John came in. “Just Hochmeister’s chopper out back. “Admiral,” he nodded.”
“Major,” said admiral. “You’ve brought help.”
“Where’s Heather MacKenzie?” asked Harrison.
The admiral shook his head. “I haven’t seen her since you both went into the portal.”
“Later,” said Lawrona. “Let’s get out of here before they counterattack. Can we all fit aboard one aircraft?”
“Too small. We’ll have to take one of the trucks.”
Opening a drawer, Hochmeister took out a flat oblong block of what looked like dull-red plastic. He handed it to Lawrona. The Margrave’s eyes widened. “It’s a destruct pack—remotely keyed. If they trigger this now . . .”
“The Scotar placed these inside the electrical junction box of every building,” said the admiral. “Are these each assigned a different detonation frequency?”
“Yes. The command center just enters location and firing code,” said Lawrona.
“We’ve been here three minutes,” said John. “Why are we still alive?”
“What do the Scotar do with their old?” asked the admiral.
Lawrona frowned. “Their old? They eat them. Why?”
“I wondered why they had no respect for age. They gave me the freedom of the base. Harmless old coot, watching the big strong bugs. I took the liberty of gathering the destruct packs and putting them in the rubbish bin behind the command center.” He looked at his watch. “About now . . .”
“Drop!” shouted Lawrona.
Whump! The explosion rocked the motorpool, shattering the wire mesh window behind Lawrona, tumbling the yellow field manuals from the gray utility shelves.
Hochmeister stood, unruffled.
Lawrona rose, extending his hand. “Captain Hanar Lawrona, commanding the Kronarin starship Implacable. Welcome to our war, Admiral.”
Admiral and Margrave shook hands. “Welcome to our friendly little world, Captain Lawrona.”
Chapter 15
Taral looked at the time. Smiling evilly, he punched into the commnet. “Commander Kiroda,” he called softly. “Wake up. We have company.”
Five decks below, Kiroda mumbled, turned over onto his stomach and pulled the pillow over his head.
“Computer,” said Taral, keying the complink, “Where is the alert klaxon nearest Commander Kiroda’s quarters?”
“In corridor seven blue one-five, directly above his door,” said the machine.
“Klaxon designation?”
“Seven blue one-five-six-zero.”
“Mr. Natrol,” said Taral, turning toward the bridge engineering station. “Please test battle klaxon seven blue one-five-six-zero. Three long bursts.”
The first awooka! brought Kiroda out of bed. The second found him ripping his M11A from a drawer. He was at the commpanel when the third ended, calling Taral.
“Disregard battle klaxon.” Taral’s voice carried the length of seven deck. “Disregard battle klaxon.”
“Vorg slime,” hissed Taral’s communicator. “Pig shit,” it added in English.
“Better get up here, Tolei,” said Taral. “Scans picking up three ships just clearing jump. No ID yet, but probably our reinforcements. That gives us about one watch to prepare for visitors.”
“On my way,” said Kiroda, reaching for his uniform.
“Two things,” said Taral, relinquishing the captain’s chair to Kiroda, a few minutes later. “Our skipcomm buoy’s no longer putting out a mark. And Ambassador Zasha wants to be part of the reception for the new units.”
“Skipcomm’s out?” Kiroda frowned.
“Just after those three ships arrived.”
A ship could jump from any point. But the closer she jumped to strong gravitational fields—planets, stars, large moons—the greater the degree of error in the jump. All jump drives were therefore calibrated for jump at null point: that point far enough from a system’s nearest large body for minimum jump error, but within reasonable distance from point of origin at sublight speeds. “Null point” was a telltale reading, not the total absence of either gravitational fields or jump error.
Employing the same principles as the jump drive, the skipcomm provided almost instant communication with any other system having a skipcomm, jumping or skipping a message to the designated receiver, treating all intervening space as a porous, two-dimensional surface. Deploying a skipcomm at null point upon entering a new system was standard procedure—Implacable had done it when first arriving in the Terran system, over a year before. The original skipcomm had been blasted by the Scotar, as had its replacement. The skipcomm in question was the third and had operated flawlessly for over eight months.
