Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  “What did you tell them?” For the first time she fully realized how deeply troubled he was by all this and was sorry she had been so harsh in her judgment.

  He shook his head sadly. “Luckily I was warned that they were coming, so I faked it – put your full team in the lab and told them to look damned busy when the panel snooped around. Then I told the panel that we were trying to work through some major difficulties.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No. They were – how shall I put it? – most eager to have us run a successful test and begin production, and they made it very clear that our failure to do so would be reflected in the amount of government funding we would continue to receive.”

  “So you want me to go back to work on it?”

  “That’s up to you, Sjean. I don’t have a choice. I need you on this, but after what happened, you might not be able to carry the necessary workload. However, with you or without you we have to resume the project. We can’t afford not to.”

  Sjean hesitated, but she knew what she had to say. “I can’t do it, Caugust. I can’t be a part of that project any longer. And you shouldn’t either. You shouldn’t let them run up your –“

  “I have no choice.” There was a weary darkness in his voice. “Drautzlab is my life. If I fight them, I could lose everything.”

  “Maybe you already have,” she said sadly. “Maybe you already have.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Charltos has gone too far,” Kuskuvyet said as he entered her cabin. “We must cease the pursuit of the alien and return to Gensha at once.”

  “What are you talking about?” Judoff asked.

  “This message from Brig Meister Owens. She says Charltos has splintered our fleet in this new offensive he has planned.”

  Judoff started and rose to take the message from him. “He what? How dare he? No one splits my fleet. No one!”

  “Shall I give the order to make way for Gensha, Marshall?” he asked as she read the message.

  “No.”

  “But Marshall, how can we continue chasing –“

  “Shut up, you idiot, and let me think.” Judoff looked up from the message and stared at the bulkhead for a long moment. “You are right, Tana. I must return to Gensha. But that does not mean that we should stop following Xindella. He has the weapon that can win this war for us with one sure stroke. That is too important an opportunity to abandon.”

  When she looked at him, there was a strangely cold affection in her eyes. “The Kasavara,” he said suddenly. “We brought the Kasavara. And we have the crew to spare to…”

  “To get me back to Gensha while you continue the chase,” she finished for him. “It is a big responsibility I place in your hands, Tana, a very big responsibility.” She watched his eyes drop. But I am sure you are quite capable of dealing with the alien and bringing back the weapon. You have my confidence.”

  “Thank you,” he said quietly as he raised his eyes again and straightened his posture. “I guarantee that either we will possess the weapon or no one will.”

  “That is good, Kuskuvyet, except for one thing,” she said with a slight impatience in her tone. “Guarantee only that we will possess the weapon. It is far too valuable to be destroyed. Just get it for me. When you have done that, return to Gensha at once unless I tell you otherwise.”

  “Yes, sha, I will get it.” He turned to the bridgecaller. “Prepare the Kasavara for launch immediately,” he ordered, minimum crew, and notify Marshall Judoff when all is ready.”

  He paused after receiving the acceptance of his order as though studying the distracted expression on her face. “What will you do once you get to Gensha?” he asked finally.

  “I do not yet know,” Judoff admitted. She sat down and rested her chin on a clenched fist. “I must pull our fleet back together and crush Charltos once and finally, and I have to do both things at the same time with the greatest amount of surprise and effectiveness. Have you any suggestions, Tana?”

  “No, sha – I mean, I’ve hardly had time to think about it in the way you laid the problem.” He hesitated. “However, given Charltos’s almost – foolish reverence for tradition, would that provide some route of attack?”

  “Yes, Tana, it just might. But I will have to be very careful. Bridgeforce has approved this division of our fleet, and Bridgeforce will be part of whatever method I use to pull it back together. Hmm…” She stopped speaking and again stared at the bulkhead.

  Kuskuvyet broke the silence after only a few seconds. “I think there are loyalties at question that we previously took for granted. Lieutenant Oska should have sent this warning.”

  “Very good, Tana,” she said, looking at him with a little smile. “You are learning. Take no loyalty for granted. Assume nothing. Prepare for the worst. If I had paid closer attention to that advice myself, this would not have happened.”

  “Uh, there’s another thing. Didn’t I read once that there used to be a confederacy agreement that auxiliary forces could not be divided without the commander’s permission?”

  “Yes, you did, but that rule was set aside during the last war, and I don’t think – Wait, Tana. You’re right. The rule wasn’t rescinded. It was only set aside!” She smiled.

  “And unless they have set it aside again, it has stayed in effect since the end of the last war?” Kuskuvyet asked.

  “Exactly. Charltos and Bridgeforce have broken a rule of the confederacy.”

  Kuskuvyet frowned. “But couldn’t they just set the rule aside again?”

  “Perhaps,” she said, the smile still lingering on her lips, “but they might be forced to put our fleet back together again before they could muster the vote to set the rule aside.” She stood up, moved to her locker, and began putting her personal possessions in a small hyleather flight bag.

  “Tana, I think we might just use that old rule to knock Charltos out and get the fleet, too.”

  22

  “ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM BARRA, SIR,” Melliman said. “If this one is as accurate as her one about the Ivy Chain, we’re going to have to adjust again.”

