IronStar (68 page)

“Before we met, I commanded a
fire
of Wrth warriors, and when Doi’tam
-fira'tachk
killed so many of us
that first day we tested Talameths’cha’s walls, the surviving commanders were
tested
,
according to Wyrakka’s ways. That is how I received
this
,” she touched
the brand on her forehead, “and how I lost my name. ‘Peetha’ is Wyrakka’s curse
on me for my errors, and today I am free of it.

“I now serve Kirrah Warmaster by
choice, two lives balanced. My name is
Elagai
.”

“In tactics, time and space
quickly dwindle to their absolute minimum.” -
General Carl Von Clausewitz,
op. cit.

“Kirrah, you’d better take this
call,” said Doris’ voice over the intercom. All three women turned and started
forward, through the bulkhead’s hatchway and up the aisle to the flight deck.

The intercom picked up the exchange
mid-sentence. “…at do you mean, you can’t latch up, Piersall? We’ve got a load
of relief supplies waiting for delivery!”

“Sorry, sir,” the woman bound into
the jumpseat replied. “It’ll have to wait. We have a priority mission, direct
request from the Talamae head of state.”

From the absence of lightspeed lag
in the conversation, Kirrah could tell before she reached the flight deck that
Doris had returned them to a point in space near the planet and the
Argosy
.
As she stepped through the hatch and into the cockpit, she could see the
planet’s surface filling the forward view. The Sea of the Sun was visible as a
complex shape drawn in beautiful shades of blue, dawn’s fingers just now
reaching its western shore.

A quick glance at the flight
instruments placed them four hundred eighty kilometers above the planet’s
surface, about a hundred twenty kilometers west of Talameths’cha and the
Argosy
,
and twenty klicks higher than the Regnum destroyer, dropping slowly lower.
Quickly slipping into the pilot’s station, Kirrah glanced at her right-hand
screen. It showed two numbers. One read [335], the other read [592]. Both were
counting down in one second decrements.
God, I’ve missed Doris
, she
thought, touched inexplicably by this small thoughtfulness on her friend’s
part.

“
Argosy
, Shuttle One. This
is Talamae Warmaster Kirrah Roehl. I’m the reason we can’t latch up right now.
We have a rescue mission, the last Kruss on the planet is on that river, with
my adopted son as hostage. I think you’d better call your Admiral, sir. I have
something to show her.”

[325], the top display read. [582]
on the bottom. Another five seconds clocked off as the comm officer pondered
her request.

“Ma’am, due respect, the Admiral
left word not to be disturbed, unless, and I quote, ‘another nuke goes off’.
She’ll be back on duty in about two hours.” On Kirrah’s screen, the man’s face
appeared - a young face, strong nose, dark-blond short hair. The numbers
continued to march downward, overlaid on the scene in its upper left corner:
[308 / 565].

“I believe this qualifies, then,
Yeoman Schneider,” said Kirrah, reading the man’s name off the bottom of the
screen. “Please call Admiral Dunning immediately, my responsibility, and put
your Tac officer on for me while I’m waiting. This is urgent.”

While the startled man began
patching her call through, Kirrah turned to Doris and said, “Let’s take that
nice hack out of the data feed. It’s time to come clean, including the real
internal view of our borrowed shuttle. Remote Latch to
Off
.” Her finger
touched the toggle switch that removed the control of their vessel from
possible remote over-ride by the
Argosy
. A few moments, the display
ticked down to [274 / 531], then a round face appeared on the screen, framed in
short straight blonde hair:

“This is Captain Sandra Wallace, is
there a problem?”

“No, ma’am,” Kirrah replied. “But
it’s about to
look
like there is, so I want to be perfectly clear that
our actions are no threat to any Regnum vessel or personnel.”

“Please expla… what the
hell!
”
Kirrah realized the Captain had just noticed the new, truthful data feed.
Wonder
whether she’s seeing the Marines trussed up in the passenger compartment, or
her pilot strapped into the jump seat behind me?
Over the comm, she could
see Captain Wallace’s hand move, and hear the General Quarters alarm begin
blatting on the other vessel.
Well, that ought to get me through to the
Admiral, anyway
.

“Ma’am, to verify our non-hostile
intentions, we are jettisoning our entire ordnance inventory, starting with the
four Spit-4 missiles.” The face in her viewscreen looked up sharply at the
mention of the deadly missiles. The clock read [260 / 517].

