"So? The horseheads don't take prisoners, sir." 'allyrue. But the passenger and crew sections were undamaged. Whoever attacked raked the drive and command sections with primaries and needle beams, then looted the holds and finished off the crew in the process." "Yes, sir. Typical Tangri work." Tomanaga was puzzled. Clearly his admiral had noticed something he had missed.
"Except this, Bob. According to the passenger manifest, there were fourteen young women aboard that ship. So where are their bodies?" "What?" Tomanaga rose and moved to her desk. "May I, sir?" he asked, laying his hand on the swiveled terminal. "Certainly." He turned the screen and peered at it thoughtfully, mind racing.
"It doesn't make sense," he muttered.
"Only the women are missing." "Exactly. And the Tangri have never shown any particu-lax interest in kidnaping young, female Terrans." "Yes, sir. So it had to be someone with a use for them.... What about ransom? were any of them wealthy?"
'Ofi a tramp freighter?" Hah shook her head. "Navy nurses and doctors from Zephrain." "So whoever hit her didn't hail from the Rim, either." Tomanaga frowned. "I don't like it." "Neither do I. Nor, I suppose, did those passengers and crewmen." "Sorry, sir. I meant I don't like the implications. Whoever did it isn't based at Orpheus--we swept the place with a fine-toothed comb. That means inter-system raiding. And that, sir, means there's a joker in the deck. If we spot anyone, we can't know whether it's the Rim or these pirates." "Perhaps." Han cleared her screen and a warp chart flickered to life. She tapped it with a stylus.
"Here's our patrol area. Here's Orpheus." She touched a light dot to one side of their patrol area. "Now, everything Rimward of (pheus belongs to the Rim, and whoever it is can't operate from there, because both sides watch those warp points like hawks. And he can't operate from here---was her arcing stylus indicated their patrol area his--comor we'd've spotted him. But that leaves this warp network over here, see?" She tapped the screen. "It connects with Orpheus from the back.., and it also extends all the way to here his "My God! Right into our rear areas!" "Precisely. I don't know who they are or where they came from, but someone is raiding civilian traffic from a base somewhere along this warp network.
There's nothing much out here but outposts and mining colonies--noto heavy traffic, sparse populations, slow communications. They could be almost anywhere. Take over a mining colony and the nav beacons and you control all communications with the system.
Who's to know you've done it?" "Then we'd better get a drone off immediately, sir." "Agreed. But what then? It'll take two months just to reach Cimmaron. Then two more months for Admiral Iskan to reply or relay it four months, minimum, for whoever it is to go on doing whatever they're doing. No, we have to deal with it ourselves." "But, sir, this area--was he indicated the suspect warp lines his-comis outside our patrol area. It'd take uswhat, five weeks?
-comj to get there, and it'd mean abandoning the picket.
I don't think the Admiralty would like that."
"he Admiralty isn't out here, Bob: we are. We won't take the entire battlegroup, anyway. We'll take one other monitor, Shokaku, and two of the cans and leave the rest here under Commodore Cruett. I suppose I could detach Cruett, but it's my responsibility ff decisions have to be made." "Yes, sir. But--was "Bob, we're going. We're supposed to prevent things like this, war or no war. Understood?" "Yes, sir." "Good. Then get together with Stravos and rough out a set of orders for Cruett. And ask Dick to lay out the best search pattern for us. I don't want to be gone any longer than we have to be." "Aye, aye, sir." He left and Hah cocked her chair back once more, studying the star map and disliking her thoughts.
TRNS Bernardo da Silva plowed slowly through space, accompanied by her sister monitor Franklin P. Eisenhower and the light carrier Shokaku. Two escort destroyers watched the rear while Shokaku's recon fighters swept the detachment's projected track and flanks, and Rear Admiral Li Hah sat on her palatial flag bridge, fingers steepled under her clean jaw line, contemplating her empty plot.
