“‘…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.”
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?”