by Zach Hughes
There weren't a helluva lot of explanations as the four were hustled into arcs and delivered to the hospital in San Ann. There an ovate instrument was removed from within Lex's skull. He awoke with a headache to see his father, President Gar and Admiral Crockett Reds by his bedside.
"It's a thought monitor," Murichon said. "During one of those interrogation sessions you told us about they inserted it and blanked the memory of healing from your mind. Captain Wal had one, too. They've been broadcasting constantly."
"Oh, no," Lex said.
"We've got Wal's hooked back up," Andy Gar said. "When they come we don't want them to know we're expecting them."
"I shouldn't have come home," Lex said. The Empire fleet numbered into the millions. Each unit was more than capable of taking out a planet.
"Well, you did, boy," Gar said. "And you'd every right to. But now I'm afraid you're going to have to fight for that home."
Chapter Seven
The hole in Lex's head kept him in bed for a few days, but caused little pain. What bothered him most was the constant tests he was forced to undergo. The ovate object which had been removed from under his skull was, depending on how you looked at it, both large and small. It was frighteningly large to think of it inside your skull, displacing some brain tissue, replacing some, for actual gray matter had been removed to provide space for the object. The tests were being run to determine what, if any, permanent damage had been done to Lex's mental capacity. However, the human brain being what it is, a study in redundancy, it was finally conceded that the removal of the small—or large—depending on how you looked at it—amount of brain matter was not Hanging in any way. There are large areas of the brain which perform no useful functions. It was in one of those areas that the transmitter-monitor had been mounted.
Both small and large. Small to a frightening degree when the extent of its function was fully understood by Texican technicians. Large to a sickening degree when it had been inside a human skull.
And that one object forced a complete reassessment of Empire technology. Until slight abnormalities had been noted in the encephalogram of Arden Wal the Texican picture of Empire technology had not been a flattering one. It was a fact that Empire blink generators were much the same as the original design, the design which lifted man into interstellar space from the old Earth. Hasty examination of theGrus , bunked to Texas on the locks of the Texican ship which contacted Lex out there in the rim, confirmed the Texican impression that the Empire's techs had stagnated, become bogged down in endless repetition of old themes, spending the time and resources of a million worlds in building quantities, rather than in improving quality. It was true, and had been proven in the field, that a Texican ship, equipped with advanced generators, could fly rings around any Empire ship. Moreover, the technology which had produced the Darlene space rifle was, clearly, far ahead of the Empire, which depended solely on beam and ray weapons. However, the highly compact instrumentation of those objects found under the skulls of both Lex and Wal caused some brow-wrinkling among Texican scientists.
The transmitter mechanism in the brain monitors was a simple one, sending nothing more complicated than a one-tone signal at regular intervals. This, in itself, was not remarkable. What was astounding was the range over which the signal could be picked up. Over a range of something under a quarter of a light-year the monitor could be read by hastily fabricated receivers to obtain an indication of the emotional load of the one being monitored. In a range of a few thousand miles, those who had made a study of the human mind could tell enough from the signals sent out by the monitor almost to read the subject's thoughts. The ovate object in Arden Wal's head made him a unit in the whole. Had he been commanding a ship in a fleet someone, perhaps, it was theorized, aboard the flagship, could read Wal's emotions and stresses just as a good tech read the condition of the various components in a ship's mechanical system.
Wal was deeply shocked. He had no recollection of having been implanted with the instrument, but he did recall various times during his training when he would have to undergo tests and treatments. He requested that the instrument be removed from his skull immediately and was told that it was important that the Empire remain ignorant of the fact that Texas had discovered the implantations.
Lex was not shocked, he was outraged. He felt as if his most secret sanctuary had been invaded. To think of some Empire doctor messing around with his brain was enough to send him into a fury.
