Homefall: Book Four of the Last Legion Series (26 page)

The bridge was crowded as Njangu and Garvin slid in, finding a place away from the command console.

N-space still swirled about them.

Njangu saw a communications officer sniff the air. He could have told the man what the smell was — the stink of fear, waiting to see what would happen when
Big Bertha
entered this booby-trapped system, but didn’t. The virgin would figure it out in a few moments all by himself.

Garvin caught Liskeard’s eye, nodded a go-ahead.

“You have the security data from Cayle?” Liskeard asked an officer sitting in front of a screen.

“Affirm. Up and running.”

Liskeard tapped a talker.

“All stations, battle ready,” he ordered. “All compartments seal, report integrity.”

Liskeard listened to the clatter of returns, and an officer said:

“All compartments sealed, sir.”

“Stand by to exit hyperspace … on my signal … now!”

Screens unblurred, and
Big Bertha
was in normal space, hanging not far from a ringed planet.

“Receiving signal on watch frequency … N … N … N … origin one of two moons at two-A, main screen.”

“Respond with R … R … R …”

“Receiving signal … C-nine-eight-A-R-two.”

“Wait … wait … send challenge response of four-five-I-X-two-two.”

“Signal sent … waiting … waiting … response of C … C … C …”

“That’s clearance.”

There was a moment of relaxation.

“Stand by for next jump,” Liskeard ordered. “Twenty seconds …”

“I have activity from planetary surface.”

“ID it!”

“Ships … several ships … taking off … correction. Missiles.”

“Ship targeted.”

“Activate ECM.”

“Activated, sir. Trying to acquire control.”

“Twelve seconds to hyperspace.”

“Missiles will be in range in … thirty seconds. I have ten bogies homing. Correction. Four missiles jumped into N-space … no proximity report … six missiles remaining in normal space … proximity twenty-four seconds.”

“Six seconds to hyperspace.”

“Four missiles exited N-space … homing … homing …”

“Two missiles taken over … three … three diverted …”

“Three seconds to hyperspace.”

“Single missile homing … impact in four seconds …”

“Jump!”

The world went swirly.

“Now, if that goddamned missile has lost us …”

Silence for some seconds.

“We lost it.”

“Whew.”

“Where the hell did that missile launch come from and why?” Liskeard demanded. “I thought we had all their security codes.”

“I thought so, too,” Garvin said.

“Maybe a system bought from another supplier?”

“Maybe … or maybe those goddamned missiles got a little rusty around the ears and got independent?”

“One more jump, and then Centrum.”

“Let’s get through that one more first.”

“Silence on the bridge except for business!”

Njangu noticed the smell was stronger.

The screen showed a tight cluster of planets close to the sun, a scatter of ice giants on the fringes. The nav point had brought them out in a band of asteroids.

Eyes scanned screens, then, in a jumble:

“I have metallic objects homing on us!”

“Indicated asteroid has made a launch … count of twenty-seven missiles …”

“I have inbound ships from inner worlds … guesstimate robot interceptors …”

“Unknown objects homing on ship … ID as possible kinetic satellites … count thirty-five …”

“Metallic objects probably active mines … send countersignal three-four-Q-Q-Q-three …”

“Roger three-four-Q-Q-Q-three …”

“Missile diversion send six-six-seven-eight-nine-nine-zero.”

“Sending six-six-seven-eight-nine-nine-zero.”

“Interceptors disappeared into N-space.”

“Interceptor code single word WAVEN.”

“Roger WAVEN, waiting for reappearance …”

“Mines have aborted, countersignal worked.”

“Inbound missiles self-destructed.”

“Interceptors returned to real space, sending WAVEN … WAVEN … no effect …”

“ECM attempt to lock on interceptors … no apparent effect.”

“Countermissiles stand by for launch, on command,” Liskeard ordered.

“Interceptors returned to N-space, sent signal of RAFET, I say again, RAFET.”

“RAFET approved acknowledgment of challenge response. They’ve gone back home.”

“Anything else out there trying to eat us alive?”

Silence, then a storm of negatives.

“Seven minutes to next launch,” Liskeard said. “Don’t relax.”

“Stand by for reentry,” Liskeard ordered. “If they’ve got anything that’ll come after us, let’s try to get a jump on ‘em. That last was a little bit close for me.

