Midshipman (20 page)

Then I sat back and waited and tried not to look nervous.

At first nothing seemed amiss to Jason. The weather was so bad that he couldn’t tell if my ships were still in port or not, so he made the easy assumption that of course they were. After all, I’d never risked them before had I? Not even when he’d tempted me with juicy Malta-bound merchies bare miles off my own coast. Nor was the sudden disappearance of the bombers anything to worry about; searching in poor weather made for extra losses, and I was obviously a risk-averse player. In fact it was the Genevan referee I was most worried about—he could see every move I’d made, of course, and was practically dancing in his seat at the sheer excitement of it all. But Jason didn’t tumble, not even after quite by chance my fleet ran into a small convoy bound from Gibraltar to Malta and sank most of it. His covering force never caught sight of my merchies, and from what I could see of his frantic maneuvering afterwards Jason’s main focus was on putting as many warships as possible between my fleet and its nearest home base, on the theory that (like the real Italians) I’d immediately run for the safety of port after battle.

But I didn’t. Once I thought my ships were well out of sight I turned them west at flank speed. Away from Italy, in other words. And therefore also from Jason’s trap.

The Italians could never have pulled it off in real life, of course; my ships repeatedly violated Vichy French waters—in the game that entire nation was represented simply by gray no-entry hexes—and sometimes actually steamed well within what would’ve been sight of the shore. The required level of secrecy would’ve impossible to achieve.

But this was a game, not real-life. And so just before dawn broke on the morning of July 6, 1941 (in my game’s universe, at least) a bored British radar operator buried somewhere deep under The Rock detected an unexpected surface blip. And then another, and another, and another…

Per standing orders, he contacted his officer. Who in turn promptly defecated his drawers.

37

“…can’t possibly have moved that far without being detected!” the Imperial Admiral was soon screaming at an increasingly-vexed Genevan. “The search-rolls were fixed! They
must’ve
been!”

I sat silently, as did Jason. This was probably an even wiser move on his part than it was for me. Based on his pattern of play, my guess was that Jason had dedicated no more than a handful of seaplanes to search the entire region I’d passed through, if that much. In good weather that might’ve done the trick, given the distances involved and my troop-carrier’s lack of speed. But when the storms came, well… My high-value U-boats were all off in the east, and the whole game seemed set up to force me to invade either Crete, as the real-life Axis actually did, or else maybe Malta as a long-shot alternative. Wouldn’t it have been awful if he’d searched extensively off the French Riviera and located nothing but bathing beauties, while I sneaked in enough troops to seize an airfield on the island that was my “proper” target?

No more awful than the reality of the German alpine division and reinforced Italian infantry brigade about to land on The Rock, I thought to myself as I smiled and listened to the shouting go on and on and on. That would be all I needed and more to take and hold the airfield area, while my four capital ships and three cruisers, supported by the long-range bombers, packed plenty enough punch to deal with the batteries. Then once the airfield was secure and the shelling halted, there was a whole division of super-elite German paratroops waiting to be flown in to clean out the tunnels. Jason knew this as well as I did—his ashen face told me all I needed to know. And once Gibraltar fell… The Rock was the anchor of the entire British position in the Med, both in reality and our little game. Half the convoys to Malta that added so much to the British score magically appeared there, for example. Once I owned the real estate they’d be diverted to Alexandria all the way at the other end of the mapboard—after a prolonged delay to allow them to round the Cape of Good Hope. Meanwhile, all his ships in the western basin would suddenly find themselves without a base; they’d be forced to run the gauntlet of Italian-based Stukas, Fiats and Messerschmitts in order to refuel. Many would fail to make it. The loss of Gibraltar was in fact such a profound and total disaster that one couldn’t absorb the implications all at once; they sort of slowly sank in via wave after wave of sick realization. The game was not only mine, I was going to rack up such a godawful high score that I actually felt a little guilty thinking about it. If in real life Churchill had lost Gibraltar, not only would he have resigned on the spot but whatever government replaced him would most likely have been forced to sue for peace. The disaster was of
enormous
magnitude.

