by David Weber
"And that brings us to the second major risk to our momentum: lack of intelligence. To be perfectly frank, we have no idea what system defenses we'll face after our initial breakout. Until we control more warp points, we can't even use probes, much less scouting squadrons, so we're going in blind. On the other hand, we know the rebels must have been committing the majority of their industrial capacity to shipbuilding, judging by what they used at Second Zephrain and the enemy deployment data Admiral Sanders brought us. Presumably, that means they can't have built a lot of fortifications out here, at least not behind the immediate "front line" systems. As for Fleet units --was he shrugged slightly his-comwe think they were badly hurt at Second Zephrain, and we've demonstrated the efficiency of our weapons. Unless they have a radically higher number of hulls than ONI estimates, they shouldn't be strong enough to stop both us and the forces attacking to meet us." He stopped and seated himself.
"Thank you, Commander," Trevayne said, rising.
"hat's about all that can be said at this stage--and it was admirably brief." He allowed himself a slight smile as his staff chuckled. "We'll meet again tomorrow, after you've had a chance to study the plan and formulate questions. In the meantime, remember the eom hook-up at 2100.
I want every man and woman in the Fleet to hear me." He strode out. The room seemed to get bigger, as rooms tended to when Trevayne left them.
Neither of them had planned it that way, yet they found themselves alone outside the elevator that would take Trevayne away.
Virtually everyone else who was to be aboard Nelson for Operation Reunion, including Sanders, had already left Xanadu. A floater waited on the roof of Government House to take Trevayne to Abu'sd Field and his cutter. It was a trip he'd made many times, but they both knew this time was different. This campaign would, one way or another, change their lives. Win or lose, it would never be the same again.
They'd said their farewells the previous night, and they'd both dreaded any last-minute awkwardness. But with the inevitability of gravity, they found themselves facing one another outside the private VIP elevator.
"Well," he said, "I'm off." Brilliant, his superego gibed; too bloody scintillating. "Send word back whenever you can," she said. And within her: My, how terribly clever!
"Miriam, I'll be back. I promise I'll be back." She put her hands on his shoulders, holding him at arms" length and grinning wickedly.
"Well," she purred, letting her eyes travel suggestively downwards, "I know from experience that in your case talk is not cheap." He broke into a grin of his own. They hugged one another once more, hard. Then the light above the elevator door flashed. The door opened, and closed again, and he was gone.
Miriam sighed. As always, everything that mattered was left unspoken. She even understood why; as long as they were cracking wise, they were on safe ground.
She turned, eyes downcast, and walked away.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the light flash again. She turned back, curious, as the doors slid open.
"Forget something?" she asked.
"Miriam," he stepped towards her, "I suddenly realized that.., well, that there were things I'd left unsaid. I..." She raised a hand, almost afraid, and pressed her fingers to his lips. "Hush, darling. We both know that. We've never needed to say much, have we?" He seized her wrist almost roughly and forced her hand aside. "No! It's different now, and I can't leave without saying.., that..." His throat seemed to constrict. And then, like a dam bursting, "Miriam, I need you! I love you!" And her own dam burst.
"Oh, God, Ian, I love you, too! I love you so much!" And all the restraint of the past was less than a memory. They kissed, and it was like the first time they'd ever kissed each other.
After a little while, as stars and planets measure time, she spoke.
"What do you suppose we were so afraid of, all this time?" He didn't answer. Another moment passed before he spoke again, almost lightly.
"You know, if we run down to the Judge Advocate General's office, we might just be able to find someone authorized to perform a marriage." She sputtered with laughter and looked up at him, eyes shining. "Ian, you're so full of shit your eyes are browner than usual! You know you've got to go. We'll talk about this when you get back. And for God's sake, let it keep till then! Right now, you need more things on your mind like Commodore Prescott needed more Arachnids!" He laughed, a joyful sound of final release. Then he sobered, gripping her shoulders firmly.
"Miriam, remember what I said: I... promise... I... will be... back]" Miriam Ortega was a Navy brat. She knew, better than most, what could happen when ship met ship in deep space combat. She had already lost a father to exactly that, and she knew no one could predict exactly where the warhead or the beam would strike. And yet, she also knew that Ian Laurens Trevayne always kept his promises.
