Three: Gambits

Romulan plasma hit Klingon shields: power leaked through in second and third harmonics, and the target cruiser shook.

“Damage?” said the officer in the command chair.

Vrenn Khemara ran his finger down a screen, bright in the red-lit Bridge; a schematic of the cruiser Blue Fire flashed into view, yellow blocks marking areas hit. Vrenn read off the reports in a few short phrases of Battle Language.

Below Vrenn, the Commander spat an acknowledgment and turned back to the main display. Vrenn looked up: across the Bridge, another Cadet flashed a hand at him, fingers spread. The gesture symbolized a Captain’s starburst of rank: in words it would come out approximately as “You’ll have a command by morning!”

Blue Fire rolled to starboard. She was pulling Warp 3, and the floor-plates whined and the bulkheads groaned; a Cadet grabbed a strut to steady himself under the shifting gravity. The Commander caught sight of it. “Environmental?” he said, tone deadly even, eyes like disruptors.

The unbalanced Cadet strained toward his board. “Point eight six two, nominal,” he said.

The Commander acknowledged, turned back to the main view. All the Cadets understood very well: fall down, fall asleep, do as you like, as long as you’ve got the Captain’s answers when he wants them.

It was not the Captain of Blue Fire in the Chair. Squadron Leader Kodon was five decks above, in the Primary Bridge. Commander Kev, the Executive Officer, sat with the Cadets in the Auxiliary Bridge, calling for situation reports and helm responses exactly as if he were Kodon, and the Cadets worked their locked-off consoles just as if they controlled the ship.

Only the data were real.

There was a flash in the corner of the display as the cruiser rolled; Vrenn’s instruments picked up the wave of energy as a plasma bolt passed less than forty meters below their ship’s port wing. It had not been fired when Kodon started the maneuver: he had somehow foreseen the enemy action. Vrenn watched, and tried to learn.

The Klingons were outnumbered, five to three; but the Klingon D-4 cruisers were individually much more powerful than the Romulan Warbirds. “So we win, on numbers,” Kodon had told them, before the raid began, “but there’s a few things the numbers don’t count.”

Two Fingers, the portside ship of Kodon’s Squadron, had picked up three of the Warbirds, which swarmed around it, firing plasma in continuous cycle, two ships’ tubes cooling while one blazed, trying to batter their victim’s shields down from all directions at once.

“One thing,” Kodon said, “is that ships move. Tactics are real, and if you don’t move right, you die.”

Blue Fire was now turned perpendicular to Two Fingers. Commander Kev gave a firing order, and the Cadets on Weapons followed just as the officers above them. Six disruptors fired, making two pyramids of blue light whose points were Romulan ships. Romulan hulls buckled, as the forces holding their molecules together were suppressed and restored ninety times a second. That was disruption: or, as the big ships’ batteries were nicknamed, the Sound of Destruction.

Two Warbirds lurched out of their loops, and Two Fingers went to work on the third. Blue Fire came about again, to find a prey of its own.

There was a sudden swelling spot of white light in the forward display: the screen darkened, and it was still too bright to look at. Then the flash faded, and was gone. Stars came back on in the display. Ahead, the other ship of the squadron, Death Hand, had turned into the blast, to take it against her strong forward shields.

“The other thing,” the Squadron Leader had told them all, “Is that Roms have some pretty odd ideas about dying.”

Kev said, “Communications, signal Code KATEN to Squadron. Helm, when KATEN is acknowledged executed, I want Warp 4 at once.”

The Cadets tensed, almost as a unit. There would be no boarding this time, no prizes, not even a creditable kill they could stripe on their sashes. But this was only the first skirmish of the raid, as Kodon had outlined it to them all. Their goal was farther into the Romulan sphere. Vrenn certainly understood; it was not an elaborate strategy, even for the frontier squadrons.

Still, he wanted a kill as much as the rest of them.

Perhaps more.

Both enemy squadrons were trying to regroup, to disentangle from each other’s ships. The Klingon cruisers had more power, which counted most in large-ship maneuvers; Death Hand was able to bounce a Rom off its shields like a small animal off a groundcar’s fender.

Formation lights flared on displays, drifting toward marked target positions: the three D-4s moved, silently as all things in space, into a triskele formation, port engines inward. A Rom fired, the bolt glancing from Blue Fire’s shields.

“You may give him one for vengeance, zan Tatell,” Kev said, and as helm counted toward formation lock-on Weapons trued his crosshairs and his firing keys. Blue light reached out to the Rom, to the bronze raptor painted on its belly.

The bird was cut open from wing to drumstick.

Lights met their targets. “Warp 4,” the Helmsman remembered to say, and the Romulans—what was left of them—streaked by and were gone, as Kodon’s squadron pierced yet deeper into the space the Roms claimed as theirs, three times faster than their ships could follow.

Commander Kev stood, inspected the Cadets. He touched the phone in his ear that had sent him all of the actual Captain’s orders. “A good engagement,” he said, “damage done, no ships lost, only minor injuries to crewmen and none to officers…” Kev looked at Zhoka, the Cadet who had almost lost more than just his balance.

