“They’re
all dead,” Captain Demidov said, passing a shaky hand through her gray-streaked
hair.
“Gods,”
Telisan whispered, chills running through him.
Billions of Enshari gone, along with thousands of other Confederate
citizens, the scale of the catastrophe numbed the mind.
Demidov
dropped into her chair, looking weary for the first time in Telisan’s
experience.
She waved a hand at the
expedition’s chief scientist, a dark-skinned human male.
“Fill them in, Doctor.”
The
scientist walked over to the screen.
“Our
probes show millions of corpses on the upper levels of their underground
cities,” he said, his voice grave.
“We
see trains wrecked and strewn off grav-rails.
Thousands of ocean-going vessels are still afloat, but drifting or
steaming to no purpose.”
He gestured at
the one of the screens showing a metallic splatter in a field.
“Destroyed aircraft litter the planet’s
surface.
All movement we’ve detected is
either robotic or animal in nature.
All
forms of intelligent life on Enshar are gone.
We are assuming some sort of chemical or biological attack, though there
is some evidence of direct-fire weapon being used.”
Demidov
nodded to the scientist who sat down at his station and stared at the deck.
“How
can this be?” Telisan asked.
“How could
a Conchirri fleet strike here?
Even at
the height of their strength, an assault on Enshar’s defenses would have been
grueling.
How could they manage it now,
in the midst of defeat?”
“It
makes no sense,” Demidov said, staring at the screens as if she could will
answers from them.
“Communications?”
Demidov demanded.
“Anything new?”
“No
answer, sir,” the officer replied.
“I’m
detecting some automated signals from Enshar…nothing else.”
“Scan
picked up clouds of metallic debris over Enshar,” a tech added.
“They’re in the same orbit as Enshar’s main
space stations.
The stations are gone.”
“Any
sign of debris from Conchirri vessels?” Demidov asked.
“None,”
he replied.
“Even
if a Conchirri attack achieved total surprise,” Telisan said, “Enshar’s defense
would have taken a heavy toll on any attacking force.”
“Communications,”
Demidov ordered, “have the destroyer escort
Flamme
move to the vanguard.
She’s handiest in
atmosphere.
Relay to the rest of the
fleet that we are moving into orbit. ”
“Have
you ever been to Enshar before, Commander?”
Demidov asked, staring at the lights of the dead cities.
Telisan
turned to look at the human.
It still
struck him as odd to be taking orders from a true female, even if of another
species.
His own people had three
genders, male, demi-female and true-female.
A male or demi might command a warship, but never a true female.
He’d served with her for only a few weeks,
since leaving the hospital ship
Solace
,
but Telisan respected her ability.
“No,”
the Denlenn replied.
“It is too far from
the Conchirri theatre of operations.
Before the war I attended university on Denla.
I met an Enshari there, Professor Belwin
Duna.
He is my greatest friend, if he
still lives.”
“I
never met one,” Demidov said.
“They
withdrew from space travel as the war dragged on, hid out in the safety of
their underground cities.”
Telisan
forbore to argue with her attitude.
Humans measured everything in terms of the war effort.
Hours
passed as more probes dropped into the atmosphere.
They found no sign of radiation, chemical or
biological agents.
“We’re
not learning anything up here,” Demidov finally announced.
“I’m sending down a landing force.
I want a complete chemical, biological
ordinance protocol in effect.
The
assault group will go in three shuttles.
Two will carry Marines and Air Space Assault troops; the third will
carry a scientific and medical team.
Commander Telisan, send half the fighters in with the shuttles; keep
half with you as a combat aerospace patrol.”
Telisan
snapped a salute and left as launch alarms shrilled.
Twenty seconds later he reached
Earhart’s
capacious hanger deck.
His squadron had already manned their
Spacefires
.
Telisan waved to Seeka, who grinned back and
vaulted into his fighter.
Armored doors
dropped and the fighters spilled out.
They hit their engines for a quick burn, moving the
Spacefires
through the formation to take station behind the winged shape
of the destroyer escort
Flamme.
“Black
Diamond One to Casino,” Telisan called, as his slender fingers raced over the
controls.
“We are taking position.”
He switched to the squadron frequency.
“One to Six.
Take sections Alpha and Beta.
Stick close to the DE and the
Wolverines
.
I’ll fly high guard.”
“Yes,
mighty ace of aces.”
Telisan
smiled briefly at Seeka’s informality.
One of these days I shall have to remind him
to watch his manners with his elders.
He turned his attention to the world ahead.
It filled his view, massive, dark and
enigmatic.
Three
Wolverine-
class attack shuttles
launched from the
Earhart
and headed
for the planet.
They passed the lowest
vessel, the destroyer escort
Flamme
,
which had dropped to within one hundred thousand meters of the surface.
Telisan and the rest of the fleet stacked between
two hundred thousand and three hundred thousand meters.
“Fighter
Computer,” Telisan said, “display the landing force.”
The
Wolverine
shuttles appeared on the
fighter’s small video screen.
He watched
as they cut through the upper atmosphere, heading for the city of Gigor, near
the Confed naval base.
