Wing Commander #07 False Color

by William R. Forstchen

  He turned back to look out the window again, savoring the thought of eight-eights of the fleet's senior officers kept waiting for his arrival in the chamber below. In the days of Thrakhath and his idiot grandfather the Haka hrai had been in disfavor, and Ragark had been forced to lead by compromise, conciliation, and petty chaffering with other leaders whose status might be lower but whose favor in the eyes of the Imperial Court made them too powerful to ignore or overawe. Now the Emperor and his heir were dead, and Ukar dai Ragark ruled his province of the Empire with unbreakable talons.

  Power at last. After too many eights of years the Haka Clan had the power it deserved . . . Ragark had the power he deserved. With the Imperial Family gone, the clans would start the age-old scramble for control all over again, and this time the Haka would be poised to win the Imperial Throne itself.

  To think that there were religious-minded fools who believed the loss of Kilrah meant the end of the Kilrathi as a people! The Kilrathi had traveled the stars when the dirty apes of Terra had lived in wattle-and-daub houses and fought with blunt-edged weapons. They were the rightful inheritors, not of a single world but of the entire Empire, and if orange Kilrah was gone, they could make any world the new hub of a glorious imperial state. This one, now . . . he had viewed Baka Kar as a place of exile when Thrakhath had "awarded" him the governorship of Hralgkrak, but it would make a suitable capitol for the Haka Dynasty.

  The view through the window showed him a world not unlike Kilrah. The vegetation was a deep purple, rather than the red-brown of Home, but the jungles that surrounded Brajakh Kar—the Fortress of the Dark—were just as lush and full of game. The planet was an old colony, with everything needed to be self-sufficient . . . and it was the center of a province of eight-eights of other worlds all replete with the resources to fuel his lunge to destiny.

  Thrakhath had treated him lightly, once. Now Thrakhath was beyond his vengeance. But when Ukar dai Ragark took his rightful place at the head of the reborn Empire, he would make sure that Thrakhath and all of Thrakhath's clan were erased from the annals of the Kilrathi people. Only Ragark and his heirs would remain.

  He turned at last from the window and walked slowly toward the door, careful to hide the limp he'd suffered since childhood. Not that anyone was likely to remark on it, not like they had when it had prevented him from becoming a warrior. No one dared call attention to his shortcomings now. But Ragark was too proud to betray weakness. He had schooled himself to hide the physical handicap, as he had learned the arts of government and of war to carve himself a place despite the scorn of his peers.

  The lift took him down a level, from the meditation chamber to the Hall of Warriors where his fleet captains waited nervously. When he entered the room they stood in unison, saluting and raising the battle-call of the Haka. That made the blood surge through Ragark's veins. By the War God, he could lead these warriors to victory!

  A table stood at the front of the Hall, under a large monitor screen. Ragark settled his small but stocky frame into the lone chair and watched as the others sat. These were the officers who controlled his warfleet. Some had slighted him in the past; they would pay when he no longer needed them. Some had been his willing allies or servants from the very start. They would enjoy the fruits of victory with him. Many others were nonentities, like so many of the military and political officers consigned to this backwater province during Thrakhath's day. Their fate would depend upon their performance in the days and months ahead. Ragark didn't intend to let any officer long survive the kind of mistakes that had cost Thrakhath victory time and time again during the war with the Terrans.

  But one and all were needed now, and with their aid the name of Haka would be feared once more.

  "Today we will begin to put in motion our new campaign against the apes," Ragark began with a show of teeth. "The probing actions we have already conducted along the frontier with this 'Landreich' have given us the intelligence we need to consider a campaign in strength against them. It will not be as Thrakhath would have had it, quick and ill-conceived. We will carry out our conquest step by step, taking care that our position remains secure throughout. But in the end, we will have the ape worlds for our own."

  "And their Confederation?" That was Akhjer nar Val, the captain of the province's flagship Dubay. . "We know they can make new Temblor Bombs. Do we not run the risk of losing more worlds to them?"

