The Silent War

HABITAT CHRYSALIS

Yannis Ritsos was the last of a long line of rebels and poets. Named after a famed Greek forebear, he had been born in Cyprus, lived through the deadly biowar that racked that tortured island, survived the fallout from the nuclear devastation of Israel, and worked his way across the Mediterranean to Spain where, like another Greek artist, he made a living for himself. Unlike El Greco, however, Yanni supported himself by running computer systems that translated languages. He even slipped some of his own poetry into the computers and had them translate his Greek into Spanish, German and English. He was not happy with the results.

He came to Ceres not as a poet, but as a rock rat. Determined to make a fortune in the Asteroid Belt, Yanni talked a fellow Greek businessman into allowing him to ride out to the Belt and try his hand at mining. He never got farther than the Chrysalis habitat, in orbit around Ceres. There he met and married the beautiful Ilona Mikvicius and, instead of going out on a mining ship, remained at Ceres and took a job in the habitat’s communications center.

Sterile since his exposure to the nuclear fallout, totally bald for the same reason, Yanni longed to have a son and keep the family line going. He and Ilona were saving every penny they could scratch together to eventually pay for a cloning procedure. Ilona knew that bearing a cloned fetus was dangerous, but she loved Yanni so much that she was willing to risk it.

So Yannis Ritsos had everything to live for when Dorik Harbin’s ship came to the Chrysalis habitat. He had suffered much, survived much, and endured. He felt that the future looked, if not exactly bright, at least promising. But he was wrong. And it was his own rebellious soul that put an end to his dreams.

“Sir,” the comm tech called out, “someone aboard Elsinore is sending a message to Selene.”

Harbin, fresh from a new injection of stimulant, turned to his weapons technician. “Slag her antennas,” he commanded. “All of them.”

The technician nodded and bent over his console.

In her compartment aboard Elsinore, Edith Elgin stopped in mid-sentence as the wall screen suddenly broke into jagged, hissing lines of hash.

“Something’s wrong,” she said to Big George. “The link’s gone dead.”

George frowned. “He doesn’t want us talkin’ to anybody. Prob’ly knocked out the antennas.”

“You mean he attacked this ship?” Edith was shocked.

Nodding, George said, “And he’ll do worse in another fifteen minutes if we don’t produce Lars.”

“But Fuchs isn’t here!”

“Tell it to him.”

Yannis Ritsos was alone on duty in Chrysalis’s communications center when Harbin’s ultimatum came through.

It was a dull night shift; nothing but boringly routine chatter from the far-scattered ships of the miners and prospectors, and the coded telemetry sent routinely from their ships. With everything in the center humming along on automatic, and no one else in the comm center at this late hour, Yanni opened the computer subroutine he used to write poetry.

He had hardly written a line when the central screen suddenly lit up to show a dark-bearded man whose eyes glittered like polished obsidian.

“Attention, Chrysalis,” the stranger said, in guttural English. “This is the attack vessel Samarkand. You are harboring the fugitive Lars Fuchs. You will turn him over to me in ten minutes or suffer the consequences of defiance.”

Annoyed at being interrupted in his writing, Yanni thought it was some jokester in the habitat pulling a prank.

“Who is this?” he demanded. “Get off this frequency. It’s reserved for incoming calls.”

The dark-bearded face grew visibly angry. “This is your own death speaking to you if you don’t turn Fuchs over to me.”

“Lars Fuchs?” Yanni replied, only half believing his ears. “God knows where he is.”

“I know where he is,” the intruder snapped. “And if you don’t surrender him to me I will destroy you.”

Irritated, Yanni shot back, “Fuchs hasn’t been here for years and he isn’t here now. Go away and stop bothering me.”

Harbin stared at the comm screen in Samarkand’s bridge. They’re stalling for time, he thought. They’re trying to think of a way to hide Fuchs from me.

He took a deep breath, then said with deadly calm, “Apparently you don’t believe me. Very well. Let me demonstrate my sincerity.”

Turning to the weapons tech, Harbin ordered, “Chop one of the habitat’s modules.”

The man swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Sir, there are civilians in those modules. Innocent men and women—”

“I gave you an order,” Harbin snapped.

“But—” “Get off the bridge! I’ll take care of this myself.”

The weapons tech glanced at the others on the bridge, looking for support.

“Chrysalis is unarmed, sir,” said the pilot softly, almost in a whisper.

Cold fury gripped Harbin. “Get out. All of you,” he said, his voice hard as ice. “I’ll tend to this myself.”

The entire bridge crew got up and swiftly went to the hatch, leaving Harbin alone in the command chair. He pecked furiously at the keyboards on his armrests, taking control of all the ship’s systems.

Fools and weaklings, he raged to himself. They call themselves mercenaries but they’re no good for anything except drawing their pay and pissing their pants in fear. Chrysalis is unarmed? I’ll believe that when pigs fly. They’re harboring Fuchs and they’re stalling for time, trying to hide him, trying to lure me into sending my crew over there so they can ambush and slaughter them. I’ve seen ambushes, I’ve seen slaughters. They’re not going to do that to me or my crew.

He called up the weapons display for the main screen, focused on the module of the Chrysalis closest to his ship and jabbed a thumb against the key that fired the lasers. Three jagged lines slashed across the thin skin of the module. Puffs of air glittered briefly like the puffs of a person’s breath on a winter’s day.

“Give me Fuchs,” he said to the comm screen.

Yanni heard screams.

“What’s going on?” he asked the empty communications center.

The face on the screen smiled coldly. “Give me Fuchs,” he said.

Before Yanni could reply, the comm center’s door burst open and a woman in bright coral coveralls rushed in. “Module eighteen’s been ripped apart! They’re all dead in there!”

Yanni gaped at her. She was from the life support crew, he could see by the color of her coveralls. And she was babbling so loud and fast that he could barely understand what she was saying.

“We’re under attack!” she screamed. “Call for help!”

“Call who?” Yanni asked.

The executive officer stepped through the hatch into the bridge.

“Sir,” she said crisply, her face a frozen expressionless mask, “I have a squad of twenty ready to board Chrysalis and search for Fuchs. They are armed with pistols and minigrenades, perfectly capable of dealing with whatever resistance the rock rats may try to offer.”

Harbin stared at her. Why are these fools trying to undermine me? I know what to do. You kill your enemies. Kill them all. Men, women, children, dogs, cattle, all and every one of them. Burn down their village. Burn their crops. Blast the trees of their orchards with grenades. Leave nothing alive.

“Sir, did you hear me?” the exec asked, stepping closer to him.

Harbin swiveled the chair slightly toward her. “My hearing is perfect,” he said calmly. “Tell your troops to stand down. I won’t need them.”

“They can search the habitat—”

“No,” Harbin said softly, almost gently. “That won’t be necessary. Why risk them when we can destroy the habitat from here?”

“But Fuchs—”

“Fuchs will die with the rest of the rock rats,” Harbin said. He wanted to laugh. It was all so simple. You killed your enemies and then they will never be able to hurt you again. Why can’t she see that? It’s so logical, so beautifully clear.

He dismissed the executive officer and began to calmly, methodically, thoroughly destroy Chrysalis and everyone in it.