The Span of Empire: Chapter Twenty Six

    Mallu watched over the shoulder of the weapons officer as the Khûrûshil ship broke into two pieces. Kaln’s angles went to satisfaction-at-distress-of-foes. The weapons officer began to set up the orders for the next attack.

    “Wait,” Kaln said as the workstation view screen showed the broken ship still launching missiles from the manned portion of the ship. She studied the diagram of the ship for a moment, then touched the screen again. “Two short medium strikes, here and here to close the missile ports.” She moved her finger on the screen. “Then a longer medium strike here to open the main storage tank and bleed out the hydrogen.

    Kaln stood tall again, angles shifting to satisfaction-at-task-well-done. “That will prevent them from blowing anything up when Ban Chao approaches. The only weapons they will have will be what hand weapons they carried aboard.”

    Mallu’s own posture shifted to a fairly clean form of gratified-respect. It was perhaps a bit more than was warranted, he thought, but he had been hanging around with a bunch of upper-class Jao the last year or so. Maybe some of their affectations were beginning to “rub off on him,” as Wrot might say with one of his interminable human quotations.

    His whiskers quirked in humor when he realized that Jalta had assumed the same posture.

    The weapons officer ordered the next strikes, and they landed precisely where Kaln had said they should. That portion of the ship ceased spitting missiles, and began rolling even more than before.

    “Weaponless,” Kaln said in a smug tone.

    Mallu could only nod to her.

    Caitlin grew furious as she watched the attack on the Khûrûshil ship. “I said disable the ship, dammit, not destroy it!”

    Flue Vaughan looked up from his workstation. “That is exactly what they did, Director. For all its smallness when compared to Lexington or even Ban Chao, that was in essence a space-going nuclear bomb. And a weapons-grade x-ray laser is not exactly a surgeon’s scalpel. To be certain to nullify the threat, they had to take out the nuclear rocket.” He touched a pad on his workstation and checked a readout. “Actually, I’m surprised they did it with as little damage as they did. That ship isn’t much more than a cockleshell by our standards, and enough energy to quickly take out the rocket section could very easily have shattered the entire ship. Someone’s got a good hand and a good eye over on Pool Buntyam.”

    “Probably Kaln krinnu ava Krant, if I know Krant-Captain Mallu,” Wrot said as he moved up beside Caitlin. “A most resourceful Jao. And Director,” he added, stressing Caitlin’s title, “Lieutenant Vaughan is absolutely correct. You must remember that, for whatever reason, these people attacked us. We may have our reasons for avoiding their destruction, but we can only carry that so far. If it comes down to them or us, there is no choice.”

    That was a thought that Caitlin had been avoiding, but now that Wrot had brought it to the forefront of her mind, there was no question where her responsibility lay. She could not throw away the lives of her friends, crews, or troops simply because she was reluctant to order weapons live. She at last accepted that.

    “Very well.” Caitlin sighed. But there was something else she could do. She moved to stand beside Fleet Commander Dannet; Wrot following behind her. “Once Ban Chao reports that they have the crew of the Khûrûshil ship secured, order the ships to return to the one million kilometer point. We will remove the temptation for the Khûrûsh to attack while we interrogate our guests.”

    Dannet’s angles were neutral. Her sole response was, “As you direct, Director.”

    “Colonel Tully,” Vanta-Captain Ginta’s voice sounded in his ear.

    “Here, Captain.” Tully linked in his officers and First Sergeant Luff.

    “I assume you have been receiving the signal feed of the disabling of the target craft.”

    “We have.”

    “The last strike opened the fuel tank to space. The venting of the hydrogen has imparted spin to the portion of the ship you will be boarding.”

    Tully looked at the feed. Yep, no question that the remnant of the broken ship was moving faster than before. “That’s not good,” he said. He could see Luff’s head nodding vigorously in agreement.

    “The Fleet Commander is adamant that this operation be concluded as quickly as possible,” Ginta said. “Therefore we will move Ban Chao into place to intercept the spin of the craft with the armored ram portion of the hull.”

    “Ouch!” Tully heard one of the officers mutter.

    “Order your people to their shock frames, Colonel. This will be not very different from the impact of ramming the Ekhat ship. Wait.”

