CHAPTER SEVEN

"You know, laddie, I think I'm getting a bit too old for this sort of thing."

Ian shook his head and said nothing, waiting for the jump transit to hit. Space forward blurred and then snapped back into focus, his stomach dropping, flipping over, and nearly coming up his throat. Ian scanned the nav screen, waiting for the locks to set in on the various stars to confirm that they had jumped into the system they wanted. Anomalies in jumps were not uncommon even in the heavily traveled lanes in the heart of the Confederation. In the barely charted jump points beyond the outer border of the Kilrathi Empire it vas almost a guess at times where the next jump would lead

Paladin leaned over Ian's shoulder to watch, the seconds ticking by, finally a confirm light flashed on the screen and both breathed a sigh of relief.

"At least according to what our charts tell us, we're in the right place," Paladin said. "It's a bit hard to tell though. Hell, laddie, we're going down one narrow little road here, we might have passed hundreds of other jump points in between and not even known it. The last time I did this I had to feel my way blind through it all.

"I can tell you this, though, I think we've definitely gone a good bit into Hari territory, and Kilrah is somewhere off there," and he waved his hand vaguely off towards the port side of his ship, "roughly three hundred odd light years away. Where we're heading towards, that signal is sort of this way," and he vaguely waved his hand straight ahead, a gesture which Ian found to be strange and somewhat amusing.

"In the olden days they used to draw places on the map and say, here be'eth dragons," and Paladin chuckled.

"It's a long way back home," Ian said quietly.

"Aye," Paladin said quietly turning in his swivel chair to scan his surveillance instruments.

"Oh, we've got a little company way out here," he announced and pointed to the screen. "Ionization wake coming through here, heading straight for what I think's the next jump point."

"How old?"

"Not very, hard to tell, sir, maybe ten hours."

"Could he have spotted us on the other side and jumped out?"

Paladin sat quietly for a minute thinking that question over yet again. One of the problems with this cat Stealth machinery was the simple fact they were not even sure if it was really working right anymore. At least when Tarawa was alongside they could get a very quick and easy read. They hadn't seen Tarawa in ten days; it was now a good eight jump points behind them, holding itself at extreme burst signal range back to the edge of the frontier in case it had to get an emergency signal out.

He had figured out by now that the Stealth gear was to be used for only short periods of time, and the drain it made on ship's energy was tremendous. So they had finally agreed to use it only at the moment of jump, and then when the coast was clear to come out of it and recharge their power by running with full scoops open. There was the other simple question as well. The Stealth might work against Confederation ships, but no one had yet to figure out if the Cats had a simple way of detecting it themselves.

"Hard to tell, he could even be hiding somewhere in this blasted system and we don't have time to check it all."

Ian looked over at the chart which showed a dozen planets in orbit around the red giant star of this sector. Information beyond that was nonexistent, nothing on any of the planets, resources, whether they were even inhabited or not Paladin pursed his lips for a moment and then sighed.

"Well, laddie, let's power her up, get our tanks full, then close scoops and run to the next jump somewhat straight ahead. It'll take some time, we'll have to sniff it down."

Ian nodded, taking the helm, turning Bannockburn and headed towards where they hoped the next jump point was located. It was tedious work, jumping through, snooping on passive listening, and then hunting up the next jump point and moving forward again.

The engines of Bannockburn powered up and hours later it was far across the system, zeroing in on the next jump point. Long after their passage, what appeared to be nothing more than a small boulder, floating through the darkness a million kilometers from the jump point, shed its exterior. The Kilrathi light picket ship turned and accelerated away towards another jump point.

"I think he is planning to assassinate me," the Emperor said

Prince Thrakhath was surprised by just how casual his grandfather was, as if discussing plans for yet another boring court ritual.

His choice of the word assassinate was interesting as well. In the language of Kilrah there was no such term, the word having filtered into the language from the Hari during the war of three eight-of-eights years past. For the Hari such disgusting practices appeared to have been their means of selecting who would rule, a chaotic and degrading system that left them ripe for conquest

"What purpose would it serve?" Thrakhath asked. "After all, I would then rise to power," and even as he spoke the words he felt foolish, realizing that if Jukaga were planning to kill his grandfather, he would be killed as well.

He fell silent for a moment, lowering his head to lap up a gulp of wine.

"We can't simply denounce him," the Emperor said. "The evidence is far too flimsy, a mere hint, an inquiry as to who would be on the security detail guarding our cruiser the night before we leave for the Pukcal, but it fits him and what he has become."

