And then he did weep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
One hour later, Outworld Coalition Headquarters,
the planet K’tok
15 September 2134
Takaar Nuvaash, formerly Speaker for The Enemy of the uBakai Star Navy’s First Striking Fleet, now between assignments and technically still a prisoner of war, relaxed on the couch in Commander Atwater-Jones’s office, awaiting her return. He had seen the video proceedings of the Board of Inquiry, seen the session adjourned, and knew how far it was from the conference room back to the office: no more than a hundred steps and a one-floor lift ride. Unless she had been intercepted and detained, she should be back—
The door burst opened and she strode in, tossed her hat on her desk, and turned to him with a sour look.
“Well, what did you think?”
“I think you made your opinion of Lieutenant Brook abundantly clear,” Nuvaash said.
She walked behind her desk and sat down, shaking her head. “I hardly think so. I did not physically assault him. I did not spit in his face. I thought I was remarkably restrained.”
“I did too,” Nuvaash heard through the partially open door, from the voice he now recognized as belonging to Rear Admiral Goldjune. The admiral entered the room and Atwater-Jones jumped to attention. Nuvaash stood up as well, although not quite as quickly. He was, after all, something of a guest.
The admiral looked at him and frowned. “You hang around here a lot. What are you doing?”
“Until a moment ago I was sitting on this couch, and a few minutes before that I was watching the vid feed of the proceedings, and before that reviewing the news concerning the imminent collapse of civilization. Before that—”
“Yeah, okay. So how do you feel about this revelation that the Varoki didn’t invent the jump drive?”
“Speaking as a Varoki, you mean,” Nuvaash said, and he spread his ears wide to make the point.
“Speaking as a military intelligence specialist who is also a Varoki,” the admiral answered.
“How do I feel? I feel a great many things. Fear. Relief, oddly enough. And a certain intellectual satisfaction. Honestly, the story of how we supposedly invented the drive was never very satisfying from a logical point of view. This explanation makes much better sense.”
“How many of your people are going to agree with that?”
“My people, by which you mean Varoki? Very, very few at first, but much will depend on what accompanies the news.”
“Hard to deny it, now that there’s a Guardian spacecraft making the glide into K’tok orbit. Probably get here in a week.”
“You are aware that several Varoki news feeds have already claimed Captain Bitka was never onboard Cam Ranh Bay, and has been sighted at five different locations throughout the Cottohazz?” Nuvaash said. “It is not hard to deny anything if you want to badly enough, Admiral Goldjune. Not unless the sceptics are allowed to witness the vivisection of this new Guardian, and as all the sceptics cannot be fit in the room, the rest will claim even that was a hoax. Some of those in the room will doubt as well.”
“I doubt that Guardian P’Daan would volunteer for the process,” the admiral observed. “Why won’t they believe? Near as I can tell, the average Varoki gains no more material benefit from the jump drive patents than the average Human or Katami or Zaschaan.”
“Very true, sir. But the trading houses all but control government and public discourse, and they have made the jump drive monopoly a point of pride.”
“Pride,” the admiral said, turning away from Nuvaash, “the universal vice of fools.” He sank into the chair in front of the desk and waved for Atwater-Jones to sit as well. Nuvaash did at the same time, hoping to revert to being an observer rather than participant in the conversation. You never learned much of interest by talking.
“Never-failing, sir.” Commander Atwater-Jones said as she sat.
“How’s that?”
“Alexander Pope called pride the ‘never-failing vice of fools.’”
“So, you trust him?” the admiral asked Atwater-Jones, nodding toward Nuvaash, which Nuvaash found interesting but somewhat strange.
“That is a simple question with a complicated answer,” she said. “I trust his discretion and I trust his word. I also trust his sense of loyalty to his nation and duty to his service to take precedence over whatever friendship he feels for me.”
“You’ve run agents before. Can we turn him? He’d be a hell of an asset.”
She glanced over at Nuvaash and then back at the admiral. “You know he can hear you, sir.”
“So what? If we can turn him, we can. If we can’t, we can’t.”
“We cannot, sir.”
Admiral Goldjune turned slowly to Nuvaash. “Is that so?”
“Absolutely,” he answered. “Not that the thought of being a double agent lacks romance and excitement, but in truth I would be a triple agent, and I am certain Commander Atwater-Jones would discover that almost at once and be forced to kill me. I like her far too much to ever consider putting her through an experience that traumatic.”
“It would undoubtedly scar me for life,” she agreed with a nod and a crooked smile.
“You two should take this act on the road,” the admiral said. “In fact, I’m going to give you the chance. Right answer, by the way, Nuvaash. Will you please open your commlink, Vice-Captain?”
