The Far Stars War

by David Drake

  Major Sewell crawled along our line, doing his best to be encouraging, but everyone was too tired and too depressed to be cheered. When he got to me, I could tell that he didn’t feel much better. One thing about him, he hadn’t been taking it easy or hiding out.

  “We’ve got a problem,” he said. I just nodded. Speech took too much energy, and besides it was obvious. “There’s only one thing to do and that’s hit ‘em with a mobile unit. I’ve been in contact with the Beta-site survivors, but they don’t have a flyspy or good linkage to ours—and besides, their only officer is a kid just out of OCS. The others died at the drop. They’re about four hours away now. I’m gonna take a squad, find ‘em, and go after the Gerin commander.”

  I still didn’t say anything. That might have made sense, before the Gerin arrived. Now it looked to me like more politics—Sewell figured to leave the captain holding an indefensible position, while he took his chance at the Gerin commander. He might get killed, but if he didn’t he’d get his medals . . . and staying here was going to get us all killed. Some of that must have shown in my face, because his darkened.

  “Dammit, Gunny—I know what Captain Dietz said made sense, but our orders said defend this strip. The last flyspy image gave me a lock on what may be the Gerin commander’s module, and that unit from Beta site may give me the firepower I need. Now you find me—” My mind filled in “a few good men” but he actually asked for a squad of unwounded. We had that many, barely, and I got them back to the cleft between the first and second hills just in time to see that last confrontation with the captain.

  If I hadn’t known him that long, I’d have thought he didn’t care. Sewell had a good excuse, as if he needed one, for leaving the captain behind: Dietz had been hit, though that wound wouldn’t kill him. He couldn’t have moved fast for long, not without a trip through med or some stim-tabs. But they both knew that had nothing to do with it. The captain got his orders from Sewell in terse phrases; he merely nodded in reply. Then his eyes met mine.

  I’d planned to duck away once we were beyond the Gerin lines—assuming we made it that far, and since the other side of the strip hadn’t been so heavily attacked, we probably would. I had better things to do than babysit a major playing politics with the captain’s life. But the captain’s gaze had the same wide-blue-sky openness it had always had, barring a few times he was whacked out on bootleg whiskey.

  “I’m glad you’ve got Gunny Vargas with you,” the captain said. “He’s got eyes in the dark.”

  “If it takes us that long, we’re in trouble again,” said the major gruffly. I smiled at the captain, and followed Sewell away down the trail, thinking of the years since I’d been in that stuffy little courtroom back on that miserable backwater colony planet. The captain played fair, on the whole; he never asked for more than his due, and usually got less. If he wanted me to baby-sit the major, I would. It was the least I could do for him.

  We lost only three on the way to meet the Beta-site survivors, and I saved the major’s life twice. The second time, the Gerin tentacle I stopped shattered my arm just as thoroughly as a bullet. The major thanked me, in the way that officers are taught to do, but the thought behind his narrow forehead was that my heroism didn’t do him a bit of good unless he could win something. The medic we had along slapped a field splint on the arm and shot me up with something that took all the sharp edges off. That worried me, but I knew it would wear off in a few hours. I’d have time enough.

  Then we walked on, and on, and damn near ran headlong into our own people. They looked a lot better than we did, not having been shot up by Gerin for several days; in fact, they looked downright smart. The butterbar had an expression somewhere between serious and smug—he figured he’d done a better than decent job with his people, and the glance I got from his senior sergeant said the kid was okay. Sewell took over without explaining much, except that we’d been attacked and were now going to counterattack; I was glad he didn’t go further. It could have created a problem for me.