  “How in Heller’s Fleet am I supposed to conduct a war based on intermittent messages from a long-lost daughter, Melliman? Read it to me.”

  Melliman cleared her throat. “’Father,’ it says, ‘General Schopper and Admiral Gilbert plan a three-pronged attack on the U .C.S., beginning with coordinated attacks against Buth, Shakav, and either Fernandez or Cczwyck. Further plans are to blockade and bypass weaker systems like Thayne-G and strike toward Gensha and Yakusan. More to follow.’ It’s not even signed this time. I think she filled the burst she sent it in.”

  “And dared not send another? Dammit, Melliman, where is she and how do we know this still isn’t a trap? It will take every ship and soldier in the U.C.S to defend all those systems at once. If we believe her, we’ll be forced to abandon any offensive whatsoever.”

  “I know that, sir, but if we don’t believe and act on it, the Saks could get behind us and be attacking Gensha in a matter of months.”

  “No,” he said with a quick shake of his head. “This one we cannot believe. There is no way that Sondak could have enough warships to make a three-pronged attack, much less the ground forces it would take. And what about logistics? A set of attacks like that would require massive logistic support, and they don’t have that kind of reserve. It’s been all they can do to control our skirmishes in their polar systems.”

  “You’re right, sir. I guess the first impact of her message made me feel very defensive.”

  “As it was meant to,” Frye said with a frown. He had been struggling with how he must regard Barra ever since her warning about the Ivy Chain had proven true. Now he felt certain that her very first message had revealed her true sentiments. She had threatened him with defeat, and if he reacted to this warning of hers, he would most certainly be defeated.

  “Something else?” Melliman asked.

  Just looking at her could sometimes take a frown off his fa
ce. “Yes, Clarest. I’ve decided that until we can get some solid confirmation of this, all we need to do is raise the alert level in all our border systems. Otherwise we will proceed with the offensive approved by Bridgeforce.”

  “And if we get the confirmation? Shouldn’t we have an alternate plan that will allow us a fast recovery and counterstrike?”

  He saw the knitting of her brow and that strange look she got when she was concentrating on a problem. It had taken him a long time to acknowledge it, but Melliman had demonstrated over and over that she was smarter than Vinita had ever been. Once he admitted that to himself, then he had been forced to deal with what effect that had on his memory of Vinita. In the end he had decided it didn’t have any effect. Vinita was Vinita, and Melliman was Melliman, and the better he came to know Melliman, the more he realized that he loved her for increasingly different reasons than he had loved Vinita.

  “You have something in mind?” he asked when she didn’t expand on her statement.

  “I might if you can spare me for the rest of the day.”

  “Get Lieutenant Nellnix or Raybourn to handle the front office, and the rest of the day is yours,” he said with a smile, “on the provision, of course, that I get you back this evening and you explain to me in detail what you’re thinking on this.”

  “Can do, sir.”

  “Then why are you standing around in my office, AOCO?”

  “I’m gone, sir.” She started to leave, then turned back. “I’ll be home by nineteen hundred. I have to meet Anshuwu Tashawaki at eighteen.”

  ‘’I’ll look for you then.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Leri heard her people in the tunnels before Weecs, followed by several members of the Council, made his appearance. She knew at once that something was terribly wrong.

  “Forgive us,” Weecs cried.

  “Forgive us, mother of hundreds,” the Council responded.

  Ranas! No! It couldn’t be! Not Ranas. Oh, please, not Ranas. Her mind was a rush of confused prayers and grief.

  “All hearts are in anguish.”

  “The many mourn his passing.”

  “The Elett are gracious,” Leri said automatically. It was the litany of passing, and there was no way to avoid the truth. With each verse and refrain the surety of it sank into her heart. Ranas was dead. Ranas was dead, and it was her fault.

  “By the grace of the Elett we were blessed with his coming.”

  “By the grace of the Elett he passes beyond us.”

  “By the grace of the Elett, our Ranas is gone.”

  Suddenly the litany was over, and everyone withdrew from her chamber, even Weecs – or especially Weecs, she thought, for he had already felt his share of the guilt about Ranas going to space and now must feel it even deeper. But not as deep as she.

  Leri immediately regretted her selfishness. This was not the time to think about guilt. It was time to send her personal prayers to the Elett for the sake of Ranas’s soul.

  Instead of the music she favored for meditation and prayers, she put on the Deavor’s Melodies, deliberately choosing those upbeat songs Ranas loved most, and tried to fit her chanting to their spirited beat. For some reason it worked almost without effort, and the syncopated rhythm whisked her through her private litany much faster than normal.

  But when she was finished, Leri was disquieted by a sense of incompleteness. She almost felt as though Ranas could still slither into her chamber, saying, “Greetings, mate of my nest,” and present her with some new problem or request. Of a sudden she knew what was incomplete. She was incomplete. There were so many things they hadn’t settled between them, so many things she needed and wanted to say to him now that she could no longer say anything.

