Commodore (The David Birkenhead Series) Page 10

  22

  It took three long weeks for Will of the People to make her jump out of the system at Point Five. She could've made the journey much more quickly, but seemed to be in no particular hurry. Nor did I rush her along; there would've been no profit in doing so. The longer she dilly-dallied at Wilkes Prime, the longer it'd be before word got back the Empire that things weren't going quite according to plan. It was unlikely that Will would encounter the main Imperial battle fleet on the way home—there were dozens of equally-good potential routings, and most likely no alternate rendezvous had been set given the limitations of time and distance and the way the Imperials had yanked the cruiser off of convoy duty without warning. So she'd have to carry her information all the way back home, then it'd have to catch up with the main fleet from behind before it could be of any use to anyone. Poor Sir Jason! He was certainly intelligent enough to know to race for home at full speed, yet he continued to crawl across the sky, presumably "making further observations" for as long as he could reasonably stretch them out. Perhaps the ambassador had requested that he do this? I rather hoped so. That'd give Sir Jason all the cover he needed for what was clearly a less-than-optimal command decision.

  Meanwhile I had plenty on my own plate. So far, everything was going even better than I'd hoped. My marines were greeted like brothers upon landing by the stunned Wilkes people—at one airfield the local ground crews had swarmed out to service our fighters upon landing—and the whole invasion-thing was being taken as a huge communications fubar. Not only had we succeeded in taking everything intact, but stunned as they were by the 'Imperial sabotage' at the palace the local populace was enthusiastically in favor of the idea. While there had to be at least a handful of Wilkes people still alive who were fully aware of and complicit in the plan to switch sides, they'd have been insane to so much as breathe a syllable of it. That pony was now effectively scratched from the race; at this point what could further disloyalty earn them but a noose? After a long discussion in my cabin the former Ambassador Vorsage—now once again a Royal Governor, by emergency decree— decided to at least attempt to allow bygones to be bygones. Meanwhile the upper House of Wilkes leadership was practically all dead—making very certain of that had been one of our top priorities—and His Excellency had slipped members of his own staff into all the key slots.

  This left me free to, in close cooperation with His Excellency, begin my own preparations. The Empire's main battle fleet was on the way, blissfully unaware that there was no longer a well-equipped base-planet waiting to receive them with cheers and roses. Transferring an entire battle fleet's center of operations from one planet to another wasn't nearly as simple an operation as it sounded—the Empire's fuel-hungry warships alone would consume as much 'juice' as their more economically-engined merchant fleet did in several years of peaceful trade. Then there'd be dirtside staffs to bring along, specialized support facilities to pack up and transport, naval stores ranging from spare heavy blaster tubes to standard-issue toothbrushes… An enormous fleet of transports was on its way along with the battleships, loaded to the gills with military treasures. At worst these resources were effectively denied to our enemies while boxed up for shipping, so the longer they remained boxed the better. And at best? Who knew what sort of mischief we might undertake, ere all was said and done?

  "His Majesty would've wanted you to return home with the assault ships and left someone else in charge," Nestor observed one day as we stood silently in the Wilkes aerospace command bunker and watched Javelin and her escorts jump towards further glory. The landing-ships had long since been stripped of everyone and everything useful and sent home as well. This left only Cataract waiting faithfully in close orbit, ready to sprint for Earth Secundus on a second's notice with all the latest intelligence. "And you know it, sir."

  "Perhaps," I allowed, knowing in my heart that I could never, ever do such an awful thing to another officer. This fight was going to be long, draining and miserable, while a happy outcome was far from certain. I'd conceived the whole thing, and therefore was responsible for what must come next. How then could I ever ask anyone else to deal with the consequences? "Or perhaps not. We'll just have to wait and see."

  23

  The days flew by as my little core group labored to get an impossible amount of work done before the Imperials could arrive. I began it all with a speech, the writing of which occupied almost an entire day in and of itself. Nestor and I had to do the work all by ourselves, even though Governor Vorsage was more than willing to share his highly-capable public-relations and propaganda staff. He'd chosen the best men on Earth Secundus for such potentially-vital work and dragged them along with us, some kicking and screaming all the way. But none of them knew the truth about Sir Jason or the palace bombing, and since there were many awkward little details I wasn't prepared to explain I was forced to choose my own words.

