Though Hell Should Bar the Way - eARC

by David Drake

  She laid her data unit on the desk in front of her and began twitching her control rods. The display was a blur of light to everyone but the operator, but I didn’t doubt that she was streaming data into the console hidden within the Councillor’s desk.

  An attention signal went bing somewhere in the desk. Perez said, “Yes?”

  A voice—I thought the aide who’d admitted us was speaking—said, “Courier from the messaging center for Director Foliot, sir. He says it’s of the greatest urgency.”

  Perez and Foliot exchanged glances. Foliot said in a clear voice, “Send him in, then.”

  The door opened to admit a small man with a trim goatee. He gave a folded piece of flimsy to the colonel.

  Foliot read it. Then, without speaking, he handed it to Councillor Perez.

  “This says that the Meduse has left Saguntum orbit,” Perez said, frowning in amazement.

  “That was the Karst destroyer which arrived two days ago,” Foliot said.

  “And it says that before the Meduse left, it destroyed Orbital Control with plasma cannon.” Perez looked up. “Whyever would it do that? Orbital Control doesn’t have any weapons, does it?”

  “No weapons at all,” said Foliot. “It was bloody murder. And we’re at war, Israel. Whether we like it or not.”

  “I don’t like it,” said Councillor Perez, looking older and sounding far more impressive than had been the case before. “But it’s reality.”

  He drew a deep breath and said, “Lady Mundy, how do I go about accepting the Friendship of Cinnabar?”

  CHAPTER 38

  I slept in my cabin on the Sunray. Nobody’d given me any orders. I wasn’t important enough for the folks who were giving orders to think about, and the heavens knew that I needed sleep. When I got up, I dressed in slops and put on the saucer hat. I’d change if I needed to after I learned what the day required; for now I was a watchstanding officer of the transport Sunray, out of Xenos.

  I walked onto the bridge, looking for information. Cory must have been on duty in the aft station, because Mundy was alone at the console. Well, alone except for Tovera, which was like saying that her shadow lay on the deck beside her.

  “Ma’am?” I said. I didn’t know how to address her now—neither Officer Mundy nor Lady Mundy reflected the whole present reality—so I’d fallen back on the form used by the Sissies, the spacers who had served for many years with her. “Can you tell me where to report?”

  “There’ll be a meeting in the Naval Defense building in”—her wands twitched— “fifty-seven minutes,” she said without looking up from her data. “Cory would have awakened you in half an hour. Daniel thought you should sleep in if you wanted to. And Monica Foliot has called, making sure that you were all right but emphasizing that you shouldn’t be awakened.”

  “Ah!” I said. “I should—”

  I stopped there because I didn’t know what I should do. The Naval Defense Forces Building was close enough to the Sunray’s slip that I could probably hit it with a stone, but I didn’t want to be involved with Monica when I was about to have real work to do. If I could just chat with Monica for a moment, that would be fine, but I didn’t know what she had in mind.

  Lady Mundy suddenly turned on her couch. She said, “Have you wondered why you were with us when we entered the Karst Residence, Olfetrie?”

  “Ma’am?” I said. “Because I’d been present at the attack on Colonel Foliot’s house, I supposed. In case I could identify some of the personnel.”

  “No,” said Mundy, her eyes on her display again. “Director Foliot requested that you go in. He wanted someone whom he trusted to be at the heart of the operation.”

  “Ma’am!” I said. “I’m not a traitor to Cinnabar! I wouldn’t act for the colonel against you and Captain Leary, and I can’t imagine the colonel asking me to!”

  “Daniel and I trust you also, or you wouldn’t have been involved,” Mundy said. “I doubt you’d have been the first pick for the open seat in the car, but there were shooters enough without you”—Tovera grinned. She reminded me of a predatory fish—“and in the event you proved to be quite useful. But I thought you ought to know.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “I, ah, think I’ll go ashore and have something for lunch. And perhaps to return Mistress Foliot’s call. Briefly.”

