"q'hank you. We-- ah! Here's the captain."

 

 

Han rose quickly as Willis Enwright entered the cabin with a hurried stride. That was one of the things she associated with Enwright--quickness, speed, almost haste.

 

 

It was as ff he resented the dawdling pace of time and wrestled with every second for the maximum utility he could wring from it. It made for a thorny personality, but it also made him a superb captain and would someday make him an equally outstanding admiral.

 

 

"Han!" He squeezed her hand warmly. "Good to see you again. How are your parents?" "Mother is as beautiful as ever; Father is as handsome." Han smiled. "What else is there to say?" "I suppose that does just about cover it," Enwright agreed with a grin. He dropped sloppily into a chair, and Hah seated herself again, glancing at Forsythe for his reaction to Enwright's informality. The old admiral only smiled at his flag captain.

 

 

Then his expression tightened.

 

 

"Willis, Captain Li has brought us some disturbing information." He slid the binder across the desk. "Want a look?" "Why?" Enwright shrugged. "No doubt the Assembly's done something else foolish. They've specialized in that for years, or we wouldn't be out here, sir." "Foolish or not, they're still the duly constituted government," Forsythe said, the slight edge in his voice suggesting that this wasn't the first time he and Enwright had struck sparks on the subject.

 

 

"However--was Forsythe shook his head his-comI have to agree that this time they really have been foolish.

 

 

Look at this." He opened the binder and handed Enwright the top sheet, and the captain's face tightened.

 

 

"Foolish isn't the word, sir," he said quietly, his humor vanished. "My God, ff this goes through the whole Fringe will go up in smoke. and I don't know as how I'll blame them, either." He read further, then whistled. "Jesus! If they do expel Lad Skjorning, the shit will really fly, Admiral!" "Precisely," Forsythe said frostily. "And fi, as you so quaintly put it, the shit does fly, whose job is it to quiet the situation back down?" "Ours," Enwright said, his voice troubled.

 

 

"Ours, indeed, Captain." Forsythe turned back to Han.

 

 

"Captain Li, is it yotir inpression this evaluation is essentially accurate?" "Well, sir," Hah said carefully, "Admiral Burgers certainly seemed to think so when he spoke to me." She shrugged. "But you probably know more about it from his dispatch." "His dispatch, like many things these days, is written on many levels." For just an instant, Forsythe showed every year of his advanced age. "It seems we're afraid to be totally open even in secure communications." "It's because no one wants to face it, Stepan," Enwright said. "But we have to. The Federation is on the verge of civil war." It was the first time someone had come right out and said it in Han's preseneetrust Willis to be the first. She watehed Forsythe, but the old admiral had his expression well in hand.

 

 

"On the verge is not the same thing as actively at war, Willis," he said quietly. "It's our job to see it doesn't go that far." "Agreed," Enwright nodded. "But what ff it's a job we can't do, sir?" "There is no job the Fleet can't do!" "Sir, Fringers aren't Arachnids--comor even Tangri or Orions. Dealing with aliens may come down to a matter of firepower more often than we like, but it doesn't bother the Fleet much--that's our job, after all. But firing on our own Enwright shook his head sadly. "With all due I'm not sure the crews could do it." " "It won't come to that," Forsythe said. "We'll warp out immediately for routine maneuvers in Kontravian space. Not even the Beauforters are crazy enough to start something with a task force this size overhead." "Probably not," Enwright said softly. "But what ff it's already started, sir? I've served with Lad Skjorning. He's no hothead, but once he makes up his mind, not God nor the devil can change it." "Skjorning is only one man, Willis." "But if they send him home, he'll be the most important 'one man" in the entire Kontravian Cluster, sir. He's inherited all of Fionna MacTaggart's prestige, as well as his own, which was already pretWill considerable."

 

 

"Admiral," Han said diffidently, "Captain Enwright has a point. I don't know ffyou realize just how critical Skjorning has become. If the Assembly expels him, hundreds of Fringer delegates will resign in protest." "Then they're fools!" Forsythe snorted. "They should stay and fight!" "hat's easy for us to say, sir," Enwright pointed out gently. "We've been safely isolated here in the Fleet. We're more like one of the old monastic fighting orders than a representative segment of our society, and we certainly haven't personally faced the Corporate World political machine. Its manipulation of the Assembly has become so blatant no Fringer delegate had any doubts left even before MacTaggart was murdered. Now the writing's on the wall, as far as they're concerned. They're tired of fighting within a system that won't let them win, sir." "But if they persist in this madness they'll force an open break! They're playing right into the hands of this sort of manipulation." Forsythe tapped the binder.

 

 

"Don't they see that?" "With, respect, Admiral," Han said, "they're too 'angry to cae.

 

 

"And do you share their anger, Captain Li?" Forsythe asked softly.

 

 

"Yes, sir, I do." It was the first time a superior had asked her that, and Han found it almost a relief to answer openly.

 

 

"Stepan," Enwright's quiet voice drew the admiral's eyes away from her, "most of the Outwodders in the Fleet share Captain Li's feelings. You're not a Fringer, so maybe you don't see it that way, but the Fringers do. That's why I'm so concerned about this "show of force" business. If it comes to a real confrontation, there's no telling how the Fleet will react. More than sixty percent of our personnel are Fringers, Stepan." "Whey are also sworn members of the Federation's armed forces," Forsytbe said levelly. "If the time comes, they'll remember that." He waved a hand briskly, as ff to dispel the tension which had sprung up. "But we're going to the Kontravian Cluster to make certain it never comes to that." "Yes, sir," Enwright said, leaning forward in his chair,

 

 

"and with the admiral's pc?miSsion, I'd like to make a

 

 

suggestion." "Of course." Forsythe watched Enwright thoughtfully.

 

 

"You're absolutely right on at least one point, sir; the best way to make sure nothing happens is to create a Fleet presence in Kontravian space before any explosion. I sug- gest that we detach Admiral Ashigara's carrier group and the battle-cruisers and send them on ahead.

 

 

They're fifty percent faster than the monitors. At flank speed, they could reach the Kontravian Cluster alm'three months before the rest of the task force. That'd give us that much more time before the Kontravians can do any- thing rash." Forsythe swiveled his chair slowly back and forth, considering, and Han watched him closely@u Willis was to lllllllllllll[lll'l III-L[I I iii right. The sooner they got warships into the cluster, the , His better@u Even the most ferventFringe sympathizer in the Fleet would be willing to nip trouble in the bud before it reached shooting proportions.

 

 

"No, Willis," Forsythe said finally. Enwright looked prepared to argue, but Forsythe waved a hand gently. "I'm glad you're thinking in terms of prevention, but if we send a detachment ahead the whole idea of a routine visit @u goes out the airlock. And I think you overestimate the depth of feeling in the Cluster. I don't question your reading of the Fringe leadership, but there's a deep reservoir of loyalty to Old Terra among the population. We'll get there before their leaders push them into anything truly "Stepan," Enwright said, "please don't equate loyalty to the motherworld with loyalty to the Assembly! Fringers see them as two separate entities@u" "Perhaps," Forsythe said testily, "but there's enough overlap to offset any rashness, I think. And the last thing we can afford is to look as if we expect a break. No, Willis. We'll do it my way." Hah held her breath and wondered if Enwright would push it. She glanced at the captain, reading the worry, in his face, but he held his tongue.

 

 

"That's settled, then," Forsvthe said with the same finality@u He glanced at his dsk chronometer. "I see it's just alout time for dinner, Captain Li. Will you dine with us?" "I'd be honored, Admiral," she said, accepting the change of subject, and rose to follow her superiors from the cabin, glancing back at the sealed security binder on the desk as they left.

 

 

A cold breeze blew through her bones as she passed the Marine guard and the cabin hatch dosed behind them. Admiral Forsythe was a good man, a loyal man--one who cared about all the Federation's citizens. Yet she had a premonition that a terrible mistake had just been made.

 

 

HOMECOMING The wrenching stress of warp transit echoed in every inner ear aboard the starship Capricorn, though liners never transited warp points at the same speed as warships to est their delicate (and paying) passen'ers lose their breakfasts. The moment of indescribable tension passed into memory as Capricorn's momentarily addled electronic systems recovered, and her deck plates trembled gently as her powerful drive sang back up to maximum, for Capricorn was a fast ship, with a reputation to maintain.

 

 

Ladislaus Skjorning stepped out of his cabin into the cai-peted passages of first class. After months of travel, he no longer bothered to glance over his shoulder at the calm, expressionless face of the Assembly lictor gliding a pace behind him.

 

 

In all the long, dreary days of shipboard existence, Ladislaus had not even learned the man's name, not that it mattered. One lictor was very like another, he'd found; none permitted mere humanity to hamper the discharge of their duty.

 

 

He frowned at his own derisive thought, for he knew it was unfair. From the Lictor General down to the rawest first-year recruit, the lictors had no planetary loyalties and ground no partisan axes. They were servants of the Assembly, with Federation-wide citizenship so no single world could challenge their devotion to it. But fair or not, Ladislaus could see his anonymous shadow only as an extension of the Assembly.

 

 

A familiar throb of rage touched him as he recalled the farce the Assembly had called an "impeachment." He'd never attempted to deny his guilt; indeed, Wu Liang, Hangchow's chief delegate and Ladislaus' advocate, had based his entire defense on the Ortler Decision, claiming the same immunity for his client, and so underlined the defiant Fringe insistence that his act had been neither more nor less than an execution and thrown the Corporate Worlds' hypocrisy back into theirthe teeth.

 

 

Ladislaus had known how thin a thread his life hung upon, but hatred had supported him, feeding on the vituperation the Corporate Worlds heaped upon him and stoked by his cold appreciation of the skill with which the Taliaferro Machine used the Fringe's own fury. to destroy it. The decision to expel him like a pariah--to send him back to the Fringe as ff that were the one proper dumping ground for "barbarians" had cut like the flick of a whip, and it had driven the Fringe berserk. Delegate after delegate had risen to denounce the Corporate Worlds, and the Heart Worlds had heard only their incoherent fury. They had not chosen to recognize the manipulation which spawned that rage, and Ladislaus had watched the Innerwodd delegations recoil from the Fringers' passion, accepting the damning Corporate World caricature as truth.

 

 

He'd seen it sound the death knell of compromise, and he had felt only a grim eagerness to go back out among the sane worlds of the distant stars and begin what must be begun.

 

 

Yet he'd felt a sort of admiration for the handful of moderates who had fought to stem the furious tide of history. It had been overshadowed by his own impatience, his own awareness that the dream they sought to preserve had already died, but it had been real. And he'd admired no one more than he had Oskar Dieter.

 

 

How many other delegates had felt his own astonishment when the slim New Zurieher begged for moderation and reason? When he, as head of Fouehet's own delegation, moved to drop all charges against Fouehet's killer? When he met Simon Taliaferro headlong in the furious debate, fighting with every ounce of parliamentary skill to save both Ladislaus and the Assembly? It had been a doomed battle, but he'd refused to surrender and a fewma tattered remnantof the erstwhile moderates had rallied to his banner, as if they, "like Ladislaus, recognized the true stakes.

