"Oslabya: Cede Omega!" communications reported. So IN-SVSNSCORQ 105 LieutenantJolson's first command was no more.

 

 

Well, he'd soon have company.

 

 

"Oh, dear God!" Naomi's eyes jerked toward her white-faced scanner rating.

 

 

"Oslabya's missiles mst'ye been under shipboard control, sir! They're going to a standard dispersion pattern]" Naomi's heart chilled as she stabbed a quick look at Battle Two. It was true. With her computers out of the circuit, Oslabya's missiles were spreading to cover the target with maximum devastation, and what was supposed to be a precision strike had become an atrocity. They were only actical nukes, but they'd land all over the Reservation and dependent housing.

 

 

"Good hits on target." Gunnery's almost droning report jerked her eyes away from the horror unfolding on Battle Two. "She's streaming air, sir]" And then Krsts found the range.

 

 

Pommfrn screamed as the lasers raped her.

 

 

Naomi had always known ships had souls--comshe felt it now, in her own soul, as the cruiser's armor puffed to vapor and vanished under the radiant energy.

 

 

"Forward launchers gone!" Gunnery's professional calm had disappeared. "Laser One destroyed!" Naomi turned towards him, but she never completed her order. Krsts found them again, her hetlasers knifing through armor and plating and flesh. Naomi gasped involuntarily as air screamed from the holed compartment and her suit puffed tight, and Pommern lurched as a drive room died, and then another. She was toothless and naked, but Krsts was badly hurt herself, and the Jamieson Archipelago was a forest o pounds oisonous mushrooms as Toshiba blasted the shipyards and her crew's homes and families burned.

 

 

Naomi looked away from her looming executioner, her own eyes burning as Oslabya's missiles ('aid their artificiMore suns across the Navy base. How many were dying down there? How many whose husbands and wives and fathers and mothers wore the same uniform as she? Yet they were only a few more deaths against the civilians dying around the other yards. How many would there be? A million? Two million?

 

 

Three? Against that kind o pounds devastation, what could a few thousand Navy dependents matter?

 

 

Kris slid alongside at point-blank range, and Naomi watched almost incuriously in an outside screen as the battle-cruiser's surviving hetlasers swiveled across her ship. Kris poured fire into the gutted, mutinous cruiser.

 

 

Naomi had a tiny fraction of a second to see the end of her bridge explode into vaporized steel. Only a fraction of a second before the fury came for her--but long enough to feel the mark of Cain in her soul again and know that death would be sweet.

 

 

DISASTER "Mister Speaker," Simon Taliaferro said somberly, "I take little pleasure in being vindicated in such fashion." He looked around the Chamber of Worlds and shook his head sadly. "We sluld have known it would come, I suppose, when so many Fringe World delegates resigned their seats to protest the "severity" of a decision far more merciful than just. Barbarism, Mister Speaker--the acts of little, frightened minds which must not be allowed to destroy all the Terran Federation stands for." Oskar Dieter sat quietly, listening to the beautifully trained voice, wishing he possessed some of the same histrionic ability. But he didn't; all he could do was tell the truth, and where was the appeal of truth when ties were so convincingly presented?

 

 

"I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," Taliaferro went on, "where is the reason in thsts?" He waved his hard copy of the report which had originated this secret session.

 

 

"Even if, as I do not for an instant believe, amalgamation is an unmeant threat to the Fringe Worlds' representation, is this the way to contest it? Where are the Fringe World delegates, ladies and gentlemen? Where are the petitions? We see none of them. Instead we see this!" He crumpled the sheet of paper contemptuously, and Dieter winced as the theatrical gesture evoked a spatter of applause.

 

 

It was sadly scattered applause, for the Chamber of Worlds was sparsely populated, the blocks of assemblymen and women separated by the empty delegation boxes of Fringe Worlds no longer represented here.

 

 

The Fringer delegations had been small, but there were many Outworlds, and their absence cut great swathes through the larger, less numerous Innerworld delegations. And it was Simon Taliaferro and others like him who created this absence, Dieter reminded himself, staring at the heavy-set Gallowayan with a hatred it no longer shocked him to feel.

 

 

"They have made no effort to oppose amalgamation," Taliaferro went on.

 

 

"They have not even bothered to discover whether or not it has in fact been ratified! They have fastened upon it--fastened upon it as a cheat and a pretext for treason, and let us not delude ourselves, my friends] The act of the Kontravian Clustersts treason, and when Admiral Forsythe has brought these traitors to their knees, we must show them that the Federation is not prepared to brook such criminality." Here it came, Dieter thought grimly.

 

 

Taliaferro had spent forty years maneuvering for exactly this slash at the Fringe's jugular.

 

 

"My friends," Taliaferro said soberly, "we must face unpleasant facts. The Kontravian rebels are not the only treasonously inclined members of the Fringe.. If we falter, ff we show weakness or hesitation, the Federation will vanish into the ash heap of history. Only strength impresses the immature political mind. Only strength and the proven will to use itl We must demonstrate our will power, whatever it may cost us in anguish and grief.

 

 

We must punish ruthlessly, so that a few salutary lessons will prevent the wholesale bloodshed which must assuredly follow weakness. I therefore move, ladies and gentlemen, that we draft special instructions to Fleet Admiral For-sythe and all other commanders, instructing them to declare martial law and empowering them to convene military courts to try and punish the authors of this treason. And, ladies and gentlemen, I move that we inform our eom-manders that the sentences of their courts martial stand approved in advance!" Dieter was on his feet in a heartbeat, fists clenched in shocked outrage. He'd known Taliaferro was ruthless, prepared tO provoke civil war to gain his own ends-but this was simple judicial murder!

 

 

His fury turned icy as the full implications registered. If one could only be as conscienceless as Taliaferro himself it was almost admirable. Killing the Beaufort "ringleaders" would, at one stroke, remove the Fringe leaders best able to oppose him, inflame the extremists on both sides, and stain the hands of the Assemblymen with blood. Even if their ardor cooled, even if they later realized Taliaferro had used them, they would be his captives. They would share his guilt, and so would perforce becomes his accomplices in future crimes, as well.

 

 

Dieter forced himself to use his anger, burning the fury. from his system and replacing it with frozen calm. He must speak out, must inject an element of opposition and carry at least a minority with him, so that when the fit passedeathere would be someone free of Taliaferro's blood guilt.

 

 

He drew a deep breath and touched his attention button as David Haley opened debate on Taliaferro's motion.

 

 

"The Chair recognizes the Honorable Assemblyman for New Zurich," Haley said, and Dieter heard the relief in his voice.

 

 

"Thank you, Mister Speaker." Dieter's huge face stared out over the delegates, showing no sign of his inner turmoil. How should he address them? With fu, denouncing Taliaferro as a madman? Or would that merely brand him another hothead? Sbouffd he, then, try cold lcgic? Or would that stand a chance against the hysteria Taliaferro had been fanning for so many months? Derision, perhaps? Would mockery achieve what head-on opposition could not? He shook his thoughts aside, knowing he must play it by feel.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," he heard his own stiffness and prayed no one else did.

 

 

"Mister Taliaferro proposes to recognize the depth of this crisis by enacting extraordinary legislation. He argues--and rightly so--comt this is a moment to show strength. The Federation has withstood many external threats, yet today we face an internal threat to our very existence. Indeed, Mister Taliaferro may well be too optimistic, for he overlooks the composition of our militar.v. As chairman of the Military Oversight Committee, I can assure you there are enough Fringe Worlders in the military to make the ultimate loyalty of our own armed forces far from assured." He felt the surprise as he admitted even a part of the Gallowayan's arguments. The Dieter-Taliaferro enmity had been a lively topic of Assembly gossip for months, and he knew the wagers in the ante-rooms were heavily against him. But they'd reckoned without the years of favors he'd desperately called in among the hierarchy of his homewodd. And without the recorder his briefcase had concealed during his final, parting-of-the-ways meeting with the Taliaferro Machine's leadership. He'd hung on, emerging as Taliaferro's only real opposition, and though his Assembly membership still hung by a thread, that thread grew steadily stronger as his warning penetrated deeper into the fundamentally conservative minds of the bankers who owned New Zurich.

 

 

His secretly made recording had helped immensely, for he knew some of the New Zurich syndics shared his private opinion that Taliaferro was no longer sane. They were willing to keep him on as a counterweight--at least until they knew whether the Gllowayan would succeed. And ff Taliaferro did, Dieter knew, he would be the sacrificial lamb offered by the New Zurich leaders as they sought rapprochement with Galloway's World.

 

 

He shook such thoughts aside and forced his mind back to the present. His increasingly frequent woolgathering mental side-trips worried him.

 

 

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mister Taliaferro is quite correct--and he is also entirely wrong. He would have you believe the only strong reaction is to crush the rebels, that the only strength is the iron fist of repression. Ladies and gentleman, there are more strengths than the whip hand!

 

 

Let us acknowledge that this is an unprecedented crisis. Let us admit that what we face is mass treason--treason not of a single person, or a single clique, or even a single world, but of an entire cluster! Let us ask ourselves wht eight star systems and eleven inhabited worlds and moons would simultaneously take such a drastic step! Has some mysterious madness gripped them all? Or is it, perhaps, much as we would hate to admit it, we who have driven them to it?"

 

 

He pausestt, feeling the hovering resentment like smoke. Some would hate him for opposing their carefully laid plans, and others for saying what they themselves had thought without admitting. Only a tragically small few would understand and support him.

 

 

But it had to be enough. It must be.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly, I oppose this motion. I oppose the creation of kangaroo courts whose only possible verdict can be death. I oppose the institutionalization of the fracture lines splitting our polity at this critical moment. Let us demonstrate that we are strong enough to be reasonable and wise enough to be rational.

 

 

Let us show the Fringe that we are willing to listen to grievances and, for a change, to act upon them. It is time for compromise, ladies and gentlemen, not for judicial murder." He sat clown abruptly, feeling his last two words ringing in a suddeh silence that proved some, at least, had heard. But not enough, he thought grimly.

 

 

Not enough.

 

 

Indeed, he was surprised only by the extent of his support, for as delegate after delegate rose to speak, almost a third supported him. He would have wagered on less than a quarter, and he was gratified to see so much sanity, even as he recognized his failure to stop Taliaferro. The motion passed by slightly less than a two-thirds majority, and a license to kill was dispatched to the Federation's far-flung commanders.

 

 

Dieter prayed they would have the moral courage to ignore it.

 

 

"Chieiq. Mister Dieter! Wake up sir!

 

 

Please wake up!" The grip on Dieter's shoulder wrenched him awake, and his hand darted under the pillow to the pistol butt which had become so unhappily familiar in the past fourteen months.

 

 

The weapon was out, safety catch released, before his sleep-dazed mind recognized Heinz von Rathenau, his security chief.

 

 

Rathenau stepped back quickly, and Dieter lowered the needler with a twisted grin and a shrug of apology. Since the first attempt on his life, he'd found himself uncomfortable without a weapon to hand.

 

 

"Yes, Heinz," he said. "What is it?" He glanced at the clock and winced. Four caret disM. He'd been asleep less than two hours.

 

 

"A priority message, sir." Rathenau looked desperately unhappy in the light of the bedside lamp. "From the Lictor General's office." "The Lictor General?" Dieter rose quickly, shrugging into a robe even as he headed barefooted for the door. "What priority?" "Priority One, sir." "Oh, God! Not again!" Dieter bit offfurther comment as he walked quickly down the hall beside Rathenau.

 

 

The armed New Zurich Peaceforcers at the elevators snapped to attention as Dieter passed, and Rathenau noticed that his normally affable superior didn't even acknowledge the courtesy.

 

 

They reached the communications room, and Rathenau stopped outside as Dieter stepped through the heavy security door. His predecessor would have walked through at Dieter's elbow with a calm assurance of his right to be there, but Rathenau felt no desire to appear even remotely akin to Francois Fouchet. Fouchet had mistaken Dieter's trustfulness for weakness... and paid for it, Rathenau thought with grim satisfaction. For himself, he would follow Oskar Dieter back to New Zurich without a murmur when the axe fell. It wasn't often a Corporate World security man found himself serving a chief worthy of personal loyalty.

 

 

Dieter shut the door without sparing Rathenan a thought.

 

 

He had eyes only for the flashing red light on the panel, and his blood ran cold. The last time he'd seen that light had been three months ago to receive news of the Kontravian secession.

 

 

He presented his eye to the retinal scanners, automatically suppressing the blink reflex. It took thirty seconds to satisfy the brilliant lights; when he finally read the message, he wished it had taken thirty years.

 

 

He stared at the screen, his mind encased in ice. God, he thought. Please, God. Why are You letting this happen? But there was no answer. There would be none.

 

 

He rose finally, like an old, old man, switching off the communicators and wishing he could switch off his mind as easily. He opened the door and saw young Rathenau's face tighten at his own expression.

 

 

"Chief?." "Heinz--was Dieter's hands moved for a moment, as ff trying to recapture something that was irretrievably shattered.

 

 

"What is it, Chief?." Rathenau's voice was much softer, almost gentle.

 

 

"Wake the others, Heinz." Dieter drew a deep breath, but the oxygen was little help. "Get everyone assembled in conference room one in--was he glanced at his watch his--comtwenty minutes. Tell them to forget dressing." "Yes, sir. May to ask why, sir?" "I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the briefing. There'll be an emergency session at 0600 hours, and I have calls to "Yes, ir." Rathenau watched Oskar Dieter move brokenly down the corridor, and his heart was cold within him.

 

 

The Chamber of Worlds was hushed, wrapped in a silence it had not known in deeades--comff ever.

 

 

Dieter looked around the shocked faces and wondered ff even the Battle of VX-134 had produced such an effect. Howard Anderson's battle had been Man's first with a rival stellar empire; this news was worse.

 

 

He glanced up as Taliaferro walked briskly to his seat. He wanted nothing else in the Galaxy so much as to see Taliaferro's expressSon, to read the emotions in the dark, arrogant face of the man who'd orchestrated this disaster. The man whom he, God help him, had helped create this catastrophe.

 

 

Taliaferro dropped into his chair almost as the chime struck, and Dieter understood. He'd timed his late arrival to preclude any buttonholing, but how would he deal with it? How would he manage this session?

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen." David Haley's voice sounded as ff it had been pulverized and glued unskillfully back together. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly, the Legislative Assembly is in session." He paused and cleared his throat, his face pale in the vast screen.

 

 

"I am certain all of you have been apprised of the reason for this emergency session. However... however, for those of you who may not be fully informed, I will summarize." His hands trembled visibly as he adjusted his terminal, but Dieter was certain he didn't really need any notes. Like himself, he no doubt found the information burned into his quivering brain.

 

 

"On February 12, 2439, Terran Standard Reckoning," Haley said slowly, as ff seeking protection in the formality of his phrasing, "Task Force Seventeen of the Terran Federation Navy Battle Fleet entered the system of Bigelow in the Kontravian Cluster for the purpose of suppressing the secessionist elements therein. It was hoped--was his voice broke, then steadied.

 

 

"It was hoped this force was strong enough to overawe the rebels. It was not. The Kontravians refused to surrender, and, after the failure of lengthy negotiations, Fleet Admiral Forsythe moved against them." He drew a deep breath, and a strange strength seemed to possess him, the strength which comes only to those who have faced the worst disaster they can conceive. When he continued, his voice was cold and clear.

 

 

"Task Force Seventeen," he said quietly, "no longer exists. Apparently--the message is not entirely clear, ladies and gentlemen--but apparently mutiny first broke out aboard the flagship. It spread. Within a very sort space, virtually every ship was involved. Most--was he drew another breath his-comwent over to the Kontravians." They'd known, but the shock which ran through his audience as the words were finally said was actually visible. Dieter looked away from Haley, fixing his gaze on Taliaferro, willing the man to show some reaction, but the Gallowayan had himself under inhuman control.

 

 

"There was some fighting between loyal and mutinous elements," Haley continued. "Our only information comes from a courier drone from the superdreadnought Pentelikon. The drone carried an Omega message." The chamber was utterly still; Code Omega was used only for the final communication from a doomed ship.

 

 

"As nearly as we can determine," Haley said into the hushed silence, "the entire task force--minus those units destroyed in the fighting--went over to the Kontravians or was sggbsequently captured.

 

 

As of the time Pentelikon's lsvnnEnon drone vJas dispatched, the count of survivors was approximately as follows: eight monitors, six superdreadnoughts, seven carriers, eleven battle-cruisers, twenty-one heavy and light cruisers, forty-one destroyers and escort destroyers, and virtually the entire fleet train.

 

 

At least six destroyers, three light and heavy cruisers, one carrier, and two superdreadnoughts were destroyed in the ighting.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the Speaker said very quietly, "this means, in effect, that there are no loyal survivors rom the entire task force." The silence grew, i pounds possible, even more complete. Most of the delegates were staring at Haley's image in horror. Very few seemed capable of coherent thought--and that, Dieter thought, was what was desperately needed now.

 

 

He was reaching for his own attention hutton when the @u sound of another bell cut the air. An edge o pounds uncontrollable bilerness crossed the Speaker's face, but when he spoke, his voice was as impersonal as ever.

 

 

"rhe Chair recognizes the Honorable Assemblyman for Galloway's World." Dieter leaned back as Taliaferro appeared on the screen. His face was taut, but any sense of guilt was well hidden as he looked out over the depleted delegations for a long second, then spoke.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," he said sadly, "this is the most horrible, damnable news ever to come before this Assembly. Not only have the traitors not been suppressed, but the madness has infected even our own Navy] The Terran Federation Navy, the most loyal, the most courageously dedicated fighting force in the history of Man, has been touched by the insanity of treason!" He shook his head in eloquent disbelief.

 

 

"But we must not allow shock and shame to paralyze us. However terrible the news, it is our responsibility to act and act promptly.

 

 

Consider, my friends--the Kontravian traitors have acquired the equivalent of their own navy out of this.

 

 

The ships of Task Force Seventeen will he turned against us, the legitimate government of the Federation.

 

 

Threats of force and force itself may be used against us by these damnable traitors! Our defenses are strong; it is unlikely any rebel attack will penetrate Innerworld space, and our loyal commanders will surely move quickly to prevent the spread of this insidious rot, but we must accept that some additional fraction of the Fleet may join this contemptible attack upon us. I have said before this Assembly has agreed with me--that this is a time for strength, and so it is. Our only option, ladies and gentlemen, is to show our steel, our determination that this criminal conspiracy shall not succeed!

 

 

We must mobilize the rest of Battle Fleet.

 

 

We must call in every loyal ship, every loyal military man and woman. We must crush the heart out of the Fringe World conspiracy! We must show these barbarians that we--not thee--are the representatives of civilized humanity! And with God's help, we wl show them that! We will defeat them, and we will hunt down and execute every traitor who has dared to raise his hand against the might and dignity and justice of the Terran Federation!" A roaring ovation sealel his words, and Dieter shuddered. Damn the man] Damn him to hell! This disaster demonstrated the fundamental, destructive insanity of his entire self-serving policy. It should have stunned him. Instead, with a few brief words and a simplistic appeal to patriotism and pride, he had the Assembly eating out of his hand! Bile rose in Dieter's throat and, for the first time, he allowed himself to wonder ff such an. Assembly was even worth saving.

 

 

He bowed over his hands in defeat. He'd tried.

