A Talent for War (21 page)

Sim's troubled features were silhouetted against the lower rim of the planet itself, whose yellow-green atmosphere churned in dazzling sunlight. There was no way to mistake him: the stark gray eyes of a man who had, perhaps, seen too much; the thick neck and stocky body, giving way to middle-age spread; the neatly trimmed, reddish brown hair and beard. Shorter than his brother, and (aside from the eyes) not one who would easily engage the attention. An individual of rather common appearance. Until one hears his voice.

It is a rolling bass, backed by unshakable conviction. It sounded like the real Tarien, and my blood heated a bit. (I've always felt I was immune to crowd-rousers and jingoistic appeals. Yet, the sound of that familiar voice stirred something too deep to grasp easily.) His hands were clasped behind his back. On an overhead situation display, lights blinked in multicolored patterns.

Good evening, Mr. Benedict. The words came from a speaker on my display panel. It was male, controlled, clipped. Welcome to Rigel I am the program monitor, and I will be your guide through the simulation. You are on the bridge of the Kudasai, the lone battle cruiser possessed by the Confederates at this stage of hostilities. It was contributed by a private foundation on Earth, and is seeing its first action. It is at present hidden within the envelope of gas and dust circling

Barcandrik, forming its inner ring. Ship's captain is Mendel LeMara. Tarien Sim is technically an observer.

"Why's he here at all?" I asked. "Seems like he picked the worst possible time. This must have looked like the end for all of them."

That is why. He does not expect to survive Rigel. You should keep in mind that, at this point, it appears that all his efforts to acquire assistance have failed. Earth and Rimway continue to vacillate, no major power has yet declared an intention to intervene, and the Confederate navy is now down to a score of ships. The only good news in all this has been the revolution on Toxicon, which may be well on the way to placing a friendly government in power, and ending that world's war with Muri. In fact, help will come from that quarter soon, but the allies are out of time.

Consequently, Tarien has elected to share the fate of his brother and his comrades.

I counted approximately two hundred enemy vessels on my display. Most were escorts and destroyers; but three heavy battle cruisers anchored the force.

Arrayed against them were twenty frigates, a couple of destroyers, and the Kudasai.

Mendel LeMara was tall, copper-skinned, grim-featured in the half-light of the bridge. He stood
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by one of the tracking stations, his lean, muscular form outlined against the battle displays.

The officers at their various posts were subdued, their emotions masked. Tarien Sim stared thoughtfully through his portal at the big planet, which was in its third quarter. He seemed detached from the tension on the bridge. He has accepted the inevitable, I thought. He swung suddenly, met my gaze, and nodded encouragement.

It just missed being a star, said the Monitor. Seventy years from now, there will be an unsuccessful attempt to ignite it. It is the sixth planet in a system of eleven worlds. Abonai is the fourth, and it is near its closest point of approach.

"Why not," I asked the Monitor, "just clear out now? What's so important about Abonai?"

Abonai is the last of the frontier worlds of the original Confederacy. All the others have fallen: Eschaton, Sanusar, the City on the Crag, even Dellaconda itself Consequently it has enormous symbolic value. With its loss, the war ceases to mean anything; Sim and his allies become exiles, a band of nomads utterly dependent on the assistance of governments that have demonstrated their indifference, or their fear, time and again.

"We don't think," the Captain was saying over the intership link, "that they know about the Kudasai. They're only expecting the usual mixed bag of frigates and destroyers. It's been a long time since we had any real firepower in this war, and we just may be able to deliver a hell of a punch today." He sounded almost exhilarated. Around the bridge, the officers exchanged sober glances.

"We have some other advantages," he continued. "Volunteers from Toxicon skirmished with the Ashiyyurean main body, and drew a substantial number of escorts off. They will not arrive in time to participate in the general action." He took a deep breath. "I know you've heard the rumors that Earth has announced its intention to intervene. I have to tell you that we have been unable to confirm the story. I have no doubt it is only a matter of time before they do so, but we cannot expect any help at present.

