Passage at Arms (33 page)

I can’t imagine how Varese is managing.

I seldom visit Engineering. Afraid Varese and I will get into it. We barely tolerate each other in the wardroom. ‘I don’t understand it. We’ve no real cause.

Yanevich shakes me awake. He wears a pale grin. “Sleeping on station, eh?”

Of course. We all have for weeks. “I don’t think I could find my hammock anymore. Foreign territory. What’s up?”

“Corvette changed course. CPA fifty-five thousand klicks. Commander figures it means trouble.”

“Jesus. What’d we ever do to those guys?”

He grins. “They probably said the same thing at Rathgeber.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d better figure this scow is number one on their shit list. The Executioner is back...” He pauses. Then, “Sometimes I think he’s a renegade.”

“What?”

“His style. He gets involved.”

“Uhm. How’s the Chief doing?”

“One more trip.”

I punch a few keys, pan camera across Canaan’s end of the sky. The big show is still smoking. “How?”

“The Old Man will think of something.”

Come on, Steve. Not you too. You’re a big boy. You’ll be the Old Man yourself your next time around.

The Commander joins us. He looks washed out again. “Real skyshow, eh? Berberian says the ‘vette acts shot-up. Canzoneri agrees. Hyper generators and comm out. No missiles. Else they’d be climbing our backs. This’s a popular station.”

“Think they’ll leave us alone?”

“We look too easy to take.”

“She’ll be in best fire configuration in five minutes, Commander,” Berberian announces.

“Very well.” The Old Man visits Westhause, then Canzoneri. “Battle stations.” We’re on station already. He tells me, “Get the Chief back inside.”

Yanevich watches over Throdahl’s shoulder. The radioman has started logging the traffic he copies. The First Watch Officer selects some notes and brings them to me. Reading them is like painting by the numbers. A picture slowly appears.

The squadrons which attacked the convoy back when were very successful. So were two more which made a follow-up strike after the first three broke off. One note is especially interesting. “Commander, the Eight Ball did it again.”

“How so?” He seems only mildly intrigued.

“Brought he-^e another six stars. Two red and four white.” Meaning she took out two warships and four logistic hulls.

“Uhm. Henderson is a good man.”

Down toward the Inner Worlds they’re trying something unique. Second Fleet is raiding Thompson’s System. The heavies are laying back, guarding a flotilla of mothers, tankers, and tenders from which the Climbers are jumping off. They’re even rearming in space. Interesting.

Wonder if we’ll have any Climbers left when the dust settles.

Nicastro is on. “Get your butt in here, Chief. Looks like trouble.” I watch him float over, steering the last carton of rations.

Damn, but I feel better. Amazing how a few cases can boost a man’s morale.

“Coming up to optimum, Commander,” Berberian says.

“Very well. Stand by, Mr. Westhause. Is the Chief in yet?”

“He’s at the lock, Commander.”

“Mr. Varese, get Nicastro inside.”

“Oh, damn!” Berberian snarls. “Commander, they faked us. Missiles launching. Flight of four.”

“Velocity to compute. Time till arrival, Canzoneri.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Feed to astrogation.”

Westhause surveys the compartment. His gaze meets mine. He smiles, returns to work.

I watch the four red darts streak through the tank. At one hundred gees they won’t be long arriving.

“Chief’s inside,” Varese announces.

“Ready, Mr. Westhause?”

“Ready, Commander.”

“Engineering, shift to annihilation.”

“Engineering, aye.”

We’re going to Climb?... That’s right. They ‘fessed up to having some CT. But how much good can it do?

Canzoneri does the counting down. “Missiles arrive in thirty seconds.” Where did the time go?

“Can we do it, Mr. Westhause?”

“I have enough data, sir. If she doesn’t go hyper.”

“I don’t think she was lying about that. There’re enough drive anomalies to indicate bad generators.”

“Ten seconds,” the Chief computerman says. “Five...”

Alarms hoot. I hear his three and two, then we’re going up.

Six minutes later we’re down again, so close the corvette fills my screen as the gun cameras lock. Lightning bolts span the gap separating us. At this range it won’t matter if her screens are up.

The Old Man laughs. “We lied to you, too, hunter-man. We had CT left.”

Red sores appear off the corvette’s flank. One, near her fly-eye bows, bulges outward, erupts. A shower of junk sprays through the gap.

