A Call to Arms (19 page)

“All right,” Sheridan said. Then, to Garibaldi, “Anything else?”

“Yeah, one piece of good news,” Garibaldi said. “It seems the Drakh only have one Planet Killer--the only one the Shadows left behind. Of course, they don’t want anyone else to know that, same way the United States didn’t want anyone knowing they only had two atomic bombs when they went after Japan. But if we can stop this one, we won’t have another one to worry about.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan said. “Well, we’ve still got to stop this one... and that won’t be easy.”

The navigation officer said, “Standing by, ready to enter Earth’s space.”

“I have to go, Michael,” Sheridan said. “It’s time. Get here when you can. If we fail, we’ll need someone to pick up the pieces. Save as many of the survivors as you can--assuming anyone... Well, see you on the other side, Michael.
Excalibur
, out.”

He turned to the navigation officer.

“Alert the
Victory
, and jump to normal space. Let’s just hope they believed Lochley.”

Outside, in space, two jump points formed up.
Excalibur
jumped, followed closely by
Victory
.

If General Yuri Mikhail Denisovitch hadn’t stopped off at the party for the new liaison officer from Minbar, everything would have happened differently.

Denisovitch would have been on his way to his dacha on the Karelian peninsula for a week’s vacation. He would have spent most of the time in the projection room he had built in the back, next to the kitchen, where he could screen his Laurel and Hardy and Three Stooges movies. His communicators to the outside world would have been turned off. Denisovitch didn’t take a holiday very often, and when he did, he didn’t want to be disturbed.

So what would President Susanna Luchenko have done? Sent someone out to fetch him? Or authorized his second in command, the dolt Vasilevitch, a political appointee with no military experience, to act for him? In any case, valuable time would have been lost. And the result of that could have been catastrophic.

None of that happened, however. Denisovitch was at the party held in the reception room of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. He was just toasting a luscious blonde from Budapest and making plans for her later--plans he hoped she’d agree to--when his aide, Dmitri Borisev, tugged at his sleeve.

“General. A call for you.” Denisovitch eyed his aide in a poignantly unfriendly manner. “I believe I told you, Dmitri, that my leave began twelve hours ago, and I am taking no calls until it is over.”

“Yes, sir. You did. But this one is special. It is from President Susanna Luchenko.”

The aide said this in awed tones. But Denisovitch was not impressed. He had always considered Luchenko somewhat too kittenish for serious business. And he knew she had a thing for him. She’d never come right out and said so, but he could always see the signs. She went for him in a big way. She just didn’t know it. To encourage her, he sometimes made the first move himself. At these times he was severely rebuffed. A clear case of the woman’s repressed side getting in the way.

“General...” His aide was growing agitated.

“Yes, all right, I’ll speak to her.” Then, to the blond Hungarian woman, he said, “My dear, excuse this minor interruption. Don’t stir from this spot. I’ll be right back.”

The blonde nodded nervously. Denisovitch noticed that, even as he was crossing the room, she scurried off at once to find her husband. He regretted that she had been unable to cope with such an impressive and important person as himself.

Dmitri led Denisovitch to a little anteroom off the main reception area. The room was lined with shelves of old calf-bound books. It had a gold-threaded rug at least a century old. On an exquisite rosewood table sat a thoroughly modern workstation. In the monitor, the image of Susanna Luchenko loomed, waiting with poorly concealed impatience.

“Madame President!” Denisovitch said. “What a great pleasure! Have you changed your mind about joining me at the dacha?”

“As I told you, I can’t make it,” she answered, showing little patience for Denisovitch’s ponderous gallantry. “And I’m afraid you’re not going to make it, either.”

“Why?” Denisovitch said, laughing. “Have I changed
my
mind?”

“You’re going to have to. A situation has come up.”

“Situations always come up,” Denisovitch said. “It’s in their nature. In a week, the matter will be more ripe to deal with.”

“I don’t think so,” Luchenko said. “Listen, Yuri. I’ve just gotten word from John Sheridan. It seems that an enemy invasion fleet is on its way to Earth as we speak. We’re going to have to scramble everything we’ve got, and we need to do it yesterday.”

