Warrior-Woman

by Mary Ann Steele

  Signe will lose her computer programmer the first time we battle our way through a set of locks, and figure I failed her. Shades of the ancients! And what's this course he's teaching? What can he know that'll help us withstand brutal accelerations? Muscle-relaxing techniques? Special routines for working out?

  "At this time, we'll proceed to the exercise hall down the corridor, where Wong will begin teaching his course," Signe commanded briskly.

  Well, I guess I'm about to find out , Morgan grumbled inwardly. Damn! but I'm bone-weary.

  Six tired men faced with acquiring a new skill assembled in a cavernous facility lined with benches and crammed at one end with exercise sets. Beholding mats spread on the deck, they pulled off their boots, and strode barefooted to the place indicated by a wave from their instructor's hand.

  Standing next to the Commander prepared to evaluate the efficacy of his presentation, Wong confronted the comrades on whose faces he read uncomprehending wariness. No whit daunted, the diminutive instructor bowed deeply, first to Signe, and then to his pupils.

  Returning his protégé's bow, Morgan strove to keep his incredulity off his face. He can't be a martial expert! Why, he's no taller than Midori … less husky than Jess!

  The instructor spoke with easy assurance. "Signe. Gentlemen. One's students deserve to know their instructor's qualifications. Signe laid on me the task of teaching you methods of meeting an attack when both adversaries are unarmed, as well as other skills. Morgan, step onto the mat to face me."

  Mastering his shock, the brawny Captain complied.

  His round, unlined face utterly serene, Wong directed, "Attack me, Morgan. Grab me, and hold me immobilized."

  Guardedly, the man thus adjured studied his opponent. The undersized teacher seemed not to have assumed the sort of offensive fighting stance Signe adopted when faced with an antagonist on whom she intended to use her art. He stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides. Unwilling to aim a blow at so small a man, the strapping contestant decided to grab Wong's arms. Advancing, he shot out both of his own, to find his reaching hands blocked as the demonstrator swiftly crossed his own.

  With a movement so rapid as to appear blurred, Wong gripped the attacker's right wrist with both hands, at the same time executing a sinuous clockwise turn with his left foot. Pain radiated up the tall warrior's arm as with unbelievable strength his antagonist pulled the captured arm across the front of his own body. Twisting the wrist, he raised the arm and ducked under it as he continued his forward movement. By the completion of the turn, Wong had released the grip maintained with his left hand. Holding Morgan's wrist with his right hand, he bent the captured arm inexorably back and down. Commanding, "Go with me," he forced his opponent's body downwards.

  Precipitated into a rolling back fall, Morgan felt the aggressor release his iron grip before his adversary touched the mat. With compelling clarity, he divined that he owed his uninjured state to that circumstance. Sitting up wide-eyed, flexing the still-hurting limb spared disabling damage by Wong's timely release, the veteran gazed in manifest disbelief at the adversary whose eyes now danced.

  Rising to tower over the wiry martial artist who so effortlessly put him to the mat, the veteran of countless sanguine battles managed a rueful grin when his raking glance detected no trace of smugness, no hint of derision, on the serene face of the instructor. In an impulsive, sportsmanlike gesture he held out his hand, and once again experienced the strength of the deceptively slight expert's grip. "That stunt convinced me that you're qualified," the redhead declared with gruff vehemence.

  Five startled spectators exchanged glances. Suppressing an urge to laugh, Signe drawled noncommittally, "Don't feel singled out, Morgan. I couldn't put Wong to the mat, and believe me, I tried my level best."

  Green eyes widened seconds before a laugh floated out on the ambient air. That unforced, hearty response won the bested contestant his new comrade's wholehearted admiration. "If you couldn't, I guess I ought to be glad he didn't tear my arm off," the brawny veteran admitted with engaging candor.

  Relieved that his calculated gamble failed to earn him the enmity of his colleague, the newcomer for the first time since his arrival felt that he stood a chance of gaining acceptance--even friendship--among veterans of whom he stood in awe.

