A Matter of Intelligence, Chapter Two
By
(UCSBdad)
Disclaimer: Once again, profitlessly stolen from Henson, et al, David Drake and anyone else I need to borrow from. Rating: K+ Time: Some twenty five cycles after PKW and a bit after my Warriors for the Working Day.
"Hello, Captain Darlan. I must admit that your handling of Captain Cheka was not what I expected."
Darlan shrugged. "My understanding of the Seek is limited, but I believe that unnecessary violence is abhorred."
"Actually, all violence is abhorred, Captain."
It took a few seconds for both parties to realize that a philosophical discussion was not appropriate. Pa'u Civa spoke first.
"It was fortunate that Captain Cheka arrived when he did as the dispute among my advisors has now been resolved. We will be happy to accept your terms. Do you think you can carry 600 cubic motras of pharmaceuticals?"
"I believe we can carry 900 cubic motras, Pa'u Civa." Captain Darlan replied graciously.
Pa'u Civa was lying through her teeth, of course. Captain Cheka had a very strict schedule that he kept and wasn't due back to Forest of Bazil for another three months. I concluded that Pa'u Civa had a means of communicating with Cheka and perhaps with the rest of the universe.
No matter. We loaded the pharmaceuticals and after a brief stop to give orders to Chacal and Wessex Lady in interstellar space, we began the three week trip to Garden of Galil.
Once at Garden of Galil I found myself sitting with Captain Darlan and Commander du Glatigny in a comfortable chair across from a skinny, bald old Delvian who was from whatever passed as the Foreign Ministry around here. Supporting him were a pair of officious looking clerks and a beefy, bearded human in a brown uniform.
Garden of Galil had been getting raided by mostly renegade Charrids for about a decade before humans had arrived. To put an end to this, the Delvians had hired a human military leader called Brother Saul to defend them. Brother Saul's troops were from some off- shoot of Christianity I had never heard of, but they were good fighters.
"Am I to understand you don't intend to pay me?" Captain Darlan said coldly.
"No, no, Captain. That is not our intent at all." He managed to say it in such a way that made it sound like we should be asking him not to pay us.
The Delvian managed an apologetic smile and went on. "We are well aware of that Ilanic's depredations at Forest of Bazil. We simply want to satisfy ourselves that you have a bona fide commercial relationship with Pa'u Civa before we pay you. We ask that you return to Forest of Bazil with an envoy. Once the envoy establishes that you are what you say you are, you may load another cargo and return here to be paid for both cargoes."
No one had claimed that the universes were full of people who would go out of their way to help us. Darlan nodded. "I had hoped to pick up some supplies here. I need fresh water. What we have has been recycled too often. And some fresh food. I'd also like to use…"
The Delvian cut him off. "We will be happy to give you food and water. But, we are unable to offer you any further assistance." He glanced meaningfully towards the human as if daring us to complain.
We agreed with ill grace and as we straggled out of the building, I managed to detach myself from the group and went looking for someone.
As I expected, I found him sitting in an office with his door wide open. Unlike most of Brother Saul's troops, he was clean shaven. His blond hair had receded a bit since I had last seen him and I noticed he had a bit of grey in it. The laugh lines around his eyes and mouth were a bit more pronounced. He was a man you could sit down with and feel instantly comfortable with. That was a very useful ability for an intelligence officer.
"Brother Sean?" I asked politely.
He looked up with a slight look of puzzlement. Well, no reason he should recall me.
"Lieutenant Frederic de Gautier, sir. We met during the Antharalla campaign. I was with the Imperial Special Operations Group on Cantabria. You were an adviser with Clan Ranald over on Skye."
He nodded. "A bloody business there on Cantabria, as I recall."
My turn to nod. "The Cantabrians have been perfecting the vendetta for more than two millennia. I honestly doubt that a little thing like an interstellar war added to their blood-thirstyness."
Brother Sean turned up the smile and pointed to a chair. "Sit, lad. What are you here for?"
"I'm from the Austerlitz, sir." I began. "We ran into an Ilanic cruiser…."
Brother Sean held up a hand and waved me to silence. "We know all about Okrana, Lieutenant. And we know that she has never threatened us or our employers. We also know that our warships are very good at defending a planet, being exceptionally well armed and armored, but are too slow to go chasing raiders."
