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Chapter 15
Her mate’s scream of terror ringing in her ears, Segusha raced to the controls. She arrived in time to see portly ts’Segu rise from the floor, the color drained from his neck and eyes.“Segu— !” she began.
“Terrans!!—Terrans!!” screamed Segu, suddenly reanimated. His jowls fluttering wildly in terror, he pointed at the central monitor. Segusha ran to the viewer, where her own heart nearly failed her.
There she saw three ships, closing at speeds beyond their own instruments’ capacity to discern. A quarter-unit distant, the power readings surged past all scales known to the merchant vessels of the Empire.
Segusha turned to her mate, who paled and fainted once again. She willed herself to signal their companion vessel and learned that they had also seen the demons lurking in the skies of home. And they were fighting the effects of panic, as well.
“Mother— ”
Segusha turned to see Seguila and Sargai, her small ones, peering into the control room.
“Is something wrong? What is the matter, Mother?”
“Silence. Back to your cabins, both of you.” Segusha started toward them, clapping her hands loudly as she walked.
“But— ”
“No arguments. Return to your cabins! At once, do you hear?”
As the small ones scurried back toward the living compartments of their vessel, Segusha turned the radio to the emergency setting. Small and slender as she was, she suddenly felt the strength of a bull saurus rising within her. Behind her, ts’Segu rose to his elbows, then to his feet once more, then staggered toward the forward control panel.
“Distress—distress,” Segusha called into the speaker, on the emergency channel. “Three Terran vessels, reading Twelve-zero-twelve-nine-seven. Please acknowledge.”
As Segusha repeated her message, over and over, she began to feel quite ill. Life on a merchant vessel had never been easy for her. The cramped quarters made her long for the blue skies and warm shores of her native land, and she constantly regretted mating herself to the simple fool who shared her bed and enjoyed her favors. She never tired of reminding him of the pleasant life she abandoned the summer she lost her senses to love, and succumbed to her own fancifully romantic notions of life among the stars.
Of course, that was when ts’Segu was a handsome, dashing star pilot, long before his growing girth made her forget her fanciful notions of being carried off like a heroine in a children’s myth. Now her mate’s livelihood threatened to kill them all. Now the Terrans were upon them!
“What shall we— ”
“We are changing course,” hissed Segusha, her eyes fixed upon the three images growing ever stronger on the monitor screens. “We must lose them somehow, and hide until they are gone.”
“But we cannot...it is impossible....”
“Tell me nothing of impossibilities, Fool. It is impossible for the ships of the longnoses to be where they are. They are a hundred units to the East, you told me. We shall easily have a safe passage, you told me. To bring delicacies and knickknacks to the Forces and return with pockets filled with riches, you told me. But our instruments do not lie. The Terrans are all but upon us. If we do not act quickly, we are lost.”
“Give me the wheel.”
“I shall keep the wheel. You can barely navigate through the center of a door well, let alone bring us safely to harbor. Confer with your friends in our brother vessel. Perhaps you imbeciles can devise the means to save us. I am too busy trying to change our course setting.”
“Permit me to— ”
“You have locked the controls! How are we to— ?”
“My Pet—a minor adjustment—permit me— ”
“Fool! How are we to escape if you have disabled the controls?”
As Segusha flailed at his hands, Segu reached over his mate’s shoulders and unblocked the computer. Soon, the vessel returned to manual controls. Placing his hands on the wheel, he began a steeply banked turn, narrowly missing their companion ship, whose pilot had similar notions.
“They are upon us!” screamed Segusha, pointing to the observing panel behind and to her right.
Clearly visible in the darkness through the viewing window, three bright balls loomed in the darkness like glowing apparitions. To her left, a small flicker from their companion’s weapons briefly glimmered in the heavens, followed by a brilliant flash of light from one of the Terran pursuers. In a heartbeat, the fiery remains of a dying ship lighted the sky, as the Terrans destroyed the other ship in the small merchant convoy.
