But what worried Ishiwa even more than the remote presence of Kuskuvyet, was the prospect of going into the attack against Satterfield with a tired crew while trying to direct four other tired crews to act as a team. Their physical and mental condition and everyone’s inexperience at this kind of attack would be a much greater handicap than Kuskuvyet.
“Do you think the Saks will expect us, sir?” Kleber asked after Ishiwa finished reading the orders.
“I do not know, nor do I care,” Ishiwa said firmly. “Our orders are clear, and we must do our best to execute them.” As he spoke, Ishiwa heard the slight hint of uncertainty in his voice and paused to chide himself.
When he continued, the uncertainty was gone from his voice, if not from his mind. “Bon, I want this crew to get as much rest as possible between now and when we join the fleet. We will obtain whatever extra rations we can from the Osoto, and make them available to the crew during all watches. If this attack is as important as I believe it will be, I want them in the best possible condition.”
He paused and looked thoughtfully at Bon. “You and Kleber and I, however, will not get much rest. We have to decide how to mold five independent hunks into an effective fighting unit.”
◊ ◊ ◊
“You have secured it well?” Xindella asked.
“Yes,” Ayne said sullenly. “The woman is checking my work.”
Xindella fondled his proboscis. “But you still do not wish to speculate what it is?”
“Can only guess. As we told you, looks like directed energy device of some kind, typical Drautzlab design.” Ayne suspected much more than that, but he no longer knew where to turn or who to trust. Since Xindella had drugged him and dragged him from the rooms on Yakusan where Kuskuvyet had left him, Ayne’s head had whirled with confusion. As long as he had his steady supply of gorlet, Ayne wasn’t about to tell Xindella anything he didn’t have to.
“What is that thing?” Marsha asked as she entered the cabin. She could feel the increasing tension between them, but she had more serious worries on her mind.
“Our scientific friend here thinks it is a weapon, but –“
“Did not say weapon.”
“But,” Xindella continued, “I believe he suspects more than he is presently willing to tell us.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Marsha asked. She was ready to put this delay behind them and get on with the business of finding Graycloud and Lucky, yet there was something going on here that intrigued her.
“I will attempt to find a buyer for it, of course,” Xindella said with a shrug of his huge shoulders. “If I cannot find someone who wants it whole, I shall have it disassembled and sell the parts. Everything is valuable to someone.”
Ayne stifled a brief gasp and tried to cover it with an exaggerated coughing fit. As he covered his mouth and turned away from them, he knew he couldn’t let Xindella dismantle the device. It was too valuable.
Marsha smiled slightly. She still had no idea who Ayne Wallen really was, but it was increasingly obvious to her that he was more than a little strange and very much in fear of Xindella. “It’s a weird-looking thing, whatever it is,” she said. “But now that we’ve picked it up, isn’t it about time to resume the search for Graycloud?”
“I’ve already found it, Captain Yednoshpfa.”
“Where? How soon can we get to them?” Marsha’s heart jumped with excitement.
“There,” Xindella said, tapping the navigation screen with the longest of his seven fingers, “on the other side of the sun. We should be in communications with them in ten Standard hours or so, and reach them in forty.”
“Why? And if we can’t communicate with them, how do you know Graycloud’s there?”
“Please, Captain, do not bombard me so.”
“I wish you’d quit calling me ‘Captain.’”
Ayne listened to them with growing agitation. As he popped a piece of gorlet into his mouth, his thoughts drifted back to the cargo hold and what they had secured there.
“Very well, Citizen Yednoshpfa. I understand your discomfiture at the military appellation, and respect –“
“Can’t you ever cut through all the tensheiss and get to the point?” Marsha asked. “How do you know Lucky’s ship is on the other side of the sun?”
“Because,” Xindella said slowly, “I located it before I put the sun between us.”
“You mean…you mean you knew all along that we had picked up signals from a piece of space junk…that it wasn’t Graycloud at all?” Marsha wanted to say more, but what he had done was so outrageous that words refused to form in her brain.
“Do not rile yourself, Citizen. Graycloud is in no immediate danger. Fifty hours more or less will not make any difference.”
“Damn you,” Marsha said quietly. “Damn you to the void and back. You’re nothing but a rotten mercenary, you know that?”
“Mercenary is hardly an appropriate word, Citizen. I am what you humans call an opportunist, and a good opportunist never passes up the chance to make a profit. As a former lightspeed freighter, you should understand that.”
“The only thing I understand is that Delightful Childe would never have done what you just did. Nor will he approve, I think, when he finds out.”
“My affairs are no concern of his. Nor is his approval a concern of mine.”
Ayne cared nothing about their argument and quietly slipped out of the cabin. He wanted another look at the Drautzlab device they had found.
Despite some peculiarities of design whose purposes baffled him, he was sure it was a prototype for the Ultimate Weapon. Worse, its design suggested that Drautzlab had found and understood his equations. But what was it doing in the March Cluster? And why had it been abandoned? Those were questions that no examination of the device could answer, but for the moment they were less important than the thing itself.
