The Outposter

  They were still one shift from it when both groups—the three mass-forty cruisers of the Navy patrol and the six alien ships, averaging about mass thirty-two—became visible in the scan cubes minutes away from each other.

  "They haven't met yet," said Paul, sitting on watch over the scan cube.

  "They will," said Mark. "Shift right in on top of them."

  The twelve cruisers of Abruzzi Fourteen shifted all together, coming out in a six-point star pattern around both the patrol and the Meda V'Dan vessels. But when they emerged from shift, the conflict they had seen impend­ing when they went into it was already over.

  Now, of the three Navy ships, one was liter­ally broken in half. The other two showed gaping cuts and holes in their armour and were drifting out of formation. The alien ships had closed in on them to boarding range, to see what they could pick up in the way of usable equipment.

  "Fire at will," said Mark over the intership command circuit.

  Filters clamped into place automatically on the view screens as the area enclosed by the Abruzzi Fourteen star pattern was suddenly laced with the soundless but unbearable bril­liance of white weapon beams and varicol­oured metal explosions. Abruptly, the filters withdrew again, and the six Meda V'Dan ships were revealed, drifting now, torn and broken, while the hull of the cruiser around Mark and his crew pinged and snapped with the sound of cooling weapons.

  The air in the cruiser was stiflingly hot and stank of burned insulation. But the fans were clearing and cooling it once more.

  "I'm surprised they didn't bring more ships than that—the Meda V'Dan, I mean," said Paul somberly, looking into the nearest screen. He was tight-faced and a little pale with the suddenness of witnessed death.

  "They didn't expect us to react this soon, whatever else they expected," answered Mark. His own voice sounded strange in his ears. He bent to the intership command phone.

  "Move in and search for survivors," he said. "The Navy ships first."

  But there were no survivors. It was part of the ugly business of combat in space with the kind of weapons both sides carried that there were not likely to be survivors, but the search for them was always made. It was made now, and the hold area of Mark's cruiser became a morgue for whatever human bodies could be found, so that they could be returned for burial.

  "Now where to?" asked Maura Vols, when the last of these had been brought aboard. Mark had concentrated his most capable people on the ship he had designated flagship for the Abruzzi Fourteen fleet. In theory, any of Maura's pupils could navigate a vessel on his own. In practice, Maura navigated the flagship and her figures were relayed to the other vessels, who followed obediently, al­though the student navigators were required to calculate on their own so that they could check their results with hers.

  "Home?" Paul added. "Or Navy Base?"

  "Neither," said Mark. He breathed deeply. He had worked a long time for this moment. Now that it was here, following the instan­taneous action of the battle, it felt strange— like an impossible dream suddenly turned into reality. "We'll shift to the Meda V'Dan world, and attack that city of theirs."

  There was no response from Paul or Maura. Mark looked up to see them staring at him.

  "That's right," Mark said. "That's an order. Get to it."

  Maura turned away, and went toward the navigator's section of the command area.

  Then Paul turned and went back to his scan cube and communications equipment.

  It was three shifts to the edge of the system containing the Meda V'Dan world. On Mark's ship those aboard were generally silent as the shifts were made. It was one thing to practice with ship-mounted weapons; it was some­thing else again to see the results of their use, and the use of other weapons like them. One shift out from the Meda V'Dan world, Mark spoke over the command circuit to the per­sonnel on all twelve ships and four scouts.

  "The scouts," he said, "will wait at a dis­tance of one planetary diameter. In case of anything going wrong, they're to head imme­diately for Abruzzi Station. The cruisers will go in on command together to just over the city and make one slow pass, doing as much damage to the buildings as possible. If there's no return fire, I may order a second pass. If not, all ships—I repeat, all ships—are to get out as quickly as possible. If there's no pur­suit, we'll join up together at the edge of this system to return. Otherwise, each vessel will make its own way home. Understood? Ship commanders, acknowledge!"

  One by one the ship commanders answered over the command circuit.

  "All right," said Mark when they were through. He sat down in his control chair and fastened himself in. "All ships take order and distance from the flagship."

