The Fleet 01

by David Drake (ed)

  “Nothing fast enough to catch me, Ghra, either in the atmosphere or in space,” I replied nonchalantly. I made the usual copies of the tapes of our inbound trip for the Mayday capsule. Commander Het collects updates like water rations. “Strap in, Ghra, I’m cutting the engines. Het found me a straight run through that gorge and I’m using it.”

  That’s another thing about the Ocelot, she’ll glide. Mind you, I was ready to cut in the repellers at any moment but Het had done me proud in choosing the site. We glided in, with due regard for the Ocelot’s skin for we’d be slotted in among a lot of volcanic debris. Some of that was, as Ghra had promised, as large as the scout. No sooner had we landed than Ghra retrieved her bundle and hefted it to the airlock, which I opened for her. Locked in my sealed chamber, I couldn’t be of any assistance in spreading the camouflage net but she was quick, deft and very strong.

  “Have you got a com button, Bil?” she asked when she had returned, her breath only a little faster than normal. She walked past the console into the little galley and drew a ration of water. “Good, then you’ll get the gen one way or another.” She took a deep draught of the water. “Good stuff. Import it?”

  “Yeah, neither Het nor the Admiral likes it recycled,” and I chuckled. “Rank has some privileges, you know.”

  Shamelessly, she took a second cupful. “I need to stock up if I have to lie still all day. It’s summer here.” She ran a claw tip down the selection dial of the supply cupboard and finally pressed a button, wrinkling her nose. “I hate field rations but they do stay with you.” She had ordered up several bars of compressed high protein/high carbohydrate mix. I watched as she stored them in what I had thought to be muscle but were carefully camouflaged inner forearm pockets.

  “What else are you hiding?” Surprise overwhelmed tact.

  She gave that inimitable chuckle of hers. “A few useful weapons.” She picked up the button I had placed on the console. “Neat! What’s the range?”

  “Fifteen klicks.”

  “I can easy stay in that range, Bil.” She fastened the little nodule to the skull side of her left ear, its metallic surface invisible in the tufty fur. “Thanks. How long till dawn?”

  I gave her the times for false and real dawn. With a cheery salute she left the Ocelot. I listened to the soft slip of her feet as long as the exterior sensors could pick up the noise before I closed the airlock. She had been moving on all fours. Remembering old teaching clips about ancient Earth felines, I could see her lithe body bounding across the uneven terrain. For a brief moment, I envied her. Then I began worrying instead.

  I had known Ghra longer than I knew most of my random passengers, and we hadn’t bored each other after I roused her. In her quiet, wryly humorous way, her company had been quite a treat for me. If she’d been more humanoid, and I’d been more like my former self ... ah well! That’s one of the drawbacks for a gig like me; we do see the very best, but generally all too briefly.

  Ghra had sounded real confident about this camouflage scheme of hers. Not talk-herself-into-believing-it confident, but sure-there’d-be-no-problem confident. Me, I’d prefer something more substantial than paint as protection. But then, I’m definitely the product of a high tech civilization, while Ghra had faith in natural advantages and instinctive talents. Well, it was going to take every asset the Alliance had to counter the Khalian pirates!

  Shortly before Bethesda’s primary rose in the east, Ghra reported.

  “I’m in place, Bil. I’ll keep the com button on so you’ll know all I do. Our contact’s asleep. I’m stretched out on the branch of a fairly substantial kind of a broad-leafed tree outside his window. He’s not awake yet. I’ll hope he isn’t the nervous type.”

  An hour and a half later, we both discovered that he was not the believing type either. But then, who would have expected to be contacted by what at first appeared to be a disembodied smile among the broad leaves shading your side window. It certainly wasn’t what Fildin Escobat had anticipated when his implant had given him the warning zing of impending visitation.

  “What are you?” he demanded after Ghra had pronounced the meeting code words.

  “An Hrruban,” Ghra replied in a well-projected whisper. I could hear a rustle as she moved briefly.