“Four … two … we’re out!”

They entered a system with a medium main sequence sun, five planets within habitable range, one too close in, three farther out.

“Capella,” somebody breathed. Garvin thought it might be him.

“Anything?”

A string of negatives.

“There’s got to be
something
out there standing guard,” Liskeard said.

“Maybe they’re saving their surprises for when we’re on the ground,” Njangu said.

His throat was very dry.

Njangu’s worries didn’t last long.

As they closed on Centrum, the com officer made the standard arrival notice/request for landing instructions on one of the watch frequencies.

It was as if he provided a reveille call.

A slow reveille call, for it was on the third repetition that Centrum Control snorted awake and informed
Big Bertha
to take a parking orbit, and stand by for clearancing.

Froude shuddered a little.

“Clearancing, eh? Well, whatever happened, we can assume the teachers of Common were the first to go under.”

“I think,” Njangu said to Garvin, “you and I had best get flashed up.”

They dressed in their conservative best, but could have taken their time, because it was three ship-hours before the watch frequency came alive, advising the ship
Bag Berna
to stand by for boarding and inspection.

The ship approaching them was identified by their
Jane’s
fiche as unknown, which Njangu assumed meant built less than eight years ago, when their latest copy of
Jane’s
had been sent off to the far frontiers.

“Destroyer class, it appears,” Liskeard said. “Zoom me in closer if you can.”

A tech brought up a screen with a realtime visual, zoomed in until the destroyer appeared no more than half a kilometer distant.

“Interesting,” Liskeard went on. “It’s spent a lot of time in-atmosphere … not hangared … look at the corrosion on the outer hull. Not drydocked in a while. Not very shipshape, my friends.”

He watched the ship’s approach. The destroyer killed its secondary drive and braked into a parallel orbit two thousand meters away from
Big Bertha.
Mag-couples shot out. One missed, the other clanged against
Big Bertha
’s hull, and winches brought the two ships closer.

“Sloppy piloting,” Liskeard assessed. “I would have horsewhipped myself for something that ground-pounder.”

Space-suited figures swam across emptiness, into
Big Bertha
’s main lock, were cycled into the main hold.

There were a dozen of them, and, already waiting, were Garvin, Njangu, Monique Lir in spangles, Froude, not in his clown outfit, Alikhan, and Ben Dill in a muscle outfit, very picturesque and harmless.

The Confederation men and women didn’t wait for anything like an atmosphere check, but evidently assumed since most of their greeters looked human, they must breathe something close to E-normal.

Helmets were doffed. A man, not much more than a boy, looked around. “Sheesh, what a goddamned big ship,” he said, audibly.

Monique Lir started to frown at this indiscipline, hid her reaction.

A long-haired woman stepped forward.

“I’m.
Haut
Fenfer, of the
Thermidor.
Welcome to the People’s Confederation.”

Garvin noted the change in the name.

“And I’m Garvin Jaansma of Circus Jaansma. These are my staff members.”

“Your homeworld?”

Garvin decided to answer carefully, and make no mention of Cumbre.

“Garibaldi.”

“I’m not familiar with that system,” Fenfer said, and somebody in the ranks snickered.

“Your purpose in entering the Confederation?”

“To entertain the people of Centrum and this system’s other worlds,” Garvin said.

Fenfer hesitated. “You’ll have to bear with me a bit … you’re the first ship I’ve ever cleared.”

Njangu kept his poker face firmly in place.

“Did you, uh, have any problems approaching Capella?” she asked.

“None,” Garvin said.

Fenfer looked perplexed.

“That’s good. Uh, do you have any contraband aboard?”

“This is the first time we’ve visited Capella,” Garvin said. “What is contraband?”

Fenfer took a list from a pouch, began reading:

“Weapons-grade fissionable devices … subversive propaganda … narcotics not permitted by the Confederation …” The list went on. At its end, Garvin shook his head solemnly.

“None of the above. Except for dangerous animals, which are part of our show, and are always properly caged and watched.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“I guess the animals won’t be a problem,” Fenfer said. “Would you object to an inspection?”

“Of course not. My staff will be happy to escort your people around.”

Fenfer turned to her team.

