Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  Brand cleared his throat. He hated being put on the spot, but accepted the necessity as Lt. FarSeeker explained it to him. “The way I see it, Strind, Lyseo pointed out that we could be destroyed, not that we will be. We could. You might think we were on a foolhardy errand, and wonder if we have done the right thing coming to the heart of the galaxy. And who hasn’t felt that way? He told the truth. But the answer is that yes, we of the Alliance will go forth into the void to help those who come to ask for our assistance. If we did not, we would be abetting the enemy by our inaction. He made us talk about it, brought out our deepest fears. I suppose in a way we should thank him for it, but I have a difficult time feeling gratitude for a man who nearly precipitated a score of suicides. The psychotherapists report that they have been overwhelmed.”

  “I suppose it never occurred to anyone until now that we could die doing this hero stuff,” the paladin said. “That’s what I think. Now it’s out in the open. We need to be kept up on the facts, Commander. The dangers. What you decide affects all of us, no matter whose department we’re in.”

  “I acknowledge that, Mr. Strind. We’ll try to keep you in the loop from now on—when it is not a breach of security to do so. That, too, is part of my responsibility in keeping the rest of you safe.”

  “You heard it here,” Strind told his headset. “Me, I like Lyseo. He didn’t get to be who he was by playing safe. He’s not afraid to say what we’re all thinking. Well, this situation is like any bogey in the closet: air it and we can deal with it, right? Can we have another question for the commander?”

  The mood of the show improved slowly but significantly after that. The general consensus seemed to be that Lyseo had done the crew of the Hawking a service. The next day Jill brought a tape of the show to Lyseo and played it for him.

  He paid half attention to it while putting on his makeup in the mirror and humming. The emotional storm had passed, and he was eager to go on again. He caught her eye in the glass and saluted her with the sponge.

  “I don’t know what I would do without you, raven-haired one.” He smiled. “Will you be watching old Hambone today? I promise all will be strictly upbeat. Pure entertainment, no more. I’ll save the lessons for another time. Will you?”

  “Of course I will,” Jill replied.

  In spite of the devastation of Gerson only days behind them, and the possibility that in the days to come the battlestation could be facing destruction, loss, and pain, Jill felt she had never been so happy. Humming, Lyseo went back to his pots and sticks, and Jill left him to it.

  Kem took her to one side. “You’re great, Lieutenant. Sometimes it takes me days to get him out of one of his snits. Can you stick around?”

  “I’ve got other duties,” Jill reminded him. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to. I can’t. But I’ll be back, I promise.”

  Kem clutched her arm and glanced quickly at Lyseo. “What’ll I tell him?”

  “Whatever you told him before I came along,” Jill said. “Tell him again. I’ve got 9,998 other people to look after beside the two of you. If you don’t like it, take it up with McCaul.”

  Kem gulped visibly. “No, thanks. I still have some of my hide left over from last time. The rest is still growing back.”

  “Good,” Jill said. “Bye.” She waggled her fingers at Lyseo in the mirror, and slipped out of the door.

  Outside of the dressing room, Jill leaned against the bulkhead and slowly drew in a few breaths of reality. She had to stop being the starry-eyed fan and go back to her job. At the end of the corridor, Lt. FarSeeker smiled blandly at a crowd of maintenance workers waiting for a lift, her hero worship tucked away into her private thoughts.

  The representatives of the Core worlds aboard were growing more agitated as the Hawking neared the next system feared to be under attack. The mood of the Fleet personnel was grim. Lyseo’s broadcast had aided in opening communications between the two groups, but it was an inescapable fact that the station was coming closer and closer to confrontation with an unknown enemy presence.

  As they approached the second system, tension was high. The paladins mediated arguments on the air as to what they would find when they arrived.

  The argument was settled early when, on their approach, long-distance telemetry picked up high-level energy readings dead ahead within the system, inconsistent with the normal bursts of radiation thrown off by a star system. There was a battle going on. The Hawking increased velocity, and prepared to intervene.

  The unknown enemy had destroyed an entire civilization on Gerson, and had left little intact to give a clue as to its origin. No one aboard could guess whether the gigantic Alliance battle cruiser would be sufficient to defeat it.

  As the Hawking swept into a close orbit around the second planet from the star, the combatants appeared on the bridge screens. Commander Brand ordered telemetry to track the various cruisers and fighters, and tried to make sense of the battle array.

  “I can’t tell which side is which! Get those two Silbers up here, so they can identify the power signature of their ships,” he barked.

  In a few moments, the two pale-faced natives appeared, followed unobserved by Lyseo. Brand swiftly requested the information he wanted and saw it entered into the battle computer.

  “Thank you, gentle beings,” he said, dismissing the two aliens briskly. “You may go now. I don’t want any civilians on the bridge. You can watch the action on one of the trivid tanks.” He flicked a hand toward one of his aides, who bustled the protesting Silbers toward the lift hatchway. Lyseo watched them go, taking in their agitation, and the impersonal efficiency of Brand’s ADC. Lyseo leaned casually against a bulkhead, taking everything in. The action on the screen excited him. His bright, deep-set eyes flicked here and there, while his body remained still, almost slack.

