by Glen Cook
"Astrogation, how's your program coming?"
"Five minutes, sir."
"We don't have five minutes. Make it a basal arc that'll drop us in the neighborhood. Do your fine calculation during the fly."
"Yes sir."
"... to intercept fifty-two seconds."
Von Drachau glared at the tank. They would have missiles in their pockets by launch time. Power weapons would be pounding Lepanto's energy screens. "Damn!"
It looked bad.
"Time to launch one minute."
The bridge watch took on that hunchbacked look of people anticipating the kiss of the whip. Sixty lousy seconds. That could make a damned short life. Mayflies lasted longer.
"... to intercept fourteen seconds."
That was close. And the next salvo would be closer.
"Astrogation. One millisecond free hyper straight linear," von Drachau snapped.
"Sir?"
"Do it!"
The alarm hooted as the ship lurched.
The Ship's Commander's screen returned to life. The Sangaree sun had moved. He could see a horizon line. It had no curvature.
Weapons Department howled. They had to reprogram.
"So do those boys over there. Special Weapons. Time to launch."
"Thirty-two seconds, sir."
"Missiles bearing two five-niner relative, one two degrees nadir. Time to intercept two six seconds."
Von Drachau sighed. That was right on the line. "Gentlemen, we're going to make it."
The bridge watch did not relax. They knew his remark was half prayer. The tank proclaimed that in its totally unambiguous display. A saturation barrage was hurtling toward them.
And it was a long, long run back to friendly space.
"Ten seconds to launch."
And there was the problem of the weapon safely reaching target. If the Sangaree sniped it, Lepanto would have to try again. A second pass could get hairy.
Lepanto shuddered and lurched. Someone yelled, "That was too goddamned close!"
"Two. One. Launch. Weapon away."
The warship lurched again. "One tenth second free hyper straight linear!" von Drachau ordered. "Detection, lock on that weapon. I want to know if it makes it."
The cruiser dodged. Von Drachau shifted attention between display tank and screen, following the weapon into the sun.
Sangaree missiles had no chance to catch it. Scores of laser and graser weapons probed for it, caressed it with their deadly tongues.
"Telemetry. How are its screens holding?"
"Perfectly, sir."
Lepanto rocked. Time was running out.
"She's in, sir. They can't stop her now. Her sun screens are stable."
"Astrogation, get us out of here."
"You still want an observation pass, sir?" R & D had asked them to hang around and study the results.
"The hell with that noise! Get out of here before they barbecue us."
The hyper alarm hooted. The ship twisted away into an alternate dimension. Von Drachau turned to the display tank.
"Some of them are good," he murmured. "Very good."
Four vessels had caught the trail already, and were coming hard.
"Drive. Run your influence factor to the red line."
"Sir!"
"You heard me. You'll take it over if you have to. Stand by for it."
"Yes sir."
Von Drachau glanced at the sun shape dwindling in the display tank. The weapon would be sinking toward its heart. The killing process would begin in a few hours. He turned into himself again, looking for his feelings. All he found was a big vacancy, an arid desert of the soul.
He did not think much of Jupp von Drachau just then.
Book Two
THE BROKEN WINGS
Twelve: 3050 AD
The Contemporary Scene
Lemuel Beckhart felt totally vulnerable while walking the streets of Angel City. The berg was domed, of course, but the glassteel arced too far overhead. He had been born in Luna Command and had spent most of his life there and in warships. He needed overheads, decks, and bulkheads close at hand before he felt comfortable.
Worlds with open skies were pure hell for him.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of the civilian trousers he wore. It was coming together. The timing looked good. The leaks had the commentators howling for blood.
Funny how they became raving patriots when it looked like their asses were going to go in the can too... Those people in Public Information knew their trade. They were keeping a fine balance. They were generating alarm without causing panic. They were stampeding legislative sessions hither and yon, herding them like unsuspecting cattle, getting everything Luna Command wanted. Confederation Senate was passing appropriations measures like the gold seam had no end.