 

 

He shook free of the past and made his way into the lonely first-class lounge. He was Capricorn's last first-class passenger, for Beaufort was the end of her run--the last, ultimate end point of the Federation, in a sense. Many worlds lay still further out, but Beaufort was the end of the warp lines into the Kontravian Cluster, a lonely world, ignored by the magnates who moved and shook the Federation until the doomwhale had suddenly beckoned profit.

 

 

Ladislaus parked himself in a lounger under one of the magnifying screens as the ship swept towards the planet of his birth. Already he could make out the orbit port, tiny I

 

 

with distance as it waited with shuttles and cargo.

 

 

Ships like Capricorn were creatures of the void, fated never to taste atmosphere, and before the days of doomwhaling there had been no orbit @ddort at Beaufort. Only the tramp freighters, adapted for atmospheric travel, had come here then, gleaning a fragile profit in waters too shallow to attract the huge combines like the Taliaferro Line or even the chartered mail packets of the Mobius Corporation.

 

 

Beyond the orbit port loomed the vast, purple bulk of Beaufort, and he stared at it with hungry eyes. He could almost taste the iodine-rich wind, almost feel the heavy pull of gravity. Huge clouds covered half the visible planet, and he smiled. There was heavy weather in the Heilbore, and heavy weather on Beaufort was like heavy weather nowhere else in the Galaxy. Most of the planetary surface was water, the deep, purple, surng water of home. Except for the small southern continent of Grendelsbane, the limited habitable land masses were found only in the loose necklaces of islands threaded around the watery sphere. Some of the islands were huge, by Terran standards, but they were still islands, the peaks and plateaus of sunken mountains rearing sheer and indomitable from the cold, cold seas.

 

 

Man had shaped those islands into homes for himself and his children, but Beaufort had shaped Man, too. The granite of its stony archipelagoes was in the Beaufort soul, and Ladislaus longed to touch the surface of his world, longed to draw the strength of that bedrock presence within himself once more.

 

 

Yet first he must face his failure. He had gone to Old

 

 

Terra as Chief of Security; he returned a broken man, derelict in his duty and expelled from the Assembly. The people of Beaufort were compassionate and understanding in ways which far outreached the Innerworlders on their safe, tamed planets, but Beauforters did their jobs. On a world where gravity, pressure, and the sea all conspired against the human intruder, there was only one fully acceptable excuse, and that was death.

 

 

Ladislaus understood that side of his people, for it made them what they were even as it had made him what he was, and he dreaded their silent disapproval almost as much as he dreaded his own sense of failure.

 

 

He sat motionless for long hours as the orbit port grew and grew. They passed the bulk of Beaufort Sk.vwatch, spartan and pure in the black and white blazonry, of Fortress Command, and he watched a light cruiser slide past Capricorn, her white hull and blue Frontier Fleet markings gleaming under the distant light of Beaufort's sun. The stylized galactic lens of her service glistened like silver on her forward hull as she altered course and slashed awav with all the arrogance of her greyhound breed, and Lacl'islaus wondered what so heavy, a Fleet unit was doing here.

 

 

Beaufort's massive moon cleared the edge of the planet, looming huge and lovely in the sun's reflected light, for Beaufort's Bowditch was bigger than Old Terra's neighbor Mars, with a.5 G gravity and nearly enoug, h atmosphere to support life. It was one of the universe s more bitter jokes that Beaufort--a planet almost too massive for Man--comshd possess a moon not quite massive enough for him. Ladislaus could still recall his initial shock upon seeing Old Terra's Luna and realizing what a miserable lump of rock had given birth to the white moon on the Federation's banners.

 

 

And as for the ridiculous little ripples Old Terra called "tides"--to Then Capricorn's drive died at last. The tractors of the orbit port reached out, and the liner shivered as they snubbed away her last motion and rolled her, aligning her with the huge, flexible docking tubes. Within minutes, she would be secured, her cargo and personnel ports open, and Ladislaus rose slowly. He turned and to eft the lounge, the lictor like an expressionless ghost behind him.

 

 

The shuttle dropped away from Beaufort Orbit Port like a seashrike striking at nearcod, and Ladislaus sat silently, watching out a port.

 

 

The shuttle's wings configured back, their leading edges glowing as the pilot skimmed atmosphere to dump orbital velocity. He watched them extend slowly as the shuttle's speed dropped, the orange glow fading as the heat bled away into Beaufort's cold air and their speed dropped still further, until the engines took over, pushing them the last few hundred kilometers to the Beowulf Archipelago... and home.

 

 

The sprawling island of Kraki came into sight, the modest space port dead center in its star-shaped mass. It was a small port, by Innerworld standards, and few attempts had been made to gloss over the gaunt functionalism of early days. Beaufort wanted its spaceport grim and cold.

 

 

The shuttle touchtt down, and Ladislaus felt an icy pang of dread as he looked out at the unexpected throng awaiting him. They ringed the shuttle pad, coats and clothing whipped by the bitter wind of Beaufort's spring, hair flying in the near gale. The shuttle rocked uneasily until the grapples engaged, holding her against the wind, and only then did Ladislaus rise and walk towards the opening hatch. Cold air invaded the shuttle, and he shrugged into his seawool coat as the familiar wind whined beyond the hull.

 

 

The lictor followed, and Ladislaus eyed him curiously. He'd been guard and protector tn one, his simple presence extending the protection of the Assembly over Ladislaus to shield him from arrest and extradition, but his had been a silent presence. No word of welcome, no word of condemnation or approval, had ever passed his lips, and Ladislaus wondered if he meant to change that now that his duty was discharged. But he merely followed Ladislaus silently to the hatch and stopped. From the moment Ladislaus" foot touched Beaufort soil, he would need no protection, and the lictor watched calmly, silently, as Ladislaus stepped through the hatch without a backward glance.

 

 

The damp cold of Beaufort's dense atmosphere slapped his bearded cheeks, and the heavy hand of gravity dragged at his bones. He hadn't been home in five years, and almost he had forgotten how it felt to be his proper weight. He walked down the gangway, moving carefully until muscles and reflexes could adjust to the thirty percent jump over Capricorn's artificial gravity, and the crowd pressed closer around the foot of the ramp. He saw his father and brother looming above the forest of heads like giants, and then his foot touched the soil of his homewodd, and for just an instant the shock of homecoming vibrated through him like an icicle of relief.

 

 

He turned towards his father and stopped. A slender woman stood before him, the colorful plaid of the Beaufort-circling MacTaggart Clan's chieftain blowing from her shoulders. Age had not dulled the flying red of Dame Penelope MacTaggart's hair, yet she looked frail and slight as the eternal Beaufort wind sang about her. She stood with all the dignity and strength of her authority, and Ladislaus stopped before her, feeling suddenly gross and huge as he confronted the calm, emerald eyes in which pride and composure glistened over a sea of sorrow.

 

 

"Dame Penelope," he said softly, his deep voice frayed by the wind.

 

 

"Lad," she said quietly.

 

 

"I--was He broke off and swallowed, feeling the familiar burning behind his eyes once more. "It's sorry I'm to be, Dame Penelope," he said humbly. "Warned I was, but too late. Gone she was, before I was knowing, but it's to be my fault.

 

 

I owe a life." "His head bent and he felt the crowd stiffen as he spoke the formal acknowledgment of blood guilt.

 

 

In a Beaufort court, such an admission was tantamount to accepting sentence of death. This was not a court of law, but Ladislaus had still given his life into Dame Penelope's hands, to do with as she willed. He sensed the shock of the crowd, yet even that admission was too little to express the depth of his guilt.

 

 

"Ladislaus Skjorning, I am hearing you," Dame Penelope's voice rang through the wind in formal response, and Ladislaus raised his eyes to her face, its graceful planes so like Fionna's. "But to be telling me this, Ladislaus Skjorning -comwas it not that both the killers died by her hand? And was it not that you it was caused her to be armed? Was it not that you had warned her?

 

 

Was it not that you protected her for ten long years before they had the killing of her?" Ladislaus" face was grim as her questions underscored his ultimate, unforgivable failure, but he nodded.

 

 

"hen, Ladislaus Skjorning, do not be telling me you owe a life!" Dame Penelope's voice cut the tension like a knife. "It's proud we're to be--proud of my daughter, who did not go alone to death, and of you, the man who made it so! There's to be no blood debt between you and the MaeTaggarts, Ladislaus Skjorning, fo it's one of our own you're to be, my son!" Ladislaus" head came up, and tears tracked his bearded cheeks as Dame Penelope's strong arms reached around his waist and she laid her proud head on his massive chest, her last words burning in his heart like new hope. They were the formal words of adoption, and the foster tie she offered meant almost more than blood on cold, harsh Beaufort. Hi[ hands fluttered helplessly over her slight shoulders, feeling the strength of Beaufort in them, and he bent his head, his blond beard mingling with the windblown red of the MacTaggarts.

 

 

"It's a daughter you've lost, Mother Penny," he said softly, his great voice choked, "a debt no man can pay. But it's a mother you're to be to me, and I a son to--was His voice broke before he could complete the formal phrase, and Dame Penelope drew his face down against her shoulder, tears cutting her own cheeks before the crowd of her neighbors.

 

 

"Ah, Lad, my Lad," she murmured in his ear, stroking his heaving shoulders, "it's always a son you've been to me did you not know it?" And she led him to his father's side.

 

 

Seapine burned on the huge hearth. The dried, treelike kelp glowed with a clear, blue flame, and Ladislaus was grateful for the rolling heat, for his blood was thin by Beaufort standards, and he was still shaken by the emotional catharsis he'd endured. Firelight flickered across the metal and stonework with which the people of Beaufort brightened their homes, and the dancing light rippled like sun off water. His father sat across the hearth, his craggy face, sculpted by sea and wind into a cliff of character, gilded by the fire. His brother Stanislaus sat behind him, even taller and broader than he in the seawool tunic with the crossed-harpoons shoulder badge of the master doom-whaler, and Dame Penelope sat beside Sven Skjorning.

 

 

Ladislans let his eyes rest on her and remembered his own mother, Ireena Skjorning, thirty years dead, and her unborn daughter with her. Even with the best of medical science--which Beauforters had not been offered before the doomwhale brought them wealth-- Beaufort's high gravity and hostile environment exacted a high price of its women. Beaufort weeded its people mercilessly; only the strong survived its unyielding harshness.

 

 

"It's to be good to be having you home, Lad. I was feared they were to have your life, as well." Sven Skjorning's voice was even deeper than his son's, and bitter with hate. He had given a son to the Federation already, dead in the destruction of his heavy cruiser.

 

 

"I had the same thinking for long," Ladislaus agreed soberly, "but it's too smart they're to be for that, Father, and they're to place their harpoons with care. They let me go, because it's to suit their purpose to paint us as barbarians and themselves as "civilized" men!"" His face twisted, and he felt the same fury. simmering in his audience.

 

 

"Sven," Dame Penelope said into the silence, "it's too long we've been waiting." Her voice was cold as disthe Beaufort sea. "Foo many have had the giving of too much, and what's it to be bringing us?