  They went in.

  There was a heavy cloud cover at three thousand feet over the Meda V'Dan city this

  day. Their ships broke through this suddenly to see the wide ranks of the identical build­ings directly below them.

  "Fire at will," said Mark over the command circuit, and the beams of their weapons raked the thin walls of the structures below, sending explosions mounting into the air.

  For less than five seconds, they were actually above the city itself. Then their beams stabbed and seared only the slagged rock beyond it, and Mark spoke in the command circuit again.

  "Good enough," he said. "Everybody out."

  His flagship stood toward space at eight gravities and his head swam. Then they were out at orbit distance, and the sudden, flicking change of a short shift left them at the edge of the Meda V'Dan system.

  "Ships!" snapped Paul, his voice suddenly a little hoarse, from where he sat with the communications instruments. "Ships—doz­ens of them—lifting from the city."

  "Get out of here!" said Mark into the com­mand circuit, and heard the words come blurred from between his clamped teeth. "No formation. Each ship home independently. Move!"

  He lifted his head from the intership circuit to speak on ship's circuit to Maura.

  "Hold shift," he said. "We'll see the rest of them off first."

  "Hundreds of ships," said Paul from the scan cube. His voice was no longer hoarse, but there was a numbness to it, as if he were reporting something beyond belief. "Still coming up from the city. Like bees swarming ... the leaders in space already moving fast our way."

  Around the flagship, the other cruisers were disappearing one by one, like projected images when the light in the projector is turned off. There were eleven of them ... were nine ... seven ... four ... one ...

  "Ship Jonas!" said Mark over the command circuit at the last ship still hanging there. "What's wrong?"

  There was no answer. Then the Jonas also disappeared.

  The air temperature inside the flagship sud­denly shot up twenty degrees as a flame missile from the front ranks of the oncoming Meda V'Dan exploded only a few hundred yards short of the cruiser.

  "Shift!" said Mark to Maura. The alien ships, the alien system, vanished from the screen before him and he looked out instead on the silent and peaceful star scene of four light-years away.

  "Home?" Maura's voice asked him.

  "Navy Base," he said.

  "Yes, sir," she answered.

  He broke the circuit and sat back. After a second he looked up as a shadow fell across him. He saw Paul standing over him.

  "Navy Base? Now?" asked Paul in a low voice. "How'll we get out again if they find out what we've done?"

  "I want them to find out," said Mark. "We won't go all the way in. We'll stop at one of their approach points and turn the bodies of the patrol casualties over to it. I think we can do that, tell our story, and get out before those in command at the Base this tour of duty can get ships out to stop us from leaving. And once we're gone, they'll have a chance to think it over, and maybe they'll decide not to do anything until they've consulted Earth."

  "You think so?" Paul said.

  Mark smiled soberly.

  "I'm counting on it," he said.

  Nine hours later, their cruiser drifted up to a large, checkerboard-hulled
globe, beside which floated a light scout ship like a minnow invisibly tethered to a beach ball.

  "Approach point, this is ship Voltan," Mark said. Somewhere, a few thousand miles farther on, Navy Base itself was lost in the light of Murgatroyd's Onion. "We are a vessel on Navy lease to Abruzzi Fourteen Station, Garnera Six. Outpost Station Commander Mark Ten Roos speaking. We have cargo to transfer to your approach point station. With your permission, I'll come over and tell you about it while the cargoes being shifted."

  "Come ahead, Commander," answered a young voice. "Sub Lieutenant Sharral Ojobki speaking. I'll meet you just inside the lock."

  Mark ordered the cruiser into contact range with the globe, and a tubeway was projected from the cruiser air lock to the globe's en­trance. A couple of minutes later he passed through that tube, to be met within the air lock of the approach point station by a startlingly tall, lean, and dark young officer.

  "Pleasure to have you visit, Commander,"

  Ojobki said, shaking hands. "Nothing ever happens on approach point duty. What's the cargo—and can you stop for a drink?"

