Tents on Lussern look much the same as tents anywhere, and a tent city was what we saw when we arrived. Its inhabitants were mostly sick with blast burns and radiation, and a daylong cold rain didn’t help matters. Imperial technology had medicines to treat the burns and the radiation, but there were neither enough physicians to treat the mass of people nor enough medicine to treat them with. The Srihani of Lussern, citizens of a ten-thousand-year-old galactic empire, sickened and died in the mud just like the citizens of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
The rain had stopped by the time we landed, and I was glad of that. I was skittish enough about the fallout that had to be in Lussern’s air without feeling it wash down on me. The fact that Franny’s pharmacopeia would treat me for any significant exposure I might get didn’t help. It was near sundown when we stepped out of the landing boat, and the spectacular reds and purples as the sun sank to the horizon only emphasized the amount of dust in the atmosphere.
We were met on the field by a young Srihani in Fleet gray and black. He introduced himself as Saavan a Grenshir. “I have an aircar to transport you to headquarters,” he said. “Ground transportation, I’m afraid, is a bit problematic.”
No kidding. The short hop, at low altitude, showed the extent, if not the intensity, of the suffering in the tent city. Saavan landed the aircar on a wide road in front of a school that was now their temporary headquarters. A guard from the front door took us to the second floor where he showed us to what must have been the headmaster’s office. The desk was now occupied by a captain of the Fleet.
He wore the usual gray tunic, embellished only by his emblem of rank over the left breast. The dark-skinned, almost black, face above the collar was haggard. Despite that, he snapped to his feet when we entered the room.
“Greetings,” he said. “I am Captain Donnar a Mynashair of the Tireless and, by fate, commander of the Fleet squadron at Lussern and governor of the system.”
“Our greetings to you, Captain,” I responded, “I’m Captain Danny a Troy of the Francis Drake. This is my Strike Force Commander, Jaenna a Tyaromon.”
“Ah yes.” He sighed and sat down. “The notorious Danny a Troy. Your reputation precedes you. Please sit. I’m surprised to find myself greeting you with anything less than a missile salvo.”
“Our feeling precisely,” I countered.
Donnar grunted. “Well, new emperor, new rules.” He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “Captain, Strike Force Commander, the Emperor and the Fleet owe you a large debt for your actions here. Let me assure you that the Fleet, at least, tries to pay its debts.” The way he said the last sentence made both of us stiffen in our seats. “Don’t be concerned,” he said when he saw the reaction. “There is no one to here who might disagree.”
Either that, or Donnar was too tired to care.
“Take this, Captain Danny a Troy, and tell me what you think.”
He tossed me a small gray box that looked like a jewelry box and opened like one, too. Inside lay a short ribbon of black-and-red braid with fasteners at each end to hold it below the collar of a tunic.
“It is the Fleet Command ribbon,” Donnar said before I could ask. “The empire gives no medals to officers of the Fleet—we leave that to the kvenningari. We give only this ribbon, and only to those who have demonstrated their ability to command a Fleet squadron in battle. Be aware of the duty that goes with wearing it. A Fleet officer is expected to go armed except where custom dictates otherwise, but when you wear the Fleet Command ribbon you must always be armed, even at the court.”
“I am honored,” was all that I could say.
“I should hope so,” Donnar said. “There are very few in the empire today who can wear that ribbon. Certainly, no freebooter ever has. But, I fear Fate has decreed there will be more.” Donnar came to his feet, leaning over the desk with his weight on his fists. “New emperor, new rules. But this time, they are an emperor’s rules. The Game of Empire is over. We will fight.” Sad eyes looked across the desk. “That brings me to an offer—no, a request—that I have for you on behalf of the Fleet.”
He paused, then continued.