 

 

As God was his witness, he'd tried. But he'd failed, and the Taliaferros and Waldecks and Sydons had inherited the Federation... or whatever smoking ruins would be leA. He felt hot tears behind his eyes and turned in his chair. He would have no more of it. He would resign his seat, leave them to their madness.

 

 

A hand touched his shoulder, and the concern and desperate faith in Heinz yon Rathenau's eyes stopped him. Of all the New Zurich delegation, Heinz saw most clearly. He understood, and as Dieter saw the faith in those green eyes, he could not leave it unanswered. He owed it to Heinz, to the Federation, and most of all--comGod help him-- to Fionna MacTaggart.

 

 

"Chief?." Rathenau asked softly. "Are you all right?" "Yes, Heinz." Dieter rested his hand on the fingers grippin his shoulder and squeezed gently. "Yes, I'm all rstght now. Thank Y." He saw Rathenau's confusion and hoped the young man would never realize just what that "thank you" meant.

 

 

But whether young Heinz ever did or not, all that mattered now was the battle which must be fought. And as he thought of Heinz, as he thought of Fionna and Taliaferro's greed, anger returned. He was not like Taliaferro, but for today, just for this morning, it was time to take a page from Taliaferro's book. His hand stabbed the button, and the attention bell chimed softly, "The Chair," David Haley's amplified voice cut through the hum of excited conversation, "recognizes the Honorable Assemblyman for New Zurich." Dieter stood in the ringing silence and knew the Chamber of Worlds was agog with curiosity. How would he respol? How could he possibly continue to oppose Taliaferro now that they faced a life and death struggle for survival itself?. But he let his bitter eyes sweep over them for long, long seconds before he finally spoke, and when he dstd, his voice was a whip.

 

 

"You fools," he said coldly, and the Assembly recoiled, for no one spoke to them in that fiat, bitingly contemptuous tone! Dieter felt their anger and let it feed his own as he leaned into the pickup.

 

 

"Can't you see what this means? Are you all so blind you can't recognize reality just because it happens to clash with your comfortable image of yourvs as the last bright hope of humanity? By God, you don't deserve to survive! Think of the date, you idiots!

 

 

Task Force Seventeen mutinied five months ago.t Who knows what's happened since?" His words shattered the rising anger like a lightning bolt. They'd lived with the reality of the Fringe's slow communications all their lives, had learned to use their faster communications for ruthless advantage, yet until he threw the date in their faces, they hadn't even considered the time element. But now the implications were before them, and their palms were suddenlv slick with fear.

 

 

"Yes," Dieter sneered. "It takes a'long time for courier drones to come that far--and who knows where other drones were sent? We have one from a single unit of the task force. Do you seriously think that was the only drone launched? Do you seriously think other Fleet units haven't heard by now? Sixty percent of the Fleet is Fringer. Sixty percent. Can none of you understand what that means? We don't have the numerical advantage in the civil war you've provoked--thet do!" His words unleashed the ugly, snarling pandemonium of terror. For over a year, he'd hammered away, warning them, pleading with them, and all but a minority had ignored him. They controlled the Fleet. They spoke with their every word backed by the suppressive might of the Federation's military. And now, suddenly, they saw the nightmare at last, and the man who'd warned them, who'd earned their contempt for his weakness, had been right all along.

 

 

Dieter's voice thundered above the tumult.

 

 

"Yes! Yes flog the Fringe! Ignore their legitimate eom-plaints! Call them barbarians because they're more honest, more desperate than you are! And now see what you've created! God help me, I helped you do it--comnow I must bear the same guilt as you, and the thought makes me sstck." "But what are we going to do?" someone yelled.

 

 

"My Ged, what are we going to do?" "Do?" Dieter sneered down at him. "What do you think we're going to do? We're going to fight.

 

 

We're going to fight to save what we can, because we have no choice, because the only alternative is the utter destruction of the Federation--comt's what we're going to do. But understand this, all of you! The days of contempt for the Fringe axe over. Fight them, yes. But never, never call them 'barbarians" again! Because, ladies and gentlemen, ff they really are barbarians, we're doomed." His words plunged them back into silence. A fearful, lingering silence.

 

 

"We're doomed because they have Task Force Seventeen, ladies and gentlemen, and by now they have other ships. By the time we can get our own courier drones to the Fringe, they may have all of Frontier Fleet--perhaps even the Zephrain Fleet base." He felt the sudden whiplash of terror that thought woke in the delegates who knew what it meant, but he hammered the point mercilessly hoine "I know what that means, and so should you.

 

 

Weapons research in the data base of Zephrain Research and Development Station. Research on weapons which may outclass anything this galaxy has ever seen--and it lies in the Fringe, ladies and gentlemen, not in the Innerworlds." He glared at them, and his voice was cold.

 

 

"And ff they act as what you've called them--if they truly are barbarians and choose to seek vengeance rather than relief--they will not use those ships and weapons in self-defense. Oh, no, ladies and gentlemen! If the Fringers are barbarians, you will find those ships here, striking the Innerwords, and you will find those weapons turning your precious planets into cinders." He hissed the last word, and its chill ran through his audience like a wind.

 

 

"So get down on your knees," he finished.

 

 

"Get down on your knees and pray you were wrong." H cut the connection with a contemptuous flick. Silence roared about him, and he was heartsick and frightened, yet he could almost feel Fionna at his shoulder, and knew he had finally paid the first installment on his debt. A bell chimed.

 

 

Dieter looked up and saw what he'd known he would. Simon Taliaferro was pressing for recognition, his shoulders hunched, his face bitter.

 

 

He had no choice but to respond, and Dieter knew that if his security showed the tiniest chink, he himself was a dead man.

 

 

"The Chair," Haley said, "recognizes the Assemblyman from Galloway's World." Taliaferro appeared on the screen, and his face shocked Dieter. The compelling strength had waned, and the arrogance was mixed with desperation. It struck him suddenly that Taliaferro had actually never considered this possibility. That he, too, had missed the significance of the drone's date. That he'd brushed aside Dieter's warnings about the Fleet simply because his blind, overweening confidence had never considered the chance of failure.

 

 

But though Dieter might hate him, Simon Taliaferre had cut his way to power with courage as well as conspiracy, and he gathered his shaken will to respond.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," he began, his formal courtesy somehow pathetic after Dieter's contempt. "My friends. The Assemblyman for New Zurich--was he drew a deep breath. "The Assemblyman for New Zurich may be right. Perhaps we have lost more Fleet units since the... mutiny. But it changes nothing. Nothing? He shouted the last word, and suddenly he seemed to find fresh strength. Dieter recognized the signs. Like himself, Taliaferro was unleashing his anger, letting fury sustain him.

 

 

"We are still the Federation, and they are still barbarians! Even if they have every ship in Frontier Fleet, even if they have every dispersed unit of Battle Fleet--even if they have the Zephrain Fleet base xfl--whichat of it? Before they can injure us, they must come to us, ladies and gentlemen! They must fight their way through For.-tress Command: They must deal with the remaining strength of Battle Fleet.

 

 

They must deal with the Reserve, ladies and gentlemen.

 

 

Fifty percent of Battle Fleet--,fifttJust percent -comis in mothballst How will they deal with that when we mobilize it? Even if they have Zephrain, surely the base personnel-- personnel rigorously scr?ened for loyalty and integrity--destroyed the facilities tggetore they could be taken! And what will they use for shipyards?

 

 

They have only a few, scattered repair bases and small civilian yards. We hold the Fleet shipyards! We hold the major construction facilities!" Dieter felt the shaken Assembly take courage from Taliaferro's words. Couldn't they recognize the counsel of despair when they heard it!

 

 

"Let them come against us, ladies and gentlemenl It will prove that I was right--that we were right--whichenough we called them barbarians! Driven to it?

 

 

Poppycock! This is a coldly calculated act of treason. This is--must be--the end product of a long and careful conspiracyl We have driven them to nothing--but we tostdrive them. We will drive them to destruction and retribution! Our worlds are safe behind our fortifications; their worlds will lie open to our attack when the Fleet is fully mobilized!

 

 

Let us teach them the true meaning of war, my friends!

 

 

Let us cauterize this cancer of conspiracy in the only way they understand--with the flames of war and iron determination!" It took all Dieter's strength to keep his dismay from his face. He'd shaken Taliaferro, but the Gallowayan was rallying his forces, and without the Outwodds not even a IswRE-CRO unified' bloc of Heart Worlds and the few Corporate World moderates could fight the political steamroller Taliaferro controlled.

 

 

"And ff it is a long war, what of it?" Taliaferro demanded hotly. "We have fought long wars before and come back to victory. We will do it again!

 

 

We have the strength to crush these traitors-it is only a matter of mobilizing that strength! My friends! As chief of delegation for Galloway's World, I place the combined building capacity of the Jamieson Archipelago--the greatest concentration of industrial might in the Galaxy--unreservedly at the service of the Terran Federation! Let us see how the rebels like that!" A roar greeted his words--the desperate roar of a panicked crowd which suddenly sees salvation.

 

 

Dieter hammered his call button, but Taliaferro ignored him as he ignored Speaker Haley's urgent, amplified pleas for calm, smilirg fiercely out at the shouting, clapping delegates. He'd done it. He'd salvaged victory, and his career from the very teeth of disaster.

 

 

And in that moment of heady political triumph, the sealed doors flew open and the Sergeant at Arms raced down the aisle, followed by the red cloak of the Lictor General. A shockwave of quiet fanned out from them, and Taliaferro's fierce grin faded as he saw them.

 

 

The two men hurled themselves up the steps to Haley's side, and only later did Dieter come to recognize the blind providence or the brilliance of David Haley--which had left the Speaker's mike open. Every ear in the Chamber of Worlds heard the message the Lictor General gasped into Haley's ear.

 

 

"A message from Galloway's World, sir!

 

 

It-it's terrible! Skywatch HQ is gone! A dozen destroyers blown apart! And the Jamieson Archipelago!" "What about the Archipelago?" Haley's question was sharp.

 

 

"Gone, sir! The yards, the Fleet base, half the Reser-vation-just.., gone, sir. It was a nuclear strike..." The Lictor General's voice trailed off as he realized the microphone at his elbow was live, but no one noticed. Every eye was on Simon Taliaferro as he swayed, his swarthy face pale, his eyes blank, and stumbled silently away.

 

 

ATROCITY The furrows stretched out behind Fedor Kazin's lurching tractor--miles and miles of furrows, hungry for Terran wheat, waiting for spikeweed sprigs. The one to feed Innerworld bellies, he thought soudy, and the other to liven their dreams, and which did they value more, eh?

 

 

Yet whatever they paid him, it wouldn't be enough. again. Not with the shipping fees those Corporate World vlasti extorted from the Fringe. For thirty years he'd harvested his wheat and spikebalm, and still he was perpetually in debt to the shipping lines.

 

 

He glanced up at the clouds. His grandfather had always claimed Novaya Rodina's steppes were almost as beautiful as Old Russia's, but for the color of the sky. Fedor wouldn't know; he'd seen only recordings from the motherworld, and he'd always suspected they touched the things up a little--surely no sky could be that blue!--comb he knew his own sky well. He only hoped he finished his plowing before the storm struck.

 

 

Thoughts of the weather turned his mind to the storm ripping through the entire Federation. He couldn't believe the tales coming out of Novaya Petrograd! Did those madmen think they were all back in the days of the tsar? That the Federation was run by Rasputin? And who were thetj, these men who called themselves "Kadets" once more? Kerensky?

 

 

Trotsky? Fedor had no more love for the Corporate Worlds than the next man, but the Federation was the Federation! It had risen from the flames of Old Terra's Great Eastern War and reached out to the stars, protecting its people as it placed them on worlds light-years from their birthwodd. It was the Federation of Howard Anderson and Ivan Antonov. Four centuries it had stood---what were a hundred years or so of mistakes against that? And Novaya Rodinans were Russians: they knew a thing or two about endurance.

 

 

But these crazy Kadets---to Madness!

 

 

Even ff they sue-ceeded, where would his wheat go? There had to be some form of foreign exchange--comand who in the Fringe needed foodstuffs? What Fringe farming world could sell Novaya Bodina the manufactured goods she needed?

 

 

So Fedor plowed and sowed, for the day would come when the er. men realized they couldn't succeed. It might be necessary to chastise them a little first, but in the end the Federation would take them back. And when it did, Fedbledr Kazin would have a crop ready, by Ged!

 

 

He looked up as thunder muttered and the squall line in the east swept closer. He wasn't going to finish today after all: best to stop at the end of this furrow and head home. rasha would have supper waiting.

 

 

Pieter Tsuchevsky looked around the quiet room at his fellow Kadets. So this was how it felt to be a rebel. He'd never really wanted to be one. He doubted any of the others had. But it was inevitable for those who controlled the old government to call their opponents "rebels." He'd known that from the start, just as he'd known where his first public expressions of discontent might lead.

 

 

They'd led here to the men and women who had de-dared themselves the new Duma of Novaya Rodina and stated their determination to withdraw from the Federation.., not without fear and trembling. There was something almost holy about the Federation, but a government was only a government, and surely its function must be to make the lives of its people better, not worse. The purpose of an elective assembly couldn't be to murder its own members!

 

 

Pieter had never met Fionna MacTaggart, but he'd corresponded with her over the light-years, and even from her recorded messages he'd felt the intelligence and determination which had made her the Fringe's leader. Had she done her job too well? Was murder the fate small minds always reserved for great minds they could not silence? He didn't know, but from the morning the news arrived, he'd known the Federation was doomed.

 

 

Anything that rotten at its core deserved to die, and die it would.

 

 

If only communications were less chaotic!

 

 

Novaya Rodina had never had a relay system, and courier drones had become notoriously unreliable since the Kontravian Mutiny. No doubt many nav beacons had been shut down or destroyed, but it went further than that. The Corporate Worlds handled a tremendous percentage of the total drone traffic, just as they monopolized the freight lanes. Almost certainlv they were tampering with the drones to keep the "rebels'; disorganized.

 

 

Well, if he were in their position, he would probably do the same. But in the meantime, it left him with the devil of a problem! He cleared his throat, and the eyes around the table returned to his face.

 

 

"So there you have it, comrades," he said slowly.

 

 

"The Federation has declared martial law and suspended habeas corpus... among other rights. And we- -comy and I, my friends--we are all rebels." He shrugged. "For myself, I realized this must come, but possibly some of yott did not. So it is only fair that we reconsider what we have done, I think. We have made our gesture, voiced our protest. Is that all we wish to do? If so, we had best dispatch a courier drone with apologies and renewed protestations of to ovalty at once! But ff we do not, ff we continue as we have bgun to follow the lead of the Kontravians, God alone knows where we shall end." "Pieter," Magda Petrovna stroked her prematurely silvering hair, "you say you knew this would come. Do vou think we were all fools, Pieter Petrovich?" She smiled in gentle mockery.. "How noble of you to give us a choice!

 

 

But tell us--whichat will tou do when we all run crying home to babushka Terra?" A soft laugh ran around the table, and Pieter smiled unwillingly; but he also shook his head.

 

 

"This is no laughing matter, Magda. This is life and death. Oh, we hold the cities and universities, but the farmers and ranchers think we're mad. They won't raise a hand if it comes to a fight--and we've little chance of defeating the Federation if they would!" "Mega shit!" The tart remark could come only from one man, and Pieter's eyes twinkled as he turned to Semyon Jakov, the single raegaovsts rancher in their Duma. The old man's blue eyes were fiery as he puffed his walrus mustache, looking as fierce as one of his huge, vaguely sheep-like herdbeasts. "No way we could beat the Federation, no," he mapped, "but we won't be fighting the Federation only an Innerworld rump, and well you know it, Pieter Petrovieh Tsuehevsky! And they won't even have the full Navy. Damnation, man, the Kontravians took a task force--- a task force--in one snap! D'you honestly think they haven't lost more ships? I wouldn't be surprised to hear they've lost half the Fleet by now, Pieter!" "True, ,Semyon, but Novaya Rodina is no Navy base. There wre no ships for us to seize; it was pure luck Skywatch supported us. They could'ye blown our leaky old tubs out of space and those are still the best ships we can scare up.

 

 

No, Semyon Illyich, whatever the Kontravians may have taken, we can't fight what the Federation can send here." "But why send anything?" Tatiana Illushina asked plaintively. "We're not exactly the richest of the Fringe Worldsl' "No, Tatiana," Magda said gently, "but we are what the Fleet manuals call a "choke point."" The others listened carefully. Semyon Jakov had been a Marine for fifteen years, but Magda had reached the rank of captain in Frontier Fleet before resigning in protest.

 

 

"A choke point?" Tatiana asked.

 

 

"An especially valuable warp nexus," Magda explained. "The way the warp lines lie, some systems control access to several others. The Corporate Worlds are mostly on early choke points of the Federation. That's why they're so powerful; every ship to the Heart Worlds has to go through choke points they control." Tatiana nodded. When it came to the economic implications of the Corporate Worlds' galactic position, every Fringe schoolchild understood.

 

 

"Well, the same thing makes choke points militarily important," Magda said. "If Novaya Rodina goes over to the Kontravians, we'll block a whole section of the Fringe off from the Federation; they'll have to take this system before they can attack the others. But if we remain loyal to the Federation, the Fleet will have several possible avenues of attack into Fringe space to choose from, you see?" "But... but in that ease, they're certain to come here aren't they?" Tatiana asked very quietly.

 

 

"They are," Pieter told her gently, "and soon, I think. They wouldn't have sent this--was he waved the official message form gently his-comif they didn't mean to back it up. There's some pretty, stiff language in here; if they planned on talking us back into the Federation, they'd'ye taken a more flexible initial position." "I agree," Semyon said harshly. "and I say--fuck "em! Let them come] There's twenty, million people on this planet. It'd take half the Corps to hold us down!" "Except that only eight million or so of them are actively on our side," Pieter begun, but Magda interrupted.

 

 

"It doesn't matter an.vway, Semyon Illyich," she said with an affectionate smile.

 

 

"Just because you grunts spend tour time crawling around in the mud doesn't mean the Fleet does! They don't care about planets, only warp points and the normal space between them." "So? They still need someplace to base ships!" "Certainly," Magda nodded, "but what ff a monitor drops into orbit and zeros a few missiles on Novaya Petrograd? Or Novaya Smolensk? You think we shouldn't surrender to keep them from firing?" "Well..." "Exactly, you old cossack!" Magda punched the old man's arm lightly.

 

 

"Are you saying we should just give up?" Jakov demanded incredulously.

 

 

"Did I say that? Certainly not! We've already sent off our own drones, so the rest of the Fringe knows what's happening. I'm only saying that if it comes down to ultimatums, we'd better decide what we'll do ahead of time. I don't want to believe a TFN commander would fire on civilians; it goes against all we've been taught. But he might. And I want us to know now what we're going to say to him to keep any itchy finger off the button." "So what you're saying, Magda," Pieter cut in pacifically, "is that we should continue as we have, possibly even t fighting in space, but that if it's a choice between bombardment and surrender, we should surrender?" "Exactly." Magda's face was unusually grim. 'I don't like it any more than you do, Pieter--or you Semyon. But what alternative do we have?" "But what'll happen to us if we surrender?" Tatiana asked. "I don't mean the rest of our people, I mean us, right here in this room?" "Hard to say," Magda said with a shrug. "There's never.1.999 been a case like this, and it's not as ff we're the only planet to secede. I'd think the government would have to follow a fairly lenient policy especially with any of us 'rebels" who surrender--ff they have any hope of ever healing the break. Unfortunately, we can't depend on that." "They might execute us?" Tatiana asked faintly.