  "I'm afraid not," said Mark. He followed Ojobki's towering figure through the inner air-lock door into the control centre area of the station globe. It was a wide room with walls curving to the angle of the hull over­head, and equipment of all kinds, including communications equipment, against a far wall. There were two Navy enlisted men on duty—one at the communications equipment, the other working at a desk surface with what looked to be station records.

  "Too bad," said Ojobki. "The cargo?"

  "Bodies," said Mark.

  Ojobki stood where he was, looking down at Mark with the welcoming smile still on his face. After a moment, the smile slipped into a baffled frown.

  "I'm sorry, sir," he said after a second. "I guess I don't follow you."

  "I'm bringing you what I could find of the bodies of your men in the three ships of your Wing Red Four Patrol Unit. They were hit off Domsee by six Meda V'Dan ships." Mark stood aside as two of his colonist crew came through the air lock behind him, carrying the first of the frozen, blanket-wrapped bodies.

  "Lay them down over there by the wall," Mark said.

  The colonists obeyed, setting their burden down gently and then going back out past another two who had just entered with another blanket-wrapped burden.

  "I—" Ojobki broke off. He stepped over and began to unwrap the blanket from the front end of the object. The crewmen slowed, hesi­tated, and -glanced at Mark.

  "Let him look," said Mark.

  The two men stood still. Ojobki threw back a flap of the blanket and looked. His face twisted. He carefully rewrapped the blanket and stepped back from the body. At a nod from Mark the two took it on to lay it down beside the first one that had been brought in.

  Ojobki's throat worked. He turned to Mark.

  "I don't understand," he said to Mark. His voice was unsteady, shaky at first, but grew firmer. "You say the Meda V'Dan did this?" He shook his head like a man trying to get rid of the effects of a blow.

  "I've got to report this—" He started to turn toward the communications equipment, then froze as the side arm Mark was wearing ap­peared abruptly in Mark's hand.

  "Not just yet," said Mark. He gestured with the weapon at the Navy enlisted man sitting at the equipment. "All right. Move away from there."

  The enlisted man stared. Slowly he got to his feet and backed away from the equipment.

  "Good enough," said Mark. "Stand still."

  He turned back to Ojobki.

  "I can't take any chances on being held up now," he said. "I've got to get back to Abruzzi Fourteen Station. After we smashed the six Meda V'Dan vessels that hit your patrol, my ships and I went on to the one Meda V'Dan world we know about, and hit their city to pay them back. I'd warned the aliens not to touch Navy ships."

  Ojobki stared back at him as if Mark were talking some strange foreign tongue.

  "Here," said Mark. He reached into a pocket with his free hand and came out with a small grey spool of wire, which he dropped on the top of a nearby instrument. "There's a copy of the record of our fight with the six alien ships and our pass over their city."

  He glanced over at the two men currently carrying in a body. There was a long row of the silent objects now, on the other side of the room.

  "How many more?" Mark asked.

  "This is the last one," said the colonist in the lead.

  "All right," said Mark. He waited until the two set their burden down and headed back out the lock. Then he backed toward the lock himself, keeping Ojobki and the two enlisted men covered. "You can notify your superiors as soon as I go. Tell them, though, that no matter what the Navy does, we're going to stay where we are and defend our colony."

  He backed out through the open inner air­lock door, and turning, sprinted through the tube back into the cruiser.

  "Pull tube," he said to Paul, as soon as he was back inside his own ship. "Home to Abruzzi Fourteen."

  Back at Abruzzi Fourteen, they found all the other eleven cruisers and four scouts safely returned before them. Mark nodded, and called a meeting at the Residence of all the station outposters, together with Jarl, Ulla, Wilkes, Lily, Maura and the new factory pro­duction head, Age Hammerschold.

  "I want a continual watch kept by one of the scouts on Navy Base," he told them. "Unless I've been dead wrong from the start, most of the Navy, or maybe all of it, is going to be abandoning the Base in the next week or so. And Brot, now's the time to get together here those outposters I had you make a list of. The ones we can work with, because from here on it's a job for all the Stations and all the Colo­nies. We're going to sink or swim together."