Kev paused, eyes narrowed, apparently getting some message through his earphone. “I am instructed to tell you that, by consensus of the Squadron Captains, Blue Fire is to be credited with one Romulan kill. May this be a favorable sign.”

Kev stood silent then, watching. The Cadets did not move. Vrenn thought the collar of his blue tunic must surely be contracting, but kept his hands firmly on his console.

Finally the Commander decided they had had enough. “Alert over. Stand down to cruise stations.” And he saluted. “Blue Fire, the victory!”

“The victory!”

 

Vrenn and his roommate, an engineering cadet named Ruzhe Avell, were playing Open klin zha in quarters. Vrenn had not played klin zha against a live opponent since halfway through his Academy year; until Ruzhe, everyone had too much minded losing.

Maybe Ruzhe didn’t mind because he didn’t pay attention anyway. “I still say it’s better in Engineering. We get to work on the real ship, not dead controls.”

“If something happened to the main Bridge, it’d be real enough.”

“And you know how long we’d last after that? You know, you can still get off that Command Path, and do something with honest metal and current.”

Vrenn felt a little annoyance at the word “honest,” but only a little. It was only another game between them, and he could hardly fault Ruzhe for being better at it than at klin zha. “I think I’ll stay up front in the pod. Away from the radiation.”

“There’s no radiation back there! We just keep the Drell design because it works!”

“All right, up front away from the Marines.”

Ruzhe growled, stared at the board. “You’re going to win again.”

It was true enough. Vrenn said, “Maybe you’ll get lucky, and the Roms will attack.” He moved a Flier. “After all, we got lucky enough to get assigned to a raid, on our first full cruise.”

Ruzhe said, “I heard one of the Lieutenants say everyone gets assigned to a raid, unless they’re just so hopeless they have to put ’em on garbage scows or runs to Vulcan.”

“Why?” Vrenn said. He had heard rumors like that, but only from superior-sounding Cadets. Never officers.

“Same reason all the frontier captains go privateer: if you khest it, it’s your fault, not the Academy’s.”

Vrenn knew that was true. “So I guess we better not khest it?”

Ruzhe laughed. “Sure you don’t want to work aft?” He bumped the board. Pieces tipped over. “Gday’t, I lose.”

“Well, you khest’t it.” Vrenn picked up a fallen piece. “Want to khest it again?”

“I’d like to khest just once on this trip,” Ruzhe said. “Got an Orion female in your closet?”

The piece slipped out of Vrenn’s fingers, bounced on the floor.

 

Kodon’s Squadron had been inside Romulan claims for seventy-eight days. There had been two more skirmishes, early on, and a kill for Death Hand and another for Blue Fire, but nothing, not even a contact, for over fifty days now. They were eating salvage from the third battle, Romulan rations, solid enough food but dull on the tongue. Vrenn at last understood his father’s story about Human kafei, and found it actually made the alien stuff more edible; but the trick didn’t work for the other Cadets. Some of those from old Navy lines had been given sealed parcels of food, with vague warnings about not opening them too soon; now anyone who had obeyed the warning had power, of a sort. Vrenn rather quickly saw the limitations of a fruitcake-based economy, and knew why Kethas had not so supplied him.

Still, it could be hard to be a strategist.

Vrenn was in the Junior Officers’ Mess, chewing determinedly at a piece of vacuum-dried sausage, when the sounds of a discussion floated in his direction. There were three Ensigns at a table across the room, and they had gotten on the subject of Orions, and (inevitably) Orion females. One of them, the Helmsman Kotkhe, was insisting he had actually been with one, prize of a Cadet cruise. “I admit I was lucky—”

“Nobody gets that lucky on a Cadet cruise,” said an Ensign with Medical insignia.

“I suppose you two think I care if you believe me.”

“Suppose we do.” That was Merzhan, the youngest Security officer on the ship. He kept to himself less than the other Security crew, and he showed a nasty sense ot humor on all occasions. “You wouldn’t have some evidence? A lock of her hair, tied up with a green ribbon?”

“Well, I—” Kotkhe’s hand stopped on the way to his pocket. Merzhan’s smile was thin as the edge of a knife, and the other Ensign looked nervous. Vrenn dumped his tray down the disposal slot, started for the door. He had seen the souvenirs you could buy in a leave port, knew how easily the green dye rubbed off. And he had heard, easily thirty times in his first Academy term, the tale of exotic delights that Kotkhe was now clumsily telling again. He’d have done better, Vrenn thought, to just quote some text from a volume of Tales of the Privateers; every other book in the series had the same scene in it.

“But there’s a thing they never tell you in the books,” Kotkhe said. “And that’s the place, the only one place, where an Orion female’s not green.”

Vrenn paused. He wondered where it would be, this time.

Merzhan’s eyes flickered over. “Well,” he said, “you’ve got something convinced.”

“I was just leaving,” Vrenn said, and knew at once it was the wrong response: he should have just gone out the door. Ensigns love Cadets, he had been warned at the Academy, like you love jelly pastry. They won’t talk to the crew and there’s nobody else they can damage.

