Insurrection

THE SHORTEST DISTANCE

Rear Admiral Li flinched as rolling drums assaulted her ears, then straightened her shoulders quickly. Other returning prisoners crowded the shuttle hatch behind her, and not the most jaded of them could hide his reaction to the scene.

The domed spaceport on Bonaparte's second moon was jammed with black and silver uniforms. Thousands of them! Han stared out over the sea of faces through the crashing fanfare of Ad Astra, the ancient twenty-first century hymn chosen as the Republic's anthem, and she was stunned.

A rear admiral greeted her with a crisp salute, and only reflex action brought her own hand up in response as she recognized Jason Windrider. His dark eyes glowed, and as the last bar of the anthem crashed out and the music died, his hand came down in a flashing arc. Han's matched it.

"Welcome home, Admiral!" He gripped her hand tightly.

"Thank you." Han swallowed, blinking burning eyes, and smiled. "Thank you, Admiral," she said more firmly. "It's good to be back."

"We've been waiting for you," he said warmly, "and you may as well accept the inevitable." His smile was both wicked and warm. "We're proud of you, ma'am, and you're going to have to put up with us while we show it!"

And then he was leading her down the flag-draped landing platform stair, and the roar of cheers split the bright, dome-filtered sunlight around her.

"Well!" Jason Windrider doffed his braided cap and waved at a chair. "Thank God that's over! Though I must say-" he cocked his head critically "-the Golden Lion looks good on you, Han. Sort of sets off your hair."

"Thank you," she said dryly, trying to hide her own deep emotion as she sat. She touched the Golden Lion of Terra-the highest award for valor of Republic and Federation alike. "If this is what the loser gets, I'd like to see the winner's medals!"

"You didn't lose, Han," Windrider said decisively. "You and Bob were right. We should've gone in fast and nasty, before their new forts and beams and those Godawful missiles were on line."

"Maybe," Han said, "but I surrendered, so I'm the one who's going to face a Board over it-and maybe a full Court."

"The Court already sat," Windrider said, suddenly grim. "On the admirals who ran out on you. I won't lie to you-some people were cashiered, but everyone knows you held the battle-line together in a hopeless situation and then had the good sense not to get thousands of people killed for nothing." He shrugged again. "That's more or less what the Admiralty said, in fancier language, when it recommended you-unanimously-for the Golden Lion."

"I see." Han drew a deep breath and felt the tension flow away at last.

"Do you, now?" Windrider grinned. "Actually, there's an even more tangible proof of their lordships' attitude."

"Oh?" she eyed him suspiciously. "A blindfold and a last cigarette?"

"You have an untrusting nature," Windrider said sorrowfully. Then he became more serious. "I'm afraid it's slightly non-reg, Han, and Magda wanted to give you this, but she can't make it, so I have to deputize. Here."

Han opened the small case and gasped as she saw the double stars nestled in the dark velvet. She stood abruptly, left hand rising to the single star at her collar, and her eyes were shocked.

"Yes, sir," the rear admiral said. "Congratulations, Vice Admiral Li!" He reached out and unpinned her rear admiral's star gently, then took a paired star from her and slid its pin through her collar.

"B-but I'm not ready!" Han wailed. "I was only a captain four years ago!" Yet she seemed unable to resist as he fastened the badge in place. "I just got back from surrendering an entire battle fleet!"

"Han," Windrider said severely, "sit down and shut up."

She sat obediently, too shaken to notice how brashly a rear admiral was ordering a vice admiral about.

"Better," he said. "Now listen to me. Every senior officer in the Fleet knows you and Bob wanted to attack earlier, and most of 'em know the panic that really beat us at Zephrain wouldn't have happened if you'd been senior to the bastards who-Never mind." He shook his head sharply. "But there's not a one of them who questions giving you that star. None. And no doubts will be entertained from you, either, young lady!

"Besides, we need you. Admiral Ashigara is dead, and so are Kellerman, Matucek, Ryder, Nishin, Shukov, Hyde-White, Mombora. . . ." His voice trailed somberly off, and she stared at him.

"That many?"

"And more," he confirmed. "Han, we never did have many admirals, and those we had have taken a terrible pounding; we've got to promote. I was a commander four years ago, for God's sake! If I can take my medicine and wear one star, you can damned well wear two-got it?"

"Yes, sir," she said meekly, touching her collar badges and smiling at last. "I just hope it isn't a mistake."

"Han, will you please get it through your radiation-jellied Oriental brain that you've got those stars-and that medal-because you're one of the best we've got?" She eyed him doubtfully, and he grinned. "Besides, if we don't give 'em to you, somebody might try to give 'em to me, God help us!"

