The man stepped up behind him and kicked him in the back of the knees. Blair folded up like an accordion and started to slide to the floor, turning as he fell. The man caught him by the throat and slammed him back up against the wall. Blair winced at the impact and tried to grab his arm. The noises in the bar faded as the man started to squeeze Blairs throat, choking off his air.
Blair felt his face swelling as blood, trapped by the man's grip, pooled under his skin. He scrabbled his hands ineffectually as his air supply was cut off. Blair, his eyes feeling as though they were going to burst, looked frantically around the bar. The patrons, distracted from their own concerns by the action, watched silently. Their expressions ran the gamut from boredom to active interest in the blood. The bartender stopped polishing a glass, but made no effort to help.
The sandy-haired man leaned in close. "I don't like to be touched," he repeated in a low, soft voice. He loosened his grip enough for Blair to take a single, sobbing breath. "And I don't like people meddling in my private affairs."
He raised the laser knife, letting Blair see the red dot as he drew it closer to his throat. "It's going to cost you."
He smiled, his thin lips skinning back from white teeth. The grin looked feral to Blair. He began to tighten his grip once again on Blairs throat. Blair fought desperately to free himself. He felt his tongue bulge out of his mouth and a line of spittle run down his cheek. His face grew hot and his heels drummed against the wall.
The dark man had just placed the laser knife under Blairs chin when his head suddenly jerked to the left. Maniac came into Blair's blurred line of sight, a high-output laser pistol stuck in the man's ear. Maniac ground the weapon in cruelly, smiling as he leaned close. Blair saw the dark man's associates rise from their own seats and close on Maniac.
"Tut, tut," Maniac said, screwing the pistol more deeply into the man's ear canal. He pulled the man's jacket back, revealing his name tag. "I haven't killed anybody in a week, Mr., uh, Seether, and I'm due." He gave the sidekicks a glance, then said. "If you lowlifes don't back off we're gonna find out if your boss's scalded brains'll match the decor." Blair noticed that the dark man seemed utterly unfazed by the situation. The wintery blue eyes flicked back and forth a moment, as though considering his options.
"Alright, friend," the man said to Blair, "call off your dog."
"Nope," Maniac interjected, "this is my play. You talk to me." He punctuated his sentence by forcing the pistol harder against the man's head, tilting it to the side until the muscles in the man's neck stood out in sharp relief. Blair saw the first reaction from the pilot, a gritting of the teeth as the hard metal and front sight blade dug into his ear. A thin rill of blood ran down his ear and into his collar.
The knife disappeared from Blairs sight. The dark man slowly released Blair and raised his hands to shoulder height. Blair stumbled out of the way behind Maniac and fell to his knees, choking and retching as he sucked air through his tortured windpipe. He tried to get his trembling hands under control, and failed.
Maniac stepped back, opening a kick's distance from the dark man. Blair, still rubbing his abused throat, saw the man tense and shift his weight slightly as he had before snap-kicking Blair. He was about to warn Maniac when the major whipped his gun up, extending it at arm's length and pointing it between the man's eyes. "Give me an excuse," Maniac said, "please."
The man appeared to ponder the situation a moment, then backed slowly away. He gathered his associates with tiny gestures as he retreated. "We'll meet again," he said, looking past Maniac to Blair, "that I can promise you." He backed to the door, then left, followed by his associates.
"Well," Maniac said, his voice a mix of amusement and disgust "if that don't beat all. Here I am with my gun stuck in his ear, and I can't even get the time of day from him." He looked at Blair. "Is he a friend of yours?" His eyes widened. "Colonel," he said, "you're pale as a ghost. If I didn't know better, I'd say you're scared." He paused. "Hell, you are scared."
Blair tried to control his racing heart. He swallowed several times. "I don't know," he said weakly. "He was fast, faster then me. He had me cold, Todd, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. That's never happened to me before." He dabbed his hand to his lip. It came away bloody. He realized he must have cut it when the sandy-haired man had slammed him into the wall.
Blair interpreted Marshall's expression as a mix of concern and contempt. That, if anything, made him feel worse. Maniac opened his mouth to say something, then gestured for Blair to precede him. He looked worried.
