Commodore (19 page)

Kevin scowled. "I guess… I'm not quite certain, sir. There's too many unknowns. But it sure would've been nice if they'd gotten here before the Imperials brought that one fuel depot back on line. That was when they were at their weakest."

I nodded and began tapping my knight again. That'd been my vision—the Royal Line of Battle swooping in on an Imperial fleet short on everything, half its weaponry offline for lack of service and all its spare parts and special tooling loaded up in slow, vulnerable freighters just begging to be blasted out of the sky. But Kevin was right—the ideal moment had passed, and every day now saw the Imperial naval position become a tiny bit stronger. Carefully I placed my knight back on the board where it had started, then moved a bishop. "You can only pre-plan a campaign to a certain degree, son. Then you have to sort of improvise the rest, cross your fingers, and hope things fall into place. The Imperials are inherently predictable because they have such a conservative, rigid society. That's their greatest weakness, and one I've exploited over and over again. But events can and usually do spiral out of control sooner or later; even an Imperial has an original idea from time to time. And by the way, check."

He nodded and scowled again, studying the board. "Sometimes your friends can be less predictable than your enemies," he added tentatively, not sure if he was pushing his privileged position too far. "I mean… Maybe our fleet is further away than you thought? Maybe it needed maintenance and resupply itself before it could travel this far? Or maybe the admirals think your plan is too risky, and they're dragging their feet?"

I smiled as Kevin studied the board. "Or perhaps our destroyers were somehow lost, and the message never got through. It also could be that the admirals have another operation underway, so that they can't support us no matter what. Or…" I sighed. "Maybe there's been a coup, and whoever won thinks it best to leave us here to die."

The midshipman blinked at the last suggestion. "Wow!" he said eventually. "I never would've even
considered
the possibility of a coup, sir."

I smiled, albeit wearily. "That's because you're still young and idealistic, son. Enjoy it while you can."

Kevin's eyes narrowed, and I could only assume that his razor-sharp mind was reconsidering James's accession to the throne in a whole new light. Then, rather to my surprise, he smiled. "We'll come out on top no matter what, sir. I just know it, somehow; it's in the air. We may suffer terribly before all is said and done, but history's on our side. Or
your
side, maybe. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. If there is one, that is." Then he moved his rook. "And by the way, sir… Checkmate in two." 

35

Kevin did indeed have the chess game won, just as the Imperials were slowly but steadily regaining the ascendancy in space. Only on Wilkes Prime proper were the Royal forces still doing well. The insurgency was by now so well-rooted that I doubted the Imperials would ever stamp it out, and our mountain stronghold remained impervious to everything. Or, at least for the moment it was impervious—I was beginning to worry a bit, as nothing lasts forever.

So were Jean and Heinrich, apparently. "Sir," Jean asked me after a routine staff meeting about a week later. "Could you perhaps stay and speak with us for a few extra minutes?" He nodded at Nestor. "You too, if you would."

I raised my eyebrows and sat back down in my folding chair—we hadn't brought much in the way of comfy furnishings into the tunnels with us. "Sure. What's up?"

The two commanders looked at each other, then Jean nodded slightly. "All right," Heinrich agreed. "I'll go first." He turned towards me. "Sir… It's time to make some alternate plans. Regarding you personally, I mean. You're far too valuable to lose here." I opened my mouth to object, but my old friend kept right on talking. "I don't have to explain why, sir. You know the truth as well as we do."

I sat and said nothing, but felt Nestor shift in his seat next to me. Clearly, he felt this conversation was long overdue himself.

"You've accomplished all you can here, sir," Jean explained, taking over. "We have to accept reality. The Fleet's still not here. It may yet arrive any day; we're all well aware of that. But… It's been long enough now that one must begin to wonder. So Wilkes Prime is going to be a long, dirty, irregularly-fought battle. I still believe we'll win in the long term. However, it's time for us to consider cutting our potential losses."

"Potential loss number one being… You." Heinrich amplified.

