"The Sundering" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williams Walter Jon)

TWO

Maurice Chen stepped onto the terrace outside the Hall of the Convocation as his nerves tingled with the knowledge that he was about to accept a bribe.

Lord Roland Martinez waited at one of the terrace tables, a cup of coffee in front of him. His dark hair ruffled in a gusty wind heavy with the sweet scent of the blossoming pherentis vines that covered the cliff face below. Spring had come early to Zanshaa City, brightening the gloom of a catastrophic winter.

Above the convocates’ hall loomed the Great Refuge, the carved granite structure with its huge dome, from which the Shaa had once ruled their empire, and through the gates of which the last Shaa, less than a year ago, had been carried to his rest in the Couch of Eternity at the other end of the High City. From the parapet the vine-covered cliffs fell away to the Lower Town, the metropolis that spread all the way to the horizon, its boulevards, streets, alleyways, and canals aswarm with members of the sentient species conquered by the Shaa. On the horizon the baroque silhouette of the Apszipar Tower stood plain against the viridian green of Zanshaa’s sky. And above all, above even the Great Refuge, was the silver metal arc of Zanshaa’s accelerator ring, which served as a home and harbor to the Fleet, to hundreds of civilian vessels, and to millions in population who had chosen to live above planet rather than on it.

As Maurice Chen approached, Lord Roland rose. He was a larger, older version of his brother, the famous captain ofCorona, and had the same long torso and overlong arms atop shortish legs.

“Will you have coffee, Lord Chen?” he offered. “Or tea, or perhaps something stronger?”

Chen hesitated. On one side the terrace was the long clear wall of the Hall of the Convocation, and the Convocation, he knew, was in session. Any lord convocate could look through that transparent wall and see Chen in conversation with Lord Roland, and perhaps wonder what the two had to say to one another.

Perhaps he could suggest moving to the convocates’ lounge, which would be a little less public.

“Would you mind terribly if we walked indoors?” Lord Chen said. “I don’t have the best memories of this place.” He glanced over the terrace and shrugged deeper into the winered uniform tunic of the lords convocate.

A few months ago he and his colleagues had hurled Naxid convocates from this very terrace, to break their bodies on the stones below. There were now plans to build a monument here, larger-than-life statues of representative members of the non-Naxid species tipping rebels over the brink. Lord Chen’s memories of the event were fragmentary and disordered, unclear yet jagged, like a picture painted on shattered glass, a confused series of images with razor-sharp edges that could still draw blood.

“Of course we can go inside,” Lord Roland said. “Maybe I shouldn’t have suggested the terrace.” His provincial accent was as crude as his brother’s, and Lord Chen felt a burst of annoyance at himself for the fact that he was about to take money from such a man. The Chen Clan was at the top of Peer society, and even though Clan Martinez were Peers, they were Peers from the far side of nowhere. In a properly ordered society, Roland should be asking Chen for favors, not the other way around.

Lord Roland took a final sip of his coffee and walked with Lord Chen past the armed Torminel who now, since the rebellion, were posted on the terrace doors. Footfalls were softened by plush carpet as the convocate and his guest walked up a long ramp.

“I hope Lady Terza is coping with her loss,” said Lord Roland.

“She’s doing as well as we can expect,” Chen said. He really didn’t want to discuss family matters with Lord Roland. It wasn’t as if the man would ever be an intimate of his family.

“Please give her my best wishes.”

“I will.”

Lord Chen’s daughter, Terza, had lost her fiancé at Magaria. She and Captain Lord Richard Li had formed an uncommonly lovely, lively, charming couple, and though Lord Chen’s heart warmed whenever he’d seen them together, he had noted other advantages to the match. Clan Li, though a step below the Chens socially, had grown uncommonly prosperous, and an alliance would have done well for the Chens.

Another bit of financial bad luck that had made this meeting necessary.

Bronze doors, cast with a heroic relief of The Many Species of the Empire Being Uplifted by the Praxis, opened silently before them, and the convocate and his guest passed into the building’s foyer. There Lord Chen was startled to see a Naxid, in the dark red tunic of a convocate, speed across the foyer, her four polished boots beating at the stone floor, her body whipping from side to side as she hurled herself the even greater bronze doors that led into the Hall of the Convocation.

“Strange to see Naxids again,” Lord Chen murmured.

“Stranger still to see Naxid convocates.” Lord Roland watched the huge silent doors close behind the centauroid figure. “For a while I thought you’d killed them all.”

Lord Chen blinked. “Not me personally, I hope.” His heels clacked on the granite floor with its inlaid semiprecious stones. “But no, it seems they weren’t all involved in the plot.”

For a while it had been difficult to remember that only some Naxids had revolted. Perhaps not even the majority. The Committee for the Salvation of the Praxis, on the Naxid home world of Naxas, had kept knowledge of their rebellion in as few trusted hands as possible—even half the Naxid convocates hadn’t been told, and had fled the violence in the Hall of the Convocation, or stayed in their seats out of fear and confusion.

For some time after the rebellion, it was rare to see a Naxid in public—it was as if a sixth of the population of the empire had simply vanished. Even in Naxid neighborhoods the streets were quiet. But gradually, first by ones and twos, then in small groups, they had appeared in civil society once more.

“We’ve had a number of Naxid convocates return,” said Lord Chen. “Of course, the new lord senior keeps them off committee chairmanships, and any committees to do with the war.”

“You can’t be too careful, I suppose,” said Lord Roland.

“I’ve observed that the Naxids are careful to vote with the majority on all war measures. And they regularly forward patriotic petitions from their clients.”

“Hmm.” Lord Roland stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I wonder how their clients are faring in the current climate?”

“Not well, I’d imagine. The Convocation has better things to do these days than to pay attention to Naxid petitions.” Resentment rumbled through his mind. “No one will trust a Naxid for generations, believe me.”

The two passed through the foyer and into the lounge, then walked along the gleaming dark ceramic bar, with its dashing accents of brushed aluminum, to a booth with plush leather benches contoured to the Terran physique. Lord Roland ordered another coffee, and Lord Chen a glass of mineral water.

“I’m pleased to report that another two ships have passed through the Hone-bar system on their way to safe areas,” Lord Chen reported.

“Excellent.” Lord Roland smiled thinly. “I’d like to lease them all, of course.”

“Of course,” Lord Chen agreed.

The onset of war had hit the Chen Clan hard. Lord Chen’s home planet, which he represented in the Convocation, was in the hands of the rebels, as was much of his personal property. Other Chen possessions scattered over many worlds were now controlled by the enemy, and so were at least half the ships belonging to Chen-controlled merchant companies. Much of Lord Chen’s remaining wealth was in the Hone Reach, which could be cut off in the event of a Naxid capture of Hone-bar, the Lai-own home world.

Lord Chen was facing ruin. Fortunately he now sat across the table from a man who had volunteered to be his financial savior.