“Don’t go yet,” the Security officer said. “You’ll miss the best part.”

Vrenn took a step toward the door.

“I said, don’t go, Cadet.”

Vrenn stopped. It was a legitimate order.

Merzhan said, “Well, ’Khe, we’ve got something here to educate. Finish the story.”

Kotkhe seemed pleased; baiting Cadets was much safer than whatever game Merzhan had been playing. He went on to detail exactly where Orion females were not green. It was the usual version. “Now, Pathfinder, have you learned something to help you walk?” The title and the phrase referred to the Path of Command: the statement was thoroughly insulting without containing any explicit insult.

Vrenn said suddenly, “No, Ensign.”

Kotkhe’s jaw opened, snapped shut. “Say that again, Pathfinder. For the record this time.”

“If I hadn’t wanted it heard I wouldn’t have said it.” Vrenn had not realized just how angry he was. They had, without realizing it, pushed him into an area of his mind he had very carefully walled off. Now Vrenn wondered how much his strategic blindness would cost him.

There was a coldness in the room, the Ensigns still not quite believing what they had heard. Sometimes to show teeth is enough, Vrenn thought, but if you bite, bite deep. “What was there to learn? The lesson’s wrong. There’s no place they don’t have a little green. No place at all.”

“Kahlesste kaase,” the surgeon’s aide said, “he’s right.”

It was no improvement, though Vrenn wondered if anything short of a Romulan attack could be. Now not only was Ensign Kotkhe made out a liar, his boast of conquest had been upstaged—by a Cadet.

“I guess it is true,” Kotkhe said, sounding almost desperate; “they will open to anything—”

Vrenn leaped, knocking Kotkhe from his chair, taking both of them to the deck. Kotkhe was unready, and Vrenn gave him no chance: Vrenn punched four times rapidly to nerve junctions. Kotkhe went rigid. Vrenn struck once crosswise, neatly dislocating the Ensign’s jaw. Then he stopped—and realized the medical Ensign was holding his arm in a wrestler’s pinch above the elbow, shaking his head no, no. There were more Klingons in the room now, Security enforcers in duty armor, shock clubs out and ready. Merzhan was tucking away his communicator with his left hand; his right held a pistol casually level.

The look on the Security officer’s face was that of one starving, suddenly offered a banquet.

 

Squadron Leader Kodon vestai-Karum sat behind his desk. Commander Kev sat a little distance to Kodon’s right. Vrenn Khemara stood, in the crossfire between them.

“And that was when you assaulted the Ensign?” Kodon said, in a completely disinterested tone.

“Just then, Squadron Leader.”

Kodon reached to the tape player in his desk, took out the cassette with the Ensigns’ and Vrenn’s testimony. “I know the epetai-Khemara somewhat,” he said, not quite offhand. “Is the one well?”

“At my last hearing, Squadron Leader.”

“And his consort?”

Vrenn hesitated, only an instant. “And the one, Squadron Leader.”

Kodon nodded. “The line Khemara is not to be insulted, even ignorantly by ignorant youth. Do you wish to enter a claim of line honor?”

“No, Squadron Leader.” Vrenn was suddenly thinking of Ensign Merzhan’s look, and his words, and wondering if complete ignorance had really been there.

“That seems best. As much as we need diversion, the duel circle does not seem right, just now. And I do not know Ensign Kotkhe’s father; there are so many Admirals….” Kodon sat back, turning thetape over in his hands. “The Ensign didn’t even scratch you, Cadet. How do you account for that?”

“I had the advantage of surprise, Squadron Leader.”

Kodon laughed. “Ah. Well, I can hardly assume that the other Ensigns held him down for you.” He leaned over his desk again, held up the cassette as if weighing it. “Brawling aboard a ship under cruise is a violation of regulations, as is striking a superior office…but injuries sustained during a lesson in personal combat are of course not actionable.”

“Combat lessons are usually given in the Officers’ Gym,” Kev said.

“It was occupied,” Kodon said. “I was using it.”

Kev said, “Of course, Captain.”

Kodon dropped the cassette. It struck a pair of doors on the desktop, which opened to swallow it, and closed on the flash of destroying light. “It simplifies matters enormously when honor claims are absent.”

Vrenn waited.

“Still, a disturbance was created, and Security was dispatched without cause. Commander Kev, I think you know what punishment is appropriate.” Kodon stood, and Kev. Salutes were exchanged, and the Squadron Leader disappeared into his inner cabin.

Kev, a portable terminal under his arm, walked to the desk. He brought the black panel up to working position, pressed keys. Green light flashed in his yellow eyes. “The Surgeon reports that Ensign Kotkhe will be unfit for duty for several days. Given your responsibility for this, your punishment detail will be to assume his duties aboard.”

“The Helm, Commander?”

“That is zan Kotkhe’s current duty.”

At times like this, Vrenn came close to denying the komerex zha: for the universe to be a game implied that it had knowable rules.

Kev looked at Vrenn. The look was very cool, very sharp. Vrenn had realized some time ago that Kev used his eyes as needles; he liked to watch others writhe, impaled on their points.

