False Colors

CHAPTER 10

“Glory is the outward measure of the Warrior’s worth, but the knowledge of a duty fulfilled is the one true inward measure.”

from the Fourth Codex 04:18:31

Operations Planning Center, FRLS Independence

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1108 hours (CST), 2670.317

“I want to be perfectly clear on this, Lord Murragh. Are you saying you can’t help us, or you won’t?”

Bondarevsky could see the strain in Admiral Richards’ face as he asked the question. After a hard evening’s discussions between Tolwyn and Richards the senior admiral had finally agreed, albeit reluctantly, to go ahead with the salvage operation. It had taken every bit of Bondarevsky’s patience and tact to get the two strong-willed warriors to unbend and talk it over, and in the end Tolwyn had been forced to give the same detailed account of the conspiracy back in the Confederation to convince Richards that Karga’s recovery was absolutely essential to more than just the Landreich.

But after all that, it seemed Bondarevsky’s solution to the problem of disarming the self-destruct system wasn’t going to work.

The OPC seemed larger with only a handful of people present for this meeting. Instead of the full battle group and Project Goliath staff who were present the last time Bondarevsky had been here, today there were only five. Tolwyn and Richards were on one side of the triangular table, while Jason sat alone on a second side. Donald Graham and Murragh occupied the third. At the moment Graham was looking troubled, while the young Kilrathi prince’s expression was enigmatic, unreadable.

“I am not sure that I mean either of those, Admiral,” the kil said slowly. “I am certainly not unwilling to help. If you can put Karga back into operational status, make him a part of your fleet and use nim to prevent Ragark from making a bid for the Imperial throne, I am glad to be of assistance. It is not as if I or any other kil have plans to salvage the carrier, or the means to make the attempt.” Murragh leaned forward, fixing Richards with sharp, penetrating eyes. “As to my ability to help, that is less certain. I am not sure that there is anything I can do…but there may be. Much depends on circumstances.”

“Commander Graham’s report indicates that many of your survivors are members of the carrier’s Cadre,” Richards said. “It seems to me the questions are simple enough. Do any of them have the ability to shut down the self-destruct system? And, if so, will they do it if you order them to do so? I can’t see where circumstances will change the answers to either of those.”

Murragh made a hand gesture Bondarevsky wasn’t familiar with. “You have misunderstood the basic nature of the problem, I fear, Admiral,” the young officer said softly. “I seriously doubt if any member of the Cadre could release the self-destruct system. It is deliberately designed to be proof against the attempts of enemy borders to disarm it and carry the ship off as a prize. So the Cadre does not enter into the question at all.”

“Suppose you tell us what does enter into it, then,” Tolwyn said. Unlike Richards, who managed a degree of smooth urbanity in his dealings with the Prince, Tolwyn was gruff and plainly uncomfortable. He’d been fighting the Kilrathi for a long time, and Bondarevsky knew he found it difficult to accept that a Cat might be an ally-particularly after the treachery of Ralgha nar Hhalles and the cunning lies that had lulled the Confederation before the Battle of Earth. Yet Tolwyn knew that this young kil prince held the key to the successful completion of the Goliath project in his stub-fingered hands. The man must have been torn between conflicting emotions of doubt and hope.

“The computer system aboard Karga was subject to specific command codes known to the senior officers of the carrier and the battle group,” Murragh told him. “The self-destruct system can be shut down using those codes.”

“Surely you weren’t senior enough to know them?” Graham demanded, glancing sidelong at the Kilrathi.

“No, the information was limited to senior officers. But I know my uncle kept a full record of those command codes on file…and as his aide I did have access to those files. It may be that I can recover the information and use it to disarm the destruct sequence. But there is a risk.”

“How so?” Bondarevsky asked.

Murragh looked at him, his face expressionless but his eyes conveying irony. “The files are in the ship’s computer. In order to reach them, we must bring a portion of the computer net back on-line. And in so doing…”

“Risk setting off the self-destruct system,” Bondarevsky finished. “Wonderful. The perfect Catch 22.”

“The…what?‘ Murragh asked.

