Manna

by Lee Correy

  “This is an internal matter. International agreements don’t apply.”

  “They must, or I won’t surrender anything.”

  Wolf sighed and drew a hard copy out of his case. “We’ve prepared an instrument that spells out in detail every concession my government is ready to make. I suggest you read it because it represents our position in the matter.” He started to hand it to me.

  I just got it between the Fingers of my elastic pressure glove when there was a shuddering jolt and the module started to come apart. I didn’t know what had caused it.

  When a module five meters across and thirty meters long with a half-atmosphere internal pressure splits, it goes fast. There’s several tons of total pressure on every module panel. When I saw the seam behind Wolf open, instinct made me immediately reach up and close my face plate. Then I concentrated on turning on my backpack.

  When I looked about two seconds later, Wolf was gone.

  He’d been blown through the opened seam.

  But his pressure helmet was still strapped to the conduit.

  Suddenly, I was in vacuum with nothing around me. The module had scattered itself in pieces.

  The expanding globe of a diffuse flame front washed over me and dissipated in space.

  Pieces of space ship were tumbling outward from where the Proxinos had been parked.

  “Sandy! You there?” Omer’s voice came through my helmet comm.

  “Yo! Omer, you all right? Where are you? Is the Tomahok hit?”

  “Everything copasetic! The mass of GEO Base One was between me and the explosion. Keep talking. I home on you and pick you up.”

  “What blew?” I wanted to know.

  “Somebody hit Proxinos with a hell beam. Explosion blew the module apart, too.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “North of us in GEO.”

  “Mark it. Track it. Report it to Ell-Five. Then…”

  “Easy, Yankee! I got my hands full sneaking through GEO Base structure to get you. I don’t want to be a target for that hell beamer. You get aboard, then we do other things.”

  I saw him coming through the clutter of old GEO Base One modules. A few minutes later I was back in the Tomahok.

  I still had Wolf’s agreement clutched in my hand. I put it away. I never got around to reading it.

  Leaving my faceplate closed, I slid into the co-pilot’s seat, strapped in, and connected my hoses to the ship supply. “Depressurize!” I told him. “Less damage if we’re hit. And I owe you another one, Russkie.”

  “Da, but what now, Yankee?”

  “I don’t know who shot at us or why, but it’ll be probably be explained away as a ‘regrettable accident.’ ”

  “Tomahok, Vershatets Command relaying through Ell-Five. You read?” my headphones came alive with a new voice. I keyed my helmet mike. “Roger, Vershatets, Tomahok reads you loud and clear.”

  “Sendi, this is Kivalina. Jeri monitored that hell beam shot from Ell-Five and reports it came from a Janzus Pact facility in inclined geosynch. No single member of that four nation treaty group will ever accept responsibility for the shot because control is spread too thinly between them.”

  Which meant that hell-beamer was controlled by Tripartite interests.

  They’d wanted to hit the Tomahok, but it had been too hard to spot. They’d shot at the obvious open target and gotten the Proxinos by mistake. Or they’d deliberately wasted the Proxinos in order to get the Tomahok which they couldn’t see.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Okay, Russkie, we’re going to sit tight and hide in this old structure until we can get a skalavan escort. Then let’s quit wasting time. Vaivan’s being tortured in Topawa.”

  “Ah, Tomahok, this is the Free Trader Star Viking, Captain Kevin Graham commanding,” another voice cut in. “Sorry to eavesdrop, but we’ve been monitoring your meeting with Wolf. Don’t waste time calling in your warships. An unarmed escort of ten free traders is converging on GEO Base One. We’ll see to it you get back to Ell-Five unharmed. It’s impossible to hide a hell beamer shot or space fighter attack on such a large unarmed convoy, and somebody would have to do a lot of explaining when the damage suits came before various courts, to say nothing of the insurance adjusters…”

  I reached over and punched Omer, then replied, “Hey there, Kevin! Forgot about you!”

  “A lot of people have, and we’re damned sick of it. There hasn’t been much the League of Free Traders could do until now. But they’ve taken Vamori Free Space Port out of action and otherwise started to raise hell out here. It’s cut our livelihood to pieces and damned-near ruined some League members. So we’re taking sides. This has got to stop, and we’re going to help you stop it!”