Finally Jason looked up and, still pale with shock, shook his head slightly. Then, moving quickly enough that his coach didn’t have time to intervene he stood up and extended his hand to me. “I resign,” he said softly. “You’ve beaten me fair and square.”

“We’re one and one,” I replied with a smile, accepting the hand and shaking it warmly. Jason might be an Imperial bastard, but he lost like a gentleman. And that I could respect.

“No!” the Imperial coach screamed, his fist crashing down on the ref’s dais. “I won’t permit it! We must find where this… this
livestock
cheated!”

The ref shook his head. “I hereby declare Cadet Captain Birkenhead the official winner,” he stated into the PA system. Then he turned to the Imperial flag officer. “One more peep out of you, sir, and I’ll have you removed from the gaming area.”

The Yans were dancing with glee as I re-entered our little team area and sat down, half-exhausted. One pressed a little bottle of vending-machine grape-juice into my hand, while the other pointed to the monitor covering Heinrich’s game. He was playing the Germans in an economic-military simulation of the last days of the Third Reich, and at first I didn’t see where there was much to cheer about. All his forces were tightly constricted around Germany proper; in fact, the British were on the verge of taking the priceless Ruhr. But then I looked more closely. The game-turn indicator read “Spring, 1946”. Heinrich’s airfields were packed with supermodern jet aircraft. And even as I watched he laid down a new counter atop a battered Wehrmacht unit. “Anti-Tank Guided Missiles,” it read. “Plus ten against all mechanized units”. Just like that, all of a sudden the pile of Soviet armored division counters matched against it didn’t look half so menacing.

“He’s almost done it!” Yan Ho declared, bouncing about like a little child. “The next turn is Summer 1946. If he can hold out against just one more round of attacks that guarantees a tie at worst. And with your win…” I nodded, suddenly feeling a little bouncy myself. Then Heinrich looked directly up into the camera and smiled. Clearly he was aware of the situation too. As was the Imperial ranged against him, whose back was one huge sweat-stain. Still smiling, Heinrich maneuvered a group of Royal Hunting Tiger tank-killers into position to protect the Ruhr, laid another guided missile counter atop them, and ended his turn. Now his biggest factories didn’t look so vulnerable anymore either. Clearly, the British were in for a bad day.

Then, off in the distance I heard a buzzer. The thing was modulated across three unpleasant tones, intended to instantly grab a human’s attention no matter what he or she might be doing. It worked for Rabbits, too. Suddenly I was on my feet again, ears fully erect and swiveling.

“What?” Yan Chang asked.

“Fire alarm,” I replied. “A good ways off, though.”

Chang looked at Ho, who gulped. Then the local alarm went off as well. “Come on,” I ordered the Yans. A fire on a space station was no joke. “Let’s evacuate. We’ll grab Heinrich on the way”

“But…” Ho protested, pointing at the screen. It was the Imperial’s turn, but now he was the one smiling. He seemed very reluctant indeed to move his pieces. “Damnit!” Chang swore as the Genevan finally declared a halt. “Damnit all to hell!”

Very soon, however, it became obvious that the Genevans were correct to interrupt the match. Within seconds thick black smoke was pouring out of the ventilators and visibility dropped to nothing. Heinrich met us halfway, then we formed a line with each of us grasping the belt of the man in front of him and made our way to the nearest stairwell. We climbed up several decks and emerged on our home-floor…

…only to find that everything was business as usual. Two rabbit-maids were cleaning a guest’s room, and their happy chatter seemed terribly out of place after the chaos we’d just emerged from.

I looked around and scowled. I was the only one among the cadets fully space-emergency trained; in the normal course of things, that came after we were assigned to our various stations. “This is all wrong!” I declared. “Everyone within seven decks of a fire should be evacuated; it’s standard protocol! And that smoke… I’m not coughing. No one else is, either!”

“It’s a fake!” Yan Chang declared, pounding his fist in his hand.

“Those miserable Imperials!’ Ho seconded, nodding savagely. “They’re cheating us!”

My eyes narrowed. There was something wrong here—the Yans were far too certain of the situation, somehow. And too quick to blame the Imperials as well. Besides, they’d been AWOL all those long hours with no explanation whatsoever…

I don’t know why I turned around and looked towards my room just then; perhaps my subconscious mind was way ahead of the game. But down at the far end of the hall I saw a blur of gray with a Rabbit’s pooftail attached to it silently disappearing down another set of fire stairs.

