Action Stations w-6

by William R Fortchen

  I am not operating on any hard evidence. Call it instinct, that I smell a storm on the horizon. More than anything else, I wish we could send a forward picket line deeper into Kilrathi territory, but to even suggest such a provocative action against the Kilrathi, other than in the Facin sector would mean my dismissal from the service along with the cashiering of any officer who complied with such an order.

  I also request that if Commander Winston Turner should appear within your area of control, any messages he might have for me should be given the highest priority. This message should arrive the day before Confederation Day leaves begin. I am sorry to ruin the holiday for you and your personnel, but for the good of the Confederation I deem it to be essential.

  Banbridge-CICCONFEDFLT

  Skip examined a hardcopy of the letter one more time and cursed under his breath while taking a sip of Scotch.

  Hell of a way to run the fleet, he thought coldly as he folded the letter and sealed it inside a secured, scanproof envelope. The envelope, in turn, went into a red-Class A Priority-Fleet Dispatch Pouch. A ship was departing from Houston within the hour to rendezvous with a priority shipment of spare parts heading straight to McAuliffe. McAuliffes translight burst signal station was again on the blink, probably due to the damned solar storms rippling between its two suns. Even if the line was open, he still preferred to send a message of this nature by hardcopy. There was no telling if the Cats had broken their latest coding.

  Word had only come in the night before that yet another infiltration team had disappeared attempting to cross into Kilrathi space. Unfortunately, this one had been made public. The poor bastards had not blown their ship in time, and the Cats had a vid of one of the prisoners confessing.

  The flood of reporters eager to greet him as he appeared at the president's office had turned his stomach. Didn't any of the slime realize that they were playing straight into the hands of the Cats?

  He sipped again at his drink, looking at the second letter on his desk. He knew it was a melodramatic gesture, but perhaps nis resignation in protest over current policy was just the gesture that was needed. That was the rub of it now. Resign, and More and the opposition will turn it around as the president attempting to shift blame from himself for the current flap. Stay, and it's the president protecting a CIC who never should have authorized the mission, which threatened to expand the war far beyond its current scope. More had adroitly ducked a stand on the issue with the statement that the "President should know how to handle his military, especially in this time of delicate negotiations to reduce tension."

  Skip poured another drink, realizing that he was on his third of the afternoon and it was best to nurse this one for a while. Damn, I was meant to fight a ship, not this vicious web of backstabbing and deceit called politics. And the timing of the flap could not have been worse. Speedwell had turned in yet another report, which he had been planning to share with the president this morning. Remote intel, which was monitoring Kilrathi private and commercial signals, was picking up a ripple in their economy. Shipping to half a dozen worlds along the border had fallen over ninety percent in the last forty-five days. There was report of famine on one world due to a major flare of the star in that system, which had caused a radical climate shift.

  Normally, even the Cats would have been sending emergency relief since it was one of their colonial outposts, but only one ship had come in to evacuate some key personnel, leaving over a million to starve to death. A message had been intercepted openly stating that no shipping was available. A counterresponse was sent back, demanding that the military provide some form of relief. The following day the transmitter was suddenly knocked off the air, the strange part of it being that a destroyer was reported to have gone into orbit above the planet.

  Could it be that the Cats had fired on and destroyed one of their own transmitters because it was saying too much and could not be controlled? That was Speedwell's read on it, that their shipping was completely tied up in preparation for a military move of unprecedented magnitude, and that every civilian ship had been pressed into service. There was also the report of a Cat smuggler in a trade rendezvous in the demilitarized zone claiming that half a dozen of their own smuggler ships accompanying him on a run had been destroyed without warning by an Imperial Fleet frigate. The captain of the frigate had thus thrown away tens of thousands of credits in prize money. The system of prize money was the way the Imperials convinced their own personnel to aggressively pursue smugglers. So why wouldn't they board and capture unless the orders were to move quickly, eradicate and then move on rather than waste time with long chases and prize crews.

