Double Spiral War Trilogy

by Warren Norwood

  23

  PAJANDCAN STOOD IN THE ADMIRALS RECEIVING LOUNGE at the Garner Starport on Bakke and waited impatiently for the arrival of Admiral Gilbert’s ship. It had been a long, long time since she’d been this eager to see him, and she wondered momentarily what that meant. Nothing, she assured herself, absolutely nothing. But of course it did mean something and the meaning was all connected to her last conversation with Mica Gilbert.

  How strange it had been to have Josiah’s daughter almost invite her to become part of the family. Even now it brought a nervous grin to her face. For all she knew Josiah might already have someone…or might not want anyone else in his life. And what did she want?

  Pajandcan wasn’t sure. The old differences she had felt so strongly about between her homo electus pride and his homo sapien egalitarianism now seemed childish and far in the past. She had learned a great deal since their young years together, not the least of which was that homo electus were different only because they said they were. When it all came down to rivets and plates, there were no differences that mattered.

  The most unexpected result of Mica’s emotional revelation to her had come days later when Pajandcan suddenly realized that underneath all her years of shallow bitterness and petty complaints against him Josiah Gilbert was one of the most decent, wonderful, lovable men she had ever known. That didn’t mean that she still loved him. It only meant that she would now be seeing him with unprejudiced eyes for the first time in many, many years. At least that’s what she told herself that it meant.

  For the tenth time in as many minutes she looked up at the arrival board again. Then she checked her chronometer. Josiah’s ship should have been dirtside already. With a sigh she turned away from the board and sat in one of the heavily padded chairs.

  There were seven or eight junior officers in the lounge, but they had given her wide berth after she had given them all cold stares. Now she was sorry she had done that, because talking with someone would help the time pass.

  Just as she stood up and decided to take a fresh approach with them, the overhead speaker cut on with a sharp crackle of static. “Attention. The Holden is now landing at the senior gate. Repeat. Now landing at the sen –“

  The Holden’s landing roar drowned out his repetition of the announcement, and Pajandcan relaxed for a second, knowing that the waiting was over, then tensed up almost immediately, thinking of how she would soon be seeing Josiah.

  “Ah, Charlene. It’s good to see you again.”

  It had been so long since anyone had used her first name aloud that it surprised her. “And you, too, Admiral,” she said with a sharply executed salute.

  Three of the junior officers stood slightly off to the side, obviously waiting to present themselves. “They yours or mine?” Gilbert asked.

  “Must be yours, sir,” Pajandcan smiled at them. “This is Admiral Gilbert. Are you going to stand at attention all day?”

  A graying Fleet Captain named Tappan introduced the other two in quick order, then said he had transportation ready for Admiral Gilbert.

  “That won’t be necessary, Tappan,” Pajandcan said. “Just see Admiral Gilbert’s baggage is taken to his quarters. He’ll leave any further orders for you at the TOQ later this evening.” As she returned Tappan’s salute, Pajandcan saw the look of amusement on Josiah’s face. “That is all right, isn’t it, sir?”

  “Most all right, Admiral. I just had a feeling that we’d done all this before.”

  “We did this more than once a few years ago,” she said with a short laugh that took the tension out of her. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Especially good habits,” he said, touching her arm. They turned away from the gate together. “So where were you planning to take me that those nice young officers couldn’t follow?”

  “Captain Tappan didn’t look all that young. But to answer your question and get that amused look off your face, I was going to offer to feed you, seeing as how you probably haven’t eaten in a few hours, and then I was going to grill you on why I’m here.”

  “We can do both at the same time,” Gilbert said.

  “I was going to let you eat in peace, but if you can put up with my questions, we’ll do it your way. Here’s your skimmer.”

  The guard held the door as Gilbert climbed into the passenger compartment. “The Senior Officers Club,” Pajandcan said to the driver before following Gilbert and sitting opposite him facing the rear.