  "Loyal serfs of the House of Wilkes!" I began, my face plastered across every single vid-channel. "And fellow subjects of His Majesty! My men and I bear His Highness King James's greetings and best wishes…"

  It went pretty well, overall. I very carefully didn't say a word regarding who'd nuked their capitol or why, speaking instead of the long and disproportionate suffering of the House of Wilkes at the hands of the Imperials. "The other Noble Houses salute your bravery," I said into the camera. "His Majesty is here for you now, at your hour of greatest need." Then I went on to explain that their ruler had sent me on a special mission to help Wilkes Prime defend itself against a likely Imperial invasion. Nestor was particularly proud of this bit. He thought it up and I included it in order to throw Imperial counterintelligence off the scent. It protected Sir Jason by implying that we'd known of the plot and impending fleet move long before we actually had. "And," I said, "I'm very pleased indeed to be here."

  Then I laid down my cards, one by one. "Together we can beat the Imperials back," I explained, "But this will require a thousand forms of sacrifice on the part of the people of this planet. Unpleasant sacrifices, costly sacrifices, sometimes even unfair sacrifices—though these will be kept to the minimum. Together, I assure you, they will be as nothing compared to the havoc the Imperials would wreak unchecked. As a native of Marcus Prime, I know their methods better than most." There'd be immediate food rationing, I explained. Plus martial law in some places, and direct military control of all ship movements and transmitters. There'd also be universal conscription of labor, the commandeering of industrial resources, suspension of the free press… All the inconvenient, expensive measures that came with waging war to win, but which the Wilkes people had fought so long against and blocked in their own selfish interests. Now, in the face of the enemy, they'd have to be implemented twice as hard. "These measures will be temporary," I promised. "No one wants to get things back to normal more than do I. However, there is another matter which has longer-term implications.

  "In order to build up the kind of forces required to defeat the Imperials," I continued, "it will be necessary to train, arm, and employ Rabbits and Dogs in large numbers. Possibly Horses, as well." I paused for a quite deliberate nose-wriggle, to sort of help my point sink in. "While human volunteers will of course be gratefully accepted, in modern economies humans tend to perform the jobs that require the highest degree of skill and training. If we were to suddenly strip too many of these from the system, there would be chaos. Instead we need to arm those we can best spare—gardeners and day-laborers, for example. Fortunately we have with us a cadre of officers and Rabbits who can help train the new recruits." In point of fact, I'd stripped the task force of every single lapine and every last officer who'd ever combat-trained or even wrangled one, up to and including my old friend Jean. "However, this matter isn't quite so simple as it may at first appear. For, you see, we must offer these Rabbits a reward commensurate with their sacrifice or else they'll have no motivation to face a terrible enemy." I stared straight into the camera again. "Rabbits can be fierce and capable warriors indeed, when properly
trained and led. My own operations have depended on them more than once and they've yet to let me down. But in order to fight well, they must be properly motivated. Thus, it's become traditional to free any Rabbit willing to serve in a combat role."

  I let a nice, long silence drag out after that one. Technically this wasn't quite a hundred percent true—the fencibles hadn't been manumitted, for example. But being Marcus Rabbits they were already in practice more than half-free; many had never even met their putative owners. In any event I certainly wasn't about to ask a bunch of slaves to sacrifice their lives for someone else's gain, and that settled that.

  "So we're about to enter a period of major change together…" I continued, though the rest of my words conveyed nothing of importance. They were meant merely to offer reassurance and comfort after the trauma I'd just inflicted on the collective psyche. Then I finally droned to a halt and thanked my audience for their time, the little red lights went out, and it was over.

  "That was magnificent, sir!" Nestor declared.

  "Really?" I asked. I'd never considered myself much of a speaker, and hadn't ever enjoyed the experience.