    Ginta’s signal cut off.

    “Top, you heard the Captain, get the men moving,” Tully ordered. “Charlie Company first, then Alpha, then Baker.”

    “Tully.” Ginta was back on.

    “Yes?”

    “I see no way to identify hatches to break through, and given the beating that hull will have taken by the time we bring it under control, I doubt they would open anyway. Take that into account in your plans.”

    Tully looked to where Lieutenant Boatright was holding a thumb up. “I believe we have that under control, Captain.”

    “Good.”

    There was a moment of silence, then Eanne’s voice was heard, “Yellow light at estimated one minute to impact, red light at estimated fifteen seconds, tether crews move at blue light, assault teams move at green light.”

    “Yellow at one minute, red at fifteen, tether crews at blue, assault at green.” Tully looked to his helmet display, where he had acknowledgment lights from the officers and Sergeant Luff. He switched to the general troop frequency, and heard the announcement going out from Major Liang. He switched back to the command frequency. “Got it.”

    “Good hunting, Colonel,” Tully was surprised to hear from the tech.

    “Thanks.”

    There was silence in Tully’s ear.

    One of the humans, the one in jinau uniform, looked around at Lim. “Ma’am, you either need to strap in or return to your quarters.” She pointed at an empty seat next to her workstation. “It’s fixing to get pretty rough in a few minutes, and you could get hurt if you don’t strap in somewhere.”

    Lim considered the young woman’s request, then nodded her head and took the directed seat. The last occupant of the seat had obviously been a human, and not a large one at that. It took Lim a few moments to get the straps resized and fastened across her torso correctly, especially since she did not lay the staff on the floor.

    Task accomplished, holding the staff vertically in one hand, she looked to the human and said, “I am Lim. Can you tell me what is about to occur?”

    The human smiled and said, “I’m Sergeant Lacey Marasco. All I know is Director Kralik told Fleet Commander Dannet that Pool Buntyam should take down one of the ships that are attacking us, and Ban Chao should capture the crew and bring them to Lexington for discussions and, if need be, interrogations.”

    “Thank you.”

    The human–Sergeant Marasco–smiled again and returned her attention to her workstation and the view out the window before her. Lim sat back in the seat, and thought.

    She knew that Caitlin Kralik had oudh over the search effort to find other sentient civilizations. She knew that both Jao and human organizations tended to be very hierarchical; not that the Lleix weren’t, but the Lleix cultural need to have consensus for every decision was far outside the Jao/human/Terra taif norm.

    Lim had seen Caitlin in operation; how the Director would seek information, would seek opinions, would upon occasion–much to the contrary of Lleix methods–seek recommendations from those who were younger or lesser in rank. Yet in the end, the final decision would be made by Caitlin–whether it aligned with the lesser ranks’ offerings or stood against them–and by her alone.

    So in a very real way, by acting upon her orders, the jinau would be the hands of Caitlin Kralik. They would carry out her order at her direction, without being consulted as to whether it was the right thing to do, without establishing consensus. She ordered; they acted.

    It was at that moment that Lim gained an insight that had been eluding her ever since she joined the exploration task force–all members of the task force, even Fleet Commander Dannet, were in the task force for the purpose of being Caitlin Kralik’s hands. Or put it another way, they existed to extend her reach.

    That thought intrigued her.

    Tully started toward the front of the shock-frames, only to find his way blocked by two large figures. His display told him it was Major Liang and First Sergeant Luff. The major held up three fingers, and Tully switched to the alternate command frequency.

    “Colonel, where are you going?” Liang asked.

    “I’m going to lock in behind the boarding team.”

    “Uh-huh,” Liang replied, as Sergeant Luff crossed his arms. “You’re planning on following the boarding team, aren’t you?”

    “The thought had crossed my mind. You have a problem with that, Major?” Tully stressed the rank to underline his own.

    “Actually, Colonel, I do. I know you’re a damn good leader, and I know that most of the men would follow you to hell and back. But I also know you jumped a bunch of grades in a short period of time.”

    Tully couldn’t believe his ears. He’d always thought Liang liked him, or at least found him acceptable as a commander. “Yes, I did. And you also know I didn’t ask for that. General Kralik put me here. You got a problem with that?”

