The Fleet05 Total War

by David Drake (ed)

  “It is enough to know that he does it! Senses, does he gain?”

  “No, Captain. He holds his distance, at a million kilometers. He must not know our detectors have expanded range.”

  “Holds his distance?” Throb frowned. “Why would he follow, instead of seeking to overhaul?”

  “Because he wishes to trail us to Barataria!” Goodheart’s teeth showed in a grin. “Then he would flee and return with a fleet! No, we will lead him away, far away! Helm, set course away from Target, away from Khalia—away from any settled territory that we know!”

  “But where shall we go, Captain?”

  “Galactic Northeast, above the plain of the ecliptic by thirty degrees! There is nothing there, nothing! Let him follow us to nowhere! Then we shall lead him too near a star and let him be sucked in to fry! Northeast by thirty, Helm!”

  “Even so, Captain.” The helm set his course, trying to smother his own doubts.

  They cruised on through the void of a space measured in alien dimensions, lit by streaks of light that were segments of the lives of stars, to an almost-uniform grayness. It was as though they flew through fog, with here and there the lights of a passing city.

  Then, suddenly, the sensor op called out, “Ship approaching on a nearly parallel vector, sir!”

  “Sales?” Goodheart spun about. “Is he no longer behind? Has he realized our gambit?”

  “It is not his signature, sir.” The sensor op pointed at the screen. “The wave form is typical of the reflected shape of a Syndicate merchantman.”

  “Ah-h-h-h.” Goodheart turned to the screen, feeling the pain of his humiliation diminish. “If we have lost one prey, we have found another! Lay our course parallel to his, Helm! We will surprise him when he breaks out!”

  Onward they fled, with Sales only an impulse behind, a minor irritation. All eyes fastened now on the merchantman; warriors checked their pistols, and the gunner checked his magazines.

  “As ever, Captain?” Throb asked. “Wait till they break out into normal space, then overhaul and grapple them?”

  “Even so,” Goodheart answered. “Senses, what of Sales?”

  “He is lost, sir,” Senses reported. “I think he has fallen behind, beyond my range.”

  ”Then he shall not disturb us while we feed. Throb, sound battle stations!”

  * * *

  They fled on in near silence for an hour, a day, thirty hours. The tension stretched thin, among crew who slept in their battle stations, staving off hunger with hard rations and sips of water.

  Then, suddenly, the wave form that showed the merchantman began to shimmer.

  “He shifts!” Senses called.

  “Shift with him!” Goodheart snapped. “Helm, now!”

  * * *

  The ship bucked and seemed to twist—a transition come too suddenly, with no time to prepare. Goodheart thrust away dizziness and focused on the screen. The merchantman lay square in the screen, and the scale showed he was only fifty kilometers distant.

  Goodheart keyed the intercom. “Apologies for so rude a breakout—but yonder lies our prey! Action, imminently!” He released the patch. “Senses, expand scale! Let us see our field of battle!”

  The merchantman shrank in the screen as the view increased. . . .

  And the limb of a disk crept in at the edge.

  “Expand by ten!” Goodheart snapped, and the disk was suddenly complete, a planet glowing across the full spectrum of visible radiation.

  “What globe is that?” Throb breathed into the sudden hush.

  “His destination!” Goodheart crowed. “We have found a Syndicate world! Come, pluck this fowl that lies before us, and let a few escape to bear the tale! Let the merchant traitors tremble to know that we flay their hides so close to home! Seize me that ship!” Then caution nudged his mind. “Com op, send a message torp. Let them know what we have found!”

  Irritated, the communications operator slapped switches and trilled a brief message into the transmitter.

  Even as he did, the helm op laid course and accelerated, and the pirate ship darted toward the merchantman.

  Then, suddenly, the screen was filled with a dozen streaks of light, swarming in at the edges, two swelling into the forms of Syndicate destroyers.

  “They keep close watch!” Goodheart shrieked. “Torpedoes away! Rake them with cannon!”

  The pirate ship spat fire; its progeny swarmed away toward the destroyers.

  But a blister opened in the side of the merchantman, and flame gouted from a huge cannon. The screen filled with fire, and Goodheart had just time enough to realize the irony of his prey turning on him, before the luminescence caught him up, and he passed into the excruciating light of death with the knowledge that the clan leaders had been right, after all, and the humans of the Fleet had not been his enemies.

  * * *

  “He’s gone, sir!”

  “Break out!” Sales snapped. He settled back into his acceleration couch, savoring the revenge of knowing that it was Goodheart’s own invention that had doomed him—that Sales’s own spies had brought back word of Goblin’s hyperspace mass detector. Just knowing that the thing existed, and who had invented it, had been enough—his own engineers had checked the records of Desrick’s work, had found the concepts he’d been working with, and had duplicated his invention. Then they had gone on to transform the detector into a tracer.

  They broke out within the range of that same tracer; Goodheart’s ship had been just on the fringe. They had followed, hopefully out of his range.

  Could Barataria really be so far from all habitation?

