He looked bitter. "You can program anything. Don't like fat people? Zap." He cocked one finger like a gun as he spoke. "Myopia? Pow. Sickle ceEtrait? Zowie. Just tweak the program and kill off the defecnyes of your choice."
Blair looked at Wilford. The Nazi analogy seemed closer than ever. "Do you think the Kilrathi are involved? They used some* pretty noxious bio-weaps on us the last years of the war."
Clivers, overhearing Blairs question, shook his head. "I don't think so. Those Cat plagues were all designed to depopulate. No subtlety at all. This seems slightly different. More advanced technology. More malevolent, if that's possible."
Blair looked at Wilford. "What do we do?"
Wilford looked tired and much older as he wrestled with the implications of the attack. "We'll jump into Telamon, and do what we can for the victims. Well also try to find out who did this." His shoulders sagged. "This takes precedence over everything, including me war. If one shuttle should escape, carrying this… thing, it could spread throughout the human worlds, including the Confederation. We have to stop it. Now."
Clivers' head in the viewscreen nodded emphatically. "The local defense forces have been enforcing a blockade up till now. They've shot down about thirty ships, all infected. Most of the pilots are subject to the disease as well, and there aren't enough ground crew to service the fighters they have left. They're fading fast."
"Got it," Wilford replied. He looked at his aide de camp, whose face was pale as a sheet. "Order all personnel back to their ships, and make ready to move the fleet to Telamon." He paused. "Transfer as many of those new Hellcats over from the Princeton as we can fit. Then move whatever Rapiers and Ferrets we can to the escort carriers. Their groups suffered pretty heavily in yesterday's attack."
Wilford looked at the doctor. "We're sending teams of volunteers to help."
Clivers laughed harshly. "Don't bother, Admiral, unless you want them to die too. Just keep this from going anywhere else."
Wilford nodded heavily, the weight of the universe literally on his shoulders. "Then, son," he said, "there really isn't much I can do for you. Have you any family, anyone you want us to contact?"
Clivers smiled sadly, "Once. Remember, I'm from Sirius."
Blair looked at the image of the volunteer doctor and understood now why he had volunteered for all but certain death. The Sirius colonies had been annihilated during the Kilrathi offensive against Earth. When everything is gone… Blair understood the death wish; Death had flirted with him all too often.
"No, Admiral, there's no one now," Clivers said, "but thank you." He closed the contact, ending the message.
They stood a long time in a gloomy circle. The aide was the first to break the silence. "Admiral, what about the Princeton?"
Blair thought it took Wilford an unusually long time to answer. "Send her and two escorts to Orestes system," he said. "I'll contact Richards and get a top priority for her repair. We'll also try to fit out a crew there. She won't be much good to us for a while, but she'll get in the fight eventually."
Blair saw the old admiral was mouthing the words, but that his heart wasn't in it. Wilford turned away, his shoulders sagging, and walked out of the CIC. Blair assumed his place in the command chair. It wasn't until the shuttles bringing the Intrepid's crew were in the landing cycle that it occurred to Blair that he had no handler. He was, for the first time, truly in command of the Intrepid. He wondered how long it would take for one to show up.
Blair looked down on the blue and green cloud-covered world of Telamon. It looks so beautiful and so peaceful from up here, he mused, it's hard to believe the world's dying.
The huge losses to DRT had, as predicted, triggered secondary epidemics. Virulent influenza proliferated as water treatment facilities failed and insects swarmed on the millions of uncovered, uncollected dead. The secondary epidemics, bred in the mutated cells of the dying, spread like wildfire among the weakened population.
The Intrepid's CAP had been focused inward, shooting down any craft that sought to escape from Telamon. It was heartbreaking work, both for the pilots who did the killing and for the commanders who knew what the inhabitants faced. Rescue shuttles and relief ships entered the planet's atmosphere to land supplies and relief workers. The fighters destroyed the ships as soon as they unloaded, preventing them from being used to attempt an escape that might spread the infection to other systems. Intrepid's pilots and crew grew quickly demoralized.
