Extremis (76 page)

Watanabe leaned back. “Well, I can tell you one thing about your adversary.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Today, he’s really pissed.”

Arduan SDH
Shem’pter’ai
, Consolidated Fleet,
Anaht’doh Kainat
, Charlotte System

Narrok considered the reports from Ajax again. “We must not panic.”

Sarhan’s response was as laconic as ever. “Why not?”

Narrok spontaneously pulsed out (amusement, rue). Although Admiral Sarhan’s body had been blasted by fire and radiation at the Battle of Ajax, he was still the shrewdest intellect, and most refreshingly sardonic peer, that Narrok had in the fleet. “Do you really think this news from Penelope and Ajax indicates that the humans who pushed in from the Mercury Trace have recontacted those in the Odysseus Cluster?”

“How can we eliminate the possibility, Senior Admiral? Since we know next to nothing about how their Kasugawa generator works, we have no way of knowing if, perhaps, they have opened another new warp point into the Tilghman system, for instance.”

Narrok nodded. “I would agree—if we were to constrain our speculations to the science alone. But from a strategic and logistical standpoint, it seems unlikely.”

Sarhan lifted a half-amputated cluster; the tentacles he waved in speculative curiosity were withered, scorched smooth and pasty. “How do you deduce this from their strategy and logistics?”

“Consider, good Sarhan. If the groups had made contact, would they not have coordinated actions more closely? As it is, they have given us challenges in a manageable sequence, not all at once. And why would they not equip the forces in the Odysseus Cluster with their new devastator class? Similarly, if this near-miraculous energy-torpedo battery was brought in from outside the Odysseus Cluster, why did the Allied Fleet not have it to use in their offensive down the Arm? It might have turned the tide of battle at Charlotte. No, I am convinced that the human groups are still separate, are still operating in mutual ignorance.”

“Perhaps so. But it will not long remain the case, I suspect.”

Narrok sent (accord, appreciation) for Sarhan’s perspicacity. “Probably not. And with the humans emerging in force from Odysseus, I feel we have little choice but to withdraw from Ajax.”

“And give up that system’s two warp points?”

“Frankly, I am more worried about splitting my forces between the two warp points of the Ajax system. And that situation would be all the worse if their devastators arrive, fitted with these new energy-torpedo batteries—”

“Senior Admiral, I am frail. I should be discarnate. Please do not shock me into my demise with such speculations. But yes, of course, we must anticipate that, too. Although I confess I have also wondered: Did the humans perhaps trick us at Penelope?”

Narrok sent (appreciation, camaraderie) to the old warrior. “You are thinking that the vented coolant was a ruse? That the larger group of ships was not actually armed as the first?”

“The timing and structure of the engagement makes it impossible not to entertain the hypothesis.”

“I agree. But we will never know. And by the time we face the humans again, it probably will not matter. Unless they are in a terrible rush, they will have enough time to retrofit even more of their ships with this new weapon system.”

Sarhan sadly (concurred). “Either way, our job of holding them has become more difficult—which means it is all the more urgent that we fortify the systems you have selected as our minimum safe perimeter. About which: Is the assembly on schedule?”

Narrok signaled (affirmative). “Slightly ahead of schedule, actually. SDSs are entering the final phases of construction in Suwa, Polo, Andromeda, BR-02, and Raiden.”

“And if the humans attack before they are all completed?”

“Then, friend Sarhan, we shall truly
shotan
—live and taste—the meaning of this human term which Ankaht now routinely utters. We shall indeed be
in extremis
.”

33

In Yon Smoke Concealed

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field.
—Clough

RFNS
Gallipoli
, Further Rim Fleet, Agamemnon System

Admiral Erica Krishmahnta frowned into the plot. “No, Yoshi, I don’t think it’s a trick. I think the recon drones are showing us the real situation: the Baldies are ceding Ajax.”

Watanabe looked at the 1:1000 time-ratio recording from the recon drones—all of which had returned unscathed. In their holoplotted representation of the Ajax system, the last flickering hints of red enemy icons were seen departing and, judging from their heading, were making directly for the warp point into Achilles. “Let’s assume you’re right, Admiral. What in Terra’s name would make them want to abandon a crossroads system like Ajax?”