Lord Roland proposed to lease Clan Chen’s ships.All of them, including those lost in Naxid-controlled space. The lease would be for five years, and specifically exempted Lord Chen or his companies from any nonperformance penalties resulting from war or rebellion—in other words, if the ships were lost, destroyed, or confiscated by the enemy, Clan Martinez would have to pay for them anyway. Insurance would be carried by a company on the Martinez home world of Laredo.

Lord Roland Martinez—or more properly his father, the current Lord Martinez—would subsidize Clan Chen for the next five years.

What Lord Roland wanted in exchange for this was for the most part clear. Lord Chen was a member of the Fleet Control Board, the body that made all major decisions regarding military personnel, supplies, bases, and construction. Lord Roland’s home world of Laredo had already been awarded a contract to build frigates to replace those taken by the enemy, and clearly Lord Chen would be expected to arrange more contracts along those lines. Expansion of the yards and the military base, contracts for supplies, appointments for officers belonging to client clans…Ultimately, Lord Chen knew, the Martinez clan wanted the opening of two planets, Chee and Parkhurst, to settlement under Martinez patronage.

Lord Chen would be happy to deliver. There was nothing wrong with aiding one’s friends. There was nothing wrong with leasing one’s ships. There was nothing wrong with letting out contracts that would make the Fleet stronger during a desperate war. And there was nothing wrong with settling new planets, even though there had been no new settlements during the last twelve hundred years of the Shaa overlords’ decline.

True, if the Legion of Diligence happened to discover a pattern in this, there might be an investigation with dire consequences. But the Legion of Diligence was now busy rooting out rebels and subversion, and most military contracts were covered by secrecy laws which the Legion was bound to enforce, not to analyze. Lord Chen judged it all worth the risk.

“I have prepared a contract,” said Lord Roland, “with names of ships and sums specified. Would you like to review it?”

“Yes, if you please.”

Lord Roland held up his left arm. “Shall I send it to your sleeve display, my lord?”

“I don’t have a sleeve display,” Lord Chen said. Sleeve displays were probably a necessity for busy people such as military officers or office managers, he thought, but for a Peer they were vulgar. He produced a wafer-thin comm unit from an inner pocket, extended the display, and captured Lord Roland’s transmission.

While he was doing so, the Cree waitron delivered their order. The scent of Lord Roland’s coffee wafted over the table.

“I’m sure there will be no problem,” Lord Chen said as he folded away the display. “I’ll have signed hard copy delivered to your residence tomorrow.”

“Speaking of tomorrow,” Lord Roland said, “I hope we can expect you and Lady Chen at tomorrow’s party in honor of Vipsania’s birthday.”

Lord Chen suppressed annoyance. It was one thing to do business with the likes of the Martinez clan, and another to see them socially.

Still, he supposed there was no avoiding it.

“Of course. We’ll be happy to attend.” A thought struck him. “You have unusual names in your family, don’t you? Vipsania, Roland, Gareth, Sempronia…are they traditional in the Martinez clan? Or do they have some particular meaning?”

Lord Roland smiled. “Their particular meaning is that our mother is fond of romantic novels. We’re all named after her favorite characters.”

“That’s charming.”

“Is it?” Lord Roland’s thick eyebrows rose as he considered this notion. “Well,” he decided, “we’re a charming bunch.”

“Yes,” Lord Chen said with a thin smile. “Very.”

“By the way,” Lord Roland said, “I wonder if I might trouble you for advice.”

“I’d be only too happy.”

Lord Roland glanced over the lounge, then leaned toward Lord Chen and lowered his voice. “My brother Gareth keeps urging the family to leave Zanshaa. I know that you serve on the Fleet Control Board and are familiar with Fleet movements and dispositions.” He gazed intently at Lord Chen with his deep brown eyes. “I wonder,” he said, “if this would be your advice as well.”

Lord Chen struggled to master his thoughts. “Your brother…does he give reasons for his opinion?”

“No. Though perhaps he considers the defeat at Magaria a self-evident enough reason.”

So Gareth Martinez wasn’t handing out military secrets to his family, a breach of discretion that would have set Lord Chen to worrying about how confidential his connection to the Martinez clan was likely to remain.

“I would say,” he said with care, “that there is reason for concern, but there is no need to evacuate at present.”

Lord Roland nodded gravely. “Thank you, Lord Chen.”

“Not at all.”

He reached forward and touched Lord Chen lightly on the hand. Lord Chen looked in surprise at the touch.

“I know that you have no fear for yourself,” Lord Roland said, “but a prudent man should take no chances with his family. I want you to have the comfort of knowing that should you ever decide that Lady Chen and Terza should leave Zanshaa, they are welcome at my father’s estate on Laredo—and in fact they are welcome to travel with my sisters, in our family cruiser.”

Let’s hope it won’t ever come to that, Lord Chen thought, appalled. But instead he smiled again and said, “That’s a kind thought, and I thank you. But I’ve already arranged for a ship to be standing by.”

“The fault of the Home Fleet at Magaria,” Captain Kamarullah said, “is that they failed to maintain a close enough formation. They needed to mass their defensive firepower to blast their way through the oncoming missiles.”

Martinez watched the other captains absorb this statement. The virtual universe in his head consisted of four rows of four heads each, and smelled of suit seals and stale flesh. Martinez couldn’t read Do-faq’s face very well, or those of his eight Lai-own captains, and the two Daimong captains had expressionless faces to begin with, but the four humans, at least, seemed to be taking Kamarullah’s argument seriously. “How close should we get?” one of them even said.

Martinez looked at the sixteen virtual heads that floated in his mind, took a deep breath, and ventured his own opinion. “With all respect, my lord, my conclusions differ. My belief is that the squadrons didn’t separate early enough.”

Most turned curious eyes to him, but it was Kamarullah who spoke.

“You call for a premature starburst? That’s a complete loss of command and control!”

“My lord,” Martinez said, “that’s hardly worse than the loss of command and control that results when an entire squadron is wiped out. Now, if your lordships will bear with me, I’ve prepared a brief presentation…”

The others watched while he beamed them selected bits of the Magaria battle, along with estimates of the numbers of incoming missiles, missiles destroyed by other missiles, by point-defense lasers and antiproton beams.

“A defensive formation works well only up to a point,” Martinez said, “and then the system breaks down catastrophically. I can’t prove anything yet, but I suspect that antimatter missile explosions, with their bursts of heavy radiation and their expanding plasma shells, eventually create so much interference and confusion on the ships’ sensors that it becomes nearly impossible to coordinate an effective defense.

“You’ll observe,” running the records again, “that the losses during the first part of the battle were equal, very sudden, and catastrophic for both sides. It was only when both sides had lost twenty ships or so that the enemy advantage in numbers became decisive, and then the attrition of our ships was steady right to the end. Lady Sula’s destruction of five enemy cruisers was the only successful attack made by the Home Fleet without equivalent or greater loss.

“My conclusion,” looking again at the sixteen heads in their four rows, “is that our standard fleet tactics will produce a rough equivalence in losses, but the unfortunate fact is that the enemy have more ships, and I fear we can’t sustain a war of attrition.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken by the chiming voice of one of Martinez’s Daimong captains. “Do you have any suggestion for tactics that can take advantage of this analysis?”

