by Steve White
“Yes, sir.” Magee was silent for a moment, apparently choosing his words very carefully. “Sirs, I’m very well aware that you won’t and can’t tell me—or anyone beyond the flag ranks—exactly what’s going on, or all the information you’ve gathered about the Bugs thus far. But fleet morale suffers, particularly at the enlisted level, when the scuttlebutt points to some significant developments—like the fleet readying for battle, or like contact with the crew of that Telikan ship—but then zero information is shared, and no rumors leak out.”
Yoshikuni folded her hands. “Captain Magee, as you said, and as I would expect from a long-service officer with a number of medals, you anticipate that you cannot and will not be kept abreast of all of our intelligence. So I’m going to presume that you also understand our need for absolute secrecy about key developments until, and unless, it is prudent to share them with all our personnel.” Yoshikuni’s tone bordered on being severe.
“Absolutely, ma’am. And I repeat that I am not trying to tell flag officers how to do their jobs. However, I feel it is important that I report on the conditions among the ranks. And I must, in good conscience, report that morale is being impacted by both the severity of our situation and the upper echelon’s silence about it. Frankly, sir, the troops are scared.”
“Scared? Of what? We haven’t even joined battle—yet.”
“Well, that’s just it, sir. Sometimes, skulking about is more nerve-wracking than a straight-up fight, particularly for those of us who are accustomed to being on the sharp end when things get bad. And out here in the Star Union, with every passing day, there’s more secrecy—which enlisted men tend to interpret as meaning more danger. And without any information to limit the scope of that danger, their imaginations begin to run wild.”
Kiiraathra’ostakjo nodded slowly. “Some truths are particularly difficult to speak to superiors, Captain. Every one of my race, every Zheeerlikou’valkhannaieee, knows this because our leaders are often—mercurial—in comparison to your own. You have performed your duty—apprising us of fleet morale—well and faithfully, and with bravery that not all captains possess when confronting a room of frowning admirals.”
“Agreed. You’ve discharged an uncomfortable duty admirably,” said Yoshikuni with a sharp nod. “Now, anything else?”
“Well, sir, while we’re on the topic of morale—”
Wethermere was fairly sure he heard Yoshikuni slowly exhale through a suppressed sigh. “Go ahead, Captain. Much as I hate hearing troubling news about my personnel, I’d rather have the information than stay ignorant.”
“Well, sir, it’s not exactly about your personnel.” Magee glanced at Kiiraathra’ostakjo. “It’s about his.”
Eyes shifted to the Least Fang. Who nodded slowly. “I have heard some rumors from my own officers. It is true then?”
“Is what true?” Yoshikuni insisted, an edge rising in her voice as she looked back and forth between the Marine and the Orion.
Magee nodded back at Kiiraathra’ostakjo, then turned toward Yoshikuni. “Admiral, the word in the bunkrooms is that there’s some significant resentment growing among the Orion crews.”
Yoshikuni’s eyes were hard as she turned toward Kiiraathra’ostakjo. “And just when did you plan on telling me this, Least Fang?”
“When I had ascertained that the scope of the problem was both wide enough and severe enough to warrant the attention of this already overburdened command group,” the Orion answered. “I received decisive reports just this morning and planned to present the results as soon as we finished hearing the captain’s after-action report. However, his comment now tells me that the resentment among my crews is continuing to grow and becoming more widely known. It must be dealt with—harshly, if necessary.”
Narrok’s smaller tentacles writhed in a muted, slow-motion chaos-dance. “I do not understand: what, exactly, is the source of your crews’ resentment?”
“I suspect,” Wethermere interjected, “that the Orions blame the rest of the PSU, but particularly the human contingent, for abandoning their homeworld—well, both homeworlds—at their hour of need.”
“But…that’s absurd,” Modelo-Vo sputtered with his customary lack of tact.
Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s response gave the lie to all the stereotypes about Orion temper and impetuosity: he merely nodded in response. “It is irrationality compounded upon irrationality. I am quite sure that it was not a sudden choice, but rather, compliance with worst-case contingency planning, that led the PSU’s High Command to rightly determine that it would have been strategic suicide to leave Unity Warp Point Five open. Indeed, the remaining fleets of the PSU—which remain only because they were not committed piecemeal to a battle that had already been lost—are now the only hope my people have to be rescued from the depredations of the Kaituni. But accusations of ‘human treachery’ cannot be dismissed by countervailing facts.”
Admiral Narrok’s central eye blinked slowly. “I do not understand; how can facts lose their rhetorical power among reasonable beings?”
“Because the accusations are not driven by specific reasons, and so, cannot be reasoned with. Moreover, our Khan and his advisors are all dead. Every public edifice or social institution that mattered has been vaporized. Our fleets have been annihilated, both in the great battles fought at our homeworlds, but also, because the fury and disorganization that was rampant among the remaining elements led them to engage the enemy piecemeal. They were a pride of hunters that, had they worked together, could have defeated their immense adversary, but instead, were stomped into oblivion—one brave, futile element at a time.
“In short, we Zheeerlikou’valkhannaieee, who derive all our honor from risk and success, have failed. We risked all and lost all. And so a pain and fury rises up that many of us cannot contain, that must be discharged before it drives us mad. If we were fighting the Kaituini actively, they would be the sure and just targets of the rage of all my crews. But since we are not engaging the ones who actively killed our worlds and our way of life, those emotions will, for any who lack the mastery of their passions, turn upon those closest who also, in the uncritical minds of my heartsick crews, most deserve it. It does not matter that logic does not support the narrative of human betrayal that they have constructed to validate their rage. They cannot be talked out of their resentment any more than they can be talked out of the deep wound that is the well of their fury.
“For now, I must drive them back from that well, even as I grieve with them for all that we have lost. But before I take up these grim matters aboard my ships, I must urge you, Admiral Yoshikuni, that we engage the enemy as quickly as is prudent. Although I am well aware”—he finished with a glance at Wethermere—“that it will be some time before such a course of action is practicable and wise.”
“Practicality and wisdom notwithstanding, Least Fang, we may be taking the fight to the Bugs sooner than you expect,” replied Yoshikuni. “If the morale and cohesiveness of this fleet is at stake, I might forego our current policy of waiting for the right moment to strike.” She glanced at Wethermere. “Patience is not always a virtue.”
“Patience can certainly devolve into lethargy and inactivity,” Wethermere obliquely agreed. “However, Admiral, our waiting and watching has hardly become apathetic habit. Every system through which we shadow our prey, shows us more—both by direct evidence and inference—about the Bugs’ numbers and capabilities. And besides, if Least Fang Kiiraathra’ostakjo does intend to crack down on his crews within the near future, then it would send the wrong message to also head straight into battle, as well.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Modelo-Vo blurted out.
Ossian was rapidly coming to the conclusion that, when dealing with Yoshikuni’s upstart Tactical Officer, patience had indeed ceased to be a virtue. However, Kiiraathra intervened: “No, the commodore’s assertion actually makes a great deal of sense. You must understand my people. If I punish them and then, immediately afterward, give them what we all know they wan
t—battle with those who slaughtered their kith and kin—I, and all the flag officers of this fleet, will be perceived as weak. You do not punish a Zheeerlikou’valkhannaieee and then give him what he wants. It suggests you are irresolute and that you are uncertain that the punishment you meted out was both just and effective. You could not undermine your credibility, your Vrr’rakhshee—or ‘command-honor’—more. So we should wait for several weeks after the punishments before we attack the Bugs.”