“An invasion fleet? Have some of our allies decided to attack us? I knew you made too hard a bargain at the last conference.”

“This is no laughing matter,” Luchenko said. “These are not friends. They’re Drakh. And they’re on their way. We need to put everything we’ve got into space!”

“All right, calm down,” Denisovitch said, the humor draining from his voice. “What exactly did Sheridan say to you?”

“I didn’t speak to him. Captain Elizabeth Lochley of Babylon 5 called in his place.”

“Sheridan delegated the call? On a matter of this importance?”

“I asked about that, too. Lochley told me that Sheridan and one of his captains, a man named Anderson, are going to try to slow down the enemy fleet. They’re in the two new prototype destroyers.”

“Anderson? Are you aware that this Anderson went absent without leave, taking with him a major ship?”

“Of course I knew about that,” Luchenko said. “And that Sheridan has been acting increasingly erratic of late?”

“I know about that, too.”

“Lochley must have been drunk to have called you that way,” Denisovitch said. “Invasion? It’s preposterous, a fantasy. Invasions don’t come out of the blue. If there were anything to this, we’d have heard something.”

“Lochley was not drunk.”

“Did she witness this invasion herself?”

“No. But she said Sheridan had.”

“So all she knew was what Sheridan told her?”

“Well, yes. Even so---“

“You are aware, of course, that some questions have been raised about Sheridan’s competence.”

“That’s old news. He’s been in the clear for years now.”

“Haven’t you seen the recent reports? Some of our agents have claimed that Sheridan is acting erratically, as though he is allowing some outside influence to direct him in his actions.”

“He wouldn’t be the first,” Luchenko said. “Still, his claims must be seriously addressed. If there’s even a possibility that Sheridan’s warning may be true, we must act immediately. The alternative is unthinkable. I’m ordering you to scramble the fleet.”

“No, Madame President,” Denisovitch said gently.

“What? Are you refusing my order?”

“For your own good. The most likely explanation here is that John Sheridan has, as you would say, flipped out. It’s not surprising, considering the stresses he’s been through. Have you any idea what it’ll cost to do what he’s asking? And who do you think will be accountable for it? You will, that’s who. I’m trying to save you from a serious mistake, Susan.”

“And if Sheridan is right?”

“The likelihood is that he’s wrong. Utterly, tragically wrong. The Drakh were on the losing side in our war against the Shadows. They’re unlikely to have anything resembling a space fleet. I assure you, this is all some tragic figment in Sheridan’s imagination.”

He paused, then said, “At the very least, we should wait for more military intelligence.”

“There’s no time for that. This is too important, too vital for Earth’s safety to permit any delay. If you won’t act, you leave me only one recourse.”

Denisovitch smiled. “To cancel this insane order and find out what is really going on? You can’t force me to scramble the Earth fleet, you know.”

“I know that. But I can relieve you of command.”

“Madame President! You’re joking!”

“I’m calling Vasilevitch as soon as we end this conversation. He’ll take command while we select a new supreme commander.”

“Dimitri? He’s an incompetent. Susan, you are joking!”

“No, I am not “ Denisovitch took a deep breath. “You’re really serious about this.”

“I am.”

“You think something like what Sheridan is claiming might actually be taking place?”

“I wouldn’t be giving you orders now if I didn’t!”

“Very well. I defer to your judgment, Madame President. I will scramble the fleet immediately. I just wanted to see how firm was your resolve.”

“Well, now you know.”

“Yes. I will get everything up as quickly as possible. And then we will see what is going on in Sheridan’s poor crazed brain.”

He cut the connection.

From his vantage point in space aboard the
Hermes
, through special viewing equipment, General Yuri Mikhail Denisovitch could see the Earth, a small blue and white sphere. Between himself and the home planet, there was poised a huge array of ships, more than had been mounted before in recent memory.

The first elements of this armada, already spaceborne, had moved into position less than two hours after Denisovitch had given his orders. The military dropped everything, canceled all port leave, put aside any repairs as long as the ships were spaceworthy, blasted off with whatever crews were available, and scrambled into position.

