The Battle of Sauron Page 13

  In this spot, he had researched the campaigns of Hannibal, Napoleon and Li-Kuan; the battles of Thermopylae, Austerlitz and Second Washington, and the fleet actions of Salamis, Midway and Trans-Luna.

  Set upon a stone slab, the day he left for Academy, was the preserved trophy of his Grizzly, the base bearing a plaque with the date of the kill. It was the only hunting trophy in the house. Beside it stood a new telescope; his father now dabbled in astronomy as a hobby. Diettinger leaned down and looked through the eyepiece, surprised that it was only a simple reflector apparatus without image enhancement equipment of any kind.

  Perhaps that is not so surprising after all; it is probably all that is legally available, even to a Firstholder. Doubtless there were—or soon would be—a great many things in near-space which the State would prefer its more influential citizens did not see.

  “Galen?”

  The voice came from the rear of the atrium, at the main entrance to the house. He turned to see a tall figure in a warm robe, hooded against Sauron’s night chill. The figure approached, graceful hands drew the hood back. Diettinger smiled, stepped forward and embraced his mother.

  “We don’t sleep much these days,” another voice said from the door a moment later, and he was in the arms of both of his parents. Usually in firm control of his emotions, Diettinger found he was no less relieved for their safety than they were for his, which, he realized, was probably the nature of all homecomings for soldiers fighting on the losing side.

  “I can’t stay for very long,” Galen Diettinger told his parents from his seat at the breakfast table. His mother was everywhere at once, moving about the kitchen like a field surgeon, while his father was leisurely preparing some kind of egg dish and, incredibly, staying out of her way.

  “Hardly surprising,” his father commented. He smiled over his shoulder at his son. “In fact, much like old times.” He covered the eggs and poured three cups of coffee. “In honor of your well-deserved promotion,” he said, setting down the cups. “Jamaican Blue Mountain,” he finished off-handedly.

  “That’s reserved for the Imperial table at Sparta,” Galen blurted.

  The elder Diettinger nodded. “So it is. But it has to get there somehow, and many ships fail to reach their destinations in wartime. Word has it that some privateer from Burgess system, a fellow named Hawksley, dropped off a tremendous quantity of it at Slater a month ago, cargo from a prize ship he turned over to Sauron in exchange for re-fit and resupply.”

  “I didn’t know you rated such luxuries, Firstholder or not.” Diettinger savored the coffee, sipping, wondering why ships were being wasted on commerce raiding duty when the Homeworld was threatened.

  His mother laughed from the sink. “We don’t. We simply still have friends in the Capital. That was a gift from Breedmaster Kirk.” Her voice did not quite fade off at the name, but while she held her composure, her eyes glistened. She turned to smile at her son. “He asked that we give you his regards whenever we happened to see you, Galen.”

  Unconsciously, Galen reached out to place his hand over his mother’s. “Thank you, mother. Please return my good wishes to Breedmaster Kirk.”

  The Diettinger family never spoke directly of Breedmaster Kirk’s daughter Diana. They had not done so in twenty-seven years, not since the day she had been killed in a lifter accident on her way to the Diettinger estate to be married to their son.

  An alternate choice of wife was acceptable and, in fact, required by law. Except that one month later, Sauron had attacked St. Ekaterina, and the almost three-decades-long conflict now known as the Secession Wars had begun. Galen Diettinger had been commissioned directly from Academy to the bridge crew of the Sauron frigate Amber, and the tempo of his career had thereafter precluded any possibility of a normal life.

  Instead, Breedmasters had collected genetic samples from him, all of which had gone to the breeding crèches, and that was as close as his mother would ever get to seeing grandchildren from her eldest son.

  “Your sister is well,” Diettinger’s father said. “Another son, the last we heard.”

  Diettinger nodded. His sister and brother-in-law were administrators of a Sauron colony established early in the war, the location of which was still secret. None of the family entertained any notions they would ever see either of them again, or any of their progeny.