“Aiyee—we are lost!” Segusha screamed, her voice crackling with animal terror.
From behind her came a dull thump, where her mate had fallen into a heap on the floor.
* * *
“MORNING STAR REPORTS that they have moved to seal off the lane of retreat,” reported Mathison. “Captain Ashton says that the enemy vessel is holding course. And Captain Fitzgerald wants to know why— ”
“I don’t care what he wants to know,” Cook fumed. “The order is to hold fire. That goes for everyone—including the Magellan.”
“Incoming message...it’s the Magellan.”
Cook sighed harshly. He didn’t notice the small smile of pride dancing across his helmsman’s lips. He only knew that things were not going at all as he’d planned. In fact, this first operation was turning into an altogether Isitian hash. Perhaps it was better to have it out now.
Actually, he thought, there was no real alternative to having it out now. Besides, his best ideas often rose from the flames of some disaster or other.
“Put it on the screen, Lieutenant, and hail the Morning Star as well. We may as well get everyone’s perspective on this.
“Aye, sir.”
Soon, a glaring Captain Fitzgerald filled half of the main communications screen. The other half showed a fidgeting Jeremy Ashton, who looked very uncomfortable.
“Opinions, gentlemen?”
Jeremy opened his mouth, but it was Fitz’s voice that filled the d’Artagnan’s bridge.
“Have you lost your bloody mind, Cook?”
“Settle down, Fitz,” Cook snapped. Too late, he realized that putting this discussion on the main screens had been a blunder of the first magnitude. He should have adjourned the conference to his office, where they could have it out in private. His bridge crew, eyes wide in amazement, looked embarrassed and worried as the commanders tore into each other. Cook figured that the effect was the same on the other ships. This was probably exactly how they’d do it on Isis, he mused, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
“Settle down?” Fitz hollered. “Settle down? The devil to settling down. Do you have any idea of the risks we’re taking, this far inside Lizardland? You brought us all this way—through bloody clouds—circling dead hunks of rock until we’re dizzy as a Demetrian gold-digger. Now you want us to hold fire while you consult your bloody Isitian navel? I mean—my God! What are we doing here, if not trying to cut their bloody supply lines?”
“That’s enough, Captain,” Cook said angrily.
“No that’s not enough.”
“That’s enough—unless you want to be relieved of your command here and now.”
After a few more seconds of grumbling, Fitz had calmed himself enough for Cook to have his say.
“I think it only fair to tell you,” said the commodore, his eyes narrowed, anticipating the eruption he was sure would follow, “that I have serious reservations about firing on civilian vessels.”
“Oh, for the love of tripe!” Fitz groaned.
“Commodore.” Jeremy’s face was weary, almost resigned. He’d seen Cook in this mood before, and knew just how little good arguing would do. “With all due respect....”
“Good God, Cook!” Fitz shouted, his face starting to redden. “What the Hell are we doing out here?”
“We are disrupting enemy shipping.” Cook said through his teeth.
“Then we damn well better kill something! I mean, my God—how disruptive can we be if all we do is jump out from behind an asteroid and yell ‘Boo!’ every now and then?”
“Just let them man their lifeboats before we fire,” said a voice of reason from the d’Artagnan’s helm station. The ship commanders were all too busy discussing the matter to pay any attention.
“We already have a rather embarrassing advantage in forces,” Cook said, coldly, “I do not intend to sink to the level of a cutthroat like Chadborne Wilkes. Besides, we don’t need three starships to overpower unarmed civilian freight haulers.”
“Unarmed??!” Fitz protested. “I took a bloody shot right to my Number Two shield!”
Cook glowered menacingly at the screen.
“Not much of one, granted. But it was still a shot.”
“I will not let us degenerate into a band of pirates— ”
“Then let them take to their lifeboats,” Janet grumbled. Her impatience was growing by the minute. She found that whatever vicarious thrill she felt at her commander’s civility was being crushed by the weight of his thoughtlessness.
