by KATHY OLTION
Chapter Fourteen
STARLIGHT FILTERED thinly in through the forward viewport of the darkened observation deck as the battleship Tonclin took its position. Vellyngaith stood front and center, admiring the sculpted comet and all that it represented. He stood alone, a man with his thoughts only a few minutes from the firing of the laser. It was the pinnacle of his career so far, and he wanted time to relish that accomplishment.
The rest of the All Kauld fleet were in an uninhabited star system nearby, running drills and testing out their newly refitted ships for the big battle that would take place in five days time. He’d laid down the master plan of attack and left the details to the captains themselves to work out—and fight over. They were the ones, after all, who knew their own strengths. Those who were taking over the refitted ships that had started out as nonmilitary had the biggest task ahead of them. They had to learn how these ships handled under their new drives, and what kind of limitations they might have.
The captains of the three new warships had been like children given agrav ’cycles for their birthdays when all they had asked for were sleds. The reports they’d sent back to Vellyngaith had all been positive so far, and tinged with a sense of awe. Not since the Tholians’ gift of dynadrive had the Kauld seen this kind of leap in abilities. And this time, the Kauld had developed it themselves, using the olivium they had liberated from the human mining operation.
And it was a small amount of olivium they had managed to take back from the humans, at that. By rights it should have all belonged to the Kauld. Then there was that traitor, Shucorion. Not that Vellyngaith had expected any better of him. In fact, he’d proven mildly helpful to a point. Even so, once the humans were gone, Vellyngaith would turn his full attention toward Shucorion and the rest of his sorry race.
The door into the observation deck opened quietly. The light from the corridor reflected on the forward viewport, and Vellyngaith saw the silhouette of his attendant, Celerneth. Without turning around Vellyngaith said, “What is it?”
“The viewing party is getting restless, sir. They would like to know when they can enter.”
Vellyngaith suppressed a sigh. This moment of quiet contemplation would be over too quickly as it was. He glanced over his right shoulder toward the silhouette and said, “Soon, soon. Break out the katanga liquor if you think they need a diversion; I will signal when it is time.”
“Very good,” Celerneth said and closed the door.
Vellyngaith looked back toward what was left of the comet. It was a magnificent piece of work. The carved face shone, its highly polished surface aimed down the light-minutes-long column of ice. The last of the work crews had been picked up from the comet’s surface and brought aboard the Tonclin, where they would be housed until they could be reassigned.
Beyond the comet, several rho away, sat the bunkships. They hadn’t been removed yet, and wouldn’t be immediately. Once the battle was over, they would continue to serve their purpose while the Kauld mined the rest of the olivium from the moon, then as the last of the deposits were recovered from the planet’s surface.
No, reverse that, he thought. Mine the planet first, before Yanorada’s plan made it too difficult—unless there was some way to reverse it now that it had been triggered. But Yanorada had sworn it couldn’t be stopped.
Just like Vellyngaith’s plan.
He was ready now. He checked his wristchron. It was time. He stepped to the wall and pressed the intercom button. “Celerneth, you may now escort my guests to the observation deck.” He didn’t wait to hear Celerneth’s response before he turned back to the viewports.
An unexpected motion caught Vellyngaith’s eye. A Kauld long-range shuttle popped into view from around the restructured comet. The view shifted as the Tonclin responded to orders from the bridge, no doubt from his second-in-command, Tenoweth. He watched as the shuttle took evasive measures and managed to escape the disruptor beams fired at it. He frowned. His gunners should have hit it at this range, even with the Blind muddling their targeting computers. Perhaps Tenoweth had ordered a warning shot, since communications were out as well.
The shuttle slid behind the comet, and Vellyngaith didn’t see it reemerge. He wondered what it was doing out in this remote part of space during the Blind, and then realized that it probably came from one of the bunkships.
Was something wrong with the laser? The very possibility infuriated him. There couldn’t be. Not now. Everything depended on perfect timing. And everything was ready. The carbon dioxide stream was extended to the optimal length, the exciter beam was ready, and the target would be in position momentarily. All systems were go.
Could someone be trying to sabotage it? He snorted in derision. Let them try. The weapon was ready to fire. Even a direct hit on the accelerator would only set it off, and once that happened, there would be no stopping it.
Besides, it would be faster to simply fire it now rather than chase off after the trespasser. Vellyngaith reached for the intercom button on the wall beside the viewport, but before he could call his second-in-command and tell him to let the shuttle go, the view out the ’port slid back to where it had been before. He smiled in satisfaction. It comforted him that his second had reacted in the same manner as he would have himself.
He made a mental note to check with the bunkships and see who was missing a shuttle and a worker or two. If the fool survived his joyride, he’d wish he hadn’t when he learned what his punishment would be.
The doors opened, and his guests entered the observation deck. He went to the control panel on the wall to his left and turned on the lights to a dim glow to allow enough visibility so that people wouldn’t trip over the few chairs and tables in the room, but not enough to compete with the view outside. The observers were few but very influential, mostly dignitaries who would be able to go back to the homeworld after the show today and report to the masses the magnificent feat their own Vellyngaith had performed for their welfare. Vellyngaith wanted to be sure they saw every detail of his genius.