  The meal passed with talk of family matters large and small, the list of insignificant yet crucial events that accumulated between visits in every human family. All the things which now seemed to Diettinger to be at once both trivial and vital.

  An hour after sunrise, by an act of will, he checked his chronometer. “Father, mother; I have to go, soon. May we take a short walk to the family gardens, together?”

  Diettinger saw his father glance across the table to his wife. For as long as Diettinger had known her, his mother had always differentiated between the atrium’s garden of water flowers, and the family gardens, which she visited and tended alone. But now she only looked down for a moment, smiled and nodded at him. “Of course, Galen.”

  The family gardens were several acres of flowers and shrubs, herbs and experimental plants, trees and shrubs, all a mixture of indigenous and imported plant life, all forming a horseshoe surrounding the Diettinger family cemetery; the true “family garden,” which represented the devotion to the Homeworld of the line founded by Brennus Diettinger more than half a millennium ago. At the apex of the curve were the tall headstones of Brennus himself, his wife Laura and their five children. Successive generations spread out into the arms of the horseshoe in tempo with Sauron’s history and that of the Diettinger line. Many of the graves bore insignia of rank and emblems of service in the armed forces of the CoDominium, and later the Empire. The last row of six graves bore, in addition to the names, the inscription: In Service to the Sauron State.

  “It is very likely that you are already under surveillance,” Diettinger began quietly. “If not, you soon will be. In either case, I want to speak to you both about something I have in mind.”

  “Son,” his father said quietly, “I don’t think that would be wise. I also know that it is not necessary.”

  Diettinger looked into his parents’ faces, seeing the same resolution that had always been there, but now it was joined with something else. He looked at his mother and tried to force the issue: “You should both know that—”

  “We know, Galen,” she said. “Or we know all we need to know. We’ve known it for some time. That’s why we’ve transferred all our duties here to the estate. We want to spend these—decisive months—in our own home.”

  Diettinger’s father put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “We’re Firstholders, Galen,” he said. “We’ve spent a lifetime in service to our world.” He looked back at his wife. “The time we have left, we would like to spend in service to each other.”

  He wanted to shout at them to come with him, to join him aboard Fomoria; whatever happened, at least they would survive. And they would be together. But that would be worse than dangerous; it would be humiliating. He looked at his parents, and a thought came back to him from the night before, and from before that on a hot June day in a Wild Zone almost forty years ago—not an option.

  “I understand.” He embraced his father. “I’m glad to have seen you.”

  His mother leaned forward and put her arms around him, then kissed his cheek below the eye patch. “And we, you, beloved son.” Her eyes were moist again, with no attempt to restrain the tears. “Before you leave Sauron again, get that eye regenerated. You look like a pirate.”

  Diettinger only looked at her for a long moment. “Goodbye, mother. Father.” All Saurons saluted their superiors, military, social, familial. Diettinger’s was perfect. He turned and walked back up the path to the back of the house, turning at the top of the steps to look back at the gardens, bathed in morning sunlight, his parents standing beside one another, two more black silhouettes amid the headstones. Soon he could no longer tell the difference. He
passed through the house without looking left or right, went to his car and was driven away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I

  Half of the Fomoria’s bridge crew was planetside, busily engaged in debriefing, genetic registration and even, on occasion, shore leave. Vessel Second Rank Althene Adame held the conn, her attention focused on the sensor readouts tied in to her station screens. Fomoria had been in dry dock for four days and Vessel First Rank Diettinger had still not returned from planetside to relieve her. Althene did not normally crave leave time; she had no one to visit planetside and temporary command of the Fomoria, even in dry dock, was a prestigious berth. But she had found, upon looking out the viewport in the captain’s cabin, that the sight of the Homeworld drew her as never before.

