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  The communications monitor in one corner of CSTCC had been tuned to a commercial news and information holo-vid channel broadcast from the capitol. Almost everyone in the compartment, from Kevin Tolwyn down to the junior spacer assigned to sweep up and keep coffee cups filled, spent at least as much time watching that monitor as they did doing their real jobs.

  “What do you think, Tolwyn?” the Space Officer, Howard Reed, asked around a mugful of coffee. “Will Old Max pull it off? You’re his new fair-haired boy, after all.”

  “I don’t know, Boss,” Tolwyn replied, shaking his head. “I just don’t know if he can manage another miracle this time.”

  On the monitor, they could see the Council of Delegates waiting in the Council Hall. There was a restive air about them, and the commentator was filling time with a lengthy explanation of the procedures for a vote of no confidence under Landreich’s constitution.

  Tolwyn had barely returned from Vaku when the announcement had gone out. Galbraith’s faction had moved to call a fresh session of the Council, and foremost on the agenda was a move to censure Kruger for his reckless handling of defense funds. That could only mean that Galbraith had decided to reveal the details he had somehow learned of the Goliath Project, which meant that the secret of the Mjollnir would soon come out for all to hear…including the Kilrathi.

  Knowing that Richards and the others had been discussing a plan involving pretending to be a Kilrathi carrier, Tolwyn was worried. So far the newsmen were still in the dark, since Galbraith clearly wanted to reveal the Goliath Project in the most dramatic fashion possible. But once this session got under way, there would be no stopping the truth from coming out.

  And Mjollnir would end up sailing right into disaster, unless they heard the news and turned back. Tolwyn doubted they’d have a chance. By his calculations, based on the schedule he’d received in last contact between the carrier and his courier shuttle heading for home, they would just be getting ready to make the hyperjump from Oecumene to Hellhole, and then on to Baka Kar. Tolwyn doubted they’d be watching LN amp;IC news, and it was unlikely that anything would be going out on official channels. Not unless Kruger decided to call them off now that he knew he wouldn’t escape his political enemies…and that didn’t sound one bit like Old Max.

  So Mjollnir was heading straight into trouble, and the Landreich fleet had been held back by a direct Presidential order on the eve of spacing for Ilios. The entire strategy was coming apart, and all because Max Kruger’s government was falling apart around them.

  No one knew why the President had held back the fleet. Some thought he might try to use it to stage a coup of sorts and retake his own government, but with Galbraith the senior captain it seemed unlikely he’d get much support for such a move. Whatever game he was playing, it involved holding his cards close. He hadn’t even made it on time to the Council session. Hence the restless Delegates and the chattering news commentators.

  “Shuttle coming in from planetside, Boss,” one of the technicians announced. “From the Navy Compound at Lutz Mannheim. All IFF codes approved.”

  “Clear them,” Boss Reed ordered, setting down his coffee. “Must be that last load of maintenance stores Watanabe was complaining about.”

  The shuttle came in faster than Tolwyn liked, flaring out to stoop low over the flight deck and come in for a slap-dash landing. The duty LSO winced and scrawled some comments on his computer board, the frown on his face and the way he underlined some of the words with an angry flourish making it clear to Tolwyn that he planned to dress down that pilot thoroughly later…if there was anything left after Boss Reed got through with him.

  Through the transplast window overlooking the flight deck, Tolwyn could see technicians swarming in to secure the craft, but everything stopped when the hatch opened and the ramp unfolded down to the deck.

  Standing there at the top of the ramp, dressed in a flight suit and holding a pressure helmet under one arm, was President Max Kruger.

  Tolwyn left the CSTCC at a dead run.

  It took only a minute or so to reach the flight deck, and Kruger had just stepped clear of the ramp. His craggy face broke into a smile as he caught sight of Tolwyn rushing breathless across the wide expanse of the deck. “Ah, Captain, I’m glad you were on duty,” he said genially. “Is the flight deck security monitor recording?”

  Taken aback, Tolwyn could only give a quick nod.