  Brand suddenly noticed him. “What’s this man doing here?” he barked. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? No civilians on my bridge.” The aide leaped to take Lyseo’s arm and show him to the door.

  “But I am Lyseo,” Lyseo said, shaking off the aide’s hands. “I am permitted to be here.”

  “We’re in the middle of a battle situation, mister. Get off my bridge!”

  “I invoke the clause of my contract,” Lyseo said haughtily. “It will reiterate for me that I may go anywhere on this vessel at any time I so choose.”

  The ADC was already bent over a keyboard before his commander threw a gesture at him. “It is correct, sir. It’s in the records.”

  “I will not be in your way,” Lyseo promised him. “I will stay over here.”

  “I don’t care what your bloody contract said. It’s against bloody regulations. Anyplace you stand will be a distraction. Haul it!”

  “No, sir, I will stay right here.”

  “Commander!” the telemetry officer shouted. “Eight small, high-powered craft have disengaged from the battle and are heading toward us. They’ve noticed us, sir.”

  “Scramble fighters,” Brand barked. “And get that man off my bridge!”

  The ADC and a couple of the other officers moved in on Lyseo, who crouched warily, prepared to defend himself. One of them lunged at him, causing him to jump sideways, almost into the arms of the other two men. They were big and strong, but he was nimble and wiry, with thirty years experience on any of his opponents. He squirmed loose in a trice, and was standing beside the furious Brand’s chair just as the eight small ships ranged into full view. Lyseo stopped. He had never seen anything like them in his life.

  “Oh,” he breathed, eyes fixed on the screen. While he was distracted, the guards went for him again, and carried him, shouting imprecations, off the bridge.

  “The indignity of it,” Lyseo raged. He had stormed out of the lift and directly toward Kay McCaul’s office. The chief of Power Use was doing her best to reason with him.

  “But I understand the commander’s concern, Mr. Lyseo. Why didn’t you stay away from the battle bridge with a potential conflict on hand?”

&
nbsp; “I needed to be there,” Lyseo insisted. “For my art. That was where things were happening. I am drawn to conflict.”

  Kay McCaul shook her head. “You could have been responsible for many deaths. What if the commander became distracted while you were gathering material for your . . . er, art, and misdirected a squadron of fighters?”

  “I am not blind or stupid, Administrator,” Lyseo said with haughty dignity. “If he had not caused a fuss, I would have remained where I was, an immobile and noninterfering object. I am not to blame for his outburst.”

  Kay found his logic unassailable, but the primary purpose of the Hawking was military, for the defense of not only the Core planets, but also the thousands of beings aboard the cruiser. She smiled reasonably at the actor.

  “Mr. Lyseo, I will ask you a great favor. I want you to stay off the battle bridge during combat. You can have any other seat in the house, but it would be better for everyone if you stay out of the commander’s way. He hates an audience. Agreed?”

  “Any other seat?” Lyseo asked, his black eyebrows quirking.

  Kay nodded. “Anywhere.”

  “Where was he?” Jill asked, trying to translate her superior’s furious squawk through the audio pickup in Lyseo’s dressing room. The great man was in the shower, tidying up for his next performance. Jill could hear him singing loudly and cheerfully through the door, and he was drowning Kay out.

  “The power center!” McCaul shouted.

  “The power center?” Jill echoed. “But there’s no room in there for an outsider.”

  “I stupidly told him he could go wherever he wanted so long as it wasn’t the battle bridge. He told the technicians to check with me, and not one of them called to ask whether it was true. I would have chucked him out with my own hands if I had known. Stop him from going back there again. The techies were in a state of hysteria, having to crawl over him all the time.”

  Jill turned away from the pickup when she heard the singing stop and the bathroom door open and close. Clad in a toweling robe and an air of great good humor, Lyseo strolled into the room. He bent to give her an affectionate peck on the cheek. “Hello, my dear. I didn’t expect to see you before today’s show. What did you think of the battle our brave flyers put up? Fascinating! It has inspired me to the fullest.”

  “Ari, I just spoke to Kay McCaul. Were you really in the power center during the battle?”

  “Why, yes,” Lyseo said. “It was absolutely fascinating. In that small chamber, knowing that each new demand for power was focused to help secure a victory. Think of it!” he said, drawing an invisible panorama for her. “Discovering the sources of the demands for more energy as we rove through the battle, who needs more, and who requires less, almost as if we were seeing what was going through the lives of everyone on board for that single event, and all the time our fighters were out there in space around us, demolishing the evil Ichtons.”

  “There isn’t a lot of room in the power center,” Jill began, but her voice trailed off.

  “It was a crux, a nexus,” Lyseo crowed. “I could feel the tension as if I were experiencing it myself.”

  Jill knew that she would have to say something, but weighed her words carefully. He was so sensitive, anything that sounded too much like a criticism would make it impossible for him to function. “You . . . you won’t be going back in there again, will you?”

  “No, I have gathered all the impressions there that I think I will need,” Lyseo said. “It’s only worth one show. That kind of paraphrase can become old quickly. I don’t want to bore my audience.”

  Jill heaved a sigh of relief. “Good. What’s today’s slice of life, then?”