"The frigates will engage within a few minutes. Contact will be at a range of about a million and a quarter kilometers from our position. Our units will try to make it look good, and then they'll break off and come this way. We expect the mutes to follow." The bridge illumination dimmed, and a holographic projection of Barcandrik appeared. The gas giant floated amid its wispy rings.

Half a dozen satellites were visible. The contending fleets appeared as points of light, the Ashiyyur white, the Dellacondans scarlet. The three big cruisers blazed among their escorts.

The two fleets approached each other on the other side of the planet, well beyond its system of rings and moons. The Confederate frigates were moving rapidly toward the enemy flank, while the Ashiyyur formation rearranged itself to receive the attack.

"We are not visible to the approaching ships," said LeMara. "And we are not alone." One of the monitors brought up the Corsarius. It glittered silver and blue in the hard sunlight. "With a little luck," he continued, "we will be among them before they know their danger."

I'd become completely absorbed. I knew that the people around me were simulats, and the ships and worlds mock-ups, but I put the knowledge aside. I could feel my heart beating, and I wondered what Mendel LeMara's combat experience was, and whether he would still be on the bridge when the Kudasai gets blown up in a few weeks. And I thought about Sim's mysterious crew of drifters and deserters, who were now on board the Corsarius.

The Seven.

I watched the attack. And though I knew it, knew it well by now, I was caught up in the drama all the same.

A squadron often frigates and four destroyers skirmished with the leading elements as planned, relying heavily on a moderate technological advantage to offset the sheer numbers of the Ashiyyur. The enemy vessels were bunched too closely for combat. They were consequently
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more cautious in using their firepower; no mute captain wanted to be charged with damaging a friendly ship. The Dellacondans, on the other hand, as at Hrinwhar, could hardly fail to find inviting targets. And for several minutes they ran wild among their enemy.

But two destroyers disappeared suddenly off the screens. And then, in quick succession, a pair of frigates.

I waited for the withdrawal, but they held on. For seventeen minutes they raced among the mute warships, and when the signal to retreat finally came, only five ships broke out. They dropped back toward Abonai, which, thanks to good planning and some luck, lay directly through Barcandrik's dusty system.

Clouds of destroyers and frigates wheeled to pursue.

Toward us.

One of the cruisers, unable to maneuver easily, was left describing an arc that would keep it well out of range for the duration of the action.

I knew what was coming: Abonai was about to fall, and the Dellacondans would dissolve as a fighting force. But the Ashiyyur would pay a heavy price for this victory. The death of Christopher Sim would sweep away neutralists on world after world. As a result of Rigel, the modern Confederacy would be born, and its first act would be the creation of an allied navy that, within a year, would turn back the Ashiyyur, and ultimately drive them across the Arm and beyond the Perimeter from which they had come.

The Kudasai would survive another few weeks, just long enough to see the intervention. At Arkady, it would die fighting alongside the first units from Earth. It would take Tarien Sim with it.

The crew of the Kudasai prepared for battle. Weapons went to full power, hatches closed, and the power cells built up a full charge. Voice circuits were busy, though I could understand little of the traffic.

LeMara strapped himself into the command chair. He looked over at Sim, who still stood by his port. "Best resume your seat, sir," he said gently.

Tarien's eyes were hooded, but he touched the communicator stud on the arm of his chair, and glanced at the Captain. LeMara nodded, and he opened a channel. "This is Tarien Sim," he said.

"I want you to know I am proud to be with you. There are many who are saying that the future rides with us today. If it does, it couldn't be in better hands. God bless you."

Beside us, swimming silently out of the dust, came the Corsarius.

Someone was calling off ranges.

Rigel was feeble from this distance, and the dust and gas through which we floated was illuminated by Barcandrik's gloomy light.

In the actual battle, said the Monitor, the time lapse between the beginning of the retreat and the arrival of the Dellacondans within visual range of the Kudasai was several hours. We've compressed things a bit If you look at the infrared monitor, you'll notice a cluster of stars brightening rapidly. Our ships are quite close now.

