by Phil Geusz
No more awful than the reality of the German alpine division and reinforced Italian infantry brigade about to land on The Rock, I thought to myself as I smiled and listened to the shouting go on and on and on. That would be all I needed and more to take and hold the airfield area, while my four capital ships and three cruisers, supported by the long-range bombers, packed plenty enough punch to deal with the batteries. Then once the airfield was secure and the shelling halted, there was a whole division of super-elite German paratroops waiting to be flown in to clean out the tunnels. Jason knew this as well as I did—his ashen face told me all I needed to know. And once Gibraltar fell… The Rock was the anchor of the entire British position in the Med, both in reality and our little game. Half the convoys to Malta that added so much to the British score magically appeared there, for example. Once I owned the real estate they’d be diverted to Alexandria all the way at the other end of the mapboard—after a prolonged delay to allow them to round the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, all his ships in the western basin would suddenly find themselves without a base; they’d be forced to run the gauntlet of Italian-based Stukas, Fiats and Messerschmitts in order to refuel. Many would fail to make it. The loss of Gibraltar was in fact such a profound and total disaster that one couldn’t absorb the implications all at once; they sort of slowly sank in via wave after wave of sick realization. The game was not only mine, I was going to rack up such a godawful high score that I actually felt a little guilty thinking about it. If in real life Churchill had lost Gibraltar, not only would he have resigned on the spot but whatever government replaced him would most likely have been forced to sue for peace. The disaster was of enormous magnitude.
Finally Jason looked up and, still pale with shock, shook his head slightly. Then, moving quickly enough that his coach didn’t have time to intervene he stood up and extended his hand to me. “I resign,” he said softly. “You’ve beaten me fair and square.”
“We’re one and one,” I replied with a smile, accepting the hand and shaking it warmly. Jason might be an Imperial bastard, but he lost like a gentleman. And that I could respect.
“No!” the Imperial coach screamed, his fist crashing down on the ref’s dais. “I won’t permit it! We must find where this… this livestock cheated!”
The ref shook his head. “I hereby declare Cadet Captain Birkenhead the official winner,” he stated into the PA system. Then he turned to the Imperial flag officer. “One more peep out of you, sir, and I’ll have you removed from the gaming area.”
The Yans were dancing with glee as I re-entered our little team area and sat down, half-exhausted. One pressed a little bottle of vending-machine grape-juice into my hand, while the other pointed to the monitor covering Heinrich’s game. He was playing the Germans in an economic-military simulation of the last days of the Third Reich, and at first I didn’t see where there was much to cheer about. All his forces were tightly constricted around Germany proper; in fact, the British were on the verge of taking the priceless Ruhr. But then I looked more closely. The game-turn indicator read “Spring, 1946”. Heinrich’s airfields were packed with supermodern jet aircraft. And even as I watched he laid down a new counter atop a battered Wehrmacht unit. “Anti-Tank Guided Missiles,” it read. “Plus ten against all mechanized units”. Just like that, all of a sudden the pile of Soviet armored division counters matched against it didn’t look half so menacing.
“He’s almost done it!” Yan Ho declared, bouncing about like a little child. “The next turn is Summer 1946. If he can hold out against just one more round of attacks that guarantees a tie at worst. And with your win…” I nodded, suddenly feeling a little bouncy myself. Then Heinrich looked directly up into the camera and smiled. Clearly he was aware of the situation too. As was the Imperial ranged against him, whose back was one huge sweat-stain. Still smiling, Heinrich maneuvered a group of Royal Hunting Tiger tank-killers into position to protect the Ruhr, laid another guided missile counter atop them, and ended his turn. Now his biggest factories didn’t look so vulnerable anymore either. Clearly, the British were in for a bad day.
Then, off in the distance I heard a buzzer. The thing was modulated across three unpleasant tones, intended to instantly grab a human’s attention no matter what he or she might be doing. It worked for Rabbits, too. Suddenly I was on my feet again, ears fully erect and swiveling.
