But that had been long ago and far away. He was an old, old man these days… and Chief Marshal of Ararat. It was a job that required a pragmatist who didn’t take himself too seriously, and he’d learned to perform it well over the years. Ararat’s thirty-seven thousand souls were still Human, and there were times he or one of his deputies had to break up fights or even—on three occasions—track down actual killers. Mostly, however, he spent his time on prosaic things like settling domestic arguments, arbitrating steading boundary disputes, or finding lost children or strayed stock. It was an important job, if an unspectacular one, and he’d grown comfortable in it, but now something in Deputy Lenny Sokowski’s tone woke a sudden, jagged tingle he hadn’t felt in decades.
“What is it?” he asked, starting across toward the com shack door.
“It’s—” Sokowski licked his lips. “I’m… picking up something strange, Allen, but it can’t really be—”
“Speaker,” Shattuck snapped, and his face went paper—white as the harsh—edged sounds rattled from the speaker. Sokowski had never heard them before—not outside a history tape—but Shattuck had, and he spun away from the com shack to slam his fist down on a huge red button.
A fraction of a second later, the strident howl of a siren every Human soul on Ararat had prayed would never sound shattered the night.
“Still no response?” Tharsk asked, stroking his muzzle in puzzlement.
“No, Commander. We tried all subspace channels during our approach. Now that we’ve entered orbit, I’ve even tried old-fashioned radio. There’s no reply at all.”
“Ridiculous!” Rangar grumbled. “Your equipment must be malfunctioning.”
The com officer was far junior to the astrogator and said nothing, but his lips wrinkled resentfully back from his canines. Tharsk saw it and let one hand rest lightly on the younger officer’s shoulder, then looked levelly at Rangar.
“The equipment is not malfunctioning,” he said calmly. “We’re in communication with our other units”—except for the single transport and eight hundred People we lost on the jump here—”and they report no reception problems. Is that not so, Durak?”
The engineer’s ears flicked in confirmation. Rangar took his CO’s implied rebuke with no more than a grimace, yet if his tone was respectful when he spoke again, it remained unconvinced.
“Surely it’s more likely our equipment is at fault after so long without proper service than that an entire planet has lost all communications capability,” he pointed out, and Tharsk gave an unwilling ear flick of agreement.
“Excuse me, Commander, but the Astrogator’s overlooked something,” a new voice said, and Tharsk and Rangar both turned. Lieutenant Janal Na-Jharku, Starquest’s tactical officer, was another of the pups born after the war, and he met his graying senior officers’ eyes with an expression which mingled profound respect with the impatience of youth.
“Enlighten us, Tactical,” Tharsk invited, and Janal had the grace to duck his head in acknowledgment of his CO’s gentle irony. But he also waved a hand at his own readouts.
“I realize I have no weapons, Commander, but I do retain my sensors, and it’s plain that Ishark was heavily attacked. While we are detecting emissions, the tech base producing them has clearly suffered significant damage. For example, I have detected only a single fusion plant—one whose total output is no greater than a single one of this vessel’s three reactors—on the entire planet. Indeed, present data suggest that much of the capability the surviving People do still possess must have come from salvaged enemy technology.”
“Enemy technology?” Tharsk asked sharply. “You’re picking up emissions consistent with Human technology?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Humans? Here?” Rangar’s tone expressed his own disbelief, and Janal shrugged.
“If, in fact, Ishark was attacked and severely damaged, its survivors would have no option but to salvage whatever technology it could, regardless of that technology’s source,” he pointed out reasonably, but his confidence seemed to falter as Tharsk looked at him almost pityingly.
“No doubt a severely damaged tech base would, indeed, be forced to salvage whatever it could,” the commander agreed, “but you’ve forgotten something.”
“Sir?” Janal sounded confused, and Tharsk opened his mouth to explain, but Rangar beat him to it.
“There were over eight hundred million civilians, alone, on Ishark,” the rough-tongued astrogator explained with surprising gentleness. “They had towns and cities, not to mention military bases and command centers, and all the infrastructure to support them, but the Humans would have had only the weapons they brought to the attack. Which side would have been more likely to leave anything intact enough for the survivors to glean, Janal?”
“But—” the tac officer began, then broke off and looked back and forth between the grizzled old warriors, and silence hovered on the bridge until Tharsk spoke again.
“Very well,” he said finally, his voice harsh. “If we’re picking up Human emissions, we must assume at least the possibility that they’re being emitted by Humans… who must have killed any of the People who could have disputed the planet’s possession with them. Agreed?” Rangar flicked his ears, and Tharsk inhaled sharply.
“I see only one option,” he continued. “Our ships are too fragile for further jumps. Ishark is our only hope… and it’s also imperial territory.” The commander’s eyes flickered with a long-forgotten fire, and he bared his canines. “This world is ours. It belongs to the People, and I intend to see that they have it!” He turned back to Janal. “You’ve picked up no hostile fire control?”
“None, Sir,” the tactical officer confirmed, and Tharsk rubbed his muzzle again while his brain raced. The lack of military emissions was a good sign, but he couldn’t accept it as absolute proof there were no defensive systems down there. For that matter, he and Rangar could still be wrong and Janal’s initial, breezy assumptions could still be correct.
“The first step has to be getting the flotilla out of harm’s way,” he decided, and looked at Rangar. “If Starquest were still armed, I might feel more confrontational; as it is, I want a course to land the entire flotilla over the curve of the planet from the emission sources Janal is plotting.”
“If we put them down, we won’t get them up again,” Durak pointed out quietly from the astrogator’s side, and Tharsk bared his canines once more.
“Even if we got them back into space, we couldn’t take them anywhere.” The commander flattened his ears in a gesture of negation. “This is the only hope we have. Once we’re down, we can use the attack shuttles for a recon to confirm positively whether the People or Humans are behind those emissions. And,” he added more grimly, “if it is Humans, the shuttles can also tell us what military capability they retain… and how hard it will be to kill them.”
5
“Are you sure Allen?”
Regina Salvatore, Mayor of Landing and de facto governor of Ararat, stared at her chief marshal, and her expression begged him to say he’d been wrong. But he only nodded grimly, and she closed her eyes.
“How many?” she asked after a long, dreadful moment.
“We don’t know. I’m afraid to light up what active sensors we have in case the bastards drop a few homing missiles on them, and our passive systems aren’t much good against extra-atmosphere targets. From their signals, they appear to’ve expected a response from their own side, but the com traffic is all we have on them. With no space surveillance capability besides Doc Yan’s weather satellites—” Shattuck shrugged.