Free Stories 2018

by Baen Books

  But Sanctuary’s steadily growing population had remained trapped at the bottom of its gravity well, which was particularly ironic, given Refuge’s deep-space industrial potential. Had they retained access to the technology with which they’d arrived, Refuge would inevitably have become one of the most populous, heavily industrialized star systems in the known galaxy. It possessed not one asteroid belt, or even the three belts of a star like Manticore-B. It had five of them, including the Epsilon Belt fifteen light-minutes beyond the system hyper-limit. Once upon a time, the Epsilon Belt had been Refuge’s fourth planet, until the star was captured by the far more massive KCR-126-06-A and lost its outer planets. It had hung on to Refuge IV—or its bits and pieces, at least—but only after the planet was torn apart into an incredibly dense 62,000,000-kilometer wide asteroid belt. Indeed, subsequent comparison of meteoric residue from the Calvin III Crater with the Epsilon Belt suggested that the dinosaur killer which had devastated the colonists’ original destination had been a stray from Epsilon.

  And that didn’t even count the six additional asteroid belts of Refuge’s stellar companions, all within fifteen light-hours of Sanctuary.

  Anyone but the People’s Republic of Haven would have immediately announced the discovery of the lost Calvin Expedition's descendents. The Legislaturalists, however, had seen an enormous opportunity. Not only was Refuge incredibly rich in raw materials, but it offered a labor force almost two billion strong. A labor force without a single clue about what lay beyond the bounds of their own planetary atmosphere . . . or of the staggering wealth their system’s astrography represented.

  A labor force which ought to be eager to repay its deliverers for the wonders of the modern technology—the almost magical technology—they brought with them.

  It was the sort of situation a bureaucrat in the Solarian League’s Office of Frontier Security could only dream of.

  Of course, there’d been a certain amount of startup expense, but once the Sanctuarians had been given the tools, they’d dug in just as enthusiastically as the Manties’ Graysons. And the Legislaturalists—and, later, the Committee of Public Safety—had been able to send thousands upon thousands of teachers, doctors, supervisors, and engineers from places like Cerberus and the other prisons in which they had stowed away so many “dangerous recidivists.”

  Which was how, thirty-four T-years later, the Refuge System had come to be home to the Bolthole Complex, the biggest and most modern shipyard and industrial nexus of the entire Republic of Haven. Indeed, despite its still small population (by Core World standards), Bolthole’s capacity was superior to that of any Fringe World and at least a quarter of the League’s Core systems, and it was still growing.

  An industrial complex, she thought now, which rightfully belongs to the people of Sanctuary, not to us! And what possible right—what excuse—can we have for keeping those same people penned up inside their own star system? Hasn’t the galaxy done enough to these people without us taking advantage of their tragedy?

  No doubt it had, but Theisman was obviously right about at least two things.

  At the moment, he and his fleet commanders—especially Javier Giscard and Lester Tourville—were engaged in a bitter five-way civil war which would ultimately decide the future of the Republic of Haven. If Theisman’s Navy won, Eloise Pritchart might actually be allowed to restore the Péricard Constitution, the goal for which she’d fought for over forty T-years. If it lost, God only knew what would become of the Republic. The momentum had been shifting steadily in Theisman’s favor for the last several months, but that was always subject to change, especially if they suffered heavy losses. Little wonder the Secretary of War thought a secret shipyard, hidden away in his back pocket in case he needed it, would make a splendid insurance policy.

  As the last commanding officer of the Capital Fleet under Oscar Saint-Just, he’d been thoroughly briefed on Bolthole’s capabilities, although they’d only just begun actually delivering ships—all of them to State Security, at that point. He’d also been able to discover its location, and the fact that Saint-Just had personally selected People’s Commissioner Jacqueline Hammond, one of his most senior and trusted StateSec commissioners, to oversee Bolthole and ensure its reliability.

  And Thomas Theisman had been only too well aware of the consequences if a shipbuilding complex of that capacity remained in the hands of StateSec loyalists.

