Battlestations

by S. M. Stirling

  She couldn’t take credit for the best of the spirit-raising. The morale laureate belonged jointly to Lyseo and Driscoll Strind, Jill’s self-confessed knight in denim armor and the most popular audio jock in the ship. Strind, with his cool head and calming, deep baritone voice, maintained order and restored perspective on his daily show, and wasn’t afraid to go all the way to the top brass to get answers his listeners needed to have. Strind had credibility shipwide. He was Jill’s fervent supporter and unmentioned second choice for the instruction videos.

  It might have been easier if she had simply approached the paladin first. Getting Lyseo to buckle down and recite the words in the simple script was a lot harder than she had even feared it might be.

  “There are three hundred laser ports on the surface of this vessel,” Lyseo complained, eyeing the minute gunnery chamber in the rear of the “south pole’s” food service center. “Or so this uninspired missal tells me. Why choose this dreary outlet for me to do my piece?”

  “Because it’s well out of the way of daily operations, and ninety percent of the extant installations match the configuration or have elements in common with this one, including those aboard commissioned attack vessels,” replied Gunnery Captain Thano Carrin, Jill’s official consultant on the project. He was what she classified as “regular army,” a specimen of the by-God, by-the-book military mind. “We want the information conveyed in this exercise to have the widest utility.”

  Lyseo winced, and Jill stepped in to translate. “You mean most of them look like this one,” she said. Carrin nodded.

  “Right. All the low-power gunports are identical. All that’s needed when the alert sounds is for the person or persons closest to the port to strap in and connect the communicator to his, her, or its aural appendages, and fire away at the bugs—on command from the battle bridge, of course. They’re really very simple to use. Anyone could do it.”

  “If anyone can,” Lyseo said dangerously, “then get anyone. Anyone else.”

  Carrin turned red with impatience. Kem Thoreson leaped in to the rescue. “Yeah, but no one can show them how to do it better than you can, Ari. Go on.”

  Jill recognized Lyseo in a difficult mood, and stepped in. “Let’s get the take done quickly, and get it over with, shall we?” she suggested.

  With a calibration visor strapped around her head and resting firmly on her beak, the Nedge camerawoman set up holopoints around the inside of the gun turret, then placed a small, circular red light near the end of the sights and one to the side of the chamber next to the controls. “If you face the one that lights up, Master Lyseo, we’ll be able to synch captioned credits in the edit.”

  Lyseo took his place in the gun emplacement and adjusted the seat to fit his frame. With a wink at Jill, he slipped on the communications gear and settled back. Captain Carrin pulled a headset from a wall niche and put it on.

  “I’m taking the place of the battle bridge, citizen,” he said. A tinny echo of his voice was audible from Lyseo’s earphones. “I’ll tell you what to do and give you target sightings to fire at. This is what you’d hear if this were an actual attack.”

  Lyseo nodded and tapped the earpiece with a long forefinger, the little gesture dynamic with focused energy. The actor’s whole stance depicted fear, determination, and excitement all at once. Jill began to feel a sense of urgency, as if there were a real battle going on, and he was part of it. That was Lyseo’s gift. He could make even a make-believe situation seem real and exciting.

  Carrin ran him through the mechanics of operating the gun and how to read the screens. The actor was a quick study, picking up the mechanics accurately after one or two essays. “You are number 231. The Ichton ships fly slowly, but you have to take into account the fact that you’re on a ship moving many times that of your opponent. Your own speed can ruin your aim, so unless you’re an ace, let the targeting computer follow your mark. Once you’ve acquired your target and the computer locks on and verifies you have an enemy ship, not an ally, fire using the hand control.”

  Lyseo nodded, his eyes sweeping the skies and the tiny screen at eye level for imaginary enemy craft.

  Carrin burst out suddenly, “Number 231, enemy at 245 degrees, 1500 klicks off center! Target and destroy!”