I frowned. "Gentlemen," I began. "I know you mean well, but…"

The pair looked at each other again. "You don't want to abandon your command," Jean continued for them both. "Who would, under such ugly conditions? Under even slightly different circumstances, it'd be the act of a coward of the worst sort." His face hardened. "But not under
these
circumstances, sir, as they exist here and now. And not considering your personal role in the larger war effort."

"I designed this fortress to hold out for four months," Heinrich amplified. "There's a reason I chose that figure—it's about as long as I figured it'd take for the Imperials to send back home for specialized tunnel-busting weaponry, and far longer than we thought it'd take for our own forces to relieve us. Everything is based on the four-month figure—our levels of supply, munitions expenditures, everything. Because once the proper weapons arrive, well… We'll have to abandon these works very soon and join the guerillas if we can. It's either that or be buried here, sir. Once we're out with the rebels, there won't be any further purpose to your presence here. You won't be able to broadcast or do much of anything else that a far lesser officer can't handle in your stead. So we need to find a way to get you out of here and smuggle you off-planet. It's time, sir. You've done a magnificent job, seeing the possibility of starting a resistance movement where no one else did and then creating said resistance out of nothing. And your plan to bring about a fleet action under ideal conditions deserved to be successful. But it's time to cut the potential losses."

I nodded slowly. "Your reasoning is impeccable," I agreed. "However, I don't agree that there's no further purpose to be served in my remaining here. The traditions of the service—"

Rather to my surprise, Heinrich interrupted me by turning to Jean again. "He's going to be stubborn," he said. "We knew that he would. So let's just get it over with."

"Right," Jean agreed. Then he reached into his tunic and produced…

…a Royal Stationery envelope with my name on it. Before I could react, Heinrich produced another just like it. "I'm sorry, David," Jean explained. "But it's easy for you to forget that His Majesty was
our
classmate and good friend, too. He sent special orders with us as well, to be used only if absolutely necessary. And I fear that time has come."

By then my face must've been a mass of rage. But a Royal Command was a Royal Command, so I had to open them both. As expected, they were identical. "David," they read. "I'm sorry to have to do this to you from so many light-years away, but I simply can't afford to have you go gallivanting off and getting yourself killed playing the hero. You've taken far too many risks already; I shudder at what we might so easily have lost long ago. I've entrusted Jean and Heinrich with orders for you to return home the moment they feel that you're taking too large a risk with your person. Please don't hold this against them—they both begged not to be placed in the position they're now in, if you're reading these words.

"Come home, David. Whatever local mess you're in the middle of will resolve itself with or without you. A single battle is of relatively little importance. What I need most is you alive, to help me win the war. And of course the peace that will follow."

36

I never could win an argument with James, even back when we were kids together. And now that he wore the crown to boot… Well, it was better to just sit back and accept the inevitable.

I did manage to negotiate some conditions to the loss of my command, however; if it was time for me to get out of the tunnels, I pointed out, then it was clearly time to get
everyone
out. It turned out that Jean had already come to the same conclusion, and after remarkably little grumbling Heinrich agreed as well. We'd made provisional plans for exfiltrating our men from the very beginning—there were several very long tunnels that led to nearby population centers, for example, and we were fairly sure these still hadn't been detected. From the beginning we'd maintained a loose and intermittent contact with Wilkes society through them though traffic had been kept to the bare minimum. Now, beginning with the wounded, we began issuing our marines with identity cards, escape cash in the form of gold coins, and all the personal munitions they cared to tote along with them. Then we turned them loose with our blessings into the broader world beyond. Each had been well-trained for such a circumstance—this was both because marines fought a long way from home in places where extraction wasn't always the simplest of matters, and also due to the fact that the Imperials didn't take prisoners. The master plan called for them to contact the underground via various means and then help them along in their various activities as best they were able. Under similar circumstances in the past groups of disbanded marines had done very well indeed; I could only hope that they'd repeat the pattern here.

