My Life: An Ex-Quarterback's Adventures in the Galactic Empire (37 page)

W
e popped out of the wormhole on the outskirts of the Lussern system, the one that Tarnand of Carrillacki had described to us. It was the first time I had actually watched a ship come out of a wormhole. One instant, there was nothing, just black and stars. Even on the instruments, there was nothing. Then, without warning, there was a ship under drive. The instruments showed a burst of energy and subatomic particles when the ship appeared, but on the screen, there was only the ship, as if painted there by magic. It was, as planned, Tomao’s Avenging Sword. The others appeared at precise intervals. Four tough freebooters, each carrying firepower close to that of the Francis Drake. Five seasoned warships to plunder a planet whose defenses would already be fully engaged. I should have felt at ease as we fell toward the star with Franny in the lead. I wasn’t.

The first reason for my unease was the target itself, Lussern. The Carrillacki had provided a thorough briefing, and this was not your typical planet in the marches, lacking real defenses and clinging to the vestiges of empire. Lussern was in the marches, all right, but while the region around it had eroded, Lussern had stood firm. It was a populous, highly developed world whose military technology was on a par with the Inner Empire. The Lusserani maintained their own kvenningar, which was active in Imperial politics and provided a force of five warships on defensive patrol at all times. More importantly, Lussern aligned itself with the emperor. The largest moon, Gadjeen, was the site of a major repair base for the Fleet. In short, the planet was a tough nut to crack.

The second, but equally important, reason for my unease was that the whole operation was a Carrillacki plan.

The concept had made sense when Tarnand presented it on Tetragrammaton. Indeed, it still did. Carrillacki wanted the moon base, functional if possible, but denied to the Fleet at the least. As they had been the prime movers against Jerem, it made sense that they would hamper the Fleet, now loyal to Jonthar a Jerem, whenever possible. Tarnand’s plan was for ships from Carrillacki and Tomarillio to attack first and engage the Lussern defenses. They expected some elements of the Fleet to be at the base, but there would be no interference in a fight between kvenningari. We would arrive on the scene at that point and attack the planet, drawing off the remaining defenders. The end result would be that Carrillacki held the base, Lussern was smashed and we would have a rich payday. The arrangement allowed Carrillacki to make an example of Lussern for siding with the throne while freebooters did the dirty work.

Aside from my mistrust of Carrillacki, above and beyond my mistrust of all kvenningari, there was a flaw in the plan. Tomao had pointed it out on Tetragrammaton, stopping Tarnand in midsentence. The Carrillacki-led kvenningari had openly fought the Fleet to topple Jerem. Why assume that the Fleet would stay out of kvenningari fights?

Tarnand had admitted the possibility that the Fleet would fight. “But,” he had said, “the Fleet garrison is small.”

Tomao had smiled his wicked smile and said softly, “You know the old saying, ‘new emperor, new rules.”’

The Carrillacki had laughed then, which didn’t strike me as a wise thing to do to Tomao, and said, “New rules, hah! Old Jerem had new rules too, and what did it get him? A poison pill on a Carrillacki destroyer. Besides, as you will see from the plan, if the Fleet fights, it will be Carrillacki that will take them on, not you.”

Now I turned my chair toward the communication board. I found no news there, so I turned to the inside comm channels to take my mind off the wait. From these, I could develop a mental picture of what was happening on the ship. Although the ship-in-action had not yet sounded, Ruoni was directing the preparations of his section. The lethal broadswords received a final check of their computer controls and their drives. Robot arms transferred eight of them from their ready racks to the launch cradles. Then the launch ports in the hull opened and the cradles were externalized. Back in the missile bays, the machinery was set in place to swiftly replace each outside missile with a fresh one after launch. A low hum came through the walls as the crew brought the railguns and beams to full charge. There was a series of reports followed by soft clinks, as covers slid back and racks of counter-missiles swung into firing position. Personnel positions were reported to Cardoni from the secured engine area to the Strike Force in the attack boat bays. Franny was ready to fight. She was just waiting for me to tell her when. What was I going to do if the plan didn’t work, or if it was a trap?

“Danny,” Andrave said, “Evidence of action at Lussern. No details yet on vessels.”