 

 

"They, might," Magda agreed calmly. "Of course, even under fiartial law, any death sentence has to be confirmed by the civilian authorities.

 

 

I'd think that confirmation would be unlikely." "All fight," Pieter said suddenly. "I propose a vote. All those in favor of declaring our immediate surrender?" There was no response, although several uneasy glances were exchanged. "All those in favor of continuing as we have but surrendering to avoid bombardment?" A chorus of affirmatives ran round the table. "Very well, the ayes have it." Fedor Kazin watched the fields soak.

 

 

Another day, at least, before he could resume plowing.

 

 

Well, there were advantages to bad weather.

 

 

Such as sitting with rasha on a Spring morning instead of bouncing around in his poorly sprung tractor.

 

 

If only it weren't for those crazies in Novaya Petrograd! He had half a mind to go talk to them himself.

 

 

He frowned and glanced over at his wife.

 

 

Maybe he should. After all, here he was cursing their stupidity, but had he done anything to change their minds? They might just not realize how others felt.

 

 

And old Semyon Jakov was one of them... and Andrei Petrov's girl Magda. They were good people.

 

 

Maybe he could make them see reason?

 

 

Of course, rasha would have a fit ff he took himself off to the city and left her and the boys alone with the planting. On the other hand, ff this madness wasn't settled, there wouldn't be a market come harvest, now would there? He filled his pipe with Orion tobacco (his one true luxury.), and the pungent smoke curled up around his ears.

 

 

Yes, the idea of going to Novaya Petrograd to confront the Duma... it definitely bore thinking on.

 

 

Admiral Jason Waldeck, of the Ghartiphon Waldecks, regarded his subordinates so coldly they shifted uneasily under his glare.

 

 

"I don't want to hear any more crap about poor misunderstood Fringers!" he snapped. "They're mutineers and traitors--and that's all! That bastard Skjorning should've been shot. Might've nipped the whole damned thing in the bud!" His officers remained prudently silent.

 

 

Admiral Waldeck had never been a good man to cross, and it was far more dangerous now. News of the Kontravian Mutiny was still threading its way through the Fleet, but one consequence of it was already clear: moderation was not in great demand among TFN commanders.

 

 

Indeed, any "softness" might well be construed as treason by the angry (and frightened) cliques of "reliable" Innerworld admirals.

 

 

"I don't give a good goddamn why they're doing what they're doing," he grated. "We've got to stop them, and Fleet's shorthanded as hell after the mutinies, especially in capital units and carriers. Hell, we've lost so many pilots there won't even be fighter cover for most opera- tions! So it's up to us--understood?" "Yes, sir," his juniors murmured.

 

 

"Good. Now, I don't expect these hayseeds to put up much resistance, but ff they try, I want some examples made." ""Examples", sir?" one officer asked carefully.

 

 

"Yes, Captain Sherman--comexamples. If anyone wants to fight, let "em. Don't give them a chance to surrender till you've burned a few bastards down." "But, sir.., why?" "Because these traitors have to learn the hard way," Waldeck said grimly. 'rhe Assembly's finally gotten its head out of its ass, and we're under military law now; that means my law. I'm going to teach these proles a little lesson in obedience. Is that clear, gentlemen?" It was ler. They might not much like it, but it was olear.

 

 

"All right, then, Commodore Hunter, here's your first objective." The cursor in the chart tank settled on a warp nexus, and Commodore Hunter squinted at the tiny letters. "Novaya Rodina," they said.

 

 

"It's confirmed, Commodore. From the drive strengths, they have to be warships." "I see." Magda Petrovna nodded as calmly as she could. They'd hoped someone would turn up from the Kontravians or one of the other Fringe systems before this, but Asteroid Four watched the warp point to Redwing, and Redwing was part of The Line, one of the fortified Terran-Orion border systems whose mighty orbital forts had remained loyal to the Assembly. She looked around her crowded bridge wry. It only remained to see what strength the Fleet had scraped up. Her collection of armed freighters might--possibly--hold its own against light units, and Novaya Rodina's Provisional Government had short-stopped two mutinous light cruisers headed for the depths of the Fringe. But that was all she had; that and Skywatch.

 

 

She sighed. Unless the mutinies had hit really hard, there was no point even hoping. A single fleet carrierm even a light carrier--would eat her entire force for breakfast, and she hated to think what a few battle-cruisers might do! But the worst of it was that she didn't know. Except for Skywatch, none of her units had long range scanners; without those, she could form only a vague impression of what was headed for her.

 

 

"Query Asteroid Four for exact drive strengths," she said suddenly.

 

 

"Sir," the commander of her cruiser flagship said as they awaited an answer, "those miners don't have the equipment for precision work--and an hour-long transmission lag doesn't help. Why not take Jintsu and Atlanta out and see for ourselves?" "I appreciate your spirit, Captain," Magda said, peculiar though it felt to call a mere lieutenant "Captain" onboard a light cruiser, "but we can't take our only cruisers into scanner range all by themselves... and ff we took the freighters with us, we couldn't run ff we had to."

 

 

"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Howard blushed as he realized his commodore had just tactfully advised him to let her tend to her own knitting.

 

 

"Asteroid Four says they think they're all strength twelve or less, Commodore," her corn officer finally said dubiously. "Thank you. Any incoming messages from them?" "No, sir.

 

 

Nothing." That was bad, Magda thought. No surrender demands? Did that man they were unaware they were being scanned? Or that they had a pretty good notion of what she had and figured she meant to fight no matter what they said? And did she intend to fight?

 

 

Exactly what had they sent against her?

 

 

Well, now, ff they were strength twelve or less, then almost certainly there was nothing out there larger than a cruiser. If only Asteroid Four could relay the information directly onto Jintsu's cramped battle plot!

 

 

"We've got an amplification from Asteroid Four, Commodore. They make it three at strength eight to twelve and three strength six or below. They sound confident, tOO." All right, Magdathink, girl! Strength six drives were destroyers. Strength twelves could be light carriers, but she doubted it. Too many fighter joeks were. Fringers. Assume they were all cruisers.., a heavy and two lights? They might make it a standard light battlegr[*oslashgg'up, ff the CA were a Goeben.

 

 

"Ask Asteroid Four if--was "Gommodore," her eom officer's voice was very quiet, "they just went off the air in midsentence." Magda closed her eyes. No messages, and they just casually polished off an unarmed lffsteni.ng posteaen, pddasdds, ant. That sounded more like Orions tlaan the t,, tut it resolved her dilemma.

 

 

They'd drawn first blood; ff she had any chance at all, she'd fight.

 

 

She thought furiously. Against command datalink, her own forces were at a severe disadvantage. The enemy ships would think, move, and fight as a single, finely-meshed unit;, her ships were not only more lightly armed, but they d have to fight as individuals. On the oher hand, she had over a dozen armed freighters, and her two light cruisers formed a datagroup with Skywateh, as long as they were in rang--and Skywateh was a lot bigger than INSV-TAEC'NO any CA," especially a Goeben with all that armament sacri-riced in favor of data net equipment. Of course, if it was a Goeben, she'd also mount jammers to take out Magda's own datalink at close range.

 

 

All right, Just suppose she had them figured right--whichat did she do with them? They'd be in missile range of the planet in eleven hours, or she could go out to meet them. If she went out, she lost Skywatch; if she stayed, she lost maneuvering room. Decisions, decisions.

 

 

She drew a deep, unobtrusive breath and nodded to Lieutenant Howard.

 

 

"Captain Howard, the flotilla will assume Formation Baker. We'll wait for them here." "Yes, sir," Howard's voice wasn't especially enthusiastic, and she felt a twinge of sympathy. Light cruiser captains were imbued with the notion of maneuver and fire tey hated positional battles.

 

 

"If I m right," Magda said slowly, "there's a Goeben out there, Captain. I want maximum firepower laid on her as soon as we can range on her. If we can break their data group -comand keep their ECM from breaking ours--we'll have a good chance. They'll outclass us ship for ship, but we've got the numbers. If we don't break them --was She shrugged.

 

 

"Yes, sir." He sounded more enthusiastic as he digested her plan. God, what she wouldn't give for a properly trained staffl But in another she wouldn't trade sense, these people for anything. They might be mutineers and traitors, they'd put on just to get but their lives the line here. There would never be any reason to question their devotion, and maybe enough of that could make up for their rough edges.

 

 

"S diskywatch has them on scanners, Commodore!" Magda jerked awake in her command chair as her chief scanner rating's voice burned into her dozing ears.

 

 

"Coming up from data base now, sir.

 

 

Flagship's deft-nitely a Goeben. She's Invincible, sir, and she's the only heavy! The other cruisers are strength nines--light cruisers!

 

 

They're... Ajax and Sendal, sir!" Thank God! They had a chance, but their losses were still going to be awful. She turned to Howard.

 

 

"Captain Howard, tune in your datalink. If those bastards don't say something soon, Operation Borodino is about to begin." "Aye, aye, sir!" The hours of waiting were suddenly minutes, flitting past like raindrops. Magda watched her plot, almost praying for a surrender demand. But there was nothing, and the range continued to drop.

 

 

"Enemy force launching missiles," her fire control officer said suddenly. So there it was. They didn't even want to negotiate.

 

 

"Stand by point defense," Magda said coolly.

 

 

"I'argets?" "Tracks look like Skywatch, sir." "Very well. Laeaity, our own missiles on Invincible." "Aye, aye, sir.

 

 

"Open fire!" ('intsu quivered as her external ordnance let fly, and Magda's plot was suddenly speckled with flecks of light as Atlanta nd Skywatch flushed their external racks at the oncoming cruiser, as well. She felt her lips thin over her teeth. Even command point defense was going to have trouble with that lot, and she wondered if the loyalist commander knew Skywatch had taken delivery of antimatter warheads just before the mutinies? If he didn't, he'd be finding out shortly.

 

 

But incoming missiles were sleeting in at Skywatch, and there were a lot of them. Point defense crews aboard the cruisers and fortress tracked the incoming fire while battle comp sorted out the clean misses from the salvo, but there weren't many; orbital forts weren't very elusive targets.

 

 

Then the small laser clusters trained onto the probable hits. Counter missiles zipped out, and for seconds space was wracked with brilliant flares of detonating warheads.

 

 

"Hits on Invincible!" Gunnery screamed.

 

 

"One... three @u.. firstye of them, sir!

 

 

She's streaming air!" But Skywatch's blip was pulsing, too, as missiles slipped through to impact on the big fort's powerful shields. Magda gripped her lower lip between her teeth, waiting as the brilliant dot flickered and flashed. Then the report came in. con'Efght hits on Skywatch, sir--all standard nukes. Took out most of her shields, but she's still in business!" "Good!" Magda ignored the informality of the elated report. "Captain Howard, Jintsu and Atlanta will engage Invincible at close range.

 

 

Captain Malenkov will come with us. The remainder will engage targets of opportunity among the enemy formation." "Aye, aye, sir!" The rebels lurched into motion. Only Malenkov's three big freighters could even 'hope to stay with a warship... the others were much too slow, and Magda had no choice but to turn the engagement into one huge melee and hope.

 

 

The two forces closed to energy weapon range, and the TFN loyalists were taken aback by the rebels" reckless courage. Those lumbering freighters were sitting ducks @u. dis"b they were so goddamn big! They soaked p force beams and betweenlasers as thev bumbled into range for their own light armaments, and" what they lacked in datalink they made up in determination and sheer volume of fire.

 

 

Commodore Hunter realized Admiral Waldeck had made a serious error in assuming they would face only local yokels@u There had to be Fleet regulars or reservists over there!

 

 

Well, the hell with standing orders] His own orders went out: break through and get free, then stand off with missiles where his datalink would do him the most good.

 

 

But as his ship merged with the milling freighters, Magda's careful briefings took effect. No one tried to destroy his vessels; instead they concentrated on battering down shields and armor just far enough to get at the datalink. As soon as a ship fell out of the link, fire shifted to someone else.

 

 

Commodore Hunter cursed as the first ship dropped out of his net. They were stripping away his coordination, and ff his outnumbered units had to fight as individuals among that many enemies, they wouldn't stand a chance! But be didn't have much choice, because two light cruisers were lunging straight for him.

 

 

He watched in something very like awe as the rebel ships soaked up the fire from his own lights, homing on his wounded flagship. He saw hits going home all over them

 

 

@u.. both of them were streaming atmosphere.., and still they came on. One suddenly staggered and yawed aside as she took a direct hit on a drive pod, but she hauled back on course and kept coming.

 

 

He barked an order, and Invincible tried to turn away, but her crippled drive faltered. He looked back into his plot and swallowed as Sendai blew in half and the rebel cruisers closed to half a light-second, energy weapons aflame.

 

 

"Abandon ship!" he screamed--comb he was too late. ('intsu's hetlasers zeroed in on his command deck with uncanny accuracy, and a burst of finely-focused X rays tore him and his staff apart.

 

 

The battle collapsed into a mad, whirling ball of snap- g

 

 

ing ships. Atlanta exploded in a massive fireball, followed y Ajax. The surviving loyalists began a limping withdrawal, and a dozen gutted freighters drifted helplessly in their wake, glowing from the hits they'd taken... but there was a dead destroyer to keep them company.

 

 

Skywateh streamed air through a dozen huge rents, but her energy weapons were still in action--comsome of them--- and her mis-sties pursued the two retreating destroyers.

 

 

"Break off the engagement, Gaptain Howard," Magda Petrovna said wearily. He looked at her in surprise. Jirtsu was hard hit, but half her weapons were still-in action. "If we chase them and we're dead unlucky, we might catch them, Gaptain. Just us. We're the only ship that could." Howard's face ('x with understanding. "Yes, sir," he said.

 

 

"And send a message down to the planet," Magda said, looking at her battle plot.

 

 

Better than half her "fleet" had been destroyed in the short, savage action, and all the rest were damaged. "Fell them we won--I think." "And you mean to tell me," Admiral Waldeek said icily, "that a handful of armed freighters shot an entire light battlegroup to hell?" The white-heed lieutenant commander across his desk stared straight ahead. Spots of color burned on his cheeks, but his voice was controlled.

 

 

"Not precisely, sir. There were also two Fleet cruisers and a class three fort, ff you'll remember. With antimatter warheads." Waldeck flushed with furv. His lips worked, and the commander thought he'd gggne too far. But the admiral gradually regained control.

 

 

"All right, Commander, the point is well taken," he said coldly. "But the fact remains that in the first engagement against rebel forces, we lost virtually an entire flotilla. Your ship will be out of action for months, and I doubt Cougar will ever fight again." "Yes, sir." "We were supposed to teach them a lesson!" "Yes, sir." "Well, by God, we will teach them one!" Waldeck punched up a eom link to his flag captain. "Captain M'tana, the task force will move out in one hour. We're going to Novaya Rodina!" "Yes, sir." l?And you, Commander," Waldeek returned his attention to the unfortunate in front of his desk, "are going to come along and see what three battle-cruisers do to your precious rebels!" His "Well, Pieter Petrovieh, that's that." Magda raised her glass of vodka in a tired toast. "After all the repairs we can make out of local resources, the "Novava Rodina Fleet" consists of one crippled light cruiser, on crippled OWP, and four crippled freighters.

 

 

We might be able to hold this system against a troop of Young Pioneers." "I see." Tsuchevskv's face was lined and tired. He was appalled by their Ioses; only Magda and Semvon had really had any concept of what a fleet action as like. "What do you think the chances are that the Kontravians will get he'e first?" "Poor," Magda said grimly, refilling her empty, glass carefully. "The Rump was surprised by the mutinies, but it still has an intact command structure and better communications. What do we rebels have? A handful of planets that are partially organized and tied together only by courier drones; it'll be a while vet before we can get beyond that point and start throwihg task forces around." "So all those people died for nothing," Pieter said sadly.

 

 

"Maybe, mavbe not. You can't run your life on Russian melancholy and the second sight, Pietr Petrovich, and we know what would have happened if we hadn't fought.

 

 

Still, I'I1 be surprised if we have time to do much of anything else before the next TFN force arrives, and this time it'll be a battlegroup worth the name." She shrugged, but her voice was softer when she went on. "We did our best, my Pieter. Maybe we should have surrendered ff they'd given us a chance, but they just opened fire." "I know." He swiveled his chair to look out the window at the bright spring morning. "Well," he said heavily, "ff they come back in force, we have no option but to surrender. Agreed?" "Agreed," she sighed. "Those are good people up there, Pieter. I don't want to see them die uselessly." "All right. Will you see to the communication arrangements, Magda?" "I already did," she said with a tired smile.

 

 

"After all, that's why I'm commodore of our magnificent fleet, isn't it?" "Hush, Magda." Pieter grinned slowly.

 

 

"Now you're being maudlin! Drink your vodka and cheer up. Things could be worse." "What do you mean, going to Novaya Petrograd? Natasha Kazina put her hands on her hips and glared at hey husband. "Who do you think you are? Vladimir Lenin? You're maybe going to bore from within like a mole and topple the government?" "Fasha, you know why I'm going--me and Vlad Kosy-gin and Georgiwe need to be sure those people understand what they're doing to us." "ReallyThat" Her voice dripped sarcasm.

 

 

"And you think they don't already? Idiots! Firing on a Terran Fleet! Next thing you know, there'll be missiles on the cities, and there you'll be, playing Menshevik in the middle of it!" "Hush, *Fasha! You know I agree with you--but maybe they aren't all idiots, no? There are good people mixed up in this, our people. Let me go see them.

 

 

Let me try to convince them they're wrong." "Argue with the rain! It pays more attention!" "Natasha, I'm going, and that's an end to it.

 

 

Sure the Federation has problems, but this isn't the right answer! If INSVRR-RCO 137 I don't try'to tell the Kadets that, I won't be able to sleep nights." "Ahhh[ Men--comvou're aHave idiots!" Natasha exclaimed, throw- lng up her hand in disgust. "But go! Go! Leave me and the boys to see to the planting! Just don't come crying to me when they don't listen]" His "Thank You, I'asha," Fedor murmured, kissing her cheek gently. "I knew you'd understand." "Get out of my sight]" she told him, but her eves twinkled as he backed off the porch. "And don't forgestffbring home some new dress material!" she admonished in a parting shot as he climbed into Kosygin's chopper and it ehirruped aloft.

 

 

Alarms whooped as the ships emerged from warp, and Magda watched her display in silence. At least thev'd been able to rrlpunt proper instrumentation out there: ho helpless miners to be vaporized this time] But the story her scanners told was heartbreaking.

 

 

Ship after ship slid but of the Redwing warp point; three battle-cruisers, two heavv cruisers, five light cruisers, and.fifteen destrovers. God, it was an armada, she thought wearily, and tuned' her commu. nicator to Tsuchevskv's priority channel.

 

 

"Yes, Magda??Hiseveswerepuffv.

 

 

She'dwakedhim up, she thought. Waked him from a sund sleep to face a nightmare.

 

 

"They're coming, Pieter," she said sadly.

 

 

"How bad is it?" "If I order a shot fired, it will be as good as executing everv man and woman in mv fleet." "11 right, Magda," he said softly. "I understand. Patch me through to their commander, if you can.

 

 

I'll handle it from here." "I'm sorrv, Pieter Petrovich," she said very quietlv "You did our best, Magda. Time was agst'us, that's all.