“Very well. You have your instructions.”

“Assuming there are no problems,” Fenfer said, “I have orders to escort you, Gaffer Jaansma, as commander of this ship, to
Dant
Romolo, on our fleet’s flagship.”

“I would be honored,” Garvin said. “Shall we get the inspection out of the way? I don’t want to keep
Dant
Romolo waiting.”

Fenfer passed Monique Lir, gave her a meaningless smile.

Lir responded in kind, didn’t wrinkle her nose.

Either Fenfer’s suit needed decontamination, or else the woman could use a bath.

• • •

Fenfer’s ship, the
Thermidor
, wasn’t that clean either, Garvin thought. The bulkheads and decks had been mopped and swept, but here and there he spotted patches given a lick and a promise.

Similarly, the crew members were sloppily dressed, some wearing bits of civilian clothes with their uniforms.

They didn’t have what the military called, in a word Njangu always hated, “smartness.”

Yoshitaro never gave a damn whether a trooper had her/his nose spit-shined, but knew a well-trained grunt moved with a certain snap, had an easy familiarity with his/her duties.

Not the women and men of the
Thermidor.

They behaved, Njangu decided, like sailors who were two weeks or less short of discharge and simply didn’t give much of a tinker’s damn.

Garvin thought it a bit odd that the
Thermidor’
s Commanding Officer didn’t bother to come down from the bridge to the compartment he and Njangu were held in, close to the airlock, out of curiosity if no more.

He chanced asking their guard, a friendly-faced
Dec
who’d told them he was one of the ship’s quartermasters. As part of the “search” team, he’d been infinitely curious about the circus and how it operated, and said, wistfully, that he hoped he’d get ground leave before they left.

Garvin scribbled out an Annie Oakley, said he hoped to see him there and he’d personally give him a tour of the midway, clown alley, and the tops.

He chanced asking why the quartermaster’s CO hadn’t come down and introduced himself.

The quartermaster looked up at the wall speaker, which Garvin thought interesting in itself, then said, in a low voice:

“He doesn’t know what to think about you yet.”

“Why doesn’t he come down and get some input to make up his mind?” Njangu asked.

“No, no,” the man said. “He hasn’t been
told
what he thinks yet.”

He refused to elaborate who would be the one who’d dictate opinion, and was relieved when the speaker beeped and announced they’d be closing on the
Corsica
in zero-seven minutes.

• • •

The
Corsica
was huge, a battleship more than two kilometers long, bristling with missile stations and chainguns for secondary armament.

It was also very smart, indeed, overheads, bulkheads, decks gleaming, uniforms spotless, their wearers moving with snap and panache, saluting officers with a greeting and a slogan that must have been changed regularly.

This one was “train hard, fight easy,” one of the oldest and most deceptively false saws in the book. More realistic, Njangu thought, would be “train hard, fight hard; train easy, fight harder.”

Njangu thought the ship and its crew were perhaps a little
too
nit and tiddy.

An aide, who didn’t introduce himself, ushered them through an outer office with busy yeomen into
Dant
Lae Romolo’s cabin, which was rather sparse, with computer projections hung haphazardly here and there on the walls. The only holo was that of a rather severe woman.

From Cumbre on, Garvin had the rather romantic dream that all this sneaking and subterfuge would end with him being able to stand at attention in front of a high-ranking Confederation officer, salute him, and report as he should:

“
Caud
Garvin Jaansma, Commanding Second Infantry Regiment, First Brigade, Strike Force Angara from the Cumbre system, reporting in to the Confederation, sir.”

But now he thought better of the idea.

Dan
Romolo was a fairly small man, with a round face, thinning hair he clearly didn’t have the vanity to have revitalized, and the beginnings of middle-ages spread.

This did not mean Romolo was, in any way amiable-looking or soft. His face was prematurely lined, comfortable with command, and his cold eyes stared hard.

Njangu was reminded of the late dictator Redruth, and didn’t like the hint at all.

“Welcome to the People’s Confederation, and its capital system,” Romolo said, and there was a slight, possibly sarcastic, emphasis on “People’s.”

“Your home world is Grimaldi.”

“Yes, sir,” Garvin said.

“My star charts show that as a barely colonized world,” Romolo said.

