Praxis def-1

by Walter Jon Williams

  The Naxids were planning something forFerogash, and Martinez was willing to venture thatCorona featured in that plan.

  He thought a moment, then paged the captain’s secretary. “Saavedra,” he said, “you understand our situation.”

  Saavedra gave him a careful look, lips pinched beneath broad mustachios. “I understand yourexplanation of the situation, Lord Lieutenant.”

  Martinez found growing in himself a distinct lack of enthusiasm for warrant officers who made these sorts of rhetorical distinctions.

  “Do you understand thatCorona is in danger?” he asked. “That we may be fired on?”

  Saavedra gave a terse nod. “I understand, my lord.”

  “In order to activate the defensive weaponry, I need the captain’s key. Do you know where the captain keeps it?”

  Saavedra’s eyes hardened. His jaw firmed. “I donot, my lord.”

  “Are you certain? The lives of everyone on this ship may be at stake.”

  “I don’t know where the key is, my lord.”

  “You’ve never come across it? You’ve never seen him take it off, or take it from a drawer, or from his safe…?”

  “On the sole occasions on which I have seen the captain’s key, it has been around the captain’s neck.”

  Martinez decided he didn’t like warrant officers who used excessively formal diction either. He considered visiting Saavedra in whatever compartment he sheltered in and blowing a hole in his knee in hopes a memory might leak out. But the fantasy was only that; he didn’t dare leave Command.

  Sweet reason would have to prevail.

  “I need you tothink,” Martinez urged. “Think about where the captain puts his valuables. Where he might hide something precious. Anything you can tell me.”

  Saavedra looked imperiously from the display. “I shall consult my memory, my lord.”

  “Consult away.” Disgusted. “End transmission.”

  For the next fourteen minutesFerogash continued to drift away from the ring station without maneuvering. Alikhan reported no success, even after the two reinforcements arrived and Martinez suggested thumping the paneling for secret compartments and tearing open the captain’s pantry. If the office had been carpeted, he would have suggested ripping up the rugs.

  Then another transmission came from Ring Command. “It’s Deghbal, my lord,” Vonderheydte reported.

  “Tell him to stand by.”

  Martinez counted a minute and a half, as much as he dared, then answered.

  “This is Martinez, my lord.”

  Deghbal’s black-on-green eyes glimmered in the lights of the ring’s command center. “Your captain has recalled the password he gave you,” he said. “The password is ‘offsides.’ ”

  Martinez tried to look relieved, as if the word were the thing he desired most in all the world instead of the first thing Tarafah could think of when the pain finally grew too great to bear.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Martinez breathed. “Now may I hear the word from Lord Elcap Tarafah himself?”

  “Lord Tarafah is unavailable,” Deghbal said. “Your team has just won a victory, four points to one. The field is in turmoil. There is much celebration. I don’t believe we could locate Captain Tarafah even if we wished to.”

  Martinez forced onto his face what he hoped was an ingratiating smile. “I’d still like to hear it from the captain, if I may.”

  “You may not!” Deghbal’s response was immediate, and sharp. “This has gone on long enough. You will returnCorona to her berth at once.”

  “I’d very much like to hear that from my captain.”

  “You will return immediately!”Captain Deghbal’s voice contained the glottal throb that was the Naxid equivalent of a snarl.“There have been enough games today!” Deghbal leaned toward the camera, his black beaded lips drawn back. “If you fail in your obedience, I will order that your ship be fired upon.”

  “Just because I want to speak to my captain?” Martinez said. He widened his eyes in feigned disbelief. “Just let me hear the word from my captain and everything will be fine.”

  “Obey my order or face the consequences.” Deghbal reared back, his black-on-green eyes glaring.

  Martinez said nothing, simply leaned back in his couch and looked impassively at the camera. He could think of no other way to delay things. He and Deghbal stared at each other for a long, long moment…Martinez counted eight seconds. Then Deghbal gave a contemptuous flick of one hand.

  “End transmission.” The orangeEnd Transmission symbol appeared, and Martinez told the display to vanish.

