Seize What's Held Dear

by Karl K Gallagher

  Welly took a sip to cover her reaction. She’d never slept with a Corwynti, unlike Marcus, but she liked lots of them. “I’m not impartial. I like Corwyntis. I hate the Censorate.”

  Jinni said, “If you want to keep the Revenge Party from winning, convince us to feel that way so we can convince the voters.”

  “You mean they could win?”

  Both analysts frowned. Jinni said, “The electorate is traumatized. They want a simple, easy solution. Nuking a planet is just that. They have a slight plurality, but the non-RP vote is completely divided.”

  “Because we’ve spent our careers encouraging that divide,” said Pedro dryly.

  “Yes, yes. We need a counterargument, or the RP will win. Or have its platform adopted by one or both major parties.”

  “You can’t do that!” said Welly in horror.

  Pedro shrugged. “There’s already some serious politicians jumping to the Revenge Party.”

  “Power-hungry turncoats,” muttered Jinni.

  Students twitched as a police officer in riot gear entered the coffeehouse. He looked over the room then came to Welly’s table. “Ma’am, sir, ma’am, I’m Officer Seong, the security detail Ms. Chu requested.”

  “Thank you, Officer,” answered Jinni. “How’s it going over there?”

  The cop shook his head. “We set up roadblocks to stop the RPers from coming into the area, but they’re just attacking the blocks now. The day shift is coming back on duty as fast as they can, and there’s a squad of Republic gendarmes on the way. Mayor won’t authorize use of lethal force. But we’ll hold ‘em, don’t you worry.”

  Jinni was not the type to admit worrying. “I appreciate that, Officer Seong.”

  “I’ll be outside where I can keep an eye on things.” He nodded and left.

  Welly went back to the election. “Even if the Revenge Party wins, they can’t launch an attack, right? The Concord controls that.”

  The analysts traded looks. Pedro lost. “Concord policy is set by vote of the member nations. As the largest nation, the Sulu Republic has the largest block of votes. There’s a number of other nations who will follow our lead. More who’ll acquiesce to avoid a confrontation. So, yes, the Revenge Party could get their way if they win the election.”

  Welly shuddered and drained her hot chocolate. She still felt cold.

  Jinni said, “The Landrys talk up liberation as a strategy. Could that really work?”

  “I don’t know the military side of it. The Corwyntis will be on our side. Every one I ever met hated the Censorate. They’ll fight if they have a chance.”

  “Would you say this to our leadership?” asked Jinni.

  “Sure.” Welly looked at Pedro. “I guess your party would want me to talk to them too?”

  “If you convince them, the parties would need to do some joint planning,” he answered. “It would be best if you talked to them together.”

  ***

  The analysis room had display screens on every wall and a big holotank in the center. Desks made an irregular ring around the tank. The officers were all facing the tank. Marcus spotted Commander Chen. “Sir, Lieutenant Landry reporting—”

  “At ease, at ease,” interrupted Chen. He thrust out his hand for a shake instead of returning the salute. “Damn glad to have you. Francis, bring Landry some tea.”

  He’d been introduced to the other officers by the time the tea arrived. Chen lifted his cup in a toast. “Gentlemen, to Lieutenant Landry, our new expert. Welcome to Section R.”

  “Hear, hear,” came from the others as they sipped tea.

  Chen said, “We should be toasting you with something stronger but there’s no time to go to the Club. I think you’re familiar with this place?”

  Now that he was close enough for the holotank to be in focus Marcus recognized it as a model of Arnvon, the capital city of Corwynt. The city looked like an abstract sculpture. Trapezoidal blocks, each home to thousands of people, were connected by pipes to form a truncated pyramid. The outside was surrounded by clear walls, shielding the city from the planet’s harsh storms.

  “Yes, sir. Though I’ve only had the one visit.”

  “That’s more than anyone else in the Sulu Republic Navy has. The model is based on the pictures from the embassy. But we don’t know what the structures are made of.”

