Extremis (53 page)

“Oh, tosh! Cyrus Waldeck is more than capable of handling things in Astria. He’s been doing so all along, as commander of Second Fleet. Now he just won’t have me looking over his shoulder.”

“As you’ll have me looking over yours.” For an instant, Li Han wondered if she’d said more than she should. She looked around the circle of faces in her quarters: Trevayne, Mags, and Adrian M’Zangwe. She looked into Trevayne’s eyes—not, strictly speaking, the
same
eyes she had looked into across his desk after spending months in his POW camp. Those eyes had looked out of a neatly bearded face in its fifties. She had never seen that face again. But she had destroyed the body to which it had belonged. “Does the idea of being my second-in-command for this operation present a problem for you, Admiral?”

There was the barest pause before Trevayne replied. “I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say it seemed a trifle odd at first. We were, after all, enemies—legendary enemies, in fact. And those days are relatively fresh in my mind. Remember, it’s been more than eight decades in terms of your elapsed memory, but only a few years in mine.”

Li Han let the silence stretch. M’Zangwe obviously wished he were somewhere else. But Magda only looked very serious, as her gaze shifted between her mother and…what?

“But,” Trevayne resumed, “having fought against you, I’m in better position than most to know that serving under you is a unique honor. And you’ve never had a more loyal subordinate. There’s just one thing…”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Well, the force I’ve brought here is an allied fleet, and considering the political implications of that fact, I’m wondering if perhaps it would be useful gesture if I were to transfer my flag to Admiral Li’s flagship, rather than a Rim Federation ship.” He gestured, with completely uncharacteristic awkwardness, in Li Magda’s direction. “After all, inasmuch as my command includes Terran Republic units as well as—”

And of course that’s the
only
reason
, thought Li Han.

“I have no objection,” said Mags with an equally awkward aversion for eye contact.

Well,
thought Li Han,
I’m supposed to be the older and wiser one here, by even more of a margin of life experience in his case than in hers.…

“I think that would be an excellent idea, Admiral Trevayne.”

18

An Innocent Fighter

Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under ’t.
—Shakespeare

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Expeditionary Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Agamemnon System

Narrok looked down at the surface of Agamemnon and watched a dust storm emerge from the dark side of the terminator, sweeping across the uninhabitable equatorial desert-belt. A pulse emanated from the
selnarm
repeater embedded in the observation deck’s main hatchway. “Enter,” sent Narrok.

His new fleet second, Nenset, entered. (Apologies, regret) preceded his lexical pulse of, “Admiral, we have received the answer to your request.”

“And Senior Admiral Torhok has denied my request to postpone the attack date?”

(Regret) preceded “Yes, Admiral. You are instructed to begin the attack upon Penelope at the agreed H hour, M minute.”

Of course I am.
“And is there any word on the progress of my offensive enhancement project?”

“Rin station’s yard engineers report all construction is on schedule. They indicate that they have had less problems with the modular interfaces than they expected.”

Well, at least one thing seems to be going right back in the New Ardu system—despite Torhok’s incessant meddling.
“Thank you, Nenset. Fleet signal: commence pre-assault operations. Send it at once. You may go.” Nenset seemed grateful to leave. Narrok stared at the surface of Agamemnon again, but three seconds later, the planet’s sere surface seemed to plummet away from him: the fleet was moving.

Moving to undertake an attack that Narrok knew would be disastrous.

Further Rim Fleet and Expeditionary Fleet of the
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Penelope System

Admiral Erica Krishmahnta looked at the plot and was unable to decide: should she feel despondent or elated?

The reason for despondence was there to read in the holotank’s icons: there were more green icons trailing omega symbols than in any engagement since the very first with the Baldies. And in that mix were two of her precious supermonitors and three of her monitors, to say nothing of the last of the fleet’s cruisers and most of its lighter pickets. Thousands upon thousands of crew were dead, many of whom were officers she had known for years, shared a meal or a drink with. Gone in the space of two hours.