Yoshinkuni frowned but nodded. “Very well, Least Fang. You know your own people best, and we shall follow your recommendations in this matter. But even so, I am getting pretty tired of surveying one Bug-slaughtered world after another. We’ll be bringing the battle to them soon enough.” She let her eyes graze across Ossian’s on the way to Kiiraathra’s, and Wethermere could read them clearly enough: there was going to be yet another debate about the advisability of trailing so far behind the Bugs—or about trailing them at all. Yoshikuni had been, from the first time he had seen her on her command bridge almost eight years ago, a fighting admiral in the classic style. Show her the enemy and she wanted to head straight at them, or at least make immediately executable plans to hit them as hard as possible. But the situation here in the Star Union was arguably not one for which a fighting admiral’s temperament was well-suited. There were disturbing reports from survivors—and from the cloaked Telikan patrol ship that he had found standing overwatch on the warp point to Myschtelik—that the Bug Fleet was either larger than thought or had an immense number of auxiliaries moving along behind it. Furthermore, other than one selnarm buoy per system, there had not been any sign of the Kaituni squadron that had been dispatched to follow along behind the Bugs. And that was particularly worrisome, since, unless Wethermere found them first, they could arguably alert and mobilize the Bugs—and thereby destroy the Bellerophon Arm fleet’s profound yet fragile advantage of surprise. But beyond that quantifiable concern, Ossian was uneasy because the precise role of the vanished Kaituni was conjectured, not known, and so their objectives remained an unsolved variable in the overall tactical equation. And in Wethermere’s experience, that made the Kaituni squadron a possible source of unpleasant surprises. Which the fleet could ill-afford.
Yoshikuni had turned back to Magee and was nodding. “Captain, I’m almost scared to ask, but—is there anything else?”
“No, sir. I think I’ve caused enough trouble for one day.”
Yoshikuni—known widely as the Iron Admiral—answered him with an uncharacteristically broad smile. “Thank you, Captain. That will be all.”
The big Marine stood, saluted, turned smartly, and was gone.
CHAPTER FORTY
When the door had slid closed behind Magee, Yoshikuni turned toward Ossian. “Given what the captain just told us about the rumored contact with a Telikan vessel that was blocking the warp point into Myschtelik, I think you need to check the security in your recon element, Commodore.”
“I agree, Admiral—but I’ll point out that unless you want to keep all the personnel in that element nonrotating, then the security issues become a matter of fleet intel, as well. Every rating—or pilot—who is on rotation with me moves out of my security bubble when they leave the recon unit. And the nature of our work is such that complete compartmentalization between my various ships is impossible. Witness the conjectures about the Telikan picket ship. No details, really, just a report that one had been encountered near the warp point to Myschtelik. Which suggests that the leak was not from the standing crew of the Woolly Imposter or Viggen.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
Kiiraathra leaned forward. “I believe Wethermere is suggesting the rumors probably came to the fleet via the pilots who were on rotating assignment to man the fighters that the commodore’s recon element hides in the cargo bays of both the Woolly Imposter and the Fet-merah. And I suspect that the commodore is probably correct in that assumption: the running crews of those two ships have had no rotation in or out since the encounter near Myschtelik, only the flight wing.”
Yoshikuni looked simultaneously relieved and miffed. “Very well, but Commodore, I need you to push further ahead of the main body. Attack or no attack, I want to get, and stay, closer to the Bugs. We don’t even know how many systems ahead of us they are, by now.”
“I still advise against that, Admiral,” Wethermere recommended, matching her contentious, not entirely professional, stare. “And, relevant to that, I have some updates from the research being conducted on the creepers which might underscore the caution I’ve been recommending.”
“I’ll take those reports under advisement, but for now—”
Narrok raised two of the larger tentacles on his right cluster. “I would like to hear what the commodore has found. In part, because I agree with him: it would not be propitious for us to press our foes any more closely than we are now.”
Yoshikuni turned to Narrok—the second most senior fleet commander—with widened eyes. “Unless I am mistaken, Admiral, you were also of the opinion that our posture might be too cautious.”
“You are correct: I shared your opinion that we could afford to be somewhat more aggressive in following the enemy.”
“And now you agree with Commodore Wethermere? Why?”
“Because, Admiral Yoshikuni, we have begun decoding the static selnarm report-buoys left behind by the Kaituni squadron that is trailing the Arachnids. What we have been learning from them has left me—uneasy.”
