Alarm of War, Book II: The Other Side of Fear (4 page)

    Chapter 3

On Timor, the Dominion Home World

Anthony Nasto studied them calmly, his look one of mild puzzlement.  To see the Citizen Director calmly and quietly waiting for answer to his questions was enough to make Michael Hudis break into a cold sweat.

Anthony Nasto was a man of great passions; calmness was foreign to him.

Anthony Nasto did not tolerate failure or forgive mistakes.  When things went wrong, when plans derailed, Anthony Nasto punished the wrongdoers in a manner that rendered them incapable of making mistakes again.  He believed this inspired people to do their very best the first time.

Michael Hudis wondered bleakly if he would get out of the room alive.

“Explain to me, if you will,” Nasto asked conversationally, “how it happened that you went into battle with over one hundred and seventy ships, vastly outnumbering the Vickies, and now our fleet is destroyed and the Vicky bitch queen and her space station are inside of Refuge?”

Hudis, always the survivor, remained silent, but glanced meaningfully at Admiral Kaeser.  Kaeser stared at him coldly for a moment, then nodded once, a short nod that both acknowledged that the burden was on him, and at the same time dismissed Hudis as irrelevant.

“Citizen Director, let me start by saying that I understand my life is forfeit,” the Admiral replied.   Even Citizen Director Nasto blinked at the simple truth of that.

“Admiral Mello was in charge of the larger of the two task forces.  When I arrived at Cornwall – on time, as my log will show, Admiral Mello’s task force was not there.  One of the Victorian space stations had been destroyed, but the other was missing.  It simply was not present.  There was no frigate waiting with instructions, nor a space buoy left by Admiral Mello.  In accordance with the Battle Plan, I waited for him to show up or get word to me.  This is not only in the Battle Plan for this operation, but is standard procedure.”

The Citizen Director nodded slowly.  “All very well, Admiral Kaeser, but tell me how it came about that you lost so many of my ships?”

“With respect, sir, I did not.  When Admiral Mello finally contacted me, he placed me under arrest and assumed command of my task force.  He then attacked the Victorian column and when he encountered their minefield, used his ships to detonate the mines in order to clear a path.”

Nasto stared at him incredulously for a long moment.  “He
what?”
 

“Citizen Director, Admiral Mello believed in the concept of the ‘Decisive Battle,’ that if you could force a battle involving most of the enemy’s forces in one place, you could then decisively defeat them and win not only the battle, but the war as well.  It is an old notion, but one that has been applied to good effect many times throughout history.  He spoke of this often.  From his actions, I assume that he thought
this
was the ‘Decisive Battle’ he hoped for. Apparently Admiral Mello thought that if he could break through the minefield while the main Victorian defense force was far away clearing a path to the wormhole, he could then capture or destroy the Atlas space station. There was only a light covering force protecting it.  Without the Atlas space station, the Victorians would be utterly defeated. He did penetrate the minefield, but at the cost of a significant number of his ships.  Even then he might have been able to pull it off.”  He paused.

Anthony Nasto frowned.  “Don’t stop now, Admiral Kaeser.  I am quivering with anticipation.” 

Hudis felt his knees grow weak.  Humor?  From Anthony Nasto?  Did Admiral Kaeser understand the danger he was in?

Kaeser saw Hudis flinch at Nasto’s heavy handed humor. 
You are a spineless worm,
he thought coldly, and promised himself that one day he would take care of him.  The Dominion of Unified Citizenry would be a better place without Michael Hudis in it.  On the other hand, he acknowledged wryly, he himself probably wouldn’t be alive at the end of the day.

“The problem, Citizen Director, was that before the
Vengeance
could launch its attack, it was boarded by a contingent of Victorian Fleet Marines.  They seized the ship and killed Admiral Mello.”

Nasto stared at him, unblinking.   He had seen the tape of the Victorian Marine thrusting a spear clean through Mello’s body.  “And what did you do, Admiral?”  His voice was soft.

And here it was.  Admiral Kaeser took a breath.  Live or die on this answer.

