Starfishers - Starfishers Triology Book 2

Ten: 3047 AD

The Olden Days, A Victory Celebration

"Max! You're beautiful."

"Don't sound so damned astonished, Walter."

"Oh. I didn't mean... I just never saw you dressed up before."

"Quit while you're ahead, friend. By the way. I notice you've changed a little too, Commander." She stared pointedly at the double sunbursts on his high collar. "I thought you said you were a dip."

"Naval Attaché. You know that."

"No, I didn't. Naval Attaché. Isn't that the same thing as head spy? Bureau of Naval Intelligence?"

Perchevski reddened. "Not always. Some of us... "

"Don't mind me, Walter." She smiled. "I'm just thinking out loud. That would explain some of the mysteries about you."

"Mysteries? About me? Come on, Max. I'm as mysterious as a pumpkin. Here we are."

A Marine accepted his ID badge, poked it into a slot. He eyed a readout screen somewhere out of sight. "Thank you, sir. Is this Miss Travers, sir?"

"Yes."

He consulted the screen again. "Thank you, sir. Have a nice evening, sir. Ma'am." A door slid open.

"Ma'am?" Max asked. "Do I look that old?"

"Come on, Max."

"Isn't he going to check me?"

"He did. You're all right. You don't have a bomb in your purse."

"Thanks a lot. What do they do to you in Academy? Why can't officers be polite like that nice young Marine?"

"You were just complaining... Max, you're sure contrary tonight. What's the matter?" He handed his over-tunic to the Marine corporal in the cloak room, helped Max with her cape.

"I'm scared, Walter. I've never even been near the Command Club. I don't know how to talk to Senators and Admirals."

"Know something, Max?"

"What?"

"I've never been here before either. We'll lose our virginity together. I'll tell you this, though. Admirals and Senators put their pants on one leg at a time, same as us, and they'll paw your leg under the table the same way I do."

"Male or female?" She seized his arm as they entered the huge Grand Ballroom. Her grip tightened.

"Both, the way you look tonight." He slowed. The place had no walls. An all-round animated hologram concealed the room's boundaries. Portrayals of Navy's mightiest ships of war lay every direction but downward. Perchevski automatically scanned the starfields. He saw no constellations he recognized.

Max's grip became painful. "I feel like I'm falling, Walter."

Local gravity had been allowed to decline to lunar normal to reinforce the deep-space effect.

"Somebody's really putting on the dog," Perchevski grumbled.

"Commander. Madam," said another polite Marine, "may I show you to your seats?"

The place was thronged. "Of course. How many people going to be here tonight, First Lance?" He was getting jittery. He still did not know why he was one of the elect.

"Nearly two thousand, sir. Here, sir." The Marine pulled a chair for Max.

"But... " He had scanned the faces of his tablemates. His jaw refused to continue working.

A few of them he knew personally. The Chief of Staff Navy and the Director of Naval Intelligence he recognized from the holonetnews.

Max recognized them too. She leaned and whispered, "Who the hell are you really, Walter?" She was so awed she could not look at the high brass.

Perchevski stared at his place setting, just as awed. "I'm starting to wonder myself."

"Thomas?"

Only one man alive insisted on calling him by that name. Perchevski forced his gaze to rise and meet that of his boss. "Sir?" He flicked a sideways glance at Mouse, who was eyeing Max appreciatively while whispering to his own ladyfriend.

"How are you doing, Max?" Mouse asked.

"You too, Yamamoto?"

"Thomas, the CSN and DNI want to be introduced."

"Yes sir." He evaded Admiral Beckhart's eyes by fixing his gaze on the one seat still vacant. He moved around to shake hands with the brass while Beckhart murmured the introductions.

"This is the man," Beckhart said. "He made it all go."

"Congratulations, Commander," the CSN told Perchevski. "And thank you. I understand you'll receive the Swords and Diamonds. Not to mention the prize."

Perchevski could not conceal his bewilderment.