"Yes, my precious love," she whispered.
"I know you will." As the cutter left the pale-blue reaches of the upper atmosphere for the velvet-black reahn of space, Trevayne gazed out the port. For the first time in years--too many years, filled with columns of numbers on phosphor screens comhe really saw the universe in which he moved and worked. His gaze ranged further and further out, sweeping over the unwinking, jewel-hard stars strewn in their myriads down the roaring, mind-numbing reaches of infinity.
THE SHORTEST DISTANCE Rear Admiral Li flinched as rolling drums assaulted her ears, then straightened her shoulders quickly. Other returning prisoners crowded the shuttle hatch behind her and not this most jaded of them could hide his reaction tg the scene.
The domed spaceport on Bonaparte's second moon was jammed with black and silver uniforms.
Thousands of them! Han stared out over the sea of faces through the crashing fanfare of Ad Astra, the ancient twenty-first century hymn chosen as the Republic's anthem, and she was stunned.
A rear admiral greeted her with a crisp salute, and only reflex action brought her own hand up in response as she recognized Jason Windrider. His dark eyes glowed, and as the last bar of the anthem crashed out and the music died, his hand came down in a flashing arc. Han's matched it.
"Welcome home, Admiral!" He gripped her hand tightly. "Thank you." Han swallowed, blinking burning eyes, and smiled. "Thank you, Admiral," she said more firmly. "It's good to be back." "We've been waiting for you," he said warmly, "and you may as well accept the inevitable." His smile was both wicked and warm. "We're proud of you, ma'am, and you're going to have to put up with us while we show it!" And then he was leading her down the flag-draped landing platform stair, and the roar of cheers split the bright, dome-filtered sunlight around her.
"Well!" Jason Windrider doffed his braided cap and waved at a chair. "Thank God that's over! Though I must say--was he cocked his head critically his-comthe Golden Lion looks good on you, Han. Sort of sets off your hair." "Thank you," she said dryly, trying to hide her own deep emotion as she sat. She touched the Golden Lion of Terra--the highest award for valor of Republic and Federation alike. "If this is what the loser gets, I'd like to see the winner's medals!" "You didn't lose, Hah," Windrider said decisively. "You and Bob were right. We should'ye gone in fast and nasty, before their new forts and beams and those Godawful missiles were on line." "Maybe," Hah said, "but I surrendered, so I'm the one who's going to face a Board over it--and maybe a full Court." "The Court already sat," Windrider said, suddenly grim, "on the admirals who ran out on you. I won't lie to you--some people were cashiered, but everyone knows you held the battle-line together in a hopeless situation and then had the good sense not to get thousands of people killed for nothing." He shrugged again.
"That's more or less what the Admiralty said, in fancier language, when it recommended you--unanimously--for the Golden-Lion." "I see." Hah drew a deep breath and felt the tension flow away at last.
"Do you, now?" Windrider grinned. "Actually, there's an even more tangible proof of their lordships" attitude." "Oh?" she eyed him suspiciously. "A blindfold and a last cigarette?" "You have an untrusting nature
," Windrider said sorrowfully. Then he became more serious. "I'm afraid it's slightly non-reg, Hah, and Magda wanted to give you this, but she can't make it, so I have to deputize. Here." Han opened the small case and gasped as she saw the double stars nestled in the dark velvet.
She stood abruptly, left hand rising to the single star at her collar, and her eyes were shocked. "Yes, sir," the rear admiral said.
"B-but I'm not ready!" Han wailed. "I was only a captain four years ago!" Yet she seemed unable to resist as he fastened the badge in place. "I just got back from surrendering an entire battle fleet!" "Han," Windrider said severely, "sit down and shut up.
She sat obediently, too shaken to notice how brashly a rear admiral was ordering a vice admiral about.
"Better," he said. "Now listen to me. Every senior officer in the Fleet knows you and Bob wanted to attack earlier, and most of 'em know the panic that really beat us at Zephrain wouldn't have happened if you'd been senior to the bastards who-- Never mind." He shook his head sharply.