One primary implication was drawn from the discovery of the monitoring device in Lex's gray matter. That was the thing which was of most immediate concern to all of Texas, for the most fantastic part of the device was its ability to induce power from the tiny electric currents running through Lex's brain to send a simple tone over distances so vast that it was a certainty that theGrus could have been followed to Texas, followed at such an immense distance that a ship's sensors would not detect the stalker. Such a transmitter would have been installed in Lex for one reason and one reason only, to allow the Empire to follow bun home.
There was one hope. Perhaps the Empire had not maintained constant surveillance on Lex, knowing him to be safely aboard a ship of the line. Perhaps, just perhaps, the instrument had been intended for use when Lex was released from the Empire's service at some future date, after a long enough wait to make it seem as if it were Empire benevolence, rather than an Empire plot to find the location of Texas, to reduce his punishment. However, the signal from Lex's personal bug had reached parsecs into space. There was too much at stake to risk anything less than complete preparedness.
And so a world mobilized.
Messages went out. The most far-flung prospectors were blinking back to Texas to add their hulls to the fleet. For years Texas had been riding a tiger in the contacts with the Empire and now the tiger was threatening to buck.
Ironically, it was good Empire metals which went into the forges at the Blink Space Works to turn out armaments at a pace which had every available worker on overtime. Within a year, every spaceworthy hull under the Texas flag would be armed with a minimum of one Darlene space rifle, but no one was sure that Texas would be allowed a year.
The growing makeshift fleet trained in near space. Scouts ranged into the galaxy, watching for movement of a large Empire fleet toward the rim.
Lex's hole in the head was healing. He was on his feet, still in hospital, given the freedom of the place. He visited Arden Wal, still under observation, and upon walking into the room stopped in mid-stride.
She was dressed in professional whites and she looked even more beautiful than he remembered.
"Hello, Lex."
"Emily."
"I've been meaning to drop in," she said, "but we've been so busy."
The surge of pure joy in him drove out all else. He forgot, for the moment, that it was because of him that Texas was preparing to fight for its life. He forgot the years of loneliness out there in the Empire. She had changed so little, except that she was wearing her hair differently.
He walked toward her, oblivious of the curious look from Wal. His arms went out. She, with complete poise, met him, embraced him in a sisterly way, pushed him back. "My, you're a man now."
It was then, with her hands on his arms, holding him f at arm's length, that he saw the ring. She noted the change of expression. "Yes, I've chosen. He's a doctor. I want you to meet him."
The sun which had begun to glow in his heart died. "Yeah, sure." He swallowed. "Well, sure is nice to see you again, Emily. Hope I didn't break in on anything."
"Oh, no. In fact, I'm glad you stopped by. Captain Wal is very much disturbed. He seems to think that it's his fault Texas is threatened. I've been telling him that the transmitter in your instrument was much more powerful than the one in his, that his seems to be intended for purely local use."
Lex wasn't listening. He stayed a decent interval, said comforting things to Wal, then left to go out of the hospital without permission and get drunk for the first time in his life. Reall
y drunk. Forgetting, falling-down drunk.
When he awoke, back in his room, he had no idea how he had arrived there, but he knew a dead dream when he met one face to face and kicked himself mentally for letting it get to him, because he'd always known that it was nothing more than a dream, that she was older, that the way things were she'd surely choose a man of her own age, probably a man in her own field of interest. But a dream dies hard, especially a dream which had sustained him through the years of Empire service, when he was so much alone.
A visit from Billy Bob, in the uniform of a lower officer of the fleet, helped in a small way, but his release from hospital helped more and then a silent, solitary run into the desert onZelda cleared away the last of the hospital smells from his nostrils. He came home onZelda , flying low and fast, knowing that it was time to stop mooning over girls and start helping Texas. He joined the continuing conference in the big house and was questioned by the Admiral and the Rangers about fleet tactics in the Empire.
He had already dictated all he knew. "I think you'd do better to talk with Captain Wal," he said. "He's spent his life learning fleet tactics."
"I realize that he's your friend," Murichon said, "but he's still Empire."