  “Good,” Kruger said. He pulled out a folded paper from inside his flight suit, checked his wrist computer briefly, and opened the paper up. “It is now fifteen nineteen hours Confederation Standard Time,” he said. He started to read, the words so fast he was almost gabbling them in his haste. “To Maximillian Kruger, Commander-in-Chief, armed forces of the Free Republic of the Landreich, Sir: You are hereby requested and required to take up the charge and command of Admiral, Task Force Ilios, with your flag in the FRLS Independence or such other vessel as you shall see fit to choose, and with said Task Force proceed on operations out-system at your discretion. Nor you, nor any of you shall fail at your peril. Signed this thirty-sixth standard day, A. D. 2671, Maximillian Kruger, President and Commander-in-Chief.” He dropped the paper and met Tolwyn’s eyes. “I have now read myself in and taken command of this Task Force, Captain.”

  Incredulous, Tolwyn nodded. “Yes, sir, you have.”

  “Very well then. Please inform the Commanding Officer that the new Admiral is aboard and has ordered radio silence except for essential intership communications-no contact with the planet by any ship. The Task Force will get under way immediately.” He smiled again. “I would appreciate it if you would pass on those orders before you inform Captain Galbraith of the name of his new CO.”

  “What’s this all about, sir?” Tolwyn asked.

  Kruger’s smile turned predatory. “Danny Galbraith wants to use parliamentary tactics to get me? Well, I know a few of those myself, whatever my detractors might think. I helped write the damned Constitution! ‘No session of the Council of Delegates may be convened…’”

  “‘…without the President or his appointed representative present to take charge of the meeting,’” Tolwyn finished the quote. “You mean…?”

  “Right now, a whole roomful of politicians is waiting for me to show up. And I’m not going to be around.”

  “There are safeguards…”

  “I know. I wrote those, too. They have a whole lot of nonsense to go through, formally establishing my absence from the capitol, waiting to see if they can locate me or my designated Speaker, declaring me formally in contempt, appointing a Speaker-Designate…it’ll take them a week to get back to the business at hand, Captain. And meanwhile we’re going Cat-hunting at Ilios. The crisis will be over inside of that week. If we win, it won’t matter if they vote me out. And if we lose, either at Ilios or at Baka Kar, then it won’t matter one damned bit who’s President when we all go under.” He straightened his shoulders. “Now pass on my orders, Captain Tolwyn, and let’s get this show on the road.”

  CHAPTER 18

  “Vigilance is the Warrior’s salvation; inattention the Warrior’s most dangerous foe.”

  from the First Codex 12:16:03

  Command Bridge, KIS Wexarragh

  Near Jump Point Nine, Vordran System

  2322 hours (CST), 2671.041

  Captain Nrallos lan Vharr lounged in his command seat, letting his bridge officers perform their jobs without interference. The duty here was routine after nearly eight eight-days on this station. Wexarragh was nearly due to rotate home to Baka Kar, and Vharr for one didn’t believe that day could come too soon. He was heartily sick of picket duty in this worthless frontier system.

  The Vordran system was something of an anomaly, a seemingly ordinary red dwarf star system which supported an incredible number of strategically valuable jump points. Nearly thirty had been surveyed by Imperial astrogators, but many more were believed to be present. No doubt the humans knew of others.

  Balancing the number of jump
points was the scarcity of worthwhile real estate, though. A single loosely defined asteroid belt circled the star at a distance of just over one AU, and even the mineral content of the orbiting chunks of rock was too low to make it worth exploiting the system. Early in the war the Landreichers had established an asteroid base, which the Kilrathi had promptly blown up and replaced with one of their own. After it, in turn, had been destroyed by raiders from the Landreich both sides had decided the place just wasn’t worth a full-scale presence. After the destruction of the Landreich installation on Hellhole the Landreichers had stopped even trying to maintain ships in the system, since there was only one jump point leading into human-controlled space anyway and the Landreich s posture had always been primarily defensive. But there were plenty of jump points leading in to the Empire, so Governor Ragark had ordered a constant presence be maintained.