 

 

Shame and oppression, Sven Skjorning!" Ladislaus nodded unconsciously, watching his father with burning eyes. Sven Skjorning stared into the heart of the fire, and his face was hard.

 

 

"Ave," he said slowly, "you've the right of it, Penny--as always. Thirtv vears past I gave Ireena my word, but ff she'd lived, 'x" to agree with you she'd be, I think." Ladislaus straightened in his chair. His father stood high in Beaufort's sparse community., but for thirty-three years he'd honored his promise to his dying wife, throttling the hatred which had burned in his heart since the death of his eldest son.

 

 

The heavv cruiser Fearless had died for one reason only: a Corporat World merchant prince had possessed this political power to demand her service as an escort for a "vital" cargo during the height of a Tangri raid. "It's our children they're to be taking," he rumbled like slow-flowing' magma. "Our wealth they cannot touch, our fights they've had the taking of long since--but no more of our children will they be having!" He looked up from the fire, and his eyes were as bright and blue as the flames. "A son from me, a daughter from you--- enough! It's to be ending!" His fist slammed the thick arm of his chair, and the expensive wood cracked under the blow.

 

 

"I've the same thinking, Father," Ladisgg'aus said softly, "but it's to be careful we must. The Federation's arm is long, and it's the Corporate Worlds have the owning of that arm the now." "And we're to do nothing?" Sven Skjorning demanded dangerously.

 

 

"No, Father. But it's to speak to others before the government I must. It's to be taking time, and when we strike, it's to be with care." "You're to ie talking treason," Stanislaus said softly.

 

 

"Aye," Ladislaus replied levelly, "and past time for it, too." "No argument from me," Stanislaus said, "but to be thinking what it's to mean to Beaufort if you fail, Lad." "I have," Ladislaus said bleakly.

 

 

"Stanislaus, it's to be better to die than accept some things. There's no stomaching more--I'm not to be standing by any longer. Can you be seeing that?" "Aye, Lad, of course," Stanislaus said simply, gripping his brother's shoulder, "but it's to be sure tou do before you have the starting of a war upon your head. For you're to see it's you must have the doing of it here." "I know," Ladislaus said softly. "God help me, I know." The planetary government of Beaufort was not the sprawling bureaucracy that was the Federation, or, for that matter, any of the Innerworld governments. There were less than six million people on the planet, and the Beaufort Assembly reflected the sparseness of its population base. There were only fifty-six members, all told, and for the most part they were the elders of the great clans which had formed in the Years of Abandonment. The social and survival requirements of an environment humanity was never bred to face had created a paternalistic order, a semi-feudalism, that carried over into xs political processes, as well.

 

 

Yet Ladislaus had never felt more nervous in the Chamber of Worlds. The conference room didn't even hold the full Assembly--comonly its leaders sat around the rectangular table, their eyes calm and dispassionate upon him.

 

 

Three weeks of cautious, private conversations had brought him here. Despite his care not to involve the government in his discussions, it seemed the government had decided to involve itself. Now he gazed at the people in the room--President Bjorn Thessen, President Pro Tern Knute Halversen, crucial committee chairmen--and waited for the inquisition to begin.

 

 

"Ladislaus," President Thessen said finally, "you've been meeting with influential people in the short time you've been home. We're wondering why you haven't asked to meet with us." Ladislaus tightened inwardly at Thessen's Standard English. Since the days of the Abandonment, the dialect of Beaufort had become a badge its people wore consciously. It was their declaration of defiance to the worlds which had ignored them in their hour of need, and while almost any Beauforter could speak barely accented Standard English, most would see themselves damned and in. Hell before they would.. except in official settings, where the planetary government's members felt they somehow stood in the presence of their Old Terran ancestors. So ff Thessen chose to speak Standard English, it meant he spoke as President of the Beaufort Assembly. an officer charged to preserve and maintain the Federation.

 

 

"Forgive me, President Thessen," he said softly. "I wanted to sample public opinion before I spoke to you officially." "And why was that?" Thessen wondered slowly. "Could you be thinking of seizing power from us, Ladislaus?" "No!" Genuine horror sharpened his voice. "It was only--was "Enough," Thessen said with a headshake.

 

 

"Excuse our doubts, but we're a suspicious lot these days. Blame it on the times. At any rate," he added with a wintry, smile, "we chose you for the Assembly because you've a quick mind and strong will, like your father. We can't very well eom- INSUIRECTFFON 67 plain because you act accordingly. But now that you're here..." Thessen straightened, an age-spotted hand touching a

 

 

document before him.

 

 

"You probably won't be surprised by this, Lad." He handed the single sheet over, and Ladislaus ran his eves down it, then raised them to Thessen's face with reneed respect. As delegation security chief, he'd thought he knew all their avenues of information, but their intelligence network obviouslv reached further than he'd believed pos- sible. What he held was a memo signed by Simon Taliaferro himself.

 

 

"It's no surprise, no," he said quietly.

 

 

"We've read your reports--and Fionna's.

 

 

Is this memo accurate? Will the Amalgamation pass, do you think?" "Like a doomwhale through nearcod," Ladislaus said flatly.

 

 

"Aye, I Gad the fearing of that." Thessen's Standard English lapsed briefly, then he shook himself.

 

 

"You should know, young Lad, that Capricorn brought a writ of extradition from Old Terra. I sent it back marked "opened by mistake"--was a mutter of laughter filled the room his-comb you're right Fionna's murder is but the beginning. I've viewed the chips of that "impeachment."" The old man's face wrinkled with disgust. "It's clear there's no reasoning with them. Except, perhaps, this man Dieter, of all people. How say you, Lad?" "Dieter?" Ladislaus frowned. "Tm thinking he's a good enough man... but he's only one man. Aye, he insulted Fionna, but he was drugging, and... in a way, that mav have been the making of him. But whether he's to bl surviving..." He broke off with a shrug.

 

 

"So no matter what he feels, there's little he can do, eh?" "Aye. It's Taliaferro has them in his grip the now, and it's a mad seashrike with a mouthful of blood that man's to be. There's to be no stopping him? He stopped, a little abashed by his own vehemence.

 

 

"Then, young Ladislaus," Thessen asked slowly, "what's to be done? Fionna spent twentv tilde five years seeking our rights. Was it all for naught?" His His "Not for lack of trying," Ladislaus said grimly. "No one ever fought harder than Fionna. You know--you all know--she wanted no more than justice, no more than a transition. If even one Corporate World had reached out a hand to her--l" "But fail we have?" Thessen pressed quietly.

 

 

"Aye, Mister President," Ladislaus said heavily. "We have." "And it's that message you've been sharing with others, is it?" Thessen's old eyes were keen.

 

 

"Aye." Ladislaus looked up almost defiantly. "It's not to make any difference what wording I share, Mister President. You're to know that. And even if you're not to--was he drew a deep breath and committed himself his-comx's to tell them I must." "I see." Thessen's voice was very level. He glanced at his colleagues, and Ladislaus felt the tension. What he'd said was treason.

 

 

"Young Lad," Thessen said finally, "it's not quite fair we've been with you. This group" he gestured around the table his-comis more than just the leadership of the government. This--was he tapped the memo his-comis no more than a part of what we've done. Are you, then, prepared to tell us the Federation is doomed? Is it to defy all of us you are? Knowing we're to have information even you are not to know?" "Aye, Mister President. If so I must, then it's to defy you I will be doing!

 

 

Fionna had the giving of her life for her dream, but her dream had no life of its own. I'm not to be seeing more! It's to be enough of our blood they've had the taking of!. It's to be war they're waging, a war of 'laws" and "writs" and "reapportionments." Well, to give them their war!" He was on his feet, blue eyes flashing, and his voice was roiling thunder in the chamber. "To give them a bellyfull of war--and not with words!" He choked himself off abruptly. Whatever he felt, whatever he thought, these were the leaders of his people.

 

 

It was not proper to raise his voice to them, and his temerity shamed him. Yet he was resentful, too; resentful of their slowness, resentful that age and high position blinded them to what he saw so dearly.

 

 

He sank back into his chair, watching Thessen glance once more around the gathered faces. Here and there a

 

 

head nodded slowly, wordlesslv, and Ladislaus felt his heart sink at the slo confirmatiggns.

 

 

"Ladislaus Skjorning," Thessen's voice was deeper and more powerful, his old face flushed, "it's to be too long you've had the ('iving amongst Innerworlders!" The Beaufort dialect penetrated, and Ladislaus raised his head. He stared at Thessen's bearded pounds ce, and the old man smiled slowly. "Did you have the thinking it's to be only you to know these tlings, Lad?" The president shook his head. "We've had the thinking of such thoughts for long now, and we've had the preparing for it, as well.

 

 

You're to make no rebellion against us, Lad Skjorning, for we're to be before you. Aye, young Lad--if it's to make war they are, then it's to make war we are, as well!" Ladislaus gaped at the old man, and the pieces suddenly fell together. The copy of the memo, the channels gf informatio the persistent questioning--he'd come into th chamgr convinced he alone saw what must be done, only to find thev'd alreadv seen it!

 

 

"We've had the m'akin of our plans for long," Thessen said slowly, "yet we're to be old, Ladislaus. We're to be worn and tired-- we're not to have the strength and youth for this. But it's to see you do. So to tell us, young Lad--will it be vou who has the leading of us?" "Aye," Ladisltus said softly. There was no hesitation in him, only the grim, cold certainty that it was for this moment he had been born and trained, and he looked around the circle of old faces, seeing the same bitter determination in the wise eves and lined faces looking back at him.

 

 

He nodded his' head slowly, and when he spoke again, it was to swear an oath.

 

 

"Aye," he repeated. "It will be that!" "If this be treason, make the most of it!" William Patrick Henry, Before the Virginia House of Burgesses SECESSION Fleet Admiral Stepan Forsythe looked up from his paperwork as his communicator lit with the face of his staff communications officer.

 

 

"Yes, Iister Qwan?" "Sir," Lieutenant Doris Qwan said carefully "we're picking up something from a Mobius Corp mail packet. A transmission, not a courier drone." Forsythe cocked an eyebrow. A transmission meant they were in the same system as the packet, but why transmit at all? This system was uninhabited and far outside the Innerworld relay nets; logically there was no one to hear the message, except for the unmanned recorders in the warp point nav beacons..

 

 

"What sort of message, Lieutenant.

 

 

"I... don't really know, sir. May I play it off for you?" Forsythe nodded, and his screen flickered abruptly, then steadied with the image of a lean, uniformed man. The twisted-loop collar insignia of his firm was overlaid by the crossed starships of a Federation mail carrier's captain, and his dark, strong face was tense, almost frightened.

 

 

"q'his is Captain Donald Stiegman, Federation mail packet Rising Moon, TFMP-11329. The following information must reach government authorities as qnieldy as possible.

 

 

Stand by to receive coded data; this is a Class One Priority signal." Forsythe stiffened. Class One Priority was assigned only to threats to the very existence of the Federation, and his finger stabbed the emergency buzzer on his desk as the screen dissolved into a blur of static. The image danced insanely for perhaps ten seconds, then cleared, replaced by Captain Stiegman's worried face.

 

 

"Reverse course immediately. Do not enter the Kontravian Cluster. Get that message out.