The skimmer swooped downwards, and Han peered out at the lights blazing against the night. They marked a sprawling mansion, one-time home of the Corporate World manager of Bonaparte's largest chesht plantation, taken over by the Republican military when the focus of operations shifted to Zephrain.

Windrider grounded the skimmer and popped the hatches, and Han climbed out, wrinkling her nose as the reek of over-ripe chesht mingled with the fresh smell of marshes. It amazed her that something whose flavor had supplanted chocolate and vanilla alike in Terran estimation could smell so horrible in its native habitat.

Strange voices shrilled and clicked in the night, and wings fluttered as Bonaparte's equivalent of a bat flitted past. She glanced upward, but the two larger moons had set and the third, Joseph, was little more than a low-albedo lump of captured asteroidal rock. Its wan illumination barely brought a glow to the mists and hinted at rather than revealed the artificially precise spacing of angular machinery. Chesht-pickers rusting in idleness, she thought as the cool breeze off the marsh rustled the chesht pods. Bonaparte's F1 primary was hot, but the planet was near the outer edge of the liquid-water belt. Even high summer was cool, which suited Han well, for it produced a climate very like that of her homeworld.

Jason however, came from Topaz-a warm, dusty world with little axial tilt-and he preferred less chilly environs. He rubbed his hands briskly and tried to look patient as she sucked in the crisp air.

"All right, Jason," she smiled finally. "Lead on."

"Good!" he agreed quickly, and guided her through a double-paned door into what had been a palatial foyer before the Republican Navy took charge. A pair of Marine guards came sharply to attention as they stepped inside, and as Han noted their unsealed holsters, she suddenly realized what those angular shapes in the marsh had been: not chesht-pickers, but heavy armored vehicles. And the thick glass entry doors weren't glass at all, but armorplast capable of resisting medium artillery fire!

"Good evening, Admiral Li. Admiral Windrider." A Marine major saluted them. "May I see some identification?"

He subjected their ID folios to the most rigorous check Han had seen since the war began. What in God's name was going on here?

"Thank you, sir." The major returned her ID and summoned an armed orderly. "Chief Yeoman Santander will escort you to the planning room."

"Thank you, Major." Han returned his salute, then followed the silent yeoman into the house proper and down a corridor. He stopped and opened a door, raising his voice without entering.

"Admiral Li and Admiral Windrider, sir!" he said crisply, and stepped back as they passed him.

"Thank you, Chief Santander," a warm, easily recognized voice said.

"Magda! Jason didn't say you were here!"

"I know he didn't." Magda Petrovna smiled from behind her desk in the large, brightly lit room, and the paired stars on her collar mirrored Han's. "Very few people know I'm here, and they aren't talking."

"But why all the secrecy?"

"I'm about to tell you, Han," Magda said with the chuckle Han remembered so well. "After which you'll disappear, too. Where's she off to, Jason?" Brown eyes rose to smile over Han's head at Windrider.

"Vice Admiral Li is returning to Novaya Rodina for debriefing," Windrider said smoothly. "In fact, I escorted her aboard ship myself."

"You see?" Magda asked with a grin.

"No, I don't see at all!"

"It's pretty simple, really. You and I, my dear, are the Republic's last great hope." Magda's voice was humorous; her eyes weren't.

"Meaning what?" Han demanded.

"Meaning that you and I-with the help of a few souls like Jason, Bob Tomanaga, and Tsing Chang-are now the Republic's answer to Ian Trevayne."

"We're going back to Zephrain?" Han was stunned by the recklessness of the idea. "Magda, I don't think you understand just what-"

"No, Han," Magda said softly. "Trevayne is coming to us. He's staging a breakout sometime in the next five standard months."

Han sat down heavily. It had all come at her too fast, she thought dazedly. The homecoming, her medal and promotion, all the secrecy and security-now this. She couldn't have understood correctly.

"Five months." She shook her head. "Magda, it isn't possible. He doesn't have enough hulls to mount a sustained offensive-not a decisive one-now that we know what he's got and the panic factor's been eliminated, and there's no point in his taking losses for anything indecisive. Besides, those monsters of his take a long time to build-they mass over a half million tonnes each, Magda! He won't risk them without a decisive objective in view."

"Correct." Magda tipped back her chair and a half-smile lurked in her eyes. "But he is coming out. What could inspire him to do that?"

"Nothing," Han said, but she sounded less certain. She thought furiously for a minute, then looked up again. "Are you saying they're planning a joint operation? A simultaneous attack by the Rump and the Rim?"

"Give the lady the prize," Windrider said softly.