  He favored nar Val with a long and penetrating look. Dubav's captain had an impressive battle record; he'd commanded a carrier at the Battle of Earth, and had received an Award of Valor for a single-ship action with a human escort carrier the next year. Ragark needed him, at least for the moment, to add some seasoning to a battle fleet roster that had few enough genuine combat veterans. But while nar Val was deemed apolitical, he had a conservative streak in his character that made him one of the cautious ones, one of the officers who looked on lost Kilrah with fear and despair. That could be a problem some day.

  "The Terran Confederation is satisfied with the peace the traitor Melek has signed with them." That brought a few angry mutters from the assembled officers. Melek had been no more than Thrakhath's chief lackey, yet after Kilrah's destruction he had arrogantly assumed the power to negotiate with the enemy, as if a low-born servant of the Imperial House could presume to the Throne itself. Melek called himself "Chancellor" these days, and pretended to have control of the Empire, but Ragark wasn't the only clan leader or senior officer to ignore the upstart's claims. "They want nothing more than to disband their military forces and go back to the decadence they enjoyed before they encountered us. This Landreich that stands in our way is an offshoot, a breakaway association of colonies with so little loyalty that they refused the guidance of their own mother planet and formed their own government in defiance of the Confederation . . . and the cowards of Terra let that defiance stand. There is no reason for the Confederation to take an interest in what we do out here. At least, not until it is too late."

  Ragark paused before going on. "In any event, we will soon be acquiring a powerful new accession of strength which will once and for all put us in a position to dominate the apes. I have recently had the final confirmation. Jhorrad is coming here to offer his claws and fangs to our service."

  A muttering sprang up around the room as Ragark's words sank in. Dawx Jhorrad had become something of a legend in the Empire in a few eights-of-days. Already a hero of the Battle of Earth, with two capital ship kills to his credit in that one engagement, it was the story of his odyssey after the destruction of Kilrah that sparked the imaginations of the Kilrathi people. Jhorrad had refused to bow down to Melek when the Chancellor claimed caretaker authority and began negotiations. Instead he'd taken his ship out of orbit and set out into self-imposed exile, fighting off attacks by Melek and various jealous warlords at every turn. It had taken some judicious bargaining for Ragark to convince him to come here to Baka Kar, but it would certainly be worth it.

  Dawx Jhorrad . . . and his ship. What a ship he was! Ragark allowed himself a moment's baring of fangs. With Jhorrad's mighty Vorghath, there would be nothing to stop Ukar dai Ragark from subduing the Terran apes and the fragmenting empire alike.

  He stood up and leaned on the table, his eyes wandering across the assembly. "Victory against the apes of this Landreich will prove that the Terrans are not some kind of gods or demons, despite what they did to the Homeworid. The other clans will see that we can lead them to victory, and they will join our cause. Melek will fall by the wayside, and the Empire, reborn, will again bestride the stars!"

  "Haka and Victory!" someone shouted. Others took up the chant, until Ragark raised his arms to call for silence.

  "Victory it will be, my lords. But first we must plan our campaign. The apes must feel our fangs poised at their throats. Only then will the Kilrathi retake our appointed place."

  He sat down again and activated the monitor to show them the plans for their first move, but Ragark had trouble concealing the joy that burned inside.<
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  The long days of frustration and exile were over. The day of the Haka was at hand.

  CHAPTER 3

  "Of all the weapons of the Warrior, it is the mind that elevates mere fighting to glorious Victory."

  from the First Codex

  6:34:14

  Wardroom, FRLS Themistocles

  Deep Space, Terra System

  0447 hours (CST), 2670.278

  There was something about being aboard a ship underway that made Jason Bondarevsky feel alive again.

  Three days had passed since Admiral Richards had arrived at Moonbase Tycho. Now his mission to Terra was done, and the Landreich cruiser was shaping a course for home. For Bondarevsky's new home, out on the frontier.

