Women of War (23 page)

“Yes.”

“Who will you serve, now?”

“I don't know.” He bowed to her. “But Alexis belonged in the South, Kalakar. This was her home, and I brought her back to it.”

“She changed.”

It hurt him. “So did the war.”

“Duarte—”

“I don't want to leave her here,” he added. “Not alone. She was the heart of the Ospreys.”

“So were you.”

He shrugged. He had to take his leave of the Kalakar, and it was a parting that he had foreseen twelve years past. When it had failed to happen, he had sworn he would serve her forever.

So much for oaths.

“Alexis is waiting,” she told him gently.

He nodded.

“And the House Guard is waiting as well.”

And nodded again. “Let me carry her,” he said.

She hesitated for just a moment, and then she gestured. Verrus Korama came to stand by her side, as he often did. He carried something in his hands, and she took it from him, dismissing him as wordlessly as she had summoned him.

Turning to Duarte AKalakar, she gave him what she carried. The flag of the Black Ospreys.

DEFENSE CHIEF LARA CHUEN was far away, in both light-years and time, watching a battle that she had already seen a hundred times, when a call came through on her priority channel. Lara was floating in space between the human ships and the Scorcher fleet. Not a shot had been fired yet. The alien ships had gathered into a densely packed spherical formation. The whole formation spun like a planet on its axis, and then expanded, contracted, and expanded again. Tactically, the move made absolutely no sense. If human weapons were strong enough to disable the Scorcher ships, the humans could have attacked when the sphere was at its densest. Most of the Scorcher fleet would have been screened by their own ships, unable to return fire.

This had been the first encounter with Scorchers. The human ships stood by in a defensive formation, streaming data at the aliens in the known languages and maths, trying to initiate a peaceful encounter. Meanwhile, the Scorcher ships broadcast a rhythmic hissing and moaning on analog channels. Lara listened to it as she watched. Human computers searched for a data structure in the signal, but on the small scale where dense meaning could have been embedded, there was only the chaotic variation of natural noise. The only coherent signal structure was on the macro scale. It sounded like music. Later, after the humans in this encounter were dead, that assessment would be refined. Martial music.

In Lara's head, the comm signal interrupted.
Ping.

The Scorcher's spherical formation flattened out. The ships formed a spinning disk. Lara shifted her perspective to watch them from another angle.

Ping-ping,
went the comm. Then, more insistently,
Ping-ping-ping-ping.

“Answer,” Lara sub-vocalized. Then she said, “Yes?”

“Stand by for the president,” came the secretary's voice over the groaning and thumping of the Scorcher music. Lara sub-vocalized, “Stop playback.”

Instantly she was back in her office in the palace. She checked the time—51:58, nearly true midnight. In her head, the president's voice said, “The marines are here.”

“In system?” Lara should have gotten the news before the president. Any ship making a jump would return to ordinary space with a relativistic flash that no sensors could miss. Even if a ship came in behind the shadow of an outer planet, the flash should have been detected. Military intelligence had standing orders to report to her immediately, even before the president.

“
Here
, here,” said the president. “Their battle group is in orbit, and their commander and his aide are waiting in my anteroom.”

“What?” Lara felt her jaw muscles tighten.

“They snuck in. They have some sort of new stealth.”

Lara let that sink in. If the marines had new tactical technology, they would want to try it out. “Damn.”

“My thoughts exactly,” said the president. “They're practically in my office, hell, my bedroom, before we know they are in-system.”

“How long are you going to make them wait?”

“I'm not,” said the president. At the same time, written words formed in Lara's visual field.
If they have new tech this good, they may also be able to eavesdrop from the anteroom. I don't even know if this channel is secure.
“Get down here.”
I want you to come make your case to them immediately.

“Yes sir. On my way.”
It won't be easy.

The answering message said,
It wasn't ever going to be easy.

 

The marines were both women. Colonel Hodges was compact, fit, and seemed young for such a senior rank. Her aide, Shield Lieutenant Rogan, was dark-skinned, much taller than her superior, with an erect posture that made her taller still. Introductions were exchanged. The marines' handshakes were firm.

“In the interest of efficiency,” said the president, taking a seat behind his desk, “I'd like you please to imagine that I kept you waiting in the anteroom for twelve hours, then sent you to your quarters without meeting with you or providing a firm time for our meeting. Imagine that we're meeting tomorrow at hour forty-nine after I've kept you waiting again all day.”

The colonel smiled and narrowed her eyes appreciatively. “I do admire efficiency.” She sat. Her aide remained standing, so Lara stayed on her feet, too.

“Even so, I don't want you getting the impression that you're more welcome than you are,” said the president.

“In fact,” said Lara, “we're hoping to convince you to leave.”

The colonel looked from the president to Lara and back again. “They're coming,” she said. She pointed to a spot in the ceiling that was probably a pretty close approximation to the area along the ecliptic that glowed a brighter red every night. “You know what they do.”

“We know,” Lara said. “We're ready for them.”

Shield Lieutenant Rogan smirked.

“Your aide seems to find us amusing,” said the president.

The lieutenant's face went neutral. “Apologies if I offended, sir,” she said.