"Urn, Colonel," he said diffidently, "maybe we should call this off. Maybe you should just go back to your farm and feed your pigs."
"Call what off?" Blair asked.
Maniac shrugged. "Look, I was looking for Colonel Blair, the war hero who blew away Kilrah—Mister Heart of the Tiger. I'll just tell 'em I couldn't find him."
Blair felt himself getting angry. "Maniac, you called me up here. What the hell do you want?"
Maniac shrugged. "I guess it really ain't my problem if you're not up to speed." His face gave lie to his words as he indicated a place for Blair to sit.
Blair took his chair and leaned back, trying to relax his tense body. His hands still trembled slightly in what he told himself was an adrenaline reaction. He hunched his shoulders, trying to ease the throbbing in his neck and throat. "So," he said, trying to lighten Maniac's glum mood, "what's this important matter you wanted to discuss?"
Marshall frowned. He glanced back at the area where the brawl had happened. He shrugged again, as though making an internal decision.
"Colonel Christopher Blair," he said. He tried to sound official, but his heart wasn't in it. "In the name of the Confederation Space Force Reserves and by the authority of Emergency Decree 394A, it is my duty to inform you that you have been recalled to active service in grade of full colonel, with all the pay and benefits accruing and blah, blah, blah." He punctuated his announcement with a malicious grin and a flash of his usual humor. "Have a nice day."
Blair sat stunned, his jaw open. "Haven't you heard, Maniac? The war's over. We won. I'm out of it. Retired."
Maniac shrugged. "Not anymore."
Blair rolled his drink between his hands. "Why me?'
Maniac raised his palms upward. "I dunno. All I know is that somebody thinks they need you."
Blair leaned in towards him. "Who is 'they?' "
Maniac looked offended. "You'll find out." He rolled his own glass between his hands a moment, his brow furrowed in thought. When he spoke, he wouldn't look Blair in the eyes. "Look," he said, "lemme do you a favor. Go home."
"Let me get this straight," Blair snapped, "first you drag me into this… then you want me out?" His eyes followed Maniacs back to the scene of the fight. "I see," he said, understanding Marshall's reluctance, "you don't think I can handle it."
Maniac shrugged. "I've seen you hurt, I've seen you angry, I've seen you every way possible, or so I'd thought. I never saw you scared before. I kept waitin' for you to kick his ass, but you didn't. You froze." He sighed, his expression that of a man facing a difficult truth. "I think you lost whatever you had, Colonel, and involving you is a mistake."
Blair sat in silence, thinking through his options. He'd wanted nothing more than to get out of fighters, to free himself of the military and the memories when the war ended. Two years on the farm, however, had softened the hard edges and put a gloss of time over the hurt. His hands, of their own accord, began to clench, as though gripping a control yoke. He realized how much he ached to get back into a cockpit—how much he'd wanted this since he'd walked away from the farm.
He looked up at Maniac. "When do we leave?"
Maniac scratched his nose. "Well," he said, "I'm not sure we do."
Blair let his expression grow cold. 'That decision, Major, is not yours to make."
Maniac studied him a moment, his expression unreadable. "Uh, well," he said at last, "I've made arrangements to have a pair of fighters staged. T
hey're up at the port, fueled and ready."
Blair set his drink down and stood. "Let's go."
Maniac made a rude noise. "Don't we have to go to your house or something?"
"Just give me a minute," Blair answered. He fetched his phone out of his flight bag, punched in a number and waited. Maniac listened, shaking his head as Blair hurriedly said something in an unintelligible language and then clicked off.
"What was that all about?"
"I just told my Buddhist neighbors the farm's theirs. A donation to the church." Blair forced a smile. "Lets get the hell out of this hole."
Chapter Two
Blair stood in the anteroom leading to the Orion's observation deck, cooling his heels and savoring a cup of real coffee with real cream. He could not recall the last time he had sipped the genuine article, certainly not since his emigration to Neph Two. The beans didn't grow there naturally, and the imported stuff was far too expensive for a colonel on retirement half-pay.