  * * *

  Colonel Foliot’s aircar was parked beside the Naval Defense building, and a special policeman was at the door along with what I took for the usual pair of Shore Police in black on gray pin-striped uniforms. One of the latter directed me to the briefing room, but it was a straight shot in from the lobby.

  It was an auditorium, with eight arcs of seats sloping down from the entrance.

  Foliot was at the table below, with Six and Lady Mundy to his right and a pair of officers—one was female, very unusual at this distance from the more developed worlds—in Naval Defense uniforms on the other side. People kept dribbling into the room, local personnel as well as officers and senior riggers from the Sunray.

  I chatted with Lieutenant Enery, who asked me about the attack on Colonel Foliot’s house. She was from an RCN family; obviously smart, obviously skilled; and completely alone on the Sunray. Because of my training on the run out, I’d developed a friendship with the warrant officers which an officer of Enery’s background couldn’t possibly have done.

  I found myself feeling sorry for her, but…not enough that I expected to change my own behavior. I hoped to spend such free time as I had with Monica. Our chat before the meeting had been short, but very positive.

  The entrance door thudded shut. Simultaneously, Colonel Foliot rose to his feet. Additional hours in the medicomp had helped his appearance considerably, though he still looked frail compared to what he’d been before he was shot.

  “Most of the talking this afternoon is going to be by Captain Leary,” Foliot said. “All I have to say is that he speaks for me and for Saguntum. We’re in an all-out war with Karst now, and we’re very bloody lucky to have Leary and his staff with us.”

  Foliot nodded to Six and sat down. I wondered if his reference to Leary’s staff meant Lady Mundy or the entire crew of the Sunray. Either choice made sense.

  “Fellow spacers,” Leary said. His voice wasn’t amplified, but it was strong and the room’s acoustics were good. “Karst has attacked us. Their thugs shot Colonel Foliot and missed killing him by only a whisker, and a Karst warship destroyed Orbital Control, killing four of your colleagues. Then the warship ran back to Karst to return with a force large enough to crush Saguntum.”

  He looked around the room. “Before they can get it together to do that,” he said, “we’re going to take the war to Karst. They’ll be starting to work up their ships to attack Saguntum, lifting to orbit and making short runs within their planetary system. We’ll stage a light-minute out and pick our targets, then attack and run straight for home.”

  The muted discussion was entirely among the Saguntine personnel. Former RCN spacers—myself included—made a point of appearing unfazed by the planned operation. Possibly some of my fellows really were bored at the notion of making a catch-as-catch-can attack on a hostile fleet, but I certainly wasn’t.

  A Saguntine officer stood up. “Captain Leary?” he said. “When you say ‘we,’ exactly who do you mean?”

  “The four dart sloops of the Defense force,” Leary said. “The ships will largely be crewed by their current personnel, but Captain Esterhazy from the staff”—he nodded toward the female officer seated on the other side of Foliot—“will command the Concha, and the others will be under me and two of my officers.”

  This time the rush of surprise was general. After letting it go on for a moment, Leary resumed, “This is not a comment on the courage of the existing captains. Rather, it’s a reflection of the six-day voyage to Karst and the need for precise astrogation. Captain Esterhazy is a graduate of Fleet Advanced Training, and my officers have RCN training. Saguntum has never before needed the expertise
this mission requires.”

  “Sir,” someone from the back called without rising to his feet. “Sloops aren’t meant to take on major warships.”

  “Sloops are what we have,” Leary said. “And for that matter, I believe that dart sloops are ideal for the hit-and-run attacks we’ll be carrying out.”

  There was another nervous rustle, maybe louder than there’d been earlier. The officer who’d asked the question stood up. “I resign,” he said loudly. “This is bloody crazy!”

  He stepped into the aisle and started up toward the door. Over his shoulder, he called, “I never signed up to commit suicide!”

  “Sergeant Ciano?” Foliot called to the Special Police standing at the door. “Arrest former Lieutenant Brassey. He’ll be released and deported as soon as our striking force returns, but not while the operation is ongoing.”