They've got to be talking about the operation, he thought. Swords and Diamonds to the Lunar Cross, right? More chest hardware. With another medal and fifty pfenning he could buy a cheap cup of soy-coffee. Or pay half a Conmark without.

"Thank you, sir. I'd rather have my vacation, sir."

His boldness startled him even more than did his bitterness.

The DNI peered at Beckhart. "Up to your tricks with the troops, Admiral?"

"Ma'am?"

Perchevski grinned. The mission was worth it after all, just to get here and see that look on Beckhart's face.

"This man obviously doesn't have the faintest damn notion of what he's doing here."

Perchevski threw oil on the flames by nodding behind his boss's back.

He entered his commander's presence only rarely, which was just as well. The Admiral brought out the contrariness in him.

"It'll be clear soon enough," Beckhart said. "I just thought it would be a nice surprise. Go back to your friend, Thomas. I see she knows Mouse."

As Perchevski departed, he heard the DNI snap, "And see that they get some time off. The whole human race can't keep your pace."

"Yes, Ma'am."

Perchevski winced. He would get time, all right. And he would pay for it. Beckhart would get it back with interest.

"What was that about?" Max asked. "You looked like they were talking about the firing squad."

"They're going to give me a medal. There's something about medals... They just don't seem adequate."

"For surviving a virus?" She wore a sarcastic grin.

The high brass fell silent. People began to rise. Mouse abandoned the finger game he had been playing with his companion. Perchevski turned. "Jupp!"

Von Drachau looked old and haggard. His face had grown pasty since last they had met. "Hi, Tom." He greeted no one else at the moment.

The holograms faded. Perchevski spied the news crews and cameras they had concealed. "I begin to understand," he muttered.

"What?" Max asked.

"Lady, you're about to see the full might of the Luna Command propaganda apparat in action."

Von Drachau dropped into the empty chair. "Mouse," he said by way of greeting. "Tom, you seen Horst-Johann?"

"Sorry, Jupp. I haven't had a chance," Perchevski replied. "Was it bad?"

"From hunger. And they drag me down here without a chance to... " He considered the seniority of the rest of his tablemates, closed his eyes, leaned back.

"Who's he?" Max whispered.

"Jupp von Drachau. We were classmates in Academy."

"Was he in on the same thing you were?"

"Yeah. Sort of."

Navy stewards began serving dinner. It was a smorgasbord sort of meal, with the diners offered a chance to select from trays bearing bits and pieces from different Confederation worlds.

"Whatever you do, don't miss the January wine," Perchevski told Max. "They always let you have a little at these things."

"Thought you'd never been here before."

"Mouse has."

"Mouse?"

"Yamamoto."

"Oh? You know him too?"

"We were classmates too."

The holo cameras started whining. They faded behind a new holo scene.

This one was no animation. It was a speeded recording of events that had taken place inside a warship's situation-display tank.

Green friendly blips were approaching a huge chunk of asteroidal material circling a white dwarf sun. More white dwarves blazed in every direction. Perchevski could almost feel the heat, the smash of the solar winds.

"The Hell Stars," he murmured. "That's where it was."

The asteroid began sparkling. Large red blips scuttled away behind the cover of a storm of red pinpoints.

Fast green blips raced after them.

The asteroid coruscated.

"Christ!" Perchevski said.

"What?"

"The place was an arsenal."

Max did not understand. She was a Navy brat, but had not done Service herself. "What's going on, Walter? Or whatever your name is."

"That's where Jupp was. It's a display record of a battle."

The Confederation warships began their assault. Jupp had had his share of firepower.

The guests munched complacently while watching the memory of the death of a Sangaree station.

The fast boats trying to carry children to safety did not outrun Navy's blood-hungry hounds. Nor could the station's defenses stand up to the pounding delivered by a heavy siege squadron. But the Sangaree fought like a cat cornered by dogs, and left scars on von Drachau's command.