  At first, Althene had tried watching Sauron using the bridge’s huge tactical display, which projected the view from outside the Fomoria onto the interior walls, ceiling and floor of the bridge. The effect was to suspend the bridge crew in space above the Homeworld. The view was spectacular…but the tactical display was cluttered with combat imagery displays and tactical readouts which could not be disabled. And looking at the Homeworld, overlaid with hundreds of target reticles as Fomoria’s computers identified her vulnerabilities, made Althene uneasy. In the back of her mind, as more days passed with no word from the battle at Tanith, the less she liked the view provided by the tactical display.

  The bridge Communications officer, a Fifth Ranker named Roger Boyle, keyed an acknowledgment to an incoming signal. Boyle had been transferred to the Fomoria from the Leviathan and, while he had perhaps shone aboard that battleship, he was still laboring to meet standards set by the Fomoria’s First Rank—and mercilessly maintained by its Second Rank.

  “Ship-to-ship from the Damaris, Second Rank,” Boyle blurted out in a near-total breach of protocol.

  Althene sighed. “Permission to speak was not granted, Communications. Although at dry dock, we remain at combat-ready status as one of only three capital ships in-system. You did not identify the sender of the message, only its source and you addressed me as ‘Second Rank’, though a de facto promotion is in effect for whomever holds the conn in the absence of the Vessel Commander.” Althene’s fingers flashed briefly across her station pad, and Boyle went on to report. Again.

  Boyle took the reprimand in stride. Staying aboard Fomoria was worth however much self-improvement was required to earn the berth. “Acknowledged,” he said, paused a moment, then tried again, “First Rank.”

  “Speak.”

  “Incoming ship-to-ship communication, First Rank. Vessel First Rank Mara Emory, commanding the Damaris, wishes to speak with you.”

  Althene’s mood brightened immediately; Mara was an old friend. Ah, she thought, smiling to herself—girl talk! “Put it through to the commander’s office.”

  With Boyle educated and the example thus set, Althene got up from the conn chair—her place taken instantly by the Weapons officer—and went into the office with the viewport. Sauron’s horizon filled the small, thick window, and she turned the small acceleration couch at the desk to improve her view of both the window and the commo screen.

  “First Rank Adame of Fomoria, here.”

  “Good to see you, Althene; how are you enjoying our enforced leave-on-station?”

  “I’m more than a little bored with dry dock, but that’s SOP. And you?”

  “Actually, I’ve just returned from planetside. I met the most fascinating gentleman at Fleet HQ. He operates as a commerce raider against Imperial shipping, turned over something like eighty tons of rare foodstuffs last month, including some apparently spectacular coffee. His name is Hawksley. He really is quite attractive.”

  Althene was puzzled. “I don’t recall any Fleet Ops dedicated to commerce raiding.”

  “There aren’t,” Emory acknowledged. “He isn’t from Sauron. He’s just a human norm, from Burgess system.” She shrugged and smiled as she put down her cup. “But he’s good for fun.”

  Althene was struck by the demeanor of her friend; Mara’s eyes practically twinkled.

  “I also had a meeting with your CO about his new assignment,” Emory continued.

  Althene nodded. “It’s ambitious, to say the least.”

  Emory shrugged, her eyes saying even more as she answered. “Perhaps ‘bold’ would be a better word.”

  Althene felt the danger, heard the warning: We are being monitored. Surveillance at some level had been a fact of life on Sauron since the founding of the colony; incredibly dangerous indigenous life-forms had made it necessary to keep track of people who might require rescue at any second. Part of the Sauron cultural psyche was now an awareness of such surveillance, but not an indifference to it. So, like all humans, Saurons had developed numerous ways to circumvent such scrutiny.

  “Indeed. I’ve observed that such considered boldness has always been one of his character traits.”

  “Speaking of boldness, I wonder if you’ve the courage to join me aboard Damaris for dinner this evening,” Emory’s smoothness of tone compensated for her awkward change of subject. “My service staff fancies themselves the adventurous types. With this uncustomary access to Homeworld foodstuffs, they’re merrily ruining traditional dishes left and right.”

  “I would be delighted, First Rank,” Althene answered. “Regretfully, I have no information on when First Rank Diettinger will be returning to Fomoria, and I am in command until—”

  The door to the office opened, and Diettinger entered. Despite her surprise, Althene’s first thought was: He’s still wearing the eye patch.

