by John F. Carr
“I’ll tell her. I’m sure she’ll be proud.”
“I’m not. But she’ll be –justified, I think. That’s very important to Alysha. I suppose it’s important to a lot of people, these days.”
Adderly turned at the top of the steps, where two more Marines opened the door. He looked up at the clouds.
“It’s peculiar, but I can’t stop thinking about them, the Saurons, I mean.”
There being nothing to say, Commander Harold listened.
“They’re dying,” Adderly continued, almost to himself. “And they can’t understand why they’re dying. They think they’ve been outfought, and they have. But they’ll convince themselves it was some flaw in their battle plan. It will never occur to them that the cold logic of the ultimate Soldier was simply no match for the heart of the Beast.”
He turned and held out his hand. “Goodbye, Jack.”
The two men shook hands and Adderly felt the expected packet pressed into his palm.
“The men of the King George V wanted you to know they appreciated what you did for Captain Lester and the bridge crew.” Harold swallowed. “Goodbye, Captain Adderly.”
Adderly smiled. “Will,” he corrected him.
Adderly had turned when Harold called him back. “Will?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yes? Something?”
“Captain, I’m twenty-two years old and I’m a full commander. It’s not hard to guess why, and knowing why, it’s not likely I’ll see twenty-three. It’s what you said, about how First Rank Diettinger treated you. I’d like to know: what are the Saurons really like? I only know the propaganda ministry stuff; but you’ve seen them up-close, talked to one. What’s it like to actually look into the face of the enemy?”
Adderly turned and looked at the jungle-choked hills in the distance, rife with some of the most dangerous predators in known space. He had hunted there once, on an absurdly dangerous dare. Closer in, on the far side of the compound, was the building that held the Board of Inquiry. He almost laughed aloud, thinking of how much safer that jungle looked to him now.
The beasts have come down from the hills…
A flagpole in front of the Board’s offices bore a tired banner, its faint movement in the sultry Tanith air reminded him of a dying bird. As he drew closer, Adderly saw it was the flag of the Empire of Man.
Dying; already dead? Or is it too much to ask that it might just be asleep?
Adderly said nothing for a very long time. Finally he turned his gaze back to meet Commander Harold’s.
“With enemies like the Saurons, Jack,” he said quietly, “you don’t need friends.”
Then he went back up the stairs and into the stockade, a Marine on either side to escort him to his cell.
Part Two
THE EYE CLOSES
Chapter Ten
I
Sauron 2550, A.D.
Voices in the darkness:
“…is Sauron Traffic Control to Intruders. Initiate your recognition transponders or you will be fired on. This is Sauron Traffic Control to Intruders…”
Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger’s head lolled against the backrest of his acceleration couch, twin lines of tears streaking his face; those running from beneath his eye patch tinged with blood. The hideous disorientation called Jump Lag made all humans sick, most drool, and some rare few go mad. In Diettinger’s case his eyes watered like fonts. His ship, the Talon-class heavy cruiser Fomoria drifted from the Alderson Jump Point just beyond the outermost orbital path of Sauron System’s planets; the Homeworld was still four days away at maximum thrust. Several hundred kilometers off SNS Fomoria’s port bow, the Sauron battleship Damaris drifted on the same heading. Both vessels were returning from a military debacle at the Imperial world of Tanith.
Where the last of the Sauron First Fleet was no doubt being torn to pieces at this very moment, Diettinger thought miserably. The warning came again; the Homeworld took no chances these days.
The genetically-engineered super humans known as the Sauron Race were better than normal humans at everything; they couldn’t help it—they couldn’t even take credit for it. They were, literally, made that way. But Jump Lag was the great equalizer. Its effects passed away completely, but they did so in their own good time, whether the victim was a Sauron or a micro-gravity quadriplegic. Computers fared even worse, and animals were known to simply lie down and die.
