Starhunt: A Star Wolf Novel (24 page)

“Right, sir—”

“Listen to me, Korie! This ship isn’t in as good a condition as you think! Neither is the crew—I don’t care how well you’ve trained them. We’ll never survive a battle encounter!”

Korie ignores him. To Wolfe, he calls, “Stand by to charge the missiles.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Two minutes to contact—”

“Korie! Stop it!” The first officer ignores him. Wildly, Brandt crosses the bridge. “Al, stop him! Stop him for me—”

Barak grabs the captain by the shoulders. “Sir!” He looks from Brandt to Korie; the first officer is standing coolly by the seat, watching the forward screen.

Brandt babbles at the astrogator, “Al, that emergency course for home—have you got it?”

“Yes, sir—yes, I’ve got it.”

“Prepare to implement—” He lurches away from Barak, toward the pilot console. Except for the astrogator, every other man on the bridge is too busy to pay any attention to the captain.

“Missiles ready and charged. Standing by.”

“Ninety seconds to contact.”

Brandt grabs one of the officers at the pilot console. “Reverse polarities,” he says. “We’re going home—”

The man ignores him, raises one elbow to keep Brandt’s hands away from the board. And then Barak is tugging at the captain—“Sir—?”

“Jonesy, stand by,” says Korie. “We’ll unwarp thirty seconds before contact, drop our missiles, and run.”

“Right, sir.”

“Don’t do it!” cries Brandt. “Head for home!” Barak is holding him back. “That’s an order! I’m the captain!”

“Get him out of here!” It is Korie’s first notice of Brandt.

“Don’t unwarp—we’ll never survive it!”

“We’ve got a pattern!” says Jonesy. Both Brandt and Barak holding him turn to the screen—the whorl of white lines is sharp and familiar. “Coming in fast! EDNA’s targeting.”

“Sixty seconds to contact, thirty seconds to unwarp.”

“Missiles targeted and ready—”

“Al!” screams Brandt, struggling again. “We’ve got to stop them!”

Barak is still frozen to the screen; his face is ashen and gray. That pattern—

“Al! Stop them!”

—is too familiar. Barak releases the captain; he turns to Korie, to Jonesy. “Go ahead,” he says, quietly, “Unwarp.”

Behind him, Brandt is stricken. “Al—what are you doing—”

“Fifteen seconds to unwarp.”

Korie flashes a triumphant glance to Barak. “Thanks, Al—”

Brandt lunges at the astrogator, hands like claws; he bounces off, lurches toward Korie—Barak grabs him, knocks him to the floor. He sobs, “I’m sorry, sir—” Brandt continues to struggle. Barak hits him again.

“Five seconds—”

“All lights green—”

“Stand by—”

“Unwarp!”
calls Jonesy, then confirms, “We have unwarp.”

“Drop missiles—”

“
Hold it!
I have a red light—”

“Fire, dammit! Fire!” shouts Korie.

There is a pause, then—“At what, sir? The target’s gone—” The screen is empty.

“Huh?”

Snap. “Radec! Where’s that bogie?”

“I don’t know, sir! We unwarped and it disappeared—I’ve cleared the board three times already—”

Jonesy breathes, “Do you think they could have unwarped at the same time?”

“No—they couldn’t have—” Korie whirls, “Al—?”

Barak rises; he has been holding the captain down at the center of the pit. He ignores Korie and concentrates on helping Brandt up; he guides him to the seat. “Take it easy, sir. You’ll be all right.”

Korie stares at them amazed; he grabs his hand mike. “Missile crews, stand by. Radec, get me that last know position—maybe he’s playing dead duck again—”

“You want to just drop the missiles and let them hunt?”

“We might do that too. Radec, have you anything yet?”

“No, sir—I’ve got the scanners full open—”

“Keep trying—”

“Mr. Korie!” It is Barak, standing on the control dais at the center of the pit. “You’re wasting your time.
There is no bogie.
”

Korie whirls to look at him. So does Jonesy. So do most of the other men on the bridge.

“There’s no bogie,” he repeats. “It never existed.”

Korie takes a half-step. “What’re you talking about? I know it’s there. I saw it—you did too!”

“You saw a stress-field shimmer, Korie, not a ship—and that shimmer was only our own reflection. The Hilsen units have been focusing a projection of our own vibrations against the warp—we’ve been chasing our own shadow! There’s nothing there!”