  Which was why he’d dispatched PNS Cordelia Ransom to carry his own people’s commissioner, Dennis LePic, to visit Hammond with a personal dispatch from Saint-Just . . . who’d happened to be dead at the time. As a fellow people’s commissioner, LePic had been able to get close enough to personally deliver his actual message—from Theisman, not Saint-Just. As it happened, he was an excellent shot, and his “administrative assistants” had delivered the same message simultaneously to Citizen Commissioner Hammond’s entire staff. At which point the “StateSec” superdreadnought which had transported them to Refuge brought up her sidewalls, identified herself as a regular Navy ship (which was no longer named for Citizen Ransom, for some strange reason), and suggested it would be a very good idea to listen to the new System Administrator.

  There’d been some scattered resistance by State Security personnel. But no one had been that foolish within range of RHNS Péricard’s energy batteries, and what little resistance there had been, in more distant parts of the system, had ended quickly. Hammond and her staff had been dead, the “supply ship” which had accompanied Péricard to Refuge had disgorged two entire brigades of Marines loyal to Theisman, and the Navy personnel assigned to Bolthole all knew the new Secretary of War’s reputation. Ninety percent of them had rallied to LePic, and that had been that.

  Yet Theisman had refused to use any of the superdreadnoughts being built in Refuge against his opponents, and that was because of his second—and, Pritchart thought, far more important argument—for maintaining the Bolthole status quo.

  She’d seen enough of Thomas Theisman by now to realize Javier had been right. None of the warlords contending for Rob Pierre’s mantle were remotely his equal as a strategist or as a leader, and not one of them could match his ability to inspire the men and women under his command. Those men and women truly believed they could end the long nightmare which had enveloped their star nation for so long, and they believed he was the commander who could make that possible, and they would follow him to the heart of Hell itself to make that happen. Eventually, he was going to win, with or without the Bolthole ships, and, in the process, allow Pritchart to restore not just the Péricard Constitution but also a Republic worthy of that constitution.

  And when she did, what happened next?

  Neither Theisman nor Pritchart had any desire to continue the People’s Republic’s conquering ways, but they had a moral obligation to liberate any Havenite star systems currently under occupation by the Manticoran Alliance. Pritchart was realist enough to accept that not all those star systems wanted to be liberated, and it was hard to blame them, given the contrast between their experiences under foreign occupation and what they’d endured under the “benevolence” of their legal prewar government. Assuming the Manties and their allies were prepared to agree to genuine plebiscites to determine those systems’ future, she had no objection to their declaring their independence of the Republic which had acquired so many of them through conquest.

  Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly obvious the Manties had no intention of agreeing to anything of the sort.

  Neither Pritchart nor her foreign policy experts—including Kevin Usher, one of the canniest analysts she’d ever met . . . and the only one she trusted without qualification—were sure exactly why the High Ridge Government refused to negotiate in good faith, but it was obvious that it did. And not just about future plebiscites. Elaine Descroix, the Manticoran Foreign Secretary, might keep blathering away about the need to be certain the Pritchart Administration was likely to survive before Manticore “legitimized” it by negotiating with i
t. Her correspondence might include all sorts of dangled carrots for the wonderful day when Pritchart had demonstrated—to Manticoran satisfaction, of course—that her government was going to survive. But in the meantime, Descroix had no intention of beginning even preliminary discussion of a single one of the points in contention between Landing and Nouveau Paris.

  Not one.

  And that meant that, for whatever reason, Prime Minister High Ridge had decided against negotiating an actual peace treaty. And, far worse, the current balance of military power justified his arrogant refusal far too completely for him to be likely to change his mind anytime soon. The Republic of Haven Navy had none of the pod-laying superdreadnoughts armed with the multidrive missiles which had driven Oscar Saint-Just to the brink of surrender before the last-second Cromarty Assassination put High Ridge into the premiership. The Havenite Civil War, for all its bloodshed and carnage, was being fought by obsolete ships armed with obsolescent weapons, and only the fact that none of the adversaries had access to modern weapons had permitted it to go on so long.