Nuvaash hesitated for a moment—he was not in the habit of lowering his e-guard for just everyone, and he was still technically a prisoner, which gave him some legal recourse in the matter, but he had come to trust Rear Admiral Goldjune and he did as requested. He felt the tingle at the base of his skull which meant a data transfer. No, two.
“Two documents,” the admiral explained. “First one is your complete parole. We’ll haggle with your government over details for a while, but one way or another, there’s going to be peace between the uBakai and the Outworld Coalition. With this Guardian business going on, everyone has bigger fish to fry. Until the peace is official, you’re a free agent, at least from our point of view. Second document you better read yourself. Got a pair of viewer glasses?”
Nuvaash shook his head but Atwater-Jones, a look of both surprise and curiosity on her face, handed him the pair lying on her desk.
The first document was indeed his official parole. The second message was an order from the uBakai Star Navy Fleet Operations Directorate attaching him to Rear Admiral Goldjune’s staff for “extraordinary duty as directed by your acting superior, subject to the mandates and strictures of the uBakai Star Navy Code of Behavior.” Nuvaash took the glasses off and looked at the admiral, trying to fathom what this meant. The admiral was smiling, and why not? As the Humans would say, he was certainly having the last laugh.
“Those orders came to me through your armistice negotiating team,” the admiral said. “You’ll want to verify them, of course.”
“Of course,” Nuvaash said, “but I have to say I have never heard of such a thing in my entire career.”
“You’ve been assigned to Human naval staffs before. I know that from our own intel people. You even did time as a liaison officer with the US Navy.”
“But not while in a technical state of war with them. How is this supposed to work?”
The admiral’s smile broadened and he leaned back in his chair. “Lots of good will, I suppose. You probably wonder why your superiors ever agreed to such a cock-and-bull setup. Until the formal peace is signed, we’re still working under the terms of the provisional ceasefire agreement. Article Nine includes a proviso which requires your government to render all reasonable assistance in the event of unforeseen and/or extraordinary circumstances which may threaten the stability of the K’tok system or the welfare of its inhabitants.”
“Ah,” Nuvaash said. “Well, I would say the appearance of the Guardian P’Daan counts as both extraordinary and unforeseen. Very well, admiral. I am honored to serve on your staff. What are my duties?”
&
nbsp; “Deputy to Commander Atwater-Jones.”
“Cryptanalysis Department, sir?” she said. “But that’s all highly classified. You can’t mean—”
“Heck, that job was just an excuse to keep you on staff after they closed down the Incident Seventeen Working Group. You don’t actually do any of that stuff, do you?”
“Well . . . Lieutenant Commander Nightingale does keep the department ticking along rather well on his own,” she answered.
“’Course he does. He can take over and it’ll look good on his record. I’ve got a new job for you: head of our Guardian intel collection and analysis desk.”
“We have such a thing?”
“We do now.” The admiral thumped her desk with his hand twice. “Right here. Far as I know it’s the first Guardian desk anywhere. Hell of a responsibility for you, Cass. Hell of an opportunity, too. You’re right at ground zero of this with a shipload of intel assets just coming out of quarantine. Play this right and it can make your career. That’s got to mean something.”
“Survival of Humanity as a free species ranks rather higher, sir, but repairing my career would not be an unwelcome bonus.”
She said this lightly, but Nuvaash saw the light in her eyes, heard the excitement in her voice, and knew it was not simply about survival or ambition. It was a hunger to know, and to know before anyone else did. He understood because he felt it as well.
“And Leftenant Brook?” she asked, her expression darkening.
“I know this board of inquiry is important to you,” the admiral said, “but it’s time we looked beyond it. After what you did today, Brook’s finished. I’ve got a fairly junior commander sitting on the beach who’s anxious for a command, and the Bay needs someone with more rank than a lieutenant anyway, so I just signed the papers for Commander Beauchamp to take over Cam Ranh Bay effective tomorrow. There won’t be a finding from the Board for another few days, so I’m calling this a routine relief.
“You know how this works as well as I do, Cass. What he did was contemptible, but within regulations. I imagine the board findings will hint at the first and officially find the second. We can all wish he’d broken that truce and grabbed Bitka, but as an official organ of the Combined Fleet of the Outworld Coalition we can’t very well reprimand him for not violating the Articles of War. He’ll revert to his job as XO until I can find a loose lieutenant commander to fill that slot, and then he’ll revert to his original job as Ops Boss. They’ll take the Bay back to Earth for repairs but, with both orbital shipyards still wrecked, that’s not going to happen any time soon. They’ll put her in a parking orbit with nothing but an anchor watch, and reassign the crew to other duties.
“Navy’s a small society with a long memory. I doubt Lieutenant Brook will find his next assignment very interesting, or his next promotion board very pleasant. He’ll carry a yellow stain on his name as long as he’s in the Navy, which probably won’t be that much longer. Two promotion boards pass on him and he’ll be out. Navy don’t cotton to old lieutenants. Satisfied?”