“You’re lying, Barak—that bogie moved! We gained on it!”

“The vibration was progressive; as it got larger, so did the projection we were chasing; the computer said we were getting closer.”

“No—I won’t believe it—”

“You have to believe it, Korie—it’s true! And it’s your fault. It’s your phase adapters—those damned jury-rigged adapters! They keep throwing off vibrations because they’re not right for this ship. Ask Leen about it; he’ll show you—”

“—No—!!” Korie shakes his head, wildly, frantically. “No—no—it’s not true, it’s not! That bogie is there, we can get it—” He turns to Jonesy, “Aim those missiles—for its last known—last known—position—”

“Forget it, Jonesy,” Barak countermands the order.

“No—” shouts Korie.

Jonesy looks from one to the other. The astrogator says, “Check your console.”

The assistant astrogator casts a despairing glance at Korie, “I’m sorry, sir—” then turns to his board.

Korie stares at Barak. “Al—what are you doing to me? My bogie is there—”

Barak looks down at him from the command dais. He shakes his head sadly. A moan from the captain distracts him.

“Radec!” says Korie. He leaps for the door, stumbles through it. Only Jonesy looks after him.

In the seat, Brandt shakes his head confusedly. His eyes wander from side to side. “Al—Al—”

“It’s all right, sir; everything’s all right.” Into the intercom, Barak says, “Medical Officer Panyovsky, come to the bridge please.”

“Al—I—I—”

Barak turns to the older man, the gray-haired man, the slack-jawed man—the man with the shattered expression. “Sir, just relax. The doc will be up to see you in a minute. He’ll give you something to make you feel better. The ship is all right.”

“I—I—” The eyes are unable to focus.

“Just relax, sir, just relax.” Barak straightens; abruptly, he looks around. “Where’s Korie?”

Jonesy says, “He—he left. I think he said something about radec—”

Barak gestures impatiently. “Goldberg, watch the helm—” He darts out the door.

In the radec room, Rogers is lying on the floor, blood flowing from on corner of his mouth. Bridger is tending to him worriedly; the plastic brace across Rogers’ back has been shattered into fragments, and the youth is moaning on the edge of unconsciousness.

But Barak’s attention is not on Rogers, but on Korie—the first officer is sitting before the console, a strange look on his face; his eyes are intense. His hands move trance-like across the board, clearing it and setting up programs, clearing it and setting up programs, over and over and over again . . .

The only thing worse than learning the truth is not learning the truth.

—SOLOMON SHORT

For seventeen hours, the
Burlingame
drifts.

Her inherent velocity is negligible. She exists without motion, without direction.

Her decks are dark, her corridors are dim. Mr. Korie has ordered the ship on power-down standby; but he has not let the crew stand down from the alert. The ship is silent and moody. The men stand at their stations like sullen zombies. Time is frozen here.

The men wait.

All but one. Chief Engineer Leen.

He is agitated, and he comes searching for Barak, the astrogator. Leen finds him coming out the door of the medical section. The two men look at each other, wordlessly studying.

“Was it there or not?” asks Barak.

“I don’t know,” says Leen. “It could have been. It could have been a wobbly. I’m a one-eyed man trying for depth perception. Nobody’s yet figured out how to make a single set of grids act like two stress-field eyes. Theoretically, it’s not impossible—but—” He spreads his hands helplessly, then drops them again. “Can we go home now?”

“If it were up to me, Chief, we’d have been on our way home two weeks ago, but the only way we’re going to get that order is if you can prove that bogie was never there, was only a wobbly the whole time.”

“You know as well as I, there’s no way to trace that.”

“Then make me another one, this time deliberately.”

Leen looks glum. “Sorry, Al. I can’t even give you that kind of certainty. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“Then that’s it, then—”

“What—? We’re going to stay out here forever?”

“Find me that wobbly and we’ll go home! What do you want from me, Chief? I’m only the astrogator. I don’t have the authority to order this ship about. Not while there are still two officers above me.” He turns away from Leen and starts heading forward.

“Wait a minute—”

Barak shakes his head and keeps on going.

“We can’t just stay here—”

Barak stops, turns, looks. “Don’t ask me, Chief! I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“But the crew—they’re starting to talk—”

“Screw the crew!” The bellow echoes down the corridor.

