The Vor Game

by Lois McMaster Bujold

  “As my ally,” began Tung.

  “Not ally. Your commander. Or nothing,” said Miles.

  Tung stood stockily, his brows struggling to find their level. In a mild tone he finally said, “Daddy Ky's little boy is growing up, it seems."

  “That's not the half of it. Are you in, or out?"

  “The other half of this is something I've got to hear.” Tung sucked on his lower lip. “In."

  Miles stuck out his hand. “Done."

  Tung took it. “Done.” His grip was determined.

  Miles let out a long breath. “All right. I gave you some half-truths, last time. Here's what's really going on.” He began to pace, his shaking not all from the nerve disruptor nimbus. “I do have a contract with an interested outsider, but it wasn't for ‘military evaluation,’ which is the smoke screen I gave Oser. The part I told you about preventing a planetary civil war was not smoke. I was hired by the Barrayarans."

  “They don't normally hire mercenaries,” said Tung.

  “I'm not a normal mercenary. I'm being paid by Barrayaran Imperial Security,” God, at least one whole-truth, “to find and rescue a hostage. On the side I hope to stop a now-imminent Cetagandan invasion fleet from taking over the Hub. Our second strategic priority will be to hold both sides of the Vervain wormhole jump and as much else as we can till Barrayaran reinforcements arrive."

  Tung cleared his throat. “Second priority? What if they don't arrive? There's Pol to cross.... And, ah, hostage-rescue does not normally take precedence over fleetwide strat-tac ops, eh?"

  “Given the identity of this hostage, I guarantee their arrival. The Barrayaran emperor, Gregor Vorbarra, was kidnapped. I found him, lost him, and now I've got to get him back. As you can imagine, I expect the reward for his safe return to be substantial."

  Tung's face was a study in appalled enlightenment. “That skinny neurasthenic git you had in tow before—that wasn't him, was it?"

  “Yes, it was. And between us, you and I managed to deliver him straight to Commander Cavilo."

  “Oh. Shit.” Tung rubbed his burr-haired skull. “She'll sell him straight to the Cetagandans."

  “No. She means to collect her reward from Barrayar."

  Tung opened his mouth, closed it, held up a finger. “Wait a minute...."

  “It's complicated,” Miles conceded helplessly. “That's why I'm going to delegate the simple part, holding the wormhole, to you. The hostage-rescue part will be my responsibility."

  “Simple. The Dendarii mercenaries. All five thousand of us. Single-handed. Against the Cetagandan Empire. Have you forgotten how to count in the last four years?"

  “Think of the glory. Think of your reputation. Think how great it'll look on your next resume."

  “On my cenotaph, you mean. Nobody will be able to collect enough of my scattered atoms to bury. You going to cover my funeral expenses, son?"

  “Splendidly. Banners, dancing girls, and enough beer to float your coffin to Valhalla."

  Tung sighed. “Make it plum wine to float the boat, eh? Drink the beer. Well.” He stood silent a moment, rubbing his lips. “The first step is to put the fleet on one-hour-alert status instead of twenty-four."

  “They're not already?” Miles frowned.

  “We were defensive. We figured we had at least thirty-six hours to study anything coming at us across the Hub. Or, so Oser figured it. It'll take about six hours to bring us up to one-hour readiness."

  “Right ... that's the second step, then. Your first step will be to kiss and make up with Captain Auson."

  “Kiss my ass!” cried Tung. “That vacuumhead—"

  “Is needed to command the Triumph while you run Fleet Tac. You can't do both. I can't reorganize the fleet this close to the action. If I had a week to weed out—well, I don't. Oser's people must be persuaded to stay on their jobs. If I have Auson,” Miles's upheld hand closed cage-like, “I can run the rest. One way or another."

  Tung growled frustrated acquiescence. “All right.” His glower faded to a slow grin. “I'd pay money to watch you make him kiss Thorne, though."

  “One miracle at a time."

  * * * *

  Captain Auson, a big man four years ago, had put on a little more weight but seemed otherwise unchanged. He stepped into Oser's cabin, took in the stunners aimed his way, and stood, hands clenching. When he saw Miles, sitting on the edge of Oser's comconsole desk (a psychological ploy to put his head level with everyone else's; in the station chair Miles feared he looked like a child in need of a booster seat at the dinner table), Auson's expression melted from anger to horror. “Oh, hell! Not you again!"

