The Grapple

by Moshe Ben-Or

  Doctor Pillár was not unattractive, in a rough, angular way, considered Isadora as she looked up at her new Patron with a perfectly-practiced mix of desire, submission and adoration. He was younger by far than either her uncle or her father, both by now surely dead. Almost as young as her older brother, really, in looks if not in calendar age. A vigorous, powerfully-built, athletic, middle-aged man in the prime of his life. A man of genius; of commanding presence and immense personal power.

  A Planetary Director, at whose order enormous industrial enterprises sprang into being virtually overnight, regardless of human cost. A man at whose word millions were displaced, dispossessed and conscripted for forced labor. A man at whose command tens of thousands had already been summarily shot without trial. A man who could, should he adjudge it necessary, have tens of thousands more shot immediately, at a stroke of his pen.

  Ruthless. Mighty. Merciless. Hers.

  What a Beast! What a magnificent, magnificent Beast! And she had him right where she wanted him! The Goddess gave her the Power! Her Weapons were irresistible!

  That pathetic pack of whipped curs outside, they were no competition. The Goddess didn’t walk with them.

  His wife? Feh! He barely saw her. Half a day on Sundays. He even slept right here on weekdays.

  He’d had this building custom designed. All the Heavy Industry bigwigs had living spaces attached to their offices. That’s where the door past the coffee table led, over by the couch. No different from the average dorm room. Bed, shower, kitchenette.

  One of his girls stayed every evening, to make supper for him. Tonight, that would be her. Tonight, and every night hereafter. She’d make sure of it. She would sleep in that bed from now on. And there would never again be another in it! This Beast was hers, and hers alone!

  For the rest of his life, in public, and forever after his death, in stories and in interviews, he would remain to her “Doctor Pillár”. Even in private it would be decades, long after the war had ended, before she would dare call him “Hernan”.

  Breathless observers on the ninth floor of the Planetary Directorate of Heavy Industry headquarters building would spend an entirely unprecedented time waiting for Doctor Pillár’s new accountant to emerge from his office. When she finally did, there were neither the usual tears nor bruises, and there were certainly no curses, and no blood. As their sated-looking Director politely held open the door for his new girl, a smiling, if flushed and slightly disheveled, Isadora Marcos kissed him on the cheek and headed toward her desk. Upon her lapels, already roughly stitched into place by hand above her School of Business junior’s tabs, rode the three thick silver stripes of a Senior Lecturer, resplendent upon the deep purple of Polytechnic University’s School of Sciences.

  * * *

  Head Cat fled, pell-mell up the gradient. Left behind, the wreckage of a vast battle, the greatest battle fought in the past six hundred years. Left behind, the ruins of a mighty fleet, perhaps the most powerful array of warships ever assembled by his people. Left behind, the invasion of Haven, the siege of Hadassah, the raging combat of Bretogne. Left behind, hundreds of millions of his king’s best warriors, whole army groups condemned to starve and freeze amid the endless snow piling upon the glaciers of Haven’s wintry pole, to shrivel up and die of thirst amid the scorching sands and howling winds of Bretogne’s Hot Side.

  Four times had he traversed the gradient between Haven and Hadassah. Four times had he rushed, consumed by rage, in pursuit of his elusive enemy, damaging ships and wearying crews, burning jump fuel and consuming supplies. And now he fled from defeat, and he had nothing left to spare. Not enough fuel to get up the gradient to Paradise. Not enough shield matter, not enough shells and missiles, not enough spare parts. Head Cat fled, scuttling battleships and cannibalizing cruisers, throwing away warships by the score in forlorn-hope rear guard actions, condemning whole crews to be left behind, to float alone in the cold, airless blackness and choke to death, poisoned by their own spent breath.

  Battered and bloodied, weary unto death, shorn by cruel fate of its brilliant commander and of nigh-on two thirds of its fighting ships, the Fleet pursued. Relentlessly, ceaselessly, up the gradient after the foe, to put a final seal upon the great victory at Hadassah. To finally crush the enemy, once and for all. To take Paradise by storm and cut every Zin warship in Known Space off from resupply. To end the War this year, by the grace of Hashem.

  Head Cat called for help, in his desperation. And, up the gradient at Paradise, his fellow cats answered.