  Once the doors were closed, the passenger compartment was soundproof, cut off from the driver and guard by a triple sheet of glastic above the seats. As the skimmer lifted and started to move, Gilbert leaned forward. “It really is good to see you again, Charlene, but I have a strange question for you.”

  Pajandcan noted the return of his expression of amusement and wondered what he was thinking about. “Ask away.”

  “Just what in the name of holy spacers have you and Mica been talking about? I received the strangest message from her before I left Nordeen.” The blush on Pajandcan’s face made him pause. “Is there something wrong?” he asked innocently.

  “Not exactly,” Pajandcan said, “but since you brought this up, I’m going to give it to you as straight as I can. Your daughter, your bright, talented, sensitive daughter, has taken an inclination to play matchmaker.” To her surprise, Gilbert showed no surprise.

  “So that it is,” he chuckled. “That’s how I interpreted her message, but it was so out of character for her that I could only believe I bad misunderstood.” After a moment’s hesitation, he decided to ask the question he’d been thinking about all the way from Nordeen. “What do you think of all this Charlene?” ‘

  It was her turn to laugh. “Runs in the family, doesn’t it? All this jumping to conclusions, I mean? Look, Josiah, we have a lot of things to talk about, military and personal. Let’s see what we learn from that.” For some reason Pajandcan felt panic creeping into her, as though a whirlwind were about to sweep her away. “I will say this, though. I haven’t been this pleased to see you in years.”

  Hours later, as they lingered over wine, Gilbert said, “So, you understand the layout of the invasion plan and how we’re going to coordinate your fleet’s invasion of Buth with my invasion of Shakav, but we haven’t touched Mica’s subject.”

  “Is that what we’re going to call it? Mica’s subject?”

  “You have a better name for it?”

  “I’m not sure there is an it, Josiah. And I doubt if we’ll find out in the short time we’re going to have here.”

  “Are you saying that –“

  “I’m saying that I don’t know, and I won’t know anything except that I’m glad we’ve finally gotten our friendship out in the open. Beyond that we need some time to make sure that friendship is deck solid, and then some more time to truly get to know each other again. We’ve been separated these many years, Josiah, and managed to keep some kind of affection for each other. Whatever it is we have won’t go away before the war’s over.

  Josiah Gilbert wanted more than that and sooner than that, but he remembered from their years before that she did not like to be rushed. “That’s quite a speech,” he said. “Maybe you should write it down for me so I won’t forget and start to make untoward advances.” He smiled to hide a blush, unable to remember the last time he had been so openly flirtatious.

  She laughed. “You, Admiral Josiah Gilbert, sir, have my personal permission to make all the untoward advances you wish. However, you must promise on your honor as an admiral of the fleet not to laden my responses with any meaning not immediately obvious.” Pajandcan knew that the alcohol had loosened her tongue, but it only let her put into words some of the signals her heart was sending.

  “Then I suggest that we retire to my quarters where we can relax and discuss this further in private.”

  “An excellent idea,” she said, feeling twenty years younger and happier than she had been in a long time.

  As they were leaving the Officers Club feeling good abou
t themselves and each other, Captain Tappan walked in the door.

  “Priority message for you, sir,” he said handing the envelope to Gilbert, “from Nordeen.”

  Gilbert tore it open and read it, then silently handed it to Pajandcan. Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the words. Admiral Dawson had been killed in a mass hunk attack off the Ivy Chain.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  “I fear, Captain Teeman, that we are being followed by both parties,” Xindella’s voice said from the speaker. “That is going to make the consummation of our arrangement much more difficult than I had hoped it would be.”

  “You mean you didn’t plan on this? I can’t believe you thought either the Ukes or Sondak would simply let us take the weapon and go,” Lucky said. “From what I’ve heard, you’re supposed to be much shrewder than that.”

  “Flattery, Captain, is quite meaningless in this particular situation. I did expect one or the other to follow, since I expected one or the other would win the festbid. I never assumed that you – the Neutral Alliance, that is – had a real chance. My contingency plan, unfortunately, did not allow for dual pursuit.”