Alarm. Ghost world again. The Commander is beside me. “Down to Weapons, boy. We got nothing but your toy now. Ito has to cool his beamers. Go for her drives. Come on! Up now. Go along.”

I hear him arguing with Westhause as I push through the Weapons hatch. Sounds like Westhause wants to run while we have Climb time left.

I fling myself into the seat at the cannon board. Piniaz has it warmed already. The target data is flowing. I break the arming locks, scan the compartment. Only Piniaz seems unperturbed. I flip to manual. I’ll do this myself.

Alarm.

Damn! I’m not ready!

There she is. The stars beyond her say we’re down opposite the flank we hit before. Targeting rings amidships. Fire and try to drag my point of aim aft. Holes on the moth’s wings. “Too high!” I shout. “Got to get under the wing.”

A beam licks out from the corvette. It passes between can and torus. The ship rocks. A stay member glows and parts. I send a burst into the beam mount. “Down, damn it!” We’re moving, but too slowly.

This is mad. We’re two pit bulls with broken backs trying to sink our teeth in one another’s throats.

More sewing machine holes along the side of the corvette. Gas escaping through some. Wing apparently rising. We’re actually dropping. Fierce glow round the corvette’s drive vents as she puts on power.

Stitching moving aft fast. Targeting rings traversing the heat vents, swinging back. Christ! I could reach out and touch her, we’re so close.

Red lights across my board. “Ammunition gone!” I shout. “Get out of here.”

Hyper alarm. Another beam from the corvette. Wham! Launch Three ripped off the torus in a hail of echoing fragments. Launch Three, that caused so much trouble after Rathgeber. Hope the accelerator path wasn’t breached. We wouldn’t be able to Climb.

Ghosting.

It lasts only a few minutes. Down we go. Cameras searching, hunting the corvette. What’s she doing? Coming after us? There she is. Two thousand some klicks. Accelerating... nova!

Damn! Must’ve gotten a few marbles into her fusor room. A weak, ragged victory growl runs through Ops.

I pile out of my chair, only now realizing that I didn’t strap in. No one closed the Ops hatch either. I scramble through, slam it.

Yanevich is waiting, grinning. “Damned fine sniping for a one-legged intellectual.”

I grin myself. “Yeah. Hey. Another red star for the Old Man.”

The Commander is hanging over Westhause’s shoulder again, looking gloomy. Berberian and Cannon are talking at once. Fisherman shouts something. “Enjoy,” Yanevich says. “The party’s just beginning.”

11 End Game

There’s a stir in the display tank. They know a Climber has struck. They don’t know we’re harmless now. Their reaction seems to be a controlled panic.

Carmon goes to his broadest scale. Red and green blips swirl everywhere.

The Old Man is grumbling at Throdahl. Must be arguing with Command. There’s no way we can. make a rendezvous at Fuel Point. TerVeen is our only hope.

“Stand by to take hyper,” the Old Man says.

We have to jump. Have to get as close as we can. Maybe there’s a shred of Planetary Defense umbrella left. Long shot.

We could do a few zigzags and power down completely, go on emergency power, and drift in, but the men aren’t up to a norm crossing. The best we could hope for, Canzoneri says, is a nine-day passage. Through the heat and heart of battle.

No thank you. That’s a suicide run.

Do we have enough hydrogen to jump and make adjustments in inherent velocity when we get close?... Why worry? Command may not send tugs into the crucible for a lone, beat-up Climber they don’t want there anyway.

The Commander appears only mildly concerned. He’s started another up cycle. Telling weak jokes. Asking Throdahl and Rose for the addresses of those girls they’re always bragging about. “Jump, Mr. Westhause. Maximum translation ratio.”

Oh-oh. We have company. Nuclear greetings are headed our way.

Our chances look longer all the time. I don’t think we’ll make it.

It’s been one hell of an interesting mission-----

The Commander is beside me. “Go get your notes.”

“Sir?”

“Get your stuff together. Stow it in a ration case under your seat.”

I move down to Ship’s Services, strip my hammock in seconds. “What’s going on out there?” Bradley asks. He doesn’t know we’ve just shot it out with a corvette, and that a missile flight is closing in.

Kriegshauser is right behind him. “Give it to us straight,” he pleads.

I sketch it. “It doesn’t look good. But you can count on the Old Man.”

That seems assurance enough. The Ship’s Services people are unshakable. Maybe they were selected for that.

