Crisis

by David Drake

  Picavea jerked a nod.

  Berling looked straight at him. “That’s an honest computation? We wouldn’t miss because of an irreducible margin of error?”

  Picavea stiffened. “Sir, this team is Fleet.”

  “And you’re ready to go through with it.”

  “Yes, sir.” A grisly grin. “I can’t say we’re happy about it, but we accept the necessity.”

  “Very well. Give me a readout and printout. Meanwhile put the program into Navigation.”

  “Should I explain to them there?”

  “I think not.”

  “I don’t know. That doesn’t seem right.”

  “We can argue during the ninety minutes. Move!”

  “Aye, sir.” Picavea’s image vanished. Words, diagrams, and numbers began to unroll in the screen, a strip of paper from the slot beneath. Berling watched them a minute; then leaned toward his intercom.

  “Captain to Navigation.” He said. ”Emergency. We’re going on full automatic for the next hour or two. Acknowledge.”

  “Full automatic, aye, sir.”

  “Switch over and stand by.”

  “Sir–” quavered at Berling’s back.

  “ Now hear this, “ boomed through the tunnels and caverns of the ship. “Now hear this. Prepare for acceleration followed by hyperspace maneuver. All hands off duty, to your quarters.”

  “Sir, what’s going on?” McClellan cried.

  Feet sped down corridors. Men and women tautened at machines. A deep tremor passed through metal and bones, power awakening. Invisible and unfelt, interior fields wove their mesh to take the added thrust off material and living matter. Like one huge organism, Celestia glided curvingly forward.

  There was little tension aboard. Since everyone had not been summoned to stations, this could not be a battle alert or the like. Crew who were free speculated among each other what the Old Man did have in mind. Back to base, maybe? Except for the tech gang, they had received only vague information about their mission, for until a short while ago nobody had clearly known.

  A shriek: “You mean to ram, don’t you?”

  Berling swiveled his chair around and regarded horror. “What else?” he said.

  “But that’s insane! We’ll be destroyed–won’t we?”

  “Yes.” Berling rose. “Sorry. No choice. It’ll happen in a flash. We won’t feel a thing.”

  McClellan gaped, shivered, drew his jaws shut.

  Before he could speak, Berling continued: “We’ll get up the right speed, then pass into hyperspace, overtake the missile, and reenter three-space at the calculated point to hit it with the proper intrinsic velocity, normal to its trajectory. The component of momentum we transfer will be a few parts in ten million, but it’ll deflect the missile enough. Barely enough; it ought to miss Verdea by about one planetary diameter. That’s if we act promptly. The deflection is so little, it’ll need a whole light-day to bring the object even that much off target, and naturally we want a safety factor.”

  “Safety!” McClellan groaned.

  Berling laid a hand on the exec’s shoulder. “Men have died before that others might live.” He couldn’t force warmth into his tone, it remained mechanical.

  “But you said–they should be all right at the base–”

  “I meant ‘probably.’ Besides, the Fleet would lose the base itself.”

  McClellan’s features congealed. He spoke harshly but levelly. “A marginal value. No hostiles have come anywhere near for fifteen years.”

  Berling nodded. “I’ve often wondered why they bothered to try taking us out, back then.”

  “And no operations on our part, aside from patrols and and a trivial war production. Is it worth it? A dreadnought, capable of deciding a battle all by herself, equipment not replaceable for years, skilled crew that can never be replaced. What will the High Command think?”

  “Unfortunately,” Berling said, “we can’t take time to consult the High Command.”

  “Nor our own people?” McClellan blazed. “I heard you. You’re condemning them to death without the honesty to let them know.”

  “My feeling is that that would be no kindness.”

  “Or that they won’t go along with it?”

  “I am in command here, mister.”

  McClellan stood rigid against the stars. The ship sang louder, stronger.

  “I believe they have the right,” he said after some heart-beats.

  “Maybe,” Berling said. “I have the question under advisement.”

  “The right to–to refuse an unlawful order.”

  “We’re not off to commit any atrocity. We’ll stop one.”