  At one time this would have entailed the presence of an entire carrier battle group, perhaps a task force, but Ragark had been steadily pulling back most of his capital ships to Baka Kar to build up his strike fleet or to detach on garrison duty elsewhere in the province. Ever since Kilrah had been destroyed, Kilrathi star systems had started declaring their independence as the clans pulled their separate ways, deprived of the unifying force of Emperor and Homeworld.

  Vharr understood the need for ships elsewhere in the province, but he sometimes wished there was still more than a single picket ship posted in the system now. The new strategic thinking seemed to be that all they really needed out here was a tripwire, a ship that could report if the Landreichers entered the system so that defensive forces could be mustered at Baka Kar to stop them. Under that theory, the picket vessel could be considered expendable once it had got off its warning by hypercast. Why waste additional ships when one could do the job?

  All well and good…except when you were the expendable ship in question. And it could get boring, endlessly watching the same extent of space for eight-days on end, without another ship or crew to provide relief from the tedium. The only excitement they’d seen on this tour had been the encounter with the cloaked human ship that had escaped through the jump point after Wexarragh had damaged him, and that had filled less than twenty minutes all told.

  “Disturbance in the jump point,” the Sensor Officer reported suddenly.

  “Specifics,” Vharr rasped, turning to face him.

  “It appears to be a single point-source, Lord Captain. Displacement in excess of one hundred thousand tons.”

  “Carrier-equivalent. I did not think the human Landreichers had a ship that large.” Vharr swiveled his chair to face forward. “Helm Officer, get us under way. Build a vector outward from the jump point until we see what we’re up against. I have no desire to be engaged by something while we’re at a standstill. Communications Officer, send a hypercast. ‘Unknown ship is emerging from Jump Point Nine’…”

  “There he is!” the Weapons Officer announced.

  The ship emerged suddenly from the hyperrealm, large and angular. It had come out of jump within a hundred kilometers of the Wexarragh, and the sensors and computer imagery systems were already beginning to process the data.

  “IFF transponder reads him as the Karga, Lord Captain,” the Communications Officer reported. “Imperial carrier of the Bhantkara Class. Computer lists it as missing in action since early last year, operating against Landreich under Admiral Cakg dai Nokhtak and Captain nar Hravval.“

  “An Imperial carrier?” Vharr studied the computer image forming on his monitor. It certainly looked like an Imperial carrier, at that, one of the new breed of supercarriers created by the Ministry of Attack following the Battle of Earth. Not so big as Thrakhath’s fleet carriers, with two flight decks rather than three, but powerful ships with plenty of fighters. Could he really have survived all this time behind enemy lines? It seemed almost beyond belief.

  The images showed signs of extensive damage, crudely repaired. Vharr leaned forward, studying the monitor intensely. It would make a story for the Codices, he thought, to hear how the carrier had survived on its own for so long…

  “Incoming message, Lord Captain.” The Communications Officer announced.

  “On my screen.”

  A plain-faced kil wearing the rank tabs of a Trathkhar of Communications appeared on the screen. “This is the carrier Karga. Admiral dai Nokhtak commanding.” The signal broke up for a moment, then returned. “We have evaded a force of ape ships which had been following us for several eight-days. Request clearance through to Baka Kar so we can make repairs and report to the Imperial Governor for new orders.”

  “Lan Vharr, escort destroyer Wexarragh. Your authentication codes, if you please. And I would like to speak to your commanding officer.”

  Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir

  Jump Point Nine, Vordran System

  2327 hours (CST)

  “Well, you heard the kil,” Admiral Geoff Tolwyn said. “Give him his authentication codes.”

  Jhawid Dahl, the Kilrathi communications specialist, turned in his chair to look at Tolwyn. “These codes are a year old. We can only hope they have them on file.”

  “Just do it,” Tolwyn snapped. He turned to face the monitor beside the kil. “Prince Murragh, are you ready?”

