ABOARD THE CONFEDERACY BATTLESHIP GLADIATOR
The front of Captain Marina Flerko’s uniform was red with the blood of a rating who had expired in her arms fi?fteen minutes earlier as she entered Nankool’s cabin and stood across the table from him. “I’m sorry, Mr. President, but the Gladiator is dying.”
Nankool’s face was pale. “And the rest of the battle group?”
Flerko’s voice cracked under the strain. “Destroyed, sir. The moment they left hyperspace. The bugs were waiting for us.”
“Your advice?”
“Surrender, sir,” the offi?cer answered grimly. “There is no other choice.”
Calisco swore, and Vanderveen felt something cold trickle into the pit of her stomach. Only a small handful of beings had been able to escape from Ramanthian prisonerof-war (POW) camps, or been fortunate enough to be rescued, and the stories they told were universally horrible. In fact, many of the tales of torture, starvation, and abuse were so awful that many citizens assumed they were Confederacy propaganda. But the diplomat had read the reports, had even spoken with some of the survivors, and knew the stories of privation were true. And now, if Nankool accepted Flerko’s recommendation, Vanderveen would learn about life in the POW camps fi?rsthand.
Nankool’s normally unlined face looked as if it had aged ten years during the last few minutes. His eyes fl?itted from face to face. His voice was even but fi?lled with pain. “You heard the captain. . . . What do you think?”
“We should fi?ght to the death!” Koba-Sa maintained fi?ercely. “Give me a weapon. I will meet the Ramanthians at the main lock.”
“They won’t have to board,” Flerko said dispiritedly.
“Eventually, after they fi?re enough Avengers at us, the ship will blow.”
“Which is why we must surrender immediately!” Calisco said urgently. “Why provoke them? The faster we surrender, the more lives will be saved!”
“Much as I hate to agree with the undersecretary of defense, I fear that he’s correct this time,” Ambassador Ochi put in wearily. “There’s very little to be gained by delay.”
“I think there is something to be gained,” Vanderveen said fi?rmly, causing all of the senior offi?cials to look at her in surprise. “Losing the battle group, plus thousands of lives is bad enough,” the diplomat added. “But there’s something more at stake. . . . If we allow the Ramanthians to capture the president, and the bugs become aware of who they have, they can use him for leverage.”
“Not if they don’t capture me,” Nankool said grimly.
“Captain, hand me your sidearm.”
“Not so fast,” Vanderveen insisted. “I admire your courage, Mr. President. I’m sure we all do—but what if there’s another way?”
“Such as?” Ochi inquired skeptically, as the deck shook beneath their feet.
“We need to fi?nd a dead crew member with at least a superfi?cial resemblance to the president and jettison his body,” the diplomat replied earnestly. “Once that’s accomplished, we can replace him.”
“Damn! I think she’s onto something,” Secretary Hooks said approvingly as he made eye contact with Vanderveen.
“Your father would be proud!”
The FSO’s father, Charles Winther Vanderveen, was a well-known government offi?cial who had long been one of Nankool’s principal advisors. And while the elder Vanderveen would have been proud, he would have also been beside himself with worry had he been aware of what was taking place millions of light-years away. “We must act quickly,” the young woman said urgently. “And swear the crew to secrecy.”
“I’ll offer to surrender,” Flerko put in. “Then, assuming that the bugs accept, we’ll stall. That should give us as much as half an hour to fi?nd a match, put the word out, and implement the plan.”
“What about the hypercom?” Koba-Sa growled. “Can we notify LEGOM on Algeron?”
Having lost the converted battleship Friendship, on which it usually met, the Senate had been forced to convene on the planet Algeron. Until recently it would have been impossible to send a message across such a vast distance unless it was sealed inside a message torp or carried aboard a ship. But, thanks to the breakthrough technology that had been stolen from the Ramanthians on the planet Savas, crude but effective hypercom sets had already been installed on major vessels like the Gladiator. “Yes,” Vanderveen said decisively. “They need to know about the trap—so the navy can fi?nd a way to prevent the bugs from laying another one just like it. Plus, they need to know about the rest of our plan as well, or the whole thing will fall apart.”
Under normal circumstances any sort of suggestion from such a junior foreign service offi?cer would most likely have been quashed. But the circumstances were anything but normal, so there was clearly no time for formalities, and Nankool nodded. “Agreed. Make it happen.”
ABOARD THE RAMANTHIAN DESTROYER STAR REAPER
Commodore Lorko was still in the destroyer’s control room when the vessel’s com offi?cer entered with the appalling, not to mention somewhat repugnant, news. The extent of the junior offi?cer’s disgust could be seen in the way he held his head and the position of his rarely used wings. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Commodore, but the enemy offered to surrender.”
“They what?” Lorko demanded incredulously.
“They offered to surrender,” the com offi?cer reiterated. It was all Lorko could do to maintain his composure. Because by dishonoring themselves, the humans and their allies had effectively dishonored him, and reduced what could have been a glorious victory to something less. It didn’t seem fair. Not after the risks Lorko had taken, the resistance he had overcome, and the blow that had been dealt to the enemy.
But such was Lorko’s pride and internal strength that none of that could be seen in the way he held his body or heard in the tenor of his voice. “I see,” the commodore replied evenly. “All right, if slavery is what the animals want, then slavery is what they shall have. Order the enemy to cease fi?re, and once they do, tell our forces to do likewise. Send a heavily armed boarding party to the battleship, remove the prisoners who are fi?t for heavy labor, and set charges in all the usual places. Once the animals have been removed, I want that vessel destroyed. Captain Nuyo will take it from here. . . . I’ll be in my cabin.” And with that, Lorko left.
Though Nuyo wasn’t especially fond of the fl?inty offi?cer, he understood the signifi?cance of the blow dealt to Old Iron Back’s honor, and felt a rising sense of anger as Lorko departed the control room. “You heard the commodore,”
Nuyo said sternly as he turned to look at the com offi?cer.
“And tell the battle group this as well . . . Mercy equates to weakness—and weakness will be punished. Execute.”
ABOARD THE CONFEDERACY BATTLESHIP GLADIATOR
Fires burned unabated at various points throughout the ship’s four-mile-long hull, the deck shook in sympathy with minor explosions, and gunfi?re could be heard as Ramanthian soldiers shot wounded crew members, people who were slow to obey their commands, or any offi?cer foolish enough to identify him or herself as such. An excess for which they were unlikely to be punished. Klaxons, beepers, and horns sounded as streams of smoke-blackened, often-wounded crew beings stumbled out of hatches and were herded out into the center of the Gladiator’s enormous hangar deck. The fact that the bay was pressurized rather than open to space spoke volumes, as did the fact that rank after rank of battle-ready CF-184 Daggers were sitting unused. The simple truth was that the ship had come under attack so quickly that Captain Flerko had never been able to drop the Gladiator’s energy screens long enough to launch fi?ghters. But there was no time to consider what could have been as Vanderveen and a group of ratings were ordered to make their way out toward the middle of the launch bay, where large metal boxes were situated. One of the prisoners, a gunner, judging from the insignia on her space black uniform, was wounded and had been able to hide the fact until then. But the sailor left a trail of blood droplets as she crossed the deck, and it wasn’t long before one of the sharpeyed troopers noticed them. Vanderveen shouted, “No!” but fell as a rifl?e butt struck her left shoulder. The diplomat heard two shots and knew the gunner was dead.