Chapter 11 — PRISONER

She had stabbed me twice in the left shoulder, severing an artery, but in my vision-trance I had exerted control over the autonomic system and closed the wounds with minimum loss of blood. She had bitten right through my lip, but again I had sealed it off. The holo-tape showed it perfectly. That was what had cowed her: I had seemed like other than a man, a creature she could neither hurt nor resist. At that point it had become psychologically necessary for her to prove I was a man and that she could make me respond to her appeal. That she was a woman. The more I demurred, the more important it became for her.

The rest was routine. I took her back to her father's ship. The holo of the proceedings was not necessary; indeed, Roulette insisted that it not be shown, and that none of the witnesses speak of the nuptial night in any except the most general terms. As far as outsiders were concerned, I had charged in, gotten stabbed, disarmed her, knocked her semiconscious, and raped her while she bit through my lip: exactly the way it should be. Now she was mine, and she stayed close by my side and limped a little and obeyed my every word without protest, demonstrating the extent to which she had been tamed. It was a matter of pride for her to do this, to make it absolutely clear. Her father glanced at her and nodded, satisfied. He glanced at my bandaged shoulder and swollen lip and nodded again. Obviously it had been a good fight....

Now the alliance was made. It had, in fact, been sealed the instant I penetrated Roulette. The fleet of the Solomons became a division of ours, their stores of money became ours, and their men saluted our officers. We could now afford to purchase all the supplies we needed, without holding back on our pay roster. We integrated our commands, and I interviewed key Solomons personnel, making sure there were none who would betray our effort. There were none; whatever their nature, they were loyal to Straight—and to his daughter. Roulette was now our S-3 Operations officer and my wife, and that was good enough. And the Navy made no further issue of the Solomons' business interests. Straight had his legitimacy. I realize this may appear to be an accommodation with mischief, but my objection was not to gambling but to criminal activity. In the real world, such distinctions and compromises have to be made.

It took time, of course, for fleets are not integrated in a day. Or in a week. But we now had time, thanks to this alliance. We organized our forces, trained them—Sergeant Smith had his work cut out!—and prepared for the next battle. We had our Navy fleet, the Solomons fleet, and the remnants of the Fiji fleet, but our next encounter was to be with the Marianas, the most formidable of the pirate bands, and they were organizing, too. The fate of the Belt would hinge on this next battle.

There was one gratifying consequence of the marriage in another respect. My staff had been debating what song to give Roulette when she joined us, and factions were forming in support of one song or another. Spirit favored "Wheel of Fortune," which describes a man's glimpse at the body of a fabulously beautiful young woman and his dazzlement thereof, while Emerald preferred something relating to the ravishing of maidens. Our community was split; they referred to Roulette as "The Ravished" while humming "Wheel of Fortune." We needed to settle this, but neither Spirit nor Emerald would yield, their rivalry finding expression in the naming of a new officer.

Shrapnel, our hostage-status pirate, made petition to address my staff. I granted it immediately, knowing what was on his mind. He stood before us and spoke his piece:

"I hereby offer my service and my loyalty to Rue, if she accepts."

Roulette, annoyed by this familiar use of her name, frowned. "Why the hell should I want it, Fiji?"

Oops! I tried to catch her eye, but she arranged not to let it be caught. She remained imperious in little ways.

"I bring a gift that will please you," Shrapnel said.

"I need nothing from you!"

"Um, Rue..." Spirit murmured.

"Oh, all right," Roulette snapped. "You think you can please me, Shrap? Show me your power."

For answer, Shrapnel began singing. We listened, amazed, for he had the finest tenor voice any of us had heard, and complete control. Obviously he had had training in this, somewhere along the way; there was magic in his delivery.

Come all ye fair and tender maids

Who flourish in your prime, prime:

Beware, beware! Make your garden fair

Let no man steal your thyme, thyme—

Let no man steal your thyme.

 

For when your thyme is past and gone

He'll care no more for you, you;

And every day that your garden is waste

Will spread all o'er with rue, rue—

Will spread all o'er with rue.

 

A woman is a branching tree

A man a singing wynd, wynd;

And from her branches, carelessly,

He'll take what he can find, find—

He'll take what he can find.

 

It was the loveliest, saddest song I had ever heard, and the feeling came through with an impact that smote us all. The allegory was potent: a woman like a garden, with fragrant herbs growing, like thyme, that would be replaced by the bitter medicinal plant rue, if not properly kept up. But thyme is pronounced "time" and rue is also regret, and wynd is wind; when the wind carelessly plucks what it wishes and departs, the garden may be destroyed. For a woman to leave herself open to that is to invite heartbreak.

And the name of the song was "Rue."

Emerald and Spirit exchanged a glance and nodded. Rue sat stricken, not moving at all. The song was apt in so many ways, and so beautiful; there was no question it was hers. Shrapnel had done more than show her his power; he had named her. And her name was Rue.

Now Shrapnel saluted, sharply and cleanly, and held it until Rue, moving as in a trance, returned it. "Welcome to the S-3 staff, Shrapnel," I said.

In an hour the song was all over the fleet. But no one could lead it but Rue. She had to go from ship to ship, to sing it for each company; it was, in fact, her initiation.

 

In due course we arrived at the Marianas' segment of the Belt. My Navy fleet led the way with the Solomons auxiliary taking an alternate route through a channel in the Belt debris. We were to rendezvous at the Marianas capital region; then we would tackle the main pirate force in one definitive battle.

"I'm using the Mongol strategy for this one," Emerald said at our staff meeting. "I trust you all are familiar with it?"

Phist coughed. Spirit smiled. Naturally none of us were familiar with it. "I'm just a ravished pirate wench," Rue said. "What do I know of history?"

"Pirates do not study history?" Emerald inquired.

"We're too busy with the present."

"The Marianas won't be familiar with the tactics of the ancient Earthly Mongols, then?"

"What the hell do the Mongols have to do with us?" Rue demanded. "Of course, they don't know about that stuff."

"That's what I thought. Those who will not heed history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps you would be willing to play the devil's advocate here."

"The what?"

"I'll do it," I said quickly. I had learned already that Roulette had a prickly temper, especially where her areas of ignorance were concerned.

"Good enough," Emerald said. "You'll play the part of King Bela of Hungary. You have a force equivalent to that of the invading Mongols, and you are established west of the River Danube, while the Mongols, having destroyed Russia, are advancing southwestward toward you. What do you do?"

"Hold on, Rising Moon!" I protested. "I've got to know more than that! What kind of armament do the Mongols have? How does it compare to mine? Whose side are the natives on? What about supply lines?"

She smiled. "You're learning, sir. The Mongols are a real terror. The force they send against you is a spin-off from the greatest land empire ever conquered, but now their supply lines are so extended they must forage from the land. They are lightly armed horsemen, highly mobile, who tend to attack swiftly and retreat, then attack again. They have destroyed all enemies so far, including your associates, who underestimated them. But you are on your home territory, and the local people support you. In addition, it is winter, with deep snow all about, hindering their mobility and making it impossible for them to steal or destroy your crops. You have your secure bases, with ample supplies, while they are traveling in the open, lean and hungry. They're coming fast."

