Warworld: The Lidless Eye (17 page)

“Bandits again?”

“Yes, sir. We’re out of phase with Orbiter Prime so we haven’t been able to establish communications with her yet.”

“What about the refueling depot at Cat’s Eye?”

“Offline. No answer, not even via direct laser line.”

“Not good.” Cummings took a deep breath. Their last bridges to the Empire and the outside universe were quite possibly gone. If so, gone for good this time. When the 77th had pulled out, there had been dozens of surveillance satellites at the Alderson point and many more throughout the system, both at the refueling station circling Cat’s Eye and in Haven’s upper orbit. The first raider, posing as an inter-system freighter, had eliminated all those at the Alderson points so they wouldn’t
have to worry about sneaking out the backdoor.

The next pack of bandits, the Black Hand, had come in with three ships. They had destroyed most of Haven’s geo-synchronous and near-earth orbit satellites and relay stations except for Orbiter Prime, an unmanned platform maintained by the University of Haven and monitored by their observer station in the plains outside the Redfield Satrapy’s industrial heartland of Home Valley. During their raid on Castell City, the Black Hand had smashed the spaceport, rendering all but two shuttles inoperable, only one of which was still spaceworthy. The defenses at Fort Kursk had been good enough to take out one of the raiders, a refitted merchantman, but not good enough to stop the rest from destroying the remaining planetary spaceports.

Now, Orbiter Prime was out of contact. Assumed destroyed. Along with the refueling station and the new satellites which had taken years to put into orbit and had cost so much of their limited resources. Now they would never be replaced—not without outside help. These raiders either intended to stay or, having refueled, had no plans of ever coming back.

The pirates had also made sure that no one else would ever leave this beleaguered moon. Haven, four Alderson Jumps from the nearest habitable world, was now not only the end-of-the-line, but, for all intents and purposes—a one-way stop.

“What happened?” Cummings asked.

“We assume Mother Bandit took out the refueling station. We don’t know about Orbiter Prime, yet. Mother Bandit is moving toward the Valley with multiple signals in attendance, which we assume are fighters. Several of the signals are big enough to indicate possible interstellar fighters. This is not a typical bandit, our telemetry indicates she is far larger than any pirate I’ve ever seen. She might even be a man-of-war; a heavy cruiser.”

While Hastings was talking, three screens suddenly went blank. “Damn it, there goes another eye.”

An irreplaceable eye, thought Cummings, silently cursing the raiders. He knew only too well how limited the Fort’s resources were—finite
and impossible to replace. He didn’t even want to think about the refueling station. “Target Mother Bandit, while we still can. Deploy the
Invictas
and Gamma-Four batteries against the smaller contacts.”

Shielded by a Langston Field, there was nothing a cruiser-sized ship need fear in Fort Kursk’s stripped-down arsenal. As the last world at the edge of the Tanith Sector, Haven had never been a serious military target, so Fort Kursk had never been provided the defensive weaponry to take on a man-of-war. Nor had the sparsely-settled moon ever had the resources to do the job itself. Now everyone on Haven would pay for that negligence.

Two of the four batteries of Gammas fired into the atmosphere. Only a few thousand meters above Fort Kursk both missile groups were vaporized by point defense beams from the Mother Bandit. A score of outclassed
Invicta
-class gunboats streaked upward to engage the bandit fighters.

“We’ve got a match on
Jane’s
,” shouted one of the communications officers. The Field signature is that of a Sauron heavy cruiser, disguised as a Talon-class heavy cruiser!” Four more screens blinked out as the floor abruptly rolled beneath them.

“Saurons, what the hell!” Hastings cried.

In a few minutes we’re going to be blind
, Cummings thought. There wasn’t even time to begin exploring the implications of finding a Sauron heavy cruiser at the end of the Imperium, attacking a world the Empire had abandoned decades ago. The big question, though, was: Why was it wearing a disguise? Was this forward-line-of-battle ship, like Haven, cut off from the rest of human occupied space? And why here of all places?

Suddenly the room jumped and shuddered once more, lights and screens flickering off and on. Then a bright flash and the lights went out for good.