“Computer,” said Kiroda, “incidence of failure of skipcomm buoys, current model.”
“One one thousandth of a percent,” said the machine, speaking from the chair arm.
“Amazing coincidence,” said Taral.
“Have we challenged?” asked Kiroda, looking at the analysis Taral had run on the new ships’ ion trails: the usual conical spiral rotated on the small screen.
“No. You saw from the ion patterns—they’re ours.”
“Lakan,” said Kiroda to comm officer, “ship-to-ship, Fleet priority channel.”
“All yours, Commander.”
Kiroda spoke into the commlink. “This is Kronarin Confederation cruiser Implacable to unknown ships. Identify, please.”
Kiroda grimaced at the high-pitched blast from the armchair. “Lakan . . .”
The noise ended as the young subcommander did something at his console. “Sorry. He’s using old code.” The comm officer looked at a telltale. “Very old—wartime code.”
“Have him repeat in clear, using one-time battlecode.”
“Why is he using old code, Yotan?” Kiroda asked Taral.
“He may have been sent here direct from deep patrol, without putting into base. FleetOps has done that before.”
“You’d think they’d have couriered him new code.”
“There’s a tendency to get sloppy with the war over.”
“Ships IDs received,” said Lakan. “The Soraq-class light cruiser New Hope, the escort frigates Golar Seven and Padir Four.”
Taral gripped the back of Kiroda’s chair, knuckles whitening. “Repeat first ship.”
“The Soraq-class light cruiser New Hope, Commander.”
“Wasn’t that . . .” said Kiroda.
Taral nodded curtly. “My brother’s ship,” he said. “Captain Porin Taral, lost at the battle of Dolan.”
“Computer,” said Kiroda, “last known disposition of the escort frigates Golar Seven and Padir Four.”
“Assigned Eighth Squadron, Second Fleet. Lost, presumed destroyed at the battle of Dolan.”
“Three possibilities,” said Kiroda, fingers gently drumming the chair arm. “One, it’s a Scotar ruse. Two, those three ships are who they say they are and did what other ships did, cut off by the Scotar advance—hit and ran through the Scotar sectors. And three”—he looked his friend in the eye—“they went bad.”
“You dishonor my brother’s memory,” said Taral stiffly. “Porin would never turn corsair.”
“Yotan,” said Kiroda gently, laying a hand on the other’s arm. “He’s probably dead. Others may have . . .”
“Incoming task force commander signaling,” said Lakan
“I’ll take it,” said Kiroda. “What’s his name?”
“Captain Taral,” he said, glancing at the Tactics Officer.
“Don’t raise your hopes,” said Kiroda as Taral’s face lit with joy. “Stay out of the pickup, monitor from your console and say nothing. Understood?”
“But . . .”
“Do you understand, Commander?”
“Yes, sir,” said Taral, expressionless. Turning, he went to his console.
Save a ship, lose a friend, thought Kiroda. If this is command, they can keep it. Pressing a key, he took the feed from communications. “Commander Kiroda her
e.”
The man on the console screen bore no resemblance to Taral. He was older, square-jawed with high cheekbones and receding hairline. Kiroda noted the silver starship of a captain on his collar and the double hash marks of the Second Border Fleet above the right pocket of his tunic.
“Captain Taral, Task Force Eight-Three,” said the officer. “Commodore Detrelna, please.”
“The Commodore is indisposed, sir.”
The captain frowned. “Captain Lawrona, then.”
“He’s offship, sir. I command here.”
“Very well, Commander Kiroda. What is your command’s status?”
“I will not tell you that, sir,” said Kiroda evenly, “until you authenticate.”
The pickup was small but perfectly detailed. Kiroda could see Captain Taral’s face cloud with anger. “I am senior here, Commander. Report status.”
“Sir, your codes are pathetically obsolete and your ships listed as missing in action.”
“Check with FleetOps, Commander. You’ll find we were sent here directly from Utria quadrant. We were operating behind enemy lines since the Scotar wiped Second Fleet.”