  Caedmon’s an official record, now. You’ve seen the tapes, maybe, or the famous shot of the final Gerin assault up the hills above the shuttle strip, the one that survived in someone’s personal vidcam to be stripped later by naval intelligence after we took the hills back, and had time to retrieve personal effects. You know that our cruisers came back, launched fighters that tore the Gerin fighters out of the sky, and then more shuttles, with more troops, enough to finish the job on the surface. You know that the “gallant forces” of the first landing (yeah, I heard that speech too) are credited with almost winning against fearful odds, even wiping out the Gerin commander and its staff, thanks to the brilliant tactic of one marine captain unfortunately himself a casualty of that last day of battle. You’ve seen his picture, with those summer-sky-blue eyes and that steadfast expression, a stranger to envy and fear alike. .

  But I know what happened to Major Sewell, who is listed simply as “killed in action.” I know how come the captain got his posthumous medals and promotion, something for his family back home to put up on their wall. I know exactly how the Gerin commander died, and who died of Gerin weapons and who of human steel. And I don’t think I have to tell you every little detail, do I? It all comes down to politics, after all. An honest politician, as the saying goes, is the one who stays bought. I was bought a long time ago, with the only coin that buys any gypsy’s soul, and with that death (you know which death) I was freed.

  THE WARSHIPS used in the Far Stars War were all of the same basic configuration. Whether the tapered cylinders of the humans, the saucers of the D’Tarth, or the spherical ships the Gerin fly, all are limited by two engineering factors.

  The first limitation is size. The drive universally used for FTL travel is quite bulky. The smallest FTL drives weigh in the range of three tons. For this reason no fighter is capable of FTL travel. Up to 20 percent of the mass of most warships is devoted to their warp drives. The necessity that the entire ship be contained within the warp field also serves as an upper limit to size. The larger the ship, the greater the proportion of the ship that has to be devoted to housing warp engines capable of producing a field that will contain it. The construction of dreadnoughts, favored before the war, was soon shown to be impractical and wasteful of resources.

  Developed only a few decades before the Far Stars War, the energy shield is capable of deflecting most beam weapons and radiation. The early screen generators required immense power. Enough power was needed that, when functioning, none remained for the warp drives. As a result, when a ship was prepared for combat, it was unable to flee. Conversely, should a captain choose to flee into warp drive, he had to do so when his ship was not under fire.

  Fighters and most merchant ships are incapable of powering defensive screens. Fighters have no option except to use their speed and agility to avoid enemy fire. Merchants either escape or are destroyed. A functioning screen provides ten times the protection of ten inches of durasteel. One of the side effects of even the early defensive screens was to render obsolete the armored hulls of the larger ships. Most of these heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts were scrapped or converted into orbiting platforms. A few were used in other ways.

  “ADMIRAL KYRO is an old fart.” Commodore H. L. Heath, Sector Commander for the Nargo Star Cluster, let the words roll off his tongue. Heath was a big man with a face to match. His high forehead, thick lips, and heavy jowls gave him the look of a Buddha, though few thought of him as especially enlightened.

  His aide, Captain George Sokolof, nodded sagely and tapped some ash from the end of his cigar. Like the man, the cigar was slim and elegant.

  “True, true. But Kyro pulls some heavy gees. He served with the admiral back when Mac was Lieutenant Chu Lin MacDonald, and he’s a war hero to boot. Battle of Gemini, Legion of Merit, and all that.”

  Heath nodded, remembering Kyro’s last visit. Somehow he always felt nervous and a little bit ashamed as the metal box
whirred and hummed its way into the room, sensors swiveling this way and that, fans stirring the expensive nap of his rug, all of it reminding Heath of the other man’s sacrifice.

  It was no way for a man to live, if you could call Kyro a man. “A brain in a box,” someone had said. Ugly words but true nevertheless.

  Everyone knew the story. How the Gerin globeships cut him off from the rest of the fleet. How Kyro fought to the last man, never dreaming that the last man would be himself, and how the medics had brought him back to life.

  Well, a sort of half-life anyhow . . . because these days Kyro was little more than brain tissue in a nutrient bath. Had the medics been able to save some spinal cord they could’ve given him a bionic body and something approaching normal life.