“Acknowledged,” I replied. “Notify all ships, ship in action. Communications at Command discretion only.” The siren hooted overhead to echo my words. I shouldn’t have had to say anything other than “acknowledged,” but we were a collection of individual ships, not a trained squadron.

“Command, I have evidence of twenty-seven ships in warship classes at Lussern. Unit details and IFF pending.”

Twenty-seven ships! Something was wrong. That was a full-scale war going on there.

“Breakdown on warships,” Andrave announced. “IFF shows five Lusserani, ten Carrillacki, six Tomarillio and six ships of the Fleet. Unit details on screen.” The screen at my chair, as well as a section of the main screen, filled with ship specifications.

“Communications, confirm that elements of the Fleet are in action.” I had half expected it, but now that it had happened I was reluctant to believe it.

“Confirmed, Command.”

The Fleet! The Fleet had a strong squadron in combat against the kvenningari, and from the looks of the action, the Carrillacki had anticipated it.

“Communications, get me Command, Avenging Sword.”

In a moment I had Tomao’s lined face on the screen. “It looks like you were right,” I said. “Tarnand was lying through his teeth. What do you make of it?”

“New emperor, new rules,” was all he said. I had to suppress a chuckle at the thought of how often Tomao must have said that in the course of a long and stormy life.

“Treachery, do you think?”

“With Carrillacki there is always treachery, even when you don’t see it. It’s just a question of where it is. How would a freebooter act when he finds his guaranteed prize hanging in the balance of a fight?”

The answer was obvious: the freebooter finishes the fight and takes his prize. Ah! “Carrillacki set it up this way to be sure that we would fight against the Fleet.”

“Which is something they could probably not hire us to do,” Tomao agreed.

“This could be a real big mess, here,” I said.

“Definitely,” replied Tomao. “If we go in, we might not come out.”

“So, do we or don’t we?”

Tomao shrugged, “At your command.”

I couldn’t believe that Tomao, who had probably survived more space battles than anyone else in the empire, didn’t care what choice I made. Maybe he really did care, but would say nothing unless I chose wrong. Or maybe not. They had all, Tomao included, agreed to follow my command. There was no place else to go for advice. I could hardly ask my crew, and Jaenna was likely to give me the same answer Tomao had.

Fortunately, I had some time to think. All instruments in normal space are limited by the speed of light. The distance from the outlet of the wormhole to Lussern was great enough to produce practical consequences. What we were seeing of the battle was, in fact, old news. As we moved sunward, in addition to the normal temporal progression of events, we picked up more “recent” information. Sorting this out could be confusing, but that’s why God made computers. The important converse was that they couldn’t see us at all. Until our ships came out of the wormhole, they literally didn’t exist in that region of space. Until the light, or more accurately the subatomic emissions from the powerplant, reached Lussern, the ships there would have no clue that we were in the system. A ship that could travel at light speed in normal space could actually come out of a wormhole and not be detected until it was on top of its target. Such speeds couldn’t be achieved in normal space by any ship the empire had, but the physics still gave me some time to think.

I brought the Lussern defenses up on the main screen. Multiple missile sites dotted the map of Lussern, and most of the major population and industrial centers were ringed with beam weapons. The map of Lussern wrapped itself into a globe and the surrounding space installations appeared. The main stronghold, of course, was the Fleet base on Gadjeen. Additional beam, railgun and missile emplacements were scattered across the surface of the moon and there were bases on the two smaller moons as well. Multiple orbiting weapons platforms were visible. It would make one hell of a defense, especially when coordinated with ships in space. For all of that, it was a dumb set up. Almost everything depended on Gadjeen base. Knock out the base and most of the defensive network was useless. The weakness of the system was obvious and the Carrillacki had delighted in pointing in out. Tarnand had also commented that we shouldn’t anticipate much fire from the fixed defenses. I assumed that Carrillacki had a fifth column in the base.

The screen switched to show the unfolding battle in three dimensions. There were two chronometers at the bottom of the screen. One showed the time until we were in effective weapons range of the opposing ships. The other was the time until those ships could detect us, a much, much shorter interval.