Most of these ships had assembled in space in less than five hours. There were the capital ships, the big battleships, cruisers, destroyers. Also there were all the rest of the ships Earth command had been able to mount: single-gun launches and tenders, outmoded models pulled out of retirement and launched into space. Scattered among them were a handful of White Star warships that had been visiting Earth on a goodwill tour.

There were commercial ships as well, mingled with the EarthForce ships, trading ships from most of the industrialized nations of Earth, some without guns, without adequate armor. They had taken to space on their own initiative, once Sheridan’s news had become generally known. The captains and crews of these ships knew they could do no more than interpose themselves in the battle to come, maybe saving a capital ship for further combat. There had been no argument about the correctness of what they were doing. Worst-case scenario called for them to die either in space, fighting, or on the ground, waiting for the end.

On Earth, the news had been broadcast planetwide on all media. It had been received with surprising calm. There just hadn’t been time for panic.

Still, Denisovitch hadn’t discounted the possibility that this was just a false alarm. It almost had to be! Surely an attack of the magnitude expected couldn’t have boiled up as quickly as this. Soon it would all be over, they’d return to their bases, and the civilians would have something to boast about.

That’s what he hoped, anyway. Because Earth really wasn’t ready for the alternative.

He said into his comlink, “This is General Yuri Mikhail Denisovitch of the
Hermes
, to
Excalibur
, do you copy?”

Sheridan’s image came up on the screen. “Confirmed,
Hermes
.”

“We are all here ... as you requested. But so far we have seen nothing.”

“General---” Sheridan began.

Denisovitch cut him off. “Certainly, on behalf of the Russian Consortium, which lost many of our citizens in recent conflicts, it is our hope that this exercise has---“

“This is no exercise,” Sheridan said, breaking in.

Denisovitch was about to take issue, but at that moment an alarm began sounding on the
Hermes
. The officers around him on the bridge began chattering in Russian.

Denisovitch rose and went to the monitor. “Good God...,” he said, backing up as though he had been physically struck. The Drakh fleet had just been detected. It had come into view and was closing rapidly. Its advance was imposing, inexorable. Looking through the port, Yuri saw that the assault fleet was like a million tiny pinpricks of light, set out in rows that extended far past the limits of his vision. The dots were steadily increasing in size as they came closer. In their midst was the deathcloud, a monstrous octopuslike shape, its inky tendrils extending on all sizes like the wavy curls of a Medusa, larger than anyone could have imagined.

Sheridan said urgently, “General, listen to me. The fleet isn’t our main concern. Leave them to the defense grid. The deathcloud itself is the real danger. They’ll try to knock your fleet aside and position their Planet Killer where it can strike. You have to stop that from happening.”

“What--what do you want me to do?”

“Captain Anderson and I stand the best chance of taking it out. Give us a flying wedge of ships to help punch a hole in their defense, and get us within striking range of that thing.”

“And then what?” Denisovitch asked.

“Then we’ll kill it,” Sheridan said. He cast a meaningful look at Dureena. “Somehow.”

General Yuri Denisovitch, in a sepulchral voice that sounded as if it had been summoned up from beyond the grave, said, “Good plan.”

The ensuing battle was a nightmare. Sheridan caught only glimpses of it, because he and Anderson had their own part to play, and couldn’t afford the luxury of overseeing the efforts of others. Those opening seconds and minutes gave him only an impression of what was going on, but, he feared, an accurate one.

He saw the advance guard of the Drakh ships interpenetrate with the forward elements of the Earth fleet. Weapons fire sparked across space, arcing wherever a hit was made. In a mad confusion of enraged adversaries, the Drakh ships made no attempt to spare themselves. The ships from Earth, and the Alliance ships that had joined them in time, were equally adamant, equally berserk.

Sheridan caught a glimpse as two Drakh ships, cutting around in tight circles to avoid incoming fire, collided as they completed their circles. The ensuing explosion was like a nova, lighting up the sky for a moment before flaming out in the vacuum.