Steve White - Eagle against the Stars

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Eagle Against the Stars

Steve White

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real

people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-57846-4

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, January 2000

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

To Sandy, more than ever.

BAEN BOOKS by STEVE WHITE

The Disinherited

Legacy

Debt of Ages

Prince of Sunset

Emperor of Dawn

Eagle Against the Stars

The Starfire series

(with David Weber)

Insurrection

Crusade

In Death Ground

PROLOGUE

The sun broke over the edge of Earth, bringing with it a slender blue-white sickle of dawn that

encroached on the expanse of darkness that was the planet’s nightside as seen from low orbit. The

Orbital Command-and-Control Station’s viewport polarized against the glare.

But, thought Colonel Michael Roark, there was still plenty of light to see despair by. The swarm of

spacecraft that had no business being there were in visual range, although their daunting massiveness

was reduced to the dimensions of iron filings by the distance, and the sun glinted on them.

He shifted uncomfortably in his pressure suit. They’d all been wearing the things, rather than the

usual blue jumpsuits with U.S. Air Force Orbital Command shoulder flashes, for almost twenty-four

hours. That was how long it had been since those impossible ships had appeared, effortlessly matching

orbits with OCCS, and they’d gone to Red Alert status. Since then the uncharacteristically rigid

military routine had been armor for their sanity in the new world of unreality they’d abruptly entered.

Still, eyes constantly wandered toward the viewport, and Roark wasn’t inclined to reprimand anyone

for it.

At least the aliens—Lokaron, they called themselves—hadn’t kept them in suspense. They’d

responded to the Station’s hails at once, with a lengthy message to be transmitted to the U.S.

government. Roark had patched them into the satellite net as requested—a process which had given

him access to the message. He hadn’t shared it with his personnel, for they would be just as able as he

was to foresee the governent’s response . . . and the likely consequences for themselves.

Roark shifted position, moving with the ease of one long-practiced in the art of walking in zero

gravity on a metal deck with magnetic soles. Drugs counteracted the effects of long-term

weightlessness on the human skeleton and immune system, but nothing could prevent the loss of

muscle tone. I’ll be weak as a kitten down there at first, he thought . . . then laughed silently at

himself. Unless he was very wrong about his probable future, he didn’t need to worry about anything

pertaining to his return to Earth.

There was a sound of awkward movement by his side. Sidney Kazin, PhD, wore the same USAF

issue as everyone else on the station, but he couldn’t conceivably have been mistaken for any kind of

military man, even on the Orbital Command’s relaxed standards. He lacked zero-gee experience, and

had been miserably uncomfortable since a shuttle had brought him up to run tests on some quirky new

instrumentation. That discomfort had been forgotten the moment the strange craft had appeared, as

had everything else.

“Anything new, Colonel?”

“No, Doctor.” Not in the last five minutes, Roark didn’t add. “Our latest word from Cheyenne

Mountain is to sit tight and await further orders. And the . . . Lokaron still haven’t been inclined to

chat with us.”

“But they’ve told us quite a lot, you know . . . just by the way they arrived.” Kazin’s eyes glowed

behind his Coke-bottle glasses, and his frizzy hair and beard formed a weightless aureole. Roark

smiled at him, and wondered what the ecstasy of scientific curiosity was like. “In the first place, their

message was in English. They’ve obviously been around a while for their computers to have cracked

the language.”

“But maybe not as long as we might imagine,” Roark demurred. “After all, we don’t know the

capabilities of their computers. Besides, nobody’s seen them conducting any studies.”

“Come on, Colonel! Remember how they just appeared out of nowhere, without being tracked until

they were practically entering orbit?” Kazin laughed nervously. “Big surprise! We’re dealing with a

technology that can beat the lightspeed limit and send a major expedition—not just some half-assed

little robot probe—across interstellar distances! Unless they want us to detect them, we won’t detect

them.”

“Funny the UFO cultists in the last century, with all their alleged photos and radar sightings, didn’t

think of that,” Roark mused. “But why do you assume they came here faster than light? Granted,

interstellar travel slower than that would take a long time. But it doesn’t violate any physical laws,

which faster-than-light travel does.”

