Scattered Suns (25 page)

Chapter 48—GENERAL KURT LANYAN

Only a day after Davlin Lotze delivered the first Crenna refugees to Earth, Rlinda Kett careened into the solar system transmitting a demand for an emergency meeting even before she hit the orbit of Saturn. She blurted her news to the first EDF picket scouts that intercepted her; before the pilots could express their disbelief, Rlinda sent a fast feed of direct images showing the destruction of Relleker.

General Lanyan headed out in a fast EDF recon ship and personally intercepted the
Voracious
Curiosity
on its way in. He spoke to Rlinda over a private comm channel while he spun his vessel around and paced alongside her inbound ship. After he had scanned her report, only the heat of his anger kept ice from forming in his heart.

“General, there’s no question the drogues are starting a new phase against the Hansa,” Rlinda said to him. “They annihilated Relleker on purpose, squashed our colony out of pure spite. The people there were damned prigs, but I liked them better than the drogues.”

Lanyan maintained his unbreakable gruffness. “Thank you, Captain Kett. I will call all grid admirals in the vicinity to discuss the matter immediately. We will mount an urgent rescue operation.”

The large woman stared at him on the screen, then she actually laughed. “Take another look at those images, General. You’d better bring brushes and little envelopes to pick up what’s left of the people on Relleker. You won’t be doing any rescue operation.”

Lanyan bristled. “As I said, my admirals and I will review the matter right away. You may proceed to Earth and unload your passengers. Davlin Lotze has arranged temporary holding facilities near the Palace District, where they’ll be well taken care of. You may leave the rest of the matter to me.”

Admirals Tabeguache and Antero were in the solar system preparing their battle groups for additional expeditions against the Roamers. Grid 7’s Admiral Sheila Willis had just been dispatched from the asteroid belt shipyards and was easily recalled. Admiral Kostas Eolus entered the Mars base’s conference room at the last moment, breathless from having rushed back in a small ship; for the sake of speed, he had left the rest of his Grid 5 fleet on its assigned maneuvers.

Lanyan expected no one else to attend. “Better get started. As Grid 0 liaison, Admiral Stromo should be here, but he’s currently on his way back from Yreka, and I don’t anticipate his arrival until tomorrow. We’ll have to have this meeting without him.”

Admiral Peter Tabeguache made a quiet comment under his breath, then coughed as if to cover it. “Not that old Stay-at-Home would be much help anyway.”

“I’ll have no insubordination in this meeting!” Lanyan said.

“Of course not, sir.”

Deeply unsettled, Lanyan paced around the room, studying his uniformed officers. The wall of windows looked out upon cracked red terrain and an olive-green sky.

“What’s this I hear about the drogues kicking ass on another Hansa colony, General?” Sheila Willis said.

“Not just kicking ass. They ground us flat.” Lanyan played the images from the
Voracious
Curiosity,
showing enemy warglobes mercilessly obliterating Relleker. He had considered muting Governor Pekar’s desperate and pitiful transmissions, but decided to let his grid admirals experience the full magnitude of the crisis. As they sat in stunned silence, he said, “Upon review, I have concluded that there is nothing we can do for Relleker at this time.”

“Shouldn’t we at least send an analytical team to comb through the ruins?” suggested Haki Antero. “We could learn something.”

“I doubt it, but I suppose we ought to go through the motions anyway. The Chairman would insist on it.”

“Any idea why the drogues struck Relleker in particular? Because it was close to Crenna?” Antero asked. “Were they just hitting any human colony? What set them off?”

“What set them off, Haki? Now, let’s see,” Willis drawled. “In the past several months, we’ve stuffed five more Klikiss Torches down the gullets of hydrogue planets. Can you imagine a reason why those deep-core aliens might want to retaliate against us?”

“We don’t know their motivation, Admiral,” Lanyan cautioned.

“General, just because the drogues are
aliens,
that doesn’t mean they’re stupid.”

With the news of Crenna and Relleker coming so close together, Lanyan felt more impotent than he had in years. Recently, after striking Theroc, the drogues had been preoccupied with their battles against the faeros, but Relleker was something else entirely, a specifically human target, an indisputable extermination.