  "Really!" he agreed, bouncing up and down on his toes like a little kit. Then he pointed through the studio's soundproof windows…

  …to where the network's maintenance bunnies were bouncing up and down even harder! "Da-vid!" they were chanting, though I only knew by reading their lips. "Da-vid! Da-vid! Da-vid!" Meanwhile, just beyond, a group of humans stood in stunned silence. Apparently, the speech was only "magnificent" from a slave's point of view. That was okay; it'd been meant mostly for them anyway.

  "They'll sign up for you, sir," Nestor reassured me. "In huge numbers."

  I nodded slowly, even though that'd been the least of my worries. There was no time to train an army of Rabbits; anyone could see that. We'd do our best of course, but the Imperials could and probably would arrive at any moment. Eventually they'd almost certainly land and attempt to occupy us. What I'd just done was prepare the ground for afterwards, by sowing the seeds of the resistance movement from hell while I still had the facilities to do so. From this moment forward the planet would be infested with swarms of Rabbits who'd just been informed by someone they trusted first that it was okay for them to fight and then that they stood to gain something immeasurably important from a royal victory. Whether said tough, work-hardened lapines were trained or untrained, god help any enemy who stood in their collective way. The almanac I'd checked back on Javelin had claimed that Wilkes Prime had even more Rabbits than most planets—almost sixty percent of the population, in fact. Very soon now no one would be able to control this world without their assent, neither their masters nor all the Imperial marines there ever were. I'd never shared my ultimate strategy with anyone, and yet… How was it that even Nestor couldn't see what should've been so clearly evident?

  All I could do now was hope that I'd never have to unleash such a bloody, brutal tidal wave. And that I could keep it aimed squarely at the Imperials if I did.

  24

  Our enemies granted us twenty more precious days before the first Imperial scout ship poked its nose through Point Three. This was in some ways the best news in the world; Will of the People had disappeared through Point Five, which meant that the new arrival couldn’t have heard the latest news. "Cmb", she signaled on a seldom-used frequency.

  "Tbp" we answered; the Wilkes assistant chief of intelligence had survived the palace nuking, and it turned out that he wanted to keep right on surviving. We permitted him to do so, learning all sorts of useful and interesting things along the way. Like the meanings of various code groups, for example; supposedly "tbp" meant "all is ready on this end". The reply was apparently satisfactory. Upon receiving it the Imperial turned around and jumped back whence it came. "Three more days," grim Heinrich predicted at our daily officer's meeting. "That's when the heavies will come rolling through."

  "Then five weeks to sail across the system," Jean agreed, crossing his legs and leaning his chair all the way back. He was a bit flippant these days; I'd heard that this was often how those raised in upper-class Gallic culture faced serious danger, so I didn't let it worry me. "And that's that."

  I nodded back as Nestor refilled my teacup. "We'll be ready," I reassured them.

  Heinrich sighed again. "Define 'ready'."

  I smiled. The entire land-mass of Wilkes Prime was glommed together into a single supercontinent, all except for one Australian-sized land mass near the south pole and a few islands scattered about here and there. I'd assigned myself as overall commander. Jean was in charge of the more heavily populated eastern district of the supercontinent, and Heinrich the west plus the outlying territories. It was as equal a division of responsibilities as could be managed. "The training is going about as expected," the future House-Lord of Vorsage offered. Or at least he'd become the House-Lord if he survived long enough. "I still don't think twenty-to-one is producing enough troops, though."

  Governor Vorsage, Jean's elder cousin, shook his head. "I have to agree with David. After visiting a camp or two, well… Twenty to one may already be biting off more than we can chew."

  I nodded in agreement with the governor. We'd had no time to develop a carefully reasoned out training program. Instead, Heinrich and Jean and I scrawled down some basic, minimal goals literally on the back of an envelope. Then we commandeered some of the local schools, replaced the academic staff with a skeleton crew of what few experienced personnel we had, and sought volunteers. These came pouring in, as expected. Even the human population was more enthusiastic than we'd hoped. But we limited our inductee-flow to a ratio of twenty volunteers to one instructor, regardless. And we held only mixed classes—ex-slaves and their former masters, all learning together. "It's the same old problem, Jean. The Rabbits lack self-confidence and initiative."

