17

Comrades

We need the comrade heart that understands,
And the warmth, the living warmth of human hands.
—Clark

TRNS Taconic, Warp Nexus ZQ-147, Deep Space

No one had ever been able to fully account for the warp network that enabled space travelers to get around the lightspeed barrier and, as Li Han’s ancestors would have put it, fool the gods into thinking their laws were being obeyed. The fundamental force of gravity was somehow involved, all admitted. The fact that most warp points occurred in proximity to the gravity wells of stars reinforced this view, in addition to being highly convenient in practical terms. But some warp points didn’t, and every attempt to formulate a general theory accounting for the phenomenon had come to grief on that irritating fact. It was a source of endless frustration to physicists, who devoutly wished that starless warp nexi didn’t exist.

Li Han had moments when she felt the same way, albeit for different reasons. This was one of those times, as her flagship TRNS Taconic emerged into the starless warp nexus ZQ-147 and, for the first time in decades, she found herself in true interstellar space, without the comforting hearthlike glow of a local sun to serve as a reference point.

She reminded herself that the all-volunteer crew of TRNS Goethals had been in the gulf between the stars for over two and a half standard years. No, she automatically corrected herself, about a year and a third as they themselves have experienced time, traveling at relativistic velocities. The psychological and physical dangers of the voyage had been explained to them. So had the mandatory oath to blow up the defenseless Goethals if, contrary to expectations, they encountered Baldy forces in the planetless red-dwarf system of Borden that was their destination.

Still, they had volunteered. They had brought their ungainly vessel here to ZQ-147 and plunged on into the void at .85 c, thanks to the Desai prime drive, thereby leaving the warp network behind and becoming the first human beings ever to attempt an interstellar voyage through the normal space of Newton and Einstein.

The 2.6-year length of that voyage had been no particular disadvantage in terms of the Alliance’s war plans, for it had taken almost that long to construct the fleet of devastators Li Han now commanded. But within three months of Goethals’ estimated time of arrival at Borden, she had begun moving that fleet toward ZQ-147. It would not do to miss the prearranged instant…and besides, she had a rendezvous to keep.

“Pardon me, Admiral,” said Captain Adrian M’Zangwe, her chief of staff, interrupting her thoughts. (She had forbidden the use of any form of address more exalted and pompous than “Admiral.”) “Kazin has just transited, and the first of the Kasugawa generators should be appearing directly.”

“They will not be an improvement to the scenery,” Li Han muttered. Her fleet had departed from Novaya Rodina with thirteen of the ungainly things. Three pairs had been left behind along the way, for they had been used to make possible the passage of the devastators through warp points that could not have otherwise accommodated their monstrous masses. The varying tonnage capacities of warp points was something else that wasn’t fully understood about them, but the Kasugawa generators could widen, or dredge, them.

“They may be hideous and slow,” M’Zangwe agreed, “but they enabled us to get our devastators this far. Eventually, they’ll be able to cross-connect the entire alliance.”

Li Han cut him off with an impatient gesture. “I know. But for now we only have seven of them left.”

“They ought to be enough, Admiral,” M’Zangwe reassured her, not for the first time.

“Yes, yes. It’s one more than we need. Assuming that all goes well. Which it almost never does.” She turned away from the viewscreen. “Well, present my compliments to Captain Estrada and ask him to get the recon drones deployed and headed toward the other local warp point. It wouldn’t do for us to be late in detecting the arrival of Admiral Trevayne…and Admiral Li.”

* * *

From the earliest stages of the planning process, it had been evident that they would need a force of capital ships lighter than the devastators once they were in the Bellerophon Arm. The BR-06-Mercury and Demeter-Charlotte warp lines could not be dredged for the devastators until Kasugawa generators were in place at both ends, and by that stage of the operation the Baldies would surely be aware of the Allied Fleet’s presence in the Arm.

Wherefore it had been decided that a powerful Rim Federation/Pan-Sentient Union Force, accompanied by Li Magda’s TRN task force (but with nothing larger than a monitor; the warp line between BR-06 and Mercury was impassable to anything more massive), would proceed from Astria and rendezvous with Li Han here in ZQ-147. However, whereas this combined armada’s date of arrival had been relatively predictable, the outcome of the initial meeting with its overall commander had been somewhat less so. But the lingering trepidations that Li-Han had harbored turned out to be groundless.

“Well, I could hardly be expected to pass this up,” said Ian Trevayne after the initial greeting ceremonies were behind them.

“Your behavior,” said Li Han primly, “is more commensurate with your apparent age than your actual one. For the supreme commander of the Rim Federation to appoint himself to—”

“Oh, tosh! Cyrus Waldeck is more than capable of handling things in Astria. He’s been doing so all along, as commander of Second Fleet. Now he just won’t have me looking over his shoulder.”

“As you’ll have me looking over yours.” For an instant, Li Han wondered if she’d said more than she should. She looked around the circle of faces in her quarters: Trevayne, Mags, and Adrian M’Zangwe. She looked into Trevayne’s eyes—not, strictly speaking, the same eyes she had looked into across his desk after spending months in his POW camp. Those eyes had looked out of a neatly bearded face in its fifties. She had never seen that face again. But she had destroyed the body to which it had belonged. “Does the idea of being my second-in-command for this operation present a problem for you, Admiral?”

There was the barest pause before Trevayne replied. “I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say it seemed a trifle odd at first. We were, after all, enemies—legendary enemies, in fact. And those days are relatively fresh in my mind. Remember, it’s been more than eight decades in terms of your elapsed memory, but only a few years in mine.”

Li Han let the silence stretch. M’Zangwe obviously wished he were somewhere else. But Magda only looked very serious, as her gaze shifted between her mother and…what?

“But,” Trevayne resumed, “having fought against you, I’m in better position than most to know that serving under you is a unique honor. And you’ve never had a more loyal subordinate. There’s just one thing…”

“Yes, Admiral?”

“Well, the force I’ve brought here is an allied fleet, and considering the political implications of that fact, I’m wondering if perhaps it would be useful gesture if I were to transfer my flag to Admiral Li’s flagship, rather than a Rim Federation ship.” He gestured, with completely uncharacteristic awkwardness, in Li Magda’s direction. “After all, inasmuch as my command includes Terran Republic units as well as—”

And of course that’s the only reason, thought Li Han.

“I have no objection,” said Mags with an equally awkward aversion for eye contact.

Well, thought Li Han, I’m supposed to be the older and wiser one here, by even more of a margin of life experience in his case than in hers.…

“I think that would be an excellent idea, Admiral Trevayne.”