  “If the commanding officer is obviously incompetent, insane, the duty of his juniors is to relieve him.” McClellan turned on his heel and set off across the deck.

  “Halt!” Berling shouted.

  McClellan looked back. Tears started forth and glistened down the gaunt cheeks. “Sir. sir. I hate this,” he stammered. “But I’ve got to. Let the court-martial decide between us.”

  “Halt. I told you. That’s a direct order.”

  McClellan reached the door.

  Berling bounded after him, caught his shoulder, whirled him about. “Are you afraid for your life?”

  “Yes. Aren’t you? Francie. Tommy. Alice–But more for the ship. I do believe it’s more for the ship and what she means to ... the Fleet, the Alliance. Please, sir. please.”

  Berling’s powerful arm yanked. McClellan staggered. Berling released him and grated. “You’ll stay here with me. Or must I call the guard?”

  McClellan reached into his pocket. He pulled out a clasp knife and tugged the blade down. It shimmered broad and sharp, a tool for hard uses. “Do you dare?” he challenged. “I’m leaving. Unless you cancel that navigation program.” As the ship changed more and more her direction, stars wheeled over the viewscreen like the march of seasons and years. “No?” he murmured wearily. “Well, my brother and sister officers may support you.” He glanced at the knife, shook his head, and moved again to the door. “I hope they won’t. Good-bye. I was happy serving under you till now.”

  The door opened for him. He strode through.

  Berling sprang. He flung his Ieft arm around McClellan’s neck. His right hand clamped fast on the wrist where the weapon was. McClellan choked. He lunged against the grip. Berling tightened it.

  An odd small cracking noise sounded through the beat of energies. Blood ran from McClellan’s mouth. He dropped the knife. Berling let go. McClellan fell to the deck. He struggled. Berling stooped over him, knelt, put palm on chest, brought lips near lips. McClellan‘s flailing ceased. He sprawled, mouth and eyes wide, breast still. A sharp stench lifted. A fractured larynx can be fatal, sometimes very quickly.

  Berling climbed to his feet. He stood hunched, arms dangling loose, and stared down. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t intend that. Although–no big difference, is it?” He dragged the body back inside, gestured the door to shut, and plodded to his chair.

  “Captain to Technical Section,” he said at the intercom. “Sealed communication.”

  Picavea’s face came into the screen. “You and I are pretty much running the ship, it seems,” Berling said. “Arrange me a beam to Verdea. Before we go hyperspatial, I must report what’s been happening and what we intend.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “When you’ve closed the circuit for me, cut yourself out. I’ll be describing everything, every last detail I can. Who knows what information may prove useful someday? But certain things ought to stay confidential.”

  “Even from us, sir?”

  “Yes. However, if you fellows want to give me a short message–to your families or whoever–I think I can include that.”

  “Thank you.” Picavea chuckled wryly. “Will do. Morituri te salutamus.”

  “How’s your team taking this?” Berling asked.

  “Quite well,” Picavea said. “We did get advance warning, after all, conferr
ing with you, that desperate action might likely prove necessary. We’re keeping to ourselves, here in the lab, and–talking, thinking, praying–an acey-deucey game starting over in the corner.”

  Berling smiled a bit. “Good lads. I wish I could join you.”

  Picavea tensed. “Sir, I do feel, most of us, the others deserve to know.”

  “I’ll think about that,” Berling said. “You may well be right. I can make the announcement later.” Too late.

  Picavea understood. “Thank you, sir. Uh, one thing–”

  “Go ahead, son.”

  “It’d be ... helpful to us ... if you’d give us a few words.”

  Berling sighed. “I’m no orator. But, for whatever it’s worth, put me on the big screen.”

  Picavea made an adjustment. Berling looked across a room crowded with apparatus and faces. Young faces, mostly. He drew breath.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, no longer coldly, though it came out as a growl, “we’re going to die, but it will be a good death, in a good cause. I honor you for your courage and devotion. The Fleet will when it learns. A whole world will, for thousands and maybe millions of years to come. Because that’s what we’re mainly saving, a thinking race and its future, everything it may give the universe—No, goddammit, that’s just abstract. Forget it. Think this way: We came to Verdea. It’s in this danger because of us. For the honor of the Fleet, we will discharge the responsibility we have assumed.