“Welcome,” he said. “Please, come forward and behold our victory over Federation.”
Gasps and other sounds of appreciation escaped from the people as their brains registered what they were seeing. One decorated old warrior, aged but far from feeble, approached Vellyngaith and said, “This is your doing?” He pointed a crooked finger at the comet, and held a stern look in his brown eyes.
“I gave the order to build it, yes.” Vellyngaith held his elder’s gaze, eye to eye.
A long moment passed before the old man cracked a smile and said, “I knew we could count on you!”
“Then let’s not waste any more time. We have endured the usurpers’ presence long enough.” There was no point in speechifying. Nothing he could say would match the weapon itself. Vellyngaith pressed the intercom button on the wall beside him and said the only word that was necessary: “Fire!”
Another collective gasp arose from the small gathering as a beautiful bright red light momentarily illuminated the column of frozen carbon dioxide. It glittered brilliantly, like a string of rubies across the black drape of space.
The cheering and applause had already begun when the accelerator on the comet’s back side luminesced white, the glow shooting through the core and down the now-vaporized trail of ice. The light from the core grew bright to the point of being painful, then continued to blaze.
Vellyngaith squinted against the glare. It was magnificent! The raw power of it all—and he commanded it!
The others in the observation deck no longer made sounds of inspired approval. The gasps turned into moans and cries. Most of his guests now shielded their faces with their hands and arms. One had dropped to the floor and used the bulkhead to hide from the intense light. The room grew noticeably hotter with each passing second.
At last, Vellyngaith admitted to himself that the leakage from the laser was too much. “Polarize the viewports!” he ordered into his intercom.
The windows responded so quickly
that he suspected the helmsman had his finger poised on the control, anticipating the order. The brilliance from his creation dimmed, but not enough.
“More polarization,” he ordered.
“Sir, we’re already at full.”
Vellyngaith laughed. These viewports could block out the light of a sun from within its own corona. His laser was more powerful than a sun—from the side!
He opened his eyes a sliver. The pain! And the heat. He could hear the whine of the room coolers working in vain. Hah! These aristocrats would have a story to tell when they returned home.
But he wanted them impressed, not blinded. Reluctantly, he said, “Lower the blast shields.”
A heavy panel slid down from overhead, its hardened composite hull material doing what simple polarizers could not. Darkness swept across the ceiling as it lowered into place, but it stopped three-quarters of the way down.
“All the way,” Vellyngaith ordered.
“It’s stuck, sir.” He heard the panic in the helmsman’s voice. The shield rose partway, then lowered again, but it didn’t gain any ground. “The tracks must be warped from the heat, sir. The entire port side of the ship is overheating.”
“Roll us sideways,” he ordered. “Now!”
He felt his ship lurch into motion. The brilliant swath of light swept upward, narrowed to a thin line, then disappeared as if a switch had been thrown. The bulk of the ship shadowed them now.
It was pitch-black inside the observation room. Vellyngaith found the light controls by feel and turned them up all the way, wincing as the touch panel burned his fingers. It was still barely enough to see by after the intensity of a moment before, but it soothed his guests’ panic. They were rubbing their eyes, tears streaming down their faces. But the Kauld were a tough species. There would be no complaining from them, especially in light, as it were, of their success.
“I apologize for your discomfort,” he said. “The weapon is obviously more powerful than even I had expected. What we felt was just the glare from it, but imagine what will happen when the beam itself strikes the human colony. The entire planet will feel more than mere discomfort.”
They seemed little mollified, but he didn’t care. He had more important things to worry about. The ship was still moving, even though he had only ordered a roll. What was going on up there on the bridge? Were those fools actually backing off? A hot streak of anger ran through him. His orders had been to maintain their position during the unveiling and firing of his laser.
He motioned to Celerneth and instructed him to aid his guests and return them to their cabins to rest; then, hands clenched into fists, he stormed toward the door into the corridor, but it wouldn’t open more than a hand’s width apart. He jammed his fingers into the crack to pull it open, only to find the metal too hot to touch.
He jerked his hands free, sticking his fingers in his mouth to cool them, then shoved his booted foot into the crack and pushed. The doors squealed and lurched apart, and he stalked down the corridor to the lift.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he hissed into the intercom the moment he stepped into the lift car.
“Sir,” his second-in-command replied, “the ship sustained heavy damage down the port flank, and the starboard side was starting to go as well after we rolled.” Vellyngaith could barely hear him over the alarms going off on the bridge. “We had to move or be cooked.”
Damage? To his ship? The spell the laser had cast over him finally began to lift. He’d been so enthralled with the sheer enormity of his accomplishment that he’d allowed his vanity to overcome his sense.
“If you wish, I’ll hand you my resignation when you return to the bridge.”
“What?”
“I did break a direct order,” Tenoweth pointed out.
True enough. But to what degree? Tenoweth had kept the ship stationed until it was too dangerous to remain. Everyone had seen enough to understand what was in store for the humans. And his prompt action might have saved the ship.