  “But of course,” shrugged Miles. The stunner-armed flies on the wall, Chodak and his man, suppressed grins of happy anticipation. “The action's about to start."

  “You can't take this—” Auson broke off to peer at Oser. “What did you do to him?"

  “Let's just say, we adjusted his attitude. As for the fleet, it's already mine.” Well, he was working on it, anyway. “The question is, will you choose to be on the winning side? Pocket a combat bonus? Or shall I give command of the Triumph to—"

  Auson bared his teeth to Tung in a silent snarl.

  “—Bel Thorne?"

  “What?” Auson yelped. Tung flinched, wincing. “You can't—"

  Miles cut over him. “Do you happen to recall how you graduated from command of the Ariel to command of the Triumph? Yes?"

  Auson pointed to Tung. “What about him?"

  “My contractor will contribute value equal to the Triumph, which will become Tung's vested share in the fleet corporation. In return Commodore Tung will relinquish all claim on the ship itself. I will confirm Tung's rank as Chief of Staff/Tactical, and yours as captain of the flagship Triumph. Your original contribution, equal to the value of the Ariel less liens, will be confirmed as your vested share in the fleet corporation. Both ships will be listed as owned by the fleet."

  “Do you go along with this?” Auson demanded of Tung.

  Miles prodded Tung with a steely look. “Yeah,” said Tung grudgingly.

  Auson frowned over this. “It isn't just the money...” He paused, brow wrinkling. “What combat bonus? What combat?"

  He who hesitates, is had. “Are you in or out?"

  Auson's moon face took on a cunning look. “I'm in—if he apologizes."

  “What? This meatmind thinks—"

  “Apologize to the man, Tung dear,” Miles sang through his teeth, “and let's get on. Or the Triumph gets a captain who can be its own first mate. Who, among other manifold virtues, doesn't argue with me."

  “Of course not, the little Betan flipsider's in love,” snapped Auson. “I've never been able to figure out if it wants to get screwed or bugger you—"

  Miles smiled and held up a restraining hand. “Now, now.” He nodded toward Elena, who had holstered her stunner in favor of a nerve disrupter. Pointed steadily at Auson's head.

  Her smile reminded Miles unsettlingly of one of Sergeant Bothari's. Or worse, of Cavilo's. “Have I ever mentioned, Auson, how much the sound of your voice irritates me?” she inquired.

  “You wouldn't fire,” said Auson uncertainly.

  “I wouldn't stop her,” Miles lied. “I need your ship. It would be convenient—but not necessary—if you would command her for me.” His gaze flicked like a knife toward his putative Chief of Staff/Tac. "Tung?"

  With ill-grace, Tung mouthed a nobly-worded, if vague, apology to Auson for past slurs on his character, intelligence, ancestry, appearance—as Auson's face darkened Miles stopped Tung's catalogue in mid-list and made him start over. “Keep it simpler."

  Tung took a breath. “Auson, you can be a real shithead sometimes, but dammit, you can fight when you have to. I've seen you. In the tight and the bad and the crazy, I'll take you at my back before any other captain in the fleet."

  One side of Auson's mouth curled up. “Now, that's sincere. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your concern for my safety. How tight and bad and
crazy do you think this is going to get?"

  Tung, Miles decided, had a most unsavory chuckle.

  * * * *

  The captain-owners were brought in one by one, to be persuaded, bribed, blackmailed and bedazzled till Miles's mouth was dry, throat raw, voice hoarse. Only the Peregrine's captain tried to physically fight. He was stunned and bound, and his second-in-command given the immediate choice between brevet promotion and a long walk out a short airlock. He chose promotion, though his eyes said, Another day. As long as that other day came after the Cetagandans, Miles was satisfied.