  Leri felt angry that he had left her this way to deal with the dangling cords of their relationship by herself. If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so determined to prove something to her, this wouldn’t have happened. Why had he…Most of the answers were all too simple. She had caused the great rift between them. She had stupidly, falsely, accused him of not loving her enough, and in proving how much he did love her, he had died. Now she would have to cope…but not by herself, not now. There were too many other things pressing on her now.

  As she had so many times in the past, Leri fled the confines of her chamber for the sanctuary of her favorite Confidante. When she slithered into the cave, it was already lit, and Leri sensed that she had been expected.

  “Are you troubled, Leri Gish Geril?” the Confidante asked as Leri coiled her body loosely in front of the Confidante’s great, gray, wrinkled form.

  “Yes, I am troubled by many things,” she answered.

  “Are grief and guilt what trouble you most?”

  “Yes “ she said, letting her head relax on her coil. “Have you chosen your successor?”

  The question so startled Leri that she didn’t know what to say. “Not exactly,” she answered finally.

  “Is Weecs not suitable?”

  “Yes. He is very suitable, mostly because for all that he is fit for the duty, he does not want it.”

  “How soon can he take your place?”

  “I don’t understand, Confidante. Are you suggesting I should resign? Now, when there is still so much to be done?”

  “Can Weecs not properly serve?”

  For the first time since…since when? Since she had struggled with her ascension to Proctor. For the first time since then, Leri heard exasperation in a Confidantes voice. “Weecs is fit for the duty and can perform it,” she said, using the ritual words of nomination.

  “Are you ready to accept your grief?” the Confidante asked, changing the subject again.

  “I am ready,” Leri answered, and even as she prepared to do so she felt a great burden lifting from her heart. Weecs would be the new Proctor. He would have to deal with the Castorians and the humans and the coming of the Verfen. Leri Gish Geril would be free of those troubles and might finally know peace.

  “My grief has no bounds,” she said, beginning the litany she had repeated so many times over her lost guplings, but for the first time, understanding it – really understanding it. “My grief has no attachments. It falls like the cold rain and flows through my heart. The way of grief pure grief. It has no beginning. It has no end. The way of grief is old…”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “Have you found a way for us to attack and defend at the same time?” Frye asked as Melliman sat across from him in one of the soft chairs.

  “I think we’d better read Lieutenant Oska’s message first,” she said, taking it out of her small belt pouch and leaning forward to hand it to him. Madame Tashawaki seemed greatly agitated when she gave it to me.

  Frye tore open the double envelopes, took out the single sheet note, and read, “’Brig Meister Owens has informed Marshall Judoff of your disposition of her fleet and I have just received notice that Marshal Judoff is secretly returning to Gensha.’ That’s the sum total of it, Clarest,” he said handing the note back to her.

  “This could mean serious trouble,” she said.

  “We’re prepared. Hadasaki, Lotonoto, and I have already discussed this possibility. Did Madame Tashawaki indicate why she was upset?”

  “She fears for her son, I think.”.

  “As she should. But we have been careful, and I don’t think he’s in any real danger.” Frye stood and held out his hand, hoping that Lieutenant Oska had also been careful. Now, Clarest, I put some food in the warmer, and you can tell me about this plan of yours while we eat.”

  “It isn’t anywhere near a plan yet,” she said, taking his hand and rising. “It’s still a rather weak idea. Maybe my telling you about it will help me put the pieces in a more coherent order.”

  Only after Frye had served the food and they were seated at the table did she continue. ‘”Among the many things I tried to get done today was accumulate a list of all, and I mean all available civilian and commercial ships that we might be able to utilize. I don’t think I realized un
til today how many different bureaus we have in this government of ours who have something or other to do with spacecraft.” She paused and took a big bite of her meat.

  “Too many, I’m sure,” Frye said as she chewed. A briefly amusing thought occurred to him. They had talked so often over meals that they had developed a pattern. He talked while she chewed, and she talked while he chewed, and thus both fully participated, and neither had to eat their hot food cold or their cold food warm. Now it was his turn to chew.

  “About forty-two major bureaus,” she said, “some of which obviously duplicate the work of others but all of which are extremely protective of their interests and domains. In fact, there are ten bureaus, each of which regulates only commercial ships within a specific range of cargo capacity.”

  “The Bureaus of Class and Standards,” he said before taking a sip of his wine. “I always thought that was a wasteful arrangement.”

  “So did I until I realized they had exactly what I wanted. I now have ten registration rosters sorted by size and last known location. Frye, if we only armed twenty-five percent of them, we would be doubling the size of our armed fleet.”

  “You mean with something more than the light lasers they’re allowed to carry? That would be a dangerous precedent. Seems to me there were good reasons in the Confederacy Papers for keeping them from carrying heavy armament.”

  “Well, now we have a good reason to change that. Don’t you see? If we put one military ship in command of every ten armed commercial vessels, we only deplete our offensive military capacity by ten percent and create a huge defensive force we never had before.”

  “The peace-traps would scream about that, and no telling what the Amarcouncil will do, unless…Clarest, suppose we proposed an idea like this so that the commercial ships were guarding their home systems? That would probably take a lot of the resistance away, don’t you think?”

  “I think you’re right. I’ll get the rosters.”

  “Finish your meal first. No sense in trying to do this on a half-empty stomach.”