Seize What's Held Dear

by Karl K Gallagher

  They passed a Sulu Republic Navy destroyer, posted to make sure no ships endangered themselves by wandering within range of the live weapons.

  Marcus smiled to himself. If he’d made a few decisions differently he might have been on that destroyer as a junior officer.

  “Group One, make your attack run,” he ordered per the script. “Groups Two, Three, Four, orbit at ten klicks.”

  He decelerated his fighter to be stationary relative to the wrecked destroyer. He wanted a full view of the exercise.

  Group One’s leader and flight leaders each fired a pair of missiles at five klicks out. The missile factory was still ramping up their quality control. It would be a while before they had enough missiles to salvo four from every fighter at once.

  Besides, Bon Richard already had enough holes in her armor to let the fighters’ beams reach her vitals.

  The leader took his group past the wreck at a couple hundred meters separation. Bolts of energy splashed off the armored hull. Better aimed ones went into holes.

  Most of the successful shots had no more visible effect than the misses. Then a plume of yellow plasma jetted from a wound which had received a dozen bolts.

  Fighters broke formation to avoid the blast.

  Bethan, Marcus’ comm tech, said, “Sir, there’s debris in that explosion. One of them is leaking air.”

  She put that flight’s channel on speaker.

  The flight leader put another fighter alongside the damaged one in case they needed to abandon their craft. The mechanic put a patch in place before anyone needed to close up their helmets.

  Making sure he wasn’t transmitting, Marcus said, “We should do some exercises with the cockpit in vacuum. It really doesn’t make things that much harder.”

  His crew didn’t comment. The mechanic, Jeuan, checked that his patches were in their proper place.

  Group Leader Two contacted Marcus on a private channel. “Sir, I thought they offloaded the ammunition from the wreck.”

  “They did,” he answered. “That leaves the energy banks for the beam weapons, the hyperspace generator capacitors, gravitics modules, the power plant, and so on. That was in the briefing.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize they were fully energized.”

  “They’re not. But even the residuals are a hell of a lot of energy. By the time we’re done this thing should be in a hundred pieces. So don’t get too close.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the group leader.

  Marcus had no fear of failing in his promise to Commodore Placage.

  ***

  Welly was about to climb into bed when the door opened and Dilwyn came in. He looked exhausted. That was a relief. As much as Welly loved the newlywed thing, this day had run her ragged. She didn’t have the energy to fool around with her husband tonight.

  Dilwyn pulled a chair from the table, turned it around, and sat with his arms crossed on the back of it. “A shoaler nearly stuck a spear in me today.”

  “Oh, my God!” Welly sat upright on the bed. “Are you okay?”

  “He calmed down some once I refunded the delivery fee. Was still pissed. I don’t blame him. We promised we’d get him that fertilizer mid-afternoon. Instead I showed up a half hour after sunset.”

  Wynny hadn’t done much with the warehouse operations, but she knew Clan Goch prided itself on delivering earlier than promised.

  “What went wrong?” she asked.

  “Half the people scheduled to work the warehouse today were running around handing out leaflets. Those of us who did show were working our tails off. All the pick-ups and deliveries were late today.”

  “Oh.”

  They’d struggled early on until she learned that an angry look on Dilwyn’s face didn’t mean he was angry at her, he was just grumpy at some subordinate or customer.

  Now he was angry at her.

  He kept glaring at Welly, not hinting if he wanted an explanation or apology or what.

  “You said there was less work in the warehouse,” she said defensively.

  “Less on average. It’s starting to pick up again. But even at the worst there were slow days and busy days. I can let half my crew go play on a slow day. On a day like today I need to pull extra people from the clanhome. Except no one was home to come help out.”

  “An election is a lot of work.”

