House of the Wolf (Book Three of the Phoenix Legacy) (19 page)

Cabot frowned, as if he weren’t sure he’d understood him correctly.

“The problem is, the med staff and aid-trained volunteers are up to their necks here. I need more volunteers to help set up in the dining hall. We’ve got wounded on the floors; we can’t even get to the critical cases without stumbling over—”

“All
right
, Doctor.” Ussher was looking down at the cuffs of his uniform. Couldn’t get the stains out. “ ’Com John M’Kim. Yes, he’s the one you should’ve called.”

“But, sir, I thought you—”

“M’Kim! ’Com M’Kim. Doctor, I have my hands full here. Surely you realize that.”

Cabot didn’t respond, but something in his cold look set Ussher’s pulse pounding. He signaled to Isaks, and his breath came out in a sigh when the screen went dark. What did Cabot expect? That
was
M’Kim’s department, wasn’t it?

The PubliCom ’caster was babbling about the coming arrival of the Confleet wing again. Might as well look for the second coming of the Mezion.

He should have ordered SI to try again on the PubliCom Systems operation. He stared at the haggard face of the ’caster, and a dread conviction overwhelmed him. That was an irremediable loss, not getting his appeal on the vidicom screens. Later, after the offensive,
wouldn’t
be soon enough. It was too late
now
.

And those damned Bonds, What had happened? No use talking to Hendrick again. Ussher had ’commed him four times and listened to him hem and haw, and the substance of it was that there had been minor uprisings in four Hamid and three Drakonis compounds.
Minor
uprisings, the worst of which had lasted half an hour.

And the ROM, which might have taken this opportunity to lead the Fesh students at the Leda and Helen Universities into open revolt against the Concord masters they professed to despise—the leaders of the ROM weren’t leading anyone anywhere.

Pampered young hypocrites. Spoiled whelps of the Fesh rich. Couldn’t trust their sort to come through when—

“What did you say, sir?” Isaks leaning toward him, frowning questioningly.

“I didn’t say anything. Damn it, why don’t they keep that
door
closed?”

He didn’t look behind him at the door. A new report was posted on the progress screen.

He stared at the figures, and he didn’t want to add them, but the total materialized, unbidden, in his mind.

209.

That was almost half the Phoenix fleet, damaged, destroyed, captured, unaccounted for.

The countdown clock read zero +05:30: 15:30 TST.

Ussher paced the comcenter floor. There were thirty-five ships in the main hangar now. He glanced that way only briefly.

Then he stopped his pacing, distracted by Calvet Lanc’s voice from his post near the GroundComm console.

“. . . FS
Demond
. For Leftant Condo, Navcomp.”

Demond
. That was the flagship. Jan’s ship. Ussher looked for Garris, finding him near Lanc at a printout transceiver. Garris was speaking into his headset mike; a radio ’com apparently. Ussher approached, listening intently.

“. . . coming through clear as glass, Met. Damn, you should get a medal for this.” A pause and a short laugh, then, “Well, we’ll stamp out a few for SI. All right, is that the lot? I’ve got it all taped; we’ll send it straight to Jan. Take care of yourself.” He turned his mike control ring. “Line clear, Ben. Thanks. Cal?”

Captain Lanc turned. “
Demond
navcomp is on receive.”

Garris took a printout spool from the console and tossed it to him. “Roll it out, Cal. Roll it out.”

Ussher asked sharply, “Roll what out, Commander?”

Garris looked around at him, his smile turning cool. “SI came through with flags flying. One of their agents just handed us the SynchShift emergence coordinates for that whole damned Confleet wing.”

Ussher’s throat seemed to close, stopping his breath. “What . . . wing?”

“I thought you were at least keeping up with the newscasts, Predis. The thousand-ship wing Confleet’s sending from the Solar System to relieve Centauri. They’ll be emerging—” He checked his watch. “—in forty-seven minutes.”

“That’s impossible. They can’t send that many ships.”

Garris said to Lanc, “When you’re through, I want to run that tape through a comp analysis. Predis, what do you mean? How many ships did you ask for?”

