Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  The street got steeper and Mari began to breathe heavily. Suddenly a gruff voice said, “Take your bag, Bryant.” Before he could protest, the bag was gone.

  For a long time they followed twists and turns through the town. Mari’s legs screamed in silent protest. Up, always up. When they finally stopped, he was panting heavily.

  “Wait,” the woman said, putting her hand on his chest. Moments later she stepped through a green-lit doorway, then she and the light were gone.

  Mari bent over, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. His chest ached in the cold air, and his nose dripped and burned. All he wanted to do was sit and rest, but he forced himself to remain erect. When the green light appeared again, he stood up and stepped toward it. A hand grabbed his arm and held him back.

  “Bring Bryant,” the woman’s voice said from the doorway.

  The hand on his arm urged him forward. With a deep sigh he entered the building followed closely by the others. The door closed quickly and for the first time he faced the woman who had led him here. To his relief there was a broad smile on her deeply pockmarked face.

  “Colonel will be here soon. Get yourself warm. Come.”

  She led him through a large room crowded with unmarked boxes and crates to a smaller room where two people sat at a polished wooden table. They rose immediately when he entered, stared at him with less than approval, then left the room with the men who had accompanied him from the dock through a doorway covered with heavy cloth.

  “Be not of a mind to heed them-them,” the woman said offering him a seat on the polished bench next to a small military stove. “They worry always about strangers since the times started. You understand that as you can?”

  “I understand,” Mari said, “but I don’t understand –“

  “Good.” She filled a large stoneware goblet from a pitcher on the stove and held it out to him. “Drink this. Will grow the warmth inside you.”

  Mari accepted it and took a deep whiff of its sharp aroma. Somewhere beneath what he assumed was the smell of spices he suspected there was alcohol. One tentative sip told him he was correct. “Good,” he said looking directly at the woman as she hung her heavy coat on a hook on the wall. “Very good.”

  “It will cure your pains and swell your brains,” a man said as he stepped through the curtained doorway. “Drink it slowly, General Mari.”

  Setting the goblet carefully on the bench beside him, Mari stood up. “Colonel Archer?” he asked as his experienced eyes evaluated the man’s trim form. Even without a uniform he had the look of military precision about him – and something else Mari couldn’t put his finger on.

  “Correct, sir. I’m glad you made it to us,” Archer said as he accepted a goblet from the woman. “Thank you, Denise.”

  Mari detected no enthusiasm from Archer, but Porras had warned him not to expect any. “I’m pretty damned glad myself, Colonel. Porras told me it could be a rough trip, but he wasn’t as, ah, explicit as he could have been.”

  Archer smiled slightly. “Please, sir, sit down.”

  Mari sat back on the bench and picked up his goblet. Archer sat opposite him on a high stool. Denise sat on a similar stool beside him. For a long moment there was silence between them.

  “I’ve come over to evaluate your situation, Colonel, mainly so I can make the best possible disposition of troops, supplies and ammunition in the future.”

  Archer pulled a fat brown envelope out of his vest pocket. “It’s all in there, sir. We can have you on your way back to Jasper in six hours. You can read on the way.”

  With a quick shake of his head Mari stayed the words that crowded his tongue. He couldn’t understand why he would try to shake him off so quickly. Was he hiding something? Ignoring the envelope in Archer’s outstretched hand, he took a long drink from his goblet. “What’s in that?” he asked as the alcohol immediately warmed his stomach.

  “Everything,” Archer said, tossing the envelope onto the table. “Everything you need to know.”

  “Look, Colonel,” Mari said calmly, “I didn’t travel forty-three hundred kilometers just to pick up an envelope. It’s obvious that you don’t need me here. Porras made that clear. But I don’t understand why you think you can get rid of me so quickly. Or why you want to. You have something against help?”

