Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  “That is why we came to you, Proctor. We all agree that it is far better to sell our methane to the Oinaise. However, we recognize that Sondak might not accept our decision and seek to take the methane by force. If such should occur, we would need protection – protection of a kind we are not equipped to provide for ourselves.”

  Leri knew they had come to a wise decision, but the necessities that had driven them to make it sent a madness through her brain. Once she had dreamed of leading her people in peace. Now she would agree to bring the instruments of war right to the entrances of their tunnels. All because of those soulless creatures who called themselves humans.

  9

  WHEN MAPPING THE BELLY of Caveness Galaxy someone with an odd sense of humor had looked at the long string of stars that formed its internal arm and named it the Great Sperm. Eight thousand parsecs behind the head of the Great Sperm lay Biery, the first settled star system. In the middle of its tail lay Nordeen, the capital planet of Sondak. At the very end of its tail, lay the Coulter star circled by the planet appropriately named, Summer.

  Now as Scientific-Security Inspector Thel Janette watched Summer grow like a pink ball in the viewport, she wondered what had ever led the first pioneers to this remote tail of the Sperm.

  Summer’s greatest assets were a stable orbit, a warm, but relatively pleasant climate, and an overwhelming abundance of mineral resources. Iron, nickel, platinum, tin, gold, copper, zinc, bauxite, and silver were just a few of its plentiful minerals. Around the planet, lakes of sweet crude oil bubbled out of the ground, and rich seams of coal cropped up as naturally as the almost daily rain showers – all attesting to Summer’s once lush climate and vegetation.

  Janette dozed for the next few hours, and awoke only when the crew announced they were entering Summer’s atmosphere. As the ship finally made its way through a bank of heavy pink clouds, Janette watched Summer’s unremarkable terrain slip by.

  Its surface was dotted with hundreds of thousands of tiny lakes and ponds that sparkled with reflected sunlight. Yet Janette knew that most of those lakes were so saturated with dissolved minerals as to make them useless. Fresh water was scarce and difficult to find, and was recognized by even the earliest of pioneers as the most valuable commodity on the planet.

  With no seas, no spectacular mountains or thrilling vistas. Summer looked uninteresting from the air. Most of the vegetation covering its monotonously rolling hills and broad flat plains consisted of low-lying shrubs, grasses, and thorny succulents in endless varieties of grey-green growth. Millions of square kilometers of its surface had been mapped in great detail, but by order of Summer’s owner, had never been explored or touched by humanity.

  Drautzlab Corporation totally owned and governed Summer. Because of that, Sondak’s government had limited influence there. Yet in addition to the minerals, Summer contained other vital keys to Sondak’s future. Only seventeen million humans and aliens lived there. A million of those were miners and drillers, working for Drautzlab’s exporting division. They lived where the minerals were. Most of the remaining sixteen million lived on the low plain around Lake Roxie, the only freshwater lake of any size on the planet.

  The place they lived was called Drautzlab, not because of any egotism on the part of its founder, Karl Drautz, but through common usage. When anyone from Summer was visiting other parts of the galaxy and was asked where he lived, ‘Drautzlab’ said it all. Many an immigrant arriving to work there had been surprised to discover that the planet actually had a name of its own, and the long city around Lake Roxie did, also. The city was officially named Lena after Karl’s wife who proudly outlived him and ran the corporation until she died at a board meeting a month past her one hundred sixty-seventh birthday.

  Drautzlab was actually five hundred semi-autonomous laboratories each with complete housing, maintenance, medical, and in some cases, even recreational facilities for its staff members and their families. There the employees of Dr. Caugust Drautz – oldest surviving child of Karl and Lena, and now controlling stockholder – worked on major weapons projects for Sondak’s Combined Armed Services.

  Drautzlab developed ideas, cultivated research into new technology, and built prototypes of weapons and systems. Those weapons and systems which proved successful and useful to the military were later manufactured by the thousands of independent contractors whose plants surrounded Lake Roxie, or by factories on thirty other planets that eagerly bid for the privilege of building Drautzlab designs.