Leen steps rapidly after the big man, catching him by one shoulder and spinning him back against the bulkhead. “Damn you—” he starts, then catches himself and forces his voice down to an intense whisper. “You’re the one officer left that this crew trusts. You’re the only one who can hold this ship together.”

Barak’s eyes are shaded. “Then that shows how poorly put together it is. Listen to me, Leen—and listen up good. Don’t come looking to unload your worries on
me. I don’t want them, they’re not my responsibility. All I have to do is plot points in space and draw lines between them. That’s all I want to do. And to be very honest, that’s all I really know how to do. You—and every other man on this ship, it seems—have demanded that I be a strong man, a hero. Well, I’m no hero. I don’t know how to be. And in my one attempt to be heroic, I destroyed a thirteen-year good conduct record. I was insubordinate. I refused to follow an order from my captain—
and
equally, I refused to follow the orders of my first officer. One way or the other, I’m through. I don’t know if there was a real bogie out there or not, but in the heat of the moment, I undercut the authority on this ship, because you—and a lot of other men—encouraged me to do just that. But I’m the guy who has to pay the price—where are the rest of you? And now you’re complaining that there’s no authority left. Brandt’s locked himself in his cabin again, God only knows what he’s doing in there, and Korie refuses to give the order to go home, too. He’s still convinced that there’s something out there.

“If you want to go home, ask
them
to give the order. I can’t, I won’t, I don’t have the authority, and I’m probably facing a court-martial.” He steps forward, looming over Leen like a bear. “I’ll tell you this, Chief. When Korie was running this ship, it ran. And it ran well. Complaints or no. You wanted to be free of Korie? Well, now you are. Now you have the chaos you deserve, and you’re complaining again. All of you. And I’m tired of listening to it. I’m tired of being asked to do something about it.”

Leen’s eyes are moist. There is a hint of redness around the edges. His face looks haggard. When Barak finally runs down, he says quietly, “But it’s your life too, Al; your ship too. Don’t you care anymore?”

Barak hesitates a half-beat before answering. “I don’t know. I’m tired. I don’t think so. I just want to be left alone.”

He turns and goes up the corridor toward the bridge. He will sit down in the Command and Control chair and will pretend to be in charge. But he will only be waiting, just like the rest of them.

Leen watches his departing back sadly.

He doesn’t fully understand it. He knows that Brandt and Korie and Barak adjourned to the captain’s cabin immediately after the unwarp fiasco. They stayed in there a long time. Their voices were raised, the shouts could be heard in the corridor, only dimly muffled by the insulating walls. When Korie and Barak finally emerged again, they weren’t speaking. Korie’s face was grim. Barak’s countenance was ashen, haggard. Exactly what had occurred in there was unknown, and neither Korie nor Barak would comment.

Periodically, the captain’s bell would ring and an aide would bring him a covered tray from the galley. That was the only evidence there was still a captain aboard this ship. Otherwise, Korie was still in charge.

Except Korie had not been back to the bridge since unwarp. Nor had he issued any order more significant than “Clean up that mess, Crewman.”

The crew remains on alert.

Because the order to stand down has not been given.

And will not be given.

The shifts change. But the men stay at their stations.

And the
Burlingame
drifts.

A little ignorance can go a long way.

—SOLOMON SHORT

Korie is sitting in the galley, alone. There is no one else in the room.

On the table in front of him is a chessboard, sixteen squares to a side. There are two pieces of board, a white flag-ship and a black one. Korie is studying them with a slight frown on his face. He looks tired. His eyes are hollow circles. His skin seems drawn and tight. He doesn’t look up when the chief engineer enters.

“It’s the problem of the two flagships,” he says to no one in particular.

“Eh?” says Leen. “Are you talking to me?”

“Huh?” Korie looks up, confused, blinking. “Oh, Chief, I didn’t see you come in. Get some coffee, sit down. I want to go over something with you. Do you know the problem of the two flagships?”

Leen shakes his head. “I—uh, I don’t play chess that much.”

“Never mind. Sit down. I want to show you something. You see here? The flagship is the most powerful piece in the game. It can move horizontally, vertically, diagonally, and hyper. What makes it so powerful is that you can’t move into position to attack it without being vulnerable yourself. If you and your enemy each have a flagship only, then neither can attack the other, right?”