The Fighter King

by John Bowers

  Oliver nodded; anything to get out of the POW camp. "Agreed," he said.

  Brandon had a suite of rooms in a tall building near the Soderstad spaceport. The sun was setting as the hovercar settled onto the roof and they rode the anti-grav lift down into the building. The suite was everything Oliver would expect on Vega, half a dozen rooms with a forest motif, a babbling brook running through the middle of it all.

  "You remember Tascha?" Brandon said.

  Oliver blinked as the sexy blonde girl stood up and smiled at him.

  "Why the hell did you bring her here?" he demanded.

  "She wanted to come," Brandon said, kissing the blonde as she approached him.

  Tascha turned to Oliver and put her arms around his neck.

  "Brandon told me you were on Vega," she said in her sultry voice. "I am so glad to see you! How have you been?"

  He melted a little at her proximity. He still felt guilty for the way he'd used her at Brandon's plantation.

  "I'm doing okay," he said quietly. "How about you?"

  "I am also doing well," she told him. "This has been a very exciting year for me."

  "Yeah, me too."

  She looked him up and down. "You have lost weight, Oliver! You look wonderful!"

  "Thanks."

  "You hungry?" Brandon asked.

  "I had dinner just before you showed up at the camp."

  "A glass of wine, then?" Brandon grinned. "From California."

  Oliver sucked in his breath. "That," he admitted, "would be heavenly!"

  And so it was. Brandon poured him a glass of sauvignon blanc, lightly chilled, and Oliver savored it as if he'd never tasted wine before.

  "God!" he whispered. "Fantastic!"

  Brandon gestured toward the balcony. They stepped outside and gazed across at the city nearly a mile away; it was almost dark now, except for the blue glow in the sky where Vega had set. Skeletal towers, many badly damaged, stabbed the sky, just dark shapes against the glow; the city itself was dark except for fires in the streets below the towers.

  "Why is there power here but not over there?" Oliver wondered.

  "We're on the same power grid as the spaceport. The army hasn't turned the juice back on for the city itself. Probably won't until the planet surrenders."

  "Why not?"

  "Well, you got a half-million Vegans sitting around down there in the dark. As long as their minds are occupied with how to cook their food and where to take a shit, they won't have time to stir up trouble for us." Brandon shrugged. "At least that's the army's theory."

  "And what does SE say?"

  "We have our own problems, and we leave the army alone except when their mission overlaps ours."

  A cold wind gusted past the balcony, and Oliver shivered.

  "This must've been a hell of a battle," he said.

  "Yep, it was that. Nobody expected them to fight as hard as they did. We should have got a clue then what we were up against, but we had to find out again in the Alps."

  "I've been curious about that. Why didn't you just land in the north, go straight for Queen Ursula, and be done with it?"

  "Maybe we should have. But the prevailing 'wisdom' was to avoid killing civilians as much as possible. The whole object of the war is to make Vega an ally …"

  "I thought the object of the war was to make the Vegans stop executing Sirians."

  "That was the catalyst. Once we decided to go to war, we had to decide what to do with the enemy after we defeated them. You can't just ignore them, can you? So you abolish their government and install a new one. Bring them around to your way of thinking. That prevents ever having to fight them again."

  "And you think stealing their wives and mothers will encourage them to join you?"

  Brandon shook his head. "It doesn't happen in a year or two. It takes a generation, at least. We did it with Beta Centauri; we'll do it here. The Vegans we're fighting now, most of them, will never join us. But their children will. Their grandchildren won't know any other way of life but the one we teach them."

  "I don't know …"

  "Trust me, Ollie, it works. Half the kids born here over the next ten or twenty years will have Sirian fathers. When the shooting stops, we'll bring in civilian specialists to run things. We'll control not only the government and commerce, but also the schools. The curriculum will instill Sirian philosophy into every kid that grows up here. A few of them won't buy it, but most of them will, and those that do will be rewarded with positions of status. Resistance will be punished, acceptance rewarded. Only a fool would resist in the face of that kind of pressure."

