Guardsmen of Tomorrow (6 page)

/m/y’s stem cooling vanes tore free, fluttering away into night end over end. Her dorsal mizzen shuddered, twisted in its mounting, and then tore free, the shriek of shredding metal echoing through the frigate’s manned spaces, loudly enough that the sound crossed the jacking barrier and was heard by the men within the virtual environment of the shipnet. A scattering of golden sparks-tele-operated spiders bearing the minds of
Indy’s
dorsal mizzen sail handlers-spilled into emptiness.

Goddess, bring their minds back safely…

There was nothing to be done beyond the minor comfort of prayer, and no time even for that. Seven rounds slammed into the gun deck section, ripping out bulkheads, upending guns.

Ferocious
and
Swiff
were attempting to join
Indeterminacy
now, though they were badly damaged. The
Swift
bore only three masts now, one on each deck, while little
Ferocious
had only a single foremast left, thrusting out from her starboard deck with a single tops’I filled.

The remaining two enemy ships appeared to be concentrating on the crippled
Decider
, closing with her in order to board.

“Make to
Ferocious
and
Swift”
Hazzard said. “Tell them to bear clear and make for the out-system rendezvous.”

A moment later-“
Ferocious
and
Swift
both say they’re too badly damaged for transit, Captain. Both say they’re going to stay and fight it out.”

Damn.
Indeterminacy
‘s sacrifice was going to be in vain. He’d hoped that by making the microjump, he could distract the P’aaseni forces long enough for
Decider, Swift
, and
Ferocious
, at least, to make their escape.
Fire Angel
, he saw, was beyond hope, her hull wrecked and glowing with savage, blue-white heat.

And it now appeared as though all three ships, and
Indeterminacy
as well, were going to be in a similar condition within the next few minutes.

Indeterminacy
loosed a long, rippling broadside from her dorsal guns, round after round slamming into the inert hulk of the huge
Gilaadessera
, her leaking, fog-wreathed prow now less than three hundred kilometers abeam.
Indy’s
port-side guns were engaging the
Thaspasin
, a thirty-three-gun P’aaseni frigate, while her starboard guns dueled with the ship of the line crowded up alongside the
Decider
.

Another broadside struck home aboard the Union frigate.

Her port foremast was snapped in two, halfway out, and tumbled away, cordage spinning. She could barely crowd on enough sail to maintain acceleration, now, and she was in immediate danger of losing all maneuvering way.

“Captain, port lookout. I think… I think they’re getting ready to board. I see boarding pods on their foredeck.”

Pardoe’s shipnet image looked at him, the man’s long face drawn and tight. “It was a good run, sir. I didn’t think we’d make it this far.”

“I’d hoped to give the squadron a chance to escape,” he said. “I guess I miscalculated after all.”

He was facing that bitterest of moments in any ship captain’s career, the moment when he knows he can fight no longer and must surrender to an overwhelmingly more powerful foe.

“Bridge! Dorsal lookout! Highspace entry point forming, at one-three-eight, plus two-five! We have incoming vessels!”

Goddess! More P’aaseni?…

“Sir! It’s
Valorous
! And
Trimirage
! And the rest of the out-system squadron!”

“It’s the goddamn cavalry to the rescue!” Pardoe shouted. “It’s a skekking miracle!…”

“Not a miracle,” Hazzard replied, trying to keep his voice from breaking. “
Not
a miracle. Just very,
very
good timing…”

“… it is the judgment of this court, furthermore, that Captain Fifth-Rank Greydon Hazzard acted at all times within the very best traditions of the naval service, rendering timely assistance to four smaller embattled friendly vessels and almost certainly preventing their destruction or capture by the enemy.

“This court of inquiry finds him not guilty of criminal negligence and urges his immediate restoration to com-mand.” Admiral-Fourth Howard looked up from his computer display. “Congratulations, Captain.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

The court of inquiry would have been necessary even if Admiral cy-Dennever hadn’t filed charges against Hazzard in the wake of the Battle of Kaden, as it was being called now. After the fight, and the surrender of the
Gilaadessera
and two of her consorts,
Indeterminacy
had barely been able to make it to light speed for a long, heart-in-the-throat highspace jump back to Tribaltren. She would be in space-dock undergoing repairs for at least the next six months. Twenty-five of her crew of three hundred were dead, another fourteen mindless, helpless dissociates.

