Thank you, Tac. Apparently we did get away. Gold one, you saved our asses. Can you see anything else coming at us?"

  "Negative, sir. I'll let you know if anybody sees anything unusual at all. That was a good move, Tac, but don't let it go to your head."

  "Not to worry, Gold one. Get back to work or I'll write you up for loitering. I'm not as lenient as Captain T'Var."

  "Oh, dearie me, we can't have that. Hey, don't forget about those other missles, Tac. They're still looking for you, you know."

  T'Var said, "Enough. Back to work, both of you. Helm, get us back to leading those missiles back where they came from before they run out of fuel."

  "Yes, sir."

  A few minutes later, the last of the missiles had exhausted its fuel and all of them were plummeting toward the planet's surface.

  "Take us up, helm. Tac, locate Green three and and scan for any vessels the fighters may have missed. They have priority now. Gold one, did you get them all?"

  "We think so, sir. The computer says one hundred and thirty-seven."

  "Keep looking. Tac, how does that match your first count?"

  "Short, sir. Comp says three are missing."

  "Were any of them close enough to any of the explosions?"

  "Checking. Two, sir. One still unaccounted for. The tactical comp is looking for it now."

  "Everybody, we're one short. Find it. We'll pick up Green three and join the search. Tac, keep that drone out there for a while. See if you can figure out how something as big as that missile made itself invisible. Helm, let's go get Green three."

  T'Var punched a button on his chair and screen two showed a view of the planet's surface. For long seconds, nothing unusual happened, then four bright blossoms appeared on the surface.

  "Tac, can you track the trajectory of that big missile back to its origin?"

  "I've been working on that, sir. It appears to have been launched from their moon about twenty-eight hours prior to the launch of the other missiles."

  "When you're sure you have it, tell Gold one to take his group and have a look at that moon as soon as he's refreshed. We don't need any more surprises. He's to destroy any man-made structures he finds."

  "Yes, sir."

  Majestic musroom clouds formed below them that extended to the edge of the atmosphere, broadening at their tops to almost completely obliterate the screen's view of the continent directly below.

  "Captain, this is quad four. We're bringing Green three aboard now. She'll be in sickbay in a few minutes."

  T'Var's eyes never left the nuclear panorama as he said, "Thank you, Q four. I'll head down there as soon as possible."

  As the clouds below continued to spread and began to drift slightly, the Captain rose from his chair and started toward the bridge doors.

  Tac said, "Found him. The fighter's on course for the moon, sir. Engine off, no energy signature at all. He's shut down everything, even life support."

  He put the fleeing craft on screen one and enhanced the view.

  T'Var quietly said, "Hit him, Tac."

  "Yes, sir."

  Tac gave the computer the command to fire and battery two brightened the sky with two lancing beams. The fighter blossomed and ceased to exist.

  T'Var reached to tap the chair's console and the screen blinked off.

  "T'Mar, L'Sil. Come with me," he said, heading for the doors.

  Instead of taking the intra-ship shuttle, T'Var opted to walk. For quite a while he said nothing as T'Mar and L'Sil almost had to double-time to keep up with him.

  T'Var noticed that L'Sil was having trouble keeping pace and slowed down a bit.

  "Sorry," he said. "T'Mar, how did you know something was wrong?"

  "I didn't know it. Not at first. I just felt it, then, but it makes sense now. In my Consulate job, I took note of their religious holidays so I could plan for some time off. Today begins one of those holidays. Eight is a sacred number to them, but there were only seven missiles coming up. Everything was happening in front of us on a grand scale, apparently a massed attack, but it didn't take long to see that the fighters had no chance at all against us. Then it occurred to me that a surprise attack was used to found their current regime. What they used on us was a modified infantry tactic, T'Var."

  "Infantry?"

  T'Mar nodded.

  "Attack your enemy's armored vehicle to get his attention while a tube team gets behind him. When the enemy has been suckered into position, your cannon opens up on them. We've probably screwed up their plans pretty well, since we're still here and they're out all that hardware."

  "Plus their missiles turning back on them," said L'Sil. "Why didn't you just lead them into orbit? We haven't been ordered to retaliate. At least, not yet."

  "I don't like bein
g shot at," said T'Var. "Sending the missiles back to their owners seemed appropriate."

  "Those missiles probably killed a lot of innocent people, Captain."

  T'Var stared at her for a moment.

  "Well, Captain L'Sil," he said, "We had orders to wait for the Consulate people and not interfere in what was thought to be a local matter. We watched foreigners of all types being dragged through the streets and dismembered by happy, chanting mobs. People were dancing around waving body parts. Men, women, and children were throwing cobblestones at anyone their leaders pointed to. People were looting bodies and..."

  "Enough, please," said L'Sil. "I get your point. You obviously don't believe there are any innocents down there."

  In a tone so low it was threatening, T'Var said, "I'll decide when I've said enough, Captain L'Sil. They attacked the Consulate at the same time they attacked us. Of nearly a thousand people we were waiting for, only your group arrived. Then the crazy bastards tried to nuke us out of the sky right on top of their biggest coastal city, not concerned in the least that millions of their own people would die whether they hit us or not."

  He stopped talking for a moment and took a deep breath, then said, "Captain L'Sil, I'd have been happy to sterilize Eirania before anyone ever mentioned a virus attack. All that was missing were orders to do so."

  He turned to T'Mar and asked, "And you, T'Mar? Do you have any objections to the way I handled things?"

  T'Mar shrugged and said, "Nope. No complaints. They were shooting at me, too, you know."

  They'd reached L'Tan's room. T'Mar opened the door and held it as the others entered. L'Tan, sitting up in the bed, saw their expressions and ventured a guess.

  "We're still alive, so it's a little too late for that borrowed conscience, isn't it?"

  "Yes," said T'Var. "You're aware of what happened?"

  L'Tan used both hands to sweep her hair back, then said, "I can guess. The Eiranians attacked us and you retaliated?"

  In a disapproving tone, L'Sil said, "He sent their nuclear missiles back at them."

  "While saving us from a sneak attack that was almost successful," said T'Mar. "Give credit where it's due, L'Sil."