  Just as any imaginable confrontation between those obsolete ships and the massive firepower of the Royal Manticoran Navy could end only in one-sided massacre.

  Without some effective countermeasure to the Manty wall of battle and the Star Kingdom’s new-model LACs, there was no way to force High Ridge to come to the negotiating table in good faith. He was one of the very few interstellar politicians who, in Pritchart’s considered opinion, was at least as bad as the Legislaturalists had been, and he believed—with reason—that he held the whip hand. As long as he did, he would continue his current policies, and it was entirely possible—likely—that if he suspected even for a moment that the Republic was in the process of acquiring that sort of countermeasure, he would order the RMN to resume the offensive immediately to force Haven’s unconditional surrender before it did.

  Which was Theisman’s entire point, because exactly “that sort of countermeasure” was what was being built right here in Refuge.

  How do I resolve this? she thought bitterly. I’m the President of the Republic of Haven. Obviously, my first and highest responsibility is to my citizens, not the Sanctuarians or anyone else in the damned galaxy! And over and above that, what about my responsibility to the men and women like Javier and Lester—and Theisman—who’ve already fought and died for the Constitution we’re trying to restore? But morally, how do I justify continuing to treat Refuge and everyone living here the same way Frontier Security treats its “clients” . . . only more so. At least the rest of the galaxy knows the Protectorates exist! That puts some limits on what OFS and its cronies can get away with where they’re concerned. But Refuge . . . .

  She leaned back against her seat’s head rest as the shuttle raced onward toward Mountain Fort and closed her eyes.

  •V•

  Long grass blows on the banks of Despair,

  Guarding the graves of the dead.

  Mountain storms weep for the sleeping,

  And the God of the vanished

  Walks through the hills

  Calling the names of the gone.

  —The Dark Fall Saga

  * * * * * * * * * *

  “Madame President.”

  The tall, silver-haired man stood and walked around his desk to offer Eloise Pritchart his hand. Like most Sanctuarians, he was dark-skinned and that silver hair had once been dark brown, but his eyes were a light, startling blue. And like far too many Sanctuarians, he’d been too old for Prolong when the People’s Republic discovered Refuge.

  At least that’s one damned thing the Legislaturalists got right, Pritchart thought as she crossed the spacious office to meet him. They even offered it universally, not restricted solely to people working for them, the way they did the advanced degree programs.

  “Shirkahna Ambart,” she responded taking his hand in the three-fingered grip that was the Sanctuarian version of a handshake.

  Shirkahna was her host’s title, which the protocolists told her translated literally as “shepherd” but could also be translated as both “warlord” or “sentinel.” Apparently, Sanctuarian was a . . . flexible language. But however it translated, Shirkahna Ambart VIII was the hereditary ruler of Ankhassar, Sanctuary’s most ancient and powerful pre-rediscovery empire. That had simplified things when the Legislaturalists went looking for someone to run the native side of the planet for them.

  Like all Sanctuarians, the shirkahna used only one name publicly. Legally, Sanctuary usage attached both a patronymic and a matronymic, so technically, he was Ambart Ambartson-Melynyson, although no one would ever address him as such.

  “Please, be seated,” he invited, escorting her across the sunny chamber towards a conversational nook below the windows overlooking the paved courtyard below. Sheila Thiessen, the head of Pritchart’s personal security detail, drifted silently and unobtrusively along behind. Aside from bodyguards and high ranking military officers, no armed Sanctuarian was ever allowed in the shirkahana’s presence, yet Ambart took no notice at all of Thiessen’s presence.

  He waved Pritchart into a comfortable armchair, looking out through the tower window at a deep blue sky. Anvil-headed cumulonimbus clouds swept towards Mountain Fort, crowned in the flicker of distant lightning, and the temperature had been dropping steadily when she arrived. In fact, her shuttle flight crew had clearly been relieved to get her safely on the ground before the looming thunderstorms arrived.

  She hoped the weather wasn’t some sort of metaphor for her visit.