“Our skipcomm buoy is non-operational, sir. You are closer to null point than we. Have you one you could deploy?”
“No. Cannibalized ours years ago.”
“Then, sir, I must ask you to remain outside the orbit of the fourth planet until I can deploy a new buoy at null point. We’ll have that done within two watches.”
The captain shook his head. “No. My orders say I’m to assume orbit around the third planet ‘with dispatch.’ And I will do so. With dispatch.”
“Sir, if you proceed insystem without my authorization, you will be treated as hostile under the authority of Fleet Regulation seven-five-one, ‘Authentication of Incoming Vessels.’”
The captain jabbed a finger at the pickup. “You fire a bolt at one of my ships, Commander, and your ass is mine. We’re coming in.” The scan swirled into a kaleidoscope of color then went blank.
“Tell me that wasn’t your brother,” said Kiroda, turning to Taral as the latter walked over from the tactics station.
“That wasn’t my brother,” said Taral with a ghost of a smile. “Sorry, Tolei.”
“For what? Having hope? Who was that using your brother’s identity?”
“His first officer, Commander Kotran. Porin was about to bring Kotran and the third officer up on charges of commercial misconduct when the war broke out.”
“What were they doing, smuggling?”
Taral nodded. “Running heavy drugs through their patrol quadrant—orgjags, sensedeps.”
“Nice.” Orgjags put the user on an orgasmic high, the brain’s pleasure center—creating sensations just as powerful as direct current, but with greater variety. Sensedeps deprived the user of all sensory input: sound, sight, touch, smell. About eighty percent of the drugs’ users became addicts. Orgjag addicts invariably died of exhaustion and starvation. Sensedep addicts just as invariably became catatonic.
“With the usual pre-war scum crewing those ships, it was no problem for Kotran to kill your brother and go corsair.”
“What are we going to do, Tolei?” asked Kiroda.
“First, we’re going to make absolutely sure those ships are corsair. Somehow.” He stared at the main screen. The Moon was just rising above Earth.
“Pocsym,” said Kiroda.
“Pocsym? He’s dead.”
“But his observation satellites aren’t,” said Kiroda, turning to his friend. “This system’s littered with Pocsym’s scan-shield observation satellites.” He keyed the complink. “Computer. Have we the grid interlock protocols for the satellite observation system deployed by Pocsym Six?”
“We have,” said computer.
“Is there such a satellite near this system’s null point?”
“There is.”
“Interlock with that satellite and give us visual scan of the last known position of our skipcomm buoy.”
“Implementing.”
It came up on the mainscreen in a moment, the image growing larger as the satellite moved closer.
“Interesting,” said Kiroda, stepping down from the command tier to walk with Taral to the base of the screen. Together they stared up at finely detailed image. Twisted scorched chunks of metal were drifting slowly apart, moving out to all points of the galactic compass.
“Consistent with a Mark 88 hit, wouldn’t you say, Yotan?” The Mark 88 was Fleet’s principal ship-to-ship energy weapon.
“Yes.”
“Computer, from drift pattern of onscreen fragments, calculate approximate time of skipcomm buoy destruction. Postulate cause of destruction to have been a Mark 88 fusion cannon beam at standard setting.”
“Time of destruction approximately two-point-four-one talars ago,” said the machine.
“Computer,” said Kiroda. “How long ago did incoming task force arrive at null point?”
“Two-point-four talars ago.”
They returned in silence to the command tier, Kiroda carefully avoiding Taral’s face.
“Lakan,” said Kiroda, resuming the captain’s chair, “quarantine is ended. Send recall, priority one. Get as many crew back up from Terra as you can by watchend. Then get me the ambassador.”
“The ambassador is calling in now, sir.”
“Ambassador,” said Kiroda as comm screen came to life. “I was just about to call you, sir.”
“Subcommander Kiroda,” said the ambassador. “Why did you not return my call?” Born of the old aristocracy, over forty years a diplomat, Zasha was the grandmaster of implied slight and cutting innuendo. Kiroda had tolerated the old patrician’s disdain in the past—he had no time for it now.