I pause as I pass through Weapons. Piniaz looks grim. He forces a smile. One hand drifts to my shoulder. “Been all right, Lieutenant. Good luck. Just write it the way it was.”

A hell of a gesture for the little man. “I will, Ito. I promise.”

I settle my things under the First Watch Officer’s seat. Pity I can’t make peace with Varese, too.

“What’s happened?” I ask Fisherman. The mausoleum silence of Ops demands a soft voice.

“Getting worse.” His screen is a-crawl with hyper wakes. The pencil strokes characteristic of high-translation ratio missiles spaghetti through the mess. We’re cruising the middle of a barn-burner. Both sides have gone kill-crazy.

Chung!

Chung!

“What the hell is that?”

Chung!

Sounds like some mischievous child-deity is hammering the hull with a god-sized gong-beater.

“We’re hyper skipping,” Fisherman says. “Randomed.”

I figured as much. It’s one way to rattle a missile’s moron brain. But that doesn’t have anything to do with the noise.

Chung!

“What’s the noise?” It’s pounding the can about ninety degrees round the circle.

“Mr. Westhause said he was having trouble with inertial rectification.”

“That wouldn’t...”

“Commander, Engineering. There’s a chunk of water-ice bouncing around in the Six Reserve Tank. Can we have a constant vector and acceleration while we melt and drain?”

“Negative. We can live with the racket. But go ahead and melt.”

“Engineering, aye.”

That was Diekereide. I haven’t seen him for a while. Have to buy him a beer if we get out of this.

“Weapons. Gunnery status?”

“Energy all go, Commander. Got them cooled and tuned enough for a couple shots.” We nearly lost them while dueling with the corvette. “They won’t last, though.”

“We won’t shoot unless a Christmas present falls in our lap.”

The Old Man has reached back and found one more reservoir of whatever it is that makes him go. He jitters from station to station, restless as a whore in church, almost eager for the squeeze to get tighter. Poisonous clouds belch from his pipe. We take turns coughing and scowling and rubbing our eyes. And grinning at the Commander’s back when he moves on......._

He’s alive. He’ll bring us through again.

That faith, the thing that the Commander so fears, resents, and loves, helps me understand both him and Fisherman a bit better.

Fisherman has surrendered his life and soul to a universal Ship’s Commander. He just keeps plugging while he waits for that heaven bound ride.

The others yield only to faith in snatches, in hard time, to a man, when they fear their own competence is insufficient.

It’s a pity the Commander can find no fit object for faith himself.

He’s too cynical to accept any religion, and the Admiral’s circus antics have alienated him from any demigod role. What’s left? The Service? That’s what we were taught all those years in Academy.

Tannian is Command’s strength and weakness. For all his strategic genius, he can’t inspire his captains.

The gong-beating fades, but not before the plug-ups rush to a tiny crack in our bulkhead.

The Climber is dying slowly, like a man with a nasty cancer.

A chunk of water ice. Not a completely unpleasant surprise. It means a little extra energy, a little extra mobility. Or a long, cool drink for the crew. Lord, I’m thirsty. I’ve got nothing left to sweat.

“Stand by, Weapons. We have a possible Target One. Designation vectors coming down now.”

What the hell?

One especially intense streak stands out on Fisherman’s screen. That the one? Only an advanced tactical computer could make sense of that mess. The mix has grown too dense, the changes too rapid.

We’ve drawn a lot of attention. The tank shows a lot of green blips. Maybe Command is lending a hand.

The whole mess is probably an ad lib.

“Commander, Engineering.” That’s Diekereide again. Where’s Varese? “I’m getting an erratic flow through Hydrolysis. I don’t think we can process enough hydrogen to meet your present translation demand.”

“Auxiliary?”

“On the line.”

“Reserve hydrogen?”

“Down to fifteen minutes available. We lost the main pressure gauge sometime.... Don’t know how long we’ve been drawing. Had to read it by...”

“Notify me when you’re down to five minutes. Mr. Piniaz? We’ve got a missile coming. Got to skrag it.”

“Targeted and tracking, Commander.”

“On my mark, then.” The Commander exchanges whispers with Westhause.

Rose says, “Commander, we’ve got another unavoidable coming up.” He’s insanely calm. They all are. Weird.

The walls are closing in. The tank makes some sense now, on a local scale. Missile coming in. We’ll have to dance with it, confuse it, take it in norm, with our energy weapons. And the delay will let the other team lock us into a lethal groove.