Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  “Understood. Prepare to fir.” Ishiwa did not want to lose this first opportunity. “Bon, lock onto that last ship.”

  “Aye-aye, sir.”

  There was no censorship in Bon’s tone now, giving Ishiwa at least one small thing to be grateful for. As he watched the screen and waited for Chief Kleber to begin her countdown, he wondered what was happening on the command decks of those Sondak ships. Did they suspect what they were facing? Were they afraid? Were they preparing some defense he knew nothing about?

  A change on the screen snapped him alert. The lead Sondak blip was separating from the others. “Look at this, Bon. I think one of them is coming after us.”

  “Shall I change targets, sir?” Bon asked with a quick glance at the screen.

  “How much time, Chief?”

  “Countdown in thirty seconds. Firing in one minute.”

  Ishiwa nodded. “Maintain original target, Bon. Lock on that new ship as your secondary target.”

  “Closing speed with secondary target point-zero-one to the minute,” Bon said quietly.

  “Chief, I want two missiles fired at the secondary target in record time. Then were going to max speed and get out of here.”

  “Beginning countdown. Thirty seconds to firing.”

  “Secondary closing at point-zero-one-five.”

  “Twenty seconds to firing.”

  Ishiwa counted silently in unison with Chief Kleber.

  “Ten seconds…nine…eight…Automatic control sequence initiated. Four, three, two…Missiles away! Time to target twenty-seven minutes.”

  “Engage secondary target,” Ishiwa ordered.

  “Secondary closing at point-zero-one-nine, sir,” Bon reported. “They’re definitely accelerating, Captain.”

  “Fire when ready, Chief.”

  Olmis fired its second and third missile within seven minutes after firing the first, a full two minutes faster than the crew had ever fired during a drill.

  “Full speed, Lieutnenant.” Ishiwa stared at the nav panel. “Course five-nine-three-fifty-one by six-zero-two-hundred.”

  Bon relayed the orders then looked at Ishiwa with admiration. “That will keep us in tracking range, won’t it sir?”

  “Yes it will, Bon. I hate to fire and not know if we struck a hit.”

  Eleven minutes later the approaching Sondak blip disappeared from the screen. Ishiwa smiled with satisfaction. “Good shooting, Kleber.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said, returning his smile.

  Eight minutes after that, the original target blip disappeared also. “Two out of two,” Ishiwa said softly. It was almost too good to be true. When he finally spoke, his voice trembled.

  “Lieutenant, inform the crew that Olmis has made her first two kills.”

  Cheering rang through the ship when the announcement was made. Men and women hugged each other in joyous celebration, each sensing in some intrinsic way the importance of this moment for them and Olmis.

  Ishiwa sensed it too. No matter how glorious a record Olmis would go on to compile, this first strike against Sondak would always be remembered as her baptism in glory.

  “Course, sir?”

  Bon’s question broke the spell. When Ishiwa looked at his junior he suddenly realized that Bon was fully sharing in their joy, as though he failed to understand the emotional importance of this moment for the whole crew. That saddened Ishiwa and puzzled him, but he attributed Bon’s apparent lack of feeling to his kyosei training.

  “Return to our original course of opportunity,” Ishiwa ordered. “Then go get some rest, Lieutenant. You’ve put in a full watch.”

  After the crew returned to normal running status, Ishiwa signaled their success to Yakusan. Then for several hours he sat almost alone on the command deck savoring the victory and anticipating the continuing havoc they would wreak on Sondak in the coming months.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “I still don’t understand what took then so long,” Lucky said quietly. “If she knew they were going to grant us the methane exporting rights, why didn’t she just say so?”

  “Proctor Leri works with her people,” Morning Song said as he strapped himself into the couch beside Lucky. “She explained to me the necessity of letting them reach an understanding on their own. Only then was she free to make the final decision.”

  Lucky accepted Morning Song’s explanation with a shrug and turned to prepare Graycloud for launch. So long as the matter was settled, he didn’t really care how it had been done. All he wanted to do was leave Cloise and never come back.