  Foliot rose to his feet again. He looked around the room slowly before he said, “Is there any other member of the Saguntine defense forces who’s afraid to fight?”

  Nobody spoke. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Brassey had stopped protesting. The guards were binding his wrists behind his back.

  “Go on, Leary,” the colonel said, sitting down again.

  Six unexpectedly grinned at the audience. “Believe me,” he said, “I didn’t sign up to commit suicide either. I’ve got people waiting for me back on Cinnabar, including a very attractive wife…but I did know that my job involved fighting. I hope you all are clear on that, because there will be fighting—at least on our side. If we do it right, there’s a good chance that the Karst lot will still have their thumbs up their arses when we’ve all gone back home.”

  I could feel the room relax, me included. Brassey was a coward, but I sure didn’t think he was wrong to be concerned. I’d bet that Six would agree—but his little speech made me feel that the attack was reasonable. Which it hadn’t before.

  “I want the new captains and crews to get to know each other,” Captain Leary said. “I’ll be taking Master Brassey’s place on the Lezo. Lieutenant Cory is going to the Magellanes, and Lieutenant Olfetrie is in command of El Cano. My first officer, Lieutenant Enery, will accompany us in the Sunray, which won’t be attacking but will provide intelligence through a sensor suite superior to that of the dart sloops.”

  He grinned again. “Not coincidentally, my signals officer, Lady Mundy, will be aboard the Sunray. Which I’d prefer to a light cruiser if I were given a choice.”

  I started to say something to Lieutenant Enery. Her face looked carved out of stone, so I swallowed instead.

  I needed to meet the crew of El Cano. My new command.

  * * *

  El Cano had a Saguntine crew of six, including Lieutenant Smith, who had just become my second-in-command. Six had added Barnes and Wedell. I was confident that those two and I could work the sloop to Karst by ourselves if we had to.

  In fact the locals seemed to be a pretty decent material—about as good as the crew of a Xenos-registered freighter. They were certainly better than the spacers I’d served with on the Martinique.

  The darter was named Whitlake, called Red. He wasn’t much older than me. He was rated spacer, but I judged that landsman would be closer to the truth. Sun said grudgingly that Red seemed to know his job as darter, which was all that really counted. These sloops were really just minimal propulsion wrapped around a “dart”—an antistarship missile like those in the ground defenses defending most harbors, those on Cinnabar, Saguntum, and ben Yusuf among them.

  Pasternak had interviewed the motorman, Moss. He hadn’t formally given his approval, but I knew that he’d put Gamba in charge of the Lezo’s fusion bottle.

  I took El Cano through the Matrix to the three outer planets of the Saguntum system, testing both my astrogation and the crew’s skill. I did all right, though the second jump was a lot farther out—nearly two hundred thousand miles—than I’d intended it to be. According to Barnes, the riggers were adequate, though he’d have liked to have a couple months to get them properly into shape.

  We three Sunrays wore rigging suits. The Saguntines had only air suits, and I agreed with Barnes that training them in the time available to use borrowed hard suits was impossible.

  The lighter garments were adequate for short hops within the system; they weren’t really safe for longer voyages where exhaustion and frayed cables could be expected. But as Wedell said with a shrug, “Well, if they thought being a spacer was safe, I hope they die before they breed.”

  When we returned to the Military Harbor, I reported to Captain Leary that El Cano was ready to execute his orders. At 1000 hours the next morning, we lifted to orbit as the fourth sloop of the operation. When the Sunray joined us, we headed for Karst.

  CHAPTER 39

  The rendezvous point was a light-minute from Karst. El Cano’s run to it was four days, with three extractions. On the first extraction I estimated us to be twelve hours short of our goal. I’d calculated we’d be ten out.

  That was quite a decent piece of astrogation, given that the sloop had a minimal rig and the longest run it had made in the past was of six hours. I was calibrating the console. The star sights I took on extraction refined the console’s predictions in a fashion that five years of short runs had not done.

  That said, my second run of twelve hours was out by three, a much higher percentage error. That was useful for keeping me from getting too full of myself.

