War World IV: Invasion Read online

  Vance shook his head. “No, but if you play around with the flow rate, odds are that the Saurons will detect a change in the appearance of the feeder lines. And if they do, they’ll come down here. Besides, you won’t achieve much by over-pumping. The tanks that are already filled won’t burst; each bladder seals as soon as it reaches maximum capacity.”

  “Yes, but the excess fuel pressure in the line itself will blow the station free of the tether.”

  Trainor shrugged. “That’s not going to keep the Saurons from getting the fuel. After a day or two of EVA operations, they’ll have chased the station down, corrected its tumble, and be ready to tap the tanks.”

  “So what’s your alternative? To let these bastard Saurons dock and take on all the fuel they need?”

  Vance shrugged again. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

  “That,” began Dorrit dramatically, “sounds like treason, Mr. Trainor.” The operations center became silent except for the hum of the machinery. “In the day or two that those Sauron monsters will be busy trying to recapture and stabilize the station, pursuing Imperial ships could show up and make short work of them.”

  Vance shook his head. “These Saurons are not on the run from any ‘pursuing ships;’ if they were, they’d have grabbed the fuel tanks immediately--and they’d have done it with sensors hot, fighters out, and weapons ready. They certainly wouldn’t be pussyfooting around the way they are now, with passive sensors and a single fighter. No, these Saurons know they’ve found a safe, sleepy byway, well off the main interstellar thoroughfares--and the fact that they haven’t announced their presence suggests that a sleepy little byway is exactly what they were looking for.”

  Dorrit’s posture became unnaturally erect. “Then it’s our duty to make this byway a little less sleepy. And I mean to do just that.”

  “By destroying the refueling station? Even if you could deny them access to the fuel, that would only compel them to come down here and take possession of the processing plant.”

  “Good; that will give us a home court advantage. We can tear them up in zero gee.”

  Vance kept a scowl off his face. “What makes you think we can ‘tear up’ Saurons in zero gee?”

  Dorrit’s chin elevated slightly. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten your own local history, Mr. Trainor. Since the Imperium pulled the last of its troops out 17 years ago, there have been two occasions when pirates have troubled this system. Both times, the pirates avoided Ayesha and hit Haven instead--despite Haven’s vastly greater defensive assets. Clearly, Ayesha is a daunting target.”

  Vance shook his head. “To pirates, maybe--but not to the Saurons. Take my word for it, Mr. Dorrit; you can’t use the actions of a criminal to predict the actions of a professional soldier.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because pirates fight for loot, not for duty or destiny. They know that zero gee operations against prepared locals can get messy, so--for them--that type of game isn’t worth the candle. But Saurons don’t fight for profit, nor do they conceive of soldiering as a noisome civic duty; combat and conflict are the very core of Sauron culture. Each Sauron aspires--and trains--to be ready for any challenge in any environment; hell, twenty of our best personnel wouldn’t last 30 seconds against three Sauron EVA commandos. The way I see it, our best course of action is to take no overt action at all; most of us will survive if the Saurons continue to overlook us--and if we go deep underground.”

  “Underground?”

  “If the Saurons mean to stay here in the Byers system-- and all their actions indicate that they do--then they’ll destroy those assets that they can’t keep. Which means that they’re going to blow the spaceside station, and when they do, this base is going to be at ground zero of the resulting deluge of debris.” Trainor turned to leave.

  “Mr. Trainor, you are not going ‘underground.’ You are going to set up a defensive perimeter around the pumping facilities, since, as you point out, the Saurons may attempt to take this facility if we give them problems with the station. And if they do attempt a landing, that’s when the Saurons will discover that ordinary people can become extraordinary fighters when they’re fighting to defend their homes.” Dorrit’s stirring rhetoric left the operations staff strangely uninspired.

  Trainor sighed. “Dorrit, including myself, this station has four full-time security personnel--all armed with handguns.” As though producing evidence, Vance drew his pistol and shook it meaningfully. “Do you really expect me to repel Sauron EVA commandos with this?”