“I’m afraid not, my lord. Other than ordering a starburst much earlier in the battle, of course.”

Kamarullah gave a contemptuous huff into his microphone that sounded like a gunshot in Martinez’s earphones. “A lot of goodthat’ll do,” he said. “With our ships scattered all over space, the enemy could stay in formation and pick us off one by one.”

Frustration crawled with jointed fingers up Martinez’s spine. That wasnot what he meant to imply, and he couldn’t help but feel that if he could only speak to the captains in person, he could bring his points across.

“I don’t mean that our ships should wander at random about the galaxy, lord captain,” he said.

“And ifboth sides use these tactics, what then?” Kamarullah continued. “Without any formation the battle will just turn into a melee, ships fighting each other singly or in ones and twos, and that’sprecisely the sort of situation where the enemy superiority in numbers will be decisive. The enemy shouldbeg us to starburst early.” A sly expression crossed his face. “Of course,” he said, “if we aren’t expected to keep formation or maneuver simultaneously, it will certainly be easier on the ships that are having trouble doing exactly these things.”

You’ll pay for that,Martinez glowered, and he saw his thought mirrored on the faces of two other underperforming captains. He could feel his hands, in a world he couldn’t at present see, clenching in his gloves.

“Our ancestors understood these things better than we,” one of the Daimong said. “We should strive to perfect the tactics they’ve passed on to us. With these tactics our ancestors built an empire.”

During which time they fought only one real war, Martinez thought.

Squadron Commander Do-faq fixed Martinez with his golden eyes. “Do you have a remedy for this problem, lord elcap?”

Martinez chose his words carefully. “I think that we need to expand the concept offormation. Ideally we would need ships traveling in a much looser arrangement, far enough apart that a single volley of missiles wouldn’t destroy all of them, but still able to coordinate their actions against the enemy.”

Kamarullah breathed another gunshot-huff into his microphone, and Do-faq gave an annoyed start and a flare of his crest hairs. Do-faq’s flag captain, Cho-hal, then asked, “But how do you solve the problem of communication?”

Ships normally communicated via laser, which had the punch to get a message through a ship’s raging plasma tail, and which also had the advantage of privacy—no enemy could listen in on a directed beam. The alternative was to use a radio signal, which might not get through the radio interference of a ship’s exhaust, and which in any case could be overheard by the enemy. In a civil war, where both sides had started with the same codes as well as the same coding and decoding computers, that was a serious hazard.

“I have some ideas, lord captain,” Martinez said. “But they’re rather…unformed. We can use secure-coded radio transmissions; or perhaps an arrangement whereby, even after starburst, each ship takes a preassigned path so that orders can reach it by laser…”

He saw his defeat in the faces of the others, even the aliens whose expressions were difficult to decipher. His idea managed to be both horribly unformed and far too complex—in itself quite an accomplishment, he supposed.

“Lord squadcom,” he said to Do-faq, “I beg permission to send you a more thorough analysis when my ideas have had time to…to cohere.” The disdainful twist on Kamarullah’s mouth turned into a smirk at the sound of this.

“Permission is granted, lord elcap,” Do-faq said. “I will also have my tactical officer review your analysis of the battle at Magaria and see what comment he offers.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“I’m glad that’s settled,” Kamarullah said. “The least we can do is learnone tactical system before we go off inventing another.”

The rest of the conference produced little of interest, and Martinez left virtual world with a burning determination to wipe Kamarullah’s smirk right off his face.

He invited his three lieutenants to dine with him, then hesitated for a moment and invited Cadet Kelly as well. She was one ofCorona ‘s old crew, one of those who had helped him steal the frigate on the day of the mutiny and escape the enemy, and she had been clever and useful on that occasion.

Corona’s former captain, Tarafah, had been served at his lonely table by a professional chef he’d brought aboard, given the rank of petty officer, and doubtless kept sweet with under-the-table payments. Despite the war and the edict forbidding Fleet personnel to leave the service, on arrival at Zanshaa the chef had produced a doctor’s certificate testifying to a heart condition unable to stand heavy gravities, and Martinez had shrugged and let him go.

Alikhan, who had cooked for Martinez before the war, now continued in that capacity. He’d prepared a meal for Martinez alone, and couldn’t alter his arrangements until the ship lowered its acceleration to 0.7 gravities at dinnertime and he could get into the kitchen. Alikhan’s last-second improvisations might be less appealing than his usual fare, so Martinez decided to try to provide a convivial reception for the food by opening two bottles of the wine that his sisters had crated up to him when he’d been officially promoted intoCorona.

“Ido want to apologize about today’s drill, lord elcap,” Dalkeith began. “The confusion with the damage-control robots will not be repeated.”

“Never mind that,” Martinez said, and for once in her life Dalkeith looked surprised. “I’ve got something else to show you.”

He called up the wall display and showed selected bits of the battle at Magaria. He watched the shock as they saw squadrons of the Home Fleet buried beneath waves of antimatter. “Our tactics aren’t working,” Martinez said. “The best we can hope for is mutual annihilation. And I don’tlike annihilation, not even if we take enemy with us.”

His officers looked at him in shocked surprise. “We need something new,” Martinez said. “Lord Lieutenant Vonderheydte, the bottle is at your elbow.”

“Oh.” Pouring. “Sorry, lord elcap.”

“My lord?” Cadet Kelly looked at him with wide black eyes. “Are you asking us to invent a new tactical system? Over dinner?”

“Of course not!” Dalkeith poured scorn into her child’s voice. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

Ah, Martinez reflected, the moment awkward.

“Well,” he began, “I’m afraid I’m the ridiculous one, because that’s what I hope to accomplish.”

Dalkeith’s face expressed surprise for the second time that day.

“Very good, my lord,” she said.

Martinez raised his glass. “Here’s in aid of thought,” he said.

The others raised their glasses and drank. Vonderheydte looked appreciatively at the wine, glowing a deep red in the heavy leaded crystal created to stand high accelerations. “This is a fine vintage, my lord,” he pronounced.

Vonderheydte, young and small-boned and blond, wasCorona ‘s most junior lieutenant. He’d been one of the frigate’s cadets when the Naxids mutinied, and as he’d performed well in a number of highly improvised roles duringCorona ’s escape, Martinez had exercised his powers of patronage and had promoted him.

Vonderheydte took the bottle and looked at the label. “We should get some of this for the wardroom.” The others agreed.

Martinez let the wine roll over his tongue and found it much like any other red wine he’d ever tasted.

“I’m glad you like it,” he said.

“So should we starburst earlier?” Kelly asked as she drew her cuffs forward over exposed bony wrists. “Is that what you’re after?”

“Sort of,” Martinez said, and explained his vague ideas. Kelly listened, her head tilted to one side.

The lanky, black-eyed pinnace pilot had been weapons officer duringCorona ‘s escape from the Naxids, a job at which she’d shown unexpected talent. Subsequently, in flight toward desperate pleasure from a host of incoming terrors, she and Martinez had shared a frantic few moments in one of the frigate’s recreation tubes. Those moments had never been repeated—common sense had reasserted itself in time—but they were moments which Martinez, at least, could not bring himself to regret.