He inhaled the rich aroma as he wondered why Tolwyn had recalled him. It certainly wasn't because he was one of the admirals favorites. His relationship with Tolwyn had generally been polite, though cool. He smiled. Tolwyn rarely did anything without reason, though his having reasons and his communicating them were two different things entirely.
He teased his swollen lip with his tongue as he pondered why Tolwyn had selected the Orion for their meeting. The admiral would have to travel out from Earth to L5, an unusual expense of both time and money for him to commit to a mere colonel. He wondered what made such effort necessary, unless the admiral had other reasons for being on the station.
The presence of the battle station at the Lagrange point surprised him. He knew that the Orion had been in low earth orbit as part of Terras last line of defense and that the Kilrathi had severely damaged it in their attack. He tapped the cup against his teeth as he tried without success to recall a newsfax or tape-delay broadcast reporting the move. He doubted that it had been reported, a lapse he found curious given the station's size and the tremendous expense of boosting it up Earths gravity well.
Why the sudden interest in L5? he wondered. A body placed there would remain indefinitely, courtesy of the offsetting tugs of gravity of Earth, Luna and the sun. He knew that in Earths ancient history there had been an attempt to use L5 and the other Lagrange points as construction sites for huge metal colonies, but the discovery of the jump-drive and the plethora of main sequence stars with Earthlike planets had nixed that. Now, it seemed someone was taking a step back in history.
An aide de camp entered through the thin door that separated the anteroom from the upper observation deck. "The admiral will see you now."
Blair regretfully surrendered his coffee cup to her. She opened the door and stepped back, gesturing for him to enter.
Tolwyn stood on the opposite side of the room, hands clasped behind his ramrod straight back as he looked out the large observation windows. Blair saw two huge silvery, lattice-covered shapes in the middle distance. He suspected that his shuttle's circuitous inbound route had been designed to avoid giving him a view of them.
Blair crossed the room to him, letting the sounds of his heels on the metal floor announce his presence. He stepped to within six feet of the admirals back and brought his heels together with a soft click as he came to attention. "Colonel Christopher Blair of the Space Forces Reserves, reporting as ordered, sir."
Tolwyn didn't turn. "That was a bit formal for you, wasn't it, Colonel?"
"I'm not used to being drafted, sir," Blair replied dryly, "I'm a little vague on the protocols."
Tolwyn tipped his head slightly. "I had my reasons." He paused. "At ease, Colonel. Will you join me by the window?"
Blair broke from his brace and moved to stand at Tolwyn's right, where he could see both the ships and Tolwyn's face. He stood silently a moment, taking in the panoramic view.
Blair glanced at the admiral. Tolwyn's uniform (shipboard, officers' greens, flame retardant) was creased and impeccably tailored, as always. His own uniform had been in a box in the quartermaster's stores until twelve hours before. It fit, but not well. He'd always been casual about his uniforms, preferring to let his reputation do his talking for him. This time, however, he felt rumpled and shabby.
Tolwyn turned towards him, his blue eyes unreadable in his seamed face. Tolwyn looked as he always did, neither old nor young, his close-cropped white hair notwithstanding. Blair chose to remain at ease, rather than coming to attention as regulations and custom dictated. The two men shared a long look.
Tolwyn was the first to look away. "I see you've put on weight," he said, patting his own flat stomach. "Civilian life must agree with you."
"I get along," Blair replied noncommittally.
Tolwyn nodded agreeably, the first thaw in his cool demeanor. "You took up sheepherding, didn't you?"
"Farming," Blair corrected dryly.
Tolwyn shrugged, his casual dismissal suggesting the two were one and the same. "I envy you."
"How's that?" Blair asked warily.
"On the farm, issues are simple," the admiral replied, "out here, things get tougher."
"How's that?" Blair repeated, his attention fully on the admiral.
Tolwyn pointed down towards the blackened frames that jutted from the Orion's side. 'That," he said, "is all that remains of launch bay number three. A single Darket flew into it and exploded. The bay was full of fighters, fully fueled and armed, and all spotted for launch. The explosions destroyed the bay and spread fires through the ventilation system before the computer closed them down. Havoc spread throughout the station. A quarter of the crew died." He looked at Blair. "All from a single Darket."
"I don't understand," Blair replied.