But no crew suffered from Jump Lag forever; the longest timed duration of the effect was twenty-four minutes and seventeen seconds, a record that had stood for seventy-three years. As a result, all ships entering Sauron System were given the benefit of the doubt—an extra five minutes and forty-three seconds. At thirty minutes and one second after entry from the Jump Point, or immediately upon initiating maneuvering engines, questionable ships were intercepted by the Sauron System Defense Network.
Or so went the drill in peacetime.
When at war, as now, the Sauron System Defense Network would begin firing on the Fomoria and the Damaris after twenty-four minutes and thirty seconds. Neither identification markings nor their Sauron configuration would save them at that point; expert military historians, Saurons knew full well the value of the Trojan horse.
So Diettinger turned his remaining eye toward the Jump clock, a simple spring-driven timepiece set into the bulkhead beside the deactivated bridge computer. Artificial brains fared worse from Jump Lag than carbon ones and so had to be shut down before the Jump or be utterly ruined. The clock was wound and zeroed out by the Jump Watch Officer, then activated simultaneously upon the initiation of the Jump itself; it now read 00:23:58.
The Fomoria was nearing a record for Jump lag: twenty-three minutes and fifty-eight seconds. Not a record Diettinger wanted. In twenty-three seconds, Sauron’s planetary and asteroid-based defense systems would reduce both Fomoria and Damaris to glittering debris. Diettinger’s mind was clearing faster now, the Jump-induced nausea receding into memory. Around him, other members of the bridge crew were still in the thrall of the Jump Lag. The clock now read 00:24:02.
A response pad was beneath Diettinger’s fingers; a hint of pressure to apply the fingerprints of his living hand and the channel would be opened to Homeworld defense at the Alderson Point. Were he even unable to speak, the Fomoria’s code transmission would instantly identify her as a Sauron vessel, and Sauron’s alerted system defense stations would stand down.
He looked at the pad; his hand above it might have been a waxwork. Experimentally, he tried to flex his fingers; they waggled with the fluid grace unique to Saurons.
00:24:05
Reaching out, Diettinger placed his fingers once more over the pad. Nothing. 00:24:09. He clenched his fist, raised his arm and shook it, returned it to its place above the response pad, and, as before, found that he could not seem to move it.
00:24:14
So much simpler this way, a part of him said. Wait. Another seventeen seconds, and the missiles and beams and fighters and mines and mass drivers of the Homeworld Alderson Point defense will converge on the Fomoria. They will ignore any attempts at contact made after the cutoff time, of course. Why? Because that is the procedure. That is the way the system works, and the system is a product of the finest military minds in the history of the human race. One might acknowledge such a system’s imperfections, but only to negligible degrees; indeed, those flaws provided justification for such rigid adherence to policy.
00:24:21
Wait, and put all this behind you. The inertia of the High Command: the mindless confidence that had committed the entirety of the Sauron fleet to what now must surely be a slaughter at the hands of the Imperials. The decisions made by committees who had forgotten the vision of Sauron, and were blinded to the inevitable.
00:24:25
Wait, and let it end without your having to see it, his war-weary mind said. Yet he reached for the response pad.
Before his fingers could touch it, the communications panel crackled: “Sauron Traffic Control,
this is Vessel First Rank Emory of the Sauron Battleship SNS Damaris. The Sauron Heavy Cruiser SNS Fomoria is riding off our starboard bow. Our transponder code transmissions are incoming to your station now.”
After another few seconds, Diettinger keyed his own response pad as well. He had forgotten about the Damaris. After receiving the acknowledgment of his signal from Traffic Control, he sat back and looked around the bridge once more. Other than himself, only his first officer, Second Rank Althene Adame, appeared to have recovered from the Jump Lag. She was watching him impassively, and as she turned back to her station, he wondered how long she had been doing so. Looking past her arm, he saw that the cover of her own response pad was opened.
“Ah, well,” he said to himself. He began to signal the various command stations to check in.
II
Fomoria eased into orbit with Damaris trailing twenty-seven kilometers behind. Several orbiting dry docks were already matching velocities to refuel and rearm both vessels. The warships were receiving priority treatment because they were the only Jump-capable Sauron vessels in the Home System; everything else had been committed to the battle at Tanith.