“So not a starburst, exactly,” she clarified, “but a very spread-out formation.”

“I don’t know,” Martinez confessed. “I know that I don’t want to lose the defensive advantages of a formation, and I don’t want everyone to get so dispersed the battle will turn into a melee.”

“How do you coordinate movement and formation changes?” Dalkeith wondered. “You’ll only be guessing where your ships will be, so it will be sheer chance if you hit them with a comm laser. And if you broadcast on radio, the enemy will hear it, and their computers have the same software that ours do, and plenty of computing power, so they might be able to decode it.”

Martinez had been thinking about this since the captains’ conference. Before the war his specialty had included communication, and he thought he’d worked out the solution. “Using radio’s not a problem,” he said. “First, you have each ship repeat the message to all others once it’s received, to make certain that each ship receives its orders. Then you devise a very thorough code describing any maneuvers necessary for the fleet, and your computers cipher the codes using a one-time system. The one-time system means that even if the cipher is broken, it won’t help the enemy read thenext message. And even if theycan read the cipher, all they get is a code they can’t read without a key.” He shrugged. “You can make it more elaborate than that, but that’s all that’s really necessary.”

The others considered this while Alikhan appeared and placed upon Captain Tarafah’s mahogany table the first course of his improvised meal, which on inspection proved to be white beans on a bed of greenish-black vegetable matter, with a splash of ketchup for color.

It could be worse, Martinez thought, and picked up his fork.

“How far can we spread out the ships?” Vonderheydte wondered aloud. “Our superior officers like to see smart maneuvers, with every ship rotating and changing course at the same moment. Obviously this is going to be a good deal more ragged.”

Martinez cared less about ragged formations than the fact that this would make the new tactics harder to sell to his superiors. A formation in which all orders were not instantly and smartly executed would not be an attractive picture to the average Senior Fleet Commander.

“My lord,” murmured Sublieutenant Nikkul Shankaracharya into his wineglass, “there should be a formula, I mean a mathematical set of formulas, that will tell us how far we can safely set our formation.”

His voice was so low that Martinez could barely make out the words. Shankaracharya was a shy youth with a lieutenancy of less than a year’s seniority, and his posting toCorona was the result of direct intervention by one of the few divinities recognized by the service—in this case a clan patron who served on the Fleet Control Board. ThatCorona was then handicapped by the presence of two very junior lieutenants with little time to learn their jobs, who were supervised by a lackluster, nearly superannuated senior in Dalkeith, was beneath the notice of the divinity in question.

A further complication was added by the fact that Shankaracharya was the beloved of Martinez’s younger sister, Sempronia. Sempronia, who was, as part of a plot laid by Martinez and his other sisters, engaged to marry someone else entirely.

It seemed unfair to Martinez that he was beset by family intrigues as well as service politics. One or the other were within his realm of competence; but the both together made his head spin.

“Mathematical formulas?” he prompted.

Shankaracharya touched his youthful mustache with a napkin. “There would be three major subproblems, I think,” he said in a voice that was barely audible. “Since we know the effectiveness of our point defenses, and since we now have a lot of empirical data on the behavior of offensive missiles, we should be able to calculate the maximum dispersion at which we can place our ships without the interwoven laser and particle beam defenses losing their effectiveness.

“A second subproblem would involve the maximum dispersion for our ships before any massed offense would begin to lose its punch—that number would be a lot larger, I’d think.”

Shankaracharya took another sip of wine, and again touched his mustache with the napkin.

“And the third subproblem?” Martinez asked.

“I forget.” Shankaracharya looked blank, and during that moment Alikhan brought in his second course, slices of dense pâté, each surrounded by a yellowish gelatin rind that gave off a strong aroma of liver. With this came pickles and flat unleavened biscuits from a can.

The others were looking at their plates when Shankaracharya added, “No, wait, I remember the third parameter. It has to do with the area of destruction caused by a salvo of enemy missiles, so that you can calculate the likelihood of more than one ship being destroyed, but that’s not as important as the first two.” He cleared his throat. “It should be possible to come up with a single rather complex mathematical statement for all of this, once we calculate all the variables concerning the capabilities of the ships, numbers of launchers and defensive beams and so on, and you’d be able to calculate the most efficient manner of dispersion for a whole fleet.”

Martinez crunched a pickle between his teeth. Any solution to the problem would require partial differential equations, which Martinez had studied at the academy, but his memory for all that had grown foggy—since graduation, all he’d been required to do was plug numbers into existing formulae, then let the computer do the work.

But Vonderheydte had been studying for his exams before Martinez made the exams unnecessary by promoting him, and Cadet Kelly had been preparing for her exams when the war interrupted. They’d be much more useful on this approach than Martinez—or, presumably, Dalkeith.

He’d just have to let the younger folk take the lead on this one, preferably without letting them notice that Martinez wasn’t exactly in charge.

Martinez shifted the wall screen to the Structured Mathematics Display.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s begin.”

“My lords,” said Junior Squadron Commander Michi Chen, “Chenforce has now arrived in the Zanshaa system. We await your orders.”

At the sight of his sister, Lord Chen felt his anxiety begin to loosen its grip on his heart. Which was irrational, since Chenforce consisted of only seven ships scraped together from the damaged remnants of the Fourth Fleet at Harzapid. The Naxid revolt had failed at Harzapid, but only just, with ships blasting each other at point-blank range with antiproton beams. Michi Chen had come to Zanshaa with the few undamaged survivors—the rest had either been destroyed or were in dock for urgent repairs. It would be months before Harzapid could send another squadron.

But at least Zanshaa now had a force to defend it besides the six battered, exhausted survivors of the Home Fleet plus the swarm of pinnaces and improvised warships that would be swept away in the event of any determined attack. Chenforce could now cover the capital while the remnants of the Home Fleet decelerated and docked to take on new armament, and while Faqforce made its U-turn around Hone-bar and returned to Zanshaa.

When Faqforce arrived, Zanshaa would have twenty-eight ships to guard it against attack.

The great terror was that the enemy had thirty-five known survivors of the battle at Magaria. These, by now, had probably been reinforced by the ten ships that had rebelled at the remote station of Comador; and there remained at large another eight enemy ships last seen over two months ago at Protipanu. Those ships might well be on their way to join the enemy force at Magaria, and if that were the case, the defenders of Zanshaa would be outnumbered nearly two to one.

Senior Fleet Commander Tork, chairman of the Fleet Control Board, rose from his seat and absently peeled a strip of dry, dead flesh from his face before facing the cameras. “Reply, personal to Squadron Leader Chen.” His Daimong’s voice tinkled like wind chimes in the stillness. “Lady Commander, kindly establish a defensive orbit about Zanshaa and its primary. When other forces enter the system, we will match their trajectories toyou.”

This wasn’t a dialogue. Michi’s message had taken six hours to reach Zanshaa, and Tork’s reply would take nearly that long to return to her.

