Extremis (7 page)

one is none,

none is all,…

and…all…is…

“…One DD inbound, Admiral Krishmahnta. Secure lascom beacon lists her as RFNS
Bucky Sherman
—a courier attached to Admiral Yoshikuni’s command. Sorry if we woke you, sir, but you ordered—”

Erica snapped upright, checked the clock. “Yes, fine. Time elapsed since courier was dispatched?”

“Uh…beacon code indicates seventeen hours since she left Beaumont, Admiral.”

“Tell her to transmit her communiqués and await reply.”

“Uh, Admiral…the
Bucky Sherman
is a pretty old DD, mostly converted to automated systems and running low on volatiles and spares. And looking at the rads they’re throwing off, a little engine refit wouldn’t be out of—”

“Bring her in, then. Her CO is to report to me ASAP—no, belay that. Have Ms. Nduku in Engineering report to their CO with my compliments and a warning that she has to be back aboard
Gallipoli
in two hours. She can help with their refit until then. Is there a flesh-and-blood courier carrying an actual message pouch?”

“Yes, sir, a Lieutenant Wethermere.”

“He should be in my ready room five minutes ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

Captain Yoshi Watanabe stuck his head through the open hatchway into Krishmahnta’s ready room. He seemed perplexed. “You paged me, Admiral?”

“Yes, Captain Watanabe. Have a seat.”

As he entered, Krishmahnta gestured toward a youngish man—he could have been as little as twenty-five, or as much as forty-five if he was on a reasonable antigerone regimen—who, before Erica could utter a word, stood to attention, giving the captain a well-snapped salute. The gesture was respectful, but not at all nervous. Krishmahnta watched a slightly surprised Captain Watanabe return the salute and wave the lieutenant back down. “At ease, here—
very
at ease, Lieutenant.” He turned to Krishmahnta.

She explained. “This is Lieutenant Ossian Wethermere, courier from Admiral Yoshikuni in Beaumont.”

Watanabe’s eyes flicked back and forth, trying to read hers. “Well, has the balloon gone up there?”

Krishmahnta leaned back with a relieved sigh. “It most certainly has. Look at this.” She spoke to the walls. “Computer: replay Yoshikuni tacplot recording of Beaumont One, 1800-to-1 time compression.”

The computer complied, creating a mini holographic tacplot that replayed the Battle of Beaumont as it had progressed up to eighteen hours ago. The fifteen hours of action took only thirty seconds to replay, but the outcome—and future—seemed clear. It was all quite familiar: human minefields were obliterated with stickhives, then Baldy probes came in, followed by attempts to catch any nearby hulls with SBMHAWKs. Yoshikuni’s response had been similar to Krishmahnta’s: she slightly altered her deployment after each enemy recon phase so there were no pre-plotted targets for the enemy to strike. But here the invaders had only minced about for a few hours. Then they came in strong and fought a sharp engagement that burned up half a dozen of their old SDs in exchange for an RFN monitor and cruiser. Yoshikuni withdrew in good order into a two-screen position. But in doing so, she also fell back well inside the system’s Desai limit. Beaumont itself was suspended like a brownish tennis ball between the heads of two glowing green tennis rackets—the two human screens. Meanwhile, the red motes kept pouring into the system from their entry warp point at six o’clock, spreading out into a single but much larger screen that approached the Desai limit slowly, inexorably. And doubtless would press on toward their ultimate objective: the warp point into Suwa, located at twelve o’clock—directly opposite their entry portal.

“Well, this is new.” Captain Watanabe leaned back, rubbing his chin.

“Isn’t it? Usually, once the Baldies acquire a toehold in a system, they charge straight in. Here they’re coming on slowly, cautiously—probably uncertain what to make of Yoshikuni’s ceding the warp point so readily.”

“Yeah, about that—why
did
she give it up?” And as soon as he had asked the question, Watanabe called up a replay, which he watched carefully before looking at Krishmahnta. “So, you decided against building warp-point forts in Beaumont?”

Krishmahnta nodded. “It wasn’t even a decision, really. We couldn’t get them built in time—same as here.”

“Well, that’s because we lost ours when the Baldies hammered Raiden last time. Beaumont’s never been under the gun before.”