“And as long as we’re still half-way through our first raid,” Cook continued, his eyes narrowing fiercely, “it’s as good a time as any for us to set some rules of engagement.”
“Rules of—? This is a bloody war, Cook! Or have you quite forgotten?”
“Lifeboats— , ” Janet snarled.
“Nevertheless, there’s no need to kill civilians.” Seeing Fitz’s eyes bulge in fury, Cook was quick to add: “Not unless we have to—not unless they fire on us first. We can make that clear right here and now, to this ship and to any that follow. If they fire on us, we destroy them—quickly, and without reservation. But if they surrender immediately, we will....”
“We’ll what?”
“We’ll...well...we’ll let them escape in their lifeboats. Or whatever damn emergency facilities they have in Crutchtan ships…and let them go on their way. After destroying their cargo, of course. Then we can fade into space to await another day, striking terror into the hearts of the enemy and landing another blow for the good guys.”
Fitz and Jeremy winced in tandem. Obviously, further arguments would be useless, but both had deep misgivings about what they were about to do.
Janet was livid.
“Well, gentlemen, any last comments?”
Seeing Fitz open his mouth, Cook was quick to close the discussion.
“Good! Glad it’s settled. That’s why I wanted all this talk out in the open. Air out our differences and all that. Work out our goals with a feeling of camaraderie. Team spirit and all. Good for morale.”
Ignoring the exasperated looks on the faces of those around him, Cook ordered Mathison to clear a hailing channel to the Crutchtan ship now surrounded by the three starships.
“Hailing frequencies open, Skipper.”
“All right,” Cook said, pounding his armrest for emphasis. “Helm, hold her steady.”
“Gee, sir,” came the reply from the helm station. “Wherever do you get all these clever ideas? Or is that where they come from on Isis, as well?”
“Miss Mathison, let’s see who we’ve got on the other line.”
“Aye, sir.”
“And Mendelson, let’s not be quite so snippy, shall we?”
* * *
HER MOUTH DRY as desert sand, Segusha helped her mate to his feet and fought the urge to panic. The paleness of her mate’s eyes told her that she could expect little help from him. Until he steadied, it would be all he could do to keep his balance.
“Mother....”
Segusha spun around, her voice trumpeting urgency.
“Back to the cabins.”
“But— ”
“Back to the cabins.”
“Mother!!” screamed Sargai, her eldest. “Look! The screen!!”
Segusha turned to face the main viewer and nearly fainted herself.
The screen bore the hideous image of a long-nosed simian. Its face was the scowling countenance of a nightmare, its eyes the glowing embers of a demon. Her own eyes widened in fear. She felt the color drain from her face, and her last meal started rumbling ominously in her belly.
Behind her, she heard the dull thud of her mate, falling to the floor once again.
“Help your father to his feet,” she whispered softly. “And then return to your cabins.”
“Mother— !” Sargai called, his voice trembling with fright.
“At once!” she hissed, hoping that the firmness in her voice would give her courage enough to face the longnose.
* * *
“MATHISON?”
“The translator is engaged, Commodore. They should be receiving.”
Cook cleared his throat, preparing to have a go at establishing contact. The two Crutchtan images on the screen stared back dumbly, like stone statues. He smiled and nodded his head. Pushing the translator button, he spoke slowly and deliberately into the translator, as he had once done in the Governor’s Palace on Girshoona.
“Hello.”
The console lights glared from all sides like spotlights on a stage. The Crutchtans simply stared silently from the screen. Undaunted, Cook pressed ahead. He knew that the other ships were monitoring his transmission. He hoped he wouldn’t sound as foolish as he felt.
“This is Commodore Roscoe Cook of the Terran Cosmic Guard, commanding the Starship d’Artagnan.” The Crutchtans made no reply, but Cook noticed that the green slits on either side of their necks had paled considerably.