  Perhaps. What better protection, than being beyond consideration?

  The moment of dizziness passed, and Sales scanned the big screen eagerly, looking for the pirate’s silhouette. He saw the rippling red circle of the detector’s signal first . . .

  Then saw the great disk looming over all.

  And the darts of light that emerged into the forms of Syndicate destroyers.

  “They’re trying to fry my pirate!” Sales roared. “Blast ‘em, Fire Control! Punch them out of space!”

  “Torpedoes away,” the chief gunner returned.

  “Captain, get in there and fry those lice!”

  “Aye,” the captain answered, lips stretched thin in a grin. “Full acceleration!”

  Two G’s kicked them in the pants and stayed there.

  Just then, fire erupted out of the merchantman, a huge spreading blossom that wrapped about the Khalian pirate, enveloping it, converting it into a ball of spreading luminescence.

  “Those scum!” Sales shouted. “Those thieves, assassins! They can’t kill my pirate and get away with it! Captain, burn ‘em! A merchant ship that shoots is no longer immune!”

  “Aye, sir,” the captain grunted over the weight of acceleration. The light ball filled the screen, then swam up to the upper left corner as the converted liner dove around it. The merchantman swelled in the screen, but the helm op swung around the expanding flower, too.

  Two smaller blossoms erupted at the heads of the streaks of light that were destroyers.

  “Two out,” the gunner chanted. “Port cannon raking two more—belly cannon raking three . . .”

  Light exploded all about them.

  Pain, unbearable, filled Sales’s whole being—then passed; and, in the moment of consciousness left to him as a part of that luminescence, Sales, too, realized that he had been chasing the wrong enemy.

  THE SURRENDER of the Khalian Council did not end hostilities with all of the Khalia. In a culture where independence and military prowess were the sole measures of success, even the surrender had a limited effect. On Khalia, where those loyal to the remaining members of the Council were dominant, it meant a near-instant finish to the fighting. Within a few days all resistance had ended and Khalians by the
thousands were turning in weapons, even turning in those few ships that had survived the space battle against Duane’s forces.

  To the amazement of the occupying Alliance Marines, there seemed no resentment on the part of most individual Khalians. They had been bested, and so instead offered the thousands of humans that occupied their planet a grudging respect. The phrase used by most Khalians to describe humans gradually changed from hairless, defenseless prey to worthy opponent. It was a lot easier on the ego to be defeated by a tough opponent than a defenseless ape.

  Attempts to integrate Khalians into human units met with mixed success. Orders for Khalian pelts to be destroyed were diluted as they passed down the chain of command until most sergeants interpreted them as requesting their commands to put the furs in the lower compartment of their foot lockers. Attempts at integrating competitive sports met with other difficulties. Football could be quite hazardous when played against an opponent whose instinctive reaction when faced by a larger opponent was to extend two-inch claws. Still mutual respect for the other’s prowess provided the beginnings of understanding.

  Elsewhere in Khalian space the acceptance of the surrender diminished with distance. Some Khalian raiders surrendered. A few of these were slaughtered by vengeful local inhabitants before the Fleet could intervene. Years of fear and frustration created some truly grisly scenes. This complicated the situation, giving many of the remaining Khalia a mind-set similar to that of the isolated Japanese soldier after World War II. The last of these had surrendered almost forty years after that war had ended.

  The absorption into the Alliance of the entirety of Khalian space provided another rallying point for those who refused to accept defeat. Some of the remaining captains strove to reestablish a new Khalian empire elsewhere. Others simply continued to pillage until destroyed. Most soon found some excuse to resist Fleet units whenever they had the advantage and when outgunned surrendered when informed “for the first time” by the Nedge translators now carried on most larger Fleet vessels of their Council’s action.

  Still, within months after the fall of Khalia, the bulk of Khalian resistance had collapsed. Those pockets and ships remaining were proving particularly vicious. Their holding out and the battles that followed complicated the incorporation of Khalian units needed to bolster the badly depleted Marine companies of the Fleet.

  Access to large numbers of Khalians also brought a wealth of information to the research services. This was quickly, if belatedly, turned into useful ways of combating the remaining Khalian centers of resistance. Like so much research, some of what was developed proved useful and other new inventions proved more a hazard to those using them than the enemy. A few developments, as is often the case, taught the Fleet scientists more about themselves than the Khalia.

  TROOPER GLASSMAN pulled his helmet on, locking the gasket against the collar of his battle suit. He took a quick look at the little green indicator that showed suit integrity. Satisfied, he settled in to wait for his turn to enter the boarding tube. That shouldn’t be too long: the ship was making a series of tiny course corrections like a spider’s mating dance.

  Unconsciously, he rubbed his hand over his left bicep. He was starting to itch. Maybe that shot they’d given him was starting to take effect. He hoped so; those films had really impressed him. Imagine being able to move as fast as a Khalian; wouldn’t that be something! If he were that fast, maybe he’d finally be able to . . .