It had been worth a try, I suppose. I tried another tack. "We're armed with SSM 28, Mod 4 missiles, although we can use any other Mod."
Before I got to the end of my sentence, Brother Sean was shaking his head. "We have a Treaty of Friendship with Marshal O'Donnell. We get weapons and other stores as well as logistical and administrative support. In return, we do not, repeat, do not assist any other forces."
I had one thing left to try. I reached into my tunic and brought out a data pack and slid it across Brother Sean's desk. "We ran into the Okrana. These are copies of our sensor readings for her and an analysis of her that I did. There's also some information we picked up on a planet called Karraid."
All of it was accurate. None of it was complete.
Brother Sean took the data pack and stared at it for a few seconds. "Would you mind if I just look at it for a minute or two, right now?"
Without waiting for a reply, Brother Sean popped it into his computer and started reviewing the information.
It took about ten minutes, but Brother Sean turned off his computer and smiled at me. "Would you like a bit of tea, lad?"
Without bothering with my reply, he called into a back office. "Sister Sarah. Be getting us a pot of tea, if you will." Then he turned back to me. "What will you be having with your tea, lad? Sugar? Honey? Lemon? Rum? Aye, rum's just the thing."
Five hours later I staggered back aboard Austerlitz. Luckily, Captain Darlan was huddling with the senior division officers over what we'd try to buy once we got paid. I went to my office to do some work and sober up. It was not until another couple of hours later that I was called to the captain's office.
"Have you been drinking, de Gautier?" He asked.
"In the line of duty, sir." I replied steadily. "Brother Sean may be of a religious bent, but he's still Irish. And he's not one of the civilized ones like Marshal O'Donnell."
Captain Darlan said no more on the subject and waved me to a seat.
"I have written a full report, sir." I said, sliding a data pack to him.
"Just summarize it, if you please."
I gave a slight shrug. "It's as we thought. Brother Saul won't go after Captain Cheka, nor will they help us. But Marshal O'Donnell will."
"Ah," said Darlan. "That's the good news. I always assume there's bad news to go with it."
"There is, sir. Marshal O'Donnell is organizing a new trade route that runs from the Royal Planet off in the middle of the Uncharted Territories through Delvian space and the Hynerian Empire all the way to his base on Arsenal. His plan is to establish a series of heavily fortified bases along the way where convoys and their escorts can rest, replenish and rearm. One such base will be here at Garden of Galil, although the details haven't all been worked out. Each of these base worlds will host a task force whose job will be to go out and hunt down any raiders or marauders in the area."
"Better and better." Darlan said. "What's the catch?"
"Well, sir, Captain Cheka and Okrana have been identified to O'Donnell by Brother Saul's intel types as a marauder to be hunted down. A Rear Admiral Toranaga has been selected by O'Donnell to head up the task force to be based here. I checked our intel files. We don't have much on Toranaga except that he's a relatively senior rear admiral and he's from Yamato."
Captain Darlan stared into space over my head. "If he's from Yamato, he'll be concerned with his status and position. He'll demand some sort of capital ship as his flagship. He'll not get a modern, fast battleship, mind you, but something like a light battleship. One of the Pytor Veliki class, or maybe an R class battlecruiser. I hear O'Donnell has several of them. Either could blow Okrana to atoms with half a broadside."
"So, I repeat, what's the catch, Lieutenant?" Darlan asked briskly
"Every one of Toranaga's ships needs time in the ship yards to be ready for service, sir. Most of them need a lot of time. Except for his scouts, which haven't even been built yet. Toranaga won't be in position here for another year."
Darlan frowned. "And in a year, anything may happen. O'Donnell may have a dozen jobs for Admiral Toranaga a year from now, none of which involve us, Cheka or Garden of Galil."
Darlan shook his head slightly. "Do you have any good news for me at all, Lieutenant?"
I smiled. "Brother Sean advises me that there's a blockade runner based here, Whistling Dixie, Captain O'Hara. Whistling Dixie is almost as fast as Austerlitz, has excellent defensive armament and carries offensive armament of six stern chasers. Best of all, she has about twenty times the cargo capacity that we do."
That got a smile from Darlan. "And Captain O'Hara? Will he be willing to work with us?"
"According to Brother Sean, sir, she will be more than happy to work with us. Her prior missions out here haven't been too successful."
"Captain O'Hara is a she?" Darlan asked.
"According to Brother Sean, very much a she, sir."