As planned, the Carrillacki forces had gone after the base defenses. Although the defenders were outnumbered by sixteen to eleven, and the Lussern ships were smaller than those of the kvenningari, the base defenses were firing and were adequate compensation for the disparity in ships. The Carrillacki had failed to penetrate to the base when they first attacked and the screen showed a blinking marker, a gravestone for a Tomarillio ship. If they had planned on assassins to shut down the base defenses, they were disappointed so far.

We watched the events unfold over the hours it took to run into the system. Space battles take time. The attackers reformed and changed tactics. Three ships peeled off, heading planetward. With no ships there to challenge them, they easily held off the planetary defenses. Then the screen showed a series of flashes as their strikes went in against major cities. Not surprisingly, the five Lussern ships at Gadjeen disengaged in order to intercept the Carrillacki attack on their homeworld. Another blinker marked the end of a second attacker, but now the main Carrillacki force had a two to one advantage at Gadjeen. They used it. Two ships of the Fleet died in the renewed assault, and missiles, beams and shot struck in at the base defenses.

Defensive fire from the base and the space defenses rapidly tailed off. Landing boats ferried an assault force down to the surface of Gadjeen. Above, more attackers turned off to strike at the planet and the Lussern ships that were trying to guard it.

Abruptly, all fire from Gadjeen and the orbital defenses ceased. With many of the orbital stations no longer firing, the defenders at Lussern dropped into the atmosphere, trying to use it and the planet-based weapons as a shield. One of the Lussern ships blew then. Meanwhile, the Carrillacki seemed to be directing as much fire indiscriminantly at the planet as they were at the defending warships.

The screen shifted to show a telescopic view of Lussern. We could have been detected by this time, but there had been no contact and no indication we had been noticed. Most likely, they were all too busy to look. There were bright flashes periodically above and on the planet. On the night side, I saw a bright, rather diffuse glow. I stepped up the magnification, checked the infrared and gasped. Half a continent was burning. There were still dark patches within the sea of flames. From these, as from elsewhere on the globe, streaks of lights shot up as the defenders fought on. I wondered how the crews could survive in some of those locations. They must have had sealed positions with full life-support apparatus. Man their weapons they did, sending the beams against the ships in the sky until the flames washed over them.

“Communications,” I asked, “can you pick up anything from Lussern?”

“Mostly encrypted, Command,” was Andrave’s answer. “I doubt we can decipher it prior to entering the battle. There are also a few civilian broadcasts.”

“Feed it to the speaker.” That earned me an odd look, but he did it.

The sound of static filled the bridge. Through it, snippets of talk could be heard. “… if you have left the city, please do not return. All military and government personnel will remain at their posts. Medical personnel and volunteers report to Civil Defense Station Four at … all other citizens who have not left are urged to do so. Do not use routes leading to Baynriche, they have been cut by nuclear strikes … it is expected that evacuation will remain orderly. This station will remain …” The rest was lost in the static.

“Command, I have a video feed, although I can’t identify the source.”

“On screen, please.”

I won’t easily forget the scene that unfolded on our main screen. How Andrave had plucked this signal, weak and not intended for us, out of space I do not know. Perhaps it was fate. The camera that was recording it must have fallen, or been dropped, because the view was at ground level with the surface tilted at a crazy angle. Nearby, in the middle of a street, lay the body of a teenage youth, one leg blown away below the hip. A yellow haired child, maybe five years old by my reckoning, tugged frantically at one arm, trying to pull the teen along. The resolution was good enough to show the tears streaming down the child’s face. There were flames, dancing in the buildings behind. The bridge was dead silent. I looked over at Jaenna. She was staring at it, too, her face expressionless. When I turned back, we had lost the picture to static.

I’ve been responsible for many deaths and much grief during my career as a freebooter, and I have spared none of it in recounting this story, but never have I caused anything like this. The Carrillacki didn’t need to continue their assault against Lussern. They had already staged a ground attack on Gadjeen. All they needed to do was push that. If they had Gadjeen, they controlled Lussern. They weren’t even assaulting the planet to gain booty. If spoils were what they wanted, what we would have gone for, they already had enough of a military advantage to gain it. They were simply smashing the planet because they wanted to. There was no point to it. There was no need of it. They were having fun.