False Colors wc-7

by William R. Forstchen

  A further complication arose in the form of instructions from Admiral Tolwyn, who ordered him to conduct a thorough survey of the crashed escort while he was there. Accompanied by Travis, Harper, and Graham, Bondarevsky explored the interior of the shattered vessel, recording everything possible with portable computer-imaging rigs. He supposed that Tolwyn wanted to salvage parts and spares from the downed ship, though Bondarevsky wondered what good it would do with the Karga barred to them courtesy of the quiescent but still potentially lethal destruct order ticking away inside its computer banks.

  Still, he carried out his orders. There wasn’t much to see inside the escort. Graham and his colleagues had pulled out most of the onboard systems and stripped them down for parts themselves, leaving the empty compartments to be used as quarters or storerooms. Where they’d left systems in place, like the auxiliary power generators, they’d made any number of repairs using anything and everything at hand. Bondarevsky had to credit the survivors with plenty of imagination, but he didn’t want to even think about the number of ways Graham had put the whole colony of survivors at risk by his improvised solutions to technical problems.

  Eventually, everything started to sort itself out. The shuttles began arriving to evacuate the survivors, and the technical survey was wrapped up. Bondarevsky ordered some of the personnel intended for Karga’s crew to come down to the planet’s surface and continue the work he’d started. They would cannibalize as much as they could from the various Kilrathi systems, including the intact fighter craft and the useless shuttles.

  For himself, though, he was pleased when he could finally take a shuttle back up to the City of Cashel. He had stayed on the planet less than nine hours all told, and he found it hard to believe that anyone could have lasted nine months there and stayed sane.

  Whatever was fated for the Goliath Project, he would be glad to get back to Tarawa…Independence.

  Council Hall, Government House, Newburg

  Landreich, Landreich System

  1830 hours (CST)

  “The motion to adjourn has been moved and seconded!” Max Kruger bellowed. “All those in favor, say ‘aye’!” There was a chorus of assent. “Opposed, ‘nay”!“

  There were probably nearly as many delegates in the Council Hall who wanted to continue the debate, but Kruger pounded the gavel. “In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it! This session is adjourned.” He pounded his gavel, wishing it could be on a few heads belonging to members of the so-called Loyal Opposition. Muttering, grumbling, arguing, the members of the Council of Delegates began to drift toward the door. Kruger sat down in one of the chairs beside the speaker’s podium, feeling exhausted. He would much rather have faced a Kilradii warship armed to the teeth and swooping in for an attack than put up with another of these interminable meetings of the Council.

  Today it had been particularly bad. First there had been the move to cut funds for the refitting of the Landreich’s newest carrier purchased from the Confederation Navy, formerly Saipan, now renamed Arbroath in honor of one of the earliest declarations of independence in human history. The charge to block the refit program had been led by Councilman Galbraith’s party, who seemed determined to keep the military expansion program from getting any further. Kruger had nightmares of what might happen if they learned about the Goliath Project, especially if it turned out the Kilrathi ship couldn’t be refitted. With the amount of money and personnel he’d channeled into the effort, a failure would be enough to bring the whole government down-if Galbraith and his faction discovered what Goliath was all about. So far it was simply one line on the supplemental military appropriations bill, classified top secret. Enough delegates still supported the government-Kruger-to go along with his assertion that the project wasn’t something to be discussed in open Council. But it would only take a few shifts in party alliances to open up Galbraith’s demands for a hearing….

  He could only hope that Galbraith’s son would remember his military oath and put the Navy ahead of his family’s political ambitions. One of the key reasons for keeping the whole refit project compartmentalized in the Vaku system with only minimal contact to and from the capital was the need for secrecy-not so much from the Kilrathi, though that was important too, but from Kruger’s own political opponents at home. Sometimes they were a worse enemy than all the Cats from here to the Galactic Rim.