Finally the Executive said, “You seem to realize that you haven’t won anything. That’s good. It was necessary that the g’dayt-livered Kotkhe be replaced. You forced the Captain’s hand; don’t think he likes that. Just remember: he’s made you a Helmsman. He can make you raw protein if he wants.” Kev pushed more keys on his console. In a quieter but no less threatening voice, he said, “You’ll be breveted Ensign for the rest of the cruise…or as long as you last. Don’t go changing your name yet….”

“I understand, Commander.”

Kev looked up sharply. In a wholly changed tone he said, “Yes…it’s just possible that you do. But if you did plan this, Khemara, do not ever let anyone know it. Dismissed.”

 

Kodon’s Squadron hid, literally, behind a rock. The three cruisers, inSpearhead formation, hung behind a two-kilometer planetoid, shadowed from enemy sensing. A drone, too small to register at this range, orbited the rock, relaying image and data to the D-4s.

“Keep the guns cold until I call for them,” Kodon said, not for the first time but without audible annoyance. “Zan Vrenn, watch the shadow.”

Vrenn’s console display showed a yellow-gridded sphere, the planetoid, and a larger blue arc, the electronic penumbra. “Margin seventy meters, firm,” Vrenn said.

“That’s good,” said the Captain. It was only acknowledgment, not approval. But it was good work, Vrenn knew: he was successfully holding the cruiser to a mark less than a third of its length away. Ensign Kotkhe had been out of Sickbay for ten days now, but this was the climax of the raid, and Ensign Vrenn had the helm.

The Communications Officer gestured. The drone operator touched a control, adjusting the satellite’s orbit: on the main display, a planet came into sharp focus, blue and brown and cloud-streaked. Keys were pressed, and data lines overlaid the visual, with a bright three-armed crosshair over the site of the Romulan groundport.

Tiny flecks appeared near the planet’s edge, and were annotated at once: “Cargo tugs,” the sensor operator announced. Then: “Shuttle launches confirmed.”

Kodon watched the main board, scanned the repeater displays near the foot of his chair. “Helm signal 0.2 Warp,” he said, in the short syllables of Battle Language.

“0.2 Warp read,” Vrenn said.

“Show mag 8,” said the Captain.

The picture on the screen swelled, sparkling as the sensors reached their limit of resolution. The image still clearly showed the Romulan shuttles rolling over, to dock with warpdrive tugs already in orbit above the port.

The schematic display drew in four yellow crescents: Warbirds moving into convoy positions.

Kodon said, “Helm, action. Affirm, action.”

“Acting,” Vrenn said, and pushed for thrust. The planetoid fell away, the target world dawning above it.

“Weapons preheat,” Kodon ordered. “Shields attack standard.” Each command was no longer than a single word, the acknowledgments just snaps of the tongue.

“Warp 0.2,” Vrenn said.

“Squadron—” Kodon said, on relay to all the ships, and his next word was the same in plain or Battle Language: “Kill!”

They fell on the Warbirds from ahead and above, out of the danger cone from their plasma guns. Rom lasers, warp-accelerated into the delta frequencies, stabbed up, to detune against shields. Triplet disruptors knifed down, blue light sweeping across the enemy ships’ wings. Two Fingers severed a Romulan warp engine neatly; its other fire missed by meters. Death Hand cut almost entirely through a Warbird’s wing, and tore its spine open, splashing fire and debris.

“Precision fire,” Kodon said. “Helm, coordinate.”

“Affirm,” the Weapons officer said. “Affirm,” Vrenn said, eyes on three different data displays at once. There was no vision to spare for the controls: now his hands had to know the task.

They did. Blue Fire scraped by a Warbird barely twice its length away, and cut both warp nacelles away in a stroke. The flat Rom hull, unable to maneuver or even self-destruct, wavered and began to tumble.

“Stern tractors,” said the Squadron Leader.

“Locked.” The beams pulled the crippled Rom away from the planet, slinging it on a slow curve toward deep space; the prize would still be there when they were ready to claim it.

“Five more coming, Squadron Leader,” the sensor operator said, then, in a tighter voice, “Correction, ten more.” He dropped out of Battle Language. “They must have been hiding in—”

“Show it,” Kodon said.

Finger-fives of Warbirds were swinging into high strike-fractionals above the planet’s east and west horizons. The Klingons were caught between.

Vrenn thought suddenly of white and black pieces on a square-gridded board: but this was no time for the image, and he shoved it away.

“Helm, Warp 0.3. Keep us well sublight, this close to the planet. Vector.” Kodon stroked a finger on his armrest controls, drawing the path he wanted on Vrenn’s display. It was not an escape vector. “Weapons, free fire,” the Squadron Leader said, then, “Zan Kandel, reopen the Captains’ Link.”

Blue Fire caught plasma to starboard, and shook as the harmonics leaked through; Vrenn drifted off Kodon’s line, by a hair, for a moment, then brought the ship back again. It was not responding normally: Vrenn scanned his readouts, found the power graphs dropping.