“We took a big hit,” someone shouted.

Moments later the whine of the auxiliaries kicked in and the lights returned, although dimmer than before.

“Not us!” answered one of the technicians as he studied his flickering
screen. “Castell City just lost ten megatons-worth of real estate.”

Cummings felt his personal universe tilt as well as the room; his wife, at her insistence, was still living in Castell rather than the compound at the fort. Laura, my love, may God help you! I just pray that Helga and her family are still alive, or—maybe a quick death might be the best thing, rather than the lingering one from radiation poisoning.

They hadn’t had much of a life together, for a long time. But that hadn’t prepared him for Laura’s sudden death. Not this kind of death. At least it was painless.
Thank God Ingrid is at Whitehall with the Baron.
He couldn’t imagine losing all of his family at once. Maybe it was better this way—

Cummings paused for a moment, put his personal feelings back in the compartment where they usually stayed during his tour of duty, and turned his attention back to the screens.

The outer fort had already taken half a dozen major hits from missiles and aerial bombardment. Why no nukes?

Only one explanation made sense: the Saurons didn’t want to destroy the fort. They undoubtedly had plans to use it as a staging area for their invasion, much as they had done on Comstock with Fort Anzio. A time that now seemed another era, when the Land Gators were still based on Haven, before they’d been transferred to Friedland. Yet, as Baron Hamilton continually reminded him, it could be much worse. Had been much worse, even on Haven, in the dark years after the Patriotic Wars and the fall of the CoDominium. Or on Earth, where civilization had been forever shattered by a furious exchange of nuclear, bacteriological and chemical stockpiles that had rendered large parts of Homeworld uninhabitable.

The room rocked again, but not with the same force. Someone whispered, “Hell’s-A-Comin.’” It was so apt a pronouncement that, for a moment, Cummings forgot it was also the name of Haven’s third-largest city.

“Captain Hastings, have someone try to get through to Whitehall. We have to warn the Baron about this. Let him know the Saurons have come.”

Cummings felt Colonel Anton Leung’s hand as it squeezed his shoulder. Leung, too, had family in Castell. Two techs were bent over their terminals, openly weeping. Other eyes were turned his way, searching for an answer, a plan. Something. Anything. He mentally reviewed their contingency plans: raiders from space, internal revolt, rebellion, piracy, brigands, insurrection. No one, himself included, had thought of invasion.

Who but people born and bred here would want to live on this snow-hell of a world? A world that was more a loophole than any sort of home for terrestrial life. A world so far from the usual Alderson tramlines its closest neighbor was Fulson’s World, a former prison planet, itself not much more hospitable to man than Haven.

No one but Saurons. But why? Had the Saurons destroyed the Empire and won the war so quickly? The last dispatch to Fort Kursk had been six years ago, a dozen message balls from an Imperial survey craft bringing supplies to the refueling station at Cat’s Eye. It had been the usual combination of war propaganda and mail from expatriates scattered throughout the Empire. Reading between the lines, it was obvious that Haven was not the only place from which the Empire had withdrawn. It was also obvious that the war effort was beginning to place an intolerable strain on those linkages of trade, communication and law that made up the Empire. But there had been no evidence that the Empire was on the verge of complete collapse.

Had the Saurons perfected one of their superweapons and destroyed the Imperial fleets in a series of lightning strikes? If so, this lone cruiser might well be mopping up the final holdouts. Or was it the other way around? Was it Sauron that lay in ruins? If so, was this band of Soldiers a lost legion, going aground at humanity’s farthest outpost? The fact that the Saurons had come alone and in disguise supported the latter argument.

Would he ever know?

The room shook again and someone shouted, “Two more
Invictas
gone! The bandits are slaughtering them!”

Cummings shook his head. There were too many questions racing through his mind that would probably never be answered, certainly not in the short lifetime he and the Haven Volunteers had left once the Saurons got their hands on them. He might make a useful Quisling to the Saurons, but he preferred death’s momentary sting to a lifetime of betrayal.