  The Kilrathi prince gave him a grasped-claw gesture in response. Murragh was on the carrier’s flag bridge, surrounded by other Kilrathi officers and enlisted ratings from amongst his castaway group. Dahl had assured them that he could use the ship’s computers to morph Murragh’s features into those of his uncle, drawn from the communications files, in a real-time program that would allow Murragh to provide the interactive movements and the phrasing of his uncle far more effectively than a pre-programmed simulacrum. With luck, what the picket ship’s captain would see would be a convincing imitation of a bridge full of Kilrathi.

  Tolwyn hoped it would work. If the picket ship got off a warning, they would never penetrate to Baka Kar to take out the dreadnought. Everything was riding on this ploy, and Geoff Tolwyn carried the whole weight of responsibility for the operation squarely on his shoulders. Admiral Richards had transferred his flag to the Xenophon at Hellhole to take command of the Terran-made warships of the battle group, leaving Tolwyn to handle the approach to Baka Kar entirely on his own.

  The last time he’d held command had been the Behemoth mission. Memories of the battle passed through his thoughts from time to time, reminding him of just how much was riding on his performance as a commanding officer.

  Right now, though, it was Murragh’s performance as an actor that counted most.

  “This is Cakg dai Nokhtak,” Murragh intoned solemnly. It was strange to see his familiar face and figure on the intercom screen, but beside it, on the interchip monitor, the computer-altered image of his uncle, shorter, stockier, with touches of silver around his blunt-faced muzzle. “It is good to see another Kilrathi face again after all this time, Captain. We have been cut off for many eight-days…over a Kilrah-year, in fact.”

  The captain of the escort was looking unsure of himself. “Your authentication codes are not current…”

  “Didn’t I just say we’ve been out of touch!” Murragh roared, flexing his claws in evident agitation. “Karga was badly damaged in battle with the apes. All his battle group destroyed! We have been stranded in a system in ape space, our engines useless, since then. Only recently were we able to effect repairs! Of course our codes are invalid. Check your records for the period when we left on our mission! And be quick about it!”

  Tolwyn had to smile. Murragh hadn’t actually uttered a single untruth. He had simply omitted a few crucial things. And he was doing a credible impersonation of an irritable and irritated aristocrat about to have a junior’s head, quite possibly literally. In the Imperial fleet, junior officers did not offend a senior officer’s sense of honor and live to tell the tale.

  But the look on the picket ship captain’s face bothered Tolwyn. He isn’t buying the story, he thought grimly. And he�
�s already sent out a message alerting them that something’s on the way. If we don’t get him to pass us through, we’re finished…

  Command Bridge, KIS Wexarragh

  Jump Point Nine, Vordran System

  2329 hours (CST)

  Vharr’s claws flexed nervously. The admiral’s anger was enough to make him cringe. But there was something that nagged at him, something not quite right.

  He studied the monitor more closely. There…that was what was bothering him. An almost unnoticeable distortion in the video image. It seemed to be localized right around the admiral. If it had been a systems problem, surely it would have disrupted the whole screen…

  A trick of some kind? Or just a communications glitch? Vharr didn’t like the choices he was being offered. A wrong choice either way could lead to the utter disgrace of the Vharr hrai, not to mention his own execution.

  “Lord Admiral,” he said cautiously, thinking fast. “I am required to send over a shuttle. To verify…and to assist.” He turned away from the monitor, gesturing to his Executive Officer. With the transmission briefly muted, he gave his orders. “Send a detachment of assault troops on the shuttle. The admiral is to be given all due deference…but we must verify his story. I don’t like the smell of it.”

  A squad of troops would be useless against what could be aboard that carrier, but they, like the ship himself, were a tripwire. If there was trouble, they would alert him to it, and he could alert Baka Kar…before he died in turn.

  Combat Information Center, FRLS Mjollnir

  Jump Point Nine, Vordran System

  2330 hours (CST)

  “He is within his rights,” Dahl said. “And if he truly does have orders to inspect passing ships, he would not yield even to an admiral. It would cost his honor to do so.”

  “Yeah,” Tolwyn said. “And we just look more suspicious if we try to argue it. Okay, Murragh, give him the go-ahead. And get me Bhaktadil and Bondarevsky on the intercom circuit. Time for Operation Welcome Wagon.”