If it was a prototype for the Ultimate Weapon, and if, as he feared, it had been built on the basis of his equations, that would mean that his whole life had changed once again.
◊ ◊ ◊
“That is the last one,” Frye said with a sigh of relief. He had been dictating orders, directives, and memos all day and he was feeling close to exhaustion.
“When should I send them, sir?” Melliman asked.
“Immediately, AOCO. You and I will be leaving in the morning to join the fleet near Alexvieux.”
“Isn’t that where your daughter –“
“Yes,” Frye said quickly, cutting her off. He tried not to think about Marsha any more than necessary. Only that morning he had received a report from Personnel that said she had failed to report for duty and was missing from Yakusan. He only hoped she was heading in the right direction. “I’m sorry, Clarest. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
“No apology necessary, sir. I understand.”
“Thank you.” He looked quietly at her and felt again a reserve of strength in her that enhanced her appeal. She could never take Vinita’s place in his heart, but he was glad she was back by his side. “Tell me, what do you really think of this plan of ours to attack Satterfield?”
“I think it is an excellent decision, sir. However, I still worry about stripping Yozel’s fleet over Sutton.”
“I know. I do, too. But those ships are no good to us just hanging there in space. Yozel has resisted every order to become more aggressive on Sutton, and it is costing him. This strike against Satterfield will cut Sondak’s supply line to Sutton and relieve the pressure on Yozel.”
“Maybe you should relieve Yozel himself, sir.”
“You’ve suggested that before, AOCO, but I can’t do that without support from Bridgeforce, and right now I don’t think I could get it. I’m only beginning to understand the pressures the kyosei were putting on Tuuneo, but I fully understand the pressures they’re putting on me. Until I find a way to turn that pressure around, Yozel stays.”
He stood and stretched. “And now, you’d better send those orders. As soon as you
have done so, we’ll go home and pack.”
Hours later as they sat in Frye’s skimmer, the driver turned and said, “Sorry, sir, but it looks like we’re caught in this traffic jam. The peacetraps have blocked all the roads again.”
Frye leaned back with a sigh and unconsciously took Melliman’s hand in his. These demonstrations had become routine around every military installation on Gensha. They were never large, but they were always well organized and effective. He didn’t understand why these people felt the way they did, or how they thought that blocking traffic would help accomplish their goals. In fact, he wasn’t even sure what their goals were.
“Why did he call them peacetraps,” Melliman asked.
“I don’t know. It is a slang term that suddenly seemed to be on everyone’s lips when the demonstrations…” Frye let the words trail off into a little chuckle. “It really is an ironic name, isn’t it? Peacetraps? Trap us in peace? I think I detect some anti-kyosei influence at work there.”
When they finally got to the house, Frye went into the kitchen and just stood there. He couldn’t seem to find the energy to think about what they might eat. Melliman came up beside him and slipped an arm around his waist.
“Shall I cook tonight?” she asked.
“No,” Frye said as he turned and pulled her into his arms. “We’ll send for something. All I want to do for the moment is hold you. Then we have to pack. The orderly can bring us a couple of hotplates from –“ The end of his sentence was smothered by her kiss.
“I’ll cook,” she said after pulling away from him slightly. “I don’t want anyone else near us tonight.”
“But you’re such a rotten cook,” Frye said affectionately. That was a joke between them. Actually Melliman was a fairly good cook, but her meals could not compare with his. He had had too much practice cooking for Vinita during the last years of her illness.
“But better than you,” she said in response. With a quick kiss on his cheek she pulled out of his arms. “You start packing and I’ll put some food on.”
He was too tired to resist. “All right. But keep it simple and light. I’m just not in the mood for anything else.”
As he left the kitchen and walked down the hall, he automatically went into his private office. The bell on his microspooler was turned off, but its light was flashing insistently. Frye almost turned away, willing to put off whatever the message was until after he had a chance to eat something and relax. Habit and routine discipline led him to the desk and switched the microspooler’s message onto the screen.
When Melliman called to tell him their dinner was ready, he was still sorting through the messages. Most of it was routine and could be diverted to headquarters. “I’ll be there in a minute,” he said as he scanned the remaining messages. One caught his eye and he quickly froze its contents on the screen. What he read gave him serious reason to worry.
A hunk reported that Sondak was massing warships off Satterfield. Did the Saks know his fleet was coming? Or had they just guessed that Satterfield would be his next point of attack?
Frye cursed quietly as he turned off the microspooler. He refused to accept a repetition of the defeat at Matthews. This time he had the new hunks working for him and he would send them in to discover the exact location of Sondak’s forces. If Sondak could prepare for him, he could prepare for them, and strike from a position of knowledge.
“No more defeats,” he said softly as he went to join Melliman. “No more defeats.”
24
MICA GILBERT SAT IN HER SMALL cubicle off the Walker’s command deck and watched her screens with a growing sense of excitement. Behind her she could hear Admiral Dimitri quietly giving the final exit orders.