“A Terran figure of speech,” Graham supplied. “You need to do something before you can do something else that will allow you to do the first thing.” He looked at Tolwyn and Richards. “It’s possible, as I’m sure your salvage experts will tell you. But there’s no way to predict what might set that flying bomb off. That’s why we never seriously considered having Murragh try to find the codes while we were recovering supplies and equipment from the carrier. It just wasn’t worth the risk.”

Richards glanced at Tolwyn. “It seems that it is, now,” he said with a sour look on his weathered features. “Can you coach one of our specialists to do the job, Lord Murragh?”

The young kil shook his head, a human gesture he’d picked up from Graham. “No, that will not be possible. The files are open to me as an authorized member of the staff of the Battle Group Commander. There are retinal patterns and other identification markers on file in the computer. Few Kilrathi could gain access, and certainly no humans. I will have to do the job myself.”

Graham frowned. “You’re a valuable asset these days, Murragh,” he said. “Sending the rightful Emperor of Kilrah aboard an orbiting bomb isn’t exactly the shrewdest move any of us could make. Isn’t there any way around it?”

Murragh barked a laugh. “If you have cloning technology and twenty-one standard Kilrah-years to grow a duplicate I suppose we could work an alternative out. But barring that, I think the only reasonable course within our grasp is for me to make the attempt. As to the political implications of it all…well, until a few days ago I was not a factor in galactic politics, and few will note my absence if I am lost to the Empire now.”

“You can be flip,” Graham said, shaking his head. “But the fact remains that you could the over there. Damn it all, Murragh, I didn’t look out for that flea-bitten carcass of yours all these months just to see you throw your life away on a crazy stunt like this. You know the situation aboard Karga. Even with the destruct mechanism shut down, repairing that hulk is going to take a hell of a lot of work-and in the long run I wouldn’t be too sure it’s even possible. Do you want to risk your life on something that might not be worth the effort in the first place?” Neither Graham nor Murragh had been filled in on Tolwyn’s conspiracy information, so Bondarevsky understood how reluctant Graham would be to let his young Kilrathi friend make the attempt. As an engineer Graham knew better than most people just how much was needed to put things right aboard the Karga.

Murragh didn’t answer right away, but kept his eyes on Tolwyn for a long moment. “The reputation of Admiral Geoff Tolwyn is well known within the Empire,” he said at length. “He is known to us as a warrior in the deepest sense of the word, an honorable adversary. If you, Admiral, say that it is essential that you make this effort, I will accept that and do what I can. Your goals, at present, are mine. The Kilrathi people do not need a renewal of the war. We should have ended it a long time ago. But Ukar dai Ragark and his kind will see victory in battle as the only way to rally our race to their standards, and that will mean more fighting we can ill afford when our first need is to rebuild what we lost when Kilrah was destroyed. The Codices teach us that the first duty is to the Race, and even my claim to the throne is less important in this pass than giving you the means to stop Ragark before he rekindles the fighting. I will do what I can, and hope that it is enough.”

Bondarevsky looked from the Prince to Tolwyn and back again. It seemed there was someone willing to take Tolwyn at his word.

Admiral’s Ready Room, ex-KIS Karga

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

0721 hours (CST), 2670.318

“That’s as ready as it’s ever likely to get. If you ask me, though, we should all just turn around and head back to the carrier.”

Bondarevsky shook his head inside his helmet before he realized that Graham couldn’t see the movement. “I don’t like this any better than you do, Commander,” he said aloud. “But now that we’ve come this far I think we’d better go ahead and give it a shot. As long as Murragh agrees.”

“I do,” the Kilrathi prince said.

They had led a small team of volunteers aboard Karga to attempt to retrieve the computer codes from the admiral’s day cabin adjacent to the flag bridge of the battered supercarrier. This time there was no marine security detachment. Murragh had to be there, of course, and despite his continued protests Graham had volunteered to come as well, either out of pure friendship for the prince or because he felt the need to continue sharing the danger with his erstwhile fellow castaway. Bondarevsky had decided that someone from the Goliath Project leadership needed to be part of the operation; they couldn’t ask strangers to take risks they weren’t willing to face themselves. A pair of computer specialists from Diaz’s salvage team rounded out the boarding party. Kevin Tolwyn and Aengus Harper had volunteered to fly the shuttle that had brought them across, but Bondarevsky had ordered them away once the salvage team had suited up and crossed over to the derelict. He wasn’t about to put those two at risk.