“What?” Yan Chang asked.
“Fire alarm,” I replied. “A good ways off, though.”
Chang looked at Ho, who gulped. Then the local alarm went off as well. “Come on,” I ordered the Yans. A fire on a space station was no joke. “Let’s evacuate. We’ll grab Heinrich on the way”
“But…” Ho protested, pointing at the screen. It was the Imperial’s turn, but now he was the one smiling. He seemed very reluctant indeed to move his pieces. “Damnit!” Chang swore as the Genevan finally declared a halt. “Damnit all to hell!”
Very soon, however, it became obvious that the Genevans were correct to interrupt the match. Within seconds thick black smoke was pouring out of the ventilators and visibility dropped to nothing. Heinrich met us halfway, then we formed a line with each of us grasping the belt of the man in front of him and made our way to the nearest stairwell. We climbed up several decks and emerged on our home-floor…
…only to find that everything was business as usual. Two rabbit-maids were cleaning a guest’s room, and their happy chatter seemed terribly out of place after the chaos we’d just emerged from.
I looked around and scowled. I was the only one among the cadets fully space-emergency trained; in the normal course of things, that came after we were assigned to our various stations. “This is all wrong!” I declared. “Everyone within seven decks of a fire should be evacuated; it’s standard protocol! And that smoke… I’m not coughing. No one else is, either!”
“It’s a fake!” Yan Chang declared, pounding his fist in his hand.
“Those miserable Imperials!’ Ho seconded, nodding savagely. “They’re cheating us!”
My eyes narrowed. There was something wrong here—the Yans were far too certain of the situation, somehow. And too quick to blame the Imperials as well. Besides, they’d been AWOL all those long hours with no explanation whatsoever…
I don’t know why I turned around and looked towards my room just then; perhaps my subconscious mind was way ahead of the game. But down at the far end of the hall I saw a blur of gray with a Rabbit’s pooftail attached to it silently disappearing down another set of fire stairs.
“We can win far more than is readily apparent,” the Commandant of the Academy had explained back when he was telling us about the code books. “Even if on the surface we lose.”
I turned back to the Yans, whose faces remained blank and innocent. Were they part of the code book operation as well? Had they set the fake fires and jiggered the alarms to create a diversion so that an Imperial’s Rabbit-servant could use the fire-stairs without attracting attention? I’d never know, and perhaps it was better if I didn’t.
“Those miserable cheats!” Heinrich spat as, a bit tardily, his own version of the truth set in.
“The worst!” I agreed, looking the Yans over again. I no longer doubted in the slightest that they’d make fine naval officers indeed. But, I was certain, they’d never command a ship or spend much time in uniform. Their talents lay elsewhere. Instead I was willing to wager my left ear that they were headed for murky careers in naval intelligence, where their special flair for the illegal would prove to be a game-changing godsend. Perhaps I might even find myself working with them again someday?
Then I shook my head and dragged myself back to reality. “All right,” I said finally. “We’ve established that this is a safe place, and if we went back downstairs we’d just be in the way. So let’s wait in our rooms and see what the New Geneva people say. All right?”
But I did more than wait in my room. I’d left my code book there, since I couldn’t bring it to the gaming table. Sure enough, it was go
ne. Even more intriguingly, however, I’d been left something in return. Just underneath where the text had been, there was an oily patch almost too faint to see; soon it’d evaporate entirely. There was never any chance of my overlooking it, however—it was a Rabbit’s scent mark, from the little gland under the chin. There wasn’t any way I knew of to preserve the thing, and I wasn’t sure I should even if I could. Humans couldn’t make use of scent marks, so the message was obviously meant strictly for me personally. I spent several long minutes inhaling its essence until the odor was burned immutably into my brain; if I ever encountered that Rabbit again, I’d have no doubt whatsoever as to his identity.
Then I laid down my bed and tried to calm my overexcited, fast-spinning brain for whatever came next.
