“Meet
me in Arms Four,” she said and clicked off.
Worried
by the cryptic call, he hurried to the arms room near the main hanger deck.
Their combined landing force, including
Mmok’s robots, had suited up and was outside, practicing ship-boarding
tactics.
Shasti should be with them.
Instead,
he found her in her small office near the weapons storage area, suited up but
with her helmet off, watching a security monitor.
She looked up from the monitor as he
entered.
On it he could see ASAT’s and
LEAF’s scrambling over the ship’s hull.
“What’s
up?” he asked.
She
gestured at the screen.
“Greywold.”
“Damn.
He acting up again?” Fenaday said
wearily.
“For
the last time,” she said grimly.
“I have
him out on the tail end of the ship, alone.
I need you to make it sound like I’m still onboard.
I’m a simulated casualty in the war
game.
They won’t be looking for me.
I’ll need a minute to get there, kill him and
get back.
I’ll make it look enough like
an accident so we won’t have problems when we get back to the Confederacy.
People will get the message anyway.”
Ice
formed in his stomach.
I’ve grown too comfortable around her,
he
thought.
She’s not people, as I know people.
Christ, I used to think the corporate lawyers were cutthroats.
I wonder if someday I’ll find myself on the
losing side of some such calculation with
her?
“No,”
he blurted.
“What?”
“You
can’t just kill him,” he said, trying to keep the shock out of his voice.
“He’s
a liability,” she said impatiently.
“He’s not working out.
You know
we stand balanced on a knife’s edge here.
We need control and he threatens that control.
He also provides me with a tailor-made chance
to enforce discipline and lose nothing more than a weakling.”
They
stared at each other.
“Find
another way,” he said.
“You’re
being a fool,” she said.
“He’s more
useful this way.”
“No,”
he said quietly.
“Don’t bring this up
again.”
He turned and left, knees
shaking.
*****
On
the eleventh day of the voyage in from the system’s edge, they came within
direct range of Enshar with their own more sophisticated instruments.
Fenaday stood on the bridge, with a full
crew, plus Duna, Mmok, and Rigg.
Shasti
was also there.
She and Fenaday were
still recovering from the aborted assassination of the day before, carefully
stepping in the delicate dance they’d done before when one or the other
overstepped a boundary.
The
main view screen lit.
Simultaneously
several parts of the screen began to display different views, some visual, some
radar or infra-red.
“Enshar,”
Duna said raptly.
The word held a
devotion about it.
“Enshar, with my own
eyes.”
“Massive
radar contact,” announced Hafel, “right where expected.”
The screen switched to a debris field.
Nothing recognizable showed, just points of
reflected light.
“My
God,” Katrina Micetich said, “I saw
Bifor
Station once from a freighter.
It was
huge.
You could see it from the ground
in daylight.
What could destroy
something like that?
Murbicko
was even larger than
Bifor
.”
“And
it’s gone too,” Fenaday snapped.
“Ancient history, Micetich.
I
want a geosynchronous orbit over the city of Gigor in the Northern States.
Coordinates are in the computer.
Set up the course, Mr. Nye, and transfer it
to her station.
“Hafel,
keep a close eye on radar.
There’s a lot
of junk in orbit.
I don’t want to be
holed.
“Gunners,
keep a radar lock as well.
Open fire on
anything vectoring in on us that does not emit current IFF.
Weapons are free.”
Twenty
minutes of maneuvering inserted
Sidhe
into orbit at a height of one hundred fifty kilometers.
She ghosted over a world emptied of
intelligent life.
Animals moved on the
face of the world, infesting its cities and fields.
The domed cities stood largely intact.
Little of the ruination could be seen
although rents and burned places marred some domes.
“We’re
coming up on initial orbit over Gigor base,” Nye said.
“Gigor was home to Enshar’s space forces and
it’s where the Confederate fleet’s shuttles landed.”
Shasti
gestured with a long, elegant finger.
“There they are.”
“Maximum
magnification, Hafel,” Fenaday said.
Sidhe’s
optics could focus on a can of
rations from her height.
Three
Wolverine
assault shuttles from the
original landing force Telisan had accompanied leapt into stark focus.
Other than being overgrown by grasses, they
seemed unchanged from the moment of their landing over three years
earlier.
“Deploy
probes,” ordered Fenaday.
These dropped
from
Sidhe
, parachuting to landings
around Gigor and other locations.
It
took the rest of the first orbit to deploy all ten of them.
“The
only remarkable thing about the probes,” Mourner announced after the second
orbit, “is their survival.
They’ve
landed and begun sensing—air: normal, water: normal, radiation: normal, soil:
normal, no detectable biohazard, and no detectable chemical weapons.
It seems that, other than for the overnight
extermination of the Enshari people, Enshar itself is a normal world.”
As
they continued to cruise over the planet-sized tomb, Fenaday watched Duna’s joy
at seeing his home evaporate.
The old
scholar gazed at the world that gave birth to his species and then murdered its
offspring.
Telisan stood next to him, a
hand on the Enshari’s shoulder, his face drawn with worry.
Duna had not left the bridge since they
reached instrument range ten hours before.
“Belwin,”
Telisan said, “perhaps some rest—”
“No,
my young friend.
