"Ah, no I'm not, Sir. But-well, the Star Union is a sovereign power, and they treated me as the Grand Alliance's representative for purposes of diplomatic protocol. It was a practical necessity if the alliance was to go forward."
"And," Kthaara said mildly, "you made the decision-on behalf of the Khan'a'khanaaeee, among others-that this alliance was worth whatever irregularities were necessary to bring it about?"
The force of absolute conviction stiffened Sommers' resolve and steadied her voice.
"Yes, Sir, I did. I was among beings who'd saved my life and the lives of my entire command-absolute strangers to them at the time. Beings who were fighting for their existence against the Bugs . . . and even then I had some inkling of what that meant, having heard rumors about what Admiral Antonov had found on Harnah."
Since returning, she'd learned those rumors had been true. It was a bit of knowledge she had not shared with Rikka. Still less had she shared it with Warmaster Garadden, Rikka's second in command. . . and a racial Telikan. They continued to believe that the Telikan homeworld's agony had at least been quick. She knew better now, and her voice wavered momentarily as she looked inward on the vistas of nightmare. Terrible as they were for her, she knew they would be infinitely worse for the beings she'd come to know as friends, not just allies in a war, and it was an agony she simply could not inflict upon them. But then she blinked those nightmares away and met the row of eyes across the table.
"Now we all know what the Bugs are. That's why we have a Grand Alliance. Not just to defend our own particular races from the Bugs but to destroy them before they eat the universe hollow of everything individual consciousness has brought into it. The capacity to love-and, yes, to hate, because some things ought to be hated. The capacity to recognize beauty and sometimes even create it. Most of all, the capacity to make moral choices-including the ultimate choice of sacrificing that very individual consciousness in the name of what all of us recognize, in one form or another, for what it is: honor. All of our races, however different, have those things in common. And so do the Crucians! They're part of what the Grand Alliance exists to keep alive in the universe. I did what I did because I couldn't do otherwise. What else would any of you have done?"
Abruptly, Sommers stopped. In the ringing silence, the realization of what she'd said caught up to her.
Well, she thought in the midst of a strangely relieved calm, I can always do something else for a living.
The rustling purr of an Orion sigh finally dispelled the silence, and Kthaara'zarthan flattened his ears in his race's gesture of resigned melancholy.
"Well, let me make certain I am clear on the facts as they seem to stand. On your own initiative, without any authority whatever, you released the Alliance's latest classified military technology to a hitherto unknown interstellar polity and committed the Alliance to support that polity against the Bahgs-"
"Yes, Sir," Sommers murmured.
"-all for no better reason than to save the lives of the personnel under your command, force the Bahgs to fight on a second front, split the enemy's attention and spread his resources thinner, and add another industrial base almost as large as the Khanate to the Alliance's support structure?"
"Yes, Sir. . . ." Huh?
Kthaara leaned back and sighed more deeply.
"Well, under the circumstances, I suppose we must approve your actions." His slit-pupiled eyes held a twinkle that transcended species. "Sky Maaarshaaal, do you concur?"
"Oh, I suppose so. Only . . ." MacGregor looked at Sommers, and sternness dissolved into a huge grin that made her face almost unrecognizable. "Don't let it happen again!"
"I'll try not to, Sky Marshal," Sommers said in a small voice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: The Last Roadblock
The staffers and subordinate commanders crowding Hiarnow'kharnak's flag briefing room rose respectfully as Ynaathar'solmaak entered. The First Fang didn't notice. Instead he stared aghast at the screen, where the planet Harnah showed in all its blue loveliness.
What graaznaak-brained idiot left the outside view on? The sight of that planet is not what we need! And of course it would be out of the question for me to order it turned off now. All I can do is try to ignore it.
So he made the best of a bad situation and proceeded to his place at the table with a mumbled "Please be seated." They did so, led by the trio directly across from him: Warmaster Rikka, who'd asked for this conference; his Telikan second in command, Warmaster Kazwulla Garadden; and Aileen Sommers.
Even though Ynaathar considered himself-not without reason-a cosmopolite, it was never easy to read the body language of aliens, especially of aliens whose species one had only recently encountered. Despite that, he could tell that Rikka and Garadden were in the grip of some strong emotion, sternly controlled-an emotion rising, in Garadden's case, to the level of waking nightmare. Equally obvious was an element of strain between Rikka and Sommers that hadn't been there before, a certain stiff, self-conscious separateness in the way they sat side by side.
"This meeting," Ynaathar began, "has been convened at the request of the commanding officer of Task Force 86."
That was First Grand Wing's designation within the organizational context of Eighth Fleet. Rikka had accepted it with every appearance of good grace, and Ynaathar was certain it had nothing to do with whatever was bothering the Crucian. It was certainly an appropriate designation, given the sheer size of Eighth Fleet, and the warmaster had clearly recognized the need to fully integrate his own command into the far larger Allied force structure in a way which would minimize communications and command bottlenecks.
At the same time, Ynaathar was beginning to realize that the Crucian "task force" was a strategic asset whose value far exceeded its mere tonnage. The SBMHAWK bombardment of the Anderson One warp point fortresses had reduced them effectively to rubble, and no major Bug fleet units had been committed to the defense of the system. But that didn't mean they'd been unopposed, and the gunboats and kamikaze shuttles based on Harnah had swarmed to meet them. The Crucian fighter pilots were eager to upgrade to the specially modified F-4s the Federation was already putting into production to suit their own life support and body form requirements, but what they could do with the "obsolete" F-3s was an eye opener. They'd cut their way through the Bug gunboats and small craft like a laser scalpel, and Ynaathar knew their efforts had substantially reduced the casualties Eighth Fleet would otherwise have suffered.
Which made Rikka's obvious unhappiness even more distressing to the fang. He watched the warmaster's folded wings quivering, as if he was constantly forced to restrain their need to unfold in agitation, and hoped this meeting wasn't going to be as bad as he feared it might.
"As all of you know," he continued after a moment, "our recon fighter screen has reported that the only starships still in Aaahnnderrssson One are the thirty warp point defense cruisers in orbit around the planet." He neither named Harnah nor indicated the blue globe floating serenely in the screen behind him as he went on. "Our sensors have confirmed that the starships are tied into the planetary defense nets, which, of course, means they would be able to use the planetary point defense installations to support their own anti-missile defenses if we should decide to attack them in a . . . conventional manner."