Commander Read online

  But it did tend to present a very interesting concentration of targets.

  “Approaching Point Alpha,” Wu said as we crawled inexorably towards our target. A purpose-designed warship would’ve been racing in at top speed, dodging intense fire and pouring out her own salvoes for all she was worth. There was no hiding such a thing; the Imperials would’ve known long ahead of time that they were in danger of attack. Our enemies knew that, too, and presumably their attitudes and procedures were predicated accordingly. As things were we practically idled along, approaching a target whose precise position was predictable years in advance.

  “Hello, Alabama Maru!” a long-anticipated voice called out as we crossed into restricted space. “Watch your position there!”

  “Watch my position where?” Lieutenant Parker replied in a more-than-slightly sozzled tone. “Whassa matter?”

  “You’re in a red zone,” the youthful-sounding Imperial replied. “Alter course immediately!”

  “Red zone? I don’t see no red zone! Lemme check my chart…”

  In theory the Imperials should've blasted us out of the sky the moment we crossed the line. In practice, Josiah had assured me, red zones and busy shipping lanes and execrable merchie navigational skills were an untenable combination. If every ship that crossed into illegal space were destroyed, soon there’d be no hulls left to carry goods from planet to planet. We cut in obliquely at first, as if genuinely by accident. Then just as the junior officer was beginning to scream threats about seizing “Captain Borger’s” license we turned hard to starboard and bored in for real, switching over to our Royal beacon.

  “Holy shit!” the officer screamed as we opened fire.

  These were very likely his last words. Our torpedoes had been armed and active for hours; we fired four of the nuclear-tipped beasties into the drydock complex. One was directed at the defensive turret and the other three at the still-unfinished and conveniently-nearby battlecruiser. The explosions were blinding flashes, and both enemy weapon-systems dissolved into useless, rapidly-expanding clouds of spanking-new junk.

  “Magnificent!” Uncle Robert muttered.

  For once I took issue with my uncle. There wasn’t anything in the least magnificent about what we’d just done, in my book at least. We’d slaughtered several thousand men and wrecked a beautiful ship beyond all salvage by sneaking up and catching them unawares. It was efficient, certainly. Effective, too. But hardly what one might call ‘magnificent’. “Execute Phase Two,” I ordered Wu, trying to keep the distaste out of my voice.

  “Phase Two, aye-aye!” he responded with a smile. This was the hard part, what he I and had labored so long and hard to make enough time for. Our cargo-containers went flying, unmasking our guns and allowing us full speed at long last.

  Then we raced at flank speed towards Imperious’s atmosphere.

  28

  Wars aren’t just about battles and destruction; there’s a huge emotional element involved as well. During the American Civil War, for example, Union forces had guarded Washington to the point of near-paranoia because its loss might well have meant complete defeat. There was no significant industry based in Washington, nor were there any huge arsenals or food stores. There were some naval facilities, but their destruction would hardly have been critical. The government happened to meet in a big white building there, of course, but the business of running the country could’ve easily been relocated to, say, Boston or New York City on a few day’s notice. So on a purely military level the loss of Washington would at first seem to be unimportant and the city’s defense not worth much effort. Yet as a symbol it was paramount. Its fall would be seen as a huge setback both at home and overseas. Enough confidence might be lost that people would quit believing in victory, which was often a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so it was quite correct to fortify the place tooth and nail despite its awkward, exposed location, even at the expense of weakening other campaigns that were of genuine military significance. Similarly, Jimmy Doolittle’s fleabite of a raid on Tokyo caused the Japanese Empire to make ultimately disastrous alterations in their war plan, and John Paul Jones’s burning of an insignificant English costal town had raised shipping insurance rates over the entire planet. People are not by any stretch rational creatures, perhaps even less so that we Rabbits. Oftentimes, therefore, it pays large dividends for military commanders to behave irrationally as well. Though, I had to admit, I’d have preferred to ask His Majesty’s blessing before undertaking this particular operation. If everything went well, or perhaps even if things went badly, there were liable to be huge repercussions down the road. Uncle Robert had approved, however, which was as close as I could get under current circumstances. So that had to be good enough.

  My choice of targets had been severely limited due to time-and-distance issues associated with the positions of the orbiting batteries and nearby airfields. We had just enough time to land (if we were willing to completely slag our heat-shielding in the process), destroy something in the immediate vicinity of the ship, then bug out just as quickly as our Field would lift us. Also, our target had to be located somewhere in a misshapen oval about a hundred miles long and fifty wide, much of which was ocean and most of the rest farmland. This didn’t leave us much in the way of options—while I wouldn’t have tried for a well-defended target like the Imperial Palace in any event, it would’ve been nice to have more entrees on the menu. In the end I was forced to settle for a large grain elevator complex situated right on the coast, where it could be conveniently accessed by both land and sea transport. Under the laws of war food-related targets were a gray area. Had there been anything else whatsoever available to hit I’d have chosen it instead. But there simply wasn’t, short of outright suicide. And if we actually got away, the sting would be twice as severe for the Emperor and his navy. So I resolved to level the thing regardless—along with a couple associated food-processing plants located right next door—and trust the Royal propagandists to spin things the right way.