Garvin was surprised.

“It’s been settled for at least four hundred years, sir, as a base for traveling circuses like mine.”

“Don’t be surprised,” Romolo said. “During the course of … shall we say, change, in the Confederation, many records were either destroyed by accident or mislaid and have yet to be recovered.”

“Change, sir?” Garvin said. “All we know … all the worlds we come from or landed on … is that the Confederation has fallen out of contact with its systems.”

“Also, none of the military units we encountered have been in contact with Centrum,” Njangu chanced. “Sir … what happened?”

He heard honest plaintiveness in his voice.

Romolo took a careful breath.

“The Confederation Parliament went through a sea change, very rapidly, after a long period of stress, a few years ago.

“The new members of Parliament have been forced to spend all their time rebuilding the homeworlds, bringing order, and unfortunately haven’t been able to provide the Confederation with leadership or security.

“It’s truly unfortunate, and all of us hope the situation corrects itself within the next few years.”

Garvin knew he should have kept his mouth shut, but couldn’t. This was, after all, the culmination of everything.

“Sir … what we’ve just gone through, getting here, which was always my dream … well, it’s pretty close to pure chaos out there. We
need
the Confederation.”

Romolo’s lips thinned, and he nodded sharply.

“I’m not surprised. Let me ask you something … I believe you prefer the title of Gaffer … did you have any difficulties in reaching Capella?”

“We had to evade some people who called themselves the Confederation Protectorate a few jumps back,” Garvin said. “And some of the worlds we attempted to perform on weren’t that friendly.”

“But nothing else?”

“Not really, sir,” Garvin said. “What, specifically, did you have in mind?”

Romolo was silent, thinking.

“That’s interesting. Very interesting. I think it might be valuable for us to examine your logbooks.”

“With our pleasure, sir.”

“That can be done later,” Romolo said. “I’m sure you’d like to make planetfall as soon as possible.”

“It’s been a long series of jumps, sir,” Garvin said.

“I’ll happily give you a release to land where the People’s Parliament allows, with my recommendation that you be permitted to perform as desired and given the full freedom of Centrum. You’ll be assigned a pilot within the ship-day to ensure you make proper landing.”

“Thank you, sir. I hope you’ll find the time to be our guest.”

“Unlikely,” Romolo said. “I find that my duties here, away from the comforts of Centrum, take up all of my time.”

He didn’t sound like he was sorry about that.

“A circus,” he said, pretending sociability. “I remember, as a boy, my mother taking me to a circus. That was in the old days, when there
were
things like circuses, and entertainment that wasn’t always supposed to be good for you.

“There were monsters and animals and people doing amazing things. Amazing.”

Then he dropped the effort, came back to the present.

“Very well. That’s all.”

“Sir?” Njangu asked.

“Would it be possible for me to inquire as to whether anything is known about one of the Frontier Worlds? I had a brother … I hope I still have him … serving with the Confederation forces …” Njangu tried to sound worried.

“My writers in the compartment outside have access to all Confederation records,” Romolo said, a bit impatiently, too big a man to worry about small things like brothers. “You’re welcome to ask one of them before you transship.”

Garvin tried to keep from saluting, from doing a smart about-face, from looking like a military sort, and they went out.

• • •

“What was the name of this world again?” the yeoman asked.

“Cumbre,” Njangu said. “D-Cumbre. All the worlds of the Cumbre system had letter-names, my brother said.” He spelled Cumbre carefully.

The woman tapped sensors, shook her head.

“Nothing at all on Confederation Main Records or our star charts. What about the name of the unit, although it’s unlikely there’d be anything under that listing.”

“Uh, the last note I had from him said it was, uh, Strike Force Swift Lance. Its commander was named Williams.”

Again, sensors were touched.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps you’ve got the unit name wrong, in which case you should check with Confederation Military Records once you’re on Centrum.”

“Son of a bitch,” Garvin said, as
Big Bertha’
s lock cycled, and they pulled their helmets off.

• • •

“Son of a bitch indeed,” Njangu said.

“I think we need a drink.”

“Several. And get Froude and Ristori’s asses for chasers and consultation.”

• • •

“I’m making some very interesting, very tentative theories,” Froude said. “You, Jabish?”