If things went sour, there was no sense in risking anyone who didn’t have to be there. At that, he wished Graham had stayed behind, especially since the man continued to voice all the doubtful sentiments Bondarevsky was trying to keep from thinking of himself. But he’d proven himself invaluable since coming aboard, his engineering expertise doubly valuable because he’d acquired a working knowledge of Kilrathi technology and how to make it work with human gear.

“Well,” the engineer said, “I guess it’s true what they say. Insanity really is contagious. Let’s get it over with.”

“Are you ready, Mr. Mayhew?” Bondarevsky asked the senior of the two salvage crew computer specialists.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure we’ve got this terminal isolated from the rest of the net.” The technician didn’t sound very sure of himself, but Bondarevsky sympathized with his plight. The Kilrathi design philosophy emphasized multiply redundant systems, and it was difficult to be sure they had disconnected the flag officer’s personal computer from the rest of the network of computers that made up Karga’s system. “I just hope we’ve got the power connections right. If we’ve screwed something up on the conversion, it’ll fry the whole unit and we’ll be right back where we started.”

“It’s right,” Graham said. “Believe me, I’ve jury-rigged enough combinations of ConFleet and Imperial hardware to know what I’m doing. Right, Murragh?”

The kil’s response had a mocking note. “At least you’ve improved since the first few times, my friend,” he said.

Since they were reluctant to tap into the ship’s power grid to activate the terminal, they had decided to use a portable power pack instead. But the power specifications for Kilrathi and Terran systems were different, and Graham had been forced to improvise an adapter-he called it a “Nargrast Special”-to make the link-up possible.

“Ready on the monitor,” Kristine Voorhies said from the far side of the compartment. She had hooked a computer analyzer into another terminal, one still connected to the system, and was ready to track the behavior of Karga’s network as they started to work. Hopefully she would be able to warn them if anything they did had an effect beyond the single terminal, but Bondarevsky privately doubted it.

“Power…now,” Murragh said quietly, inserting a data chip in the receptacle beside the monitor.

“Power is on,” Mayhew announced.

A yellow light came on beside the terminal, and after a long moment the screen glowed. Alien letters flowed across the screen.

Bondarevsky realized he was holding his breath, and forced himself to relax. He almost succeeded.

“The terminal is functioning,“ Murragh said quietly. His voice was calm and level, and Bondarevsky envied his control. For a young officer on his first deep-space assignment, he was one cool customer. If he ever did make it to the Imperial throne, he was likely to prove an excellent ruler.

“Now for the hard part,” Graham muttered. “Cross your fingers, folks.”

The Kilrathi computer network functioned differently from the systems used on Terran ships. Confederation computers tended to be highly centralized, fast, efficient, but vulnerable. Computer rooms were heavily armored and shielded, and a complete back-up system was installed in case the primary computer went down at a critical moment. On Kilrathi ships, though, numerous separate computers were linked together, like cells in a living brain spread out through the entire ship. Response time was slightly slower, but large chunks of the net could be knocked out without significantly impairing the computer functions of the vessel, and the network was capable of rerouting connections to bypass damaged or destroyed areas.

With Admiral dai Nokhtak’s personal terminal isolated from the rest of the ship, they had no access to the network. That was exactly the way they wanted it, given the danger from the self-destruct mechanism. What they hoped they would be able to get at, though, was the terminal’s own memory. Personal data and secret files were most likely to be stored locally rather than spread through the network, which meant that the command codes they needed to take control of the ship were likely to be in this computer.

At least that was what everyone in the Goliath Project hoped. Murragh was no computer specialist, and so far Richards and Tolwyn had chosen not to reveal what they were doing to the Kilrathi computer officer in the prince’s Cadre, just in case that officer was less sympathetic to their aims than Murragh had so far proven to be. So there was no guarantee that they were right in their approach. All they could do was hope they would be successful.

