Guardsmen Of Tomorrow Part 1

Guardsmen of Tomorrow.

Edited by Martin H Greenberg and Larry Segriff.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Introduction 2000 by Larry Segriff. A Show of Force 2000 by William H. Keith, Jr. Blindfold 2000 by Robin Wayne Bailey. Wiping Out 2000 by Robert J. Sawyer. Smart Weapon 2000 by Paul Levinson. Procession to Var 2000 by Andre Norton. The Gemini Twins 2000 by Paul Dellinger. That Doggone Vnorpt 2000 by Nathan Archer.

The Silver Flame 2000 by Josepha Shennan. Stardust 2000 by Jean Rabe. Keeping Score 2000 by Michael A.

Stackpole. Alliances 2000 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. A Time to Dream 2000 by Dean Wesley Smith. Endpoint Insurance 2000 by Jane Lindskold.

INTRODUCTION.

by Larry Segriff.

Adventure stories. FTL s.h.i.+ps rocketing through s.p.a.ce; the s.p.a.ce Guard keeping vessels safe from pirates; ray guns, BEMs, and damsels in distress. These are the stories I grew up on, and these are among the stories I still like to read.

Robert Heinlein. Isaac Asimov. E. E. "Doc" Smith. And, of course, Andre Norton. These are some of the people whose work I devoured growing up-and, in Andre's case, whose new books I eagerly look forward to.

s.p.a.ce opera has changed a lot since the Golden Years of SF. The laws of science are followed more rigorously, for example ("modern" s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps don't bank when they turn), and the people in the stories tend to be more well-rounded, and even more flawed... more human, if you will. But the heart of s.p.a.ce opera-the rousing sense of adventure, the strong pacing, the exotic settings, the larger-than-life issues-these haven't changed. Or, if they've changed at all, they've only gotten better... as the stories in this anthology prove.

So sit back, turn the page, and enjoy... but before you do, you might want to buckle your seat belt, 'cause it's going to be a wild ride.

A SHOW OF FORCE.

by William H. Keith, Jr.

William H. Keith is the author of over fifty novels, divided more or less equally between science fiction and military technothrillers. While most of his SF is written under his own name, he writes the military novels under a variety of pseudonyms. His most recent work is Europa Strike, third in a planned series of military science fiction novels written under the pseudonym Ian Douglas.

Watch your helm, Mr. Sotheby," Captain Fifth-Rank Greydon Hazzard said quietly. "Put a dent in that thing up ahead and they're going to be taking it out of your pay for the next ten thousand years objective."

"Aye, sir. We're at fifty-three meters per second, in approach."Hazzard could sense the drift of the s.h.i.+p, the tug of gravity, the caress of the photon breeze, the shrill, insistent drag of the interlocking magnetic fields of planet, star, and galaxy. The frigate Indeterminacy was edging gently toward the orbital moorings, primary sails folded, her impetus coming now entirely from way sails and jigs, her secondary drive barely ticking over.

Jacked into the virtual display of the s.h.i.+pnet, Hazzard was immersed in the data feed, with a crystalline, all-round view of the approach, just as though he were perched out on the fifty-meter thrust of the s.h.i.+p's dorsal flying jib spar. The sprawl of Tribaltren Station spread across star-limned blackness dead ahead, the nearest bastions and field guide towers now just ten kilometers distant, dark and monolithic against the soft, liquid-light glow of the Milky Way.

The moorings about the station were crowded with other vessels, and there was heavy traffic in the approach and departure lanes. The steady wink of IFF netbeacons and s.h.i.+pboard running lights crawling across three dimensions would have been a bewildering tangle of confusion to any observer not equipped with an AI that could make sense of the chaos and feed it in manageable chunks to the bridge.

"Approach Control signals we're clear for Bay 12," the comm officer of the watch announced. That would be Mids.h.i.+pman cy-Tomlin. Bright kid. Steady, with a streak of laziness that watch-and-watch for a few subjective months would cure. And of course, with the cy-enhancements, he was of the Chosen and destined to go far in Union service.

"Very well. I see it." Text and flickering symbols overlaid sections of Hazzard's view of the sensory feedscape around the vessel. He could see the steadily incoming trickle of navigational data both from the Indy's helm and from Tribaltren Station Approach Control, see the traffic sites of other s.h.i.+ps in the moorings, see the readouts for all departments and decks of his own s.h.i.+p. All of that information played across his brain, instantly accessible, but his responsibility was the whole, not any given part. He held back, aware of the rhythm of s.h.i.+p operations, giving orders when needed, but letting his people do their jobs. Indy's officer complement was a good one, well trained and experienced. Her crew, like most crews in the fleet, was a melage of gutter sweepings, metplex gangers, and pressed c-men, but. by the G.o.ddess, they were his sweepings, gangers, and c-men, and he was proud of how they'd shaken out over the past three months subjective.