  “Your equipment must be better than ours. How far behind are they?”

  “One thousand exatrens.”

  “Can you convert that into tachymeters? I never did quite understand exatrens.”

  “I cannot, but it does not matter, Captain. Suffice it to say that they are close enough to follow us out of subspace as easily as they followed us in.”

  Marsha leaned over Lucky’s shoulder. “I have an idea. Couldn’t we close with you, make the transfer, then head in opposite directions?”

  “An excellent idea, citizen, except for one thing. What is to keep them from closing with us while we are closing with one another? Your prize isn’t something I can hand you, you know. It fills almost half of Profit’s main bay.”

  “Then what are we going to do?”

  A deep fluttering sound came over the speaker, followed by a long moment of silence. “Captain, stay close. We are about to exit subspace close to – never mind. Just coordinate your exit with mine.”

  “Understood,” Lucky said. Two minutes later they exited subspace, and Lucky began to break Graycloud.

  “Where did he go?” Marsha asked from the nav-chair. “We’ve lost him, Lucky. No, wait. We passed him. But if you don’t put on full dampers, we will lose him.”

  “Hold on!” Lucky cringed and put the inertial dampers on full. Graycloud began shuddering as the dampers absorbed too heavy a load all at once. “Xindella! What the tensheiss are you doing?” Lucky screamed into the transceiver.

  “Zzzaug-dit-dit Gouldrive failurrrssss,” his voice came back. “At-t-t-try starrrrr-”

  “Fix on the closest star, Mars,” Lucky said as he eased off slightly on the dampers. The shuddering was reduced to a low vibration.

  “I’ve got it. Deflect forty-five toward the fix. That’s as close as we’ll get until we recover maneuvering.”

  “Wonder what happened to our escort?”

  “One of them just overshot us by about sixty thousand kilometers. I don’t see any sign of the other.”

  “So what do we do now, Mars?”

  “Ride out the curve and then see if we can find Xindella,” she said. “What else can we do?”

  “We could just get the tensheiss out of here and leave Xindella to Judoff and Janette. They all deserve each other.”

  “We can’t, Lucky. You know that. We have to complete our part of the agreement. Then if you want to take off for somewhere else, you’ll get no fight from me.”

  “Why? Really, Mars, what difference would it make?”

  “All the difference in the galaxy.” Marsha understood his frustration, but she also had confidence that deep down inside he didn’t mean what he had said.

  “I suppose,” he said finally, “but sometimes I wish we could just fly away from it all and find someplace quiet where we could do whatever we please without having to cope with galactic government and war and greed and plain lightspeed stupidity.”

  She reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I don’t know where there is such a place, but once we turn the weapon over to Delightful Childe, I’d be more than happy to go look for it with you. Will that do?”

  “Mars, I love you. Yes, that will do.”

  “Good. Now go fix us something to eat while I keep an eye and ear out here. It will be at least three hours before we can start searching for him.”

  Lucky got out of his chair, leaned over, and gave her a kiss.

  ‘“Three hours, huh? Lotsa things can happen in three hours.”

  “But who would watch...or does it matter?” she asked after he kissed her again. “Probably not. I don’t think we’ve ever made love in hard decel before.”

  He pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. “First time for everyone,” he said.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Henley stood with Sergeant Denoro across the road from lngrivia’s company. They had finished their meal, and Denoro had suggested they take a casual walk. Despite all the walking he had done in the past ten days, Henley agreed, and they set off down the road at a pace that would have been considered casual only by Denoro. They hadn’t walked far, but Henley was glad when they returned to the company area and stopped. He was tired.

  “Tell me, Denoro, do you understand what happened? Why didn’t the Ukes put up more of a fight?”

  “Looks to me like once we broke through their initial resistance, they didn’t have much fight left in them or enough troops to fight with. They were sittin’ thin all ‘round, as my old training sergeant used to say. Anyway, what does it matter? The occupation corps will be down soon, and we’ll be up and heading for rest and retrainin’.”