  But Head Cat’s fleet was not the first defeated enemy armada to flee across the empty, dead vastness between the Great Highway and the worlds of the League. Head Cat was not the first Outsider admiral in history to call desperately for help out in the darkness, with death grinning hungrily back at him from the the depths of the cold, airless void.

  The bleach-outs had tried it, twice. The slant-eyes had tried it also, more times than they liked to count. The Fleet had an answer for Head Cat’s pleas.

  Off in the distance, sunward, the Long Range Action Squadron’s frigates and light cruisers clashed with the Zin escort force. And before him, fleeing from that action, lay the prize that the Zin escort had so desperately tried to protect.

  There is a reason, little kitties, thought Commodore Moshe Tellman, why the government pays huge subsidies to maintain a fleet of strange, uneconomical, oddly-shaped freighters like the one I captain, and it is not so we can carry overpriced vermin and strange creatures of the sea, live, from Haven to gourmands’ tables all over Known Space.

  There is a reason why I have a frigate’s speed and a frigate’s shield density. There is a reason why I pack a corvette’s hundred-kilo guns. There’s a reason why I have the cargo chutes I do, and why my commo bay is plumbed for an ansible. There is a reason why I have a warship’s self-healing hull.

  Did we sail in olden days upon the seas of my homeworld, I would run a second flag up my mast, beneath my family banner. A white skull and crossbones upon a black field, to make clear your inevitable fate.

  “Tellman Squadron, eyes on targets!” commanded Uncle Moshe, pushing out the finalized fire plan. “Shimon, fire as you bear!”

  GONG-GONG, went the guns.

  The Zin freighters were dodging, or at least trying to. Wouldn’t help them any. Their jump drives were too slow. The pilots were worse. He had those bastards dead to rights.

  GONG-GONG.

  There was a flash of distant detonation, and a beep from the radiation alarm.

  “Pathetic,” thought the commodore, as the Dalia effortlessly jumped out of the beaten zone.

  The bastards couldn’t shoot any better than they could dodge. Betsalel’s steering was way ahead of their worthless gunners’ so-called targeting.

  GONG-GONG.

  The third splash was dead on. Shimon was good like that.

  “Solution locked!” reported Avi.

  Shimon’s splashes had given him what he needed, just like they were supposed to.

  “Fire rockets!” ordered Uncle Moshe.

  Magnetic impellers whined as cargo chutes spat out rocket pods.

  “Yo-ho-ho and a tankful o’ schnapps, little kitties,” thought the commodore, grinning like a wolf, “your buddies down the gradient ain’t gettin’ jack shit from you!”

  The Dalia’s hull rang like a bell with the rockets’ launch shock.

  * * *

  “They’re taking over the mill, then, without doubt?” asked Yosi Weismann.

  “They’ve taken it over already,” answered Shin Takawa. “The place is back in operation. They’ve erected new work sheds, flown in extra equipment and put up additional buildings for staff. Initial production is underway. The warehouse is active. The road to Aruanā is being cleared as we speak. They’ve got a platoon of FPF guarding the road crew, and an RT doing survey work on the road.

  “Looks like a serious operation. A good three hundred people on site, all told.”

  “A follow-on crew is ass
embling at the district center,” added Patty, “to repair the potholes. They expect to set out by the end of the week, as soon as the Ministry of Infrastructure coughs up more FPF to guard them. The MOI is establishing a Facilities Protection patrol base at Aruanā, to keep that road clear and escort convoys.”

  “Well,” said Leo, “moving the equipment all the way up here was a pipe dream anyway. We never had the transport, the manpower or the expertise, and we could’ve never supplied all the precursors.”

  “Just another target, then,” resolved Yosi. “I don’t want another collaborator garrison between us and Aruanā, much less one that rates an FPF patrol base. Next thing you know, they’ll get it into their heads to link up with the cops at Paraibuna.”

  “The place is a fortress,” answered Shin. “Sixty-man security force, dug in up to their ears. Six machineguns, Zin rifles across the board, everybody’s got sensor goggles. It’s a by-the-book military perimeter. None of that sloppy Yellow Rat shit with plastic towers and sandbags.