  Chapter 19

  Return to Topawa

  “042950 0800Z

  FOR GENERAL RELEASE THIS TIME AND DATE FROM UNITED MITANNI COMMONWEALTH SPACIMPY COMMAND L-5

  UNITED MITANNI COMMONWEALTH SPACE VESSELS IN COMPANY WITH LEAGUE OF FREE TRADERS VESSELS IDENTIFIED IN APPENDED MESSAGE WILL MANEUVER IN ORBITAL SPACE COMMENCING IMMEDIATELY TO ASSIST COMMONWEALTH MILITARY FORCES WITH AN INTERNAL REBELLION

  THE MOVEMENTS AND ACTIONS OF COMMONWEALTH AND ALLIED VESSELS ARE NOT INTENDED TO THREATEN NONCOMMONWEALTH PROPERTY OR PEOPLE IN SPACE OR ON EARTH

  RESPONSIBILITY FOR COST OF DAMAGES INADVERTANTLY CAUSED BY THESE NON HOSTILE ACTIVITIES WILL BE ASSUMED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH UPON PRESENTATION THROUGH NORMALDIPLOMATIC CHANNELS OF DUE PROOF OF CAUSE WHICH IS SUSTAINED BY ARBITRATION UNDER PROVISIONS OF THE 2026 TREATY OF LUXEMBOURG

  THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT RESPECTFULLY REQUESTS THAT THE ACTIONS AND MOVEMENTS OF ITS VESSELS AND THOSE OF ITS ALLIES BE VIEWED WITHOUT PREJUDICE OR FEAR

  THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT FURTHER STATES THAT ANY REPEAT ANY HOSTILE ACTION TAKEN BY ANY REPEAT ANY PERSON FACILITY VESSEL OR NATION AGAINST ITS VESSELS AND PERSONNEL IN SPACE OR ON EARTH WILL BE MET WITH IMMEDIATE RETALIATION

  THE GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH HAS NO INTENT OF HARMING OTHERS IN PURSUIT OF ITS OWN INTERNAL DEFENSE AND SELF DETERMINATION

  SPACIMPY INDUNA SENDI BOLDWON COMMANDING BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTIVE DEFENSE COUNCIL OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED MITANNI COMMONWEALTH

  END MESSAGE END MESSAGE END MESSAGE

  042950 0805Z”

  I sent Kariander Dok my version of Grant’s famous message: “In view of your attack upon me at GEO Base One, no terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender from you can be acceptable now. You and your subordinates must answer fully for the harsh and inhuman treatment of the Karederu prisoners who must be freed at once. I propose to move immediately upon your forces.”

  I never got an answer, but it didn’t make any difference anyway.

  “Onward to Richmond!” became “Onward to Topawa!”

  Battle cries, shibboleths, and heroic statements serve a definite purpose in winning a war and are even more important when citizen warriors from a levee en masse fight side by side with professionals.

  The battles of Second Oidak, Pitoika Gate, and Topawa are seldom described in detail in history books because of the revulsion most people feel for the violent human activity called war. But they’re still studied at West Point, the U.S. Naval Academy, Sandhurst, St. Cyr, and the U.S. Aerospace Force Academy.

  The Second Battle of Oidak pitted Landlmpy and Citlmpy against the so-called Freedom Army. The Citlmpy overwhelmed the enemy by sheer ferocity and the Landlmpy reduced strong points with dogged professionalism. Then the Commonwealth forces split.

  Induno Kivalina Moti commanded the Northern Impy composed of Citlmpy troops with Landlmpy regiments in reserve. They quickly regrouped after Oidak and surged along the power transmission lines toward Vamori Free Space Port.

  The Southern Impy was composed of the pride of the Landlmpy reinforced with Citlmpy.

  Induno Pahtu led her troops in the field, seizing the advantage gained at Oidak to ram columns along opposite banks of the Topawa River toward the capital, maintai
ning contact with the routed Freedom Army.

  Coastlmpy Flotilla Eight under Induno Shokutu fought a naval battle as classic as Salamis. Shokutu’s small, fast hydrodynes mined Pitoika Gate under the Sunrise Bridge, then withdrew. When the Freedom Army’s reinforcement convoy approached, Shokutu’s hydrodyne force trapped them between the mined harbor mouth and the open sea, outmaneuvered the convoy screen, brought the convoy under attack, and sent all but threeships either to the bottom or aground on the Sun Coast south of Pitoika where the Citlmpy slaughtered the shipwrecked mercenaries who came ashore.