The real victory was a stream of confederacy applications from outworlds that had remained stubbornly independent for generations. Well-tempered fear. That was the lever. Let them know Confederation would defend its own, and ignore the others when the hammer fell... Those cunning politicians. They were using the crisis too. Everybody was scoring on this one. Would the maneuvering and manipulation settle out in time? It was human nature to go on wasting energy on internal bickering when doom was closing in.
Those PI people... They were something. They still had not released anything concrete. The propaganda machine in high gear was a wonder to behold.
Beckhart was bemused by his own pleasure at observing a high level of professional competence in a department not under his own command.
His mood soured when he reflected on the latest news from his colleagues in Ulantonid intelligence. That centerward race... They seemed to draw some special, wholly inexplicable pleasure from killing.
The latest Ulantonid package had included tape taken on a world with a Bronze Age technology. It showed small, suited bipeds, built like a cross between orangutans and kangaroos, armed principally with small arms, systematically eradicating the natives. There was ample footage of shattered cities, burning villages, and murdered babies. Not to mention clips of cadavers of virtually every other mobile lifeform the planet boasted.
If it moved, the hopping, long-armed creatures shot it. If it did not, they dug it out of hiding and killed it anyway.
There had been no sky full of ships for this primitive world, just a stream of transports sending in troops, munitions, small flyers, and the equipment used to hunt down the wilder creatures of mountain and forest. The Ulantonid experts estimated a troop input approaching ten billion "soldiers."
Beckhart could not grasp that number. Ten billions. For one primitive world... Confederation and Ulant together had not had that many people under arms during the most savage years of their conflict.
"They've got to be crazy," he muttered.
He paused near the building where Thomas McClennon, now Moyshe benRabi, had kept the Sangaree woman distracted while Storm had torn the guts out of her Angel City operation. Christ, but hadn't those boys pulled a coup? And now they had come through again, giving him the Sangaree Homeworld.
He had to bring them out. Somehow. He refused to write men off while they lived.
He was determined. There had to be a way to apply enough leverage to force their release... If it came to that alone, and he could prise no better yield from the coming encounter, he would be satisfied.
The thing looked made to order for another coup. "Down, boy," he muttered. "First things first. You're here to get your boys back. Anything else comes second."
Still, it was coming together. The word was, the Sangaree wanted revenge. It was a good bet the Seiners would have another go at Stars' End. The rumors and leaks from Luna Command had everybody excited about an ambergris shortage. A lot of eyes would be staring down gun barrels at this end of the Arm.
He was pleased. He had choreographed it perfectly. Only he and High Command would be thinking about von Drachau. If von Drachau succeeded, the news would hit like the proverbial ton of bricks.
He strolled on to the warehouse that had headquartered the local Sangaree operation. It was a fire-blackened pile of rubble. The authorities had not cleared it yet.
"Sometimes, Lemuel, you're not a very nice person," he murmured.
He was repelled by some of the things he did. But he was sincere in his belief that they were necessary.
He was terrified of that centerward race. The hungry bunnies, he called them, for no truly good reason.
Ten billions for one world. Tens of thousands of ships.
How could they be stopped?
Why the hell were they so determined to kill? There was no logic to it.
Was there anything more he could do? Anything he had overlooked?
He lay awake nights trying to think of something. He suspected that everyone in High Command slept poorly of late, running the same perilous race courses in hopes of finding the key to escape from the nightmare.
His beeper squeaked. He raised it to his ear. "Hand delivery only, urgent, for Blackstone," a remote voice told him. He returned the beeper to his belt and walked briskly toward his headquarters.
The courier was a full Commander. He wore a side-arm, and carried the message in a tamperproof case that would destruct should anyone but Lemuel Beckhart attempt to open it. The case bore a High Command seal.
"Sit, Commander. What's the news from Luna Command?"