“Excuse me, sir, but somebody needs to say this,” Tabeguache began. “We had a bit of a respite for a while, but now that the drogues have started hitting us hard again, perhaps we should pull back all of the battleships currently on search-and-destroy missions against the Roamer clans? Seems we should concentrate on the primary enemy. We can always get the Roamers later.”

Lanyan’s nostrils flared. “Getting the Roamers to knuckle under is likely the only part of this mess that we can
win
in a reasonable amount of time!”

“And so far,” Antero added, “just throwing a lot of battleships at the hydrogues hasn’t helped much. Our weapons aren’t very effective against warglobes.”

The General bunched his fists and got up to pace the room, working his jaw. The grid admirals remained silent, seeing his emotions about to boil over and waiting to find out what he would do.

“Dammit!” he finally said. “I hate being reminded how utterly incapable we are of defending ourselves. What’s to keep the drogues from blasting Earth to splinters like they just did to Relleker? They know this is our capital. They’ve already sent an emissary here to kill King Frederick. What if a flare-up between the faeros and drogues occurs in the
Earth’s
sun?” He walked down the length of the table like a stalking predator, looking at the admirals as if they could answer him.

Admiral Eolus said, “We do have an emergency plan in place, should those things come directly to Earth, right?”

Lanyan had read the plan. “Oh, there’s one on paper. Considering that Earth is the most populated planet in the Hanseatic League, I do not have a high degree of confidence that the plan will be effective, beyond giving the billions of people something to do while the drogues destroy them.” He sat heavily.

Tabeguache tapped his fingertips on the tabletop. “Think about it. If the
faeros
can’t stop them, we certainly don’t stand a chance.”

“We do have the new rammer fleet,” Willis pointed out. “I’ve read the latest reports. Aren’t those ships almost finished?”

Lanyan said, “I’m issuing orders for the shipyards to triple the work crews and get those vessels completed. We need those defenses
now,
and I want them ready to launch right away. Highest priority. It’s the only way we can be ready to stand against any warglobes that come in. The Ildirans have already proved the method works. Now it’s time for us to do the same.”

“No argument from us, General,” said Antero. “We should get the Soldier compies in place now. As each rammer is completed, we can start loading it with its full robotic crew.”

Lanyan was pleased at last to be doing something. “And I will handpick the token crew of human officers. The next time the drogues show themselves, we’re going to hit them with everything we’ve got.”

Chapter 49—TASIA TAMBLYN

When she returned to Mars after escorting the Roamer detainees to Llaro, Tasia mentally prepared herself for tedious training exercises again. Seeing the prisoners seized during the provocative raids, as well as gleaning a few details about her family, had sharpened her disappointment and frustration. She wanted to be back home, to see Jess, to smell the cold ice beneath the crust of Plumas. And if she couldn’t have that, at least Tasia wanted to be out fighting the drogues!

She had undergone rigorous training and served to the absolute best of her ability. Now that the EDF had changed all the rules, changed the fight itself, Tasia knew she could break her oath with a clear conscience, take EA, steal a ship, and just
leave,
as bitter Crim Tylar had suggested. She had the option of abandoning the Earth Defense Forces, burning her uniform, and going back to live among the clans.

But if she simply changed her mind and deserted, the Eddies would denounce her as having been a Roamer spy all along. Smug Patrick Fitzpatrick III would probably come back from the grave just to say, “I told you so.” Worse, General Lanyan would use that as an excuse to crack down even more, impose penalties and harsh consequences on the Llaro detainees whom Tasia wanted to protect.

What was happening out there among the Roamers? With Rendezvous destroyed, where would the clans go? Cesca would probably try to draw them together, but how could she succeed when the EDF was hunting down every outpost, every habitation? Other than a few rumors she’d heard from Roberto Clarin, Tasia’s only source of information was the Big Goose’s one-sided news, which was sure to be far from accurate.

She just wanted to fight
hydrogues
. Was that so complicated?

As soon as Tasia checked in at the EDF base, General Lanyan summoned her. She was still dressed in a pilot’s uniform, and hadn’t had a meal or a shower, but the General’s message stressed that he wanted to see her without delay. His staff sergeant escorted her into the private office, and she stood at attention in front of his desk.