  Chapter Sixteen

  It took twelve days before the outposters on Brot's list could all be notified and gathered in from the half-dozen Colony Worlds spread out through three different solar systems, for most of them had nothing but ground trans­portation available to them—the Navy having always taken care of movement between worlds and stars.

  Consequently, the sixteen ships of Abruzzi Station Fourteen became busy acting as transports. Meanwhile, what Mark had pre­dicted came true. The Navy precipitously abandoned Navy Base, without even leaving caretakers behind, and pulled back to Earth. But four days later, from Earth to Abruzzi Fourteen came a single tough heavily-armed little ship. Emblazoned on its hull was the black outposter seal of a gauntleted hand cup­ping a star in its palm.

  It landed without hesitation directly under the fixed plasma rifles Mark had ordered set up to cover the landing area, and two competent-looking men in outposter uniform but with colonel's insignia on their shoulders exited from the ship and demanded to be taken to Mark.

  They were brought to him in the library of the Residence, where he sat behind a desk laden with unfinished paperwork.

  "Gentlemen," he said, getting to his feet as they were ushered in. "Sit down."

  "This isn't a social call, Commander," said the older of the two. "You're under arrest. We're here to take you back to Earth to stand charges of genocide and incitement of aliens to genocide."

  "I'm sorry," Mark shook his head. "But I'm not going anywhere right away. And for that matter, neither are you." He nodded at the door behind them, and the two ranking Out­poster Headquarters officers turned around to see a couple of young colonists holding plasma rifles aimed at them.

  "You're under arrest yourselves," said Mark. "Take their side arms." He watched as the colonels were relieved of the hand weapons each wore in regulation outposter fashion. "And now, you might as well sit down."

  He himself sat and nodded to the two colo­nists, who withdrew, taking the officers' guns with them.

  Neither colonel moved toward a chair, how­ever. The older of the two, a tall, spare man with thinning grey hair, black eyebrows, and a narrow jaw, stared hard at Mark.

  "You're resisting your own superior officers?" he said.

  "Not anymore," said Mark. "Abruzzi Sta­tion Fourteen is an independent c
olony now, and all of us here who were outposters have emigrated to it and become colonists."

  "Colonists!" said the older colonel. "Revo­lutionists—that's what you are. Every man sent out to the Outposts is sworn to protect human life, and you not only haven't done that, you've stirred up the aliens to attack Earth." His mouth was a pinched slit. "What're you going to do with us, then? Shoot us?"

  "Just keep you quiet for a while until I can take you for a short trip," said Mark. "Then I'll send you back to Earth to tell them what you saw."

  "While you run the other way?"

  Mark shook his head.

  "I'll be coming to Earth, too," he said. "Just as soon as I've got things wound up here. But meanwhile"—he reached out and spoke into his desk communicator. "You can come and show the officers to their quarters now," he said into the instrument.

  The two armed colonists reappeared and ushered the colonels out. Mark spoke into the communicator.

  "Prepare the flagship for immediate lift-off on a twenty-hour cruise," he said.

  Five minutes later, Mark's work was again interrupted by another visitor. This time it was Ulla.

  "You aren't going back to Earth with them?" Ulla said without preamble. Her face was pale.

  Mark hesitated.

  "No," he said. "Sit down?"

  "You're sure?"

  He smiled.

  "What's wrong with me today?" he said. "No one wants to sit down when I ask them to. Those officers wouldn't, and now you won't."

  He reached over and turned the chair by the side of his desk a little toward her.

  "Sit down," he said. She came and sat, but stiffly upright in the chair. "Tell me how you happened to find out those officers were in here to take me back."

  "Don't you think I've been expecting some­one like that?" she said. "Don't you think all of us have? You let us know you expected something like this right from the start, and then these men come. What else are we supposed to think, but that you're going back with them to stand trial?"

  "I see. You've talked to them," Mark said, watching her closely.

  "To them first." She stared unflinchingly at him. "Then I came to you. But you promise me you're not going to let them take you back?"