Lieutenant (The David Birkenhead Series)

by Phil Geusz

  …and by dint of heroic efforts one of them wasn’t quite so dead anymore. It was a pity the weapon could neither traverse nor elevate. Beggars, however, could hardly be choosers.

  “Fire when she bears, Chief,” I ordered. “Or anything reasonably close, as we discussed.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” Lancrest replied, sounding terribly distracted. He was working out his fire-control solutions on a pocket-comp, and his primary aiming-device was a high-magnification camera slaved to servos not half up to the required level of accuracy. While a hit couldn’t be ruled out entirely, it was terribly unlikely and we all knew it. But we didn’t need a hit to win. All we had to do was tie up traffic. Every single day we forced the vital supply ships to go the long way around upset the Imperial war plans and therefore cost them immeasurably.

  Boom! the engineer’s single gun roared out, after such a long delay we’d begun to wonder if the jury-rigged power-routing had failed. The searing-red large-caliber laser-bolt flashed out…

  …and passed just under the second-largest merchantman in the group. Immediately all the Imperials maneuvered wildly, suddenly finding themselves lying close under functional heavy guns just about the time they must’ve convinced themselves that all was well. Even the destroyers, impotent against our thick armor, jinked and swerved all over the sky. Then we fired another round, which by sheer luck missed a smaller cargo vessel by even less of a margin than we had the first.

  That was all it took. The Imperial formation, already stretched far out of shape, fell apart entirely. A destroyer collided with the first ship we’d aimed at; it was only a glancing blow but enough to land them both in the yard for weeks. Then Lancrest loosed a third round, which came near nothing but encouraged even more jinking. It would’ve taken several more hours for the Imperials to get past us, and they weren’t yet anywhere near their point of closest approach. Plus the cargos must’ve been valuable ones indeed, or else they’d not’ve been rushed along in this manner. Therefore, given what the Imperial commander knew it was perfectly sensible for him to turn and run for home.

  And that’s exactly what he did. Even though we couldn’t have so much as scorched the paint on his ships’ plates had he chosen to boldly press on.

  24

  It was almost another month before we saw another ship; a long, sickly and miserable month. When grasses first evolved, scientists believe, almost nothing with a backbone was capable of digesting such cellulose-packed material. Eventually, however, many different methods evolved for coping with the stuff. In almost every case the end result was a digestive tract so highly specialized that soon it couldn’t function without grass. Small-‘r’ rabbits were no exception to this rule; deny them hay and they’ll die horribly in short order. While we gengineered types were somewhat better off than our ancestors in this and other important regards, hay remained our basic, irreplaceable staple. Soon my constantly-gurgling and upset stomach went into open revolt, and I began passing bloody stools. It was so bad that I was forced to up my hay ration despite the general shortage, and everyone else’s as well to prevent a general outbreak. I got a little better after that, but my fur continued to fall out in handfuls, I broke out in itchy sores, my weight dropped like a high-speed elevator, and sometimes I experienced difficulty thinking clearly. The same could be said for all the rest of the Rabbits as well, though to a somewhat lesser degree because their food was of better quality. It was obvious that the increased ration was the bare, absolute minimum and might yet need to be enlarged further before all was said and done; all over the Station I was discovering gnawed-up bits of carpeting and textiles where the bunnies had desperately sought more fiber to ingest. So when the Imperials finally showed, I was actually glad to see them. At least they were a distraction from our suffering, if only a temporary one.

  I'd just finished calculating the date on which we’d all starve to death—about ninety more days, I reckoned—when the annunciator called me to the command center. There Nestor met me with my now-customary tea, and the caffeine helped bring me back to life while I took in the tactical situation.

  “It’s just a single ship, sir,” Fremont explained, leaning back so I could look over his shoulder. “Squawking Royal codes.” He smiled. “Maybe they’ll have hay aboard?”

  I didn’t answer, instead scowling intently at the readouts. The ship was a fast passenger liner, totally unarmed. And it’d entered local space from the single Jump-point that led back to Royal space. Liners were often commandeered by the navy and used as troopships; therefore a fast liner would indeed be just the thing to send out to regarrison and at least begin to rebuild Zombie. Yet… Wasn’t it awfully late in the game for her to be showing up? If she’d been sent a few weeks after us but before the war began, it was just barely feasible. That was the only way the timing made sense, however. And fitting out an expedition of such size for service so far from home required time and planning. You’d think they’d have let us know, so that we could have everything as ready for them as possible…

  Our visitor’s speed was excellent. In fact, she was showing the cleanest pair of heels I’d ever seen on such a large civilian hull, running towards us as if pursued by all the demons of hell. Which of course just might’ve been the case if the Imperials were close behind them. From this side of the node, who could know?

  From the very beginning, I’d determined that I was going to refuse all voice and visual communications with other vessels while on Zombie. It was impossible to hide my Rabbithood when I spoke, at least with the cobbled-together gear that the chief had so far found time to set up. Texted material was another matter entirely, however. So I nudged Fremont aside, typed out “What ship?”, added the code group indicating my other communications were out, and waited.