“Oh, I’m not saying they can actually break through the lightspeed barrier. You’re right, that’s a

mathematical absurdity. But they must be able to get around it in some way.” Kazin pointed out the

viewport. “Those are too small to be STL interstellar ships.”

“Small? You call those things small?”

“Colonel, anything designed to keep a crew alive that long would have to be humongous! I don’t

care what it’s using for propulsion. And that’s another thing,” Kazin went on, words practically

tripping over themselves. “What does make those suckers move? They didn’t perform any magic feats

while matching orbits with us—they’ve obviously got to play by the rules of inertia. But they’ve got

nothing that could possibly be exhaust nozzles or anything like that. They have something that isn’t a

reaction drive—something Newton didn’t allow for. Something we can’t even theorize.” An

uncontrollable shiver ran through the young scientist, and he hugged himself to contain the trembling.

“Dear God! The things we’ll be able to learn from them!”

Roark felt a wave of sadness wash over him. He knew the type. Kazin was considered politically

harmless, or else he wouldn’t have been sent up here. Indeed, he was a member of the Earth First

Party . . . under constant suspicion, and as blissfully unaware of that suspicion as he was of the philo-

sophical contradictions between his work and the Party’s antiscience doctrines. It wouldn’t last

forever, of course. Sooner or later, he’d be told he couldn’t publish something because his findings

were ideologically unacceptable. Like the innocent he was, he would voice his indignation

openly . . . and there’d be yet another mysterious disappearance, officially blamed on “reactionary

elements” and used as an excuse for still further encroachments on the civil liberties Americans would

once have missed.

Presently, Kazin went below to his tiny cubicle. It was no accident he was staying at OCCS; it was

the only manned installation in orbit. The Orbital Command’s weaponry—and most especially the

fusion-pumped X-ray lasers that waited to die that they might yield up ultrahigh-energy pulses at the

moment of death—were unmanned. All the rest of the Command’s personnel were dirtside. Only

Roark and a few others were actually in orbit to oversee America’s remote-controlled defenders.

Defenders against what? he wondered in prudent silence. The continent-sized slum that is Russia? Or

whatever generalissimo is currently top snake in the snake pit that used to be China? Nobody else was

in space at all.

Roark’s eyes strayed to the bone-white crescent of Luna. Men had set foot there, more than fifty

years ago. The science-fiction writers of his grandparents’ generation had imagined a lot of things in

connection with the first moon landing . . . but not that humans would attain that ancient dream and

then simply drop the ball. Such idiocy had been beyond even their powers of imagination.

We turned our backs on the universe. Roark’s gaze swung back to the alien ships. But the universe

didn’t take the hint.

“Colonel?” The comm technician’s voice, charged with an odd mixture of diffidence and tension,

broke into his thoughts. “It’s Cheyenne Mountain, sir. Top security.”

“Of course,” Roark sighed. So soon? I’d hoped to have a little longer. He turned to the comm

console, where General Harris’ face looked out of the screen, as haggard as Roark felt. The image,

like the sound, was carried on waves that were scrambled into meaninglessness and reconstituted only

at this console, with no appreciable delay. The Lokaron wouldn’t be able to intercept anything useful.

“Colonel,” Harris said heavily, “the Lokaron demands have been reviewed at the highest level. The

decision has been made to implement Case Gamma, effective immediately.”

Roark heard the muttering around him in the cramped spaces. Everyone present knew what that

meant. He ignored it. “General, you realize of course—”

“Those are my orders, Colonel—and yours!” Harris’ voice cracked.