The Commander was a taciturn man. "We seem to be in for some excitement, sir."
"That's a fact. You came in with the squadrons taking station?" Three heavy squadrons had taken orbit around The Broken Wings. They were there at his request.
"Yes sir. Aboard Assyrian."
"Popanokulos still Ship's Commander?" Beckhart placed his thumbs at the proper points on the case. Something whirred. He prised it open with a fingernail.
"Yes sir."
"How is he? He was one of my students, years ago." He was reluctant to open the plain white envelope lying within the case.
"He's in excellent health, sir. He asked me to extend his best regards."
"Extend mine in return, Commander." He initialed a pink slip for the second time, indicating that the contents of the case had been received. He would have to do so twice more, indicating message read, then message destroyed.
The Commander moved slightly in his chair. He appeared impatient to return to Assyrian. Beckhart opened the envelope, removed what appeared to be a sheet of plain white paper. He pressed his thumbs against the bottom corners. Invisible microcircuitry read his prints. A handwritten message slowly took form, appearing at the rate it had been written.
L: All-time screw-up at R&D research facility. Cause unclear. System destroyed. Total loss. VD away with 2 apples. Public disclosure disaster unavoidable. M.
Beckhart laid the sheet on his desk, covered his face with the palms of his hands.
There went a key hope. Without telling his Ulantonid opposite number why, he had asked for additional deep probes toward galaxy center, hoping to locate home-worlds that could be shattered with the new weapon. He had hoped the grandeur and viciousness of the thing could be used to intimidate the centerward race into abandoning their insane crusade.
A total loss. All the info, both on the weapon itself and what had gone wrong. Damn it to hell, anyway!
He initialed the pink slip, burned the message, and initialed the slip again. "Thank you, Commander." He handed slip and case over. "There won't be a reply."
"Very well, sir. Have a nice day."
Beckhart wore a puzzled smile as the officer pushed out the door. A nice day? Not likely. He keyed a switch on his desk communicator. "I need Major Damon."
A few days later his comm whined at him. "Yes?"
"Communications, sir." The commtech sounded choked. "Signals from Assyrian, sir. The Starfishers are here. Just detected."
Beckhart felt a stir of excitement. He asked, "What's the problem?"
"Sir, I... Let me feed you the Assyrian data, sir."
Beckhart touched a button. The tiny screen on his comm crackled to life. A series of computer data began flashing across it. Then came a schematic of a ship.
He read the size figures three times before murmuring, "Holy shit." He leaned back, said, "Communications, keep running that till I say stop."
"Yes sir."
He watched the report three times through before he was satisfied.
So those were harvestships... They were self-contained worlds. If Navy could lay hands on a few of those, and arm them with Empire Class weaponry... "Communications, page Major Damon. Tell him to come to my office."
The commander of the Marine Military Police battalion reported only minutes later.
"Major, there'll be an adjustment in our plans. Watch this." Beckhart ran the report from Assyrian. Damon was suitably impressed.
"Major, sit. We're going to do some brain-storming."
The session lasted the day and the night and into the next day. It ended when Communications interrupted. "Admiral, signals from Assyrian. Sir, they've intercepted signals between the Seiner ships. They thought you'd be interested."
"Of course I am. Give it to me."
The relay was not long. And it was both baffling and exciting. The Starfishers were going to put his own boys in charge of their auction security effort.
He had it run twice. Satisfied, he said, "Major, go get yourself eight hours. Then get back here and we'll pick up where we left off. This changes things again. We work it right, now, and we're in the chips."
After the Major departed, he had Assyrian open an instel link with Luna Command. He spent an hour in conference. He broke off smiling a weak smile. This auction might be more than serendipitous.
He dragged himself to his cot, hoping to catch a few hours, but could not fall asleep.
His conscience kept nagging him. Once again he would have to use men cruelly for the sake of the Services and Confederation.
He was so weary of that...