38
I must’ve done an especially good job of calming down, because the next thing I knew several hours had passed and someone was knocking urgently at my door. “David!” a familiar albeit weak voice was calling out. “Are you in there?”
Instantly I was on my feet and across the room; it was Professor Lambert, and he sounded terrible! He looked even worse when I opened up the door; my instructor was sitting in a wheelchair with a Geneva security man standing behind him doing the pushing. The professor’s face was pale, his eyes were dull, and his skin sagged as if he’d just lost twenty pounds. “David,” he croaked. “We’re leaving.” Then he looked up at the security man for help.
“We no longer feel able to guarantee your party’s safety,” the guard explained. “There’ve just been too many incidents.”
Something further down the corridor caught my eye; it was James lying on a gurney, looking even sicker than the professor. He didn’t seem to know where he was. “I see,” was my only reply.
“Get them back to the ship,” Professor Lambert instructed me. “Organize it and get it done, immediately. I know you can handle it; the Geneva people will help. And…” He smiled weakly; I’d seen corpses make a better job of it. “I heard about Gibraltar. Good work, son!”
I smiled back, then despite his illness and all the rules and protocol about how we cadets were supposed to address teachers I bent down and hugged him tight. “Thank you, David,” he replied. “You’ve made me prouder than any student I’ve ever had.” Then he pulled away a little. “Now get our people out of here while it’s still safe.”
Orders weren’t always easy things to obey, and I didn’t blame Heinrich for pitching a fit when I informed him that it was time to go. “But… I’ve got him on the run! Another ten minutes of play, and—”
“Our lives are bigger than any game,” I took the time to explain, even though almost any other cadet-officer would simply have bellowed in outrage at less-than-instant obedience. “And… Look, I know this is easy for me to say, because my victory is already official and all that. But you had your man nailed too and you know it. So did he, so did his coaches, and so did everyone else.” I looked down at the deck. “We beat them, Heinrich, in all but official, acknowledged fact. We broke their pride. You were a big part of it. And that’s just going to have to be good enough.”
For a long moment he glared at me, his eyes every bit as cold and hard as those of the Imperials his father had once fled. Then he stared down at the deck. Finally, though, he raised his eyes to meet mine once again. “Thank you, David. For showing me that the navy has a heart after all.”
I smiled back and turned to leave, but he stopped me. “At first I had my doubts about you,” he continued. “I was afraid people would laugh when they heard I’d been your classmate. Just like everyone else was afraid. But now… I’m proud to be graduating alongside you, Captain. And I want you to know that you’re one of the tiny handful I’ve met that I’ll willingly serve under. And would die for.”
Then, almost miraculously, the navy-hating cadet who’d attended the Academy against his will and done everything he possibly could at every point to make a mockery of military discipline stood rigidly straight and executed a perfect parade-ground salute.
39
The professor had told me to get our team “back aboard the ship”, but he was still too sick to really know what he was about. Instead the Geneva people led us to His Majesty’s Courier Whippoorwill, an exact clone of Hummingbird save that all armament had been deleted so that she could legally operate in Genevan space. According to the security people she’d been standing by for dispatches, but by now I knew how to see through the cover stories. The navy had kept her there to get James out if it seemed necessary. The giveaway was the fact that fact her captain didn’t seem to have been at all taken by surprise by our sudden boarding. The tiny sick bay was already set up for two severe influenza patients, all stores were complete, and no personnel were on-leave in the Station. The other cadets and maybe even Professor Lambert might not’ve tumbled to it, but I’d seen a few up-ships as a crewman already. Things just didn’t go that smoothly without a plan already in place.