  “Help I can always use. You I don’t need,” Archer said with a darkening of his eyes. “We don’t have time to give some goldsleeve a tour, and even if we did, we wouldn’t. I had enough of your type in the last war, and I certainly don’t –“

  “Enough,” Mari said in his best command voice. As he expected him to, Archer shut up. “I’ll make it simple for you, Colonel. Either I stay for as long as I want, and you show me everything I want to see…or” – Mari drew out the paused for emphasis – “or I stop all supplies to your units until they can find a leader who is willing to obey orders.”

  Archer laughed so hard he sloshed some of the brew from his goblet onto his trousers. As he brushed it off, he looked at Mari with a deep twinkle in his dark eyes. “You would threaten me? Here? You have to be crazy.”

  “No threat,” Mari said, pausing to take a long drink from his goblet. “General Porras has orders not to send you any more supplies until I approve of them.”

  “Suppose I tell Porras you never arrived?”

  Archer’s smile quivered downward at the corners, and Mari sensed the colonel was bluffing for a way to put him off. He also felt sure that Archer didn’t really mean him any harm. “Suppose we quit playing games, Colonel?”

  “What is to keep us from locking you up and forgetting the combination?” Archer asked, looking straight at him.

  It was Mari’s turn to laugh. “Your intelligence,” he said. “That and your need for supplies, and your famous decency.”

  Denise joined his laughter. “Told you this was foolish,” she said. “Dealing with general, not scrubsniper.”

  With a sigh Archer looked from Mari to her and back to Mari. “I just don’t have time for you,” he said finally.

  “I want to watch you, Archer, not get in your way. Make time. In case you’ve lost the overall picture, there’s a war going on out there with the Ukes, and you’re an important part of that war. If you’re going to –“

  “Don’t lecture me!” Archer stared at him for an angry second then emptied his goblet.

  “Then stop acting so stupid.”

  Archer slid off the stool and stepped across the room. Mari sat still, wondering for a second if this idiot would be foolish enough to hit him.

  Instead, Archer refilled his goblet from a pitcher on the stove and stood staring down at Mari. “Porras said you spent some time in the Esqueleada Prison.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And they didn’t crack you?”

  “No. Came close, though,” Mari admitted. “Don’t know how much longer I could have held out if Porras hadn’t sent in his troops and pulled my ass out of there.”

  “You’ll do, General,” Archer said with a grin. “I hate to admit it, but you’ll do. Denise, bring in the others.”

  “Does this mean you’ll cooperate?” Mari asked as he stood and refilled his own goblet.

  Archer’s grin grew wider. “Want to see us in action, General?” He pulled a small chronometer out of his pocket and popped open its cover. “In three hours we’re going to destroy a Uke outpost up on the mountain. Want to come?”

  Mari was suddenly aware of how tired and sleepy he was. His body ached and his mind was beginning to buzz from the alcohol. He didn’t want to go anywhere without some rest, but he knew he had no choice. “That’s partly why I’m here.”

  “Then button your clothes and wipe your nose, General, ‘cause we’ll be leaving in thirty minutes.”

  As Archer spoke five rough-looking men all carrying heavy weapons entered the room. They leaned their weapons against the wall, pulled goblets off a high shelf and made for the stove, none of them speaking or acknowledging Mari’s pres
ence in the slightest way. He knew it was going to be an interesting night.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “This is my ship,” Lucky said as calmly as he could, “and I’ll go where I spacing well please.” He was tired of arguing.

  Morning Song stroked his long proboscis with both seven-fingered hands, making rude, snorting sounds with each stroke. “You forget, Captain Teeman, you are in partnership with my father. As his representative I do not believe that decision is entirely yours. Until we receive an answer to our message –“

  “Wrong, blownose.” Why is Morning Song so eager to wait? He wondered. “You said your father had an important message for me that he couldn’t transmit in the clear. Since you don’t have the codes – since he didn’t trust you with the codes – we have to return to –“

  “But Captain Teeman –“

  “Did you tell me everything he said? Did you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Well did he say anything about waiting to go to Patros and pick up a passenger?” Lucky’s anger was already out of control. The only person who would have sent him a message on Oina was Marsha. He didn’t know what that meant, but he intended to find out as quickly as possible.