 

 

Stiegman, message ends." Forsythe's cabin door opened as Captain Enwright and Commodore Samsonov hurried in past an astonished Marine sentry. They slid to a halt, faces anxious, but Forsythe motioned them to silence.

 

 

He watched the screen blank briefly before the message repeated itself, then gestured both men to chairs and punched the override to recall Lieutenant Qwan.

 

 

"It's a loop, right, Lieutenant?" "Yes, sir, with an 'all ships" header.

 

 

We've been in-system over an hour without hearing a thing, so I think we caught his first transmission.

 

 

I'd guess he came through from Bantu and started transmitting the moment he hit normal space." "I see. Anything on that coded sequence?" "No, sir. I'm afraid the computers haven't broken the scramble yet, much less the code. I think he's using mail service protocols, sir." "Very well. Keep on it and do what you can." Forsythe felt litfie hope. Mail service codes were at least as good as the Fleet's codes.

 

 

"Yes, sir. Any response?" "Not yet. I'll get back to you." Forsythe turned to his juniors. Enwright's expression was thoughtful and waiting; only someone who knew him well would recognize the questions burning in his hazel eyes, but the curiosity in Gregor Samsonov's wrinkled forehead and hooded brown eyes was more evident. For-sythe smiled a wintry smile as he nodded to his flag captain and his chief of staff.

 

 

"Gentlemen, it seems we have a mystery." "Mystery, sir?" Trust Willis to ask the first question.

 

 

"You know as much as I do, Willis. You heard the message. Reactions?" Enwright sat very erect. "A few points seem obvious, sir." "Indeed?" Forsythe cocked his head.

 

 

"Enumerate, please."

 

 

"Yes, sir. First, he doesn't have any drones or he'd'ye sent the message direct to a Fleet base. Secondly, whatever the message is, it's both urgent and hot. If it wasn't urgent, he wouldn't be transmitting; if it wasn't hot, he'd transmit in clear.

 

 

Third, he's worried about pursuit. He's not in range of our scanners, so we sure as he bar were' aren't in range of his. That means he's transmitting blind and hoping someone hears. Couple that with his injunction to clear out fast--was He shrugged.

 

 

"He must he afraid there're bandits on his tail, and he's wai'ning any unarmed civil ship to stay clear of them.

 

 

"And those three points, sir," he finished levelly, "lead to a fourth: he's absolutely right to declare a Priority One emergency." Forsythe drummed gently on his desk. It was a mark of Enwright's true stature, he thought, that there wasn't even a O-ace of 'I told you so" in his voice. He glanced at his cffief of staff.

 

 

"Gregor?" "I'm afraid I have to agree, sir," Samsonov said unhappily. Forsythe sighed heavily, feeling the full weight of his years, then nodded and managed a bleak smile.

 

 

"Well, I'm afraid I agree, too. It seems you gentlemen were right to urge me to split the task force." It was a bitter admission, but he made it calmly, then turned to his communicator and punched up the flag deck. The screen lit with Lieutenant Qwan's face, and he could just see his operations officer behind her. He smiled to himself.

 

 

Commander Rivera must have heard about his summons to Samsonov and Enwright.

 

 

"Lieutenant. Commander." His voice was as gravely courteous as ever. "Task Force orders, Commander. We will increase to flank and close the Bantu Warp point. Detach the battle-cruisers and Admiral Ashigara's carriers--- send them ahead of the battle line." "Yes, sir," Rivera said crisply.

 

 

"Lieutenant Qwan, inform Admiral Ashigara of the situation and see to it she gets a copy of Rising Moon's message. Then I want a message transmitted to Rising Moon immediately. Message begstns: Fleet Admiral For-sythe, CO TF 17, to Captain Donald Stiegman, master, TFMP Rstsstng Moon.

 

 

Message received--comgive him the time,

 

 

Doris. My force headed to meet you at max.

 

 

Estimate rendezvous with my advanced screen in-- was he raised an eyebrow at Enwright.

 

 

"Call it nineteen hours, sir." "In approximately nineteen standard hours, Lieuten- ant,"" Forsythe continued to Qwan. "Courier drone with your transmission dispatched. Good luck.

 

 

Message ends. Got it?" "Yes, sir. It's on the tape." "Good. Send it standard civil service cede, no scramble." "Yes, sir." "Thank you, Doris." Forsvthe switched off the communicator and turned back to lnwright and Samsonov. "And now, gentlemen, let us give some thought to our circumstances."" He smiled his bleak smile again. "Somehow I feel certain even my delicate touch will not suffice to make them any worse." Vice Admiral Analiese Ashigara, slim and severe in her black and silver uniform, sat on the flag bridge of TFNS Basilisk and watched the bright dot of the mail packet on her display. She glanced at acom rating.

 

 

"Anything from the patrols, Ashworth?" "No, sir. They're 150 light-seconds out, and they report nothing detectable in scanner range." "Thank you." She glanced at her operations officer. If the recon fighters' exquisitely sensitive instruments weren't picking up anything, then there was nothing to pick up.

 

 

"Recall them, Commander Dancing." "Aye, aye, sir." "Communications, raise Rising Moon." "Aye, aye, sir." There was silence on the bridge the silence of a professional team aware of the dangers of unnec, chatter -comz Admiral Ashigara leaned back in her cemmand chair and waited. Suddenly the main screen filled with the image of a dark, lean face wreathed in a huge smile of relief.

 

 

"Captain Stiegman, I am Vice Admiral Analiese Ashigara.

 

 

I assume you have a reason for declaring a Priority One message cndition?" "I wish to hell I didn't," Stiegman said in a rich New

 

 

Antworp ccent. "All hell's broken loose out here, ma'am, and no mistake. If you don't mind my asking, where's Admiral Forsythe?" "He is following with the battle-line, Captain," Ashigara said. "I expect him in approximately six hours." "Battle-line?ddment Thank God!" Stiegman seemed to sag towards the pickup. "You don't know what's going on out here, Admiral! They're crazy! They--was "Captain Stiegman," Ashigara cut him off, "I appreciate the strain you are obviously undbr. I would request, however, that you say nothing more over an open channel. I will, with your permission, send my cutter for you so that you can deliver your message to me in person. And confidentially." "Yes." Stiegman inhaled deeply.

 

 

"Certainly, Admiral. Send your cutter at once. The sooner I can tell someone else, the better, by God!" "Well, Captain Stiegman," Admiral Forsythe said as he handed the man a drink. "I have the essentials of your story from Admiral Ashigara." He sounded too calm. The Galaxy was collapsing around his ears, and he sounded too calm about it all.

 

 

"I don't yet have all the details, however, and I'd appreciate it if you'd summarize for my staff, as well." "Summarize, Admiral?" Stiegman drained half the glass in a single gulp. "Gladly. In fact, I'll be delighted to let someone else worry about it for a while." His slowly easing tension wasn't lost on his listeners, and they hunched closer to him as he began.

 

 

"It started about a month ago," he said slowly.

 

 

"I put into Bigelow with a mail consignment--they break it down on Hasdruble for transshipment to the rest of the cluster--and they told me my departure clearance and return cargo would be delayed a day or two." He shrugged. "Two days is a long layover, but I've had longer, so I didn't think much about it.

 

 

"But a few hours later, the port master called me up again--something about a viral infection and they couldn't find one of the people who'd been exposed. He agreed the odds were against their plague carrier being on board, but SOP required a search of the ship. Well, I wasn't too pleased, but nobody wants to chance another plague outbreak, so I agreed." He paused and stared down into his drink. When he looked back up, his eyes were hot.

 

 

"But it wasn't any damned medical inspection party they sent aboard my ship," he grated. "It was an entire platoon of Marines--comor they wore Marine combat zoots, anyway." He relaxed his muscles with a visible effort. "But they were already aboard, and no one in his right mind argues with a platoon of zoots, whoever's inside 'em." He shook his head slowly, remembering.

 

 

"They were polite as hell--I'll give the bastards that! But they posted two men in each drive room and two more on the bridge, and they told me-- me, the skipper of a Federation mail packet, damn 'em!--that they had to 'detain" me." His lips twisted. "Wouldn't say why or for how long.

 

 

Wouldn't say anything else. Just stood there and waited for their reliefs." He growled something under his breath and finished his drink. Forsythe personally refilled the glass, to his obvious relief, and he sipped again, more slowly.

 

 

"Anyway, they had us. I tried getting a message out when I saw a Frontier Fleet cruiser on my screens, but they were on top of me in seconds. No nas. tiness, you understand--just another guard suddenly appeared in the corn section and they stripped off our drones in case I got any snart ideas about using them. con"At first, I thought it was some kind of mistake, but then I figured out the whole orbit port was in on it--whichatever 'x" was. And at least some of those "Marines" really were Marines. I'm sure of it. I considered piracy, a real medical emergency--hell, even a port[*oslashgg'wide outbreak of mass insanity! But I never once considered what was really happening." "And that was, Captain?" Willis Enwright prompted when Stiegman paused once more.

 

 

"Treason, Captain," the mail packet captain said harshly. "Goddamned, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-fucking-wool treason!

 

 

The whole damned system's decided to "secede" from the Federation!" The blood drained from Lieutenant Qwan's face. Enwright's features only tightened slowly, but Samsonov looked as if he'd bebn punched in the stomach and Rivera looked murderous. Only Forsythe seemed unaffected but, then, only he had seen Admiral Ashigara's scrambled transmission.

 

 

"I see, Captain Stiegman," he said quietly. "And their objective, obviously, was to keep Rising Moon from letting the cat out of the bag?" "Exactly. Took us a while to put it together, Admiral, but there had to be some contact between my tech crews and the port service personnel.

 

 

"Near as we can figure it, it all began a month or so after Ladislaus Skjorning got home. Nobody's sure whether it was his idea or whether it was his whole damned planet's notion, but Beaufort's where it started, and whoever planned it mst'ye had one hell of an organization! Given the way the warp lines run, Beaufort's at the bottom of a sack; all the rest of the cluster sort of drains down to "em. They knew hat that meant, too, because they didn't start on Beaufort; they started from Beaufort." "'From Beaufort"?" Enwright repeated.

 

 

"They sent out "emissaries," Captain.

 

 

God only knows what kind of underground's been cooking away out here, but they sure as hell knew who to talk to where, and they sent out people like Stanislaus Skjorning and Dame MacTaggart. Hell, no wonder people listened! I'm a Fringer myself; I know how hot tempers are running out here since the MacTaggart murder. But goddamn it to hell, there's no excuse for a full-scale civil war!" "A war, Captain?" Rivera did not--quite--- sniff. "What do they plan to use for a navy?" "Damned ff I know," Stiegman said frankly, "but it's going to take a fleet--and I mean a fleet--to change their minds." "How so, Captain?" Samsonov asked.

 

 

"Because they're not stupid, however crazy they are.