  Marcus found himself at the receiving end of an interrogation more thorough than he’d ever given a POW. The Section R officers were most excited by his trip into Bundoran’s infrastructure to meet the secret society of historians.

  When a debate broke out over whether the conduit they’d traveled through was metal or ceramic, Marcus refilled his teacup and sat down for a moment’s rest.

  Chen sat next to him. “Damn, I’m glad you’re available. The worst part of being an intelligence analyst is trying to fill in the gaps in the data you’re sent. Having someone who was there is heaven for us.”

  “Happy to help, sir. I saw much more of Bundoran than Arnvon. They hadn’t realized we were outsiders on the first visit so we could wander freely.”

  “We’re more interested in the general construction techniques than the specific layout of the cities.” He broke in on the debate. “We don’t have the data to settle it. Set up models with each and we’ll run them both to bound the problem.”

  The debaters separated into two teams to reach a consensus on each option.

  When that topic was done Chen said, “One confusion we’ve had is whether the blocks have windows, balconies, and such, or if they’re solid walls. There’s pictures showing both. Is that a matter of zoning, social class, east versus west facing, or what?”

  “Weather,” said Marcus. “In clear weather they’ll be open for light and air. If a hurricane is near, they retract the balconies and seal everything up tight.”

  “But they’re inside the shell,” protested an analyst.

  “Some storms break the outer wall. Tsunamis just crush it. They have movies showing both disasters. The ardals—those blocks—are watertight and have internal compartmentalization to contain leaks.”

  “How often is the interior flooded?” asked another.

  “They don’t keep records,” said Marcus.

  “Of course they don’t,” said Chen. “That’s what the whole war’s about. The Censorate wants to force us to erase history like they do. Damn. I just can’t wrap my head around that mindset.”

  “The Corwyntis have some history,” offered Marcus. “Mostly oral tradition. Some books hidden from the Censorate.”

  “Let’s focus on protecting ours. How compartmentalized are these ‘ardals’?”

  “Each clanhome is independent of the others.” Marcus sketched diagrams in the holotank, drawing on the real estate listings he’d viewed when they were hoping to have a permanent embassy.

  Francis asked, “That tsunami movie. Did the city survive the wave?”

  Marcus thought back. He’d been focused on whether Wynny holding his hand had been a sign of affection or just anxiety over the disaster. “Most of it. A couple of ardals broke away. A clanhome flooded because they were too lazy to seal up when the warning came. That drove the plot. The heroes were the clan downstairs from them, trying to keep the floodwaters from leaking in.”

  “There! That gives us a reference point for structural strength,” said Francis.

  He pulled up a reference simulation of a tsunami on Fiera. Comparing that to the city model produced estimates of the forces on each level of the city.

  “Good,” said Commander Chen. “That gives us crush resistance for the ardals and tensile strength for the connectors.”

  “All right!” said the youngest analyst. “We can start calculating blast effects now.”

  Marcus asked, “What blast?”

  “How big a nuke we need to take the place out,” said the young guy.

  Marcus took a step back from the holotank. “You can’t be serious.”

  “This is what we do,” said Francis.

/>   Commander Chen said, “In Section A they plan for hostage rescue or kidnapping commando raids. They have a plan to grab someone from anywhere in the Fieran Bubble, including the Svalbard glaciers. Other sections plan for higher levels of force. It ends here, where we maintain plans for nuking any set of cities the government wants nuked. That’s what makes Mutual Assured Destruction work—the certainty of retaliation. It kept nukes from being used on Fiera for centuries.”

  “Until now,” snarled one of the officers.

  “Section R does not decide what to do,” continued Chen. “We provide options for our elected leaders to choose from. It’s clear that after this election we’ll be asked for an analysis of how to destroy the nearest Censorate cities in retaliation.”

  “They’re innocent people. The Censorate is oppressing them,” said Marcus.

  “We’ll include that in the analysis. What to do is a political decision. Your orders are to support the analysis.”