The big,
gray-green camouflaged ships landed far short of the base in a triangular
formation.
Suddenly
the picture on Telisan’s screen changed.
A cloud of dust sprang from nowhere, engulfing each shuttle.
Then his screen derezzed and electronics on
Telisan’s
Spacefire
went mad with
feedback and distortion.
Sparks showered him as
his electronics shorted.
He cried out,
snatching at his fire extinguisher.
Telisan’s
helmet slammed against the canopy and he realized the fighter was
tumbling.
With one hand he fought his
ship, using the other to trigger the extinguisher.
With a fighter pilot’s trained instinct, he
climbed.
“All
Black Diamonds form on me,” Telisan called.
Only a burst of static answered him.
“Black Diamonds to me.”
He
dropped the extinguisher and switched frequencies.
“Black Diamond One to Fleet, respond.”
“This
is the
Flamme
, enemy on board!”
The voice cut out as Telisan heard a scream
and a shot.
His fighter’s screen snapped
back on, blurry and crackling.
“Select
DE
Flamme
,” he ordered.
The escort appeared on the screen.
Flamme
was tumbling end for end, plunging planetward.
“No,”
Telisan cried as the ship exploded in the Northern Sea.
He
frantically switched to the squadron channel.
“Seeka, come in.
Seeka!”
He tapped the small fighter’s AI screen.
“Computer, progressively select all Black
Diamond fighters.”
The scanner showed
him what he feared.
Only his section
survived.
All the others lay smashed
into the world below, like the
Flamme,
or
burned to cinders in uncontrolled reentry.
The
captain’s voice crackled in his headphones.
“All ships, this is Demidov, general retreat.
Climb, damn it—climb.”
The
surviving fleet units fought for control and altitude.
No targets appeared for him to lock weapons
onto.
As he cleared five hundred
thousand meters, his
Spacefire’s
systems
snapped back to normal.
Telisan craned
his head around to glare at Enshar, the deathworld that had reached out and
claimed most of his squadron and the
Flamme
.
“We
are not done,” he swore to the looming world.
“We are not done.”
“All
Black Diamonds,” Telisan keyed his mike, “return to the carrier.”
The surviving four ships answered his call.
Chapter Two
Robert
Fenaday sat alone in dark wood and leather of Luchow’s Marsport bar, trying to
get drunk.
He wasn’t much of a drinker,
another of his father’s several disappointments in him, but a man had to be
somewhere.
But tonight was the fifth
anniversary of the day the young officer had come to his door bearing a flag
and condolences that Lisa was missing, presumed dead along with her ship.
Here’s to you Dad
, he thought,
too bad you aren’t here to share it with me
.
The
bartender walked over to Fenaday’s corner table.
“You gonna nurse that all night,
spaceman?”
It was early, and the bar was
far from full, but Fenaday had a prime table to himself.
Fenaday
barely glanced up from the glass.
“Put
another one down,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes.
“Sure,”
the bartender said, giving him a frankly curious look, as if he somehow sensed
Fenaday was not the usual freighter officer.
Fenaday
was used to the scrutiny.
His uniform
was not standard military, but the black leather jacket held a captain’s
bar.
Like most things on his ship the
jacket was second hand, its name badge being newer than the jacket’s old, worn
leather.
I probably look as worn as the jacket
tonight
, he thought.
The
bartender walked off, to return with another glass of amber liquid.
“Drinking Olde Henley, huh?” he asked.
“That stuff will kill you.”
“I’m
not that lucky,” Fenaday said.
A
couple of businessmen came in.
The
bartender, apparently smelling better tips, moved off, leaving Fenaday to his
drink.
He lifted the glass and held it
at eye level, studying its shifting amber color in the low light of the bar,
but didn’t raise it to his lips.
It
wasn’t alcohol he wanted; it was distance and numbness.
Distance from the memories of a lost home and
a lost love.
Thoughts of Lisa crowded
close and jagged tonight, and the traditional medicine of the Irish wasn’t
helping him.
Maybe the ancient spirits
of the island he knew only from books were having fun at his expense.
The Sidhe loved tragedy and the struggle of
mortals.
They must love me
, he thought, a lost
man searching all of space for his wife.
Show’s over,
he thought to the
spirits.
His ship, the
Sidhe
, sat in dock, probably never to
fly again.
The end of the Conchirri war
and the bounties it generated made it impossible to run a private warship.
Backers in the syndicate that financed the
privateer dropped off.
Sidhe
had made port on Mars with barely
enough to pay off her crew.
Fenaday
had spent the last few days looking for work in the bars and haunts of the huge
spaceport, refusing to give up.
Now he
found himself alone in a Marsport bar, staring at the turgid liquor.
People
began to fill in, office workers and maybe more prosperous spacers.
Fenaday had posed as one of those more
prosperous.
The deception had
failed.
His last hope had just left.
The shipping agent for a small firm plying
part of the Fringe Star sector had expressed her regrets.
With the war over and the navy free to patrol
again, her company no longer needed a privateer escort.
God,
he thought, putting the glass back
down,
there has to be some way.
Pick yourself up, man.
Find something.
Think.