The Fleet05 Total War Read online

  They were silent, letting the impact sink in.

  Then the second nodded and said, “I shall be Tender.”

  And, slowly at first, then in a rush, they began to choose names.

  * * *

  It wasn’t just a matter of manning a ship and going out to track down the pirate, of course. Sales had to earn that ship, by figuring out where Captain Goodheart would appear next. He set up a computer scan, having every shipping report routed through his office, and set a program to search for key words, such as “raid,” “lifeboat,” and “necktie.”

  Reports began to come in, of a Khalian pirate who outgunned and outmaneuvered a merchantman, then matched orbits, clung to the ship’s side with magnetic grapples, and blew a hole through the ship’s skin. Then Weasels boarded—and the biggest one always wore a loud, garish necktie. He was unfailingly polite while his crew killed off the pilot and navigator, then stuffed the passengers into a lifeboat.

  Soon, Captain Goodheart was notorious for his lightning strikes, his ruthlessness, and his neckties.

  * * *

  The ship shuddered, the section of hull fell inward, and the half-dozen men and women of the crew started firing. But Weasel faces ducked out, snapping off shots, and the crew fell. A large Khalian bounded in, and the women shrieked. The men struggled to their feet, pale and determined to die well. . . .

  The Khalians swarmed all over them, and they were down and out cold in an instant.

  “My husband!” a woman screamed, but the large Khalian said, in surprisingly good Terran and with amazing politeness, “I doubt not your husband is well, madame, though unconscious—unless he is a much better fighter than I expect. My crew does not kill civilians.”

  “Your crew?” the woman gasped. “But—who are you?”

  “You may call me Captain Goodheart—for, see, I leave you your lives. But only your lives.” The big Khalian held out a hand. “Your jewelry is forfeit. Give it to me, please.”

  With trembling hands, the woman unfastened her necklace and placed it into his hairy paw, then added her bracelet. Behind, the Khalians rose, taking the men’s wallets and watches with them. All but one still breathed; most were unwounded.

  Two women screamed at the sight of the others, and fell weeping over their bodies.

  ”The safe,” Goodheart said to First Mate Throb, and the first turned away, with a whistle of assent.

  The last of the women was surrendering her jewelry to the Khalians. Then half the crewmen fell to untying the men’s neckties.

  “But . . .” the first woman swallowed, plucked up her nerve, and asked again, “why are they taking our husbands’ neckties?”

  “Their neckties?” Captain Goodheart touched the garish strip of cloth around his own neck. “As mementoes, madame. Surely you would not begrudge us souvenirs?”

  * * *

  ”And even our neckties!” the civilian shouted, purple with rage. “What kind of Navy do you think you’re running, if these Khalians can just pop up wherever they want and play pirate with us?”

  “Neckties?” The naval officer seemed suddenly more intent on the civilian’s report of the piracy. “Just yours? Or everybody’s?”

  “All our neckties, dammit!” the civilian shouted. “What am I paying my taxes for, anyway?”

  But Commander Sales only nodded as he stood and said, “Thank you for your information, Mr. Bagger. You’ve been a great help.” He started to turn away, then stopped at a thought and turned back. “By the way—what were you coming to Khalia for, anyway?”

  “Why, to buy some of that bargain real estate the Khalia are selling, of course! And set up a department store! There are fortunes to be made there, man!”

  As Commander Sales turned away, he was almost ashamed to admit that he could understand at least part of what drove Captain Goodheart.

  * * *

  Sales set up a holotank with Khalia’s sun represented by a glowing ruby at the center, then plotted the pirate’s ambushes in yellow dots, connecting them with traceries of faint yellow lines. Slowly, the pattern grew. Goodheart seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, in a sphere about three AUs out from Khalia. That was the point at which ships had to drop out of hyperspace into normal space, because they were getting too close to the gravity well of Khalia’s sun—and sometimes Goodheart was there to meet them, and sometimes he wasn’t. It didn’t seem to matter which side of Khalia’s sun they dropped out on—Goodheart ambushed ships from every direction.

  Sales couldn’t patrol every inch of a sphere that size, of course—but he could outfit a cruiser and wait in ambush near the breakout point from Target, that being the most frequent traffic from and to Khalia. A cruiser that was nonmetallic, and black, and far enough away so that it wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye—but close enough so it could rendezvous with any inbound ship within fifteen minutes.

  All he needed was permission.

  * * *

  “Sorry, Sales. We can’t risk you in combat now. You’re the only one who knows that Weasel, his mania, his patterns of raiding.”

  ”I’ve left complete notes, sir,” Sales said. “The locations of his raids, the times, the pattern—everything’s there, in the computer.”

  The admiral just sat, frowning at him. Sales could almost hear him weighing the greater chances of eliminating the pirate, against the chance of losing the only man who had any feel for how Goodheart thought. Sales held his breath.

  The admiral decided, and nodded. “All right, Sales. You can have him.”

  * * *

  Sales’s heart was still soaring as he stretched his shock webbing across himself and leaned back, waiting for takeoff. To be in command of a ship again was wonderful enough—but to be in command of a ship that was chasing Captain Goodheart was sublime.