Kirrah continued: “They will
respond to your remote commands, code alpha five five five three. The other
stuff can just burn up in the atmosphere.” On the viewer, Captain Wallace
gestured sharply to someone off-screen. Kirrah saw her four missiles turn and
take up positions around her own vessel.
Fair enough, she’s entitled to a
few precautions
… nevertheless she could feel the hairs rising on the back
of her neck at the thought of the instant annihilation now needing only the touch
of a key at one of the
Argosy’s
fire control stations.

“I most especially wish to call the
Argosy’s
attention to the presence of our
complete
complement of
gravitics weapons,” Kirrah continued. “The actions we have taken today, and
will shortly be taking, are entirely my responsibility and are not intended to
involve the Regnum. They specifically do not involve the use of grav weapons. I
am acting with the full approval of the Talamae head of state, who as you can
now see is presently on board this shuttle.” Behind her, the large
ex-blacksmith waved cheerfully into the vid pickup.

“Also on board are three Regnum
military personnel who have been taken into temporary custody on my authority;
several members of the Talamae armed forces acting under my command; a family
of refugees from an indig city; and Ms. Einarson, who is present for RegNet
News under an active MacKenzie Bond.”

On the screen, Captain Wallace
turned away, conferred briefly with someone off-screen, returned her attention
to the vid pickup. The clock read: [200 / 457]. Motion on the left-hand screen
drew Kirrah’s attention. The image from the spyfly was back over the street
where the small gathering was listening to the robed figure. Faces were turning
toward the sky, some were edging away from the fringes of the gathering.
Too
late, sorry, unlucky
, Kirrah thought. The right-hand screen flicked to a
different pickup, and a familiar face looked at her across the void.

“All right, Ms. Roehl,” said
Admiral Dunning. “I see that you have disarmed yourself and given us control of
your missiles. I see that you have put every possible person aboard who could
give me disincentive to fire on you. I see that you have my Marines and pilot
under restraint, how they got that way, to be determined. I’m listening. In
fact, I’m fascinated.”

“I apologize for the dramatics,
Admiral Dunning. I believe once again our interests coincide. I assure you what
is about to happen involves no use of Regnum arms. Indeed I have chosen for
this attack, one of the Kruss’s own weapons. I believe it will be found to fall
under the provisions of self-defense by the nation-state of Talam, especially
given the Kruss’s actions against my city. In fact under Talamae law, we are
simply returning an article left by our neighbors.”

[162 / 419], read the numbers.

“I’m sure you have read the written
rules of engagement, Ms. Roehl. I am equally sure you understand my duty will
be to destroy your shuttle, if you give me cause to expect those rules are
about to be violated, in letter
or
intent.”
Is this part of command?
Kirrah wondered.
To be able to look
an ally calmly in the eye, and tell her you will unhesitatingly kill her and
her hostages and friends, if she crosses your line?

“Yes, ma’am, I understand fully
and, except for the refugee family, we have all agreed to accept your decision.
In fact that woman and her two young sons are in the father’s custody, and he
has agreed on behalf of his family.

“We argue that we are within the
rules of engagement on two counts, Admiral. First, the rules state that the
Navy will defend the city of Talameths’cha. Our actions are part of that
defense, as defined by Talam’s supreme military commander - me.

“Second, the rules state ‘We will
not intervene militarily in the O’dai-Talam-Kruss conflict, except to provide
passive intelligence, and transport when requested, where such activities will
not likely bring Regnum forces under hostile fire.’

“We assert that the present
situation is a simple matter of the Navy providing requested transport, and
that hostile fire is not likely in the circumstances.” The numbers were showing
[91 / 348] in the corner of Kirrah’s screen. On her instrument board, their
altitude was down to four hundred sixty-five kilometers and falling steadily.
The four missiles were holding station, tracking them precisely. On her
left-hand screen, the mob of O’dai were chasing the robed figure down the
street. Just inside one of the eastern gates, half a dozen palace guardsmen
were arguing with several figures driving a heavily laden cart, which they had
accosted on its way out of the city.

“I am not interested in word games,
Ms. Roehl. What are you planning to do?”

“At this point, ma’am, the only
thing I wish to do is rescue my adopted son. We simply want to be clear and
on-record about actions already taken. We believe they are within the letter of
your rules. They make no use of Regnum weapons, and they are fully sanctioned
by Talamae authorities. We have thirty-eight minutes to deliver the Kruss’s
food, according to its deadline. I would very much like to be about that task.”