  He’d overcome the budget fights by sheer force of personality. In the early days of the Republic he’d presided over the writing of Landreich’s constitution, and Kruger had managed to give the Presidency considerable power. He or a chosen Speaker had to preside over all meetings of the Council, which gave the Executive Branch quite a bit of control over the direction of debates. But it was exactly that facet of the constitution that was forcing him to stay at the capital now, when he really wanted to be elsewhere. Enough of Kruger’s political supporters were dead or defected to make it difficult to find anyone he could really trust to run the meetings of the Council, but Kruger himself was still a voice many heeded.

  But it made it hard to do his job as he perceived it. Max Kruger was a fighting man, first and foremost, and if he couldn’t be leading a fleet into battle he at least felt the need to be supervising the defense of the Republic. His advisers had probably been right in urging him not to accompany the Goliath mission. Richards, Tolwyn, and the others would be out there for months if they had to refit the derelict, and there wasn’t that much Kruger could do to justify being away from the capitol for so long. But he should at least have been able to take a battle group out for a tour of the frontier. Ilios, now…ever since the Kilrathi raid the planet had been growing increasingly strident in its demands for more support from the government, and the delegates of Ilios had been among his strongest supporters until now. If he could have paid a personal visit, shown the flag and put the defenses in order, he might have done some real good. But he was shackled by politics to this planet, this city, this god-awful Council Hall.

  Max Kruger was getting heartily sick of politics. Landreich’s political system was a lot like other aspects of its frontier society-loud, frantic, and lacking in dignity. Though Kruger was no respecter of dignity himself, he sometimes wondered how the Republic had stood this long when it was run by a group of determined individualists like the members of his Council of Delegates.

  He straightened up from his chair and looked out at the tiered benches that dominated the floor of the Hall. Most of the Delegates were on their way out, still carrying on noisy and often violent speech as they elbowed their way out into the antechamber. It had only been a few months since one such passionate post-session debate had led to the senior delegate from Ilios pulling a knife on one of the delegates from Tara. Today passions were running nearly as high as they had that day, but so far there was no sign that anyone was considering turning a political debate into anything more fractious.

  A stocky, richly dressed delegate met his eye from near the front of the Hall. Kruger suppressed a fleeting moment of distaste and stepped down from the platform to approach the man. He didn’t like Daniel Webster Galbraith, but he couldn’t let that stop him from being civil to the man. After all, he commanded more wealth and power than most of the rest of the delegates put together. And before his faction had parted ranks with Kruger’s administration after Ko-bar Yagar, Galbraith had bailed the Landreich out of one fiscal crisis after another.

  He owed the man plenty…and Galbraith wasn’t the kind to let him forget it.

  “Well, Max,” the industrialist-turned-politician said with a genial smile. “Glad to see you can still shout down a delegate when you have to. Ismat Bayulkin isn’t exactly noted for his restraint, after all.”

  “He had a point,” Kruger said. “Damn it, Ilios really is hanging right out on the edge of the Cat frontier. But that’s no reason to start trying to conduct naval operations from the floor of the Hall. I know they feel exposed. I just can’t let people like Bayulkin think they can take charge of the armed forces by vi
rtue of their political ranks.”

  Galbraith smiled. “Saving that sort of thing for yourself, eh, Max?”

  Kruger felt a flare of temper building inside himself. “I could do a lot more good out there than I’m doing sitting here at home listening to all this endless talk,” he growled.

  “So? I’m not the one who asked you to stay put. That was your own party. Frankly, I’d be happier if you’d let us get on with governing.”

  “What is it with you, Dan?” Kruger demanded. “A couple of years ago you were ready to do whatever it took to make things work. Now you’re the leader of the Loyal Opposition…except half the time you aren’t even particularly loyal any more. What happened?”

  “Peace happened, Max. Or weren’t you watching the holo-cast that night?”

  “Peace. Right. You think Ragark’s going to give us any peace?”

  “You’ve been holding up Ragark as the boogieman for so long that nobody even believes he’s real any more.” Galbraith was looking exasperated. “Yeah, they’ve violated our territory a few times. We’ve violated theirs, too.”