I am here to fight
whatever it is that has taken our planet, and that means a study of the
disaster.
I draw great solace from the
fact that our probes, unlike the fleet probes, have not gone inactive.
Still, against the weight of the empty world
below, that fact seems a slim reed on which to rest one’s hope for survival.”
The
two walked over to Fenaday’s chair.
“What now, Captain?” Duna asked.
“A
proper government research vessel,” Fenaday said in a low voice, “might spend
weeks or months studying Enshar before attempting a landing.
Even as well-equipped as we are, we don’t
have those resources.
I also have doubts
about keeping
Sidhe’s
crew in line
while so close to Enshar for an extended period.
The ship is a powder keg.
In the end, regardless of tests, only one
thing will tell us if Enshar is habitable—a landing.”
“I
fear that you are right, Captain,” Duna said.
“We’ll
see what the scientists have after the first day’s orbit,” Fenaday concluded.
*****
Another
day passed.
They learned nothing they
did not know before.
After the end of
their second day in orbit, Fenaday called a staff meeting.
The doctors, scientists and technicians gave
sometimes lengthy reports.
The
information summed up easily.
“We’re
getting nothing from orbit,” Fenaday said.
“Animal tests won’t tell us anything.
We can see plenty of animals from orbit.
The sole new factor is the continued existence of our electronic probes
on world.
That fact does not change my
opinion; it’s not safe to land the
Sidhe
.
We will proceed with the final plan.
I’ll take a
Wildcat
fighter and attempt a landing.
If anything threatens, I’ll abort, if I can,
and that will be the end of this attempt on Enshar.
If nothing goes wrong, then I’ll go for a
landing.
Provided I am not attacked
within an hour of that landing, the shuttles under Commander Rainhell will land
three hours later.
Our force will
establish a perimeter on world and begin the investigation.
The
room stirred at his announcement.
Some
faces bore eager expressions; others looked at him as if he was already dead.
“Any
questions?” he asked.
“Yes,”
began Telisan, “though it is not a question.
There are two fighters on the
Sidhe
.
I wish to take the other one and accompany
you.
One man alone cannot face whatever
is down there.”
“If
there is something down there,” Fenaday replied, “all you could do is die with
me.
One is enough to find out.”
“No,”
replied Telisan equally firmly.
“You
signed me as executive officer based on my experience as a wing commander in
the war.
Take my advice now.
I would never send a single pilot on such a
task.
You cannot watch your back and
perform a mission.
That is what wingmen
are for.
“There
is an old saying among my people,” Telisan continued, “‘one man alone on a wall
is half a man.
Two men can be an
army.’
I tell you,” he finished, with
more passion than Fenaday had seen the easy-going Denlenn exhibit before, “that
you cannot face this alone.
There is no
one else aboard who can handle a fighter with a tenth my skill.
You need a wingman.
I am that wingman.”
“Makes
sense,” Mmok chipped in.
“It
does,” Duna added.
“I wish it did not.”
“I
know you lost friends there—” Fenaday began.
“This
has nothing to do with that,” interrupted the Denlenn.
“I swore I would serve the
Sidhe
as I served the
Empress Aran
.
I am of the Selen clan, which would mean
little to you but much among Denleni.
The name is synonymous with duty and honor.
I have striven all my life to meet that
standard.
This is my first chance to
begin to make payment on that promise.
For the sake of my own soul, I must begin to make good on my oath.
“We
fight to save a race from extinction.
I
will not have it said that I held back any measure of strength or will, in such
a cause.
My life is of no account
against what we seek to accomplish.
I
would give it gladly to advance our cause but an inch.”
There
was silence in the room.
Fenaday looked
the Denlenn in the eye.
I forgot such people actually exist,
he
thought.
“Telisan,”
he said, “I would be honored to have you on my wing.
Thank you.”
*****
The
Denlenn inclined his head, mostly to hide his relief.
He had given an oath both to Duna and to
Fenaday and been caught between them.
He
had done little on his pledge to the human.
Now, at last, came a chance for redemption.
If Fenaday died because Duna’s suspicions—mad
though they seemed—were true, he would not die alone.
If anything could be done to save his
captain, Telisan would be there to do it.
Selen honor demanded nothing less.
*****
Fenaday
and Rainhell stood at the same moment, exchanging a long glance.
She seemed on the verge of saying something,
then
turned away.
*****
After
the staff meeting Fenaday retired to his cabin.
In fourteen hours, he would drop into Enshar’s atmosphere.
He tried to read but could not concentrate.
Sleep eluded him.
He
paced in his cabin, the largest on board but still small.
In one corner of the bedroom hung a beautiful
photo of Lisa, taken soon after their marriage.
He looked at it for several minutes.
Sometimes, he could almost feel her presence in the room.
Better media existed for such images.
For a while, he had a holographic imager that
would show her walking and talking from tapes they made.
One day he caught himself talking to the
image as if it were real.
A pleasant
little fantasy, he told himself, he’d only indulge himself for a few
seconds.
The holo played for hours
before he recognized it as the first step in a descent into madness.
Tonight, he looked, remembered and felt
nothing.
The picture remained just a
picture on a wall.
He was alone, and the
room was too quiet.