  In and of themselves, each piece of evidence, if taken in isolation, could mean nothing, but put together the picture was starting to come into focus. But it was still not enough, especially in light of the media hysteria that More, and the crowd in the news offices who thought like him, were now saying.

  "We have to wait to the day after the election," the president had told him. "If the signs are still as strong, I'll give you authorization then to come to Defense Level two and start mobilizing the active reserves, and release the Ninth Fleet from its position at Sirius, but not until then, or we lose the election and you'll be taking orders from More."

  Skip looked back again at his letter of resignation, and with the foulest of oaths he crumpled it up and threw it into the shredder.

  Twelve days to Confederation Day, he thought. Dear God, at least let that day be a peaceful one.

  Traffic out to the airstrip outside of Houston was lighter than usual for this time of day and Lieutenant Anderson looked at his watch. The Old Man had promised him the afternoon off and Nancy was waiting. He had never expected the Old Man to turn around and keep him waiting for three hours, just to run a courier pouch out to the airstrip. Nancy was so ticked she had turned off her personnel pager after his third call begging for her to wait.

  Nancys place was only a block off the main run, and on a last minute impulse he pulled over, ran up to her flat and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Cursing the Fleet, and the Old Man in particular, Lieutenant Anderson pulled back out and headed for the main run, only to find that the entry ramp was jammed due to an accident. Weaving his way through back streets he lost seventeen valuable minutes before getting back on the main road and flooring it… he missed the departure of the courier ship by one minute and twenty seconds.

  Looking at the pouch resting on the passenger seat he felt a cold knot in his stomach. To go back and face the Old Man was impossible… and besides, Nancy had blown him off for the evening. Still cursing, he settled down and decided to wait for next ship, which wouldn't leave for another six hours. He did not know until long afterwards that the second ship missed its connection with the McAuliffe courier ship by fifteen minutes, and thus the pouch would be delayed by a precious twenty-four hours. And as the pouch sat in its priority shipment container, waiting to be loaded, the fleets of the Kilrathi Empire continued their journey towards the frontier.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Hell Hole-capital of the Landreich.Confederation date 2634.226

  Shaking with exhaustion, Geoff nervously looked down at his stained coveralls, wondering if they were the ones he had thrown up on, or if it was the other pair he had packed along for their trip. It was hard to tell now, after weeks of standing watch. He rubbed his chin, surprised at how the stubble had turned into a full beard. Most amazing of all, though, was the simple fact that they were still alive.

  He looked up at the blazing sun of the Hell Hole and did a slow walk around Lazarus. When Hans had said that they were going for an atmosphere landing he was half tempted to simply kill the damned pilot, fearing that after all that they had been through the icy bravado of Kruger would still wind up killing them. Part of their starboard wing was gone, there was no telling what other structural damage they had endured going through the stresses of skirting the very edge of a black hole, let alone the half dozen skirmishes fought on the way bac
k to the Landreich. He had expected Turner to object, but the only comment was that it'd save precious time by going straight down to the surface.

  He slowly walked around the ship while waiting for Turner to climb down out of the hatch. Lazarus was fire scorched from one end to the other. In places the durasteel had been shot away right down to the inner titanium hull. Going to the starboard wing, he examined where part of it had been sheared off in their near collision going through the jump point. The damage was fascinating to examine. It looked as though a surgeon had neatly cut the end off with a high-intensity laser.

  "You know, you look like hell, Geoff."

  Tolwyn turned around to see Vance Richards coming up to join him.

  "Look, I just wanted to say you did a hell of a job back there," Vance said, a bit self-consciously. "Smashing up that light frigate guarding the last jump point was masterful."

  He smiled slightly, as if surprised at what he had just said. "Almost as good as what I could have done with those guns."

  Geoff laughed and slapped Vance on the shoulder.

  "You boys ready?"