  Below the fourth-floor window, the city of Mountain Fort sprawled out about the looming castle which had given its name to the entire city. Mountain Fort had been Ankhassa’s imperial city for the past six hundred local years. Its population would scarcely have qualified as a moderate-sized town on Nouveau Paris, but its quarter-million people made it the largest city on Sanctuary and the low-lying architecture of a pre-counter-grav civilization made it look even larger.

  “Thank you for making an opportunity for me to meet with you,” she said as Thiessen settled behind her shoulder.

  “Under the circumstances, it seemed the thing to do.” Ambart’s Standard English carried remarkably little in the way of an accent, given that he’d been in his early thirties before he’d learned to speak it. There was some, of course, but she’d heard a lot worse from the Dolist slums, and the edge of dry amusement came through clearly as he tilted his head to one side.

  “In fact,” he continued, “I was rather surprised that you requested a meeting. I believe the highest ranking member of Haven’s government ever to visit Refuge—civilian member, I mean—was Foreign Secretary Bergen when he signed our initial treaty with my father. And I fear the People’s Republic’s—I mean, the Republic’s—representatives’ contacts since have been a bit more, ah, peremptory, shall we say?”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Pritchart shook her own head. “My . . . predecessors weren’t noted for ‘wasting’ courtesy when they didn’t need to.”

  “I’m afraid that’s been my own observation,” the shirkahna said. “Which, I trust you’ll forgive me for pointing out, seemed to just a bit . . . ironic for such an egalitarian regime.”

  Pritchart hid a wince, although his point was well taken. Especially coming from a man whose family had ruled almost a third of his homeworld for the last several centuries.

  “You’re right,” she said. “In fact, having waded through the last thirty or forty T-years of reports, memos, and correspondence, I’d have to say I detect a certain . . . imperious note in all of the previous regime’s conversations with you.”

  “I’m sure you do. Although, to be fair, I doubt many Sanctuarians would find that out of place. The average lifespan here on Sanctuary, even for those without Prolong, has increased by thirty percent since the Republic discovered us. The standard of living has probably risen by no more than, oh, ten or twenty thousand percent, and it’s continued to follow a steadily rising trajectory for over half my lifetime.” He
smiled almost whimsically. “Against that backdrop, a certain degree of what I suppose one might call proprietary authority is probably understandable.”

  “Understandable but not exactly commendable,” Pritchart said. He arched an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged with less than complete happiness.

  “Shirkahna Ambart,” she said then, “I’ve come to see you not simply because some sort of courtesy visit from the Republic’s chief executive is so long overdue, but also because I find myself in a quandary. A deep and, to be honest, very difficult one.”

  He raised his eyebrows politely, and she sighed.

  “I’m not my ‘predecessors,’” she said, “and it’s important to me to prove that. Not simply to myself, but to the galaxy at large. For over a century, the People’s Republic of Haven was like a cancer, consuming its interstellar neighbors, twisting interstellar law to suit its own purposes . . . when it didn’t simply ignore it completely. Lying on a galactic scale whenever that suited its diplomatic ends. What it did to its own citizens, including those in Nouveau Paris, not just in the conquered star systems, was unforgivable. Reprehensible. Criminal.”

  Her expression was grim, her tone harsh.

  “My colleagues and I have started repairing the worst of those criminal acts, but it will be decades—possibly lifetimes, in some cases—before even our own citizens fully accept that. There’s nothing I can do to hasten that process except to ensure that the rule of law is followed for everyone, not just the current regime’s friends and supporters, and not just when my administration finds it convenient. If I do that long enough, if I use a big enough hammer when anyone else doesn’t do that, perhaps eventually I’ll be able to earn back the trust of my own citizens.

  “But in addition to those internal problems, I have a star nation’s interstellar reputation to restore. To be perfectly blunt about it, there isn’t a single star system in the galaxy which has any reason to accept the honesty or integrity of any statement originating in the Republic. The Legislaturalists and the Committee of Public Safety have spent the last hundred and thirty T-years making certain no one did. That’s an even deeper hole to dig our way out of and, to be honest, it damned well ought to be.