Ahead of the dry docks, a formation of cargo shuttles were on an intercept course with the Fomoria; Diettinger’s Communications officer identified them: “Medical supply shuttles, First Rank. They are here to offload the borloi seized at Tanith.”
Diettinger had almost forgotten that his original mission at Tanith had been to secure the Imperial planet’s yearly harvest of the powerful narcotic borloi; the only known substance potent enough to anesthetize a Sauron for surgery. Well; no doubt we’ll be needing it in the weeks to come…
“Confirm their signal and stabilize orbital velocity. Notify all bays to begin zero-G cargo transfer.”
Communications Rank frowned at a new signal. “Additional signal incoming, First Rank.” He patched the signal through to the panel in Diettinger’s acceleration couch.
“Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger,” the face on Diettinger’s screen looked familiar, “You are to report for immediate debriefing by the Sauron High Command Council. A shuttle is en route to your projected position; ETA, seventy-four minutes from this mark.”
Diettinger’s staff would not be summoned, since Saurons relied on the ability of commanders to assimilate and assess information from their subordinates before reporting to superiors. In their quest to breed a superior human genotype, the Saurons had thus achieved one small triumph for humanity—they had virtually eliminated bureaucrats.
“Affirm. Action by the Damaris under Vessel First Rank Emory was crucial to the success of our mission; shall I send one of Fomoria’s shuttles to collect her for the debriefing?”
“Negative, Vessel First Rank Diettinger. Separate arrangements have been made for Vessel First Rank Emory. You will proceed immediately to the rendezvous, now seventy-three minutes from this mark.”
The signal was abruptly cut off, and Diettinger realized why the face had looked familiar. Engaged on all fronts, with every battle a struggle for survival, Sauron’s most precious military assets were now her Cyborg Super Soldiers; yet the person speaking to him in the name of the High Command had been a Cyborg.
What the devil are they doing here? he asked himself. And by what authority are they speaking for the High Command Council?
Fomoria was in the grips of a boarding action, and she was losing. Fully two dozen shuttles were standing off her bows awaiting their turn to dock, while another dozen were already clustered around her gaping bays as teams of Saurons worked furiously to off-load the precious borloi. Seventy minutes had passed since the Cyborg had notified him of his summons to the debriefing, and now Diettinger stood in the airlock of Hangar Bay Four while a borloi-laden cargo shuttle eased away from its moorings. The shuttle banked to starboard and fell away toward the atmosphere below, revealing the cutter which was coming for him on its final approach. The cutter sliced past the cargo shuttle and missed colliding with it by two meters.
“Looks like a fair pilot for you today, First Rank,” Fighter Rank Severin commented dryly. Today’s duty officer at the hangar, Severin was an excellent pilot in his own right.
Diettinger consulted his parietal-implant chronometer, as the cutter’s three landing skids touched down simultaneously—it had been exactly seventy-four minutes—and grunted an acknowledgment of Severin’s appraisal. He didn’t wonder why such a gifted individual wasn’t serving on the line; any Sauron pilot was capable of such simple coordination. It was the accuracy within hundredths of a second that made him uneasy. The moment he entered the cutter, his suspicion was confirmed.
The pilot did not turn to greet him; gray eyes flickered to the mirror mounted over the viewscreen. “Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger,” the Cyborg declared; it was an identification, not a question or even an acknowledgment.
Diettinger nodded, buckling the acceleration couch seat belt. The cutter was lifting, backing out of the hangar bay even before the hatch had sealed.
“Secure your acceleration straps, Vessel First Rank Diettinger,” the Cyborg instructed him.
Diettinger looked up, his one good eye locking with the mirrored gaze of the pilot. Cyborgs had never before been assigned pilot-duty to carry Sauron-norms; their much greater high-G tolerance made them incompatible with non-Cyborg passengers, to say the least. But Diettinger had not risen so far nor lived so long without a healthy prudence, and he strapped himself in with the high-G restraints. Securely.