  “Thank you.

  “Establish my contact, Mr. Picavea, decide on a few personal words for me to include in my dispatch, and call me back.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The screen blanked. Berling settled down to compose, in his head, what he should tell them on the planet before Celestia went into the lightlessness of hyperspace and came forth again, for a moment, to the stars.

  * * *

  “—by sheer luck, a vessel of ours detected a missile that had been launched from the other sun after the raid failed, fifteen years earlier,” I proceeded. “A relatively minor body, solid, but accelerated almost to lightspeed and aimed with incredible precision. It would have hit Verdea with force equivalent to an asteroid. Afterward our scientists ran computer models and verified that the effects would have been similar. Climate disruption, mass extinction, quite possibly including the native race, certainly the vast majority of it–hundreds of millions–and every civilization. We have no doubt the designers of the thing knew this. They didn’t care.

  ”Does that jog your memory?”

  Godolphin shuddered. “No.” I could barely hear him. “No, I have never been informed.”

  Well, I admitted to myself, Verdea is an obscure planet, and the Fleet didn’t want the incident publicized more than was unavoidable, and it chanced to occur when the attention of the whole Alliance was on the Battle of Ebo. However, within the Syndicate–

  “What happened?” Godolphin whispered.

  “A major vessel of ours sacrificed herself, crashing into the object and diverting it.”

  “That was heroic.’”

  “My father was aboard.”

  “Then you have a glorious heritage.”

  As an officer of Intelligence, I have studied Berling’s last communication in detail. The Fleet has never released more than a few carefully chosen lines of it. We claim security considerations. I daresay a certain amount of calculation went on at headquarters. Deliverance Day is a sacred festival on Verdea, inspiring, binding us closer to the autochthons, bringing us new recruits every year. And I–get quietly on in my life.

  “You should not be this bitter,” Godolphin said. “It was war.”

  I tasted that first reading of the report again. But what I spat out was: “So we assumed till recently. The Khalia, what else could you expect? Questions did nag us. They had the ruthlessness, but did they ever have that kind of determination, or that fine a technology? We supposed some among them must have had, and dismissed the matter in our minds except for adding precautions. Now it’s become clear, given what we’ve discovered since. No Khalian planned that genocide. Humans did. Syndics. Adzeta was uncomfortably near a border of their space. Fleet scouts might have come on the truth prematurely that the Syndicate was behind the Khalia. So you arranged the raid, and when it failed, you set your longer-range scheme in motion.”

  “I swear I never heard–”

  I begrudged every syllable. “All right. Not you personally. But your government. It would do Genghis Khan proud, Tamerlane, Stalin, Mao, El Brujo–no, I don’t imagine the history means anything to you. But does common decency?”

  Godolphin’s countenance firmed. He straightened in his chair. “You accuse our leaders,” he said quite softly.

  “Or their immediate predecessors. And yours haven’t disowned them.”

  “The Fleet has used extremely destructive weapons from time to time.”

  “Not against planets where sentient beings make their homes.”

  “Granted, to the best of my knowledge. I can sympathize with your attitude. Then you want me to turn on my nation and give you all the information I possess?”

  “Think about it,” I said. “You might redeem yourself.”

  Godolphin drew breath. “I will tell you this much, Commander McClellan,” he stated. “I am reasonably familiar with the politics and the practical ethics of Syndicate society. I am also rather widely acquainted with naval officers, important civilians, and records, including secret files. You have my word of honor that no such thing as you describe was ever seriously proposed.” He paused. “I do recall glancing at a theoretical study of near-c kinetic kill weapons, conducted many years ago. The conclusion was that they would not be worth the cost. Including the cost to our consciences.”

  “Apart from this case,” I slapped at him.