[71 / 328], said the counters.
Admiral Dunning paused, carefully considering Kirrah’s words, made her
decision.

“You may proceed with the drop. You
will then proceed back to Talameths’cha and return my shuttle and personnel.
You will not approach within twenty kilometers of the enemy city. I am
scrambling
Attila’s
shuttle to escort you back, and I assure you their
weapons inventory is full. You will
not
make me the first Regnum Admiral
to order action resulting in the death of an allied head of state. Are we
clear?”

[46 / 303]

“Yes, Ma’am, and thank you. Shuttle
One, by.” Altitude four fifty-seven. Thank Murphy, Doris had the fusion bottles
already configured for reaction thrust, and had the shuttle aimed down. The main
thrusters ignited smoothly, and they plummeted toward the ground below at a
chest-squeezing three gees. Forty seconds into the burn, the clocks read: [0 /
257].

Doris called, “Twelve hundred meps,
T-one equals zero. They’ve just now got the whole gravtrace, wonder how long
they take to figure it out?”

A little over a hundred kilometers
away on the main Tactical display of the
Argosy
, a blue line which had
been growing toward the planet, terminated. The beginning of the trace on the
screen had been noted automatically some hundred seconds earlier, when the grav
wave from the start of Kirrah’s dance with velocity had begun. Their drive
signature had been duly logged as a friendly vessel maneuvering toward the
planet, traced in blue on the Tac plot, with no alarm.

As the first number on Kirrah’s
screen reached zero, the gravity wave they had created at the
near
end
of their launch run, where they’d cut off the Tubedrive five hundred sixteen
light-seconds out, arrived and was plotted. The Tac officer frowned at the odd
trace, too weak for full Tubedrive, but obviously something grav-active.

“Ninety seconds, turnover, two
seven hundred meps,” Kirrah called. The big fusion rockets whispered to
silence, and as fast as her vernier thrusters could accomplish it, the shuttle
pitched nose up. With a stomach-twisting lurch, Kirrah stabilized the vessel
tail-down and re-ignited the main thrusters to kill some of their downward
speed before they hit atmosphere. The upper number in the screen was zero, the
reading was [0 / 202].

On the Argosy, the Tac officer
flashed the Attention light on his Captain’s auxiliary display and routed the
peculiar blue track to her screen. Sandra Wallace blinked, looked again,
touched a control, entered a command. An AI scanned the data, ruminated a few
nanoseconds, produced a projected plot. On her display, a thin yellow line
projected from the near end of the anomalous blue segment. An AI-generated tiny
yellow bead was moving down the yellow line, already near its planetside end
and closing rapidly. She zoomed in on the view where the yellow line
intersected the planet’s surface - a safe distance from her ship and any Regnum
forces. Sandra’s worried-looking face took on a lopsided half-grin. She keyed
open a comm line. “Admiral Dunning,” she said. “I think you’d better have a
look at this…”

“Fifty seconds, turnover!” Kirrah
cried. The fusion rockets fell silent again, and as she swung the shuttle’s
nose back down in their direction of motion, the craft began to tremble and
buffet slightly in the uppermost fringes of
Sho’ito’s
atmosphere. The
forward view was now straight down, a screen filled with green and blue planet.

“Not too bad. We touch sky at
twelve hundred meps, that shouldn’t be a problem for this bird, should it,
Margaret?” asked Doris. The clock readout passed [0 / 150], the lower number
kept ticking down.

“No, ma’am, in this air she’ll
handle two and a half keps for a few minutes. Don’t expect a lot of
maneuverability, though. And don’t touch the wings, right after.”

“The only problem with this,
Kirrah, is that we miss the best part of the show,” said Doris. “Although I
suppose they’ll have cameras rolling on the
Argosy
- hey, let’s tell our
camera-toting friend where to look.”

“I’d say just over the port wing,
isn’t that right, Lieutenant?” asked Elizabeth’s famous rich contralto
professional voice. Doris Finch swiveled her head around to see the RegNet
reporter belting herself hastily into the vacant jumpseat beside Ensign
Piersall, her camera taking in the cockpit’s occupants and the spectacular view
out the front window. “Would one of you please state for the record and our
viewing audience, what has just been accomplished by our recent maneuvers?”