“Engineer—”

“You’ll have to share with the deflectors,” the Engineer said, as another bolt hit the cruiser. Power fell again. The Engineer turned. “Squadron Leader, commit?”

“Power to shields and weapons,” Kodon said, clipped and very calm. “We still fight.”

When Koth of the Vengeance said something like that, his Bridge crew usually raised a cheer. No one started one now.

Three Warbirds were in a precise, right-angled formation just below Blue Fire. Disruptors tore one open: trailing hot junk, it slid narrowly past another and dipped into air. There was a cometary flash. The remaining Romulans kept their formation.

“This Admiral is an idiot,” Kodon said. “He’s got the ships, and he must have had a warning, but he is still an idiot.”

On the screen ahead, Romulan ships were bracketing Death Hand, ahead, on the wings, behind. Death Hand fired back and did not miss—it was hardly possible at such ranges—but the number of Roms tipped the balance. A plasma bolt struck the Klingon cruiser’s hangar deck from the rear, and detonated inside: there was a jet of incandescent gas from the dorsal vent.

Kandel on Communications said, “Squadron Leader, the Force Leader wants to know if you intend to land his Marines.”

“Can’t he see we’re expected?” Kodon stared at Death Hand ahead, dying. “What shield shall I drop to transport him down?” Kodon’s teeth showed. “Just tell him we are engaged, and that he is to stand by.”

Death Hand killed one of her harriers. “Weapons, that one,” Kodon said, stabbing a finger, and Blue Fire poured its namesake into another Rom. “Flat-thinker!” Kodon snarled, and as the Rom blew up there was finally a cheer on the Bridge.

The word closed the circuit in Vrenn’s mind. It explained the lockstep formations, the flat-plane attacks, the way Death Hand had been surrounded. Now, if there was time to make any use of the knowledge—“Squadron Leader, a thought,” Vrenn said.

“Squadron Leader,” Ensign Kandel cut in, “Death Hand sends intent to abandon and destruct.”

There was a pause. A Captain did not abandon until the gravest extreme.

But not yet, Vrenn thought, not just yet—

“Affirmed,” Kodon said. “Only a fool fights in a burning house.” Then, with what seemed to Vrenn an infinite slowness, Kodon turned to him. “Proceed, zan Vrenn.”

“Squadron Leader, I know the rom zha, latrunculo—”

“He wants to play games,” the drone operator said.

Vrenn did not stop. “—which is played on squares, on a flat board. Pieces kill by pinning enemies between themselves—” Vrenn knew there was no time to explain the game, the thoughts behind it; Kodon must see. Vrenn pointed at the main display: the alignments of Warbirds and D-4s were as clear to him as the naked stars around them all. If there were some way to show square references upon the triangular grid of the display…perhaps Kandel could….

Kodon turned away. Vrenn felt eyes on him from all directions, felt the shame he had sworn under naked stars he would never know again, felt death in his liver.

“I know of the game,” Kodon said. “It is a fair observation…. So, if this is the sort of idiot the Rom Admiral is, Thought Ensign Vrenn, what shall we do to him?”

“There is a single piece in latrunculo,” Vrenn said, speaking almost faster than thought, “with the ability to leap over others, like a Flier of klin zha. Other pieces must be concentrated against the Centurion….”

Kodon laughed loudly. “Signal to Death Hand, priority! Drop shields and transport, and separate, I say once more separate; hold destruct.”

“Helmsman—” A line appeared on Vrenn’s display. Vrenn took Blue Fire to Warp 0.5 and skimmed the cruiser over Warbird, almost close enough to touch.

The Rom moved.

“Number 3 shield down.”

“Troop transporters energized to receive,” the Engineer said, and the power graphs dove as a wave of Death Hand’s Marines were beamed aboard Blue Fire.

Blue Fire jumped two more Warbirds, taking only token shots at them. Then, as Warbirds turned in place, a shudder went through Death Hand at the center of the enemy cluster: there was a brilliant ring of light at the junction of the cruiser’s narrow forward boom with her broad main wing. The two structures parted, and the boom began to crawl forward on impulse drive.

The Roms hesitated, turned again inward.

“Number 4 shield down, 5 up.”

“Transients in the signal,” the Engineer said, his hands running over controls. Power curves spiked, and warnings flashed yellow. He said, “We’ve got some scramble cases.”

“Affirm,” Kodon said.

Marine no-ranks did not have personal transporter operators watching for them.

Blue Fire glided on toward Death Hand, directly toward it. Vrenn watched as his boards showed tighter and tighter tolerances, less maneuver power as the mass transports stole it from engines.

“Transport arc’s changing again,” the Weapons officer said. “5 shield down, 6 up.”

“Transients clearing from the signal,” the Engineer said, as the two ships closed.

“Signal to Death Hand,” Kodon said. “Invitation to Naval officers aboard.”

Moments later the main display lit with a picture of Death Hand’s Bridge. Smoke obscured the scene. The Captain’s left arm was tucked inside his sash. Behind him, someone was lying dead across a sparking console.

“Your invitation received,” the Captain said. “My Ensigns are transporting now. I hope they find much glory with you.”