  Signe watched with satisfaction as Wong conducted his lesson. Plans simmered in a mind adept at developing clever strategies. We've wasted no time , she assured herself, but the preparations that lie ahead! The training! Readying for a series of lightflash strikes--what a monumental challenge for people who've never flown the void!

  Well, perhaps a long delay between that first raid and the strike that will gain us new ships will lull the Columbians into assuming that our lucky snatch contented us--that we're thinking only in terms of defense. They're still boldly operating the mine on Penn's Rock, though with far more stringent precautions. Two first-class military ships at a time guard the surrounding space, commanded by captains who seem to operate under Arlen's direct command. He'll undoubtedly figure that if we attack, we'll most likely strike there, and seek to regain control of Penn's Rock.

  Two ships. Their presence so close by worries me. If Arlen had launched a strike here--targeted our two defenseless hulks, and our immobilized vessel--we'd have sustained lethally crippling damage, even though crews man the weaponry in those ships twenty-four hours a day. Arlen undoubtedly assumes that we've no means of repairing the wrecks. Conor wasted no time returning the vessel we stole to service, so that I could move it. Once we've sprayed one, I'll feel safer. Mounting a search-and-destroy mission to blast the ship we captured--cruising a vast distance from Columbia, with no base of supply--would prove direly difficult. The cost to Arlen's government would be astronomical.

  To implement such a plan, he'd need a base here. He could conceivably secure one, if he threw the whole of his fleet against us, but he knows that this time, we'd field a formidable body of seasoned fighters. If his assault force managed to gain and hold territory in the web of habitats girdling a planetoid, Arlen would find himself in the same position Norman did--afraid to employ that weaponry on any part of the web interconnecting with the banks of habitats occupied by his followers, for fear of initiating a deadly cascade of life-support failures guaranteed to result in the deaths of his own men.

  When I saw during that final advance that Norman managed to lift before we could deal him his death, I feared that he might loose a lethal pulse or two from a low orbit, before transferring into a trajectory. On reflection, though, I suspect his annihilating the habitat where his doomed men still fought would have caused an insupportable plunge in morale among his surviving Third Corpsmen. I suppose it's possible that if he'd loosed a pulse at some randomly selected target, his committing such an unnecessary, profitless, purely vengeful mass slaughter of hundreds or perhaps thousands of innocent civilians might have produced negative repercussions in Columbia itself. Besides, now that I think about it, the canny bastard wouldn't have run the risk of wasting fuel in unnecessary maneuvers right before making an interworld transit. So we escaped suffering a final vicious act of mass murder, thank all the Powers.

  I've mobilized what defense against a new invasion I can, but Arlen commands nineteen first-class ships. Two of the original twenty-four brought from Earth were lost long ago, and these two hulks now form a single spaceworthy vessel. Daunting odds, we face: almost ten to our one.

  Might Arlen be plotting an all-out offensive--a war of annihilation? With the fleet he commands, he could launch a single strike, using the massed might of his ships. He could reduce a considerable expanse of our territory to slag, and slaughter more civilians than Norman himself did. Could this military dictator actually cavil at assuming the responsibility for killing noncombatants on that grand a scale? Even Norman drew the line at committing outright genocide. Perhaps a leader who earned the wholehearted respect of a man like Dahl refuses to commit prodigies of mass murder to wage a war of extermination on a distant
world already stripped of its portable wealth.

  Time flowed by seemingly in a torrent, as Morgan oversaw the application of the microlayer, producing two rogue ships cloaked in invisibility, undetectable on the screens of either friend or enemy.

  Seated across a table from her captains in her command-center, Signe conducted a brainstorming session. "How do we communicate between the two vessels, without our broadcasts' being picked up by the military ships of the enemy?" she demanded, fixing her glance on Jassy.

  "We can't. First-class military ships receive all the bands in use commercially and militarily, and broadcast on those and others that commercial or second-class military vessels can't use. The Columbian government maintains a monopoly on the manufacture of all broadcasting equipment, as did ours. Private citizens find it impossible to gain access to the components with which to build such gear clandestinely, and the power required for deep-space transmissions renders replication of the Earth-built communications gear in a military ship impossible to the most talented individual working with stolen or home-built components, or even components provided him by his government. Since we'll have to broadcast on bands we know the enemy will receive, we'll need to use a code."