  Half of Imperious Prime’s population must’ve been watching as we made our much-too-fast descent through the atmosphere behind an immense white-hot shock wave—most of the fireworks took place in dark skies, and by then space-raid warnings were probably in effect all over the planet. A single alert battery commander got off two anti-air missiles at us, but they were designed to shoot down invading aerospace fighters and even the one that hit us did no significant damage. Then we were down alongside the silo and my much-enhanced marine force was pouring out into the pre-dawn darkness. I went with them, even though it was against regulations for me to leave my ship under combat conditions. This was a special case, I reckoned, and Sergeant Petranovich needed watching.

  Or at least I’d thought he did—in the event he performed like a machine. I looked on silently as he first sent out his best men—the real marines—to secure a perimeter, then ordered the volunteer Rabbits from the merchant fleet to take out the targets. “You, you, and you! Get over there and set your charges on that silo. You, you, and you—the next one!” And so forth and so on, until I had to admit that he had things well in hand after all. Meanwhile, Richard’s loudspeaker was warning everyone with range of the sound to run for their lives.

  “This is a cakewalk,” Nestor muttered as we stood and looked on, useless as a fifth wheel.

  I smiled back at him, then had an idea. We’d frightened away an overnight repair crew while landing, it seemed—the sidewalk we were standing on was neatly sawhorsed-off and safety-taped, and the cement in the next section down was still wet. Rather boyishly I pulled off my sandals and stepped delicately out onto the semisolid surface. My feet sank in just enough to leave a pair of perfect bunnyprints. “Come on,” I urged Nestor. “Your turn!” He did the same. Then I found a little stick nearby and we signed our names underneath. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. War, after all, was war. Even when it was purely psychological.

  Nestor was just finishing up when the shooting began. The first round creased me
in the right upper arm, then the second took off most of the meat behind my left calf. And just that suddenly all the fun and games were over with.

  29

  I’ve been interviewed by the media more times than I can remember—they have an insatiable appetite for my time, and if I’m ever to have any privacy at all it’s necessary that I slice them off a few hours now and again. Over and over, they ask one question above all others—“To what do you owe your success?”

  “Dumb luck” is my standard answer, and it isn’t too far from the truth. I’ve been incredibly fortunate over and over again in my life—first to have had a berth aboard the last ship off of Marcus Prime before the Occupation, then to be one of the two survivors of the wreck of that same ship, then for the Royal Heir to be the other survivor… The list goes on and on, and the more I think about it the more dumbfounded I grow at the odds I’ve beaten merely in having survived so long in such a hostile universe, much less accomplishing anything of note along the way. No galactic lottery winner in history has anything on me! So I wasn’t terribly surprised when, standing on the surface of Imperious Prime at the height of my success, my luck finally broke and things suddenly started to go badly.

  I didn’t find out until later that the men firing at Nestor and I were a group of night watchmen. Confronted with the opportunity of their lives, they reacted with bravery and discipline. In our endless planning, I’ll pause to note, we took into account the possibility of interference from heavily-armed troops, enraged mobs of civilians, bad weather, policemen on patrol, even potentially cheering masses of Rabbits. But never once did we even consider that we might face spirited opposition from simple, chronically-underpaid night watchmen. They shot well indeed—the third round took me in the left shoulder—and for the first time in my life I wasn’t able to force myself to keep on functioning despite my wounds. Instead of remaining clear-headed and able to make decisions, my body went into shock and took my mind with it.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on myself regarding what took place over the next few minutes; certainly if one of my men had been similarly injured I’d not have faulted them for being unable to continue. Indeed, I’d have given my all to evacuate them safely from the battlefield and then called them a wounded hero afterwards. But it was different, somehow, when it was me.

  I don’t remember anything at all for a little bit after being shot the third time—when consciousness returned I’d been dragged behind the cement worker’s toolcart and Nestor was frantically doing something to my leg. The real pain, oddly enough, emanated from the minor crease in my upper arm; it burned like hellfire! “Wrong place!” I muttered, trying to make myself understood through the fog and dark clouds that were suddenly everywhere. “Wrong place!”

  Nestor, who I later learned was applying a tourniquet to what was absolutely the right place, both mistook my meaning and agreed with the result. “Yes, sir! We’ve got to get you out of here, and right now!”

  “No!” I replied. “I mean…” Then somehow I couldn’t find words anymore and blacked out again. Eventually an explosion awakened me, then there was another and another and another. When I opened my eyes there was a veritable vortex of blaster-fire crisscrossing above my head, and a desperate-looking Nestor had my Imperial blaster in his hands. But he was as pinned-down as I was.

