False Colors wc-7 Read online

  Bondarevsky was a little bit surprised to find his lips moving in a silent prayer for the dead man, the first battle casualty of the Black Cats.

  The coffin drifted from view, the marines shouldered their arms, and “Amazing Grace” faded away. Geoff Tolwyn stepped forward to replace Darby and stood for a long moment in silence, surveying the audience.

  “The loss of a ship in combat is always a tragedy for the people left behind,” he began at last. “Especially when the ship was never intended to fight in the first place. Those of us who are trained to warfare regard it as our job to protect the noncombatants from harm, and failure weighs heavy on us all when we find that all of our efforts, however heroic or determined they may have been, have turned out to be to no avail.

  “Sindri was destroyed today because an enemy saw it as a way to get at us. They believed that it was the tender’s shields that were keeping us alive, and they targeted her with the deliberate intention of rendering us helpless. Every analysis of the battle that we’ve run only reinforces that statement. We were lucky enough to have our own shields up, thanks to Commander Graham and his engineering staff, but the attempt could easily have been successful. In a sense, then, the crew of Sindri died protecting us. Though she was not a fighting ship, her crew was as much a part of the Free Republic Navy as any of us, and they gave their lives doing their duty. For that reason, I say, we should not feel guilty at our failure so much as we should feel pride and respect for them.“

  Tolwyn paused a moment. “For some time now I’ve been under pressure to give a new name to this ship. Calling it for a Kilrathi hero is not exactly appropriate to our plans for her, after all. There have been plenty of suggestions, some laudable, not a few disparaging or downright obscene.” That stirred a ripple of laughter in the audience, despite the solemnity of the occasion. “President Kruger wants us to bear the name Alamo, after the heroic struggle for freedom by a dedicated band of patriots. I’ve resisted him on a point of principle. I don’t like my ship being named after a bloody massacre where the defenders lost the fight!”

  A few of the crew on the flight deck laughed. Tolwyn raised a hand and went on. “Today, though, I’ve settled on a name I intend to put forward to the Navy as soon as possible, if all of you approve. It’s not normally my habit to run a democracy on my ships, as anyone who knows me will tell you, but in this case I want you all to feel that this ship stands for something.” He smiled. “Some of you might not be familiar with the background from which I’ve taken this name, so bear with me while I explain it to you. In the mythology of the Scandinavian countries back on Terra, dating back to a time before Christianity, it is told that the gods once asked a master smith of the dark elves to make them a collection of wondrous gifts. There was a magic ring that produced copies of itself, a boat that could be folded up into a pocket, a wig of spun gold to replace the golden hair stolen from one of the goddesses by the trickster Loki, and so on. Now Loki became jealous of the craftsman’s work, and set out to ruin it. He changed himself into a stinging insect and did his best to keep the dark elf from his work. But he was only partially successful in this. Only one gift was marred, the war hammer intended for the weather god Thor. The handle ended up too short, but the weapon itself was still a powerful one that the Thunder-God used time and again to smite his powerful enemies.”

  Tolwyn scanned the audience for a moment before continuing. “The name of the craftsman was Sindri. It’s the FRLN’s custom to name tenders after mythical smiths and craftsmen, and the tender we lost today was named for this mythic Norse character. Like the dark elf, we were plagued by flying insects…and they did more than just distract our Sindri. So I think it only appropriate that we call our ship after the weapon that Sindri made, marred perhaps but still a powerful force that will smite the enemies of the Landreich wherever we find them.

  “Thor’s hammer was called ‘Mjollnir.’ And that is the name I think we should give to this ship, our war hammer. Our thunderbolt.“ He paused, milking the moment for all the drama he could draw. ”Ladies and gentlemen, I give you FRLS Mjollnir!”

  The pronouncement was greeted with applause and even a few cheers. Bondarevsky smiled despite himself. Under ordinary circumstances such a choice of names wouldn’t have been likely to go over well. It was an awkward, archaic name, and drew on esoteric knowledge of ancient mythology. A bureaucrat assigning names from a computer list might have come up with it-that was surely how someone had arrived at something like Sindri in the first place-but it wasn’t the sort of name to inspire any enthusiasm or win contests among the crew.

