The captain leaned out of his stateroom. “Trystin … need to talk a moment.” A lock of short black hair fell across his face, and he slowly pushed it back.
“Yes, ser.”
James left the door open. He was sitting in the plastic chair with the purple cushion on it when Trystin closed the stateroom door.
“Sit down.” The captain gestured at the chair on the other side of the small circular plastic table anchored to the deck. A half-empty glass bottle rested on the table, and James held a glass in which two fingers of an amber liquid remained.
Trystin sat. His eyes flicked to the half-empty bottle and the label.
“Scotch. Actual Cambrian Scotch. Not … so good as the old Earth kind, but that’s gone … damned Immortals.” James took another swallow from the glass, then poured another three fingers into the glass. “Yes … I’m drunk, soused, stoned, fried, shroomed—you name it. Wouldn’t you be?” He looked owlishly at Trystin. “Only reason I’m alive is you. You know how that feels?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“I would. In fact … I did.” James fingered the glass. “Damned fine pilot you are … ought to be a major. You’ll make it … but you won’t make subcommander. Know why?”
Trystin waited.
“Because you look like a friggin’ rev, and nobody wants a commander who looks like a rev … . It’s going to get worse,” James emphasized, overannunciating, pausing between each word. “They have people in their belts smelting—belts … smelts, nice rhyme—mining, building. They got people everywhere. And they all produce. What do we have? We had technology and honor, but they got technology now, and honor is not enough.” He paused and looked at Trystin. “You got honor, but it’s not enough.”
“I’d like to think so.”
James snorted. “You don’t drink, do you?”
“Wine, ser.”
“Sit down.”
“I am sitting.” Trystin was glad the ship was in standdown. Then, being in stand-down was probably why James had the bottle. Where had he gotten Scotch at three hundred creds a bottle? Of course, three hundred creds probably meant nothing to a Sasaki.
“Do you drink?”
“Wine.”
“You drink wine. So you’re not a dyed-in-the-blood Revenant, and you drink tea, and they don’t. How about cafe?”
“I don’t like the taste.”
“Good man. Tastes like boiled revvie boots, even if they don’t drink it.”
“Ever tried sake?”
“Once. I like wine better.”
James took another quick swallow. Trystin waited.
“You believe in revealed truths, Trystin? Like the revs believe that every so often the Prophet will return? Jesus, then Brigger or Younger, whatever his name was, and then Toren?”
“They believe it,” Trystin said slowly. “Personally, I have a hard time believing in a God that has to use prophets to deliver his word.”
“So do I. Honor, that’s what’s important. You got honor, Trystin. Look like a friggin’ rev, but you got honor … .” He picked up the bottle. “I’ll be fine. We’re on stand-down. Another two months before that next troid arrives. Plenty of time to get sober.” He poured more into the glass. “Get out of here, and let me drink.”
Trystin closed the door behind him, after a look back at the dark-haired major holding the two-thirds empty bottle. He paused in the narrow corridor.
Did the captain drink just because of the stresses? Or the isolation? Captains were isolated. And James, because he was a Sasaki, was more isolated than most. Who could a Sasaki trust as a pilot officer? A Doniger, with equal prestige and position? A Desoll, of old stiff-necked anglo heritage? If he were James, would he trust Trystin? How would he cope with the isolation, the looks, the implications that he only had the triple bars because of his name?
Trystin frowned. They were all isolated, when you got right down to it. In a strange way, the connection of the system nets and implants isolated Service officers more than their ancient predecessors. Allowing instant data access reduced the need for contact, and the politeness and formality of the whole Eco-Tech culture made personal contacts so superficially smooth that most people didn’t even see the isolation. At least Trystin hadn’t, not with his having to worry about survival on one level or another.
He shook his head. Had anything really changed since he’d left Mara? He was still waiting and trying to stop revs, except the stakes were higher. Still waiting and reacting—and knowing it wasn’t enough, because too many of the damned paragliders still got through. No wonder James drank.
And as for the drinking … anyone but a Sasaki or a Doniger or a Mishima would be in trouble … but who was about to accuse the captain? And why?
Trystin walked past his stateroom and up to the neardead cockpit, calling up the visual screen, so he could look out at the cold, cold stars, and out into the darkness beyond the unseen Kali where the seemingly endless line of Revenant troid ships continued to bear down on Parvati.
41
Trystin squared the ship on its troid-buster course. “I have the con, Lieutenant.”
“You have it, ser.”
“Red one is ready.” Liam’s voice—tinny as always—reported through the net and both pilots’ implants.
“Ignite red one.” The captain’s voice was cold.
“Red one is go.”
“Red two.”
“Red two is go.”
The wait for reloading was shorter, but still perceptible.
“Red three.”
“Red three is go!”
“Red four.”
“Red four is go.”
“Changeover to standard torps.”
“Changing over this time.”
“Desensitize.”
“Desensitized.”
“Full shields. Get us clear, Lieutenant.”
“Shield in place, Captain. I have it.” Trystin rechecked, and dropped ship’s grav to point two while throwing the extra power into the shields, and dropping the ship’s nose almost straight down, while torquing up power from the fusactor and the accumulators, letting the fusactor rise to one-hundred-ten-percent output for almost a standard minute before dropping output to just shy of max.
