by John Carr
The ship was flaring with arcs of electrical discharge. Fires gouted from within, fed by its internal atmosphere. Together with random, almost constant explosions along its length, these gave the ship its “fluctuating albedo,” which was not an albedo at all. The ship was not reflecting light, but generating it. Aft, holes over a hundred meters in diameter were punched clear through the hull; the engines were mostly gutted, blackened, burning hulks. The view into the wounds showed stars on the other side. Amidships, through great rents in the hull, four and five decks deep, the spine of the vessel could be seen, barely holding the fore and aft sections together. Bulkheads and struts floated alongside held in place by cables, shreds of outer hull and the ship’s own microgravity. Shielding, ten feet thick, lay shredded, crumpled, or trailed in tatters to end in vaporous smears. It was a wonder the ship had survived Jump in once piece.
The forward section was the worst. Here a direct hit to a forward weapons bay had opened the entire fore port quarter to space; more than a third of the vessel’s forward area was simply gone, decks sheared through, seen end on, dark but for fires and more sparking and the dull, lifeless glow of metal inflamed by radioactive explosions, heated in the vacuum of space which would let none of that heat bleed away. The wreck would glow for weeks.
And in that glow would be visible the bodies that floated within, alongside, and behind it. Many had been flattened, insect-like, to the bulkheads. Still more were nothing but great smears of rust-brown or livid red, where dozens of crew members had been crushed or burned or irradiated or exposed to vacuum and died; but not quickly. Humans were tough, and Sauron humans tougher still.
Diettinger stared at the hulk, dimly aware of the movement around him as people began making for exits, heading for anywhere in the station but the room where he now stood, looking up at the wreckage of a Sauron battleship.
Someone was standing beside him: Althene. Beside her, Captain Connolly’s gaze was riveted to the scene above.
“Christ. And I thought the spectre had come to the feast when I met Hawksley.”
Diettinger was running his gaze back and forth over the ruin, trying to find some identifying mark, some distinctive feature; a blade of grass in a bomb crater.
It was as if Connolly read his mind.”Your Grace?” he asked, and his tone said he knew.
“First Rank?” Althene asked, wanting very badly at that moment to call him “Galen.”
Diettinger nodded, slowly.”It’s the Wallenstein”
Lucan had brought his crew home.
Eighteen
I
Beyond the condition of the wrecked battleship or her slaughtered crew, the true horror of the Wallenstein was learned only after Pathfinder Cyborg teams had examined the irradiated derelict, to find that she was no derelict at all.
“The first clue,” Diettinger was telling the High Command, “was that no vessel in Wallenstein’s condition could have made the trip from Tanith to Sauron. For that reason, I instructed the Pathfinders to pay careful attention to conditions in the Drives and Engineering sections of the wreck. Their report is presented in detail in the briefings before you.
“To summarize: The Wallenstein arrived in Sauron System with an Imperial Alderson Drive installed, and jury-rigged to make a single Jump from one of the nearby star systems to Sauron.”
The First Citizen looked up from his briefing. “But the Wallenstein was at Tanith..,”
“Yes, First Citizen. After capturing the Wallenstein” - Diettinger ignored the half-dozen sharp intakes of breath at his near-blasphemy; no Sauron ship had ever been captured - ”the Imperials must have installed several such packages in various systems along one of the routes from Tanith to Sauron and literally ’pushed’ the Wallenstein wreckage through the intervening Alderson points until it arrived here.”
Panades, one of the other Sauron norms on the High Command and charged with civilian oversight on naval matters, was shaking his head. “To what possible purpose?”
“I should have thought that would be obvious, Councilman Panades. To let us know they were victorious at Tanith. To let us know they have crushed the last line of defense between Sauron and the fleets of the Empire. To let us know they are coming, and soon. The gesture is not without precedent.”
“I know of no such action since the beginning of the war,” Panades dismissed the idea, but Diettinger was ready for him.
