The Road to Damascus (bolo) Read online

  Simon knew exactly how memorable. With Jefferson’s military forces taking forty percent casualties and civilian death tolls approaching two million before the Concordiat relief effort broke the siege, barely a single family had escaped without the loss of at least one member. Some had been virtually wiped out. “I’ve read the files,” Simon said quietly. “Your people waged one of the finest home-defense campaigns of that war.”

  Brief smiles flickered around the conference room table.

  “Thank you,” Abe Lendan said in a low voice. “But I won’t pretend that we,” he gestured to include the rest of his fellow Jeffersonians, “are ready, let alone able, to conduct a defense anywhere close to that level. We’ve kept up the military bases, made sure the home guard trains at least a couple of times a year. But things have been quiet for long enough, people have gotten used to putting all their effort into their homesteads, if they’re Granger-bred, or their jobs, if they live in a city or town. We’ve done so well, we’ve even spawned a growing eco-movement, calling for sensible decisions from the Terraforming Engineers’ Corps. Jefferson has some mighty pretty wild country and we can afford to protect the best of it.”

  Simon nodded, although he was aware of subtle shifts in body language and expression that told him not everyone at the table agreed with that assessment. It was something worth paying attention to, certainly, once they got past the immediate crisis. Jefferson might not be quite as “solidly united” as President Lendan had said and there’d been no mention of an eco-movement in his mission briefing, suggesting rapidly changing social dynamics. Which was another good reason to pay attention.

  But only after the business at hand was properly settled.

  Abe Lendan, too, caught that slight ripple of disagreement, but said only, “So that’s where we stand, Major. If you would be good enough to oblige us with your recommendations?”

  “Thank you, Mr. President.” He took a moment to look at each man and woman in turn, matching faces and names, gauging the strength of each face, each set of eyes. These were good people. You could feel it, as well as see it. He would need good people.

  “I’ve been assigned to Jefferson on permanent loan to the planetary government,” he began quietly, “along with Unit SOL-0045. As a chartered colony world, Jefferson’s entitled to military defense, but the Concordiat can’t afford to divert ground troops and equipment to provide it, just now. Not even to honor our treaty obligations. But nobody understands better than I do that folks on a frontier get jittery when there’s a war on, particularly one as nasty as this Deng-Melconian mess is turning out to be.”

  His listeners shifted uneasily. He wondered just how much of the news from the Melconian front had filtered through to this world, isolated by its position in a pocket of the Silurian Void. “The Melconians are part of the reason I’ve been assigned to you on permanent loan status. There’ve been some ugly things happening along the frontier.” He slipped a data chit into the holo-vid built into the conference room table and touched controls. A 3-D projection sprang to life above the table, showing Jefferson’s primary tucked into its pocket of the Void, beyond which stretched a scattering of other suns, color coded to show ownership. “Human stars are represented in yellow. Deng worlds are coded orange and Melconian star systems are red.” A particularly lurid shade, at that, Simon thought, calculated to achieve maximum emotional impact on anyone looking at this starmap.

  General Hightower leaned forward abruptly, shaggy white brows drawn down, eyes hooded. “That can’t be right, Major. This whole section,” he gestured to a deep red bite in what should have been an orange starfield, “was held by the Deng only six months ago.”

  Simon nodded, voice grim. “Yes, it was. Six months ago, that was a stable border. Six months ago, we didn’t even realize that most of this,” he pointed to the orange/red demarcation zone, “was a border. The Melconians are pushing the Deng off their own worlds, at an alarming rate. The last time the Deng crossed our border, to hit these star systems,” Simon indicated a thin yellow necklace dotted here and there with malevolent orange and pulsing crimson beads, “they were after raw materials, manufacturing plants, staging zones from which to launch interstellar raids and war-fleets. Now they’re after habitat, pure and simple. A place to deposit their own refugees while a very nasty fight for the main Deng worlds,” he pointed to a thick cluster of orange, “heats up. That’s why your refugees have been hit so hard. Deng are slaughtering whole human populations, trying to gain a toehold they can hang onto long enough to halt the Melconian advance, which is coming in all the way from Damikuus to Varri.” His hand described a long arc across the upper reaches of the sphere floating above the table, moving from the Deng star system closest to Melconian space to distant Varri, an arc that encompassed a huge chunk of Deng territory.