  The gunner’s head went up, eager eyes sweeping the darkness to the left of center. His laser’s muzzle followed as he moved the hand controls, tracking the enemy craft. There was a muffled beeping as the computer locked on to a piece of space debris. Carrin glanced at the heads-up display to make certain that Lyseo’s target wasn’t live, then shouted, “Fire!”

  The red tracer beam lanced out of the gun, striking the fragment of rock and ice, which exploded in a glorious display of white and hot yellow. “Well done, 231,” Carrin congratulated him. Lyseo’s shoulders relaxed.

  The cinematographer signaled him to begin his lines. “To insure the continued defense of this space station and our newfound allies, the civilian and military administrations of the Hawking want you to know how to operate the defensive emplacements aboard the station and its attendant vessels when our commissioned comrades are wounded or disabled.”

  He swung around toward the second camera spot, raising a hand for a sweeping gesture. “Our numbers are few, but our spirit is great. You are a vital—OW!” The hand had whisked up past his chest and smacked solidly into the edge of the bulkhead. Lyseo curled up over his hand, hissing.

  “Cut,” the Nedge squawked into her throat mike. “Are you all right, citizen?”

  “Confound it!” he shouted, his voice echoing in the metal-walled corridor. Jill winced. “Why are we using such a miserably small cubbyhole as this?”

  “It’s a typical laser station,” Carrin replied, a little bewildered.

  “I can’t work in here,” the star declared. “There isn’t room for me. Look at my hand!” There was a dark purple bruise like a whip mark coming up across the back of Lyseo’s palm. His knuckles were white.

  “It should be all right, citizen,” the Nedge said imperturbably, “if you keep your gestures small. Do you want to start again?”

  “Why in blazes should I? This isn’t Shakespeare or Eerk Kraakknek.”

  “Perhaps another location, with more elbow room, would be the answer?” Jill offered. She smiled hopefully at Lyseo. Her hope of getting the filming over in just a few takes was fast becoming a forlorn one. The crew gathered up the equipment and followed Captain Carrin to the next laser port. A Khalian gunner recognized the great Lyseo first and the captain’s bars on the officer consultant second, and scrambled out of his seat with whiskers a-twitch.

  Lyseo climbed into the seat and looked around him. “No.” He crossed his arms, refusing even to put on the headset. “The lighting in here is dismal. I want another one.”

  “What?” Captain Carrin demanded. “This one is fine. It’s big enough to jump rope in.”

  “I have full creative control,” Lyseo reminded him. “Take me to a suitable setting, or let me go back to my dressing room. I have other engagements.”

  The little Khalian looked disappointed until the actor patted him on the back. “It’s not your fault, little friend. Fortunes of war, fortunes of war, that is all.”

  The Khalian brightened, but he was the only happy being in the corridor. Resigned, the camera crew loaded up and trudged down the beltway, stopping at each laser port. Lyseo found something to complain of in each one, and rejected them in turn.

  “I swear that if you’re marching us around the perimeter just to get a rise out of us, I’ll make the camera tech save all the takes and beam them straight back to the Alliance,” Jill said warningly.

  “I am quite serious about finding just the right place to make your dull little video,” Lyseo replied. “It could only be your charms, raven-winged maiden, that led me to agree to such a tedious proposal. It will waste all the rest of my day and most of my night.”

  “Only if you don’t cooperate,” Jill observed. “We’re only days out of E
mry space. We don’t have a lot of time to waste on theatrics, not especially yours.”

  “You wound me,” Lyseo said plaintively. “I serve Art. Wouldn’t you prefer that these videos be of the highest caliber that may be achieved? I promise the next setting we choose will be the last.”

  “All right.” Jill allowed herself to be mollified.

  “Yellow alert,” the loudspeaker said as they emerged from the lift on the next level. “Yellow alert. Ion trails from Ichton-type ships have been detected in this area. Please stand by for any further instructions. That is all.”