Which made it sting all the more when Captain Sir Joseph Devers bedded me down with the ships’ two Rabbits. “I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable down there with your own kind, David,” the ship’s commanding officer explained with a condescending smile. How many times was I going to have to refight this war, anyway? But I wasn’t a billeted officer, which meant that I didn’t have a solid claim to even a shared stateroom. Therefore it was my duty to sleep wherever and whenever I was told to sleep. “Aye-aye, sir!” I replied with a smart salute, which rather caught the captain by surprise—clearly, he was surprised that I was capable of it. I was just making up a nice straw pallet for myself when Heinrich and the Yans came trooping down after me with their own personal gear. “He offered us cabins,” Ho explained. “But then we explained that we’d rather be with you.”
“Then he got really mad,” Chang continued for his twin. “And said that we could damned well rot down here if we felt that way about things.” He smiled. “Can you show us the ropes, David? I get the idea we’re going to be bedding down together for the entire passage.”
And they in fact did exactly that; Sir Joseph was apparently an even more stubborn bigot than Sir Leslie back aboard Hummingbird. The man didn’t even break down when first Professor Lambert and then James moved in with us after their recoveries. That left us all terribly overcrowded, including the two original Rabbits for whom the quarters were intended. To help compensate for the discomfort I pitched in to help them with their work, insofar as I could without running into the captain any more than necessary. Soon all of us cadets were helping Kanren and Armitage scrub pots, shine shoes, and all the rest. “They say that an officer should know the jobs of everyone under them,” James pointed one day while he was mopping the mess deck. “I wonder why they never taught us this stuff?”
“Because it’s considered beneath we humans,” Professor Lambert replied as he spit-shined the First Officer’s right shoe. “I imagine the rest of the crew thinks we’re quite mad.” Then he smiled at me. “But James is right; it’s been a wonderful learning experience.”
Though Captain Devers grew angrier every day, he wasn’t prepared to push matters any further than he already had. Indeed, on Graduation Day, at the very moment when our classmates were throwing their hats in the air back home, the captain formed us up and handed us our new rank badges. Now were true naval officers at long last, full midshipmen every one of us. Ready for our first assignments and to begin really learning what the navy was all about.
“I bet you’re going to Engineering school like you want,” I told Heinrich a few minutes later, while we all sat around and ate celebratory ice cream cones courtesy of the ship’s cook. Or all of us except me, that was. Kanren and Armitage had gotten hold of some banana chips somewhere and saved them for me. They were a treasure beyond price for a shipbound slave. I almost cried, I was so moved by their generosity. “You’re plenty good at math. And it isn’t like they’ll want to make you a line officer. Not with you so near the bottom of the class.”
He smiled for a
moment, but it didn’t last. “At first,” he admitted, “that was what I wanted. I didn’t care for the navy as a career, and engineering school seemed like a good way to start learning advanced physics even if I couldn’t go to university. Now, though..,” He sighed. “I guess it’ll be okay if they send me there. But I’d really rather do something else.”
I nodded, understanding the unspoken part. Heinrich had changed a lot during our little field trip. Meeting the Imperials first hand, then losing his first two matches to them (not to mention being robbed of an official victory in the third) was probably why. Ever since then his uniform had been super-sharp, and all the things about navy life he’d previously mocked he now took seriously. James thought our classmate was suffering from a bad case of growing up and finding a purpose in life, and perhaps he was right. It was just unfortunate that it hadn’t happened a few months earlier, when he still had the opportunity to shine and stand high in his class. Engineers trod a different career-path than everyone else—they followed a separate line of promotion and everything. Rare indeed was the officer who was rated to stand watches at both ends of the ship. And command always went to regular line officers.
I smiled back at him and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Heinrich. Maybe we’ll be assigned together.”
“Maybe,” he agreed, brightening a little. Everyone at the Academy knew that I was already about as close as one could get to being qualified as a full-fledged engineer without actually being one, so it was a shoo-in that I was headed for engineering school. Anything else would be a terrible, stupid waste of my previous training.
“We all know where you two are going,” James interjected, nodding towards the Yans. By now I’d mentioned my suspicions that they were headed for careers in Naval Intelligence to our little group, and the Yans had carefully failed to either confirm or deny it.