“Maybe
want
has nothing to do with their actions. Maybe
need
is the term that would help us understand it.”

Watanabe frowned. “So, why would they
need
to withdraw from Ajax?” His frown deepened. “Well, unless it’s a trap—which I still suspect—the only need that might drive them to abandon Ajax would be—” And he stopped with his mouth open.

Krishmahnta nodded. “Yes—that they’ve got trouble somewhere else. Big trouble.”

Watanabe clearly couldn’t allow himself to contemplate the unthinkably joyous possibility; he posited an alternative. “The Tangri?”

Krishmahnta shook her head and watched the last red icon wink away from the plot. “No. The Tangri couldn’t handle a fifth of what we’ve seen the Baldies bring to the field. And I just can’t believe the Baldies could be in a civil war, not given their suicidal dedication to whatever common cause they’re serving.”

“So you think…?” Watanabe still couldn’t say it.

Krishmahnta nodded, staring down into the blank holoplot. “Looks like we’ve got friends on the way.”

“But—but how?”

Krishmahnta shrugged and leaned back. “I don’t know, Yoshi. Maybe they found a warp point from back home to someplace else in the Arm. Maybe they’re assaulting nonstop into Bellerophon from Astria. If that’s happening, the Baldies could be taking so many losses that they have to draw down their garrison flotillas out here and are retracting their perimeter to feed that meat grinder. But either way, this is the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. Ajax has a population of almost eighty-four million. I want to liberate those people—and get them working to build a fleet that can liberate even more worlds.”

Watanabe offered a broad smile. “Then what are we waiting for?”

* * *

RDs went in; the half that were supposed to come back did, and showed the other half spreading out to picket points in the Ajax system. So far, no unexpected contacts, no anomalies that might be a cloaked Baldy ship.

SBMHAWKs followed, entering the system and taking up ready-response positions, but half asleep in standby mode. Thusly spread out, they formed a thin protective sphere around the warp point from which the fleet in Agamemnon would emerge. Their hawk-eyed sensors scanned, sought targets, found none. They waited.

First in was a lowly courier, retrofitted with an extensive sensor suite. She probed further, poked harder: still nothing. She sent back the all-clear drone.

In response to that summons, three cruisers (among the last Krishmahnta had) and two of her new SDHs (copied and then improved from the Baldy designs) edged through the warp point—just before Least Claw Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s much-patched but still sturdy carrier
Celmithyr’theaarnouw
made transit. The Orion ship immediately began disgorging fighters, which streamed outward, seeking the far corners of the Ajax system.

Which, except for its perplexed human inhabitants, they found completely empty.

* * *

Two days later, Krishmahnta commenced the same process of delicately probing and then investing the Aphrodite system—and got no farther than the first phase of the operation. The first wave of drones returned—all of them—which meant that they had detected movement outside the Desai limit of the system.

As their reports came in—accumulating as lines of cyan characters floating in midair beside the tacplot—Krishmahnta and Watanabe gaped. The captain was the first to speak. “Could this be a trick?”

“Anything is possible, Captain.”

“Those transponders and call signs—that’s TRN commo traffic, alternating with our own.”

“Right down to the identifying and confirmatory crypto-codes embedded into the transponder beacons. If those RFN signals are counterfeit, they’re absolutely indistinguishable from our own—and no one has ever broken the kind of multiply trapdoored authentication ciphers that are woven into them.”

“And look at the size of those mass returns. Admiral, some of those ships must be twice the size of our largest supermonitors.”

“
At least
twice the size,” amended Krishmahnta. “This is either someone trying to succeed with an ECM version of the big lie—or it’s no lie at all. Given that the Baldies left this system heading the opposite direction—southward into Achilles—I’m betting on the latter.”

“Then let’s go visiting.”

“Better yet, Captain, let’s send them an invitation to visit us.”

* * *

Eight hours later, the supermonitor TRNS
Doomwhale
turned smartly away from the Kasugawa generator it had deposited at the lip of the Aphrodite warp point and moved off—just in time to clear the counterspinning gravitic vortex that sensors registered as swirling down into, and then pushing back up out of, the interstellar transit point. Which had grown immensely.