 

 

They stage-managed it perfectly. Just one day everything is peaceful and fine; the next, Killiman Skywatch is in mutinous hands." "Killiman Skywatch?" Rivera half-rose. "Good Ged, man, do you know what you're saying?" "Damn fight I do." Stiegman seemed almost gloomily satisfied by Rivera's reaction. "I don't know how they did it, but I know they had Killiman, and I'm pretty sure they had Beaufort. Don't know about Bigelow--they were playing it mighty close to their chests in Bigelow, which could mean they didn't have Bigelow Skywatch--but Bigelow's the only way into the cluster, so it could just mean they were being careful in case of visitors." "Even ff they have Skywatch," Samsonov said, thinking out loud, "there's still the Frontier Fleet orbital base. No armament to speak of, but there's a Bigelow-based cruiser squadron. They might not want--was "Exactly, Gregor," Forsythe cut in, and Samsonov broke off as he remembered a civilian was present.

 

 

"Captain Stiegman," the admiral went on, "did you at any time monitor... unusual, shall we say, eom traffic between the orbit port and Skywatch or the Fleet base?" "Never," Stiegman said flatly, "and we kept a good listening watch." "I see. And how did you finally come to escape, Captain?" "We were lucky--comor maybe they got careless. My engineer contacted a buddy in the orbit port and suggested most of the Fringers in our crew were on their side and ready to mutiny against me with a little help from their "Marines". Stiegman shrugged.

 

 

"They went for it. Guess I'm a better actor than I thought. At least, the "fight" between me and a half dozen others and the. "rebels" in the crew seemed to convince "em. Fair amount of shooting to tear up the bulkheads, chief engineer stopping me at gunpoint just before I wrecked the drive--that sort of thing. Nobody hurt, thank God!" "Very neat," Forsythe congratulated him. "And after the 'mutiny"?" "Locked me up in my own brig," Stiegman said cheerfully, "and then Rising toon was a good rebel ship. Took "em a few days to feel sure of it, then they pulled the Marines off. Needed 'em elsewhere, I gather." "I see. And then?" "We waited another few days, behaving like perfect little rebels till we were pretty sure they believed it. Then we powered the drive real slow-- told 'em it was an equipment test--and ran for it." "You ran for it," Samsonov repeated. "Why didn't you contact Bigelow S ,kywatch or the Fleet base?" "Because ff either of 'em were rebel controlled, stopping in om range'd be a real good way to get our ass shot off. Besides, there were Frontier Fleet units in-system. If they were loyal, well and good but if they weren't? Rstsing Moon's fast, but not that fast. If we were going to have light cruisers on our tail, I wanted all the start I could get!" Stiegman grinned wearily. "We made transit so fast nobody's eaten since, and our backup astrogation computer's still pitching fits!" "I see. And then you headed, for Innerworld space?" "Not directly. Actually, I was headed for Heidfs World. Figured to check in with the Frontier Fleet base and come back loaded for bear. Never figured on meeting half the Navy this far out!" "I understand, Captain." Forsythe forced the warmth of approval through the winter of failure in his voice. "But I'll take care of that with a courier drone. I'm afraid I'm going o have to commandeer your vessel." "Why not?" Stiegman grinned wryly. "I'm getting used to it by now." "Then I want you to head for the Fleet base at Cimmaron to carry my dispatches and your own account directly to Vice Admiral Pritzcowitski.

 

 

He'll know what to do from there." "Glad to." Stiegman finished his drink and set it aside, his face thoughtful. "And may I ask what you plan to do, Admiral?" "You may," Forsythe said with a wry smile, "but I'm afraid I haven't really decided, yet." "I see." Stiegrnan rose. "In that case, I'll get back to my ship, with your permission.

 

 

But, Admiral" he met Forsythe's eyes levelly his--comI'd recommend some caution. You haven't talked to these people; I have. They're serious, mighty serious." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I haven't seen your intelligence reports, but this is my normal run. I've felt the tension growing out here for months, and I can tell you this--the Fringe is a nuke about to go off, Admiral." "I know, Captain Stiegman. I know." There was a brief silence after Stiegman's departure. Forsythe and his juniors stared down at the carpet, wrapped in thought. Finally the old man raised his head.

 

 

"Ceaeaaptain Stiegman," he said, "is a most resourceful man.

 

 

"Yes, and he's got guts," Enwright's voice was tighter than usual, "but I can't help thinking he was a little too lucky, sir." "In what way, Willis?" "He got away with it," Enwright said bluntly.

 

 

"No one fired on him and no one chased him. If they had, they'd'ye caught him. A packet's fast, but so is a light cruiser--and a erniser's armed." "True. But if they haven't taken the Fleet base or Skywatch, the rebels couldn't have fired on him--assuming they had anything to fire with--without alerting those installations." "No, sir. But why didn't either of those bases ask Rising Moon where she was going and why? Don't tell me she had departure clearance!" "A point. You're suggesting, then, that the rebels control everything? The entire cluster, fortifications and all?" "We can't know that, sir. I'd say they hold Bigelow, but the rest of the cluster?" Enwright shrugged.

 

 

"Still, it seems probable. Rising Moon may have jumped the gun on them, but they let her go. And since Bigelow's only six transits from Heidi's World, that must mean. they figure thev're about ready anyway." hiswere' see. But assuming you're correct, where do we go from here? Gregor?" "i don't know. sir," Samsonov said frankly. "I'm no Fringer--I don't pretend to know how these people are thinking. But even if Willis is right, they couldn't have known TF Seventeen was coming. They must figure on at least another three months before anyone can turn up; and if they're expecting a relief from Heidfs World, they're only expecting Frontier Fleet un.xs--not monitors and assault carriers." "Gregor's probably right, sir," Enwright said, "but remember our discussion with Captain Li.

 

 

Everything I said then still holds true." "I know you think it does, Willis," Enwright said. "You may even be right. God knows I don't want to go down in history as the first Navy commander to fire on other Ter-rans! But I don't see that we have any choice. If Bigelow

 

 

Skyatch isn't in rebel hands, it's going to need all the help it can get, and the same is true of the Fleet base, the repeaair yards in Killiman--the entire cluster, for that matter.

 

 

"Admiral, please," Enwright's voice was urgent, "send in a few destroyers first. Find out what's happening before we barge in in force. The cans will have the entire task force behind them--and they can say so. That should stop any itchy trigger fingers long enough for a parley." "With respect, Admiral," Rivera said harshly, "I think that would be a mistake. If Bigeiow Skywatch is still loyal, it could touch off the very incident Captain Enwright wants to avoid.

 

 

Take the entire task force. Show them the odds, and they'll cave in." "Don't delude yourself, Commander," Enwright said colby. "If these people've gone this far, they're readv to go further. The actual presence of the task force won't achieve anything except to up the stakes for everyone!" "Perhaps," Forsythe said softly, "but if the entire task force is there, we can be certain anything that happens is over quickly, Willis." His heart ached at his flag captain's look of desolation.

 

 

"Face it, Willis," he said gently. "We can't afford delays. There's no way to keep this quiet--we can't even try to; we need to warn the other Fleet bases, warn the government, warn everyone--and the word is bound to leak. We need to be certain a resolution follows the news as quickly as possible, or other Fringe Worlds will be tempted to follow suit. You know that as well as I do." Enwright looked away from the thin, troubled face with the wise old eyes. Yes, he thought, some of the other Outworlds will follow suit if the Kontravians aren't stopped. But this is the wrong way to do it. He knew it was the wrong way. Or did he? Was that the TFN officer in him, or was it the Fringer? His intellect, or the confusion of his loyalties? He looked back.

 

 

"Please, sir. Talk to them first." "I'll talk to them, Willis." Steel showed through For-sythe's compassionate tone. "But from the flag bridge of this ship with the task force behind me." He rose, termi-rating the meeting.

 

 

"Gentlemen, check your departments.

 

 

I want a complete status report in one hour. We will then formulate our precise plans." His staff saluted and left. Willis Enwright walked slowly to the hatch and paused, then turned back to his admiral, his face older than his years.

 

 

"Sir, what if they don't surrender? What will you do ff they fight?" "Do, Willis?" Forsythe felt the cold of interstellar space blow down his spine. "I'll honor my oath to defend and preserve the Constitution -comany way I must." "You'll open fire, then," Enwright sid almost inaudibly. "If I must," Forsythe said steadily.

 

 

"I don't want to. I'll tell them I don't want to. But I have orders to execute and four centuries of history to defend. Unlike them, I have no room to make personal choices, do I?" "I suppose not, sir," Enwright said quietly.

 

 

"But consider this, I beg of you. What you see as a personal choice may not seem like one to others." He seemed to be trying to tell Forsythe something, but the old admiral was too worried and heartsick to hunt for the meaning.

 

 

"I understand that, but I don't have an option. No one can ask more of any man than that he do his duty as he sees it." He shook his head sadly. "No matter how painful it is." "Yes, sir. I hope we all remember that," Enwright said quietly. Then he drew himself up and gave Forsythe the sharpest salute the admiral had ever seen from him. He stepped through the hatch, and it closed behind him.

 

 

DUTY "Captain Enwright and Admiral Forsythe are both dead.t" The gasping words came hoarse over the com channel, but the screens were blank with electronic hash. Commander Windriter didn't recognize the distorted, faceless voice. Who was it? Had they ever met?

 

 

'I'hey're all dead on flag bridge!" the voice went on desperately. "There's fighting evereavwhere... crew quarters... officer country... power rooms... We need help, for God's sake! We--was The snarl of a laser pistol slashed across the words and the voice went silent. The blinking light codes on Windrider's fire control screens chilled his blood, and his hands clenched on the gunnery, console of the monitor Enwright as the flagship fell away, the first mutiny in the Federation Navy's history raging: on her command bridges and in her drive rooms.

 

 

Jason Bluefield Windrider couldn't believe it. No, he told himself grimly, he could believe it; he just didn't want to. Mutiny was an obscenity to a man like him, but he understood the mutineers. Not long ago, some of them would have been guests in his quarters, discussing the crisis, wondering where their true duty lay. It seemed they'd decided aboard Anderson.

 

 

He looked into the strained faces of his control team. They knew what was happening aboard the flagshipbut what could thev do about it? For that matter, what could he do? He and ('is ratings sat at the very. core of a tremendous hull, 285,000 tonnes of alloy and armor wrapped around their fragile lodies and sensitive instruments. They were Enwright's fighting brain, controlling the power to vaporize a planetoid or sterilize a world, and soon they might have to perform actions which would scar their souls. He didn't know what the men and women of his crew would decide. He was certain of only one thing; he himself was about to face a moment of truth he did not believe he could endure.

 

 

The communicators muttered, ghostly voices blurring in his battlephone implant as frantic commanders conferred, afraid to expose their inner convictions, yet compelled by duty and training to act decisively.

 

 

And that was their true curse, Windrider thought savagely. Navy training and their own inclinations forced them to act. They weren't politicians (the word was a vicious epithet in his thoughts) who could confer and debate and duck responsibility. When you put on Navy black and silver, you put your judgment on the spot. "An imperfect response now is a thousand times better than recognizing the perfect response too late." That was what the Academy taught but there were only imperfect responses to this!

 

 

Windrider shook his head angrily. The universe was crumbling before his eyes and he was philosophizing? Yet what else could he do?