  Caugust Drautz also prided himself in developing individuals as well as ideas. He had been explicit about that when Janette first met him, and she was bringing him news not designed to please him. Ayne Wallen, a scientist Dr. Drautz had personally recruited, had disappeared.

  As far as Sci-Sec could determine, Wallen was on his way to the U.C.S. They had managed to follow him as far as Patros, but by the time Janette and her team had traced his movement to the Oinaise broker known as Xindella, Wallen was gone. In his head were the essential equations he had discovered at Drautzlab for the development of Sondak’s Ultimate Weapon.

  Hours later as she waited in Drautz’s office with Dr. Sjean Birkie, Janette wondered how Drautz would take the news.

  “Ah, here she is,” Caugust said as he entered the room.

  Sjean smiled to herself as Inspector Janette rose to greet Caugust, and again marveled that Janette, as small and almost dainty as she was, could have such a commanding presence.

  “I bring you bad news,” Janette said simply. “Wallen has eluded Sci-Sec and appears to be headed for the U.C.S.”

  “As we suspected,” Caugust said gruffly, taking a seat in front of his desk and allowing her to sit behind it. “However, as Dr. Birkie can tell you, he may not be quite the threat we first suspected.”

  “Why is that, Doctor? Have you discovered a flaw in his equations?”

  Sjean almost laughed. “No,” she said, catching herself. She didn’t want Inspector Janette thinking she took this too lightly. “I think Caugust is referring to the fact that so far we have only managed to destroy a great deal of equipment in trying to make them practical, but we’re not sure –“

  “Our tests are inclusive,” Caugust interrupted. “Dr. Birkie has proven that the effects Ayne predicted can be demonstrated on a small scale. However, to make a reciprocal action weapon that will function outside the lab may not be possible.”

  “Why?” Janette sensed some evasion here and wanted none of it. She knew enough theoretical physics to understand that reciprocal action at a distance was a bizarre concept, but she also knew that Drautzlab believed in it. “If you have proven his equations valid, what is the problem with building the weapon?”

  “I thought you didn’t want to know too much,” Sjean said.

  “Correct. However, if I understand the difficulties you are encountering, I can better understand what Wallen will be facing. That might help Sci-Sec narrow its search for him.”

  “But you said he’d escaped to the U.C.S.”

  “Correct again, Dr. Birkie. However, Sci-Sec is not totally powerless in Uke systems.”

  Sjean wasn’t surprised. Sci-Sec seemed to know more than any bureaucracy had a right to.

  Caugust cleared his throat and looked at Sjean before speaking to Janette. Sjean had seen that look enough times in staff meetings to know he wanted her to keep quiet.

  “The main problem Dr. Birkie and her team face is a matter of scale, Inspector. Theoretically we could build a device which when fired into a star would destroy that star and almost simultaneously destroy a reciprocally seeded star somewhere along the same spacetime curve. Theoretically.” He took a deep breath and Janette spoke before he could continue.

  “How large a device would that take?” she asked.

  “Medium cruiser size,” Caugust said, “but that’s not the problem. We now think we know how to build the device, but we do not know how to aim it over any distance.”

  The look in his eyes told Sjean it was her turn. “
We could destroy the neighboring stars, even ones up to one hundred parsecs apart if we had a clear line of sight. At least, I believe we could. Anything beyond that is too speculative even for us.

  Janette was puzzled. This is not what she expected. “What would you need to test this?” she asked.

  “We’d damned well have to test it outside of the galaxy,” Caugust said quickly.

  Suddenly Janette understood. “Because you cannot predict exactly what will happen? Is that the problem?”

  “Exactly.”

  Caugust had obviously taken control again, so Sjean let herself relax a little and watch Inspector Janette whose skintight black suit seemed to make her look even smaller as she hunched over in thought. For almost a full minute no one said anything.

  “Outside the galaxy,” Janette whispered, “with enough ships and equipment…All right,” she said looking up at them with a smile. “I believe this will help us.” After another pause, her smile disappeared. “But what about you? Where will you test your device?”

