Timothy Zahn - Blackcollar - The Blackcollar

"But how could they have known?" Tremayne snarled. His voice showed he, too, knew they were finished.

"Because I sent them the location almost twenty hours ago," Lathe said calmly.

Caine spun to face the blackcollar, his hand falling to his laser butt. "You what?"

"Relax," Lathe advised, "and take another look. It's not what you think."

Frowning, Caine looked back at the screen. The warship, nearly Nova-class size itself, was growing clearer by the second as its delicately spined ellipsoid form began to fill the display.

It was Nmura who spotted it. "That's not a Ryqril design," he said, sounding puzzled. "At least" not one I've ever seen."

"No reason why it should be," Lathe told him. "It's a Chryselli ship."

"A Chryselli?" Nmura gasped. "What in hell is a Chryselli doing here?"

And it all clicked together. "Dodds!" Caine whooped. "That's where he's been—whistling up some help!"

Lathe stepped to the communications board and made an adjustment. "Comsquare Damon Lathe aboard Chainbreaker I to Frank Dodds; come in, please."

Dodds had clearly been waiting; almost instantly the small communications screen came alive with his broadly smiling image. "Dodds to Lathe and Chainbreaker I," his voice boomed from the speaker, sounding as relieved as Caine felt. "Glad you could make it. What's the situation?"

"We've got a number of Corsairs vectoring in on us, but I don't think they've got anything heavier in the system," Lathe said. "Can you hold them off until we get the Novas activated?"

Dodds turned his head and said something inaudible to the alien figures moving around in the background. "My hosts say it should be no problem," he said, turning back to the screen. "But you'd better get moving; we sneaked past some pretty big ships getting in and I want those Novas ready before the Ryqril send for reinforcements."

"Right." Lathe nodded to Nmura. "You heard the man, Commander. Get your teams organized and start checking those ships out. I can handle the bridge for now."

"Yes, sir." Nmura sent Tremayne a questioning look. "There's a lot of nontechnical work your people could help with, if you're willing."

"All right." Tremayne gave Lathe a look that was not quite hostile. "With your permission, of course, Comsquare." Turning, he followed Nmura out the door. Leaving Lathe and Caine alone with the bridge crew.

"I see your leadership style hasn't lost its old ramtank-like charm," Dodds said dryly.

"He's just a little disgruntled," Lathe said. "I'm sure he'll feel better when what we've accomplished finally hits him." He stretched tiredly and looked at Caine. "You can leave, too, if you'd like. Mordecai and the others will be down there watching out for possible collie agents, and they could probably use another pair of eyes."

Caine nodded. "Sure." He hesitated. "Before I go, though, I'd like to apologize for certain of the things I've said and thought about both of you these past few weeks. I realize now why you had to keep your plans secret, with Bakshi and the other spies still loose. But I didn't understand at the time."

Lathe waved a hand. "Forget it—you don't get a red-eyed dragon in order to become popular."

"The first time on the battlefield's always pretty rough, Caine," Dodds added. "You look like you survived okay—better than some I've seen."

"Thanks." Caine looked back at Lathe. "For the record, though, I wish you'd told us about the Chryselli ship three hours ago. By then it was too late for the Ryqril to do anything about it, and it would have done my blood pressure a lot of good."

"I had my reasons." Lathe shrugged.

"Mainly a promise to me," Dodds murmured unexpectedly.

"Dodds—"

"No, Lathe, it's all right," Dodds assured the blackcollar quietly. "It's bound to come out now anyway. And with these new ships the situation's considerably changed."

Caine looked back and forth between the two men... and the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. There was only one man Lathe could have sent to ask for Chryselli aid; only one man from Plinry who knew enough about the aliens to present the request; only one man the Chryselli themselves could conceivably have known, let alone trusted....

Lathe still looked doubtful, but Dodds was studying Caine's face, and his half smile showed he knew Caine had figured it out. Squaring his shoulders, Caine faced the screen and gave Dodds his best salute. "I'm honored to meet you at last, General Lepkowski," he said. "It appears reports of your death have been somewhat premature."

On the ship's blueprints it was the number three officers' lounge; but with its lights out and the protective hull-metal dome retracted it became a fantasy world that was part observation deck, part planetarium, and part private sanctum. The stars seemed to crowd in toward the clear plastic hemisphere, and Caine could imagine the nearest asteroids to be parts of a free-form mobile. In the near distance one of the other Novas was visible, dwarfing the two freighters lying alongside like tender-craft. Half hidden below the dome's rim he could see the Chryselli ship, maintaining its silent vigil against a resumption of the attacks that had already cost the Ryqril a half wing of Corsairs.

Unseen in the starlight, the lounge door slid open and closed. Caine tensed; but as the shadowy figure silently approached he relaxed. "Hello, Lathe," he said into the darkness.

"Hello. I thought I'd find you here." The blackcollar slid into a seat across from Caine.

Caine nodded. He'd spent a lot of time here in the past couple of days—ever since he discovered the Novak had such a room, as a matter of fact. It was a good place to think... and he had a lot of thinking to do. "What's on your mind?" he asked.

"You. I hear you're not happy with our negotiation position."

Caine sighed. "Oh, I don't know. It's all right as far as it goes, I suppose. It would be nice to open up interstellar travel a little, of course, and I certainly agree that the TDE's economy could use the boosts you're asking for. It just seems to me we could be demanding a hell of a lot more."

"Such as demanding the Ryqril pull entirely out of TDE space?"

Caine felt his face reddening. "Yeah, I suppose I was thinking that," he admitted. "I always envisioned this mission as the stroke that would bring back the pre-war TDE."

"It would have been nice," Lathe agreed. "But I'm afraid the real world doesn't work that way. If we'd demanded anything that drastic they would have had no choice but to hit us with whatever it took to destroy us. That would've gained the Chryselli a brief respite at best and gained us nothing at all. But don't mistake a backdoor approach for surrender." Lathe's silhouette gestured toward the stars. "With the two ships we're giving the Chryselli the Ryqril war machine is going to be tied up even tighter over there, slowing their response time drastically to events in the TDE. The Novas and the eased restrictions on interstellar travel will meanwhile let us coordinate planetary resistance efforts like we never could before." In the dark Caine sensed, rather than saw, Lathe's smile. "What exactly will come out of a mixture like that I can't predict, but the point is that our end of the deal is a lot better than it looks."

"Maybe." Caine hesitated. "Tell me about Dodds."

Lathe understood. "Not much to tell, really," he said. "New Karachi was under siege, and I was assigned to get Lepkowski to a secondary command post that had been set up. We had to cut through two units of Ryqril assault troops to get through... it cost what was left of my squad." Even at a distance of thirty-five years Caine could hear the pain the memory evoked. "And then, half an hour later, the Groundfire attack began. When it ended so did official resistance on Plinry." He fell silent.