We All Died at Breakaway Station (8 page)

“That’s okay,” Maxel replied. “I’m no connoisseur. Beer’s more my speed.”

“Mine too, if the truth were known,” Bracer said. “But about what you were saying, Dan. I mean, I know it. I know what our people have been through as well as you do.”

Maxel smiled. “I know that you know it, and so does every other man and woman on this ship. You’ve had it worse than any of the rest of us, and that helps, that helps a hell of a lot, Absolom.”

For the first time Maxel Had used Bracer’s first name, and the captain was glad of it. He had regarded his first officer as his friend, and he had hoped that the feeling would be shared. It was, and that was a good thing.

“I’m not sure that mine’s any worse than‌—‌than yours, Dan,” he said.

“I think it is,” Maxel opened the bottle and poured himself half a glass of the liquor.

“You say that morale is good, considering,” Bracer said slowly, carefully.

“To what do you attribute this good morale?”

“I’m not sure. Two things, I guess. Maybe three. Maybe more.”

“What are they, Dan?” Bracer rolled back to the desk, got another cigarette, puffed it to life.

“You’re one of them,” Maxel said slowly. “No, I mean it. What I just said. You’ve suffered as much as any of us. Even more than most of us. And they know it, Absolom, that if you weren’t a damned good starship captain, and if the Force wasn’t so desperately in need of experienced captains, well, you’d be in cold-sleep in the
Cragstone
where you ought to be. And they’ll follow you for it, anywhere you want to take them.”

“Okay, so I’m a little tin god,” Bracer said, “and that’s just about literally true. A resurrected god with a plastic head.” There was a bitterness in his voice that he could not hold back. “What are the other reasons?”

Maxel tried to smile. “They’re going home. It’s that damned simple. Oh, I know that maybe half the crew has never even been on Earth; they’re from Adrianopolis and Cynthia and half a dozen other planets, mostly out of the Paladine, but Earth is well, dammit, Earth is home. It’s even home for me, and, hell, my
grandfather
was born on Creon.”

“I know,” Bracer said. “It’s the mystique of Earth. The
homeworld.
The planet where we evolved. Even Adrianopolis, as Earthlike as it is, doesn’t really… I don’t know how to express it either, Dan. But I know the feeling. It’s something born and bred into us during two billion years of evolution. We’re still Earthlings, all of us, and there’s no changing that.”

Maxel nodded, continued. “And there’s the hope, belief, I guess you could call it, almost religious, that the hospitals there can put them all back together. That means a lot too.”

Maxel’s lips tightened with his last words; Bracer could read the emotions on his face, could match them with his own. The hope that there on Earth he‌—‌they‌—‌could be transformed back into human beings again, the pain and horror of what had happened to them washed away, and then they could walk and talk and smile and laugh and mix with others of their own kind and not feel like monsters and hate the whole damned universe for what it had done to them.

“You said there might be a third reason,” Bracer said after too long a pause. “Yes. Admiral Mothershed’s expedition,” Maxel said. “It’s common knowledge now. That and the fact that Earth is forming an armada, that we’re getting ready for something really big out there.

“They’ve got hope, Absolom, for the first time in years they’ve really got hope that we can win this damned war and chase the Jillies back to whatever hell they came from.”

“There are a lot of ifs, Dan,” Bracer said slowly. “If Mothershed can get back out. If he can bring back information that really helps. If the armada can find the targets that Mothershed may locate. If the Jillies don’t launch a major attack on Earth before then. If, if…”

“Dammit, I know that!” Maxel said suddenly loudly. He paused, then said, “I’m sorry, but I know all that, and they know it too, but, hell, Absolom, it’s a hope, the first real hope we’ve had since the Jillies broke out of Dehora and overran the Salient.”

Bracer nodded slowly, sadly. “I know, Dan. I hope it as much as you do, as much as anyone, but I just can’t let myself believe that we’ve won until we actually have. We’re still too damned close to losing now.”

There was silence in the captain’s cabin for a few long moments. Maxel slowly relaxed, then refilled his glass with the old Napoleon brandy from the vineyards of Terra, Bracer lit still another Adrianopolitan cigarette.

Finally Maxel spoke: “What are you getting at, Absolom? What’s this all about?”