  “You’re beginning to sound like the Colonel,” Henley said. “Pretty soon you’ll be using her odd contractions.”

  “Already caught myself at it once or twicet. Got to admit, though, her way of talkin’ i’not as hard on the ear as some I’ve been hearin’.”

  Henley laughed. “If she catches you making fun of her like that, you’re liable to hear something else that’s hard on your ears.”

  ‘‘I’m careful. Besides, Chief, the Colonel’s all right. Even if she heard me, I don’t think she’d mind.”

  “I woul’not mind what?” Ingrivia asked from behind them.

  Henley and Denoro looked at each other, then fought to smother their laughter.

  “How many private jokes do you two have at my expense?” Rasha’kean would have loved to have been in on their secret, but in a way she was glad she was not. That gave her something to tease them about. “Never mind the answer,” she said. “Denoro, get the company to scour their equipment and pack it tight for travel.”

  “Orders?” Henley asked.

  “Orders,” she replied, “but d’not even begin to ask for where. General Schopper wa’not tellin’ us, and I ca’not be tellin’ you what I d’not ken.”

  “I’ll get ‘em started, Colonel,” Denoro said with a quick salute. She immediately headed across the road where Delta Company was lounging out under the shade of an orchard whose blossoms made the air heavy with their scent. Many of the troopers were obviously sleeping off their midday meal.

  “Schopper didn’t tell you anything?” Henley asked, hoping for something he could grab onto for a story. The Ukes on this planet had fallen so quickly, that after the landing assault Ingrivia’s company had not been involved in anything that would count as a real battle.

  “Only that we were going to hit another planet as quickly as we could reassemble and ship out.”

  “Is that his plan? To hop from one Planet to another, system to system, straight into the U.C.S?”

  It was at times like these that Rasha’kean wished Stanmorton were somewhere else. She would probably never understand why he constantly asked questions she could not answer.

  “Ask him yourself, Chief. He’s hot on his way here from Nordee
n to get us ready for the next hop, as you put it.”

  Henley smiled. “That’s it Colonel. This was his entire plan to begin with. We’re all going to be part of General Schopper’s Planet Hoppers.”

  Rasha’kean was amused in spite of herself. “I d’not believe the general would like such a name.”

  “General Schopper the Planet Hopper. General Schopper’s Planet Hoppers.” Henley repeated the two variations several more times. “Has a sound to it, doesn’t it?”

  “A childish sound, Chief. Bairn-rhymes, my mother would have called them. And not to be changin’ roles, but might I ask a question? Is your equipment squared away? If I’m rememberin’ correctly, you’re still attached to my unit, are you not?”

  Henley could see what was coming and tried to dodge it. “I am, Colonel, but I need to get this story-”

  “You need to get your equipment ready, Chief Stanmorton. Your story will wait, but I wi’not. I suspect your ‘Planet Hopper’ would be displeased if I di’not take proper care of you, so get to work.”

  Henley saw the twinkle in her eyes and decided to see how far she was willing to play this game. “But Colonel, if I do that, I’m going to miss my-”

  “That’s an order, Chief. By the regs I can only give you orders as regard your health and safety, and this is one of those times. Now move.”

  As he started to cross the road, she cursed.

  “Colonel?”

  “There was something’ I was meanin’ to ask you, Chief. Have you heard the rumor that we lost an admiral up there?”

  “Yes, but as far as I know, it’s nothing more than a rumor. The Ukes could have started it for all we know.”

  She motioned for him to come closer. “Chief, I d’not want this gettin’ down to the troops, but I suspect it’more than a rumor. We’re short one ship – Admiral Dawson s. Part of our briefing after General Schopper signed off was how we were going to adjust for the lost space.”

  Henley never liked to give credence to rumors, but what she said made a certain amount of sense to him. “You’re probably right, Colonel. Rumor says the system was full of Uke hunks after we landed. But you’re also right in not wanting the troops to know. They’ll hear it officially soon enough. No sense in knocking their morale down with it now.”