A month of cruising the suspect warp lines, and hoth-+. Was she on the wrong track? Had she made a major error--one that validated her earlier fears over her judgment? Her face was calm as she silently reviewed her discussions with Tomanaga, her endless perusal of dry facts with Irene Jorgensen. The data was there, she decided once more; only her response to it was suspect.
A bell chimed, and she roused, cocking an eyebrow at the eom section as David Reznick bent over the battle code printer. He tore off the message flimsy and turned to her.
"Signal from Shokaku, sir. One of the fighters is onto something." "I see." Han scanned the message. "Doesn't say much, does she?" "No, sir. But her fighter's going in for a closer look. Shall I sound action stations, sir?" "Not yet, Lieutenant. We're a good three hours behind IsswEcnos those fighters-e'll have time. Excuse me a moment." Han summoned up the eom image of Samuel Schwerin, her flag captain.
"Good morning, Sam," she greeted him.
"Shokaku's fighters have picked up something--noto telling what yet--on our line of advance. They're going in for a closer look, but it'll take us about three hours to catch up with them, so I thought we might advance lunch to get it out of the way ff we have to go to action stations." "Certainly, sir. I'll see to it immediately." "Thank you, Sam." Reznick's printer chimed again as Han signed off, and she waited patiently. If using coded whisker lasers delayed communications, it also eliminated the chance of message interception and greatly reduced the likelihood of long-range detection. Then Reznick handed her the message, and her face tigi[tened almost imperceptibly as she read it. She turned to Lieutenant Jorgensen.
"Irene," she said quietly, "punch up your shipping logs and double-check for me, please. According to Shokaku, this is what's left of a Postarsts-class liner.
I'm afraid it may be Argosy Polaris." "Yes, sir," the lieutenant was punching keys, watching the data come up. "Argosy Polaris, sir.
Two hundred passengers and a priority medical cargo. Reported overdue at Kariphos ten months ago." "Damn," Han said softly.
"It's the Polaris, sir," Commander Tomanaga confirmed grimly, studying the drifting hulk on his screen. "Somebody ripped hell out of her, too.
Mst've been quick and dirty to keep her from even getting a drone away. Look at that." His finger indicated the relatively small punctures riddling the command section of the big liner.
"Primaries and needles," Han said flatly.
"They knew she was armed--comn that her popguns would've helped much. So they closed in, tractored her, and blew her command and corn sections before she could yell for help." "But how did they get close enough? And what's she doing way out here? We're six transits off the Stendahl-Kariphos route."
"I don't know how they fooled her master," Hun said, "but getting her here wouldn't be hard.
There's no damage to her drive pods. They just blasted the command deck and then gave whoever was left his options: surrender or see two hundred passengers vaporized. After that, they used the engine room controls to bring her out here so they could loot her at leisure. Not the approved technique, but workable as long as they were in company with someone with intact nay capabilities." "Sounds reasonable." Tomanaga's words were calm; his faco and tone weren't. "But it was sloppy to leave her intact. They should'ye blown her fusion plants or dropped her into the primary to hide the evidence." "No, Bob. This is a lonely spot, and that's a hundred thousand tonnes of ship. Lots of spares and replacoments to be scavenged out of her." "Of course." Tomanaga shook his head. "Shall I send in the examination teams, sir?" "Ys. And call away my cutter. I'm going too." Hah swam down the passage of the dead liner, her powerful lamp filuminating the splendid furnishing of first class--marred in spots by laser burns and occasional sears of pure vandalism. The raiders must have damped the. power before they depressurized the hull, for the blast doors stood open. She'd seen one grisly eorpse--coma crewman dead of explosive decompression--and she was coldly cortain they'd dumped atmosphere intentionally to kill any fugitives.
She
turned a corner and spun gracefully, landing on her magnetized boot soles beside the Marine search party which had summoned her. Two troopers were busy sealing a transparent bubble to the bulkhead around a dosed hatch.