"Well, then, I'll just sit tight and wait for them," I decided. "And I'll attack them as soon as they cross the Danube, catching them with their formations unformed and their backs to the river, while they're tired from traveling. I'll probably pulverize them."

"One branch of their force splits off, attacking your allies to the north," Emerald continued. "The Mongols are successful, so you can't depend on help from your allies, but it is plain that this side campaign will prevent that smaller Mongol force from rejoining their main force in time to fight you. So in that respect their diversion seems to have backfired; you now face a slightly inferior force."

"I'll polish them off before their other unit gets here," I said. "It's my golden opportunity." I paused. "Unless they have a secret weapon?"

"Nothing physical," she assured me. "But strategically they're sharp."

"Like boosting drones backward," Roulette muttered. "Or mining their own bases." The other officers chuckled. The Solomons had been able to replenish their lost drones from the Fiji reserve force that had not come against us, but it had been an effective lesson.

"Well, you won't catch me with any of those cheap tricks!" I said, enjoying this. "I'm canny old King Bela, and I know my troops and my territory, and I'll follow sound strategic and tactical principles. The Mongols can't budge me by anything less than a full-scale attack, and I'm well prepared for that."

Rue cocked her head at Emerald. "Those Hungarians look pretty secure to me. How are the Mongols going to take them?"

"I think this is useful," Repro interposed. "Captain Hubris makes a good enemy commander. Why don't we continue him in that role, so he can provide an insight into the most likely course of the Marianas?"

Rue clapped her hands in a girlish gesture that startled me. She was, indeed, still young. "He'll make a great enemy! He's already a rapist! I won't tell him a thing, no matter how hard he beats me!"

She certainly loved that wife-brutalizing image! I had, of course, made love to her again, since the first night, but she had insisted on being violenced. This tended to put me off; I had risen somehow to the occasion the first time, but despite Repro's warning, I had hoped for the more normal, gentle procedure thereafter. This woman, it seemed, actually wanted to be sexually savaged. She referred to my rape of her not with horror but with pride. But that was another matter; right now I had to decide whether to remove myself from the strategy of this important upcoming battle. "Very well, I'll try it this time," I agreed. "You have made me play the role of a rapist; the role of an ancient king can't be worse than that. I hope I don't regret it." Little did I know!

"It will be your finest campaign, sir!" Emerald promised me, her eyes assuming that dangerous glitter.

And so I removed myself from the active planning of our strategy, becoming instead the enemy commander. For obvious reasons we never publicized this aspect; on the record I was the man in charge throughout. As a figurehead I was a success.

We crossed the river some distance from the main Marianas base. I must clarify this, lest the narrative become confused. The Mongol/Hungarian battle of 1241 had occurred on the land mass of the Eurasian continent on Earth, with the flowing water of great rivers representing significant barriers to the passage of armies, especially when those rivers were guarded by enemy forces. The Marianas from which the pirates took their name were a chain of islands in Earth's huge Pacific ocean. There the barriers were not water but land, often in the form of submerged reefs, limiting the passage of sea-traveling ships. But here in space there was neither land nor water, neither ocean nor reef. Yet the analogy held, for there were indeed rivers and islands. The islands were the countless planetoids, few of which were large enough to anchor a ship, but many of which presented problems for navigation at cruising velocities. In some regions there were extended bands of dust and sand that stretched interminably through the Belt, almost invisible from a distance, but highly abrasive and awkward for passing ships. A single particle of spaceborne sand could not significantly damage a ship, but a thousand particles could wear down the finish and weaken the metal, and a million could make that ship unreliable for extended use. In a river of sand there were many millions of particles, and their force could be felt beating against the hull, scouring it. No ship's captain could feel easy about that, so unless it was an emergency, he would not trust his ship in it. Certainly we did not; we sent drones out to scout the river in detail, recording all details of its curvature and thickness and density. Then we fumbled through a ford, a narrow section of the river that was relatively free of sand. Such fords were not necessarily obvious, as they slanted and twisted through the convoluted rivers, impossible to spy from afar, but this one was large and clear. It was evidently in common use, for it was marked by radio buoys. The enemy had not even thought to set a guard on it, perhaps because it was several days' travel from the base. So what could have been a delay for us was not; we hardly slowed our progress, since we had spaced our formations to provide sequential access to the ford. Mongols were smart about travel arrangements.

We proceeded at reduced velocity toward the Marianas. We were now in their territory, but there were few planetoids and there was no resistance. As the "Enemy King" I could appreciate why; all my forces had been gathered in to the central fleet, where they would be most effective. It would have been pointless to put up token resistance to the might of the onrushing Mongol horde. Even unimpeded, our journey took several more days, for space is vast.

By day Roulette shared the ongoing preparations for the encounter. I knew she had extensive knowledge of pirate ways, and that she was sharing her information with the other officers; she was invaluable in this respect. Shrapnel, too, was working with Sergeant Smith to train special forces; the two got along well together, and there was a lot to do. One good man can be worth as much as a cruiser! Like the Mongols, we were alert to the ways of the enemy. My use of the term horde above is, in part, facetious; we were no horde, and neither were the original Mongols. We were a disciplined, potent fighting machine, as they had been. Battles are seldom won by hordes.

By night Rue was mine, in her fashion. I have stressed that emotional love was no part of my military experience, yet to the extent I was able, I was smitten by her. It was not merely that she was the loveliest creature I had encountered, in every physical way the personification of beauty and sex appeal, though that was certainly a significant part of it. It was not that she was intelligent and spirited, though I liked that, too. It was no longer that she was forbidden fruit; now that fruit was in my possession. It was not that she was a nice person, for she was not; she was a tempestuous, strong-willed, sharp-tongued wench with redeeming qualities to balance it out. I think mainly it was the challenge that she represented; specifically, the emotional challenge. For if I did not love her, neither did she love me. She understood, as well as I did, the nature of this marriage; it was a necessary device to facilitate a necessary alliance. I had already made and broken one marriage for the benefit of the unit and might do so again; she had no absolute security. Yet I could not think of any man-woman relationship as purely political, not when it involved sex. Not when the woman was as vibrant and desirable as Rue. And I think she had some similar reservations.

She was in some ways a wild creature, controlled but not tamed. I wanted to tame her, specifically, in bed. I wanted sex my way. Gentle and loving and mutual. And she simply didn't understand. "You promised not to make me beg," she reproached me.

"Nonviolence is not begging!" I protested. "I want you to respond without humiliation or pain."

She looked at me as if I were uttering something disgusting. She had been raised to believe that rape was the natural order, and that a woman could only enjoy sex as an adjunct to some sort of distress. Anything else was obscene. She literally could not turn on unless treated roughly. If I refused to be rough, she simply lay there and tolerated me; her code did not permit her to resist me anymore, whatever she implied in public. The code varied from band to band and clan to clan, but she was true to her variant. Inevitably I found I had to strike her, or revile her verbally, to make her happy.

And so it seemed I had won the sexual battle, on the nuptial night, but lost the war. I had raped Roulette but could never share any other kind of sex with her. This promised to become a minor private hell, for I desperately wanted that other kind of relationship. I was a prisoner of her nature.