  Like all vessels throughout human space, the ship operated on the same Terran Standard Time (CST), derived from Greenwich time on Earth, that was in use at Tycho, but Bondarevsky had been used to a different schedule from his stay in Odessa these past few months, and the shift in time zones had left his body clock out of step. So despite the hour—right in the middle of the Second Dog Watch, what some of Bondarevsky's flight school comrades had referred to in days gone by as "zero-dark-thirty" -- he was wide awake and restless. The lighting had been reduced to simulate night, and there was little activity on board except in the bridge and engineering sections, where the duty watches kept an eye on the vessel's progress toward the jump point where Themistocles would make the interstellar transit to Barnard's Star, the first leg of the long journey ahead. Bondarevsky had finally given up trying to sleep and had come to the officer's wardroom for a cup of coffee.

  Although he was alone in the middle of the ship's night, he could feel the throb of power through the deck plates, the tiny fluctuations of the ship's inertial dampers as the helmsman corrected the acceleration curve. Even traveling as a passenger aboard someone else's ship beat spending his time planet bound. That much, at least, he could enjoy. He only wished he could switch off his brain for a while instead of worrying about the future.

  Admiral Richards had returned from his meeting with Confederation representatives in a grim mood. They had been as unhelpful as ever, demanding that the Landreich rein in the "hotheads" they accused of stirring up trouble on the frontier. That had been roughly what Richards and Tolwyn had expected, of course, but that didn't make it any easier to accept. The Landreich was effectively on its own. War was only a matter of time, given the Kilrathi ambitions in that part of space and the dogged character of President Max Kruger.

  And Jason Bondarevsky was heading right into that war.

  He still had no idea what Kruger and Richards had planned for him, though it was plainly a combat role rather than some staff job. Richards was as closemouthed as always, and Tolwyn was no better. Not that Bondarevsky spent much time in Tolwyn's company. There was a chasm between them that started with the Behemoth debacle but went wider and deeper than that. Geoff Tolwyn had changed since the old days, and not for the better. He was even more secretive than Richards, and there was a determination in his manner that worried Bondarevsky. He was like a gambler who had lost everything but lingered at the table hoping that one last role of the dice would change his luck, plotting and planning ways to stay in the game without regard for the potential pitfalls or consequences.

  So Bondarevsky didn't have an outlet to vent his hopes and fears. He might have used Sparks as a sounding board, but long habit made it impossible for him to discuss the affairs of admirals with a lieutenant who had risen from the ranks. You didn't voice your doubts about flag officers with juniors.

  Instead he'd turned inward. He spent most of his time immersed in research, trying to catch up on developments along the frontier since his last posting there. Things had changed quite a bit since he'd been part of the Free Corps that had been secretly loaned by Terra to Max Kruger's Navy to help secure the Landreich in the days preceding the Battle of Earth. Whatever his upcoming combat post might prove to be, he would have to know the situation in detail.

  He studied the porta-comp on the table in front of him, ignoring the panoramic view of deep space spread out in the window that dominated one end of the wardroom. The holographic map displayed above the computer showed the sector of space known as the Landreich . the next battlefield, it seemed, in the ongoing struggle between two interstellar powers.

  Landreich had started as a single colony world located at the extreme limit of human-settled space, nearly twelve hundred light-years from Terra. The frontier out there was far from the direct line between Terra and Kilrah, and fighting in the region had always been in the nature of a sideshow by comparison with the major fleet actions of the war. Raids back and forth across the ill-defined borders had been the norm through much of the war, and neither side put their best men or ships into that part of space. It was regarded as a backwater region, of no great strategic importance.

  During the opening moves of the war, the Kilrathi had launched a campaign in the sector, but the Confederation high command had recognized it for a diversionary effort and refused to reinforce the tiny squadron stationed at Landreich. Max Kruger, a reject from the Academy and smuggler who had flown a recon team into Kilrathi territory and discovered the impending move towards war, had helped to organize the defense of the system. He had crash-landed on a Kilrathi base planet and had driven them to distraction with his commando raids on their base. Finally stealing a Kilrathi frigate, he had made it back home and was hailed as a hero. His next action was typical of the Landreich, an action which catapulted him to the presidency of the system while at the same time earning him a court-martial and condemnation as a mutineer.