  Proctor Leri and the rest of her kind gave him chills and nightmares like no other aliens he had ever met. Even the crab-like Castorians hadn’t bothered him. But Leri-the-snake? Lucky shivered. “Are you ready to launch?” he asked.

  “Ready, Captain Teeman.”

  “Then let’s get out of here and back to Oina.”

  “Have you forgotten, Captain? My father wishes us to go to Patros to pick up some cargo and a passenger for delivery –“

  “Maybe,” Lucky said as he initiated the launch sequence. “That depends on some cousin of his coming across with the credits, doesn’t it?”

  “Indeed it does. However, as soon as we are in a position to communicate with Oina, I recommend that we request his pleasure in this matter.”

  “His pleasure right now is making a baby.”

  “Do not be sarcastic, Captain. Mating is a very serious matter for us, more serious than you can hope to understand.”

  “I can see why. Takes a lot of thinking to copulate without ceasing for a whole year.”

  Graycloud’s engines flared and lifted them quickly into Cloise’s thick atmosphere. Morning Song sat quietly in his chair until they broke into open space and the acceleration compensators dampened the g-forces on them.

  “We do not copulate for a year,” he said finally, the anger clear in his voice.

  “I know. I know.” Lucky didn’t want to hear this lecture again. “Your people copulate once and grow the baby together for a year. But you’re still hooked together, and it looks like –“

  “Enough, Captain Teeman. We do not ridicule the insensitive way humans reproduce without mutual support of the parents. Do not ridicule our way. No biological system is perfect, but if it ensures the continuation of the species, why do you humans consider it a subject of derision? Because it is different from your own biology?”

  Lucky knew he had been rude, and he didn’t really mean to offend Morning Song. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I guess I just haven’t been as tolerant as I should have been – about anything.” When Morning Song didn’t reply, he continued. “Blame it on this stupid war. I do. Ever since it started, the only time I’ve been happy was when I was addicted to the gorlet.”

  “An unfortunate occurrence,” Morning Song said.

  “Damned right it was. But not a bad one. It gave me a week’s peace…Anyway, I really am sorry about what I said.”

  “You could not help yourself, Captain. Humans rarely can. It is one of those strange phenomenon of nature that most members of your species seem incapable of ruling their tongues – or their lives – with the very intelligence which has made them so powerful. Do you not agree?”

  Lucky laughed. “Who wouldn’t? I mean it wasn’t exactly our intelligence that started this war, was it? The Ukes are looking for some kind of emotional revenge for what Sondak did to them in the last war. And that war was based on emotions more than anything else. Sondak attacked the Ukes because they were afraid the Ukes were getting too powerful and adventurous.”

  “And greedy,” Morning Song added, “if I remember my history correctly.”

  “Oh, that’s always a factor,” Lucky said, “but it’s not limited to humans. Greed took us to Cloise, didn’t it?”

  “Not greed, Captain. Business.”

  “Sure a chance to make some credits, a chance for your father and me to get a little richer. That’s greed, my friend.”

  “That is b
usiness, Captain, and I hardly know you well enough to consider you my friend.”

  “Well, excuse me.”

  For more than an hour neither of them spoke as Graycloud accelerated out of Cloise’s system. Morning Song’s comment had hurt Lucky’s feelings in a way he could barely admit to himself. Yet the problem had risen like a shadow over his life, a shadow that would not, could not be dispelled. Lucky had no friends.

  Marsha had been his friend as well as his partner and lover. But Marsha was gone. Delightful Childe was his new business partner, but Morning Song’s words made him wonder if Delightful Childe considered him a friend. Probably not, he thought.

  It had been a long time since Lucky had felt so lonely, so long ago that remembering it was like looking through a narrow port hole into his past. His father had died first, then his mother, but he hadn’t missed the father who had rarely been there. His mother…his mother had been far more than that. She had been his friend and advisor, the person to whom he could tell everything. When she had died, he had been truly alone, and felt the same sense of isolation he felt now.