  “And Ilios? Was that a ‘violation of territory’?”

  “The confees call it piracy.”

  “So now you’re listening to the confees?” Kruger glared at the man. “We have plenty of evidence it was Kilrathi on Ilios, Dan. Why won’t you admit it?”

  “Evidence can be faked. Or suppressed. There were plenty of indications of piracy in that attack on the outpost at Balthazar. But you were so convinced the Cats were involved you closed your eyes to the whole thing.” Galbraith looked away. “I’m sorry, Max. Genuinely sorry. In your day you were just what the Landreich needed. A military man who could stand up to the Cats and the confees both…and a real live war hero we could all look up to. But times are changing, Max. We need a leader who doesn’t drop everything to charge off after glory every time things get boring in the capitol. We need somebody who isn’t fixated on fighting the Cats or insulting the confees. Statesmanship is what we need now, not gunboat diplomacy.”

  “So you think it’s time to put me out to pasture, eh?“ Kruger shook his head. ”You’re wrong, Dan. It’s still a dangerous universe out there. Now that the Confederation’s out of the game we’ve got to look out for ourselves. All this nonsense your bunch has been spouting about defense cuts is worse than just bad. It’s treason!“

  “Treason? I’ll tell you about treason!” Galbraith, normally so suave and urbane, was agitated now. “Treason is frittering away the Republic’s cash reserves on all your new toys. What is it now? Four new cruisers and three escort carriers? Or are there more I haven’t heard about yet? Independence, Magna Carta, Arbroath…do you have to buy up every carrier the confees don’t want any more? And then there’s this mysterious Project Goliath. You’ve had us voting funds for a damned pig in a poke! Don’t you realize that we just don’t have the money to spend on building up the fleet to the size you want? I made some godawful big loans to keep you afloat. If I called them in now, with the Treasury in the shape it’s in, the Republic would fold.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Galbraith shook his head. “No…just a warning. I’m not the only one your government’s in hock to, after all. But you know I wouldn’t pull the plug like that.” He sighed. “I’m a patriot after my own fashion, you know, Max. I gave you that money because back then I believed in what you were doing. And I wouldn’t jeopardize the Republic just because I’ve parted company with you over policy.”

  “So you’ll just keep on doing your best to run me into the ground, so you can pick up the pieces later, is that it?”

  “I want what’s best for the Landreich. I just don’t happen to think you fill that role any more.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Dan,” Kruger said slowly. “Because the fact is that I intend to keep right on doing what I think is necessary. And I’ll run right over you and all your cronies if you get in my way.”

  “Maybe,” Galbraith said quietly. “But don’t underestimate the strength of a democratic government, Max. You might find yourself facing a vote of no confidence some day, just as soon as you slip up badly enough. And I think if the circumstances were right that you’d find a lot of people backing my position…enough to vote you right out of office.”

  VIP Quarters, FRLS Independence

  Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

  0112 hours (CST), 2670.315

  Admiral Geoff Tolwyn leaned back in his chair and rubbed eyes grown weary with fatigue. There was just so much to do, and so little time to do it in. And from the line Richards had been taking the last two days, the deadline for action was coming up fast.

  Richards actually planned to drop the entire Goliath Project!

  It was the discovery of the self-destruct system that had triggered the crisis, of course. Richards had cut off the survey work cold as soon as Bondarevsky had passed the word from the castaways as to the Karga’s potentially lethal surprise. Tolwyn had gone along with it at the time…but only with the idea of pulling back long enough to find a solution to the problem.

  Instead it looked like Richards would pull the plug entirely. Karga would be bombarded until she blew up, to keep the Cats from ever recovering her, and the battle group would tamely return to Landreich. All that Richards was waiting on was a chance to sit down with Bondarevsky and have him put in his own advice. Knowing Bondarevsky, Tolwyn assumed he’d be with Richards. He’d never been very confident in Goliath in the first place, and with the risk to the lives of everyone involved in the Project aboard a ship with an armed self-destruct system, Bondarevsky was almost certainly to vote in favor of packing up and heading for home.