  He took it stonily. “An extraordinary situation with a possible net gain. But I repeat, it was never ordered from above. The raid, yes, no doubt. That is war. A surgical strike, which, unfortunately for us, failed. However, the genocide to follow, no, I repeat, no. It must have been the decision, the work, of a few fanatical officers on the scene. They cannot have asked for authorization, because they must have known it would be refused them. An accomplished fact, after they were safely retired–” Now he slashed. “Dare you claim that no one in the Fleet, in the Alliance, has never attempted anything comparable? Or done it?”

  I had no answer.

  “These things happen,” he said. “It is also war.”

  We fell silent, there in our metal cage.

  Articles of War

  Article X

  Where mutiny is accompanied by Violence, every Person subject to this act who shall join therein shall suffer Death, or such other Punishment as is herein-after mentioned; and such Mutiny shall, if he has acted traitorously, suffer Death, or such other Punishment as is herein-after mentioned; if he has acted from Cowardice, shall suffer Penal servitude or such other Punishment as is herein-after mentioned; if he has acted from Negligence he shall be dismissed from the Service, with Disgrace, or suffer such other Punlshrnent as is herein-after mentioned.

  During the closing year of the Khalian War, losses often outpaced production. This was especially true of transport ships, being both laden with loot and comparatively unarmed. These losses were compounded by the fact that every naval yard in the Alliance was mandated to produce only warships. By the time Target was invaded and the majority of raiding stopped, the Alliance had lost almost twenty-five percent of its capacity to transport goods. At the time such losses concerned most the ship’s owners, insurers, and crews.

  As the focus of the Khalian war shifted from the edge of the Alliance into the surprisingly large area dominated by the Khalia, this changed. Suddenly there was a need to support a massive armada weeks away from the nearest Fleet support facilities. Simply impressing the ships and spacemen into a Fleet-controlled merchant marine force was not the solution. These ships were needed in commercial service if the economy supporting the Fleet was t
o continue to do so. Only a small number could be taken out of service, and politics being what it is, these were often those deemed least cost effective by the companies they were taken from. It was these rusted rejects that then Commodore Meier led successfully against the Khalian reinforcement in the space battle off Target.

  Responsibility for maintaining the supply lines was quickly relegated to the Quartermaster’s Corps. Many solutions were attempted. Among them was to have those planets normally considered too rural or lacking the manufacturing infrastructure to complete an entire ship manufacture large hulls that could be completed elsewhere. Enthusiastically competing to produce the biggest and best hulls, many of these worlds created transport ships more than a kilometer long. Outfitting these large hulls was often a challenge. The best electronic and propulsion components were reserved for warship production. This led to a number of experimental systems being field-tested far before they were ready. A few were surprisingly successful–some of those in a way never expected by their designers.

  FOUL WAS just about the only word to describe the mood that Commander Talley was in as the Fleet evacuation shuttle prepared to dock with the cargo ship now looming on starboard. After nearly twenty years of active–make that very active–service, he was being transferred from a front-line battlecruiser to take command of a massive but low-priority supply ship whose skipper recently had been killed. With Fleet massing to meet the combined forces of the Syndicate, Talley should have been given command of a fighting ship. Instead, he got this–all because some senator’s dumb jerk of a son had been stupid enough to step through an open hatch. ...

  And then, adding injury to insult, they had tried to foist a vegetarian meal on him in the shuttle, probably knowing what the bulk inherent in most plant foods would do to Talley’s sensitive digestive system. Dammit, it was enough to make a man’s guts boil.

  And boil they did.

  Talley could feel the pressure begin to build up somewhere between his belt buckle and back pocket. He wondered whether this was the real reason for his transfer. Other men in Fleet had scars to show for their battles fought and won; Talley had a grumbling gut–one that allowed him to eat only a few select, bland foods and that reacted explosively to anything else, particularly vegetables. He only hoped that things would stay quiet until they docked, or that in the ensuing commotion his malady would pass unnoticed. It didn’t; and only his rank and reputation kept the crewmen from passing comments of their own.