The Fleet05 Total War

by David Drake (ed)

  “A day and a night should be enough. Enjoy your target practice.” Goodheart signed off and turned to Globin, catching him by the shoulders and shrilling with delight. “Mission accomplished, Globin! Well done!”

  Whistles of acclaim pierced the air, and Globin stood with a silly smile on his face, very proud and very, very happy.

  * * *

  “You actually went through the records of every surplus dealer on all the human planets?”

  “Computers are wonderful,” Lo assured the admiral. “Of course, the records of the munitions factories’ output are submitted to us regularly—but as far as we can tell, they haven’t been doctored.”

  “Very good, Commander Sales.” The admiral studied the hard copy on his desk. “Small losses in shipment, from a dozen factories . . .”

  “And a large number of sales of personal arms, to anonymous buyers, from a hundred surplus stores.” Lo nodded. “It all adds up to a very large shipment of human-made weapons.”

  “Very good, Commander! And where did those weapons go?”

  Sales laid the other hard copy down on the desk.

  “The admiral nodded, his face grim. “Arrest Adamson.”

  “We tried, sir. He disappeared.”

  * * *

  The whole tavern was filled with females. Throb should have been delighted to be surrounded by so many, some even beauties—and after more than a year without seeing anything feminine! But he had seen them stream out of the factory, saw the drab protective clothing they wore, and the signs of servitude sickened him.

  Ri’isthin was easily the most beautiful of them all, and it should have been an almost intoxicating pleasure to share a drink with her, even if the brew had not been alcoholic. Still, he couldn’t hide his agitation.

  “You are brave, to come into a place filled with bitter females,” Ri’isthin said sarcastically. “Yet I can see you are troubled by more than being so greatly outnumbered.”

  Throb couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How can you labor for the conqueror! Like slaves!”

  Ri’isthin winced, but shrugged with determined fatalism. “We choose to live—and so many males died in the war, so many more males than females, that we have no husbands. How else are we to find food and shelter?”

  Throb took a deep breath, then took the plunge. “What is the depth of your courage?”

  * * *

  The first shuttle blasted the pad and settled down. The hatch opened, the gangway extruded—and the females filed down, looking around them at Barataria in wonder.

  Goodheart’s crew shrilled with delight and shot out toward them.

  Every crewman grabbed a female and whirled her away—but there were 180 males left unpartnered.

  Not for long.

  The second shuttle touched down, and the third—then the first blasted off to go back for its second load.

  Goodheart stood watching them, controlling the raging tide of his own hormones with difficulty.” ‘You chose my world well, Globin—and Throb has brought us life for it.”

  “It is wonderful to see them happy,” Globin murmured, eyes on the men.

  Goodheart frowned at the new note in his henchman’s voice, and looked down at him. “Ah, poor lonely Globin! Shall we find you a female, too?”

  But Globin shook his head with granite resolve. “The only ones who would want me, Captain, I would not choose. Even if they wished marriage, it would not be me they’d want; they would only accept me because they could do no better. No, let me take joy in my shipmates’ pleasure.”

  That was when Goodheart began to think of Globin as a being in his own right.

  * * *

  ”Are you certain there is no ship near, in hyperspace, Globin?”

  “I am sure, Captain. My detector shows nothing.”

  “But it must be bait for a trap!” Goodheart paced the deck, agitated. “What else could it be? A passenger liner, dropped into normal space with its distress beacon screaming—why would the humans make themselves such easy prey?”

  “Then wave a flag to show us where they are?” Throb echoed.

  Globin said, “It could be a genuine emergency . . .”

  “If so, we shall pick them clean!” Goodheart turned with decision. “And if it is a trap, we shall pick their bones! But if the snare is set, I will trip it alone! Prepare my pinnace. “

  “No, Captain!”

  “You must not risk yourself!” “We would be lost without you!”

  “I volunteer!”

  “I volunteer!”

  “And I!”

  “And I!”

  “And I!”

  The pinnace shot away moments later, staffed with three valiant crewmen. Throb and the other officers eyed the captain as though they were ready to pounce.

  The pinnace docked. Three spacesuited figures drifted into the airlock.

  “Leucocyte?” Goodheart called. “Are you there?”

  “The lock is cycling, Captain.” Leuco’s helmet-camera showed them the interior hatch. The green patch lit, and Leuco’s hand came out to haul the hatch open. “We are entering.” The edges of the hatch swam out of sight . . .

  The screen was filled with Khalian faces.

  Goodheart stood stunned. So did Leuco.

  Then, as from a distance, Goodheart heard Leuco say, “Why have warriors come cold to the void?”

  “We wish to enlist with Captain Goodheart,” one of the Khalians answered.

  Then, suddenly, the air was filled with keening.

  “Do not leave us to labor in the conqueror’s shadow!”

  “Do not condemn us to fight for our enemies!”

  “No clan will battle the humans! Give me a leader!”

  “Take me!”

  “Take me!”

  “Take me!”

  “Do not turn us away!”

  “Volunteers,” Goodheart murmured, awed.

  Globin nodded, eyes glowing. “I know how they feel.”