Scattered telltales began to flash amber.
Trystin shut down the ventilation system and shifted the last of the power for gravs into the thrusters.
With what he’d done, the internal simulation of the ship’s position was almost useless, and he ignored the simulated position on the representational screen, waiting until he felt the wave front had passed.
Trystin swallowed. With the screens essentially dead, the ship’s ventilation off, and the grav system bypassed to throw power to the thrusters, the cockpit was again a stuffy coffin, except that the steady acceleration pinned the crew in place.
He moistened his dry lips, his eyes flickering toward the blank red-tinged visual screens. Finally, he said, “Removing desensitizing.”
“Receiving input.”
Three blue-tinged blips continued to close on the Willis, but all that was left of the troid was a debris cone shrouded in an energy haze.
This time, the damned troid had carried almost four dozen of the scouts, and they’d shredded most of the Coalition corvettes.
Trystin calculated, and recalculated. The Willis’s shields were strong enough for perhaps two simultaneous torps—once.
With the three scouts coming, and no one close enough to help—only the Mishima, the Izanagi, and the Morrigan had reached the launch point—Trystin was on his own.
“Fire one! Two!”
He didn’t expect too much from the torps, except that the scouts would have to raise full shields, and that meant a slight loss of acceleration.
Then he cut the thrusters, and slewed the ship sideways—at a right angle to the course line—with the attitude jets.
Even before the cruiser was reoriented, he loosed two more torps, these at the flanking scouts
, followed by two more. Then he pulsed the thrusters once at full power, and shut down all external radiation from the ship. Without shields, the Willis veered slowly away from her previous course line, but her primary vector remained along the high-accel route set by Trystin after the red torp launch.
Trystin watched the positions of the rev scouts, hoping their energy detectors had locked on the thruster pulse.
The blue-tinged blips drew nearer, nearer.
Trystin kept calculating, his breath coming faster, faster than he wanted, but there was no way the Willis could stand off three of the beefed-up revvie scouts at once, not just with screens and torps.
“Close …” James’s words came through the net, as if he were whispering.
“Need them to be close … real close.”
As the scouts probed, screaming toward the cruiser that had “vanished” off the energy-detection screens, Trystin released two torps, forced one hundred twenty percent of fusactor output and full accumulator loads through the thrusters for thirty seconds, then dropped the fusactor to normal, released two more torps, and jammed the shields to full with three-quarter max acceleration.
“Shit …”
A dull thud followed the exclamation.
Trystin ignored the possibly injured tech and checked the screens. Unless the revs were playing dead, and Trystin didn’t care so long as they didn’t combine to chase the Willis, the ploy had worked. The thrusters had sliced through one rev, and that was certain, because the detectors showed hot metal. It looked like a torp had gotten the second, and the third was making a wide turn, trying to escape the Willis.
Trystin sighed and lowered the shields to half-power, while cranking up the thrusters, and heading into a stern chase.
The rev began to slow, fractionally.
Trystin shook his head.
Instead of closing beyond max torp range, he began to fire torps, one after the other, in pulsed intervals.
The rev flared into energy after the seventh torp.
Trystin eased the ship into a long arc back toward outer orbit control. As usual, as the attack had progressed, the damned troid had spewed forth its cargo of radar-transparent paragliders and their shielded and deadly cargoes destined to create more havoc for the hard-pressed Maran perimeter troops.
There might not be any scouts or troid left, but there had been more than thirty, at Trystin’s rough and quick count, of the ghostly gliders sent forth. He hoped the patrols off Mara could pick up most of them.
“Iron Mace two, this is Sledge Control. Interrogative status.”
“Status is green beta—armaments and propulsion.” The accumulators were hiccuping, and Trystin didn’t blame them after all the different power demands he’d thrown on the equipment.
“Understand green beta.”
“That’s affirmative.”
“Stet, Mace two.”
“Accumulators?” asked the captain.
“Yes, ser.”
“I’ll take her in. You’ve been through it.”
“You have it, ser.”
Trystin wasn’t damp, but soaking wet, and he pulsed the tech station. “Is there any tea or water or anything intact in the mess?”
“Not much, ser. We’re working on it.”
In the background, he heard Albertini muttering. “ … after that, he wants tea?”
“After that, you’re alive,” snapped Keiko at the junior tech. “We’ll send something forward, ser,” she replied to Trystin.
Trystin took a deep breath. He didn’t like what he was doing to the ship, or the crew, but it seemed as though every troid attack required more from him.
He leaned back in the couch. How much more could he give? How many more new angles could he try without turning the Willis into scrap metal or ionized gas?
Keiko handed him a cup of Sustain. “Sorry, ser.”
“That’s all right. Thank you.”
She turned to James. “Captain?”
“I’m fine.”
Trystin sipped the Sustain slowly, hoping it wouldn’t hit his stomach with too much of a jolt.
“Iron Mace two, closure is green.”
“Stet, Control. Holding green,” answered James, brushing limp black hair off his forehead, almost as damp as Trystin’s.
“Mace two, cleared to dock. Maintain low thrust.”
