by Rick Partlow
That was the easy part, throwing myself on the grenade. I wasn’t even shining them on. I’d fucked up, and even if no one else blamed me, I knew better. Chief of security either meant something or it didn’t. If I didn’t want it to be a joke, I should have been prepared for days like today.
The next part, though…
“We have interrogated the prisoner,” I told them. “We used a special cocktail of drugs the Helta developed to get the truth out of him. This attempted assassination was intended to do exactly what it did: disrupt this conference and turn you against us. The Tevynians don’t fear you. They know you can’t defeat them. They don’t fear the Helta. They fear us. They know down in the deepest parts of their soul that we can beat them, because we’ve done it every time we’ve faced them. So, the first part of their plan was driving a wedge of mistrust between us. And mission accomplished, I suppose.
“The second part of their plan is to conquer us, to seize our world, what we call Earth and you refer to as The Source. They’ve made common cause with elements there who are our rivals.” I couldn’t see Olivera and Garcia well from up here, but I could imagine their frowns at my admission of what had to already have gotten out. The Helta weren’t much better at keeping their mouths shut than the Tevynians. “Their forces are in place already, and however the vote goes tonight, we’ll be flying back to face them. They know they don’t need to overwhelm our defenses. We have but one operational warship. All they need to do is destroy it and Earth is theirs.”
I paused, trying to think how I was going to say this without it sounding like a threat.
Fuck it. Ain’t no way. Just say it.
“You’re worried about what we humans might do if you continue to assist us in developing our technology to your level. I’m telling you, right here, tonight, what you should be worrying about is what happens if you don’t. America isn’t perfect, and neither are our allies. We make mistakes, we elect the wrong people, we lie to each other when the truth would serve better, we allow our self-interest to blind us to what is right. And yet, I see all these same failings in you. For all your advancements, you haven’t perfected yourselves, and you won’t. Because to live and grow is to make mistakes and overcome them.
“But if you abandon us now, there will be no chance to overcome our mistakes or yours. Because while I disagree with the goals and methods of our rivals back on Earth, I also respect their intelligence, their inventiveness. If those traits are paired with the ruthless determination of the Tevynians, together they will roll over you like the tide. Because the Chinese and the Russians may not be able to manufacture hyperdrives any more than the Tevynians can, but they can steal them just as surely. And they have the tens of thousands of years of experience and tactics and strategies learned in our wars to put in service of your enemies. They will think up new ways to use your drives and your weapons, ones you’ve never dreamed of. They’ll lay waste to your worlds to eliminate the threat of your existence, and when they’re through, there will be no Alliance. There will be none of you left other than the ones they keep for slaves.”
Where the hell was this coming from? I hadn’t written anything down, hadn’t given so much as a minute’s thought to making this speech, but it flowed out of me as if I’d rehearsed it in a mirror for a week.
“It isn’t often that we can know in advance that a moment is the moment, the time when we can decide our future, when the paths are so clearly delineated. I am a student of Earth history, and there were very few times in our past when the men and women who were part of a historic event knew what they did that day would change the future. This is one of those moments, and I wonder if you understand the weight of your decision.”
I shrugged, though I didn’t know how well it would translate.
“You may think this is a threat, but it’s not. We’ll be just as dead as you. I and everyone with me here today will go down fighting before we let the Tevynians control our world. The war will be over for us and I can’t think of a better way to go out. It’s you who will face the consequences, you and your people, you and your worlds, you and your way of life. It’ll be gone and this galaxy will be Tevynian.” I tilted my head. “For a while. Because as fierce and relentless as the Tevynians are, the people of my world are smarter and more cunning, and it will only be a matter of time before the Russians or the Chinese have the Tevynians working for them. Either way, there won’t be any room for you.” I swept a hand across them as if brushing them out of reality.
“Maybe we’ll go bad on you and maybe we won’t, but you have my word that if we are part of your Alliance, as long as I’m alive, I’ll do everything I can to help you, to make sure you grow beside us. It’s the only guarantee I can make one hundred percent, with no caveats. Not my government, not the military, me.” I frowned, sought out Joon-Pah, and he finally met my eyes.
