“The close-in will stop it . . . One down. Two. Three. Come on, baby, come on—”
The voices cut off, as if sliced. An awed voice spoke. “That’s Cape Town gone.”
The mother city, Eric thought. Cradle of the nation. Taste victory, old fool. Savor it.
“Status,” he said, without opening eyelids that felt heavier than worlds.
“Excellence, we’ve lost . . . Wotan, we’ve lost nearly half the discrete platforms out to L-5. Alliance, ninety percent down an’ falling fast. Freya bless, Excellence, if it hadn’t been fo’ the Stone Dogs”—a quaver, hastily suppressed—“there wouldn’t be anythin’ left, Excellence.”
Another stone-shaking roar of manmade thunder through the walls. Eyes darted to the screens, relaxed; the last salvo had been at low-orbit targets, ones that were unlikely to respond. Eric forced his eyes open, onto the screens. Forced his mind to paint the full picture of what the bloodless schematics meant, through the hour that followed. Your doing. Your responsibility.
A man was cursing softly. “Oh, shit, oh, shit, that’s Shanghai. Penetrator. Two. Another.”
“Northern hemisphere stations report high-incidence cloud cover—”
“I don’t believe it,” somebody said. Eric looked up; that had been soft awe, not the hard control that had settled on most. “London’s gone.”
Eric slammed a hand down on the arm of his chair. “Who ordered that? Get me their name!”
“Excellence—” the operator looked back over his shoulder; the New Race control of hormone levels must have slipped, inattention, because there was a sheen of moisture across his forehead. “Excellence, they did it themselves.”
Eric sighed and sat back, reluctantly letting go the balm of anger. “It’ll happen, if you inflict insanity on those in charge of nuclear weapons,” he said quietly.
“Multiple detonation, Japan.” A toneless voice, lost in procedure. “High-yield groundbursts. Sublevel.” A pause. “Jacketed bombs. Prelim’nry sensor data indicate radioactivity—”
The Archon listened through the figures. “Schematic on distribution, given projected wind patterns,” he said. “Give me an intensity cline, geography an’ timewise.” The deep lines beside his beak nose sank a little deeper as the maps twisted themselves. “Note to Plannin’ Board: We’ll probably have to evacuate the survivin’ shelters from the Korean Peninsula up through the Amur Valley, minimum. Draw up estimates.” The Japanese had been true to their tradition, and had taken a good deal more with them to the land of the kami than their home islands. They never liked the Koreans, anyhow, he thought.
Minutes stretched into hours, as the quiet voices and screens reported. The thunder spoke less often now, outside; more of it was being directed offensively, into space, to make up for battle stations left derelict. More and more often his eyes went to the screens that showed the cumulative effects, graphs rising steadily toward the red lines that represented estimates of what the mother planet’s biosphere could stand. Conservative estimates . . . we think, he reflected.
At last he spoke. “Strategos, a directive to the Supreme General Staff. No mo’ fusion weapons within the atmosphere. Kinetic energy bombardment only, on Priority Three targets and above.” Active military installations. “Throw rocks at them.”
“Excellence—” A glance of protest from the Staff’s representative.
Suddenly Eric felt life return, salt-bitter but strong. “Gods damn yo, that’s our planet you fuckin’ over, woman!” A dot expanded over the Hawaiian Islands. “There goes twenty-five percent of Earth’s launch capacity! Do it. Get them on the blower, do it!” What’s a few million lives in this charnel house? he asked himself mockingly. Go on, finish the job.
“If only it were that easy,” he muttered to himself. “If only.” Aloud: “I’m goin’ to catch some sleep.” Chemicals would ensure that, and these days they could bring true rest. Whether you deserve it or not.
“Wake me immediately if we get any substantial info’mation on the translunar situation.”
Even this day had to end, sometime.
BEYOND THE ORBIT OF MARS
ABOARD DASCS DIOCLETIAN
NOVEMBER 5, 1998
The bridge was still chaotic, but it was a more orderly confusion now. Merarch Gudrun von Shrakenberg took another suck at the waterbulb and glanced over at the console that had housed the main compcore; there was an ozone and scorched-plastic stink from it even hours after they had crashed it with two clips from a gauntlet gun. A bit drastic, but it had worked . . . Now the circular command chamber was festooned with jury-rigged fiberoptic cables, and a daisy chain of linked perscomps floated in the center.
“Ready?” The Infosystems Officer looked up from his task. Goddamn New Race bastard still doesn’t look tired, she thought, then caught herself. It was amazing how habits of mind stayed with you, long after the circumstances had made them irrelevant. Now everything is irrelevant, with two exceptions, she mused.
“Ready,” he affirmed, and looked down, flexing his hands.
“Sensor Officer?”
That one spoke without taking her eyes from screens that had to be manually controlled. “They’re still matching at what they think is a safe distance.” There was a vindictive satisfaction in the tone, and Gudrun nodded in agreement. Safe distance from the standard suicide bomb, but not from everything on the cruiser rigged to go at once.
She felt very tired, herself. “The rest of the squadron?”
“Still acceleratin’, Cohortarch; looks like they’ll be able to break contact.”
The Stone Dogs had scourged the enemy fleet even more drastically than the comp-plague had crippled the Draka; it was the Alliance’s civilian jackals who were closing in on the helpless Diocletian now. Miners and haulers and prospectors, fitted with a few haphazard weapons and crewed by irregulars . . . gathering like buzzards around a prey they would not dare to approach if it were hale.
“Cleon,” she said conversationally, “you were at Chateau Retour last leave, weren’t you? Met my mothah?”
“Yes, Cohortarch,” he said, making a final adjustment. “Always admired her paintings.” And he was probably sincere, considering what they were about to do.
That had been a good leave. It would be good to see home again, she thought. The vintage would be in; the fruity red of Bourgeuil, the Loire Valley Pinot Noir that smelled ever so faintly of violets.
“Actually, I was thinkin’ of somethin’ she told me about the Eurasian War. She was in tanks then, the Archonal Guard.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, they had a sayin’ . . . Is that damn fool still comin’ in to board?”
The Sensor Officer nodded. “Makes sense, actually. We’ve been givin’ a pretty good imitation of a dead ship. Be quite a prize if they could get it.”
The Infosystems Officer made an affirmative sound, then asked: “About that saying, Cohortarch?”
“Oh. ‘If you tank is out of fuel, you becomes a pillbox.’ ” Her hand closed on an improvised switch, and her eyes went to the screen. Nothing fancy, someone had chalked a line on the surface. When the blip crossed it . . . “ ‘If you out of ammunition, become a bunker. Out of hope, then become a hero.’ Service to the State!”
Her finger clenched.
“Glory to the R—”
CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 14, 1998
“So,” Eric said, looking at the head of Technical Section. The table was more crowded for this conference than it had been for the final one on the Stone Dogs. “Strategos Snappdove, what you sayin’ is basically that we in the position of a man in a desert with a bucket of water. There’s enough to get us to safety, but we got a dozen holes in the bucket and only one patch.” Somebody actually managed to laugh, until Eric stared at her for a moment with red-circled eyes.