  Conor objected adamantly, "Codes get broken."

  "And they're complicated to use. I'd think men manning the boards of two ships undetectable to each other--men engaging in rapid cross-communication during a coordinated attack--would find it impossible to employ a code," Theo added, daunted by the thought of actually commanding a ship engaged in fighting highly skilled foes.

  "And developing codes would take considerable time," Sean contributed.

  Wong interjected firmly, "True, codes can be broken. Languages can't. They have to be learned."

  "Languages!" Morgan expostulated. "We've got enough to absorb, just achieving the goals we've already set ourselves, without trying to master some mind-boggling dead language!" A long forefinger stabbed empty space, targeting the originator of the notion.

  "I agree," Wong replied in placatory fashion, his own hands raised palms-out, and held for a few seconds in a gesture unconsciously conciliatory. "But Inigo and I know an obsolete tongue: one I'm certain no scholar in Columbia would be proficient at translating into the universal Earth-Standard. It's one my remote ancestors spoke on the island they inhabited on Earth. Our ten Earthyears of intensive, family-directed study included learning enough of that obscure variant of a tongue utterly unrelated to Earth-Standard, to include the expressions spacers would need to coordinate an attack. We broadcasted in that language to keep our family advised of our survival during the trip here, without tipping off Norman as to what we were attempting."

  "What if either of you were to get killed?" Eric demanded bluntly.

  Wong's placid face turned somber. "That possibility most certainly prohibits sole dependence on the two of us, but I could rig a computerized device that would transmit the commands of the man speaking into it, into our obsolete tongue, which would then be broadcasted. The similarly equipped receiver of the other ship would turn the message back into Earth-Standard for the men handling the board. We'd have to keep the commands simple, and reduce to a minimum the terms we'd employ in coordinating an attack."

  "Shades of the ancients!" Intrigued, Morgan stared at the diminutive colleague whose fanatical determination to satisfy the harsh demands his mentor's course of instruction laid on him had gained the premier warrior's unqualified admiration. "That would work!" he exclaimed. The long-fingered hand now swept out a fluidly expansive curve expressive of triumphant agreement.

  Inspiration struck Jassy. "Signe, we could use a commercial band! Their cargo spacers will likely wonder what in hell's going on, but their military ships might not even pick up our transmissions!"

  Eagerly, Wong elaborated on his proposal. "Our language is complicated by an odd factor: voice-tones alter the meaning of words. A singsong progression of sounds might seem to the Columbians to form a code, but if they recognize that it's a language, it would still be difficult for them to find anyone who's studied it. Inigo and I brought the dictionary and grammar on macrodisc. Our linguist/historian/cousin used those to teach the rudiments of the tongue to our family members. It won't take long for me to rig the computerized translator device."

  "Marvelous!" Signe exulted. "We'll have to be careful in Columbian space, to avoid colliding with vessels that can't detect us, and to coordinate our movements. Wong, your solution vastly relieves my mind."

  Warmed to his depths by that hearty commendation, the newest addition to the Commander's core staff nodded silently.

  "Where will we be descending, Signe? Squarely in the heart of the Columbian capital?" As he asked that question, Sean cocked his head, his handsome face set in that accustomed intentness which made him seem older than his twenty-six Earthyears. His wiry, graceful body, slimmer than Morgan's, if as tall, uncoiled a bit from the tense posture induced by concentration on the discussion. Absently, he ran a hand through hair dark rather than red, in an habitual gesture the twin of that so often employed by his cousin.

  "Hardly, Sean. No, if we go undetected, we'll seek out a ship docked in a remote municipal unit, and snatch one--or better yet, two. Hopefully, the increased fuel capacity that Yuri's modifications permit will enable us to make a second strike they won't in the least expect. We may or may not employ the newly stolen ship. We'll keep our battle-plan flexible. This first assault offers us the greatest chance of success, given the element of surprise. This venture will reveal our intent, and rouse the Columbians to extraordinary measures--perhaps goad them into launching a retaliatory counterstrike."