Prince Thrakhath nodded in agreement. There was no denying that Jukaga was far too right in many of his criticisms of how the war had been run. He alone, out of nearly all the Kilrathi, had taken the time and effort to truly study the humans. It was, after all, his assignment as head of spying to learn the secrets of the enemy and how they thought.

That fact in and of itself had been troubling. In the past victory had come so quickly and with such assurance that there was little or no need to study the enemy; they were merely prey to be hunted down and exterminated. The Mantu did not count; their onslaught had come suddenly and with near overwhelming power, and then they had simply disappeared back into the void, apparently threatened by another unknown race. The human war, however, had dragged on for years. The exposure to them had been constant, even to the point of having a city's worth of human slaves right here in Kilrah, some of them even laboring in the subterranean caverns below the palace. Such contact had to, in the end, bring about changes. Jukaga had embraced them in order to understand and thus defeat them. It had thus introduced to him other ways of thinking as well.

But to assassinate? The mere thought of the alien word was repulsive, it was killing without any honor, without challenge. It was done in the dark, without any hope of then picking up the fallen sword of the slain in order to take his mantle of power and honor.

"If we both were killed," Thrakhath said, "there is no direct heir. In the chaos that followed, as head of his hrai, he would be in position to take the throne himself by playing off one faction against the other, something which he is a master at."

He said the words softly. The shame of even thinking it was hard to bear. There was no denying the horrifying fact that the seed of his family was weakening. His grandfather had sired many litters, most of them born dead, with but two sons surviving. His father had actually been executed by direct order of the Emperor, his uncle killed in the first days of the war.

He was now the only heir, and not one son had been born to him, a sickly daughter his only surviving offspring from a single litter, and that from a lowly concubine of the second order. It was a humiliation almost beyond bearing. He should have sired dozens of offspring by now. He felt a deep and lasting shame. War was the only outlet left to him to vent his rage over his failure on the mating couch.

There were a number of cousins descending from his grandfather's sister, so many that the chance of blood feud and civil war was the most likely result. Is that what Jukaga wanted, a civil war? He thought of his cousins. It would be easy enough to trigger a dynastic struggle with them, and Jukaga could weave his way through the alliances, weakening the family until finally it would be his own hrai that would be the strongest and could then finish them off. It would be a civil war unlike any fought since they had first ventured off their home world over eight eight-of-eights ago.

It was a dreadful thought. He had always assumed that in the passage of years he would either sire a son to succeed him, or, when he was old, he would choose a cousin to sit upon the golden throne. His choice would then ritually kill him and thus take the sword and throne by right of blood.

"We cannot kill him," the Emperor said, "not now. There is first of all the simple fact that his plan for the war has so far indeed worked, degrading as it is. The humans have been placed off guard, our shortage of transports is being rectified, and the new fleet is moving towards completion. If we ordered his death it would upset that plan, and beyond that, appear to be an act of jealousy. The other hrai leaders forced his return and the killing of him out of hand would bring their wrath down upon us. There is no denying the fact that, like it or not, his plan pulled us out of a difficult impasse."

Thrakhath nodded in agreement.

"And the onus of such an act we can place upon his shoulders," Thrakhath replied with a smile.

"There is the other fact as well," the Emperor continued. "He heads the operation of our spies. He knows perhaps even more than I do. His operatives are everywhere. Any attempt to take him would be known long before we were ready to strike."

The Emperor stood up and went over to stare at a tapestry hanging behind the throne, which showed an ancient hunt scene, all the time making sure to stay within the stasis field that blocked all detection devices.

Thrakhath looked back at the Emperor, who looked at him sharply.

"Could your fleet take the humans now?" he asked.

"It is not certain. Four carriers are now ready, the fifth in two eights of days."

"Could you win?"

All the variables, all the calculations said that a swift attack with five new carriers would succeed, though there was a slim chance that the losses would be heavy.

"Remember, the humans have weakened themselves," the Emperor said, "and our traitor in their ranks keeps us informed."

Thrakhath nodded. He did not want to take any risks and then he wondered if this peace had made him weak as well. War was risk, that was the thrill of it.

"We can take them with five carriers, my lord. However, we would have to strike with full and overwhelming surprise. Any warning before we cross the frontier could give them time to prepare a defense."

"Then be sure that this unconfirmed report of their having a spy ship in our space is acted upon at once. They are not to get through or see anything, that is still crucial."

Thrakhath nodded in agreement.