“I did my duty, Citizen Director,” he replied evenly.  “Admiral Mello had given us an opportunity, however foolhardy the cost.  I sent a boarding party to retake the
Vengeance
while I led the cruisers on hand to make an assault on the Atlas.  By the time we could pursue it, however, it had reached the wormhole to Refuge.  I shot several antimatter missiles into the wormhole in hopes of a hit, but missed.”

Nasto pursed his lips, his eyes drifting away in thought.  “And now we are in stalemate,” he said.  Not a question.

“For the moment, perhaps,” Kaeser acknowledged, “but our shipyard at Siegestor is already tooled for warships and Atlas has been producing nothing but transport freighters for the last ten years.  It will take them time to retool, time to find adequate resources in an asteroid field, and time to train new crews.  During that time we will be producing enough warships for us to break through the wormhole defenses and destroy Atlas once and for all.  Without Atlas, Victoria is dead.”

Nasto glanced questioningly at Hudis.  “And are there any
alternative
measures being contemplated?”

“Yes, Citizen Director.  As you know, the wormhole moves, sometimes abruptly.  This allows us to slip in some small ships unseen.  We have managed to land forty men onto Haifa.  We believe that the new Victorian Queen, Anne, is staying on the planet.  With a little luck we can locate her and launch an attack.  She does not have a living successor and her death would throw the Victorians into disorder.”

Nasto nodded.  “Very well, gentlemen.  Although a great opportunity was lost, you seem to be recovering as well as can be expected under the circumstances.”  He gazed at each of them in turn.  “Let there not be a repeat of any of these mistakes in the future.”  He stood in dismissal.

Admiral Kaeser cleared his throat.  “Citizen Director, if I may?”

Nasto raised an eyebrow in question.

“When the Victorian Marines boarded the
Vengeance
, it appears they used a device from the Tilleke Empire,” Kaeser said.  “Some sort of molecular transportation device.”

Nasto sat back down.  “And do we know how they came to have such a device?” 

“There were only two Victorian survivors of the attack on the
Vengeance,
a Marine sergeant and a private.  Under questioning they told us everything they know about the devices, but unfortunately they knew very little.  The devices had been captured by ships of the Victorian First Fleet.  Neither of the prisoners had any idea of how they worked.  There are three copies of the device in Victorian hands, so we can assume the Victorians will be studying them quite urgently.”  Admiral Kaeser shrugged.  “We have to assume that the Victorians will soon know how to make them.”

“Do they know anything about the Siegestor shipyard?” Nasto asked.

“The prisoners did not, sir, but that is hardly surprising.  If the Victorians know about it, it is unlikely that they would disclose such a thing to a private and a non-commissioned officer.”

Nasto stroked his chin.  The thought that the Vickies had Tilleke technology that the Tilleke had not shared with the Dominion was disquieting, but not surprising.  The Emperor Chalabi was secretive, paranoid and completely untrustworthy.  He smiled inwardly –no doubt the Tilleke were using the Dominions as much as the Dominions were using them. Another thought struck him: Had the Vickies really captured the transportation technology, or had the Tilleke given it to them to help them in their war with the Dominion?  That would bear thinking about.

“Admiral, did either of the prisoners survive the DID’s questioning?” he asked.

Kaeser nodded.  “Both of them, Citizen Director.  I gave explicit instructions that they were to be questioned with chemicals, as opposed to the, ah, more direct methods that the DID is fond of.”

“And where are they now?”  No matter how hard he tried, he had not been able to crush all of the subversive groups that challenged his rule.  It would not do for the Vicky prisoners to fall into the wrong hands.

Michael Hudis answered: “When I learned of the situation, I had them transferred to the
Tartarus,
Citizen Director, and ordered it to go to Siegestor.  I thought it best that the prisoners be kept somewhere discrete.”

Nasto suppressed a wince.  The
Tartarus
was a prison ship run by the Dominion Intelligence Directorate and its reputation lived up to its mythological name: the deepest, darkest part of the underworld.  He had personally ordered many of his political rivals to the
Tartarus
and their deaths had been neither quick nor painless.

Hudis saw Nasto’s reaction and understood it.  “I gave strict instructions that they both be kept alive, sir.”

Nasto nodded slowly.  “Okay then, at present levels of production, how long before you launch a decisive attack into Refuge?”