“We can win far more than is readily apparent,” the Commandant of the Academy had explained back when he was telling us about the code books. “Even if on the surface we lose.”

I turned back to the Yans, whose faces remained blank and innocent. Were they part of the code book operation as well? Had they set the fake fires and jiggered the alarms to create a diversion so that an Imperial’s Rabbit-servant could use the fire-stairs without attracting attention? I’d never know, and perhaps it was better if I didn’t.

“Those miserable cheats!” Heinrich spat as, a bit tardily, his own version of the truth set in.

“The worst!” I agreed, looking the Yans over again. I no longer doubted in the slightest that they’d make fine naval officers indeed. But, I was certain, they’d never command a ship or spend much time in uniform. Their talents lay elsewhere. Instead I was willing to wager my left ear that they were headed for murky careers in naval intelligence, where their special flair for the illegal would prove to be a game-changing godsend. Perhaps I might even find myself working with them again someday?

Then I shook my head and dragged myself back to reality. “All right,” I said finally. “We’ve established that this is a safe place, and if we went back downstairs we’d just be in the way. So let’s wait in our rooms and see what the New Geneva people say. All right?”

But I did more than wait in my room. I’d left my code book there, since I couldn’t bring it to the gaming table. Sure enough, it was gone. Even more intriguingly, however, I’d been left something in return. Just underneath where the text had been, there was an oily patch almost too faint to see; soon it’d evaporate entirely. There was never any chance of my overlooking it, however—it was a Rabbit’s scent mark, from the little gland under the chin. There wasn’t any way I knew of to preserve the thing, and I wasn’t sure I should even if I could. Humans couldn’t make use of scent marks, so the message was obviously meant strictly for me personally. I spent several long minutes inhaling its essence until the odor was burned immutably into my brain; if I ever encountered that Rabbit again, I’d have no doubt whatsoever as to his identity.

Then I laid down my bed and tried to calm my overexcited, fast-spinning brain for whatever came next.

38

I must’ve done an especially good job of calming down, because the next thing I knew several hours had passed and someone was knocking urgently at my door. “David!” a familiar albeit weak voice was calling out. “Are you in there?”

Instantly I was on my feet and across the room; it was Professor Lambert, and he sounded
terrible
! He looked even worse when I opened up the door; my instructor was sitting in a wheelchair with a Geneva security man standing behind him doing the pushing. The professor’s face was pale, his eyes were dull, and his skin sagged as if he’d just lost twenty pounds. “David,” he croaked. “We’re leaving.” Then he looked up at the security man for help.

“We no longer feel able to guarantee your party’s safety,” the guard explained. “There’ve just been too many incidents.”

Something further down the corridor caught my eye; it was James lying on a gurney, looking even sicker than the professor. He didn’t seem to know where he was. “I see,” was my only reply.

“Get them back to the ship,” Professor Lambert instructed me. “Organize it and get it done, immediately. I know you can handle it; the Geneva people will help. And…” He smiled weakly; I’d seen corpses make a better job of it. “I heard about Gibraltar. Good work, son!”

I smiled back, then despite his illness and all the rules and protocol about how we cadets were supposed to address teachers I bent down and hugged him tight. “Thank you, David,” he replied. “You’ve made me prouder than any student I’ve ever had.” Then he pulled away a little. “Now get our people out of here while it’s still safe.”

Orders weren’t always easy things to obey, and I didn’t blame Heinrich for pitching a fit when I informed him that it was time to go. “But… I’ve got him on the run! Another ten minutes of play, and—”

“Our lives are bigger than any game,” I took the time to explain, even though almost any other cadet-officer would simply have bellowed in outrage at less-than-instant obedience. “And… Look, I know this is easy for me to say, because my victory is already official and all that. But you had your man nailed too and you know it. So did he, so did his coaches, and so did everyone else.” I looked down at the deck. “We beat them, Heinrich, in all but official, acknowledged fact. We broke their pride. You were a big part of it. And that’s just going to have to be good enough.”