Wolf Among the Stars-ARC (22 page)

“Jamel, there
really
isn’t time for this. You just have to take my word that we can’t afford to risk trusting anyone connected with the CNE. You have no idea how deep this infiltration runs.”

“But—”

“Jamel
,
listen to me:
Valdes is a Kappainu.
”

Taylor’s face was a study in stunned incredulity. “No . . . no, you’re wrong. You’ve
got
to be wrong! This is too crazy.”

“He’s there, I tell you, on the Kappainu space station. We talked with him. He told us their plan. They want to rule the galaxy—by proxy, because that’s their way of doing things and because they’re cowards. But, as we already know, they can’t use the Lokaron. So they’re going to use
us
instead. The human race is going to be their puppet. They’re going to engineer a fratricidal general war among the Lokaron, leaving only a crippled Gev-Rogov which humanity—led by President-General Valdes—will finish off and pick up the pieces. Oh, I’m sure it will be all streaming banners and glittering uniforms and monumental architecture and rousing military parades—I’ll bet they’ll mine Albert Speer for stylistic inspiration for the grand and glorious Human Empire. And from behind the stage scenery, aliens will be controlling us for their own purposes, in which our welfare plays no part. Who knows? Maybe they’ll eventually feel secure enough to cut the crap and dispense with us altogether.”

As Andrew talked, Taylor’s features gradually stiffened into a dark gray mask. When he finally spoke, his voice was very controlled. “You’re in possession of knowledge that is just as important as the access key—is that what you called it?—aboard
City of Osaka.
This makes it doubly essential that you get away. But I see that you’re approaching rendezvous.”

Andrew glanced at the nav plot and then at the view screen, and saw that it was so. The frigate-sized hull of
City of Osaka
was gliding into view. Neither Andrew nor Reislon was familiar with the gig’s docking conventions, but those were almost entirely computerized. As the gig maneuvered itself toward the concavity of its docking berth, Andrew concluded another hurried consultation with Taylor.

“All right, Andy, I’ve ordered Lieutenant Morales to turn command of
City of Osaka
over to you, and to be ready for transition as soon as you and Reislon are aboard. You’ll find she’s very competent. When you’ve completed transition,
Broadsword
will follow and—
what?
” Taylor’s head turned aside, and Andrew could hear the cry of “
Incoming!”
and the loudspeakers blaring “General quarters!”

“Jamel, what’s happening?” demanded Andrew as the gig rose into position and the clamps that held it began to descend from above.

“We’re under attack” was Taylor’s terse reply. “The hostile ships are in cloak, but the fact that weapons fire is originating from them partially reveals their locations. We’re returning fire. Make transition fast! We’ll follow. And now . . . I’m a little busy.” he signed off just as the gig completed its docking procedure and the hatch opened. Andrew emerged to find a CNEN officer—young, female, Hispanic-looking, compactly built—awaiting him on the docking berth’s tiny deck.

“Lieutenant Morales, sir. I’ve been ordered to—”

“Yes. You stand relieved, Lieutenant. You’re now my X.O. And now let’s get the hell up to the control room and get this ship out of here!”

As he made his way through the ship with Reislon and his new executive officer, Andrew reflected that what was happening wasn’t the Kappainu’s style. It must show their desperation. Seeing the failure of their ploy to trap
Broadsword
and
City of Osaka,
they had launched their warcraft in an entirely out-of-character direct attack. He knew nothing about the capabilities of those warcraft, but he was willing to bet that only their cloaking technology gave even a group of them any chance whatsoever against a CNEN strike cruiser.

It might be enough.

He pounded into the control room, where members of the prize crew were frantically at work. He gestured Morales’s “Attention on deck!” to silence and threw himself into the captain’s chair.

“Get me a tactical plot,” he ordered Morales. “And where do we stand on our countdown to transition?”

“Just about there, sir.”