One blew up almost immediately. Only seven of the warships will survive this engagement.

Contrary to common opinion, Sim committed a series of errors at Rigel in both planning and execution. Nowhere else, incidentally, did he directly confront a major enemy force. His strength throughout the war lay in his hit-and-run tactics. Time after time, when enemy units came out of hyper, Sim was waiting. His usual technique was to pick off a couple of victims, and then withdraw before Ashiyyur crews recovered from the disorientation that occurs during the jump.

He may have felt that he simply had no choice at Rigel And he never before possessed a warship with the firepower of the Kudasai. It must have been very tempting to want to use it.

By now, he and his allies have been losing for three years. We spoke earlier of the symbolic importance of Abonai, as the last of the Confederate worlds. Fortunately, the Ashiyyur do not
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share human perceptions, and may not have recognized the significance of their intended conquest. Had they done so, they would have come with everything they could assemble.

Instead, they hurriedly created a couple of task forces and sent them in.

The deep-throated rumble of power being allocated to engines and weapons continued to build.

"So Sim staked everything on a single roll of the dice."

Yes.

"And he lost."

Only his life.

Yes: he won the war here. But how much satisfaction could that have been?

Activity on the bridge was picking up and, at a command from LeMara, we began to move.

Under actual combat conditions, of course, the observation ports would be closed. We're leaving them open for you. It won't matter much: the ships are too distant, and events happen too quickly. But we've tried to make adjustments for purposes of intelligibility.

"Mute destroyers in the area," said a voice in the commlink. "They seem to have got here first."

"Let them go."

I could see moons now, blobs of thick light drifting in the clouds.

We were accelerating.

"Captain, we have a readout on the leading pursuit elements: two cruisers, seventeen destroyers, nineteen or twenty escorts. Additional vessels are straggling, but should not be a factor in the first phase."

The two forces were clearly visible in infrared: a fountain of stars forming over the big planet, needling through the dark. It looked like a pair of comets.

"Destroyer squadron is positioned and ready to join us on signal."

The two cruisers were each screened by six or seven escorts, and were now close behind their targets.

From Corsarius came the voice of Christopher Sim, directed to his fleeing force: "Spirit, this is Truculent. Squadron will brake full thrust on my command. Allow the head of the line to overtake you, engage, and prepare to maneuver out as planned. We'll extract the sting."

We rose out of the debris. The enemy line was immediately in front of us.

We watched them pass, the Ashiyyur. Their ships were clean points of light, sparkling against the dust and detritus, and the void beyond Barcandrik. "They haven't seen us yet," said the navigator. "Everyone lock down."

We continued to accelerate. I could feel the gentle push of the engines.

I checked my harness. The Monitor was silent. I understood some of what was happening.

The velocities of the Ashiyyur were so great, that even if they discovered us prematurely, there would be little they could do to prevent our getting a few good shots at the cruisers. On the other hand, we'd get no second chance if we missed, since that same velocity would carry them quickly out of range. Total firing time available to us, according to my screens, would be about eight seconds, with less than half that amount considered a quality opportunity.

I tried to relax, wondering why I was reacting as though the issue were in doubt. The Dellacondans would succeed in taking the cruisers by surprise. Kudasai would destroy one, and the Corsarius would cripple the other. But a series of strikes would strip her of her screens. And, while the Kudasai hurried to her assistance, the mortally wounded mute warship would finish her off. With a nuke.

Tarien was absorbed in thought. I watched the Corsarius take station about a kilometer away.

Briefly, sunlight flashed on the hull. In some trick of perception, the black harridan strained forward. Her weapons clusters were primed and ready, her sensor dishes rotating slowly, the lights on her bridge dimmed. For all that, there was something almost insubstantial about her, as though she were already part phantom.

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A klaxon sounded, its deep-throated shriek echoing through the ship.

"Something behind us," said one of the deck officers. She was barely able to conceal her surprise. "Coming fast. Looks like twelve, maybe thirteen destroyers."