Krishmahnta shrugged. “True, but Yoshikuni didn’t have any extant forts in-system. And given our inevitable withdrawal back to Achilles, it seemed a waste to rush forward fort modules and all the associated construction auxiliaries. Which, it turns out, wouldn’t have had the new forts ready in time, anyway.”

“So all that gear is—?”

“Still in the rear, back beyond Suwa.”

“Added to the defenses in Achilles?”

Krishmahnta nodded. “I mean to hold that line in the sand.”

“Erica, we may not be able to—”

“I know. I can count, too, Yoshi. We just may not have the weight of metal to stop them there. But we have to think and play to win. And even if they push us back from Achilles, every extra day we buy for the industrial sites in the Odysseus cluster is a victory. The longer they have to pump out the ships and crews and forts that we need, the more likely that we will be able to hold—really
hold
—the Baldies somewhere farther down the line.”

“From your lips to Vishnu’s ears.” Watanabe smiled.

Krishmahnta looked over her fleet captain’s shoulder. “Mr. Wethermere.”

He stood immediately. “Sir!”

She smiled, saw his blue eyes—and was suddenly struck by two very different sensations.

Firstly, she had seen those eyes somewhere before. Very light, pure blue. There was even something familiar about their expression: amiable, ready to be amused, but unable to fully mask the ferociously active mind behind them.

But secondly—and more disturbing—was a recollection of her great-grandfather that seemed, at first, completely, even insanely, out of place: it was a tidbit of his old-school Hinduism, which she had largely dismissed as an endearing preoccupation of his dotage. “My child,” her
paradada
had said, “you will
know
when you look into the eyes of an Old Soul. You will know what they are, perhaps before they have discovered it themselves. As children and young people, they play and distract themselves with the same sweet frivolities as their peers—but there is in them a way of seeing, and a depth of vision, that comes from having lived many lives. Which you can see looking out through their eyes. I tell you this, little
dhupa
”—for that was his own pet-name for her—“that they will be drawn to your bright karma as surely as flowers turn to the sun. And it may be that the greatest weight of your own karma will be to help them, for before they know what they are, they may be uncertain in their paths. Old Souls are no different from others in how they
begin
their life journey,
dhupa
—only in how they might
end
it. For their path is to Nirvana.”

“Admiral? Sir?” Wethermere had taken a solicitous step toward her. “Are you all right?”

Krishmahnta literally felt an impulse to shake the memory—so strong and dislocating—out of her head, but that would hardly set the appropriate command image. She smiled. “My apologies, gentlemen. It seems I haven’t quite roused myself from that deeply satisfying twenty-one-minute nap that you interrupted, Mr. Wethermere.”

The lieutenant looked both surprised for being so blamed and genuinely repentant. Krishmahnta could hardly keep from smiling as he apologized. “I’m—I’m very sorry, sir.”

Watanabe laughed. “Relax, son, the Admiral’s just having a laugh. And we can use ’em wherever we find ’em, these days.”

“I see, sir.”

Krishmahnta resolved to put Wethermere at ease with a smile, and the lieutenant brightened up nicely in response. “So, Mr. Wethermere. I’ll have a reply for Admiral Yoshikuni in about five minutes. What are your impressions of the action in Beaumont? Is there anything
not
in the pouch that’s worth mentioning?”

“Just this, sir. The rank and file don’t understand why Admiral Yoshikuni has split the task force and bracketed Beaumont. Granted, the planet warrants defense, but by moving inside the Desai limit—”

“—she gives up her primary mobility advantage over the Baldies, is that it?”

“Something like that, although it seems that at least half of the Baldy ships now have Desai drives.”

“That many? Well, it was sure to come sooner or later.” She turned to Watanabe. “This is probably the last time we’ll have any drive advantage at all.”

“Could be. So we’d better watch ourselves here in Raiden. After we decimated the last Baldy fleet, they’d have had to rebuild it with new ships. And that means new technology.”

Krishmahnta nodded, turned back to Wethermere, tried to keep the assessing glint out of her eye. “What about you, Lieutenant? Do you have a guess why Admiral Yoshikuni has pulled back within the Desai limit?”

Wethermere shot a quick glance at the plot. “Well, sir, it extends the engagement.”

Captain Watanabe raised an eyebrow. “Really? How?”

“Well, if the engagement stayed out beyond the Desai limit, it would go along at .5 c, since large ships with Desai drives double their speeds out there.”

“Yes, and barely half the enemy fleet would be able to keep up.”

