That wasn’t quite right. There had been one contact, he remembered. One final message…
The admiral in command had announced that he was sacrificing the carrier for the glory of the Empire! That was it…that was why he remembered the whole affair so well. The hypercast had been distorted by static, but he could still remember listening and saying a death-chant over the loss of so many brave Warriors. So how could Karga still be alive today? No admiral would dare withdraw a self-destruct command at the risk of honor and hrai. Could it be a trick of some kind? But the captain of the picket ship had apparently been satisfied that it really was Karga.
Ragark remembered something else, something that made him bare his teeth. The admiral commanding the Karga battle group had been Cakg dai Nokhtak. A cousin of Thrakhath’s…a member of the Imperial House.
A possible claimant to the throne…certainly a tanist with better credentials than Ragark’s own. What if he had avoided the destruction of his ship, and survived until now? Would Cakg dai Nokhtak be content to join Ragark…or would he seek to replace him? Imperial blood would have a strong lure for many of his followers, possibly even Dawx Jhorrad. Especially if it was backed by a carrier and a story of heroism in the war.
He had been held back by the possibly disloyalty of the Administrator at Khrovat. This could be far more dangerous. He could return to Baka Kar to find his entire position undermined…
Ragark leapt to decision. “Transmit new orders to the task force,” he said. “We will move to the jump point to Vordran and investigate this story in more detail. The move on Ilios is postponed. See that all captains are aware of the change of plan. We get under way immediately!”
If Karga was a friend, he could afford the delay. After all, his move on Ilios had been designed to draw the humans away from threatening the repairs to Vorghath, and he was sure he had already accomplished that through the threat he had posed.
But if Karga was an enemy, his four carriers, combined with the two at Baka Kar, would crush him.
Operations Planning Center, FRLS Independence
Orbiting Ilios, Ilios System
0845 hours (CST)
The single figure sitting at the big triangular table in OPC looked very much alone when Kevin Tolwyn entered the compartment. Max Kruger was hunched over his computer terminal, calling up holographic charts of possible battle plans for the defense of Ilios, but the dejected set of his shoulders told a different story altogether.
“Sir,” Tolwyn said, “patrols have destroyed a Cat scout ship near the jump point to Gorkhos. And our long-range communications monitors have picked up traffic from the same direction. It sounded like an abort order, recalling the Cat fleet to form on their flagship and prepare to jump outsystem.”
Kruger raised red-shot, weary eyes. “When?”
“That’s the thing, sir. The signals are several hours old now. It took that long to get them correlated and descrambled. If they were jumping to attack us here, they should have started coming through the jump point long since.”
Kruger didn’t answer him. The President shut off the holo-projector, but sat staring at the center of the table as if it was still displaying an image.
After a long moment of silence, Tolwyn spoke again. “Mr. President…”
The older man raised a hand in a dismissive gesture. “By now, I doubt that,” he said. They had monitored word from the Landreich that Galbraith had rammed through a response to Kruger’s tactics in record time. As they spoke, the Council would be meeting to consider the Opposition’s call for a vote of no confidence. There had even been a rumor they were considering a vote to impeach Kruger for his abandonment of the capitol.
“Sir,” Tolwyn insisted. “Nothing official’s happened yet. Even Captain Galbraith can’t act against your orders until he receives an official message from Landreich.”
“So? What would the point be, Captain? Whatever I do now, they’ll nullify it.”
“The only reason I can think of Ragark to back down from the plan to attack here is if he had some kind of information about a threat to Baka Kar. If Mjollnir was keeping to schedule, she’d be going in today. And if that’s what Ragark’s reacting to…“
“Then he’s got too big a head start for us to make much difference, Captain,” Kruger said. “It looks like Richards and Geoff were right. Even if they take out the dreadnought, they’ll never get away. Not if Ragark can seal off their escape.” He leaned back in his chair, nothing at all like the excitable, enthusiastic madman who had become such a mythic figure in this part of space. Now he was just an old, done man, with nothing left to hold on to. “No, Captain, I suppose I should just save everyone the trouble. Let Galbraith take the fleet back to Landreich and get it all over with.”
“Damn it, sir, you can’t just write them off!” Tolwyn exploded. “You have no way of knowing what the tactical situation will be out there…but if Ragark does get back to Baka Kar, and Mjollnir has to face his combined forces alone, it will be a goddamned suicide mission.”
Kruger’s frown deepened. “We could end up spacing right into Ragark’s hands, Tolwyn. We could lose the whole damned fleet…”
“When has that ever stopped you before?” he demanded. “You were willing to rush that Cat squadron at Hellhole with two empty carriers and nothing but pure bluff to get you through, and if that wasn’t risking the fleet I don’t know what the hell was!” Tolwyn was pacing back and forth in front of the President, talking with his hands and body as much as his words. “Anyway, once Galbraith gets in power there won’t be much of a fleet anyway. He’ll pay off most of the carriers and draw down the rest of the armed forces. Or the Cats will roll right over everything and the whole fleet will be useless against them. What have you got to lose?”
“A lot of good men and women, Captain,” Kruger said wearily.
“You’ve sacrificed people before,” Tolwyn said brutally. “Soldiers and spacers…that’s what we’re for, you know. To die, if we have to, to protect the Republic.”
“What right do I have now?” Kruger asked. “Damn it, Tolwyn, the Republic’s in the process of disowning me! It may not be official yet, but you know that by the time the last gavel falls today I won’t have the authority to fire a salute, much less launch a battle.”
“Just because you’ve been disowned by your people, Mr. President, is no reason for you to disown them.” Tolwyn stopped and leaned over the corner of the table, looking down at Kruger. “Your whole life has been about helping the Landreichers when they were being handed a raw deal by some outsider. You gave up your ConFleet career and risked your life and the lives of San Jacinto’s crew to defend Landreich from the Cats. You’ve done the same thing a hell of a lot of times since then, too. Why? Because you were President? You weren’t when you were commanding San Jacinto and you told Vance Richards what he could do with his withdrawal orders!”
Kruger fixed Tolwyn with a stare, and there was silence in the OPC, a silence that dragged out uncomfortably long. Finally, he stirred in his seat. “You know, Captain Tolwyn, you’re turning into a remarkably fine replacement for Jason Bondarevsky. He always liked to play the role of my conscience, too, you know.”
“If I’m doing a good job of filling his shoes, I’m glad of it,” Tolwyn said.