“Your AOCO?” she asked.
“Just make sure I’m there.”
“Yes, sir,” Marsha said. As the line went dead she wondered why in the world he wanted to meet Vice-Captain Melliman himself? He could more easily send someone…unless there was something more to it than…It’s not fair to Mother, Marsha thought suddenly. Or me, either.
Frye returned to the Bridgeforce meeting feeling much better. That feeling was shattered when he saw Marshall Judoff sitting alone at the table.
“What’s this?” she asked with a vicious smile. “A new Vice-Admiral to contend with?”
“Greetings, Judoff,” Frye said quietly. “How does it feel to return to the scene of your treachery?”
“Listen, you – that will cost you, Charltos.”
“Not from you. You don’t outrank me anymore, Judoff, and I’ll say what I damned well please to you. Traitor.”
Judoff jumped to her feet with a snarl.
“Make that admiral,” Frye said with a smile.
“Enough,” Admiral Tuuneo said from behind him. “The two of you either make your peace or shut up. We do not have time for your petty quarrels.”
“Petty quarrels, sir! How can you call this a petty quarrel? Her treachery probably cost us the Matthews system.”
“I heard the Saks caught you with your legs spread,” Judoff said. “Careless of you, Admiral.”
Frye stared at her for a long second. “Is your mother still bearing Castorian bastards?” he asked. “Or are the crabs all in your bed now?”
A low growl issued from Judoff’s throat as she started moving around the table.
Meister Hadasaki laughed as he grabbed Judoff and held her by the arms. She was no match for his nine hundred kilograms.
“Let go of me, you idiot!”
“Enough!” Tuuneo shouted. Pain shot across his face.
“Be calm, Marshall,” Hadasaki said as he pulled her arms farther back, “or I will gladly break you.”
“This is insane,” Tuuneo said. “I want you –“ His voice broke into a gurgling gasp as he clutched his chest and fell across the table.
Frye jumped to his side. “Call the medics,” he shouted. “It’s his heart.” Even as he eased Tuuneo onto his back and pulled his legs up to the table, Frye knew the worst was happening. Tuuneo had warned him that it might happen at any time, but he still wasn’t ready to face the old man’s death.
“Let me help,” Hadasaki said as he loosened Tuuneo’s tunic with nimble fingers.
“Pulse,” Frye said. “Check his pulse.”
“I can barely feel it,” Hadasaki said. “Put something under his feet. Hurry!”
“Frye grabbed a stack of folders and slid them under Tuuneo’s feet. Don’t die, he thought. In Decie’s name, don’t die.
The first medic arrived moments later and pushed Frye aside as he jumped onto the table beside Tuuneo. After quickly checking his pulse, she balled her fists together and hit the old man in the solar plexus. “Breathe for him,” she ordered as she started pumping his chest with locked hands.
Without hesitation Frye tilted Tuuneo’s head back. He remembered to hold Tuuneo’s tongue down with his thumb as he opened his mouth. Taking a deep breath he put his mouth over Tuuneo’s and exhaled. Then again. And again, until a second medic rushed into the room pulling a cart and told him to stop.
They put an airway down Tuuneo’s throat, hooked it to a mechanical respirator, and with the help of several arriving medics hauled Tuuneo out of the conference room and headed for the hospital.
Frye looked around the now crowded room and knew he needed to be alone. In a a corner he saw Judoff leaning against a wall with a faint smile on her lips. How he hated her. Oh, how he hated her. How he wanted to make her pay for her treachery. But that would have to wait. Quickly he stalked out of the room.
Two hours later he sat in the solitude of his office, word came that Tuuneo had died of massive heart failure.
Frye spent the rest of the afternoon alone. Other than one call on his private line to the Transient Officers Quarters, he spoke with no one. There was a numbness in his mind that slowly dissolved under his anger and revealed a core of determination even harder than it had been before. He would win this war at whatever cost, for Tuuneo now as well as for Vinita.
