"It’s very late, Alex."
"I know. Please run the simulation."
"If you insist. To opt out, you need, of course, only remove the headband." I sat down in the overstuffed chair, took the control packet from the equipment drawer in the coffee table, and inserted the jack into Jacob. "The program has a monitor. Do you wish me to sit in?"
"I don’t think that’ll be necessary." I pulled the headband into place, and switched it on.
"Activating," said Jacob.
A feminine voice, whiskey-flavored, flat, asked my name.
"Alex," I said.
Alex, close your eyes. When you open them you will be on board the Pauline Stein. Do you wish a detailed review of the war to this point?
"No, thank you."
The Stein will be functioning as the command and control ship during this operation. Do you wish to participate in the ground raid, or do you prefer to ride with the command ship?
"The command ship," I answered.
Alex, you are now on the bridge of the Stein. This program is designed to allow you simply to observe while the battle, as it has been reconstructed from available evidence, plays itself out. Or, if you prefer, we offer other options. You may take command of one of the frigates, or even assume flag responsibility and direct overall strategy, thereby possibly changing history. Which do you prefer?
"I will watch."
An excellent choice, she said.
I was alone in a forward cockpit with several battle displays. Voices crackled out of hidden speakers. The bridge opened out below me, and I could see occasional movement. A white-bearded, heavy man occupied a central seat. His face was turned away, but I could see the gleam of gold on his uniform. His posture and tone radiated command. The air was filled with voices speaking in hushed, unemotional tones.
I sat on a swivel chair within a plastic bubble. A dark, amorphous landscape moved beneath us, around us, gloomily illuminated by spasms of electricity. There was no sky, no stars, no steady light. It was a fearful place, and I was glad for the solid reassurance of the ship’s interior, the voices, the consoles, the chairpads. We are in the upper atmosphere of the super gas giant Masipol, said the Monitor. Sixth planet of Windyne. The mission target is Masipol’s eleventh moon, Hrinwhar, which orbits at a range of almost three-quarters of a million kilometers. Although the Ashiyyur do not anticipate an attack, there are major naval units in the area.
Occasionally, through what I presumed were breaks in heavy clouds, I glimpsed silver and green bands of light, a broad luminous arc that seemed to be traveling with us. Then it was gone, and in the brief glow of its passing, a universal gloom closed in.
The planetary rings, explained the Monitor. We’re climbing into orbit. They should be completely visible shortly.
Yes: moments later, shadows leaped from the surreal cloudscape. Wedges of soft radiance, and a dozen glittering belts of ice-hard light emerged.
It might have been the rainbow bridge of northern European folklore, risen from the mist, joining the horizons, overwhelming the starfields. Scarlet, yellow, and green planks were supported by a wide violet buttress. Blue and silver ribbons heightened the illusion of solidity by twisting round each other.
A few stars were scattered to the extreme north and south. And two shrunken suns were barely discernible in the glare. Coreopholi and Windyne, said the Monitor. They are known jointly as the Spinners, because both have an extremely high rotation rate. We are on the edge of the Arm, by the way, looking away from the Galaxy. This is the point of Sim’s deepest penetration into Ashiyyurean space.
Christopher Sim’s force consists of six frigates. And he has a problem: his ships have emerged from hyper within the past eight hours, and the Armstrong units are depleted. Little is known of the Dellacondan propulsion systems, but at best they will require the better part of a day before they can be used again. And he does not have time to wait.
An order of battle scrolled across my central display: the aliens have one heavy cruiser, two, and possibly three, light cruisers, seven destroyers, and thirteen to sixteen frigates. In addition there are several fleet escort vessels. The heavy cruiser itself is known to be in one of the orbiting docks, from which it can do no damage.
I knew we’d won at the Spinners, and I knew it had been against heavy odds. But that had been electronic knowledge: now I sat and watched an analysis of enemy firepower that should have utterly discouraged the Dellacondans.
"What’s it about? What was Sim trying to accomplish?"
This system attracted his interest for a variety of reasons. It houses a major enemy base, which serves as a center for logistical coordination, communications, intelligence gathering, and long range strategic planning. This facility is believed to be ill-prepared to withstand an attack, both because of its distance from the fighting, and because of Ashiyyurean psychology. At this point the war is still young, and the enemy has not yet grown accustomed to human methods. Warfare among the aliens has traditionally been carried out on a formal, ritualistic basis. Opposing forces are expected to announce their intentions well in advance, draw up on opposite sides of the battle zone, exchange salutes, and, at an agreed-upon moment, commence hostilities. Sim, of course, fights in the classical human mode. Which is to say that he cannot be trusted. He ambushes lone warships, strikes supply points, attacks without warning, and, perhaps most outrageous of all, refuses to commit himself to formal battle. In the eyes of the Ashiyyur, he is unethical.
It’s always the side with the firepower that expects everybody to line up.
The base is constructed in the center of a crater, and is difficult to detect visually. It is actually an underground city of substantial size. Population at this time is believed to be on the order of eight thousand.
Sim anticipates that a successful raid here will have highly desirable long range consequences: he expects to gain access to detailed information on enemy warships, tactical capabilities, strategic plans. Furthermore, he hopes to disrupt enemy logistics, possibly compromise communications and cryptosystems, and maybe even carry off a few high-ranking prisoners. But his primary goal is to shatter the myth of Ashiyyurean invulnerability, and thereby encourage some of the worlds who have hung back to join the cause.
Outside, against the peaceful incandescence of the rings, Sim’s gray wolves swam into view. They were long and tapered and lovely. (What had Leisha Tanner said of them? When she measured her own reaction to these instruments of war, she despaired that any of us would survive.) Clusters of beam and particle weapons projected from a dozen stations. Emblazoned on the prow of each ship was the black harridan, pinions spread in flight, eyes narrowed, claws thrust forward.
On the inmost vessel, the device stood within a silver crescent: and I could not resist a surge of pride. It was the Corsarius, Sim’s own ship, whose likeness hangs now in Marcross’s brilliant oil in the Hall of the People. (The same print, by the way, that dominated one of Hugh Scott’s walls.) The artist hadn’t done her justice, and I don’t suppose any representation could. She was magnificent: a blue and silver bullet, her sleek hull bristling with weapons clusters and communications pods. A sunburst expanded across her parabolic prow. And she looked capable of damned near anything.
You can see two other frigates, said the Monitor. They are the Straczynski and the Rappaport. Straczynski has already earned a host of commendations, but she will be destroyed, with all her crew, four days from now during the defense of Randin’hal. Rappaport mil be the only known Dellacondan vessel to survive the war. She is currently maintained as the centerpiece of the Hrinwhar Naval Museum on Dellaconda.