  “I’m sure it is. Are those people who received deliveries late today going to vote for Uncle Vychan? Or are they going to carry a grudge and vote for someone else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Neither do I.” Dilwyn sighed. He looked calmer now. The rant had vented his anger. “We were rushing so much we cracked some crates. I’m amazed nobody was hurt. The warehouse is a mess. Aisles blocked. Stacks of crates unbalanced. Long-term storage stacked on top of stuff due to go out.”

  Welly said, “I’ll cancel tomorrow’s campaign operations. Most of them. Vychan’s giving a speech to a couple of clans, he needs staff with him. But I’ll make everyone else report to the warehouse.”

  “Thank you. From now on, can we check with each other before we assign people?”

  “Yes.”

  A few minutes of discussion worked out a plan for the two of them to coordinate with the clan’s other managers each morning to keep the workload balanced.

  With that settled Dilwyn began preparing for bed.

  When he was done, Welly asked, “Honey? Why didn’t you call me when you knew you were overloaded?”

  He grimaced and sat next to her. “Maybe I should have. But there’s no privacy in the warehouse. I didn’t know if you’d be able to talk privately either. I was cranky enough by then I knew I’d push you into an argument if I called then. If anyone heard us they’d gossip about it. You know how the clan is.”

  “They gossip, yeah, but you’d rather lose delivery fees than have an argument?”

  “I’d rather break some crates than have aunts say ‘They’re the couple who fight over work schedules,’ ten years from now.”

  Welly chuckled. “Hey. Next time, call me.”

  “I will.”

  They kissed.

  She slid under the covers, taking the spot by the wall, lying on her side facing him. Dilwyn lay on his back beside her. He told the lights to turn off.

  Welly laid a hand on his chest. His rested on her thigh. They were asleep in three breaths.

  ***

  Bridge Yeager scanned the room before going down the aisle to his front row seat. This was the biggest auditorium in the Proconsular Palace. It was full of naval officers, dragoon officers, Security, Intelligence, even Vulkoro and his Industrial Administration leadership. Everyone wanted to hear the Fleet Staff’s plan for retaking Corwynt.

  Yeager wanted to hear it himself.

  Everyone stood at their seats until the governor took his. As one they all sat.

  Captain MacIver stepped onto the podium. “Your Excellency, Admirals, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming.”

  A picture of a planet appeared on the screen behind MacIver. Yeager recognized it as Fiera, not by the continents but by the explosions marking major cities.

  “The key to Operation Matador is the psychology of the barbarians,” said MacIver. “The Intelligence Group has provided considerable material on their culture and politics. Something that we’ve slowly realized is that by attacking the Fieran cities, we struck a severe blow to the planet’s mental stability.”

  Pictures of men fighting with spears, rifles, and tanks made a collage.

  “There’s been war on that planet since they first arrived. Colonists fought with improvised weapons over fertile ground. None of their attempts at a global government have ended wars.”

  White light flashed, leaving a mushroom cloud on the screen.

  “Atomic energy was rediscovered on Fiera over five hundred years ago. In all that time, not once has a city-destroying bomb been used on humans.”

  Murmurs of astonishment ran through the audience.

  “T
he analysts working on Fiera resorted to a religious term to describe the phenomenon: tabu. This is something prohibited, not because of an order by a man, but because a deity forbids it. Tabus have no waivers, no exceptions, no pardon. They are absolute.”

  MacIver bowed to Yeager. “When His Excellency executes a man, it is a practical decision that the subject’s productivity is not worth the order gained by killing him. Destroying a city is judged the same way: the loss of future taxes against the military benefit of removing it. Pure practicality.”

  Yeager’s lips quirked. MacIver was lying. He’d suggested bombing Fiera to prevent Yeager and Pinoy from exploding in rage and fear on CNS Immensity’s flag bridge. No calculations were involved. But Yeager had described it as a proper decision in his reports. MacIver was repeating the official version.

  “The Fierans can’t analyze the destruction of cities as a practical decision. They can’t. The tabu prevents them from thinking that way. They reacted in a purely emotional way.”