  Turner, with Hans by his side approached. Hans paused to look up at the damaged wing.

  "Even getting paid fifty thousand ain't gonna cover this damage," he said grimly.

  "If we still have a Confederation in a month, send me the bill. I'll see it gets paid. Come on, we can't keep Blucher waiting."

  Geoff fell in two paces behind Turner, again trying to assume the role of a Confed officer working as an adjutant. He found it surprising that the president of the Landreich, Johann Blucher was willing to meet with them, based on nothing more than a call from Turner that had taken only thirty seconds. Even though Blucher was head of a state that the Confederation did not even recognize as a legitimate government, and some claimed was an outright haven for rogues, thieves, and murderers, Geoff was nervous about his appearance, and furtively tried to pick the dirt and grime out from under his fingernails as they strode across the scorching-hot tarmac.

  A couple of ancient Gotha surface-to-space interceptors lifted off from the runway behind them, engines roaring at full afterburner as they nosed up to vertical and punched into supersonic speeds, the double boom slamming into Geoff so that he winced. Vance watched them disappear and grinned.

  "Hell, if I tried that stunt on Johnson Island I'd be grounded for a month."

  "Asinine rules, that's the Confed," Hans said casually as he lead the way into small concrete bunker. A lone guard, with a lightweight gatling assault gun stopped them at the entry, took a quick look at their IDs and tossed them back.

  "All the way down first office on the right, he's expecting you."

  Geoff bristled slightly at the guard's tone, but knew better than to say anything as he followed Turner down a winding staircase that took them through a dozen meters of reinforced concrete. A durasteel door blocked the bottom, where another guard waved them through, slamming the door shut behind them.

  "Turner, you old son of a bitch."

  A towering, cadaverous-looking man stood in the semidarkened corridor as if waiting for them. Winston took the man's hand and the two, laughing, slapped each other on the shoulders, both of them swearing affectionately at each other.

  "Haven't seen you since you went back to hide behind a desk at your damned Academy."

  "Well, I got tired of putting my ass on the line for idiots like you," Turner replied and the two laughed, slapping each other yet again and launching into another round of crude invective that left Geoff startled. He had never imagined that old Winnie had such a command of Anglo-Saxon derived words.

  Turner finally looked back at the other three and introduced them. Geoff didn't know what the protocol was for saluting an unrecognized head of state of what was officially considered to be a renegade government, and decided in the end to err on the side of safety.

  Blucher merely nodded at the salute and then looked over at Hans.

  "So you're the new owner of Phantom."

  "Lazarus, you mean."

  Blucher laughed. "It was the Bouncing Belch before that and before that it was Snafu. Kelly wasn't all that bad, sorry he bought it."

  "Bad luck."

  "By the way, there's a ten-thousand-credit price on your head."

  "Sara?"

  "Yeah. Dumb bastards offered me five more if I'd turn my back. Can you believe the bastards? Anyhow, thought you should know. Look out for the boys on that Ugati docked upstairs."

  "Thanks."

  The two continued to talk for a couple of minutes about the Sarn clan, before Blucher finally pointed to his office door and ushered them in. Geoff looked around in surprise. He'd seen flats owned by newly minted second lieutenants that were more lavishly furnished. A battered sofa and three worn leather chairs were the only places to sit. Blucher opened the door of a gasping, rattling fridge and looked at his guests.

  "Cold ones?"

  "Thank God, yes," Turner gasped, and without asking the others Blucher pulled out five bottles of beer and passed them around. Popping the cap onto the floor, he sat down on top of his desk.

  "Johann, take a look at this," Winston said, and reaching into the breast pocket of his coveralls, he pulled out a memory cube and tossed it over. Blucher got behind his desk, loaded the cube, and for several minutes he silently examined the data.

  "Where did you run into these bastards?"