  He looked up at Goodheart, beaming. “You have made a new beginning for us all, Captain.”

  * * *

  “A whole shipful of Khalians?”

  “Yes, sir.” Sales’s face, beyond the shadow of the desk lamp, was filled with disgust. “Don’t ask me why the shipping company was willing to lease them a liner.”

  “Or why Emigration let them all get on the same ship? They’re free beings, Commander, not slaves—we can’t stop them without very good reason.” The admiral scowled heavily at the list on the screen. “If they want to go, we can’t stop them!”

  “Even if they’re going to kill humans?!?”

  The admiral shrugged impatiently. “Prove they’re going to join Goodheart—ahead of time. But with this ship lost, I don’t think anyone’s going to be interested in a charter for a band of Khalians again. You can tell the spaceports to watch the small ships, though, Commander.”

  Lo did—and they managed to prevent several yachts with “joyriding” Khalians from leaving port. The joyriders turned out to have an amazing amount of weaponry with them—but the warriors had not surrendered their personal arms, and they claimed they needed to be able to defend themselves in case of attack by pirates.

  That they needed the weapons for the pirates, Sales didn’t doubt.

  But he couldn’t prevent Khalians from booking passage on liners with human passengers. And if the pirates attacked, and some humans lived, but the Khalians failed to come back, who could be surprised?

  Sales wondered how many Khalians were working only to save up enough money for another round trip on a liner, hoping against hope to be pirated.

  * * *

  “He calls himself Globin.” Sales held up the candid shot for the admiral to see. It showed Globin at a newscreen in a spaceport; he seemed to be staring right up into the cam
era set next to the screen.

  “Ugly enough.” The admiral frowned at the picture. “He makes weapons deals for Goodheart?”

  “We’re pretty sure he’s the one who made the three weapons buys, yes. But this time, he ordered metal.”

  “Metal?” The admiral looked up, frowning.

  “Yes, sir. A superfreighter of manganese, aluminum, nickel, iron, and a whole list of more exotic supplies.”

  “That’s industrial bulk. Just how big is this Goodheart growing, anyway?”

  ”He’s got to have a base, sir,” Sales said, “a mighty big base.”

  “Big enough to set up his own weapons factories! Shut him down, Sales—shut him down!” He tossed the holo back. “And if this Goblin ever sets foot on a human planet again, arrest him! I want him tied, tried, and fried.”

  “Yes, sir, Admiral.” Sales didn’t correct his mistake—he used it. And fed it to the rumor mills, and the public opinionators.

  Within the year, there wasn’t a human on Target or Khalia who didn’t believe the psychotic Goblin was the worst villain the race had ever spawned.

  * * *

  “Why don’t you ever attack Syndicate ships?” an aggrieved businessman wailed.

  “Why do you think I do not?” Goodheart returned. “They are very profitable game, I assure you. Your valuables, please.”

  * * *

  Every few days, now, word came of another raid by a ship that grappled and cut through the side of a merchantman, and sometimes even a destroyer, disgorging a horde of shrilling Khalians whose captain wore a brightly colored necktie, each one more garish than the last. His crew cut down anybody who resisted, and weren’t terribly picky about innocent bystanders. Their last loot was always the men’s neckties.

  But they always left at least a few alive and set them adrift in a lifeboat—almost as though the pirate was taunting Sales, making sure he knew that Goodheart was still striking with impunity.

  Either that, or Goodheart was very much aware of the value of publicity.

  But one route had more ambushes than any other—the hyperspace curve between Khalia and Target. There was no way of telling where the attack would occur, within the twelve-light-year approach to Khalia, so Sales couldn’t post sentry ships to cover every AU of it. But he could call for volunteers, order civilian suits for them, and start taking round trips on a ship that went from Khalia to Target and back. A very special ship. It looked ordinary, of course, like any other passenger ship—but Sales had ordered some very unique modifications.

  * * *

  The section of hull fell inward, and the Khalians leaped in among the passengers, guns leveled and ready.

  “So, ladies and gentlemen.” Captain Goodheart shouldered his way in among his crewmen. “I am delighted to be your guest, no matter how brief my stay. Come, come! Have you no greater hospitality than that? Will you give no refreshment, no entertainment? Ah, but you must offer me something! Your wallets and jewelry, as a beginning.” He grinned down at the big, beefy man near him. “Come, will you not rise to greet your . . .” Then his eyes widened as he recognized the face he had seen in each of several news articles, that he remembered seeing last above this same civilian ensemble. “Sales!”

  “Now!” Sales roared, a gun appearing in his hand. “He knows!”

  Laser bolts seared the air. Weasels shrieked—then humans screamed. The stench of burning fur and flesh rose—for each “civilian” had concealed a pistol beside him in the seat, and the Khalians among them were caught in a murderous crossfire.

  But they were quick, those Weasels. Even as barrels leveled, they dodged aside. A few were caught by bolts aimed at others, but most skipped back, wounded and furious, to the hole in the side.

  “Back!” Goodheart shrilled. “So you do not smite your own! Then fight, as your fathers did at Target!”