  “We’ve also had stories filtering in from human rim worlds,” he sketched out a line of intermingled yellow, orange, and red star systems, “tales of unexplained atrocities on our mining operations, ships mysteriously lost. We’re finally realizing that much of what we thought was the border between human and Deng space, is actually the boundary between human and Melconian space. Fortunately for us, Jefferson’s on the back side of the Void, as viewed from the Deng frontier.” He touched star clusters on both sides of the immense black stretch of starless space. “Even more fortunately, the Melconians are on the far side of the Deng, but that could shift fast, given the reports we’ve received about heavy fighting between them, all along here.” He traced a line along the very edge of the human frontier, from Yarilo past Charmak, ending with the Erdei system, which was spatially the closest Deng star to Jefferson’s primary.

  Dwight Hightower sucked in his breath, seeing the danger at once. “My God! If they pushed the Deng back to Erdei, they could come at us from behind, by way of Ngara!” He was pointing at the Ngara binary, which had two habitable worlds, Mali and Vishnu, which were Jefferson’s only neighbors in the tiny peninsula of space stuck like a small boy’s thumb into a very dark plum pie. “If the Melconians pulled that off,” the white-haired general said in a hushed, horrified voice, “we couldn’t possibly get the civilian populations of these two star systems out. Not with the Deng and the Void blocking retreat. Lose Ngara and there’s nowhere else to go.”

  “Precisely, sir,” Simon said grimly. He hated the frightened stares everyone in the room had leveled at that holo-vid. Hated them, because there was so little he could do to reassure them. “That is the biggest long-term danger to this whole region of space. Of course, at this stage in the war, a pincer movement by Melconians to cut off the entire Dezelan Promontory,” he pointed to that thumblike projection of inhabited space sticking into the Void, “is not the most likely threat to Jefferson. Certainly not during the next few months. But the Melconians can move fast and it will probably occur to the Deng, as well, so kindly don’t put it out of your minds as we develop and implement defensive strategies.”

  “How likely is it,” President Lendan asked, expression thoughtful, “that the Deng might try it? Cutting us off, I mean, with that pincer movement you mentioned?”

  “It depends on how disorganized and rushed they are, by what’s happening back here, though this sector.” He spread his hand out across the sizeable chunk of Deng territory between Erdei and Varri, much of it abruptly up for grabs in a brutal three-way war. “This is a lot of space in which to produce angry, disgruntled, and vengeful Deng, out to recoup losses any way they can. And that’s the biggest danger Jefferson faces, just now. So,” Simon met Abe Lendan’s gaze once more, “that’s what we’re up against and I’m pretty much all Sector Command can afford to send out here.”

  The universal looks of dismay caused Simon to hurry on. “The good news is this.” He pointed to the vast darkness between all that chaos and Jefferson’s faint little yellow sun. “The gas and debris in the Silurian Nebula have made crossing the Void a navigational hazard worse than just about anything else in human space, with the possible
exception of Thule, where we first got wind of the Melconians’ existence.” He pointed to a small yellow sun on the far side of the Void. “The Void will make it harder for the Deng or the Melconians to mount a large-scale assault. They probably won’t want to risk an entire armada or even a major battle group, which evens the odds, a bit. We can’t rule out a sneak attack, of course, given conditions on the Deng side of the Void. Desperate commanders take desperate measures.”

  The various generals at the table nodded, expressions dark with worry. The civilians looked scared. If they’d understood what Simon did, fear would’ve become stark terror. Nobody on Jefferson could even begin to comprehend what had happened at Etaine. Simon hoped they never did.