 

 

"I know[" she said heavily, and turned to her eom otcer.

 

 

Pieter Tsuchevskv stared into the screen at Admiral Jason WaIdeck, TF. The admiral's cheek muscles were bunched, and Pieter shivered as he realized the man had wanted a ght.

 

 

"Admiral, I am Pieter Petrovich Tsuchevsky of the Provisional Gov--was "You, sir," Waldeck cut in coldly, "are a traitor, and that is all you are!" Pieter fell silent, staring at him, and the admiral went on implacably. "I understand the purpose of this communication is to arrange your surrender. Very well.

 

 

Ali ships in space will land immediately at Novaya Petrograd Spaceport. Any armed vessel incapable of atmospheric flight will lower its shields and await boarding by one of my prize crews. The same applies to what's to eft of Skywatch. Is that clear?" "Yes." It took all of Pieter's strength to get out the strangled word, and Waldeck made no effort to hide his own savage satisfaction.

 

 

"As for your so-called 'Provisional Government,"" he sneered, "you will surrender yourvs to me as soon as my ships planet. There will be no exceptions. Anyone who resists will be shot. Is that clear?" "Yes," Pieter managed once more.

 

 

"It had better be. I will see you aboard my flagship in three hours." Waldeck cut communications curtly, and Pieter stared at the blank screen for long seconds as he tasted the ashes of defeat.

 

 

"Look at thaff' Fedor Kazin gasped as this; chopper swooped past the spaceport after a ten-hour flight. The others turned and looked--and looked again. Novaya Petrograd Spaceport had never seen such a concentration of shipping. Fedor's index finger moved slowly from ship to ,eaship as he counted.

 

 

@u.. twenty-three.., twenty-four.., twenty-five... Twenty-five! And those big ones -comare they battle-crnisers, Georgi?" "Yes." Georgi Zelinsky grunted. "My God, it's all over! There wouldn't be any grounded battle-crnisers ff it weren't. They're about the biggest warship that can enter atmosphere at all, and they have to take it mighty easy when they do. No commander lands them any place he might have to get out of in a hurry." "Look!" Fodor said excitedly. "All the hatches are open--see? And over there! Look at all the pear' "Yeah," Vlad said, squinting into his teleview. "All in uniform, "too. Looks like they mst've stripped the crews off the ships." 'hey wouldn't do that," Georgi disagreed. "Not all of them. There has to be a'power room watch on board." "Yeah? Well look at 'em! They didn't leave many on board. His "You're right there." Georgi tapped his teeth, his mind going back over the decades to his own five-year hitch in the Navy. "Looks like they've mustered all hands for some reason. And over there-- what's hat?" "That" was a long snake of civilians winding its way out from the city. Vlad swooped Iow over their heads. There were thousands of them.

 

 

"What do you think is going on?" he asked.

 

 

"Damned ff I know," Fedor said slowly, "bu: I think better we should land and find out, no?" "I thnk yes," Vlad agreed.

 

 

The helicopter landed quieHy, and as the three farmers hurried over to the edge of the crowd something nibbled at Fedor's awareness. They were already merging into the front ranks of the long snake when he realized what it was. "Look--noto guns!" he whispered.

 

 

"Of course not," Georgi said after a minute.

 

 

"Fhey mst've declared martial to aw while we were in the air. Martial law means no civilian guns." "Well what about us?" Vffad whispered, tapping the heavy magnum automatic at his hip. It was a clumsy weapon, btt Vlad was old-fashioned; he preferred a big noisy gun that relied on mass and relatively Iow velocities.

 

 

"I recommend," Georgi said, unbuttoning his coat and shoving his laser pistol inside, "that we get them out of sight--fast!" Fedor tucked his own pistol (a three-millimeter Ruger needler with a ninety-round magazine) under his coat, then turned to the nearest townsman.

 

 

"What's happening, tovarich?" he asked softly.

 

 

"You don't know?" the townie looked at him with shock-hazed eyes.

 

 

"I just landed, tovarich. Came all the way from Novaya Siberia to talk to this Provisional Government." "Shhhhh! Want to get yourseff arrested, you fool?i"

 

 

"Arrested? For talking to someone?" Fedor blinked in astonishment.

 

 

"The whole bunch of 'em are under arrest," the city man said heavily. "We're occupied." "Well, what're you all doing out here, then?" "Orders," the townie shrugged. "I don't know.

 

 

They landed two hours ago and went on the city data channels. Somebody named Waldeck--he says he's the new military governor. He ordered the head of every household in the city to be out here by seventeen hundred... he didn't say why." "Every head of household?" Fedor blinked again at the thought.

 

 

"Right. So here we are." Fedor looked up as the long column shuffled to a halt and began to spread. Anxious-faced Marines in undress uniform, armed with autorifies and laser carbines, dressed the crowd, but something was wrong here.

 

 

Those men looked worried, almost frightened--but they'd won!

 

 

"Hsst! Look at those shoulder flashes!" It was Georgi, whispering right in his ear. "Not a Fringer among 'emi" There was a great sigh from the crowd, almost a groan, and he looked to one side. More Marines were herding a group of fifty or sixty men and women into an. open space between two of the battle-cruisers. The newcomers were manacled, and when he looked more closely he recognized Magda Petrovna and Semyon Jakov among them.

 

 

"The Provisional Government!" someone whispered.

 

 

"All of them--and the defense force officers?

 

 

Fedor shook his head, trying to understand, and wiggled his way into the very front rank, staring over at the prisoners. He knew Magda well--he'd danced at her parents" wedding, too many years ago -comand it angered him to see her chained like an animal.

 

 

All right, so she'd broken the law! But she'd been provoked. It might have been wrong of her, but she'd only been doing what she believed she must!

 

 

There was another stir as the Marines drew back from the prisoners and formed a line between them and the crowd.

 

 

They faced the prisoners vigilantly while the Navy personnel formed two huge blocks, separated by about ten meters, andnd a party of officers strode briskly down the open lane.

 

 

Fedor was no military man, but even he could figure out the tall man with all the sleeve braid was an admiral. But he wondered who the other officer--the black one arguing with the admiral--was?

 

 

Whoever it was, they were going at it hammer and tongs.

 

 

Finally the admiral gave a curt headshake and said something loud and angry, but Fedor was too far away to hear.

 

 

"Admiral, you can't do this!" Captain Rupert M'tana said yet again. "It's illegal! It violates all their civil rights!" "Captain," Waldeck said savagely, "I will remind you--for the last time--comt this planet is under martiai law. And no one--comI repeat, no one--rebels against the government, kills Navy personnel and gets away with it on my wtch! Especially not ignorant, backworld Fringe "For God's sake, Admiral!" M'tana said. "You--was "Silence!" Waldeck whirled on the dark-skinned officer, and his eyes snapped fire. "You will go to your quarters and place yourself under close arrest, Captain M'tana! I'll deal with you later!" "I'm your fi, ag captain," M'tana began angrily, "and it's my duty. to-- "Major," Waldeck turned coldly to a Marine officer. "You will escort the captain to his quarters!" "Yes, sir!" The major had a thick DuPont accent, and his eyes were very bright. He saluied sharply, then jerked his head at M'tana as the admiral turned on his heel. M'tana could almost taste the Navy crews' confusion, but the Marine major tapped the butt of his laser meaningfully, and the flag captain knew it was hopeless. Sagging with defeat, he allowed the major to lead him away.

 

 

Waldeck mounted an improvised platform and turned to face the crowd of murmuring civilians.

 

 

He gripped a microphone, his eyes bitter as he stared at them. The only way to avoid more bloodshed was to rub these stupid proles' noses in what happened when they rebelled. He looked at his own massed crewmen. Yes, and show them, too.

 

 

Let them see what awaited those who defied them.

 

 

He raised the mike.

 

 

"People of Novaya Rodina!" Fedor's head snapped around as the massively amplified voice roared. "You have belled against Federation law. You have harbored and abetted mutinous members of the armed services. Such actions are treasonous." Fedor flinched from the harshness of the admiral's voice. Treasonous? Well, maybe technically -comb a man could stand only so much.

 

 

"By the authority of the Legislative Assembly, all civil law on this planet is hereby suspended. Martial law is declared. All public gatherings are banned until further notice. I now announce a curfew, to take effect at 1900 hours. Violators will be shot." Fedor blanched. Shot! For walking the street?

 

 

"Before you stand the leaders of your rebellion against legitimate authority," Waldeck went on coldly. "As military governor of this planet, it is my responsibility to deal with these ringleaders." He paused and glanced contemly tuously at the prisoners. "The Federation is just," he said. "It extends its protection and support to those who obey our laws and justly deserved punishment to those who defy. them.

 

 

"Now, therefore, as military governor of Novaya Rodina, I, Admiral Jason Waldeck, Terran Federation Navy, do hereby sentence these traitors to death!" A great silence gripped the crowd. "Sentence---was Waldeek finished harshly his-comffbe carried out immediately!" Fedor couldn't believe his ears. This couldn't happen! Not in the Federation! It was a nightmare! It was... it was an atrocity!

 

 

He stared at the scene before him, unable to comprehend, as two Marine privates took Pieter Tsuchevsky by the arms. He moved slowly, as if in shock, but held his head high. As he and his guards moved away from the group, two more privates singled out Tatiana Illyushina. The slender young woman drooped in their hands as she realized she would be next, yet she fought for control and tried to stand erect.

 

 

Paralysis gripped Fedor. He was suspended in disbelief, unable to think, barely able to breathe.

 

 

He watched numbly as Tsuchevsky was turned to face the crowd. Six Marines with adtorifies marched smartly out and took position before him, weapons at port arms.

 

 

"Firing squad!" a Marine officer shouted.

 

 

"Present arms!" Weapons clattered.

 

 

"Take aim!" Butt plates pressed uniformed shoulders.

 

 

Fedor felt something boiling in him against the ice, but still he could not move.

 

 

"Ready!" The pressure building in" his throat strangled him. "Fire!" Six shots rang out on semi-automatic.

 

 

It all happened in slow motion. Fedor saw Tsuchevsky's shirt ripple, saw great, red blotches blossom hideously as the slugs tore through his body, and Pieter Petrovich Tsuchevsky, Chief of the Duma, President of the Provi-sionatf Government of Novaya Rodina, jerked at the impact, then toppled like a falling tree.

 

 

And as he hit the ground, the pressure in Fedor Kazin burst. His sustaining faith in the Federation died in an agony of disillusionment, and his hand flashed into his coat.

 

 

"Noooooo.t' he screamed, and the heavy needler came free.

 

 

For one instant he faced them all alone, one man with a pistol in his hand and rage in his heart. Then the pistol rose. It lined on the burly admiral as he turned angrily towards the single voice raised in protest.

 

 

He never completed his turn. The needler screamed, and Admiral Jason Waldeck's uniform smoked under its hyper-velocity darts. He pitched to the ground seconds behind Tsuchevsky, and the crowd went mad.

 

 

Fedor never knew who struck the first Marine, but the guards never had a chance as the screaming, kicking mob went over them. Here and there an autorifie spoke, a laser carbine snarled. The Marines didn't die easily, and they didn't die alone -comb they died.

 

 

Fedor wasn't watching. He was racing across the open space, needler in hand, dashing for the guards who were already training their weapons on the helpless prisoners. He slid to a halt, bracing the needler with both hands as a laser bolt whipped past him, thermal bloom scorching his 144 hair. A guard saw him and turned, his jaw dropping, but too late. A stream of needles spat from the weapon, and the guards went down like autumn wheat before Fedor's reaper.

 

 

Screams and shouts were everywhere. Weapons fired.

 

 

Men and women beat Marines to death with fists and feet. Navy personnel scattered--only senior ratings and offleers were armed, and they were outnumbered by hundreds to one. They fought desperately to bring their weapons into play, but they hadn't known what Waffdeck intended, and they were just as shocked as the civilians. Their minds needed time to dear and adjust, and there was no time.

 

 

Fedor ran to the manacled prisoners.

 

 

"Are you all right?" he bellowed as Magda Petrovna dispicked herself up off the ground. She stared at him for a moment with burning eyes, then nodded sharply and snatched up a dead Marine's laser with her ehainod hands. Her voice rang out over the tumult.

 

 

"The ships!" she screamed. "Take the ships?" Some of the crowd heard. They seized the weapons of their fallen enemies and fell in behind her, and their discordant yells coalesced into a single phrase, thundering above the bedlam.

 

 

"The ships!" they roared, and foamed forward in an unstoppable human wave behind a mutinous ex-eaptain and a farmer who had wanted only justice.

 

 

IRONY OF POWER Oskar Dieter blinked wearily and fingered the advance. The ststains of a New Zurich waltz filled his office, but the soft music was at grim vfiriance with the data on his screen, and he sighed and leaned back, pinching his nose and trying to shake himself back to a semblance of freshness.

 

 

It was hard. Catastrophe had followed disaster with monotonous regularity for months, and in his nightmares endless trains of courier drones whizzed towards Sol, packed with tidings of fresh calamity.

 

 

What was happening in the Fringe was bad enough, but affairs on Old Terra were little better. The Assembly had been stunned by the Taliaferro suicide, but not Dieter. His fellow Gallowayans might put it down to grief over the Jamieson Archipelago--which was a tragedy of staggering proportions--but Dieter knew better.

 

 

Understanding, the terrible realization that the "game" had become real, had driven Simon's hand.

 

 

Dieter almost pitied him... but only almost, and his face hardened as he wondered yet again how many others would die before the madness ended.== Yet Taliaferro's death only compounded the Federation's plight. His had been the dominating presence behind the Corporate World bloc for over thirty years, and now that superbly engineered machine was flailing itself to destruction... and threatening to take the Federation with it. The desperate survivors were haunted by guilt they could not admit even to themselves and terrified of

 

 

its consequences. The succession battle was the most vicious Dieter had ever seen, yet whoever finally won would inherit only a corpse.

 

 

It wouldn't be very much longer before the ground swell of public opinion rolled over the politicos.

 

 

Already the first combers were crashing through the Chamber of Worlds; a few more disasters, and it would become impossible for them to cling to power, and-- His communicator chimed, and he reached automatically for the button, eyes narrowing as he recognized the neatly groomed face of Oliver Fuchs, President Zhfs executive secretary.

 

 

"Good morning, Mister Dieter," Fuchs said politely. "Would it be convenient pounds r you to meet with the President in his office this evening? At 1800 perhaps?" "Why, of course, Mister Fuchs," Dieter replied slowly, and his thoughts raced. "Ah, might I ask what the President desires?" "I'm sorry, sir, but he wishes to explain that to you himself," Fuchs said with a pleasantly diffident smile.

 

 

"I see," Dieter said even more slowly. "Very well, Mister Fuchs. I'll look forward to asking him in person." "Thank you, sir. I'll tell him to expect you," Fuchs said, and the screen blanked.

 

 

Dieter sat and stared at it for a long, long'time, and his mind was busy.

 

 

Fuchs was waiting in the Anderson House foyer when Dieter arrived at the presidential residence at 17:45. He whisked the visitor into an elevator with the skill of a veteran maitre do' and filled the short ascent with utterly inconsequential small talk, but Dieter noted a strange intensity in the secretary's eyes.

 

 

Curiosity, or evaluation, perhaps. Whatever it was, it only added to the tension hovering within him.

 

 

The elevator deposited them outside Zhfs office, and Fuchs opened the old-fashioned manual doors and stood aside, waving him through, then closed them quietly behind him.

 

 

The office was a large room--huge, by Innerworld standardsfurnished with all the sumptuous luxury due INSV-AAECO the Pederation's head of state. To be sure, the power of the man who occupied it had waned over the decades, but the trappings of authority remained.

 

 

And they weren't entirely a facade, Dieter reminded himself. Prime ministers came and went, but the president provided the state's stability, and he still represented the popular choice of the majority of the Federation's myriad citizens.

 

 

But Dieter had been here before, and his attention was not on the rich carpets and indirect lighting. It was drawn inevitably to the cluster of people sitting around the President's desk.

 

 

Zhi himself was a small man, shorter even than Dieter, though more sturdily built. He rose as Dieter approached, and his handclasp was firm, but his face bore the stigmata of strain.

 

 

"Mister Dieter," he said. "Thank you for coming." "tvlister President," Dieter returned noncommittally, glancing at the others, and Zhi smiled wryly.

 

 

"I believe you know most of these people, Mister Dieter,"" he murmured, and Dieter nodded, then bowed slightly to the group, his mind whirring with speculation.

 

 

Sky Marshal Lech Witcinski, commander-in-chief of the Terran military, responded with a curt nod, half-raising his burlv body from his chair. His uniform was immaculate, and ('is blunt, hard features showed surprisingly little sign of the tremendous strain focused upon him.

 

 

Not so the man seated beside him. David Halev had aged appreciably in the past weeks, but his smile o[ welcome was far warmer than it once had been.

 

 

Dieter returned it in kind, then raised an eyebrow at the sharp-eyed man at the Speaker's left. Kevin Sanders, he thought musingly.

 

 

Admiral Kevin Sanders, retired, one-time head of the Office of Naval Intelligence.

 

 

Now wasn't he an interesting addition to this gathering?

 

 

Even seated, Sanders managed to exude a sense of mingled composure and agility, like a lean, gray tomcat, and his amused eyes gleamed as if he could read Dieter's mind. And perhaps he could. Far more esoteric powers had been ascribed to him during his career.

 

 

The single person Dieter didn't know wore the space-black and silver of a vice admiral, and he felt a stir of admiration as he looked at her. Long, platinum hair rippled over her shoulders, and her eyes were a deep, almost indigo blue. She was certainly the most attractive flag officer he'd ever seen, he thought wryly, and held out his hand to her.

 

 

"Good evening, Admiral hiswas "Krupskaya, Mister Dieter," she said in a soft, clear voice. "Susan Krupskaya." "Enchanted," he murmured, raising her hand briefly to his lips, and her own lips quivered in an amused smile.

 

 

"Well, then," Zhi said briskly, reclaiming Dieter's attention and waving him to a chair, "to business." "Of course, Mister President. My time is yours," Dieter said, seating himself, and Zhfs sardonic smile surprised him.

 

 

"In more ways than you may suspect, Mister Dieter," he said softly, and Dieter's eyebrows crooked politely.

 

 

"I beg your pardon?" he said, but Zhi didn't respond directly. Instead he nodded to David Haley.

 

 

"Mister Dieter--Oskar "the Speaker said, "I'm afraid we have you at a bit of a disadvantage. You see, the Minh Government has resigned." Dieter managed to hide his surprise--butarely.

 

 

The gow ernment had fallen? Why hadn't he already heard? And how in the Galaxy had they kept the press from finding out?

 

 

"It won't be announced at once," Haley continued, "because, under the circumstances, it seems vital to follow the news with the immediate announcement of the formation of a new govenment." Dieter nodded. The last thing they needed was a prolonged ministerial crisis.

 

 

"Which brings us to you, Mister Dieter." President Zhi took over once more. "You see, when I asked Prime Minister Minh and Speaker Haley to recommend a successor to form a new government, they both suggested the same man: you." This time Dieter's surprise was too great. His jaw dropped, and he stared at Zhi in disbelief.

 

 

Him? He was a pariah, repudiated by his own long-time alliesl They couldn't be serious!