  “Arghle!”

  There was a silence, broken by a few more throaty garglings.

  “What’s Hrruban?”

  “Alliance felinoids.”

  “Cat people?” Fildin had some basic civic’s education.

  “I’m camouflaged.”

  “Damned sure.”

  “So I’m patently not Khalian. “

  “Anyone can say they’re Alliance. You could be Khalian, disguised.”

  “Have you ever seen a Khalian going about on all fours? The size of me? With a face and teeth like mine? Or a tail?”

  “No ...” This was a reluctant admission.

  “Speaking Galactic?”

  “That’s true enough,” Fildin replied sourly, for all captive species were forced to learn the spitting, hissing, Khalian language. Khalian nerve prods and acid whips effectively encouraged both understanding and vocabulary. “So now what?”

  “You tell me what I need to know.”

  “I don’t know anything. They keep it that way.” There was an unmistakable anger in the man’s voice, which he lowered as he realized that he might be overheard.

  “What were you before the invasion?”

  “A mining engineer.” I could almost see the man draw himself up with remembered pride.

  “Now?”

  “Effing road sweeper. And I’m lucky to have that, so I don’t see what good I can do you or the Alliance.”

  “Probably more than you think,” was Ghra’s soothing response. “You have eyes and ears.”

  “I intend keeping ‘em.”

  “You will. Can you move freely about the town?”

  “The town, yes.”

  “Near the spaceport, too?”

  “Yeah.” Now Fildin’s tone became suspicious and anxious.

  “So you’d know if there had been any scrambles of their fighter craft.”

  “Haven’t been any.”

  “None?”

  “I tol’ you. Though I did hear there’s supposed to be s’more landing soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I dunno. Didn’t want to know.” Fildin was resigned.

  “Do you work today?”

  “We work everyday, all day, for those fregmekking rodents.”

  “Can you get near the spaceport? And do a count of what kind of space vehicle and how many of each are presently on the ground?”

  “I could, but what good does that do you if more are coming in?”

  “Do you know that for sure?”

  “Nobody knows anything for sure. Why? Are we going to be under attack? Is that what you need to know all this for?” Fildin was clearly dubious about the merits of helping a counterattack.

  “The Alliance has no immediate plans for your planet.”

  “No?” Fildin now sounded affronted. “What’s wrong? Aren’t we important enough?”

  “You certainly are, Fildin.” Ghra’s voice was purringly smooth and reassuring. “And if you can get that information for me, it’ll be of major importance in our all-out effort to free your planet without any further bloodshed and unpleasantness.”

  He gave a snort. “I don’t see how knowing what’s on the ground now will help.”

  “Neither do I,” Ghra said, allowing a tinge of resentment creep into her silken tone. “That’s for my superiors to decide. But it is the information that is required, which I have risked my life to obtain, so it must be very important. Will you help the Alliance remove the yoke of the oppressor, help you return to your former prestige and comfort?”

  There was a long pause
during which I could almost hear the man’s brain working.

  “I just need to tell you what’s on the ground now?”

  “That’s all, but I need to know the types of craft, scout, destroyer, whatever, and how many of each. And would you know if there have been battlecruisers here?”

  “No cruisers,” he said in a tone of disgust. “They can’t land.”

  If colonial transports could land on Bethesda so could Khalian battlecruisers, but he didn’t need to know that. What Ghra had to ascertain from him was if there were cruisers or destroyers that could be launched in pursuit of our convoy. Even a scout could blow the whistle on us and get enough of a head start to go FTL right back to Target and fetch in some real trouble. Only the fighters and cruisers escorting the convoy would be able to maneuver adequately to meet a Khalian attack. They would not be able to defend all the slowing bulky transports and most of the supply pods and drones that composed a large portion of the total. And if the supply pods bought it, the convoy could fail. Slowing takes a lot of fuel.