  The pirates pulled back in a knot around their hatch—but grenades hurled from among the Terrans. Weasels shot into the crowd, but their beams scorched upholstery, though here and there a man or woman cried out. One bomb came whirling back toward the humans, but two others blew. Pirates keened, and one cried, “They have disabled the lock!”

  “The outer lock only!” Goodheart cried. “Back, back inside, so that we may close the inner hatch!”

  The pirates disappeared like water down a drain—but Sales leaped forward, pulling a crowbar from under his jacket, jamming it in the hatch, whistling in execrable Khalian, “I hear you, Goodheart!”

  ”Then hear your death!” The big Khalian burst out, and the hatch slammed aside, knocking Sales back against the lock wall. He recovered-to see Goodheart towering before him, eyes glaring, claws out. Before the humans could shoot, he had grappled Sales to him.

  The big human stomped on the Khalian’s foot.

  Goodheart shrilled in anger and ran his claws into Sales’s arm. Then he pulled back with a howl, a slash of red across his abdomen, as Sales shrilled, “I have a claw, too!” Blood dripped from the slender dagger he’d pulled from his sleeve.

  Goodheart sprang, claws reaching for Sales’s throat. Sales stumbled and fell, but drove a fist into the pirate’s belly, shoved stiffened fingers into the central nerve plexus above it, and brought a fist up to drive the big Khalian back. Goodheart stumbled away—and a fuming sphere hurtled from the opened lock. Goodheart dove back through it and the door clashed shut as the human ship filled with tear gas.

  Coughing and gagging, Sales scrabbled at the fallen section of hull. One of his fighters realized what he was doing and leaped to join him. Eyes streaming, they raised the steel plate by feel alone . . .

  Then the ship rocked, and Sales knew Goodheart’s ship had kicked off from his. Too late, the tear gas streamed out into the vacuum of space—but the damage was done; his fighters rolled in the aisles, eyes streaming. He and his helper threw their weight against the plate, holding it back as vacuum tore at it, trying to ease it up level with the side of the ship . . .

  Then the door to the bridge burst open, and a crewman in a spacesuit hopped in, picking his way among bodies, lugging a tool chest. He dropped it by the hole and yanked out a wad of metallic cloth, shaking out into a huge, ten-foot square. He draped it between the alloy circle and the hole in the hull, pressing the adhesive edges against the metal all around it, stamping it against the floor. “Let it go now, sir!”

  Sales and the agent eased the metal circle against the bellying tarp. The spacesuited man yanked another out of the tool kit, unfolded it, and pressed it into place over the huge disk. Then he pulled out a small welder and began to bond the edges of the patch to the metal of the hull.

  Air pressure began to return.

  Sales turned, and felt fingers dabbing at his eyes. Blessed coolness flowed from them, and he blinked away the last of the tears, managing to see a mottled image of his soldiers, pulling themselves to their feet, as the navigator and captain went on among them, smearing an antidote balm on their eyes.

  The ship shuddered.

  Sales lurched down the aisle, careful to avoid bumping soldiers, into the control room, staring at the viewscreen.

  The image of the Khalian ship was just beginning to glitter. An explosion rocked its tail; then it was gone.

  “How many times did you hit him?” Sales grated.

  “Only that last, sir,” the gunner answered. “His fire-control picked off all my other torpedoes. I got a couple of laser bums in, but I don’t know if they did more than scar his armor.”

  The man in the spacesuit loomed in the door. “Mission accomplished, sir.”

  Sales turned with a grin. “We kept him busy long enough, huh?”

  “Yes, sir,” the man confirmed. “I bonded the telltale to his ship’s skin.”

  Sales nodded and turned away. “Into hyperspace, Captain.”

  * * *

  “That confounded human!” Good
heart snarled. He winced as the medic lowered him down to the acceleration couch.

  “Sir, you really should be in your own berth. . . .”

  “This is my berth, Doctor! I must see how my ship fares, how she moves! What damage was there, Throb?”

  “His cannon deeply scored us in two places, Captain, but did not pierce. We will need to replace those plates at home. And his final torpedo removed a control surface; we will need great care if we seek to maneuver in atmosphere. In all other respects, we are whole.”

  “That, at least, is good fortune.” Goodheart lay back and let himself relax for a few moments. He had actually thought his end had come when he realized Sales had ripped him open—the pain had been almost unbearable, until his rage had hidden it. “That treacherous human,” he growled again. “To mask a war party as a passenger liner! To camouflage weapons turrets as control blisters! It was skillfully done, so elegantly done! A worthy adversary, worthy!”

  “If he had been any more worthy, we would have been dead,” Throb returned, miffed. For his part, he was glad Globin wasn’t aboard on this trip—the crew might have blamed it on him, for no other reason than that he was human.

  “There is mass behind us,” the sensor op reported.

  Throb and Goodheart were both still.

  Then the captain snapped, “How much mass?”

  “Enough for a ship, Captain—a cruiser.”

  “It is Sales!” Goodheart snapped. “He has pursued me, he will hound me to my doom—or his!”

  “But how?” Throb cried. “How can he track us through hyperspace?”