  The ship waited near the breakout point, its black hull virtually invisible in the eternal night of space. It waited for a week and, during that time, watched a ship a day break out into normal space and shoot onward toward Khalia. It waited for two weeks, and the crew began to grumble. They were getting tired of backgammon and calisthenics. They wanted action—or shore leave.

  Finally, after three weeks, the alarm beeped, and the sensor op called, “Khalian on scope.”

  “Commander Sales to the bridge,” the captain snapped into the intercom. “All crew, combat stations!”

  The klaxon hooted, and the ship filled with the thunder of pounding feet.

  Sales burst into the control room and stilled, staring at the image on the telescope screen. Infrared-sensed and computer-enhanced, the silhouette of a Khalian cruiser seemed to float in space.

  “We’ve got him!” Sales hissed. “Full acceleration, Captain!”

  “Full acceleration,” the captain told his engineer. The alarm wailed, and reflex sent Sales into his acceleration couch. He was stretching the webbing as the boost hit and two gravities’ worth of acceleration slammed him back into the cushions.

  A point of light shimmered on the screen, a new star.

  “Widen coverage!” the captain snapped, but the sensor op was already increasing the field.

  A new ship appeared on the screen, hurtling toward the Khalian—but it was ten times the size, and the silhouette was Terran.

  “There’s what he’s after!” Sales snapped. “A freighter!”

  “Torpedo,” the captain directed. There was no feeling of recoil, but after a second, a gunner called, “Away.”

  “He’ll move before it gets there,” Sales warned, but the captain was already nodding. “We’ll launch as soon as we can tell vector and velocity.”

  Then, suddenly, the Khalian jumped—but away from the freighter. It flipped over, bow facing toward Sales. Fire burst, and the torpedo exploded well away from the ship.

  “He knows we’re here,” Sales grated. “Any more legs on this ship?”


  “Range!” The gunner didn’t even finish the word before the captain was bawling, “Fire!”

  It was fast, then—the head gunner keyed the computer for full fire, and the helms op keyed his for evasive action. The ship slammed them from side to side and back and forth, jumping about in its progress toward the Khalian—but the fire computer read each change in vector as soon as the helm computer generated it, and compensated in its aim. The ship’s full armament blazed, picking off the Khalian’s torpedoes and evading its lasers, while it probed and stabbed with its own cannon and missiles.

  The Khalian, of course, had done the same, and its image jittered about the screen, its cannon blazing at the Terran, evading and returning fire.

  Computer against computer, the pirate strove against the Fleet vessel—while, beyond them and all but unknowing, the freighter sped silently past and on toward Khalia.

  But Sales had an advantage that the Khalian didn’t—a dozen PT ships, spawned at the sound of the klaxon and arcing high above the plane of the ecliptic. Now they fell, stabbing fire, guided by computers independent of the fire-control brain.

  The Khalian rolled and jumped, trying to evade this new menace. Then an explosion lit it amidships. The screens darkened to compensate for the extra light, so Sales could only see a dim picture of the Khalian turning tail.

  “Got him!” the captain shouted, clenching his fist. “Go get him, Helm!”

  “Chasing, sir,” the helm op gloated, and the warning hooted just before the ship jumped into two g’s acceleration again.

  On the screen, the pirate shrank as it sped away.

  “He might be sucking us in,” Sales reminded.

  “We’re watching,” the captain answered.

  The pirate began to grow in the screen again.

  “We’ll catch him,” the captain gloated. “We’ll blast him out of the night!”

  Suddenly the pirate began to glitter.

  “He’s jumping!” the sensor op yelled.

  “He can’t!” Sales shouted. “He’s wounded! He could blow himself into oblivion!”

  “If he stays, we’ll do it to him for sure,” the captain grated.

  The glitter covered the ship completely, faded to a twinkle, and was gone. The screen was empty.

  “Got away!” Sales slammed his fist against the arm of his couch. “He got away from us!”

  “Maybe not!” The captain’s voice was leaden. “He was too close to another mass—us—and too close to a standard breakout point, where the curvature of space is kinked. Could be he’s blown himself to hell.”

  “Not this weasel.” Sales glared at the screen. “Could be, but it’s not. He may be hurt, but he’s alive.”

  He lay back in his couch, forcing himself to relax. “You fought damn well, Captain, and you gave him one hell of a chase. I couldn’t have asked for better.”

  “Thank you, sir—but I could.” The captain’s face was grim. “We lost him—so it wasn’t good enough. The crew did a fine job—but there must be something we could have done better.”

  “I can’t think what.” Sales suddenly felt very tired.

  “You will, though, sir. You will.”

  * * *

  “We must know who commanded that ship, Throb! It was no chance encounter; he was waiting for us!” Goodheart paced the chamber, vibrant with anger.

  “We must, indeed,” Throb agreed.

  “We must have knowledge! Information! We must set spies to tell us of the slightest sign that some Terran seeks us out!”

  Throb frowned. “But how can we know what the humans think, Captain? We cannot have agents among them.”