Murragh punched a keycode combination into the terminal, his fingers a little clumsy and awkward because of the gloves of his suit. More characters scrawled across the screen, and the kil gave a satisfied grunt. “I’m in,” he said curtly. “Time for security scans.”

He made a hardwire connection between his suit and the computer terminal, then hung motionless for long moments while the humans waited tensely. His suit’s built-in medical monitors could provide the information the computer needed to identify Murragh as an authorized member of the admiral’s staff with a legitimate reason for accessing the files.

In response to some query, Murragh recited a few words in the snarling Kilrathi tongue. Then, to the others, he went on in English. “The computer is processing the security data now. Stand by.”

“Everything looks good here,” Voorhies reported.

“Security clearance granted!” Murragh said. His fingers danced over the keyboard as fast as the gloves would allow them. “I’m starting the download.”

They had agreed that the most effective way to obtain the information they wanted was to download everything they could from the admiral’s secured files into the data chip, rather than searching for the specific material they wanted and quite possibly tempting fate a little too long. But the downside to this approach was the volume of material contained in the terminal’s local memory, which took a long time to transfer…and, of course, the risk that the command codes might not be in the data they obtained, forcing another attempt later.

It seemed to take hours before Murragh finally announced that the chip was full, though Bondarevsky knew it was only a matter of minutes. The kil disconnected his hardwire lead, then carefully removed the data chip before gesturing to Mayhew to cut the power. The computer screen faded back to blackness.

“Bondarevsky to Shuttle. Ready for pick-up.” It was pure relief to utter those simple words.

Flag Bridge, ex-KIS Karga

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1218 hours (CST), 2670.319

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Karga is operational.”

Bondarevsky held his breath as Admiral Richards uttered the words and then tapped a combination into the control board in front of him. There was a long pause in which the silence hung heavy. Then, suddenly, orange-tinged emergency lights flickered on in the compartment, and a bank of consoles lit up. The men and women of the Goliath team gathered on the flag bridge gave a ragged cheer.

Karga was alive again, if only barely.

Murragh had extracted the command codes from the data chip on the shuttle trip back to Independence, using a Kilrathi wrist computer that had been part of his gear on Nargrast. Overnight the salvage crew had returned to the ship in force to go to work on the computer system, bringing it back on-line long enough to purge the self-destruct order, then starting to work on basic systems repairs. The ship had emergency power now, a precious few instruments, lights, and the possibility of at least partial artificial gravity with a few more hours’ work in Engineering. But before they got back to the job, Richards had ordered the Goliath personnel to suspend everything for a few minutes. All over the ship space-suited personnel, most of them from Diaz’s salvage team but with the addition of a picked handful of the crew who had traveled aboard the City of Cashel, stopped what they were working on to listen to the general address comm channel.

With one leg hooked under a seat to hold him in place in weightlessness, Admiral Geoff Tolwyn cleared his throat.

“Attention to orders!” Aengus Harper announced unnecessarily. There was no need. Everyone was silent as Tolwyn began to speak.

“To Geoff Tolwyn, Rear-Admiral, Free Republic of Landreich Navy,” he began. “Sir. By direction of the President and the Admiralty of the Free Republic of Landreich, you are hereby requested and required to take up the charge and command of Landreich hull number 106, formerly designated KIS Karga, and to proceed to render all possible repairs to said vessel in order to render it spaceworthy…”

As the admiral’s voice droned on, reading the formal phrases from a projected image on the HUD display of his suit helmet, Bondarevsky’s attention wavered. The stilted ceremonial had an archaic feel to it, and he suspected that Max Kruger, a self-taught man who relished the odd bit of obscure antiquarian knowledge, had probably adapted it from some old Terran source. At first glance it might have seemed foolish to go through this ceremonial now, with so much to be done, but Bondarevsky recognized the reasoning behind it. Even though Karga wouldn’t be capable of functioning as an independent unit of the fleet for a long time to come, she would soon be receiving most of her designated crew from the City of Cashel, men and women who would be facing the enormous job of refitting her from stem to stern. And in order for that crew to function, they must officially become part of a Landreich naval command. By “reading himself in” Tolwyn was establishing his legal authority as master of the Karga, the officer whose word would be absolute law as long as she was in space.