Andrew studied the tac plot that wakened to life on a holographically projected display screen in midair before his eyes. It immediately became apparent that Taylor’s orders, and Morales’s execution of them, had achieved what Andrew had intended.
City of Osaka
was headed outward, with
Broadsword
interposed between her and the region of space where the Kappainu base had its ghostly existence, and from which the attackers were swarming. The plot showed those attackers’ deduced locations, computer-projected from the origins of the beams and missiles that were stabbing at
Broadsword
. The latter, and her deployed fighters, were returning fire—not without effect, judging from analysis of the debris and the diminished volume of hostile fire, for a couple of the inferred hostile icons were flickering. Andrew wished the status board Jamel Taylor must be intently watching could be downloaded to him so he could see how much damage
Broadsword
was taking.

“Raise Captain Taylor,” he commanded. When Taylor’s face appeared in the comm screen there was no visible damage in the background, but the entire image shuddered with a near miss, and the damage-control klaxons could be heard in the background.

“Jamel,” he began without ceremony, “we’re about ready to make transition. Start you own sequence and follow us.”

“Negative.” Taylor’s voice matched his face, which was a mask of dark iron. “We’ll stay here and cover your withdrawal. I don’t think you’ll get away otherwise. Look at your tac plot.”

Andrew did. Many of the missiles streaking from the cloaked attackers were now following courses that ignored
Broadsword.
Some of those attacking ships’ inferred courses also began to change.

“You see, Andy,” said Taylor, and his tone gentled. “They get it.
City of Osaka
is the ship that matters, carrying an access key and your knowledge. You’ve
got
to get to Kogurche. CNS
Broadsword
has just become expendable.”

“Jamel—”

“Signing off. Good luck.” The comm screen went blank.

“Approaching final countdown to transition, sir,” reported Morales.

Andrew barely heard her. He stared at the tac plot.

Broadsword
, foregoing self-defense, concentrated her laser fire on the Kappainu missiles targeting
City of Osaka
, leaving her fighters to frantically seek out the enemy ships. Some of those missiles began to flicker and go out . . . but not all of them. Three came inexorably on, narrowing the gap as Andrew watched with horrified fascination.

City of Osaka
’s
only armament was a pair of antimissile lasers. What made such laser installations practical was a focusing application of artificial gravity that extended their range beyond that of the bomb-pumped lasers of missile warheads. But these were light versions, and the margin was a narrow one. They both concentrated on one of the missiles at a time. They caught one and then another. But then the third icon flashed stroboscopically, denoting detonation.

At that instant, while the nuclear-pumped X-ray laser flashed across space, the stars in the view-forward began to stream aft.

The space-distorting effect of transition, combined with the ship’s deflection shield, made the hit a glancing one. Nevertheless, the explosive energy-release shook the ship, and for an instant the control room was a hell of concussion and noise.

But then the streaming tunnel of multicolored light was past, and they were in the blackness of overspace, with the deck steady as the ship’s artificial gravity resumed its mastery.

“Set a course for the Kogurche system, Lieutenant,” Andrew ordered as reports began to come in. There were no injuries, and hull integrity was holding.

“Already done, sir,” said Morales with what Andrew was beginning to recognize as her customary crispness.

“Excellent.” Only then did Andrew let himself lean back, close his eyes, and tell himself, over and over, that when he’d last seen her
Broadsword
still lived.

He also reminded himself that the same was true of Rachel Arnstein . . . who now despised him.

He finally turned to Morales. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to get to know you before this rather abrupt change of command, Lieutenant—Alana, isn’t it? But I assume that you, like all of
Broadsword
’s personnel, were briefed on the situation as we now know it to exist, including the existence of the Kappainu and their special capabilities.”

“Yes, sir. I don’t mind saying that some of it was difficult to accept.”

“Well, I and Reislon’Sygnath here have been their captives, and we’ve learned things you’re going to find even harder to swallow. You and the rest of the prize crew are also probably going to be taken aback at the nature of the allies we’re going to Kogurche to contact. In short, we have a lot to talk about. But at the moment, exhaustion is finally starting to catch up with me. So for now I’ll turn the con over to you and—”

“Sir!” Something in Morales’s voice made Andrew disregard her unheard-of interruption of the captain. She was staring at the overspace scanner screen. He followed her gaze, and the fatigue toxins seemed to drain out of him as he saw the two red blips that had appeared aft.