  They moved to the larger conference chamber across from the Tactics Room for the strangest Staff conference Miles had ever attended. Oser was fortified with a booster shot of fast-penta and propped up at the head of the table like a stuffed and smiling corpse. At least two others were tied to their chairs gagged. Tung traded his yellow pajamas for undress greys, commodore's insignia pinned hastily over his captain's tags. The reaction of the audience to Tung's initial tactical presentation ranged from dubious to appalled, overcome (almost) by the pelting headlong pace of the actions demanded of them. Tung's most compelling argument was the sinister suggestion that if they didn't set themselves up as the wormhole's defenders, they might be required to attack through it later against a prepared Cetagandan defense, a vision that generated shudders all around the table. It could be worse was always an unassailable assertion.

  Partway through, Miles massaged his temples and leaned over to whisper to Elena, “Was it always this bad, or have I just forgotten?"

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully and murmured back, “No, the insults were better in the old days.” Miles muffled a grin.

  Miles made a hundred unauthorized claims and unsupported promises, and at last things broke up, each to their duty stations. Oser and the Peregrine's captain were marched away under guard to the brig. Tung paused only to frown down at the brown felt slippers. “If you're going to command my outfit, son, would you please do an old soldier a favor and get a pair of regulation boots?” At last only Elena remained.

  “I want you to re-interrogate General Metzov,” Miles told her. “Pull out all the Ranger tactical disposition data you can—codes, ships on-line, off-line, last known positions, personnel oddities, plus whatever he may know about the Vervani. Edit out any unfortunate references he may make to my real identity, and pass it on to Ops, with the warning that not everything Metzov thinks is true, necessarily is. It may help."

  “Right."

  Miles sighed, slumping wearily on his elbows at the empty conference table. “You know, the planetary patriots like the Barrayarans—us Barrayarans—have it wrong. Our officer cadre thinks that mercenaries have no honor, because they can be bought and sold. But honor is a luxury only a free man can afford. A good Imperial officer like me isn't honor-bound, he's just bound. How many of these honest people have I just lied to their deaths? It's a strange game."

  “Would you change anything, today?"

  “Everything. Nothing. I'd have lied twice as fast if I'd had to."

  “You do talk faster in your Betan accent,” she allowed.

  “You understand. Am I doing the right thing? If I can bring it off. Failure being automatically wrong.” Not a path to disaster, but all paths....

  Her brows rose. “Certainly."

  His lips twisted up. “So you,” whom I love, “my Barrayaran lady who hates Barrayar, are the only person in the Hub I can honestly sacrifice."

  She tilted her head in consideration of this. “Thank you, my lord.” She touched her hand to the top of his head, passing out of the chamber.

  Miles shivered.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Miles returned to Oser's cabin for a fast perusal of the admiral's comconsole files, trying to get a handle on all the changes in equipment and personnel that had occurred since he'd last commanded, and to assimilate the Dendarii/Aslunder intelligence picture of events in the Hub. Somebody brought him a sandwich and coffee, which he consumed without tasting. The coffee was no longer working to keep him alert, though he was still keyed to an almost unbearable tension.

  As soon as we undock, I'll crash in Oser's bed. He'd better spend at least some of the thirty-six hours transit time sleeping, or he'd be more liability than asset upon arrival. When he would have to deal with Cavilo, who made him feel like the proverbial unarmed man in the battle of wits even when he was at his best.

  Not to mention the Cetagandans. Miles considered the historical three-legged-race between weapons development and tactics.

  Projectile weapons for ship-to-ship combat in space had early been made obsolete by mass shielding and laser weapons. Mass shielding, designed to protect moving ships from space debris encountered at normal-space speeds up to half-cee, shrugged off missiles without even trying. Laser weapons in turn had been rendered useless by the arrival of the Sword-swallower, a Betan-developed defense that actually used the enemy fire as its own power source; a similar principle in the plasma mirror, developed in Miles's parents’ generation, promised to do the same to the shorter-range plasma weapons. Another decade might see plasma all phased out.

  The up-and-coming weapon for ship-to-ship fighting in the last couple of years seemed to be the gravitic imploder lance, a modification of tractor-beam technology; variously-designed artificial-gravity shields were still lagging behind in protection from it. The imploder beam made ugly twisty wreckage where it hit mass. What it did to a human body was a horror.