But her eyes slid to the other half of the tank, and she felt the elation rise: the sea of red icons that floated there—dead, motionless—was what she had hoped to achieve. She knew she couldn’t hold Penelope forever. She wouldn’t have enough forts in time. Oh, the components of the forts had been ready, but they took time to move from the yards in Tilghman to their final destinations, even when it was only two transits away, like Penelope.

But she had still had twelve forts at Penelope, dense minefields, lavishly supplied ships, and a different objective: kill so many Baldy ships that she was sure to cripple them into a three-month delay in their offensive operations. Because in three months, the first new ships would be sliding out of the spacedocks in Tilghman, and the minefields in Odysseus would be so dense that even the Baldies couldn’t suicide through them successfully.

So, Krishmahnta was retreating, but she felt the satisfaction of knowing—finally knowing—that this was the last time she had to draw a line in the sand. Today, when she led her battered but still capable fleet through the warp point to Odysseus, she would at last be able to give her peerless crews and cadres a rest. And the Baldies could not break the defenses, because throughout all these months, Admiral Krishmahnta had been buying the time needed to ready what had at last been fully assembled in the Odysseus system: a phalanx of no fewer than forty-four forts, modified so that their missile-resupply systems could be fed from the rear of their superstructures while the launch bays continued to vomit death from their relative bows. Never before had such a defensive edifice been constructed outside the Home Worlds in order to protect a single warp point.
And with a solid fleet left to support this defensive network, breaking it would take far more assets than the Baldies had spent thus far throughout their entire campaign. Which meant that, in three months, Admiral Erica Krishmahnta could begin to think about mounting the best and most satisfying defense of all: a strong offense.

Yoshi Watanabe joined her, returning from debriefing the fleet’s senior squadron leaders; he nodded greetings as he looked in the tacplot. “Well, there’s a first for everything.”

“Which, in this case, is what?”

“That everything went according to plan.”

Krishmahnta looked at the plot, worried that she’d missed something. “Yes, they danced to our tune all right. Makes you wonder.”

“About what?”

“Can’t they learn? I mean, this is almost exactly what happened to them in Ajax—just worse. Much worse.”

Watanabe frowned at the tacplot. “We paid heavily, too, in our fighter squadrons.”

“Yes, but in a way, it was the fighters that won this battle. With all of our fighters deployed early—to keep theirs from working at our minefields and from getting too close to our forts—the Baldies had to spend and spend and spend to break our line.” Well over two hundred icons denoting dead SDHs attested to the price the invaders had paid. “Anything left for us to do?”

“We’re in good order for transit, if that’s what you mean. Looking at what remains of Baldy’s forces, he doesn’t look ready to mount a new frontal assault, anyway—not unless he can sneak something through the warp point right on the tail of our own transits.”

“You mean like he tried when we were withdrawing from Agamemnon.”

“Yes—and which he might try again.”

“Yoshi, I know that look and that tone: what am I missing on the plot?”

Watanabe shrugged and pointed at a single red icon trailing Krishmahnta’s van, which was strung out like the beads of a green necklace; pacing the human ships, the Baldy was moving briskly toward the Odysseus warp point.

Krishmahnta tried not to snort her disdain. “A single ship? What can they do with that?”

“Maybe nothing. But maybe they could give our defenses in Odysseus trouble by mixing their units in with ours long enough to force the minefields to stand down while what’s left of their fleet’s van follows through.”

“And how is one ship going to do that? The forts in Odysseus would maul it.”

“As we’ve been observing lately, Baldy has been field-modifying a lot of his SDHs for special-purpose duty. Like this one.”

“And this one is modified to do what?”

“Carry pinnaces. Seems like they’ve taken a page from the Bugs’ playbook. They’re looking for a way to inundate a warp point by putting through a stream of the smallest ships possible. And they just might have found it.”

“And given what we’ve seen of the Baldy tactics, the pinnaces could be just big antimatter bombs on a suicide run.”

“Exactly. And if the minefields have been deactivated, and the Baldy pinnaces get in among our forts—”

“Right.” Krishmahnta frowned. “So we have to delay them.”