  The Confederation had sent out a heavy cruiser with orders to act as the flagship for a Home Guard fleet of ships pressed into service from the Landreich's small local militia. The Confed commander, not used to the freewheeling ways of the frontier, had rubbed Kruger and others the wrong way with his spit-and-polish ideas of discipline. Their response had been simple, straightforward, and entirely predictable: they had seized the cruiser, kicked the officers and anyone who didn't want to go along with them off, and then set off on a raid deep into Kilrathi territory with their new found firepower. It had taken three years, but finally Kruger had destroyed the Cat base that had coordinated Imperial activity in the sector.

  When the Terran government ordered his arrest and removal from Landreich, it had sparked a bloodless coup that had resulted in the expulsion of the Confederation's governor and his staff, a declaration of independence, and the election of the hero of the hour to the post of President and Commander-in-Chief of the Free Republic of Landreich.

  Other frontier worlds had followed suit as it became clear that Terra had no interest in protecting the remote frontier region. By the time Bondarevsky had served there, the Free Republic extended across a volume of ten parsecs, holding eight major colony worlds and a number of outposts and settlements. It was known as "the Landreich" to distinguish it from the planet where everything had started, but Max Kruger was still the President. That had been an awkward situation indeed, to have the chief executive of a sovereign republic listed as a wanted fugitive from the Confederation. For the most part Terra ignored the break-away republic, and Kruger in turn followed a policy of looking out for the Landreich and otherwise staying clear of the war.

  But when the Kilrathi had proposed a truce with the Confederation, Admirals Richards and Tolwyn had detected indications that the Empire was plotting something. The Kilrathi had set up a chain of bases through the "unimportant" Landreich sector, intending them as staging points for their all-out assault on Terra. Acting in secret at the orders of the Confederation President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the two admirals had transferred a battle group from the Confederation Navy to the Landreich, the "Free Corps" of "volunteers" pledged to support the human colonists threatened by the Kilrathi incursions. Jason Bondarevsky had commanded the escort carrier Tarawa in that campaign. During their operations around the Landreich the Terrans had discovered the tr
ue nature of the Kilrathi plan, and Bondarevsky had pressured Kruger into dropping his stance of ignoring the Confederation and leading his fleet to intervene at Terra at the height of the fighting there.

  That had made Kruger a hero, for a time, and there was no more talk of his past misdeeds. But after the Battle of Earth things had lapsed back into their old patterns. The Free Corps had been withdrawn from the Landreich's service, and Kruger had gone back to more or less ignoring anything that didn't threaten his own borders. A handful of Confederation ships were posted to the sector again and a Confederation diplomatic presence was established, but Kruger was too canny and far too stubborn to allow himself to be swallowed up by Terra once more.

  Since those days the Landreich had expanded some more, according to Bondarevsky's map. There were fourteen colony worlds owing allegiance to Kruger, and the frontier was nearly twenty parsecs across now. The Landreich had become a genuine power in the region, albeit a minor one. The problem was, the old Imperial province that bordered it, Ukar dai Ragark's sectors, had better than twice the planets, population, and ships. Even the Landreich's accelerated naval expansion program would be hard-pressed to field an effective defense if the Kilrathi came across the frontier in force.

  "Ah, burnin' the midnight oil, I see." The bantering voice of Aengus Harper disturbed his contemplation of the computer map, and Bondarevsky looked up to meet the young officer's mocking eyes. "'Tis late hours you're keeping, sir . . . or early ones."

  "It seemed a good time to get some study time in," Bondarevsky said. "What's your excuse, Mr. Harper?"

  The lieutenant spread his hands and grinned. "I always try to rise a mite before my watch, to get an hour or two in on the flight simulator before the wardroom gets busy." He indicated the simulator compartment at the far end of the wardroom. Half game, half training tool, flight simulators were popular diversions aboard ships in deep space, where boredom hung heavy on long voyages between the stars.