“Ancient Earth, First Citizen,” Diettinger ignored Panades. “Theocratic Egyptian society regarded domesticated Terran cats as semi-divine. Hittite invaders slaughtered hundreds of the animals and threw them over the walls of besieged Egyptian cities to drive defenders from their posts and generally panic the superstitious populace. The ploy later evolved into the ’Dead Horse’ tactic, wherein siege engines were used to launch rotting corpses of draft animals into besieged cities to spread disease and panic.”
“Are you suggesting that Sauron should consider itself under siege, Fleet First Rank?” One of the other Council members interrupted, his tone was all cold malice at so treasonous a notion.
Panades frowned. “No, that can’t be right, Fleet First Rank. Obviously, the Wallenstein’s captain lost his nerve at Tanith, fled the battle there and was ambushed along the way. Critically wounded, her commander - Lucan, was it? - this Lucan must have fought his way through to a Jump Point to get here. He must therefore have been ambushed only one system away, at Dropshot, perhaps, or Wayforth, or one of half-a-dozen others.”
Diettinger’s gaze hardened. “Leaving aside for the moment Vessel First Rank Lucan’s impeccable record, and assuming that, despite all logic, you are correct: What difference does it make?”
Councilman Panades looked up, surprised by the near-insolence of Diettinger’s question.”What do you mean?”
Diettinger was holding a respectful tone by sheer act of will. “First Citizen, Council members: Either way, a powerful force of enemy vessels is only one Jump away from Sauron. Either way, this is the only warning we will receive. Either Lucan got his ship here to tell us they’re coming, or the Imperials sent it to tell us they’re coming. Either way, the Imperial Fleet is on its way here. Now.” Diettinger had risen to his feet as he spoke; he sat back down.”What is to be done?”
The First Citizen glared down at Diettinger. “I find your tone disrespectful, Fleet First Rank. I remind you that you are still under High Command authority.”
“Which is why I now repeat the question, First Citizen.” Diettinger’s hand clenched.”What is to be done?”
“The invasion of Sparta should go on as planned,” Panades told the First Citizen, ignoring Diettinger. “Such an imminent threat to the Imperial capital will dictate a re-direction of their forces to defend Sparta.”
“May I ask with what vessels I am to mount such an operation?” Diettinger asked.
Panades shrugged, continued to speak to the First Citizen and ignored Diettinger. “From the extent of the damage suffered by the Wallenstein, and the damage which such a vessel, by design, can statistically be expected to inflict before it is lost, we can extrapolate by the number of like vessels committed to Tanith that the Imperial fleet must surely have been destroyed there,” he glanced briefly at Diettinger, secure in his logic, “just as we projected. If the price was the loss of the majority of our combined Fleet, it is a grave one, but acceptable. Therefore, the forces currently assembled by the Fleet First Rank should be more than sufficient to overwhelm any defense remaining at Sparta.”
Diettinger actually felt a dizzy, wrenching sensation of vertigo. “You propose to leave the Homeworld defenseless?”
“Defenseless against what threat, Fleet First Rank?” Panades asked, and with real horror Diettinger saw the man sincerely believed what he said next. “The on-site system defense network is more than capable of dealing with what meager remnants of the Imperial Fleet might come through our Jump Points.”
“Fleet First Rank Galen Diettinger,” the First Citizen pronounced, ”You are hereby charged to a
ctivate the forces currently assembled here in Sauron System, and with them mount an assault on the Imperial Capital System of Sparta, and once there to - “
“Enough.” The voice came from the left side of the High Command council table. One moment, the three Cyborg members of the High Command had been seated, quietly conferring with one another.
The next instant, Ulm was standing, Saentz was holding up a communicator and speaking in the Battle Tongue, and Manche stood over the bodies of the First Citizen and Councilman Panades. Both members of the High Command were dying of broken necks, both taking time to finish doing so; Manche was holding them in their chairs with one hand to each throat.
The speed of the coup was enough to make Diettinger think he was hallucinating. I never dreamed even a Cyborg could be so fast! he thought. Is that how we look to human norms? No wonder we terrify them so! In seconds, two dozen Sauron norms in battle armor had flooded into the council chamber, led by another Cyborg Diettinger didn’t recognize, a giant with the name tag: “SARGUN.”