"Ex-Empire," Lex said. "He came here to escape a sure death sentence and now he's learned that he was never a trusted officer of the Empire, as he'd believed all his life. This thing about the thought monitor has hithim hard. He feels that he was betrayed when it was implanted. He thinks that every officer in the fleet must have such a unit, which makes someone very, very powerful. He was a Fleet Captain, which is a pretty high rank. There are only six active grades above that. I think he's fed up with a system which feels that it has to extend some form of secret control down through the higher ranks to include a man who is capable of direction of the operation of a full fleet He'll fight with us, Dad. I know he will."
"He couldn't go into space with that thing still in his head," Admiral Reds said. "He'd be spotted from a distance, assuming there are monitoring devices on the flagship, or whatever. He'd become a prime target, in addition to endangering others."
"But he can tell you more about Empire tactics than any man on Texas," Lex said. "And I'd also suggest you give both Jakkes and Form an opportunity to serve. Jakkes knows as much about the beam and ray weapons as anyone I know and Form can talk specifics about Empire power plants."
"We have, of course, questioned your friends," Reds said.
"But have you treated them as friends? Have you allowed them to act on good faith rather than as suspected aliens?" Lex asked.
"They are aliens," Andy Gar said. "And, I might add, the first to be on Texas soil since you brought home that Empire girl who started all of this."
"That's a little unfair, Andy," Murichon said calmly. "We've always faced the possibility of the Empire tracking us home. We all knew it would happen sooner or later."
"Sorry, boy," Gar said. "I don't like the idea of losing good men in an unnecessary fight, that's all."
"I'm going to be fighting, too," Lex said, but he wasn't quite sure that would be enough. No matter what his father said he blamed himself for the crisis and he was just one man. He could not, alone, face the danger which his actions had brought down on Texas.
He attended a briefing session. The fleet captains were there and the speaker was Arden Wal. Wal was not in uniform. His small stature had called for clothing in sizes not available except in children's stores and he was dressed in teenage blue jeans.
"You can be sure, gentlemen," Wal told the group, "that it will be done by the book. The fleet discourages initiative. One of three planetary approach plans will be used, and my guess is, depending on the fleet commander assigned to the expedition, that it will be one of two, for you yourselves left in Lex's brain the information regarding population and industrial capacity of your planet. The fleet will approach with confidence, emerging into. space about here—" He pointed with a baton. "—to form in lines for maximum deployment of firepower. They will not, at first, think of attacking the planet directly, since the planet is the prize. They want it intact with its agricultural capacity. Their detectors are quite good enough to spot any and all ships lying in wait for them, but they are not equipped with that rather marvelous double-blink generator which your people have developed. I would suggest that the strike be made during or slightly before the final blink brings the fleet into formation. It will not be necessary to destroy the entire fleet—"
"Question," said Admiral Reds. "Why do you say that? That we shouldn't destroy the entire fleet?"
Wal was not rattled. "One, for humanitarian reasons, Admiral. Two, should you show such overwhelming strike power, the ability to destroy an entire fleet without losses, the Empire will, to put it plainly, be scared shitless. The brass back at Empire central might declare Texas to be a galactic threat: In which case, the next strike would be made from deep space with planet-killing missiles. I need not remind you that one missile, getting through the first line of defense, is enough."
"So your thinking is to show just enough power to drive the fleet away," Reds asked. "But wouldn't that
assure another attempt in greater force?"
"The Empire won't give up easily," Wal said. "But you will buy time, and you will confine the war to space, rather than escalate it into planetary stages."
"We can kill a few planets, too," said a young line Captain.
"But you have only one to be killed," Wal said. "Therefore you have more to lose."
"At the Battle of Wolfs Star," Admiral Reds said, "your fleet executed a flanking maneuver of some interest. Would you explain the tactics?"
Wal smiled wryly. "I understand that you know something of that battle, sir."
"I was there," Reds said, smiling back.
"Yes," Wal said. "Well, when the Cassies deployed—"
Lex had lost interest. He began to look around at the serious, dedicated faces. He wondered, with a sick feelingIn his stomach, how many would attend the debriefing session after the battle.