  The crew behaved pretty well. Hammocks had been rigged again in the machinery spaces, like in the raid on Salaam, so everybody had a separate bunk. The amenities were spartan: The designers had expected the sloops to return to base every day or two at the longest. Everyone got along together well enough, and the Saguntines got a great deal of training from Barnes and Wedell.

  I spent part of each watch out on the hull to observe the Matrix and also to see how the Saguntine riggers were doing. Pretty well, it seemed to me, but I checked—helmet to helmet—with Barnes or Wedell.

  Lieutenant Smith was a willing rigger if not a particularly skilled one. He was only a little older than me and had gotten his place by virtue of his family’s prominence in Jacquerie rather than for any obvious aptitude. His astrogation was a short step better than entering the desired destination and letting the console make all the decisions. I tried to train him, largely to keep myself occupied, but he wasn’t interested.

  The third run brought us to within a hundred thousand miles of the rendezvous, as confirmed by multiple star sights. I shut us down and began searching for the rest of the strike force.

  El Cano’s optics were quite good, though the sensor array as a whole was no better than that of the Martinique. The Sunray and one of the sloops were already at the rendezvous, within one hundred thousand miles. That pair were within ten thousand miles of one another. I was willing to bet that El Cano was responsible for the greater separation between us and the other ships.

  I thought that a third sloop was in-orbit from us at about four hundred thousand miles, but I might well have been seeing an asteroid. Against the faint sunlight and without optical-sharpening software that hadn’t been loaded into El Cano’s console, I couldn’t be sure without using an active emitter. We were under orders to shut down on arrival and not to transmit anything but a minimal check-in message.

  I’d warned the crew that we’d be in freefall at the rendezvous until we actually launched the attack. There weren’t any real complaints, though Lieutenant Smith did comment loudly that freefall made him queasy. Barnes’ even louder comment was that anybody who puked got to clean up the mess.

  That probably wasn’t the correct way to respond to an officer, but I didn’t say—or feel like saying—anything. The run had been stressful for everybody, myself included.

  I was queuing up my arrival message when I got a tight-beam microwave squirt from the Sunray. This consisted of Wait for Magellanes and sharpened visuals of Karst.

  Through El Cano’s equipment I’d been able to see that ships we
re orbiting the planet. The new data showed that they were four light cruisers, probably preparing for a short work-up voyage.

  It was possible that they were actually about to embark for Saguntum. A squadron of light cruisers could overwhelm Saguntum’s defenses, though I would have expected Karst to use destroyers and transports for their attack.

  “Captain?” Red asked from the other side of the console, where he had the attack screen up. “What do we do now?”

  “Crew,” I said, using the PA system. There were overhead speakers in the cabin and the machinery spaces. “We’re waiting for the remaining sloop to join us. I expect that when the Magellanes arrives, we’ll attack immediately.”

  “Well, where is it?” Smith said. “Why aren’t they here? Aren’t we in danger all the time we sit here?”

  “Lieutenant Smith,” I said. “Take your bunk and wait there until I order you to do something else! As for danger, no—not particularly. So long as we’re drifting here, shut down except for the environmental system, it would take a better sensor pack than any Karst warship carries for anybody to notice us.”

  That was more true than not, though I wasn’t nearly as certain as I tried to put in my voice. I didn’t say anything about why the Magellanes hadn’t arrived, because I didn’t have a clue. Cory was a better astrogator than I was, and he had Dasi and Carlyle to tone up his Saguntine rigging crew.

  I used the time to plot approaches to Karst, starting with the rig as it was and then modifying the sail plan variously. If I hadn’t done something, I’d have gone nuts waiting for the Magellanes to arrive.

  I was working on another attack plan when the upper-left quadrant of my display flashed to a real-time plot of another ship’s arrival—close enough to the Sunray and Lezo that all three would fit within a twelve-thousand-mile-diameter sphere. I focused my optics on it and found the Magellanes. Her ventral antenna had carried away.