  But such was not the case, so Kyro was forever imprisoned in a metal box. And then, goddam his soul, the miserable old bastard retired to Gloria, where he would live out his days making Heath’s life miserable.

  Sokolof raised an eyebrow and smiled, as if reading Heath’s thoughts.

  The commodore scowled and swiveled his chair a few degrees right. His office occupied the entire top floor of the League Tower and afforded him an unobstructed view of Felson Prime, Gloria’s largest city.

  It was pretty, completely untouched by the war which raged a few hundred light-years away, all spires and soaring conifers.

  There were factories, of course, hundreds of square miles of them, but they were miles away, where their smoke and pollution wouldn’t bother the citizens of Felson Prime.

  Ah, Gloria! A plum, actually, and well deserved, too, considering Heath’s many accomplishments. After all, wars are fought by factories when you boil it all down. Factories which make the guns, body armor, hull plating, medical kits, bombs, coffee cups, and the million other things it takes to kill the enemy. Factories run by unsung heroes.

  “Yes,” Heath told himself, “if it weren’t for men like me, the navy would be throwing rocks instead of torpedoes. Maybe we don’t lead ships into battle, but we do turn factories into engines of war, and transform planets into fortified arsenals.”

  Yes, Gloria was a reward for services rendered. But could he enjoy it? Hell no. He had Gerin raiders nibbling along the edges of his sector, a daughter who was completely unreasonable, and a retired admiral who insisted on a war museum.

  More specifically, Kyro wanted the Hebe, a dreadnought almost as ancient as her name. Decommissioned in orbit six years before, the Hebe had since served as a platform for weather studies and as a lab for zero-gee experiments. She was presently unused and scheduled for salvage.

  And like all other military property in the Nargo Cluster, the Hebe came under Heath’s authority. Twice Kyro had requested use of the ship as a museum, and twice Heath had refused. Then the letter arrived.

  It came via official message torp and was rushed to Heath’s office. The letter was typed on admiralty stationery and bore the signature of Admiral Chu Lin MacDonald himself. Heath picked it up and read it again.

  Dear Herbert,

  Kyro tells me he could use some help creating an orbital war museum for Gloria. Sounds like a good idea to me. It’ll keep the old bastard out of your hair! I’d appreciate any help you could provide.

  Thanks, Mac

  Heath ran a hand through his thinning hair and wondered if Mac had cracked a bald joke at his expense.

  A war museum indeed! What did the people of Gloria need with a war museum? Many were like Kyro himself . . . used-up has-beens sent to a backwater planet to nurse broken bodies and shattered minds. The rest were good citizens, working round the clock to make weapons for the navy, blissfully ignorant of real war.

  Yes, Heath decided, the people might be ready for war memorials in another twenty-five or thirty years, but not yet. Right now they needed encouragement to work extra shifts, to make their quotas, to win the war of production.

  Still, the meaning of Admiral MacDonald’s letter was quite clear: “Help my old friend or pay with your ass.”

  Heath shifted that rather large piece of his anatomy and turned back toward his aide. “Dammit . . . why did Kyro have to retire to my sector?”

  Sokolof blew a long thin streamer of smoke toward the nearest vent and smiled. “Some people are just lucky, I guess.”

  * * *

  Though not comparable to the small lake which occupies the center of Gerin command ships, the Sea Storm’s battle center did boast a rather comfortable pool, and La’seek took comfort from it. He used four of his eight arms to shift himself into a more comfortable position, and felt the water move behind him as Nu’rech and Is’amik did likewise.

  Each of his warrior apprentices would rather self-kill than be one garik out of position. Always behind him, Nu’rech and Is’amik made a perfect triangle, and protected his back. That’s how it was and how it would always be.

  Having seen to his own comfort, La’seek turned his attention to the level-three subordinate across from him. As befitted his lower rank, Wa’ neck had draped himself over a slightly higher rock, signifying his determination to protect La’seek from any dangers which might lurk above, and ceding first rights to whatever bottom food might be handy. A bit old-fashioned, perhaps, but laudable nonetheless. So too the seemly green color of the other warrior’s skin. It signified peace and cooperation.