  Marcus snapped, “I won’t. That’s an illegal order.”

  Chen glanced at his analysts. “Boys, go see if there’s any cake left in the break room.”

  When the door closed behind the last one Chen waved at a chair. “Sit down, son. This may take a while.”

  Marcus obeyed, though he wanted to run out of the room.

  “If you were an Academy grad, you’d be looking at an insubordination charge for that little outburst. But you’re not, and we try to cut some slack for the draftees. You received minimal training. There wasn’t time for military law or civilian control of the military. You came through for us in the fighting. Your combat record is impressive. So I’m going to explain what you weren’t taught before.”

  Chen sipped his tea. “An illegal order is one violating the Sulu Republic Constitution, or the Military Code. The MC is a law, approved by the Legislature. There is nothing in there prohibiting dropping a bomb on a city that our elected leadership has ordered us to bomb.”

  Marcus tried to keep his face expressionless, but he could tell by Chen’s reaction that his disgust was showing.

  “There’s some mandatory classes at the Academy,” continued Chen. “They have some dandy examples of what happens when the military takes over instead of obeying civilian authority. I wouldn’t want to live in one of those countries. Neither would you.”

  He looked at Marcus until the younger man reluctantly nodded in agreement. “Now if you were part of the analysis team, you’d be able to influence the outcome. For example, one city could be left out of the target list.”

  Trade his soul to save Wynny’s life? Would that be worth it? Would she think so? He didn’t know. He hadn’t had enough time with her to guess how she’d handle such a horrible question.

  Besides, he didn’t know where Wynny was. She could have stayed in Arnvon or gone back to her family in Bundoran. Dammit, it had been ten months since he’d last seen her. She could be anywhere on the planet.

  Chen drained the cup and set it aside. “Do you understand what I’m saying, son?”

  Marcus’ throat was tight with anger. He forced out, “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Chen tapped his wristcom. “Come on back.”

  The analysts filed in, forming a semicircle around the two seated men.

  Chen said, “Now, where were we. Lieutenant, you were saying?”

  Marcus stood at attention. “Sir, destroying a city of innocent civilians may be legal, but it is immoral. I won’t be any part of it.”

  “Francis, call the Master at Arms. Lieutenant Landry is under arrest.”

  ***

  Pedro and Jinni were waiting by the front door as the cab dropped Welly off. It was a generic office building, used by people who didn’t want their work interrupted by walk-ins. The armed guard held the door open for them.

  No one else was visible during the short walk to the conference room. The door was unlabeled. Jinni went in first, leading Welly to a spot on the floor.

  Two tables were placed at an angle to each other. Welly and her escorts were the third side of the triangle. Each table held four familiar-looking people, formally dressed.

  “Members, Governor, Chairs, I present our expert, Ms. Welly Smat,” said Jinni. “Welly, these are the War Committees of the Patriot and Allegiance Parties.”

  All of whom were so important everyone assumed she’d recognize them. She probably would, if she’d been following the news instead of being off planet for the last few years. Two of them rang a bell as Members of Parliament.

  A tall, lean, grey-haired man at the left table said, “Welcome, Ms. Smat. I understand you oppose the Revenge Party’s plan. Please explain why.”

  Welly was astonished. How could he not understand that? “The Corwyntis are innocent. They’re victims of the Censorate just like we are.” She cast about for a practical argument. “If we kill them, we’ll lose all the help they could give us in the war. And, and murdering innocents will stain our souls.”

  A round, dark woman on the right chuckled. “Seems I’m not the only one interested in the morality of this decision.”

  “It’s easy to be moral when you’re out of power,” carped the man next to her.

  That face reminded her of a news story. He was an Allegiance Party official. Which made the left table the Patriot Party people.

  The grey-haired man waved them down. “Can the Corwyntis help us? And will they?”