“I am certain,” Kodon said.

For the first time since the battle began, Vrenn thought about the damage to Blue Fire: who might be dead on the lower decks. But he had less time for such thoughts by the second. The two cruisers were less than a thousand meters apart, on collision course. An alarm screamed; Vrenn snapped it off.

He shifted power between port and starboard engines: Blue Fire began to roll.

Kodon said to the other Captain, “And your Executive?”

“Dead,” Death Hand’s Captain said. “And I, of course…”

“This need not be said,” said Kodon. “Kill Roms, with your Black Ship, Kadi.”

The other Captain grinned. “Not these Roms. They’re too stupid. After this death, no more for them….” His lips pulled back from histeeth, and his arm spasmed; blood soaked through the sash. The picture broke up.

Blue Fire slipped sidewise through the gap between the parts of Death Hand. Roms still surrounded them, some still firing into the dead ship’s hulk.

“Naval officers aboard,” the Engineer said. “Ready to receive second Marine unit.”

“Squadron Leader,” Communications said, “they’re breaking formation.”

Vrenn heard, registered, ignored: He was the ship now, seeking out the one gap in the formation of Roms they never would have thought to cover: how can two ships be in the same place at once?

Kodon looked up from his foot repeaters. “So, not all their Captains are such fools as their Admiral…. Cancel transport. Signal Code TAZHAT. Action!”

“Acting,” said all voices on the Bridge.

The planet whirled over on the display as Vrenn, clear at last of Death Hand, brought the ship about. Yellow lines cut across his displays, then green ones, then a blue. Vrenn pushed for thrust, the first set of levers, then the second.

Blue Fire engaged warp drive, and the stars blazed violet, and black, and were past.

“Flash wave aft,” said the Communications officer.

“Shield 6—” said Weapons, and a rumble through the decks finished the statement for her.

“Power,” Vrenn said, and the Engineer gave it to him. Blue Fire reached Warp 2, and the rumble died way: the ship had just outrun the sphere of photons and debris that was everything left of Death Hand. And of the Roms around it.

“Kai!” Kodon cried out. Vrenn felt proud, then embarrassed: it surely must be Captain Kadi that the Squadron Leader hailed.

Then Kodon said, “Navigator, course for the nearest outpost. Dronesman, trail one to flash. Communications, have Two Fingers home on the drone signal.”

Kandel said, “Sir, the cargo ships—”

“Dust, like all good Roms,” Kodon said, quiet but intense. “I am not now interested in prizes. I want an answer, and I do not think it is to be found back there.”

“Squadron Leader, shall I signal to the Fleet—”

“Signal them anything and I’ll have your throat out!”

So that, Vrenn thought, is what a real threat from Kodon sounds like.

After a moment, Kodon spoke again, in his normal tone. “Engineer, raise the heat and moisture on quarters decks; we’re going to be hungry but we might as well be comfortable. And I want Warp 4 power as soon as possible.” He got out of his chair. “Kurrozh, you have the conn. Vrenn, you will come with me.”

Vrenn stood, not knowing what to think and so trying to think nothing. It was an old trick to threaten the one and punish the other: this had an intensified effect on both subjects. He could not think of what he had done wrong, but knew far better than to be reassured by that.

And then he knew too well what he had done: he had suggested a strategy to a Squadron Leader during battle, and worse, the strategy had worked.

But then, as Vrenn followed Kodon to the lift, he saw one of the Bridge crew flash him the spread fingers of the Captain’s Star, and then another, and another. And he knew, then, that he would have his ship, even if it flew in the Black Fleet.

 

The Ensign’s tunic was torn, and smelled of smoke. He slung his bag on to the empty bed, sat down hard, and saluted with a bandaged hand. “Kelag, Death Hand,” he said.

“Kai Death Hand,” Vrenn said. “Vrenn—” He paused. “Brevet Lieutenant.”

“Vrenn…?” Kelag looked at Vrenn’s rank badges. “But you’re an Ensign?”

“Brevet Ensign.”

Kelag shook his head. His eyelids were drooping. “I don’t understand. What’d you…”

“I was Blue Fire’s Helmsman. I am, I mean.”

“Oh,” said Ensign Kelag, awake at once. “Kai Vrenn. Kai Blue Fire.”

Vrenn nodded. “That was Ruzhe’s bed,” he said. “He was aft, in Engineering.”

“Bad battle.”

“He got through the battle all right…but when they were working on getting the power back up, some tubes blew. It was intercooler gas. Almost plasma, they said. Anyway, there hasn’t been time to clear out his things.”

Kelag was contemplating the floor. After a moment, Vrenn realized he was asleep sitting up. Vrenn stood, took a step, meaning to stretch the Ensign out flat on the bed, but then he stopped. He did not look up. Security did not like any signs that one knew they were watching. They were much more likely to find something wrong with what they saw.

Vrenn turned out the lights—let them watch by infrared—and went to bed himself. He was instantly asleep.