  Well, that wasn’t terribly surprising. The system had to be full of Ichton spoor, from the ships that had retreated from the battle with the Fleet. The indicators ran on automatic, sending the alarm directly to the computer without relaying it first through a living operator. The announcement repeated in several languages and on screens at the lift stations. Jill mentally crossed her fingers that the shrinks and the paladins were ready for another panic attack. The passengers waiting for the lift immediately looked nervous. One of them abandoned the queue and hurried down the aisle toward a cross-corridor. The others muttered among themselves as they boarded.

  “Everyone’s nervous,” Jill commented. “There shouldn’t be another Ichton for light-years around us.”

  “Every moment, it becomes more vital to strengthen our defense,” observed Lyseo, carefully watching the faces of the people who passed him. The crew stopped a robot transport vehicle going toward the nearest laser ports and loaded the equipment aboard. Lyseo shook his head at the first few, all occupied by gunnery staff on alert, then, to Jill’s surprise, nodded thoughtfully at the fourth. She signaled the robot brain to stop and let them off.

  “What do you think, citizen?” asked the Nedge. “Will it do?”

  “Plenty of room to swing about in,” the actor said, surveying the alcove more closely, “even for my overblown posturing. Well lit, clean, almost ideal.”

  “I’ll settle for almost,” Jill said, and turned to the crew. “Set up, please. I’ll clear things with the gunners.”

  Like the Khalian on the upper level, the two human female officers were delighted to make way for the great Lyseo.

  “Will anyone be able to tell it was our port he sat in?” one asked. “Maybe if you let me leave the picture of my mother in it? She runs the arcade on Blue Fourteen. She’d be so proud.”

  “Certainly,” the actor replied, glancing at the small holo of a middle-aged woman in a smock. “Her image will act as a reminder of those for whom we are fighting, and why we must succeed.”

  Both sergeants giggled and sighed while he clambered into the cockpit and strapped in. The emplacement was twice as wide as most of the others to make room for a second laser and operator.

  Carrin hooked himself up to the corridor-side headset and ran Lyseo through the operations once again. Lyseo checked the mechanism of the new weapon, getting used to the differences between its action and the one with which he had worked before. When the actor nodded that he was ready, Carrin started him off with mock targets. The Nedge muttered quiet directions to her crew. She made quiet clicking sounds of approval to herself as Lyseo provided them with good action shots full of expression that also showed clearly how the hands were placed, and what use should be made of the monitors and computer.

  “Gunner 198,” Carrin barked, “target coming around to you at 90—that’s three o’clock, mister—maximum range.”

  “I hear you, sir,” Lyseo responded, swiveling the laser to meet it.

  “Red alert,” the computerized voice announced over the tannoy. “Red alert. All crew to battle stations. All civilians to secured areas. Ichton fighters approaching. Red alert.”

  Jill slammed her palm against a wall-mounted communicator. “Battle bridge, this is Lieutenant FarSeeker. What’s going on out there?”

  The reply crackled through the speaker. “A bunch of orphan fighters without a mother ship, Lieutenant. Looks like they’re on a suicide mission to do what damage they can because they can’t get away. Secure to quarters or battlestation. Out.”

  “Out,” she replied.

  Jill’s eyes widened. A sneak attack! The Ichtons must have set up an ambush inside the Oort cloud surrounding the system. People and vehicles hurried in all directions through the wide hall, rushing toward their stations. An alarm went off, and there was shouting and the squeal of straining machinery.

  “Target destroyed, sir,” Lyseo told the headset microphone crisply, and Carrin nodded in response, as lost in playacting as the dramatist himself.

  On the small amber screen under Lyseo’s nose, the unmistakable formation of Ichton fighters moved into target range The first sign of them that was visible to the naked eye was the gleam of the small lights at the extremes of each small ship.

  “Multiple targets approaching at 135 degrees, 10,000 klicks from center,” Carrin recited automatically, and stopped, surprised, as he realized that this enemy was real. One of the gunners sprang into her seat and strapped in. “Get him out of there,” she barked, gesturing at the actor.

  “Sir, may I take over for you now?” the other gunner asked, holding out her hand to the actor.

  “I have it!” Lyseo announced, tracking it with his laser and paying no attention to the young woman. The chair swiveled around and downward.