“As you know,” Cook went on, “our people are at war—which, I’m sure you agree, is a tragedy of cosmic proportions, but....”
Janet coughed loudly, and shot him a look that would have soured a ton of sweetener. Outwardly undaunted, Cook changed the thrust of his remarks.
“In any event, our mission is to interdict enemy shipping. I am afraid this means that we will have to destroy your vessel.”
With a dull thump, one of the Crutchtans fell out of sight, toward the bottom of Cook’s screen.
“We regret this inconvenience— ”
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Janet muttered; Cook frowned at his first officer and pressed on.
“But we do not wish to cause unnecessary civilian casualties. As we have the time needed to avoid needless killing, we will permit you to evacuate your ship before we open fire. We would have afforded the same opportunity to your companion ship,” he continued, struggling to find the coherence in what was still a rather shaky affair, “but they chose to fight, rather than surrender.”
The impenetrable stare from the lone remaining Crutchtan made Cook uncomfortable. He swallowed, wondering whether it had been a mistake to undertake visual contact, but quickly dismissed the thought. He hated the thought of scuttling the vessel like a common pirate. And it was too late for second-guessing, anyway.
“Even so,” he continued, staring directly into the eyes of the remaining enemy civilian, “we cannot permit you to delay leaving your ship. We expect your people to come with reinforcements soon, and we must not dawdle ourselves, in getting on with our mission. We can give you only five of our minutes to gather your belongings and abandon your ship. I suggest that you hurry.”
Suddenly the screen went dark; the Crutchtans had broken contact. Cook had no idea whether they had understood him, or what they meant to do. All in all, he thought, this was turning into rather a sloppy operation. Disjointed. Out of focus. And altogether too Isitian.
But Cook couldn’t indulge his own doubts for long, for the communications monitor didn’t remain dark. The electronic ghost of the Crutch¬tan’s image had barely faded from the screen when Fitz flashed onto the viewer.
“All right, Commodore—!”
Cook cut him off.
“We have five minutes,” the commodore said coldly, the steel returning to his voice. “If you want to discuss the matter, we’ll do it in private.”
Before Fitz could utter a word in protest, Cook rose from his seat and bounded toward the door.
“Mendelson—with me. Dexter—take the chair.”
* * *
ONE OF THE lighting panels flickered on the ceiling. It was a common defect in starships, caused by a wiring robot somewhere in Eastern Terra that had been running short of conducting fiber at the time of manufacture. Janet had seen it the last two times she’d been in Cook’s office; she wondered how long it would take him to notice.
She settled into the plush visitor’s chair, beyond the line of sight of the communications viewers, and listened to the three commanders haranguing one another. She was coming to regret her impatience with the Skipper. Not that he didn’t deserve it. If he ever bothered asking her opinion, there were a thousand things he should be doing differently. But for all his other faults, and however painful it might be for himself or those around him, he really did try to do the right thing. After seeing the fire in his eyes when he took a stand for something he believed in, she found herself fighting against a flood of old feelings.
“So what do you think, Jeremy? Is he completely crazy, or has he just misplaced his mind again?”
“Well....”
“Look,” sighed Cook. “This is our first interdiction. I want us to do it right.”
“Then don’t go getting squeamish on us. Right, Jeremy?”
“Well....”
“And I want us to settle on a policy for handling civilian vessels. Eventually, I’ll want us to separate. We can disrupt a larger area if we’re not clumped together. But I won’t have us losing the discipline or cohesion that comes with fighting as a unit.”
“You know what I think?” Fitz squinted. “I mean, no disrespect intended—but you know what I think, Cook?”
Cook leaned back in his chair. Janet caught his eye, and he smiled as he winked at her. “Not that I could really stop you from telling me,” he said, turning his attention back to the screen.
“You’ve just got too much to worry about in that head of yours to think straight. There’s so much bouncing around up there that your brain fritzes out on us, every so often. Like an overloaded computer.”