  “Perhaps it is my turn to apologize,” Morning Song said, interrupting Lucky’s thoughts. “My father told me he considers you a friend. Thus, I should at least attempt to do the same. However, I must admit to you again that it is extremely difficult for me to understand you, much less to make this offer.”

  “Don’t bother,” Lucky said from the depths of his self-pity. “The strain might be too much for you.”

  “That is exactly the kind of statement that makes it so difficult for me. Why can you not accept my apology and acknowledge the sincerity of my intentions?”

  “Because I’m an emotional, suspicious human being whose feelings are easily injured and slowly healed.”

  Morning Song gave a long fluttering sigh through his wrinkled proboscis. “I shall try harder,” he said finally.

  “You do that,” Lucky said, still unwilling to pull himself back to civility. “In the meantime let’s try to contact Oina. We should be far enough away from the interference of Cloise’s sun by now to hit that long-band relay station of yours off of Satterfield.”

  7

  THROUGHOUT DINNER MICA HAD LISTENED with rapt attention to the conversation between her father and Henley Stanmorton. Much to her surprise they were soon calling each other by their given names as though they were old friends.

  In a way they were, she realized, for they had a base of similar experiences from the last war that bound them together in an elemental way. If she hadn’t been with her father during the battle for Matthews, she would never have understood the camaraderie they shared.

  “The general population is eager for more real news from the fighting,” Henley said as he finished his dinner. “They just don’t believe the official Efcorps news releases from the Service, so I’d like to give them as much as I can, Josiah.”

  “You think the Service is lying to them?” Mica asked.

  “No, just holding back a lot of facts, and feeding Efcorps information that is pretty old.”

  “Come,” Gilbert said, “Let’s adjourn this discussion to softer chairs and wine.” As he led them into the family room, he asked, ‘how soon do you expect to get out there?” For the first time in months he felt free to relax a little and he did not want to rush this discussion.

  “Depends on the goldsleeves, Josiah. You couldn’t give them a little nudge, could you? All those deskbound officers seem to think I’d be safer sitting around Service Press Center than out where the action is, and I can’t convince them otherwise.”

  “That’s my doing, I’m afraid,” Gilbert said. “I advised the Joint Chiefs to restrict civilian coverage of the war until we could organize a more efficient Information Office.”

  “That’s not fair, Josiah. Not fair at all. I know the service has its own tellers there, but I –“

  Gilbert held up his hand with a laugh. “All right. You don’t have to convince me. If anything, our discussion before dinner made up my mind for me.” He wasn’t being quite truthful, but he wanted Henley to suggest the direction of the conversation. “How soon do you want to go out, and where do you want to go?”

  “Sutton. Immediately.”

  “That’s crazy,” Mica said. “The Ukes control Sutton.”

  “Only parts of it.” Henley turned to her with a twinkle in his eyes, “And I understand that we have some troops putting up pretty good resistance.”

  “I still think it’s crazy.” There’s something else going on here, she thought. But what?

  “So do I,” Gilbert added, “but I also understand why you want to go.” He leaned intently forward, cupping his wine glass in both hands. “I can get you there, Henley. At least I can give you a ninety-five percent chance of getting there. We’re sneaking supplies in almost every week. But I can’t guarantee getting you off planet when you’re ready to leave.”

  “I understand that. That’s part of the business,” he said calmly, but the thought of being stranded on Sutton did bother him. It was easier to be near the action when he knew he could escape if he had to.

  “Fair enough. Mica, you arrange transport for Henley, the best and fastest we have going.”

  “You’re both crazy. You know that, don’t you?” Mica suspected her father wasn’t finished playing with this idea, and could not figure out where he was headed with it.

  “Don’t be insubordinate,” Gilbert said with a smile, “or I’ll send you as Henley’s guide.” There, he thought, let’s see what she does with that.