  Welly said, “Yes. They hate the Censorate. Some of them risked their lives to warn us of an arrest order. They’ll fight if they have a chance. The help they can give us isn’t just bodies. All the improvements in antigrav tech you’ve seen? That’s from the flyers we brought back from Corwynt. Our people have been reverse-engineering them. They have a whole industrialized planet with nearly as many people as Fiera.”

  “What is Corwynt’s population?” asked the dark woman.

  “I don’t know. The Censorate executes people for publishing that kind of data. Judging by the city lights visible from orbit, there’s hundreds of cities, many with over a million people.”

  The politicians threw many questions at her, prying into the culture, industry, and even religion of Corwyntis. A few questions were about the Censorate, which Welly had fewer answers on.

  A bald man addressed the other politicians. “This all corresponds closely to the embassy reports the Concord passed to us. They made a good argument for a global coalition to liberate Corwynt and bring them to our side.”

  “The Concord is just using that as a pretext to take power from the nations,” someone else muttered. “They want to be a world government. I won’t tolerate that. We need a strategy we can execute on our own.”

  The dark woman retorted, “Yes, we can commit an extermination raid done without organizing under the Concord. That’s not good enough for me to support one. Maybe it will come to mass death in the end. But we have to try something else first.”

  “The military won’t support a purely defensive strategy,” said the grey-haired man. “They’re afraid of leaving initiative to the enemy. That leaves liberation. But how can one of our parties make liberation our policy without the other automatically opposing it?”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” said someone else on the Allegiance table. “If we both agree to support it, we can make a joint announcement and we’re committed.”

  The bald man scoffed. “Then all the pro-liberation voters split their votes between us, and the Revenge Party wins. How do we prevent that?”

  The dark woman said, “Vote trading.”

  The others flinched like parishioners who’d heard their pastor use an obscenity in a sermon.

  “Seriously?” said the anti-Censorate man. “We’ve been telling our voters for decades, ‘You must vote for us because the other guys are downright evil.’ Now you want to straight out say, ‘We’ve cut a deal, so vote for them no matter how much you like us.’ We’d see millions of voters go, ‘Screw those guys, I’m voting for a minor party, they’re not cynical liars.’
Vote trading is suicide for both our parties.”

  She replied, “Maybe we will lose them. I think there’s enough people afraid of the Revenge Party gaining power that’ll follow any plan that prevents it.”

  The grey-haired man said, “I don’t like it, but splitting the liberation vote is suicide for our careers as well as genocide for the Corwyntis. Does anyone have a better plan than vote trading?”

  Jinni tugged on Welly’s arm. “They’re finished with us. Time to go.”

  As they left the dark woman said, “If no one’s suggesting an alternative, I have a list of potential trades.”

  Someone replied, “I have one of my own. Let’s compare.”

  Jinni closed the door behind them. “You’ll keep this all in confidence, yes?”

  “Of course,” said Welly. An easy promise. She didn’t want to remember what she’d heard, let alone share it.

  ***

  “Of course he’s going to marry her, Bridge,” said Dulcinea Yeager. “Why else would he mention her name?”

  Governor Yeager chewed his bacon a little more to savor it. Meat imported from another solar system deserved proper attention before swallowing. “A young man may go hiking with a young lady without spending the rest of his life with her.”

  “But he won’t describe a casual friend in a letter to his grandparents.”

  The parlor door opened. Instead of a servant’s near silent steps Yeager heard firm boots. He turned in his chair to look. It was one of his personal guards.

  “Your Excellency.” The guard came to attention. “A Censorial courier ship has entered the system.”

  “Thank you. Did she say who the message is from? The Monitor? Ministry of Order?”

  “From—from the Censor, sir.”

  “I see. Thank you, Corporal.”

  The guard nodded, about-faced, and marched out at a brisker pace than he’d come in.

  Yeager contemplated the note of apology he’d sent the Censor. He’d been bluntly honest. It was too late to hide anything. The Fieran Fiasco was too big to hide anyway.

  This was sooner than he’d expected a response. The courtiers must have passed the message through immediately. The Censor’s decision hadn’t taken any time either.