They want to talk to me right away, I see. The weight of the acceleration began pressing him into the chair. There can’t have been any news of the outcome of the battle at Tanith, not yet. Faster-than-light travel had made man an interstellar species, but nothing could transmit his messages faster than he himself could physically carry them. No matter how disastrous such news might be… Diettinger had no doubt that Morgenthau’s refusal to withdraw from Tanith space in the face of overwhelming Imperial naval superiority was even now creating at best a military fiasco; at worst, it was sealing the fate of the Homeworld itself.
They will not like what I have to tell them.
The sensation of his own weight increased; years in space and in high-G combat, told him they had passed the seven-G point. No human norm had ever remained conscious past ten gravities, no Sauron norm past fourteen. Cyborgs nodded off at eighteen-Gs. Diettinger had no inclination to prove anything to his pilot; he willingly let himself drift into the void as the cutter passed fourteen-point-five-gravities.
It still troubled him greatly that it was a Cyborg who now chauffeured him planetside. His last thought before oblivion was that Cyborg shuttle pilots meant that the High Command was either humbling the Super Soldiers—no bad thing given their already-growing influence over all Sauron policy—or that they had become utterly dependent on them—a very bad thing indeed.
Chapter Eleven
Diettinger stood facing the nine members of the Sauron High Command Council: all of whom appeared to be in good spirits. All of whom were evidently convinced that Diettinger would bring them news of an impending decisive victory in the long war against the Empire; and three of whom—despite years of governmental assurances that they would never be allowed to partake in policy decisions—were Cyborgs.
“Welcome, Vessel First Rank Galen Diettinger,” the First Citizen and head of the High Command greeted him. “Be seated. You are commander of the Sauron Heavy Cruiser Fomoria, which, accompanied by the Sauron Battleship Damaris under the command of Vessel First Rank Mara Emory, returned today from a major engagement in the Empire’s Tanith system.”
“That is correct, First Citizen.”
The First Citizen glanced down at his data screen set into the surface of the table before him. “Your mission at Tanith was to secure for our medical branch several metric tons of the natural narcotic borloi. In this mission you were successful, incidentally capturing an Imperial battlecruiser—the Canada—which was sacrificed in an ensuing engagement to destroy an I
mperial Battleship, the Aleksandr Nevsky.”
“Yes, First Citizen.” Diettinger had barely completed his report on the engagement and submitted it before his summons. Alderson Jumps were instantaneous, but traveling to and from Jump Points was an often roundabout process which could take hours, weeks or even months. Fomoria and Damaris had been in combat in the Tanith system less than twenty days ago.
“You spoke with Fleet First Rank Morgenthau upon his arrival with the flag battleship Sauron and the First Fleet; your report indicates that he is currently engaging the last intact full-strength fleet of the Empire at this moment.”
“I cannot claim to know it is the last Imperial fleet of such strength, First Citizen. I can only state that upon leaving Tanith space, the Sauron task force was about to be attacked by over three hundred capital ships of the Empire. I have never seen so large an Imperial force at one time.”
The First Citizen broached the ghost of a smile. “Nor are you likely to, ever again,” he said, looking up. He frowned. “What happened to your eye?”
Diettinger relayed that he had lost his left eye to a desperate act of defiance by the human-norm commander of the Canada, Captain William Adderly.
The First Citizen stared at him for a moment, then continued. “Do you know why Fleet First Rank Morgenthau ordered Damaris to return to Sauron with you?”
“At the time he gave the order,” Diettinger stated, “the Sauron First Fleet of approximately two hundred ships was more than sufficient for the conquest of Tanith; it wasn’t until Fomoria and Damaris were almost at the Jump Point that the Imperial reinforcements began to arrive. Vessel First Rank Emory requested permission for Damaris to rejoin the First Fleet at Tanith, but Fleet First Rank Morgenthau refused to allow her to do so.”