“Four months, sir,” Admiral Kaeser answered briskly.  “Between the ships we have on hand and the ships that will come off the productions lines from Siegestor in four months, we should have a sufficient advantage to punch through their wormhole defenses and take out the Atlas space station.  The one caveat to this is that if the Victorians try to break out of Refuge to retake their planet, we might lose enough ships in pushing them back to delay our time table.”

Nasto nodded and turned toward Michael Hudis.  “In that case, Michael, I want to send you on an errand.”

Hudis nodded warily.   “Of course, sir.”

“In four months Admiral Kaeser will be ready to launch an all-out assault.  In the meantime, I want you to go to Refuge under diplomatic immunity.  You know what to do.”

Hudis smiled.  He understood treachery.  “Of course, Citizen Director.”

Chapter 4

Atlas Mountains, Refuge

Emily stepped off the shuttle.  The pilot, who looked young enough to have just graduated from grade school, gave her a jaunty thumbs up and lifted the bird in a vertical takeoff, hovered briefly at one hundred feet, then accelerated away in a roar of noise and wind.  The kid was so obviously trying to impress the visiting Vicky officer that it made her smile.  And she was impressed; the way the pilot flew her approach, Emily had been sure they were going to crash.

She looked around.  She was on the edge of a large village.  To the east were rolling plains, all under cultivation, but to the west the Atlas Mountains rose majestically, the lower slopes covered with thick forests and the upper slopes covered in snow.  She was dressed in hiking clothes, with warm boots as instructed, and carried only one knapsack.

But why the hell was she here?  Admiral Douthat had been rather cagey about that.  She’d called Emily before breakfast to tell her she was being dispatched for ten days.  “You’re officially on leave, Tuttle,” the Admiral had said.  “Dress for hiking in the mountains and pack a camera.  But while you’re there, I want you to learn as much as you can about this society.  We owe Refuge our lives, but the fact of it is that we really don’t know them.  Learn what you can and see me when you get back and we’ll talk about your ship assignment.”

Emily suspected that the Fleet Surgeon, Dr. Wilkinson, was behind this somehow and she wasn’t at all sure how she felt about that.  Then she saw a man leading three horses through the village.  He shouted something she didn’t quite hear and waived, smiling broadly at her.  This, presumably, was her guide.  She waited patiently as he drew near, puzzled that as he got closer he seemed more and more familiar.  Finally he stood before her, grinning and showing white teeth.  He was tall, with swarthy skin weathered from the sun and wind.  He sported a thick black beard, neatly trimmed and he placed his right hand over his heart and bowed slightly.

“All honor to you, Emily Tuttle,” he said, with the lilting accent of Refuge.  He laughed.  “You don’t remember me, do you?”  And hearing his voice, the puzzle finally fell into place.

“Rafael!” she laughed, and somewhat to her own surprise, gave him an impulsive hug.  “I didn’t recognize you with your beard!”  Rafael Eitan laughed as well, holding her back at arms’ length and studying her.

“It is good to see you, Emily.”  He cocked his head, looking at her.  “You have changed since I saw you last at Killarney Bridge, Emily.  You are just as beautiful, but sadder, I think.  You have seen much of this war, yes?”

Emily shook her head, taken aback by the rush of emotion that gripped her.  She had met Rafael during the last of the war games at Camp Gettysburg.  She had been in charge of the company assigned to take a critical bridge crossing so that Rafael’s company could transport some vital cargo to a road junction named, unimaginatively, ‘Four Corners.’   They’d bypassed the heavily defended bridge and forded across the river.  They’d won the war game, but Emily had learned her first lesson in the dark side of leadership when two of her troops had drowned in an accident while crossing the river.

And now, after a war that was barely three months old and had already taken over a million lives, she felt like her soul was so stained with blood and guilt that she would never be the same.

“Rafael, what is going on?  This morning I was told to take a ten day leave and to meet my ‘guide’ here.”  She stepped forward and peered at him closely.  “You are not a mountain guide, Rafael Eitan, you’re a soldier.  So why are you here?”

Rafael laughed.  “Well, today I am a mountain guide, Emily.  My boss called me this morning as well and told me I was assigned to guide you to the Temple of Ait Driss, high up in the mountains.  I am from this region and know it well, so today I am not a designer of space fortresses, but a simple mountain guide.  Will that serve, Emily?”