  “You’ll enjoy it,” Lyseo said proudly. “It’ll be inspiring to all our young warriors, and the rest of us, who are young only in our hearts. It’s an abstract piece, a light show, based on the grids in the power center. I intend to illumine, by starlight, if you’ll forgive the joke, how it is we all contribute in our small ways to the war effort. I have dedicated it to Administrator McCaul, for her kindness in allowing me the freedom of her domain.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that,” Jill said.

  Jill sat next to the light crew as Lyseo took the stage. At the left and right walls, the computer technicians who ran the lighting board and the special effects generator waited, fingers poised for Lyseo’s cue. A prerecorded voice echoed through the chamber, announcing Lyseo’s dedication to Administrator McCaul. The stage director counted down the seconds to sixteen hundred hours, and pointed a finger at the star. The light on the video camera directly before him went on, and Lyseo extended his arms over his head.

  Throughout the chamber, tiny points of light appeared. Lyseo moved among them, gathering some of them in his hands, and balling them up to make larger ones, which he set back into the air. His skill with pantomime made it look as if the holographic projections of light were solid and malleable masses. Jill watched him with fascination, wondering what light would feel like. Lyseo accompanied his dancelike movements with a narration describing where the lights were coming from and where they were going over the course of a day. The little stars grew or shrank according to the needs Lyseo designated.

  “No more to the galleys, the meals are served. Better to put more into the recreation centers. Botanics needs more, and engineering needs less.”

  With a trumpeting of martial music, the dance grew faster and faster. “What’s this?” Lyseo demanded, staring at a little star that was pulsing with the beat of the drum. “Our ships require more. There is no more available. It will have to come from somewhere, or we will fail.” He addressed the other twinkling lights. “Will you all give something of yourselves?”

  The other lights sparkled eagerly, and he gathered part of each one’s substance to add to the failing light. Under his hands, it became larger and stronger until it dwarfed all the rest. Lyseo sprang aside to avoid a dark red ball of flame that swept out of the darkness toward the small lights. The white globe swept between the red comet and its intended victims. The adversaries met in a crash of glaring light. Images of the Ichton fleet engulfed the red globe as it circled the white, now clad in a shell like that of the Hawking. Lyseo continued his declamation while the fight continued. It was thrilling and inspiring, guaranteed, Jill felt, to make everyone on the Hawking feel as if they were part of the battle, part of the great movement to liberate the Core planets. Lyseo whirled around the red globe, showing that it was weakening. The performance was working up to a grand and exciting climax when suddenly the lights dimmed, and the giant globes of light blinked out of existence. The special effects generator whined down to a dull hum, and shut off. The technicians sprang forward to see if they could restore power.

  The interruption hit Lyseo like a blow to the solar plexus.

  “No!” he shouted into the darkness, beating at the air with his fists. “Bring it back! I am not finished!”

  “I’m sorry, Ari,” the lighting director called, running an agitated hand through her short blond hair. “I was just on the horn to the power center, and they’ve cut us off. They need our juice for the weaponry. We’re under attack!”

  “I demand that they restore power,” Lyseo shouted, drawing his fists down against his belly. It was a tight, fierce gesture that did nothing to salve the ache inside. “They can’t simply interrupt me like that!”

  “No can do, Ari,” the young woman said, shaking her head. “We’ll have to wait until it’s all over.”

  “I have a contract that entitles me to whatever power my performance demands, and I demand that it be restored to me. Kem!”

  “Right here, Hammy,” the manager said, stepping into the low beam of the security lights.

  Lyseo rounded on him. “Go down to the power center, since they ignore our summonses, and tell them to turn on the juice to my generator. I don’t care what’s going on topside.” He flung a dramatic finger ceilingward, and stalked from center stage toward his dressing-room door.
r />   Shocked, Jill rose from her chair and advanced on Lyseo, cutting off his dramatic exit.

  “Hold it just one millisecond,” she demanded, planting one hand on his chest. She glanced over her shoulder. “Kem, you stay right here. Ari, what do you think you’re doing? Were you just blowing smoke, or do you really believe we should each work for the war effort?”

  Lyseo stopped and regarded her with a bemused expression. “Of course I do, my dear. I mean it sincerely. I like to think I do my part.”

  “Then would you please stop invoking your precious contract and let the troops get on with their jobs up there? You sound like a spoiled brat, carrying on that way. If the power center cut you off, they knew damned well what they were doing. It wasn’t to annoy you, it was to save lives. Possibly even your life.”

  “But to interrupt me in the middle of the flow—it was as if someone physically assaulted me,” Lyseo pleaded, trying to make her understand. Jill opened her mouth to reply.

  Suddenly the lights went out entirely, and Jill felt the floor drop a few inches under her feet. She staggered against Lyseo in the dark, and the two of them crouched onto the floor.

  “We’ve been hit,” someone whispered. “The station’s been hit.”

  All around the black chamber there was a rising murmur of voices. Within moments the safety lights returned. Jill clambered to her feet, and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Lyseo called, hurrying after her.

  “There are going to be ten thousand scared people out there, and I’m their morale officer. I have to find out what’s happened and let them know.”