"But there's not a one of them who questions giving you thatstar. None. And no doubts will be entertained from you, either, young lady!
"Besides, we need you. Admiral Ashigara is dead, and so are Kellerman, Matucek, Ryder, Nishin, Shukov, Hyde- White, Mombora "His voice trailed somberly off, and she stared at him.
"That many?" "And more," he confirmed. "Hah, we never did have many admirals, and those we had have taken a terrible pounding; we've got to promote. I was a eomeawander four years ago, for God's sake] If I can take my medicine and wear one star, you can damned well wear two--got it?" "Yes, sir," she said meekly, touching her collar badges and smiling at last. "I just hope it isn't a mistake." "Hah, will you please get it through your radiation-jellied Oriental brain that you've got those stars--and that medal because you're one of the best we've got?" She eyed him doubtfully, and he grinned.
"Besides, ff we don't give 'em to you, somebody might try to give 'em to me, God help us!" The skimmer swooped downwards, and Han peered out at the lights blazing against the night. They marked a sprawling mansion, one-time home of the Corporate World manager of Bonaparte's largest chesht plantation, taken." over by the Republican military when the focus of opera- tions shifted to Zephrain.
Windrider grounded the skimmer and popped the hatches, and Han climbed out, wrinkling her nose as the reek of over-ripe chesht mingled with the fresh smell of marshes. It amazed her that something whose flavor had supplanted chocolate and vanilla alike in Terran estimation could smell so horrible in its native habitat.
Strange voices shrilled and clicked in the night, and wings fluttered as Bonaparte's equivalent of a bat flitted past. She glanced upward, but the two larger moons had set and the third, Joseph, was little more than a low-albedo lump of captured asteroidal rock. Its wan illumination barely brought a glow to the mists and hinted at rather than revealed the artificially precise spacing of angular machinery.
Chesht-pickers rusting in idleness, she thought as the cool breeze off the marsh rustled the chesht pods.
Bonaparte's F1 primary was hot, but the planet was near the outer edge of the liquid-water belt.
Even high summer was cool, which suited Han well, for it produced a climate very like that of her homewodd. Jason however, came from Topaz--a warm, dusty world with little axial tilt--and he preferred less chilly environs. He rubbed his hands briskly and tried to look patient as she sucked in the crisp air.
"Lead on." "Good!" he agreed quickly, and guided her through a doubleopaned door into what had been a palatial foyer before the Republican Navy took charge. A pair of Marine guards came sharply to attention as they stepped inside, and as Hah noted their unsealed holsters, she suddenly realized what those angular shapes in the marsh had been: not chesht-piekers, but heavy armored vehicles. And the thick glass entry doors weren't glass at all, but armorplast capable of resisting medium artillery fire!
"Good evening, Admiral Li. Admiral Windrider." A Marine major saluted them. "May I see some identification$7' He subjected their ID folios to the most rigorous cheek Hah lad seen since the war began. What in God's name was going on here?
"Thank you, sir." The major returned her ID and summoned an armed oi'derly. "Chief Yeoman Santander will escort you to the planning room." "Thank you, Major." Han returned his salute, then fol- lowed the silent yeoman into the house proper and down a corridor. He stopped and opened a door, raising his voice without entering,
"Admiral Li and Admiral Windrider, sir!" he said crisply, and stepped back as they passed him.
"Thank you, Chief Santander," a warm, easily-recognized voice said.
"Magda! Jason didn't say you were here!" "I know he didn't." Magda Petrovna smiled from behind her desk in the large, brightly lit room, and the paired stars on her collar mirrored Han's. "Very few people know I'm here, and they aren't talking." "But why all the secrecy?" "I'm about to Sell you, Han," Magda said with the chuckle Han remembered so well. "After which you'll disappear, too. Where's she off to, Jason?" Brown eyes rose to smile over Han's head at Windrider.
"Vice Admiral Li is returning to Novaya Rodina for debriefing," Windrider said smoothly. "In fact, I escorted her aboard ship myself." "You see?" Magda asked with a grin.
"No, I don't see at all!" "It's pretty simple, really. You and I, my dear, are the Republic's last great hope." Magda's voice was humorous; her eyes weren't.
"Meaning what?" Han demanded.