  But the energy-sucking imploder lance's range was insanely short, in terms of space speeds and distances, barely a dozen kilometers. Now, ships had to cooperate to grapple, to slow and close up to maneuver. Given also the small scale of wormhole volumes, fighting looked like it might suddenly become tight and intimate once again, except that too-tight formations invited “sun wall” attacks of massed nuclears. Round and round. It was hinted that ramming and boarding could actually become practical popular tactics once again. Till the next surprise arrived from the devil's workshops, anyway. Miles longed briefly for the good old days of his grandfather's generation, when people could kill each other from a clean fifty thousand kilometers. Just bright sparks.

  The effect of the new imploders on concentration of firepower promised to be curious, especially where a wormhole was involved. It was now possible that a small force in a small area could apply as much power per cubic whatever as a large force, which could not squeeze its largeness down to the effective range; although the difference in reserves still held good, of course. A large force willing to make sacrifices could keep beating away till sheer numbers overcame the smaller concentration. The Cetagandan ghem-lords were not allergic to sacrifice, though generally preferring to start with subordinates, or better still, allies. Miles rubbed his knotted neck muscles. The cabin buzzer blatted; Miles reached across the comconsole desk to key the door open.

  A lean, dark-haired man in his early thirties wearing mercenary grey-and-whites with tech insignia stood uncertainly in the aperture. “My lord?” he said in a soft voice.

  Baz Jesek, Fleet Engineering Officer. Once, Barrayaran Imperial Service deserter on the run; subsequently liege-sworn as a private Armsman to Miles in his identity as Lord Vorkosigan. And finally husband to the woman Miles loved. Once loved. Still loved.

  Damn. Miles cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Come in, Commodore Jesek."

  Baz trod soundlessly across the deck matting, looking defensive and guilty. “I just got in off the repairs tender, and heard the word that you were back.” His Barrayaran accent was polished thin and smooth by his years of galactic exile, significantly less pronounced than four years ago.

  “Temporarily, anyway."

  “I'm ... sorry you didn't find things as you'd left them, my lord. I feel like I've squandered Elena's dowry that you bestowed. I didn't realize the implications of Oser's economic maneuvers until ... well ... no excuses."

  “The man finessed Tung, too,” Miles pointed out. He cringed inwa
rdly, to hear Baz apologize to him. “I gather it wasn't exactly a fair fight."

  “It wasn't a fight at all, my lord,” Baz said slowly. “That was the problem.” Baz stood to parade rest. “I've come to offer you my resignation, my lord."

  “Offer rejected,” said Miles promptly. “In the first place, liege-sworn Armsmen can't resign, in the second place, where am I going to get a competent fleet engineer on,” he glanced at his chrono, “two hours’ notice, and in the third place, in the third place ... I need a witness to clear my name if things go wrong. Wronger. You've got to fill me in on Fleet equipment capabilities, then help get it all in motion. And I've got to fill you in on what's really going on. You're the only one besides Elena I can trust with the secret half of this."

  With difficulty, Miles persuaded the hesitant engineer to sit down. Miles poured out a speed-edited precis of his adventures in the Hegen Hub, leaving out only mention of Gregor's half-hearted suicide attempt; that was Gregor's private shame. Miles was not altogether surprised to learn Elena had not confided his earlier, brief and ignominious return, rescue, and departure from the Dendarii; Baz seemed to think the presence of the incognito Emperor obvious and sufficient reason for her silence. By the time Miles finished, Baz's inner guilt was quite thoroughly displaced by outer alarm.

  “If the Emperor is killed—if he doesn't return—the mess at home could go on for years,” Baz said. “Maybe you should let Cavilo rescue him, rather than risk—"

  “Up to a point, that's just what I intend to do,” said Miles. “If only I knew Gregor's mind.” He paused. “If we lose both Gregor and the wormhole battle, the Cetagandans will arrive on our doorstep just at the point we will be in maximum internal disarray. What a temptation to them—what a lure—they've always wanted Komarr—we could be looking down the throat of the second Cetagandan invasion, almost as much a surprise to them as to us. They may prefer deep-laid plans, but they're not above a little opportunism—not an opportunity this overwhelming—"