Starfishers Volume 3: Stars End Read Free Page B

decided,” said the Star Lord of the Marine Toke Legion.
    “He speaks for Toke,” his non-Service superior added. “For Toke there can be but one decision. We will come to them here. Alone if we have to.”
    “It’s not that easy for me, Manfred,” Melene said. “We’re an adventurous species but I’m handicapped by democratic traditions and faith in peace. We don’t organize quickly or well.”
    Von Staufenberg chuckled. “You did before.”
    The Defender was older than he. She had been a soldier throughout the Ulantonid War.
    “I expect we will again. We can do anything when we decide to pull together. It’s the decision process that’s so abominably slow.”
    “Your decisions were made years ago, Melene,” Beckhart growled from his radar boards. “Don’t try to snow us. I can give you the names and hull numbers of a hundred new construction ships you’ve got tucked away in places you never thought we’d look.”
    “Admiral Beckhart?” von Staufenberg queried.
    “I have my sources, sir. They’re rearming as fast as their shipbuilding industry can space hulls. They come off the line looking like commercial ships, only they’ve got drive potential up the yang-yang, and they never get delivered to any of the transport outfits. They disappear for a while, then turn up somewhere else with guns dripping off them.”
    “Why wasn’t High Command informed of this, Beckhart?”
    “Because my sources are in the Defender’s office. And I knew why they were rearming. You wouldn’t have bought it. Half of High Command is still trying to refight the Ulantonid War. I let it go on playing that game because people were seeing enough of those new ships to get nervous and start us a secret building program of our own. So we’re on our way too.”
    “Beckhart . . . Your logic baffles me. Totally baffles me. I have the distinct feeling that you’ll have to explain it to a Board of Inquiry. What else have you hidden from us?”
    “You want an honest answer, or one that will please you?” Beckhart did not make many friends. He retained his position principally because no one else could do his job as well.
    “Beckhart!”
    “Several things, sir. Ongoing operations. If they work out, we’ll be in good shape for meeting these monsters.”
    “Monsters?” Melene demanded. “There’s no evidence . . . ”
    “Melene, the Admiral is a xenophobe. In fact, he doesn’t like people very much. Tell me what you’re doing, Beckhart.”
    “There’s a chance I’m on the threshold to the solution of the Sangaree problem. Some new data was on its way in before we left. I’ll probably want to borrow von Drachau again.”
    “What else?”
    “Still too tentative for discussion. A possible breakthrough in communications and weapons technologies. I won’t discuss it now. Not here.”
    “Beckhart . . . ”
    “Security privilege. Sir. Log it if you like.”
    Von Staufenberg wheeled on the Director of Naval Intelligence. She shrugged. “You won’t get anything from me, either, Manfred.”
    “Damn! All right, let’s get moving. Time’s running out, and everybody’s got to have a look at this.”
    Cumbers were the most cramped vessels since Gemini. Circulating the forty-odd beings aboard was a slow, uncomfortable process.
    “She’s about to start shooting,” Beckhart said of the nearest destroyer. “She has. Missile swarm. We have four minutes to hide.”
    “How do you like that? Didn’t even try to find out who we were or what we wanted.”
    “This is the Ship’s Commander,” von Staufenberg said into the public address system. “We’re under fire. Engineering, stand by to go Null.” Thirty seconds before the swarm arrived, he ordered, “Take her up to ten Bev. First Watch Officer, a gesture is in order. Program me an attack approach on the vessel shooting at us.”
    The Ulantonid’s feathery antennae stirred, quivered. The action was comparable to a human’s pleased chuckle.
    The Star