Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (23 page)

Chapter 23

On the Spaceship Atlas

Emily walked briskly to the podium as six hundred and twelve Gunboat Wing recruits surged to their feet and stood at attention.  Emily suddenly realized that she was not very comfortable speaking to large audiences.  She wondered if this was how Hiram felt when he had to speak to large groups.

“At ease, but remain standing for the moment,’ she ordered.  She had instinctively almost added “please,” but decided that would not give the impression of command that, today, she needed.

“There are six hundred and twelve of you here, all from the Refuge Gunboat Reserve.”  She paused and looked over the audience.  Slightly less than half of them were women.  They ranged from their mid-twenties to mid-thirties.  They all were looking at her.  “I am told by high-ranking officers of the Refuge Gunboat Wing that you are losers and rejects, not qualified to pilot a Refuge gunboat.  Each one of you, they say, isn’t aggressive enough.  You don’t have what it takes.”

She paused a heartbeat, saw the wave of anger and, in some cases, bitter resentment, sweeping through the auditorium.  Good, she thought.  She wanted them angry.

“I think they are wrong about you.
I
think that they’ve done you an injustice. I’ve looked at your records and in many cases I even took the time to look at your simulator trials.  What they see as lack of aggression, I see as maturity; what they see as weakness, I see as professionalism.”  The auditorium was dead quiet now; the eyes of the recruits were all fixed on her.  Some of those eyes were bright with anticipation, some hard, some pleading for something she wasn’t sure of.  Redemption? 

“What is clear is that the Refuge pilots are willing to die for their world…and they are dying by the hundreds and thousands.  To my way of thinking, that’s a weakness, not strength.

“On the eve of a great battle, an Old Earth general once told an assembly like this one that he didn’t want his soldiers to die for their country, he wanted them to make sure that the enemy soldiers died for
their
country instead.  I think you are the soldiers who can do that.”

There were nods now and some smiles.  Emily sipped from a glass of water, took a breath and continued.

“This is a new program and we have precious little time to train you and develop tactics.  But we mean to take the war to the Dominion, and very soon.  If you join us today, soon you will be flying in harm’s way.  This means commitment.  Total, unstinting commitment.  You will train in the simulators for several hours a day, then fly actual heavy gunboats, then debrief, and then go back to the simulators.  It means long days flying six days a week and classroom study on the seventh day.  You will be students and teachers, for when you see something that just doesn’t work, you’ll be expected to tell us about it immediately.  And if you have ideas for something that will work, or how to make something work better, we want to hear from you.

“Thanks to your Refuge training, all of you have piloting skills, but the heavy gunboats are different, more complex and we need more than just pilots.  In the days and weeks ahead, we will determine which of you will become Pilots or Weapons Officers or Systems Officers.  The heavy gunboats can only function with all three officers.  Assignments will be made strictly on your test scores and the initial simulator trials, then you will be trained in depth in your new role.  This means that you will not ‘fail’ even if you are not chosen to be a pilot.  It means that you each have skills we consider vital to the success of the Heavy Gunboat Wing or you would not be here today.”

They were still on their feet, still watching her, and now it was time to make them commit on an emotional level.

“Make no mistake, some of you will die,” Emily told them bluntly.  “The Heavy Gunboat Wing is intended to find the enemy and attack them.  You will fight often.  It will not always go our way.  Because of the level of commitment we are asking of you in the coming months, and because you are soldiers of an allied world, we can only accept volunteers.  If you remain, you will be sworn in as a member of the Victorian Fleet with the rank of Recruit in the Heavy Gunboat Wing.  If, on the other hand, you decide to leave, there will be no questions asked, no more speeches.  There are shuttles waiting in Bay 14 that will take you back to Refuge in time for supper.”

Emily paused again. She could barely trust herself to speak.  If too many left, the Heavy Gunboat Wing would be stillborn.  She would be personally responsible.

“Once or twice in our lifetimes,” she continued, “we get the opportunity to embrace something bigger than ourselves. This is one of those times.  But you must decide, and you must decide
now
.  I’m sorry you don’t have more time, but that’s the way it is.  Anyone who wishes to return to Refuge is to leave now.  Show your ID to Master Chief Gibson at the back of the auditorium on the way out.”  She looked at the clock on her tablet.  “You have one minute.”  She stepped back away from the podium.  
This should be interesting,
she thought, painfully conscious that she was holding her breath.