Marsha kept everyone out of his office and told all callers they would have to talk to him in a day or two. When the guard station called and announced that his transportation had arrived, she was hesitant to tell him, but she decided that for the moment she was the only person who could bring him back to the present.
“Father,” she said as she knocked on the door, “your transportation to the starport is here.” Much to her surprise, the door opened immediately.
“Don’t wait up for me,” he said, brushing past her. As he reached the door to the outer office he paused. Without turning around, he said, “Thank you, Marsha. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be very late again tonight.”
She watched him leave with an ache under heart. What he needed was someone to hug him, but there was no one around who could do it.
Frye was startled when his driver said, “We’re here, sir.”
He looked at the driver, then out at the vast expanse of the starport studded with hundreds of ships. He had made the whole trip without seeing a thing. “Thank you,” he said as he got out of the skimmer. “Wait here.”
As quickly as he could, Frye made his way through the crowds of spacers, technicians, and travelers in the terminal to the operations room where he located the duty officer. From the joking and laughing going on, he guessed that they didn’t know about Tuuneo yet.
The duty officer listened politely to his request, then suggested that he wait in her office while she went to check with the processing center. She was back in less than five minutes with Melliman following close behind her carrying a bulging shoulder bag.
“Perfect timing, sir,” the duty officer said. “Captain Melliman had just finished processing in.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Frye said absently. His attention was totally focused on Melliman.
“Congratulations, sir,” she said, saluting him with a broad smile. “When Lieutenant Knox told me an admiral wanted to see me, I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yes, well, a great deal has happened,” Frye said as he returned her salute. She looked pale, but beautiful. Without taking his eyes from Melliman he asked, “Lieutenant Knox, may we use your office for a few more minutes?”
“For as long as you need it, sir,” the Lieutenant said with a quick salute.
Frye realized that he was staring at Melliman when she suddenly dropped her eyes and blushed. There was no time to contend with the sudden awkwardness he felt, so he pushed it aside. “Listen, Melliman,” he said quickly, “I know I hurt you and there is a lot you and I have to talk about, so I reserved a suite at the Transient Officer’s Quarters. We can have some privacy there, and I can fill you in on the current situation.”
“Situation, sir?”
He saw the ghost of a frown shadow her face, and hesitated. “I know this is all unexpected,” he said, “and I don’t mean to pressure you. But if those arrangements are acceptable to you, I’ll explain everything when we get to the TOQ.”
“Of course, sir.” Her frown melted into a smile. “I have all my essential gear,” she said, patting her bag. As they headed away from the starport in the skimmer, Melliman began giving him a status report on Sutton, including, as always, her incisive analysis of what had happened there since the invasion, and why.
Frye was content to listen to her. It gave him an opportunity to evaluate her attitude, and the time to prepare himself for everything he wanted to tell her later. Yet as they rode through the fading twilight, he found it more and more difficult to concentrate on anything except her presence.
◊ ◊ ◊
“I wonder what people would think of this thing?”
“According to our immigrant scientists, Ca
ugust, the people of Sondak would probably approve. According to their reports, people on every planet are eager to win this war at any price.”
He ignored the sarcasm in her voice and looked at the assembled equipment with a cocked eyebrow. “This is much smaller than I thought it was going to be.”
“That’s because it’s incomplete,” Sjean said quietly. “The detonator is half-again as big as all this together.”
“So, show me the detonator.”
Without a word Sjean touched a button on the remote controller in her hand. Two blast doors on the side of the room slid back to reveal the detonator sitting alone in a darkened chamber. “I recommend that we transport it separately – in a totally different ship,” she said.
“It frightens you that much?”
“Not just the detonator, Caugust. This whole project frightens me.” For a brief instant she wondered if her sister, Vanse, had been frightened before she died over Sutton.
“Very well. We will use separate ships to transport the equipment. However, won’t that give us an assembly problem?”
“What if we can’t control the reciprocal reaction?” she asked, refusing to answer his question yet.