  He nodded back and sighed. "If we only had more time!"

  I could only agree. Everything was in such a terrible rush that we were skipping right over some of the most basic aspects of soldiering. Our graduates—and we already had some because the program only took two weeks to complete—didn't know how to march, salute, or properly groom themselves for inspection. It was axiomatic in any military that these things were all vital to a fighting man's self-respect and espirit de corps—this was where his sense of belonging came from. But we didn't have time for any of that. Our students—twenty per instructor—first learned what rank was and why following orders was important, then how to fire either an improvised blaster we were struggling to get into mass-production or a primitive one-shot rocket-grenade launcher that we were having better luck with. And that was that—mastering this much was enough to consume the entire two weeks because we had to schedule everything based on the slowest learners rather than the quickest. There just wasn't time to do much in the way of picking and choosing our recruits; instead we simply threw the front door open and checked everyone for a full complement of arms and legs on the way in. The most promising graduates were selected for a third week of training, focused on how to safely communicate and coordinate operations while under Imperial occupation. These we designated as "volunteer sergeants"—there was no rank other than "sergeant" and "private"—and sent back through the course as instructors, assigned their own full complement of twenty bunnies. I was rather worried about the troops trained by these so-called sergeants—none of these classes had graduated yet, so we couldn't yet know how things were going to come out. Was it reasonable to expect anyone to fight effectively after such shabby training? Then I simply shrugged and forgot about the matter, for what choice did we have? Later on there'd be less training still.

  "It makes a major difference when you visit a training class, sir," Midshipman O'Toole said from his lowly seat down near the foot of the table. His voice was a near-whisper; the boy was still terribly nervous. I smiled—he'd only been out of the Academy for a year, and now here he was seated at the highest council-table on the planet. Well, there was nothing like the navy
if you wanted responsibility young! We were terribly short of skilled Rabbit-handlers, and his experience wrangling Javelin's steward-bunnies had landed him the slot in charge of Heinrich's training network. He looked down at the table. "I know you're terribly busy, sir. But… It matters."

  "He's right, sir," Nestor agreed. "I've seen it myself."

  "As have I," Jean added. Then he frowned. "Maybe we could add a day to the schedule, and bus all the trainees to an auditorium or something?"

  "It wouldn't work." Nestor shook his head. "Or at least not half so well. It's the personal contact that does it, you see."

  Meanwhile, I was turning crimson under my fur. "I'll try and at least visit all the sergeant's classes," I finally agreed. "And some of the others too, when I can. But we can't afford to add another day, period! Not for anything!" Then I smiled and turned to less embarrassing matters. "Now, gentlemen… the Imperials are coming, expecting to be greeted with open arms. So let's put aside our training headaches for a moment and focus on how to make our welcome as memorable as possible, shall we?"

  25

  We decided early on that it wasn't practical to try and carry on our little masquerade forever, though the prospect was tempting. Yes, the longer the Imperials thought we were their newest and bestest buddies the better. For that reason we stretched things out as long as possible once the battlewagons burst through. No, we couldn’t put Ambassador Kiril on the line—a Royal task force had unexpectedly arrived and driven him away. Nor any of the other senior Wilkes staff—it was food poisoning, you see—they'd all gotten it together at a family banquet… This was thin stuff indeed, nor did the presence of Cataract in close orbit help matters any. Finally the Imperials out-and-out demanded that our orbital batteries open fire on her, which of course we didn't do. From that moment onward the game was up and the Imperials knew that they needed to come up with a new plan of action. In the meantime, however, they played straight out of the book and instituted a close blockade so as to begin the long, slow process of starving us out; Wilkes Prime was an arid world, and imported a lot of its food. I sent Commander Mane's ship running for home at the last possible second so that he'd deliver the most up-to-date intelligence possible. Indeed, I almost waited too long—the super-dreadnought Equality got off three salvoes at her, the last of which passed uncomfortably close. Apparently her main armament was even more capable than we knew. "You should've been aboard, sir," Heinrich told me as we stood together and watched her translate back into Royal space. "You've done all you can here."