 

 

He, too, had "reacted" long since, but his had been a hypothetical decision, one he'd hoped never to face. One he'd believed he would never face, because he had dared not believe anything else.

 

 

But now its hungry breath was in his face, hot and stinking as a pseudopuma's.

 

 

It wasn't fair! Hadn't the bureaucrats known? were they so blind to human needs and loyalties they hadn't even considered what might happen out here?

 

 

But of course they had. That was why the Marine contingents aboard the transports consisted almost entirely of Innerworlders.

 

 

Yet the politicos had miscalculated, he thought grimly. They'd guessed at the hatred they were about to unleash, but not how quickly the flames would erupt. Their planned show of force was supposed to nip rebellion in the bud, on the ground. They'd never dreamed the Kontravians might seize 'thEir local orbital defenses and Frontier Fleet squad-tons or have the guts to defy TF 1Ts might after they did.

 

 

Besides, the Navy's monumental dependability was the bedrock of the Federation; it had never occurred to them that the Fringers in the Fleet might be as conscious of planetary loyalties as any Corporate Worlder. So they hadn't "sanitized" the Fleet as they had the ground forces.

 

 

Perhaps they couldn't have, really, given the high proportion of Outworlders in the Fleet. Only a few ships had "reliable" Innerworld crews. Most had heavy Fringe contingents; some were completely Fringer-crewed. Now their officers were caught between their oaths and the dreadful prospect of turning their weapons on fellow Fringers, and it was intolerable.

 

 

Faced with the unfaceable, Enwright had acted, Forsythe had reacted, and laser fire had gutted Anderson's flag deck. But they were only the first casualties; WJ-NDRIDER could already taste the blood to come, and it sickened him.

 

 

"Captain! Admiral Singh is coming up on the all-ships channel!" "Throw it on the big screen, Mister Sung." Li Han held her face calm and her voice level as she waited for the screen to light, but she felt her bridge crew's tension. Even her imperturbable executive officer showed the signs; Tsing Chang's breathing vas harshly audible.

 

 

Thomas Singh had always struck Han as belonging to an earlier age. The neatly-trimmed beard in fashion among the Fleet's male officers somehow contrived to look fierce and predatory, on Singh, and never more so than now. His dark eyes flashed, and the lips under his hooked nose were tight. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and cold.

 

 

"Ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.

 

 

Captain Willis Enwright and others aboard the flagship have mutinied against the lawful orders of their superior officers and against their oaths as officers and enlisted personnel of the Federation Navy. I will not permit this to spread! I believe Admiral Forsythe to be dead, and I hereby assume command. All Marine detachments will report to the armories and draw full combat equipment." Han tensed, and a soft sigh ran around her bridge. "Marines from the transport group will board Anderson. Any individual participating in this disgraceful violation of the Fleet's trust will be arrested to await tr--was "No!" Despite her iron control, Han jerked as the single word cut across Singh's cold voice. She thought it had come from one of her own people... until Singh whipped around to stare behind him. Then he was flinging himself aside, dropping towards the deck, and a laser bolt slashed across the pickup. His command console flared--plastics burning, metals melting--and the snarl of lasers continued for a fractional second before someone's fire incinerated the entire command station.

 

 

Han's eyes jerked to her tactical display, and her heart froze as data codes began to blink and change. Mutiny flashed through the task force like a nuclear blast as Fringer after Fringer realized what loosing Corporate World Marines on their fellow Outworlders meant. The sleek carrier group flagship Basilisk slid to one side, drive faltering as she convulsed internally. Her flight group was entirely Fringer, and now the pilots joined the Outworlders of the ship's company against their fellow crewmen. Ever since the Theban War officers and senior ratings went to action stations with side arms; now those weapons created holocaust within her compartments and passages.... and she was but one ship among many.

 

 

"Captain?" Tsing's normally passionless voice questioned, and Han felt his eyes, felt the burning questions in the minds of her bridge personnel. It was against this cataclysmic instant of ruin that she had prepared for all these months; against this decision that she'd selected her crew, trading ruthlessly on past debts and owed favors. Now her handpicked personnel looked to her, tense and straining as attack dogs, their fear and confusion checked only by their trust in her.

 

 

And how strong was that trust? They were Federation officers, trained and sworn, yet they were also Fringers. How could she--how could anyone hold them in a moment like this? For an instant, she felt as small and frail as her appearance suggested, but her finger touched a stud on her chair arm, and she heard Tsing's breath hiss as her eom panel to it with the face of Captain Wang Chung-hui, commander of Longbow's Marine detachment.

 

 

ISURRECT-OATION 89 Wang's cheeks quivered under her level regard, but there was no strain in her face, he thought almost resentfully. What was she about to demand of him?

 

 

He knew his duty.., but he, too, was a Hangchowese.

 

 

"Major Wang," Han's voice was cool, and Wang felt a stab of near hysterical mirth.

 

 

There could be onlv one "captain" aboard a warship, yet it was typical of Li Ian to remember a point of etiquette and give him his courtesy promotion at a time like this. She was the smallest person in Longbow's complement; she was also the largest.

 

 

"Yes, sir?" he said hoarsely, and his heart sank as he realized that when she ordered it he and his men would don their combat zoots and board Anderson, blasting down anything in their path. Not because of dutv or Admiral @u Singh, but because Captain Li had ordered them to, "You heard Admiral Singh, Major," Han said softiv.

 

 

"Ye*sir." -

 

 

"Report to the armory, Major." Wang's heart plum- meted. "Draw combat gear for your men, then post guards on the boatbay and all auxiliary hatches.

 

 

Nobody leaves this ship. Is that clear?" His "Sir?" Wang blinked. Guard the boatbay and hatches? Seal them? Then she wasn't... "Yes, sir.r' Wang barked, and the salute he threw her would have done credit to the commandant of the Corps.

 

 

"Thank you, Major." Hah broke the circuit, her face still calm, despite the sweat beading her hairline. She continued to ignore her bridge crew, forcing herself to remain oblivious of the holstered lasers riding at every hip as she touched another stud.

 

 

"This is the Captain," she said, ignoring the normal preambles of an all-hands announcement, and speakers throughout the ship rattled with her measured voice. "You know what's happening." She drew a deep breath. "Now I'll tell you what's going to happen in Longbow. We are not going to obev Admiral Singh's orders." She felt her bridge crew twitch in near convulsive reaction.

 

 

"I am your commander. As a sworn officer of the Federation Naeaity, I have no choice but to obey my lawful superiors, just as you have none but to obev me. Yet some orders cannot be obeyed, and Admiral Sifigh's are such orders. I cannot order you to mutiny"--comshe used the word deliberately-- "but understand this: the only way Longbow will assist in suppressing the outbreak aboard Anderson is by mutinying against me." She paused, tasting the shock and confusion in some of her officers, the burning determination in others. She felt weak and shaken, as if her body were a hollow shell filled with air, and wanted desperately to lick her lips, but she didn't.

 

 

"I intend," she went on, her voice clear and strong, "to place this vessel at the service of the Kontravian Cluster. Any who disagree with that decision are free to leave. Report to Major Wang at the boatbay--without weapons. That is all." She released the stud and turned her chair slowly, meeting Commander Tsing's eyes squarely before she to et her gaze sweep her other officers.

 

 

Every holster was sealed. No one spoke in encouragement or condemnation. That wasn't the Hangchow way, she thought almost whimsically.

 

 

But there was a way to gauge their true feelings.

 

 

"Lieutenant Chu?" "Yes, sir?" Her navigator sounded breathless, but there was snap in his voice.

 

 

"Lay off a course to place us between Anderson and the rest of the task force, Lieutenant Chu." "Aye, aye, sir." And that was all there was to it.

 

 

Commander Windrider watched Basilisk peel off the edge of the formation--and she was only the first. The monitor Prescott slid drunkenly aside as fighting wracked her command deck and navigation spaces before the drive could be cut. The destroyers and cruisers of the screen went berserk as their complements turned on one another, and garbled scraps of chatter told him the fighting had become general aboard Enwright, as well. Only one ship was under complete command. He watched his display as a single battle-cruiser shot out of the scrambling formation to hover between Anderson and her consorts. The data codes gave her identity, and her shields were up, her weapons on line.

 

 

"Alert! Alert!" A computer voice wailed, then choked off, replaced by Captain Hodah's voice, and Windrider smiled" bitterly. There was no taped message for this madness.

 

 

"This is the Captain! All persons resisting their lawful superiors will cease immediately or face summary courts martial for mutiny! Marines will lay aft to the boatbay and prepare to board Anderson pursuant to the orders of Admiral Thomas Singh. Any person resisting execution of this order will be stopped. Marine officers are instructed to use weapons immediately in any ase of resistance. This is a direct order--and your final warning!" Windrider blanched. Hodah was a calm, humane man; for him to turn the Marines against his own people with a virtual license to kill and to announce it for all to hear--must mean he felt the situation could get no worse. And what the hell had happened to Admiral Singh? Why wasn't he on the eom?

 

 

A trident buzzer shrilled, and his eyes widened. The passages outside fire control were depressurizing... and that could happen only ff someone deliberately spilled atmosphere! God!

 

 

The blast doors and armored bulkheads were slamming shut, sealing fire control even more tightly. With zero pressure beyond and atmosphere within, it would be impossible to open those doors from outside--and blasting them open would take hours..

 

 

. or a nuke. Had Hodah done it to keep mutineers away? Or had the mutineers done it to isolate fire control from the loyalists? But the deck plates still pulsed to the rhythm of the drives, so Hodah had secured the power plants, or slaved their controls to the bridge. Was the power gang alive, or breathing space? What was happening out there? Who controlled what in the lunatic asylum which had once been a capital ship?

 

 

One of his ratings jerked on his gauntlets and reached for his helmet, and Windrider stabbed him with an angry stare.

 

 

"Where do you think you're going, Bearclaw?" "B -comb, sir! Those are ourfrstends out there! We've got to do something[" The missile tech was a product of Windrider's own world, an Amerind from Topaz, and his words tore at Windrider's soul.

 

 

He felt sweat under the tooled leather band at his temples and remembered the scent of the evergreen tomash trees above his home.

 

 

"What you're going to do, Bearclaw," he said harshly, "is stand away from that hatch and sit down." Bearclaw sat slowly, and his crewmates looked away in confusion. What was Windrider doing?

 

 

Where did their own officer stand? The click of plastic and metal jerked their eyes back as he laid his laser on the console.

 

 

"No one enters or leaves this compartment without my permission," he grated. "No one. Is that understood?" He met each of his subordinate's eyes in turn, pinning them with a brown, bitter glare until they nodded. Then he turned back to the targeting screens, sick at heart at what he'd just said, and sicker still at what he might yet have to do.

 

 

Red lights flared on status boards as whole computer sectors fell out of circuit. Shot out or cut, it made no difference to his own command station. They could cut the drives, they could cut the data net, they could blow the bridge to atoms; as long as Enwright had power, he controlled her weapons.

 

 

But what of it? He asked himself that with all the pent up bitterness and helplessness--comand fear which filled him. It had seemed so simple in the bull sessions. Nothing violent. Just a refusal to fire ff the time came. Passive resistance. Not this!