  La’seek waved a tentacle in Wa’neck’s direction. When he spoke, his words came out as a series of ultrasonic squeaks and twitters. “You may proceed.”

  Wa’neck squeezed a small remote, and a holo popped into existence between them. It shimmered slightly with the movement of the water but not enough to trouble their double-lidded eyes. It was a battle map complete with pulsing yellow disks to symbolize stars and brown squares to represent their planets.

  “We are here,” Wa’neck intoned, and a red diamond popped into existence just off the star Iba S-8.

  “I recommend a surprise raid deep into human-held space.” Another diamond popped into existence, this one a brilliant blue. It pulsated next to a star identified as Nargo S-2. A human descriptor, lacking in elegance, but sufficient for military purposes.

  “This star has four planets,” Wa’neck continued, “and two of them are infested with humans. One is of little importance, but the other produces vast quantities of armaments, and is ripe for the plucking.”

  The battle map disappeared and was replaced by real video. What La’seek saw was beautiful, a rotating blue jewel blessed with equal parts water and land, the very embodiment of the Gerin ideal.

  Seeing his superior’s skin turn pink with excitement, Wa’neck took full advantage. “The humans call it Gloria, which is a word of worship.”

  “And worship they should,” La’seek replied. “The planet is very beautiful. Tell me, Wa’neck, how did we come by such images? How many warriors life-gave to bring them here?”

  “None,” Wa’neck answered. “We received the pictures from a human spy, a former prisoner who has agreed to do our work, and profit in the process.”

  “How extraordinary,” La’seek said. “How very extraordinary.” Human spies were extremely rare, partly because of loyalty to their own species, but also because the Gerin form seemed to tap xenophobic fears buried deep in their psyches.

  “And what of their defenses?”

  The holo changed. Now La’seek looked at a detailed listing of the planet’s defenses. He found them rather weak by wartime standards. The local naval contingent boasted seven cruisers and a deactivated dreadnought. A “useless hulk,” according to Wa’neck’s annotation.

  The planet’s single moon was only lightly fortified.

  There were no orbital defense platforms to speak of, and nothing much on the ground. A rather tempting target.

  “A raid you say. Details, please.”

  La’seek was interested! Inside Wa’neck rejoiced, but outside he was careful to mainta
in the same subservient skin color. He made a bold move by slithering down to a lower rock only gariks higher than La’seek himself. Behind Wa’neck his two apprentices did likewise.

  The battle map reappeared as Wa’neck spoke. “It would work like this. Two of our ships will attack Dusa, Nargo S-2’s second planet, and draw off the naval contingent. Then, when the human warships are out of position, a strike force of ten globeships will attack Gloria, and eradicate the population.”

  The battle map vanished and was replaced by what appeared to be a detailed receipt for naval stores, printed on League stationery and signed by a human named Heath. La’seek wondered if he was the spy.

  “Time permitting,” Wa’neck continued, “we will also load our ships with human weapons. If not, our warriors will destroy them. That accomplished, our ships will upwarp and return here. Should the humans follow they will downwarp into a well-prepared trap.”

  La’seek turned light blue in approval. It was classic Gerin strategy, and with any luck at all, would bring great honor on both of them. Expelling air from his main vent, La’seek rose to entwine tool tentacles with Warrior Wa’neck. “Well said, war brother. Death to humans!”

  * * *

  Gil used his remaining eye to scan the cavernous interior of the League supply depot. Huge storage racks rose on every side and disappeared into the darkness above. Their shelves were loaded with everything imaginable: electronic components, chemical toilets, energy weapons, holo tanks, control consoles, live ammo, aircraft engines, and more. The air was heavy with the odor of sealers, lubricants, and new plastic. A grin spread across Gil’s face. “Damn, Chiefy, lookit this stuff! This’ll be more fun than three days in a class-one pleasure dome!”