In seven minutes the widely dispersed attack force led by the Walker would be exiting subspace, and shortly thereafter would begin its attack on the Ukes over Sutton’s north pole. Despite all the intense planning that had gone into this operation, Mica knew that the outcome of any battle was in doubt until it was over.
And this would be no simple space battle. While the fleet was attacking the Ukes, Schopper would be positioning his ships to land three legions of Planetary Troops dirtside.
Mica shivered. The Suttonese were supposed to begin their attacks on the ground as soon as the Ukes were hit in space. But it had been more than five days since a clear communication channel had been open to Sutton, and no one knew for sure if Mari and his strange assortment of local forces, militia, and planetary troops were ready to act.
As she continued to stare at the screen, she wondered what Henley Stanmorton was doing and if she would ever see him again. Ever since he had left without saying goodbye, she had felt a little guilty about the way she had used him. She hadn’t meant to use him, but she had. He had given her comfort – physical comfort as well as mental comfort – and she had returned his kindness by distancing herself from him.
Why? She liked him, probably more than she would admit to herself. He had been kind and gentle, demanding nothing of her and accepting whatever she gave him. Yet…yet there was something wrong between them, something wrong for her.
He grated on her in ways she still couldn’t delineate very well. But the more time she had spent with him, the more his presence made her feel crowded and nervous. It was almost as though he cared about her too much, wanted her too much, needed her too much. How could she care so deeply about him and also be irritated by his company? It didn’t make any sense.
No matter how she turned it over in her mind all she could see was a yawning gulf of need in him. And she knew instinctively that she couldn’t fill it. It wasn’t what he said, or what he did, so much as it was his attitude toward her. Yet even that attitude was confusing, because under his need for her she sensed his own feelings of guilt that he refused to confront or explain.
Suddenly she thought of Rochmon. He often left her with the same impression, that under his affection for her – an affection he showed only in the most circumspect ways – there was a layer of unexplained guilt.
Was she attracted for some reason to men who harbored deep internal guilt? Or was there something so wrong with her that she brought out feelings of guilt in men she cared about? What did she do that made them –
“Exiting subspace in thirty seconds,” the speaker announced.
Mica immediately turned all her attention back to the screen, glad for the interruption. She didn’t like the dark directions her thoughts had been taking, and besides, what did the problems of her life matter in the face of what was happening in her beloved Caveness galaxy?
The screen shifted from grey to blue as the Walker carried them back into normal space. Almost immediately the deck vibrated under the strain of the inertial dampers slowing them down. The screen was dotted with other ships of the attack force moving with them toward Sutton.
“Launch in eleven minutes,” a voice behind her said.
Quickly Mica checked her communications coordinates and sent her first message to Admiral Pajandcan, the message that would tell her the fleet had arrived on schedule and was preparing to launch the first wave of their fighter attack. As she waited with the others, she watched her screen carefully for some sign that the Ukes had spotted them and were launching fighters of their own.
“Launch commencing,” the voice behind her finally said.
Mica sent her second message without hesitation. From now on the messages would be far from routine. She would have to report whatever Dimitri told her to as the battle developed. Once the second message was dispatched, she left her cubicle and joined Admiral Dimitri on the command deck. “POLFLEET HQ has been notified, sir,” she said with a quick salute.
“Good, Captain. Now comes the hard part – waiting.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Leri waited patiently for Ranas to speak after he had made his formal greeting. She was surprised to see him alone. They had not been alone together in hundreds of seasons, ever since Weecs had moved in with her. Now she felt uncomfortable in Ranas
’s presence, yet she also found him more attractive than he had been in a long, long time. However, this was no time for indulging her personal emotions.
“The Castorians have arrived, Proctor,” Ranas said.
“Did they bring…him?”
“Yes, Proctor – at least they say they have him aboard one of their ships. But they insist on discussing the matter further.”
“There is nothing to discuss,” Leri said coldly. “I want him brought to me immediately.”
“I told them as much, Proctor. They were unmoved and requested permission for a negotiator to land.”
“And you gave them that permission, I suppose?”
“It seemed best. Surely after all this time a slight delay will matter little. Exeter will be yours. I promise.”
Leri sighed and flicked her tongue to her shrunken teats. “Promises, as you and I know only too well, Ranas, are more easily made than kept. Why would you promise such a thing for these aliens?”
“Because I would please you, mate-of-my-nest.”
His use of that term disturbed her, but she hid her reaction. “Very well. When will this negotiator arrive?”
“He awaits outside.”
“Then send him in! I want this over with.” As she waited, she wondered what Ranas hoped to gain from his terms of endearment? Or was he just trying to let her know how much he still cared for her?
Moments later the negotiator scuttled in with a translator device slung on the back of his dark brown carapace. “Greetings to you, Proctor Leri, from all of Castor. I am called Glights, and am here to assist in our alliance.”
“I want the one called Exeter,” Leri said simply.
“We know that, Proctor,” Glights said with a clacking flourish of his claws, “but we feel that certain formalities must be observed before we can surrender him to you. After all, he is a citizen of Castor, and as such –“
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