  The mushroom cloud became a video clip of a Revenge Party demonstration. Signs demanded the extermination of the Censorate. Protestors silently screamed slogans.

  “Existing political organizations split over the bombings. The succession of leadership positions was decided by opinions on the bombings. There were even advocates for depopulating Corwynt as retaliation.”

  MacIver waved to men in Intelligence uniforms. “That last has been very useful for Intelligence operatives.”

  A picture of a man holding a gun to a woman’s head appeared. Two other men pointed guns at him from a distance.

  “We’ve found other evidence of this tabu. Censorial Security has a strict policy for people taking hostages. If you kill them, they won’t take more hostages.”

  The Security contingent laughed.

  “In Fieran entertainment, heroes will surrender to prevent villains from harming hostages. Even if there’s only one hostage. Or if the hostage is a stranger to the hero.”

  That brought startled exclamations from the audience, not just from Security.

  “Reviewing Fieran entertainment found many examples of this trope. Characters who endangered a hostage by taking effective action were considered unheroic. The tabu comes into full force with large groups of hostages.”

  A planet appeared on screen. Only hurricanes and water were visible. Corwynt, of course.

  “The premise of Operation Matador is to use this tabu against the barbarians. The end goal of the operation is to place ships over Corwynt to hold the cities hostage. Faced with the deaths of tens of millions if he chooses wrongly, the Fieran leader will not be able to think. They’ll launch foolish attacks or freeze in place. They may flee the system. But they won’t make careful maneuvers for tactical advantage, when each move on their part is punished with the destruction of a city.”

  Yeager grunted in approval.

  “The name of this operation comes from a sport I saw when stationed on Ronda.”

  Corwynt disappeared. A man in colorful clothes stood still as a thousand-pound animal charged him, horns aimed at his chest.

  “A bullfighter—‘matador’ in the native language—defeats the animal by distracting it with his cape and stabbing it with his sword.”

  Now the animal’s face was covered by bright red cloth. The man stood beside it, plunging his long knife into its side.

  “We shall treat the Fieran fleet as the bull. In the first step of the operation, Force Cape will engage the barbarian force, then retreat to lead it away from Corwynt.”

  The display became the usual military briefing chart, a simple diagram with dots and arrows.

  “Force Sword will wait for the barbarians to move away from Corwynt. At the proper time it will move in, eliminate any remaining defenses, and surround the planet. Dragoons will capture the islands where Censorate personnel are being held to prevent the barbarians from trying the hostage gambit.”

  “Why?” asked Yeager.

  “Your Excellency, we have no fear of falling prey to the barbarians’ tabu. But we need to keep them believing in the tabu. If they threaten to execute hostages, then we blow up the island hostages and all, well, it might make them think.”

  “And we can’t have them thinking,” said Yeager with a grin. “Go on, Captain.”

  “When the barbarian fleet receives word of Force Sword’s presence at Corwynt, the tabu will force them to go to the planet’s rescue, exposing themselves to attacks from Force Cape. When they arrive, they will be trapped between Force Sword and Force Cape, crippled by their own psychology, and as vulnerable as the bull.”

  The tactical diagram updated with one showing the barbarians trapped between the Censorate units, unable to effectively defend itself.

  “With proper skill, we’ll be able to destroy the entire barbarian fleet. If they disperse we will inflict significant casualties to them and retain control of the system.

  “The timing of the operation is still being developed. Intelligence Operations is preparing sabotage teams to strike at naval forces on Corwynt. They’re optimizing the sequence of attacks. Once we have that we can send the go orders to execute the sabotage. Force Cape will deploy to arrive when that is complete. Force Sword will remain behind Force Cape, out of sight, until signaled that the barbarians have moved away from Corwynt.

  “There are leadership selection events planned for the natives to create a barbarian-style government. If possible, we’ll time the attack to coincide with one of these to maximize divisions among the defenders.”