  Startled, the officer glanced at Carrin for orders. Carrin looked at Jill. Jill shrugged. There were 256 laser emplacements arrayed about the Hawking. Sixty or more were covering this quadrant of the space station’s defenses. If one was manned by a neophyte, it shouldn’t hurt anything. Carrin nodded once, sharply, giving approval. The camera crew, who had started to take down their equipment, hastily reconnected everything.

  “Steady . . . steady,” Lyseo admonished his targeting computer. “Hold it right there, you! Yes! Permission to fire?”

  “Given,” Carrin said, hearing the word echoed a second later on the helmet from the battle bridge. Lyseo squeezed the trigger, causing the red beam to lance out into the darkness. Other red needles joined it, converging on a target a long way off. There was a tiny explosion of white that bloomed and winked out.

  “He got one,” the Nedge said excitedly. “Well done, citizen!” The crew cheered.

  Lyseo wasn’t listening. With the single-mindedness for which he was famous, he had immersed himself in what he was doing, and doing it incredibly well for having had only one lesson, Jill thought.

  The Hawking’s fighters scrambled within seconds, and green dots joined the white ones on the small amber screen. Lyseo’s chair swung first one way and another as he lined up on targets. He shot at several more, but the computer confirmed no other kills besides the first one. Dozens of red tracer lights lanced out alongside his, searching for the touch of Ichton craft. The Fleet fighters were also getting kills several seconds before the gunners’ eyes registered that their targets weren’t out there anymore. White fire bloomed occasionally from above or below them as a plasma torpedo launched from the larger cannon at the Hawking’s poles.

  There were fewer than sixty Ichton fighters. In minutes, the battle was at an end. The loudspeaker announced that the enemy had been destroyed, and the siren emitted two blasts for all clear. The corridor was filled with cheers and hoots of relief. Jill was relieved, too. The Hawking could defend herself, in an emergency. She hoped she never had to live through it again.

  Lyseo fell back in the chair with a gasp, as if he had been swimming underwater. He glanced up at the camera at his shoulder, which was still recording.

  “There,” he said, drawing himself up with dignity. “Now, if I can do it, anyone can do it.”

  “Wonderful,” crowed the Nedge.

  “That was really well done, sir,” one of the gunners said. He turned to look at her. “You’ve got a natural eye for it.”

  Surprised eyebrows arched into his hairline, Lyseo glanced over at Jill, who raised her hands and began to applaud. She was joined by Carrin, the film cr
ew, and the two gunners.

  “Encore!” Jill called, her eyes filled with mischief. “Encore!”

  “My dear young lady,” he said, grinning at her affectionately, “Lyseo never repeats himself.” Unbuckling the straps, he eased himself out of the seat and stretched. “That was a fascinating experience, citizens, but I have no wish to repeat it. Besides, I have an appointment.” He took Jill’s arm and steered her away toward the nearest lift.

  “Where are we going?” Jill asked, looking over her shoulder at the crew. The Nedge cocked her head, asking for permission. Helplessly, Jill nodded back. The crew began to put away the equipment. There was plenty of good footage, and it would make a dynamic training video. There was the ring of truth in every single frame. The first chance she got, she’d call up Driscoll Strind and leak news of the video to him. People would be clamoring to see it before they thought about the fact it was meant to drag them out to do active duty. There might be a number of volunteer gunners, all Lyseo fans who wanted to emulate their idol.

  As for Lyseo himself? “Come, my dear,” he urged, escorting her into the lift. “If we hurry, you can catch my next surprise performance. I’m planning to have a duel in the video library. Data cubes at thirty paces. My opponent takes a dive on the fourth toss.” He grinned, the lazy, magnificent smile that Jill loved. “I always prefer to fight battles that I know I’m going to win.”

  THE LAST RESERVE

  Napoleon is often quoted as saying that the army with the last reserve wins the battle. After three days orbiting the Emry system, it was apparent to Anton Brand that without his introducing some new factor they would be unable to drive the Ichtons away from the already-battered Emry home world.