He took a moment to check crew deployment on the Indy's starboard foremast, a constellation of golden stars, each light representing in netgraphic clarity the position of a sailhandler maintaining the delicate set and trim of the 2,000-ton frigate's s.p.a.cesails. At the moment, only the fore-ways'Is were set, giving the s.h.i.+p just enough of a vector that she could maintain way.

The image of Tommis Pardoe, Indeterminacy's First Lieutenant, materialized to the right of Hazzard's viewpoint. "A good deployment, First," he said. "The new hands shaped up well." Indy had been on blockade duty off Danibar, three months subjective pacing back and forth at near-c, which had translated to almost two years of tau minus.

"Thank you, Captain." He sounded worried.

"Problem, First?"

"Just wondering what the urgency is, sir. The dispatch calling us in to Tribaltren was still smoking when it came across the comm station. 'Report immediately,' it said. Where's the war?"

"All around us, Tom. We'll find out in a few hours which particular part of the war is so urgent.""I suppose so, sir. But it's not like they don't have plenty of a.s.sets right here in port."

His senior lieutenant had a point. Closer in to the mooring station roads, the s.h.i.+p traffic ahead resembled a swarm of angry stingflies, everything from service bugs, LO coasters, and single-sailed planetary luggers to huge three-decker first-rates.

An alert klaxon sounded through the s.h.i.+pnet. "Bridge, port lookout! We have a collision alert. Incoming at port high at two-zero-three plus one nine!"

Hazzard spun his point of view, looking off Indy's port beam. A s.h.i.+p moved athwart the blue-white crescent of Tribaltren IV.

"Ma.s.s reading! Ninety-eight thousand tons, range 705 kilometers. It's a first-rater... G.o.ddess!"

That last exclamation accompanied the deployment of a dozen sails, spreading across the first-rater's yards. She was huge and blunt-prowed, a five-hundred-meter dagger shape carrying several square kilometers of mesh sail, a Galactic Union s.h.i.+p of the line. On Indeterminacy's sensory feeds, she was painted a patchwork red and black, with white trim highlighting the lines of sealed firing ports along her three gundecks. The G.U. flag materialized across her foreways'ls as their surface displays altered. A second emblem s.h.i.+mmered into visibility beneath the first, a family crest in red, gold, and black.

"She's the Victor, Captain," Lieutenant Pardoe observed. "One-oh-two. Captain First-Rank Arren Sullivese, commanding. She's flying Admiral Starlord cy-Dennever's flag."

"She's closing, Captain," the helm watch called. "Oblique approach at one point one kilometer per second! Looks like she's trying to cut us off at the moorings."

"d.a.m.n it," cy-Tomlin said, "we have right-of-way."

Hazzard scowled, the expression safely hidden within the anonymity of the s.h.i.+pnet. Victor had been on normal approach, her velocity a bit high for that approach corridor. As soon as her helm AIs had identified a collision danger with the frigate Indeterminacy, though, Victor's captain had crowded on more sail, hoping to pa.s.s the Indy's prow, rather than slowing in order to pa.s.s astern.

Technically, Victor should back down and allow the Indeterminacy to proceed; vessels to port and zenith always had right-of-way over s.h.i.+ps to starboard and nadir. However...

"You feel big enough to argue with him, Tomlin?" Hazzard said gently. "Maneuvering! Back full!" In any case, Victor was the burdened vessel right now... burdened with too much ma.s.s and too much speed in a claustrophobically narrow volume of s.p.a.ce. First-raters had all the maneuvering finesse of a Thaldessian bloaterslug, especially when compared to the nimble sail-handling elegance of a frigate. It made more sense for the tiny Indeterminacy to defer to the drifting mountain of the Victor. "Bring us to zero closure with the station!"

"Maneuvering back full, aye, sir!"

"Spread more sail! Deploy main tops'ls, port, starboard, and dorsal!"

"Loosing main tops'ls, aye!"

Like all trihull lightjammers, Indy possessed three sets of masts and field-guide spars, canted out and forward from port, starboard, and dorsal fairings, mizzen and main masts astern of the gundecks, foremasts well forward, nine masts in all, not counting the trinity of bowsprits reaching far out ahead of her prow dome.Sails unfurled, popping taut under the snap of static fields. Their leading faces s.h.i.+mmered, then went mirror-silver as their trailing surfaces dulled to black, perfectly reflecting the star-misted black of s.p.a.ce and the red-brown, black, and gray battlements of Tribaltren Station ahead. As yards pivoted, the reflective surfaces of the sails caught the light of Tribaltren's sun, as the mesh beneath the adaptive surface display grabbed hold of the local magnetic fields. The total energy striking the sails from forward was equivalent to less than a ten-thousandth of a gravity, and yet...