 

 

"Mister President," he said finally. "I-I don't know what to say. I'm honored, but--was "Indulge me a moment, Mister Dieter," Zhi said quietiy. "Officially, I am not supposed to have opinions in these matters, but, to speak frankly, there are no other choices. You, more than most, are aware that the Minh Government has been totally discredited. Indeed, the situation is worse even than you know, but the critical point--politically speaking--is that anyone else is unacceptable.

 

 

To put it bluntly, Simon Taliaferro's associates are all tainted by their support of his policies, yet they remain a very potent force in the Chamber of Worlds. If we are to find an alternative to one of them, it must be someone who can gather support from both the Assembly moder- ates and the public. Someone like you." "But, Mister President! I--was "Oskar," Haley cut back in, "think a moment. You're a Corporate Worlder, yet you openly 6pposed Tagg'iaferro's excesses.

 

 

The Corporate World moderates will follow your lea, and so will the Heart World liberals. That gives you a power base, and the Tagg'iaferro crowd can't very well oppose you without refocusing attention on their own mistakes." "And, Mister Dieter," Witcinski put in, "you enjoy the support of the military." Dieter looked at him in astonishment, and the sky marshal shrugged. "I know. That's not supposed to be a factor, but we all know it will be. Your position on the Military Oversight Committee gives you a background knowledge which may be invaluable. And, if I may speak completely candidly, the Fleet views you as a moderate. As prime minister, you would be tremendously reassuring to the bulk of the officer corps." "But," Zhi said warningly, "that same reputation is a two-edged sword. You are a moderate, and we need moderates, but we have a war on our hands. If you accept this office, you'll have to demonstrate that you're a war leader, as well." "And how would I be expected to do that?" Dieter asked, eyes narrowing.

 

 

"By forming an all-parties cabinet," Haley said quietly, and Dieter nodded slowly.

 

 

Of course. Minh's government was associated solely with the extreme Corporate World interests, which was why it had to go. But its replacement must command broad support, and the only way to do that would be to combine all elements. Part of him quailed at the thought of exerting mastery over such a disparate gathering of interests, but he understood. And he was beginning to see why Zhi had turned to him.

 

 

"Mister President," he said finally, "why did the government resign at this particular moment? May I assume Admiral Sanders' presence has some bearing on that point?" "You may," Zhi said heavily. He tugged at an earlobe and frowned. "I have asked Admiral Sanders to return from retirement and reassume direction of the Office of Naval Intelligence." Dieter nodded mentally; he'd suspected as much.

 

 

Whatever the immediate cause of the secession, the speed with which the Fringe had closed ranks behind the Kontravians spoke volumes for the degree of clandestine communication which must have been established long since among the Outworld governments. Yet no whisper of any of it had reached the Assembly, which pointed to a massive intelligence failure.

 

 

"I see." He regarded Sanders thoughtfully.

 

 

"In that case, with your permission, Mister President, I'd like to ask Admiral Sanders a few questions before I give you my decision." "I assumed you would. That's why I arrangbledd to have the military represented," Zhi said dryly, waving a hand to proceed.

 

 

"nank you. Admiral, I suspect the situation is even worse than most of my colleagues realize. Am I correct?" "That depends, Mister Dieter," Sanders said carefully, "on just how bad they think it is. Off the cuff, however, I would have to say yes." "Enlighten me, if you please." "All right." Sanders eyed him measuringly. "Sky Marshal Witcinski could probably give you better figures on precise Fleet losses, but ONI estimates that in addition to TF Seventeen at least fifteen percent of Battle Fleet has gone over to the rebels.

 

 

Additional units in Innerworld space have mutinied and attempted to join them, but we've been able to stop most of them. The cost in loyal units---was he met Dieter's eyes levelly, and Dieter felt an inner chill "mhas been high.

 

 

"At the same time," he went on even more dispassionately, "we don't really know what's happened to Frontier Fleet. No drones are getting through to us from any of our bases in the Fringe, which, since the rebels control the intervening warp points and Fleet relays, may or may not mean they've changed sides. On a worst-ease basis, we're estimating the loss of at least ninety percent of Frontier Fleet." Dieter was staggered, though he tried to hide it.

 

 

"Fortunately," Sanders continued, "our large Innerworld bases have remained loyal and the rebels have to set up their command structure from scratch, which gives us time to activate the Reserve while they get themselves organized. On the whole, and given the greater mass of Battle Fleet's capital units, the tonnage balance probably [avors the rebels by as much as thirty percent, but the ratio of firepower is a bit in our favor when Fortress Conmand is allowed for." "I see. And Zephrain RDS?" "Unknown, Mister Dieter," Sanders admitted.

 

 

"The only hopeful news is that one of our Battle Fleet battlegroups may have gotten through to it." "May?" Dieter asked sharply.

 

 

"May. Vice Admiral Trevayne's BG Thirty-Two was cut off at Osterman's Star when the mutinies began, and we've received an official Orion complaint of a TFN border violation at Sulzan, about four transits from there. In all probability, that was Trevayne, and ff it was, and if he managed to avoid internment, and if the Orion district governor at Rehfrak was willing to let a force that powerful pass through his bailiwick, then he may have reached Zephrain.

 

 

Unfortunately, the Orions have since closed their borders completely. Any sort of confirmation from them will be a long time coming." Sanders shrugged, and Dieter nodded again. He'd met lan Trevayne exactly once, when he appeared before the Oversight Committee, but the incisive man he remembered just might have taken a chance on violating Orion space... and he would have known exactly how important Zephrain was.

 

 

"But that's only the present situation," Witeinski said, breaking the brief silence. "It doesn't address the future." "No," Sanders agreed, "and that's really Susan's area."

 

 

He nodded to Krupskaya, and her dark blue eyes met Dieter's as she took her cue.

 

 

"As you know," she said, "the Innerworlds have a tremendous industrial advantage over the Fringe, but more than seventy percent of all our warships came from Galloway's World." Dieter felt his nerves tighten. He'd known this was coming, but that made it no more palatable.

 

 

"The Jamieson Archipelago attack may have been a mistake, politically speaking," Krupskaya continued, "since its 'barbarism" has generated such widespread shock and repugnance among the Innerworlds, but militarily it was brilliant. They knocked out more than ninety percent of the civilian yards as well as the Yard and all Reserve units mothballed there. We estimate that it would take two or three years for the rebels to set up any substantial yard capacity of their own, but we need time to rebuild Galloway's World. We can put the facilities there back into service faster than we could build new yards and their infrastructure on other planets, but it will be at least eighteen monthsmore probably two years--before we can even begin laying down new ships there.

 

 

"Which means, Mister Dieter, that--assuming the reb- els have seized most of our bases in the Fringe-- our current building capacity gives us no more than a twenty percent advantage over them. We believe we can expand existing yards faster than they can build new ones, but for the foreseeable future we are going to have to be very, very careful about risking losses, particularly, in light of their long construction times, among our heavy units." "I see," Dieter said again, and another silence fell. God, it was even worse than he'd feared.

 

 

"But you asked why the government resigned," Zhi said finally. "Beyond the obvious erosion of its majority--comof which, I am sure, you are aware--comand general military situation, we have suffered yet another reverse." Dieter wondered ff he really wanted to hear any more bad news, but he nodded for Zhi to continue.

 

 

Yet it was Witcinski who took over again.

 

 

"This morning, we received a message from Admiral Pritzcowitski at Cimmaron," he said. "He and Admiral Waldeck had initiated local operations to suppress the rebellion in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately, their first effort, directed against Novaya Bodina with light units, was badly defeated by some sort of jury-rigged defensive force. Admiral Waldeek proceeded at once with his entire task force to retrieve the situation. As of the time Admiral Pritzcowitzkfs message was dispatched, Admiral Waldeek's next scheduled report was seventy-two hours overdue." Dieter closed his eyes. It got worse and worse. No wonder Minh had resigned! When the Assembly learned all that he'd just learned, Minh would be lucky to escape impeachment.

 

 

"So that's the situation, Oskar," Haley said quietly. "We've had our differences, but I hope you know how much I've admired you in the past few months--and that I hate to ask this of you. But we need you." Dieter didn't even open his eyes, and behind his lids he saw every agonizing step which had led him and the Federagon to this pass. The military position was grimmer than even he had feared, and he knew how the Assembly would react when they discovered the truth. The existing fury over the "sneak attack" and "massacre" at Galloway's World would mix with panic. The war fervor which already gripped the Innerworlds would intensify, rather than ease as they drew together in the face of danger--and so would the extremity of the Federation's war aims.

 

 

If he accepted Zhfs request and formed a government, it would be a war government. It could be nothing else, and he would have to prove his own determination to achieve victory or go the way Minh had already gone. It would be the final, bitter irony of the political odyssey he'd begun when he broke with Simon. He, who had thrown away his career in an effort to preserve the peace, would be elevated to the highest ofi@e of the Assembly and charged with fighting the very. war he'd tried to prevent!

 

 

"I realize we are asking you to make bricks with a very limited supply of straw, Mister Dieter," Zhi said, even more quietly than Haley, "but Speaker Halev is right. We need yon. The Federation needs you--as the'one man who may (e able to form a stable government and as the one prime minister who may be able to control the extremism already rampant in the Assembly." Dieter winced, for that was the argument he'd most feared to face. Zhfs violation of the president's traditional neutrality in such matters only underscored the point; if any of Taliaferro's old associates took the premiership, any chance for moderation would vanish... and he still had not paid his debt to Fionna.

 

 

He drew a deep breath. His wildest dreams had never included becoming prime minister--and certainly never like this! And yet, ironic as it was, he had no choice. He opened his eyes and looked at President Zhi.

 

 

"Very well, Mister President," he sighed.

 

 

"I'll try." DECLARATION "Novaya Rodina, eh?" Ladislaus Skjoruing watched the blue nd white planet as the crew of the TFNS Howard AnderSon brought their ship into orbit. "I take it you're finding this a strange spot for a convention of traitors, Admiral Ashigara?" His eyes touched briefly upon the empWill right cuff of the woman standing beside him. Analiese Ashigara was every bit as taciturn and unyielding as her severe exterior and precise Standard English suggested, but he felt a strange kinship for the hawk-faced woman with the al-mnnd eyes and white-streaked hair who'd given a hand for her beliefs.

 

 

"I would have expected the convention to convene on Beaufort," she said calmly. "Beaufort is, after all, the home of the rebellion." It was like her, Ladislaus thought wryly, that she never resorted to euphemisms.

 

 

"Aye, I can see why you might be thinking that, but Beaufort is too far from the frontiers. We've no command structure at all the now, and until we've had the creating of one, we're to need the shortest courier drone routes we can be finding. Novaya Rodina's well located for that." "Yes, I can see that. But I think perhaps there is more to it than that, Mister Skjorning." "Aye, there is. As you've said, Beaufort's to be a logical place--comff it were a Kontravian rebellion we're after having. But we're after making this a Fringe-wide movement, so holding our convention somewhere else should be helping

 

 

along a sense of unity, you see. I've the thinking it's Beaufort's to be the capitol of whatever it is we're to have the buiffeading of, but it's not the place to be declaring what we are.

 

 

"That seems sensible," Ashigara said, nodding slowly.

 

 

"Aye. But there's to be another reason.

 

 

Have you had the hearing of the term 'bloody shirt," Admiral Ashigara?" "'Bloody Shirt"? No, Mister Skjorning, I cannot say that I have." "It's to be an old Terran political term, Admiral, and what it's to mean is appealing to emotions on the basis of lost lives and hatred." Ladislaus" face was grim. "It's not a tactic I'm proud to be using, but it works; and Novaya Rodina's after being the best place to be doing it." Analiese' Ashigara shook her head slowly.

 

 

"I am more happy than ever to be a simple Fleet commander, Mister Skjorning. My mind does not work the way this business of creating a government appears to require." "Don't be feeling any loss over it," Ladislaus said very quietly. "It's not to be something I ever thought to have the doing of, either." He fell silent, watching the planet a moment longer, then to eft the bridge, and Admiral Ashigara turned her attention to the final approach maneuvers of her under-manned task force. No, she thought. She did not envy Ladislaus Skjorning at all.

 

 

The horde of delegates crowded the huge auditorium, their rumbling voices filling it like a solid presence, and the surviving Dmna stood behind Ladislaus on the stage, surveying their visitors with slightly dazed eyes.

 

 

Magda Petrovna stood at his elbow, her mobile face quite still. Only Ladislaus knew she intended to resign from the Duma to accept a commission in whatever they were going to call their navy., and only Magda sensed how much he envied her freedom to do just that. But it wasn't freedom for her; it was flight.

 

 

She knew her own strengths: a flair for organization, to evel-headedness, moral courage, and compassion. But she also knew her weaknesses: blunt-spokenness, a tendency towards autocracy with those unable to keep up with her thoughts, and a well-developed capacity for hatred, and she felt tlat hate within her now, though few of her friends saw it or recognized it as the inevitable by-product of her compassion.

 

 

She'd been able to accept her own sentence of death, but not the brutality of Pieter's murder.

 

 

Not the cruelty which had nearly snapped Tatiana Illyushina's sanity. That had been too much, yet as long as she'd believed that only Waldeck's madness was responsible, she'd maintained a degree of detachment.

 

 

But then the provisional government had found the special instructions from the Assembly in his safe.

 

 

Waldeck need not have acted on them, but giving men like him such an option was like giving a vicious child a charged laser, and she would never forget that the Assembly had done so. She would never be able to flush the hatred from her mind ff ever she must deal with that governmbledtiont. Besides--she felt herself smile affectionately--there was a better choice to head the Duma now. Well, two, perhaps, but Fedor would kill himself first! No, only one person had emerged from the day of the riots as Pieter's true successor, and that person was Tatiana Illyushina.

 

 

Magda glanced at the slim young woman.

 

 

Daughter of one of Novaya Rodina's very few wealthy families, Tatiana had never faced the hard side of life before the rebellion. Then the earthquake shocks had come hard and fast, but Tatiana, to her own unending surprise, had met them all. Her oval face was still as beautiful, she looked as much like a teen-aged child as ever, but there was flint behind those blue eyes now.

 

 

Flint and something else, something almost like Magda's own compassion, but not quite.

 

 

But now, as acting Duma President, Magda had been granted a unique moment in history, and she stepped up to the lectern at Ladislaus' tiny nod. She drew a deep breath, and her gavel cracked on the wooden rest under the microphone. The sound echoed through the auditorium.

 

 

"rhe first session of this convention of the provisional governments of the Fringe will come to order," she said.

 

 

"Well, Ladislaus, what do you think?" Magda refilled their vodka glasses and hid a smile as he picked his up cautiously. "Will it work?" "Aye, I'm thinking it will." Ladislaus sipped his second glass far more slowly as Magda threw back her own in approved Novaya Rodinan fashion.

 

 

"It's not as if any of us have the thinking we can go back again." He looked meaningfully around the small gathering of the Convention's crucial leaders.

 

 

"But it doesn't necessarily follow we can act together," Tatiana said. "Agreeing to hate the Corporate Worlds, yes." She smiled tightly.

 

 

"But we're all so different! What else do we have in common?" "Don't be underestimating the strength of hate, Ms Illyushina." Ladislaus' answering smile was bleak. "But that's not all we're to be having. I'm thinking we're to have a better understanding of what the Federation is supposed to be than the Rump has. We're agreed in that." "True." Magda's cold voice raised eyebrows, but she leashed her rage and leaned back.

 

 

Then she laughed. "Has it occurred to anyone else that we're not the radicals? We're the conservatives--they're the ones who've played fast and loose with the Constitution for over a century!" "Aye, so Fionna had the saying, often enough," Ladislaus nodded. "And we've no hope of building something really new--not in the time we're to have.

 

 

So it's something old we must be building on." "So that's why you brought this along," Li Kai-lun mused, tapping the sheet of facsimile on the table and nodding slowly. His reaction pleased Ladislaus. Hangchow's diminutive chief convention delegate was not only her planetary president but a retired admiral, as well. His support--political and military--would be literally priceless in the weeks ahead.

 

 

"Aye." Ladislaus ran a fingertip over the ancient lettering. "It's a federal system we're needing, Kai-lun. Centralization was the Corporate Worlds real error. It's to give the government the most power, but it's to concentrate too much authority in one place and even with relays, slow communications are to make it clumsy in responding to crises.., or people." "Agreed," Li said, then smiled. "And at least this constitution's got a good track record. If I remember my history,, the United States did quite well for itself before the Great Eastern War." his... ad ff fight we must, let it be under a common standard! I move to appoint a committee to select a suitable device for our batfie flags." The stocky delegate from Lancelot swirled the brilliant cloak of his hereditary rank and sat, and Magda sighed. She found the barons and earls of Durandel rather wearing, but he might have a point--even ff he was inclined towards purple prose.

 

 

"Very well. It has been moved that we appoint a eom-mittee to design a flag for our new star nation," she said. "Is there a second?" "I second the motion, Ms Chairman." Magda blinked as Li Kaiolun spoke up.

 

 

Now why was he supporting a motion which could only waste precious time and energy? She shrugged mentally.

 

 

Undoubtedly he had a reason.

 

 

"V.well. It has been moved and seconded that we appoint committee to design a flag. All those in favor?" A rumble of "Ayes" answered.

 

 

"Opposed?" There was not a sound. "Fhe motion is carried. Mister Li, would you be so kind as to take charge of the matter?" "Of course, Ms Chairman." "Good. Now, to return to our agenda.

 

 

"But why, Ladislaus?" Tatiana demanded.

 

 

"We have so many other things to do, why waste time designing aflag, of all things?" "Well," Ladislaus rumbled, "you might be noticing who Kai-lun had the recruiting offor his committee." "What? Who?" Tatiana asked, but Magda laughed suddenly.

 

 

"Now I understand! Very neat, Lad! And how did you put Baron de Bertholet up to it?" "Jean de Bertholet isn't after being the worst sort, Magda.

 

 

It's on our side he is, and he understands entirely." "Well I don't," Tatiana said.

 

 

"You would ff you'd seen the membership of that eom-mittee," Magda chuckled. "Between them, Lad and Kai-lun have shunted most of the 'noblemen" in the Convention "Aye," Ladislaus nodded. "Not that I really think they're after creating a new hereditary aristocracy for us all, hut it's not to be hurting a thing to be certain of it when the constitution's debated, now is it?" "Ladislans," Tatiana said sternly, "you're an underhanded, devious man." "Aye," Ladislaus agreed calmly. 'lhat I am." "Ladislaus," Magda said, "I'd like you to meet Rupert M'tana." Ladislaus looked up from his paperwork and frowned at the dark-skinned officer. M'tana returned an equally measuring look, and Ladislaus propped one elbow on a chair "Captain M'tana," he rumbled thoughtfully, "you're to be the senior prisoner, I'm thinking?" "Yes, sir. I was Admiral Waideck's flag captain." "I see." Ladislans' lips twisted in distaste despite himself. "Just a moment, Lad," Magda said quietly. "I think, perhaps, you don't entirely understand. At the time of Pieter's execution, Waldeck had placed Captain M'tana under close arrest." "Aye?" Ladislans' blue eyes returned to M'tana's face, even more thoughtful now. "And why might that have been, Captain?" "I... disagreed with his decision, Mister Sorning." "I see," Ladislaus said in an entirely different tone. He waved at two chairs and M'tana and Magda sank into them. "I've memory enough of my time in the Fleet to be understanding how far you must have pushed him, Cal tain. But, ff I may have the asking, what's to be bringing you here?" lhe captain has a suggestion, Lad--coma good one, I think," Magda said. "He approached me with it because we're both Navy or ex-navy and we've come to know one another pretty well." "Ah?" Ladislaus cocked a bushy eyebrow.