Here, there, Navy's professionals commented on the action like detached spectators at a ball game. Perchevski glared at his plate.

Von Drachau, he noted, was less excited than he.

The steward kept bringing the courses. He had to remind Max to drink her wine. The vintages of January were Confederation's finest and rarest.

The Sangaree persisted despite an overwhelming attack. It seemed impossible that they could have survived so long, let alone have continued fighting back.

Take no prisoners. That was the general order to all command grade officers who engaged Sangaree.

Christ, we're bloodthirsty, Perchevski thought He looked around. His neighbors were enjoying the spectacle even though they had no idea what it was all about.

Mouse looked like he was poised on the brink of orgasm.

How that man could hate! The Marine assault boats went in in time for dessert.

Hand-held camera recordings replaced the sterile display replay. Marines stalked Sangaree and their hirelings through smoky, ruined corridors. The fighting was hand-to-hand and bitter.

The camera technicians seemed inordinately fond of torn corpses and shattered defensive installations.

An assault team blew its way through an airlock.

Beyond, running for kilometers, brightly lighted, lay the hugest artificial environment farm Perchevski had ever seen. A voice boomed, "Sithlac fields." The holos expired. Lights came up. A spot trained on the DNI. She rose. "Ladies and gentlemen. Comrades in arms. That is what tonight is all about. An operation in the Hell Stars that destroyed the biggest stardust production facility we've ever located. The raid was carried out twelve days ago. Police forces throughout The Arm are rounding up the people who processed and sold the drug produced on that asteroid."

She continued with a Navy-aggrandizing speech that Perchevski strove to ignore. Her theme was one of thank God for the Bureau's vigilance and determination.

The CSN said the same things in other ways, and praised von Drachau and the fleet people who had acted on the information the Bureau had supplied.

The hows and whys of the intelligence coup got no play. The details could not be divulged for security reasons. The agents responsible would receive decorations.

"You're a dip, eh?" Max whispered.

Perchevski shrugged. The near-worship in her face astounded him.

"I had a kid brother, Walter. He got hooked on stardust."

"Oh." He checked the time and was surprised to find that it had not been dragging after all.

The CSN insisted on presenting Captain von Drachau to Confederation's billions. Jupp accepted his decorations reluctantly.

"Instant celebrity," Perchevski mused. "Instant millionaire. And they won't remember his name in six months."

"Why're you so sour?" Max demanded. "You ought to be kicking your heels. Look what you did."

"I know what I did. I was there. Let's talk about something else. What about that Polar Flight airmail set you've been promising me for the last two years?"

"I bet you get a ton of prize money. How much? Do you know yet?"

"No. I didn't know about the raid till tonight."

"You'll be able to buy my whole shop."

"Probably." He had won prize money before. He was, by most standards, a wealthy man. He did not realize it. Money did not mean much to him. He could buy whatever he wanted when he wanted it, so economic problems never intruded on his life.

"Aren't you excited?"

"No."

"I am. When are we going to the Darkside digs?"

"I don't know. I think they're going to put me to work." He had come to a decision. He was going home. To his birthworld. One last time. Maybe there, where not one person in a billion gave a damn about Sangaree, or the March of Ulant, or McGraw pirates, or anything else going on offworld, he could get away from himself.

And maybe he could refresh his memory of just what it was that had sent him into a life he so loathed now. Maybe he could relearn what the choices were.

The show for the benefit of the holonets wound down. Then came the private postmortem, when he and Mouse shook hands with the mighty and received their medals and prize-money estimates.

Max patiently waited it out.

"You should have gone home," he told her when he finally broke away. "You can't spend your life waiting for me."

"I wanted to. I'm coming with you." She squeezed his hand.

"Sonofabitch," he said softly. His mood skyrocketed.

He had been firing on her for years. She had teased and led him on with smiles and gentle touches and had never given in. The occasional friendly date was as close as he had ever come.

Max made it a rewarding evening after all.