Darlan stopped and thought. "Do you have any good estimate of how long it'll take Captain O'Hara to cut her own deal with Pa'u Civa and cut us out entirely?"
I shrugged. "Not really, sir. If she's had trouble out here already, and she knows there's an Ilanic raider that will be hunting her, she's likely to be cautious. And, the arrival of humans in large numbers in this universe was like kicking over an ant hill. All sorts of heavily armed people are suddenly running into each other. I'm sure she'll want the protection a warship can provide for a while anyway."
Darlan stared over my head for so long I was starting to wonder if he'd forgotten all about me. Suddenly he spoke.
"Well, we'll just have to see what kind of arrangement we can make with Captain O'Hara. This is what we're working towards anyway. That one day merchantmen will trade peacefully with Forest of Bazil and we'll be supported by the taxes on that trade. If we can establish ourselves as the official navy of Forest of Bazil, or at least as the de facto force keeping the peace in this area, we'll get a treaty of friendship with Marshal O'Donnell. Who knows, maybe even a treaty of alliance. Either treaty will give us the logistical support we need. Then we'll have a secure home in this new universe without some admiralty drowning us in red tape, endless reports and mindless bureaucracy."
Darlan had cheered up, it seemed. He really did hate the bureaucracy that went along with any large organization. A pity in many ways.
And we did come to an agreement with Captain O'Hara, but she had her ship in the yards at Garden of Galil and would not be ready for a month or so. We made note of the fact that heavily armed merchantmen were apparently not covered by the prohibition against helping armed forces.
"So, did you get any word of warships that would join our little task force?" Darlan went on. "I could use another couple of destroyers, you know. Even some missile frigates. A nice small cruiser, something like one of the Penelopes, would be nice. Any of those around?
I shook my head. "No sir. Also no Imperatrice class battleships, with a full task force, no lost and lonely Garde Imperiale divisions, no Imperial Escort Group, no….."
Darlan cut me off. "Don't mock your elders, boy." But he said it with a smile. He was happy finding the Whistling Dixie.
"We do have word on some of the people who have come over here, sir. Most of them have signed up with Marshall O'Donnell. There are a couple who'll probably turn pirate soon, but they're too small to bother us. All the details are in my report."
"Any one we do have to worry about?" Darlan asked.
"Not immediately, sir." I said. "The Laird of Kintyre came through the Anomaly about two months before we did with six to eight cruisers and some escorts. He avoided all of Marshall O'Donnell's patrols and has made an alliance with a Luxan warlord in the Glimmer Rim. He should be busy there for a long while."
"I hope so." Darlan said forcefully. "Keep an eye out for that deranged bastard. If he starts heading towards us, I want to know about it. Anyone else?"
"Yes, sir, Prince Paul of Parhoon is here. He's probably the strongest human leader aside from Marshall O'Donnell. His forces are reckoned to be two-thirds to three-quarters the size of the Marshall's and generally speaking less powerful, unit for unit. Best of all, he's allied himself with some ex-Imperial Charrids and carved out a new kingdom way on the other side of the Scarren Empire. As soon as he'd set himself up, he invited his new Charrid allies to a grand party to celebrate. Then he had them all killed. One way or another, we'll not be bothered by him."
Some years later I'd have cause to remember that particularly stupid observation.
I went on. "The K'hiff are starting to trade with Arsenal."
Darlan held of his hand to stop me. "The K'hiff? The aliens whose home world is in the same solar system as the Anomaly? How in the name of the good God did they get permission to cross back and forth between the two universes? The so-called Great Powers have declared that we're off limits. We're nothing but a bunch of dangerous killers to be separated from the rest of humanity at all costs."
"Yes, sir. I'm sure we are." I replied. "But the Anomaly is in the K'hiff home solar system. Under clearly recognized interstellar law, they do have a right to exploit the Anomaly."
"Oh, and I'm sure the Great Powers fall all over themselves every day to protect the rights of poor alien nonentities." Darlan shot back.
I kept my face carefully blank. "Also Skoda Works has arranged to set up a joint venture building warships at Arsenal. It seems the bottom has dropped out of the warship construction business with the advent of peace. They can reassign a lot of people and factories to civilian work, but they had about ten thousand engineers and skilled workmen that they'd have to fire. People who'd doubtlessly end up working for Skoda's competitors. Some of their orbital shipyards won't be easy to convert to civilian use either."