“Well, yes, sir, but the fighting would still collect around the other warp point in a day, maybe two. But this way, if the Baldies come inside the Desai limit and, furthermore, get in close to planets, flank speeds drop to .2 or .25 c, and fighters become more useful again. All factors taken together, that slows down the resolution of the engagement.”

“And where’s the tactical advantage in that, Lieutenant?”

“It’s a strategic advantage, sir. Slowing them down out here is key to developing our defenses farther on down the line. Out here, we’re forced to improvise quite a bit—not enough forts, older hulls, reserve crews, depleted stocks of mines. The way I figure it, our most urgent mission is to delay the Baldies long enough so that our rear area can get enough matériel cranked out and sent up to places with optimally defensible choke points. Like the single warp point at Achilles. Like you and the admiral were discussing earlier.”

“You make us sound very expendable, Lieutenant.” Krishmahnta allowed herself a faint smile. “Tell me, is your Navy insurance paid up?”

“Sorry if I wasn’t clear, sir, but I don’t think we’re expendable at all. In fact, I suspect the need to preserve every possible unit is the other reason for Admiral Yoshikuni’s leisurely pace.”

“How do you mean?”

“Admiral, if I read the tea leaves correctly, you are planning to disengage our two fleets from two different enemy forces in two widely separated salients, with the ultimate objective of recombining those two fleets to make a fast, orderly withdrawal back through Suwa to Achilles. Well, sir, if you’re to have any chance of getting all your warbirds back to that safe roost, you’re going to need all the time and space you can get.”

Watanabe tried to scowl dismissively: he was a poor actor. “Lieutenant, do you mind telling us which war college were you were teaching at before you drew courier duty for Admiral Yoshikuni?”

“Uh…my courier duty, well, that kind of just…happened, sir.”

Krishmahnta raised an eyebrow. “Would you care to explain that, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir. I was dispatched from the Pan-Sentient Union naval base at Alpha Centauri to take up multi-locus liaison duties among the different militaries of the Rim.”

Watanabe closed his eyes. “You’re not at HQ anymore, Lieutenant. In English, please.”

“Yes, sir, Captain. I was sent out here to help the naval units of different species set up realistic cross-training programs, including field-training in mixed units.”

Krishmahnta leaned her chin on her knuckles. “Why out here? I thought those multispeciate initiatives were mostly the province of the Home Worlds.”
And their pie-in-the-sky “all races can work as one” rhetoric. “All races equal?” Yes, absolutely. “All work as one?” Nonsense. It’s the triumph of political idealism over irreconcilable physical differences.

“Yes, sir,” Wethermere was answering, “the PSU is certainly the home of multispeciate initiatives. But the real need for them is out here. Against the Tangri.”

Captain Watanabe leaned back. “Of course. Everybody’s favorite centauroid carnivore pirates.”

Wethermere nodded. “Tangri space borders on most of the major interstellar polities, so they are a common problem. But there’s been no effort to really arrive at a common solution. Each group—Republic, Federation, Union, Orion, Ophiuchi, Gorm, others—responds in their own space, and in their own fashion. But there’s been no coordinated effort or overarching strategy.”

“And now there is one?”

“No, sir—not yet.”

Krishmahnta heard the beat of hesitation. “Not yet, Lieutenant? Were you expecting to receive a conops folder from Earth just before the Baldies showed up?”

“Er…no, sir. I was expecting to start a dialogue with the different leaders who might be interested in formulating one.”

Krishmahnta thought she heard an almost evasive tone. “So, you were sent out here with nothing more than a mandate to ‘talk’ to interested parties about setting up joint training programs. Are you aware that this objective has met with dismal failure during each of its five—no, six—prior attempts? Did someone send you out here as a practical joke, Lieutenant?”

This was the moment where an average lieutenant would possibly have frozen, or shuddered, or stammered, or broken out in a sweat, or evinced some colorful combination of all the preceding. But Wethermere simply looked directly at Krishmahnta and replied, “My mission—a practical joke? Well, yes, sir, sometimes I wonder about that myself.”

He doesn’t get rattled too easily
, Erica thought. And unbidden, she heard her
paradada
’s thickly accented drone:
“You will know, child, when you look into the eyes of an Old Soul.”
And so she did. Wethermere looked back at her—respectful, unassuming—but strangely composed and at home in himself.