  “Shoot me,” I muttered—that was clearly Nestor’s last hope, as the schedule called for Richard to up-ship mere seconds after the charges went off whether there were still crewman stranded dirtside or not. My instructions had been very strict indeed. “Get out. That’s… Order.”

  “No, sir!” he replied angrily. “Not a chance!”

  I tried to sit up and grab the blaster to do the job myself, but it seemed that my chest was covered with invisible lead weights. It was the darnedest thing—I don’t know how long I pawed at myself trying to remove them. “Run for it!” I finally tried again.

  “No!” he countered. “I’ll stay right here with you until—“

  Then, something happened. I’m still not quite sure how it got started, but suddenly a cheer echoed across the ruins of the harmless little granary that’d somehow become the focus of so much violence. A high-pitched, lapine cheer, raised by dozens of throats.

  Nestor’s eyes went wide—somehow I remember that quite clearly. Then the firing rose to a crescendo. But there weren’t any more bolts flying overhead!

  The cheer went on and on, punctuated by screams of pain and terror. “Da-vid!” I soon realized they were chanting. “Da-vid! Da-vid!” And it was getting louder! Were they coming to take me alive?

  Then Nestor raised his head to look, and his eyes widened further still. “Holy mother of god!” he whispered, one of the few times I ever heard him so much as border on the profane. Then he bent down and tried to lift me. “Come on, sir! It’s time! We’re getting you out of here!”

  It hurt like hell, and despite every effort my limbs simply wouldn’t function properly. I couldn’t hold myself upright to save my life, which was of course exactly what was at stake. Little Nestor, who massed not much more than half what I did, struggled for us both. We took one step, then a second. At that rate, it’d only take half an hour or so to reach Richard’s hatch.

  “Run!” I muttered again. “Please! I’m begging you!” But this time Nestor didn’t even dignify my request with a reply; instead he gritted his teeth and dragged me forward a third step, the cheers meanwhile growing louder and louder. And, even more menacingly, blaster-bolts were sizzling by once more. Just as we were setting up for a fourth step, the chanting mob came swirling past and around us…

  …and suddenly I was being carried by three, four, a dozen work-hardened Rabbits!

  “Da-vid! Da-vid!” they cried as they raced for the ship, carrying Nestor and I along with them and shielding us from fire through sheer numbers. And all the while, a rapid staccato of shots seared home into soft fur and living flesh as our escorts absorbed the laser-bolts for us. Between the shock and the sheer scale of the sacrifice, I was weeping by the time we surged past the marines who were doing their level best to provide covering fire, then through the gaping cargo-hatch and into the empty hold beyond. “No!” I was still protesting as they carried me on past the bulkhead to where it was relatively safe. “Leave me! Nothing’s worth this!” But it was too late by then; I was back aboard, Richard was behind schedule…

  …and a thick trail of dead and bleeding Rabbit-slaves in various postures of agony led all the three hundred yards back to the wet cement where Nestor and I had left our foolish footprints.

  30

  I continued to weep as the pharmacist’s mate prepared a very large syringe. It was an anesthetic, I had the presence of mind to realize, which meant that I had only seconds left before the blackness closed in. There were other Rabbits being rolled in all around me, so far as I could tell all were local slaves who’d been wounded getting us back aboard in one piece. Some were missing limbs, others were bleeding by the bucketful. They must all have helped carry each other too, I realized, not just Nestor and I. “Thank you!” I cried out. “Thank you all!”

  “David!” the nearest replied with a grin. He was a huge buck with a gaping ruin where his eyes had once been, and an ear was missing as well. He bounced up and down slightly. “Da-vid! Da-vid! Da-vid!”

  Then they were all chanting again, so that the corpsmen had to shout in order to make themselves heard. Nestor was still standing by my side, not sure what to do. “Did they all make it aboard?” I demanded. “The Rabbits, I mean? The ones who helped us!”

  “Yes, sir!” he snapped. "All the living ones, at least."

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course!” There was a pause. “If someone had ordered they be left, sir, no one would’ve obeyed. It was like that. We took losses helping the last ones aboard. How could we possibly leave a living Rabbit behind, after… after…”

  I scowled and laid my head back down on the too-soft pillow. So that much at least was in
order among all the wreckage. If we’d left any surviving Rabbits behind god only knew what the Imperials would’ve done to them. As it was I feared deeply for their families. My god, what they’d just sacrificed! Did they yet appreciate the enormity?

  “Da-vid! Da-vid!” they were still chanting as the pharmacist’s mate turned to me with his hypodermic and smiled.

  “Everything’s going to be all right, sir!” he reassured me. “I’ve patched up far worse!”

  I nodded back, knowing it was the truth. My suffering was almost over, while that of my fellow Rabbits was just beginning. “Just enough to get me back to the bridge,” I ordered.

  “Of course,” he replied. “But I’ll have to put you under. I’m afraid it’s not optional, sir.”

  My mouth opened, then closed again. “How long?” I demanded.