Thirteen: 3050 AD
The Main Sequence
Payne's Fleet dropped hyper a Sol System radius from The Broken Wings. Danion formed the point of the arrowhead of ships flashing toward the planet. Accompanying the harvestships were a hundred service ships borrowed from other fleets.
The Seiners wanted to make an impression. They believed this show of strength would rivet all eyes on The Broken Wings.
While the credit from the auction was important to them, distracting attention from Stars' End meant even more.
Almost all Seinerdom had taken hyper for the fortress world. The harvestfleets had gathered. A hundred harvestships, a thousand service ships, and untold millions of people would be involved in the effort to recover the citadel world's weapons. That gargantuan armada, bearing the hope of a nation, was avoiding traffic lanes, flying easy, awaiting word of the success of the auction diversion.
A confrontation with Confederation had to be avoided. The Seiner leadership understood the swift doom inherent in a two-front war.
A one-front war was a terrible enough hazard.
"We've got trouble," Jarl Kindervoort told his staff. "We've just received a scout report from Stars' End. The Sangaree have moved in there."
Mouse made a sound suspiciously like a purr. "Won't hurt my feelings if they get crunched again."
"Somebody's going to get crunched. The report says there're hundreds of raidships there."
Storm and benRabi became more attentive. Mouse asked, "Hundreds? That would take... Hell, the Families would all have to be working together. They don't do that."
Kindervoort replied, "They seem to have their hearts set on grabbing Stars' End."
"They aren't the only ones," benRabi muttered. He snorted in disgust, shook his head. "Who's fault is that, Jarl?"
"What do you mean, Moyshe?"
"Consider our last run-in. Consider one Maria Elana Gonzales, technician, alias Marya Strehltsweiter, Sangaree agent. Remember her? The lady who tried to kill Danion? I shot her and stopped her.
And you nice people politely patched her up and sent her home with the other returning landsmen. Bet you she ran straight to her bosses and set this up. Nice doesn't pay, Jarl."
Mouse shifted his chair so he could stare at benRabi. He said nothing.
Once upon a time, on a faraway world called The Broken Wings, a partner of Mouse's, wearing the work-name Dr. Gundaker Niven, had stopped him from killing a Sangaree agent named Marya Strehltsweiter.
Moyshe reddened.
"Let's not cry about what we should have done," Kindervoort said. "We're here now. Let me have those situation reports, Amy."
Amy pushed a sheaf of flimsies across the tabletop. "Navy is damned interested in this end of the universe, too. Three heavy squadrons off The Broken Wings. Squadrons Hapsburg, Prussian, and Assyrian."
"Empire Class?" Mouse asked. "All of them? They mean business, don't they?"
"There're battle squadrons at Carson's and Sierra, too. Our friends the Freehaulers couldn't get close enough to identify them."
"And no telling what's in the bushes," benRabi mused.
"Moyshe?"
"They're playing poker, Jarl. They've shown us a couple of aces face up. What you have to worry about is their hole cards. What have they got cruising around a couple of light years away ready to jump in?"
"You think they'll try a power play?"
"No. Not like that. But it might behoove us to spend a little brain power figuring what they're up to. Navy doesn't put that much power together unless they're scared they'll have to use it. You hardly ever see a patrol of more than two ships."
"You know Service thinking better than me. Why're they so excited?"
"The dispositions look defensive," Moyshe said. "And that leads us to our lack of landside intelligence. What's the Planetary Defense Forces alert level in the Transverse? Have they activated any reserves? If so, which units? We could extrapolate their fears from that kind of information."
"We have the liaison team report." Kindervoort shuffled flimsies.
Mouse and benRabi had insisted on sending a few men ahead, weeks ago.
"I've seen it," Moyshe said. "They've given The Broken Whigs the usual temporary free planet status. They've pledged an open auction. The city authorities are so nervous they've called up their police reserves and asked Marine MPs to help. They expect trouble. Nobody is saying why."