 

Security had a Rom in the cube. It was running live on ship’s entertainment channel, and in the Inspirational Theatres. Most of the newer officers had traded duty to watch, but Vrenn had stayed on the helm. Kodon laughed; “You’ve gotten to like the conn quick enough. I know what that’s like.”

The Weapons Officer had the Examination picture on her repeater screen, sound too low for Vrenn to hear. If he looked that way, he could see it clearly enough. The right side of the screen showed the information display: a green outline of the Rom’s body, with blue traces of major nerves and yellow crosses where the agonizers were focused. On the left, the Romulan sat in the chair—very firmly so; Blue Fire’s Specialist Examiner had set the booth foci so the Rom’s muscles shoved her down and back into the seat cushions, leaving all the restraint straps slack. It was the work of a real expert, showing off just a little.

Vrenn supposed his view was really no worse than that in the Examining Room itself: the agonizer cubes were supposed to be entirely soundproof, with phones for the interested observer to listen at any chosen volume.

There had been three Romulans at the Imperial outpost where Kodon’s Squadron stopped. They claimed diplomatic protection; Kodon was hardly interested, and the outpost Commander was only too happy to stay out of the Squadron Leader’s way—especially after the Executive made clear that he was next in line for cube time.

The Ambassador cut her own throat, by Romulan ritual and admirably well. The Romulan Naval Attaché tried to be a great hero by overloading his pistol, but mis-set the controls. Kodon gave him to the surviving Marines from Death Hand. That left the Mission Clerk, who was in the cube, while the Security analysts did similar electronic things to the coded recordings she had carried. Security was pleased with their catch: clerks often knew more useful things than the bureaucrats they served.

The Rom slumped over. The Weapons Officer yawned and turned away; on the screen behind her, the agonizer foci shifted to new nerves, and the clerk’s head snapped up again. “So hey, Krenn,” the Gunner said, “how long before we get someplace with thick air? I hate these little outposts, flatulent rocks.”

Vrenn was getting used to the officers ennobling his name, though it couldn’t be final until the Navy made his promotions official. Which might, he knew, never happen. Not everything a privateer captain did, lasted. But for now, it made the conversations easier. “Three days to Aviskie, Lieutenant, if the Squadron Leader wants Warp 4.”

“He will. Got any plans?”

The Romulan was bleeding a thin green trickle from the corner of her mouth.

“I hadn’t,” Vrenn said.

“I think you do now.”

Vrenn tried not to laugh, but did anyway. The two other Lieutenants on the Bridge were carefully watching their boards.

“So what am I supposed to make of that?” the Gunner said. “There may be too much Cadet fuzz on your ears to know it, but you’re on the warp route, Thought Ensign.” Kodon’s half-mocking title for him had spread. “Ever hear of the Warp 4 Club?”

“I have got duty.”

“You can’t conn the ship for three khest’n days.”

Vrenn grinned. The Gunner had no serious faults he could see—except, perhaps, the rank badges on her vest: Vrenn wondered if he ought to wait, just until his Lieutenancy came through in cold metal.

But then he wouldn’t be a full member of the Club.

The Romulan began to convulse, then went rigid: her lips moved, forming words. The Gunner turned up the sound: it was barely understandable as a string of Romulan numbers.

“Here come the code keys,” the officer said, slapping his thigh.

“You see?” the Gunner said to Vrenn, laughing. “I hope your timing’s always this good.”

The rental room in Aviskie Column Five was dark, and finally quiet, and damp with room fog and perspiration. The incense in the bedside holder had burned out a little while ago.

Light lanced in, and cold outside air. Vrenn rolled off the bed, fingers arched to claw: on the other side, the Gunner had been just a little faster, and was already saluting.

“Come with us, Lieutenant,” Ensign Merzhan said. Behind him were a Navy Commander with a silver Detached Service sash, and two armed enforcers, from the port complement, not Blue Fire’s.

Vrenn saluted: it did not occur to him to disagree. “I’ll dress—”

“Why?” said Merzhan. The Commander made a tiny gesture, and Merzhan’s face froze. The officer said, “Go ahead.”

Vrenn pulled on trousers and boots and tunic, and finally his vest and sash, waiting for someone to stop him donning the rank marks. No one did. The Gunner stood at parade rest.

“Let’s go,” the Detached Commander said, in a voice with less character than a ship’s computer’s. He looked at the Gunner, eyes not so much appraising as measuring her. “We weren’t here.”

“Nobody was,” she said, and as Vrenn was led out he thought that she did not sound frightened at all: just rueful.

 

Vrenn sat in a bare conference room, windowless, with three Naval officers: Koll, the Commander who had come to his rental room, Commander Kev of Blue Fire, and Captain Kessum of Two Fingers. Vrenn had not seen Kodon. All the Security men had gone, so they were certainly watching by other means.

“This is not a tribunal,” Koll said, “nor any other sort of official meeting. In fact, this meeting is not taking place, and never will have taken place. Is this understood?”

“Perfectly,” Vrenn said.

Kev nodded. Koll put a rectangular object on the table; an antenna rose from it, and several small lights began to flicker. Vrenn realized that the Detached officer, whatever he was, was quite serious about the nature of the meeting: now, not even Security would be listening.