Maniac had risen to the crisis, proving himself to be a better wing commander than Blair believed possible. He had worked hard to keep the flight rotation fair, making certain all the senior officers had their turn in the box. Blair himself had flown several missions, each time gritting his teeth and hating what he was doing. Maniac's flight status reports were beginning to show sick-call referrals to the ship's mental health professionals. Fights between crew mates broke out and the booze consumption tripled.
Maniac, in an attempt to bolster morale, had ordered the dozen black Dragons to be repainted in Border Worlds colors and distributed among the remaining three squadrons. Blair and Maniac agreed that it would have been better to keep the fighters in a single compact group, but Maniac appreciated the more compelling need to distribute them fairly to boost morale.
The new birds had immediately triggered a good-natured competition amongst the pilots about who would get to fly them. That had lasted until they killed four shuttles of begging pleading refugees. Then morale sagged again.
Blair found he missed Velina badly. She had chosen to remain on the Princeton, ostensibly to continue her decryption of the carrier's comm files. The one time he'd spoken to her she'd been cool and correct to him. He'd tried to be philosophical about it, telling himself that it was for the best. He hadn't realized how much he enjoyed her company until she was gone. The hurt, combined with their nasty mission, made him more miserable than he had been at any time since Rachel had left. Well, Chris, he told himself, it is your fault.
In the days that followed the Intrepid's move to Telamon, she had been busy earning her keep. She'd finally cracked the Fleet's newest code, with the help of files she'd downloaded from the Princeton and a notebook she'd found in the captain's desk. Blair had been dismayed to learn that a code was considered "broken" when it was fifteen to twenty percent readable. That had confirmed in his mind why so many intelligence estimates were either dead wrong or partially wrong.
He had monitored the heavy volume of messages labelled "most secret" that had passed between Sosa and Wilford, hoping she might have one for him. Whatever she had found out had necessitated volumes of message traffic that took up most of the Intrepid's meager resources.
He was reviewing the comm logs when his chair intercom buzzed. "Blair," he said.
"Colonel," Wilford asked, his voice tired and dry, "would you come to my cabin? I've something to discuss with you."
Blair found the request odd. "Of course, sir." He flicked a thumb at Garibaldi, then stood. The Intrepid's exec smoothly shifted seats, assuming the con as Blair left the CIC.
Blair knocked on the door that had so recently been his, and before that, Eisen's. The thought of his former captain drew him up short. What had become of Eisen? The man had vanished in order to attempt to infiltrate the Confederation. Nothing more had been heard from him.
Blair doubted he'd been captured. The Confederation's propaganda people would have trumpeted the capture of so famous a traitor from one end of human controlled space to the other.
"Come in," Wilford said, his voice barely audible through the heavy metal door. Blair opened it to see Wilford, dressed in his trademark cardigan sweater, sitting at the desk that Velina had perched on such a short time ago.
"Yes, sir?" he said, making the routine response into a question. He heard Sosa's voice coming from the holo-screen. Wilford gestured Blair to the facing chair, then turned the screen around so they could both see it. Blair noted the small "playback" graphic in the corner.
"… so you see, Ad
miral," she was saying, "I can't prove to you that the location we've identified as BaseXis in the Axius system, but it does make sense.
"We first came across repeated references to stopping at X, and while we don't have as much of the code as we'd like, we do see the same polynumeric grouping in the same places. We believe they are navigation coordinates, based on where they are located in relation to the groups we have broken."
She brushed her hand along her ear, pulling back one stray lock. "We've run triangulations of the various known Confed activities, and compared those to date-time groups we recovered from Eisen's files. Axius is well within range of all of the target locations, based upon commonly accepted intersystem travel times and fuel consumption rates. We can also show a loose correlation between certain messages sent by Confed ships and attacks that took place."
"Do you have anything else?" Blair heard Wilford's voice ask. She looked nervous, as though she'd presented a case that seemed airtight, then failed to make her point.
