“It probably won’t help, but I have found another Teroni on the station, and convinced him to fight on our side.”
“What kind of ship has he got?”
“Class-QH,” said Jacovic. “It’s not much, but he’s got a Level 3 laser cannon. He might be able to take out one or two of Csonti’s smaller ships.”
“We’ll take all the help we can get,” said Cole. “I’ll talk to him later. Where is he docked?”
“Dock M, port 483,” answered Jacovic.
“Hell, that’s out in the next county,” complained Cole. Suddenly he froze.
“Are you all right, Captain?” said Jacovic after a few seconds. “Commander Forrice, is the Captain ill?”
Forrice got up and spun over to where Cole was standing.
“Son of a bitch!” said Cole so suddenly that the Molarian inadvertently spun back, startled. “I’m an idiot! It was staring me right in the face! Hell, I even discussed it with you two and the Duke, and I still didn’t see it!”
Jacovic was silent for a moment. “Of course!” he shouted at last. “It was when I mentioned the ship’s location, wasn’t it?”
“You got it,” said Cole, trying to control his excitement.
“
I
don’t have it,” said Forrice. “What are you two talking about?”
“Think about it, Four Eyes! What did Jacovic just tell me about his friend’s ship?”
“That it’s got a Level 3 burner.”
“After that.”
“After that?” repeated Forrice, frowning. “Nothing.”
“He told me it’s in port 483 of M Dock.”
“So?”
“So why wasn’t it in port 1?”
“Because another ship was already there, obviously.”
“Or port 200?”
Suddenly a huge smile spread across the Molarian’s face. “I see!”
“We already know we have to evacuate well over one hundred thousand Men and aliens,” said Cole. “How many of them have ships?”
“I’ll tell you in twenty seconds,” said Forrice, uttering a pair of coded commands to the computer. “It’s checking with the station’s traffic computer.” Another five seconds. “There are 17,304 ships currently docked at Singapore Station.”
“I’d say that’ll improve the odds a little, wouldn’t you?” asked Cole with a smile.
“They won’t all have weapons, and not all the ships with weapons will fight to defend the station,” said Forrice.
“I don’t need them all. But remember, sixty thousand Men and aliens live here.
They’ve
got a vested interest in defending the place.”
“It makes sense,” conceded Forrice.
“Thank you, Jacovic,” said Cole. “If you hadn’t found this Teroni with the ship, all three of us could have overlooked this until it was too late. Are you in the casino now?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming over. I want you to hunt up the Platinum Duke. A contained environment like Singapore Station must have a holographic public address system. Tell him I want to use it as soon as I get there.”
“I’ll take care of it, Captain,” said Jacovic, and his image vanished.
“I think you can stop playing with your computer now,” said Cole to Forrice. “Come back to the station with me.”
“Happy to,” said the Molarian.
“I’ll drop you off at your whorehouse on the way.”
“The whorehouse can wait,” said Forrice. “I want to be there when you address the . . . what should I call them? The populace.”
“Call them the station’s navy,” replied Cole. “That’s what I want them to become. Now let’s go.”
They took the airlift down to the main hatch in the shuttle bay, then rode a slidewalk a quarter mile to a monorail station. The single car picked them up and transported them the rest of the way.
“How could I have made this trip past hundreds of ships on Dock J every day and not figured it out?” said Cole. “I mean, Dock
J
, for God’s sake! If there are five hundred ports per dock, and J is the tenth letter . . . Hell, how could I have missed them?”
“They’re not warships, and they haven’t declared for one side or the other,” said Forrice. “We all just naturally thought of them as civilians.”
“Probably most of them will choose to stay civilians,” acknowledged Cole. “But with this many to start with, I’ve got to be able to recruit a couple of hundred, which is more than we need.” He smiled again. “I think Csonti is going to have a little surprise waiting for him when he shows up.”
“Preferably half a light-year or so
before
he gets here,” replied the Molarian. “No sense letting him get within firing range.”
“Let’s recruit our forces first,” said Cole, as the car dropped them off at the end of the dock. “Then we’ll worry about how to deploy them.”
They got on the slidewalk that took them to the center of the station, then transferred to another that brought them to the front door of the casino. They entered, and found the Platinum Duke waiting for them at his table.
“Everything’s ready for you,” he said. “Where do you want to speak from?”
“Any place that’s convenient.”
“How about my private office?”
“I thought this table was your private office,” said Cole with a smile.
“This table is my
public
office,” said the Duke. “Follow me.”
“You might as well wait here,” said Cole to Forrice. “This shouldn’t take long.”
The Duke led Cole to the back of the casino, waited for a door to iris and let them pass through, then walked down a short corridor to a large, elegant office at the end of it. The office door scanned the Duke’s one natural retina, analyzed the molecular structure of the platinum that composed most of his body, and allowed him and his guest to pass through.
“All the Teroni told me was that you needed to address the whole station,” said the Duke, trying to restrain his excitement. “You must have a plan worked out, right?”
“I have a plan
thought
out,” said Cole. “What I’m doing now is working out the details.”
“Can you tell me what it is?”
“We’re each donating the things we’re best suited to donate. Stick around and listen.” He paused. “Where do I stand?”
“Anywhere you want. The holo cameras will key on your body heat and the motion sensors will follow you if you feel like walking around while you’re speaking.”
“It’s not going to be that long a speech.”