Commander Koll said, “As a result of certain Romulan decrypts, we have learned of a series of secret negotiations between the Komerex Romulan and a faction within the Komerex Klingon. Had these discussions resulted in a treaty, a neutral zone would have been established between the Komerexi, supposedly inviolable by either side. While such a treaty has often been proposed in the Imperial Council, and discarded, this group might have been able to enforce the support of an agreement presented as an accomplished fact….”

Vrenn felt his liver shift in his chest. He knew one proponent of Rom Neutral Space, only one. The idea was related to the principle of center control in the game called chess.

“…an excuse for destruction of Klingon frontier vessels on charting or colonization missions, having no effect at all on Romulan incursionary forces—”

“Commander,” Kev said, “that’s background.” Kev looked at Vrenn, with his impaling eyes; Vrenn tried to puzzle out what the look said.

“Yes, correct,” Koll said. “The point is that now the treaty conspirators have been identified. Among them is Thought Admiral Kethas epetai-Khemara.” Koll gave Vrenn his mechanical, measuring look. Kessum tapped a hand on the table, the two-fingered right hand that gave his ship its name.

Kev said abruptly, “The point is this. Squadron Leader Kodon thinks that you are not involved in this conspiracy, and are too good an officer to be disposed of for the sake of mere caution. I agree with both points. Now, we have worked very fast, faster than Security can follow, we think, so listen carefully. There’s an independent command waiting for you, if you want it. A small frontier scout, but it’s Navy, and it doesn’t have to be a khesterex thath if you stay as clever as you’ve been.”

Vrenn sat very still. He wondered if the stars above this world were clothed or naked now. Here was his ship, then; here too was its price.

“If the one hesitates,” Captain Kessum said formally, “for the breaking of the chain of duty, let certain terms of the negotiation be stated.”

Kev said, “The Roms wanted some proofs of the negotiators’ intent. They wanted information on the next frontier raid. They got it.”

Vrenn said, “Did the one—”

“The one knew,” said Commander Koll. “The one verified it.”

So there was only the komerex zha, Vrenn thought, and the pieces of the game were only bits of wood in the fire. “The Navy honors me,” he said, “and where I am commanded, there I shall go.”

“Kai kassai,” Kev said softly, but his look was still steel needles.

Vrenn said, “If I might take formal leave of Squadron Leader Kodon—”

Captain Kessum said stiffly, “This one is here for Kodon.”

Yes, of course, Vrenn thought. Blue Fire lived, but Death Hand was dust. And there was the question of strategy, that least Klingon of Sciences, whose practitioners made strange things happen; as Kev had said once before, If you did plan this, do not let it be known.

“…it is of course understood that you will not operate in this part of the frontier.”

“This need not be said,” Vrenn said.

“Then it’s done,” Koll said, and reached for his sensor jammer.

Commander Kev said, “You’ll have to change your name now.”

 

Scout Captain Krenn was eighty days out on an exploratory cruise when the recordings arrived, scrambled with Krenn’s personal cipher; there was no originating label.

He watched the taped deaths of Kethas and Rogaine twice through. They were competent kills, as the law of assassination specified: that indeed was the reason for taping at all.

Krenn was pleased to see that Rogaine fought very well, stabbing one assassin, blinding another with her nails after her body had hypnotized him. It served the fool right for such carelessness.

Kethas fell near his gameboards, firing back as he collapsed, upsetting the Reflective Game set that had been his favorite. Kethas’s hand closed on the green-gold Lancer, and then did not move. The camera swung away. On the second play, Krenn stopped the image, enlarged it; he realized that the epetai-Khemara had not been reaching for the game piece, but toward his consort’s body.

Krenn stopped the tape again, thinking to rewind and watch for Kethas’s look, exactly as Rogaine died; but he did not do so.

The record covered only two of the house kuve. Little black-furred Odise was shot from a balcony, fell, landing in a wet and messy heap. Tirian they stunned, and agonized for a time, then carried aloft in a flier. His tunic was slit down the back, and the scars of his wings shown to the camera. Then they flung him out, perhaps twelve hundred meters above the dark twisted mass of the Kartade Forest. Krenn did not rerun that scene.

He burned the cassette, thinking, It simplifies things enormously when honor claims are absent.

Krenn stepped out onto the Bridge. The Helmsman saluted, not too sharply, and the Science officer turned. They were enough Bridge crew; it was a small ship. But a Navy ship, and perhaps not a dead command.

“Anything of interest?” Krenn asked Sciences.

“Dust and smaller dust,” Specialist Akhil said. “Your message?”

“Some bureaucratic housecleaning.”

Akhil laughed. Then he said, “Is this a good time to ask a question, Captain?”

“As good as any.”

“My oldest uncle was on a ship under a Captain of the Rustazh line. Are you any—”

“They’re all gone,” said Krenn tai-Rustazh. “The name was free for use.”

“So you are starting a line,” the Helmsman said.

“Why else would anyone be out here?” Krenn said. “To play the Perpetual Game?”

Then he laughed, and the Scientist and the Helmsman joined in.