  Yet Tolwyn’s little speech had made it the perfect name for the carrier. Wherever they went, whatever they did, whichever battle honors they won in future encounters, they would always know that the name of their ship commemorated the thirty-two who had given their lives helping to forge a new weapon of war for the Landreich’s arsenal.

  In a way the choice even honored Viking, the dead pilot, whose ancestors in Earth’s remote past had likely worshipped the god of Thunder and told stories of how he’d acquired his great weapon. Bondarevsky thought for a long moment, then allowed himself a brief nod of approval. It was fitting, however you looked at it.

  FRLS Mjollnir…the Hammer of Thor.

  Guild VIP Office, Guild Base

  Hellhole, Hellhole System

  1631 hours (CST), 2671.015

  Hellhole had taken a pounding during the Kilrathi attack on the Landreich back in the days preceding the Battle of Earth. The Landreich base there had served as a field headquarters for the president’s personal task force, and when the Cats had launched their assault they’d devastated the tiny Landreich colony before they were turned back by the Free Republican Fleet. The harsh conditions on the planet coupled with the complete loss of the original colony had made resettlement a chancy proposition at best, and the Landreich’s government had decided against any such attempt.

  That had suited Zachary Banfeld just fine. In fact, he had spread around plenty of money among the members of the Council to encourage them to vote down Kruger’s request to invest in a new outpost there. Hellhole’s strategic position squarely on the border between Landreich and the nearest Cat colony had made it useful to the Republic’s war effort. But that same position made it just as valuable to the Guild. Once it was certain the Landreich wouldn’t be coming back, Zachary Banfeld’s people had moved in to set up a base of their own on the single marginally habitable planet that circled the binary system.

  Now, sitting at his desk in the office reserved for his use when he visited the Hellhole base, Banfeld was feeling frustration and worry. Bonadventure had brought him back after the abortive fighting at Vaku, and remained in orbit overhead. But though this base was a secret, known only to a few key men in his organization, Banfeld was concerned about the possible fallout from the failed attack.

  “Are you sure you can’t get Highwayman ready any faster?” Banfeld demanded of the man sitting across from him. “The clock is ticking.”

  “Can’t move any faster,” Antonio Delgado told him. The commander of the Guild’s secret base on Hellhole was a large man with a bristling black beard and swarthy skin. He accorded little respect to anyone, even the leader of the Guild, but he could get away with it. He was one of Banfeld’s best base commanders, even if he had joined up with the Guild less than three years back. Before that he’d been a mercenary resistance leader Banfeld’s people had dealt with during the Cat occupation of Siva. “Not if you want the cloak working. Three days, minimum.”

  ‘Three days,“ Banfeld repeated, getting to his feet and pacing restlessly across to the window that overlooked the tarmac where a small party of base workers were busy opening up the access ports along the sides and stern of the scoutship Highwayman. Banfeld knew Delgado was right about the estimated time to complete the work, but that didn’t make him any less anxious.

  The battle in the Vaku system had shaken the privateer leader badly. After making his plans so care
fully, his strike force had been thoroughly rebuffed, and a quarter of his best pilots had been lost before they’d been able to disengage from the unexpectedly potent supercarrier. Now there was no question of trying again, not with his available resources. Banfeld hadn’t become a power in this sector of space by throwing good money-or men-after bad. But the trouble was that there were sure to be people on that carrier who knew about Bonadventure. That meant his connection to the attack might come to light, and that would threaten his cozy position inside the Landreich.

  And by the same token all the original reasons for taking that carrier out of action still remained. If the Landreich gained the upper hand in the arms race against Ukar dai Ragark, there was an end to the healthy profits the Guild had enjoyed. Especially if Max Kruger declared war on the Guild in retaliation for their attempt to hijack his pet project.

  The only way to deflect the double threat was to get the Landreich embroiled in combat now. Kruger wouldn’t have time or resources enough to go after the Guild once he had Kilrathi ships knocking on his front door. In fact, he’d need the Guild, with its black market contacts and its pipeline to the arms dealers Kruger relied on back in the Confederation. It was just possible that by the time the dust cleared Max Kruger would owe too much to Banfeld to move against him…but only if Ragark struck now, before the Landreich could respond to the news of the attack on the supercarrier at Vaku.