  Oliver sipped his wine.

  "And after Vega? What then?"

  Brandon frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "You took over Beta Centauri, you're taking over Vega. Who's next?"

  Brandon was silent for long seconds.

  "Nobody," he said finally, "unless they fuck with us."

  Brandon showed Oliver to his bedroom. It was clean and elegant, his first decent place to sleep since joining the Guard. A small cabinet in a corner was stocked with half a dozen liquors, including Sirian Lightning and two brands of scotch.

  "The only clothes I could get you are military fatigues," Brandon told him. "I don't think you should be running around dressed like a civilian right now, and your prison duds are definitely out."

  The fatigues were grey with a red stripe, shapeless and baggy, but clean.

  "You have two choices," Brandon said. "You can travel around with me, or you can stay here with Tascha. If you stay, then you can't leave the building, or you'll be subject to any Confederate soldiers in the area, and most of them won't know or care who you are.

  "On the other hand, if you hang around with me …" He didn't smile. "… you just might get killed by a Vegan sniper."

  "And what do you do all day?" Oliver asked.

  "It varies. I'm on the move a lot. You'll just have to come along and find out."

  "That won't get you in trouble?"

  "No. I'm already as deep as I can get — unless you decide to make a break for it. That would really finish my career."

  "So I hold your future in my hands."

  "That's about the size of it."

  Oliver changed into a set of fatigues and followed Brandon back into the main salon.

  "How the hell did you find me, anyway?" he asked as they settled down with another glass of wine.

  "I was looking for you."

  Oliver stared at him in surprise. Brandon nodded.

  "I got a message from home that your dad had called a while back."

  "My dad called you?" Oliver was even more surprised.

  "That's what they told me. I wasn't home, of course, so he left a message. Said you were here but nobody knew where. So I put out a memo asking to be notified if you ever fell into our hands." Brandon's expression turned sour. "It never occurred to me that you were anything but a foreign tourist, of course. When I found out you were a POW, I almost shit my pants."

  "I'm surprised you were able to get me released."

  "Actually, it wasn't as hard as I thought. They were really on a spot with you. Christ, not only are you a citizen of a neutral world, but your family builds our fighters. How delicate a situation is that? Nobody wants to piss off the Federation, but at the same time we have to take a dim view of anyone who decides to join forces with the enemy. They simply didn't know what the fuck to do with you, so I stepped up and solved the problem for them." He grimaced. "Sort of."

  "Sort of?"

  "Yeah. There was some opposition to releasing you into my custody. They're not convinced you won't try to get away and go back to the Guard." Brandon peered narrowly at him. "You won't, will you?"

  Oliver shook his head. "I had my fun."

  Brandon relaxed.

  "So I convinced them that by doing it this way, they could deflect any Feddie criticism about your treatment. Basically, you're on parole until the war is over, then you can go home. The Feddies can't get too w
orked up about that."

  Oliver laughed. "You don't remember my dad?"

  "Except maybe your dad."

  "Well, I can handle him. He won't cause any trouble."

  Brandon nodded. Then he sat upright and reached into a pocket.

  "I almost forgot this. It was among your personal effects at the camp." He handed Oliver a nitrogen capsule. "Is this yours?"

  Oliver paled and took it with a trembling hand.

  "God! I thought I'd lost it! Where the hell was it?"

  "The POW camp was holding it. From what I was told, you were unconscious when you were captured. A few hours later you were taken into surgery, and the surgical team bagged your personal effects and sent them along with you."

  Oliver gripped the capsule, closed his eyes, and pressed it against his cheek.

  "Exactly what is it?" Brandon asked.

  So Oliver told him about Jacquje, her death, the medics' discovery and recovery of the zygote.

  "I've been carrying it ever since," he said. "When I get home, I want to find a surrogate mother to gestate it. I have a child here, and I want to raise it."

  Brandon seemed moved by his emotion. He nodded slowly.

  "Maybe this whole experience won't be a complete waste of your time after all," he said.

  Oliver put the capsule in his pocket, almost tearful in his relief at getting it back.