For a moment there was no movement, then one tall woman in the middle of a row elbowed her way to the corridor and walked out the back doors.  Everyone looked at her as she left.  Another man stood.  “I’ve got a family now,” he said apologetically.  “Two kids.  It’s too late for me.”  He walked out. Then two more followed him, then more in groups of two and three. 

As they formed a line in the back of the auditorium to show their ID badges, someone called out:  “You’ll never get another chance like this!  Go through that door and you’ll regret it until the day you die.”  One of the recruits in line to leave hesitated, turned back, then shook her head violently and threw up her arms.  “Fuck!” she yelled, half in anger, half in anguish, then turned back again and pushed through the door.  One by one, the rest of those leaving filed past Chief Gibson and then they were gone.

All in all, fifty-nine recruits left.

Five hundred and fifty three remained behind.

Emily slowly let out her breath. 
We have enough left to man one hundred and eighty- four ships,
Emily thought. 
Could have been worse.
  She stepped forward to the podium once more.

“Attention!” bellowed Master Chief Gibson.  Five hundred and fifty-three recruits snapped to attention, eyes to the front.  Many were smiling, while some had tears in their eyes.

“To all of you who have remained, you have my personal thanks and the thanks of the Queen and people of Victoria.”  She paused, caught off guard by the rush of emotion that swept through her.  Her eyes filled with unshed tears.  These were
her
people now, and suddenly the loss of the
New Zealand
seemed inconsequential. She struggled to speak. “I swear to you this: This will be one of the proudest days of your lives.”  She cleared her throat.  “Now to work.”

And sixteen weeks of frantic, mind-numbing training commenced.

Chapter 24

On Qom, Home Planet of the Tilleke Empire

              Prince RaShahid walked through the twenty foot doors into the audience chamber.  He walked past the Savak body guards who lined the approach, careful not to show the slightest hesitation or hint of nervousness.  The Savak could smell fear.  At the end of the approach was the Emperor’s dais.  To the side stood the impaled body of the Arcadian lawyer who had so foolishly offended the Emperor.  He stood now forever dead, a perpetual reminder that in the Court of Emperor Chalabi bad manners came at a cost.

              On either side of the throne sat two large beasts.  They sat like dogs, but their heads were mostly human, with long canine teeth. 
Father has been playing God again
, the Prince thought to himself, but kept his face expressionless.  At the bottom of the throne, he knelt on one knee and bowed his head.

              “You may rise, my son,” Emperor Chalabi said.  “Tell me what you have learned of the Dominion and the Victorians.  How does their war proceed?”

              “For the moment, they are in stalemate, Father,” said the Prince.  “Both sides have taken tremendous losses, but the Dominion will be moving reinforcements up from their naval yards soon and that could tip the balance.”

              The Emperor considered this.  “You say they have taken losses.  What is their status?”

              “From the reports we have intercepted, I would say the Victorians have no more than forty warships, while the Dominions have no more than fifty.”

              Emperor Chalabi nodded.  He already knew this from his other spies, but it was always worth seeing if the Prince would be truthful.  He knew the day would come when his son’s ambition would overcome his fear.  In the meantime, however, he had other enemies to contend with.

              “Good,’ he said.  “It is always good when your enemies kill each other.”

              “They are so weak now that we could probably destroy them,” Prince RaShahid said.

              The Emperor smiled inwardly.  Who was testing who?  “Perhaps, my son, but there is no reason for haste.  Let them grind each other down in a war of attrition.  Every day they grow weaker and we grow stronger.  When only one of them is left, bloody and reeling, then we will step in and take what we wish.”

              Prince RaShahid bowed and withdrew.  The Emperor watched him go, a touch of melancholy in his heart.  He had such hopes for this son.  He would hate to lose him.

Chapter 25

On Atlas Space Station

              The conference room was guarded by four heavily armed Marines.  There were no recording devices, no assistants, no one attending who did not have an absolute need to know.  The audience was small: Admiral Douthat, Captain Eder, Queen Anne, Sir Henry, Hiram Brill and Emily Tuttle. 

               The speaker was Abbot Cornelia, the highest ranking member of The Light.

                "This is the wormhole map as you know it," Cornelia said, flashing a picture on the screen.  They all recognized it.  Every child in the Human Universe learned it in first grade.

