The Insurrection

"Captain! Admiral Singh is coming up on the all-ships cha

Thomas Singh had always struck Han as belonging to an earlier age. The neatly-trimmed beard in fashion among the Fleet's male officers somehow contrived to look fierce and predatory, on Singh, and never more so than now. His dark eyes flashed, and the lips under his hooked nose were tight. When he spoke, his voice was harsh and cold.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.

Captain Willis Enwright and others aboard the flagship have mutinied against the lawful orders of their superior officers and against their oaths as officers and enlisted perso

"Captain?" Tsing's normally passionless voice questioned, and Han felt his eyes, felt the burning questions in the minds of her bridge perso

And how strong was that trust? They were Federation officers, trained and sworn, yet they were also Fringers. How could she--how could anyone hold them in a moment like this? For an instant, she felt as small and frail as her appearance suggested, but her finger touched a stud on her chair arm, and she heard Tsing's breath hiss as her eom panel to it with the face of Captain Wang Chung-hui, commander of Longbow's Marine detachment.

ISURRECT-OATION 89 Wang's cheeks quivered under her level regard, but there was no strain in her face, he thought almost resentfully. What was she about to demand of him?

He knew his duty.., but he, too, was a Hangchowese.

"Major Wang," Han's voice was cool, and Wang felt a stab of near hysterical mirth.

There could be onlv one "captain" aboard a warship, yet it was typical of Li Ian to remember a point of etiquette and give him his courtesy promotion at a time like this. She was the smallest person in Longbow's complement; she was also the largest.

"Yes, sir?" he said hoarsely, and his heart sank as he realized that when she ordered it he and his men would don their combat zoots and board Anderson, blasting down anything in their path. Not because of dutv or Admiral @u Singh, but because Captain Li had ordered them to, "You heard Admiral Singh, Major," Han said softiv.

"Ye*sir."

"Report to the armory, Major." Wang's heart plum- meted. "Draw combat gear for your men, then post guards on the boatbay and all auxiliary hatches.

Nobody leaves this ship. Is that clear?" His "Sir?" Wang blinked. Guard the boatbay and hatches? Seal them? Then she wasn't... "Yes, sir.r' Wang barked, and the salute he threw her would have done credit to the commandant of the Corps.

"Thank you, Major." Hah broke the circuit, her face still calm, despite the sweat beading her hairline. She continued to ignore her bridge crew, forcing herself to remain oblivious of the holstered lasers riding at every hip as she touched another stud.

"I am your commander. As a sworn officer of the Federation Naeaity, I have no choice but to obey my lawful superiors, just as you have none but to obev me. Yet some orders ca

"I intend," she went on, her voice clear and strong, "to place this vessel at the service of the Kontravian Cluster. Any who disagree with that decision are free to leave. Report to Major Wang at the boatbay--without weapons. That is all." She released the stud and turned her chair slowly, meeting Commander Tsing's eyes squarely before she to et her gaze sweep her other officers.

Every holster was sealed. No one spoke in encouragement or condemnation. That wasn't the Hangchow way, she thought almost whimsically.

But there was a way to gauge their true feelings.

"Lieutenant Chu?" "Yes, sir?" Her navigator sounded breathless, but there was snap in his voice.

"Lay off a course to place us between Anderson and the rest of the task force, Lieutenant Chu." "Aye, aye, sir." And that was all there was to it.

Commander Windrider watched Basilisk peel off the edge of the formation--and she was only the first. The monitor Prescott slid drunkenly aside as fighting wracked her command deck and navigation spaces before the drive could be cut. The destroyers and cruisers of the screen went berserk as their complements turned on one another, and garbled scraps of chatter told him the fighting had become general aboard Enwright, as well. Only one ship was under complete command. He watched his display as a single battle-cruiser shot out of the scrambling formation to hover between Anderson and her consorts. The data codes gave her identity, and her shields were up, her weapons on line.

"Alert! Alert!" A computer voice wailed, then choked off, replaced by Captain Hodah's voice, and Windrider smiled" bitterly. There was no taped message for this madness.

"This is the Captain! All persons resisting their lawful superiors will cease immediately or face summary courts martial for mutiny! Marines will lay aft to the boatbay and prepare to board Anderson pursuant to the orders of Admiral Thomas Singh. Any person resisting execution of this order will be stopped. Marine officers are instructed to use weapons immediately in any ase of resistance. This is a direct order--and your final warning!" Windrider blanched. Hodah was a calm, humane man; for him to turn the Marines against his own people with a virtual license to kill and to a

A trident buzzer shrilled, and his eyes widened. The passages outside fire control were depressurizing... and that could happen only ff someone deliberately spilled atmosphere! God!

. or a nuke. Had Hodah done it to keep mutineers away? Or had the mutineers done it to isolate fire control from the loyalists? But the deck plates still pulsed to the rhythm of the drives, so Hodah had secured the power plants, or slaved their controls to the bridge. Was the power gang alive, or breathing space? What was happening out there? Who controlled what in the lunatic asylum which had once been a capital ship?