Walter Williams - The Sundering

“No I don’t,” she said, “and Iam a Fleet officer.”

“Ah.” Greyjean munched toast, which caused more of his consonants to disappear than usual. “Well, I always thought so.” He gave a watery glance around his room. “Would you like to sit down, my lady?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She perched on the edge of an elderly, overstuffed chair; Greyjean sat on a small sofa. “I’m here to fight the Naxids, you see,” Sula said. He nodded. “So,” she continued, “the Naxids might well come looking for me.”

Greyjean nodded. “Well yes, that makes sense.”

“And if they do…” Sula handed him the newssheet, neatly folded into quarters. “Could you put this in your kitchen window, so that I could see it from the outside?”

Greyjean contemplated the thin plastic rectangle. “In the window, you say?”

“Yes. You could keep it by the window, you know, and then just prop it up if the Naxids come.”

Light colors were recommended for these sorts of signals: the white plastic sheet would stand out well against practically any background.

Greyjean rose from his sofa and shuffled toward the kitchen, his plate in one hand and the newssheet in the other. Sula followed. Greyjean put the sheet in the window, pinning it in place with a terra-cotta pot that held a ficus.

“Will this do, my lady?” he asked.

“Yes, but only if the Naxids come.”

“Of course, yes.” He took the white rectangle out of the window and placed it under the potted plant. “I’ll just keep it there,” he said.

“Thank you, Mr. Greyjean.”

Greyjean shrugged and took another bite of his toast. “My pleasure, my lady.”

Sula reached into her pocket, took out a twenty-zenith coin, and put it on his plate. His eyes widened.

“Twentyzeniths?” he said. “Are you sure, my lady?”

He might never have held twenty zeniths in his hand in his life.

“Of course,” Sula said. “You’re entitled. You’re working for the government now.” She winked. “Thereal government.”

For a long moment Greyjean considered the apparition on his plate, and then took the coin and slipped it into his pocket. “I always wanted government service,” he said, “but I never had the right schooling.”

Chenforce sped from Aspa Darla Wormhole 2 into Bai-do, the ships coming in hot, their radars pounding away as they began maneuvering the instant they passed the wormhole. Martinez had his eyes fixed on the displays, and in the radio spectrum found, as he suspected, a black, dead system, with the only radio sources being the system’s star and its single inhabited planet. He switched to optical and infrared censors, and found rather more. Large numbers of merchant ships burned at high accelerations for wormholes leading out of the system.

“Targets,” Martinez reported, and with a sweep of his fingers so categorized them on the tactical display.

“Assign targets to weapons officers within the squadron,” Michi said. “Tell them to launch missiles when ready.”

And in the meantime the familiar message had automatically been broadcast, and was being repeated every few minutes:“All ships docked at the ring station are to be abandoned and cast off so that they may be destroyed without damage to the ring. All repair docks and building yards will be opened to the environment and any ships inside will be cast off…”

The Naxids at Bai-do had known they were coming for days and had ordered everyone in the system to switch off their radars. It would be many hours before Martinez had a complete picture of the system. He had very little anxiety on that score, since they’d entered through a wormhole that was at a great distance from the system’s sun, and any warships guarding the system would be much closer in.

“…Any ship attempting to flee will be destroyed…”

For the first two days Bai-do seemed a repeat of Aspa Darla. No warships were discovered. Merchant ships in flight were destroyed, and most crews had enough warning to escape in lifeboats. No drunken Captain Hansen appeared on comm to object to the annihilation of his vessel. Large numbers of ships were cast off from Bai-do’s ring, and a pair of pinnaces were launched fromJudge Arslan to inspect the ring and to make certain orders were carried out.

A modest round of dinners and parties continued, though under strict orders for superior officers to restrain the amount of drinking as long as the squadron was in enemy space. Martinez played host to a party of lieutenants and cadets aboardDaffodil, and Fletcher once more had Michi and her staff as guests for a formal supper.

“Your ring will be inspected to make certain that you have complied with these orders…”

The crew ofIllustrious was reasonably light of heart when they strapped into their action stations for the two pinnaces’ closest approach to Bai-do. The pinnaces would pass no closer than a quarter of a light-second, but the powerful sensors on the small craft would be able to see perfectly well into the open hangar bays, yards, and docks, and relay the information to the flagship.

After supper at Fletcher’s table, Martinez felt heavy-lidded and drowsy in the warmth of his vac suit, and he adjusted the internal atmosphere to a more bracing temperature. The two signals lieutenants murmured in soft voices as the pinnaces, on their approach, began feedingIllustrious packets of intelligence from their communications lasers. Idly, Martinez moved the pinnaces’ feed onto his displays, and only then noticed the flashes in the corner of his tactical display.

“Missile flares!” Martinez said in perfect astonishment. “Missile flares from the station!”

His drowsiness was inundated by a wave of adrenaline that slammed into his bloodstream with the force of a tsunami engulfing a coral atoll. Martinez banished the pinnace feeds from his display and enlarged the tactical array. The accelerator ring had fired a pair of missiles, each clearly aimed at one of the approaching pinnaces.

“All ships!” Martinez said. “Defensive weaponry to target those missiles!”

It was an order he felt he could safely give without Michi’s approval. Michi herself was shouting to her signals officers.

“Message to Ring Command! You will disable those missilesimmediately …”

Too late, Martinez thought. The display showed an event that had happened twenty-three minutes ago. By the time Michi’s message flashed the twenty-three light-minutes back to the ring station, the missiles and the two defenseless boats would have had their rendezvous.

It was barely possible that the squadron’s defensive lasers might knock down one or another of the missiles, but guessing where a jinking missile would be in twenty-three minutes was a task better suited for a fortune-teller than a weapons officer…

The voices of the Terran pinnace pilots crackled into life in Martinez’s headset, announcing in voices of surprising tranquillity the appearance of the missiles. They would attempt evasive accelerations, all the while continuing their automatic scan of the Bai-do ring with their sensor arrays.

Any evasion was pointless. In order to avoid the streaking missiles, the pinnaces would have to accelerate so heavily as to crush their passengers. The only hope for the pilots was that the missiles weren’t actually trying to kill them, but to create a screen between the pinnaces and the ring station in order to prevent observation.

After Michi’s message was sent to Ring Command, there was a sudden cold silence in the Flag Officer Station.

“…Failure to obey orders will mean the destruction of the ring…”

The remembered words burned through Martinez’s mind like fire.

The threat had been made. But a threat meant nothing unless there was the will to carry it out.