“Let me tell you about the magnitude of the problem we have here. This planet is a mess, Captain. Our estimates are between 500 and 600 million dead now, and with the devastation on the other continent the real numbers could be twice as high. I would guess there are as many as two billion homeless. Probably a third of those are going to die. Distribution networks for everything are smashed, communications nonexistent. It was planned this way, you know. No fleet would go into a space battle with the kind of munitions load the Carrillacki carried. The leadership here during the battle was fantastic; they stuck to their posts and did what had to be done, which is why there is anything left at all. But the result is that they are all dead, from the Imperial administration to the defense command to the planetary authorities.
“The Fleet can repair the defenses. That’s the easy part. We can also patch together a command and control system for the civilian population. Not easy, and very imperfect with our limited resources, but we can do it. But, we can’t sit here and run it! The emperor sent Anson here with four ships to reinforce the base; yes, we suspected the attack was coming. But, this is the start, not the end of the fighting, and the emperor will need those ships back and I have only two left. I can’t afford to tie up units as local police and governors, but this planet will be in no condition to take care of itself even after we make repairs and the base is too important to abandon.”
“That sounds like an accurate summation,” I told him. In truth, it made me queasy. Intellectually, a billion people is too abstract to grasp, but the scene outside the town brought it into focus. “What does this have to do with us?”
“I’m asking you to take over this planet when we leave and hold it for the empire,” Donnar said with a perfectly straight face.
I was stunned. Even that word does not do justice to the feeling. “You would turn over a whole system, plus a major base, to a freebooter?”
“Yes, why not? You fought for the empire when there was no reason why you should, so I think you’ll do it again. With your ship, and the other freebooter vessel which we can salvage for you, plus the defenses we will leave, the system should hold. I doubt there’ll be another action on the scale of the one we just fought. Not out here, anyway. I think it’s an even deal. You’re going to have massive problems here for a few years, even if there is no more fighting, but for all the damage, this world has a lot of accessible resources and surviving industrial sites. Do it right and you could grow old in comfort. Even if the rest of the empire drowns in its own blood.”
When it came to making a sales pitch, Donnar was pretty good. I would have bought a used car from him without hesitation. A used planet, however, was a different matter. Rebuilding Lussern was going to take years of painful decisions, even if the system never had to be defended. In fact, fighting would be easier. On the other hand, life as a freebooter held no guarantees, especially if the Fleet and the kvenningari were going to settle their thousand-year-old grudges. The crew would buy having a planetary base, most of them. I couldn’t make my own decision though, until I saw in that problem the solution to another problem.
“You would be able to appoint whomever you need to handle it,” Donnar said in response to my comment. “Governing Lussern will be difficult enough. I doubt you could manage that, as well as the defenses, by yourself.”
“Then, if I agree to take over as governor of Lussern system, the empire will confirm Jaenna a Tyaromon as commander of the system defense forces?” Jaenna gasped. I would have loved to see her face, but I was concentrating on Donnar.
He had some difficulty with the idea. “A female in command of a system, not to mention a Fleet base?” His voice actually rose an octave. “If there is historical precedent at all, it would be ancient.”
“New emperor, new rules,” I reminded him.
“Hmph. I’ll need the emperor’s approval t
o do that. However, the repairs here will take two to three months before we would need to turn the base over anyway. I think I can get approval in that time. If I do that, will you accept?”
I had raised a point, and won it, but suddenly it was hard to say “yes.” The reason, I think, was that if I took this step there could be no turning back. As long as I was captain of the Francis Drake, and no more, I could go back to Earth if I wanted to. If I took over Lussern, the fantasy of going back would be gone. The thought brought up all sorts of things that I would miss. Not big things. Little things, like Christmas music in shopping malls, skiing in the Tetons after a fresh snow, the Sunday sports section and brunch in the city. Against that, Jaenna and I would have options we lacked on Franny. If she wanted them. I had never asked, and now it was too late.
While I debated with myself over this stuff, Jaenna broke in with the obvious question. “If the Fleet is gathering its forces to fight the kvenningari, there will be full-scale actions. There will be more Lusserns, right?”
“Yes,” said Donnar, “it is finally time for the Sri’Andor to face the challenge of their history.”
“The Sri’Andor?” I remembered someone, possibly the Aalori overseer using that name, but I didn’t know what it meant.