  Dorrit’s face grew red and his voice was tight with suppressed anger. “I expect you to fight the Saurons with that and anything else available; I expect you to fight them the best way you know how.”

  “Is that an order--to fight them with any means available, the best way I know how?”

  “Yes,” Dorrit snarled, “and you will follow those orders to the letter, mister.”

  Trainor smiled. “To the letter, sir.” The ex-Marine raised his handgun to a ready position and swept his thumb back; the safety disengaged with a sharp click. Tracking the muzzle along the length of the pumping control console, Trainor swung the weapon in a slow arc, squeezing the trigger at regular intervals.

  Survey Rank Bender pointed to the close-up of the tether that dominated Markel’s central video screen. “You are referring to the radio antenna that is coaxially mounted on the main fuel line?”

  “Yes, Fourth Rank. If the entire facility were unmanned, there would be little need for--”

  “Markel.” The young Sauron sensor operator ceased speaking, discovered that Bender’s eyes were no longer animated and bright, but as flat and blue as wind-scoured turquoise. “Markel, under normal operating conditions, how do we establish docking alignment at automated facilities?”

  “By establishing tight-beam laser lock-on with the docking beacons.”

  “And what happens when the gimballing servos of those lasers are inoperative or damaged? How do we establish docking alignment then?”

  Markel flushed. “We transmit coded binary instructions to the automated facility by radio.”

  Bender nodded slowly. “Which means that an automated facility must have a large radio receiver in order to accommodate ships which have suffered tight-beam laser failures--which, as you should know, is the most common form of battle damage. Consequently, such a receiver is not evidence of a manned presence.”

  Bender stared down at Markel--an impatient glare-- then turned his back and left. Markel snapped off all but one of the video monitors, his finger thumping loudly against the smooth surface of the dynamically reconfigurable control panel; had Markel been anything other than Sauron, his motions would certainly have been suggestive of anger.

  Mouth open, Dorrit stared at the even pattern of ten-millimeter holes that ran the length of the fuel pump control console. Then he emitted a decidedly non-military screech; “What have you done?”

  Trainor snapped the handgun’s safety back into place. “Following your orders to the letter, sir; I have fought the enemy in the best way I know how.”

  “By destroying our only offensive option?”

  “An old maxim of warfare, Mr. Dorrit: if you know you can’t win, then the definition of victory becomes cutting your losses.” Reholstering his weapon, Trainor moved to the door, then stopped as though he’d forgotten something; he turned back to the operations staff. “I recommend you all head down to the lower levels.”

  Dorrit, sweat beading his brow, had recovered a semblance of dignity. “Mr. Trainor, you are relieved of your security duties--and if you make any further suggestions which encourage the personnel of this command to abandon their posts, I will have you shot.” Dorrit turned his back on Trainor; already, technicians were swarming about the console, assessing the damage.

  Trainor shrugged. “Have it your way,” he muttered, and left for the lower levels.

  Two minutes later--when Dorrit wasn’t looking-- Mpoh Aletti sidled out of the operations center to atte
nd to the call of nature. However, this particular call of nature did not steer him toward the head. This call was more primal than the one associated with waste elimination; this was the primal call of survival. And, oddly enough, that call seemed to draw him toward the lowest levels of the Ayeshan complex.

  Forty minutes later, Markel watched the image of the refueling station dwindle rapidly, becoming no more than a shiny mote at the center of his one active screen. The fueling had proceeded swiftly and the EVA teams had emplaced the scuttling charges without meeting a single person, although they had noted the presence of a few remote video sensors; probably there as a matter of recordkeeping. Well, the record was about to end, and abruptly; though separated by a doorway, Markel heard First Rank Diettinger’s voice clearly: “Charges status?”

  Weapon’s response was equally clear. “Telemetry indicates full functions, all, First Rank.”

  A long moment passed, one in which Markel had the opportunity to reflect on how the upcoming invasion of Haven might provide him with an opportunity to redeem himself in Bender’s eyes.