  “Berm with concrete and earth block bunkers. Trenches with overhead protection. Six rows of concertina with an antitank trench four meters deep and ten wide. Three hundred meters’ worth of exclusion zone, armed UAV patrol and a minefield.

  Real minefield. Military-grade antipersonnel smart mines. Mostly clustered around the moat, but we can see one or two betties moving around elsewhere in the exclusion zone, every once in a blue moon.

  “Guy in charge of the guard force is a huge man, real big on fists-on discipline. He’s got the screws tightened down ‘till the wood squeaks. None of your FPF numskulls munching on arepas. None of your Yellow Rats sleeping in towers and drunk on duty. Not as much as a cigarette being smoked while on guard. Perimeter drills, snap walkthroughs, semi-random guard rotation, roving guards and foot patrols, two separate QRFs, the works.”

  “New force, then?” asked Yosi.

  “New force. Blue uniforms. Trench coats and forage caps. Pips and stripes on epaulets, for rank. Patches say ‘Campus Police’.

  “Workforce is all uniformed, too. Navy blue pea coats and forage caps with colored bands for men, sky blue cloaks and colored berets for women. Rank worn on lapel tabs. Tab color matches the headgear.

  “The men all carry laser pistols and daggers full time, and there’s an armory with government lasers for them. They drill every Sunday, like clockwork. We’ve seen two random drills, too, with the guards.

  “The women do casevac and ammo resupply. So far, we’ve seen them drill once, on a Sunday. They get laser pistols while they drill. Head girl carries a mil-grade submachinegun.

  “Cadets of some kind. Take a look.”

  “Polytechnic University of San Angelo,” said Miri. “See the crest? ‘The University is My Family’. I was going to apply there next year.”

  “Weinberger’s people,” concluded Leo. “The fuck they’re making out there, that’s so important?”

  “Same thing we were planning to make,” answered Patty. “Military ponchos.”

  “That confirmed, or a guess?” asked Yosi.

  “A guess, so far,” replied the FPA Chief of Intelligence and Propaganda. “But a damned likely one.

  “FPF and Yellow Rat units all over the northern half of the province expect delivery of ponchos within the next two months. You can take that to the bank. I’ve got reliable sources claiming to have seen training with sample items, and quoting exact delivery dates.”

  “Confirm it, then,” replied Colonel Weismann. “If it’s true, fortress or not, we will wipe that place off the map.”

  * * *

  Sayf al-Masrikh stared mutely at the ansible message.

  Text. They’d sent text. Not even a voice call. Just a carbon copy of the order, bearing His Majesty’s signet.

  Flag Admiral Sayf al-Masrikh is hereby enjoined, upon arrival at Paradise, to hand all matters pertaining to the Great Jihad over to Flag Admiral Abdallakh bin Ziad, and proceed without delay to Alwahakh, to be placed at the disposal of the Ministry of War, Department of Personnel.

  “Flag Admiral.” Not “Admiral of the Fleet,” not “Mace of Battle,” not “Strong Right Arm of the Ahmirr...” Just “Flag Admiral.” No other titles. No titles at all.

  Six thousand, three hundred and ninety capital ships. One thousand, one hundred and three carriers. Eleven thousand frigates and destroyers. Fourteen thousand gunboats and corvettes...

  The greatest fleet ever assembled. The greatest defeat in the history of the Ahmirrat.

  Not defeat. Catastrophe. Utter catastrophe, the likes of which had never before been seen.

  Someone had to pay. There had to be a culprit. Someone had to answer for this disaster.

  Attainder…

  No, attainder would not be enough. Not for a horror of such magnitude.

  Attainder would acknowledge a mistake. Attainder would mean that Sayf al-Masrikh, the Admiral of the Fleet, the Mace of Battle, the Strong Right Arm of the Ahmirr, was simply an up-jumped fool. Attainder would mean that His Majesty had showered lands and titles upon a fool. That His Majesty had elevated a fool above all his advisers, a common idiot of a gutter snipe above his high-born nobles. That His Majesty had entrusted the Great Jihad to a fool. That his Majesty had given command of the greatest fleet in history to a fool. That His Majesty was himself a fool. That His Majesty was himself responsible.