A hell of a butcher’s bill to pay. Poor cy-Tomlin. He was one of the dissociates, the circuitry projecting his mind into the shipnet burned out during the final, savage enemy broadside. The poor kid had never had a chance.

Hazzard knew he’d done it to save the other ships. That didn’t make the loss any easier to bear. The loss of his own was like a small piece of himself dying.

A bell rang. ‘These proceedings are completed. Dismissed.“

Hazzard straightened to attention as the three admirals behind the imposing cliff of a judgment desk stood, turned, and walked toward the wings of the courtroom. One of them stopped, though, at the door, spoke for a moment with the others, then walked toward Hazzard.

“That,” Admiral Dalim cy-Koenin said softly, “was one of the
stupidest
battles I’ve ever seen played on an after-action report.”

Hazzard stiffened. “Yes, sir.”

“You should have run as soon as you saw how badly you were outgunned. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If Lieutenant Lasely hadn’t had the bright idea of expending nearly all of
Uriel’s
water reserves in a last-ditch attempt to boost to
c
using his maneuvering thrusters, it would have been another hour or more before
Victor
reached you, and you all would have been dead or prisoners by then.”

“I only wanted to save those ships and men, sir. I knew
Uriel
would win clear to the squadron. I thought I might be able to slow the P’aaseni enough to let some of our ships get clear.”

“Risking your ship and crew that way was misguided at best, stupid at worst.”

Which was no more than Hazzard had been telling himself since the battle’s end.

“Yes, sir. I have no excuse, sir.”

“Uh. It was also one of the more brilliant pieces of military ship handling I’ve ever seen. You saved Bellemew’s tail, that’s sure. You single-handedly brought the Anarchate into the Union camp and without firing on them, though there’ll be some hair-splitting over whether what you did constituted an attack or not. You fought a ship of the line to a battered hulk and were responsible for the capture of three out of six enemy sail and the repulse of the rest. You’ll probably be getting a decoration for this one.”

“Lieutenant Lasely deserves the medal, Admiral. He’s the one that saved
all
our tails.”

“He’ll get it. Don’t worry.” Cy-Koenin placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Damn it, Dad. Sometimes I despair of you. But… well done!”

Hazzard released the breath he’d been holding in his lungs. His son extended a hand, and Hazzard took it.

Then they embraced.

It was one of the costs of a naval service that depended on near-c velocities for each jump to highspace or for riding the light barrier endlessly on blockade or patrol off the shoals of enemy systems. Greydon Hazzard had ten portwives on various worlds and, at last count, at any rate, had seven children, four girls, three boys, by different mothers. All but three were older biologically than Hazzard now, because most of their lives had been spent groundside… and one, also a Navy captain, was sometimes older, sometimes younger when they met, depending on how much tau-minus each had accumulated in the intervening subjective since their last meeting.

Hazzard had racked up a hell of a lot of tau-minus over the objective years. His portwife on Groller, nearly seventy objective years ago, had been one Lauri cy-Koenin.

She was long dead, but their son, Dalim, had gone to the Union Naval Academy at Napola, risen through the ranks, commanded half a dozen ships in his illustrious career, and finally been promoted to admiral. With far less tau-minus on the books than Hazzard, he was now fifty-eight standard-objective years old and twenty-two years older than his father.

“You know, don’t you, that cy-Dennever was right to bring you up on charges.”

A pause. “Yes, sir.” Reluctantly.

“The Anarchate was
this
close to declaring war after your little stunt with their PDBs. You’re just damned lucky their military council decided to switch sides.”

That was news to Hazzard. “I hadn’t heard that, sir.”

“Just came through on the last dispatch boat from Kaden. Turns out there was a faction of the Anarchate military that had decided to side with the Alliance because they were strongest and, sooner or later, when the Alliance beat us, the Anarchate would be wiped out by the Alliance’s human-onlies. They figured that if they joined the Alliance, helped them, the Irdikad might be able to find a place in the new regime, even if only as second-class citizens.”