"If he makes this attempt and we survive, politically it would still make us look weak, having first agreed to this disgusting peace and then suffering the indignity of having someone attempt to strike us."

"Then kill him now and be done with it," Thrakhath snarled.

"No. We would never have the evidence we need, he is too cunning for that. Let him make his strike, but then let us shift the blame on to the humans. It will serve a two fold purpose of discrediting his peace effort and help to enrage our own against both him and the humans. I think it is time as well to have a talk with our ambassador in their camp. He has waited too long for his revenge, let him have it.

The radar burst pinged across the screen and Jason sat silent, watching, looking over at his counter electronics officer. She was hunched over her own screen staring at it as if mesmerized. The young woman, she could not have been more than twenty, punched an order into a flat touch screen, absently reaching up occasionally to push an unruly wisp of red hair from her freckled forehead. He felt as if she was not much beyond being a very young child, and the thought struck him as almost funny. He was, after all, only twenty-seven, the youngest carrier commander in the fleet. In any other type of life the woman would have been very dateable. Out here, in this situation, the difference seven additional years of war added was a chasm almost too deep to comprehend. Another ping washed over the screen.

"They're close, they're very close," Vance whispered.

Jason felt that if he went to a topside view port he could almost see the Kilrathi scout ship. A hundred thousand clicks was damn near next door in space.

"Still an unfocused radar sweep," the electronics officer announced.

Another ping hit

"Doppler shifting away, he's moving past us, sir."

Jason let out a sigh of relief.

"Keep secure for silent running," Jason announced and he left the bridge, followed by Vance.

"I thought you were crazy to land like this," Vance said and Jason looked over at him and smiled weakly.

"Maybe I am."

The move was unorthodox in the extreme. Less than twelve hours ago Vance's team had picked up a series of orders shifting more than a hundred scout and recon ships into the sector they were now occupying and to cover all the surrounding jump points. Apparently something had tipped the Kilrathi off to their presence. His first thought was to run and hide inside the atmosphere of a gas giant but there were none to be found within the system. There was, however, a green housed world cloaked in heavy clouds, its surface boiling hot and scored by deep canyons. Placing two light carriers down on the surface under the lip of an overhanging cliff had been tricky. If discovered they would be near defenseless. A light fighter armed with just a couple of antimatter warheads would make short work of them if they were caught and unable to lift off in time.

So far the subterfuge had worked, and with the planet's extremely slow rotational period, Vance had been able to keep a watch on but signals from the direction of Kilrah, now three hundred and eighty light years away. However, the Hari system was blocked by the bulk of the planet.

The only problem was that the scout ships simply refused to leave and had thus kept them pinned for three days, out of touch with Paladin, wherever he might now be.

"Here we go, laddie, jump in ten seconds."

Paladin cinched up his safety harness and waited. He spared a quick glance over at Ian who sat placidly next to him.

This next jump was totally blind, leaping into a jump point without any idea where they were going. The last three jumps had taken them further than any human had ever ventured before, far beyond the outer run of the Kilrathi Empire and into the completely uncharted realm of the long dead Hari. The burst signal they were tracking down had fired off again only six hours ago and was very close, in a star system less than eight light years away. They had slipped through the sector using the Stealth, though it appeared as if one of the dozen picket ships they had passed had at least gotten a temporary lock on them. In a couple of seconds he would know if this jump would take them to their goal.

The jump transit hit, blurring vision. The stars ahead disappeared. Paladin swallowed hard and waited. Maybe I'm getting too old for these sorts of games, he thought. Twenty years of fighting is pressing the edge of the envelope just a little too much. He pushed the thought aside, no sense dwelling on it. Besides, what the hell would I do with myself to kill the boredom?

A new starfield snapped into focus and at the same instant the radar detection alarm started to shriek its warning.

He leaned over in his chair, punching the alarm off and turned to look at the readout screen.

"Well, lad, we're being tracked," he announced, trying to keep the fear from his voice. It always amazed him how all the others looked to him as someone with ice water in his veins. If only they really knew just how gut-wrenching the fear could really be.

He watched his screen as optical mounts turned, tracking down the incoming paths of the radar, passively searching out the darkness for the enemy.

"Got one sighted, make that two, now three, the closest standing at thirty eight thousand clicks, a light corvette."

Another high energy radar burst snapped on them, this one a narrow focus beam. It could only mean that the Cats were on to him.

