Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  Long-distance radar reported the progress of Ichton spacecraft into the Luminos system. Five cruisers were identified. They were some new class, smaller than Stone class, less well shielded, a sign, perhaps, that some of the Ichton manufacturing units were having to cut back to simpler models. Although they were not Stones, they were still formidable.

  For Frank, it was getting very late indeed. But still he delayed in the asteroid belt, waiting for news of the engagement.

  Five Ichton ships in line-ahead formation suddenly clashed with the thirty-one Saurian ships in three half-moon formations. Beams flared, shields ran up through the spectrum as they staggered under the energy of multiple strikes. In the first five seconds of combat, seventeen Saurian ships were disabled or vaporized entirely. But two of the Ichton ships were out of the fight, and a third looked like it wouldn’t last much longer. The matter seemed to have been decided in that first instant of colliding energies. The Saurians were still hanging in there.

  The surviving Saurian commanders learned fast. There were some things about space combat that had to be learned on the spot. No amount of theoretical reading, and not even well-designed simulation equipment, would do. Learning was greatly stimulated by surviving that first engagement.

  Now the third Ichton ship was down, dissolving into the raging maw of its own wild-running main engine. Two to go! A group of Saurian ships led by Othnar Rahula surrounded the fourth Ichton cruiser. The smaller ships buzzed around the cruiser like maddened flies. Electrical potentials danced off the edges of ships’ shields in wild coruscations of curling force as more energy weapons came to bear. In that confined area space itself heated significantly for a moment. The beleaguered Ichton ship blew out its rearmost shield, tried to rig a temporary one, and was caught without adequate defense when Othnar Rahula swung his ship around and slammed a volley of torpedoes into the stricken cruiser. Brilliant explosions shuddered out into the blackness of space. The Ichton cruiser was still trying to reply with her guns when her FTL equipment vaporized and she was gone as though she’d never been.

  Meanwhile, Frank had been dawdling in the asteroid belt, not wanting to turn on his FTL just yet because he wanted to know what was happening.

  Then the remaining Ichton ship suddenly began to lose power. The blast from its drive jets faltered, the color of its propulsive flame lances changed from golden yellow to cherry-red. It wobbled, yet somehow remained in precarious control, and began to descend into the atmosphere of Luminos. The landmasses of the planet rushed up to meet it, and so did a full squadron of Saurian jet fighters. Colored a metallic liquid black, except for the white markings on their wingtips and tails, these fragile machines clawed up into the stratosphere, higher and higher, until their engines began to flicker and die out through lack of oxygen. They fell back to denser atmospheric levels. The Ichton spaceship now had descended to meet them, still fighting for control, less agile than before, but still moving at a speed no jet ship could match. The fighters replotted their trajectories and flung themselves in for the kill. The high, thin air of Luminos was alive with explosive projectiles from the jets’ wing guns, hammering at the Ichton cruiser’s screens. The projectiles bounced harmlessly off, as did the rocket torpedoes and small guided missiles. The Ichton ship seemed to be recovering its poise and getting more maneuverable by the second. And it seemed that its commander was realizing that the Saurian aircraft could do little or nothing against his screened spaceship.

  The Ichton commander ignored the fighter attack and turned his attention to the planet below him. Explosive rays lanced out from the cruiser’s underbelly. Big chunks were torn from the heart of the large city beneath him. A pall of oily black smoke rose into the air. The Ichton spaceship slowed to a deliberate pace. It seemed determined to do a really good job, destroy anything that crawled or swam or flew, strip out the minerals and other valuable things and take them off to the Ichton fleet.

  The fighters seemed useless against the well-shielded Ichton cruiser. Seeing this, Frank realized he was going to have to do something. He activated the controls, and somewhere inside of himself it occurred to him that he didn’t have to do this, not really, he’d just been sent here to warn these guys, he wasn’t supposed to be getting into the fight, he wasn’t supposed to be dying for them. But that thought had no time to take hold, because Frank was filled with the simple need to take action and preserve a situation that was threatening to go very badly for the side he had decided to fight for. It didn’t occur to him that he had returned somehow to one of his original intentions, formed back when he first joined the Fleet, concerning what to do with his life, how to spend it, what it was for. He knew it was not for making a profit like Owen the trader, but for some other reason, something that bad to do with serving humanity in the broadest sense, against its enemies like the Ichtons.

  Frank found the Ichton ship in range and fired. As he had feared, his rockets bounced harmlessly off the ship’s shields. The Ichton ship fired back. Frank managed to elude the missiles, not trusting his shields to take too heavy a load. When matters quieted down for a moment he saw the Ichton ship coming after him again. He countered. It was stalemate.

  There was nothing Frank could do. He and the Ichton canceled each other out. He was going to have to try something different if he was to have a hope of putting the Ichton ship out of action before it destroyed the planet Luminos.

  There was one thing still left to try. It was a very old tactic, and it dated back to the days when ships were made of wood and sailed on water. He could ram. It was an almost unheard-of maneuver in the modern world of space combat, but circumstances made it possible now.