On one occasion, when we had come to an unsatisfactory culmination, I heard her singing faintly: "And every day that your garden is waste, / Will spread all o'er with rue, rue..." In a fury of embarrassment, I left the chamber. But on the next occasion, when she started the song, I struck her on the shoulder with what minimal roughness I could get away with, and she stopped, and it was better. She was training me.

Our fleet arrived at what we code-named the Danube: the larger, denser river of sand that sheltered the Marianas' base. We had split into three groups with the wings proceeding first, scouting the territory for resistance or ambush. When it turned out there was none, our center group accelerated at 1.5 gee and closed the gap rapidly. All three arrived at the Danube together, perfectly coordinated. My staff was competent about maneuvers.

But observing this in my role as King Bela of Hungary, I refused to be tempted by the seeming delay of the Mongol center. I remained safely ensconced beyond the river. Let the Mongols cross the single ford; I would mow them down while they were vulnerable, and if they did manage to cross, they would still be fighting with their backs to the river: an uncomfortable situation. The advantage was all mine, as long as I waited and forced them to come to me.

Indeed, my assessment was accurate, for the Marianas did not come out to meet us. Mondy's sources informed us that they had a fine and ready fleet, well disciplined and well supplied, probably able to defeat ours in open battle. But they were canny, waiting for us to commit ourselves, knowing that it would be ten or twelve days before our unit under Straight could join us, and that they could choose to attack us at any time before then. They could afford to wait while our supplies diminished.

I was of mixed emotions. I knew we had to beat the pirates and that Emerald had a strategy to do this that the others believed would work. But as King Bela I could not see how a Mongol victory was possible. The Mongols had to cross the Danube—and be vulnerable.

"I'm glad I'm not on your side," Rue remarked smugly. I whammed her on her delightful derriere, and things proceeded from there. I hated to admit it, but there was a certain pleasure in roughness. I had never had as intense an experience as the nuptial rape. Could her way be right?

Emerald muttered something about the situation being wrong and ordered a strategic retreat. The Mongols had made no effort to cross the Danube but went back the way they had come.

What? As King Bela I gaped, then realized that once the Mongols had realized that they faced a superior force in an impregnable position, they had known that combat would be disastrous. So they had to back off, stalling for time until their missing unit caught up.

Did I want them to do that? I decided that was not in King Bela's best interest. Cautiously I deployed some of my forces across the Danube, ready to back off if this turned out to be a ruse. But it wasn't; my advance only hastened the retreat of the Mongols, who were no longer in fighting formation. It hadn't occurred to them that I might advance at this stage; their horses were pointed the wrong way.

In space, my strategy was echoed by the Marianas. Suddenly our fleet was in genuine retreat. Whatever Emerald had planned had gone wrong; the Marianas had stuck to conventional strategy, refusing to be spooked or cowed, and it had paid off. Conventional ways are conventional because they are basically sound; one deviates from them at one's risk.

Emerald seemed disgruntled when I met her. "Well, it just didn't make sense to cross the Danube in the face of a prepared, alert enemy force," she said defensively. "So we moved back to give you some room; we can fight better in clear space, away from the river."

"But you can't turn a formation on a dime in space," I pointed out. "I'm coming out in forward-facing battle order, my van on your tail. If you pause to reform your formation, I'll tear you up. It's similar to the problem of a small ship trying to turn about in space, during pursuit."

"You won't follow that close," she said. "All we need is enough leeway to turn."

"I won't give you that leeway."

"You'll have to. We have faster ships than you do."

"Not all of them," I countered. "Any that lag will be lost, so you have to slow the main fleet to accommodate them. My own slower vessels can afford to trail; there's no foe behind us."

Grim-faced, she turned away.

I had my victory, but it tasted of ashes, for I was in real life the commander of the fleeing force. We would probably survive this debacle, for the Marianas could not force us to fight, but we certainly couldn't win a battle we never fought. Our reputation would suffer, and the remaining pirates of the Belt would hold us in contempt. Our fleet would be intact, but my mission would become impossible.

We accelerated but so did the Marianas fleet, keeping pace, nipping at our stragglers. My assessment was correct; our fleet velocity was limited not by the acceleration of our fastest ships, but by that of our slowest ships, while the enemy's pursuit was the opposite. Their fastest harrying our slowest; that was the awful reality of an extended retreat.

Our strategic one-day withdrawal became a nonstrategic flight in the second day, and a virtual rout in the third. There was no longer any pretense of orderliness; our destroyers hung back only to protect our rear, and in this position they weren't too effective at that. We held our losses to a minimum, but the retreat continued; there was simply no way to turn it. On into the fourth day it went, back along the route we had come. Disaster!

We were now closer to the other river we had crossed, dubbed the Sajo. Beyond that was the Mohi Heath, after which this historic rout had been named. I did not know the details of it, but I knew the Mongols had not gone on to destroy Earth's Europe, so the outcome was clear. How could Emerald have chosen this as a model!

If only Straight had wrapped up his side campaign earlier! But his diversion had been necessary, Emerald had explained, to protect our flank from attack by the pirates' allies. Also, it provided our pirate ally with some excellent opportunity for plunder; that had been a tacit understanding. He was to plunder only pirate resources and leave the colonists alone, and I trusted his commitment on that—but the delay had proved deadly for us!

And what would we do when we came up against the River Sajo? We could not turn south along it for several reasons. First, we could not make the turn without getting torn up by the spearhead of the Marianas, and if we did complete the turn, our right flank would be exposed to their continuing attack. And if we staved off that, where would we go? The Sajo was part of a tributary system to the Danube, joining it to the south. That was a cul-de-sac, a dead end. If we turned north we faced similar problems and would be heading into the mountains; in this case, the larger planetoids that we would have to maneuver around while under fire from the pirate van. No, our only choice was to funnel through the ford again, then try to prevent them from following. We could probably succeed in that, but it hardly mattered, for they would remain the clear victors in this embarrassing encounter.

"I'm glad I'm not a Mongol," I muttered with something like gallows humor.

"Get it out of your system," Rue advised, for we were in our chamber. "Rape me really hard."

The awful thing was, she meant it. To her way of thinking, a major function of a married woman was to alleviate her husband's distress of any nature by serving as the violent object of his rage. He could beat her up and vent his passions on her body and be at ease with himself, all tensions abated.

I looked at her, standing there in her translucent negligee. She was so stunningly beautiful! Oh, I wanted her, but not this way. "I almost liked it better when you hated me," I said.

She smiled sweetly. "I still hate you, Captain."

I shouldn't have been surprised or shocked, but I was. My illusions about the nature of this marriage had taken another jolt. Suddenly it was too much. I was in humiliating retreat on both the military and romantic fronts, and here was my ultimate defeat: her continuing antipathy.

Something crumbled inside me. I dropped facedown on the bed and sobbed.

Dimly I heard her disgusted voice. "What the hell's the matter with you? No man does that, not even when he's dying of a gut wound. Stop it this instant!"

But I was overwhelmed by defeat. I continued to cry into the pillow.

