Walter Williams - Conventions of War

By then the others had drunk enough sorghum wine to make this seem both plausible and hilarious. They discussed the idea for an hour before breaking up.

By the time Sula and Casimir reached their safe house, her mood had sobered. When he came into the room from the shower-she always made him shower before bed-he found her sitting on a chair holding theju yao pot that she’d rescued from her old apartment. She looked at her dark, distorted reflection in the crackled surface, and her fingers slid blindly over its contours.

Casimir stepped up behind her and put his long hands on her shoulders. She put the pot on a scarred old table, took one of his hands in her own and brushed against the knuckles with her cheek.

“Do we really know what we’re doing?” she said. “Those people in Remba-they died because of whatwe did. Tens of thousands of them. And tonight we met to plan more trouble, and for all we know, another city will be destroyed as a result.”

His fingers clasped hers. “The Fleet will come soon,” he said.

“In that case,” Sula said, “what’s the point of what we’re doing? The war will be decided off the planet.”

“We’re killing Naxids. I thought that’s what you wanted.” One long pale hand caressed her hair. “I never expected to live as long as Sergius,” he said. “I always thought it would be torture and the garotte before I was thirty. If you and I die together in this war, it doesn’t change anything for me. It’s better than dying alone.”

Tears burned her eyes. She rose from the chair and pressed herself against him, inhaling the scent of soap and his wine-scented breath. His arms came around her.

“Don’t be sad,” he said. “The Naxids are afraid of us. That’s why they hit Remba.”

Her hands formed fists behind his back. “I want it to mean something,” she said. “I want to do something the Fleet can’t do even if they bring a million ships to Zanshaa.”

“Build your cannon.” There was laughter in his voice. “We’ll blast their committee and their Convocation halfway to the ring.”

His words brought a rising sense of steadiness to stand against her confusion. She leaned on him as if he were a wall and wiped the tears from her eyes.

Fighting the hot swelling that had lodged in her throat, she said, “The original plan called for an army to hold Zanshaa. The government decided not to build an army, but we’ve built one now. Let’s do something with it. Let’s take the High City.”

Again he seemed vastly amused. “Take the High City? Why not?”

Angered flashed through her at the laughter that danced behind his word. “Don’t condescend,” she said.

“Condescend?” He pulled away, and she saw an answering anger that smoldered in his eyes. “We’ll take the High City. Fine. Or we’ll build a cannon. Fine. Or we’ll do something else. I don’t care. But whatever we do, let’sdo it and stop asking ourselves questions.”

She looked into the dark eyes for a long moment, then pressed her mouth to his.

A strange, unexpected happiness pulsed through her blood. I am home, she thought, home after all this time.

Home amid the war, with its chaos and instability, its danger and terror. Home in this safe house, with its old, dingy furniture. Home in Casimir’s arms.

She tore her lips away from the kiss. Calculations were already spinning through her mind.

“Yes,” she said, “we’ll take the rock, and kill them all.”

Chenforce flashed through the wormhole to join the Righteous and Orthodox Fleet of Vengeance in their orbit around Chijimo’s star, and were promptly met by a massive flight of missiles, roaring toward them like a hellish blood tide bent on slaughter-and then the missiles reversed, decelerated, and hovered alongside the newcomers like sheep dogs escorting the flock to their pen. Chenforce recovered them all to fill their depleted magazines.

Six days later Chenforce joined the Fleet proper, slotting into the loose formation between the flag squadron and the next astern, and were met by tenders sent out from Chijimo with supplies of fresh food, liquor, and delicacies for the officers. Even the antimatter stores were topped up, though the ships could still run for years on the antihydrogen already in their fuel reservoirs.

With the arrival of Chenforce, the Orthodox Fleet now constituted twenty-eight ships, half of them newly built and crewed. It was the largest collection of loyalist ships since the Home Fleet had launched for Magaria.

After a few hours in which the crew of Chenforce luxuriated in reasonably fresh fruit and vegetables only partially compressed by acceleration, Supreme Commander Tork ordered Michi Chen, all captains, and all first lieutenants, aboard his flagship, theJudge Urhug.

Martinez and the others spangled themselves in dress uniforms and then visited Dr. Xi for spray bottles of a concoction that would deaden their senses of taste and smell-an entire ship crowded with Daimong was a formidable terror to the senses.

The party waited inDaffodil till the last plausible minute before casting off and making their way to the flagship. Martinez noticed that the other Terran and Torminel captains had likewise delayed their arrival.

At the airlock, a Daimong chorus cried out a song of joyous welcome. The sound was both deafening and magnificent, but a disturbing odor of decay was already clawing its way up the back of Martinez’s throat. One of Tork’s staff lieutenants took the new arrivals along corridors strung with wire and conduits to Tork’s suite, where everyone from Tork on down braced to salute Martinez’s Orb.

The table was a clear plastic over a metal framework, and the chairs were plastic too, curved for the comfort of the Daimong anatomy. The metal walls were painted a bilious shade that Martinez could only think of as government green, and ornamented with photos of Tork ancestors, framed degrees and certificates that Tork had been awarded at various points along his career path, and pictures of ships that Tork had commanded.

It was a far cry from the luxurious flagships of the recent past, with their parquet floors, custom artwork commissioned by well-known painters and designers, and exquisite hand-made furniture.Judge Urhug had been built quickly, sprayed with the cheapest paint available, and filled with mass-produced furniture just intelligent enough to hang onto the floor in the event of weightlessness. The urgency of war permitted little else.

“Take your seats, my lords,” Tork said. Strips of dead flesh dangled from his face. His fixed expression seemed fierce, but his voice was a mellow chiming, like distant bells.

Martinez laid the Golden Orb on the table before him and perched gingerly on a chair more suited to the narrower Daimong frame. The ghastly smell was now clogging the back of his throat. He cleared it and took a sip of the water that had been provided in each place.

“I have reviewed Squadron Commander Chen’s report,” Tork said, “as well as reports filed by the individual captains. I am compelled to observe that the record of Chenforce is like no other I have ever encountered.”

At these words Martinez felt a certain optimism rise. Perhaps Tork had mellowed in the last months. Perhaps the success of the raid had convinced him to look on Chenforce as an example to the rest of the Fleet.

“Chenforce has destroyed many of the wormhole relay stations on which our civilization depends,” Tork said. “It has destroyed a planetary accelerator ring and killed many, perhaps most, of the inhabitants of Bai-do. Aboard the flagship we find officers-including the captain! — killed by the crew, murderers who were permitted to run free and to continue their vicious activities for months before paying for their crime. These same enlisted crew were involved in a continuous string of felonies, extortions, and a treasonous partnership with Naxid rebels. We even have evidence of cult activity aboard the ship, sure evidence that the officers did not properly indoctrinate the crew in their responsibilities to the Fleet and to the Praxis.”