The chairman politely turned to Lord Chen. “Would you like to say a few words to your sister?”

“Yes, lord chairman, I thank you.”

Lord Chen rose and looked into the camera, which obligingly panned toward him. “Welcome, Michi,” he said. “Your arrival has brought relief to everyone here. We’re delighted to have you with us.” And then, as he was on the verge of sitting down again, he added, “I’ll send you a personal message later.”

There’s a lot you’d better know,he thought.

He sat, and butter-smooth leather embraced him. His sister’s message had arrived during a meeting of the Fleet Control Board, and resulted in a considerable lightening of the meeting’s tone. Lord Chen decided that he wasn’t the only person here to feel irrational relief.

Still, the old debates continued.

“The Hone Reach must be defended,” said Lady Seekin. Her large eyes, adapted for night vision, were wide in the soft light of the room, and she’d taken off the dark lenses most Torminel wore during daylight hours.

“We can’t defend the Hone Reach at the expense of Zanshaa,” said Tork. “The capital is everything. It’s the whole war. We can’t afford to lose it.”

A whiff of rotting flesh floated across the table from Tork, and Lord Chen lifted his hand to his face and took a discreet sniff of the cologne he’d applied to the inside of his wrist.

“Two ships, my lord,” Lady Seekin insisted. “Two ships to defend the whole of the Reach.”

“Two ships, yes,” said Lady San-torath, the Lai-own convocate. “There will be no confidence in the Reach unless you can protect them somehow.”

Useless,Lord Chen thought. When the war broke out he’d been part of a faction insisting that Hone-bar and the Reach had to be defended, but that was before the Battle of Magaria. Lord Chen had given up trying to protect the Reach—now he was just trying to get what he ownedout. He had to agree with Tork: the capital was more important.

Lose the Hone Reach, he thought, and you have a chance of taking it back. Lose Zanshaa and you lose everything.

The Fleet Control Board met in a well-appointed room of the Commandery, all low-key lighting, polished wood, and pale, spotless plush carpet. Overhead glowed an abstract map of the empire, connected by lines that represented wormhole gates. Hone-bar and the Hone Reach stood out in fluorescent green.

The map was not a star chart: a map of stars would be irrelevant. The wormholes overleaped nearby stars, jumping anywhere in the universe—sometimes to places so remote that it wasn’t clear where they stood in relation to anywhere else.

There were three wormholes in the Hone-bar system, one that led to the fourteen systems of the Hone Reach, and two that led elsewhere in the empire. Whoever controlled Hone-bar controlled access to those fourteen worlds where so much of Lord Chen’s wealth remained at hazard.

At the opening of the rebellion, Lord Chen and the other members of the Hone Reach faction had insisted on sending Faqforce to the Hone-bar system. Now those two squadrons were urgently needed to defend the capital, and were to make a wide, fast swing around Hone-bar’s sun to return as fast as they could.

“It will be close,” said Senior Fleet Commander Tork. “The enemy could be here before Faqforce makes its return.”

The elderly Daimong, who was twirling in his fingers the dry strip of dead flesh he’d pulled from his pale face, let it fall in silence to the carpet. Tork chaired the nine-member board, which consisted of four civilian convocates and five active or retired Fleet officers, some of whom were also convocates.

“Can we order them to increase speed?” one of the civilians asked.

“No. They’re already traveling as quickly as the Lai-own physique permits.”

“But, my lord”—this came from one of the Fleet officers—“the light squadron doesn’t have any Lai-own ships, does it?”

After a long moment of chagrin, Tork gave orders ensuring that the light squadron, under Captain Martinez, would separate from Do-faq’s squadron and return to Zanshaa with the greatest possible speed.

“After the battle the enemy would need at least two months to decelerate, dock with the Magaria ring, and fill their magazines with fresh missiles,” Tork said. “Then another two months to accelerate to fighting speed and begin their journey here. And that’s if the enemy is willing to push gee forces to their maximum, with their personnel already on the point of exhaustion, and also if they are willing to dock their entire fleet at once, and risk it being destroyed by a raid.”

These facts were familiar to all present—all knew almost to the day the moment when they would begin to dread an enemy attack—but all had also learned not to interrupt Tork when the chairman was in the middle of one of his speeches. An interruption only inspired Tork to greater didactic emphasis, not to mention greater length. It was strange how the Daimong voice, normally chiming and bell-like, could at such moments be altered into such an insistent, nagging tone of declamation.

“The Home Fleet will also need to decelerate and take on new armament before they can again build up enough delta-vee to be of use in defending the capital…”

Lord Chen wearily reflected that it was entirely like Lord Chairman Tork to refer to the six battered survivors as “the Home Fleet,” as if it still resembled the armada with which Fleet Commander Jarlath had set about the recapture of Magaria.

“I’m concerned for the well-being of those crewmen,” Tork said. His round-eyed, startled-looking face was incapable of showing fear, concern, or any other emotion, but from the tone of the fleetcom’s voice Chen knew that the concern was real. “By the time their ships are in position to join the defense of the capital, they will have suffered more than six months of high acceleration. The degradation of their mental and physical state will be acute.”

“Yet what choice do we have?” asked Lady San-torath. “As you say, the capital must be defended.”

“We have sufficient personnel on Zanshaa to crew an entire new fleet,” said Tork. “I propose that we move entirely new crews aboard when the Home Fleet comes in to rearm.”

“Ships with new crews?” Junior Fleet Commander Pezzini was startled. “But they won’t have time to learn their ships before they may have to take them into combat!”

“And all the experienced officers will have been taken off the ships,” added the Lord Convocate Mondi, a retired Fleet captain and the second Torminel on the board. “It would be folly to remove the only officers experienced in battle.”

“Fleet doctrine is established,” Tork said, “and experience should make little difference in how the battle is fought. And as far as the officers go, one Peer is the equal of another—thatis doctrine, too, my lords.” Pezzini tried to interrupt, and Tork’s voice took on its dreaded merciless hectoring tone as he outshouted his junior. “The new crews will have a month to shake down before an attack is likely to come! And beforehand, they can accustom themselves to their new ships in virtual!”

There was argument, but in the end Tork had his way. New crews would be assembled on the ring station and would begin training in virtual ship environments immediately. There was more argument as they appointed commanding officers—each board member had clients and favorites—and then a further brisk discussion in appointing a squadron commander.

“We must appoint an overall commander for the defense of the capital,” Tork went on. “The two squadron commanders, Lady Michi and Lord Do-faq, are young officers with no experience in maneuvering an entire fleet. Wemust pick a fleetcom.”

This was problematical, as most of the qualified officers had died with Jarlath at Magaria. The new commander would have to be Terran, since he would command from one of the Home Fleet survivors, all Terran ships. Again, each board member had his candidates, and when they deadlocked Lord Chen simply suggested they promote his sister to fill the place.

Well, he thought, it seems worth trying.

The motion had no support whatever, and Lord Chen withdrew it. The board reached no agreement, and Tork deferred the matter till the next meeting.