A smile slowly spread over Captain Darlan's face. It was good to work for an intelligent commander. He was figuring this out more quickly than I had in Brother Sean's office.
Finally, he spoke. "The Great Powers send envoys over here, of course. They want to make sure we're not plotting any evil towards them. And what do they find? A bunch of down at the heels mercenaries squabbling over some wretched planets? No indeed! They find that Marshal O'Donnell has been appointed a Provincial Governor in the Hynerian Empire, an empire of over six hundred billion people. And other human's like Brother Saul, or ourselves for that matter, are making deals with wealthy alien civilizations."
"Skoda hears about this and smells money. They want in. Alas, the Great Powers have decreed there is to be no coming and going between the two universes, other than very limited official business. Then they find that the K'hiff have come to ask for their rights to exploit the Anomaly and were brushed off. Suddenly our furry K'hiff friends have an ally. An ally that as good as owns two whole solar systems and parts of many, many other systems. The K'hiff are quickly granted their legal rights. And since one group now can legally cross into the next universe and return, Skoda demands the same right. Very neat. What's O'Donnell going to get out of this?"
I quickly checked my brief notes. "Sir, the first thing is two Cornwall class armored cruisers. They've been sitting in orbit around one of Skoda's shipyards with no one to buy them. They'll complete their fitting out at Arsenal and join Marshall O'Donnell's forces. After that, Marshall O'Donnell will be in a position to build anything he wants except capital warships. He already can build anything up to a destroyer."
Slowly Darlan shook his head. "We fighters didn't fit into the new universe the Great Powers wanted to build. They wanted peace and tranquility. We were the dogs of war. We were supposed to get ourselves permanently exiled from the human dominated universe. They wanted us hermitically sealed off in this universe so we couldn't cause any trouble for our old universe. Now it looks like the old universe is going to follow us here. How soon do you think it'll be before the United Commonwealth of Bexar is cozying up to the Peacekeepers or the Sword Worlds are trying to make friends with the Luxans?"
We both sat there for a few minutes until the captain spoke. "The more things change the more they remain the same."
"Yes sir." I replied. What else could I say?
Captain Darlan shot me a smile. "Well, de Gautier, we need to get ready for our trip back to Forest of Bazil. The envoy from Garden of Galil is aboard."
"He is, sir?" I asked.
"She is." Darlan replied.
"A woman, sir?"
"Very much so."
Pa'u Zufir Zhaan was indeed very much a woman, and a young one by Delvian standards, being a bit past one hundred years old. She was blue, of course, with a long mane of wild silver-white hair and deep blue eyes. Her teeth showed very white when she smiled and she smiled a lot. The most plant-like thing about her were her breasts, which looked like two large melons standing proudly on her chest. She wore a short, translucent dress that barely covered those breasts and showed a great deal of her long, muscular legs.
Rumor had it that she wore nothing under that dress, but no one was ever able to confirm that. Some of the junior engineering officers were able to prove that the dress could lengthen and shorten itself as well as adhere strongly to her body when necessary.
We also found that her body would adhere strongly to others. Pa'u Zhaan had a habit of leaning over when she talked to you if you were below her line of sight or standing very close to you if your eyes were above her. She also would wrap her arms around us at any opportunity.
I once was all alone in an elevator with her. She immediately wrapped both of her arms around my right arm and pulled herself close. By the good God! I could feel her nipple pressing into my arm.
"Your human language is so very complex, Lieutenant de Gautier." She breathed into my ear while rubbing against me. "You are the intelligence officer? Does this mean you are more intelligent than the others on this ship? If this is so, why are you not in charge?"
I tried to disentangle myself from her with no success. Somehow I found myself facing her. Both of her arms were around my neck and both of her breasts were grinding into my chest.
"I'm in charge of gathering intelligence, that is, information, about our enemies and potential enemies, Pa'u Zhaan." I managed to blurt out.
"Oh! Do you gather information on me?" She asked while writhing against me.
The doors of the elevator opened and I finally broke free.
"Of course not, Pa'u Zhaan." I stated firmly, lying through my teeth.
Normally, such an interlude would have led to a delightful afternoon in a secluded nook amongst the maintenance stores that I had stumbled upon. However, I was an intelligence officer and therefore professionally paranoid. I was deeply suspicious of Pa'u Zhaan's excessive affection for all and sundry. So, I went to the ship's medical officer to be checked for an infestation of alien spores or whatever, and then had my clothing thoroughly examined and decontaminated.