  “So,” Simon cleared his throat and finished up his presentation. “We’ll maintain vigilance in all directions and do what we can to muster out and train local defense forces. We’ll coordinate defense of this whole region with Captain Brisbane and her SOL unit, as well. They’ve been posted to the Ngara system, with orders to guard the mining operations on Mali. The Malinese mines and smelting plants are a tempting prize, one the Deng will find hard to resist. I’m told a fair number of Jefferson’s young adults attend the big trade school on Mali? And the universities on Vishnu?”

  President Lendan nodded. “We have some good schools here, but Jefferson’s higher education tends toward agricultural and biotech research, ag engineering and terraforming, civil engineering, that sort of thing. We have a thriving art and cultural degree program, but that doesn’t do us much good in a situation like this. Anyone wanting careers in pretty much anything else has to go off world for training, to one of the big universities on Vishnu. That’s where we send students and technicians for training in psychotronic circuitry, interstellar transport design, medicine and xeno-toxicology and other technical fields.”

  “What about Mali?”

  “We send a fair number of students — several thousand a year, in fact — for training at the Imari Minecraft Institute. Our most important industrial alloys are imported from the Imari Consortium, but we’re developing a pretty good mining industry that reduces our dependence on off-world imports. In return, the Imari Consortium and the smaller, independent operations are the best market we have for our surplus foodstuffs. Every human installation on Mali must be domed, so it’s cheaper for the Malinese to import bulk commodities like grain and beef, than to try producing them locally. We have a good treaty relationship with both of Ngara’s worlds.”

  Simon nodded. One of his jobs was making sure it remained that way. There weren’t enough humans out this way to have two star systems bickering with each other, which could happen fast when attack on one world sent a domino-style ripple effect through a planetary economy, savagely reordering priorities. Now wasn’t the time to bring that up, however, let alone worry about it. Plenty of time to address that concern after the shooting stopped.

  “One decision you face,” Simon said quietly, “is the need to decide whether to leave those students on Mali and Vishnu, which are farther from the immediate conflict and therefore potentially safer, or whether to call them home to defend Jefferson. If things go badly here, we may well need every able-bodied adult we can muster. Nor is there any guarantee that Vishnu and Mali will remain safe from attack, not with the dynamics of this conflict shifting so rapidly.”

  Several men and women at the long table blanched, including most of the Defense Force officers. Simon was sorry for that, but saw no point in sugar coating anything. Most of them were facing the first real combat of their lives and they had abruptly realized just how unready they were for it. Good. People who knew the score were likelier to stretch themselves to meet the challenge. Now it was time to put the heart back into them by giving them something to do about it.

  “All right,” he said briskly, touching controls to change the display so that Jefferson’s star system filled the dark holo-vid, “let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  Chapter Three

  I

  Kafari Camar stepped onto the broad sidewalk outside Madison Spaceport’s passenger terminal and drew down a deep, double-lungful of home. She always loved the smell of spring flowers and fresh-turned earth. The cool, wet wind on her face was particularly welcome, today. The crowded and odiferous space she and fifty-seven fellow students had shared for the past eleven days might have been the best accommodations available on an interstellar freighter, but they’d barely been liveable. Even the students used to Spartan housing on Mali had complained.

  Most of the students were still in the terminal, busy off-loading duffles and sundry luggage, but Kafari had traveled light, as always. She carried even less than most of the students from Jefferson’s rural areas, having decided to leave nearly everything behind on Vishnu. Clothes could be replaced. She wouldn’t need most of her course disks again. The computer had belonged to the university and none of the trinkets decorating her dorm space had possessed sufficient sentimental value to burden herself with the job of carrying them. She had brought home nothing more than a shoulder pack and the contents of her pockets.

  It wasn’t merely convenience that had prompted that decision. It was a survival habit, one that urban kids never seemed to understand, let alone master. Trying to travel with too much to carry, out in Jefferson’s wilderness — or even on terraformed ranches bordering wild land — was asking to be killed in any of several messy and painful ways. Jefferson’s wildlife was not always friendly. But she was so delighted to be home, she probably would have smiled even at a gollon, just prior to shooting its ten or twelve feet of teeth and claws and armor-tough scales.