"You damned gutless wonder!" she swore. "Quit it!" And she struck me on the back with her petite fist. "I can't stand to see a man cry!"

I ignored her. She got on the bed, dug her hands into my side, and rolled me over. Through blurred eyes I saw her sitting beside me, absolutely helpless and furious. "You cursed baby!" she exclaimed. "What do I have to do to make you stop, treat you like a damned infant?"

"Yes," I blubbered.

"Shit!" she said.

But after a moment she reconsidered. "Okay, jellyfish! You want it, you got it. Come here, baby." And she lay down beside me, stripped her night clothing, and hauled my head roughly into her bare bosom. "That better, you sniveling weakling?"

I turned my head, and my cheek slid across her smooth, full breast. I closed my eyes, imagining it was Helse's breast. Suddenly I was at peace. "Yes."

"Oh, for God's sake!" she muttered, her efforts to shame me having failed. "I should smother you!" And she brought her free hand up to press her other breast at my mouth, preventing me from breathing through it.

I took her nipple into my mouth and sucked on it, a baby indeed.

"You bastard!" she swore, shuddering with outrage. "You spineless, ludicrous excuse for a man! That's disgusting! What the hell do you think I am?"

I closed my teeth, biting gently on her nipple. "Oh!" she exclaimed, but she did not draw away. "You're hurting me!"

Then she paused, evidently struck by a realization. "Do it again."

I bit her again, lightly. "You sadistic brute!" she murmured, and pressed her breast closer in to my face.

Then it was my turn to pause in realization. She did not have to be truly hurt or degraded; she only needed a pretext. We were playing at the game of "baby," and now she was getting into it. Perhaps we had found a compromise.

I held her close, and she held me close, and I worked on her divine breast. In due course she heated, physically, and became all soft and shivery against me. "Oh, God." she whispered. "Oh, God..."

And so, in our askew fashion, we made peaceful and mutually satisfying love for the first time. Out of defeat had come a kind of victory.

 

Our fleet did funnel through the ford. Emerald did a masterful job of integrating our dispositions so that the Marianas were unable to capitalize on our constriction. We shot through the river pass at relatively high velocity, decelerating, so that our ships would be in position to defend the ford. Here, at last, was where our six-day retreat ended.

The Marianas had to decelerate also, for they did not care to subject their ships to the rigors of the river of sand and were unable to use the ford while our ships guarded it. They had no other way to cross, so were at a loss. Balked, they drew up before the ford, ready but unable to attack. Almost, I shared their frustration; it was not pleasant to have the prey escape. What should have been a phenomenal victory for King Bela had been reduced to a mere advance, owing to the accident of terrain.

The Sawfish, facing back in order to decelerate, braked all the way to a halt, then proceeded back toward the ford. "What are you doing?" I demanded of Spirit, the first member of my staff I located.

"Attacking the enemy, sir," she said. "Now we have successfully re-formed; we can meet them face-to-face. What do you say to that?"

"I say I'll pulverize you!" I said as King Bela. "You're just as bad off here as you would have been at the Danube, and tired from a six-day flight, and shorter of supplies than ever."

"So you'll commit all your forces to wipe us out," she said.

"Of course. I'm certainly not going to back off now."

"Well, may the best fighting force win," she said.

She was up to something. But the Mongol course still seemed foolhardy to me. If they wanted to fight with their back to the river, they could have done that at the Danube. Here, if they won the battle, they would have nothing to exploit, for this was an uninhabited region. By the time they reached and crossed the Danube, the Hungarians could organize another effective defense. But the Mongols were unlikely to win, trying to fight out from the cramped formation necessitated by the bottleneck of the ford.

But I kept my silence. Evidently Emerald and my staff knew something I didn't. Whatever it was, I hoped the Marianas didn't know it, either.

The Sawfish crossed the Sajo and emerged from the ford. There, ranged in full battle order before us, was the entire Marianas fleet: a battleship; two small carriers; and ten destroyers, buttressed by numerous escort ships. They were poised, waiting for us to get clear of the river, so that we could not conveniently retreat again. This time they intended to be sure of us.

Our lesser vessels spread out around us. Our own carrier, the Hempstone Crater, was beside us, protected by the big guns of the battleship. But against the plainly superior force of the Marianas, what use was this?

The gap between us closed. The guns of the Sawfish fired; the unequal battle was on. The enemy ships advanced, eager to finish this campaign. They certainly seemed to be unstoppable. We could put up a decent fight but could not win. There just was not time enough to get all our ships through the ford and into play before the first ones were overwhelmed.

Then from our right appeared another fleet of ships. Peripheral dust around the River Sajo had concealed their approach, but now they were too close to hide. "What's that?" I demanded, alarmed.

"That's Emerald," Spirit informed me blithely.

"But she's here on the Sawfish!"

"No. The Rising Moon transferred to the Inverness last night—she's a nocturnal person, you know—and led two-thirds of our force to the other ford."

"What other ford?"

"The one our scouts located when we crossed the Sajo the first time. It's a subtle passage, and it seems the Marianas don't know about it."

"Don't know about it!" I exclaimed. "Are they fools?"

She shrugged. "Dear brother, you're King Bela. Did you know about it?"

"No, but—"

"Did you even think of the possibility?"

"I had other things on my mind!"

"The prosecution rests."

"Is that what happened at the real battle of Mohi Heath?"

"You got it. Bela's soldiers panicked, finding themselves attacked on flank and rear. The Mongols left the Hungarians an avenue of escape, and mowed them down in pursuit. In three days, about two-thirds of them were killed. It was one of the Mongols' most convincing victories."

I shook my head. "Next time someone else can play the role of the enemy commander! I don't like losing battles."

Roulette came up beside me. "Oh, I don't know. I can think of one a couple of nights ago—"

"Bitch," I told her. I had learned the hard way how much she liked that sort of appellation. But there, as in the space battle, my retreat was over.

 

It was indeed a massacre. The discipline of the pirate fleet dissolved, and it was each ship for itself. I saw the wisdom of the Mongol strategy: Had the enemy been completely surrounded, the ships would have fought with the courage of desperation. But since they had a route to flee, they turned and fled, and our faster ships had no trouble running them down singly.

We did not destroy their ships unless we had to. We closed on the best prizes and forced their individual surrender and took them over for our fleet. Those that refused to surrender were infiltrated by our commandoes, using the technique we had drilled on and that I had used to fight Sergeant (then Corporal) Heller. Now this preparation paid off. We took some losses, of course; these are inevitable in battle. But these were offset by much greater gains.

Roulette and I amused ourselves by transferring to the carrier and piloting a pair of drones. This was really an adventurous minimal-risk pursuit, since we never left the carrier. Each of us was ensconced in a framework of remote controls, the headsets feeding the drones' perceptions directly to our eyes and ears, our hands and feet operating the electronic directives. Both of us had had our prior practice in dronesmanship, of course, but never in a genuine battle situation. Our assignment now was to scout out the location and defenses of particular fleeing enemy ships, so that our destroyers could zero in on them efficiently. Efficiency was the watchword; we wanted to nullify as many of these ships as possible before they reached the Danube. Thus all trained hands were pressed into service, ours included, so that the drones would operate in shifts.