In all I managed to delay my departure for nine days in this manner, giving each exiting group of men a handshake and pep talk as well as meeting and talking with those who'd volunteered to defend the tunnels to the bitter end. But on the tenth day Jean and Heinrich showed up in my office and threatened to pull out their royal letters again if I wasn't gone by dark. Neither of them were exactly known for making false threats, so Nestor and I were waiting obediently in the main tunnel with the rest by noon.

"They're right, sir," my aide repeated for about the sixth time in as many hours. "In your heart you know it." 

My answer was a very feral snarl.

"And so is James," he continued on, unfazed. "In fact, you really should've left with the last destroyer. I can't imagine what anyone was thinking, allowing you to stay on when those letters were available."

I wanted to growl again, but this time couldn't quite bring myself to. If I'd gone with the destroyer, then maybe—just maybe!—I'd have been able to persuade whoever was currently in charge of the main battle fleet to set course for Wilkes Prime immediately instead of doing whatever they'd done instead. In that sense, it appeared, I'd made a poor decision after all. It was one I intended never to repeat.

Then I heard a group of others making their way down the tunnel towards us, and forced calm upon myself. Another promise I'd extracted was that I'd take my chances like everyone else and be made part of an ordinary group of evacuees, at least during the earliest and most dangerous stage of the getaway. And sure enough, my nose soon informed me, I was being exfiltrated with a group of Rabbits and at least one Dog, plus a few human-type marines.

"Good afternoon," I greeted the rest of my breakout group as Nestor and I rose from the little meeting-place bench. Heaven only knew how far these guys had hiked already, so they needed the seats worse than we did. Slowly my new mates loomed out of the darkness; sure enough there were five humans, nine Rabbits, and the single Dog.

"Hello, Commodore," the senior NCO greeted me with a smile—he was a human. Since all of us were wearing civvies—slave shorts in my own case—there wasn't any saluting. "I'm John Lundberg, sir. Master sergeant, Third Marines." His smile widened. "I used to train aerospace fighter pilots on escape and evasion techniques full time, sir."

I nodded and smiled back, then shook his hand. "Pleased to meet you, sergeant." Of
course
if such a man were available Heinrich and Jean would see to it that he was placed in my own escape group. I could ask for an average, normal group all I wanted. But the sergeant would find his way in nonetheless, no doubt after a long harangue about how miserable the rest of his life was going to be if I didn't make it. Similarly, I soon discovered that the Rabbits were all marines as well, some of the group I'd originally pilfered from the fencible-manned destroyers and used to train the Wilkes volunteers. They'd been good troops even then, but now that they'd worked so closely with regular-force marines in the face of the enemy and even fought a few battles alongside them, well… If they weren't every bit as salty as the humans, I was a junior assistant fan dancer. Our single Dog was a highly valuable asset to the team as well—Fidel was a local volunteer sergeant of insurgents that we'd brought underground with us due to his familiarity with the local terrain. He was a sheep dog, and his herd's normal grazing-grounds were directly above our heads.

"A completely ordinary and average group," I observed to Heinrich as he stood aloof in the back, watching us get to know each other. My voice was pitched so that only an old friend like him would detect the sarcasm. "Just as I asked for."

He smiled wide, letting me see that my message had in fact been understood. Then his features sobered again. "Sir, there's no one in the universe I less enjoy having displeased with me than you. Excepting of course His Majesty."

I nodded again and sighed. He was right, of course—I
was
in some respects a valuable commodity, and all friendship aside he'd have to be able to show he'd done his best for me in the event I was lost. "I'm sorry, Heinrich. I know you're just following orders, but…"

He looked me in the eyes. "No officer in the fleet," he said slowly, "believes in you more than I do, sir. We were once friends, and I can only hope that… that…"

It was too much—in an instant I was hugging him, Rabbit-style. "You're following orders, Heinrich. I understand. Someday when this is over and we're both old and retired, we'll sit around and laugh about it. All right?"

He closed his eyes and relaxed a bit as he squeezed back. "Thank you, sir. I… Ah… Well, thank you."