“Sir, I am a commander, not a subcommander.”
Zasha waved a negligent hand. “Whatever. I wish to be part of the reception for the incoming reinforcements, Commander. With the commodore indisposed, I suppose I should address you on the subject. How many people can you comfortably entertain, if helped with refreshments?”
“Ambassador,” said Kiroda, “three corsairs have just passed null point. I doubt you want to be part of the reception we’re planning.”
Zasha’s eyes narrowed at the word “corsairs.” “How . . .?”
“They’ll be here in eight Terran hours. As you can imagine, I’m very busy.” He touched the commkey.
“Wait!” The ambassador’s voice rang with steel. Startled, Kiroda stopped.
“Yes?”
“Can you stop them? Honestly.”
“Not with fusion fire, sir. No.”
“Detrelna would stop them, Commander.”
“I am not Detrelna, Ambassador.”
“Terra has no defenses against our weapons, Kiroda. Those murderers will butcher at will and loot the planet. Our expedition to Terra Two will be lost. The Scotar and their allies will come through that portal, take what’s left of this world, and push on into the galaxy.”
“I know.”
“You’ve advised Fleet?”
“They blasted the skipcomm buoy the instant they came in.”
“I must alert the Terrans. Keep me advised.” Zasha disconnected.
Kiroda stroked the soft leather of the chair arm with his right palm, staring at the view screen, eyes distant. The bridge was quiet, a few officers speaking softly, the occasional chirp of instruments. Hard to believe it would soon be part of a blasted, corpse-filled hulk.
“Yotan,” said Kiroda after a time. “There’s a way to take them. But we’ll need Zasha’s help. And luck. Lots of it.”
Chapter 16
“Smells like a jungle. Looks like a jungle. Sounds like a jungle,” said McShane, arm sweeping the surrounding greenery.
“Not a jungle,” said Detrelna, holding up the small, flat surveyor, amber readout toward McShane.
The Terran squinted at it. “‘Flora—none. Fauna—none.’ So?” he shrugged. “If we believed all your nice little toys over the past year,
we’d be dead. Good God, man! Use your senses! Feel that hot, fetid air, smell the rotting vegetation, and listen—listen to the nonexistent fauna!”
Sweat-drenched, the two stood on the trail they’d followed from the armorglass gate—a trial leading straight toward the point set in Detrelna’s locator. A thick mist hung low over the trail, obscuring all but the closest brush. Strange fierce cries sounded in the distance. Once, thinking they heard something large moving through the undergrowth, they’d stopped, rifles ready, waiting. The sound hadn’t resumed, so they’d moved on, Detrelna finally calling a halt to recheck his readings.
“Fake,” said Detrelna, clipping the surveyor back onto his belt. “All machine-generated vegetation. And we haven’t seen a single animal, swatted any bugs. We’ve just heard noises.”
Carefully setting the blastrifle down on the trail, McShane pulled the commando knife from his boot sheath. Slicing off the end of a thick-vined creeper, he handed the dripping specimen to Detrelna. The commodore held it gingerly between two thick fingers, avoiding the white sap oozing from the cut.
“Plant life,” said McShane.
“Inorganic,” said Detrelna, dropping the cutting. “Rigid green polymer exterior, resinous white polymer interior. Probably generated from troughs under this brown plastic.” He scuffed the jungle matting. “We have supper clubs like this back home.”
“How pleasant.”
“The scale is less sweeping, the air conditioned and a man can get a drink.” He wiped a damp sleeve across his sweaty brow. “Let’s go.”
“But why not a real jungle?” said Bob as they walked, Detrelna leading along the narrow trail. “If this was the Agro section, why not real plants?”
“I’d guess—just a guess—that the demented computer has taken over from the secondary systems that maintained Agro.”
“This abomination was demented from her launch day. How much further?”
Detrelna checked the locator. “Not far. We’re over halfway.”
Something made McShane look back. The trail was quietly vanishing as a twelve-foot wall of jungle rolled down it, great thorn-studded vines waving along its front.
“Behind us, Jaquel!”
The Battle for Terra Two Page 14