"Afternoon, Admiral." Major Bryce saluted her, and she returned his salute, then shifted her magsoles to the deck-head, hanging like a weightless bat to watch over the shoulders of the work detail.
"lhis is the only hatch holding pressure, Major" "Yes, sir. we checked out all the others and came up empty"--he seemed unaware of his own grim double entendre?b there's atmosphere on the other side of this one." "How much longer, Major?" "We've just about got her sealed in, sir." He gestured at the plastic airlock. "Soon's we get a little pressure in there, we'll crack the hatch. Not that it's going to make any difference to whoever sealed it." Han nodded slowly within her helmet. Ater ten months, no one could possibly survive beyond that hatch.
"Ready, Major," a sergeant said.
"All right, Admiral," Bryce looked at Han, "would you like to go in?" "Yes, Major. I would." "Very good, sir." Bryce managed things smoothly, and Han found herself sandwiched between the looming combat zoots of a pair of Marine corporals as one of them fed power to the hatclg from her zoot pack. The hatch slid open, and the plastic lock creaked as its over-pressure bled into the cabin. The corporals moved awkwardly to either side to permit Han to enter first, and she pushed off through the hatch.
It was a tomb.
The first things she saw in her helmet lamp were the rags and plastiseal packed into a pair of ragged holes; one of the primaries that took out the command deck had passed through this cabin. Someone had kept his wits about him to patch those holes so quickly, and the angle of the punctures might explain why the cabin hadn't been searched they just about paralleled the passage outside, and the single beam had probably pierced at least a dozen suites. Much of first class must have died practically unknowing, and the raiders had probably assumed this cabin's occupants had done the same.
Her evaluation of the patches took only seconds; then she saw the bodies, and her lips twisted with rage. Children. They were children!
She counted five of the huddled little shapes, peacefully arranged in the beds as ff merely sleeping, and saw the body of a single adult--coma young woman--comat a desk to one side. A candle stub was glued to the desk with melted wax, and her head was a shattered ruin, wrought by the heavy-caliber needler death-locked in her hand.
Hah looked away and felt her belly knot.
There was no nausea--comonly a cold, deadly hatred for the beings who had wreaked this slaughter of the children she would never bear.
She mastered herself and bent over the stiff corpse of the unknown woman. There was an old fashioned memo pad magsealed to the desk, and Han eased it gently loose. Then she turned back to the lock.
"Dump the air, Major," she said, and for the first time she hated herself for sounding serene under pressure.
"And transport the bodies to da Silva." "Yes, sir." Bryce sounded wooden, and she realized he'd been watching his minute eom screen; he'd seen everything his corporals" pickups had seen. "We'll be taking them back to Cimmaron, sir?" "No, Major," Han said quietly. "It won't help their loved ones to see this. We'll try to identify them and then bury them in space." "Yes, sir." "I'm returning to the flagship, Major." "Yes, sir. Shall I assign an escort?" "No, Major. I'd rather be alone, thank you." "Yes, sir." Han looked up as Tomanaga entered her cabin. He'd seen the pictures of that cabin and knew his admiral well enough to sense the fury behind her calm demeanor, and he took the indicated chair silently, feeling his way through the storm front of her rage.
"You wanted me, sir?" "Yes," she said calmlv. She tapped the memo pad. "I'll want you to drop this ofwith Irene. It may be useful." Tomanaga studied her covertly. Her face was as calm as ever, yet she radiated murderous fury. Only belatedly did he realize what it was. Her dark eyes, usually so tranquil, were deadly.
"Yes, sir," he said quietly.
"In the meantime," Han went on carefully.
"I'd like to tell you what it is. This, Commander, is a record of what that young woman endured." "Is there any ID on the attackers, sir?" "There is," she said coldly. "Allow me to summarize.
INSUS.CON Her name vJas Ursula Hauser, and she was a second-year student at New Athens--a philosophy major." Despite her hard-held control, Han's mouth twisted before she could smooh it. "A philosophy major," she repeated softly. "According to her notes, her cabin lost integrity almost immediately, but Ms. Hauser was a quick thinker, and she managed to patch the holes.