Lara addressed the colonel. “I gather neither of you thinks much of our defensive abilities. But we're not proposing to outgun the Scorchers. We've had a colony here for only a few generations, and heavy industry on only two continents. We're poor. Our fleet is small and weak. We know that. But our plan doesn't call for matching the Scorcher weaponry. In fact, our analysis—”

“Your analysis,” said the colonel, “has been considered and rejected by the Primaries. Even if you're right, even if the Scorchers can be appeased by flying your ships in funny formations, we can't afford to have an intelligent species out there that knows it can kick us around whenever it wants to.”

“Why not?” Lara said. “What does it matter what they can do, provided that they no longer want to do it?”

“They could change their minds.”

The implications unfolded. Lara said, “So you're committed to engaging them no matter what?”

“Until we have achieved and demonstrated military parity or superiority,” said the colonel. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“There's an old military doctrine that says you don't appease aggressors.”

Lara shook her head. “If they are aggressors. But we think the issue is more complicated than that.”

The lieutenant spoke up. “If I may. There is a political doctrine that says that the wind breaks the oak tree because it resists, but the reeds bend down and survive. Is that what you mean, Madam Chief?”

“No,” Lara said. “Not at all.”

Rogan looked irritated, as if she'd been expecting the answer to be
Yes
, as if she had prepared a parable to counter the oak and the reeds.

“What I mean is that sometimes the graceful sword beats the strong one. Did you read our report to the Primaries?”

“In summary.”

In summary?
Lara messaged to the president.
They read it in summary?

The president did not message a reply. He stood up. “Colonel, did you also read our report
in summary?
You are risking the citizens and resources of this planet just to fulfill a macho doctrine, and you don't even understand the details of our position?”

“I have my orders, sir.”

“You have your doctrine and traditions to fulfill. I, on the other hand, have a responsibility to protect my people.”

“Your responsibility is limited to this planet,” said the colonel. “I'm sworn to service of the entire human race. And your authority—”

“I can't order you,” said the president, waving his hand. “I'm just asking you, for the sake of our citizens to at least hold off your engagement. Let our ships encounter the Scorchers without interference. Let us
try
.”

The colonel stood up, but said nothing, which Lara took for polite refusal. Either that, or she was busy messaging her aide and wasn't good at doing two things at once.

“Do you know Baeli sword?” Lara asked. “Either of you?”

The colonel still held her peace.

“I have studied kendo,” said the shield lieutenant. “It's similar.”

Lara smiled. “Hardly.”

The first sword master, Abood Chuen, was easy enough to summon. He was a pilot for the defense fleet. The others that Lara had summoned, though, were all civilians. Like many martial arts, Baeli sword was an antique warrior tradition that few modern warriors practiced. It was nearly two in the true morning by the time three masters had been awakened and gathered in the palace gym. Lara overrode the lighting program for the gym and brought the lights to full day.

“So bright!” said Shield Lieutenant Rogan.

“That comes with living on a planet with such long days,” Lara said. “We're good at making light and shutting light out.” She made the introductions. The sword masters wore quilted robes tied with a sash, a uniform that would have been familiar to the ancients. Besides Abood, there were Michael Chuen and Ghadir Chuen. “And, yes,” Lara said, “we are all Fulan Buddhists. No, we are not related.”

“Don't insult our guests,” said Ghadir. She nodded to the marines. “I'm sure they didn't come all this way without learning something about our culture.”

“With all due respect,” said the colonel, “is this going to take much longer?”

“A quick demonstration,” said Lara stepping to the center of the floor. To Abood, she said, “Lend me your sword?”

Abood opened the case and removed the sheathed sword. Holding it with both hands, he bowed. Lara took it, unsheathed the long blade, and laid the sheath on a mat. She gripped the handle in both hands, assumed a fighting stance, and told the sword to turn on.

Ready
, it said.

Lara improvised a fighting form. She began with some sword moves that would be familiar to the lieutenant or any student of kendo. A forward lunge and overhead strike. An upward parry. A slash.

Then she thought a new shape for the sword as she parried again. The blade bent along its edge. If she had been fighting a kendo opponent, his blade would have been caught by hers at the same time that the end of her bent blade struck his shoulder or cut off his ear.

“See, Shield Lieutenant? Not so much like kendo.” Lara willed the blade limp, and it hung from the hilt like a silvery whip. She curled and uncurled it like a spring. “But I'm a beginner.”

The masters laughed. Lara wouldn't have said, “I'm a beginner” to another Fulan. It was a sort of boast, as if she were saying, “I have a pure mind.”

“Abood? Michael?” Lara returned Abood's sword to him.

The two masters bowed, raised their swords, and took their stances. The blades, which had been silvery, took on a bronze color for sparring mode. They would not cut, and they would soften if they met a surface other than the opponent's blade.

“Begin!”

Abood struck. Michael parried. Metal rang, then went silent as the two swords twined together like entangled vines.

Michael tugged, but Abood kept his balance as his blade went limp, then reformed.

Michael's blade thinned and lengthened, curling on the floor until Michael cast it like a fishing line with a nasty hook on the end. The hook and line flew high and wide of Abood, harmless so far. But now Michael had metal behind his opponent.

The advantage evaporated. Abood charged. Michael had to reform a more ordinary blade to parry.

“Stop!” Lara commanded. The fighters bowed to one another and to their audience. “Shield Lieutenant, you have some experience with a blade. Who would you say won?”

“They seemed evenly matched to me.”

“Colonel?”

The colonel did not answer at once, as if she were distracted. “They ... yes. I would say they were evenly matched. A draw so far.”