  Because the young sensor operator’s thoughts were elsewhere, Markel only half heard Diettinger’s command of “Activate.” The scintillant speck at the center of Market’s video screen flared briefly and then was gone. The Sauron cruiser Fomoria--weapons charging and planetfall ordnance bays in readiness--continued to accelerate, making best speed for Haven.

  From The Book of Ages:

  It was long a characteristic of many cultures to build, to work at improving their know-how and their conditions of life. This was true of numerous cultures on Haven. Such efforts and their results, however, depended on more than intelligence, hard work, and self-discipline. Whether of citizens or tribesmen, such efforts depended on a degree of peace and hope, and on compatible government. On Haven, these crashed under the impact of the Saurons.

  The short-term impact in particular varied with location. A few cultures in remote fringes of habitability--the Dinneh for example, and Maitreya’s people--would not even hear of the Saurons for decades. But in the vast Shangri-La Valley, awareness was prompt and the impact immediate. That impact was heaviest on those who lived, and in many cases quickly died, in and near the valley’s centers of government and technology.

  Even in the Shangri-La Valley, however, there were those who, at the time of the invasion, dwelt or worked or traveled in back areas away from such centers. For them, the full meaning of the Sauron invasion took longer to sink in. . . .

  THE RAILROAD, John Dalmas

  Fedor Demidov sat with a book open in his lap, watching out the window as the railroad coach rocked and swayed its slow way up a grade. The terrain and forest outside could have been approximated in numerous places in his native Novy Rossiya: high hills that by some would be called mountains, and forest largely of the common Haven “pine.” To his practiced eye, the area they were crossing had been clearcut about, oh, eighty years previously, and the replacement stand thinned at about age fifty, for fuel. In states like Novy Finlandia--Uusi Suomi; he’d have to watch himself on that. In states like Uusi Suomi, where forest was plentiful, forest thinnings, logging debris, and sawmill waste were the usual fuel in rural villages. In fact, they were much used in towns as well. Electricity was cheap enough, but electric cook-stoves were very expensive.

  There was a patter of quiet Finnish conversations in the car, which was mostly empty. Uusi Suomi’s Foreign Ministry had reserved it for the two small groups of technical people: the one Demidov was with, and one made up of mining engineers, including a consultant from New Nevada. From the far end of the car, the consultant was holding forth loudly. Demidov allowed it to annoy him; the man was arrogant and offensive, as well as loud.

  They were in the second of the two passenger cars. Demidov had the impression that the other was empty, except for the conductor who apparently had an office compartment in it. The rest of the train was of log cars; he could see them out the window, rounding a curve his own car had rounded moments earlier. They’d picked them up from different sidings along the line, and would leave them at the next sawmill they came to. On iron-poor Haven, where forest too was not abundant, lumber was valuable, and the management of forests quite technical and organized.

  A voice began to speak from the loudspeaker at one end of the car, but he paid it little heed. It was in Finnish, a language in which he knew only a few polite phrases learned especially for this trip. Its rapid, tonal staccato and grammatical inflections hid even the scattered technical words it had in common with Russian and Americ.

  Demidov glanced at Anna Vuorinen, the young interpreter in the seat facing his, and her stricken expression jerked his attention. She stared toward the loudspeaker behind him, and he turned as if looking might enlighten him. Virtually every other person in the coach was looking that way too, he realized now, and the conversations had died.

  He turned back to the young woman as the speaker went silent. “What was it, Anna?” he asked in quiet Russian.

  “Pirates,” she said. “Extra-atmospheric fighter craft have been reported from several locations, and have engaged military aircraft near Fort Kursk.”

  Engaged! That meant destroyed; extra-atmospheric fighters would be infinitely superior to anything that any state of Haven could put in the air. For a moment, resentment flared in Demidov. Not at the pirates, but at the Imperium that had left the planet undefended.

  Pirates were an aberration, but there had always been such aberrations, such predators, among humans. And the Imperium knew it. Yet some wretched bureaucrat in--what? The Ministry of State? Of War? Some faceless imperial bureaucrats had decided that the forty or so million citizens on Haven were not worth a squadron to protect them.