  Now we die, he thought.

  But nothing happened right away.Corona’s engines burned on for another nine minutes before anything was heard from the ring station.

  “Ferogashis maneuvering, my lord!” from Tracy.

  “Ferogashfiring main engines!” echoed Clarke.

  Martinez tried to control his suddenly leaping heart. “What course?”

  “Zero-zero-one by zero-zero-one. Course due north, my lord. Two gravities and accelerating.” The 313-degree Shaa compass had no zero coordinate, but began instead with one, the odd number left over after factoring the prime number. The one, of course, stood for the One True Way of the Praxis.

  Ferogashwasn’t chasing, it was heading north, the quickest way to clear the ring and open fire.

  “Page crewman Saavedra,” Martinez said.

  The warrant officer’s supercilious face appeared promptly.

  “We’re about to be fired on by a cruiser twice our strength,” Martinez said. “If you’ve got any ideas about where the captain keeps his key, it’s time to let me know.”

  “I have no idea, Lord Lieutenant,” Saavedra said. “I had no desire to know where the captain kept his key, and I paid no attention to it.”

  “Missile flares!” Clarke called. “Three, five, six…eight missile tracks, my lord!”

  “We’ve got eight missiles coming our way,” Martinez told Saavedra. “If you’ve got any ideas about the key, you’d better let me know.”

  Saavedra stared stonily at Martinez. “You could surrender, my lord, and return to base,” he said. “I’m sure the fleetcom would order the missiles disarmed if you obeyed her command.”

  The total, incorruptible bastard, Martinez snarled. Kneecapping was too good for him.

  “Fourteen minutes to detonation, my lord,” Tracy said.

  “You’ve got less than fourteen minutes to think of something we haven’t tried,” Martinez told Saavedra. “Then you can die with the rest of the crew.” He signed off and turned to Kelly. “Weapons. I want you to prepare to launch one of the pinnaces as a decoy.”

  “Yes, my lord.” She hesitated, then turned her dark eyes to Martinez. “My lord, ah-how exactly would Ido that?”

  “We fire the pinnace on the same course, but a slower speed. We hope the missiles lock onto the pinnace instead of us.”

  Without the captain’s key, the two pinnaces were the only things Martinezcould launch. Unfortunately, they weren’t armed, so they were useless for offense, and the chances of one of the missiles mistaking a pinnace for the frigate were slim to none.

  Kelly blinked at her console. “I think I can do that, my lord.”

  “Good. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll check your work.”

  She seemed reassured. “Very good, my lord.”

  Martinez called Alikhan. “Have you tried searching Koslowski’s cabin again?”

  “We have, my lord.”

  “Any new ideasat all? ”

  “Nothing, my lord.”

  “Right then. Get your people into the officers’ racks. I’m going to kick some gees.” To Mabumba. “Acceleration warning.”

  The wailed cry of the acceleration warning sounded. “Very good, my lord.”

  He increasedCorona’s acceleration to six gees while he tried desperately to think of a way to escape. The heavy gravity should have wearied him but his mind blazed with ideas-radical maneuvers, imagin
ative improvision of decoys, suicide pinnace dives into the ring station-all of them pointless. The only thing he’d succeeded at was slowing the rate at which the missiles were closing, and buying his crew a few more minutes’ life.

  “Twelve minutes, my lord.”

  Martinez realized that his mind was racing too quickly to actually be of any use, and he tried to slow himself down, go through everything he knew step by step.

  Garcia had told him that Koslowski never wore his lieutenant’s key while playing football. Koslowski was the only one ofCorona’s officers who Martinez definitely knew wasn’t wearing his key, so that meant he should concentrate on Koslowski.

  The sensible place for Koslowski to put his key would be in the safe in his cabin, but Koslowski hadn’t been that sensible. He hadn’t put it in any other obvious place in his cabin either. So where else could he have gone?

  Where else didofficers go?

  The wardroom. It was where the officers ate and relaxed. There was a locked pantry where the officers kept their drinks and delicacies.