He was the heart of Haven’s resistance, or at least the Haven Volunteers were. Momentous decisions had to be made quickly, before the Saurons pinned them down in the fort, then dispatched them in detail. He wondered how Colonel Cahill and the second regiment were holding out at Fort Fornova.

“Use the secure line to see if we can make contact with Colonel Cahill.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the communication techs answered, obviously glad to be doing something.

Cummings turned to Captain Hastings. “Can we get a message off to the Empire? Obviously, a message ball or anything light speed is out of the question.”

Hastings cried. “Our big laser is out! It just took a hit upstairs. Right now we couldn’t get an intersystem message out as far as Cat’s Eye—even if our lives depended on it.”

Brigadier Cummings brought his hands together and clasped them tightly. “Colonel, start evacuation procedures immediately. We have a few hours at most before the Saurons believe they have softened up our position enough for a direct assault. If that is truly a Sauron heavy cruiser, then they will have assault boats. Colonel Leung, I want you to coordinate our defenses so that it appears we are preparing to hold out for a long siege.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Major Rotella, I want you to organize the evacuation. Dependents, women and children, first. Use the nuclear threat contingency plan. I want everyone out of the underground bunkers and into the tunnels immediately—”

The command center shook violently as a barrage of missiles struck the outer fortress. Two more screens winked out and the lights flickered. Clouds of dust rolled through the chamber like smoke.

“Major Hendrix!” Cummings ordered, as the room stopped shaking, “I want you to activate Operation Masada. Unless the Saurons captured the Admiralty Headquarters on Sparta they have no way of knowing how much this fort differs from standard design. Commanders have tunneled through this mesa and built underground fortifications for almost four centuries, going back to the CoDominium and the Shimmer Stone Wars. We’ll let them take the underground command bunkers, but that is all.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Captain Hastings, see that all data files are wiped clean, all the way down to sewage disposal records. We’re not going to give those bastards anything!”

“Yes, Sir!”

“Leung, I want to hold back some of the heavy ordnance. We’ll give them a good fight, then let them have the fort. For a while. Meanwhile, let’s shift most of the personnel, except for a company of volunteers, out the backdoor.”

“I volunteer to command fort resistance, sir,” Colonel Leung said sternly, until a cough wracked his frame.

“No, Colonel Leung. I need you with me.” Catching the stubborn look on Leung’s face, Cummings added, “I will not take no for an answer.”

“What about us?” Deputy Sanderson cried.

Cummings turned in surprise; during the turmoil of the attack he had completely forgotten the Deputies. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, but you will have to leave with my command.”

“What about our families!”

Cummings’ finger pointed to a blank screen labeled “Castell,” showing a rolling wash of signal noise and a single word:

CONTACT LOST

“We all have families in jeopardy. Our entire way of life, our very existence, is in danger. Having seen our command center, you gentlemen
are a security risk. I offer all of you a commission in the Haven Volunteers.”

One of the Deputies, obviously a realist who could read between the lines, stepped forward. “I volunteer, sir.” He was quickly joined by another deputy.

Deputy Sanderson looked on in horror. “I refuse to be ordered around by an Imperial Marine reject. As Speaker of the Haven Planetary Chamber of Deputies, I order you to put together a force to rescue our families and fellow Deputies from the ruins of our beloved city—”

“Major Rotella, put this man under arrest. And the other one, too. Please have them escorted to a secure facility until such time as we evacuate these premises. Take our two new recruits and provide them with proper uniforms.”

“Brigadier, how dare you—”

Sanderson’s words came to an end when a soldier put one hand over his mouth and used the other for a come-along arm-lock. The chamber rocked gently back and forth as a carpet of bombs landed overhead, moving south to north.

“Colonel Harrigan, on line blue.”

“Colonel,” Cummings said, taking one of the phones. “Yes, I understand. We are under attack here, too. Yes, its optical signature is that of a Sauron heavy cruiser… No, it’s trying to disguise itself as a Talon-class vessel… And, no, I don’t know why or what it’s doing here. Colonel Harrigan, we don’t have much time. Evacuate Fort Fornova under Operation Masada… Yes, I believe this is an invasion, not a raid. The War has come to Haven.”