She frowned in thought.  The Temple of Ait Driss had been built as a shrine several decades after the first settlers had landed on Refuge, but she couldn’t remember why or what its significance was.  Something about a group of colonists who had been slaughtered by…  She shook her head in frustration.  Then one of the horses snorted and she stared at it.

“Rafael, horses?” she asked in puzzlement.

“Oh, yes, Emily,” he said warmly.  “The road ends at this village.  There are no roads up into the mountains, only trails.  So, we will ride until it is too rough, then we will lead the horses and walk.  It will be fun, you will see!”

Emily laughed.  “I haven’t been on a horse since I was fourteen, but I was mad for them as a girl.  Once my dad died and we moved to the city, I never got a chance to ride again.”  She stepped closer to the brown mare with the white blaze on her forehead.  The horse smelled of earth and oiled leather, with a faint touch of good old fashioned horse manure thrown in.  The mare snorted and nudged Emily with her nose.

“What’s her name?”

“Well, she has a long Berber name,
Tislit n Azwu,
which means ‘Bride of the Wind,” and a Hebrew name,
Kalat Haruach,
which means the same thing.  But I call her ‘Rosie.’”

“That’s a lot for one horse,” Emily said dryly.

Rafael gave her a leg up onto the horse, strapped her knapsack onto the pack horse and expertly mounted his gelding.  “We have a full day’s ride to the Ouididi village where we’ll stay the night.  Tomorrow, we’ll head up higher into the mountains and should reach Ait Driss by mid-day on the third day.”

Emily squirmed around in the saddle trying to get comfortable – it had been a long time - but Rosie trotted on unconcerned.  A few villagers stopped and waived, but it was still early and soon they were out of the village, crossing a small field and entering a path that would take them through the tree line and up into the mountains.

It was only as they entered the trees that Emily saw the unmistakable outline of a pulser pistol under Rafael’s jacket.  Why would a designer of space forts carry a pulser pistol?  She trotted her horse up alongside of his.

“Raf, I know that I’m supposed to be on leave, relaxing and having a good time, and I know that we’re going to have a quiet, beautiful ride up the mountain to the Temple.  So why, I wonder, are you packing a pulser pistol under your jacket?”

Rafael looked at her in surprise.  “But Emily, you must know of the grogin, yes?”

“Who are the grogin?” she asked, searching her memory for any mention of some hostile indigenous tribe that lived in the Atlas Mountains.

Rafael laughed again.  He laughed a lot; it was a nice laugh.  “Not ‘who,’ Emily, but ‘what.’  The grogin are predators.  They hunt in large packs, like your wolves on Christchurch, but maybe more like the hyenas on Old Earth.  They are very ferocious, the grogin, but they live higher in the mountains, above the Ouididi village, so I am thinking we will not see any before we reach the village.”

“So why the pulser pistol?”

“Because with grogin, you can never be sure,” he laughed.  “It is like they taught us at the Academy, yes?  A good soldier must always honor the threat.  But do not worry, when we move higher on the mountain, I will see to it that we both have rifles and we will carry a portable electric shield that we will use at night.  It is very safe, you’ll see.”

Emily could feel her eyes popping wide in her head and her expression must have given her away, for Rafael laughed again and put a comforting hand on her shoulder.  “These are just precautions, yes?  I lived in these mountains all my life before the Academy and never had a serious problem with the grogin.”  He paused, reflecting.  “Well, maybe once or twice.”

“Gods of Our Mothers!” Emily said, but she was smiling.  “This doesn’t sound like a relaxing vacation; it sounds like one of those lunatic survival programs on the vids.”

He laughed again and touched her shoulder once more.  “No, no, Emily, you will see.  And in the meantime, you are in the most beautiful mountains in the Human Universe!”

And for no particular reason, Emily laughed with him, and decided that she liked it when he touched her.  That thought made her laugh again and shake her head at her foolishness.  Rosie’s ears twitched in reply and the sun caressed her face.  She was suddenly conscious of clouds sailing through the sky. 

Then, because her damn mind never knew when to stop, another thought came unbidden:  Rafael’s hands were hard and had ridges of callous.  The only other people she knew with hands like that were coal miners from Christchurch.