  I took it as a small sliver of good luck that Fildin reported no recent activity. Perhaps this backwater hadn’t been armed by its Khalian invaders.

  “Cruisers, destroyers and scouts,” Ghra repeated. “How many of each, Fildin, and you will be giving us tremendously vital information.”

  “When’ll we be freed’?”

  “Soon. You won’t have long to wait if all goes well.”

  “If what goes well?”

  “The less you know the better for you, Fildin.”

  “Don’t I get paid for risking my hide? Those nerve prods and acid whips ain’t a bit funny, you know.”

  “What is your monetary exchange element?”

  “A lot of good that would do me,” Fildin said disgustedly.”

  “What would constitute an adequate recompense for your risks?”

  “Meat. Red meat. They keep us on short rations, and I’d love a decent meal of meat once in a while.” I could almost see him salivating. Well, there’s no accounting for some tastes. A shacking goo.

  “I think something can be arranged,” Ghra said purringly. “I shall meet you here at dusk, good Fildin.”

  “Don’t let anyone see you come! Or go.”

  “No one shall, I can assure you.”

  “Hey, where ... what the eff? Where did it go?”

  I heard Fildin’s astonished queries taper off. I also heard Ghra’s sharply expelled breath and then a more even, but quickened respiration. Then some thudding, as if she had landed on a hard surface. I heard the shushing of her feet on a soft surface and then, suddenly, nothing.

  “Ghra?” I spoke her name more as an extended gr sound than an audible word.

  “Later,” was her cryptic response.

  With that I had to be content that whole day long.

  Occasionally I could hear her slow breathing. For a spate there in the heat of the afternoon, I could have sworn her breathing had slowed to a sleep rhythm.

  Suddenly, as the sun went down completely, the com-unit erupted with a flurry of activity, bleatings, sounds of chase and struggle, a fierce crump and click as, quite likely, her teeth met in whatever she had been chasing. I heard dragging sounds, an explosive grunt from her and then, for an unnervingly long period, only the slip-slide of her quiet feet as she returned to Fildin Escobat’s dwelling.

  “Fardles! How’d you get that? Where did you get that? Oh, fardles, let me grab it before someone sees the effing thing.”

  “You asked for red meat, did you not?” Ghra’s voice was smooth.

  “Not a whole fardling beast. Where can I hide it?”

  “I thought you wanted to eat it.”

  “I can’t eat a whole one.”

  “Then I’ll help!”

  “NO!” Fildin’s desperate reply ended in a gasp as he realized that he had inadvertently raised his voice above the hoarse whisper in which most of his conversation had been conducted. “We’ll be heard by the neighbors. Can’t we talk somewhere else?”

  “After curfew? Stand back from the window.”

  “No, no, no, ohhh,” and the difference in the sound I now received told me that Ghra had probably jumped through the window, right into his quarters.

  “Don’t put it down. It’ll bloody the floor. What am I going to do with all this meat?” There was both pleasure and dismay at such largesse.

  “Cook what you need then.” Ghra was indifferent to his problems, having rendered the requested payment. “Now, what can you report?”

  “Huh? Oh, well ...” This had patently been an easier task than accepting his reward, and he rolled off the quantities and types of spacecraft he had seen. I started taping his report at that juncture.

  “No further indication of when the new craft are due in?” Ghra asked.

  “No. Nothing. I did ask. Carefully, you know. I know a couple of guys who’re menials in the port but all they knew was that something was due in.”

  “Supply ships?”

  “Nah! Don’t you know that the Khalia make their subject planets support ‘em? They live well here, those fregmekking Weasels. And we get sweetdarnall.”

  “You’ll eat well tonight and for a time, Friend Fildin. And there’s no chance that it’s troop carriers?”

  “How’d I know? There’re already more Khalia on this planet than people.”