“I don’t really know, Dan,” Bracer said very, very slowly. “So help me, Dan, I don’t really know what I want.”

“I think maybe you do. Maybe you just don’t want to admit it.”

“Dan, I’ve been…”

The desk began to buzz, very, very loudly in the suddenly quiet cabin. Bracer slowly turned on the treads of the cylinder that supported what was left of his body, rolled to the desk, punched a button.

“Captain Bracer here,” he said.

“Captain, this is Comm Officer Cyanta.” The young woman’s attractive image formed in the tank, and Bracer had a brief, irrational thought which he quickly suppressed. “General Crowinsky is returning your call. Shall I put him through?”

“Yes, go on.”

Bracer snuffed out his cigarette, glanced over his shoulder. “Stay here, Dan. I want you in on this.”

Maxel nodded and sipped at his brandy.

The lean face of a very tired, exhausted-looking General Crowinsky developed in the tank.

“Captain Bracer,” the commandant of Breakaway Station said, “I’m sorry it took me so long to return your call. Can I help you?”

“Yes, sir. Have you been in communication with Colonial Defense Coordination Headquarters?”

“Of course I have, captain,” Crowinsky said, annoyance showing on his face. “In fact, I was talking with CDC when you called earlier.”

“May I ask, sir, just what is the situation in regard to your relief convoy?”

“Why are you asking, captain? I’m not sure that our situation is really any affair of yours.”

“No offense meant, general. I don’t mean to be prying into things that don’t concern me, but‌—‌sir, if the Jillies did intercept your first convoy, then they may still be in the neighborhood. If they are, I want to be ready for them.” Is that what you’re really asking? Bracer asked himself silently. Is that really why you want to know these things? Or is there another reason you can’t even admit to yourself yet?

“Of course. Forgive me, captain,” the general was saying. “I
am
a bit tired, edgy, you know.”

“Yes, sir. I understand.”

“Thank you, Captain Bracer. Well, both Adrianopolis and Earth seem to be in agreement: Jillie attack is the most likely thing. Certainly those ships would have been here otherwise, or at least would have reported in somewhere by now.” Crowinsky shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid that we must assume that they’ve been destroyed, captain. There’s no other alternative now.”

“Then we were rather lucky in getting through,” Bracer said flatly, yet knowing that space is enormous and starships small, and knowing that even if Jillie ships were still in the vicinity, their failure to detect the tiny convoy was not an improbability. They had been lucky, though the odds
had been
highly in their favor. “What about Breakaway, general? I mean, are they sending you another relief convoy?”

The commanding officer of Breakaway Station nodded slowly. “They are,” he said, “but not from Adrianopolis. They can’t spare a single ship now, not with things going the way they are in the Paladine. Not one ship, captain.” The general’s lower lip quivered. “CDC HQ is going to send help from Earth, they say.”

“How soon?” Bracer asked, tension within him tingling the ends of raw nerves.

“Four weeks, five weeks, as soon as Earth can spare them,” General Crowinsky said slowly.

“They can’t do it any sooner?” Bracer demanded almost angrily.

“No, that’s the best they can do. We’ll just have to hold out until they do. That’s all there is to it.”

“But can you, general?”

“Dammit, man, we have to!” Crowinsky almost yelled. “We’ve got to keep communications open to Earth until‌—‌” the Communications Corps general paused, fought back something that was written like fear across his face. “I’m sorry, captain.”

“That’s okay, sir. I understand.”

“I think you do understand, Captain Bracer.” Crowinsky was silent for a few moments. “The shuttles will be coming up with your reaction mass in a short while. I suggest that you plan on moving out of orbit just as soon as you have it all on board. I wouldn’t want to guarantee your safety here.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, captain. Good day.” And with that the general’s finger stabbed a button on the desk before him; his image faded from the tank.

Absolom Bracer slowly turned away from his own communications center and faced his first officer, a churning within his body and within his mind that approached the unbearable.

“Haven’t we suffered enough, Dan?” he asked slowly. “Haven’t we suffered enough?”

Daniel Maxel did not answer for a few moments, and when he finally did his voice was hollow, empty, his words slow: “Nobody’s asking us.”

“I know.”