It was easy to get into the feel of it. The moment my drone was launched by the ship's catapult, its lenses became my eyes and its code signals my ears. It was almost as if I had sprouted a jet and a cannon and was flying in space—or riding a fine, fast horse across a plain. It was an exhilarating experience; though I was bound to my machinery, I felt free in space.

Beside me was Drone number 18, the one my eighteen-year-old bride had chosen. Though she was conversant with the mechanism, she had not before handled a Navy drone, so I would keep her in sight and advise her when she needed it. It seemed as if we were radioing each other in space, but the mechanism was simpler than that: Our natural voices carried readily across the two-foot distance separating our control sets. Soon we were singing in space, "...takes a worried man...", "...make your garden fair...", making a kind of harmony where none belonged, exactly as was the case with our marriage.

It would be nice if I could claim we accomplished some heroic, or at least significant, deed. But we did not; we were simply small elements in the massive salvage effort made by our fleet. We spotted a handsome corvette and covered it with our guns until one of our destroyers approached and forced its surrender. What was perhaps more significant, as I view it in retrospect, was our conversation while we waited for the destroyer to arrive.

"Hope?"

She seldom called me that! "Yes, Rue?"

"We have defeated the Marianas and soon will free your Jupiter base. Your mission to the Belt is accomplished. There will be no further need for the alliance between your fleet and the Solomons."

Now I grasped her concern. "And no further need of our marriage," I finished.

"Yes."

I sighed. "It was never my intent to hold you against your will, Rue. You have always been free to return to your father."

"A man is a singing wynd."

"But I do not take any marriage lightly," I said, nettled at the implication. "Many pirate and military marriages may be mainly matters of mutual convenience, and certainly ours has been, but I think you make an excellent S-3 officer and a fair wife. I don't want to lose you, Rue; I want the marriage to continue."

I half-expected an expletive of negation in response, but she was silent a moment. Then: "But you must return to Jupiter."

"I will take you with me, if you want to go," I said. "As a ranking officer I have certain privileges, among them the right to appoint whom I please to positions within my command, and to marry whom I please, in or out of the Navy. You are technically a civilian, but as long as you remain married to an officer of the Jupiter Navy, you will have status in the Navy. I remain ready to take you on a tour to Jupiter."

"You are not dumping me the moment my use to you is over?"

"That is not my way, Rue. I have made and broken a liaison and a marriage in the Service—but only for solid, mutually agreed reason. You are welcome to check with Juana and Emerald."

"The Used Maiden still loves you."

"So her song says. But does she say I wronged her?"

Rue sighed. "No. She speaks no evil of you."

"It's not a casual matter with me. I married you for the alliance with your father, but my commitment is not limited to the alliance. Not unless you wish it to be."

Again there was a pause. "What of Helse?"

"I did not promise you love. Your body delights me, but—"

"She's, dead, Hope!"

"Yes. But I love her."

"What of Megan?"

"What do you know of Megan?"

"You called to her, just before you raped me."

"It was a vision. I do not know her."

"But she will be the next woman you love."

I was silent, and the conversation terminated there. It would be nice if all conversations led neatly to significant conclusions, but few do. Our lives are not so neatly organized. But I believe this interchange marked another turning point in our relationship. Roulette was coming to terms with my nature.

We wrapped up the drone mission, and our fleet wrapped up the capture of the enemy ships. Some Marianas did escape—the fastest ships—but the enemy losses were about seventy percent, as it had been with the Hungarians in the thirteenth century A.D. of Earth. The pirates, who had not heeded history, had indeed repeated it.

Roulette found pretexts to be with Emerald as much as possible. Her purpose was plainly positive: She was highly impressed with the strategic victories we had had, and wanted to learn at the feet of the master (mistress). Emerald was gruffly flattered; she liked having a disciple, especially one who was a subsequent wife of mine. Perhaps not all of what they discussed was military.

I found myself associating more with Mondy, who was busy interrogating new prisoners, seeking information on the remaining pirate forces. Since he could not necessarily trust what they told him, he had me interview the key ones. I informed him who was lying and who was telling the truth, and that enabled him to assemble reliable data. This was important, as Emerald's strategy was based on the nature of the enemy as defined by her husband. Mondy had informed her that the Marianas' chief was prone to go for the big play, eager to capture quality slaves; he would be conservative until he believed he had the advantage, then sweep in for the kill. Exactly as he had done. Her ploy of Mongol retreat would not have worked against the more canny Straight. But this routine work required several days, and by the time it was done, we had crossed the Danube and laid siege to the Marianas' home base.

At this point I had better dissolve what remains of the historical analogy. This was not medieval Europe, and not the twentieth-century Pacific; it was twenty-seventh-century space, with aspects unique to itself. In this day, winning a battle was not the whole story; it was the necessary prerequisite to the proper completion of our mission. Now we had to ascertain what damage the pirates had done to the Jupiter base and get that base functioning properly again. That could take some time.

Mondy, chronically paranoid about enemy activity, urged me not to go personally to the freed Jupiter base until his men had checked it out carefully. Ordinarily I would have heeded his caution, but events prevented. Another pirate band, the Society, whose business was fencing pirated goods to reputable markets, was approaching with three carriers. I knew we would be far better off if we secured our main base before engaging the Society band. For one thing, we had many thousands of prisoners that we needed to park under guard, and the base had facilities for this that our ships lacked. There also should be substantial supplies there, to restore our fleet vitality. So I had to rush it, against Mondy's better judgment.

We sent in pacification troops in the guise of a liberation force. They were welcomed as saviors by the base personnel. Spirit ran rosters of names through her computer section, checking them against those of the base's original complement of officers. They checked. Apparently, the base personnel had been treated with temperance by the occupying pirates—at least until the outcome of the campaign was known. Mondy remained suspicious but had to admit it seemed all right.

"Look," I told him. "If I go there, and nothing happens, then we'll know it's all right. I can serve as a lightning rod; I'm the mission figurehead. We only have a couple of days to settle this before we have to meet the Society; this is the only way to do it in time."

"Take adequate guards," he said grudgingly.

"An openly armed force is no good," I pointed out. "I must seem satisfied, relaxed, unsuspecting." The truth was, I was sure it was all right. The pirates knew they had no future at the base and could only invite retaliation if they pulled any tricks at this point. "I'll go there on recreation liberty with my beautiful bride. But I'll bring my routine bodyguard."

"Not enough," he objected. "At least take Brinker and Shrapnel. They know the pirate ways."

That made sense. Brinker, in a dress, looked innocent enough, and once Shrapnel had sworn allegiance to The Ravished, he had proved to be extremely useful. He did indeed know the ways and faces of the local pirates. In addition, a picked squad of sharpshooters was assigned to keep an eye on us at all times, just in case. But we planned to act as if we believed we were mostly unobserved.