  A schedule chart took over the screen. Blocks labeled ‘Ammunition Resupply’ and ‘Fighter Training’ stood out among dozens of multicolored rectangles.

  “There’s a lot of details to fill in,” said MacIver. “If this plan is acceptable, we’ll get to work on them.”

  Yeager glanced at Admiral Pinoy, sitting across the aisle. The admiral nodded. The Navy wanted to do this. He stood. “Captain MacIver, I thank you and your staff for your brilliant work. I particularly appreciate your cooperation with Security, Intelligence, and Logistics, which is in the best tradition of the Censorate. I approve your plan.”

  He sat. The tradition of the Censorate was for Security and military to suspiciously watch each other for signs of conspiracies against the Censor. But right now, things were different.

  Admiral Pinoy stood in turn. “Captain, I charge your staff to carry out the Governor’s orders. I have an additional order for you: prepare contingency plans for whatever the barbarians may do. They have a weapon we lack. History. In their libraries are accounts of a dozen times a plan like yours worked. And another dozen descriptions of times such plans failed, and what made them fail. You need to figure out what they can do to ruin this plan, and how to counter it.”

  He turned from MacIver to the audience. “That goes for the rest of you. We’re going to do something the barbarians can’t imagine. Try to imagine what they’re going to do to us.”

  ***

  “Thank you for seeing me,” said Vychan.

  “I wouldn’t refuse my next mayor,” said Tomas Gwbert sourly. He was polite enough to show Vychan to the comfiest chair in his private study.

  “We haven’t held the election yet. You could be my mayor.”

  Tomas snorted. “If that happens the hundred credits my mother bet on me will make her rich.”

  Vychan gave that a polite chuckle. The bookies had Tomas at thirty to one. “You are picking up support. You’ve made some good points about the police in your last few speeches.”

  “Good points? They’re becoming a menace. They enforced Censorial law and handed other trouble makers over to clan law. Now there’s no laws except Fieran regulations. The police are doing whatever they want. Some take bribes to let crooks go. Others shock stick innocent men until they piss. And no one cares unless the one shocked is in their clan.”

  “I like some of your ideas for dealing with them.”

  “So what? I can’t do a thing unless I’m mayor.”
>
  Vychan leaned forward in the chair. “Fieran cities have a post called the ‘police commissioner.’ He’s a civilian who supervises the police. Makes the rules for them. If I become mayor, I’d like to appoint you as Bundoran’s police commissioner.”

  Tomas thought about that. “In exchange for what?”

  “Drop out of the race and ask your supporters to vote for me.”

  Another snort. “I can ask. I don’t see why someone worried about misbehaving cops would vote for Mr. Fix Cracked Walls.”

  “They’ll do it to make you police commissioner. The hard part will be convincing everyone worried about cracked walls and broken pumps that they now think new rules are needed for police.”

  Tomas actually smiled at that. “It’s an odd pair of issues to make everyone agree on.”

  “The more I read about politics, the more random coalitions seem,” Vychan said with a shrug.

  “I suppose so. I accept your offer.” Tomas held out his hand.

  Vychan shook it.

  Working out the details was easy. They decided on a joint speech in five days, on top of Tomas’ third level ardal.

  Tomas poured wine for them to toast the agreement. “To Hell with Bridge Yeager!” they chorused.

  Vychan departed in, if not a cheerful mood, at least a less worried one. Tomas’ support would help. The mere fact of the deal would demonstrate that Vychan could get things done.

  ***

  The aircar dropped Marcus and Wynny off at the ardal the Navy had taken over for their headquarters. A waiting lieutenant led them through the corridors. They hadn’t been told what this was about, just been asked to report immediately. Presumably it was about the huge explosion in orbit everyone was talking about. They hurried through the conference room door.

  “Good, you’re here,” said Admiral Song. He turned to the presenter. “Begin.”

  A captain started four videos running on the screen. “In the top left we see the access corridor to the carriers.” An ordinary space station interior.