She leaned back in her chair and studied the ceiling before answering. “No,” she whispered after a moment, and sighed. “I suppose if I had his gutted carcass here on my desk and his bloody heart in my hand—like one of my Celtic ancestors—I would still feel unsatisfied. Nothing will satisfy me except Bitka’s return, alive and intact if possible, but his return in any case. Tell me that is at least part of the negotiations with that thing, P’Daan.”
“It’s on the agenda,” the admiral said, but without much force. “It has to be. Can’t not say we’re concerned about bringing a hero home. But he’s become a damned inconvenient hero.”
“He always has been,” Cassandra said, “but I never expected to hear you say that, sir.”
“Not my thinking,” the admiral answered, “but my thinking doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Now it’s all about my brother and his circle. You saw how the tone changed in our proceedings just in the last few days.”
“Your mean your friend, Captain Karlov,” she said.
The admiral nodded sadly. “Lucinda and I used to be friends, as a matter of fact. Times change.” He looked down at his feet for a moment. “They wanted to turn this board their way. That didn’t work, thanks to you, so now there’s going to be a separate Court of Inquiry. Going to examine Bitka’s actions at the start of this new war, if war’s what it is. Damned if I know what to call it.”
Atwater-Jones sat forward in her chair, eyes flashing. “A court? Who’s to be on it? Certainly not me, but who?”
The admiral looked up at her. “I have no idea. I’m not the convening authority; the CNO, my brother Cedric, is, same as with this board we’re finishing up. He meant to blindside me with this new court, but I’ve still got some friends on his staff he doesn’t know about. But knowing it’s coming and doing something about it are two different things. Like as not he’ll load that court up with folks like Lucinda Karlov, folks he can count on to make the right decision.”
“Blame Bitka,” she said.
“What’s one man when the stakes are war, peace, and immortality?” the admiral asked.
“You mean aside from standing for something, as opposed to just grasping for everything you can and devil take the hindmost? Aside from that?”
“You know where I stand in this, Cass,” the admiral said and then turned to look at Nuvaash. “Does that surprise you, that two Human brothers could be on opposite sides in a fight this big and important? Does that strike you as a peculiar example of Human behavior?”
“Peculiar?” Nuvaash repeated and then pretended to think. “Compared to what?”
The admiral stared at him and then shook his head. “So that’s why you two get along like thieves: you have the same sense of humor.”
“You know, sir,” Atwater-Jones said, “it’s not just the temptation of immortality at stake in these negotiations. There’s also the matter of the jump drive, and the return of a prisoner.”
“Oh, God preserve me from that damned jump drive!” Admiral Goldjune said. “I got three rooms full of JAG lawyers trying to sort out the legalities of that mess. Who owns what? Who owes what to whom? ’Course, law’s one thing and what we decide to actually do is another. But unless we show some backbone, we may just be trading Varoki control for Guardian.”
“If so, sir,” she said, “I imagine the day will come when we look back on Varoki stewardship of the secret with genuine nostalgia. I’ve read the report prepared by Doctor Johnstone and Ms. Choice. If they are correct, I cannot see the Guardians voluntarily surrendering control of the secret to us. Their exclusive control of it is too important to maintaining their position in their realms.”
“P’Daan’s already hinting at releasing control under some circumstances.”
“Hinting is cheap, sir. I cannot imagine he has the power to do so, and even if he does I see no reason why he would choose to. Why give up anything to us unless we have something to offer in return? All we have is ourselves.”
Rear Admiral Goldjune nodded, and Nuvaash took from his expression that he believed that was exactly what was being discussed: trading some control over the citizens of the Cottohazz for . . . for what? Although he maintained rigid control of his exterior affect, inside, Nuvaash shuddered.
“So, in all of this, how are we to get P’Daan to agree to return Bitka?” Cassandra asked.
The admiral shook his head. “Damned if I know. If you got any spook tricks you’ve been holding back, now would be a good time to try them out.”
But Nuvaash could see from the expression on his friend’s face that she did not have any “spook tricks” at her disposal, at least not any applicable to this situation. As it happened, he did, but as much as he liked Commander Atwater-Jones, and admired Captain Bitka, delivering his former adversary from Guardian captivity was not his task.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Eight days later, on board CCS-7 USS Olympus Mons,
in orbit above K’
tok
23 September 2134
Admiral Cedric Goldjune, the Outworld Coalition’s chief of naval operations, looked up as Captain Deepa Chakrabarti, his Indian Navy chief of intelligence, entered and waited for the door to slide shut behind her. Her round, dark face bore an expression which matched his own mood.
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