“I suppose that’s more flattering than many other explanations I’ve heard, Fitz.”
Janet heard the sound of Captain Fitzgerald’s rough laughter coming over the monitor.
“Really, I’m serious Cook. You’ve too much on your mind, and your head is already filled with all that trivia. You just have trouble pulling it together, sometimes. You can’t keep it all from crashing. That’s why you go daft on us, every now and again.”
Cook chuckled amiably. For now, he would play the diplomat, he decided. It was not the time to pull rank. “Well, Fitz, practicalities do throw me, sometimes, I suppose.”
“And now that you’ve seen the error of your ways....”
“Well, not quite,” Cook said, looking Fitz straight in the eye. “For the time being, we’ll just muddle along without killing any more civilians than we need to, and see whether that slows down the war effort.”
“You’re a stubborn man, Cook. I wish you’d listen to reason.”
“Reason’s singing us the same tune, Fitz,” Cook said, his eyes twinkling mischievously. “But as long as I’m in command, we’ll use the Isitian version of the lyrics.”
“Come again?”
“We’ll do it my way.”
“I want the record clear— ”
“I’ll note our difference of opinion in my log, Fitz. If you like, I’ll even draft a formal order outlining our engagement policies on civilian merchant vessels.”
“I’d appreciate it, Maestro.”
“D’Artagnan out.”
As the teleconference ended, Cook sighed and rose to his feet, stretching his arms and yawning. Janet thought he looked tired. But since the war start¬ed, he rarely looked well-rested. He walked to the large star map in the anteroom; Janet stood and followed.
The anteroom was dark, except for the illuminated, spherical map, now set for the local skies. Cook stared intently at the points of light, each denoting a nearby star. Around the edge of the sphere, dominating the western edge, the Cloud glowed like burning embers. Janet approached until she was beside him, but said nothing. After a few minutes of silence, she turned to leave.
“Don’t go.”
Janet stopped and turned to face him. “I wasn’t sure you wanted company.”
“I wasn’t sure you cared what I wanted.”
The frosty look on her face told Cook he’d said the wrong thing.
“Sorry. That was a thoughtless thing to say.”
He returned his gaze to the star map, his brow furrowed deeply. Janet came to stand beside him.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone to talk to. Not since Jeremy left. And not for a few weeks before then.”
She stared straight ahead, afraid that he was about to open all the old wounds again. But his next words were in a soft tone of voice that she’d almost forgotten.
“What do you make of this, Janet?”
She noticed that he used her first name; he hadn’t done that very often. Since their last days aboard the Constantine, she could count the times on the fingers of both hands. And she remembered all of them.
“What do you mean?”
He stared straight ahead, his thoughts buried under a facade of intense concentration. She could tell that something was deeply troubling him. He might be an enigma, and a particularly mulish one at that, but she still knew him better than anyone else. Perhaps, at times, even better than he knew himself.
“We have them at our mercy, you know,” he said at last. “We can blast the poor devils to kingdom come. And Lord knows, whether they live or die makes no real difference to us, or to the war.”
“But we were once in the same spot, weren’t we? And the Crutchtans were civilized enough to let us return home.”
Cook turned to face her. She saw the troubled eyes of a gentle philosopher who once captured her soul and captivated her mind.
“You agree with Fitz and Jeremy?” he asked softly. “You think we should just blast away, then vanish into the blackness? It makes more sense tactically, I suppose. Exposes us to less danger. And it would probably cause a good deal of panic among the natives, at that.”
Janet took a deep breath, and felt the years melt away like dew before the sun. “A friend once told me never to be ashamed of my own sense of humanity,” she said.
Cook turned to face the glowing lights of the star map. Janet felt the full weight of the past crushing down on her shoulders, and wanted to cry. She looked at Cook’s face—the brow furrowed in thought, the distant eyes that could see through everything—and wondered what new mysteries she would find, if times were different, and she were given the chance again.