In a detached sort of way, Roark wondered at his own despair. This was, after all, merely what he’d

expected. “General, we have a civilian here—Doctor Kazin. I feel uncomfortable about putting him at

risk. I respectfully request a delay so that we can send him down. A shuttle can be made ready in—”

Another Air Force-uniformed figure pushed Harris out of the pickup. The new image in the screen

had only one star to Harris’ two. But that didn’t matter—Roark recognized him as the Orbital

Command’s resident political officer. “Doctor Kazin is a member of the Earth First Party, Colonel,”

he snapped. “As such, he—unlike, it seems, certain others—will recognize the necessity for this

action. He will be glad to place himself in the front line of defense—a defense of everything America

has achieved in the last two decades under the Party’s progressive, enlightened guidance! Everyone’s

behavior in this crisis will be subject to later scrutiny. Everyone’s, Colonel. Do I make myself clear?”

With a final sneer, he turned away.

Harris moved back into the pickup. “Carry out your orders, Colonel,” he said firmly. Then, with a

sideways glance as though to make certain he was alone, he spoke in a different voice. “Good-bye,

Mike.”

“Good-bye, sir,” Roark replied . . . but to a blank screen, for astonishment had rendered him

speechless until after the general had cut the connection.

He set to work briskly, allowing himself to think of nothing save the series of orders he needed to

give. Those orders went out, and at various points in various orbits, weapons began to ponderously

realign themselves on a single target, or rather a cluster of targets. The personnel of OCCS moved just

as mechanically, performing a task about which they dared not brood.

That task was about done when Kazin’s head appeared in the hatchway, wearing an expression

brewed from alarm and disbelief. Roark smiled. The rumor mill worked quickly in a small, enclosed

environment like this.

“Colonel, what’s going on? I’ve got clearance, you know. What are you doing?”

Roark heard a robot speaking for him. “You have the requisite clearance, Doctor Kazin, but not the

need to know. I must ask you to go below, as you are a civilian and we are about to enter a war

footing.”

The scientist’s expression took on a new element: desperation. “So it’s true! You’re going to attack

them! But you can’t! I mean—”

“It’s hardly my decision, Doctor. I’m acting under orders.”

“But . . . but. . . . ” Kazin clambered up to face Roark, and tried to speak calmly. “Colonel, this is

crazy. Do you have any idea what you’re dealing with? Just imagine . . . well, no offense, but imagine

a bunch of Civil War guys going up against the U.S. Air Force!”

“I repeat, Doctor, it’s not exactly my idea. However, I have no choice but to follow orders.”

“In a pig’s ass you don’t! We’re all going to die here, Colonel! And for absolutely nothing. Can’t

you understand that? You’ve got to tell those shitheads down there that—”

“Doctor Kazin!” The bullwhip crack of command in Roark’s voice stopped the scientist’s rising

hysteria dead. “This is an Air Force installation, and you are under military jurisdiction. You will

control yourself, or I will order you placed under restraint.” He leaned forward into the stunned

silence and spoke in a murmur only Kazin could here. “Come on, Sidney. Nothing I could tell them

would make any difference. You know that.”

Kazin’s lower lip trembled, and his eyes grew red. “But . . . why? Why are they doing this? I don’t

understand.”

He really doesn’t understand, Roark realized. But why should he? The only reason he’s an Earth

First Party member is because he has to be to get funding. “You saw the Lokaron message, Sidney. I

shouldn’t have shown it to you, but I did. They’re demanding trade concessions. They want to sell us

advanced technology. Stuff beyond anything we’ve got. And the Party can’t allow that. It rode the

antitechnology hysteria of the late twentieth century to power. It’s committed to freezing even our

‘dehumanizing’ homegrown stuff at an arbitrary level. How do you expect them to react to this?”

Kazin didn’t collapse—people generally didn’t in zero-gee. Instead he hung, a limp vessel of

despair attached to the deck by his magnetic soles, as Roark turned away and murmured a query to the

comm technician.

“Affirmative, Colonel,” was the reply. “All targeting solutions are locked in. And the groundside

system’s prepared to coordinate with us on a time-on-target basis.”

“Very good.” Roark straightened up. He glanced out the viewport at the sunlit slivers of the alien

ships, here within visual range, with OCCS under whatever they used for guns. “Commence count-

down.”

From behind him came Kazin’s broken voice. “It won’t even matter, you know. After they’ve

brushed off whatever you can do, they’ll go ahead and get their trade concessions anyway. So what’s

the point, Colonel?”