'Fhen, over the intercom, she heard the boarders killing the passengers, Commander Tomanaga." She looked up, her black eyes pits of flame.
"They lined them up, sorted out the ones they wanted to keep--the young, pretty women--comand slaughtered the rest in number three hold.
"But Ms. Hauser was determined they wouldn't get all the passengers. She knew a little about small cra, so she decided to try to steal a cutter and escape. She was on her way to this boatbay when she came across five terrified children from third class, running for their lives from one of the raiders. She stabbed him to death... with a carving knife from the first class galley." She paused, and Tomanaga felt his pulse in his temples. "She took his weapon, but she knew now that they were between her and the boathay, and while they might let her live, they would certainly kill the children. So she did the only thing she could and looked for a hiding place.
"She was certain they knew their primaries hd depres-surized her whole cabin block, so she took the children back to her cabin, hoping they would be overlooked and she could get them to the boatbay after the raiders left. But then they dumped the air, and there she was: locked into her cabin with five children, no power, no vac suits, no airlock, and no way out." Han's voice trailed off and she looked away from Tomanaga's pale face, speaking so softly he could barely hear her.
"So she did what she had to do, Commander. She fed each of those children a lethal overdose of barbiturates from her cabin medical stores. And when she was quite certain they were all dead, she sat down at the desk, recorded all of their names, finished her memo... and shot herself." Han stroked the pad. "She was nineteen, Bob." A long silence fell. Robert Tomanaga had never person- ally hated any enemy in all his years of service, but at that moment he knew exactly what hate was, and he under- stood the old, hackneyed cliches about "killing rages." "But, sir," he sought a professional topic, something to push the sick hatred away, "how did they catch the ship?
Argosy Polaris was fast--notothing but a fighter could have overhauled her ff she'd had any sort of start.
Surely her master didn't allow an unidentified ship into weapons range in the middle of a civil war!" "No," Hah said coldly. "He allowed a Republican cruiser patrol to close with him." "Oh my God. No "Tomanaga whispered.
"Precisely.
Obviously somewhat modified; they've replaced at least some of the hetlasers with primaries. But that was how he identified them to his passengers when he hove to. I doubt he ever learned his mistake." "Sir, what--his" "What are we going to do, Commander?" Han laid the pad aside almost reverently, and when she looked up, her eyes were carved from the obsidian heart of hell.
"We're going to find them, Commander Tomanaga.
We're going to find the vermin who did this, the vermin who used the honor of the Fleet to cover themselves. And when w.e do, Commander, I only hope they live long enough to know who's killing them!" "Admirali We're picking up something on the emergency distress channel!" Han straightened in her command chair. Two weeks had passed with no sign of the pirates, but the possible hiding places had been narrowed methodically. Now there were only a handful of systems it could be, and Siegried, on the far side of the next warp point, was one of them. "Get a bearing, David," she said with the special serenity her staff had learned to expect in moments of stress. "Bob, send the group to quarters." "Aye, aye, sir!" Tomanaga snapped, and the high-pitched shrilling of the alert wailed through the massive ship
. Han hardly heard it.
"Got it, sir! Oh-one-niner level, two-eight-eight vertical. Looks like a standard shuttle transmission."
"Thank you." Bob, raise Captain Onsbruck. I want one fighter squadron to take a close look; hold the other two back for cover. This could be legitimate or a trap, so tell the pilots to take no chances." "Aye, aye, sir." "Thank you." She punched buttons, and Schwerin's face appeared on her com screen.
"Captain, until I know exactly what we've got, you will halt the flagship and the battlegroup ten light-seconds short of the signal source." "Aye, aye, sir." "Thank you." She cut the connection and turned back to Tomanaga, and the lean chief of staff shivered at the hunger in her normally tranquil eyes.