“If one Peer is as good as the next,” Pezzini muttered, “I don’t see why this always takes so blasted long.”

There followed more decisions in regard to the Fleet’s logistical support, and this was where Lord Chen began to earn the money that Roland Martinez was paying him. He managed to snag a delivery contract for a shipping concern owned by a Martinez client, and a supply contract for state-of-the-art laser communications systems for a Martinez-owned firm on Laredo.

“Have you noticed how many contracts seem to be going to Laredo?” muttered Lord Commander Pezzini. “I thought the place was a rustic paradise full of strong-thewed woodcutters and bucolic shepherds, and now I find it’s some kind of industrial powerhouse.”

“Really?” asked Lord Chen. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Why did we lose at Magaria?” From the display in his command cage, Caroline Sula gazed at him with her face drawn by fatigue and deceleration. From her gasping voice Martinez could tell she was undergoing three gees or more.

“There were lots of reasons,” she said. “They were ready for us, for one thing, and they had more ships. They out-planned us, though I can’t fault Jarlath for that, I suppose his plan was as good as he could make it, given what he knew.” She drew in a breath, lungs fighting gravity. “The main reason is that we didn’t starburst early enough. Whole formations got overwhelmed at once. The enemy’s tactics showed the same fault, but they started with more ships, and they could afford the losses.”

Martinez was warmed by Sula’s analysis and the fact that it agreed with his own. He felt flattered.

When did he start counting so much on Sula’s opinion? he asked himself.

Sula took in another breath, and Martinez realized his own breath was synchronous with hers. For he, too, was living through hard gee, and he as well was strapped into an acceleration couch, his body confined in a pressure suit.

It was impossible to share each other’s company, he thought, but at least we can share our misery.

Sula breathed again, and for a brief moment Martinez saw mischief flare in her weary eyes. “We had a discussion about censorship in the mess the other day, and about why the government has been suppressing what happened at Magaria. I suggested that the point of censorship isn’t to hide certain facts but to keep the wrong people from finding them out. If the majority knew the true facts, they would begin to act as their self-interest dictates, and notenlightened self-interest either. If they’re kept in ignorance they’ll be much more inclined to act as the self-interest of others dictates.” She gasped in air. “One of our officers—won’t mention names here—said the whole point is to prevent civilians from panicking. But I think it’s what happensafter people panic that should frighten us. We should be scared of what happens when people stop panicking and start tothink. ” Sula gave an intense green-eyed look to the camera. “I wonder whatyou think about such things.”

She allowed herself a morbid smile. “I also wonder if your old friend Lieutenant Foote is going to let you see any of this, particularly my speculations on the nature and purpose of information control. But I suppose if he chops any of this, it will only prove my point.” Her smile broadened. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you. Let me know how your next exercise turns out.”

The orange End Transmission symbol appeared on the screen. Apparently Foote had tried to disprove Sula’s argument by not cutting any of the message.

Clever Sula, Martinez thought.

Martinez saved the message to his private file as he thought about censorship. It had always been there, and he’d never spent a lot of time thinking about it except when it intruded on his time, as when he was ordered to censor the pulpies’ mail.

As for official censorship, he’d always thought of it as a kind of game between the censors and himself. They’d try to hide something, and he’d try to read behind the censors’ words to find out what had really happened. From an exhortation to Unceasingly Labor at Public Works, it was possible to conclude that a major building project had fallen behind schedule; likewise, a news item praising emergency services often implied a disaster at which emergency services had been employed, but which was too embarrassing for those in charge to admit. An item praising certain ministers could be a tacit criticism of those ministers who were not mentioned, or a criticism of one junior minister could in reality be a disguised assault on his more senior patron.

Reading behind the news was a game at which Martinez had grown expert. But unlike Sula he’d never thought of censorship having apurpose, in part because it seemed too arbitrary for that. What was cut, and what permitted, was so capricious as to seem almost stochastic: sometimes he wondered if the censors were amusing themselves by cutting every sentence with an irregular verb, or any news item in which appeared the word “sun.”

Sula’s notion that censorship was aimed at giving certain people a monopoly on the truth was new to him. But whowere these people? He didn’t know anyone who didn’t have to deal with the censorship—even when he’d worked on the staff of Fleet Commander Enderby, he’d discovered that Enderby’s public pronouncements had to be reviewed by the censors.

Possiblynobody knew what was really happening. Martinez found that more frightening than Sula’s theory of a conspiracy of elites.

It would have been hard, for example, to work into any theory of censorship the conversation he’d had the previous day with Dalkeith. They’d had a breakfast meeting about ordinary ship business, and at the end, over coffee, she’d given him a puzzled look, as if she didn’t know where to begin, and then said, “You know I’m censoring the other lieutenants’ mail.”

Censorship, like all tasks that no one really wanted, was a job that tended to fall quickly down the ladder of seniority. The most junior cadets censored the messages of the enlisted; and the most junior lieutenant censored the cadets. Dalkeith censored the two lieutenants junior to her, and Martinez was left free of all responsibility but that of reviewing her messages only—a light task, as they consisted entirely of dull but heartfelt greetings to her family back on Zarafan.

“Yes?” Martinez prompted. “Is there a problem?”

“Not a problem, exactly.” Dalkeith lips twisted, as if searching for an entry point to this subject. “You know Vonderheydte has a lady friend on Zanshaa. Her name is Lady Mary.”

“Is it? I didn’t know.” He rather doubted that the lady’s name was of any great relevance.

“Vonderheydte and Lady Mary exchange videos, and the videos are of a…” She hesitated. “…highly libidinous nature. They exchange fantasies and, ah, attempt to enact them for the camera.”

Martinez reached for his coffee. “You haven’t encountered this before?” he said. “I’m surprised.” When he was a fresh young cadet aboard ship for the first time, he had been deeply shocked by both the ingenuity and depravity of the holejumpers whose messages he’d been called on to review. By the end of the second month of this involuntary course in human nature, he’d become a cynical, hard-boiled tough, a walking encyclopedia of degeneracy, incapable of being surprised by any iniquity, no matter how appalling.

“It’s not that,” Dalkeith said. “I just wonder at thepersistence. They spendhours at it, and it’s all very elaborate and imaginative. I don’t know where Vonderheydte gets the energy, considering we’re under acceleration.” Her troubled eyes gazed into his. “There’s a relentless quality to it that seems unhealthy to me. You don’t suppose he’s doing himself actual physical harm, do you?”

Martinez put down his coffee cup and paged through the mental encyclopedia of depravity he’d acquired as a cadet. “He’s not getting involved in, ah, asphyxiation?”

Dalkeith shook her head.

“Or use of ligatures? Around, say, vital parts?”

Dalkeith seemed dubious. “Depends on how vital you consider hands and feet. Well, one hand actually.” She looked at him. “Would you like to see the next set of outgoing messages?”

Martinez explained to his senior lieutenant that, however much she failed to enjoy watching a young man engage in acts of self-stimulation, he would enjoy it even less.