  Kafari tilted her face to the wet sky, relishing the rain soaking into her hair, but after tasting the sweet water of home for a happy moment or two, she shook back heavy braids that fell like dark rainwater to her hips, and shouldered her pack. Time to get moving. She crossed the rain-puddled sidewalk and was the first student to reach the rank of robo-cabs waiting at the curb.

  “State destination,” the cab’s computer droned as she opened the door and settled herself on the worn cushions.

  “Klameth Canyon landing field,” Kafari said, digging into her pocket even as the cab intoned mechanically, “Insert travel chit.”

  She slid her card into the proper slot and the computer said, “Credit approved. Web yourself into seat.”

  She tugged until the restraints clicked into place. The cab checked traffic control for clearance, then lifted smartly into the air, heading rapidly east toward the Damisi Mountains and home. She settled back to watch the scenery, but she was too keyed up to relax, and coming home was only part of the reason for it. The war news — and the tales pouring in from refugee ships landing at Vishnu — had grown so alarming, Kafari and many of her fellow students had decided to return home before things got worse.

  Several families had contacted students via SWIFT, asking them to return, while others had begged their children to stay on Vishnu, since the Concordiat feared a Deng breakthrough at Jefferson. Kafari’s family hadn’t called. Not because they didn’t care, but because they trusted her judgment, and therefore didn’t want to waste the money a SWIFT transmission would cost. At twenty-two, Kafari had already survived more critical situations than most urban kids would experience in their entire lives. She’d carefully weighed the pros and cons of the situation unfolding beyond the Void and booked passage on the next ship out of Vishnu. At least, she sighed, peering down at the ground whipping past, she’d got here ahead of the Deng.

  The cab had just veered north to bypass the restricted airspace over Nineveh Military Base when she saw it. Kafari sat bolt upright, eyes widening in shock.

  “My God!”

  It was a machine. An immense machine. A thing that dwarfed the very concept of machine. Even the largest buildings of Nineveh Base shrank to the size of children’s stacking blocks by comparison. And more terrifying, even, than its sheer size, it was moving. Things that big were part of the immovable landscape, or shoul
d have been. Yet this immense structure was mobile. Faster than her aircab, in fact. Deep gouges showed as triple scars in its wake. The customs officials at Ziva Station had told them a Bolo and its commander had arrived, but Kafari had not remotely imagined just how huge humanity’s most sophisticated engines of war really were.

  One salvo from any of its guns and her aircab would vaporize into component atoms, along with her backpack, the contents of her pockets, and herself. She held back a shiver by sheer willpower, then a blur of motion caught her attention. A whole squadron of fighter planes streaked across the Damisi’s highest peaks, low to the deck and lined up on the Bolo in what was clearly a strafing or bombing run.

  About a hundred guns swung independently of one another, tracking each of the incoming aircraft. The squadron scattered in a chaotic dispersal pattern as pilots scrambled into evasive maneuvers. For just an instant, her stomach clenched and she thought they were all about to die. She wondered angrily why nobody’d warned the robo-cab — or the spaceport officials — about an incoming invasion fleet. Then she realized what she was seeing.

  Wargames.

  A chill broke loose and tore its way down her spine, shaking her like a jaglitch with a horse in its teeth. She’d made it home ahead of the Deng, but she truly hadn’t understood, until now, that the only thing standing between her family and brutal massacre was thirteen thousand tons of sudden destruction. Imagination quailed at trying to picture what it would look — and sound — like when the Bolo’s guns discharged in full combat.

  That thing could incinerate every fighter in the sky, if it wanted to. Please don’t let it want to. She craned to see through the transparent canopy as her cab veered sharply north, but she couldn’t keep the fighters in view. Moments later, the aircab dipped into the entrance of Maze Gap, which was the safest way through the Damisi, even by air, and the rose-toned shoulders of the mountains blocked her view of the Bolo, too. Kafari drew a long, shaken breath, then leaned back against the cushions and relaxed one muscle at a time.