  There was a long delay before I received an answer, so long that I almost repeated my inquiry . “His Majesty’s Auxiliary Transport Manxman,” the other vessel finally replied, the message followed by the same code her transponder was squawking. It was almost two years old—the age was part of the code. Which was plausible, but suspicious. “Captain Lord Hernando da Silva in command.”

  Courtesy demanded that I identify myself in return. “Captain Holcomb here,” I typed rapidly. “What is your business in this space?”

  “Restock, garrison, and repair,” he replied. “I’m your relief. Four Imperial cruisers in hot pursuit, three hours back. Must lock on immediately and transfer cargo—Urgent, urgent, urgent!”

  Fremont and the other two bunnies who’d wandered in to watch cheered, then began to dance an impromptu little jig. “Hay!” they cried out, over and over. “Fresh hay!”

  “Quiet!” I snapped; the unaccustomed bluntness silenced them instantly. Then I turned to Nestor. “Go find Devin and tell him to prepare to repel boarders. I don’t want to use the annunciator—the shielding’s shot and they might be able to listen in. He’s to prepare to defend the Station, but not to open fire without orders. Got it?”

  He nodded in the sudden silence, then dashed off.

  “What’s wrong, sir?” Fremont asked. “They’re squawking as friendlies, and you told us…”

  “I know,” I acknowledged, nodding. “But in real life, sometimes things are more complicated than they rightfully ought to be.” I checked the screen again; the liner had begun to decelerate. “Permission granted,” I typed into my keyboard. “Use lock Nancy-Three. The others are welded shut.”

  “But sir!” Fremont protested again. “The other locks work just fine! That one’s way out where we never even got around to cleaning up!”

  I sighed. “These aren’t our friends. And I’m afraid there’s going to be no fresh hay. They’re Imperials, pretending to be on our side.”

  Fremont’s brow wrinkled. “But sir… How can you know for sure? I mean… That is an authentic code, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “It is. But…” I frowned, took a sip of tea…

  …and had an idea. “Captain da Silva,” I typed out. “What is
His Majesty's favorite beverage?”

  There was another long silence. “Madeira,” he replied.

  “Thank you,” I typed back. “Please lock on immediately—we’ll have all hands standing by to assist unloading.” Then I turned to Fremont. “He always drinks Madeira at public dinners,” I explained. “And it is his favorite wine. But everyone who’s anyone back home knows that he loves chocolate milk best of all. It’s a well-known foible—almost a running joke among the nobles. Certainly a Lord would be aware of it.”

  Fremont gulped. “I… I see.”

  It was terribly thin, of course. Too thin, for any circumstances less extreme then our own. Yet the more inquiries I made, the more suspicious our enemies would grow. If they were actually our enemies, that was… So I faced up to the responsibility personally by setting off the charges with my own hand, once the Manxman had poured the bulk of her men into the long, isolated corridor. It wasn’t an easy thing to do—they were wearing Royal Marine combat-suits and in my heart I wasn’t nearly as certain as I’d like to have been. They died in an instant—we’d had plenty of leisure to set our mines properly this time around, and I’d studied up on at least the basics of the art. Then Devin’s best Rabbits pumped three rockets into the doomed vessel within seconds of the explosion, long before they could recover from the shock and get under way.

  It wasn’t until Devin’s make-do marines boarded the shattered hull and saw the dead Imperial officers floating about in their proper uniforms that the icy hand released my stomach from its grip, my heart rate fell to normal, and I finally stopped trembling. “Son,” the chief declared once it was all over and he was free to leave his battle station, “I wouldn’t have your job for all the riches of the universe.” Then for the first time ever he reached out and squeezed me gently on the shoulder.

  25

  The longer things went on, I expected, the more the pressure would build on the Imperial side and therefore the more quickly things would happen. Thus, I’d anticipated from my earliest planning that we’d face a series of incrementally more powerful and better-planned attacks at a quicker and quicker tempo until we were finally obliterated. It didn’t work out that way; a few hours after we blew up the Manxman (or whatever her real name was) another high-speed recon ship came zooming through. Apparently the Imperials were fascinated by the data it brought back, because from then on every few days they sent another. On one level that was just fine by me; it was one less camera-vessel they had available for use somewhere else. But on another, it was sort of hard to face. The commitment of such resources implied that we now had the enemy’s full, undivided attention. The next attack would therefore be in earnest, as well as in overwhelming force. Most likely we’d face multiple assault-landing ships full of thousands of marines, and at least a screen of heavy cruisers if not the main line of battle itself. Our resistance here had become something to be taken seriously. They couldn’t afford to lose any more face over it. From here on in, all my bluffs would be called.