It was several moments before he spoke. “That friend was very young,” he said at last. “And the times were very, very different.”
Suddenly, the page signal sounded. In an instant, Cook was at his desk, pressing the intercom.
“Cook here.”
“We have movement from the target, Commodore.” It was Mathi¬son, from the bridge. “They’ve separated from the cargo bins, moving away at flank speed. Captain Fitzgerald wants to know if he can do the honors.”
“That vulture,” laughed Cook. “Tell him that it’s my mission, and he’s already had the first kill.”
“Aye sir.”
“Tell Dexter to stand by; Mendelson and I will join you right away. Out.”
“Before we go,” Janet said, stopping Cook as he began his dash to the bridge, “answer me one question.”
“Sure.”
“I can’t believe that you would have given no thought to the prospect of blasting civilian ships to kingdom come.”
Cook started laughing, a lusty laugh of the sort she’d missed for longer than she cared to remember. It was good to see, she smiled—though after a second or two she thought it would be nicer to have him take her question seriously.
“And I don’t think for an instant that you could have sold this mission to the brass if you told them you were going to let any Crutchtan spacers go, whether they fired first or not.”
“Now that you mention it,” Cook smiled mysteriously, “I suppose it does seem a bit odd, doesn’t it?”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Don’t get cute with me, Skipper.”
“The truth?”
Janet nodded.
“Well, cutting the enemy’s supply lines was always an objective. It was—and it is—a worthy mission. Well worth the risk, even by itself.”
“But?”
“I suppose I did lose a few details to hazy thinking while concentrating on my other plan. This is Plan B, after all.”
“And?”
“And the original plan called for ten starships.”
“Skipper!”
Janet’s flaming eyes told him that she was in no mood for further teasing. Cook squinted and scratched his ear, but decided he was having too much fun to stop.
“So?” she demanded at last.
“So?” Cook stiffened his back proudly, as if the explanation were self-explanatory. “I was hoping to find the Cloud pretty much as we found it, tailing off just past Girshoona, providing a clear shot into the heart of Crutchta. And I thought that, once past the front, we’d find that the Crutchtans are without reserves to speak of. I guess we’ll never really know for sure. At least, not for a while. Though, of course you know that— ”
Janet’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Skipper—!”
“Well, sailing ten starships into the middle of Crutchta would have carried the war right into the enemy’s homeland. It would have forced them to choose between calling their fleet back from the front to meet us, or letting us roam freely in their home skies. Or so it seemed to me, anyway. Unmolested, we could lay siege to five or ten of their planets, until they sued for peace. If attacked, we’d destroy whatever forces they sent to meet us—at least, within reason; ten massed starships would let us deal with quite a lot of bother before we ran into serious trouble, you know. And it would open up the front to attack by our main fleet. But whatever we found, we’d have forced them into a strategic crisis. And it would have ended the war within a matter of weeks.”
Cook pounded his fist into his open hand for emphasis.
“At least I think it would have. I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
Janet paled, her eyes wide with amazement.
“You mean...”
Cook laughed roguishly. “Well, it was just a thought.”
“But— ”
“And you know, regulations do give the line commander the discretion to take the initiative, so I really wouldn’t have been disobeying any orders. Not technically, anyway—though I suppose making a hash of things might have gotten me into a spot of trouble, even with Admiral Clay. But when we finally got here it seemed that three ships gave us too small a margin for error, so I just trashed the whole thing and moved on. Except, of course, there were still a few details to sort out. Things should go more smoothly next time.”
Her wits still reeling, Janet shook her head in disbelief. She was about to say something when the page signaled once again.
“On our way,” Cook said into the speaker. Hurrying off at once, he paused just outside the door to the bridge.
“Coming?”
The door caught Janet on her way out of the office. Startled, she waited for it to open again before racing after Cook onto the bridge.
© 2011 by Jeffrey Caminsky
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