“…nor you, nor any of you, will fail, at your peril,” Tolwyn finished with a flourish. “Signed Maximillian Kruger, President and Commander-in-Chief, Armed Forces of the Free Republic.”

The admiral paused before going on in a more conversational tone of voice. “We’ve overcome the first hurdle, but I won’t try to hide the fact that we’ve got plenty of other problems to deal with if we’re going to get this old girl into some kind of shape. With your talents and God’s help I think we can manage it…we have to manage it, for the good of the Landreich and for the future of all Mankind.” He fell silent again for a moment, then turned toward Admiral Richards. “Sir?”

Richards, in his turn, began to speak, reading from a prepared text similar to Tolwyn’s. The phrases were different in places-“…charge and command of Admiral commanding Provisional Battle Croup Karga…operational command of ships and vessels previously assigned to Battle Group Independence …lend all support to the repair and refitting of the ex-KIS Karga…”-but the intent was the same. By his words Richards was “hoisting his flag” as the CO of the battle group which would be built around Karga, always assuming the salvage effort was successful. Independence would remain technically under Camparelli and Galbraith, standing by to furnish protection for as long as she was needed. But the rest of the ships that had accompanied the escort carrier to the Vaku system would henceforth take their orders from Richards.

His orders read out, Richards declined to make any sort of speech. He merely paused, then inclined his helmeted head back toward Tolwyn. “Proceed with the project, Captain,” he said quietly. They had agreed beforehand that Bondarevsky’s reading-in ceremony would take place later, among his own people on the flight deck.

Tolwyn responded with crisp authority. “Let’s get this show on the road, people,” he said. “Survey details to commence operations immediately according to the prepared schedule. Notify City of Cashel we will be ready to receive shuttles whenever they wish to begin off-loading our people. And contact Sindri; tell Dickerson that we’re ready.”

The crew on the flag bridge was already in motion by the time the orders were given. Grasping a handhold near the rear of the compartment, Bondarevsky watched them turn to with a feeling of pride. Whatever happened in the weeks and months ahead, this was a good team, and if anyone could restore life to the shattered remains of the supercarrier, they could.

Bridge, FRLS Sindri

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1232 hours (CST)

Thrusters at twenty percent,“ Captain Charles Dickerson ordered. ”Bring us in nice and slow.“

Sindri was floating above and behind Karga in orbit around the brown dwarf, edging closer as the helmsman deftly manipulated the tender’s thrusters to approach the derelict. After hundreds of years in space, the most difficult maneuver to carry out continued to be docking one ship to another, but Sindri’s pilot was skilled at close-in handling and Dickerson had every confidence in his ability.

Still, it was a time for crossed fingers and held breaths. Dickerson knew tender captains who relied on rabbits’ feet for luck, though he scorned them. He preferred the sprig of Taran pseudo-clover he carried in his pocket.

“One hundred meters, closing,” the sensor technician reported from his post behind the captain’s chair.

“Approach profile nominal,” Lieutenant Kaine, the first officer, added.

As if oblivious to it all, the helmsman manipulated his controls like a concert pianist giving the recital of a lifetime. The rate of approach slowed steadily as the tender moved closer, dragging out the maneuver until Dickerson was ready to shout in frustrated impatience.

Then the ships touched, so gently that the contact was hardly noticeable.

“Deploying magnetic grapples,” Kaine announced. “We have positive contact!”

“Secure from maneuvering stations, gentlemen,” Dickerson ordered, breathing out. “Set the special duty watch and begin tender operations. Engineer, shields to maximum power. And make a note in the log that we have docked with Karga.”

“Damn it all, skipper,” the helm officer said, “don’t we even get a chance to smoke a cigarette?”

“Very funny, Clancy,” Dickerson said, forcing down a smile at the helmsman’s ancient joke. “Since you’re not going to be doing anything on the bridge for a few weeks, what say you go over to the carrier and lend a hand with the salvage crew? I’m sure they’ll benefit from your experience with helm systems. And your sense of humor, so-called.”