"But that's crazy, too," Han protested quietly. "There's no way they could coordinate. I never figured out how they get messages back and forth, but it seems pretty clumsy, however they do it."

"Right again," Magda nodded, "but let me show you something." She rose, and Han's eyes widened in amazement.

"Damn! I keep forgetting to allow for that." Magda stood back from her desk and patted her stomach with a wry frown. Her new figure, Han thought with a helpless chuckle, was definitely non-reg.

"What's so funny?" Magda demanded, then touched her stomach again and laughed. "This isn't what I wanted to show you."

"You thought I wouldn't notice?"

"No, you silly slant-eye, I just forgot you didn't know. It's all over the Fleet by now-and that cad in the corner is making insufferably proud noises over every bar on Bonaparte."

"I see." Han managed to stop chuckling, but her voice was a little unsteady. "And you don't think your timing was a bit off?"

"Hell," Magda laughed, "this little stranger is one reason I got this job. Everyone knows pregnant women are barred from combat. Ergo, I'm barred from combat, which makes my disappearance for planning purposes that much easier to explain. And as for my 'timing'-" she met Han's eyes, suddenly serious "-you're one reason for that."

Only Magda could have said that without opening her own wounds, Han thought affectionately.

"I don't want what happened to you happening to me now that I've found Jason," Magda said quietly. She reached out a hand, and Windrider was there in an instant to take it. "So I'm having at least one child before I go out to be shot at again. Besides," she smiled gently, holding out her free hand to Han, and for the first time her voice was hesitant, "this child is for you, too, Han."

"Me?" Han was deeply touched as she took the offered hand.

"Yes. We'd like-like it very much-to name her Han."

Han's grip tightened, and a seemingly endless silence stretched.

"If you can't think of a better name," she said finally, "I'd be proud. Very proud."

"Done!" Jason's brusque cheerfulness broke the spell, and Han was grateful. She drew a deep breath and blinked twice.

"But I think you were going to show me something besides my future namesake?"

"So I was," Magda said, tucking an arm through Han's and leading her over to a wall panel. She punched buttons busily, and a huge hologram filled the darkened room. Han stared at it raptly; she hadn't seen a warp map quite that large since the Academy.

Magda picked up a luminous pointer and moved to the center of the map.

"This helps with visualization, Han," she said, turning brown eyes spangled with tiny stars to her friend. "Our warp lines are green. The Rump's are red; the Rim's amber. Notice anything?"

"Besides the lack of any red-amber connections?"

"That's certainly the salient point, but I'm thinking about something else: distances. At closest, and always excluding passage through Orion or Crucian space, they're at least a dozen transits apart. So whatever they do, they're facing a long, drawn-out campaign before they get back into contact, right?"

"I'd think so, yes."

"So did we. We have, however, certain intelligence assets in the Rump. Not in the Rim, I'm sorry to say, and our very best conduit didn't give us a word of warning about it, but computer analysis of what we do have has picked up on something very interesting.

"First," she tucked her pointer under her arm, for all the world like a pregnant schoolteacher in uniform as she ticked off points on her fingers, "Rump construction rates have been low, which confused us until we found out why. The Galloway's World Raid did more than take out a couple of yards, Han; it took out the entire archipelago. They've recovered now, but it explains why the Rump's been so sensitive to combat losses.

"Second," she went on, "despite their desperate need for ships, they're holding them back. We didn't notice that immediately, but our raids, recon probes, and captured or otherwise compromised Rump deployment orders all indicate it. Why?

"Third, they haven't been massing them opposite Cimmaron, as we might expect. They could cut off this whole quarter of the Republic from there," she gestured at a glowing snake's nest of green warp lines "or go straight for Novaya Rodina. But where the analysis teams finally found them is over here, at a totally new Fleet base at Avalon-a system we've never even threatened.

"Fourth, and finally, we know how the Rim gets its messages. They come through Orion space, via Rehfrak." Magda waved a hand at Han's sharp glance. "I know, very un-neutral of them. However, we haven't objected because we wanted to see who goes where along that warp line, and it turns out the errand boy is none other than one Kevin Sanders. Does that ring any bells?"

" 'The Fox,' " Han said softly.

"Exactly. The best chief of ONI in two centuries, and currently a cabinet minister without portfolio. Obviously they need a top man for a hot potato like this, but they're sending Sanders-probably the one person in the Galaxy who knows where all the Federation's bodies are buried-through Orion space whenever he goes to Zephrain. And the Orions only permit him to go as far as Rehfrak; the Governor-General comes to him."

"I'm sure all of this is headed somewhere?"