  “No, Father said nothing about Patros, but –“

  “Then I’m taking us back to Oina.”

  Part snort, part squeal, the noise Morning Song made with his proboscis forced Lucky to clamp his hands over his ears. The sound prickled the skin on the back of his neck and sent a violent shiver through his spine. “Stop it!” he screamed.

  Morning Song’s pale grey eyes widened as he immediately stopped making the noise. “Are you sick, Captain Teeman?”

  “Sick and spacing tired of you,” Lucky said finally. The ringing in his ears was like a distant siren. “Why in the galaxy did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  Lucky frowned and shook his ringing head. “Never mind.”

  “I do not understand you, Captain.”

  “No one asked you to. Just get ready to head home. I’m plotting our course for Oina.”

  “But why, Captain? What harm can it do to wait for a response from my father?”

  “It’s a personal matter you wouldn’t understand.”

  Morning Star gave the Oinaise approximation of a smile, baring his blunt, yellow teeth on either side of his proboscis. “Why did you not say so before? Personal matters must always be attended to.”

  “Right,” Lucky said absently. He punched the final coordinates into Graycloud’s nav-computer and stared at it impatiently waiting for the results. He was sure the message was from Marsha. It couldn’t be anyone else. But what did she want? What did it say? Had she changed her mind? Had her father? Did she want to join him again?

  The questions poured through his mind, questions he would have to wait weeks to have answered. Yet behind the questions lay an intimate swell of peaceful emotions. He still believed in Marsha and the love they had shared, and that belief would have to give him comfort on the way back to Oina.

  13

  “THIS SHIP IS BEGINNING TO SMELL, BON,” Ishiwa said as the lieutenant entered his small cabin. He wrinkled his nose. “I mean really smell.”

  Bon stood at attention. “All sanitation systems are functioning properly, sir.”

  “Stand at ease, Bon. I know those systems are your responsibility and that they are functioning flawlessly. However, when I walk anywhere on the ship I smell a disgusting odor – even here in my cabin. Can’t you smell it?”

  “Yes, sir.” Bon looked truly perplexed. “But I do not understand why? If the sanitation systems are functioning properly, we should not have this problem. The Leopold never smelled like this.”

  Ishiw smiled slightly. “This isn’t a launchship, Bon. If you had served on hunks before, you would understand. When you pack sixty people into a confined hull over an extended period of time, odor begins to become a serious problem. On the old hunks we had no choice but to endure it.”

  Bon relaxed visibly. “Then am I to take it you have a suggestion, sir?”

  “I do, Lieutenant. As of today I am ordering everyone to bathe after every fifteenth watch. That way –“

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but such an order will place a serious overload on our water recycling equipment.”

  Ishiwa stared solemnly at his junior. He was tired of Bon’s continuing need to interrupt him. “Tell me, Lieutenant, is there anything I could order or suggest that you would not object to?”

  “Sir! I resent the implication –“

  “Resent away, Lieutenant. But answer my question. Why must you constantly interrupt with your objections after I have made my decisions?”

  Bon stood with his hands clasped behind him looking down at the deck. “I am sorry, sir,” he said in a low, firm voice. “I am only trying to carry out my duties to the very best of my abilities.”

  Ishiwa frowned. “Your duties, Bon – since apparently it is necessary for me to remind you of them – are from this moment forth, to act as my second-in-command, to follow and implement my orders, and to give advice if, and only if, it is requested.” Ishiwa paused, the frown still hanging on his brow. “Didn’t they teach you anything in command school?”

  Bon hesitated, as though weighing an important decision. “May I confide in the Captain, sir?”

  Ishiwa was immediately suspicious. What in the length of a hull could Bon wish to confide in himi about? “Of course you may,” he said. “What is the nature of this confidence?”

  “Orders, sir.” Bon looked squarely at Ishiwa with his eyes focused directly on the captain’s. “I have sworn an oath, sir.”