              “Victoria is at the center, with all of its wondrous wormhole entrances to other Sectors,” Abbot Cornelia continued.  “Like a great building with many entrances and exits, it has been your strength and, as you have discovered, your weakness.  Perhaps the most striking thing about this map, however, is that all of the wormholes depicted on it are two-way.  You can leave and enter a Sector using the same wormhole.”

              “But that is not the way all wormholes work,” she explained.  “Many wormhole entrances, in fact most of them, are one-way, not two-way.  You can go from Point A to Point B, but not back again using that wormhole.”

Her words were met with a baffled silence.  She smiled.  “These wormhole entrances are hard to find; the scientists of The Light spent hundreds of years locating them.  The real wormhole map looks like this.”  Another map appeared.

This map did not show the traditional map of the Human Universe with a handful of black lines depicting wormholes.  This map showed a riot of lines with arrows on them connecting sectors all over the Human Universe.  There were three times as many wormholes and more than on the old map.

              A murmur of astonishment and disbelief rose around the conference table.  The Abbot nodded.  “That’s right, the Human Universe is not like you believe it to be.  There are many more wormholes.”  The Abbot’s eyes traced the path.  “The present task is to get to the Dominion without passing through the Refuge/Victoria wormhole.  To do this, we leave Refuge space and go to the old Solar System, then on to the Sultenic Empire.  From there we go to Gilead, and from there to the Dominion itself.  We will come out near a large asteroid belt, several days from Timor.”

              “And how long will the travel from wormhole to wormhole take?” demanded Admiral Douthat.

             
“Not very long, Admiral.  The wormhole entrances tend to be close together, if you know how to look for them.  From here you could expect your task force to reach the Dominion in two days.  Brother Jong will go with you to provide navigation assistance.”

              “There goes Victoria’s shipping monopoly,” Sir Henry muttered darkly.

              Hiram Brill cleared his throat.  He was the most junior officer in the room, but no one else seemed to be asking the question he thought was obvious.  Abbot Cornelia looked at him, eyebrows raised.

              “Abbot, you’ve told us how we can get into Dominion space, but how do we get
out
?  Is there a one-way wormhole we can use to retreat after the attack?”

              Everyone turned to the Abbot.  She shook her head.  “There are three ways out of Dominion space that we are aware of.  You can fly the old trade route to Sybil Head, or you can go through the wormhole into Victoria, or you can go through a one-way wormhole to Gilead.  Once you are back inside Victorian space, there are several wormholes – all one way – which you can use depending on what you want to do next.”

              “And the one-way wormhole to Gilead is located where?” Hiram asked.

              “Less than a day’s travel from Timor.”

“So we can sneak in, but when we leave it means going near Timor on the way out,” Captain Eder said, exchanging a glance with Admiral Douthat.  They both knew what that meant. The Ducks would have heavy patrols around Timor. The raiding force would have to be beefed up at the expense of the forces guarding the Victorian/Refuge wormhole.  If the Dominions figured out the wormhole was less well defended, well, that did not bear thinking about.

              Admiral Douthat folded her hands and looked at the new wormhole map for a long time.  She thought about the stalemate at the Refuge/Victoria wormhole.  She thought about a secret shipyard in the Dominion Sector.  She thought of the
Laughing Owl.
   She turned to Hiram Brill.  “Your project is a ‘go,’ Brill.  But I’m going to add on a little extra assignment.”  She grinned evilly.  “I think you’ll like it.  Captain Eder will be in charge, so you’ll have
Lionheart
and three destroyers and a cruiser in support, plus every damn heavy gunboat we can scrape up in time to go with you.”

              She looked at Emily.  “Commander, how soon can your Wing be ready, and in what strength?”

              Emily frowned.  It was too soon, just plain too soon.  “Ma’am, we’ve had the training stations for two weeks and have only just begun serious training in the gunboats themselves.  The crews are coming along faster than I’d have thought possible, but we need more time to bring them up to anything close to combat readiness.”

              Douthat shook her head.  “I have everything but time, Commander.  You’ve got four weeks, then we go.  We’ll put all of the training stations on a freighter and continue to train on the trip to Dominion, but that’s the best we can do.  Make your people understand and push them hard.”

              She stood up on short legs.  “Get back to work, everyone.  Captain Eder, I have an idea I want to try out on you.”