The physical premises were impressive. Several good-sized devices were anchored to the planetoid, much as they were on the moon Leda, and indeed this complex was on a similar scale. One reason the pirates had not killed the regular personnel was that it would have been impossible for them to maintain it themselves; they had to rely on the trained base personnel, both military and civilian. They had, of course, confined the base commander and his officers but had otherwise been satisfied with benign enslavement of the working personnel. Ships had been looted and supplies rifled, of course, and the base was in a state of general disrepair. Most of the young women had been raped; in fact, they had been converted as a class to a gigantic Tail for the pleasure of the pirates. But military women know how to handle rape; it is part of their training; these ones survived their months of captivity—actually, it had been just about a year—with only a trace of the trauma experienced by civilian women. Mainly, they were angry, very angry. The men, conversely, had been denied sex; the pirates hadn't wanted any others impinging on their assumed prerogatives. That was the first thing the Base personnel asked for when we took over: resumption of legitimate sexual activity. Roulette, as Operations officer, arranged for that with the mischievous malice of a pirate: She assigned the captive pirate women to Tail duty for the initial rush.

The Belt was nearer the sun than was Jupiter, so the energy of the sun was easier to come by. Jupiter-scale lenses had been set up here, however, in a typical snafu, so that there was too much concentration, making the domes so hot that surplus heat had to be vented. Water was circulated through the bed of the planetoid, heating the rock as it cooled, and the planetoid thus served as a giant dissipator of energy.

This made for the warmest water in captivity. Our small party quickly deserted the housed area and went to the wilderness training area dome, where a band of sandy beach paralleled a torus-shaped lake pretty much as I had described the phenomenon to Rue during our wedding struggle. She was delighted. We admired the lush tropical vegetation that had survived the inattention of the pirates, then stripped naked and plunged into the warm water and splashed each other like children while our more conservative companions sat on the hot sand in the sun and chatted idly.

But as we got deeper in the water, Rue turned serious. "I don't know how to swim," she said. "I've never been in water over my head."

"I'll show you how," I volunteered. God, she was beautiful this way!

"No—you'd hold me under, drowning me until I submitted."

"Now there's a notion!" I agreed, grabbing for her.

She didn't scream; even in play, she wasn't the type. "But I don't want to drown!"

"Then submit, slut! I've never had a woman in water."

"But I know you won't really drown me," she protested in a typically female reversal.

I got hold of her. "Pretend, damn it!" I drew her luscious, slippery body into mine.

"Pretend?" She seemed genuinely baffled.

"It's a game," I explained. "Like the mock space-battle game on your father's ship: a representation of something that is, in fact, more serious. I'm the violent man, and you're the innocent maiden from the garden of thyme. I will drown you if you even hint at resistance. You must do whatever I say, and it is rape because you are coerced by the terror of drowning."

"I suppose so," she agreed uncertainly.

"Hug me, wench!" I commanded. "Or I'll hold your head under."

She embraced me. The water lapped around the contours of our touching chests.

"Kiss me," I said. "Or..."

She kissed me—and with real feeling. She had always been good at game playing; she just hadn't played this particular game before. I realized that this was a way to tame her for gentle love: making a game of it, the actual rape replaced by the mere threat of violence. This had real possibilities!

"Wrap your legs about my—" I began.

"Alert!" Heller cried on the beach.

I broke the posture reluctantly and looked toward shore. Six men were charging across the sand, waving huge curved swords.

Our three on the beach had their lasers out, but they were not firing. I realized that there was a suppressor field on; we had been effectively disarmed. We had indeed walked into a trap.

Heller turned toward me. "Swim away, sir!" he called. "We'll hold them until the troops arrive. Stay clear!"

But Rue couldn't swim, so would be left victim to the pirates. Also, I did not relish leaving three unarmed people to fight six sword-slashing men. I forged on out of the water, and Rue followed me. "Should have known!" she was muttering in disgust. "I let a man kiss me, and this happens!"

"You stay out of it!" I snapped back at her.

"Like hell!"

The first two pirates came at Heller and Shrapnel, their curved swords slicing violently down. But both my men were conversant with this sort of combat. Both dodged and dropped, blocking the pirates at knee level, sending them flying to the sand. But as I watched the action, not yet able to reach them, I saw that the two were now vulnerable to the following two pirates. The swords slashed down before our two men could get to their feet.

Now Rue and I were on the sand, running, but traveling in my imagination in slow motion. I saw Shrapnel rolling out of the way, avoiding the worst of the cut aimed at him; but Heller slipped in the sand and was caught, and the blade sliced into his back. I suffered déjà vu: watching my father cut by a pirate sword. As then, I could not prevent it. Meanwhile, the two remaining pirates were converging on Brinker. She did not try to flee; she stepped into one with what seemed like an ineffective punch to his belly, but he groaned and dropped to the sand. She had knifed him! But the second caught her in his arms from behind, and her strength was no match for his.

At this point Rue and I arrived. Rue's shoulder crashed into the side of the pirate holding Brinker while I dived to wrest the sword away from the nearest fallen man. He hung on; I kneed him in the nose and he let go. Then I lifted the blade and clubbed him on the head with the hilt, knocking him out.

I looked up and saw that the other thrown pirate was on Rue, poking at her with his sword. Evidently her stunning figure had made him pause but not hold back entirely. She cried out as the edge sliced into her right arm.

Then it was as though a cloud formed around me—a cloud of horror and outrage. I saw the fallen body of Helse, crying to me, "Do it!" Helse—just before she died. "Not again!" I cried.

Then the sword was singing in my hand. A pirate came at me, his own sword raised; I dodged it and jumped past him and whirled, my sword swishing in an arc that intersected the back of his neck. The blade hung up on his vertebrae, but it didn't matter. I could tell as I yanked it free that he was dead.

I dived at the pirate attacking Rue and skewered him from behind My point entered his back and must have passed through his kidney; he dropped as I braced my bare foot against his buttock and hauled my weapon out.

I whirled to face the next, but he was already starting a two-handed chop at my head that I could not avoid.

Then he lost balance, and his stroke missed. Heller, supposedly dead, had reached out and grabbed his ankle and yanked it out. Now my own blade came around, slashing the pirate across the chest, and the blood welled out as he fell back.

One other pirate remained standing, and he was pawing at his face. Brinker, keeping her poise, had hurled sand in his eyes.

Now, at last, after these interminable few seconds, the security squad arrived. The sharpshooters had been caught by surprise by the nullification of their laser rifles. But now the pirates were done for. I picked up my shirt to wrap around Rue's cruelly wounded arm and staunch the flow of blood.

"You're a berserker!" she exclaimed faintly through pale lips. "You went crazy, tearing up those men!"

"I lost my bride to pirates once," I said. "I would not let that happen again."

"You did it to protect me?"

"Well, I value you; you know that," I said awkwardly, knowing she did not appreciate mushy sentiments.

She turned away. The security force took charge, and the brief, violent interlude was over.

Heller was dead. His last act in life must have been the one he took to save my life. He had fulfilled his vow, and I had no way to thank him. Except to leave him with a clean record and a commendation.

The pirate remnant had indeed set a trap for us. The six had been a suicide squad, hiding when the others vacated, waiting for the opportunity to catch us alone. They had intended to kill me or Rue or both of us, to deprive our force of its leadership and its basis for the alliance with the Solomons. The personnel of the base were innocent; they had known nothing of this.