At that, Ussher felt the heat rushing to his face. “Commander, this is
not
a laughing matter.”

“Who’s laughing?” He studied Ussher a moment, frowning. “You mean, you didn’t . . . you didn’t
realize
—”

“I certainly didn’t believe that pap the PubliCom System is putting out. A thousand-ship wing, indeed! The Concord couldn’t get that many ships and men together in a week, much less a few hours!”

Garris only stared at him, mouth sagging, and Ussher became aware of a silence around him, of other gaping stares. But what had he done? What was his error this time?

He blurted, “The Concord is a creaking, senile dinosaur! It can’t even keep order in the Solar System. How can it possibly put together a full wing in this short a time?”

Garris shook his head, his tone flat and curt. “Well, Predis, there’s life in the old fossil yet. The mobilization order went out from FleetComm HQ at 10:30 TST. Oh—thanks, Cal.” This as Lanc returned the tape spool.

Garris in turn gave the spool to the officer on the navcomp console, who inserted it into a slot and began playing the keyboard as deftly as if it were a muscial instrument. Ussher stared over his head as numbers and abstract figures drawn in light began to dance across the three screens. He couldn’t have guessed how long he stood watching, incapable of even the smallest motion, but when at length the silent concert ended, he recognized the impossible as a reality.

But why hadn’t Jan told him? Between his TacComm staff and SI, he must have had some idea of the size of the retaliatory force Confleet could send and how soon. Of course, Jan had given him those sheafs of comp read-outs, as if he expected him to be a comptech and make sense of that mishmash of numbers. But Jan should have
told
him. Or it should have come from SI. Venturi had held out on him from the beginning.

“. . . on line for you, sir. Commander Barret.”

Ussher roused himself, but Lanc was talking to Garris, who was already on his way to the GroundComm console, where Barret’s face looked out from one of the screens.

Ussher said to Lanc, “Put me on line, Captain.”

“Uh . . . I’m sorry, sir, but I have orders.”

“I don’t give a damn . . .” No time to argue with Lanc. He’d settle that later.

“Yes, Jan, we’ve run a fast analysis,” Garris was saying. “What do you think?”

Ussher glared at the screen, watching the reply he couldn’t hear, seeing Garris nod agreement.

“There’s been too much steel dropping into the water in this general area as it is. Somebody up there’s going to notice. You’ve knocked out the Obsats, but these coordinates spell a heavy concentration of ships around Pollux.”

Ussher took another step closer, straining at Barret’s silenced response.

Somebody up there’s going to notice.

That meant notice
Fina
.

Garris was mumbling into his mike. “. . . get as many ships into the hangars as possible, but we’ve only got forty minutes.”

Ussher tried to control his voice, but it came out as a shout.

“You can’t let those ships come
here
! They’ll pinpoint Fina for Confleet!”

Garris turned, glaring angrily at him. “Predis, by the God—either shut up or get out of here!”

“But he’s going to betray Fina! Jan! You can’t do that! Damn it, I want on line. Rhea—send them to Rhea! Anywhere! Just don’t let—”

“Predis,
be quiet
! Janson—and you, Corbet.”

Two FO officers appeared at his elbows, and Ussher realized they were prepared to take him away forcibly. The chairman of the Council. The first born of—

Ussher drew himself up, not so much as glancing at the two men, saying with cool precision, “That won’t be necessary.”

Neither they nor Garris commented, the latter turning away to resume his conversation with Barret, while Ussher stood rigid, pulse pounding, hearing Garris’s words, but incapable of assimilating their meaning.

Finally, Garris ended with an odd, tight break in his voice, “Jan . . . well, there’s nothing else to do. But be careful. We’ll be . . . waiting for you.”

The screen went blank, and Garris turned away from it, looking every day of his seventy years.

Ussher said curtly, “Commander, I demand an explanation!”

Garris stared at him, his scarred face suddenly white.

“An explanation! For what? Holy God, you don’t understand
anything
, do you? You’ve been living in your little dream world so long, you don’t know what’s—’’

“Garris, damn you!” One of Radek’s puppets, her trained lackeys! But that Garris would dare, at this time, in front of the members, to insinuate that— “Let me
go
!”