As it turned out, all did, except one ship's captain who fell down a gangway while doing a little dance of comic victory. He broke his leg in two places and was still chuckling happily as they wheeled him away.
The Empire fleet blinked out into space at almost the exact point predicted by Arden Wal. One thousand ships deployed, materializing instantly, in ranks of awesome power, weapons ready to annihilate a fleet of Texican ships which disappeared from their instruments even as the pre-programmed guns were activated to blast briefly into empty space before the first of two waves of Darlene projectiles ripped the ranks of the Empire into flaming disarray.
Men died there in the cold space of Texas, died instantly, vaporized, burned, torn, thrown into hard vacuum. The Texas fleet blinked and, at the instant of Empire blinking, double-blinked and sent the Darlenes into the Empire ships from the left flank. Shields up, the Empire forces closed ranks, counting losses with a shock which reverberated throughout the fleet and was expressed in emergency blinkstats beamed along the route to Empire central.
For a brief period, the Texican fleet was exposed to long-range beams, but the distance limited damage to a few singed external pods and extensions. The Darlene projectiles ripped through space, blinking out. An explosion against a shield was as deadly as an explosion against a bare hull.
The Empire launched a thousand ships against Texas. When the generators were charged, allowing for orderly retreat, under seven hundred vessels sought the safety of far space in a planned withdrawal which no officer of the fleet could accept. It was inconceivable to the Empire mind to think that a ragtag fleet of converted freighters could rout an entire Empire battle fleet. Combat commanders wanted to mount an all-out assault on Texas immediately, withdrawing huge units of the fleet from the Cassiopeian lines. Cooler heads prevailed. It was recognized, at fleet headquarters, that the Empire was up against a new weapon and a new technique of battle. Gray-haired Admirals gulped wakers and pored over repor
ts of the brief but tragic battle. Plans were made and discarded. The Emperor himself interested himself in the affair and shipworks all over the Empire were put on overtime to replace the lost vessels.
On Texas, it was party time. The victory over the Empire fleet had been so swift, so decisive, so
bloodless that young hotheads called for an immediate strike into Empire territory on the theory that the best defense is a good offense.
"If I were in charge of the Empire fleet," Arden Wal told a group of high-ranking officials at the debriefing, "I would deploy my forces to envelop all of Texican space with a ring of fire. Such a plan would require massive forces, but I need not tell you that the Empire has such forces. Ranks of ships blinking in at intervals, in tremendous numbers, would, sooner or later, catch your fleet between blinks. True, you can double-blink, but then you must charge. True, you are superior ship to ship because of your armaments, but the Empire's weapons are superior to your ship shields. Some of your ships are not even shielded. Caught in a direct fire, you'd sustain losses. And the loss of one Texican ship is the equivalent of the loss of some several thousands of Empire ships."
But the first battle of Texas did what it was planned to do. It bought time, time for the Blink Space Works to finish and outfit hulls, time for Darlene space rifles to be installed on everything large enough to handle the weight. And it bought Lex enough time to reenter the hospital to find the reason for his severe headaches.
In spite of the surgeons' skills, a small hematoma had formed and once again be was lying in bed with a hole in his bead cursing the Empire sadists who had mucked around in his brain. It was not until he was moved into convalescent quarters atop the large building, with a view of the plains to the west, that he began to believe that fate works in strange ways and that his hematoma was a blessing in disguise, for there he met Riddent.
Most of the female personnel of the hospital were career people, aged thirty and up, stern-faced, motherly, businesslike. They brooked no nonsense from patients, not even a young, virile Texican of good looks and restlessness. Lex complained bitterly against a technology which could build an airors brain and a Darlene projectile, but which could not devise a better means of getting medicines into his blood than with a needle the size of the fangs of a beagle. There were two broad, meaty areas on his lower backside which were the favorite targets of the females and their needles and it became almost automatic with Lex, upon the approach of a nurse, to lower his hospital pajamas and roll onto his stomach.