Caugust shook his massive head. “I don’t know the answer to that. What I do know is that the future of Drautzlab depends on this experiment.”
“But, Caugust! There’s no guarantee that it will work. Surely you didn’t tell –“
“We’ve been through all this, Sjean. I told the Inspector Admiral’s office what they wanted to hear, that we would conduct the test. That’s all.”
“Did they insist on picking the test stars, too?” she asked sarcastically. As much as she respected Caugust, she sometimes felt that his principles were too tightly linked to Drauztlab business. “Or do we get to get to pick the starting point for the end of the galaxy?”
“We do,” he said without blinking. “Now what about the assembly problem?”
Sjean pushed a button to close the blast doors. “It doesn’t have to be assembled. The detonator can be tethered to the Wallen with a simple cable.”
“The what?”
“The Wallen. That’s what I’ve been calling it.” Sjean gave him a bitter smile. “Seemed as good a name as any.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Then name it yourself!” she said angrily. “Call it the Asshole of Doom, or the thing-with-no-name, or anything else you want! There won’t be anyone around to know what either of us –“
“This outburst is unnecessary, Sjean.”
“Unnecessary? Unnecessary? Here we are standing next to a device that could destroy our whole galaxy, and you think my anger is unnecessary? Don’t you care what happens to us?”
Caugust turned away from her and stared at the thing-with-no-name. “We shall call it the D.U.D.,” he said finally.
“Dud? What does that mean?”
“Daringly Undestructive Device.” He turned back to her with a smile on his face. “How long will it take your people to assemble another of these?”
“Why? I don’t understand what you want, Caugust, and until you explain it to me, I’m not doing another damned thing.”
“Then pay attention, Doctor. What will happen if we take this Wallen of yours out to a star in the March Cluster and send it on its way without the detonator?”
“Nothing, of course.”
Caugust’s smile widened. “Exactly. But we would have run the test the I.A. wants, and could then tell them we have to do more experiments.”
It was finally beginning to dawn on Sjean what he was suggesting. “Fraud? If Sci-Sec found out about that, they would really kick the bottom out of Drautzlab, Caugust.”
“Then we have to make sure they don’t find out.” Caugust grunted. “Sci-Sec already has enough to worry about going after the real Wallen.”
“I have another idea,” she said excitedly. “Suppose we take the Wallen and the detonator, load them with telemetry equipment, and ship out with them to the star of our choice.”
“And suffer an extensive equipment failure?”
“Yes. Then we’ll have megabytes of data to sift through for anyone trying to rush us into another test.”
“Sjean, that’s an excellent idea – especially if you and I are the only ones who know this isn’t a real test. Can you arrange that?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Make whatever adjustments are necessary to get the Wallen ready as quickly as you can. We’ll load and launch as soon as you say we’re ready.”
Four Absolute Standard Weeks later the Wallen and its tagalong detonator suddenly stopped sending telemetry data as it fell toward the star GA-72-6694 in the March Cluster. To the dismay of the I.A. observers, Sjean and Caugust declared the experiment a failure and headed their ship back toward Summer.
Unbeknownst to anyone, a huge solar flare on GA-72-6694 tickled the Wallen’s electronic systems for nineteen minutes causing its small guidance rockets to fire. As the Wallen whipped through perihelion, the cable between it and the detonator snapped. The detonator fell into the star’s gravity well. The Wallen swung into a long elliptical orbit around GA-72-6694 with its telemetry equipment again sending out signals, but to now empty space.
19
“HOW LONG CAN WE TRANSMIT?” Mari asked.
“Even at full scramble it only takes the Ukes about ten minutes to home in on our signal, sir,” the pikean co-sergeant said, “so, General Porras has ordered us to limit all of our transmissions to a maximum of seven minutes.”
“Damn!” Mari shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes. “Not much time to get a whole lot said, is it? But I agree with General Porras.” There was no sense in giving their position away. “All right, Sergeant. If you’re sure Admiral Pajandcan is going to be on the other end, I want the full seven minutes.”