The two officers were gripping his arms. It was intolerable. Inconceivable. Garris’s face was only centimeters from his, and his eyes burned with naked contempt, his voice rasped, constrained to a guttural whisper.

“You want an explanation, Predis? Then listen! Jan Barret carried out a six-hour programmed offensive with ninety percent success.
Your
offensive, Predis! He did it for you, and did a hell of a good job of it. Now Confleet’s sending reinforcements, and that was programmed, too. What
wasn’t
programmed was the concentration of ships around Pollux. They’ll cut off the rest of the fleet’s retreat to Fina if—”

“But they
can’t
retreat to Fina! What about—”

“The Rhea base? Damn it, if you had the vaguest idea what’s going on here, you’d know that every ship capable of SS acceleration
is
going to Rhea. But that still leaves more than sixty damaged ships that can’t make it into SS. What are they supposed to do, Predis?”

There was a buzzing whine in his ears. He couldn’t find its source. Garris bored on, and Ussher felt the words pounding in his head.

“I’ll
explain
what Jan’s going to do, Predis. Four hundred Confleet ships are homing in on the Pollux sector. He’s going to take twenty Falcons and ten Corvets and set up an SS emergence ambush. He’s going to buy some time. Time for the damaged ships to make it back to Fina before Confleet can get close enough to see where they’re headed. He’s going to buy that time with . . .” A silence trailed out with those words, then he turned abruptly.

“Predis, get away from me.”

It was spoken in a curiously mild tone, and Ussher realized he was free of restraint now. He stood a moment, but no words would take shape against that strange, sourceless whining. He made his way back to his chair.

The countdown clock read zero +06:19: 16:19 TST.

Ussher’s eyes were turned up to the progress screen.

The figures vanished off the top of the screen, and he couldn’t have recalled any of them. The newscaster’s voice impinged just as lightly on the surface of his thoughts.

“. . . with the arrival in the Centauri System of a full Confleet wing led by Commander Delin Borudo, enemy resistance has virtually evaporated. Concord officials have not yet determined the motive behind this unprovoked attack, but the Phoenix has long been recognized as a revolutionary. . .”

Ussher stared at the smoothly handsome face on the screen, heard the glib phrases, and nothing in his mind balked or reflected surprise that the face was becoming increasingly familiar as he watched it. The dark hair and arching brows, the frigid blue eyes, the hawklike cast of the bones. The face looked out at him with smug contempt and said in clipped, precise accents, “
I
am the Lord Alexand, first born of the Lord Phillip DeKoven Woolf, grandson of the Lord Mathis Daro Galinin. . . .”

But Alex Ransom was dead.

Of course he was. There—Garris had just said it. He was dead.

Someone near him whispered, “Oh, Holy God . . . oh, no—”

Isaks, staring dazedly past Ussher. Around the comcenter people were turning, all looking in one direction, all looking toward the GroundComm console. Toward Emeric Garris.

Ussher came slowly to his feet, turning by small degrees until finally he found Garris looking directly at him.

As if Ussher had asked a question, Garris said, “I just had a report from Leftant Commander Gavin.
Demond
took a direct barrage and exploded. First Commander Barret is dead.”

“No . . . no . . . no . . . no . . . no . . .
NO
!”

Ussher pressed his fists to his head, his brain was exploding, shockwaves of agony rocked the room. He saw the door, stumbled toward it. He ran, staggering, panting. No air. They were choking him. He ran, fell against the door as it opened, reached out for the railing. The smoke blinded him, seared his lungs. And he ran.

16:45 TST. Emeric Garris sloshed through the oil-skimmed water to the steps of the comcenter deck, content to leave the final berthing operations to Commander Gavin and the able-bodied survivors.

1,609 were no longer able-bodied or survivors: 901 dead, 214 wounded, 254 captured, 250 unaccounted for. Altogether, nearly half FO’s staff.

And out of 2,270, SI had sustained 528 casualties. But ninety-six were only wounded; most of them would recover.