“Control, this is two, beginning final approach.”
The Willis crept in toward the wall of metal and composite—slowly, slowly.
Thud!
Trystin winced as the Willis clunked up against the outer orbit control station.
“Relax, Trystin. That’s less than you just put the old lady through.” James flashed a boyish grin. “With all the stuff the revs are throwing at us, I need some practice somewhere.”
James magnetized the holdtights. “Lock-on. Apply mechanical holdtights and prepare for power changeover.” He began the shutdown list, and the items and replies went back and forth over the net, silently, between the captain and Trystin.
“Accumulators …”
“ … discharged.”
After the captain announced power changeover, and the full grav of orbit control pressed Trystin into his couch, he just sat there for a time while the techs ensured full docking.
He’d thought twenty-percent losses per battle had been bad enough, but this time … what? Three cruisers left of eight, and a handful of corvettes. So far, there had only been a troid ship every four standard months, or thereabouts—two since his near-disastrous first troid encounter, and now they were back to where he’d started, except that the Coalition was losing even more ships.
Finally, he stood, picked up the mug, and walked back to the mess where Albertini stared at a dented samovar. “Ser, what do you have against the samovar?”
“Nothing.” Trystin grinned. “I like tea. But the revs don’t, I guess.”
“They’re crazy, all of them.” Standing in the corner, Liam Akibono took a deep swallow of double-strength Sustain.
Trystin winced at the thought of what that much Sustain would do to his guts.
“You don’t agree?”
“I don’t see how your guts stay in place with that much Sustain.”
“What about the revs? Better if we could use hellburners on all their planets. We don’t want their real estate. Why can’t they leave us alone? They’re crazy, that’s for sure.”
“They can’t be totally crazy. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been so much of a threat for so long.” Trystin blotted his forehead.
“You ever met any?” Liam took another pull of Sustain.
“I had to interrogate some of them when I was on the perimeter. Some were just like those in the corvettes, ready to throw anything away to kill me. Some were very thoughtful and analytical—those were the officers.” Trystin set his cup in the rack and wiped his forehead. He’d need a shower after the debrief, and it was going to be long, that he knew.
“So … the revs have a lot of idealistically crazy cannon fodder led by analytical and thoughtful officers?” asked Keiko as she reracked a chair in the mess-cabin comer.
Trystin shrugged. “That’s what I saw. I also saw a lot of new equipment and tactics.”
“Someone has to be giving it to them. They’re riot that smart. No one who believes in all that crap their Prophet spouted can be that smart.” Liam refilled his mug with more Sustain.
“Lieutenant Desoll, to the quarterdeck, please. Lieutenant Akibono, you have the ship.”
Trystin got the message on the link a second or so before it hit the speakers. “Time to go. You have it.” Trystin grabbed his beret.
“Yes, ser,” answered Liam.
Trystin met James at the quarterdeck. The captain even looked slightly frazzled as they walked toward the station ops center.
“I couldn’t help but hear Liam’s comments about the revs,” the captain said slowly. “Do you think we have traitors?”
Trystin took a deep breath. “I guess anything�
��s possible, but … I remember talking with a senior commander after the first big revvie assault on Mara, and she pointed out that a lot of the technology in the new rev tanks was better than what we had … .”
“I wonder if it’s being funneled to them first?” mused James.
“It wouldn’t seem likely. Those tanks were designed before I was born. They sat on a troid ship for more than twenty years. How could anyone sit on technology that long without it leaking out?” Trystin forced a laugh. “Unless half the Coalition leadership were in on it?”
“Maybe they are. Maybe they are. Then again, maybe we just think that technology is that old.”
Trystin pursed his lips. “I don’t see how they could translate to a troid ship. It’s hard enough to hit a whole stellar system. And the number of translations they’d have to make would show on the sensitive EDIs.”
“Maybe.” James shook his head. “Maybe. What about the damned Farhkans? They could be in on it?”
“They could,” Trystin agreed. “But we’ve gotten better translation stuff from them, stuff the revs don’t have.”
“They’ve got to have an angle,” mused James.
They probably did, Trystin reflected, but it wasn’t technology, and that bothered him—because … what was more important than technology?
They pulled themselves up the grav tubes to beta deck and continued onward toward the debriefing room.
Two techs stood in the corridor. The one with the toolbox gestured, and Trystin absently cranked up his hearing sensitivity. “Those two … the devils … captain, he’s a Sasaki. Commander Frenkel shorted him … sent Frenkel to run the rev camp on south island … the other … stand a ship on end … and laugh …”
Trystin lost the words as they turned into the debriefing room. Him, laughing about what he did to the Willis? As if he had any choice. He looked around and swallowed. Twelve pilots, six from the cruisers, and six corvette pilots—out of more than nearly forty that had been at the prestrike briefing.
They called him a devil? For doing what he had to in order to stay alive? He tried not to think about it … but couldn’t there be a better way?
How? It was taking everything the Coalition had to hold the revs to what seemed to be a stalemate—at least that was what he saw from the Willis. The real situation might be worse than that, if people with connections like James were talking about traitors. Or Farhkan interference.
The Parafaith War Page 28