Clancy gave him a grin. “Aye aye, skipper,” he said cheerfully. Dickerson watched him leave the bridge wistfully. The challenge of taking part in a project as big as rebuilding a Kilrathi carrier appealed to him, but unlike the helmsman he had plenty to do right here aboard Sindri.

The tender was riding piggyback on the supercarrier’s massive superstructure, clamped in place by magnetic grapnels. Her maneuvering drives were powered down now, but the massive banks of fusion generators that made up most of the tender’s mass were still on-line. For the next several weeks, as the repair process swung into full operation aboard Karga, little Sindri’s power plants would play an enormous part in the job.

Already Sindri’s shields had extended around the supercarrier. They weren’t up to combat standard by any stretch of the imagination, but they would protect work crews from the brown dwarf’s strange radiation and put an end to the continual bombardment of tiny particles of matter against the derelict’s hull. When their orbit took them through the gas giant’s ring system once, which happened on the order of once every three days, the shields would also block all but the very largest chunks of ice from further damaging the ship. Already the unshielded Kilrathi hulk had taken a great deal of additional damage from multiple passes through the rings, minor hits by small pieces of junk, perhaps, but at orbital speeds the damage was magnified by kinetic energy unleashed by each of those hits.

Once the basic shielding was up, the engineers would set up a second set of shields specifically attuned to retain gases. Then the process of reintroducing an atmosphere on to the ship could begin. It would still be necessary for work crews to wear suits until the hull of the carrier had been fully patched, because of the constant danger of a shield failure that could open the ship to hard vacuum, but many of the most basic tasks of repair would be considerably easier with an atmosphere to work in.

Meanwhile, one hole in the carrier’s superstructure would not be targeted for repair for a while, a small, jagged opening Dickerson had deliberately aimed for during the docking approach. This was now positioned directly below one of several airlocks leading out of engineering. Soon engineers from the tender would be running leads through this opening to hook into the Karga’s power grid and computer network. Although the supercarrier was still generating some energy, the repair job would eventually require her power plant to be taken off-line so the equipment could be examined and overhauled. While this was going on Sindri would provide the power for Karga to operate light, environmental controls, and artificial gravity, and to run through instruments as they were tested. At the same time they would be busy downloading the carrier’s computer network. The Kilrathi computer files already had intelligence experts in the battle group salivating in anticipation of the potential data they might hold. Once the files were duplicated, the Kilrathi network would be fully purged and then brought back on-line with the programming and data files needed for the ship to operate as a part of the Free Republic Navy.

It would be a monster job, Dickerson thought. Sindri had been involved in similar work before, including the refitting of the Tarawa-now the Independence-a few months earlier. That had been a bear of a project, but this one would be worse. The damage to the Kilrathi carrier had been far more extensive to start with, and Dickerson didn’t even want to think about all the problems of mating human and Kilrathi systems aboard Karga.

Still, he envied the techies who’d have hands-on work to do in the weeks ahead. The captain of the Sindri would have plenty of headaches and more demands on his time than there were hours in the standard day to deal with them, but he knew from experience that his work would be far less interesting or absorbing than the refit his ship was going to make possible.

“Captain,” the first officer interrupted his train of thought. “Chief Engineer’s compliments and could you please get together with Admiral Tolwyn and Mr. Diaz to settle the priorities on power demands? He says they’re both demanding more power than we can deliver and neither one of them is willing to budge.“

Dickerson sighed. They’d only been docked a few minutes and the headaches were already starting. “Very well, Mr. Kaine. Have Communications put the gentlemen through to my ready room.” He rose from his seat. “You have the bridge, Lieutenant.”

Operations Planning Center, FRLS Independence

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

0843 hours (CST), 2670.320

“I’m telling you, Admiral, my crew is not going to like this. Frankly, I don’t like it either. I didn’t sign up in the Landreich Naval Reserve to be some kind of ferryman for a load of dead Cats, and neither did my people.”