  "Actually not sure. It was designated as jump point Epsilon out of The Pit. A Cat squadron came out of jump point Alpha, the one we used to go in. We took off and headed into Epsilon, saw these bastards and got the hell out."

  "Know the place, traded there myself. Did they get old Gar? Damn, he was one crafty devil. He'd sell the teeth out of his dead grandmother's skull if he thought he could turn a credit. Funny though, he actually ran a pretty honest business in that old cylinder of his."

  "Well, the cylinders inside the hole," Hans replied. "They must have smashed up at least twenty ships trying to get away, don't know if your friend made it."

  "He'll survive, always has. By the way, you went into sector 42–33 Beta if you want to look on the nav charts we got of that region."

  Hans looked at Blucher.

  "I didn't know anyone had charts of out there."

  "You never asked," Blucher replied. "Trade secret, boy, be glad to sell you one for a hundred thousand if you should ever go back out that way. But that's for private venture stuff only, not Confed business. If they want a chart it'll be a flat million or nothing."

  Turner chuckled. "Hell, I didn't even know you had one."

  "Well, you dumb bastard, you should have come and seen me first rather than go sneaking through here the way you did, hooking up with a green kid and then disappearing. Heard all about it after you left and was downright insulted."

  "I was on something of an unofficial trip. Sorry. Too many people around you I don't know."

  "Your problem, not mine. Anyhow, those Cats are at a good system. Eleven known jump points, half connecting back into the Empire, one angling into the demilitarized zone between here and the Confed, the others heading out beyond our systems and theirs. Logical place to marshal a fleet for an attack."

  Turner briefly related the main points of their trip while Blucher continued to study the scan, punching in some enhancements to clarify the image. Geoff came around to the side of the desk and watched as the computer scrubbed the image. Though Blucher's office seemed like something straight out of a bad vid about frontier life, the hardware on his desk was of the latest design. From their long distance scan the computer created images of startling quality, providing analysis of external weapons systems, engines, estimated gross weight and last reported locations of many of the ships.

  "Mostly their older stuff, some of it from the war against the Varni. So where the hell is the new equipment?"

  "Poised somewhere else," Turner replied.

  "It's those damn heavy assault ships that have me worried," Blucher said. "Look closely there-
" and he pointed at the screen, " — those are armored space-to-surface landing craft. Each of those ships can handle a brigade of Imperial marines. This isn't a maneuver. The marines stay close to Kilrah, they're part of the Imperial line. If they're deploying their Imperial assault legions, this is an attack to take possession."

  He pointed at another ship. "Look at this one, it's got one hell of a radiation signature. I bet the damn thing's packed to the gills with thermo nukes. Blast down the ground defenses, then send in the assault troops to mop up."

  Geoff could not contain himself any longer.

  "Sir, if you know all this, how come Fleet Intelligence doesn't?"

  Both Blucher and Turner looked at Geoff in surprise. Blucher shook his head and laughed.

  "Where did you pick up this babe in the woods?"

  Geoff bristled slightly at the insult, but a sharp look from Turner stilled him from making a retort.

  "Look, son," Blucher said, as if lecturing a child, "we don't exist out here as far as Confed goes. We're outside the law, settling where we want and the hell with Confed surveys, permission, taxes, and what have you. We knew about the Cats a full year before any of your official histories will ever acknowledge it. Over on their side there's some Cats like us, outside their laws as well. Fallen warriors, dishonored and clanless, living on the edge. We trade with them, they trade back, on occasion we kill each other for profit, or just because we have to and the hell with what our supposed legitimate governments say. Now, does that answer your question?"

  Geoff wanted to press the point. Humanity was looking at the potential for one hell of a war. The intel that the Landreich and other frontier smuggling posts had was invaluable, but again there was the look from Turner and he stepped back.

  Blucher continued to study the ships intently for several more minutes and then finally looked back at Turner.

  "Anything else?"

  Turner hesitated for a moment and finally reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, lead case. Opening it up he produced a thin wafer.