  To meet this anticipated onslaught I had one functional turret that wouldn’t fire, another non-functional one that would, a seriously-depleted supply of heavy explosives, an engineering staff a tenth the size of what the Station’s original duty-roster called for, a handful of starving half-trained Rabbits, a single tactical nuke, and all the hand-weapons and spacesuits and dead bodies I could ever hope for. Formulating the problem in these terms proved depressing indeed. For several hours afterwards I sat quietly down in Tunnel Zero, head bowed and hands clasped in front of me, oblivious to the world. An officer had his duty to His Majesty. But he also had duties to those under his command. I’d always known that death in battle was a wretched thing, but what I’d seen over the past few months had made it more real to me than ever. Yes, I could fight on and maybe even do a little more damage along the way. But at what a cost in lives and suffering! I’d met His Majesty and knew him to be a good, decent man. There were limits to what he’d ask even of his officers, I knew. Perhaps it’d be best after all to release the last hay reserves for a great celebration with singing and dancing and the telling of tales, then die decent, clean deaths by our own hands? No one would ever question our choice, not after what we'd already accomplished. I'd just about decided that we'd already done enough when something disturbed me. Suddenly I looked up…

  …and found myself confronted with every Rabbit on the Station, all of them looking terribly worried. “Sir,” Devin asked for the rest. “Is everything all right? Are you okay?”

  I blinked, then looked helplessly from face to face. God, but what an emaciated, sickly bunch they were! “I… “ I replied, caught at a loss for words. “I…”

  “This next time,” Fremont interrupted, “they’ll come with more marines. Bigger guns, too. Won’t they?”

  There was nothing to be gained by lying. “Yes.”

  “I thought so,” Snow replied. Then he scowled. “We only have two demolition charges left. That means the fighting will be hand-to-hand.”

  “That’s true too,” I agreed, my heart sinking. “Look, I know you Rabbits aren’t really trained for this. No decent being in the universe would ever expect—“

  “It’s going to be ugly,” Snow said, and part of me marveled at how far they’d come. Once upon a time I’d had to wheedle them into offering opinions, and now they were interrupting me! “We’ve come to ask you something, sir.”

  “Look,” I replied. “I’ve already decided that I’m not even going to try and—”

  “We want you to stay down here in Tunnel Zero when the fighting starts,” Devin explained, cutting me off again. “You’ve been brave enough already, sir. And we can’t afford to lose you. We Rabbits, I mean. Everywhere.”

  I gulped. “It’s not—“

  But they weren’t hearing it. “If you have to come out and fight, you have to,” Fremont said as the rest nodded solemnly and shifted their feet. “We’ll understand. But… this next one will be our fight, sir. The way things are, it has to be. We know enough to be able to see that now. You’ve already fought and won your battles many times over. But we’ve never had the chance before.” He sighed. “We don’t just want to fight and win like you did. We need to.”

  “Because it’s the only way we can be like you,” Nestor explained, producing yet another perfect cup of tea out of nowhere and placing it firmly in my hand. “We want that more than life itself.”

  26

  And so it was that I resolved to battle to the bitter end—costs and sufferings and the Emperor be damned. Once I accepted that this was what my bunnies really wanted even knowing they could never win, suddenly the situation was rich with new tactical possibilities. I spent my days poring over Station schematics and charts of the Zombie cluster, issuing what must often have seemed like senseless orders and gulping down cup after cup of Nestor’s wonderful tea. It was amazing how instantly and unquestioningly I was obeyed, including by the chief and his men. Apparently I was now regarded as some kind of miracle-worker. Certainly my human crewmates made it a point to snap-to and salute me nowadays, even though I’d long since suspended formal military courtesy due to everyone’s excessive workloads and our unique situations. It was a tremendous compliment, especially when it came from the chief himself. “We’re all going to die, sir,” Petty Officer Bryant explained to me one day. “We know that. But because of you we’re going to die fighting and proud, for something worthwhile. Everyone’s grateful as hell, including me.”

  I had to look away to hide my tears.

  Soon the Imperial scout ships began appearing every single day. This could only mean that an attack was imminent. Immediately I upped the hay ration so that we could all regain a little strength—we had enough left for three weeks even so, and I couldn’t imagine that our enemies would dilly-dally about any longer than that. Then I began issuing the most bizarre and seemingly-pointless orders of all. “Sir,” Devin asked me. “Are you quite certain that you want to defrost the bodies? I mean… Soon we’ll be bac
k to living in masks again. Because of the odor.”

  “Put as many as we can into the best suits we have,” I explained. “That’ll seal them up nice and tight so they don’t stink. Then strap on the worst, most broken guns we’ve got and stuff ‘em in the airlocks. It’s not a sure thing, but I’ve got a feeling we’ll be needing their help. As for the rest, give them broken guns too but keep them all in one airtight room for now. We may be moving them around in a hurry.”

  Devin blinked at me, and for the first time a flash of doubt crossed his eyes. “I don’t understand at all, sir.”

  I sighed and laid my hand on his shoulder. “We don’t have a live garrison to work with, my friend. So we’re just going to have to make do with a dead one. Waste not want not, and all that. I’m just sorry that I’m going to have to ask these good men to die again for their country.”

  27

  We had a week’s hay left when the Imperials finally came for real—three assault-transports worth, loaded to the gills with trained marines and escorted by a matched set of five heavy cruisers. It was the end, of course; that was obvious the second I saw their formation. The escorts were irrelevant, given that all our major weapons were out anyway. Blasting our already-scarred surface wouldn’t accomplish a thing. But we were a handful of defenders against maybe three thousand marines equipped with proper assault-craft this time, and that made all the difference in the world. The only good news was that our enemies would have to come and get us.