And Fleet Marines.

She looked after him thoughtfully.

* * * *

Queen Anne was on the cruiser H.M.S.
Wellington
, awaiting an unwelcome visitor.  She idly tapped her fingers on her arm rest, thinking out the moves ahead.  Negotiations were a lot like Chaos Chess; you could plan your moves, but had to be ready for the unexpected disaster.  Unknowingly, she hummed a nursery rhyme.

Hiram Brill felt out of his depths.  He understood gathering intelligence and he understood tactics and strategy, but he had no experience with diplomacy.  “I don’t understand, what do they expect to gain from this?” he asked Sir Henry.

Sir Henry, the veteran of many disputes and countless negotiations, looked at him calmly.  “Time, Mr. Brill.  Distraction and time.”

Queen Anne pursed her lips.  “They are coming to take our temperature, Commander.  They want to see if we are nervous, uncertain, given to empty blustering, or, if they are very lucky, we are already defeated and desperate to get the best terms we can.”

“Majesty, what if they only want to distract you so that they can prepare another attack through the wormhole?”  Hiram ventured.

Queen Anne exchanged a look with Sir Henry.  They both smiled and looked almost fondly at Hiram.  Hiram looked from one to the other and sighed.  “Okay, that was incredibly stupid, of course they want to stall us while they prepare another attack.  But if you know that, why even bother to see the Dominion envoy at all?”

Sir Henry answered.  “Mr. Brill, for the moment the armed struggle is at stalemate.  That means that the contest is now about the
will to fight
of each nation.  We want to undermine their will to fight, as they want to undermine ours.  If your enemy can make you believe that you are defeated, that it is hopeless to continue to fight,
then you are defeated
.”  Sir Henry looked at him evenly.  “Do you understand?”

Hiram nodded, just a trifle uncertainly.

“While there are many ways to attack your enemy’s will to fight, in the end you are basically doing two things.”  Sir Henry held out his left hand.  “You are trying to create doubt or, conversely–“ he held out his right hand – “you are trying to create complacency.”

“Or both at the same time,” Queen Anne added, “because one can heighten the impact of the other.”

Hiram shook his head.  It seemed almost…silly.

Sir Henry read his thoughts.  “Never underestimate the value of doubt, Mr. Brill.  Doubt breeds uncertainty.  Uncertainty breeds indecision and anxiety and they in turn make for mistaken judgments.  Doubt can be worth an extra battleship or two, and since we are somewhat lacking in battleships, we will use the tools we have at hand.

“And
complacency
is even more valuable. Complacency is often based on bias, and bias is nothing more than the assumption of superiority without the benefit of any critical analysis. If we can confirm their
biases
, convince them that we are
weak
, then they might just attack when they should not, or fail to take some prudent defensive position that we can exploit.”  Sir Henry smiled wryly.  “And once we exploit their complacency, then of course the Dominion will succumb to doubt and uncertainty.  It’s all to the good, you see.”  He smiled, showing long teeth yellowed with age.

The Dominion envoy was due to arrive by courier ship in another fifteen minutes or so.  Sir Henry had insisted that the meeting be held on the
Wellington
rather than either the battleship
Lionheart
or the Atlas.  It was important that the Dominion envoy not see how strong the Victorian fleet was.  The
Wellington
had been pretty beaten up during the last two Dominion assaults.  It was scorched, dented and one small Dominion missile had even penetrated the hull and exploded, wrecking the crew quarters and one of the service bays.  The
Lionheart
had simply moved to the other side of the asteroid belt and gone into stealth mode.  Space station Atlas, meanwhile, was being towed deep
into
the asteroid belt and would be placed there, matching speeds with the asteroids around it.  ‘Hiding the fine china in the trash heap,’ was how Opinsky referred to it.  Captain Murphy’s tugs had spent days clearing a path into the asteroid belt, then more days towing the asteroids back into position to close the path behind Atlas.  It was now virtually invisible to sensors.  

As long as Atlas was not smashed to pieces by one of the dozens of thousand ton asteroids swirling around it, the Queen mused ruefully, everything would be great.

Hiram looked at the older man skeptically.  “Why would their envoy trust anything you say?”