  "Can I ask a favor?" he said then.

  "You can ask."

  "Is there any possibility you can find out what happened to the other girl?"

  "Which one? The reporter?"

  "Yes. When I woke up in that field, Jacquje had been shot and Erika was gone. I have to assume those soldiers took her with them."

  Brandon looked uncomfortable.

  "Ollie, some of those infantry units were pretty brutal in the early weeks of the war. She could be dead."

  "I know. But assuming they didn't kill her, would she have been put on a slave ship?"

  "Maybe. Or she could have been passed to another unit. They trade women back and forth sometimes."

  "Is there any way to check? Do they keep rosters?"

  "Not of women they catch for themselves. But we keep rosters of women we capture. If she ever fell into SE hands there'd be a record."

  "I'd really like to know what happened to her. It's my fault she got caught in the first place."

  "Don't beat yourself up over it. If she was running around the Southern Plain looking for stories, chances are she would've got caught anyway, sooner or later. But, yes, I can check."

  Oliver nodded, wiping his eyes.

  "Thanks."

  Denver, CO, North America, Terra

  Oliver Lincoln II stepped off the gravity lift and stopped at the nursing station.

  "Rosemary Egler?" he asked the nurse on duty.

  "Room 411."

  He hurried away without a word. He found the room and stepped inside, stopping at the sight of the girl in the bed. His heart swelled with rage as he moved tentatively forward. She lay perfectly still, almost as if she were dead. A needle was taped to her arm and clear fluid dripped into the attached tube. Her thick, rich dark hair was spread across the pillow, and her face was wrapped with bandages. Only one eye was visible, purple and swollen. She appeared to be asleep.

  He stood looking down at her, raging inside and helpless to do anything about it. After a full minute he laid a hand on her arm, and she opened her one good eye — then closed it again, turning her head away.

  "Rosemary," Lincoln said. "Good god almighty, who did this to you?"

  Her shoulders began to shake, and her lips — bruised and swollen — curled with emotion. A sob escaped her throat.

  "I'm sorry," he said. "Don't try to talk. Just rest. But I want you to know that whoever did this isn't getting away with it. If I get my hands on him, he's a dead man!"

  She shook her head slowly, but continued to sob. Lincoln bent and kissed her forehead, about the only part of her face that wasn't bandaged.

  "I'll be back later," he promised. "You just get well. And don't worry about anything. Whoever did this is going to pay. If I have to kill him myself!"

  * * *

  Lincoln drove to the police station with murder in his heart. The sight of Rosemary in that hospital bed, her face beaten to hamburger, had wakened a fury in him greater than he'd ever experienced. Rosemary was too much like his own daughter, and he still hadn't reconciled the murder of his real daughter. He'd been helpless to do anything about Victoria, but Rosemary was here, still alive, and he could do something about that!

  Sgt. Cedarquist met him in the lobby of the police station.

  "Thank you for seeing me," Lincoln said as Cedarquist led him into a private office. "You're the one who called me?"

  "Yes, sir. Miss Egler said she had no next of kin, but you were once her legal guardian."

  Lincoln nodded. "That's right. What can you tell me about what happened to her?"

  Cedarquist studied him a moment.

  "Well, we have the perpetrator locked up," he said.

  Lincoln blinked in surprise. "You do? Already?"

  Cedarquist nodded. "She told us who did it and I found him at home. He's in jail."

  "Who was it?"

  "Your security chief. Jeremy Mason."

  Lincoln almost fell out of his chair. "Mason did this?" he gasped.

  "Yes, sir. He admitted it."

  "But — why?"

  Cedarquist spread his hands. "She and Jeremy had been dating for several months. Apparently she decided to end it, and he went into a rage."

  Lincoln stared at him in horror, then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  … if I wanted a guard dog, I would look for one with a vicious, aggressive nature — but I wouldn't let my kids play with it.

  "Jesus Christ!" he whispered.

  "Sir?"

  Lincoln opened his eyes, his face feeling clammy.

  "This whole thing is my fault," he said.