“Why? What’s their content?”
Narrok straightened. “Firstly, I cannot tell you all their ‘content’ yet, since selnarm can be coded almost as effectively as lexical communication. So the Kaituni exchanges are not transparent to us, nor are they even using a single code. We have access to some uncoded data—routine housekeeping, is what you call it, I believe—but my misgivings arise not from what is in the messages, but from how many of them there are. And from how much housekeeping is being relayed. In short, it is out of all proportion for any mere squadron of ships, Kaituni or otherwise.”
“Could it be caused by their need to generate extensive reports on the star systems, and what the Bugs did to each, in detail?”
“No, Commander Modelo-Vo, although that is a useful question. Frankly, there is only one factor which generally tends to necessitate this exponential of increase in communications volume.”
Yoshikuni frowned. “Increased fleet size.”
“Precisely. Multiple reports from each hull, and all attached logistics—including how maintenance induces constant variations in drive signature, readiness rating, crew and section reports—are the only explicable sources for this density of traffic. It would be different if there were civilian communication packets included—they can dwarf even fleet reports—but out here, where all the star systems behind us, and presumably several in front of us, have been rendered functionally inert by the Arachnids, there is no reasonable source or destination for civilian-grade Kaituni comm-traffic. And besides, the structure and security protocols on all the messages are definitively military in nature.”
“So you think there’s a whole Kaituni fleet ahead of us?”
“It is a distinct possibility. And it makes tactical sense.”
Kiiraathra’ostakjo passed a paw at his long whiskers. “How so?”
Narrok allowed his spine to relax slightly. “I am familiar with the records of your encounters with the Omnivoracity, since the First Dispersate needed to ascertain if the accounts of your war with them was fabricated or genuine. In consequence, I may assure you that if the Kaituni learned what I learned, they would not believe a small squadron of their ships could reliably influence the movement and probable path of so large an Arachnid fleet. Since the Kaituni cannot apparently communicate with the Omnivoracity, they would have to establish and exert such influence through force.”
“You mean, you think the Kaituni are ahead of us in greater force, and are nipping at the heels of their own war-dogs?” Modelo-Vo aske
d.
“Actual confrontations might have occurred once or twice, but I suspect that the Arachnids learned that moving toward the Kaituni was infinitely less productive than moving away from them. At the same time, they probably discerned that the path left open to them was filled with food-rich target worlds. Like any reflex predator—even a sophisticated one—they saw no risk in avoiding the negative stimuli projected by the Kaituni, and saw gain to be had by pursuing the positive stimuli that lay in the opposite direction. I am sure they considered this at length, mindful of a trap, but found none. At least, not so far.”
“Admiral Yoshikuni,” Wethermere injected into the silence that followed Narrok’s statement, “this actually conforms to a number of the statements made by the Telikans who waved us away at the warp point to Myschtelik. Their reports of a second fleet moving through the Remiimagar system after the passage of the Bugs’ main body now seems a great deal more credible than the other explanations we’d been hypothesizing, such as the Telikans seeing two different parts of the Bug fleet because they had very intermittent safe windows during which they could scan the system. They might, instead, really have seen two different fleets: one Bug, one Kaituni.”
Yoshikuni tossed down her stylus. “Unfortunately, I am compelled to agree. But here’s what I want to know: if there is a whole Kaituni fleet between us and the Bugs—and that is a very big ‘if’—then how the hell did it get there? Our sensors saw the Bug fleet move through Mymzher to the Franos warp point. There was no other notable traffic in the whole time we had it under observation, only the small Kaituni squadron that left Mymzher the same way, just before the commodore’s recon element put the bag on the single picket ship they’d left behind. And from that point on, nothing else moved through the system. But according to the warpline map”—she gestured at the holo-flat at the center of the conference table—“there’s a single pathway without external connections from Franos all the way to here. So how did a whole Kaituni fleet get ahead of us?”