Now, Donnar’s shoulders slumped along with his face. “Yes, even the name has faded away. But we are the Remnant Fleet of the Sri’Andor, although for centuries outsiders have just called us the Fleet. The Sri’Andor were the original explorers who spread civilization through this part of the galaxy. It wasn’t a military organization to start—the original meaning of the word is more like ‘adventurer’—but as the empire grew it evolved into a peacekeeping force. You were born into it, or were tied into it—that’s how the custom of the family tie started. The Sri’Andor were the power and the glory of the empire,” Donnar said wistfully, “but the zenith was four thousand years ago. It grew too much—restrictions on joining were eased. And the kvenningari grew. Did you know that the kvenningari began as advocacy groups to support various interests against the influence of the Sri’Andor on Imperial politics?” I shook my head. “Few do,” Donnar continued. “They have evolved over time and there has been a lot of time. The kvenningari chartered the first freebooters two thousand years ago to support their positions by force. Of course, it was easier to equip freebooters for a campaign than to disband them afterward. The consequences should have been obvious. They multiply independently now, although most maintain that they have Imperial charters and follow Imperial regulations. Easier to recruit when people can pretend they have kept their oaths. Meanwhile, some of the kvenningari were able to seduce Sri’Andor commanders to give first loyalty.”
“And then came Srihan,” I said.
From the look on Donnar’s face, I had said a no-no. “I see you read history most are more comfortable not knowing about,” he said.
“But why didn’t you, the Sri’Andor, crush them back then? You must have had the power to do it.”
“Who knew where first loyalties ran in the chaos that followed? The computer simulations could not exclude the possibility that our civilization would disintergrate if the Sri’Andor moved against the kvenningari and we know that interstellar civilizations are unstable from the ones that have preceded us. Only total war can obliterate an interstellar civilization so thoroughly that only the barest traces tell us they existed. That’s why the empire has been patched and papered over the way it has, why we made the Game of Empire work.”
“It doesn’t work, Donnar,” I told him.
“There are many who would disagree with you. They would say that the Game of Empire has let billions of Srihani live out their lives in peace who would have died had we plunged into war.”
“No way I’m buying that, Donnar.” I actually laughed. “What about the billions whose lives were ruined because the Outer Empire is a cesspool? What about the billions more who will die now because the Fleet didn’t end this ages ago? Or have your computers weighed all those lives and decided it’s better like this?”
“No computers made those decisions,” Donnar said. “You need true independent intelligence for such complex judgments and sentient computers go insane. We have had plenty of catastrophes to prove that. No, those decisions were made by Srihani who have agonized over them time and again.”
“Well, maybe there needs to be a little more action and a lot less agonizing. I’ll bet that every time your ancient Fleet ran their simulations, that possibility of collapse was a little larger than before, so they waited. Now, though, collapse isn’t just a possibility you can’t exclude; it’s so likely you don’t have a choice.”
“I’m afraid you are right. Many of us have felt that way emotionally for a long time. Our only alternatives are for some to die quickly in the fire—and hope it is only some—or we will all slide slowly into oblivion, bits and pieces at a time, the way we have been doing. Our civilization will not survive a Carrillacki takeover. I just hope we are not too late.”
I asked, “Do you think you can you win?”
“I don’t know,” was Donnar’s unhappy answer. “When Jerem came to the throne, it was different. He had been governor at Triuvir, powerful in his own right. The Fleet rallied to him and the kvenningari were badly divided over his selection. If he had struck then … If only …
“Jerem was a fool! He was afraid of the dark that might take the empire, so he tried to negotiate. The kvenningari hadn’t negotiated with the emperor in so long, they had forgotten how. It gave Carrillacki time to forge an alliance against him, and he squandered the best chance this sorry empire had in centuries. Now? If you matched the ships of the Great Kvennigari against all the ships of the Fleet we would be outnumbered, of course, but no battle like that will ever be fought. Each side has too many places that must be defended, and kvenningari alliances have never been more than temporary. We may prevail. Tyaromon of Kaaran has negotiated a tie with Duromond that should help. Duromond has been a strong ally of Tomarillio. If Tyaromon can pull them to the Imperial side, as he seems to have done, it might tip the balance toward the emperor. We think that Carrillacki chose to strike now because the tie will be formalized soon.”