  It couldn’t be allowed to happen that way. There were too many reasons why they had to put the supercarrier back in service. Reasons Richards and Bondarevsky didn’t know about yet, and which Tolwyn was reluctant to share with them. If either of them turned out to be an agent of Belisarius…

  Bondarevsky, now. Suppose he’d passed that “information” about the destruct program to them as a way to deliberately sabotage the project? The Belisarius Group would want the Karga kept out of the picture, and it was just possible they’d gotten to him…

  Tolwyn shook his head angrily. He’d been living with this paranoia for too long now. It was making him mistrust everyone. Bondarevsky wouldn’t sign on with a bunch of conspirators like the Belisarius Group. Surely Tolwyn knew him well enough to have that much faith, at least.

  The problem was, he’d lost the ability to trust. Even old friends like Richards and Bondarevsky raised distrust in Tolwyn these days. It made it that much harder for him to gain the support of the people he needed to rally against Belisarius, because he couldn’t be sure enough of anyone to really open up to them when he had to. His months of tightrope-walking had already cost so damned much…

  But the Goliath Project represented a chance to change all that, and by God he was going to see it carried out, whatever the cost. Karga was a resource they simply couldn’t throw away.

  He returned his gaze to the computer monitor in front of him, a summary report from the teams that had investigated the hangar and flight decks of the supercarrier before the bomb scare had caused Richards to pull out. The preliminary findings indicated that both hangar decks were well-stocked with Kilrathi planes, exact numbers still not determined. Until they got a close look at them there was no telling how many would actually be able to fly, but if even half of them were put into service they’d be a valuable asset all by themselves. The Karga had been one of the newest and most modern carriers in Kilrathi service, and the planes she carried were all first-line models that could outperform the antiquated Confederation cast-offs the Landreich was forced to rely on.

  Tolwyn scanned the report. Light fighters, Darket-class, less than a squadron in the hangar decks but several more reported on the surface of the brown dwarf moon at the castaway camp. The Darket was small and agile, even better for scouting duties than the Confederation Horn
et. Individually weak in shielding, armor, and weapons, they were often employed in fighting pairs by Kilrathi pilots to excellent effect.

  Medium fighters, Dralthi Four-class, probably two full squadrons, most craft in good condition. The bat-wing shape of the Dralthi Four was fearsome to behold in combat. Tolwyn could still remember watching in frustration as squadron after squadron of the evil-looking birds had swooped low over the Behemoth during the battle that had destroyed the huge weapons platform. They were slightly weaker than their modern Confederation equivalents, but compared to the Scimitars and Raptors of the Landreich’s arsenal they were a deadly match.

  Heavy filters, Vaktoth-class, many missing from hangars. Perhaps an eight-ship Kilrathi squadron left, though this remains to be confirmed by closer examination of individual planes. Vaktoths were superior in every respect to the Landreich’s Raptors. Even if they could only get eight of them in service, they’d be a powerful strike force for the carrier.

  Heavy fighters, Strakha-class, approximately one squadron in very good condition. That was really something to take notice of. The Landreich so far couldn’t field anything using modern stealth technology, but the Strakhas were capable of cloaked flight that enabled them to evade detection before they struck. Even in the Confederation stealth fighters, the new Excaliburs like the one that had dropped the T-Bomb on Kilrah, had been slow to reach the front lines and scarce as hen’s teeth right to the end of the war.

  Bombers, Paktahn-class, numbers hard to determine because of heavy damage to many individual units. Dedicated bombing craft were comparatively new to human flight wings, where the recent Longbow bomber was still a novelty. The Paktahn wasn’t nearly as good as the Longbow, but like the stealth fighter the bomber was something the Landreich hadn’t used at all…until now. If they could even get a few of these fit for combat action, they could greatly extend the Landreich’s ability at power projection.