How Dark the World Becomes (23 page)

We were floating in a big ball in the center of the control module, tethered between two stanchions so we wouldn’t drift against a wall. The walls were white with frost, would suck the heat out of you if you so much as brushed up against them, and the air was chalk dry, scouring my lungs with every breath. 

We had Barraki and Tweezaa in the middle of the ball, with the three of us around them, and the blankets tied around us, trying to keep as much body heat in as we could. We’d rigged a hood over our heater and run a hose into our floating cocoon, because there was no point in wasting heat on the outside. It was bearable in the middle, but the back of my head, arms, and body were so cold I’d lost all feeling in them. I couldn’t make my fingers work anymore, and I was afraid to move my feet, because every time a toe brushed against the inside of my shoe, it felt as if it might come off. I wondered if they’d have to amputate my fingers and toes even if they did rescue us, and I didn’t care. I didn’t care whether or not they rescued us, didn’t care whether or not they cut my fingers, toes, or even my cock off. I just didn’t give a damn anymore, I was that cold.

What I did feel was a tug on the straps, and then I felt dizzy. It felt as if something had spun our cocoon, but that’s not what it was at all. Something had abruptly
stopped
the control module from tumbling—a rescue/recovery gantry arm, as it turned out. 

Then we heard the voice. The voice was all around us, filling the air. That’s because it was transmitted inductively through the composite hull of the control module, using the walls as a giant speaker, but we didn’t know that at the time. All we knew was we were surrounded by this booming, flat-sounding, metallic but recognizably feminine voice, speaking in aGavoosh, but in the middle of it all, there were these English words, words which seemed nonsensical and out of place.

The words were
U.S.S. John Fitzgerald Kennedy
.

EIGHTEEN

They had us in heated thermo-wraps, sitting at the small table in the crew’s mess, drinking steaming soup out of big white navy mugs with no handles. I was still shivering so hard I could hardly get the soup to my mouth, but we were alive, and that felt pretty good. 

The five of us sat at the table, along with the young-looking khaki-clad executive officer, while two
very
young-looking mess mates kept an eye on us—well, mostly on Marfoglia—and kept the soup coming: redroot soup for Barraki and Tweezaa, miso for the rest of us. 

Barraki and Tweezaa were still pretty shaken up—maybe no more than the rest of us, but unlike us they hadn’t yet acquired the adult compulsion to deny weakness. They sat between Marfoglia and me on one side of the mess table, with Ping and the executive officer on the other—which made it a tight fit on our side, but that was fine with them. More than anything, I think they needed the touch of another living being for assurance. Under the table, Tweezaa had found my left hand and was holding it. I didn’t mind.

“What hit us?” Ping asked. 

“Sir, we believe your ship was hit by a Type Nine-Delta torpedo,” the executive officer answered. 

“Is that what they call a
fire lance
?” I asked, remembering what Ping had told me.

“Yes, sir, a
Kot’pa
,” he answered. Since the highest rank I’d ever managed was corporal, it felt odd having a lieutenant commander call me sir, but there was no stopping him—I’d already tried. 

“Did you fire it?” Ping asked.

“No, sir, we did not. We believe it was fired by the cruiser
KZa-91
. I’m afraid that for the better part of a day, we’ve been in the middle of a hot war. The situation is not entirely clear, but here’s what we know. 

“A major famine on K’Tok brought on a series of epidemics, as well as looting and attacks against the colonial government. The death toll is in the thousands, from what we’ve been able to piece together, but I don’t think anyone knows for sure.”

“Yes, we were bringing in relief supplies ourselves,” Ping put in, and the executive officer nodded and went on.

“When civil authority started collapsing down there, the Commanding General,
Cottohazz
Ground Forces K’Tok, declared martial law. That was nearly two months ago. Our task force deployed out of Fleet Base Akaampta twenty-nine days ago to support disaster relief and recovery operations. We landed three mobile field hospitals, three cohorts of military police, and one cohort of engineers, and were on station prepared to back them up with fleet Marine landing teams, if necessary.”

He stopped and took a drink of his coffee. I think he was collecting his thoughts, too.