  Bethesda was a large, virtually unpopulated planet and Alliance High Command had never figured out why the Khalia had suddenly invaded it. Their assault on Bethesda had been as unexpected as it had been quick. Then no more Khalian activity in the area, though there were several habitable but unoccupied planets in nearby systems. High Command was certain that the Khalia intended to increase their dominance in the ASD Sector, eventually invading the three richly endowed Alliance planets; Persuasion for its supplies of copper, vanadium and the now precious, germanium; Persepolis for its inexhaustible marine protein, (the Khalia consumed astonishing quantities of sea creatures, preferably raw, a fact which had made their invasion of Bethesda, a relatively “dry” world, all the more unexpected.)

  To send a convoy of this size was unusual in every respect. High Command hoped that the Khalia would not believe the Alliance capable of risking so many ships, materiel and personnel. Admiral Eberhard was staking his career on taking that risk, plus the very clever use of the gravity wells of the nearby star ASD 836/932 and Persuasion to reduce velocity, cutting down the time in “normal space” when the convoy’s “light ripple cone” was so detectable.

  Those fregmekking Khalia had been enjoying such a run of good luck! It’d better start going our way soon. Maybe Bethesda would come up on our side of the ledger.

  I had screened Het’s sector map, trying to figure out from which direction the Khalia might be sending in reinforcements of whatever. If they came through the ASD grid, they’d bisect the emission trail. That was all too likely as they controlled a good portion of the space beyond. But I didn’t have more charts, nor any updated information on Khalian movements. The Gormenghast would. It was now imperative for the Admiral to know about those incoming spacecraft. Ghra was as quick.

  “It would be good to know where those ships were coming from,” Ghra told Fildin. “Or why they were landing here at all. There seem to be enough ships on hand for immediate defense, and surveillance.”

  “How the fardles would I know? And effing sure I can’t find out, not a lowly sweeper like me. I done what I said I’d do, exactly what you asked. I can’t do more.”

  “No, I quite perceive that, Fildin Escobat, but you’ve been more than helpful. Enjoy your meat!”

  “Hey, come back ...”

  Fildin’s voice dropped away from the com button although I heard no sounds of Ghra’s physical exertion. I waited until she would be out of hearing.

  “Ghra? Can you safely talk?”
>
  “Yes,” she replied, and then I could hear the slight noise of her feet and knew she was loping along.

  “What’re you up to?”

  “What makes you think I’m up to anything?”

  “Let’s call it an educated guess.”

  “Then guess.” Amusement rippled through her suggestion.

  “To the spaceport to see if you can find out where those spaceships are coming from.”

  “Got it in one.”

  “Ghra? That’s dangerous, foolhardy and quite likely it’s putting your life on the line.”

  “One life is nothing if it saves the convoy.”

  “Heroic of you, but it could also blow the game.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s been a program of infiltrations on any Khalian base we could penetrate. Why make Bethesda an exception? Don’t worry, Bil. It’ll be simple if I can get into place now in the bad light.”

  “Good theory but impractical,” I replied sourly. “No trees, bushes or vegetation around that spaceport.”

  “But rather a lot of old craters ...”

  “You are not crater-colored ...”

  “Enticing mounds of supplies, and some unused repair hangars.”

  “Or,” I began in a reasonable tone, “we can get out of here, go into a lunar orbit and keep our eyes peeled. All I’ll need is enough time to send a squeal and the Admiral will know.”

  “Now who’s being heroic? And not very practical. We’re not supposed to be sighted. And we’re to try and keep the convoy from being discovered. I think I know how. Besides, Bil, this mission has several facets. One of them is proving that camouflaged Hrrubans can infiltrate Khalian positions and obtain valuable information without detection.”

  “Ghra, get back here!”

  “No!”

  There wouldn’t be much point of arguing with that particular, pleasant but unalterable brand of obstinacy, so I didn’t try. Nor did I bother to threaten. Pulling rank on a free spirit like Ghra would be useless and a tactic I could scarcely support. Also, if she could find out whence came the expected flight, that would be vital information for the Admiral. Crucial for the convoy’s safety!