  Frank put the controls on manual and aimed his scoutship directly at the Ichton cruiser. He watched, fascinated, as the image of the enemy ship grew in his viewplate from a tiny dot to a vast metal war machine of incredible and still growing proportions. Frank felt himself tense as the moment of impact grew closer and closer. And then . . .

  Before his eyes, he saw what looked like a meteor arc in from the side and impact with the cruiser. To Frank it looked like an act of God. It took his tired brain a moment to figure out that it must have been one of the Saurians in a fighter craft, ramming the Ichton from the side. The Ichton cruiser exploded in a silent blossom of light and energy, a light that bounded up and down the visible spectrum and seemed to light all of space before it died.

  “Nice job, Frank,” Owen Staging said. It was a week later. Frank had returned to the Hawking, filed his report, and was awaiting further orders. He had also taken it on himself to issue urgent requests to Star Central.

  He had told the examining board, “Gentlemen, the Saurians need to be supported in their efforts against the Ichtons. I respectfully request that we send them considerable more military assistance than we have done before.”

  “They’re not a very big power,” one of the admirals on the examining board said.

  “No, sir, they’re not,” Frank said. “But they won’t quit on us. And that’s worth quite a lot in this day and age.”

  A temporary aid package was approved on the spot. Frank found himself quite a hero back at the Hawking. He’d taken a chance, exposing himself for so long in Ichton-dominated space. He’d helped a friendly planet pull off a victory. It was a small one, but it was nice to have any sort of success among the many defeats that had been inflicted by the Ichtons.

  Frank didn’t particularly want to discuss these matters with Owen Staging when he met him, this time at the Wahoo, a common sort of tavern on Green 2 that was a favorite with Frank.

  “Here’s what your engines sold for,” he said to Owen, taking out of his backpack the hefty chamois bag that contained the gems.

  “You did well, partner,” Owen said, bouncing them up and down in his hand. “Although you did leave your departure until very late.”

  Frank shrugged. “I want an advance on my share in folding money.”

  “Of course, partner, of course! I’ve got it right here for y
ou.” He took a cashier’s check out of his pocket. “It’s unusual to use paper anymore for transactions, but I thought you’d like it. I know you’re an old-fashioned man at heart. There’ll be more after the sales.”

  Frank glanced at the check, folded it, put it in his pocket. “This will do for a beginning. But I’m afraid it’s going to cost you more than that, Owen.”

  “What are you talking about? Half was our agreement, and it was very generous on my part if I do say so myself.”

  “It’s going to cost you three-quarters.”

  “I’ll see you in hell first!” Owen snapped. The trader got to his feet. The expression on his face was not pleasant. His fingers slipped around a hardened glass tumbler as he turned to face Frank.

  “You won’t need that, either,” Frank said. “You’re not crazy enough to attack an officer of the Fleet.”

  “Your commission expired yesterday,” the trader snarled.

  “Correct. And on the day before that, I reenlisted.”

  “But our agreement! You were going to resign from the service and be my partner!”

  “Sometimes people lie,” Frank said. “You told me that yourself, Owen. And you told me it was all right, that was the way human beings were.”

  “What are you trying to prove, Frank? What do you want with so much money?”

  “Guns and ships cost plenty. While the Fleet brass tries to decide how much to help the Saurians, I’m going to send them what they need.”

  “You’re using my money to buy those people weapons?”

  “Yes, yours and mine, too.”

  “Frank, I don’t think I understand you.”

  “I understand you, though,” Frank said. “There are a lot around like you, Owen.”

  “A lot of what?”

  “Civilians. You people just don’t know what the score is, really.”

  “Maybe not,” Owen said. “I don’t understand you at all. But maybe we can do another deal one of these days.” He held out his hand. “No hard feelings?”

  Frank shook his hand. “None at all, Owen.”

  He watched the man walk away. He’d never understand men like the trader. But he didn’t have long to ponder about him. He had to start the flow of weapons flowing. Weapons to the Saurians.

  ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES

  The preliminary analysis of the data obtained by deep exploration of the Ichtons’ arm of the galaxy was hardly reassuring to those commanding the Hawking. It appeared likely that the Ichtons had been methodically pillaging their way down their arm of the galaxy for tens of thousands of years, not just one or two millennia. Some civilian specialists even brought up the possibility that the Ichtons weren’t moving toward resources, but like the barbarians that caused Rome to fall were actually running away from something even nastier. Hawking’s officers decided to refit one of the Fleet’s few brainships for an extended probe up that arm in the hope of finding the edge of the Ichton infestation. This would give them some idea of the scope of the resources controlled by their adversaries. It would also serve a number of additional purposes that even those making the mission were not aware of.

  KILLER CURE

  by Diane Duane

  She disliked him from the first moment she saw him . . . which was not a good state of affairs, since he was her new brawn.

  Maura was MX-24993 now. She had just begun growing used to it. It wasn’t that she hadn’t liked her last brawn. She was an intelligent enough woman, and kind; but she brooded, and Maura had never been the brooding type. All her young life working with Fleet she had leaped into missions without a shade of concern for herself. She knew life was short, but hesitation and caution were not going to prolong it. Cecile, her brawn, had been an expert on the Ichtons, as much as anyone was; and she brooded. Maura had never understood why she wasted her time. Now Cecile was gone, and Maura had been called into Hawking to have the new engines installed. Also the new brawn.