"Drive room! Emergency maneuvering! Cut in the main drive!"

Vector drive fields amplified any acceleration, however minute, drawing on the literally inexhaustible energy of quantum s.p.a.ce through a singularity-induced Cas.h.i.+mir cascade to augment the s.h.i.+p's vector or, as in this case, to arrest Indeterminacy's forward momentum. Since everything within the field was affected uniformly, there was no sensation of deceleration as the Indy slowed sharply. A two-thousand-ton vessel moving with a relative closure rate of over fifty meters per second could not stop on the proverbial tenth-credit piece. Still, the Indeterminacy slowed rapidly as the Victor loomed huge to port.

"Incoming signal from Approach Control," cy-Tomlin said.

"I should think so. Let's hear it."

" 'Slow to full stop and yield to incoming traffic.'"

"Already in hand. Mid. Acknowledge."

"Aye, sir."

"Too little and too scrabbing late," Pardoe muttered. ''What are those people playing at over there?"

Hazzard didn't know if he was complaining about Approach Control's tardiness or the heels-in maneuver Victor was attempting to pull off. The Victor was still two kilometers off Indy's port beam, but through the magnification inherent in the s.h.i.+p optical sensory feed, the immense vessel loomed like a pa.s.sing cliff face, with sponsons, barbettes, field projector arrays, and fairings turning hull metal into a landscape of faceted surfaces and complex topographies, with masts like forest giants, with gun ports grinning down her gundeck modules like bared teeth.

"Now," Pardoe said, "just so long as he doesn't-"

A shudder rolled through the Indeterminacy, a long, crunching lurch that seemed to rack the brain and twist the stomach. For a jarring few seconds. Hazzard's linkfeed was interrupted; he was plunged into blackness and, for just an instant, was back on his jackrack, hot, drenched with sweat, as other command deck personnel shouted and screamed in the echoing close darkness around him.

Then the feed came back on-line. Still queasy-he hated field interface transits-he scanned the cascade of data on his visual field. There were reports of disorientation, jacker shock, and obvious confusion...

but no damage, thank the G.o.ddess, and no link dissociations.

"d.a.m.n them!" cy-Tomlin's voice said.

"As you were, Mid," Pardoe warned. But his own voice was barely under control. Victor had popped her drive field to further slow her lumbering ma.s.s just as she cut across the Indy's bow. Vector drive fields worked on the fabric of s.p.a.ce-time, a true s.p.a.ce drive; a kind of curdling of bent s.p.a.ce rippled along the interface between the inside of a deployed VDF and what lay outside. Though not dangerous if encountered at low speeds, it was disorienting and could damage delicate electronics. At high relativevelocities, it could generate disruption enough to shred the largest vessel into scattered debris.

"Signal, Victor to Indeterminacy." Cy-Tomlin reported. "Ware our wake!"

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did that on purpose!" Sotheby said.

"I very much doubt that, Lieutenant," he replied. "They were already moving too fast, and spreading that extra sail moved them faster. They had to drag their fields to decelerate in time." Still, it did seem to be a calculated insult. As Indy came to a near-dead stop, Victor drifted across her bow a scant half kilometer distant, making for Mooring Bay 16. Cooling vanes like squared-off wings, the vast reach of her sails, s.h.i.+mmering as they fought to slow the behemoth, and the deadly complexity of the first-rater's aft maneuvering drive Venturis pa.s.sed slowly, a moving mountain. Indeterminacy rocked and shuddered again with the pa.s.sing of the big s.h.i.+p's wake, and then the way ahead was clear once more.

Hazzard let out a slow breath. Things could have worked out much worse. "Let's have the extra sail in now, Mr. Par-doe. Set sail for ahead, maneuvering dead slow."

"Furling all main tops'ls, Captain. Set sail for ahead, maneuver dead slow."

"What do you think, Captain?" Pardoe said on their private link. "Was Sullivese trying to be flashy for the admiral's benefit? Or was he just being incompetent?"

"Arren is not incompetent," Hazzard replied, a bit more sharply than he'd intended. Sometimes, Pardoe spoke his mind a little too freely. "Maybe they're just in a hurry."

"Aye, sir. And maybe some cyberenhanced Starlords think they're just a rung or two higher up the Darwin ladder than the rest of us."

Hazzard said nothing. Pardoe's bitter aside had struck just a little too close abeam. Their blockade deployment at Danibar had been cut short by the arrival of dispatches requiring Indeterminacy to make for Tribaltren Station with all due haste and for Greydon Haz/ard to report to the Port Admiral's office immediately upon docking. With so many other vessels available within a few days' travel of Tribaltren, why had the Indy been called in?

Immediately, fortunately, was a flexible term in the Galactic Union Navy, however. There was the routine of seeing to it that the s.h.i.+p was safely docked, of course. Most of the minutiae could be properly left to his First Lieutenant, but there were reports to electronically sign and a grumpy Port Disburs.e.m.e.nt Officer to cajole into giving an upcheck to the purser's request for new condenser tubes for the galley's stasis units.