 

 

"And just what is it you and the captain are after cooking up here, Magda?" "It's like this, Lad. Like Beaufort, we had a number of @u.. friends in various places in the Innerworlds. We spent years cultivating that network, but now that actual fighting's begun, we're cut off from it." ISVRECTO-RATHER

 

 

"Aye," Idislaus nodded. "We're to have the same problem at Beaufort." "Right. Well, Captain M'tana may have come up with a way to put part of our network back on line." "Have you, now?" Ladislaus bent a hard look on M'tana. The captain shifted slightly in his chair but met it unflinchingly.

 

 

"Yes, sir. Understand something, Mister Skjorning. I'm an Innerworlder--a Heart Worlder -comb when my people settled Xhosa, they didn't exactly do so completely voluntarily. I think we knew something about oppression, then, but we've forgotten since. We should have remembered, and that means we have a responsibility here. I don't want to see the Federation torn apart; in that respect, at least, you and I will never agree. But what I want and what's going to happen are two different things.

 

 

There's no way to paperstover the cracks this time too much blood's already been shed.

 

 

"So as I see it, I can either join my fellow prisoners in refusing to give you any aid while we wait hopefully for repatriation and with luck another chance to contribute to the killing, or I can help you people. Not because I love your rebellionI don't--but because the sooner the Federation realizes it can't win even ff it defeats you militarily, the better." "I see." Ladislaus grinned slowly.

 

 

"Captain, I've the thinking I'm to like you--and I'm betting that's not to matter a solitary damn to you. But yoU've the right. It has gone too far for healing. So how is it you're to be helping?" "What Captain M'tana suggested to me," Magda said, "ties in with our plans to allow correspondence between prisoners and their families.

 

 

We'll give him the codes and address of our contact on Xhosa and his 'letters home" will reopen our best conduit." Ladislaus studied M'tana's face, seeking some sign of treachery, any intent to betray. He saw exactly nothing.

 

 

"You're to have the knowing, Captain," he said quietly, "of the penalty ff the Federation is ever to be finding out about this' "I do," M'tana said flatly. "But I know-- now what the Assembly's done to you people, and my oath is to the Federation, not just its government. If I can help shorten the war and reduce the killing, I have to do it. Besides --was he looked uncomfortable his-comI don't enjoy killing Terrans, Mister Skjorning, not even ones who are technically traitors. His "I see," Ladislaus said yet again. Then he added slowly,; "Let's have the discussing of the details, then, Captain.

 

 

"Well, Chang?" Commodore Li Han tipped back her chair in Longbow's briefing room as she regarded her chief of staff. Commander Robert Tomanaga, her new battlegroup operations officer, sat beside Tsing, and the pair of them were flanked by Lieutenant Commander Esther Kane and Lieutenant David Reznick, Han's staff astrogator and electronics officer.

 

 

"Commander Tomanaga and I have gone over the Fleet ops plan, sir," Tsing replied.

 

 

"We'll know better after we run it on the tac simulator, but for now, it looks solid." "You agree, Commander?" Han turned her eyes to Tomanaga.

 

 

"Yes, sir. Oh, we could use more weight of metal, but quality counts more than quantity." He grinned, and Han frowned mentally, bothered by his brashness and wondering ff her worry was justified.

 

 

Tomanaga was certainly qualified on paper; but all of her staff officers were qualified "on paper," with no real experience in their new positions. Nor did she have any, and with an inexperienced staff under a commodore who was herself as green as grass... She hid a shudder and nodded calmly. "Run it down for us, Commander," she said.

 

 

"Yes, sir. First, I'd like to put our own operation in perspective to the overall situation. Our operational prob,-lems are complicated enough, but we think the Rump s are worse. So far, about seventy percent of Frontier Fleet has come over or been taken by our units, and it looks like we've got about twenty percent of Battle Fleet, too, but our forces are scattered all over the Fringe. With only drones for communication, concentrating them for opera* tions is going to take time and, for the immediate future, our units here at Novaya Rodina constitute Admiral Ashigara's full disposable strength." Han stifled an urge to hurry him up. There was time, and it was better to be sure her entire staff understood Fleet HQ'S viewpoint.

 

 

"Admiral Ashigara's intelligence people estimate that the Rump has suffered losses we don't know about, and that fighter losses have probably been extremely high because so many fighter jocks were Fringers. That's a bit speculative, sir, but it matches our own experience. At any rate, the Rump is undoubtedly strapped for striking forces, but has the advantage of an intact command, better communications, and the interior position; they can move what they have from point to point faster than we can shift around the periphery.

 

 

"Our own immediate strategic need is to secure our frontiers before the Rump begins to recover, for which purpose Fleet plans a series of attacks on choke points. Our own operation against Cimmaron will cut off four separa Rump axes of attack," He fouched his panel, and the briefing room lights died. A hologram appeared over the table, and light from the tangled warp lines glittered briefly in his eyes as he picked up a pointer.

 

 

"Here's Cimmaron," he touched a tiny light dot. "Only two transits away via Redwing, but Redwing's covered by The Line. The forts are cut off now, but Fleet prefers to isolate them rather than attack them." Han felt a mental nod circle the table. No one wanted to tangle with those forts.

 

 

"So," Tomanaga went on, "we'll go from Novaya Rodina to Donwaltz--was his pointer hopped from star to star as he spoke his--comto MXL-23 to Lassa to Aklumar to Cimmaron--a much longer route, but one we own as far as Aklumar.

 

 

Because of its length, we're going in with only carriers, battle-cruisers, and light units, since battle-line units would slow us by thirty, percent. On the other hand, there are no fortifications at Aklumar--thanks to the Treaty of Tycho--and they won't know we're coming, so we ought to retain the advantage of surprise until the moment we hit Cimmaron." He laid the pointer aside and brought the light back up. "Our best analysis of the defense is a guess," he admitted, showing an edge of concern at last. 'Fhe Fleet base's fixed defenses are negligible, but Cimmaron Skywatch is quite heavy: eleven type-four orbital forts, three covering the Aklumar warp point. Before the mutinies, there was also a strong OWP'-BASED fighter force, and despite Fffeet's illli estimate, there's no guarantee they haven't brought their fighter strength back up. They must be as aware of Cimmaron's strategic value as we are, so the system un- doubtedly has priority for reinforcements." He paused to let the numbers sink in, then went on.

 

 

"What we have, after essential detachments, is two battle- cruiser groups (ours and Commodore Petrovna's) and four carrier groups with approximately three hundred fighters embarked, plus escorts. The balance of force should be with us, but our edge is slim and we don't have any superdreadnoughts or monitors. Without them, the battle- cruisers will have to keep Skywatch occupied until the carriers can stabilize their catapults and launch." All of them knew what that meant. Type-four OWP'S were big and powerful, stronger than most superdread- noughts. It was statistically certain some of the battle- cruisers wouldn't be around to see the fighters launch.

 

 

"That's the bare bones of the plan," Tomanaga contin- ued after a moment. "We're transporting several hundred crated fighters to hold the system once we have it, be- cause half the carriers will have to pull out for Bonaparte and the Zephrain operation while the rest move on Gastenhowe. Other attacks should clear up additioaal choke points at the same time, but Cimmaron and Zephrain are the really critical ones. We need more depth to protect Novaya Rodina, and Fleet wants to deal with the research station as soon as possible." 'hank you Commander," Hah said quietly as he fin- ished, then looked around once more, evaluating reactions.

 

 

Captain Tsing looked merely thoughtful, but he was a bulky, impassive man, virtually incapable of revealing much emotion. He was always simply Tsing--unreadable, phleg- matic, and utterly reliable.

 

 

Tomanaga looked confident. It was, after all, an ops officer's job to exude confidence, and certainly one could not dispute the neatness of the plan... assuming one could subordinate one's own survival to the other objec- tives. It seemed Tomanaga could do that--which could be a flaw in an ops officer. Best to keep an eye on him.

 

 

Lieutenant Commander Kane's eyes were intent, her lips pursed as she toyed with a lock of short tilde cut chestnut hair.

 

 

Han had watched her jotting notes as Tomanaga spoke; now her stylus ran down the pad, underscoring or striking through as she rechecked them. Han put a mental question mark beside Kane's name, but she was inclined to approve.

 

 

She turned finally to Lieutenant (junior grade) David Reznick, by far the youngest member of her staff, and perhaps the most brilliant of them all. At the moment, he was frowning.

 

 

"You have found a difficulty, Lieutenant?" "Excuse me?" Reznick looked up and blinked, then flushed. "Could you repeat the question please, Commodore?"" Han hid a smile. It was difcult not to feel maternal towards the young man. "I asked ffyou'd found a difficulty," "Not with the ops plan, no, sir, but I'm a little worried about the electronics." "Aha" She regarded him thoughtfully.

 

 

"Er" yes, sir. Longbow wasn't designed as a command ship. We squeezed everything in by pulling those two heavy launchers, but the whole datalink setup is jury-rigged. It's put together with spit, prayers, and a lot of civilian components, sir, and we're spilling out of the electronics section.

 

 

If we have to slam the pressure doors, we'll lose peripherals right and left." "But the system does work?

 

 

"Uh, well, yes, sir. Works fine. The thing is, ffwe start taking hits the whole shebang could go straight to shi--ummm, that is, the system could go down, sir. "Hah couldn't quite hide her smile, and Reznick flamed brick red before his sense of humor rescued him. Then he grinned back, and Han's last real concern vanished as a chuckle ran around the table. The chemistry was good.

 

 

"Very well, David." She drew a pad and stylus toward her. "Give me a worst-case estimate and let's come up with ways around it." "Yes, sir." He opened a thick rineaeaong binder and flipped pages. "First of all Commodore..." "But, Lad, you got your Constitution adopted, and we're adopting your Declaration," Li Kai-lun said reproachfullv. "The least you can do is endorse the flag you asked me to design for you!"

 

 

Ladislaus looked sourly at the sinuous, blood-red form coiled about the ebon banner's golden starburst. Except for the star--and the wings on the snake-like doomwhale -comx looked remarkably like the Beaufort planetary flag.

 

 

"I'm thinking it won't be so very popular with the others," he rumbled.

 

 

"You round-eyes are always seeing difficulties," Kai-lun teased. "It's really childish of you.

 

 

Why not just learn to accept your karma?" "Beeanse my 'karma's" probably to be a short rope when they see this, you old racist!" "No, no!" Kai-lun disagreed. "It's only right that the symbol of Beaufort should adorn our banner, Ladislaus the committee was unanimous on that. And for those who need a little symbolism, we've added the star and wings to indicate the sweep and power of our new star nation. You see?" "Were you ever being a used-skimmer salesman?" Ladislaus asked his small ally suspiciously.

 

 

"Never." "Ah. I had the wondering." He thought for a moment, then grinned. "All right. It's glad I'll be to be seeing the old doomwhale, anyway." "Good." Kal-Inn rose and headed for the disdoor, then stopped to smile over his shoulder.

 

 

"Actually, you know, that--was he waved at the banner his-comis a symbol of good fortune." "Eh? I've never had the hearing of the doomwhale being thatl' "Ah, but when you put wings on it, it's not a doomwhale." "No?" Ladislaus" suspicions surged afresh. "What's it to be, then?" "Any child of Hangchow knows that, Lad." Kai-lun smiled. "It's a dragon, of course." Commodore Petrovna looked very calm in her new uniform, but she knew every officer of the new Republican Navy could see her on the all-ships hookup, and her warm voice was hushed with a sense of history.

 

 

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Fleet, I introduce to you the President of the Republic of Free Terrans, Ladislaus Skjoruing." Isvareaco

 

 

@u Slle vanished, and Ladislaus Skjorning appeared on the screen. His face was composed, but his blue eyes were brights-and hard. He sat behind a plain desk, and the crossed flags of the newborn Terran Republic covered the wall behind him.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen," his deep voice was measured, his famed Beaufort accent in complete abeyance, "fourteen years ago, I, too, was a serving officer in the Fleet of the Terran Federation.

 

 

As one who once wore that uniform, I know what it has cost each of you to stand where you now stand, and I share your anguish. But I also share your determination and outrage. We have not come here lightly, but we have taken our stand, and we cannot and shall not retreat from it." He paused, picturing the officers and ratings watching his image, hearing his voice, and for just a moment it seestned that he stood or sat beside each and every one of them. It was a moment of empathic awareness such as he had never imagined, and it showed in his voice when he continued.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is you who will fight for our new nation; many of you will die for it. It is not necessary for me to say more on that head, for whatever else history may say of you, it will record that you were men and women who understood the concept of duty and served that concept to the very best of your ability. However, since it is you who will bear the shock of combat, it is only just that you know and unders "tand exactly why we are fighting and what we are fighting for. It is for this reason I asked Admiral Ashigara for this all-ships hookup tonight.

 

 

"I am about to record our first official message to the Federation's Assembly, and I wish you to witness this communication as it is recorded. I suppose--was he permitted himself a bleak smile his-comt this is an historic moment, but that is not why I wish to share it with you. I wish to share it because of who you are and what you will shortly be called upon to do.

 

 

"We represent many worlds and many ways of life.

 

 

We spring from a single planet, but the diversity among us is great. We do not even agree upon the nature of God or the ultimate ends of our ongoing evolution. Yet we agree upon this: what has been done to us is intolerable, the systematic looting and manipulation of our economies and ways of life by others is not to be endured, and no government has the right to abuse its citizens as the government of the Federation has abused us. And ff that agreement is all we share, it is enough. It is more than enoughas your presence in your ships, as your willingness to wear the uniform you wear, demonstrates. We may not share the same view of God, but before whateeaer God there is, I am proud to speak these words for you, and humbled by the cemmitment you and your worlds have made to support He looked down at the concealed terminal built into his desk--not that he needed it; what he was to say was written in his heart and mind as surely as in the memory of his computer--then glanced up once more.

 

 

"Some of you will recognize the source of these words.

 

 

Many may not, but, I think, no one has ever said it better--comand their use may help the Federation's citizens to understand our motives despite their present government's self-serving misrepresentation." He drew a deep breath and faced the pickup squarely, forcing his shoulders to relax. When he spoke once more, he appeared completely calm.

 

 

Only those who knew him well saw the anguish which possessed him..

 

 

'fo the Legislative Assembly of the Terran Federation," he began calmly, "from Ladislaus Skjorning, President of the Republic of Free Terrans, forand in the name of the Congress of the Republic of Free Terrans.

 

 

"When in the course of human events, it becomes neo-essary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the Galaxy the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and the usages of justice entitle them, a decent respect for the opinion of all races requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." He drew another deep breath, his voice rumbling up out of his chest, powerful and proud and defiant, yet somehow reverent as he spoke the fierce old words, newly adapted to changing circumstances.

 

 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all sentient beings are created equal, that they are endowed with certain ttnalienable rights, that among,, these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

 

The survivors of the coming battles might see that recording many times in the course of their lives, yet never again would they see and hear it as it was made. They were joined with Ladislaus Skjorning, floating in the heart of a crystal moment, temporarily outside the bounds of space and time. Never before had so many men and women so intimately charged with the defense of a cause been joined in the moment of its annunciation; perhaps it would never happen again. Yet for all that they shared it as it happened, few could ever recall hearing the exact words Ladislaus spoke. What they remembered was the strength of his deep voice, the emotional communion as he forged words to hold their anger and frustration and their inarticulate love for the government they could no longer bey. The heard the list of abuses not with their ears, but vath their souls--and they knew, knew now in their very bones, that the breach was forever. They could not return to what they had been, and in that instant of unbearable loss and political birth, the Terran Republic's Navy was forged on the anvil of history as few military oreaong, anizations have ever been.

 

 

@u.. We must, therefore," Ladislaus went on, drawing to the close of his message, "acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold you, as we hold the whole vf the sentient races of the Galaxy, enemies in war, in peace friends.

 

 

"Now, therefore, the representatives of the Republic of Free Terrans, in general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the Universe for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and authority of the good people of these worlds, solemnly publish and declare that these united worlds are, and of right ought to be, a free and independent nation; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the Legislative Assembly of the Terran Federation, and that all political connection between them and the Terran Federation is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a free and independent state, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do."

 

 

He stared into the pickup, his face carved from stone, and behind his eyes he saw the crumpled body of Fionna MacTaggart--the final, unforgivable indignity to which the Fringe Worlds had been subjected -comandthe closing words rumbled and crashed from his thick throat like denouncing thunder.

 

 

"And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." "A nian can die but once; we owe God a death. his William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II in what she was The new eranso O Fringer, the furious personnel to Figures Admiral officer to joined her, been so plained why she commodore, at such a Lt ngbo Fortu as well, know her as had been time the self at the OFFENSIVE nv was five hours out of Novaya Rodina orbit e Li Han stood beside Captain Tsing Chang dp car, her face tranquil, and worried over abo. ut to discover about her crew. publican Navy was desperately short of vet-sixty percent of the Fleet which had been hly ninety percent had favored mutiny, but ting had produced casualties so severe the avy found itself with less than half the trained aan its captured ships. bere even worse among the senior officers. gara was, so far at least, the most senior e over to the Republic. Others might have ut the carnage on most of the flag decks had beme none of them had survived. Which ex-s indecently rapid promotion... and also d herself wearing two hats. She might be a but experienced Battle Fleet skippers were mium that she had to double as CO of the t that she minded that!

 

 

,, they'd picked up a few unexpected bonuses, as Commodore Magda Petrovna.

 

 

Hah didn't well as she would have liked, for Petrovna ecently busy on Novaya Rodina, splitting her the Convention and her new command, but ely graying woman had certainly proved herttle of Novaya Rodina. Her choice of Jason

 

 

Windrider as her chief of staff only strengthened Han's respect for her. She felt no qualms about going into action with Commodore Petrovna on her flank.

 

 

The car stopped on the command bridge, and the officer of the deck stood as they stepped out. The other watch-keepers stayed seated as per her standing orders.

 

 

Some captains preferred for their bridge crews to indulge in all the ceremonial rituals whenever they came on the bridge; Han preferred for them to get on with their jobs.

 

 

"Good afternoon, Exec," she said to Commander Sung.

 

 

"Good afternoon, sir. Commodore Tsing." Han shook her head mentally at the titles.

 

 

She was commodore of BG 12, but also Longbow's captain. For squadron purposes, she was properly addressed as "Commodore,"" but when acting as Longbow's CO, she was properly addressed as "Captain." Just to complicate matter further, Tsing was now a captain--but there could be only one "Captain" aboard a warship, so Tsing was properly addressed as "Commodore," since courtesy promotions were, by definition, upward.

 

 

Thus there were occasions on which they would both properly be addressed as "Commodore,"" but only Hah would ever be addressed as "Cap-rain," which meant that from time to time a "captain" outranked a hiscommodore" aboard Longbow..ationot surprisingly, Sung, like most of her crew, took the easy out and addressed her only as "Sir" unless there was absolutely no alternative or it was completely clear which hat she was wearing.

 

 

"I have the con, Exec," she told Sung, sliding into the command chair.

 

 

"Aye, aye, sir." The short, slender commander stepped quickly back behind the chair, waiting.

 

 

"Mister Chu, how long to warp?" "Approximately forty-three standard hours, sir." "Very, good." She swung her chair toward the exec. "Commander Sung." "Yes, sir?" He looked nervous. That was a good sign. "It's been a while since our last comprehensive drills," she said calmly.