“We’ll discuss that when the time is right,” Vellyngaith said. A moment later the lift deposited him on the bridge. Tenoweth stood at attention, arms folded behind his back.
“What’s our status?” Vellyngaith growled.
“Decks 3 through 10 are reporting hull damage along the port side, almost all external sensors were overloaded, and the crew lounge is on fire. I’ve ordered it vented to space as soon as everyone is out.”
“Injuries?”
“A few, mostly burns on those who were working close to the hull.”
Vellyngaith's own fingers throbbed. He’d take care of that later. “Get crews moving on the repairs as soon as we’re at a safe distance.” He looked around the bridge, saw everyone busy taking care of their own stations, and relaxed slightly. He’d made a mistake, but it hadn’t been deadly.
“The Blind is still knocking out communications,” Tenoweth said. “It will be some time yet before we can contact the bunkships and see what kind of damage they’ve sustained. We may have to take on their crews.”
Vellyngaith paused to think, then said, “Run the visual recordings we took of the firing sequence.”
The image of the comet appeared on the forward viewscreen just as Vellyngaith remembered it. He studied it now for other details. The bunkships could be seen on the other side, then the runaway shuttle, the ship’s disruptor beam chasing it. No other trace of it as it swooped behind the comet. He studied the image when the bunkships were visible again and felt a knot twist his gut. They were stationed closer to the laser than the Tonclin had been. They wouldn’t have been able to get their engines on-line fast enough to escape the heatwave that poured from the laser. Those bunkers were gone.
He didn’t need to continue the recording, but he did. The red flash, then the white hot light reached out and—there was no more. The recording device had obviously been destroyed at that point.
Vellyngaith’s enthusiasm, though a bit dampened by the unexpected loss of the work crews, emerged once again at the sight of such raw power. He already had a way to use the total destruction of the bunkships in his favor. One of the biggest problems with his plan was that there would be no martyrs for the common people back home to honor and sing songs about; well, now they had plenty.
A sudden thought made him pause. “How far away are we?” he asked.
“Five light-minutes. I didn’t want to go farther during the Blind.”
Vellyngaith looked at his wristchron. Five minutes, eh?
“Carry on. Get those repairs underway and report when the Blind is over.”
“Yes, sir.”
He walked through the bridge and took the private lift to his cabin, just overhead. It was a mess inside; paintings scorched brown by the heat, papers actually burned, plastic melted. He ignored it all and climbed up the stairs to his private observation bubble, a full-circle dome on the ship’s forward point that gave him a better view—though unenhanced—than he could get from the bridge itself.
He turned once around, watching, not sure what he would see from this distance, nor just when the light would catch up to the ship. But when it came it was unmistakable. A bright point blossomed among the stars, then a white streak lanced out across the night, extending for as far as the eye could see.
Not quite. Way down the line, at a place so distant it almost looked like the vanishing point, the beam faded away. That would be the last of the carbon dioxide column. Beyond that was empty space, and as anyone who had fought a laser battle knew, a pure light beam—even one as powerful as this—was invisible in a vacuum.
He smiled and rubbed his palms together, despite the pain. The humans would never know what hit them.
Chapter Fifteen
THE BIG MUDDY RIVER was living up to its name. Kirk and Lilian and their pilot had visited five town sites along its banks, and every one of them had been knee-deep in sticky brown muck flushed downriver by the flood. The sixth was proving impossible to find a landing site near, though a few low p
asses overhead made Kirk wonder what the point would be even if they did. There was practically nothing left here to salvage, and certainly nothing to defend from interstellar marauders.
Nonetheless, people were down there sifting through the wreckage, scavenging what they could. A few gray tents rippled in the breeze on a bank above the high-water mark; the people down there weren’t going to let themselves get caught by the same disaster a second time.
They looked up and waved as the plane flew over. The pilot, Herman, waved back with the wings, tilting them left and right, then he straightened out and climbed higher above the valley floor. “Do you want to make another pass?” he asked Kirk, shouting to be heard over the noise of the propeller.
“No,” Kirk said, shaking his head in exaggerated motions in case the pilot couldn’t hear him. He’d seen enough. In fact, he’d seen enough of the whole valley—enough to know that Governor Pardonnet hadn’t overstated the problem when he’d described the reconstruction effort.
He twisted around in his seat to look at Lilian. “Ready to call it a day?” he asked.
She nodded. She certainly looked like she was. Her childlike eagerness to go flying had been smothered under the ache of sympathy for all the destruction they’d seen today. Kirk almost wished he hadn’t offered to bring her along, but they had had fun on the flight out, and besides, as the school administrator she needed to see the situation first-hand.
Herman took the plane up and over the ridge to the north, then turned west toward Buena Vista. Green mountainsides and steep canyons replaced the gray floodplain, reminding everyone that only one river valley had flooded. Kirk took special encouragement in the realization that the rest of the continent looked this good less than a year after the Burn. It meant the Big Muddy would recover as well.
Herman must have been thinking similar thoughts. “Hey,” he said, “you want to see something that’ll put a smile back on your faces?”
“How far out of the way is it?” Kirk asked.