The atmosphere in the escort carrier’s OPC was charged with tension today, and Jason Bondarevsky had to force himself to keep from jumping into the argument with an angry comment. Everyone connected with the Goliath Project was exhausted after days of nearly constant work, and in consequence tempers were frayed. The daily conferences aboard the Independence to coordinate work schedules and iron out conflicts were apt to produce more confrontations than solutions, and today’s was a good case in point.

Vance Richards looked older than ever, tired and drawn. He worked as hard as any man on Karga, perhaps harder. His wide experience as Chief of Intelligence for ConFleet during the war had given him wide contact with Kilrathi technology, and he was the indispensable man in directing the repairs. But the work was taking its toll, and Bondarevsky was beginning to worry that he’d burn himself out long before he had to take up his duties as battle group commander if and when the supercarrier really was put back in commission.

“Listen to me, Captain Steiger,” the admiral said slowly. “I know all the arguments, but I’m not buying any of them. You have your orders.”

Steiger looked stubborn, but didn’t answer right away.

The Kilrathi dead were the issue today, specifically the disposal of the bodies of the carrier’s crew. The grisly reminder of Karga’s last cruise had to be dealt with, and soon. Now that they had atmosphere and heat decay would rapidly become a major factor, and until those bodies were removed they would impede the repair work. The first major task Richards had ordered the crewmen brought across from the City of Cashel to undertake was the collection of Kilrathi bodies.

It would have been easiest to simply consign them to space. Human dead were normally given a burial in space, with a brief ceremony, a launched casket, and an honor guard salute. The thinking among most of the Landreichers seemed to be that anything that elaborate would be a waste of valuable time, and that the expedient thing to do would be to simply jettison those thousands of bodies and get on with the business at hand.

But that wasn’t the way Vance Richards operated.

As he’d explained at the outset of the meeting, Kilrathi burial customs went back many hundreds of years, to a time long before the race had developed space travel. Descended from carnivore stock, the Kilrathi race as a whole was extremely territorial, and the religious Codices established the need for each kil to return to the land so that his spirit would have a range in which to hunt and explore throughout the afterlife. Of course space travel had forced some alteration to the ancient beliefs, but the Kilrathi still preferred to return their dead to solid ground, be it planet, moon, or asteroid, rather than allowing them to be consigned to the endless void.

So Richards had decreed that the nearly five thousand dead aboard the carrier should be given the kind of burial their religion called for-on Nargrast.

It was going to require a major effort to carry out those orders, though. The dead, now stored in the carrier’s port side flight deck in vacuum and zero-g, would have to be moved aboard shuttles from the City of Cashel and carried to Nargrast, where the shuttles would ground, unload their grisly cargoes, and deposit the bodies in a series of mass graves to be excavated by ore extraction vehicles from the factory ship. Richards also intended to have a burial service read, to honor the Kilrathi casualties who had given their lives for their Empire.

The orders had drawn a few frowns around the table, but it was Steiger who resisted the most. His ship and crew would bear the lion’s share of the burden, and like most Landreichers he didn’t see any need to honor Mankind’s most inveterate enemy.

The transport captain glared across the table, first at Richards, then at Murragh and Donald Graham, who had been invited to the meeting so that Richards could discuss plans for the burials with them. “I wonder if you’d be so considerate of all these Cat stiffs if you weren’t trying to impress your new buddies,” Steiger said bluntly. “Some of you may think it’ll make a difference, but I tell you the Cats won’t care one lousy bit if you bury them, shove them out the airlock, or shove ’em in the fusion plants. They’ll still be back shooting first chance they get.”

Richards half rose, then sank into his chair again. When he spoke he sounded more tired than angry, but Bondarevsky could read the fury behind his icy eyes. “I’ll only say this once, Captain,” he said flatly. “I don’t care in the least what the Kilrathi think of me. I would have ordered a proper burial for those people if there wasn’t a single Cat within a hundred light-years to see me do it. We’ve been at war for more than a generation, but in my book war is no excuse to abandon our principles, and I say anyone, man or kil or whatever, deserves to leave this life with dignity and according to his or her beliefs.” His tone grew harsh. “Or would you prefer that we stuffed you or your men into the fusion reactors if you’re killed while we’re out here, Captain?”

Steiger flushed. “Damn it, Admiral, it isn’t the same!”