Now we turned our attention to the Society fleet. Perhaps I should say that I turned my attention to it; my staff had been setting up for it all along. The Society band was not a strong one, but it had a lot of drones—twice as many as we could field at the moment. Mondy's information indicated that theirs was a suicide mission; they would send their drones at our ships and base without regard for their losses. In fact, their carriers were already decelerating, making ready to retreat; their drones would not even try to return to their bases.

This was awkward, because drones are hard to stop. They're small and fast, particularly when jammed up to top velocity, and they pack a considerable punch, and kamikaze drones have nothing to lose. We could try to shoot them all down, but probably they would loose their torpedoes the moment they came in range, and it is almost impossible to pick a traveling torpedo out of space. With targets as big as our battleship and the domes of the base itself, those torpedoes could hardly miss, and could wreak incalculable havoc.

This time I insisted on knowing Emerald's strategy. It was simple enough. "We've got to take out those drones before they fire, and that means sending ours out to intercept them."

"But they outnumber ours!" I protested. "Even if we trade off even, many of theirs will remain to attack us. They won't fall for the trick you used on the Solomons."

"Our drones will just have to take them all out," she said.

"We have how many drones now?" I asked.

"Thirty-three, on one and a half carriers."

"And they have?"

"Sixty-eight, on three carriers."

"And when drone meets drone in open space, what are the odds?"

"One drone can take out one drone in a given pass, if it shoots first and accurately. But the odds are about even which one wins, assuming the two are of equivalent sophistication."

"And is this the case here?"

"It is."

"Then how—?"

"I'm going to have ours fire on the bias."

"But drones can only fire directly forward."

"They fire in the direction they are pointed."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"Not necessarily."

I gave it up; she was unable or unwilling to make her strategy comprehensible to me. But I made sure to watch, for though this was theoretically a minor engagement, the consequences of a loss would be horrendous. We had to stop those drones!

I watched our carriers go out. The "half" carrier was a damaged one captured from the Marianas; spot reconditioning had proceeded only to the point of allowing a dozen drones to be launched from it, and only eight were actually available. With more time we could have done much better, which was probably why the Society was making its play now.

The carriers went out to the sides, so as to launch their drones at right angles to the path of the enemy drones. The ideal, in drone versus drone combat, is to "cross the T"; that is, to fire at your enemy from the side, so that he can't fire back. In fact, a formation ranged in even rows would be highly vulnerable to multiply placed shots from the side. That was one way a few drones could indeed take out many. The type of loading made a difference, too; the Society drones carried heavy torpedoes, while ours were loaded with explosive shells. We could fire four shells for every one torpedo they fired. Of course, we couldn't take out their ships very well, but we didn't need to, for a carrier without drones is like a panther without teeth. Had we been able to go for their carriers before their drones got within torpedo range of our targets, that would have been worthwhile; but their tactic of launch and retreat had obviated that. So we had to deal directly with the drones.

A more popular analogy, perhaps, is to the planetary aircraft: Some are bombers, able to damage landscape, while others are fighters, able to damage other aircraft. It does make a difference. Theirs were bombers, ours fighters. We had a better chance than I had first thought. Still, I was uneasy.

The enemy drones came on in staggered wave formation, somewhat like nestled flying-goose Vees, so that crossing the T became ineffective for more than one or perhaps two ships at a time. This was a standard precaution, and a good one. Each drone stood behind and to the side of its neighbor, as it were; the overall effect was that of a huge flying arrowhead. Nine drones were in the leading wing, four trailing to each side of the point. Seven wings and a wedge of five filling out the tail section. Each was positioned so that it could launch its torpedoes forward without being blocked by the drones in front; the wings were also staggered vertically, to add another margin of safety from interference, and to broaden the coverage of the target. Sixty-eight deadly missiles, headed for our base!

The enemy was aware of our defensive formation, of course, but ignored it. The Society knew we would take out some of their drones but also knew that with only thirty-three of ours in service, and their staggered formation, the very best we could hope for was a kill total of thirty-three. That would leave thirty-five of theirs to charge the base, for there would not be time for more than one pass. Our drones could not decelerate, turn, and reaccelerate to catch theirs, which were already traveling at speed. Our base guns would take out perhaps half the remainder, but the odds against getting them all were prohibitive. And if even one drone got close enough to launch its torpedo, a base-dome would be holed, and that would finish it. The sudden holing of a dome is more disastrous than that of a ship, for a dome is not a space vessel. The explosive decompression tears it apart, and even those people inside who are fully suited and ready are unlikely to survive, because of the violence of the destruction. We could not afford to let that one torpedo get through.

Emerald had said she expected to solve the problem by firing on the bias. I still could make no sense of this. Our drones were now accelerating toward the enemy formation at right angles. They would intersect the Society drones just outside torpedo-launching range. Our formation would be as plain on their radar as it was on ours: a completely conventional array, incapable of taking out more than its own number of enemy drones.

Well, at least our fire would be accurate. Emerald had tied it to our master firing computer after our pilots had positioned their drones. That computer was now orienting each drone to place its shots in a specific pattern. This wasn't really too complicated, since all shots went in exactly the direction the drone was pointed; several would be fired in rapid order, their shells timed to explode at diminishing intervals, so that the detonations would occur simultaneously along the firing line. If there were six drones in that line, all could be hit. But, of course, there were only one or two in any line. That was the problem.

The intersection of drones could be tricky. Since it was an advantage to be the second drone on the spot, so as to be able to fire on the first and destroy it, drones were given to abrupt cessations of acceleration near the point of intersection, to change their moment of arrival and foil the timed shells. They could also increase acceleration, to leave the shells behind. Even with light-speed tracking, there was a brief delay in corrections, and the tolerance was narrow, so there was only about one chance in three that a computer-placed shot would score. This was normally compensated for by having the defensive drones (that is, the drone-fighting drones) fire in formation, placing three shots in a line before the enemy drone. If all the spots the enemy could be were covered by exploding shells, then the likelihood of destroying it became total. But that used up a lot of ammunition. Each of our drones carried six shells, so could take out only two enemy drones on that basis—if it had time to orient on two. And if the formation was correct, since it actually required three drones to place a line of shells in front of any enemy drone traveling at right angles. So, in the very best of circumstances, we could take out only sixty-six enemy drones, and the two remaining would have a clear shot at the base. Our best was not good enough.

The two fleets moved close together. On the radar screen the blips were on the verge of merging. The moment of decision was at hand. I dreaded it.

Suddenly the Society blips were obscured. All across the formation they were breaking up.

"One hundred percent, sir," a technician reported, interpreting the radar image.

Emerald relaxed. "That's it, then."

"They're gone?" I asked, bewildered. "But the flights didn't even intersect!"

She sighed, pleased. "Must I draw you a picture, sir?"

"That might help."

She grabbed a note pad. She drew a pattern of dots. "Here is the enemy's nestled V-formation," she explained. "Note how no two drones are on the same horizontal line."

"Yes, of course. So we couldn't—"

"Note how they happen to fall into bias lines, five ships per line."

"But that's no good to us," I protested. "We were proceeding at right angles."