“By order of Emergency Security Provision 12156,” Saentz declared, “The High Command council is hereby dissolved as being inimical to the interests and continued survival of the State. It is the motion of this member that Fleet First Rank Galen Diettinger be appointed Dictator Pro Tempore for the duration of the current crisis, said crisis to be regarded as the threat of imminent invasion by forces of the Empire against Sauron System.”
“The motion is seconded,” Ulm said without looking up from the communications panel with which he was directing the sealing-off of the capitol.
“How say the remaining members of the Council?” Manche asked. . he still had one hand against each of the dead men’s throats.
The remaining members seemed more relieved than anything else. The “aye” vote was immediate.
“The motion is carried,” Saentz said.”This council is adjourned sine die” Only then did he release the bodies of Panades and the First Citizen. Both dropped to the floor with solid, final sounds; Sauron muscle mass made for very weighty dead weight, indeed. Saentz turned to Diettinger.
“This body stands ready to carry out your commands in defense of the realm, Dictator”
For one surreal instant, Diettinger would have sworn he saw the Cyborg actually smile.
“What is to be done?” the Cyborg asked.
II
The Sauron populace was informed, briefly, of the implementation of Security Provision 12156. Although few citizens knew of Fleet First Rank Galen Diettinger, everyone knew the law, and Diettinger abruptly found himself without any resistance whatsoever to his plans for the defense of Sauron System and the Homeworld.
“It’s a bit like walking into a stiff breeze all morning and having it change to a tailwind at noon,” he told his Second Rank during a staff meeting.
Althene declined to comment. She had heard Diettinger’s account of the coup and realized, as he did, that its speed was illusory, that all the elements of the takeover must have been in place for weeks, perhaps months, before the Cyborgs had made their move, then left in place, ready for activation whenever the Cyborgs judged it necessary. They would not move for simple power over Sauron society; that they had already, in abundance. They would only take such drastic action for what they deemed the welfare of the Race. Despite a ruthlessness unmatched even by other Saurons, Althene knew that all Cyborgs’ actions stemmed from motives based on the Sauron vision of human destiny.
She also knew that Diettinger could not be unaware of the peril of serving as a Cyborg cat’s-paw, and that he could not seriously think that he was really in control. His current status could only mean that the Cyborgs thought he could actually defeat the Imperial Fleet which must even now be en route to Sauron System.
“Second Rank?”
“My apologies, First Rank. I was distracted.”
Diettinger ignored the lapse and continued entering data on the pad before him. A moment later, he engaged the holographic units and activated the War Room display of Sauron System.
Landyn, the system’s F9 star, had produced seven worlds. Dawkins, Proteus and Niobe marched outward from the star to the Homeworld of Sauron itself and its large moon, Poictesme, both now bearing a single green nimbus of enhancement. Next was the wellspring of Sauron power and prosperity, an unusually dense and valuable asteroid belt, heavily fortified to defeat Imperial or pirate raids. Of the number of emplacements hidden within the slowly rotating field, System Defense Boat squadrons alone ran to the hundreds. Missile bases, particle accelerator and beam weapon bays and thermonuclear mines brought the total figure of defending elements well into four digits.
Despite the huge indigenous population of their asteroid belt, the Saurons did not count the area as one of their system’s worlds. The fifth true planetary body occupied the sixth orbital path, a gas giant called Ostia, which Sauron had tapped for fuel and fourth-state matter since the earliest days of colonization. Ostia was surrounded by a dozen refueling stations, among which twice as many tankers were engaged in transfer rotation, the ships constantly ferrying hydrogen to refueling stations in orbit over Sauron itself.
Diettinger did not expect to hold Ostia for long. Its status as a fuel supply source and its position outside the main defenses of the asteroid belt had doomed it. So the ferries ran hourly, building the fuel stores for the Home-world’s defense, and they would do so even after battle was joined, until Ostia was captured or the last of them was destroyed.
