Kangas’s ships were ready for a fight. The five survivors of the Home Fleet burned to avenge their defeat at Magaria, and Do-faq’s seven ships were confident of victory, having already wiped out a Naxid squadron at the Lai-own home world of Hone-bar.
Kangas succeeded in arriving first, placing his forces between Antopone and the arriving Naxids. The raiders—seven frigates led by a light cruiser—arrived in the system to find twelve heavy cruisers driving for them head-on, with barrages of missiles already launched.
The Fleet Control Board, in their meeting room onGalactic, watched the battle courtesy of the amazingly detailed spectra gathered by detectors on the Antopone ring, and projected in three-dimensional holographic images above the board’s long table. The illusion that they were watching in real time was perfect, and Lord Chen had to keep reminding himself that the battle had in fact occurred fifteen hours before. They saw the missiles launched at a target that had not as yet appeared through the wormhole, the Naxid squadron entering “hot” with radars and ranging lasers hammering, and then a frenzy of countermissile firings and maneuvers as the Naxid commander rearranged his formation.
“The Naxid’s pissing his pants by now,” Pezzini said with satisfaction.
“No!”Tork cried, his melodious voice edged with an uncanny shimmering quality that Lord Chen had never heard before. Chen stared at him, and then at the display.
“Starburst,” Pezzini said critically. “And damned early too.”
The compact bundle of ships that was Kangas’s command were separating, flying apart like the casing of an exploded bomb.
“Kangas may just have lost the war!” Tork said. Anger buzzed in his voice. “He has shamed us before our ancestors!”
Chen knew that warships usually clumped together in rigid formations that enabled the commander to communicate with them, and that at some point in a battle the ships would “starburst”: separate from one another in order to provide a less compact target. He also knew that his son-in-law, Captain Martinez, had devised a new tactical system based on the ships separating from one another early and engaging in maneuvers governed by some rather obscure branches of mathematics. Lord Tork and other conservative officers were bitterly opposed to these new ideas.
“Do-faq has corrupted Kangas!” Tork said. “Do-faq, who was corrupted by Martinez and has practiced these innovations! The fleetcom has fallen a victim to these dangerous new fashions!”
“The Home Fleet’s advantage was in numbers,” Pezzini remarked. “Kangas has thrown that all away. With his ships separated that way, each is fighting on its own.”
Chen remained silent. The battle had been foughthours ago, he reminded himself.
The opposing forces, hurtling toward each other, closed the distance rapidly. Missiles found each other in the spaces between the contending squadrons, creating expanding spheres of hot expanding plasma and radio hash. The Naxid force disappeared from the display as the missile burst screened them from the sensors on the Antopone ring. More missiles hurled themselves into the gap between the racing squadrons, and the plasma screen broadened and thickened.
Eventually the Home Fleet flew into the screen, and vanished as if an invisible hand had wiped it from existence.
“Damn,” Pezzini said, rather clinically.
No one else spoke. Even Tork could find no words.
Then the plasma screen began to cool and disperse, and gradually—winking into existence on the holographic display like a distant flight of fluorescent insects—the Home Fleet reappeared, one ship after another, their torches now pointed away from the planet, decelerating.
One,Lord Chen counted to himself,two, three…five. Eight! Ten!
Ten survivors of the Home Fleet were now narrowing their dispersed formation as they approached the wormhole that would take them in the direction of Zarafan.
Of the Naxids there was no sign.
“We wiped them out!” Lord Chen blurted. “It’s a victory!”
“Damn Kangas!” Tork said. “Damn him! He’s lost two ships!”
It was only a short time later that Squadron Commander Do-faq’s report reachedGalactic. The Home Fleet had wiped out eight enemy ships and lost two of their own.
And one of the casualties was the flagship. Lord Eino Kangas had died in the act of giving the Home Fleet its one and only victory.
Invitations went out in the morning, sent to all the senior petty officers. An invitation for drinks with their new captain, set for an hour before supper, was not something the customs of the service would let them decline, and decline they did not. The last affirmative reply came within minutes of the invitations being sent out.
The touchstone dramatical, Martinez thought. The scene climactic.
The petty officers entered the dining room more or less in a clump: round-faced Gawbyan with his spectacular mustachios, Strode with his bowl haircut, burly Francis, thin, nervous Cho. Some of them were surprised to find the ship’s secretary Marsden waiting with his datapad in his hands.
The guests sorted themselves out in order of seniority, with the highest-ranked standing near Martinez at the head of the table. Gulik was on his right, across from Master Cook Yau, with Gawbyan and Strode the next pair down, one grand set of mustachios confronting another; and then Zhang and Nyamugali. Near the bottom of the table was the demoted Francis.
Martinez looked at them all as they stood by their chairs. Francis seemed thoughtful and preoccupied, and her eyes looked anywhere but at him. Yau looked as if he had left his kitchens only reluctantly. Strode seemed determined, as if he had a clear but not entirely pleasant duty before him; and Gulik, who had been so nervous during inspections, was now almost cheerful.
Martinez picked up his glass and raised it. Pale green wine trembled in Captain Fletcher’s leaded crystal, reflecting beads of peridot-colored light over the company.
“To the Praxis,” he said.
“The Praxis,” they echoed, and drank.
Martinez took a gulp of his wine and sat. The others followed suit, including Marsden, who sat by himself to the side of the room and set his datapad to record. He picked up a stylus and stood ready to correct the datapad’s transcription of the conversation.
“You may as well keep the wine in circulation,” Martinez said, nodding to the crystal decanters set on the table. “We’ll be here for a while, and I don’t want you to go dry.”
There were murmurs of appreciation from those farther down the table, and hands reached for the bottles.
“The reason this meeting may take some time,” Martinez said, “is because like the last meeting, this is about record-keeping.”
There was a collective pause from his guests, and then a resigned, collective sigh.
“You can blame it on Captain Fletcher, if you want to,” Martinez said. “He ranIllustrious in a highly personal and distinctive way. He’d ask questions during inspections and he’d expect you to know the answers, but he never asked for any documentation. He never checked the 77-12s, and never had any of his officers do it.”
Martinez looked at his wineglass and nudged it slightly with his thumb and forefinger, putting it in alignment with some imaginary dividing line running through the room.
“The problem with a lack of documentation, though,” he said, keeping his eyes on the wineglass, “is that to a certain cast of mind, it meansprofit.” He sensed Yau stiffen on his left, and Gulik gave a little start.