"Yes," she replied, "maybe. I did some research on Axius. I'm sending you everything we have. The primary is a main sequence red giant, very hot right now but cooling rapidly. The planets there are deserts, barren and lifeless, cooked by the star's heat. It's unpopulated and virtually uninhabitable—-just the perfect place to build an out-of-the-way base."
She brushed the tips of her fingers together. "Also, two of the Princeton's scanner entries make open mention of capital ships entering the system. Why? There shouldn't be anything there. Axius is a logical guess, Admiral. It's close, it fits, and it feels right, at least to me." She dipped her head. "I'll be the first to admit this isn't definitive—I can't prove it, at least not yet. But it feels right to me."
"Thank you, Lieutenant," Wilford's disembodied voice said on the tape, "you've made a compelling argument. Let me talk to some people at this end. Keep up the good work. Wilford out." The tape ended with a Border Worlds logo and the words "Most Secret" flashing in red.
Wilford looked at Blair. "What do you think?"
Blair paused, gathering his thoughts before speaking. "I'd be inclined to trust her hunches, Admiral. It seems to me that it might be worth launching a long range reconnaissance probe to take a look-see." He leaned over Wilford's desk and keyed the star map. "I'd use a frigate, sir, and I'd launch it from Callimachus. That system's barren, too, so the odds of detection are low. It's close to Axius, close enough for a tight-beam laser link, yet far enough to have a good head start if the probe sets off a hornet's nest."
"All right," Wilford said, "do it." He sounded even more depressed than before.
"What's wrong, Admiral?" Blair asked.
"I know what you're going to find," Wilford replied, his voice thin and tired. "Axius was one of our—the Confed's, rather—centers for 'black budget research' during the war. Sosa's right. The system is barren, no biosphere whatsoever. It's the ideal place to test weapons, especially bio-weapons."
"How do you know about it?" Blair asked.
"I was briefed on it when I took over the sector command just before the war ended." He took a deep breath. "It was supposed to be shut down after the Kilrathi War.
Apparently it wasn't. If the bio-weapons came from there, then it's possible they were developed there. Either that, or there will be some record, some nard evidence, of their transfer."
"If we could get that," Blair replied, trying to lift Wilford's spirits, "we could blow the lid off this whole thing. That'd be the smoking gun! That kind of proof would be enough to bring down the conspiracy, maybe even the whole government." ^.
Wilford laughed dryly. "Those 'black projects^oases're as close as you can get to invulnerable. We certainly don't have the firepower for that sort of thing."
He seemed to age before Blair's eyes. "Besides," he said, "these hit and run raids are getting us nowhere. We hit the Speradon system with the same goal in mind, to expose the conspiracy and gather hard evidence. We accomplished our mission. We captured examples of the raiding ships. We found the proof that the Confed's been raiding us. We even captured a fleet carrier and enough resources to prosecute the war. And what did we achieve? Nothing."
"How's that?" Blair asked. "It was a great success!"
"Pyrrhus won battles, too," Wilford countered, "and look what it got him. We killed thousands of defense workers when we took out that orbital factory—civilians, not military personnel. I've been following the news feeds out of the Confederation. That fact has completely obscured everything else and alienated the moderates in the Confederation. Even the people who support us, or at least oppose the Confed's aggressive policy, won't dare speak out against those who want war." He shook his head sadly. "We've played right into our enemies' hands, made ourselves pariahs." He laughed bitterly. "And to think the plan was my idea."
Blair frowned, considering the implications. "So, what do we do?'
Wilford looked grim. "We've given the Confederation the provocation they need for a full-scale war. They'll
mobilize as soon as they get their declaration of war. The Border Worlds will get crushed when that happens."
"We have to keep that from happening, sir," Blair replied. "We have to derail this war before it can start." He shook his head. "Hell, that's why I came over in the first place— to keep this thing from getting out of hand."
"How can we stop this?" Wilford said. "That base is impregnable. And even if we were to succeed, it would only add more fuel to the fire."