  But the wardroom was an insecure place, there were people in cleaning, and the wardroom steward and cook both had keys to the pantry. The wardroom seemed highly unlikely.

  Perhaps Koslowski gave the key to someone he trusted. But the only likely candidates were on the team.

  “Ten minutes, my lord.”

  Fine, Martinez went on, but if officers weren’t going to be wearing their keys, they were supposed to return them to their captain. So on the assumption that Koslowski did what he was supposed to do, where did Tarafah put it?

  Not in either of his safes. Not in his desk. Not in his drawers. Not under his mattress or in a secret compartment in the custom mahogany paneling of his walls.

  He put it…around his neck. Martinez’s heart sank. He could picture it happening, picture Tarafah looping the elastic cord around his neck and tucking the key down the front of his sweats, to join his own captain’s key nestled against his chest hairs…

  No. Martinez put the image firmly from his mind. The key had to be somewhere else.

  “Nine minutes, my lord.” The words were spoken over a long, groaning shudder fromCorona’s stressed frame.

  WouldFanaghee acceptCorona’s surrender? Martinez wondered. He could safely assume that she would want the frigate back, certainly. But-perhaps of more vital interest-would Fanaghee acceptMartinez’s surrender?

  Martinez thought not. His blood would probably still be decorating the walls of Command when Fanaghee put her new captain on board. Perhaps it would be easier on everyone if he just took his sidearm and blew out his own brains.

  No.Martinez put the thought out of his mind. Where was thekey?

  He pictured Koslowski’s cabin, exactly like his own…small, the narrow gimbaled bed, the washstand, the large wardrobe that contained the formidable number of uniforms required, the chests with the grand amount of gear an officer was expected to carry with him from one posting to the next. The shelves, the small desk with its computer access.

  There just wasn’t any room to hide something. A cabin wassmall.

  He knew that the captain’s sleeping cabin was larger, though he’d never been in it, but he couldn’t imagine it would be very different.

  And then there was the captain’s office. The desk, with its computer access. The safe. The shelves, and all the football trophies.

  The trophies. The glittering objects, standing in his office and braced against high gee, that meant more to Lieutenant Captain Tarafah than anything else, including probably his command. The objects that he savored every day, that he probably caressed in secret.

  Martinez was so transfixed by the memory of the trophies that he failed to hear the words that were spoken to him.

  “Sorry?” he said absently. “Repeat, please.”

  “I think I’ve configured the pinnace as you wished,” Kelly said.

  “Right. Stand by.”

  He paged Alikhan. “Did you check thetrophies? ” he demanded.

  “My lord?”

  “Did you look in the trophies? The Home Fleet Trophies arecups, aren’t they?”

  He could hear Alikhan’s chagrin even through the strain that six gravities was putting on his voice.

  “No, my lord. I didn’t think to look.”

  “Engines!” Martinez cried. “Reduce acceleration to one gravity!”

  “Reducing acceleration to one gravity, my lord,” Mabumba repeated.

  Corona’sbeams groaned as the oppressive weight eased. Martinez gasped in air, grateful to breathe without labor. He took a half-dozen sweet breaths, then impatience drove him to demand information.

  “What are you finding, Alikhan?”

  “I’m trying to work the catch to the lid now, my lord.There …I’m reaching inside…”

  In the silence that followed, even over the remorseless percussion of his heart, Martinez could hear the metallic scrape of Alikhan’s fingernails whispering against the inside of the cup. And then he heard Alikhan’s deep sigh, a sigh that to Martinez seemed filled with all the despair in the universe…

  “Six minutes, my lord.” Tracy’s words were leaden.

  “I’ve got them both, Lord Gareth,” said Alikhan in a voice of quiet exultation.

  For an instant the hopelessness still clung like a shroud to Martinez’s mind, and then it was obliterated by an electric surge of triumph that almost had him whooping aloud.

  “Activate the captain’s desk display,” he said. “Insert his key. Prepare to turn on my mark.Weapons! Kelly! Catch! ”

  Cadet Kelly turned as Martinez fished in his pocket for Garcia’s key. The expression on her face was luminous, as if with glowing eyes she were seeing Martinez descend from heaven on rainbow clouds.