 

 

Never this mindless murder of fellow Navy men and women who were only doing their duty as best they understood it!

 

 

His battlephone beeped a priority code, and he punched a console key, shifting to a secure intraship battle channel. It was Hodah.

 

 

"Commander." The captain sounded harassed, but his voice was still crisp. "These damned mutineers must have planned this ahead of time. They've taken the armory and most of the Marines' quarters--we can't even get to the combat zoots, much less the boatbay! We still control the drive, and I think we still hold the power rooms, but I don't dare release the remotes to find out. I've confirmed the loss of auxiliary fire control and CIC, and all contact with flag bridge went out five minutes ago. We had a shoot-out in plotting, too, and there was a godawful explosion in datalink control right after we lost touch with flag bridge. I hold the command deck, and I've got armed Marines on the bridge elevators, but all I've got left up he'e friend hattie control is the auxiliary nay tank. Have you got all that?" "Yes, sir." Windrider felt sweat matting his eyebrows. "All fight. It comes down to this, Commander," Hodah grated. "I can still move this ship, but that's all I can do. You're the only man who can target and fire her weapons. So tell me, Commander Windrider--are you prepared to do your duty?" "My duty, Captain?" Windrider hesitated, his face ashen, then answered firmly.

 

 

"Yes, sir. I'm prepared to do my duty." "Then understand this, Commander," Hodah said softly.

 

 

"Admiral Forsythe is dead, and Admiral Singh was appar* ently killed when they took out our flag bridge. Admiral Traynor may be dead; we've lost all contact with Vesuvius, so I have to assume she's either dead or a prisoner. I've got ntact with Admiral Hale, but the mutineers have all the engineering spaces in E1 Chichon; he can't even neuver. Admiral Ashigara apparently went over to the mutineers aboard Basilisk, so as near as I can figure it, Hale's the senior man left, and he's given me orders to terminate the fighting aboard Anderson--fast. Maybe we can bring the whole task force back to its senses ff we get some Marines in there quickly. But Captain Li and Longbow are in the way, and they've threatened to destroy the first boat launched against Anderson.

 

 

I've got two superdread-noughts from Admiral Hale's group, and one attack transport is prepared to go in, but they can't launch until Longbow's neutralized.., one way or the other." Windrider heard the pain in his voice and remembered the evening Captain Li had dined aboard as his guest. "I'm going to give Li one last chance to move aside," Hodah said quietly. "If she refuses... Then, Commander, it's all up to you and your team." "I--understand the situation, sir," Windrider whispered.

 

 

"Good. Switch to the intership channels, Commander.

 

 

I want Captain Li to hear us if I have to pass you orders." "Yes, sir." Windrider shifted channels and ran his fingers over the cool plastic console, feeling the latent destruction and understanding Hodah's pain too well, for Windrider, too, knew Li Han's reputation.

 

 

Han stared into her eom screen at Simon Hodah's worried, angry face, reading the fear and fury in his eyes and wondering if he saw the pain in hers. His mouth was a slashed wound and his voice was harsh.

 

 

"Captain Li, you are in violation of the Articles of War. You will surrender your command and person at once, pursuant to the orders of Vice Admiral Eric Hale. You will heave to and await my boarding party. Officers designated by myself will relieve you of command and place you under close arrest to await trial. This is a direct order, logged and taped. You may authenticate with Admiral Hale." "Captain Hodah," Han said softly to her old friend, "I must respectfully refuse your order." "You have no authority to refuse!" Even the rage in Hodah's voice couldn't hide the pleading under his fury. "Now cut your shields and get out of my way, Captain, or by the living God, I'll blow you apart!" Hah looked around her bridge crew. Every set of shoulders was tense, every face knotted with tension, but not a voice protested as she turned back to her superior officer. God, she was proud of them! Yet her heart ached at matching their courage against their own fellows. It was such a waste--such a tragic, stupid waste--yet all of them were caught in the conflicting webs of duty, loyalty, and trust. Did her people suspect how much strength she drew from them? Or did they think they drew theirs from her?

 

 

She glanced down at her plot almost idly, watching data codes flash as weapons and tracking systems came alive aboard the trio of capital ships, and the deadly threat of those weapons was her reality. Her mind flickered over her life, remembering the things she'd done, recalling those she'd meant to do. How would her father react to this? What of the children she'd always known she would someday bear?

 

 

She raised her eyes once more to Simon's.

 

 

She knew him so well. He would fire--comindeed, she would leave him no option--and when Enwright and the superdreadnoughts fired, Longbow would die. No battle-cruiser ever built could survive that concentration of fire at this range.

 

 

She hadn't anticipated when she handpicked her crew that she had chosen them only to die with her, yet Hodah's margin for error was razor thin.

 

 

Longbow's destruction would clear the path to Anderson, but it was a deadlv expedient which might well recoil upon him, for it would left-brace give every mutineer his options, spell out the full, deadly consequences of resistance. It might awe them into surrender, but she thought not.

 

 

Her face was calm as the death of her ship and crew looked back at her from Hodah's eyes.

 

 

It was unfair. It was cruel. Yet in a sense, it was also the sublime completion of her life. She drew a deep breath, hoping no one would notice.

 

 

"Go to hell, sir," she said very gently.

 

 

The deck shivered as Enwright moved deliberately towards the slim, defiant Longbow, and the Corporate Worldrewed superdreadnoughts Nanda Devi and Pente- likon moved in beside her, shields glowing. The transport Chief Joseph slid in behind them, but she was unimport- ant in the confrontation of Goliaths, and Windrider's fin- gers flew over his own console even as his mind tried to reject the firing setup he was creating.

 

 

Horror froze his subordinates into shocked, speechless immobility as the target codes appeared on their monitors, and he heard Han's reply and waited in a private hell for the words he kne, must come.

 

 

"Fire Control!" Hodah's voice pounded in his brain.

 

 

"Yes, sir?" He was astounded he could sound so calm.

 

 

"Lock on all weapons. Prepare to fire at my cammand." "Aye, aye, sir. Locking on now." His fingers pressed the commit keys, and red lights glowed as weapon bays opened. Massive beam projectors snouted out and missiles slid into theirthe launchers, backup rounds dropping silently into the loading trays.

 

 

The ranked missiles riding the external racks woke to malevolent life, and sweat burned his eyes. He was sealed in a cage of ice and fire, for he was both a Fringer and a Federation officer. What was his duty? It mattered, and his uncer- tainty was agony as his hands hovered above the firing keys.

 

 

"Captain Li, this is your last chance!" Hodah snapped.

 

 

"Go , Simon!" Li Han's His harsh at last, almost as ff she were deliberately goading her old friend. "Fire and be damned!" "Very well, Captain." Hodah's voice was as cold as space. "You leave me no choice.

 

 

Fire Control, you have your orders. Open fire-- now.t" Windrider's hands trembled on the deadly snakes of his firing keys and he blinked his eyes, fighting to focus. Longbow and the superdreadnoughts were virtually shield-to-shield, floating in his targeting screens at suicidal range, the battle-erniser small and alone, frail despite her weight of armor and weapons. Visions and sounds filled his mind. Memories of his homeworld. The final parade at the Academy. Men and women he knew in the ships on his control screen. Men and women waiting to die when he touched those keys. All of them flashed through his mind, and his hands were paralyzed.

 

 

He couldn't do it. God help him, he couldn't do it!

 

 

"Damn it, Windrider! Open fire!" Hodah roared, his own grief flogging his fury. "Do your duty, man!" The word "duty" flared in Windrider's mind like a bomb, and he jerked spastically.

 

 

"Aye, aye, sir," he said very softly, and his eyes flicked over the targeting codes, a professional double-checking his work even in his anguish. Then his fingers tensed, and Enwright's weapons spoke.

 

 

The world of the eom channels shattered around him, battered by the roar of a hundred furious, denouncing voices and as many more that bellowed with triumph. A tide of destruction ripped from Enwright in a fury of beams and the impassioned streaks of missiles, and devastation rocked the vacuum as her weapons found their targets--Windrider's targets.

 

 

Shields flared and died. Plating split, ruptured, disintegrated, vaporized. Atmosphere fumed from a gutted hull, and Jason Windrider clung to his sanity with bleeding fingernails while tears streamed down his cheeks and TFNS Nanda Devi died under his THE OF CAIN Naomi Hezikiah felt out of place in Pommern's command chair, for a heavy cruiser was not normally a lieutenant commander's billet, and even the thin Bible in the breast of her ,c suit was scant comfort as she contemplated what was about to happen.

 

 

She punched up communications, and a painfully young ensign answered her. Yet another sign of the times; it should have been at least a full lieutenant.

 

 

"Anything from the flagship, Harvey?" "No, sir." The young black man shook his head in mild surprise. "Standing orders are to maintain com silence, sir," he reminded respectfully.

 

 

"I know." Naomi probed the ensign's face for any uncertainty and started to say more, but she'd set her hand to the plow, as Elder Habermaa would say. To everything there was a season... even to this, she supposed drear-fly. So she made herself smile, instead. "Carry on, Ensign." "Aye, aye, sir," the corn officer said, and the screen blanked.

 

 

Naomi leaned back and closed her eyes. All she wanted was to be back on cold, bleak New Covenant. But she couldn't be there and after what had already happened @u.. after what was about to happen..

 

 

. not even New Covenant would want her back.

 

 

She remembered Abraham and prayed silently for God to send another ram before the blade fell. But he wouldn't.

 

 

Her mind went back over the past, terrible two weeks

 

 

that had started so wonderfully. She and Earnest had had the medic's official report; they'd actually been discussing ways to finagle their assignments so she could take her maternity leave at home on New Covenant when the scrambled transmission came over the relay net. An entire Battle Fleet task force--comn just a battlegroup, a task force--taken by its own personnel. Casualties had been heavy, and the few ships which remained loyal had been hunted down and captured or destroyed before they got far. But not before they got their courier drones away.

 

 

Commodore Prien had been a fool. Naomi's eyes stung as she remembered the kindly old man, a Heart Worlder who couldn't believe his own squadron might follow suit. He'd actually broadcast his decision to return to base immediately.

 

 

.. and why. He should have known what would happen--and it had happened within hours. Desperate men and women had met, and the Fringers among his crews had risen against him.

 

 

But not all of them. No, not all of them. The meetings had been too clandestine, too hurried.

 

 

Everything had been improvised by isolated groups, trusting no one outside their own little band. Not until the first mutineer drew his weapon could anyone know who stood where outside whatever tiny group they'd discussed disx with, and the loyalists had fought back furiously. The carnage had been more savage than she would have believed possible; there were laser scars on the bulkheads around her, and the victorious mutineers had barely half the personnel they theoretically needed.

 

 

And when the fighting ended, Naomi found Earnest sprawled over his fire control panel, laser in hand, and two dead mutineers before him.

 

 

She had barely been able to read the funeral service through her tears. Had he known they were on different sides? Would he have fought beside her if he'd known? Or would his stubborn sense of duty, the courage she loved so much, still have ranged them against one another?

 

 

She didn't know. She couldn't know, for Earnest had died, and she had inherited command of a heavy, cruiser @u.. and even Elder Haberman would never be able to convince her that God could forgive her.