Blair looked at the deck, then back at Wilford. "Sir, we'll launch the probe and get a readout on the defenses. Then, someone will have to use the Black Lance we captured to fly the defenses, infiltrate the base, get the evidence, and get out."
Wilford gave him a long look. "Who're we going to find who knows those planes well enough to fake it?"
Blair stood up. "I trained on the Excalibur—the prototype for the Black Lances. If you'll order the probe launched, sir, I'll start getting ready."
Wilford studied his face. "You know what wartime protocol is when it comes to captured spies."
Blair nodded. "Yes, sir."
Wilford furrowed his brow. He studied Blair a long time.
"Admiral, you know there's nothing for me to do here. I belong in a fighter plane. I'm not a ship's commander type. And even if I was, they wouldn't trust me on my own, without a Border Worlder keeper. This kind of mission is what I'm made for. If civilians like Dr. Clivers can make their sacrifices, let me do what I can."
"All right, Blair. Do what you have to."
Blair came to attention, then walked to the door.
"And Blair?" He turned to look back at Wilford. "Good luck, son."
"Thank you, Admiral."
Chapter Twelve
Pliers stood to one side of the ordnance handling crew, carefully supervising the weapons loadout on Blair's Black Lance. He worked the tobacco packed into his right cheek, milking the nicotine-laden juice and spitting it out on the Intrepid's deck.
A loadout crew member let the side of the largish silvery metallic plate slip on the cart. It hit the side with a loud thump. The crew froze. "Damn it," Pliers cursed, "what do you think that is—a crate of bananas? That's a fusion weapon, for crissakes. Be careful with it."
"Be careful with what?" Blair asked, stepping up next to the crew chief. Pliers turned. Whatever comment he had in mind died when he saw Blair. "What the hell land of getup is that?"
Blair looked down at the black flight suit he wore with "DuMont" stencilled on his right breast pocket.
Blair cracked a thin smile. "Hell, Pliers, you don't expect me to sneak in wearing a 'Hi, I'm a spy' name tag, do you?"
Pliers looked dubious. "You knowwhat'll happen if you're capturedin that—costume?"
Blair dipped his head. He hadn't told anyone he had spent the night before tidying up his affairs and writing a short letter to Velina. "Yeah," he said bleakly, "summary execution." He changed the subject, before Pliers could reply. "You're putting everything back like it was?"
The crew worked a second silvery dish underneath the centerline bay.
"What the hell is it?" Blair asked.
Pliers smiled. "Well, kid, the tech manual calls it a flash-pak." He stepped forward and rubbed his hand along its side. "Apparently, it was a Kilrathi idea—the 'Cats were trying to build a weapon light enough for their Strakha stealth fighters that would let then take out cap ships. They came up with the basic idea and someone on the Confed side refined it."
"How does it work?" Blair asked.
Pliers shrugged. "The tech manual don't say. It looks like a variation of the old strip-fusion bomb. Those ignited water by stripping the hydrogen, then recombining them explosively. All these books say, though, is that the detonators are stored separately within the fighters, due to the hazard. Waldos screw them in just before launch."
Blair looked at the dish, recalling Melek's recording of the attack on his convey, and the ships whose atmospheres had burned, destroying them from the inside out.
His blood ran cold. This was the conspiracy's secret weapon—the Black Lance mated to the flash-paks and bio-weapons. The Lance, with its matter/antimatter engine and cloaking device, had unlimited range and complete stealth, enough to penetrate planetary and system defense grids in order to launch canisters. The flash-paks gave the fighter an unparalleled destructive capability—one shot, one kill, something that even the Longbow couldn't match.
Pliers looked at his watch. "Son, Maniacs patrol is leaving in ten minutes. If you want their launch to cover yours, you'd best get ready."
Blair bobbed his head in acknowledgement. "Yes, Dad," he replied, trying to see if he could get under the crew chiefs skin. Pliers grinned broadly. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pouch, and loaded more of the black, noxious smelling stuff into his cheek. "That's more like it, son," he mumbled, spitting a long stream onto the deck.
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