“That’s a damned shame, Lieutenant,” Bondarevsky said. His sympathy was genuine. There was nothing a born pilot hated more than to hold back on the sidelines and watch others do the job he knew he could do better. Bondarevsky had gone through the same thing a few times. “I’d offer to help, but I don’t have the faintest idea of what land of assignment I’ll be drawing myself, so my promise might not be any good to you.”
Harper gave him a grin. “Well, sir, I can’t hold you to anything…but it’s eager I’d be if you could find a chance to get me a fighter of my own.”
“Just so you don’t go running up demerits in an outfit I’m in charge of,” he told the lieutenant sternly. “I know that fun and games are supposed to be the natural perks of any fighter jock, but not when it might put a unit of mine in danger. You follow me?”
“Ah, sir, that was when I was still a lad,” Harper said with an even broader grin. “I’ve learned to be more…selective in seeking out my entertainment, since I’ve reached my maturity and all.”
“Yeah, right,” Bondarevsky said. “You’re a wise old man now, eh, Harper?” He paused. “Look, Lieutenant, if it doesn’t throw you too far off your sim schedule, let me buy you a cup of coffee. I’m trying to get a handle on conditions in the Landreich, and I’d like some input from someone who knows it. Could you do that for me?”
“With pleasure, sir,” Harper said. “But I should warn you that I haven’t seen or heard all that much. A shuttle pilot doesn’t exactly move in the rarefied atmosphere of admirals and commodores, you know. And all I really know is Tara, and maybe a little about some of the stations I’ve been on since I signed up.”
“Even that much would be a hell of a lot more than I’ve got now,” Bondarevsky told him. “I haven’t been in the Landreich since the Free Corps campaign, and a lot can change in four years. And even when I was there, I didn’t have much of a chance to get a feel for the Free Republic.”
The younger officer helped himself to a cup of the hot, bitter coffee from the vending machine near the table, then returned to his chair. He regarded Bondarevsky with an uncharacteristic solemn expression. “What can I be telling you, then, sir?”
“Tell me a little bit about yourself, first, Mr. Harper,” Bondarevsky said. “Give me a junior officer’s view of the situation in the Landreich.”
Harper shrugged. “Not much to say, sir, really. I told you already that I was born on Tara. We were one of the first colonies to join Landreich in the succession movement, back when the confees decided we weren’t worth the effort to guard. I joined up after my father was killed, when a Cat raider blew his freighter out of space. Lied about my age, too, I’m afraid. At sixteen you can’t see yourself waiting two years for anything, and I wanted the chance to give those Cats back a little of what they’d give us.”
“How far back was that?”
“Ten years it’s been, sir. I had just graduated from flight school when Himself took the fleet to Terra in ’66.”
“Himself?”
“The President, you know. Old Max. I wanted to be a part of that run so bad I could taste it, but I was flying shuttles between Landreich and Hellhole.”
“You should be glad you missed it. A lot of good people died out there.”
“Ah, but many a deserving young officer came home with a promotion, too, I’m thinking,” Harper returned. “At any rate, it’s mostly been quiet since, except for that raid the Cats mounted late last year. A carrier battle group actually got as far as Landreich itself, but the fleet chased them off again.”
“That must have been right near the end of the war,” Bondarevsky commented.
“I suppose it was, sir.” Harper shrugged again. “Fact is, we don’t really figure the war is over. If anything, things are worse now than when Kilrah was still around and old Thrakhath was calling the shots. He thought the same way the confees did about our stretch of space, I guess. The Imperial province facing us was a dumping ground for rejects and castoffs, ships and Cats alike. The leaders were usually nobles who were out of favor with the Imperial Government but too important to deny a posting. The ships were mostly third-line, and the crews were either still getting their spacelegs, or recovering from a hard stint in the main Theater of Operations, or sometimes they were oldsters past their prime but still serving in the Navy.”
“That’s probably the only thing that kept your people alive,” Bondarevsky said. “No insult intended, Harper, but if this had ever become a primary target area, I doubt if the Free Republic’s Navy could have stood against some of the stuff the Cats were throwing at us.”
“True enough, sir, true enough,” Harper said. “When they launched that raid last year, they built their squadron around one of their supercarriers. Damned big, she was, I tell you true.”
“But you beat her off?” Bondarevsky couldn’t keep a note of incredulity out of his voice.
“It took everything we had, but we did it,” Harper said. “The Cats lost a couple of ships, and when they found us waiting over Landreich they contented themselves with a long-range orbital bombardment and then headed for the jump point. Our intell boffins said they were supposed to teach us a lesson in return for our helping the confees at Earth, but I don’t think their hearts were really in it. ’Twas a damn-fool idea anyway, supercarrier or not. Even if they’d done what they set out to do, what would it have accomplished anyway? They might have chopped up Landreich pretty bad, just like they did Terra before the relief fleet arrived, but the rest of the Republic would still have been there…and it wouldn’t have made much difference to the course of the war elsewhere.”
“Is the carrier still there?” Bondarevsky asked. “If the Cats still have a supercarrier in these parts and they decide to make a serious attempt against the Republic, that one supercarrier would be a more serious threat than most of the rest of their fleet, especially if they’ve been relying on junk Thrakhath didn’t want for the primary theater.”
“As to that, who knows?” Harper’s shrug was eloquent. “We had a message that a couple of confees caught up with the big bastard somewhere out in the Disputed Zone, but they never came back. On the other hand, word is the raiding squadron never went home either, if the intelligence reports that’ve leaked from on high are anything to be trusted. I guess both sides ended up as debs, more’s the pity for your confee boyos.”
“Well, at least the Cats aren’t waving a supercarrier in our faces,” Bondarevsky said. “That’s something.”
“Aye, it is, but I’m thinking it might not be enough this time, sir. Not by a long shot. We’re used to standing on our own two feet out here, but I’ll confess to you, sir, that I wish Admiral Richards was bringing back word that Terra was willing to back us.” He mustered a grin, but Bondarevsky could see that Harper was forcing the cheerful expression. “Fact is, we’ve never been completely on our own, even when the confees put us at the bottom of the list of strategic targets. We always figured we’d get help if we truly needed it-your Free Corps, or something like it-and that made facing the Cats a mite less frightening. Now, though…we really are on our own this time out, and I’m wondering if it’s any of us at all who’ll be seeing home again after it’s done with.”
Unbidden, an image of the wrecked bridge of the Coventry flashed through Bondarevsky’s mind, with the dead sprawled across their consoles and vacuum tearing away the air with an audible shriek. But he thrust it away. “Some won’t make it, Harper,” he said quietly. “But if we can stop the Cats, even the ones who don’t come back will have counted for something.”
Presidential Palace, Newburg
Landreich, Landreich System
1624 hours (CST), 2670.292