“Didn’t I?” she asked. “I keep thinking there must have been something else I could have done.”
“Every soldier who’s ever been in combat has had those doubts,” I told her. “Once it’s all over, when you’re out of the heat of battle and the need for split-second decisions, you always think back and wonder what you could have done differently. Sometimes those thoughts are legitimate, and you realize too late that doing something else would have changed the outcome. But usually they’re not.”
I nodded toward the wall and the station beyond it. “For whatever it’s worth, I’ve been out of the heat of battle for over four hours now, and I still can’t see anything else you could have done. Nothing that wouldn’t have gotten all of us killed and still not saved any of the lives that were lost. I can’t think of anything McMicking, Morse, or I could have done, either.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t worry about the cost? That the cost was inevitable?”
“The cost was determined by the Shonkla-raa, not you,” I said firmly. “It was defined the minute they chose this time and place for their attack. It’s like the terror wars—an enemy who uses innocent civilians as shields has already decreed that some of those civilians will be killed. If you’re going to fight someone like that, you either have to accept that there’s going to be heavy collateral damage, or you have to capitulate. Those are your only choices.”
She sighed. “It was still my idea. My plan. I can’t just brush all those deaths aside.”
“I wouldn’t want you to,” I said. “They were people, and they deserve our honor and respect. Part of that respect is to minimize such deaths wherever you can. The other part is to make sure they died for a reason, that their lives were given so that others might live. In this case, those others are going to number in the billions.”
“Will they?” Bayta asked, the last word almost a sob. “We haven’t stopped them, Frank. Not today, not any other time we’ve tried. They just keep coming and coming. Sooner or later, they’re going to win.”
“No, they aren’t,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “Because—”
I broke off. There were footsteps coming toward our door. Shifting my hand to a different pocket, I got a grip on the kwi.
The door opened, and McMicking and Hardin walked in. “Yes, they’re here,” McMicking called to someone still out in the hallway.
“Hail the conquering hero,” Hardin said with only a hint of sarcasm. His eyes flicked to the two defenders, then came back to me. “How are you holding up?”
“A little lung and ear damage,” I said as Rebekah and Terese walked in and joined the party. “Nothing a layered QuixHeal regimen won’t solve. You?”
“My lung damage sounds a little more serious than yours, but the doctor said I’ll be all right,” he told me. “McMicking tells me you’ve been fighting these Shonkla-raa bastards and their allies ever since you left my employ. He also tells me you were hoping to get Director Losutu to help you raise a private army.”
“You offering to take his place?” I asked.
“I may be,” Hardin said. “I didn’t know Losutu well, but I respected the man.” Almost reluctantly, I thought, his eyes drifted to Losutu’s body. “Besides which, the damn horse-faces had the same thing planned for me. He and I both got identical messages, seven days ago, asking us to come up here and meet with a high-ranking usantra about some big deal they were thinking about offering Earth and Hardin Industries.”
“Fortunately, I returned from my own trip a few hours before the meeting was to take place,” McMicking put in. “I lasered a message to Earth before leaving the station, just as a matter of routine, and when they lasered back that Mr. Hardin was on his way to meet with some Filiaelians I decided I’d better stick around.”
“Good thing you did, too,” I said.
“So you’re still going with this army thing?” Terese asked hesitantly. “I mean … you really think an Earth army can fight them?”
I took a deep breath, looking at each of their faces in turn. It was time, I knew. It was finally time. “No, we’re not doing the army plan anymore,” I said. “Not after what happened here today. Bayta’s right—we can’t beat them this way. ”
“Sure we can,” Hardin said. “We just need—”
“No, we can’t,” I said bluntly. “Furthermore, I’m not going to subject the people of the Confederation to any more of this kind of butchery.”
“So we’re just giving up?” Terese demanded.
“Not at all,” I said. “We can’t fight them, so we’re going to isolate them.”
“How?” McMicking asked.
“There are three super-express lines between this side of the galaxy and the Filly side,” I said. “Plus probably a couple hundred local lines linking their worlds with the Shorshic Congregate. I propose we destroy every one of those links, starting with the super-express Tubes.”
“Frank?” Bayta murmured tensely. “Do you really want to be talking about this?”
“She’s right,” Hardin seconded. “We need the Quadrail, Compton. We need the commerce, the transportation—”
“And we’ll keep all that,” I cut him off. “All we’re going to lose is the Filiaelian Assembly. The Shonkla-raa are Fillies? Fine—let the Fillies deal with them.”
“Supposing we agree in principle,” McMicking said, eyeing me closely. “How would you do that?”
I hesitated. If Bayta hadn’t liked the first part of my speech, she was going to absolutely hate this part. “I know where there are a group of warships,” I said, lowering my voice. “Big warships, leftovers from the first Shonkla-raa war sixteen hundred years ago. We’ll activate one of them, fly it out to the super-express Tubes, and blow them up.”
“Wait a minute,” Hardin said, straightening up a bit. “There are starships out there? Real starships, that travel faster than light and everything?”
“Not on their own, no,” I said. “But I’m told there’s a way to piggyback with Quadrail travel. I think we need to fly in synch with one of the trains, only on the other side of the Tube wall—something like that. Don’t worry, we’ve got time to figure it out.”
“Where are these ships located?” Rebekah asked, her expression a mix of cautious trust plus outright disbelief that I would ever talk about such things out loud. It was probably the same expression Bayta was wearing right now. Not that I dared to look.
“That’s where we start getting clever,” I told her. “They’re buried near a place called Proteus.”
“Proteus?” Terese asked, her eyes widening. “Proteus Station? The place we just got chased out of?”
“Actually, no,” I said. “But I’m hoping that’s what the Shonkla-raa will think.”
Terese shot a bewildered look at Rebekah. “I don’t get it.”
I sighed. “Look. The word about the ships is bound to get out. The Modhri will know about them—he has to; we’re going to need his help in tracking the Shonkla-raa’s movements—and sooner or later the Shonkla-raa will grab a walker and ask him what I’m planning.”
A look of comprehension blossomed on Rebekah’s face. “And he’ll say the warships are near Proteus.”
“Exactly,” I said. “We know the Shonkla-raa are really sloppy about asking the right questions. With luck, they’ll jump to the conclusion Terese just did and scramble to meet us at Proteus Station. By the time they realize their mistake, we’ll be on our way to cutting them off from the rest of the galaxy forever.”
“Where are the ships actually located?” Hardin asked.
“On a world called Veerstu, in the Nemuti FarReach,” I said. “Not too far from a place called the Ten Mesas.”
“Excellent,” Hardin said briskly. “I have some interests in the FarReach. I should be able to get the people we need in there without attracting attention.”