  “Can we not?” Goodheart wheeled about, eyes glowing. “Have we no Khalians who dwell among humankind? Are there none on Target, none on Khalia, who would favor us?”

  Throb stared, struck by the notion. “There must be many!”

  “Make planetfall secretly!” Goodheart commanded. “Set each of our men to talk to old friends! Let them sound out those who are loyal to Khalia, not to the clan chiefs! Those few who are, give them transmitters and codes! Let them pass each word they hear that might have meaning back to us!”

  “At once, my captain!” Throb sped away, leaving Goodheart to plan alone.

  He paced the chamber, reviewing possibilities. Language—he must teach all his crew the human languages, those of the Fleet and the Syndicate, and set them to scanning the humans’ broadcasts. He must begin to collect news printouts from every vessel he boarded—he had chanced upon a copy of a shipping schedule on the last Syndicate ship he had taken. He needed knowledge.

  * * *

  Old friends talked to old friends, and they talked to new friends. No one could say who had asked whom, but half the Khalians on the home planet soon knew to which old friend they should mention anything interesting. Petty, perhaps irrelevant . . .

  Or perhaps not.

  “Commander Lohengrin Sales?” Goodheart stared at the picture on the screen, recorded from a newsfeed and transmitted to his ship, secretly. He frowned at the human face. “Why does that name itch at the comer of my brain?”

  All the crew were silent, watching their captain out of the comers of their eyes.

  But Goodheart scarcely saw them; he was concentrating on memory, reviewing all that had happened since he had decided to tum pirate. . . .

  ”Sales!” he cried. “The civilian who fought us, when we first captured a Terran ship! Have they set him to chasing me, then?”

  “We shamed him, Captain,” murmured Throb. “He lusts for revenge.”

  “Even as I do—now!” Goodheart bared his teeth in a grin. “Would he chase me, then? Well, let us seek more information about him, and more—for I will chase him!”

  For some reason, the prospect filled Throb with foreboding.

  And perhaps he was right—for, alone in his cabin, Goodheart paced the deck, claws emerging and retracting, simmering with anger and frustration—because he realized that, more than anything else, he needed human agents.

  How could he recruit even one trustworthy human, when all were so loyal to their race—or so treacherous that they were willing to sell anything for their own wealth, even honor? He didn’t know—but he would find a way. “I must have a human!” he breathed. “I must!”

  * * *

  The other kids never liked Georgie Desrick when he was growing up. Long in the torso and short in the legs, he was never much of an athlete—and whether his clumsiness was inborn, or only the result of the other kids never wanting him on their teams, it was nonetheless extreme. Add to that a face with a receding chin, buck teeth, and huge, bulging eyes (from the distortion of the thick contact lenses he had to wear), and you had a person who didn’t exactly gather friends. Nonetheless, he was very religious, so he managed to put aside all thoughts of revenge and filled his time with books.

  Storybooks, “How To” books, encyclopedias, dictionaries—he soaked up everything he could read. By fifth grade, he was already reading high school physics and chemistry; by seventh grade, he was soaking up cybernetics and electronics. Those clumsy hands managed to acquire a modicum of skill with a soldering iron and a chemistry set, and his mind developed compartments for listening to the teacher separately from working on his latest math problem. School lessons would have bored him stiff, if he’d actually had to pay attention to them—after all, they were several years behind his reading—so he became adept at tracking the classroom lectures, able to snap to full consciousness at the mention of his name, and answer the question that had just been asked, while the back of his mind went on planning his next electronic invention.

  He got straight A’s, of course. Which made him even less popular.

  By the time he graduated from high school, he had several patents to his name and a very good income from royalties—so a high-pressure Navy recruiter t
alked him into going into the Fleet, promising that he could attend the best colleges on old Earth at government expense for as long as he wanted—provided that, when he graduated, he would work on some problems the government wanted investigated.

  And, the recruiter pledged, he’d have companionship.

  The companionship turned out to mean that he was quartered with other officer candidates, that they all had to sleep in the same room and eat at the same table. It didn’t mean they had to talk with him.

  So they didn’t—they talked past him, over him, and by him; and when they did look at him, their faces held anything but friendship. They were fine-looking, sociable, athletic young men, all of them, and they resented him fiercely.

  Georgie threw himself into his studies more fervently than ever.

  His roommates took it as snobbish aloofness and disliked him even more.

  Georgie graduated in three years—with a doctorate in physics. He stayed another year, to pick up master’s degrees in chemistry and metallurgy. He was starting work on his third dissertation when the Navy told him it was time to collect.

  But they had to take him to the planet where the problem lay, so he was signed on as supercargo aboard an FTL training cruiser.

  Within a week, the crew resented him for not having to get his hands dirty.

  A new midshipman, trying to build a personal power base, chose Georgie as the obvious scapegoat and unified the rest of the middies by building up a huge grudge against the oddball who just stayed in his cabin and read.

  Rough hands woke him in the middle of the night, jabbing a gag in his mouth and shackling his hands and feet. Young men, snarling obscenities, rushed him through the darkness and locked him inside a space-going coffin labeled a lifeboat. A mule kicked him in the seat, and he blacked out.