  Grim nods greeted that final observation.

  "I'm betting that they'll not quickly determine why we're invisible," Signe hastened to add. "Despite the orgy of looting in which Norman engaged, no mining family ever revealed that it produced Gaeanite, let alone apprised the brute of the value of that substance, or of its unique properties. Backs to the wall, the miners blinded him with rare metals, or perfect lab-grown crystals: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and the like. Never plentiful, Gaeanite has traditionally been produced amid an aura of secrecy. Small hoards of the mineral were the first thing mining families hid--or destroyed--when the invasion began. To my knowledge, Norman never tumbled to the fact that we possessed a substance more precious by far than niobium, tantalum, zirconium, palladium, ruthenium, platinum, diamond, or even water ice."

  "And should they guess, there's damned little they could do in a hurry to detect us," Jassy pointed out shrewdly.

  "Don't underestimate either Arlen's resourcefulness or his intellectual brilliance," Eric warned, frowning blackly.

  "I don't," the Commander shot back. "I'm assuming that eventually he'll nullify that advantage. That near-certainty makes speedy attainment of our goals essential." Rising, Signe cast a transfiguring smile on her advisors. "Gentlemen: my compliments on the monumental effort you've all exerted, and on the quality of the leadership you've exhibited." Those concluding words seemed to each hearer to be directed solely to him. Subtle signs in the way each man held himself as he departed assured the intent observer of her officers' renewed commitment to all but unattainable goals.

  Pain broke forcibly from the depths where the warrior customarily imprisoned it. You'll lose some of them , she cried in her mind. Perhaps all. You'll win--if you manage that feat--at a terrible price. Can you pay it, and think the gain worth the cost? Can you, woman?

  Hatred blended with sorrow, as old, still-vivid memories rose unbidden to ravage the Gaean Commander's emotional balance. Those searing reflections precipitated an inner struggle of titanic proportions: a brief, fierce battle that left the woman shaken, but victorious. Thrusting all thought of herself out of her consciousness, she resolutely turned to the problems at hand, focusing her mind firmly on the future.

  During eight fourweeks of strenuous labor, Signe gained vastly increased proficiency herself as she coached her captains, and later oversaw the trainin
g of a corps of spacers who learned to program flight paths, lift and descent sequences, and orbits. The crews next performed complicated maneuvers in the two black ships. Exhibiting cool daring, the legendary warrior created and mastered a dangerous technique for docking an undetectable lifeboat on the eerily disembodied, unsprayed lock visible on the mothership once its Gaeanite-coated lifeboat lifted. Captains who only lately learned new skills schooled their subordinates in the art of flying ordinary lifeboats. Miraculously, no captain or would-be spacer died during that indoctrination¾a circumstance that Morgan stoutly attributed to the efficacy of the program of instruction perfected by the Commander.

  At the moment he agreed to follow Signe into a new and forbidding realm, Eric conquered his initial fear. As ready as Jassy--or any of his comrades--to subordinate personal ambition to the overriding good of the population as a whole, the Captain older than any of his peers harbored no qualms at the idea of role-reversal. He accepted instruction from the woman whom his long training had turned into a matchless swordsman as willingly as he had formerly taught her.

  The extended span of youthful vigor conferred by the medical and nutritional science of his day enabled this man born sixty-six Earthyears earlier to equal far younger men and women in the suppleness of his body, the swiftness of his reflexes, the quickness of his mind. Resolutely banishing his purely psychological apprehensions, the supremely athletic veteran of ten Earthyears of gory fighting on the surface met the physical challenge facing him.

  A born teacher, the Captain undertook to impart to the men and women of his crew the skill he had so recently acquired. In the process, he discovered that a delicate-seeming female crewmember far outdistanced any of the others at gaining proficiency in handling a lifeboat. Reporting to the Commander, Eric hid none of his intense satisfaction as he demonstrated the innate generosity of spirit his superior so admired in him.