He spared a quick look up at the unknown system they had just entered. The jump point was fairly close into the systems sun, a standard class M. He continued the optical sweep. He'd have a good five minutes before the corvette would start to close. Now that they'd been found out, they could at least do a quick scan before jumping back out and shaking off the pursuit in the system which they had just jumped from.

"Getting an awful lot of sublight radio traffic in this sector," Ian announced. trying to get an optical lock on the signals."

Ian, working the long range optical scanners, stayed hunched over his screen. A full radar sweep would have been better, but they would be long gone before the first returns even started to bounce back. The use of the narrow band translight pulse was out of the question. They'd have to drop completely out of Stealth and it'd reveal their true mission to the picket ships.

"Paladin, switch to my screen," Ian whispered, his voice suddenly high and tense.

Paladin switched into the long range optical scan, his eyes straining as Ian spun the optics up to their highest magnification, which could pick up an object the size of a one pound coin from two hundred thousand clicks out.

"My lord," Paladin gasped, "hit the holo recorder switch."

"Already running," Ian replied.

Paladin stared at the screen in disbelief when Ian punched in a computer enhancement with scale gradients superimposed over the image. They were looking at a ship that was at least fifteen hundred meters in length. Several seconds later the computer, now armed with more information, cleared the first image from the screen and replaced it with a higher resolution enhancement, with the beginning of an analysis of what they were looking at.

"Fifteen hundred and eighty meters, estimated half a million ton bulk weight," Paladin whispered. "Range 102 million clicks, orbiting the only planet in the system.

"Dozens of ships orbiting that planet," Ian announced, "coming up now on second screen."

Paladin spared a quick glance over to the secondary images forming, three more ships like the first one, half a dozen more apparently still under construction, a dozen cruiser type vessels that were bigger than the old Concordia — battleships he could only guess would be the word for them, drawing the term out of ancient nautical history. Part of the screen was tallying off a count of transports, more than a hundred of them either docked into what appeared to be an orbital construction yard that filled half a dozen cubic kilometers of space, or hovering around it

The alarm went off again, warbling with a high insistent tone and Paladin turned to look back at his tactical.

We've got company, laddies. Looks like two Stealths just jumped in behind us. Prepare for evasive!"

"We'll lose the visual lock, Ian shouted. "I don't have a full read on it yet."

Paladin weighed the variables and in less than half a dozen seconds from the sounding of the second alarm he came to his decision. Turning back to his main screen he cleared it of the optical and punched in the order for a translight beam sweep, dropping his ship out of Stealth mode. The pulse went out, even as he swung his ship hard over into an evasive. The first Stealth already had a lock on him and dropped a missile which he assumed was one of the new and more deadly IFFs. Before the missile was even clearly away Paladin popped a scrambler, a decoy pulsing with a standard Confed IFF code and capable of reflecting back a radar image of a fleet light corvette, a counter he had rigged up based upon Ian's unpleasant experience.

Ian looked over at him in surprise and grinned, as the transponder snapped to life. It was a clear give away as to who they really were along with the translight pulse sweep. Seconds later the data came sweeping back in with a high resolution read of the enemy fleet. The first missile at the same time streaked into the decoy and detonated. Two more missiles swept out from the Stealths which were turning to follow Bannockburn in its evasive and Paladin punched out another decoy while at the same time launching half a dozen dumb fire flechette bolts from his rear tubes that would fill space behind him with thousands of nail-sized shot that could rip a fighter to shreds if it got caught in the spread.

Even as he piloted the ship he watched the other screen. A green flash indicated that the pulse had been successfully read and stored by the ship's computer.

"Check it!" Paladin shouted.

"We've got good data," Ian replied.

"Load it along with the optical read and our coordinates into a burst signal, aim it back towards Tarawa."

"Loaded!"

Paladin toggled a switch into the burst signal line.

"Green one, green one, this is green two, am under attack, cover blown, repeat cover blown, get the hell out and back to the barn."

He hit the burst signal button and the light; in the cabin momentarily dimmed as nearly all the ship's energy was diverted to powering out the signal across the hundreds of light years of space back to Tarawa.

At least they'd have the information even if they bought it. He realized that in the scheme of things his job was done, he had uncovered the suspected fleet. Within minutes Tarawa would have the information and it'd blow the lid right off the armistice when it came out that the Kilrathi were building the ships in clear violation of the terms. The political ramifications would be explosive, he realized. At the very least Rodham's government would fall. It'd also mean that the war would be back on. He thought again of what he'd just uncovered and the images still locked on the secondary screen chilled him. The carriers were more than twice as big as anything now in the fleet. Even if every ship was still active and on line the new Kilrathi ships had the power to do anything in space.