“Huh. Maybe their decision wasn’t so crazy after all.” It made sense, after a fashion, according to Irdikad psychology.

“Yes, well, it seems that our winning that battle against those odds convinced them that
we
were the strongest, and therefore the ones to side with. Although…”

“Sir?”

“What they
said
was, ‘Anyone crazy enough to pull a stunt like
that
is worthy of respect.’ A rough translation, of course.” He shook his head. “First time a Fleet officer has won a battle and a new ally by being insane.”

“I prefer the word
lucky
.”

“Someday, Dad,” cy-Koenin said with a grin, “when you’re as old as I am, you’ll know that relying on luck just doesn’t always pay off the way you expect.”

“We make our own luck, son. Sometimes, it’s just a bit harder and more expensive than other times.” He didn’t add that often the price was a little piece of your soul.

Poor cy-Tomlin
…

“You in the mood for a bite to eat, Admiral? Courts of inquiry make me hungry.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Together, father and son, they strode from the chamber.

THE END

by Robin Wayne Bailey

Robin Wayne Bailey is the author of a dozen novels, including the Brothers of the Dragon series,
Shad-owdance
, and the new Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser novel
Swords Against the Shadowland
. His short fiction has appeared in numerous science fiction and fantasy anthologies and magazines, including
Far Frontiers
and
Spell Fantastic
. An avid book collector and old-time radio enthusiast, he lives in North Kansas City, Missouri.

Chilson Dawes stumbled out of the doorway of Madam Satterfield’s brothel and into the dark Martian night. He stank of alcohol and sex. He didn’t care. He still had money in his pockets, and pale dawn was hours away. He rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, drew his cloak about his shoulders, and smacked his lips, thirsty for another drink.

A burly bear of a man in a worn leather spacer’s jacket leaned near the door. He stubbed out a cigarette with a booted toe. “You’re killin‘ yourself, you know.” A note of weariness softened the gruff voice. “Why don’t you call it a night.”

Dawes heard the limping scrape of boot soles on the pavement. He groped for an offered arm and clutched it. “Mister Donovan,” he said with a cheerful slur, “when I want a medical opinion, I’ll call a doctor, not a broken-down washed-out wreck of an Irish freighter pilot like yourself.” He patted the hand at the end of the arm.

“You’re a lousy friend, but like a good old dog always there when I call.”

“We are a pair, aren’t we?” Donovan said. “So-brothel, bar, or casino?”

That was the problem with a city like Tharsis. Too damn much to offer. All the sins and vices a man couldn’t get on civilized Earth anymore, pleasures undreamed of for someone with too much money and too much time. Chilson Dawes had both.

“Just walk,” he said with a sudden, self-pitying melancholy.

Donovan obeyed. Dawes, with a secure grip on the Irishman’s arm, listened to the sounds around him as they wandered. The streets were alive tonight: music gushing from the open doorways of taverns; a woman’s coarse laugh; a pair of boastful spacers drunk as Dawes himself; the rattle of what might have been a blowing newspaper; the soft rustle of his own cloak. A harlot called his name and an offer as Donovan led him on. Strong whiff of perfume. He waved a hand and grinned, wondered who she was.

“The moons,” he said quietly, feeling the Martian wind in his hair. “Are they up yet?”

Donovan slowed his pace only a little. Chilson Dawes imagined the big man staring upward. “Deimos is, swollen and full, like a ripe tangerine.”

“Bastard,” Dawes muttered.

“Something else is up, too,” Donovan whispered. His hand closed over Dawes’ as he subtly increased the pace. “We’re being followed.”

Dawes frowned, his heart quickening. This was a rough part of Tharsis, but he was known here. The locals protected him and left him alone. Still, he trusted Donovan; he did his best to keep up. He had enough money on him to make robbery tempting.

Maybe someone had followed him from Madam Satterfield’s.

Donovan led the way quickly through the streets, around comers, down winding alleys into new streets. Carnival sounds swirled; cotton candy smells and body stink, urine, trash can noises, conversation, laughter. Another turn, and a quieter street.

Donovan stopped suddenly. A rush of footsteps. Donovan pushed Dawes’ hand away and turned. A grunt, harsh intake of breath, sound of body falling.