  There was only one way to guarantee that. Banfeld would have to reveal what he knew to the Cats. News of a supercarrier fitting out inside the Landreich, a Cat supercarrier at that, would probably be enough to goad even a cautious leader like Ragark into action. And, if not, there was that other tidbit of information, news that there was also an Imperial heir alive and well on that same vessel. That was sure to interest Ragark. And hopefully it would lead him to strike now, while he could still catch the carrier at Vaku and eliminate it with a raid in force.

  That should precipitate a very nice little conflict. The confees, Williams and Mancini, might not be too happy to see the fighting start so soon. Y-12 and the Belisarius Group were trying to control the timetable for events out here very carefully, although Banfeld wasn’t entirely sure why. He only knew they were taking the long view.

  But the long view was something the Guild could no longer afford. Highwayman had to be readied for launch as quickly as possible so that Banfeld could act before the effects of the battle at Vaku overwhelmed everything he had worked his entire life to build.

  If Bonadventure was the crown jewel of the Guild fleet, Highwayman was its best-kept secret. It had taken plenty of bribe money to obtain a surplus stealth generator big enough for a scoutship, but the money had been well-spent. Highwayman could slip across the border and back without being spotted by outlying patrols, and that meant that Banfeld could get to Baka Kar and get in touch with his contacts in Ragark’s government without exposing himself to any trigger-happy Cats who might not understand the finer points of keeping private channels open between enemy states. Ragark’s Economic Minister, Baron Ghraffid nar Dhores, had found it highly profitable to cooperate with the Guild from time to time in the past. He would see to it that Ragark learned what he needed to know.

  Then rest would follow easily enough…and maybe, just maybe, the Guild would see its way through the crisis intact. The alternative was unthinkable.

  Commander’s Office, Guild Base

  Hellhole, Hellhole System

  1645 hours (CST)

  Antonio Delgado locked the door behind him as he entered the tiny office that was his innermost sanctum at the Hellhole base. He crossed to the bank of communications equipment along the far wall and seated himself at the console. With the ease of long and constant practice he activated a circuit that would alert him if there was any land of surveillance in progress. He thought Banfeld trusted him-at least as much as the privateer leader trusted anyone-but it was always wise to take precautions in Delgado’s line of work.

  He switched on the hypercast transmitter and began programming the transmission parameters. He needed a narrow beam directed precisely at the communications station at the jump point from Hellhole back to Landreich. An ordinary broadcast might be picked up by Banfeld’s men, and that would not be good for Antonio Delgado. While the computer worked on those instructions he called up the subroutines to encode and scramble the transmission, as added precautions.

  At length the computer informed him that the parameters had all been met and the hypercast was ready to begin. He switched on the audio-visual module, leaned close to the microphone, and took a deep breath before he began to speak.

  It was important that he inform his employers-his real employers, not Zachary Banfeld-of the latest developments on Hellhole. Banfeld hadn’t shared his plans with Delgado, but the only possible reasons for readying Highwayman for a trip so soon after returning from the ill-fated attack on the Landreich carrier at Vaku were liable to go against the wishes of the Y-12 organization.

  Delgado couldn’t delay Banfeld more than a few days without raising suspicions, so it was important that he pass on the information as soon as possible. He hoped he was acting in time to be useful to Y-12. Though he was only a small cog in the Belisarius Group, he knew he played an important role in being one of the Confederation’s men assigned to keep an eye on Zachary Banfeld.

  He began his message.

  Terran Confederation Embassy Compound, Newburg

  Landreich, Landreich System

  1841 hours (CST)

  “Damn it! The man’s a loose cannon!” Clark Williams slammed his fist down on his desk, making a rare Firekkan vase jump alarmingly. “The stupid bastard wasn’t satisfied with screwing up the mission against the carrier. Now he’s abandoned us entirely and getting ready to go freelance!”

  “You’re sure your agent can be trusted?” Mancini asked, sounding calm and cool. “And, more importantly, are you sure you’re interpreting the report accurately? This man Delgado didn’t give any details as to what Banfeld is planning.”