And, perhaps more immediate, he needed to get presentable first. One did not visit a two-star admiral in s.h.i.+pboard skins. When he chose to make himself visible on the s.h.i.+pnet, of course, his icon could take on any appearance he chose... which meant in uniform. When he came fully awake on the jackrack, however, the crisp and spotless Navy blacks were gone. In their place were gray skins soaked with sweat, and all the usual accoutrements for waste absorption, cooling, and nutrient tubes. A jackrack technician helped him unplug, took his helmet with its forest of electronic feeds and cables, and stood by as he swung his feet onto the steel grillwork of the deck.

Forty minutes later, freshly showered with the last of this deciyear's personal water ration, Hazzard was clad in his one decent set of dress black-and-golds, complete with shoulder half-cloak, visored cap, medals and decorations, and his personal computer woven into the left arm of his jacket, from shoulder to wrist, in closely worked patterns of what looked like liquid gold."You loog good, zur," Cadlud, his steward remarked, brus.h.i.+ng his uniform with a static cleaner. The Irdikad hovered over him as it worked, its single eye in an elephantine head studying his uniform in minute inspection as all three tentacles twitched the fall of his cloak into perfect line. "Zhip-zhape ond sqvared avay."

"Thank you, Cadlud. I just hope the admiral thinks the same."

A launch took him from the Indy, now moored alongside the towering bulk of the station, across to one of the turreted tower complexes extending above the main body of the twelve-kilometer-wide facility.

The Port Admiral's office was decorated in Late Jingivid Imperial, all mirrors and black trim in a jarring cacophony of light and reflections. Admiral Dalim cy-Koenin was a blunt, bullet-headed man with a no-nonsense att.i.tude and little patience for protocol. Hazzard wondered, in fact, how the man had managed to survive politically long enough to be awarded two stars. Cy-Koenin's implants encased parts of his head and were visible on the backs of his hands and extending down each finger to the tip.

Well, that, as much as anything else, explained his rank and considerable power.

"You're late" was the way he greeted Hazzard, as the office door dilated and the s.h.i.+p captain stepped between the Marine sentries and into cy-Koenin's inner sanctum.

"Yes, sir," he replied. Hazzard was familiar enough with the ways of admirals to know that excuses were neither desired nor appropriate.

Wall screens displayed deep s.p.a.ce-not the view from Tribaltren, but someplace closer in toward the Galactic Core, teeming with orange suns and the mingled, softer glows of pale nebulae. The mirrors, black trim, and star projections made it difficult to see where the walls of the room really were. Hazzard wondered if he could even find the door again.

Another man was in the room, reclining in a black synthliquid chair. Lean, hard, and angular, his face was faceted as though carved from obsidian. Both eyes were covered by a sensor array implant, and he was, if anything, more heavily intertwined with hardware than the Port Admiral. "Admiral," cy-Koenin said, "this is the young man I was telling you about. Captain Hazzard, Admiral Starlord cy-Dennever."

Hazzard inclined his head, as courtesy required. "My lord."

Cy-Dennever looked him over coldly. "A noncy? My dear Dal, you are joking, I trust."

Noncy. Non-cybernetically augmented. That again...

"I believe you will find me up to any task required of me, my lord."

He sniffed and continued to address cy-Koenin, pointedly ignoring Hazzard. "I specifically require a frigate captain capable of leading my in-system squadron and with a master's understanding of the Ordiku Anarchate and the political situation there. A noncy simply will not do."

"Captain Hazzard is what's available, Admiral," cy-Koenin replied. "And he has personal knowledge of Kaden. Don't you, Hazzard?"

"Yes, sir. I was an a.s.sistant diplomatic naval attache to the Anarchate home world for a year. My steward is Irdikad, in fact."

Cy-Dennever gave him another look, harder this time. "And how long ago was this?""Oh, about eight years subjective, my lord."

"How long objective? Things do change groundside while we're on highs.p.a.ce approach. Or hadn't you noticed?"

Hazzard had to consult his PC. He'd minused some subjective with this latest deployment at Danibar.

How much? Nearly two years, this time.

"'Nineteen years objective, sir."

"Nineteen years. Well, you'll find the political situation within the Anarchate radically transformed. I'm not so sure you will be of any use to me."

"Their politics may have changed, my lord, but I doubt that the Irdikad have. They're solitary, traditional, meticulous, a bit stuffy, even stubborn at times. They are also unflinchingly loyal." He smiled. "Despite their interest in tradition-their recorded history goes back something like nine thousand years--they respect, you might even say revere, madness. Insanity is rare, but it's granted a special status in their culture, maybe to avoid the problems of stagnation."