Jaenna gasped when the name Tyaromon was mentioned. “What tie?” she whispered.
It took Donnar a moment to make the connection. Then he laughed. “Of course! You would hardly have heard about it. Tyaromon has managed to arrange a tie with Rinaridon of Durmond for Valaria. From what I have heard, it is a masterpiece.”
“When does this happen?” she asked.
“If you mean the formal ceremony, it will take place in about a month.”
I remembered Jaenna’s talk about her brother, especially about what they would do together in the future, when Valaria ruled on Kaaran. It seemed that brother Valaria was being given some real power right now. I’m sure Jaenna was wondering what this would due to their earlier plans. In that moment, she must have been regretting not having returned to Kaaran before this.
“I need to be there for the ceremony,” she told Donnar. “Would the Fleet grant us a safe conduct to Kaaran, in view of our service here?”
“That should be possible,” Donnar said. “Given the work to be done here, I should think you could go to Kaaran and return in the time it will take us to complete our tasks. What do you say, Captain Danny? If I make all the necessary arrangements can I count on you to return to Lussern after the ceremony?”
I said “Yes” without hesitation, and probably without thought. I had just tied myself to Lussern at precisely the moment that Jaenna was beginning to think about returning to Kaaran. I wondered if I would be coming back by myself.
Chapter 22
This trip to Kaaran was peaceful. It should have been pleasant as well, but there was an odd undercurrent running through the ship. The crew was far too quiet. Everyone knew there would be no action on this voyage, and action is what a freebooter needs to live. No action, no booty. The crew understood this all too well, ev
en those who had been in the Fleet before they joined us. If the crew was quiet, their captain was depressed. This may seem odd. We were, after all, still alive and much honored after the battle at Lussern. The uniform of a Fleet captain, adorned with the Fleet Command ribbon, lay in my stateroom. My uniform, courtesy of Donnar. The commission that went with it, and my credentials as governor of Lussern, were in Franny’s computer and in hard copy alongside the uniform. What freebooter, however rich, had ever attained such heights? I was on my way to visit one of the richest planets of the Inner Empire, with a Fleet safe conduct in the computer. I should have been ecstatic.
Instead, I was depressed. Severely. The cause was easy enough to understand. I had finally decided to commit myself to Jaenna, only to have her, in that same instant, commit herself to Valaria and Kaaran. She had always put off returning to Kaaran, even put off talking about returning, but now she was doing it. I wished I knew what the odds were of her deciding to stay there. If she did, I didn’t know what I would do. Returning to Lussern without Jaenna held no attraction for me, but I didn’t see any good way out of the commitment I had made. I moped about it the whole way to Kaaran.
Jaenna was no help, because she was acting peculiar as well. As you’ve gathered by now, there was a certain amount of schiz in Jaenna’s personality to begin with. She could flip-flop from Susie Teenager to Sergeant York with frightening speed, especially when ship-in-action sounded, but I’d grown accustomed to that. On this trip, though, she was very different. She seemed unsure of herself, nervous. She marched about the ship irritably and couldn’t keep her mind on what she was doing. It was all very un-Jaenna like, which improved neither my mood nor the mood of the crew.
It was bad enough that Angel felt compelled to speak to me about it. He had spent most of our stay in Lussern system after the battle recuperating from wounds he suffered on Gadjeen, but he was his old self by the time we made our first transit. A moody captain, he pointed out, was considered bad luck. The crew would follow me anywhere, but things would be better if I would look more cheery. I told him where he could stick it. He apparently made a similar comment to Jaenna, who told him the same thing. This left Angel edgy, which made me even more uneasy. I wondered if he still liked the smell of my karma.
My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire Page 30
