Rest a while; sleep if they could. She could not. She was glad when the summons came.
It was a strange feeling, to stand again in the corridors of Europe, stranger still to find herself in the company of all the others seated in the flagship’s council room… an eerie and panicky feeling, this meeting of all of them who had been working together unmet these many years, who had so zealously avoided each other’s vicinities except for brief rendezvous for the passing of orders ship to ship. In recent years it was unlikely that Mazian himself had known where all his fleet was, whether particular ships survived the missions on which they were sent… or what mad operations they might be undertaking solo. They had been less a fleet than a guerrilla operation, skulking and striking and running.
Now they were here, the last ten, the survivors of the maneuvers — herself; Tom Edger of Australia, lean and grim-faced; big Mika Kreshov of Atlantic, perpetually scowling; Carlo Mendez of North Pole, a small, dark man of quiet manner. There was Chenel of Libya, who had gone on rejuv — his hair had turned entirely silver since she had seen him a year ago; there was dark-skinned Porey of Africa, an incredibly grim man… cosmetic surgery after wounds was not available in the Fleet. Keu of India, silk-soft and confident; Sung of Pacific, all efficiency; Kant of Tibet, another of Sung’s stamp.
And Conrad Mazian. Silver-haired with rejuv, a tall, handsome man in dark blue, who leaned his arms on the table and swept a slow glance over them. It was intended for effect; possibly it was sincere affection, that open look. Dramatic sense and Mazian were inseparable; the man lived by it. Knowing him, knowing the manner of him, Signy still found herself drawn in by the old excitement.
No preliminaries, no statement of welcome, just that look and a nod. “Folders are in front of you,” Mazian said. “Closest security: codes and coordinates are in those. Carry them back with you and familiarize your key personnel with the details, but don’t discuss anything ship to ship. Key your comps for alternatives A, B, C, and so on, and go to them by that according to the situation. But we don’t reckon to be using those alternatives. Things are set up as they should be. Schematic — ” He called an image to the screen before them, showed them the familiar area of their recent operations, which by stripping away vital personnel and leaving chaos on the stations left one lone untampered station like the narrowing of a funnel toward Pell, toward the wide straggle of Hinder Stars. One station. Viking. Signy had figured the pattern long since, the tactic old as Earth, old as war, impossible for Union to resist, for they could not allow vacuum in power, could not allow the stations they had struggled to gain to fall into disorder, plundered of technicians and directors and security forces, deliberately allowed to collapse. Union had started this game of station-taking. So they had rammed stations down Union’s throat; Union had then to move in or have stations lost, had to supply techs and other skilled personnel, to replace the ones evacuated. And ships to guard them, quickly, one after the other. Union had had to stretch even its monster capacity to hold what it had been given to digest.
It had had to take Viking whole, with all the internal complications of a station never evacuated… take it latest, because by ramming stations down Union’s gullet in their own rapid sequence, they had dictated the sequence and direction of Union’s moves of ships and personnel.
Viking had been last.
Central to the others, with desolation about it, stations struggling to survive.
“All indication is,” Mazian said softly, “that they have decided to fortify Viking; logical choice: Viking’s the only one with its comp files complete, the only one where they’ve had a chance to round up all the dissidents, all the resistance, where they could apply their police tactics and card everyone, instantly. Now it’s all clean, all sanitary for their base of operations; we’ve let them throw a lot into it; we take out Viking, and hit at the others, that are hanging by a thread in terms of viability… and then there’s nothing but far waste between us and Fargone; between Pell and Union. We make expansion inconvenient, costly; we herd the beast to its wider pastures in the other direction… while we can. You have your specific instructions in the folders. The fine details may have to be improvised within certain limits, according to what might turn up in your sectors. Norway, Libya, India, unit one; Europe, Tibet, Pacific, two; North Pole, Atlantic, Africa, three; Australia has its own business. If we’re lucky we won’t face anything at our rear, but every contingency is covered. This is going to be a long session; that’s why I let you rest. We’ll simulate until there are no more questions.”
Signy drew a slow breath and released it, opened the folder and in the silence Mazian afforded them to do so, scanned the operation as it was set up, her lips pressed to a thinner and thinner line. No need for drilclass="underline" they knew what they were about, variations on old themes they had all run separately. But this was navigation that would try all their skill, a mass strike, a precision of arrival not synched, but separate, disaster if jumpships came near each other, if an object of mass like the enemy just happened to be in the vicinity. They were going to flash in close enough to Viking to give the opposition no options, skin the hair off disaster. The presence of any enemy ship where it statistically ought not to be, the deployment of ships out from station in unusual configurations… all manner of contingencies. They took into account too the positions of worlds and satellites in the system on their arrival date, to screen themselves where possible. To flash out of jump space with nerves still sluggish, to haul dazed minds into action and try to plot instantly the location of friend and enemy, to coordinate an attack so precisely that some of them were going to overjump Viking and some underjump it, come in from all sides at once, from the same start -
They had one advantage over Union’s sleek, new ships, the fine equipment, the unscarred young crews, tape-trained, deeptaught with all the answers. The Fleet had experience, could move their patched ships with a precision Union’s fine equipment had not yet matched, with nerve Union conservatism and adherence to the book discouraged in its captains.
They might lose a carrier in this kind of operation, maybe more than one, come jolting in too close, take each other out The odds were in favor of its happening. They rode Mazian’s Luck… that it would not. That was their edge, that they would do what no one sane could do, and shock aided them.
The schematics appeared, one after the other. They argued, for the most part listened and accepted, for there was little to which they wished to object. They shared a meal, returned to the briefing room, argued the last round.
“One day for rest,” Mazian said. “We go at maindawn, day after tomorrow. Set it up in comp; check and doublecheck.”
They nodded, parted company, each to his own ship, and there was a peculiar flavor to the parting as well… that when next they met, they would be fewer.
“See you in hell,” Chenel muttered, and Porey grinned.
A day to get it all into comp; and the appointment was waiting.
Chapter Five
Ayres awoke, not sure what had wakened him in the quiet of their apartments. Marsh had gotten back… the latest fright they had had, when he failed to rejoin them after recreation. Tension afflicted Ayres. He realized that for some time he had slept tense, for his shoulders hurt and his hands were clenched, and he lay still now with sweat gathered on his face, not sure what had caused it