 

 

"Don't you think we might spend a few hours brushing the rust off?." Sung Chung-hui had dreaded this moment.

 

 

Longbow's casualties had been the lowest of any ship in TF 17, but the n6w Republican Admiralty had raided her ruthlessly for experienced cadre. He'd managed to hang onto barely half of her original bridge crew, and losses below decks had been worse. He'd done his best to fit the many replacements into his team, but all too many were on "makee-learnee," and he shuddered to think of the next few days.

 

 

He glanced at Tsing, but the former exec seemed thoroughly fascinated by the display on the main plot.

 

 

No help there. He drew a deep breath.

 

 

"Whenever you wish, sir." "Then sound general quarters, Exec," Han said, and Sung breathed a silent prayer as he pressed the button.

 

 

The word, Han thought as she worked up lather, was "horrible." She raised her face to the shower spray and the wat4r dragged at her long hair. It really wasn't all that bad, considering, but war left no room for "considering." With nukes flying around your ears, there were only adeo quate erews--comr dead ones. She remembered the fine-tuned instrument she and Tsing had made of Longbow before the mutiny and shook her head, but the present arthritic uncertainty wasn't Sung's fault. He hadn't had time to work up the new drafts, and he'd actually done quite well in the time he'd been given.

 

 

She finished rinsing and reached for a towel.

 

 

She and Sung were going to be unpopular over the next few days. At least she'd managed to hang on to most of her point defense crewsthat was about the only department which had performed with a flourish--but damage control was terrible and engineering was no better. She couldn't fault Sung's initial concentration on gunnery and maneuvering, but gunners and coxswains alone couldn't make Longbow an effective fighting machine.

 

 

She wrapped the towel around herself sarong fashion and sat before her terminal. It was Sung's job to bring the crew up to her standards. Under the iron-bound traditions of the service, her abili, even her right, to interfere with handling of the problem was limited. But she was also captain. The ultimate responsibility was hers, and she and Sung both knew how new to his duties he was. She could stretch the point a bit, she decided, without convincing him he'd lost her trust.

 

 

She punched up the intraship memo system slowly, considering how to begin. Her fingers poised over the keys, then moved.

 

 

To: COULDR Sung C.

 

 

From: CMDR Li H., CO TRNS LONGBOW RE: Exercises conducted this date Drills conducted by all departments indicate only point defense and maneuvering personnel fully competent in assigned duties.

 

 

Engineering performance was far below acceptable standards, and general crew performance leaves much to be desired.

 

 

I therefore suggest: (a) series of intensive exercises of all hands in...

 

 

The words appeared with machine-like speed as Longbow's drive pushed the ship ever closer to battle, and Commodore Li Han, wet hair plastered to her bare shoulders, felt her mind reaching out to meet the test to come.

 

 

Han sniffed at Tsing's pipe smoke. Few spacers smoked, and she hated cigarette smoke, but though disshe would never admit it, she rather liked the smell of Tsing's pipe blend. Not that liking it kept her from scolding him over the filthy habit in private.

 

 

She glanced across the small table at Lieutenant Reznick and Commander Sung, noting the wariness in Sung's eyes. The past weeks had been a foretaste of hell for him, but he'd done well. Longbow's newcomers had slotted smoothly into place and even the abandon-ship drill had gone quite well, though she hadn't seen fit to tell Sung so. It wasn't nice, but it had inspired him to maximum effort.

 

 

"Well, Chang," she said finally, "could this crew zip its own shoes without supervision?" "Just about, sir." Tsing blew a beautiful smoke ring and glanced at Sung, "Just about." Sung's face fell, and Han shook her head reproachfully at Tsing.

 

 

"Actually, Exec," she said, "I think you've done very INSUBRECTION well. There" are still a few rough spots, but all in all, we've got one of the most efficient ship's companies I've seen." "Fhank you, sir!" Sung's face lit with pleasure.

 

 

"And just in time, too," she went on. She touched a button and a hologram of the local warp lines appeared above the table.

 

 

"We'll make transit to Lassa in about an hour, gentlemen," she said calmly. "Eighty-one hours after that, we'll be ready to fire probes through into Aklumar for a last minute report." "Yes, sir." Tsing passed the stem of his pipe through the warp line between Lassa and Aklumar.

 

 

"That ought to be an interesting trip." "Not as "interesting" as the one to Cimmaron," Han reminded him. "It had better not be, anyway!" She tapped the table gently, then turned a calm face to Sung. "Chung-hui, I asld you to join us because I'm going to depend heavily on you and Chang. I'll have to coordinate the battlegroup and fight Longbow, as well, and I can't do it unless you both understand exactly what I plan. You'll both have to exercise a lot of discretion in what you report to me and what you act upon yourvs, so I want us to have a very clear mutual understanding of the operation.

 

 

Fair enough?" "Yes, sir." "Good. Then here's the first point; we're going into Cimmaron before Commodore Petrovna because the Rump data base won't list us as a command ship." Sung nodded; Longbow hadn't been a command ship the last time the Rump saw her. "On the other hand, our datalink has cost us two capital missile launchers, so we'll hold back our external ordnance when the others launch. We'll use the racks to hide our lack of internal launchers, because if they realize we're the command ship they'll go for us with everything they've got." "Yes, sir. I understand." "Good. Second, I want everything on line when we warp into Aklumar, no matter what the probes show. I hope we won't find anything to worry about -comwe don't need a Second Battle of Aklumar." This time both Sung and Tsing nodded.

 

 

Aklumar had witnessed the climactic engagement of the First Interstellar War, but the last thing they wanted was a clash to alert Cimmaron.

 

 

"But," she went on, "if I were commanding Cimmaron there'd be at least a picket at Aklumar to watch for exactly what we hope to do.

 

 

And if there is--was she brought up a schematic of the Aklumar warp junction his--comhe'll be right here." She touched the image. "Placed to dash down the warp line as soon as we enter scanner range. So we have to make sure we don't enter scanner range until we've dealt with him." "Sir?" Sung sounded uncertain.

 

 

"If the admiral agrees, we'll go in cloaked," Han explained. "We'll close with him and--hopefully--pick him off before he knows we're there." "But, sir, the battlegroup doesn't have cloaking ECM." "No, but we do, and so do scout cruisers.

 

 

We'll form a three-ship data group with two of them and clear the way for the rest of the task force." "Unless," Tsing observed with the mild air of a man who'd made the same point before, "they've posted a light carrier, sir. A couple of long-range recon fighters on patrol, and we'll never get close enough." "We've been over that, Chang, and I stfil don't expect it, not with so much of Frontier Fleet coming 9ver. They'd never risk a fleet or assault carrier on picket duty, and all the lights were in Frontier Fleet. They can't have many of them left." "You're probably right, sir, but it's my job to point out problems. And here's another: they might use a scout cruiser of their own." "If they go by The Book, that's exactly what they'll do," Han agreed, "but they can't have many of them, either. If they do, the whole ops plan goes out the lock anyway. If they're cloaking, the probes won't spot them and they'll have just as good a chance to hide from us as we have to hide from them. Which gives them the advantage, of course, since their whole job is to run away while we try to locate and destroy them. But there's only one way to find out, isn't there?" "You might ask Admiral Ashigara to send in a squadron of fighters to check it, sir," Sung suggested hesitantly.

 

 

INSV-AAECTO con"I inight," Han agreed dryly, "ff fighters carried any ECM." "Sorry, sir. I should have thought of that." Sung sounded abashed.

 

 

"Don't worry about it." Han smiled. "But we're going to have to deal with this ourselves, so be certain plotting and gunnery are ready. We"]] have to be quick to stop them from launching a courier drone." "Yes, sir." "All right. Now--was she witched to a schematic of Cimmaron his-comth is where we're supposed to run into trouble. Commodore Tsing, Commander Tomanaga, and I have silent quite a while discussing how to handle this, Exec, and I want you to understand what we're up to. SOP would bring us in last to protect the command ship from the opening salvos, but the Rump knows The Book, too. conCommander Tomanaga sueeests we come in.

 

 

@u ,..

 

 

, first, since that s the last place thev'll expect the flagship but I've decided to come in third. Lieutenant Reznick here tells me our datalink won't stand much pounding, so I don't want us out too early, just as I don't want us in the standard flag slot. We'll rely on the shell game approach-- they'll know we have a command ship, but not which one it is... I hope. If we can force them to disperse their fire looking for us, we may survive until BG II comes through and offers so many targets they have to divide their fire.

 

 

Understand?" "Yes, sir." "Good. And instead of a tight, traditional globe, we'rt coming in in line abreast for the same reasons-- everything will be directed towards keeping them guessing@u" "Yes, sir." "And there's another point, one which relates to our datalink." Han turned to Reznick, who flushed slightly under her calm regard; it was amazing how readilv he colored up. "Because we may lose our command dat net so quickly, I want alternate standard datalinks set up be- tween our units as a priority, If we lose the command net, I don't want any delays in dropping into smaller groups, Lieutenant." "Yes, sir." "All right. Now, here's the final point for you, Exec-- you won't be on the command deck when we enter Cimmaron." "Sir?" Sung blinked. "But that's my duty station! I "It is normally," Han cut him off calmly, "but this isn't normal. We don't have a flag bridge, and I have to be able to see battle plot.

 

 

That means the flag will be on the command deck. If a single hit takes out me, Commodore Tsing, and you--was she shrugged.

 

 

"I see." Sung still sounded unhappy, and Hah found it hard to blame him. "But where will I be, sir? Auxiliary fire control?" "No, Commander Tomanaga will be there. I want you with Mister Reznick in command datalink." She caught him with a level stare. "Understand this, Commander.

 

 

If the command deck buys it, you're suddenly going to ino herit an entire battlegroup, because yours will be the only ship with command datalink capability.

 

 

Hopefully Commander Tomanaga will still be around to advise you, but I can't even promise you that." "I see, sir." Sung licked his lips, then nodded firmly. "I see." "I'm glad you do, Chung-hui." She glanced at her watch. "All right--let's get back to the bridge." She killed the holograph and tucked her cap under her arm, facing them as they rose. "But remember, gentlemen, up to now, it's been a matter of seizing choke points where we happened to have mutinying units and cleaning up undefended sys-terns. That's over now. We're going to fight for everything we get from here on out, and I want the Republican Navy to be just as dedicated and just as professional as the Federation Navy. This is a civil war, and passions are running high on both sides, but there had better not be any Jason Wagg'decks under my command. These aren't Arachnids we're fighting--they're Terrans. I expect you to act accordingly." Then she turned, and they followed her silently from the briefing room.

 

 

"Good afternoon, Commodore IA." Admiral Ashigara regarded Hah from her eom screen, and Han watched her left hand play with her empty right cuff in the nervous gestu she'd developed since Bigelow. "We have the data from' the Aklumar recon probes.

 

 

It would seemm' the admiral permitted herself a thin smile his-comyour concerns were we]] founded. The probes report a single unit, probably a heavy cruiser, guarding the Aklumar-Cimmaron warp point. His "I see," Hah said. "But there's not one on the Lassa-Aklumar point?" "No," Ashigara said softly, and Hah knew her admiral had considered the same point she had.

 

 

It would have made a calculating sort of sense to post a second picket. The nearer watchdog would have virtually no chance of surviving any attack from 'Lassa, but her very destruction would insure a warning for the defenders of Cimmaron.

 

 

"I have decided to approve your plan, Commodore," Ashigara went on after a moment. "I will detach Ashanti and Sctthian to accompany Longbow, and your force will mae transit in two hours. The rest of the task force will follow eight hours later, in standard formation at half speed. We will remain beyond scanner range until you engage, but once you do, we are committed. Either you will destroy him before he dispatches a warning, or you will not. In either case, therefore, the task force will assume Formation Alpha and transit to Cimmaron immediately, without reconnaissance. There would be little time to evaluate the results of a probe recon even if we could send probes through without giving the warning we desire to prevent the picket from sending, so there is no point in delaying the inevitable." "I understand, sir," Han said, hoping she sounded equally "Very well, Commodore. Ashanti and Scythian will report to you shortly. Good hunting.

 

 

"Thank you, sir," Hah said, and the screen went blank.

 

 

"All stations report closed up, Captain." Lieutenant Chu was clearly more nervous over filling in for Sung than he was over the prospect of being blown to atoms, Han noted wryly.

 

 

'hank you, Lieutenant." She glanced at a side screen which held the faces of Sung and Reznick. "Are you ready, gentlemen?"

 

 

"Yes, sir," Sung said. "Data net is operational and ECM is active." "Very well. Let's go, Mister Chu." Longbow quivered as her drive engaged, and Hah felt a familiar queasiness as the grav-damping drive field warred briefly with the artificial shipboard gravity. There had to be a better way to do such things, she told herself absently, but her attention was on Battle One.

 

 

The battle-cruiser nosed into the warp point to Aklumar, and her entire hull writhed as the tidal stress of transit twisted her. It was a brief sensation, but one which could be neither forgotten nor described to anyone who hadn't felt it, and Han gritted her teeth against the sudden surge of nausea. Some people claimed not to mind warp transit, or even to enjoy it. Some people, she thought, were liars.

 

 

The tactical display shimmered as delicate, shielded equipment hiccupped to the warp stress. Then the image steadied as the computers stabilized, and she was staring at a blank screen. Within the range of Longbow's scanners, space was empty.

 

 

She felt herself relax as the emptiness registered. She'd expected it, but the confirmation was still a vast relief. NoWill all she had to do was sneak up on the ship vatching the Cimmaron junction.

 

 

"All right," she said softly, leaning back.

 

 

"I want a sharp watch. We should come into scanner range in--was she glanced at the chronometer his-comsixty-four hours and ten minutes, but ff he's decided to move, we may meet him much sooner and where we don't expect it. So stay on your toes.

 

 

He bridge crew made no reply, and she nodded in satisfaction. So far, she told herself, toying with the seal of her vac suit, so good.

 

 

"Iaere she is, sir," Lieutenant Chu said, and Han nodded as courteously as ff she hadn't already seen the small, red dot. A moment passed; then small, precise data codes flashed under the blip and it turned orange, indicating a cruiser class vessel. The red band of an enemy identification continued to pulse around it, but Longbow's computers INSUB.ECTION knestv ler now, and a quick search of the database provided her name, as well.

 

 

"She's the Swiftsure, sir," a scanner rating announced. "Thank you, de Stair," Hah said calmly, and watched the blip creep slowly across the display as her small squadron slid stealthily closer. She glanced at Battle Two, checking her own formation. Even Longbow's scanners couldn't have located Ashanti and Sctthian with certainty, if they hadn't known exactly where to look. Now it remained to be seen whether or not Swiftsure's scanners would detect them as they closed to missile range. The odds against it were astronomical, but it was possible.

 

 

"Commodore, we're coming into extreme range." It was Lieutenant Kan, her gunnery officer.

 

 

"I have a good setup." "Stand by, Mister Kan." Han watched the tactical display unblinkingly, her expressionless face hiding her flashing ttoughts as she considered. The range was long, but all three of her ships carried external loads of capital missiles, so she could fire now, banking on the fact that the motionless Swiftsure was an ideal, non-evading target.

 

 

But the scout cruisers lacked Longbow's more sophisticated fire control, so their accuracy would be poorer, and missiles were sublight weapons.

 

 

Firing at longer ranges meant longer flight times and gave Swiftsure a better chance to detect their approach in time to get a drone off. On the other hand, the closer her ships came, the more likely Swiftsure was to detect them, which made deciding exactly when to fire a nice problem in balanced imperatives.

 

 

Han felt herself tightening internally, but her bridge crew saw no sign of it. She made herself lean back in her command chair. Ten light-seconds. That was the range at which detection became almost inevitable. She glanced at the tactical display. Eleven light-seconds.

 

 

"Open fire, Mister Kan," she said quietly, and Longbow twitched as she flushed her external ordnance racks. The missiles lifted away, drives howling as they slammed across the vacuum between Han's squadron and her victim at sixty percent of light speed. She watched the speckled lights on her display as the missiles arrowed towards their target, and her brain concentrated on Swiftsure's blip, watching like a hawk, hoping the doomed cruiser would die unknowing. But another part of her hummed with a sort of elated grief.

 

 

The missiles bore down on Swiftsure, and Han heard a murmur of excitement around her.

 

 

Clearly their enemy had never suspected their proximity--comeven her point defense was late and firing wide. Only three missiles were stopped by her desperate, close-in defenses; the others went home eighteen seconds after launch in a cataclysmic detonation brighter than the star of Aklumar.

 

 

The dreadful fireball died, sucked away by the greedy emptiness, and Han stared at her display, her heart as cold as the void around her ship. There was nothing left. No courier drones--noto escape pods. Just, ,. nothing.

 

 

She stared at Battle One for perhaps five seconds, and somewhere deep within her was a horrified little girl. She was a warrior. This wasn't the first time she'd participated in the death of another ship and its crew. But it was the first time she'd struck down fellow Terrans from the shadows like an assassin.

 

 

She'd given them only warning enough to know death had come for them. Only enough to feel the terror.

 

 

She knew her success would save hundreds of her eom-rades when the Battle of Cimmaron began, but knowing did nothing to still her shame or the shocked sickness of triumph crawling down her nerves.

 

 

She turned her command chair to face Lieutenant Chu. ""Take position two light-seconds from the warp point on the task force approach vector, Mister Chu, then get the XO racks rearmed." Her face was serene. "We'll wait here for further orders." "Aye, aye, sir," Lieutenant Chu said.

 

 

He hesitated a moment, but his enthusiasm was too great to resist. "That was beautiful, sir.

 

 

Beautiful!" ""Thank you, Lieutenant," Hah said coolly, and her eyes met Tsing's. He regarded her steadily, his face unreadable as he reached for the pipe lying on his console. He stuffed it slowly, and Hah looked away.

 

 

"Battlegroup formed up for warp, sir." "'Thank you, Commodore Tsing." Hah drew a deep, unobtrusive breath, tasting the oxygen in her lungs like wine, and felt Longbow gathering her strength about her.

 

 

Her "beccutiful, deadly Longbow, ready to plunge through the maelstrom of warp, eager to engage her foes. And suddenly Han, too, was eager eager to confront her enemies openly. She allowed herself a last glance at the long, gleaming line of dots stretched out astern of her battlegroup, then touched a stud.

 

 

"Flagship." The voice in the implant behind her ear was brisk and professional, but she heard the tension blurring its edges.

 

 

"Commodore Li," she identified herself. "BG 12 ready to proceed." "Very well, Commodore." Han recognized the harsh voice of her admiral. "Execute your orders." "Aye, aye, sir. Commodore Li, out." She turned her head slightly, glancing at Commander Tomanaga and Lieutenant Reznick on her eom screen. "You heard the lady, gentleghen.

 

 

Full military, power, Commander Tomanaga." "Aye, aye, sir!" Tomanaga's face split in a sparkling grin of mingled tension and anticipation. His fingers flew over his command panel, and program codes flashed from his terminal to the datalink equipment sprawled across the electronics section. Rezniek watched them flicker across his monitor, ready to reenter them if any of his delicate circuitry, suddenly died, and Commander Sung sat beside him, feeling unutterablv useless away from his station on the bridge. His Battlegroup Twelve awoke. The individuality of its ships vanished into the 'vast, composite entity of their data net. Drives snarled, snatched awake by signals flowing from Tomanaga's computer, harnessed and channeled to Han's will, and the battlegroup hurled itself at the warp point.