“I don’t care what he’s doing so long as it’s on his own time, and so long as he remains undamaged,” Martinez said. And then he added, “You can fast-forward through it, you know. I very much doubt Vonderheydte is giving away state secrets during these interludes. Or you can have the computer make a transcript and review that.”

Dalkeith sighed. “Very well, my lord.”

Cheer up, he thought, the reading might be more fun than the watching. All fantasy, without the reality of Vonderheydte’s contortions.

After that conversation, the rest of ship’s business had seemed very dull.

A chime on the comm interrupted Martinez’s remembrance. He answered, and heard Vonderheydte’s voice through his earphones.

“Personal transmission from the squadcom, my lord.”

Since the revelations of the previous morning, Martinez had found that Vonderheydte’s voice, even carrying a perfectly innocent message, seemed filled with libidinous suggestion. The dread scepter of the squadcom that hovered over his head, however, drove all suggestive notions out of Martinez’s head. His imagination flashed ahead to a rebuke, asCorona had once again fumbled in the morning’s maneuver.

“I’ll accept.” And as Do-faq’s head blossomed on the display, he said, “This is Captain Martinez, my lord.”

Peg teeth clacked in Do-faq’s muzzle. “I have received an order from the Commandery, lord captain. Your squadron is to increase acceleration, part company from the heavy squadron, enter the Hone-bar system ahead of us, and return to Zanshaa at the fastest possible speed.”

“Very good, my lord.” In truth, Martinez had been anticipating this order for some time. No enemy were expected at Hone-bar, and every ship in Faqforce was badly needed back at the capital. He had considered suggesting the separation himself, but held back for fear of being accused of being greedy for an independent command…that, and the fact that by now he quailed from the very idea of harder accelerations.

“You will commence at once,” Do-faq continued. “Your official orders will follow as soon as my secretary can copy them. I wish you the best of luck.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

Do-faq’s golden eyes softened. “I want you to know, Captain Martinez, that I have no regrets in regard to choosing you for command of the squadron.”

Martinez’s heart gave a spasm. “Thank you, lord squadcom.” He felt the millstone of doubt, heavy as a couple gravities’ acceleration, float weightless from his shoulders.

“You’ve been handicapped by an inexperienced crew, but they are improving under your direction, and I have no doubt they’ll prove as fine as any in the Fleet, in time.”

Gratitude threatened to overwhelm Martinez’s tongue, but he managed to say, “Thank you for your confidence, my lord. It has been a privilege to serve under you.” Another matter entered his mind, and he cleared his throat. “My lord,” he began, “perhaps you will recall our tactical discussion the other day. When I…suggested some rather unformed ideas regarding fleet tactics.”

Do-faq’s expression was unreadable. “Yes, lord captain,” he said, “I recall the discussion.”

“Well, the ideas have grown more, ah, formed.”

Briefly, he explained the attempt to encapsule the new formations within a bit of elegant mathematics. “That was Lieutenant Shankaracharya’s particular contribution,” he said.

Do-faq’s answer was instant. “You shared the data from Magaria with your lieutenants?”

“Ah—yes, lord squadcom.”

“I very much doubt the wisdom of this. Our superiors have decided that this information must be controlled.”

Which superiors? As Sula’s theory flashed into Martinez’s mind.

“My lieutenants are reliable people, my lord,” he said.Best not mention Alikhan. “I have every confidence in their discretion.”

“They may be disheartened. They may spread defeatism.”

But everyoneknows we got thrashed at Magaria, Martinez wanted to say. But instead he said, “The news seemed to inspire them to greater efforts, my lord. They know how critical our work could be to the outcome of the war.”

Do-faq’s golden eyes probed at him for a long moment. “Well, it’s too late now,” he decided. “I trust you will caution your officers not to go about spreading rumors.”

“Of course, my lord.” He hesitated. “Would you like to see the formula and an analysis, my lord? There are some unexpected conclusions.”

Not least of which was that the effective range of a warship’s missiles were considerably less than anyone had expected. Even Shankaracharya had confidently predicted that the missiles would have a much greater range than ships’ defensive armament; but analysis of the fighting at Magaria showed that while a ship could of course launch a missile at long range, a longer flight time only gave a target’s defenses a longer time to track the missile and shoot it down. The missiles that had the greatest chance of doing damage tended to be fired in swarms from fairly close range, and launched behind a screen of exploding antimatter missiles that confused enemy sensors.

“Send the analysis, by all means,” Do-faq said. “I’ll review it with my tactical officer.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Martinez briefly reviewed the analysis he’d prepared for Do-faq, gnawed his lip over the phrasing of the analysis, and then sent it personal to the squadron commander just as the tone sounded for reduced gees. His acceleration cage creaked as the gravities came off, and the soft pressure of his suit relaxed its grip on his arms and legs. He felt his chest expand, the sensation of relief and relaxation in his diaphragm, as he snapped up the faceplate and tasted the control room’s cool, sterile air.

There would be a twenty-six minute bathroom, recreation, and snack break at one gravity, then renewed acceleration at high gee. And a higher gee than anyone else knew.

“Vonderheydte,” Martinez said.

“Yes, my lord.”

“General message to the squadron. Inform them that we have received orders to accelerate ahead of the heavy squadron and return to Zanshaa. Tell them we shall accelerate to three point two gravities once the current break has ended, at 19:26.”

The brief hesitation in reply told of Vonderheydte’s dismay. “Very good, my lord.”

Heavier gees should take the zest out of Vonderheydte’s fantasy life, Martinez reflected, and he unlocked the cage’s displays and pushed them above his head and out of the way. Then he tipped the cage forward till his boots touched the floor, and he released the webbing and stood.

Blood swirled uneasily in his head, and he kept a hand clamped on the cage tubing until the vertigo eased.

He’d have some water, perhaps, or juice. And more meds to help endure the upcoming acceleration.

From this point on, he thought, the joy of command was going to be considerably reduced.

It was reduced by a larger margin four hours later, during the supper break, when a call came from Captain Kamarullah, personal to Martinez. Martinez answered it in his office, where he was nibbling a sandwich while catching up onCorona ‘s administrative work. Around the desk, towering in special racks to brace them against hard accelerations, were the two Home Fleet Trophies won by Captain Tarafah’s football teams, plus a second-place trophy and various prizes won by Tarafah in other commands.

Martinez wasn’t after trophies himself. If he could just get through tomorrow’s maneuvers without a visit from Mr. Calamity, he’d be satisfied.

“This is Martinez,” he said, turning on the comm display. Kamarullah’s square face appeared, his eyes directed somewhere behind Martinez’s right ear.

“Captain Martinez, I’m sorry to interrupt your meal break.”

“That’s all right, lord captain. What can I do for you?”

Martinez kept his eyes directed toward his desktop, where he was looking at a report in regard to the replacement of an erratic turbopump used in the engine cooling system. The relevant cooling line would be offline for an estimated ten hours while the work was done by robots operated remotely by crew from their acceleration couches; or six hours if the repair were done by hand. Martinez put his stylus to the desktop, and authorized the robotic repair.