“Nice trick,” commented Wethermere, who tugged his dress blacks straight.

Krishmahnta nodded—and then sucked in her breath as a literal mountain of steel, composites, and superdense armors emerged from the newly dredged warp point, bristling with weapons.

“That must be one of the new devastators,” offered Watanabe after a long silence.

Miharu Yoshikuni, svelte yet still curvaceous in her own night-dark dress uniform, turned a baleful eye upon Watanabe: “You think?”

Watanabe reddened a bit. “I was just making conversation.”

Krishmahnta turned back to smile at them. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go meet a living legend.”

* * *

Shortly before the Baldies had appeared and turned the universe upside down, Krishmahnta had heard the story of Ian Trevayne’s rebirth in his own younger body. She had tended to discount it as sensationalist rumor. Even when reliable confirmation had arrived, she’d had trouble coming to terms with the idea.

She was still having trouble even now, after the initial hoopla of reunion was over and she and her staff were settling down to business with the tall, incongruously young but instantly recognizable version of the legend they had all grown up with.

There had, she decided, been simply too much to assimilate. Those tremendous new ships…the Kasugawa generator and its overturning of all conventional thinking about interstellar travel…the death of Li Han…Too much.

“Now, then, Fleet Admiral Khrishmanta,” Trevayne began.

“Er,” she dared to interrupt, “that’s Vice Admiral, sir.”

“No, it isn’t.” Trevayne smiled easily. “We’re a bit isolated out here, you see, and I have an unusual degree of latitude. I believe a promotion conferred on my own authority will probably be confirmed. Don’t you? As will…oh, we’ll decide on a decoration later. Whatever you care to name.”

For a moment, she had trouble breathing, let alone speaking. “Sir,” she finally managed, “I don’t…I can’t possibly…”

“Yes, you can.” Trevayne’s voice was still pleasant, but there was a new firmness in it. “You can do a great many things, Admiral, as you’ve shown. Left in isolation, and to to your own devices, you’ve held the Odysseus Cluster for the Rim Federation.” She found that she could not look away from his suddenly somber eyes. “I’m not altogether unacquainted with that sort of thing, you know. With all due modesty, I must claim a better appreciation of it than most.”

For a moment, legend filled the room.

Krishmahnta finally ended the moment. “Sir…if you’re resolved on this, may I make a request? It concerns Lieutenant Commander Wethermere, whom you met earlier.”

“Ah, yes, I’d been looking forward to making his acquaintance, after reading some of your reports. He reminds me of someone I once knew.”

“Kevin Sanders?” she suggested.

Trevayne blinked. “How did you know? At any rate, he’s a very refreshing young man—and clearly deserving of the brevet promotion you gave him, given his contributions to the success of the Further Rim Fleet.”

“That’s what my request concerns, sir. I’m asking you to make that brevet rank permanent—and give me authorization to brevet him again, to full commander.”

“Agreed,” said Trevayne without hesitation.

“Furthermore, if his designator turns out to be a problem—frankly, I’ve never been entirely certain of his status in that respect—”

“He does seem to be rather
sui generis
,” Trevayne interjected with a smile.

“—then I’d like to have it changed to unrestricted line, and any other administrative changes made that are necessary for giving him a command. I believe that his potential is one we owe it to ourselves—and to him—to exploit to the fullest.”

“I’m sorry, Admiral Krishmahnta, but I can’t give this man a command of his own. Despite his exemplary performance, he’s simply not trained for that role—not yet, anyway—and you can’t afford the risk. Or ask another ship to accept it in your stead.”

Krishmahnta had her mouth open to object—but Trevayne wasn’t done. “You also can’t afford
not
to have him working Intelligence for you. And Tactics. Both.”

Krishmahnta goggled. “You mean—make him my chief of Intel
and
Tactics? Admiral—that’s too much.”

“It is indeed, which is why he probably can’t officially perform in either role—solely. So let’s approach the problem from a different angle. If I’m not mistaken, you just lost your chief of staff and flagship captain to a promotion also, didn’t you?” He smiled at Watanabe, who visibly swelled with pride.