“Five days ago the task force withdrew to Mogo for scheduled refueling operations, leaving one cruiser—
KZa-91
—in orbit over K’Tok on communication watch and quick reaction alert. Our task force had five cruisers and three transports. Of the cruisers,
KZa-121
and
KZa-91
were both uZmataanki registry. That’s what the ‘Za’ in their hull number indicates.
KHo-77
was uHoko registry, and
KBk-501
was uBakai—that’s also where Commodore Takaapti flew his pennant. The
Fitz
,
KUs-222
, was the fifth cruiser.”

Interesting—four Varoki cruisers, but from three different Varoki nations, three different navies. The truth was, I’d always had an outsider’s view of the Varoki, had always thought of them as one homogeneous group, absolutely united in their collective desire to screw the living hell out of us Humans. Just from the way the executive officer was talking, I began to think maybe that wasn’t quite the case.

Boy, was that an understatement.

“We were well along with the refueling operation earlier this morning,” he went on. “The
Fitz
was tanks full and the uBakai cruiser, the pennant, was just starting its skim of Mogo’s upper atmosphere when the captain of the uZmataanki cruiser came on the horn and ordered us to up-orbit and stand away. The uHoko cruiser complied, but the skip . . . Captain Gasiri refused, based on standing orders from the task force commander.”

“What did your commodore say?” I asked, but Ping shook his head.

“If he was skimming hydrogen, he would be heavy in ionization—no comms.”

The executive officer nodded.

“That’s correct, sir. He was comm-dead when the uZmataanki cruiser made his demand.”

The executive officer stopped and took another sip of coffee, and frowned, remembering what came next.

“At 0531 Akaampta Zulu, the uZmataanki cruiser launched one torpedo at the uBakai cruiser,” he said.

“At the flagship?”
I asked. This was nuts!

“At the pennant, sir,” the executive officer corrected me. “Only admirals fly flags.”

“Yeah, whatever. You mean you had two Varoki ships shooting at each other?”

“One ship firing on another, yes, sir. There was no return fire from the pennant. I doubt they knew they were under attack. 

“We were in the high-guard position at weapons up, and Captain Gasiri immediately ordered our point-defense battery to engage and destroy the missile, which we accomplished. On or about 0535 Akaampta Zulu, the uZmataanki fired two additional missiles, one at the pennant and one at us. Captain Gasiri salvoed three missiles in reply and engaged the incoming missile with point-defense fire. We took out the missile aimed at us, and one of our missiles got through to him, but the pennant was hit at about 0540 and disappeared into the lower atmosphere. We logged it as ‘Presumed Lost with All Hands.’”

I wondered if this was how he talked all the time—this flat and precise and completely devoid of color or emotion. If so, I bet he didn’t get laid much. 

He took another sip of coffee, and I had the sudden realization that we were getting a sneak preview—or maybe a dress rehearsal—of his testimony before the naval board of inquiry which would
certainly
be convened—assuming any of us lived that long.

Beside me, Tweezaa tried to lift her soup mug but couldn’t manage it with one hand, and seemed reluctant to let go of my hand under the table. I reached over with my free right hand and held one side of the mug, really lifted it for her, but let her guide it to her mouth with her left hand, and then I put it back down on the table when she was done. She wiped her mouth with her left hand, smacked her lips loudly, and said, “Ahhh!” Then she looked up at me and we smiled at each other. The young exec across the table smiled, too, but then he remembered the thread of his story, and the smile drifted away.

I’ll spare you his exact words from here on out—I think you’ve got the idea of how he talked. I’d already started thinking of him as Captain Didactic, and if I’d said it out loud, I bet he’d have corrected me, and said, “Excuse me, sir, but I believe you meant to say Lieutenant Commander Didactic.”

It turned out their one missile hit on the rogue uZmataanki cruiser had killed it—a catastrophic kill, the exec called it. They’d convinced the uHoko cruiser to resume station and had looked for survivors, but no luck. Then about three hours later they’d gotten jumped by the other uZmataanki cruiser, the one they thought had stayed behind at K’Tok. It came up from behind Mogo and blindsided them, salvoed its missiles in a fast flyby, and hit the
Fitz
once and the uHoko cruiser twice. Three missiles went long without acquiring a target, and one of them must have hit the
Long Shot
. The
Fitz
lost main power for a couple hours, then they patched things up, rescued eighteen survivors from the wreck of the uHoko cruiser, and were about to take out after the uZmataanki ship when they noticed our improvised distress signal.