“Yes, it is,” Bondarevsky put in. “I agree with the Admiral. How can we pretend to be better than Thrakhath was if we show the same contempt for our enemies that he did?”

Richards nodded. “Exactly. At any rate, Captain Steiger, whatever the morals and ethics of the situation, I’ve made it an order, and unless you would like to be relieved and shipped back to Landreich in a ship’s brig, you will carry out that order. Is that understood?‘

There was a long pause before Steiger responded. “The crew won’t like it,” he repeated. “But…aye aye, sir.”

Richards let out a sigh and slumped back in his chair. “Very well. I think we should take a break before we get on with the rest of the meeting. Shall we say half an hour?”

The Goliath staff adjourned, most of them making their way to the adjacent compartment where the carrier’s mess crew had set up a buffet table with coffee and an assortment of pastries. Bondarevsky remained seated, and so did Richards, who started checking over his notes on his computer terminal with the air of a man on the very edge of physical collapse.

Murragh and Graham stood and walked slowly towards the admiral. “Admiral Richards,” Murragh said quietly.

Richards looked up. “Oh, yes, gentlemen. I think we’ve covered everything you need to be here for. I suppose you’ll both want to go to Nargrast for the service?”

“Yes, Admiral, I know that I would, and all of my people,” the Kilrathi prince said gravely. “But before we leave, may I thank you sincerely for your observance of our ways. It is…not something I expected. I fear that were the roles reversed few Kilrathi officers would have been so generous toward human dead.”

Richards waved a hand vaguely. “What I said was true, my Lord,” he said. “I didn’t order it for your benefit.”

Murragh gave a human nod. “I grasp that, Admiral. That is what is so impressive.” He paused. “Admiral, I have been thinking, and talking with my friend Graham. I was of service to you in the matter of the computer, was I not?”

“Yes, of course,” Richards said, “we couldn’t have pulled it off without you. I’m not quite sure how I can repay you for it, but I assure you I’ll move heaven and earth, and maybe even Max Kruger, to try.”

“The desire for compensation does not motivate the Kilrathi,” Murragh said calmly. “Any more than your decision in the matter of the dead was motivated by a desire for personal gain. We believe in doing our duty, living with honor, and facing our enemies with courage. But since I was of service to you, I believe I could be so again…if you will allow it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Admiral, I do not know the details of your intentions for Karga, but it is clear you are attempting a major repair effort, presumably to put the ship back into service again.” Murragh said it casually, but Bondarevsky was impressed. The Kilrathi had been kept as far out of the picture as possible for security reasons, but the prince obviously had the imagination it took to see where Goliath was heading.

“And if we are?” Richards was suddenly very much the ConFleet intelligence officer, wary and poker-faced.

“There are many dissimilarities in technologies to be overcome, whatever you are trying to do,” Murragh said. “If you had the assistance of Kilrathi officers who knew his systems, your work would be speeded considerably.”

Richards frowned. “I’m not sure…”

“If you accept, you will have each kil’s word of honor to support your work honestly and fully,” Murragh said. “My people will not attempt to sabotage your efforts. I have already told Bondarevsky and Graham that I view your people as my allies against Ragark, who would set himself up as an usurper on the throne that belongs to my hrai. Cannot an ally assist an ally in a venture to their mutual advantage?”

Graham spoke up. “He’s serious, Admiral. Hell, I wouldn’t mind joining your little party myself, as a volunteer, since I’m not likely to be getting a ride back to Terra anytime soon to report in. And me and my guys and gals have a lot of experience in splicing Cat and Ape gear together without having it blow up in our faces. We’re willing to help any way we can. And I think it would be to your advantage to have us on board.”

Richards didn’t answer right away, and Bondarevsky could see that he was wavering between the paranoia that went with his training and the hope that he might obtain precious help.

“I think you should consider it seriously, Admiral,” Bondarevsky said quietly. “Let’s face it, these folks could make all the difference in actually making this harebrained scheme work. Let’s sign them up.”

After a moment, Richards nodded. “I think you’re right, Jason. Very well, Lord Murragh. Commander Graham. Welcome to the Goliath Project.”