“That’s what they told us, General.”
“Then that’s what we’ll plan for. When do you expect the call to come in from Satterfield?”
“Sometime within the next couple of hours. It’s been pretty tough for us to coordinate with them, so we just sit open and wait most of the time.”
“Then I’ll wait here.” He looked around the damp cave with a little shudder. “You have anything hot to drink?”
The co-sergeant smiled. “There’s some instant tea in the pot, and some battle coffee back in the rear of the cave.”
“Ugh,” Mari said with a frown. “Never could stand battle coffee. Burns my stomach and gives me gas. I’ll take some of your tea.” He poured himself a mug of the tea, sweetened it with the thick, sweet syrup the pikeans always seemed to have for that purpose, and sunk into one of the inflatable chairs just outside the communications area.
As soon as the channel opened to Satterfield, his first priority was to tell Pajandcan that he would be leaving on the next freighter. Then he could give her the gist of his invasion idea. It would be easier if Porras were there to answer any questions Pajandcan might have, but Mari knew how critically important Porras’s attack on the Gresham starport was. If he and his pikean regulars destroyed the Uke ships as they planned, Sutton would be an even softer invasion target.
It had taken Mari twenty-three days to get from Spurgis to Porras’s new headquarters in the Halsey Mountains. One of the most important things he noted on the return trip had been that the Uke forces seemed thinner, both in the air, and on the ground than they had been on his trip over to Elias.
He and Porras hadn’t had much time to talk about that before Porras left, but they agreed that the Ukes appeared to be reverting to a defensive posture around all the major cities, leaving the smaller towns and the countryside alone except for irregular security patrols.
That new deployment pleased them both. It meant easier troop movement for them, and most critically, an opportunity to attack the Gresham starport near the north pole. Porras was convinced that the Ukes least expected an attack there, but he had been concerned about massing sufficient troops for such an a
ttack without being observed.
As the withdrawl of the Ukes to an enclave defense had become more and more apparent, Porras had decided the risks were worthwhile, and had made his plans accordingly. Mari had returned only one day before Porras left, and after reviewing the plans, agreed with Porras and wished him well.
Now as he waited for the call from Pajandcan, he wondered what Porras was going through at that moment. If he and his troop were on schedule, they should be less than ten hours away from the start of their attack.
Mari finished the mug of tea and leaned back in the chair. His eyes were heavy for want of sleep, but he dared not close them, even for a minute. Otherwise he might…
An hour and a half later a trooper shook him roughly. “Your call’s coming through, General.”
Forcing himself to his feet, Mari shook off the lethargy of sleep, but he couldn’t stop the burning in his eyes as he walked slowly to the communications area.
“Some tea, sir,” the trooper said, thrusting a hot mug into his hands. “I fixed it extra strong.”
“Hmm,” Mari said, taking the mug and forcing himself to try a sip. Its bittersweet flavor burned his tongue slightly, but it tasted good, and he took another sip as he sat on the padded bench next to the co-sergeant. The screen in front of them was filled by a ragged test pattern.
“I won’t respond until you’re ready, sir,” the co-sergeant said. “Don’t want to waste any time.”
“’Course.” Mari fought to clear his head. After a few more sips of the tea he said, “Ready.”
The co-sergeant pushed a button on the console and the test pattern was replaced by a rapidly moving series of symbols. Moments later the symbols dissolved and the shadowy image of Admiral Pajandcan’s face appeared.
“Mari, here,” he said automatically.
“Good to see you, Fortuno.” Her voice was scratched by static.
“Not much time, Admiral. We’re fully scrambled, but the Ukes still don’t take long to trace our signal.” Mari took one more sip of tea to relieve the dryness in his mouth, then set the mug down. “I’ll be leaving here on the next available transport,” he said quickly. “Will notify you of my arrival as soon as possible. In the meantime I want General Schopper to prepare a preliminary invasion plan for objective Delta-One. It is imperative that this plan utilize the maximum number –“
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