  “Delgado’s a good man. He’s been sending reliable reports ever since we slipped him into the Guild organization.” Williams leaned forward in his chair. “As for what Banfeld’s up to, there’re only two reasons I can think of to prep a stealth-capable scout. Either he’s planning to make a run for it before Max Kruger finds out he was behind the carrier attack, or he’s planning a run into Cat country. My vote’s for the second choice.”

  “Any reason why? Other than your well-known reliance on logic and rational thought?” Mancini’s tone was sarcastic, and Williams forced himself to calm down. The colonel’s implied rebuke made him take stock of his behavior. It wasn’t wise to let his anger get the better of his judgment, no matter how furious the events of the past few days had left him.

  “I know Banfeld,” he said, striving for a quiet, controlled voice to match Mancini’s own. “He would only run if he had reason to believe that the Guild was going down once and for all, and he’s got no reason to believe that the Landreichers know where any of his bases are. So until he has some kind of proof that the Guild is really in danger of immediate reprisals, his immediate response will be to try to strike some kind of new balance that’ll keep the operation intact.”

  ‘That makes sense,“ Mancini admitted.

  “So odds are he’s on his way to Ragark. He’ll want to sell the Cats whatever secrets he can provide.” Williams sighed. “Not just for money, either, I’m afraid. He’s liable to figure that word of the Landreichers refitting that carrier will stir Ragark up and make him attack. That would take the pressure off the Guild if Kruger or the Navy realize that Banfeld was the one who hit at Vaku.”

  “I’m not sure that would be such a bad idea,” Mancini said. “Clearly Richards and Tolwyn were able to get a lot more of their systems on-line before Banfeld could launch his strike. The previous report from Delgado suggested they had salvaged Kilrathi planes backing up their Landreicher craft, and full shields on top of that. Banfeld couldn
’t hope to threaten them now… but maybe a full Kilrathi strike force could turn the trick.”

  “No, damn it!” Williams exploded again. “No! This isn’t the way to handle the situation.” He slumped back in his chair. It was all very well for Mancini to be so rational, but the fact remained that the whole scheme to take out the supercarrier before it had a chance to become a real threat to the Belisarius Group’s plans for the Landreich had come unraveled thanks to Banfeld’s failure. “The stupid bastard. First he screws up the carrier attack, and then he breaks and runs instead of finishing the job. Now this…”

  Mancini shook his head. “He didn’t screw up anything, Commissioner. He was just caught by bad intelligence data, that’s all. And once he was confronted by an attack gone bad and a pair of destroyers threatening his ship, he did the only thing he could do. He got out of there while he could. You wouldn’t expect Zachary Banfeld to go down with his ship against hopeless odds, would you? There’d be no profit at all in playing the hero.”

  “Was Springweather feeding us bad information?”

  The colonel shrugged. “I doubt it. Look, she said they were having trouble with the shields on the carrier, and needed the tender. But the information was almost two weeks old. Time doesn’t stand still just so we can plan military ops, Commissioner. Richards and Tolwyn have a good team out there, and they’re moving faster than we expected, pure and simple. Shields repaired, more fighters deployable. Maybe if Banfeld had made it to Vaku a few days earlier…” He trailed off with another shrug. “In any event, you were telling me why it wouldn’t be wise to let Ragark handle our little problem with Richards and Tolwyn for us.”

  “There are plenty of reasons, starting with the fact that something like that could ruin the whole plan before it gets off the ground,” Williams said harshly. “If he strikes too soon, out of panic or some misguided notion of protecting Kilrathi honor or whatever the hell it is that makes Cats like him tick, we could be right royally screwed. What if he didn’t get the carrier, either? Or what if he did, but lost too many of his own resources to follow through with an attack on Landreich? A strike into Landreich space that didn’t result in a clear-cut victory for Ragark-and I’m talking about taking the Landreich system itself, not just grabbing up outlying outposts or winning a couple of minor engagements-an attack that didn’t overrun this part of the frontier could trigger Confederation intervention before we have a chance to build the case against the government and launch our coup. Then we’d be back where we were when Blair took out Kilrah with the T-Bomb.” He paused. “And don’t forget that our pirate friend has another secret to sell. Us.”