  His Majesty was not responsible. His Majesty was not a fool. His Most Sublime and Excellent Royal Majesty, the Rightly Guided Commander of the Faithful, the True and Only Successor of the Prophet of the Lord of the Universe, Peace Be upon Him, did not make such mistakes.

  His Most Sublime and Excellent Royal Majesty could not make such mistakes. His Most Sublime and Excellent Royal Majesty had been betrayed.

  A conspiracy. A vile cabal, born of overweening ambition and boundless lust for power. An evil scheme, arranged in league with the Jews. An ingrate, an up-jumped commoner lifted far above his proper station, conspiring with a treacherous royal prince. A secret plot to cause catastrophe, and, in the chaos, take the throne by force.

  The conspirators would be arrested. The conspirators would confess. The conspirators would be punished. They would all pay with their lives.

  Prince Alikh, first and foremost. His brothers. His friends and associates. His mother. Even his tiny kitten of a sister, lest she grow up, and seek revenge. All would face the torturer, and then the executioner’s sword.

  Sayf al-Masrikh’s associates, too. All who had helped the treacherous false admiral.

  Confessed. Tried. Beheaded. Their families attainted.

  And as for the chief conspirator himself, the monstrous traitor who had purposely authored such catastrophe...

  Proscription. Proscription, without doubt. Nothing but proscription would do.

  They would slaughter everyone. His sons, his brothers, his uncles and cousins. Even the wives. They would kill even the wives, and the unwed daughters. The wed ones would be divorced by their husbands. Thrown out onto the streets, to prostitute themselves for a bit of rotten soymeat. To starve to death in the gutter, along with their children.

  The poison tree, extirpated root and branch. The insidious cancer, excised. Traitors’ blood, purged from the pure body of the Ummakh.

  The heads of the guilty would decorate spikes upon the palace wall. Birds would peck out their eyes. Their bodies would be thrown to the dogs…

  Even the smallest kitten. They would all confess!

  “Picket Nine reports contact, saydikh,” chimed the adjutant AI.

  He still had command of this fleet. This ragged clutch of a few hundred battered wrecks. This pathetic reminder of lost greatness. If he consolidated all remaining jump fuel and scuttled the rest, perhaps a hundred big-gun ships might make it back whence they’d come.

  The last supply convoy had gotten through a week ago. A pair of pathetic, shot-up freighters and one mangled wreck of a frigate. Sole survivors. Fuel and munitions enough for an hour of pitched battle, if only a si
ngle squadron fought. Abdallakh bin Ziad had turned all the others around. The first thing he’d done, on arrival at Paradise. No more throwing good ships after bad.

  Prince Khharrq's boyhood tutor…

  Alikh Maslamakh falls. Khharrq Akhmatshakh rises. As he had risen upon the fall of Akhmat.

  Handsome, athletic, talented Prince Akhmat, his royal father’s firstborn. Secure and favored in all things, from earliest kittenhood. Self-evidently destined for the throne.

  The great, shining Akhmat, his noble mother’s golden boy. Beloved by all. Orbited by lesser beings like a sun; taking their adoration as his rightful due. All but unaware of that worshipful shadow, his pathetic half-brother. That runty offspring of a lowly concubine. That artless, colorless non-entity, devoid of virtues and wits, fit only to serve others.

  Khharrq Akhmatshakh, sibilant flatterer, son of a handmaiden, good for nothing, despised by all. Laughable Khharrq, who would never amount to a thing…

  An update globe unfolded above the stateroom table. The duty captain’s face popped up on the wall. Picket Nine’s contact was more, by far, than the squadron-sized raiding force it had first appeared to be.

  He still commanded this fleet. He could still foil that sibilant viper’s plan. A chief conspirator did not plot his own death. A heroic admiral, laid low by cruel fate, did not slink off like a beaten cur, with his tail between his legs.

  “Fleet to action stations,” commanded Sayf al-Masrikh.

  Alarms wailed.

  “Surely, the gates of Paradise are under the shadows of the swords,” whispered the former Zin Admiral of the Fleet as gravity ceased, and air pumps began to whir.

  * * *

  Maria rolled down onto the floor and under the bed in one smooth motion, without even realizing why. Things pattered onto the roof as the cottage shook from the blast. The second explosion was almost as close as the first. That one woke her up fully.