“We are being followed,” said Reislon unnecessarily.

The voyage to Kogurche gave them time to organize a stem-to-stern search for
City of Osaka
’s access key. It was barely enough time, for the thing was so fiendishly hidden that for a while Andrew entertained the possibility that Valdes had been lying for some unfathomable alien reason. But it finally turned up, so embedded in the ship’s navigational instrumentation that they didn’t dare risk trying to extract it while en route.

At least the problem gave them something to think about besides the Kappainu ships shadowing them.

Repeating the trick
Broadsword
had played was, of course, out of the question.
City of Osaka
, with her two pathetic point-defense lasers, was no strike cruiser. If she suddenly transitioned out of overspace, her pursuers would simply follow her into normal space, where she would be at their doubtless extremely limited mercy.

“Of course,” said Andrew as he, Reislon, and Alana Morales sat glumly at a wardroom table discussing the hopelessness of that option, “if we did so somewhere short of Kogurche, at least we wouldn’t be revealing to them the location of the Rogovon rebel fleet.”

Moraless’ dark eyes flashed. She had been told everything and had more or less adjusted to the fact that there were Rogovon who must be treated as allies, but there
were
limits. She glanced at Reislon, then immediately looked away, but not before the Lokar noticed.

“Actually,” said Reislon evenly, “I would advise against that. This ship’s destruction or capture would simply mean that everything we’ve learned so far would go for naught and the Kappainu would be free to proceed with their plans, with all that implies for both our races—including the Rogovon revolutionary movement. No, our only alternative is to stay the course, in the hope that help will be waiting in the Kogurche system. Remember, Borthru proceeded directly there in
Trovyr
, and has presumably been there for some time.”

“Very well,” Andrew decided. “We’ll make transition in a region that’s not right on top of your people’s base but close enough to it to offer some hope that its being patrolled. And we’ll start broadcasting a distress signal on their special band as soon as we’re in normal space.”

They came out of overspace in the gravitational hinterlands between the two Kogurche suns. Their pursuers appeared astern, at a range so short as to earn Andrew’s grudging respect for their precision.

“They’re not even bothering to cloak themselves,” said Morales.

Why should they
? thought Andrew. Aloud: “Get the distress signal out.”

“Already done, sir.” Morales, Andrew decided, should set that to music.

“They also are not troubling with a surrender demand,” said Reislon as missiles, launched at extreme range, appeared on the tactical plot.

“Evasive action,” Andrew ordered. There wasn’t much else he could do, as they were already at general quarters. So he studied the sensor readouts on the Kappainu warships, which he had never had a chance to observe uncloaked before. They were no more than frigate-sized, which came as no surprise; the hidden Kappainu space station, huge as it was, could hardly have accommodated anything larger in significant nymbers. So they wouldn’t be carrying fighters. They were actually less massive than
City of Osaka
. . . but they were warriorsn and it was a drone.

Still, he didn’t think much of their tactics. He himself would have waited and gotten in closer before launching missiles—assuming that the Kappainu could endure extended high accelerations, which they probably could since the artificial gravity in their station had seemed to be roughly Earth normal. The missiles’ lengthy flight time allowed his defensive lasers plenty of time for targeting solutions, and they did themselves proud once the missiles came within their limited range.

But it was not enough. Some missiles got close enough to detonate.
City of Osaka
’s deflection shields could not cope with that concentration of directed energy, and she shuddered and lurched under repeated hits.

“The lasers’ fire-control electronics are fried, sir,” Morales reported calmly. “And the deflection shields—”

“I see, Lieutenant,” said Andrew.
No way out
, he forced himself not to add as he stared at the two scarlet blips of their tormentors, which would now undoubtedly close to the range of ship-to-ship lasers rather than wasting any more missiles . . .

And as he watched, those blips went out.

“What—?” he heard Morales gasp.

“It appears,” said Reislon from his ill-fitting acceleration couch, “that they have gone into cloak and ceased all weapon fire, which would reveal their position.”