  The cadet stretched out her lanky arms, and Martinez tossed her the key.

  “Insert and turn on my mark.”

  “Very good, my lord!”

  Martinez opened his tunic and pulled his own key off over his head. He inserted the key into the silvery metal slot on the command console before him.

  “Weapons. Alikhan. Turn on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark.”

  Kelly gave a dazzled smile as the weapons board lit up before her eyes. Another light appeared on Martinez’s board, indicating that the weapons were free.

  “Alikhan, get to a rack and strap in.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  And then, as frantic relief poured into his veins, Martinez turned to Kelly. “Power up point-defense lasers!” he called. “This isnot a drill!” Such was his haste that he had to keep himself from screaming the words like a lunatic.

  “This is not a drill,” Kelly repeated through a broad, brilliant smile. “Powering up point-defense lasers.”

  “Activate radars aft.”

  “Radars activated aft, my lord.”

  “This is not a drill. Charge missile battery one with antimatter.”

  “This is not a drill. Charging missile battery one with antimatter…missiles charged, my lord.”

  The missiles had been charged with their antimatter fuel, each unit consisting of a solid flake of antihydrogen that had been carefully doped with an excess of positrons, which allowed it to be suspended by static electricity inside a tiny etched silicon chip. The configuration was stable and would last for decades, and the chips were so diminutive, well beneath anything that could be seen with a conventional microscope, that as a mass they flowed like liquid. The antihydrogen served both as propellant for the missile and as the warhead-any fuel that didn’t get used up on the approach would go bang at the end of the journey.

  The same antihydrogen fuel was used byCorona for its own propulsion, though larger ships used antihydrogen suspended in larger microchips, which provided more power to the engines.

  “Screens,” Martinez asked, “what’s the dispersal on that salvo?”

  “They’re clumped together, my lord,” Tracy responded.

  Martinez pulled the radar tracks onto his own display. The
oncoming missileswere clumped, flying as if in formation. One ofCorona’s missiles should suffice to knock them out, but he thought he should fire two just to be sure.

  He pulled the weapons board into his own displays and began configuring the missiles. “We’ll fire battery one in salvos of two,” he explained to Kelly. “The first two will take care of the oncoming missiles. The next two will accelerate till they’re just short of the enemy missiles, then cut power and drift through the blast, coming out the far side, heading for the station but looking on the radars like debris-or so we’ll hope. The next pair will burn straight in for the ring station and probably get shot down, but may distract them from the second pair. The fourth pair we’ll keep in reserve.”

  Kelly looked a little overwhelmed. “Yes, my lord,” she said finally.

  “When you reload, load tube one with a decoy.”

  Pressing keypads. “Yes, my lord.”

  On a larger ship, there would be a tactical officer to take care of all these details. But as he spun his plans, as his fingers danced in the displays and tapped console pads, Martinez found that he was enjoying himself again, relishing the planning and the execution and, most of all, the little surprise he was planning to spring on the Naxids.

  Blow everything. Garcia’s words echoed in his mind, and he felt his pleasure fade. It wasn’t just rebel Naxids on the ships he planned to destroy, it was their captive crews, and the military installations on the ring were only a small part of the huge structure: millions of civilians lived there as well. All would die if his clever little plan succeeded.

  He stared for a moment into a dark, cold imagining: the flash, the fireball, the spray of gamma rays. The ring station rent apart, spinning out of control, parts flung into space, others dragged to flame and impact on the planet’s surface by the skyhook cables.

  “Three minutes, my lord.” Tracy’s words cut through his reverie, and with a deliberate resolve he put aside the horror of his vision.

  “This is not a drill,” Martinez said. “Fire tubes one and two.”

  “One and two fired, my lord. This is not a drill.” The gauss rails flung the missiles into space, and the missiles reoriented and ignited. “Missiles fired and running normally.”

  Martinez watched them fly away through his displays. “Weapons, this is not a drill. Fire three and four.”