 

 

Hah held her breath as the line of ships flashed towards the small, invisible portal--the tinv flaw in space which would hurl them almost two hundred light-years in a fleeting instant spent somewhere else. Oniv one ship at a time would enter that magic gateway; death was the penalty for ships which transited a warp point too close together. Two ships could emerge from warp in the same instant, in the same volume of normal space--but only for the briefest interval. Then there would be a single, very violent explosion, and neither ship would ever be seen Now BG 12 led the Terran Republican Navy's first offensive, and the battle-cruisers struck at the warp point like a steel serpent.

 

 

TRNS Bardiche vanished into the whirlpool of gravitic stress like a fiery dart, followed by Bayonet, and then it was Longbow's turn. Han drew one last breath, her mind focused down into a tight, icy knot of concentration, and Longbow leapt instantly from the calm of Aklumar into the blazing nightmare of Cimmaron.

 

 

"Incoming Fire!" Kan snapped.

 

 

"Missiles tracking port and starboard." Damn, those gunners had been fast off the mark!

 

 

Their missiles must have been launched even before they'd seen Longbow--launched on the probability that someone would be coming through from Aklumar to meet them.

 

 

Thank God Swiftsure had been less alert!

 

 

If the forts had been granted any more warning @u.

 

 

. if they'd had their energy weapons on line.

 

 

More missiles flashed towards her ships. She ignored them. There was nothing she could do about them. They were Kan's responsibility, his and the point defense crews"; she had responsibilities of her own, and through the blur of battle chatter and the soft beeping of prioriWill warning signals she heard Tsing hammering his keyboard as he and Tomanaga and Reznick fought to restabilize the net and feed her the data she needed.

 

 

There! The display cleared suddenly, the dots of her battlegroup clear and sharp, and they were all there!

 

 

Dwarfed by the massive, crimson dots of the forts they might be, but they had all survived, and suddenly the data net had them. Missiles flashed away as their XO racks flushed.

 

 

Brilliant detonations wracked the space around the fortresses, hammering their shields like Titans, and Han heard Kan's whoop of triumph. Their missile crews had been far more alert than their point defense gunners, she thought grimly. The first massive salvo went in virtually unopposed, and one of the forts was suddenly streaming atmosphere through shattered armor and plating.

 

 

But missiles were still screaming towards BG 12, and Han saw the dots of her ships flash crazily as Skywatch's warheads crashed among them.

 

 

Longbow's datalink took control of BG 12's point defense systems, dragooning them into a tigtlt-woven network in defense of the entire battlegroup, and Hah caught a brief impression of her two escort destroyers as their missile defenses flared like volca- noes against the incoming tide of destruction.

 

 

But not all of it could be stopped.

 

 

"Signal from Bardiche, Commodore! Code Omega!" Han's eyes darted to her lead ship, the one in the spot Tomanaga had wanted for Longbow. The ancient, inverted horseshoe-symbol of death for the ships of Terra--flashed across her blip, brilliant precursor of her doom. Then her dot vanished, and Li Hah no longer commanded four battle-cruisers.

 

 

"Close the range, Commodore Tsing.

 

 

Missiles to sprint mode. Stand by to engage with hetlasers." "Good hits on target two, sir!" Lieutenant Kan's voice rang in Han's ears. He had precious little time for reports, for it zsthis panel, feeding through the datalink, which controlledthe gunnery of the entire battlegroup, but he was right. Target two was an air-streaming ruin, its re-mastning weapons no longer synchronized with its fellows.

 

 

"Two's datalink is gone, Gunnery," she said, amazed at the calm sound of her own voice.

 

 

"Drop it. Concentrate on one and three." "Aye, sir. Fire shifting now!" "Falchion's out of the net, sir!" Tsing reported sharply. ""leAlso her to withdraw," Han said, not even looking up from Battle One. Without the protection of synchronized point defense, Falchion was helpless before the hurricane of missiles slashing in upon her. Her only hope was to break off. If she could. If the forts would let her go.

 

 

Time had stopped. Han's ship lunged around her, squirming desperately through the fortresses' fire.

 

 

Half her battle-cruisers gone already, and the engagement had only begun! She heard her voice, cold as ice, belonging to a stranger as it rapped out orders, fighting for her ships' survival with every skill she had been taught, every intuition she had been given by God. And it wasn't enough. She knew it wasn't enough. Longbow lurched as another missile slammed into her shields--and another. Where was Petrovna? Where was the rest of the task force?

 

 

Surely she and her people had been fighting alone for hours!

 

 

"Falchion--Code Omega," Communications reported flatly.

 

 

"Scanners report enemy fighters launching, sir! ETA of first strike ninety, seconds!" "Abort standard missile engagement," she heard herself say. "Stand by AFHAWK'S. Take the forts with beams, Chang." "Aye, aye, sir." Longbow lurched indescribably, and Han's teeth snapped together through her tongue. She tasted blood, and dust motes hovered in the air.

 

 

"Direct hit, sir! Laser Two's gone!

 

 

Heavy casualties in Drive Three!" "Initiate damage control. Tracking, anything on BG 117" "Battleaxe is emerging now, sir!" Thank God! Help was coming. If she could just hold on-- Longbow twisted, writhing as force beams pummeled her. The shields were down, and armor and plating shattered under the assault. Han felt her ship's pain in her own flesh as the shock frame hammered her, bruising her savagely through her vac suit.

 

 

The bridge lighting flickered and flashed back up, and she heard the deadly hiss of escaping air.

 

 

"Vac suits!" She snapped down the faceplat of her own helmet. It was too much. The price they were paying was too high.

 

 

"Here come the fighters!" Han saw them on Battle One, sweeping in from port in a wave. They were too tight, showing their inexperience in the massed target they gave her gunners--but there were so many of them!

 

 

"Engage with AFHAWK'S," she said coldly.

 

 

David Reznick no longer watched his monitor. He was too busy with his servos, fighting the mounting destruction of his jury-rigged equipment.

 

 

Repair robots scuttled through forests of cables like metal beetles, bridging broken circuits, fighting the steady collapse. He was dimly aware that Commander Sung had taken over the backup monitor as he himself strove desperately against the inevitable. The vibration was even worse than he'd feared, yet somehow he kept the net on line despite the terrible pounding.

 

 

Then it happened. He was never certain, afterwards, exactly what it felt like. One moment he was crouched over his remotes, directing his army of mechanical henchmen -comthe next a wall of fire exploded through the compartment. He heard the screams of his datalink crew, and the air was suddenly thick with the stench of burning flesh.

 

 

He slammed down his visor in blind reflex, choking and gasping as his suit scrubbers attacked the smoke, and blinked furiously against the tears, fighting to see through the flames. He got only a glimpse of his monitors, but it was enough.

 

 

There was no hope of restoring the net, and the heel of his hand slammed down on the secondary datalink.

 

 

There was no response. The system was dead, and Longbow was on her own.

 

 

Hwhirled to another console, jerking a red lever, and his suit whuffed out as blast doors slammed and emergency hatches blew. The fire died instantly, smoke, oxygen, and fuel alike snatched away by vacuum, and only then did he wonder why he'd been left to throw the switch. That was Commander Sung's job He looked down and retched into his helmet.

 

 

Less than half Sung's body lay there, and the fragment which remained was shriveled into something less than human. Reznick sobbed and dragged himself away, nostrils full of the smell of his own vomit as he crawled across the gutted compartment through the shattered circuitry and molten cables. Surely someone was still alive?

 

 

"Datalink gone, sir! Point Defense One no longer responds! Main Fire Control's out of the circuit! Heavy casualties in Auxiliary Fire Control!" Han merely nodded as the litany of disaster crashed over her. Longbow was dying-only a miracle could save her ship now. She glanced at the plot, frozen in the instant her scanners went out. One fort was gone and one was badly damaged, but the third remained. Magda Petrovna was here, furiously engaging the remaining fortifications, and it looked as if all her ships were intact. And Kellerman's carriers were launching; she'd seen the tiny dots of strikefighters going out even as her display locked. But

 

 

BG 12 was gutted. Bardiche and Falchion were gone, and Longbow was savagely mauled. She had a vague memory of an Omega report on Yellowjacket, and it horrified her to realize she couldn't remember when the escort destroyer had died.

 

 

"Withdraw, Mister Chu," she said harshly.

 

 

"There's nothing more we can do." Longbow turned to limp brokenly away.

 

 

Han's shock frame broke as a massive concussion threw her from her chair. She turned in midair like a cat, landing in a perfect roll and bouncing back onto her feet in an instant. Lieutenant Chu was draped over his console--it took only a glance at his shattered helmet and grotesquely twisted spine to know she could do nothing for him. Lieutenant Kan heaved himself out of the ruin of his fire control panel, one hand slamming a patch over a hissing hole in his vac suit sleeve. Tsing was there, and five ratings. The rest of her bridge crew was dead.

 

 

She was still turning towards Tsing when the drive field died. There was no way to pass damage reports to what remained of her bridge, but she needed no reports now; the loss of the field meant the next warhead would vaporize her ship. There was no time for fear or pain or to oss. Not now. Her chin thrust down on the helmet switch, and her voice reached every, living ear remaining aboard her ship.

 

 

"Condition Omega! Abandon ship! Abandon ship!" she said, her voice almost as calm and dispassionate as when the action began. "Aban--was Longbow's fractured hull screamed as another force beam ripped across her command section, shattering plating and flesh. The shock picked Han up and hurled her against a bulkhead, and darkness smashed her under.

 

 

Han's vision cleared. She felt hands on her arms and looked around dazedly. Tsing held her to eft arm, Kan her right, and the thunder of their suit packs came to her through their bodies as they fought for their lives and hers. She tried to reach her own pack controls, but she was weak, numb, washed out. They were risking their lives for her, and she wanted to order them to save themselves, but he had nothing left to give. She could only stare back at the gutted, shattered ruin of her splendid ship, her beautiful ship, her tremendous, vital, living Longbow, dying behind her.

 

 

Point Defense Two was still in action, its Marine crew ignoring her bailout order as they fought to delay the moment o pounds destruction--to give their fellows time to clear the lethal zone of the impending fireball, and tears clouded her eyes as she watched their hopeless battle. She should be with them.

 

 

She should he there with her people. And howmany of her other people lay dead within her beautiful, broken ship? How many o left-brace her family had she left behind?

 

 

The question was still driving through her as the missile struck. It took Longbow amidships--not that it mattered to the defenseless hulk. Hah had a brief impression of fury and brilliance and light before her helmet polarized and cut off her-vision. Then the fireball reached out to claim her, and there was only darkness.

 

 

CASUALTY Li Han woke unwillingly. There was something horrible, she thought in drowsy terror. Something waiting-- She opened her eves to a pastel ceiling and brilliant sun patterns, dancing ad leaping as the window curtains fluttered, and relief filled her.

 

 

It had been a bad dream. She raised a hand to her forehead. A nightmare. If it had been real, she'd be dead. And she wasn't even...

 

 

Her hand slid over her forehead, and her eyes widened in horror, for she had no eyebrows. Her hand moved higher, trembling with the tactile memory of long, sleek hair.., but there was no hair.

 

 

The discovery slashed awav her drowsiness, and ivory,-knuckled fists clenched. It had happened, and tears burned as her broken heart railed at a universe cruel enough to spare her from her beautiful Longbow's destruction.

 

 

But long years of mental discipline chided the extravagance of her grief. The universe moved as it would; it was neither kind nor cruel, and all it asked of her was that she play her own part against its vast impartiality,. Her pale lips murmured mind-focusing mnemonics, channeling grief in a technique which had served her well over the years, but this time it took over an hour to approach calm.

 

 

Yet calm came at last, and her eyes opened once more. She was in a hospital, she thought, turning to the window. On a planet with a small, warm sun that could be neither planefiess Aklumar nor cool, barren lssa and so must be

 

 

Cimmaon. Which meant that the Republic had won... or lost. She smiled with a ghost of real humor as she pondered the question. Was she a victorious hero in a conquered hospital? Or a miserable POW, doctored by her captors? There was ongg'ity one way to find out, and she reached for the call button, dismayed by the languid, weary weakness o pounds her muscles.

 

 

Her door opened within seconds, and she turned her naked head slowly, blinking against tears and light dazzle, as a woman in nursing whites entered. It took endgg'ess seconds to clear her eyes enough to read the tiny letters etched across the nurse's medical branch caduceus. "rRN," they said.

 

 

So they'd won; no Rump commander would permit POW'S to wear the Republic's insignia, and her eyes closed again as relief ate at her frail reserves. Then she felt cool fingers in the ages-old, feathery touch as her pulse was checked and forced her eyes back open, staring up into a plain, serene face.

 

 

"How--was Her throat was dry and she felt a sudden surge of nausea, but she tried again, grimly. "How long?" she husked, and the rusty croak which had replaced her soprano appalled her.

 

 

"A little over a week, Commodore," the nurse said calmly, and offered her a tumbler of half-melted ice. She held the plastic straw to Han's cracked lips, and Hah sucked avidly, coughing as the water ran down her desiccated throat. It was only when the nurse finally removed the straw, gently disengaging Han's weak fingers from their almost petulant, childlike grip, that her words penetrated.

 

 

A week.t Impossible! And yet...

 

 

"A week?" she repeated, cursing the haziness of her thoughts.

 

 

"Yes, Commodore," the nurse said serenely, and touched a switch. The bed rose under Han's shoulders, and she clutched suddenly at the side rails, eyes rounding in pure astonishment as vertigo flashed through her.

 

 

"Too much?" The nurse released the button quickly, but Han shook her head almost viciously.

 

 

She was a naval officer, and no hospital bed was going to make her whoop her cookies! The nurse watched her a moment, then shrugged and held the button down until Hah sat bolt upright, wondering dizzily if her pride was worth such physical distress.

 

 

But the vertigo slowly diminished. The bed still seemed to curtsy gently and nausea still rippled, but it was better. Perhaps if she told herself that often enough she would even believe it. She focused with some difficulty on the nurse's nameplate.

 

 

"Lieutenant Tinnamou--" "Yes, Commodore?" "Mirror?" Han husked. The lieutenant's eyes remained serene, but Hah saw the doubt and forced her hurtful lips into a smile. "I--can handle it." "All right." The nurse produced a small mirror. It seemed to weigh fifty kilos, but Han managed to raise it and peer at the stranger it held.

 

 

Her eyes were huge holes in a thin, gray-green face, sores covered her lips, and 'dark mottled patches disfigured her complexion.

 

 

Her hairless skull seemed obscene and tiny on the bony column of her neck, and her collarbone was a sharp ridge at the neck of her hospital gown.

 

 

Rad poisoning. She'd seen it before, but, her detached, dizzy mind decided calmly, she'd never seen anyone look worse and live. Her brain went back to that final nightmare instant of consciousness, seeing her helmet polarize again.

 

 

Close, she thought. Her impression of the fireball reaching out for her was all too close to the truth.

 

 

"Captain Tsing?" she asked hoarsely. "Lieutenant Kan?" "Both alive, Commodore," Lieutenant Tinnamou said briskly, reclaiming the mirror. But she laid it conveniently on the bedside table, and Han felt pathetically grateful. The gesture seemed to imply confidence in her ability to endure what it had shown her.

 

 

"Hhow bad?" She gestured weakly at herself.

 

 

"Not good, sir, but you'll make it. I'd rather let your doctor give you the whole picture." "When?" "He's on his way now," the lieutenant said.

 

 

"I expect-- The door hissed open and a small, cherub-faced man bounced in, smiling so hugely she wondered whether she ISVSSECTO was mole amused by his antics or resentful of his abundant energy.

 

 

"Good morning, Commodore Li!" he said briskly, and her eyes widened at the harsh, sharp-edged vowels of his New Detroit accent.

 

 

They dropped almost involuntarily to his uniform insignia.

 

 

"Yes," he grinned wryly, "I'm one of those damned loyalists, Commodore. But then--was his smile turned gently mocking his-- uniforms don't matter much to us kindly healers. I can find you a good, honest rebel if you like, but I'm really quite a good doctor." His ironic tone touched something inside her, and her cracked lips quivered.

 

 

"Much better!" he chuckled, crossing his arms and looking down at her. "I'm Captain Llewellyn, by the way. Pleased to meet you at last. I've been in and out for the last week or so, but you've only been out." "How bad?" Han asked hoarsely.

 

 

"Could be worse," he said frankly, "but not a lot. It was all touch and near-as-damn-it-go, actually. At the moment, you weigh about twenty-eight kilos." She flinched, but her eyes were steady, and he nodded approval.

 

 

"You were lucky it was only a nice, clean fighter missile,"" he went on. "On the other hand, you'd already have checked out of our little hotel ff you'd had the shielding of an escape pod. I understand the bridge pods were buckled and your crew got you out just in time, as it were." "H-how many?" she husked.

 

 

"From the bridge?" He looked at her compassionately. "Five counting you." She winced, and he went on quickly. "But overall, you did much better. Over half your crew got out safely." Her lips twisted. He was right, of course; fifty percent was a miraculous figure. But ff over half had survived, almost half had not.

 

 

"As for you, you got an awful dose, but your chief of staff seems to have unusual tad tolerance. He got you and your lieutenant picked up and hooked to blood exchangers in time, but even so, it was a rough forty-eight hours. We've managed to scrub you out pretty well, and the cell count looks okay, but it was tight, ma'am. Really, really tight." "Don't look much like I made it anyway," Han rasped. "Ah." Llewellyn nodded. "You are a bit the worst for wear, Commodore. We doctors should, after all, be honest. But you'll improve quickly now we can get you off the IV'S and put a little weight back on you." He examined her face critically and rose briskly. "But for now, I want you to go back to sleep. I know, I know--was he waved aside her half-voiced protests his-comy just got here. Well, the planet isn't going anywhere, and neither are you. We've got you scrubbed out, but you have seven broken ribs, a cracked cheekbone, a fractured femur, and a skull fracture--just for starters. I'm afraid you're going to take a while healing up from that." Hah blinked at him, wondering where the pain was.

 

 

They must have her loaded to the gills with painkillers, she decided, which helped explain her wooziness. His last words seemed to echo around a vast, dark cavern, and she realized dimly that the cavern was her own skull. She blinked again and let herself sink into the lightheadedness. The sun patterns on the ceiling danced above her, weaving the pattern of her dreams.

 

 

The next few days were bad. Hah was sick and dizzy, and she hated her surrounding forest of scrubbers and monitors. The instruments were silent, but she knew they were there--probing and peering for the firs sign of uncorrected damage. They were part of the technology which kept her alive, and she hated them because they were part of what confined her to her bed.

 

 

It took long, hard effort to attain her normal calm, and it slipped away abruptly, without warning. She hated her loss of control almost as much as she did her weakness, and that loss showed when Lieutenant Tinnamou refused to let her visit Tsing Chang.

 

 

Hah tried reason. It didn't work, so she pulled rank, only to find that medicos are remarkably impervious to intimidation. And finally, she resorted to a hell-raising tantrum which would have shocked anyone who knew her and, in fact, shocked her--but not as much as the flood of tears which followed.

 

 

That stopped her dead. She fell back on her pillows, exhausted by the expenditure of emotion, and her emaciated form shook with the force of her sobs.

 

 

She turned her face away from the nurse's compassionate eyes, and the ('ieutenaht frowned down at her for a moment, then stepped out into the hall.