Lanyan lifted his square-jawed head to regard her. “Commander Tamblyn, we have a certain matter to discuss. Your service record remains impressive, and your skill level is unmatched in many areas.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, stiff and formal.
I know that.

Even so, Tasia felt a knot in her stomach. Now that Hansa depredations against the Roamers had increased, Lanyan might command her to reveal the locations of clan facilities, including her family’s Plumas water mines. She formulated her words, ready to speak firmly, without wavering. If necessary, she would defy his order to betray the clans, then give him an earful about his ridiculous priorities and how he was forgetting the real enemy of the human race. Afterward, the General would probably court-martial her.

Instead, he surprised her. “How would you like your command back?”

Though taken off guard, she answered in a heartbeat. “Absolutely, General—as soon as possible.”

His smile showed blunt teeth. “I understand you prefer fighting the hydrogues to your current assignment?”

Her pulse sped up. Maybe they had a real mission for her again. “With all due respect, old veterans could supervise the training activities here on Mars. I sure would prefer something else, sir.”

“After these months of hard work, our new rammer fleet is almost complete. Sixty reinforced vessels will be crewed by expendable Soldier compies. However, we need several experienced officers willing to take charge of this fleet and deliver it in our first concerted attack against the drogues. You must remain on standby at all times and be ready to launch the moment the fleet is ready and we identify a target.”

Tasia caught her breath. Although high-tech weaponry such as fracture-pulse drones and carbon-carbon slammers had not caused as much damage as the EDF had hoped, compy-crewed kamikaze vessels had provided the only effective offense in the battle of Osquivel. She’d been following the construction of the heavily reinforced rammers, just waiting for them to be finished.

“But if those ships have a full crew of Soldier compies, what do you need me for?”

Lanyan cracked his knuckles and sat back in his chair. “In a matter of such importance, I am not willing to trust everything to compies—not even the new Soldier models. I insist on having a few humans on board the rammer fleet to make command decisions—a set of token officers, one human commander for every ten vessels. In theory, you shouldn’t have a thing to do, but we both know that nothing ever goes exactly as planned, especially in a chaotic battle environment.”

“Yes, sir. I saw that for myself at Jupiter, Boone’s Crossing, and Osquivel.”

“As I said, Commander, your service record to date is impressive. Except for a few disciplinary incidents that demonstrate you have some difficulty getting along with your fellow soldiers, your performance in a battlefield environment is faultless. You’re the perfect choice for the job.” She could sense his half-hidden dislike of her Roamer heritage in his grudging acknowledgment that she was the best.

Pride warred with common sense in her head. “I’ve read about how an Ildiran Adar crushed the enemy at Qronha 3, sir, and I know what our new rammers are designed to do.” Her eyes narrowed. “So be straight with me, General. You’re asking me to volunteer for a suicide mission?”
Just like Robb did, when he went aboard the diving-bell encounter vessel.

Lanyan made a too-casual dismissive gesture. “There are risks, certainly, but it’s not a suicide mission, Tamblyn. We’ve designed the rammer ships with an escape system for each token commander. Once the Soldier compies have their final orders, you can run to the evac pod and jettison in time. You can just sit back and watch the fireworks as you float safely away.”

“In theory,” she said, trying to dull the edge in her voice. “Are you convinced that the odds are genuinely good, sir?”

He was frank with her; she was thankful for that, at least. “Not really, but it’s a chance. The best we can do.” He leaned across his desk. “Tamblyn, this will give you a chance to strike a blow against the hydrogues—and you’ll have your command back. Isn’t that what you want?”

It was a war, after all. Nothing was guaranteed.

“Show me the dotted line and I’ll sign, sir. I’m your volunteer.”

Lanyan looked completely satisfied. “Excellent. I knew I could count on you, Tamblyn.”

She could tell that he left the rest of the sentence unsaid.
Even though you are a Roamer.
“When do we depart, General?”

“You start training immediately. Half of the fleet is finished, and we expect the rest to be ready within the next thirty-six hours.” Lanyan looked down at his reports again. “Then we’ll launch our rammers the moment the bastards show themselves again.”