  I shouldn’t have doubted the fighting capabilities of Commonwealth people, professional or amateur. The coup’s biggest mistake was failure to gain control of communications and movement. Without these, they couldn’t prevent the buildup or coordination of the impys.

  The failure to control communications also meant that the pictures of the Karederu hostages were seen everywhere.

  It doesn’t help a military leader to be emotional, but emotion can motivate warriors.

  The General’s philosophy of the world of plenty and its success in the Commonwealth had been successfully communicated to three generations of people who were also kept reminded about the brutal life of times gone by. No one had the slightest desire to even sample that. Every citizen knew he’d been armed and trained because only he could prevent it from returning some day.

  Man and woman, they fought.

  They fought with a fury, gallantry, and elan comparable to when the Mahdi’s Jehad forces overwhelmed Gordon’s garrison in Khartoum or Cetewayo’s kwaZulu forces broke the British square at Isandhlwana. Or when the Suomis stood firm then pushed the Russian Bear back into its own territory. They reminded me of the United States Marines at Guadalcanal or Wolmi, and the 101st Airborne at Bastogne. Their leaders weren’t hesitant or fearful in the haze of battle and didn’t use obsolete tactics.

  The Commonwealth malcontents and outlander mercenaries who made up the Freedom Army had neither the legacy nor the will to withstand such an onslaught. They were worthy adversaries but couldn’t match people who even in peacetime carried iklawas at their waists.

  As CIC and Spaclmpy commander, my missions were the recapture of Vamori-Free followed by the Topawa assault. I planned to move fast and alter plans in the face of new situations. That’s the classic formula for winning a battle or a war. Like General Nathan Bedford Forrest, I wanted to git thar fustest with the mostest men.

  Holding and defending a space port had never been done before, and the Freedom Army consisted of land warriors whose only experience with vertical envelopment had been with armored aerodynes. They planned to defend Vamori-Free on the ground and moved in a few shoulder-launched SAMs to defend against low-level tacair. They didn’t know how anyone could attack and invade a space port from space.

  I did.

  A space port is mostly space.

  Vamori Free Space Port covered more than 7,500 square kilometers and stretched more than 150 kilometers along the seacoast. It was larger than some nations. During normal operations, 25,000 people lived and worked there.

  We mounted a two-pronged effort against the Vamori-Topawa objectives. Pahtu’s river offensive would pin down Freedom Army forces at Topawa. Moti’s Northern Impy would to hit the western edge of Vamori-Free by following the power transmission lines from Oidak.

  Then my space contingent would strike Vamori-Free and land. It sounds easier than it was.

  I first had to sanitize the threat of a couple hundred SAMs at Vamori-Free, then force the Freedom Army to keep their heads down. Omer would command our eight skalavans on low level passes at high mach numbers too fast for SAM reaction. The ear-busting shock waves would spread confusion among warriors who’d never experienced anything like it before—and at that time, nobody had because Omer had developed it while he was having “fun” letting it all hang out on high-Mach low-level tree-breaking flights.

  Omer’s skalavan sweeps would be followed immediately by tacair strikes to reduce the SAM threat. This operation was critical and had to be coordinated carefully with Moti’s Airlmpy squadrons because skalavans and tacair aerodynes moved at vastly different speeds.

  Military C-cubed—command, control, and communications—was our biggest headache, as it always is in any battle. Our comm frequencies would be spotted quickly. But a number of different forces would be operating on this mission—Pahtu’s Southern Landlmpy sweeping toward Topawa, Moti’s Northern Landlmpy racing toward Vamori, Dati’s Airlmpy tacair squadrons supporting them, and my Spaclmpy dropping from the sky in two elements: Omer’s skalavan squadron, and Ursila’s landing assault group. We used multiplex communications: each group working its own frequency and monitoring the other four. It would be difficult for the enemy to monitor all five channels simultaneously and sort out intragroup and intergroup messages and commands. It didn’t buy us secrecy, but it did buy us time.

  The tacair strikes were to be followed by a second pass of Omer’s skalavans to cover the landing of Ursila’s packets and free trader ships manned by as many swat teams as we could put together from Citlmpy people in space. Some had to be flown by a single pilot because we were short of pilots. There was no ground power for landing aids at Vamori-Free and shipborne radars don’t have the precision necessary for landing, so Omer had the crucial task of dropping a landing beacon on his second pass.