  “Oh, I’d be a great help. Sure I would. One Service communications officer with no dirtside experience leading a crotchety old teller across the wilds of Sutton.”

  “You mean one smiling, prime-of-life reporter,” Henley said, “led by his charming and fearless guide to witness the retaking of Sutton.”

  They all laughed, but only briefly. “It will be a long time before we can think about retaking Sutton,” Gilbert said quietly. “We don’t have the men, the equipment, or the ships to do much more than defend the systems we now hold. And most of those systems are vulnerable.”

  “Like the rest of the polar systems?” Henley offered.

  “Yes. And those are only the beginning of the problem. The reinforcements we send there will surely be needed elsewhere.”

  “Could I go there first? I mean to Yaffee or Satterfield, or wherever it is you expect the Ukes to hit next?”

  Gilbert smiled. This was the request he had been hoping for. “You can and you may. But getting you from there to Sutton will be more difficult than getting you straight to Sutton.”

  “But why? I mean aren’t they in the same –“

  “Because officially we’re not shipping anything from the other polar systems to Sutton. And for obvious security reasons, wherever you go you won’t be allowed to tell anyone exactly where you are. Unless we make special arrangements, of course. No sense in giving that information away.”

  For a moment Henley felt a chill at the thought of what he was getting himself into. But it was an old familiar chill, and he had never let it stop him before. “I’m willing to take my chances on whatever situations I encounter just so long as I can report what I see.”

  “You can report it all, Henley, subject to the usual military restrictions.”

  “Pardon me,” Mica said, “but I have to ask Mr. Stanmorton why he wants to take these risks?”

  “It’s my job. It’s what I do – report on important events, I mean.” He saw the quizzical look still on her face. “Is that so strange to you, Captain?”

  “Yes, it is. However, I suppose it is none of my business if you want to risk your life doing something as absurd –“

  “You’re right. It is none of your business.” Why, Henley wondered, did she still have such a strange opinion of him?

  Gilbert didn’t want them to change the direction of the conversation. “You know,” he said slowly, “I’ve been thinking about sending someone to Satterfi
led who would report personally to me. How would you like to be that someone, Henley? We could give you a reserve warrant –“

  “Now wait a minute, Admiral. You want me to rejoin the Service? Why?”

  “Look at it this way, Henley. As special liaison from my office, you would have freedom of movement that no civilian is going to have, and, you would have access to sources otherwise closed to you. That isn’t such a bad offer, is it? Might even send Mica as your aide,” he added, throwing the rest of his idea into her lap.

  “Father!”

  “Hush, Mica. You already told me you wanted to go out there. Haven’t changed your mind, have you?”

  “Make me an officer? With an aide?” Henley asked with a grin. He realized that Gilbert had to be joking now. “I don’t know. Is she a good aide?”

  “The best.”

  Mica couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Father,” she said quickly, “I think we should discuss this in private.”

  “I don’t. Not only could you serve as Henley’s aide, you could also be of assistance to Commander Rochmon.” Gilbert’s smile grew. “He’s been complaining that he needs to send more experienced people out there.”

  “I’m totally confused,” Mica said with a shake of her head. “How could I serve as Mr. Stanmorton’s aide and also contribute to Cryptography’s efforts?”

  “I’m confused, too,” Henley admitted. Admiral Gilbert obviously was not joking, yet his proposal was sounding wilder by the minute. Him an officer? With Mica Gilbert as his aide? “You’re serious, aren’t you? What do you really want?”

  Gilbert looked at them happily. “I want two people I can trust to send me direct information on what is happening out there, information that doesn’t have to go through channels. I want some honest evaluation of morale and readiness from you, Henley – and from you, Mica, I want military evaluations of POLFLEET’s officers and leadership.”

  Suddenly Mica understood. POLFLEET was the command of his heart, and he wanted to know how it was doing without him. If he hadn’t been her father, she might have felt insulted by the suggestion that she spend her time spying for him.