  “In the first place, we don’t yet have a working device for that kind of test,” Caugust said. “In the second place, we are not sure we are going to test at all.”

  “But you have to!” Janette exclaimed.

  “We do not, Inspector.”

  “If the Ukes develop such a weapon and we don’t …”

  “I don’t think they will,” Caugust said slowly. “They will be faced with the same problems, and will come to the same conclusions. Testing a star-buster may just be too dangerous.”

  Janetter reigned in her anger with the control born of long experience. If she told the right people in the right places, even the autonomous Drautzlab could be forced to do things it did not want to do. This was not the place to argue with Dr. Drautz about it. “We can discuss this later,” she said firmly. “However, I suspect that someone will test this weapon on a suitable pair of stairs.”

  Sjean blinked and shivered. Inspector Janette’s implication was all too clear. She meant to force Drautzlab to test.

  “And if someone refuses?” Caugust asked.

  “Someone else will agree,” Janette said with a cold smile. “In either case, Sondak will determine the efficacy of this weapon before the Ukes do. I promise you that.”

  Sjean shivered again, and for the first time she regretted devoting her life to science. “We called it the Ultimate Weapon,” she said quietly, “because we thought it would finally put an end to destruction. Now we’re beginning to believe that it might lead to destruction on a scale we cannot control. And you, you are telling us…” Her sentence died in a wave of emotion that filled her throat.

  “I am telling you both that this is too important to be left alone. You must proceed with your research and tests.”

  “What the hell,” Caugust said with a mock grin on his ruddy face, “if we blow up this galaxy, there are always others out there for someone to live in.”

  * * * *

  Olmis came to a stop one parsec away from Satterfield. For the last fifty hours Captain Ruto Ishiwa had been decelerating in normal space while monitoring Sondak navigation signals on the approach to Satterfield. In a few more hours he would be ready to strike.

  “Why are we waiting?” Lieutenant Bon asked.

  Ishiwa shook his head. “It is customary,” he said slowly, “to verify one’s targets. We could not do that in subspace, Lieutenant, but we can here, and that is what I intend to do. However, I do not understand your impatience. Perhaps you would be so good as to explain it to me?”

  “We have verified eleven Sondak ships, and two possible Castorian ships in transit to or from the system, sir,” Bon said defiantly. “What more verification –“

  “Outbound ship approaching, Captain,’ the deck piper said excitedly from his console.

  “Signals, bearing and range?” Ishiwa asked automatically.

  “Hard to tell, sir,” the piper said after a moment’s pause. “Their signal is Sondak-type all right, but it is still fuzzy.”

  “Warship, Bon.”

  “Shall I prepare to get under way, sir?”

  “Negative. We sit tight and see what happens. Range, and bearing, Piper?”

  “One hundred thousand kilometers and closing, sir. Bearing zero-zero-zero-one-four. Collision course, sir. Estimate their speed at eighty thousand kilometers per hour, relative, sir.”

  “We must get under way, Captain.”

  “No. That ship is outbound, Bon.” Ishiwa moved past his junior to the piper’s screen. Already the adrenalin was pumping through his system. “Chief Kleber, prepare to fire on that ship as soon as possible.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” she said quickly before relaying his orders to her firing crew.

  “Lock on target, Lieutenant.”

  “Yes, sir,” Bon said as he took the short step to his console, “But shouldn’t we –“

  “Target’s accelerating, Bon. They don’t know we’re here.”

  “Then why are they going so slowly this far out? I don’t like it, sir.”

  “I do, Lieutenant.” Ishiwa thought Bon meant well, but he was annoyed by his constant questioning of command decisions.

  “Ready for firing sequence,” Kleber said.

  “Locked on target,” Bon said reluctantly.

  “Fire when ready,” Ishiwa commanded.

  Forty-three seconds later the giant missile left Olmis’s firing tube with a jolt felt throughout the ship. Ishiwa watched their missile blip and the Sondak blip drawing together on the screen. Suddenly a third blip appeared at the edge of the screen, then a fourth across from the first, then a fifth. All were moving directly toward Olmis.