  Wordlessly, Diettinger moved around the desk and into the commo scanner’s field. “Good day, First Rank Emory,” he said. “My Second Rank will be available to join you for dinner this evening. Please send a shuttle to collect her at—” he turned to Althene—“Eighteen hundred hours?” Althene nodded, silently, as Diettinger turned back to the screen. “Eighteen hundred hours, ship time. Fomoria out.”

  Althene rose. “Welcome back, First Rank. I apologize that we were not prepared to receive your shuttle.”

  Diettinger shook his head. “No apology necessary. Officially, Second Rank, I am not even here.” Diettinger sat at his desk and began calling up various screens on his console. Althene saw that all were astrogational referents, Alderson Jump Lines in and around Sauron’s System. More and different data flickered across the screen.

  “May I be of assistance, First Rank?” Althene was an acknowledged expert in Jump Line navigation.

  Diettinger’s remaining eye turned to look up at her from beneath his brow. He was silent for too long before answering with a slow, considered “No.” He returned his gaze to the screen. Thank you, Second Rank. Please resume the conn. I will relieve you in time for your appointment with First Rank Emory.”

  Althene blinked at the console screen, puzzled. Diettinger turned to her. “Was there something else, Second Rank?”

  “Ah… no, First Rank.” As she turned to go, Diettinger’s voice stopped her at the door.

  “You and Vessel First Rank Emory are old friends, are you not?”

  “Yes, First Rank. We were classmates in Naval Operations training.” Before Althene could stop herself, she blurted out, “First Rank Emory specialized in tactical doctrine, whereas my specialization was Strategic; hers warranted her receipt of a vessel command.”

  “As did her other formidable qualifications, I am sure.”

  “Of course.”

  “You say your specialty was Strategic, Second Rank; yet, that rather understates the case, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I beg your pardon, First Rank?”

  “Your file shows that you are a renowned historian; your thesis was an examination of the Peloponnesian War which caused several of your instructors to go back and review their own works on the subject.”

  “Yes, First Rank.”

  Diettinger nodded, seemingly satisfied. Althene began to feel distinctly uncomfortable. The vector this c
onversation is taking, combined with what was on Diettinger’s screen a moment ago, and what is still on his screen, because he hasn’t changed it… What’s going on here?

  “Do you have a copy of this thesis, Second Rank?”

  “No, First Rank. However, I believe it is still on file with Nav Ops training.”

  “Provide me with a copy of it before you leave Fomoria. Dismissed.”

  “Yes, First Rank.” Althene left, still too confused about what she had seen on the First Rank’s screen to be flattered by his desire to read her thesis. She couldn’t decide which of the First Rank’s interests made less sense: his interest in a fifteen-year old examination of an eight thousand year-old war, or in those charts he was studying. Charts of Alderson Jump Lines into and out of Sauron System, not just of Sparta, as she might expect.

  Althene was the sort of Sauron officer who, at the moment, could conceive of no possible reason for an interest in such information.

  II

  Sauron could boast of many contributions to the advancement of human culture; cuisine was not one of them. The dinner enjoyed by Diettinger’s Second Rank, Althene, and her host, Vessel First Rank Mara Emory of the Damaris, would have been almost inedible had it been served to human norms. Generations of privation and hardship during the taming of the Sauron Homeworld had almost killed the Sauron palate; genetic engineering had done the rest.

  By necessity as well as design, Saurons could eat just about anything that had at least a nodding acquaintance with protein. There was even a rumor—wholly untrue—that Cyborgs could survive by eating rocks.

  But taste is mostly a matter of smell, and while a race of Soldiers might reasonably be expected do without the niceties of “salty, sour, bitter and sweet,” they could not function without a highly developed olfactory capability. So while Saurons could eat rotten meat if necessary, they were able to do so more as a result of training than invulnerability to such a meal’s inimical bouquet.