“We thank you for that,” Ping said. “How badly were you hurt, son?” 

His story had been emotionless, almost robotic until then, but Ping’s question triggered a flash of pain across his face, gone almost as soon as it appeared. 

“One of our troop-bay modules took the hit, sir. We lost seventeen fleet Marines. Other than that, most of the damage was from a power spike and cascading overloads—but we’re back on line with about eighty percent function.”

Eighty percent function, and that from a cruiser that—no matter how well built or well manned—was technologically no match for that undamaged uZmataanki cruiser out there. So what were they about to do? Pursue. You had to admire these guys, but to be honest, I’d have preferred to admire them from a safer distance. 

“But why?” Marfoglia asked. It was about the first thing she’d said since we’d been rescued—other than a lot of thank-yous to the sailors that helped us aboard. “Why this attack? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, like I started to say earlier, ma’am, it looks like we’re in a shooting war between the uZmataanki and uBakai. The main colony enclave on K’Tok is uZmataanki, but there’s a big uBakai colony down there as well. The uZmataanki say the uBakai engineered the famine and revolt so they could move in under the cover of the
Cottohazz
and take over. The uBakai say that’s bullsh—Sorry, ma’am. They say that’s not true. 

“We don’t know who’s lying, and we’re not really sure who’s at war with whom. The uBakai and uZmataanki, for sure, but where’s the
Cottohazz
going to stand in all this, once the diplomats and lawyers try to sort things out? Who knows? We just know we were fired at while conducting lawful operations under the
Cottohazz
charter. We also know, or at least suspect, that this was not a spontaneous act by a local commander. Both uZmataanki captains acted in concert, apparently following a prearranged plan, and at the same time, uZmataanki civilian government personnel disabled most system-wide C3 facilities—that’s Command, Control, and Communication.”

“That must be when we lost contact with K’Tok Orbital,” Ping said. 

“Yes, sir,” he answered. Then the executive officer glanced over my shoulder and suddenly jumped to his feet and barked, “
Captain on deck!
” The mess mates also snapped to, and I almost did as well. Funny how old habits can come back when you least expect them.

“Stand easy,” the captain said, in a surprisingly lilting voice, and I turned to look.

Captain Gasiri appeared to be in her forty-somethings, short and stocky, with close-cropped black hair now turning gray. She had a dark complexion, with a long pointy chin, a nose on her like a falcon’s beak, and hard black eyes to match.

“Is the XO taking good care of you people?” she demanded, her words quick. We all nodded or murmured assent. 

“I apologize for the accommodations. Things are fairly Spartan on board in the best of times, and between you and the survivors of our other cruiser, we’re packed in like sardines. I’d transfer you to one of our fleet auxiliaries, but I ordered them toward K’Tok several hours ago for their own safety, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with us for now.” She turned to the executive officer then.

“XO, take the con.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” he said, and he practically sprinted away.

She turned back to us. 

“The mess mates will help get you into acceleration racks. In about ten minutes I’m going to secure the wheel and commence a long, hard delta-vee. You have my apologies for that, too.”

“What’s a delta-vee?” Marfoglia asked.

“A vector change, ma’am,” Gasiri answered. “A hard thruster burn. It
will
be uncomfortable.”

“As long as we’re warm, we’ll be fine,” Marfoglia answered, pulling the thermo-wrap tighter around her, and I smiled.
Boy, ain’t that the truth?

“But your sensors were down for several hours,” Ping said. “Do you even know which way they went?” 

“Oh, yes,” Gasiri answered, nodding grimly. “Our transports tracked him and coded us on tight beam a few minutes ago. I know right where he is.”

“And you’re going after him?” I asked. 

“What’s your name, sir?” 

“Naradnyo.”

“Mr. Naradnyo, we are indeed going after him, for three reasons. First, because as the only remaining
Cottohazz
combatant vessel in the system, it is our duty to do so, and no mother’s son is ever going to say the
Fitz
didn’t do its duty. Second, because I’ve got three missiles left and he’s only got one ship, and that’s math I understand. But third, and most importantly, because that son of a bitch killed seventeen of my Marines.
My
Marines, Mr. Naradnyo. May Allah have mercy on his soul, because I sure as hell won’t.