  “Start engines,” he ordered without hesitation. “Prepare fore and aft tubes, Chief.” Somehow Sondak had ships waiting for them out here. But how? “All crew to battle stations,” he said over the ship’s loudspeaker.

  As they had so many times before the crew members not already on duty dropped what they were doing and rushed to strap themselves to their battle stations. In less than a minute the ready board lit green, signifying that they were all in their places.

  “Full stations,” Bon announced.

  “Target is turning, sir,” the piper said.

  Ishiwa glanced quickly back at the screen. They were surrounded and the enemy was closing fast. Olmis jolted again with the initial surge of her engines.

  “Under way, sir,” Bon said unnecessarily. “Course?”

  “All Ought!” Ishiwa said.

  “All Ought,” Bon repeated.

  It was a dangerous decision, but Ishiwa was praying that Olmis could follow he missile and escape past the initial target. To choose any other direction while still accelerating would lead them closer to the other ships.

  “Enemy missiles, sir…probably spikes.”

  Ishiwa let his breath go. Olmis’s triple hull had been built specifically with spikes in mind, but he was in no mood to test her strength against those swift little missiles. “All screens up and evasive action,” he ordered.

  Olmis twisted and turned through space as she accelerated. Everyone not as tightly strapped to something as they should have been soon regretted their carelessness.

  The Sondak target blip dulled to a faint pulse on the screen. “A hit, Captain.” Seconds later they were racing away from the blip toward clear space.

  Olmis shook violently, once, twice, then a third time. Ishiwa prayed quickly as he waited for a fourth hit. It never came. The attacking Sondak ships and the rest of their spikes slowly drifted back off the edge of the screen.

  “Damage control reports,” he said finally.

  One by one the stations reported in. No serious damage. Ishiwa smiled quietly. Olmis had survived her second engagement and managed to damage another of Sondak’s ships. His missile should have destroyed that Sondak ship, but given the circumstances, he felt satisfied.

  “A short warp to the other side of Satterfield, Lieutenant,” he ordered. “Maybe it isn’t as crowded over the
re.” He hoped that was true, but again he wondered how the Sondak ships had found Olmis. However they had done it, Ishiwa knew that he and his crew would have to be more cautious from now on.

  10

  “AN ATTACK?” ADMIRAL PAJANDCAN ASKED. She felt the tension in Dawson’s headquarters ship tighten with her question.

  “No, ma’am,” the young tech answered. “At least there’s no sign of one. Looks like they only found a lone raider.”

  “A damned fast one,” Admiral Dawson said.

  “Like one of the new Uke hunks the rumors have been talking about.” Pajandcan hoped she was wrong, but could tell that Dawson suspected the same thing.

  “Must be, Admiral. The Veda bounced three spikes off its hull and never fazed it.”

  “So now what will you do?”

  Acting Quarter Admiral Dawson scratched his rough chin and stared up at the overhead. “Well, Admiral, I’d say we have a problem. Veda tried to follow the Uke, but it warped faster than anything we’ve got, and disappeared. Seems to me we’ll just have to keep our monitors out and hope it comes back.”

  “What did I miss?” Admiral Dimitris asked from the doorway.

  “Just about everything, Dit,” Pajandcan said with a grin.

  “Had a Uke raider encircled, but he got a missile into the cruiser Zephyr and escaped.”

  “Balls in space! How’d he do that?”

  Pajandcan laughed and the crew in the Battle Center laughed with her. Tension melted away with the laughter. “We’re still trying to find out. While the techs work on that, I think the three of us need to put our heads together.”

  Dawson led the way down to his office with Dimitri and Pajandcan following. As soon as Pajandcan shut the bulkhead door behind her, she sighed heavily. “Gentlemen,” she said as she took a seat at a small table bolted to the deck, “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the crew, but it looks to me like we’ve got a new problem on our hands.”

  “One raider?” Dimitri asked.