  The ship jerked slightly, the sign that she had locked onto the Khalian pirate. Glassman watched as the entrance of the boarding tube dilated open—they were definitely locked on now. Weapon ready, he strode into the tube behind his platoon leader. The tube seemed shorter than usual. He was almost halfway through . . .

  * * *

  “Freeze it there.” Commander Rodman’s voice carried easily in the large lounge of the Sabatini. He commanded the attention of the five senior officers seated at the long table facing the wall of monitor displays, all frozen on the same scene. “This is where the injection took effect—you can see him gain speed as he moves into the tube. The Scalosian drug has already started to move through his bloodstream. Now, watch what happens . . .”

  * * *

  Glassman edged up the passage toward the control deck; Trooper Verzyl paralleled him on the opposite side. Glassman had always been a little nervous before combat, but this was ridiculous. He’d begun sweating even before he got through the boarding tube, and it was worse now.

  He took another pull from his drinking tube, his third in the last few minutes. There must be something wrong with the suit’s environmental controls, he thought. Just like maintenance to screw ’em up just before a mission. Better have a few words with Tech Karty when this is over.

  Glassman took yet another drink and saw a flash of movement in the dimness ahead of him. “Khalia!” he barked over his com system, bringing up his slug projector as he yelled. Couldn’t use heavier weapons here, might puncture the hull—or the fusion bottle—the brass wanted prisoners, not a shipload of corpses.

  Another movement caught his eye, a bit farther ahead, then Verzyl was yelling and the two of them were scant meters from being engulfed by a horde of Khalians, swarming out of the darkness with claws and knives and pistols. Glassman squeezed his trigger and prepared to die . . .

  * * *

  “The first encounter with a Khalian force took place in corridor number four, just five hundred meters from the entrance to the command bridge. A squad of Khalians, charged with the protection of the control crew, were able to creep within five meters of the Marine patrol without being detected.” Rodman thumped the table in front of him for emphasis. “Five meters! Computer record searches have shown that in all past encounters, Khalians within a five-meter radius of our troops have inflicted fatalities eighty-five percent of the time!”

  “Think of that statistic. Eighty-five percent! This time . . .”

  * * *

  Glassman was surprised at how slowly the Khalians seemed to be moving. Or maybe it wasn’t them. Maybe it was the drug the Fleet technies had put into him just before jumpoff.

  The Khalians moved as if they were swimming through a heavy liquid. Glassman grinned. He’d fought Weasels before—more often than he liked to think of—and lost more buddies to them than he liked to remember.

  This was different. This was a dream come true. He could take his time, take careful aim—pick them off one by one, the way they had picked off so many of his buddies.

  And still have time to enjoy their dying.

  His slug rifle began to fire, almost of its own accord. Weasels dropped one after another.

  Glassman’s grin grew wider. This was great! A quick glance showed that Verzyl was doing just as well. Together they were wiping out the Khalian ambush patrol—in seconds!

  Glassman shot another of the aliens and realized how enjoyable this kind of fight would be—if he could only get the sweat to stop dripping into his eyes.

  * * *

  “On this experiment, all initial encounters with the Khalia were concluded with a one hundred percent success rate for our troops. One hundred percent!” Rodman was projecting figures on the secondary monitor screens now; the main screen was still showing encounter footage from the battle-suit camera. “And not a single fatality on our side. Not one! As a matter of fact, in three different actions, Marines were able to render Khalian troops unconscious after disarming them in hand-to-hand combat! This has allowed us tremendous opportunities to psychiatrically analyze pirate mind-sets and begin plans aimed at bringing them under our operational control as well as the other Khalians!”

  * * *

  Glassman had finished five of the Weasels, shooting them down well before they could reach his position. Verzyl had been firing on full auto, spattering six more into wall decorations before he was able to gain control of his fear. The last Khalian was almost close enough for Glassman to t
ouch now, and he decided to take this one prisoner. After all, that was part of the reason for this whole test, to find out why the pirates kept on fighting.

  As the alien thrust his knife at Glassman’s side, the Marine twisted to the right, bringing his rifle butt up and across and into the Khalian’s abdomen.

  Just the way they taught it back in BCT!

  When the Weasel doubled over, Glassman finished the move, swinging the butt, with all its accumulated speed, down on the creature’s head. The Marine was shocked when the Khalian’s skull shattered, pouring blood and brains out on the floor.

  Glassman looked down at the pile of bodies for a moment, jerking his head quickly to the side to dislodge the sweat from his eyes. Then, turning from the carnage, he motioned Verzyl forward.

  They still had to take the control deck.

  * * *

  “You will note that both of the Marine squads treated with the Scalosian drug were fully involved in firefights within twenty minutes of their inoculation.” New figures and charts appeared on the monitor screens. “In all cases, Marine activity and effectiveness increased from ninety to two hundred fifty percent of norm when the drug became fully assimilated into their systems. By way of comparison, our studies have shown that the Khalians are, by nature, some thirty percent faster than the normal Marine response time. In effect, we have trebled Marine effectiveness through the use of this drug!”

  * * *