  With Ali’s family in danger, it would have been wrong to have kept him in L-5 in spite of his emotional condition. I didn’t want him in a command capacity, but he could fight. We were short of pilots, so Ali flew the Tomi.

  When the landing assault force hit dirt, most of the enemy SAMs should have been out of action and most enemy troops in confusion or pinned down by Moti’s land attack on Vamori-Free’s western edge. We’d then operate from behind.

  Once the Vamori Free Space Port was consolidated, our combined forces would turn southwesterly and pincer the final objective, Topawa.

  A rescue mission involving vertical envelopment of Topawa Centrum was my responsibility after the landing.

  It looked good in the computer. But Murphy’s Law always has the last word. People suffer from failure of judgement, fail to seize opportunities, or fail to be where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. That makes ball games and battles.

  Everything went beautifully from L-5 down. STC was cooperative and got other ships out of our way. Or perhaps it was the other way around: other ships, fearful we’d strike anyone who got in our way, deliberately saved STC the trouble by scheduling around our armada’s flight. No one wanted openly to start a war. RIO Commandant Peter Rutledge gave me a call as we left lunar orbit: “I say, Sandy, I do hope you won’t spot the carpet, old chap. If this internal affair among you Commonwealth types were to blossom into something else, RIO would its level best to keep it confined to the ground. Rather new RIO policy, old boy. As you jolly well know, vacuum is somewhat thin and lonely stuff, and nobody out here really wants to get involved. If the balloon were to go up, I rather suspect from talking with the military commanders above LEO that most of them would turn out to be rather devout cowards, although none of them would ever admit it. Space is already far too dangerous without having others shooting at one’s pressure hull. So we’ll bloody well manage to keep anyone from shooting at anyone else. But be a sport, Sendi: don’t ask how. You know full well what’s out here…”

  Was I glad to hear that! Maybe we wouldn’t have Space War II after all. “Thank you. Commander Rutledge of the Space Patrol,” I replied because, like it or not, that’s exactly what he was.

  We operated under STC clearance to prevent anything or anybody from getting in our way. Although this compromised secrecy and surprise, we gained the respect of others because, even in the midst of our great internal upheaval, we played by the rules. There may have been some tense fingers poised over buttons because we broached the engagement zones of several facilities, but nobody shot at us. Anybody who wanted to know where w
e were at any given instant could find out. And we damaged nothing.

  But once Omer got his skalavans in the atmosphere, he let it all hang out. I wished I’d been with him, but I couldn’t have gotten to the necessary level of competence. Hard as it was to accept, at physical age 28 I was already an over-the-hill space jock when it came to one-man hot vehicles like skalavans, Space Hawks, or Black Tigers.

  I could hear Omer: “Hokay, Blue Boomers commence east pass. Blue Two and Blue Three formate on me. Down to angels one. Keep your canards retracted. Yo ho! Getting very hot! Mach fifteen! Hokay, Blue Boomers, close on me, commence nine gee loop…now. Uh…Red Boomers, commence your south pass, angels one. Hokay, I see you in my canopy. Yellow Boomers, start your run now! Green Boomers, you are out of position, but start east run now!”

  The passes of eight ten-ton black skalavans at Mach 15 a kilometer above Vamori Free Space Port were enough to cause considerable damage from shock wave overpressures alone. The hypersonic carpets laid back and forth across the huge expanse of Vamori-Free not only caused the sort of confusion and consternation we’d hoped for, but also damaged fragile structures. It was a good thing one of the Commonwealth’s primary industries is glassmaking because there wasn’t a window left in any building in the immense vastness of the port.

  Low-level tacair aerodyne gun ships were standing by. “Stomper Leader, this is Boomer Leader,” Omer’s voice continued. “You are clear to clobber. Quick look shows joy for you near Areas One-zero, One-seven, Three-two and Niner-zero. You have five minutes—mark!—before we start our second pass.”

  “Boomer Leader, Stomper Leader, tally ho! Recon confirms quick look, and we are engaging. Blue Stomper to Ten, Red Stomper to Seventeen, Yellow Stomper to Thirty-two, and Green Stomper to Ninety. Purple Stomper, stand by to cover.”

  “Boomers all, this is Boomer Leader, formate on me for second pass, line abeam, present co-ordinates are on computer down-link from Boomer Leader. Formation join-up location is on your display. Press for join-up now.”