"Sometimes, Colonel," Tolwyn said, "a tiny flame can start a great big fire." He pursed his lips. "My job is to put the flames out, before they become fires." The admiral shifted his gaze. "They're beauties, aren't they?"
It took Blair a moment to realize that Tolwyn had changed the subject and was referring to the twin super carriers hanging in spaca "Yes, sir," he replied, choosing a safe answer.
Tolwyn smiled. "These are the future of power projection—our newest fleet carriers, the Vesuvius and the Mount St. Helens. They'll be CVs 70 and 71 when they're commissioned." He smiled. "They're the best, most modem expression of tactical design and thought."
Blair turned his attention to the huge ships. He had seen news-vid reports of their construction, but the holo-tapes hadn't given him any idea of their sheer size.
The carriers looked to be about twice the length of the Concordia, which had been one of the largest CVs in the Fleet before it had been destroyed over Earth.
The nearer ship appeared to be largely complete. It had two cigar-shaped external bays that ran parallel to its center mass and were connected by short, squarish pylons. The bays were well-proportioned, their lines flowing into the main hull and giving the massive ship a sleek, lethal look. Blair, accustomed to the boxy, utilitarian appearance of Terran construction, whistled in surprised appreciation.
The second ship, floating somewhat further away, was still under primary construction. Blair could see the shiny exposed ribs of the unfinished launch bays and the exposed skeleton around the nose. Hundreds of lights glittered like fireflies along the ship's flanks. It took him a moment to realize the winking stars were welders.
"They look Kilrathi," he said.
"We have incorporated the latest Kilrathi technology," Tolwyn admitted grudgingly, "which might account for the superficially Cat appearance. We borrowed some ideas from the super carriers they launched against Earth."
Blair said nothing, seeing a flicker of emotion on Tolwyn's face. It had, indeed, been Tolwyn's finest hour, Blair realized. A bomb carried by a Kilrathi agent had wiped out the Joint Chiefs and Tolwyn was named commander of all Earth defenses in the crisis. It had been Tolwyn who had warned against the Kilrathi truce, which had granted the Cats time to bring their new c
arriers on-line. It was Tolwyn who led the masterful fighting withdrawal all the way from the frontier to Earth orbit… it was Tolwyn who had saved humanity when all seemed lost. Blair felt a moment of sympathy for the admiral. If, at that moment of victory, Tolwyn had been lost he would have been remembered forever as the greatest hero of the war.
Blair remembered how, in spite of all their differences, he had looked upon him with awe during that campaign; calm, unflappable, inspiring those around him to give their all, for they knew the man at the top was the best combat commander in the fleet. If only he had retired then, or been kicked upstairs to head of Joint Chiefs, the humiliations that came afterwards would have been avoided. Blair guessed that it was there that this change in the admiral had really started. Joint Chiefs should have been his next command, but political insiders, many of whom had fallen for the Kilrathi truce, were quickly back in the saddle and pronounced that the admiral was "too valuable a field commander" to be pulled from action by the promotion. Tolwyn was the goose who had laid the golden egg of a victory undreamed of, but when called upon to do it again, he had failed. That failure must now be eating at his soul.
"The design of these new ships, in spite of the borrowing, are entirely human, Colonel. I was head of the advisory board that laid out the specifications."
Blair sensed that Tolwyn had somehow picked up on his thoughts; he looked away from the penetrating gaze.
"Each will mass a quarter million gross tons, carry a crew of seventy-eight hundred, and will maintain a complement of over four-hundred fighters and utility craft."
Blair whistled again. A fleet carrier generally carried a single wing with about a hundred fighters and bombers. "I thought they were propaganda," he said.
"Oh?' Tolwyn's eyebrows arched in surprise. "How so?"
Blair shrugged. "I didn't think we had the ability to build something this big." He glanced at Tolwyn. The admiral nodded his head fractionally, signalling him to continue.
Blair took a deep breath. "The Kilrathi bombs wiped out most of Earths northern industrial cities. They also pasted the lunar shipyards." He tipped his head towards the ships. "It just doesn't seem possible to build these without a shipyard or local industry, especially with a depressed economy. We've even heard rumors of starvation and food riots."
The Price of Freedom Page 5