“Give me just a minute to program the cameras.”
The Duke gave half a dozen commands to the computer that controlled all his office equipment including the cameras, then nodded to Cole. “It’ll start when you do.”
“Residents of Singapore Station, and visitors as well, I have an important message for you,” said Cole. “I’m going to give you a few seconds to end your conversations and concentrate on what I’m about to say.” He paused, counted to fifteen, and spoke again. “Most of you are unaware of it, but a fleet of thirty-five to forty ships, led by the warlord known as Csonti, is on its way here to destroy Singapore Station. They are not expected to reach us for at least thirty-five Standard hours. Those of you who wish to evacuate the station will have more than a full Standard day to do so. But there is an alternative, one I hope many of you will consider.”
He paused again to make sure he had their attention and that they weren’t all racing for their valuables and their ships.
“I am in command of a former Republic warship and four other vessels, and I plan to stay and fight. I know that as of half an hour ago there were more than seventeen thousand ships docked at Singapore Station. If one out of every seventeen ships will put itself under my command, we can meet Csonti’s forty ships with an overwhelming force of one thousand. If one out of every fifty ships will put itself under my command, we will still have a fleet of more than three hundred to stand against Csonti. If you’re willing to volunteer your services, we’ll be taking names and contact information at Duke’s Place. Any damages to your ships will be paid for by the Platinum Duke—
if
you’ve signed on to help me. There will be no compensation if you choose not to help defend the station.”
The Duke looked like he was about to protest, then considered the alternatives and remained silent. Cole stepped closer to the camera so that every line in his face could be clearly seen.
“Some of you may wonder why you should put yourself under my command, rather than flee from the invaders or simply freelance with your own weaponry. There are two reasons. The first concerns why you should trust my military capabilities. My name is Wilson Cole, I have commanded three different starships in the Republic’s Navy, and I am the first man ever to win four Medals of Courage from the Space Service. The second reason concerns why you of the Inner Frontier should trust me: I am wanted dead or alive by both the Teroni Federation and the Republic.”
He nodded to the Duke, who ended the transmission.
“I’ve stored it, and will play it throughout the station every hour on the hour,” announced the Duke.
“Let’s hope it works.”
“We’ve got seventeen thousand ships to draw from,” said the Duke. “Of course it’ll work.”
“It’s not how many ships are docked here,” replied Cole. “It’s how many of their owners are willing to risk
their
necks to save
your
space station.”
“I never looked at it that way,” admitted the Duke, suddenly nervous. “Do you think we can draw a hundred, anyway?”
Cole shrugged. “Who knows?”
“What’s the absolute minimum we need?”
“It depends on his mood,” said Cole. “If he’s still as mad as when he left here, probably two thousand ships won’t deter him. If he’s sobered up and we can muster a fleet of twenty, he may decide it’s not worth losing half his fleet to destroy the station. Don’t forget—you’ve got half a dozen arms dealers using the station as their permanent base. I guarantee each of them will have at least one ship that can match any firepower Csonti’s got.”
“Right!” said the Duke enthusiastically. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
“Hey Wilson, Duke—you’d better come out here,” said Forrice, his image suddenly appearing inside the office.
“More problems?” asked Cole.
“In a way.”
“What’s up?”
“The second your transmission ended, they started lining up at the casino to enlist,” said Forrice. “The line’s already a block long, and at the rate it’s growing, it could reach half a mile within an hour.”
“I guess being a decorated war hero has its advantages,” said Cole.
“Not around here,” answered Forrice. “It was when you announced that the Republic and the Federation both want your head that everyone stood up and cheered.”
“Governments—
any
governments—are not popular out here,” said the Duke. “That’s why most people come to the Inner Frontier in the first place—to get away from authority and government.”
“Or their navies,” added Forrice with an alien hoot of laughter.
“Four Eyes,” said Cole, “get Christine, Briggs, Braxite, Jacillios, Rachel, and Domak from the ship—or wherever the hell they are—and have them start processing all the volunteers.” He walked to the office door. “Come on, Duke—let’s have a victory drink and hope it’s not premature.”
They walked down the corridor and into the casino. As soon as the crowd saw Cole they began cheering, and didn’t stop for another five minutes after he sat down at the Duke’s table with his host and Jacovic.
“Damn!” said Cole. “If I’d have known it would bring this kind of reaction, I’d have deposed my first three captains as well as Podok.”
“Don’t get too cheerful just yet,” said the Duke. “Only half of them are cheering you. The other half are cheering the price on your head and trying to figure out how to go about collecting it.”
30
The response was amazing, though in retrospect it probably should have been expected.
“Where the hell are they all coming from?” asked Sharon Blacksmith as the line still stretched into the next block two hours later.
She had come over from the
Teddy R
when she heard Cole’s announcement, which was not only broadcast throughout the station but had also been piped into all the thousands of docked ships. She’d fought her way through the crowd of volunteers and was now sitting at the Duke’s table with Cole, Forrice, and Jacovic.
“They live here,” answered Cole. “Why the hell shouldn’t they line up to defend their homeland, however small and artificial it is?”
“Five’ll get you ten that half of them are outlaws,” she said.
“Maybe in the Republic,” replied Forrice. “Out here they’re citizens.”
“And before long they may even be heroes,” added Cole.
“How are you going to teach them military discipline in a day and a half?” asked Sharon.