"It is indeed. Six months ago, Sanders was in Avalon. Then they rushed him back to Old Terra so fast they burned out a destroyer's main drive converters. Why? Because he's already gone again, making another trip . . . and this time he's going all the way to Xanadu-and staying."

"What?" Han stood straighter and frowned.

"Exactly. It took a lot of work-and luck-to piece his itinerary together, but it's solid. Now why would the Rump separate itself from its foremost spook? Unless, of course, the separation isn't permanent?"

"I see your point," Han mused.

"I thought you would," Magda said grimly. "They're sending him because they need someone with his authority, brains, and experience to coordinate their plan to hit us before we can react to the new weaponry. If they can hammer a bridge between the Rump and Rim-if the Rump's industrial plant gets the data and working models it needs-we're in deep, deep trouble."

"I see," Han murmured once more, searching the red and amber warp lines with her eyes. "They're assembling the Rump pincer at Avalon, so they're not going for any finesse beyond their hope for surprise."

"That's what we think," Magda encouraged her.

"It's the only answer," Han muttered, frowning in thought. "From Avalon, hmmm . . . ?" Her eyes narrowed suddenly and she nodded once, sharply. "There's their route, Magda-Avalon to Lomax to Hyerdahl to Thor to Thule to Osterman's Star to Tybold to Juarez to Iphigena to Zapata to Sagebrush to Purdah. From there they might go Rousseau to Ney to Bonaparte to Zephrain, or New India to Zvoboda to Zephrain. I'd bet on the New India Route-not even Ian Trevayne wants to tangle with the defenses here."

"What makes you so certain?" Magda asked, not challengingly but as if she merely wanted confirmation of her own thoughts.

"Only a fool tries to be clever when he can't completely orchestrate a complex operation, Magda. We learned that watching the Orions in the first two interstellar wars . . . and relearned it at First Zephrain. So if you can't be fancy, you be direct as possible, and that route-" she nodded at the one she'd traced out "-is the shortest distance between two points: Avalon and Zephrain."

"I think you're right," Magda acknowledged, "and you might like to know that it took the Strategy Board a month to reach your conclusions." She smiled. "But there's still a billion-credit question, Han. We don't have the Fleet units to oppose both forces at once. We have to stop one of them, then turn to deal with the other in detail, using our advantage of the interior position. So which do we oppose?"

Han blinked at her.

"You're asking me? Magda, I've been out of circulation for a year!"

"But you're also the senior commander who's really seen the Rim's weapons in action, so you can give us the best gut reaction on them. Should we worry more about quantity or quality? Because-" Magda grinned crookedly "-for our sins, you and I are going to be the Fleet commanders who do the stopping. So who do we stop, Han? The Rump or the Rim?"

Han dropped into a chair and thought long, hard and furiously.

"The Rump doesn't have any of the new technology? Just numbers?"

Magda nodded.

"And have we come through with any of those 'wonder weapons' people were muttering about before Second Zephrain? Do we have any surprises of our own?"

"A few," Windrider said.

"Then we have to block the Rump with secondary forces and go for the Rim with everything we have," Han said, suddenly decisive. "No matter how many hulls the Rump has, we can tangle them up in the frontier forts, mines, and local fighter bases. We can slow them up, at least, but you've never seen anything like Trevayne's new battle-line. We have to stop him, and stop him hard. If at all possible, we have to cut him up badly enough to move in and take Zephrain away from him. Even if we lose a dozen systems-or twice that many!-to the Rump, we've still got a good chance to win this war in the end if we can keep them away from Zephrain."

"And where do we stop them?" Magda asked tonelessly.

"Zapata," Han said crisply. "It's a critical choke point, and we can move stuff in from Bonaparte for the big engagement. Use commerce raiders on the flanks as they advance . . . pick at them . . . get them off balance and force them to overextend . . . then meet them head-on at Zapata and thank God building that monster battle-line's cut into their carrier production! It's our only chance, Magda."

"I see." Magda exchanged a nod with Jason, then turned back to Han. The tangled lights of the holo map gilded her silver-streaked brown hair with a crown of jewels, and her eyes glittered with stars. "That's another thing you and the Strategy Board agree on, and I'm glad you see it so clearly . . . sir."

Something in her voice caught Han's attention, and she stared at her friend suspiciously. No! She couldn't mean . . . !

"That's right, Han," Magda said almost compassionately. "One of the reasons I was ordered to have this little chat with you was to be certain you did understand the priorities. You got your second star while you were still a POW-the same day I got mine. And that means you're still senior." She held out the luminous pointer.

"Welcome to supreme command of Operation Actium, Admiral Li."