“Yes—and happily, the unit which detected and ran the sensor sweeps that identified the special design of this SDH also has a plan for delaying, maybe even destroying, it.”

“Is it a sound plan?”

“It’s—well, it is. But it’s also unorthodox. Very unorthodox.”

Krishmahnta rested her forehead in her raised palm. “Not again.”

“Yes, it’s from Wethermere, on the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
. We’re getting the details of his plan coordinated with Fleet Tactical now. They’re having to confirm some of the specifics with Engineering.”

Krishmahnta looked at the icons of her fleet. It was limping home, this time: not badly, but with enough of a hitch in its gait that almost any hull she’d send to help the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
would be at risk of not making it to the warp point in time, particularly if it took further damage. And, sad as it was to say, the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
was of increasingly marginal value: with her squadrons down to forty-five percent, she was a proud, fierce Orion
zeget
which had lost too many teeth and claws to be fully effective.
So if I have to lose something…

She hated even thinking that thought, hated giving the dogged and ever-reliable crew of the
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
the short end of the stick one more time. And Wethermere—was this his reward for always living to fight another day? To finally be given up to the insatiable maw of war as just so much expendable cannon fodder? It wasn’t fair. But war never was.

Krishmahnta felt
Watanabe’s eyes scanning her profile. “Well,” he drawled in an excessively nonchalant tone, “it seems that Least Claw Kiiraathra’ostakjo and his Tactical Officer get to save the day once again. I wonder if Wethermere fully appreciates the honor we’re bestowing upon him.”

Krishmahnta stared down at the green speck that marked the position of the Orion carrier
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
. “You can ask him yourself. If he lives.”

* * *

Least Claw Kiiraathra’ostakjo rested his muzzle in both handlike paws and didn’t care that his own crew saw him in that position. Because, once again, they were all following one of Wethermere’s schemes, which usually seemed to be the product of a mind either insane or suicidal, or both. But that they were following it at all was Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s fault, and he knew it, because he had done the one thing that he absolutely, positively knew he should not do: he had posed Ossian Wethermere a problem for which there was no conventional solution.

* * *

The conversation had started innocently enough. Thirty minutes earlier, Lubell, another human late of the
Bucky Sherman,
and an excellent new ops officer, delivered the integrated report on the SDH that they were attempting to delay. It was running its tuners over the red-line, and the surface of its hull was laden with small-craft mooring racks, which were in turn laden with pinnaces. Clearly, this was a Baldy bid to compromise the Fleet’s clean escape through the warp point to Odysseus, and one which might prove successful, for as Lubell had concluded, “We can’t hold this SDH back: it keeps pressing us too hard, and we’re overdue for maintenance. They’re going to steamroller us before we can get through the warp point ourselves. And if they make it to the warp point just behind the fleet, and let loose all those pinnaces—”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo interrupted the human with an expressive nod. “Yes, Lieutenant. I understand. Thank you for your report. Well, it seems we have little choice. We will have to redeploy our fighters en masse if we are to slow them down enough to do our duty to the Fleet. They clearly do not consider our intermittent sorties reason enough to slow their advance.” And from the corner of his slit-pupiled eye, Kiiraathra’ostakjo saw Wethermere turn to stare into the tacplot. And he kept staring there.

That, Kiiraathra’ostakjo reflected, was when he had made his fatal mistake. Almost as a rueful admission that there was nothing else to be done, he had addressed the human. “Lieutenant Wethermere, as our Tactical officer, do you have any alternatives to that option?”

“I might. With respect, Least Claw, the enemy does not fear our current offensive operations enough to make him halt his advance, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Then what if we gave him a new reason to slow down?”

“You suggest that we give him a taste of a full-frontal assault with our main hull, as well?”

“No. I suggest that we give the Baldies a gift. A gift that they can’t resist stopping to pick up.”

“A gift? And what sort of gift do you think they might stop for? Perhaps to receive our surrender and take possession of our ship?”

“No—not our whole ship, anyway.”

“Human, when you begin to speak in riddles, I begin to choose the hero-lays I wish chanted over my pyre. What madness are you conceiving now, Wethermere?”