 

 

Not that the Elder would have the chance, she thought mordantly,, glancing at the nay tank. She would have the opportunity to plead her case before the Lord herself all too soon, for the pulsing pattern of the nay beacons was clear in the tank, and her astrogator turrved to her.

 

 

"Thirty seconds to warp, Captain," he said quietly. "Very well," Naomi nodded curtly@u "Carry. on." "Aye, aye, sir." And so it was official. Toshiba wasn't going to relent@u "We have no choice," Captain Victor Toshiba had told his "captains." "We're too deep in Innerworld space. We'd never make it to the Fringe if we just ran, and we've burned all our other bridges@u We ali know why we did it, but that doesn't matter. We're all of us--come one of us--commutineers." He'd scanned his subordinates' facos, reading their despair, but, his eyes were determined as he went grimly on.

 

 

"We'ret walking dead, ladies and gentlemen.

 

 

Face it. Accept it and use it, because we're just as dead whether we spend our lives profitably or not. There is one, and only one, thing we can do for the Fringe now." His finger had stabbed the erazv quilt of warp lines in his nay tank. "Galloway's World. hat's what we ean give the Fringe @u.

 

 

. by taking it away from the Federation!" Naomi had stared at him in horror, yet she was his senior "captain." "But, sir," she'd said softly, "we don't begin to have the strength to seize Gallowav's World. Surelv vou're not suggesting... hiswas " " His "That's precisely what I am suggesting," Toshiba had said coldly. "We can gut the shipyards if we get in unchallenged. It's gone too far to stop now. It's war, Commander, war between the Fringe and the Innerworlds, and we both know who holds the industrial trumps. Can we stand by while the Corporate WorMs beat our people to death? No!

 

 

We're going to hurt them--hurt them nou and hurt them badsty. We're going to buy time for our people, the one way we can." He'd paused, as if steeling his own nerve. "This only way: a nuclear strike on Galloway's World." Naomi had wanted to vomit. They were the TFN, sworn to defend humanity against mass nurder! And yet, wrong as he was, he might also be right. They were doomedeaand they owed their people a chance. She remembered the winter wind howling around the dome on New Covenant and knew she could kill to defend the civilians of her world but could she kill other civilians for them? She'd looked up and her lips had parted, but Toshiba's voice had marched on ruthlessly, forestalling her objections.

 

 

"I know there are bound to be heavy casuahiescivilian casualties. The Jamieson Archipelago is the most densely populated area of the whole planet. Only an idiot could think you can nuke a target like that and not kill civilians; only a liar would tell you you could.

 

 

"But I als6 know what we're defending--and so do you! Our own homes, our own societies... the kind of societies that let humans be people, not just well-fed, two-legged domestic animals producing for Corporate World masters!" His vehemence had shaken them all, and Naomi had felt her resistance waver. Then he'd paused and looked at them sadly. When he resumed, his voice was very soft.

 

 

"I know what you're thinking. Do we have the right to do this, even in self-defense? I don't know how you'll answer that, but I know how I will. They say a flower will grow toward sunlight through ceramacrete, and pe.rhaps they're right. But... what if everything is covered with ceramacrete? What ff the flower finally breaks through, but there's no one left who can recognize a flower when he sees one?" Naomi had bent over her hands, feeling his eyes on the crown of her head as his will beat against her, and realized how pivotal her own decision was.

 

 

They'd endured one mutiny--perhaps they had another in them yet. But the first had cost her too much. Whatever God demanded of her, it couldn't be another spasm of the bloodshed which had taken Earnest. Her head remained bent, her eyes locked on her fingers, and the moment for rebellion passed.

 

 

"We've got a good chance of pulling it off," Toshiba had said softly as Naomi silently withdrew her opposition. "No one knows we've mutinied. We can put into Galloway's World for new orders, carry out the strike, and run. It's even possible "he'd tried to sound as ff he meant it --com?some of us may get home. We're fast and well-armed; we may be able to split up and avoid action.

 

 

But"-- his voice had grown somber once more-- "that's not what's important. Whether we can get away or not, we have to do it." And every rebellious o@.cer in his cabin had nodded silently.

 

 

"Warp in five seconds," Astrogation said softly. "Four @u.. Three... Two.

 

 

One... Warp!" Naomi flinched as the indescribable surge of warp transit gripped her. She knew it was impossible, but in that instant she thought she felt the child within her. Thank God Doc Sevridge had understood. Losing her command would have left her a mere spectator, and no matter what her private purgatory, she had to do something. So he'd wiped the pregnancy report from the data banks with a tired smile@u, "Might's well carry mutiny to its logical conclusion," he'd said.

 

 

"I have a challenge, Captain!" The voice in Naomi's implant jerked her back to the present.

 

 

"Standard query for ID and purpose." "Stand by, Gunnery," she said through dry lips, watching the warp point forts on her tactical display. "Commodore Toshiba will roll the tape any minute now. Then we'll know." Her anxious eyes moved to a secondary screen as the carefully crafted composite of Prien's recorded messages went out over the corn channels. It was good, she thought distantly. The electronics boys had done a bang-up job.

 

 

But was it good enough? his... so after the fighting," the dead commodore said from the screen, "we patched up our damage and headed here. Commodore Jacob Prien, Tenth Cruiser Squadron, Frontier Fleet, awaiting orders." "Good report, Commodore. Excellent!" The florid-faced admiral in the reception screen had a strong Fisk accent. "We had some trouble here, too, when the news first hit, but the local reservists turned the trick. We've got our heel on the scum now, and we're keeping it there!

 

 

Shape your course for Skeavwatch Three. They'll have new orders cut by the time you get there."

 

 

"Aye, aye, sir," the recorded composite said. "Commodore Prien out." "And thank God for that," someone muttered as the admiral disappeared. Naomi heard but didn't respond. If God were truly kind, that fathead would have been suspicious. They would have had to fight or flee well clear of the planet. She knew she could die happily in a ship-to-ship action, and she found that she'd been secretly hoping for just that.

 

 

She watched the plot as Kongo led the squadron system. Revenge and Oslabya fell in astern, followed by Naomi's own ship and then the two DD'S. It all looked harmlessly normal, but Poramern's battle board glowed a steady scarlet. All but the shields. They still blinked green and amber, for to raise them would raise questions, as well.

 

 

The hours dragged endlessly past, Galloway's World looming slowly before them, and Naomi considered the bitter irony which brought Pommern back to the yards which had birthed her in a terrible act of matricide.

 

 

No one down there would spare a thought for the holocaust lurking in the belly of her ship, she thought bitterly. Fleet missiles were to protect them, not kill them.

 

 

And then, finally, Skywatch Three loomed close aboard of them, and she gritted her teeth, watching her board, waiting for what she knew must come.

 

 

It came. Command codes flashed over the data net from Kongo. The squadron's shields slammed up. Hetlasers swiveled in their bays. As one ship, drives and engines slaved to the flagship, they charged the orbiting fortress, minnows against its bulk. The external ordnance racks belched their deadly loads, joined by the internal launchers, and Naomi Hezikiah was a spectator as the Tenth Cruiser Squadron, TFN, blew Skywatch Three to half-vaporized rubble in less than thirty seconds.

 

 

The corn channels went wild as incredulous loyalists realized what was happening. Naomi's battlephone hummed and whined as hastily-tuned jammers came on line, fighting to shatter the squadron's datalink, but the cruisers drove onward, drives howling at max as they arrowed towards the planet.

 

 

The first defensive missiles lanced out to meet them, and Naomi Watched her display as point defense stations spewed counter missiles against them and space burned with detonating warheads. They were fast on their feet, those gunners, but where were the beams?

 

 

"Communications seizure attempt!" her eom ocer shouted, and her battlephone shrieked into her mastoid for a fraction of a second before the filters damped the sound.

 

 

"Data net jammed," the ensign snapped.

 

 

"Independent targeting," Naomi ordered, feeling her shock frame tighten about her. You should be ,ny husband, her brain screamed at the gunnery officer, but she strangled the thought as she scanned the battle plot. "Take those destroyers ahead of us. We have to hold them off the flag." "Aye, aye, sir!" Naomi fgg@ddund it easier to cling to her sanity as her ship's weapons moved independently at last, reaching out to rake the oncoming ships with hetlasers and missiles. Kongo's own ECM must be jamming the tineans' data net, for their point defense was late, and Pommern's fire tore the lead ship apart.

 

 

But missiles were getting through among the squadron as their own point defense stations went to independent control. She winced as a direct hit smashed at Pommern's outer shields. Kongo was taking hits, too, and so was Oslabya, but no so many as Revenge. Naomi watched the second cruiser shudder in torment as her shields went down and the first warhead ripped at her drive field and mangled her armor.

 

 

"Shields one through three down," Gunnery reported. "Incoming missiles tracking Kongo from astern, sir. There's somebody on our ass. Somebody bstg. Those are capital missiles." "Understood," Naomi said coldly, and under her crisp surface, a little girl recited ancient words. "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death..." She shook free of the thoughts.

 

 

She'd wanted a ship-to-ship action; perhaps she had one.

 

 

"New course!" she snapped. "Bring us around on a reciprocal. Let the commodore deal with those cans--we've got bigger fish to fry!"

 

 

Pommern snarled around in a tight turn. Even through the drive field, she felt the lateral motion as her ship fought inertia and momentum.

 

 

"Communications!" she barked. "Advise the commodore of our heading and intent." They steadied on course, and the author of the capital missile fire was before her.

 

 

"Battle-cruiser at eleven light seconds!" Gunnery yelped. "Computer reads her as the Krsts." Naomi knew her well. She'd served on her as a lieutenant -coman eternity ago.

 

 

Homeported on the Yard, and no doubt as fanatically Corporate World as her own madmen were Fringer.

 

 

"Gunnery," she said softly, "there's your target. Maneuvering, I want a random evasion course and I want it now. We're up against some heavy metal; let's be where it isn't!" The acknowledgments came, and she watched her missiles going out as the range closed. More capital missiles scorched in, but they were no longer targeted on Kongo. Krsts had accepted Pommern's frail challenge.

 

 

"Kongo's opened fire on the planet, sir!

 

 

Track looks good for the Taliaferro Yard!" Naomi shut it out. She no longer wanted to think of the two cities clustered tight against the Taliaferro Yard, of the civilians with seconds to live. She no longer wanted to think of the mark of Cain sho wore. She pressed one palm over the Bible in her vac suit and sealed her helmet as they entered laser range, and Pommern shook and quivered to the fury of missiles and counter-missiles bursting around her hull.

 

 

"Missiles away from Oslabya, sir!

 

 

Tracking for the Yard!" But Naomi's attention was riveted to her gunnery officer.

 

 

"Laser range!" he announced, and here it came. The deadly energy sleeted from the battle-cruiser and howled around Pommern's hull.

 

 

"Second strike off from Kongo.t Revenge launching now? Naomi wasn't listening. She was watching her screens as her own lasers raved defiance at Kris. Pommern's gunnery had always been good, she thought sadly as armor vaporized on the battle-cruiser. Better than any capital ship's in the Fleet, Earnest had always said.