  He was very young, by her standards, at least; surely no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. His records were still being uplinked to her computers, and she would have exact data later. But at the moment, she looked, and saw the young, handsome (almost too handsome), slender form, in Fleet fatigues, come striding into her control room as if he already owned it. Well, perhaps he was part owner, but it was not an auspicious beginning.

  His name was Ran Nordstrom, and he was out, apparently, from Helsinki—the city, not the planet. He was very fair, very blond, even to the eyebrows and eyelashes. The eyes were a surprise: they were very green where you expected blue, and they were frighteningly enthusiastic. That worried her. Maura had seen enthusiasm. It tended to create dead brawns. But also, at the ripe old age of two hundred she had long since put excitement and enthusiasm behind her.

  “It’s just a training run,” he was saying. Maura looked at him out of her introspection. “Oh, really,” she said. “What makes you think that?”

  “Well, I mean, look at the brief.” He cocked his head. “Twelve pages of dithering that boils down to ‘Go find somewhere where the Ichtons haven’t been.’ That’ll take us about a day, especially with the new engines. . . .” He grinned at her. Or in her general direction, the way a blind person looks more or less toward the source of a sound.

  Maura put aside her annoyance. They could teach you to look at a brain’s column while at school, but some brawns never quite got it, preferring to treat the brain as a whole ship, rather than someone located.

  “The question is,” Ran said, “where will they send us after that?”

  Maura chuckled at that. “Son, in this business, and these days especially, you learn not to look too far ahead. Just when did you graduate?”

  “Four months ago, on the Hawking.”

  Maura sighed, but kept the sound to herself. A virgin brawn. What had she done to deserve this? But she was going to have to make the best of it. And if as he said, this mission was going to take less than no time, all the better. For longer-term problems . . . well, there was always divorce if things didn’t work out. Or the Ichtons, who sometimes provided much more permanent separations.

  She would not let them anesthetize her when they put the engines in. Maura had heard all the stories about the trauma of seeing yourself operated on, but she was not convinced. She took a nerve block, yes; she shut down the neural and bioneural transmissions to the parts of her that were involved, and then watched them open up the panels and slide the black boxes in.

  They weren’t really black boxes. They were shiny silver—shells, like hers, modules; everything installed in the drive compartments and sealed away, under ultra-clean conditions.

  “There’s someone here to see you, Maura,” one of the engineers said during the installation.

  She was reading just then, and didn’t actually hear him. “Who is he? What does he want?” And how did she know it was a he?

  “Says it’s your brawn. Says he wants to see the engines go in.”

  Maura could think of several reactions to this, but suppressed most of them. “Tell him his security clearance isn’t high enough,” she said.

  The technicians guffawed. “A bit sensitive about showing him our private parts, are we?”

  Maura didn’t reply. Maybe she was. Or maybe—? She didn’t know what she thought, really. This was one of the newest technologies of Fleet, these jumper engines. Only the fastest scouts had them, and she was going to be one of the fastest, now. She was being seriously overengined for her size. They plainly meant for her to go a long, long way. How far? she wondered. And where? There was an awful lot to the galaxy. The thought of having Ran with her for who knew how many years—It was ironic to be the fastest thing on jets, and not be able to run away from your problems, because you were carrying them around inside you. . . .

  They finished with her, and she watched them finish sealing her up—making the neoneural connections. Very gingerly she felt the new engines. They felt hard and shiny and cold yet. Very slowly the fingers of her probin
g slipped inside them, like a stiff glove. She worked the logic probes around, touching the engines’ intricacies. The new cesium arsenide/cold helium circuitry was in now, that allowed the fast shunt of the Olympus engines to work the way they did. Where the usual neural current paths in the average engine felt like water running, this felt much different. Most peculiar. It had weight; it slipped in globules, like mercury, but moved faster than it should—squirted, almost—like something under pressure, at the molecular or subatomic level rather than any higher one. It was all very strange. A new feeling. . . . One was in serious danger of becoming enthusiastic about it. She set herself to doing system checks, and waited for Ran.

  He started moving his things in the next morning. It was a very small collection, for weight’s sake, as it always was—but very eclectic. He had hard books and solids and vids, and a couple of paintings, rather well done in the Neoimpressionist style; though small, as they needed to be for approval for on-ship transit.

  “I can’t wait to leave,” he said. She knew, and it made her head hurt.

  “Listen, Ran,” she said. “Have you ever seen an Ichton?”

  “The reconstruction? Yeah.” He shook his head. “Nasty buggers, but we’ll beat them.”

  “Yes, well,” she said. “I just want you to be clear about something. If we run into any, we’re not going to hang around.”

  This time he looked right at her column, with an expression of such shock that Maura almost laughed out loud. But she managed to restrain herself.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I saw the weapons they were installing in you!”

  “They’re mostly defensive,” she said. “Haven’t you read the briefings? Don’t you know the kind of armaments the Ichton ships carry? We’ve got just enough to singe their tails with, and then we run away. So don’t get any cute ideas.”