Coronawouldn’t have six hours under light enough gees to make a hand repair safe.

“My lord captain,” Kamarullah said, “I wonder if I might beg from you a clarification.”

Martinez gazed at the next report, which had to do with the condemnation of supplies damaged by high accelerations, and said, “How may I be of service, my lord?”

“I wonder who it was who issued the order separating this squadron from that of Lord Commander Do-faq?”

Martinez cast his mind back to the orders he’d received that afternoon from Do-faq. “The orders originated with the Fleet Control Board,” he said.

“And not with the lord commander?”

“No, my lord.”

There was a moment’s silence. “In that case, lord elcap,” Kamarullah said, “I must inform you that, as the senior officer present, I am now in command of this squadron.”

Surprise sang through Martinez’s veins, but his reply was automatic, and quick.

“Not so, my lord.”

“But we’re now under Control Board orders,” Kamarullah said, “and no longer under the command of Lord Commander Do-faq. His order placing you in command is no longer in effect. Therefore the senior officer now commands the squadron, and that senior officer is me.”

Martinez tried to set his face in an expression of mild interest as he sorted this out.

With his stylus, he condemned the stores. Another report flashed onto his desk.

“The Control Board knew full well that I had been placed in command of this squadron,” he said finally. “They did not countermand the squadcom’s order, and therefore I remain in command.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the frown form beneath Kamarullah’s gray mustache. “A countermanding order wasn’t necessary,” he said. “In the absence of an order from a superior officer, the senior officer is always in command of an independent detachment.”

“But wehave such an order, dating from when the squadron was formed.”

Kamarullah affected patience. “But the squadron is no longer part of Faqforce. We’re operating under Commandery orders. We’ve been removed from Do-faq’s command, and his decisions no longer apply.”

The squadrons had barely separated. Do-faq, at this instant, was only a few light-seconds away. It was absurd to think that Do-faq’s orders no longer pertained.

Martinez turned to look directly into the camera. “If you insist,” he said, “we can refer this matter to the nearest superior officer.”

Kamarullah stared stonily out of the display. “That senior officer’s preferences no longer apply.” He made a visible effort to seem at ease, to force a highly artificial smile onto his face. “Come now, my lord,” he said. “You know as well as I that Lord Do-faq’s order superceding my command was arbitrary and a result of sheer prejudice. You have a new command and a new crew, and I’m sure you’ve got enough work without taking on the job of a squadcom.” The effort to maintain a friendly tone grated in Kamarullah’s words. “You know as well as I that the strain has been showing. I say nothing against your abilities, but I’ve been with my crew for almost two years, and surely you can see that I can give the job of squadcom my full attention, without having to spend most of my time whipping my crew into shape. Don’t you think the job deserves that?”

Martinez took a bite of his sandwich, tasting the heat of mustard across his tongue, then chewed as he contemplated the merits of Kamarullah’s argument. The problem was that the merits were considerable: Kamarullahhad been treated unjustly, and Martinezhad been jumped over his head in a piece of rank favoritism. Kamarullahwas a more experienced officer with a highly experienced crew.

But, he thought. But…

Kamarullah had been insufferably superior when it came toCorona ‘s deficiencies in the maneuvers. He had been wrong when it came to the tactical lessons of Magaria, and would never consider Martinez’s new system.

Plus, Squadron Commander Do-faq was an officer who obviously knew how to hold a grudge, as witness his treatment of Kamarullah in the first place. If Martinez willingly surrendered a command to which Do-faq appointed him, and furthermore to a man Do-faq despised, Martinez could hardly expect preferment from Do-faq ever again.

Let alone mercy.

And besides, my lord, Martinez thought as he looked at Kamarullah, I just…don’t…likeyou.

“I’m willing to refer the matter to higher authority,” he said, “but until that time I will consider myself commander of this squadron.”

Anger drew Kamarullah’s graceless smile into a snarl. “If that’s the way you want it, my lord,” he said. “I’ll compose a message to the Control Board.”

“No, my lord, you willnot, ” Martinez said. “Iwill compose the letter.I will send a copy to you and another to Lord Commander Do-faq…for hisfiles.”

Kamarullah’s color had deepened with rage. “I could justtake command,” he said. “I’ll wager most of the captains would follow me.”

“If you tried, Lord Commander Do-faq would blow you to bits,” Martinez said. “Please remember he’s not that far away.”

After he signed off, Martinez dictated a letter that stated the situation as simply and baldly as possible, then sent it to his secretary, Saavedra, to attach the appropriate headings and salutations. “Copies to the files, to Captain Kamarullah, and to Lord Commander Do-faq,” he instructed, and Saavedra gave a disapproving, purse-lipped nod. It wasn’t possible to tell if Saavedra was offended on Martinez’s behalf, or onCorona ‘s, or whether he was offended generally with the world. Martinez suspected the latter.

A few hours later came a signal from Do-faq that the heavy squadron was ceasing acceleration temporarily, as the captain ofJudge Solomon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage as a result of constant high accelerations. It was the sort of thing that could happen even to young recruits in the peak of physical condition, and Martinez was thankful that no one had yet stroked out aboardCorona. In wartime there was very little that could be done for the luckless captain: he’d be taken to sick bay and given drugs and treatment, but acceleration would have to be resumed before long and it was very likely thatJudge Solomon ‘s captain would die or suffer crippling disability.

Thus it was that a day and a half later whenCorona and the light squadron leaped through Wormhole 1 into the Hone-bar system, they were twenty minutes ahead of Do-faq’s eight ships. The message sent to the Fleet Control Board had not arrived on Zanshaa as yet, and Martinez was still exercising command.

The Hone-bar system seemed normal. The system was peaceful, loyalists were in charge of the government, and there seemed no immediate enemy threat. Civilian traffic was light, and the only ship in the vicinity was the cargo vesselClan Chen, outward bound through Wormhole 1 at 0.4c.

The Hone-bar system even had a warship, a heavy cruiser that was undergoing refit on the ring, but the refit wouldn’t be completed for at least another month, and until then the cruiser was just another detail.

Martinez had no plans to go anywhere near Hone-bar itself. Instead he’d plotted a complex series of passes by Hone-bar’s primary and by three gas-giants, the effect of which would be to whip the squadron around the system and shoot it back out Hone-bar Wormhole 1 at top speed.

The crew was at combat stations, as was standard for wormhole transit in times of unrest. Martinez’s acceleration cage creaked as the engines ignited, drivingCorona on a long arc that would take it into the gravitational field of the first of the system’s gas giants. He fought the gravities that began to pile on his bones, and tried to think of something pleasant.

Caroline Sula, he thought. Her pale, translucent complexion. The mischievous turn of her mouth. The brilliant emerald green of her eyes…

“Engine flares!” The voice in his earphones came from Tracy, one of the two women at the sensor display. “Engine flares, lord captain! Six…no, nine! Ten engine flares, near Wormhole Two! Enemy ships, my lord!”

Martinez fought to take another breath.

Oh dear, he thought. Here’s trouble.