"What will come after," Sr. Ecu began, "is an unknown. I can only wish that your use of the past and your belief in racial identity provide you the path. Also, I thank you for your confidences and sympathize with your problems.
"But the reason I am here has nothing to do with any of them. I was requested by a representative of the Eternal Emperor to deliver the following:
"The Emperor has noted the plight of the Five Nations and is deeply distressed. He will therefore provide a doubling of the treaty-allocated amount of Anti-Matter Two to your worlds and deeply hopes that your problems thereby become alleviated."
Sr. Ecu was very impressed by the young man, whose expression changed only three times during his announcement. Possibly, he wondered, after some epochs, humans might become capable.
"What are the strings?"
"Pardon?"
"The attachments. The obligations."
"None."
"I do not believe that," the young man said.
"I was so instructed that you would not," Sr. Ecu went on. "I was finally instructed that your ports should prepare for the arrival of six Imperial energy ships within six E-days of my arrival in your system."
Sr. Ecu, having delivered his message and received no answer for the moment, lifted, and his huge black and red-tinted body floated away toward his ship.
He wondered just how long it would take the Five Nations to renounce their neutrality and declare for the Empire. It was a pity, he decided, that he did not understand what was called gambling and could not think of anyone to perform that activity with.
Sr. Ecu thought that he was becoming a bit degenerate—and worried because he was not worried about it.
Fire Team Leader Heebner was a happy man in what appeared to be a desperate situation.
Sometime earlier he had been very unhappy in everything. Drafted into the Tahn forces and sent into combat when he would have been much happier pruning in his family's orchards, he had been most unfortunate/fortunate.
His unit wiped out, he had stumbled into a stubborn Imperial stronghold—and back out. He had informed his superiors of that way in—and had not been required to participate in the following bloody assault.
Instead, he had been promoted and given a nice safe assignment.
Not, as he had imagined, on something like recruiting duty but, to justify his new and staggering rank, as noncommissioned officer in charge of an SAA site on the Tahn superfortress world of Etan. A decorated soldier, his missile site was high atop a mountain, a post of honor, where he would be the first to engage any Imperial units stupid enough to attack Etan.
Heebner, already experienced at being shot at, rapidly and correctly redefined his post of honor.
He was a target.
And targets got hit.
Heebner was not quite sure what to do about the situation. Nor did he know how to order his soldiers in a proper military manner so that he would not be relieved and sent back to a frontline assault unit.
More importantly, he had no idea where his own retreat route should lie if his missile site should be attacked.
Heebner, once again, was very lucky.
His troops were for the most part volunteers from one of the Tahn Troops of Eager Youth, who were determined to show their leader, a hero of the Battle of Cavite and the scout who showed the very heroic, very noble, very decorated, and very dead Assault Captain Santol the way to assault that Imperial stronghold, that they were worthy of his trust.
The translation was that they made their own rules, slightly stricter than the brutal Tahn regulations; made their own living conditions, most Spartan; and made their own schedule. Fire Team Leader Heebner had only to wander out of his quarters at some appropriate hour, make appropriate remarks, and then go about his business.
Heebner was also lucky that he had no particular interest in luxurious quarters, the perks of rank, or the indulgences of command. His Troops of Eager Youth admired his Spartan life. It was, truly, the Way of the Tahn.
The fact was that Heebner was just too stupid to realize what he could have taken advantage of.
Since it seemed that his command was self-running, Heebner spent his hours wandering below the crags, looking for a nice safe place to hide when the drakh came down. He was very interested to discover one day that below his missile site was what looked to be several long-untenanted hectares of fruit trees.
Heebner's smallish mind flickered interest. He mentioned that there did not seem to be any pruning tools in the site's armory. His befuddled assistant decided that somehow, someway, the hero of Cavite was planning to teach them something, perhaps to think in other categories.
Two shifts later, Fire Team Leader Heebner was provided with hooks, clips, lifts, and baskets. He happily disappeared downslope with them. His Eager Youth determined that when the time was right, they would learn what he was doing.
Another stroke of fortune:
Etan's commanding admiral, one Molk, happened to be interested in the art of fruit. He wondered why a certain strategically placed missile base had requested what appeared to be farming implements and decided to place a surprise visit to said base.
The Eager Youth, all prostrate in honor, sent Admiral Molk down the crags, together with his bodyguard, to see what their most honored commander was preparing.
Heebner was counting buds, his lips moving silently, trying to determine which branch should be pruned short and where, when he heard the crash of bootheels coming toward him.
Molk also was a very lucky Tahn.
Because it was approximately at that moment that six Imperial fleets hammered Etan.
Impregnable fortresses, like impregnable generals, got lazy, if the enemy would be insane to attack them, of course only the insane would attack. And so they rested on their ever-fattening behinds. Spit-scared attackers, on the other hand, did not.
The Imperial admiral in charge of the fleets was most disappointed that there were no Tahn capital ships on Etan. After the disaster of Durer, they had all been withdrawn to Heath for reassignment.
Nevertheless, major damage was done in the series of smashing attacks. Fire Team Leader Heebner's missile site was obliterated in the first strike; fortunately for him and for his fruit trees, a nonnuclear missile was used.
That hardly mattered for his Eager Youth. There were three survivors. And those, all terribly burned, lived for only minutes after the strike.
When the fire, smoke, and earthquake shakes died away, six Tahn cruisers, twelve destroyers, and many auxiliaries and transports were shattered on their landing grounds.
Etan was still impregnable.
But with no significant warships based on the world, and with the Imperial-forces severing Etan's supply routes, it did not matter. Etan could do whatever it chose to do until the war came to an end.
Several hundred other Tahn citadels were isolated, rendered impotent, and ignored in the same operation.
Not that Fire Team Leader Heebner had nothing to do. He was very busy—instructing Commanding Admiral Molk on the proper way to grow fruit.
It was a very important task. All the Tahn isolated and forgotten on Etan had to eat.