"We were coasting at right angles," she said. "But the orientation of our drones changed. We oriented on their lines and fired—"

"On the bias!" I exclaimed, catching on at last. "Slantwise, early, so as to catch five ships per line!"

"Well, some of their lines are partial," she said. "But we caught them before they made their evasive acceleration, so they were sitting ducks. Some of our ships took out five, and some only took out one, but we were able to cover them all in a single sweep. The Society threat is over. Now all we have to do is round up their fleeing carriers for salvage."

"It's so obvious in retrospect," I said. "Why didn't they anticipate this?"

"Why didn't you, Worry?"

I shrugged. I had indeed been worrying! "I suppose I'm just a conventional thinker."

"Well, you'll have credit for one more brilliant victory, figurehead." There was no bitterness in this statement; she knew that scholars of this campaign would quickly catch on to the truth. The Rising Moon had proven herself—again.

But already we had to plan for another battle, for the Samoans, the drug dealers of the Belt, were organizing. We had eliminated, in order, the pornographers, the gamblers (well...), the smugglers, the slavers, and the fencers, but Commander Repro and I had personal reasons to get the druggers. In addition, we knew that if we did not destroy the last of the major bands, Samoa would simply move in and restore the prior order of piracy.

At this point I was satisfied to leave our strategy to Emerald. I had to plan for the time beyond that last battle, our departure from the Belt. We had fences to mend back at Jupiter. I discussed it with my wife.

"We shall have to leave soon, Rue," I said. "My task force was commissioned only to clean up this mess in the Belt; the moment that's done, I must bring the fleet home. Once again I must remind you that you are free to—"

"That game," she said. "The one in the water. I think I know how to play it better now."

"I'm sure you do," I agreed, putting off whatever she had in mind until I had established my position. "There are certain problems, either way. If you choose to come to Jupiter, you will have to leave your family and band, and it may be your father will need you here. The organization of the supplementary fleet we have developed from salvage will fall to him—"

"Just tell me you will drown me," she said.

"On the other hand, if you come with me, as you are welcome to do, you will always be dependent on me for your status, for you will have none of your own at Jupiter. You must remain married to an officer of my level. So you should consider very carefully whether—"

"Please don't drown me, sir!" she cried. "I'll do anything you say!" She flung her mass of red hair about fetchingly.

"And, too, you must appreciate that you can no longer be my Operations officer there. The assignment has force only during this mission, in my task force. So I really cannot offer you much—"

She clutched my shoulders, drew me in, and kissed me. If this was feigned passion, it was an excellent feign. "Okay, kiss me," I murmured after the fact.

She reached up and tore open her own blouse. "Oh, sir—please don't rape me violently! I'll submit peacefully!"

"But I don't like submission," I protested. "I prefer mutual—"

"I'll pretend! I'll pretend!" she cried, bearing me back upon the bed.

This was getting quite interesting! "How well can you feign it?"

"About as well as you feigned fighting for me, there on the beach when you berserked."

"Rue, I wasn't feigning tha—"

She shut me up with another kiss. I shrugged mentally and proceeded to it. She was, after all, an incandescently attractive young woman, and this was the closest yet she had come to the sort of passion I preferred.

But as the climactic moment approached, she paused, suddenly sober. "Hope—"

"Don't tell me!" I said. "I don't want to be reminded of the pretense. You're doing great!"

"Would you hit me, please."

For an instant I froze. Then I realized that this was the one pretext she still required—reduced to a token, but still necessary. I brought up my hand and slapped her cheek hard enough to sting but not to hurt her. "Bitch!" I murmured.

Then she was all mine, or I was all hers, and it was good indeed. There is at times great joy in young flesh. But I realized that this was about as far as she could go toward my type of love. I had to be thankful that she tried so hard to reach this point. She really did want to please me, and had met me more than halfway, and I was deeply flattered by her effort. She did indeed please me.

As we lay there in relaxed dishevelment, there was a knock on the door. That had to be one of my staff; only they sought personal contact at this hour.

"Go away!" Rue called languidly.

But the knock repeated. Angrily, she flounced off the bed and proceeded naked to the door. She flung it open. "Go away, creep! I'm getting raped!"

Gerald Phist stood there, somewhat abashed. "I regret—"

"You want to rape me, too?" Rue demanded, hands on hips.

"Not exactly, attractive as you are. Something has come up—"

I knew Phist wouldn't interrupt like this without solid reason. "What is it, Commander?" I called.

"Sir, I regret to inform you that orders from Jupiter—"

"Jupiter wants to rape somebody?" Rue demanded.

"I'm afraid so," Phist said, evidently embarrassed by more than her spectacular nudity. "I am directed by the duly constituted authority, in accordance with article—"

"What's the gist?" I interrupted, alarmed.

"Sir," he said miserably. "I must remove you from command of the Task Force, and—"

"What?" Rue cried, her breasts quivering with indignation.

"—place you under arrest," he finished.

"You can't do that!" Rue cried, outraged.

"He can do it, and he has to, or he wouldn't be here," I told her. Then, to Phist: "What pretext?"

"Insubordination, sir. Consorting with pirates. Cowardice in battle." He grimaced. "I want you to know, sir, I support none of these charges. But—"

"No, I understand, Gerald," I said. "Do your duty."

"I must confine you to quarters. And your sister."

"She's your wife, imbecile!" Roulette snapped.

"Yes," he said soberly. "And I must ground the fleet."

"But we have to fight the Samoans!" Rue said.

"No. The directive is most specific. No further combat."

"This close to finishing it?" she demanded. "I smell a—"

Phist nodded, agreeing. "But the directive is clear. I'm sorry, sir."

"May I make a call out?" I asked, numbed.

"No, sir. You are to be incommunicado."

They were closing the net suddenly and tight! Which was of course the way such dirt had to be done. "Roulette—surely she is permitted to call her father?"

Phist hesitated. "It is true she is not Navy."

"Go call your father," I told her. "Tell him I have been deposed and arrested, so must void our marriage."

"Void our marriage!" she exclaimed, shocked.

"You are better off now with your father."

"No," Phist said. "I cannot permit her to leave our custody. She is privy to too much Navy information. She may inform her father but cannot join him."

"But she's a civilian!" I protested.

"She is a pirate. She must be interned."

I sighed. "Go make your call, Rue."

"Like hell! None of this shit is—"

I lashed out with my hand, catching her cheek with a backhand blow. "You understand me, wench? Tell your father!"

She stared at me, rubbing her face. I had never before struck her that hard. "I—understand you, sir." She fetched her clothing and donned it while Phist waited, ill at ease.

"I wish you hadn't hit her," he muttered.

"I had to make my point." Of course, I hadn't liked doing it but had to show her that I was serious, pirate fashion. There was more to her message for her father than the spoken part.

In short order Roulette was ready and left with Phist to make her call. Phist would monitor it, of course, and cut off the call if she said anything more than was proper in the circumstance. He would follow the book precisely.

Rue turned briefly at the doorway and glanced back at me. Already a mark was beginning to show on her cheek. It was, ironically, the mark of my affection. Then she moved on out. Phist closed the panel behind them, and I heard the lock click. I was a prisoner.