For a few moments Bracer did not speak again, and when he finally did his voice was almost normal. “Dan, go back to the bridge and supervise the loading of the reaction mass. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yes, sir,” the first officer said, rising from the chair, leaving a half-empty glass of brandy sitting on the table.

Bracer watched him leave, and then slowly turned back toward the communicator, and wondered just what he was going to do, and wondered how he was going to go on living with himself if he made any decision at all.

A few minutes later he took a pill and hoped that it would enable him to get a little sleep before he had to call the captains of the
Pharsalus
and the
Rudoph Cragstone
and put the question to them.

Behind him the fleet had dwindled to twelve tiny points of light, dim now, reflecting the stars, though the reflections from the shimmering force screens would grow brighter soon, far brighter than the nearest stars when Jillie energy cannon and nuclear missiles and plasma torpedoes began their assault. Even now, though, becoming small as it was, the fleet was a beautiful sight to Lieutenant Commander Kamani Hybeck’s eyes. He loved the sight of a war fleet enfolded in its shimmering fields, for there was something godlike and ethereal about it, something strong like the beings in the ancient myths his people had told so long ago back on the homeworld. And like the gods of those myths, the starships of mankind alone were keeping humanity alive‌—‌though for how much longer, Hybeck did not want to guess. Especially if the fleet behind him did not make it back to Adrianopolis.

“All systems are Go, sir,” said Lieutenant Daqusin from his left, sitting in the co-pilot’s acceleration cot, watching the meters and scopes before him as the tiny scout and its companions headed toward the approaching enemy.

“Roger,” Hybeck said automatically, scanning his own counterpart of his co-pilot’s controls.

Behind him, viewing their images in the tank that showed the rearward view, Hybeck saw the remainder of his squadron, tiny needles of metal and ceramics and paraglas, rushing away from the fleet on tails of broken atoms, nuclear drive units pushing them to speeds that would soon become appreciable fractions of that of light.

And before them the Jillie fleet became more and more visible, now out of star drive, moving at sub-light speeds, though still faster than the scouts. As yet the Jillies had not raised their screens. They probably wouldn’t until the scouts were almost within firing range. Hybeck and his squadron‌—‌and the other squadrons of scout ships that followed his‌—‌would do the same. There was no point in reducing drive to a minimum because of the screens yet‌—‌time enough to do that when they were closer. Though Hybeck wondered just how much good the scout’s feeble screens would do when the Jillies really hit them. Not much, he knew, but they were better than nothing, a little anyway.

“Message coming in from the admiral, sir,” Baqusin said. “Shall I take it?”

“Cut me in,” Hybeck said, shifting his headphones into position.

For a moment the headphones crackled meaninglessly, and then the admiral’s voice came through, recorded moments before by the computer and then played back at a speed compensating for both the dopplering of the signal and the slight time dilation of the scout’s velocity.

“Men and women of the scouts,” Admiral Mothershed began. “I am aware of the risk and danger I am asking you to encounter.” The words came slowly as if the admiral were choosing them with great deliberation. “And I want to thank you. If your efforts can slow the approaching enemy warships for a few minutes, you can give us a little time to prepare the battle cruisers for combat. We ask that you give us that time, and then we will be at your sides. We will leave you alone to face the enemy only as long as we must. Then we shall join you. We shall not forget you. Thank you.”

As the admiral’s voice ceased and then the carrier beam clicked off, leaving Hybeck’s ’phones filled only with stellar static, he thought how rhetorical the admiral had sounded. But, somehow, he knew that it hadn’t been just rhetoric to him. He had meant what he said‌—‌and he
would
come to the assistance of the scouts as soon as possible.

Soon enough? Hybeck asked himself. A handful of scout ships armed with dual energy cannon and two nukes a piece couldn’t possibly last very long against a full fleet of Jillie battle cruisers. And that was a fact as clear as any in the universe. Most of them would be dead before the admiral could engage the Jillies. Well, he told himself, that’s what we’re here for. And we’re expendable. At least the admirals back on Adrianopolis and Earth seem to think so. Wish I could agree with them. Might make me feel a little bit better about it.

Now in the big tank that showed space before the scout, Hybeck could count the distinct dots that represented the warships of the Jillies. Sixteen of them. Oh, the computer and its scanners and all had already told him that, but it made him feel a little better to do the counting himself, not that he really knew why. Maybe he just didn’t trust computers.