  "How do you figure that, sir?"

  "I hired the man. If I hadn't, Rosemary would never have met him."

  "You couldn't have known …"

  "But I did. I could tell he was dangerous, but that's what I wanted as head of security. When I found out Rosemary was dating him, I warned her about him. That's probably why she tried to break it off." He shook his head bitterly. "God! I sure fucked that one up!"

  Jules Cedarquist stared at his visitor, but made no further comment.

  Chapter 40

  London, Europe, Terra

  A production team set up in Henry's office to conduct his interview for the first documentary. Howard Nieters floated around the fringe of the office and watched, keeping out of the way. Henry felt a little foolish as a woman applied makeup to his face, but he was no stranger to cameras and was prepared to defend his position. Nieters had implied the interview would be sympathetic, but there could still be hard questions.

  Holocams covered him from three directions when the interview began. With a couple of breaks, the whole thing took somewhat longer than three hours. Probably ten minutes of that footage would actually find its way into the finished product.

  The interviewer was Madelyn Toland, a well-known network reporter with a reputation for being tough when necessary. To Henry she seemed knowledgeable and fair, but she pulled no punches. An hour into the interview she openly challenged him.

  "Senator Wells, your critics have cried foul because you want to dump sixty billion terros into defense. But to me, given the current state of the military, that sounds like a drop in the bucket. How much is it really going to cost to achieve the level of readiness that you want?"

  Henry let his eyebrows float up as he gazed back at her.

  "Truthfully? I have no idea."

  Toland looked skeptical. "That's quite an admission, isn't it?"

  "Maybe it is, but I'm not going to lie to the taxpayers. If I had to sit down and calculate what full readiness would cost, the Congress would choke o
n it. Madelyn, it's like an investment portfolio — you don't build it all at once. You start with a little money, invest that, then see where you stand. You invest a little more, roll your profits into the investment, and keep on building. Over time, you hopefully arrive at a net worth you can be proud of.

  "It's the same here; the military is in such poor shape that we simply have to pick a number and get to work. We invest some capital, start upgrading equipment, start recruiting people, and get them trained. Then we evaluate, see what we need next, and allocate some more money for it."

  "That's going to take a long time."

  "Yes, it is."

  "What do you see as the most important piece of equipment as far as hardware is concerned? Battleships? Cruisers? Destroyers?"

  Henry nodded seriously.

  "All of those, of course. At the moment the biggest combat units we have are a few old gunships, none of them capable of warp speed. Eventually I'd like to see a core fleet of large, warp-capable fighting ships, but in the short term, we need fighters."

  "Fighters?"

  "Yes. Small, fast, maneuverable combat ships capable of fighting in both space and atmosphere. They will be the backbone of the fleet. The Sirians have them, the Vegans have them — at least they did — and we need a lot of them. Madelyn, if we don't build anything else, we need fighters, fighter bases, and trained pilots. In the kind of war we are facing, the fighter will be king."

  Tuesday, 2 August, 0196 (PCC) — Denver, CO, North America, Terra

  Maxine Lincoln, dressed in a bathrobe, sat on the veranda in back of the Lincoln mansion in a chaise lounge. It was a warm summer day, the sun high and bright, and birds flitted and dived among the pines. Maxine's silver head was tilted back, sleeping shades covered her eyes, and she drifted along in a half-somnolent, drug-induced euphoria. Beginning with Victoria's death, her life had gone to hell; now Ollie was missing as well, and her husband didn't seem to care. He only worried about his goddamned factory and his goddamned money and his goddamned company parties. Her children were dead, her own life was hanging by a thread, and her husband didn't give a good goddamn. What she ought to do was take all her pills at once and see if he gave a good goddamn about that!

  But she wouldn't give him the goddamn satisfaction.

  She heard the comm buzz somewhere inside the house, but ignored it. The goddamn thing was always going off all goddamn day and she didn't give a goddamn anyway. Graciela always got it, and if it was ever for Maxine, Graciela never told her. Graciela was probably keeping things from her, but she didn't give a goddamn about that, either.