  “As we all have,” Ishiwa said.

  “A kyosei oath.”

  So that’s the engine driving his problem, Ishiwa thought, the kyosei and their damned allegiances. “Do you wish to tell me about it? Please, Lieutenant, maybe you should sit down and make yourself comfortable.” He wanted his junior to tell him everything, and being gracious was a cheap way to ease Bon along in that direction.

  Bon lowered his eyes and sat, almost reluctantly, opposite from Ishiwa at the tiny, dropdown, bulkhead table. “You must please understand, sir, that what I tell you is…is very difficult. To do so is to violate a trust placed in me.”

  “No one asks you to violate a trust, Lieutenant. However, if this kyosei oath of yours has bearing on the operation of my ship, then you are under a higher oath sworn to the service to tell me what it is.” Ishiwa wanted to make it as easy as he could for Bon, but most of all he wanted this friction removed from between them.

  “It is difficult to know where to begin, sir.”

  “Begin with the oath.”

  “As you wish,” Bon said slowly. “I swore an oath, to the kyosei, a sacred oath that whenever possible I would use my position –“

  The bridgecaller pinged beside him and made both of them jump to their feet.

  “Let’s go, Bon,” Ishiwa said without hesitation. “We will finish this discussion later.”

  In twenty seconds they stood on the command deck listening to an excited deck piper. “There must be at least fifteen ships, sir. Maybe more. It’s hard to tell. There are so many that their signals are mushing together.”

  “Battle stations,” Ishiwa ordered immediately. “Looks like we moved to the right spot, Lieutenant.”

  “Aye, sir.” Bon looked over the piper’s shoulder for a moment then moved to his target scope. “If those fuzzy signals are true indicators, there appear to be at least five warships in that group, sir. I estimate twenty-five to thirty ships total.”

  “What do we have, sir?” Chief Kleber asked as she jumped through the command deck door.

  Ishiwa smiled. “Looks like an opportunity for some heavy hunting, Chief.” He turned from her for a second and said, “Rig for scanless attack, Bon. Chief, have your crews prepare both tubes. We’ll fire all six missiles, then try to duck around them and to fire some more. That will give you time to rerack for a second s
eries of six.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Kleber said as she reached for the microphone that would link her to the firing chambers.

  In the forward and aft missile chambers the crews responded to Chief Kleber’s orders and loaded a missile in each of their tubes. The forward crew then released the storage clamps on the rack containing the next three missiles they would fire. As soon as they had fired their fourth missile, they would unseal the bulkhead hatch and begin the arduous process of pulling four more missiles from the midship storage magazine to fill their rack again. The aft crew did the same for the on missile on its ready rack.

  In some ways restocking the ready-racks was more difficult on the Olmis than it had been on the Pavion. On the old Zhou-class hunks like the Pavion, the missile storage magazines had been located directly behind each firing chamber, separated from them only by a thin bulkhead. After studying the records of accidents and premature explosions on some of Pavion’s sister hunks, Olmis’s designers had moved the magazines to midship for a higher margin of safety.

  They had also designed Olmis’s forward and aft firing chambers to be partially self-sustaining and completely detachable from the main hull of the ship. When the crews prepared to fire, the thick, spacetight bulkheads were automatically sealed shut. If an accident did occur, the designers’ theory had been that the firing chamber would blow itself away from the body of the ship.

  However, such a design necessitated that the missiles be winched from the magazines to the ready-racks when the gravity field was on. Since the gravity field was on most of the time, replenishing the racks was an arduous, time-consuming operation. Unfortunately for the missile crews, centuries of practical experience had shown that battle crews operated faster and more efficiently with the gravity field activated than without it.

  The missile crews were told that if the ship itself was damaged, the firing chambers would serve them as temporary lifecraft. There was little evidence that the missile crews accepted that explanation. They knew that even if they did manage to survive a lethal attack on the ship, there was little likelihood that their automatic short-range disaster signal would attract rescuers before their life support systems ran out of oxygen and power.