The last two worlds of Sauron System, Freas and Barlowe, were mixed blessings. At this point in their respective orbital years, they were almost exactly opposite one another on the plane of Sauron System’s ecliptic. Both were occupied by extensive research facilities, lately reinforced by massive shipments Diettinger had authorized immediately upon returning from an inspection of the sites, presumably to augment their extant defense emplacements and, perhaps, allow him some edge in the coming battle, if the Imperials were sufficiently obliging in their approach patterns.
Even without such reinforcements, Barlowe and Freas’ opposing orbital positions and extensive supply caches provided Diettinger’s forces with Jump-Off points to the areas of greatest danger and greatest opportunity; Sauron’s Alderson Points. But it also made it apparently impossible, for task forces detached from either world, to reach the other quickly enough to provide any meaningful mutual support.
Sauron boasted six Alderson Points, where the Stellar thermodynamics of Landyn’s Sun generated “tramlines” between itself and half-a-dozen of its Stellar neighbors. These lines had made interstellar travel and empire possible, and would now seem to make the imminent destruction of Sauron inevitable.
Diettinger’s viewing console for the immersion display was at the general position of Jump Point One, the route from Sauron System to Wayforth Station. This viewpoint was 2.4 billion kilometers beyond the orbit of Barlowe, twenty-three degrees above the plane of the ecliptic in a wedge-shaped area one hundred-seventeen degrees from a zero point line drawn between Landyn and the galactic center. The zone defined was roughly equivalent to Sauron’s orbital position during the planet’s month of March.
He pressed a key and the point of view changed to forty-one degrees below the plane and further along in the year, around late July. This was the route to Dropshot System, a little closer at about two billion kilometers distant, and through which had come the last of his reinforcements, nineteen days ago. No courier ships sent through any of these Jump routes in the last seven days had returned.
“Dictator.” Cyborg Rank Koln had entered during Diettinger’s observations of the system map. He was serving as liaison for the High Council, and had returned with a list of updates on the System Defense Boat squadrons based on Sauron’s moon, Poictesme.
Diettinger downloaded the information without acknowledgment, nor was one expected. But Koln watched the Dictator, and Althene watched Koln. Koln’s eyes flickered upwards once, briefly, to meet hers. The Cyborg’s gaze was placid, neutral,
unconcerned. He never blinked, and finally looked back at the system display suspended in the center of the War Room.
Diettinger frowned, leaned forward even as he entered several enhancement commands. A section of the asteroid belt leaped forward, expanded into ever-finer detail. At 1:100,000 scale, the display was filled by a single large body dotted with circular slabs. The slabs were laid out in five-point star patterns, each surrounding a massive particle beam array in an armored turret. Diettinger called up a schematic for the turret, and suddenly laughed without a trace of humor.
Several of the staffers who had been bustling about the War Room stopped in their tracks. Now it was Koln’s turn to frown. “Dictator?” he asked.”What is amusing?”
Diettinger turned to Althene. “Nothing at all, Cyborg Rank Koln,” he said.”Do you see anything amusing in this, Second Rank?”
Althene looked at the schematic, then back at the asteroid’s image in the system display.”This can’t be right,” she said.
Diettinger motioned to one of the staffers wearing a system defense badge on his sleeve. “Third Rank Pell, what is the operational mode of this type of defense system?”
Proud of his expertise, Pell only glanced briefly at the display; he knew the system implicitly. “The circular areas are missile ports, Dictator. Each contains twelve independently targetable anti-shipping missiles with high-yield nuclear warheads, 100 megaton range. The turret is a quad particle beam mount containing four 1,000 gigajoule particle beam projectors in a linked array with a 360 degree field of fire and a 45 degree vertical traverse. An approaching invader would receive fire from the beam weapons until directly over the missile ports; the missiles are then fired at a sufficiently close range that the intruder’s point defense systems cannot lock on and destroy them before intercept.”
“This assumes such an intruder approaches parallel to the plane of the ecliptic, does it not?” Diettinger asked.