    “Only when the lack of the experience you missed in those rank jumps means you’re about to do something, ah, ill-advised.”

    Tully was willing to bet that the final word in that sentence was a last split-second substitution for “stupid.”

    “Colonel, you’re almost a brigade commander, for God’s sake,” Liang continued. “At that rank, you just don’t lead from the front anymore. You can’t. You’re too damned important to the operation, any operation, to be in the front rank and get picked off by a lucky hit. You especially don’t lead a simple fire-team-level evolution. That’s what you have sergeants and lieutenants, and yes, even captains for.”

    “I don’t ask my men to do anything I won’t do!” Tully bit the words off. One corner of his mind was surprised at the fury he was feeling.

    “The men know that, sir,” Luff finally said something. “Everyone knows that you will do whatever has to be done. And that’s important, both for them and for their opinion of you. But at the same time, if you start taking risks like this for no critical reason, they’ll start wondering if you’ve lost it. You’re smart, and you’re lucky. So they want you to be smart and not push your luck.”

    Tully snorted, but before he could say anything else, the major spoke again.

    “Colonel, if nothing else, remember why you’re in this position. I’m sure that General Kralik gave you the same speech about there being a lack of field-grade officers that he gave me. Well, that’s true enough, but for this assignment he’d have found somebody, even if it was only me. There are enough competent field-grades in the ranks that he would have been able to put someone good in your position. But it’s obvious to anyone who stops to think about it for a minute, the general needed something more than a jinau officer for this job. He needed someone who could move in the highest circles, and someone that Director Kralik would listen to. Other than the general himself, that description fits you more than any other jinau officer. You have an obligation to Director Kralik, to the general, and to your troops to not take stupid chances.” This time the major didn’t seem to have any trouble using the s-word.

    Now Major Liang crossed his arms, standing side by side with the sergeant. Tully looked at the two large men, and from the feeling in his gut he ought to have steam blowing out of a pressure relief valve at the top of his suit. But he also knew, coldly, objectively, that they were right. Oh, he didn’t want to admit that. His jaws clenched so hard he felt the pressure behind his eyes. It absolutely went against his grain to have to admit that his safety had that kind of priority on it that he couldn’t share all the risks of his men in the regular course of operations.

    It took a long moment, but finally Tully’s jaw relaxed. “You’re a couple of bastards, the two of you. You know that, don’t you?”

    Luff chuckled in his deep voice. “Colonel, that’s part of our job descriptions. Didn’t you read the fine print?”

    “Fine,” Tully said, waving a hand. “I’ll just stay back here in the back rank. Is that far enough away from trouble to suit you?” He knew his voice sounded surly. At the moment, he didn’t really care. It was enough that he was doing the right thing.

    “Thank you, sir,” the major said. “If you’re staying with Baker Company, I’ll post with Alpha.” Tully waved a hand again, and Liang headed toward the front of the shock-frame assembly.

    Tully felt a change in his environment. It took him a moment to realize that the atmosphere was being pumped out of the assault bay.

    He looked at Luff, who hadn’t moved. “You baby-sitting me, Top?” There was an edge to his voice, and again, he didn’t care.

    “No, sir,” Luff replied. “The company officers suggested I slot in back here, and Major Liang agreed.”

    “I’ll just bet he did,” Tully muttered. The pumps quit. “Well, let’s get locked in, Top. Things are about to get interesting.

    Sergeant Boyes heard a ping and saw First Sergeant Luff had tapped him via the unofficial sergeants’ frequency. “Tell me you have good news for me, Top,” he responded.

    “The colonel is slotting in with Baker Company, Boyes.”

    A flood of relief washed through Boyes. He’d been very nervous that the colonel might try to ride shotgun on his team, and that was the very last thing in the world he wanted right then.

    “Thanks, Top. Good to know. I owe you one.”

    “Too right you do. First three rounds are on you next liberty,” Luff replied.

    Boyes grinned in response to the humor in the first sergeant’s voice. “You got it.” The yellow light flashed on. “Gotta go.”

    Luff’s light went dark. Boyes switched to the team frequency. “Heads up, boys and girls. It’s show time.”