The Cats undoubtedly knew that their cover had just been blown. The only hope was to fully remobilize before the ships already completed could be moved up into action and meet them on the frontier. If they gained confederation space with our defenses down it was over.

The two missiles hit the second decoy and detonated. The Stealths dropped out of masking and came to full visual, transferring their energy to neutron guns and laser. A shot lanced into the portside stabilizer of Bannockburn and Paladin pulled hard to starboard, lining up a deflection shot on one of his tormentors. He flared off half a dozen more flechette rounds, followed by two dumb fired bolts. The flechette rounds broke open, each deploying a spread of sixty thousand nail-sized shot across a hundred meter wide piece of space. The wave slammed into the Stealth, shredding it to ribbons and the ship silently detonated.

The picket ships were already racing in to join the fray, their speed well up past a thousand clicks a second with maneuvering scoops fully closed.

"Turning in on jump point. Get ready for uncalibrated jump in fifteen seconds!" Paladin shouted.

Another laser burst hit Bannockburn dead astern, overloading the shields, cutting into the Y-axis maneuvering thrusters, and Paladin cursed as he purged the thrusters fuel lines before they detonated.

He spared a quick thought for the message he sent out, hoping that Tarawa was at least still alive to get it, otherwise this whole damn thing was for naught. "How the hell did I ever get into this business?" he shouted even as the jump transit hit.

"We've got it"

Jason looked up at Vance who had not even bothered to knock before bursting into his cabin. The normally unflappable director of intelligence seemed almost giddy with excitement.

"Got what?"

"The signal damn it, the signal. Come on, I'll show you."

Jason followed Vance back down the corridor into the fighter bay. He had a flash memory of the same corridor, running towards the bridge when it was hit by the Kilrathi suicide pilot, killing O'Brian, the first captain of the Tarawa, the corridor decompressing when the hull was shattered

They reached the end of the corridor, the two security guards still requiring that even Vance show ID and undergo a corona laser scan. It struck him as a bit absurd, here they were hiding on a planet's surface, no one could possibly sneak aboard to impersonate Vance, and the man had come down the corridor only a minute before. But he knew that security above all else required no relaxation.

He showed his ID as well and leaned into the corona scanner.

The guards opened the doorway into the bay and saluted, the door slamming shut behind them.

The D-5 team was gathered in a knot around what was Vance's cubicle, and to Jason's surprise he saw bottles of champagne being passed around. He was about to raise an objection to such an open violation of fleet regulations but then realized that fleet regs no longer applied, since officially they were not part of the fleet, and in fact officially did not even exist. Intel people had always struck him as a little strange and he realized that perhaps they needed to blow off steam like this otherwise they would have cracked under the pressure long ago. They were no different than pilots in that respect.

The crowd parted for Vance, patting him on the back.

"Good job, people, now let's finish our party and get back to work, there's a hell of a lot to be done before this mission is finished"

The crowd seemed to immediately sober up and drifted away back to their stations.

"Here's what all the excitement is about. I thought you should know in case anything happened."

"Anything happened?"

"We could take a hit to this bay and our entire team gets wiped out. I want someone off this deck to know what we've just found out I want you to remember the message but you are to immediately, and forever, forget how we found out"

Jason nodded in agreement

Vance pointed to a two dimensional screen. On the right side was what Jason assumed was phonetically translated Kilrathi, on the left long series of white blocks, and occasional words in English which were partial translations of the message.

"When Geoff left he went back amongst other reasons, to have ConFleet send out a false message which stated that our primary matter-antimatter assembly plant on the moon had been destroyed due to an accidental detonation. As a result no new weapons would be delivered for several months. The message of course was a complete fabrication.

An hour ago we picked up this message from Kilrah to their Hari base and cracked part of it."

Jason leaned over to look at the screen.

Most of the message was untranslated but one line highlighted in red leaped out at him . . . "Remove target 2778A on moon of nak'tara from primary strike list Accident has destroyed target, . . ." there were several lines untranslated . . . "shortage in antimatter weapons produced from 2778A expected, will update."

Jason looked back up at Vance.

"They took the bait. We broadcast the false message on a code we knew they had already cracked. Their listening post, most likely right in their embassy office picked it up and passed it back to Kilrah. Nak'tara means Earth. It means that whatever it is they're preparing out there in Hari is being aimed for an attack straight at Earth. Damn it, the bastards are getting ready to strike."