Good question, Roark admitted silently. But you wouldn’t understand the answer, Sidney. I’m

obeying these stupid, futile orders from a government which publicly despises me and everybody else

in uniform because if I don’t obey them my life will have meant nothing.

I’m not even sure I understand it.

It was, he thought with a touch of guilt, relatively easy for him. Unmarried, with his parents both

dead, he had no immediate family that he’d never see again. No family at all, really . . . except his

younger cousin, Ben Roark. Even at this moment, his lips twitched upward in a smile at the thought of

the ribbings he’d given Ben, now in his early thirties, over his career choice. A spook, for God’s sake.

What a disgrace!

The smile died aborning. Kazin was probably right. Ben would live in a world where the Lokaron

would be a fact of life—something new under Earth’s sun. What will that world be like?

The countdown ticked on.

CHAPTER ONE

The recent hurricane had left Grand Cayman even flatter than usual. But by some miracle the Buc-

caneer Inn, near the center of Seven-Mile Beach, had been spared, and its bar was already back in

business. So Ben Roark could sit in the sea breeze at one of the few authentic beachside bars left, and

toast the dispensation of nature which had left him his favorite watering hole. It was as good a thing as

any to toast.

He sat with his back to the hotel pool and the agreeably seedy buildings behind it, looking out

Caribbean-ward at the setting sun behind the array of bottles. Behind him and to the left, the pinochle

game was in full swing at the little table where, he was assured, it had been going on for at least two

generations, since the 1970s. Roark didn’t know about that, but he could testify that it had been in

progress since he’d started frequenting the Buccaneer. The players changed, one Caymanian taking

over another’s hand as the other shuffled off to do whatever it was Caymanians did, but the game

lived on. He wondered what would have happened if Hurricane Sergei had blown this place away.

Would they have set the table back up, lonely on the beach, and resumed the game in splendid

isolation with only the seabirds for spectators? Probably not. They would have found another hotel

bar.

Roark shifted position on the stool, careful to keep his back in its practiced anti-interruption arch. It

was how he always presented his back to the tourists—mostly tipsy on the foo-foo rum drinks with

little paper parasols that provided the bar’s profit margin—who shot curious glances at the white man

who obviously wasn’t one of them. He had no desire to be drawn into any conversation but the one he

was already having with Marlowe, who occupied the stool to his left.

The Jamaican dropped into the Buccaneer whenever he was in the Caymans on his obscure

business trips. (Drugs, of course, though Roark had never been boorish enough to ask him.) They’d

been talking about Jamaica, and Roark was just through telling Marlowe what he wanted to hear: that

Jamaica had an identity, it was a nation, not just an offshore U.S. beach like the Caymans.

“Dis mon speaks nothin’ but de truth!” Marlowe announced to everyone in earshot, thumping the

bar for emphasis. “Bring him another of what he drinkin’,” he added imperiously, in the general

direction of the bartender.

It was, Roark thought, good to know that some things never changed—like the way the Jamaicans

had of lording it over the blacks from the other ex-British colonies in the West Indies. The bartender

produced an Appleton’s straight up with wordless dignity, darting Roark a look of disapproval for

bullshitting Marlowe out of free drinks.

What the hell, Roark thought, it’s only justice. This way, at least some of the money he’s made

selling drugs to Americans finds its way back home. He instantly regretted the thought. The fact was,

he genuinely liked Marlowe—and most Jamaicans, come to that. It wasn’t their fault that Americans

were determined to destroy their brains. Given a demand like that, somebody was bound to supply it.

Jamaican drug dealers—and Mexicans, and Colombians, and the up-and-coming Haitians—had never

forced a single American to use their wares. Pointing out that fact was a one-way road to total

unpopularity in the U.S., whose national symbol should have been the scapegoat rather than the eagle.

Roark could attest to that.

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EagleAgainsttheStarsSteveWhiteThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.Copyright©2000bySteveWhiteAllrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbookorportionsthereofinanyform.ABaenBooksOriginalBaenPu...

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Steve White - Eagle against the Stars

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