"Meaning that you and I--with the help of a few souls like Jason, Bob Tomanga, and Tsing Chang -comare now the Republic's answer to lan Trevayne." "We're going back to Zephrain?" Han was stunned by the recklessness of the idea. "Magda, I don't think you under- stand just what--was "No, Han," Magda said softly.
"rrevayne is coming to us.
He's staging a breakout sometime in the next five standard months." Han sat down heavily. It had all come at her too fast, she thought dazedly. The homecoming, her medal and promotion, all the secrecy and security--notow this. She , couldn't have understood correctly. to.....
"Five months." She shook her head. "Magda, it isn't possible. He doesn't have enough hulls to mount a sustained offensivc not a decisive one now that we know what he's got and the panic factor's been eliminated, and there's no point in his taking losses for anything indecisive. Besides, those monsters of his take a long time to build they mass over a half million tonnes each, Magda! He won't risk them without a decisive objective in view." "Correct." Magda tipped back her chair and a half-smile lurked in her eyes.
"But that's crazy, too," Han protested quietly. "rhere's no way they could coordinate.
I never figured out how they get messages back and forth, but it seems pretty clumsy, however they do it." "Right again," Magda nodded, "but let me show you something." She rose, and Han's eyes widened in amazement.
"Damn! I keep forgetting to allow for that." Magda stood back from her desk and patted her stomach with a wry frown. Her new figure, Han thought with a helpless chuckle, was definitelt non-reg.
"What's so funny?" Magda demanded, then touched her stomach again and laughed. "This isn't what I wanted to show you." "You thought I wouldn't notice?" "No, you silly slanteye, I just forgot you didn't know. It's all over the Fleet by now--and that cad in the comer is making insufferably proud noises over every bar on Bonaparte." "I see." Han managed to stop chuckling, but her voice was a little unsteady. "And you don't think your timing was a bit off?." "Hell," Magda laughed, "this little stranger is one reason I got this job. Everyone knows pregnant women are barred from combat. Ergo, I'm barred from combat, which makes my disappearance for planning purposes that much easier to explain. And as for my 'timing"--was she met Han's eyes, suddenly serious his-comy're one reason for that." Only Magda cot/id have said that without opening her own wounds, Han thought affectionately.
"I don't want what happened to you happening to me now that I've found Jason," Magda sail quietly. She reached out a hand, and Windrider was there in an instant to take it. "So I'm having at least one child before
I go out to be shot at again. Besides," she smiled gently, and for the first time her voice was hesitant, "this disch is for you, too, Han." "Me?" Hah was deeply touched as she took Magda's other hand.
"Yes. We'd like--like it very nueh--to name her Hah." Han's grip tightened, and a seemingly endless silence stretched.
"If you can't think of a better name," she said finally, "I'd be prokd. Very proud." "Done!" Jason's brusque cheerfulness broke the spell, and Hah was grateful. She drew a deep breath and blinked twice.
"But I think you were going to show me something besides my future namesake?" "So I was," Magda said, tncking an arm through Han's and leading her over to a wall panel. She punched buttons busily, and a huge hologram filled the darkened room. Hah stared at it raptly; she hadn't seen a warp map quite that large since the Academy.
Magda picked up a luminous pointer and moved to the center of the map.
"This helps with visualization, Han," she said, turning brown eyes spangled with tiny stars to her friend. "Our warp lines are green. The Rump's are red; the Rim's amber. Notice anything?" "Besides the lack of any red-amber connections?" "That's certainly the salient point, but I'm thinking about something else: distances. At closest, they're at least a dozen transits apart--comover six weeks for a battle-cruiser at max. So whatever they do, they're facing a long, drawn- out campaign before they gel back inffcctact, right?" "I'd think so, yes." "So did we. We have, however, certain intelligence assets in the Rump. Not in the Rim, I'm sorry to say, and our very best conduit didn't give us a word of warning about it, but computer analysis of what we do have has picked up on something very interesting.
"Second," she went on, "despite their desperate need for ships, they're holding them baek. We didn't notice that immediately, but our raids, recon probes, and captured or otherwise compromised Rump deployment orders all indicate it. Why?