Gathering intelligence about Pa'u Zhaan had been made more difficult by Captain Darlan. Not that I disagreed with him of course. After his first meeting with Pa'u Zhaan, during which she tried to sit on his lap, he had immediately ordered that no one on this ship was to have any sort of physical relations of any sort with her. He also forbade me from planting any surveillance devices in her quarters.
I was able to seed the passageway outside her quarters with remote sensors, though. It was amazing how many junior officers managed to pass through that passageway.
By my calculations, our gunnery officer, Commander Larteguy, passed through the passageway far more often than he had in the past. However, he was trying to reorganize the missile magazines to give us a bit more space for cargo, so it may have been an innocent change in his routine.
Interestingly, Lieutenant Julia Boisferaus passed through the passageway repeatedly and even slowed down when passing by the door to Pa'u Zhaan's stateroom. Whether Julia wanted to offer herself as a lover, a mercenary, or in some other capacity, I never discovered.
After an uneventful three weeks, we found ourselves entering the Forest of Bazil solar system.
"I'm picking up a neutrino reading, sir." The duty sensor officer, Ensign Bernadotte, announced.
"Could it be from the planet?" Captain Darlan asked.
Bernadotte huddled with his sensor crew and then shook his head. "I've gotten a feed from the sensor drones we left behind. There's a ship hiding behind Forest of Bazil, sir."
Captain Darlan called up a hologram of the solar system. "All right. Let's make a long, slow turn to port to get behind him."
The Executive Officer, Commander du Glatigny, raised an eyebrow. "He can hide behind the planet forever, sir. Simple geometry tells us that."
Darlan smiled. "He won't. Someone on the planet is telling him what we're doing. As soon as he sees we're trying to get behind him and pin him against the planet, he'll come out."
And so it was. In less than ten minutes a strange ship shot up over Forest of Bazil to confront us.
"It's not Okrana." said Bernadotte. "She's too small. This one is slightly bigger than we are, I'd say, sir."
"Well, what and who is it, de Gautier?" Darlan growled at me.
I was busy running through my limited intelligence on local ships. Since I had an entirely new universe to learn, I was in trouble.
"I think…." I began, with little hope of finishing with anything useful.
"A Luxan assault piercer." said a soft voice in my brain. At the same time I noticed a blue hand had touched my ear and swiftly drawn away. Now Pau' Zhaan was a good three steps from me and resolutely ignoring me.
"Um, it could be a Luxan assault piercer, sir." I said hopefully. "I'm afraid that's about all I know about it. There's very little in my database."
"I do believe Lieutenant de Gautier is correct." Pa'u Zhaan announced. "All I know about them is that they are quite fast." She smiled dazzlingly at the captain. "Since Lieutenant de Gautier is in charge of brains on this ship, I'm surprised he didn't know that."
There were a couple of repressed laughs on the bridge. Before I could explain my function to Pa'u Zhaan once more, Julia spoke up.
"He most certainly is not in charge of brains, here or anywhere else. Why, I believe…"
Darlan cut her off in mid-sentence. "That's enough, Lieutenant Boisferaus. He identified the ship after all. None of us did."
Julia sat glaring at everyone for a few seconds until we got two incoming comms.
"Comm from the planet and one from the ship, sir." The duty comms petty officer announced.
"I'll take the one from the ship. And put it broadcast so the whole bridge can hear and see it." Darlan announced. "Georges," Darlan said, turning to du Glatigny, "please talk to the planet. On a private channel, please."
The captain of the strange ship was indeed a Luxan, blessed with all the bluster of his race. He took a very long time to tell us that we were interlopers in his solar system and that we could either surrender or die, and that he hoped we'd chose to die.
Darlan politely advised him that we would neither surrender nor die and offered our opponent the chance to leave. The Luxan's reply was the termination of communications.
"Sir?" Du Glatigny broke the silence. "That was Pa'u Civa. Basically, she said she has no idea where the Luxan is from or why he's here and regrets not immediately advising us of his presence. She says there was some sort of a communications error on the part of her people. They're looking into it."
Darlan smiled thinly. "I'm sure that they are, Georges. Now, I think, we'll have to communicate to all concerned."