  He overlooked that he was a bureaucrat himself. A bureaucrat was always the other person, usually someone you didn’t know.

  And Anna Vuorinen’s husband was an officer in the Finnish air force. She’d mentioned that while they were getting acquainted at the Ministry of Forests the day before. So it was hardly suprising that the news had shaken her. But the border of Uusi Suomi was two thousand kilometers from Fort Kursk, and there were various places in the vast Shangri-La Valley that offered better looting.

  He was thinking of pointing that out, when the conductor entered the car, a blocky man, gray of hair and mustache. He walked past the seated Demidov and his interpreter, stopping close ahead to talk to Veikko Ikola, Demidov’s guide and principal host on this trip. Ikola lacked a doctorate, but as a silviculturist, an ecological engineer specializing in the management of forests, his reputation was international. He was said to look through the innumerable apparencies and recognize the key relevancies, then formulate working solutions more surely than anyone else in the profession. Which was why Demidov was there--to visit representative sites on the ground, ask questions and hopefully learn.

  Ikola’s conversation with the conductor was in Finnish of course, but he glanced at the Russian while they spoke. Then the conductor went on to talk to the man in charge of the group around the mining consultant from New Nevada.

  Ikola stepped over and sat down next to Anna Vuorinen, across from Demidov. Although the Finn read technical papers in Americ well enough, in general conversation he used it clumsily, having particular difficulty following it when spoken. Thus the interpreter.

  “Perhaps,” Ikola said through her, “you would prefer to return to Hautaharju. Considering the pirate raid.” On a world like Haven, with little or no high-tech military capacity, a mere raid by space pirates could be far more devastating than an earnest war between local states. “Our train will lay over at Tammipuro where we will eat while it recharges its storage batteries. There will be a southbound train there. We can go back on it.”

  “Do you consider that there is danger to your country?” Demidov asked. “Or to mine?”

  Ikola shrugged and answered, this time in Americ. “Probably not. It is hard to know.”

  Demidov nodded. “I prefer to continue. I t
raveled 620 kilometers by rail, plus whatever we have come today. I would not care to return with nothing accomplished.”

  Ikola nodded, and returned to his seat across the aisle, where Demidov’s two other hosts sat, the tall and massive Reino Dufva and the similarly tall but rangy Kaarlo Lytikainen.

  By now the conductor had finished what he’d had to say to the other group. The mining engineer, Migruder was his name, Carney Migruder, was laughing, a loud braying laugh that grated Demidov’s nerves like fingernails on chalkboard.

  The laugh ended with a long string of “huh huh huhs,” releasing the Russian, and he glanced again at Anna Vuorinen. An attractive young woman, though not quite pretty. More interesting to him was her background. Her Finnish name had come with marriage.

  Her background was as Russian as his own, though very different. Her spoken Russian was soft, the effect of having begun life among the peasant sectarians of “Pikku Venaja.” They were descendants of Russian religious deportees forcibly relocated on Haven more than five hundred years earlier. Entirely enclosed within the borders of Uusi Suomi, the sectarians remained calmly unabsorbed, culturally and linguistically. There was constant attrition, of course, of young people in reaction to the rigid rules of the sect. They went to the towns or to Russian-speaking states, and were assimilated. Anna’s parents had broken away late, she’d said; they’d been nearly thirty, with three living children.

  But the community remained closed, impenetrable from the outside, and the Finns had never tried to Finnicize them. The Pikku Venalaiset were hard working and productive, and used their land well. That was enough for the Finns.

  Demidov had asked her to speak the dialect for him, and had understood only a little of it. It was quaint to an extreme. According to her it was not greatly changed from the mother tongue, at least in vocabulary and grammar. They still read the ancient bible--in Cyrillic!-- chanted prayers and hymns from ancient books, and recited a catechism centuries old. Apparently even pronunciations had not changed much; according to Anna, speech still largely fitted the ancient spellings.