“I give you my word as a Marine, which means more to me than any of the ways I identify myself, more than any other oath I could give. I leave unkeepable promises to politicians.”
There was more I could have said, but I would have been repeating myself, and that was something else I left to politicians.
“Thank you, Anu Neeme Klas,” I said to the Skrith ambassador, “for allowing me to have my say.”
And then I headed down the stairs, down to where Julie waited for me with a gentle squeeze of my arm and a kiss on the cheek, though whether it was pride at what I said or consolation because it wouldn’t do any good I wasn’t sure.
No one replaced me on the platform. There was nothing left to say.
Chapter Sixteen
“Is this alcoholic?” I asked, staring into a bowl of something as red as blood. I was hoping it was alcoholic and not actual blood. With the Skrith, you couldn’t be sure.
“I think so,” Garcia said, taking an experimental sip and making a face. “Not good alcohol, but probably alcohol.”
He looked like he needed it. The vote had been called shortly after I’d come back down the stairs, and each delegation had retired to private rooms to discuss things amongst themselves before casting their votes via an electronic system. That had been nearly two hours ago and I was about to fall asleep waiting for them.
I thought about whether I should try it. I hadn’t drunk anything alcoholic in a long time. I hadn’t known for sure whether I was an alcoholic but didn’t want to take the chance and I’d quit, cold turkey. But shit, this was some sort of alien blood liquor. I sipped from the bowl, wishing the Skrith used cups. I felt like I was drinking the last of the milk from the cereal when I was a kid. If the milk had been a wine cooler. I made a face at the taste, but kept sipping because what the hell else was I gonna do?
“I don’t think my dad waited this long to find out the results of the 2000 presidential election.”
“Don’t like computer voting,” Garcia said, taking another drink. “Too easy to hack.”
“I’m fairly sure they’d know if their votes were hacked,” Olivera said, perhaps too tired or maybe too testy to have a sense of humor about much of anything.
“You did your best, Clanton,” Garcia went on as if he hadn’t heard the general. “It wasn’t a bad speech.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “From the heart. I liked that.”
“We need to get going,” Julie fretted, checking her comm unit for the umpteenth time, and the third time in the last twenty minutes. “God knows how long we have before the Tevynians arrive or what the hell is going on at home.”
“I already have Colonel Brooks loading the Rangers up on Shuttle Two,” I told her. “Pops and the team are going to accompany us back to the port after the vote.”
“We can’t leave before the vote’s announced,” Garcia told her.
“What difference does it make if we know they’ll be voting against us?” she demanded, an edge in her voice I knew she was already regretting. I squeezed her hand and she sighed. “Sorry, Mr. Secretary.”
“Yeah, we know it’ll go against us,” he admitted.
“But in my job, you have to take the long view. Maybe someone will change their mind tomorrow, or maybe five years from now.”
“If we head back to face everything the Tevynians have left with just the Jambo,” I said, “I don’t think we have a long view.”
“Maybe not, but that’s you guys’ game. This is mine.”
A door scraped open across the hall and the delegations filed back into the room. No one spoke until they were all in place at their tables, not to us and not to each other, which I assumed was some sort of ritual thing. When every member was seated, Anu Neeme Klas walked to the base of the stairs but didn’t ascend them. He made the announcement for the benefit of all, but his eyes were fixed on me.
“The motion to allow the humans of the Earth Coalition into our Alliance has been voted upon. The Helta and we, the Skrith, voted yes. The Chamblisi and the Vironians have noted no. Passage requires the vote of three of the four members of the Alliance, therefore the motion is defeated.” Anu Neeme Klas put his hand out to me in a gesture I didn’t recognize and the translator informed me it was one of grief. “If it were up to me alone, Andy Clanton, I would assemble every ship and every warrior we have to accompany you back to your home system and fight alongside you. But a decision of such gravity would have to be made by the Skrith Senior Council, and convening them will take days. I am distraught at the lack of fidelity to our friendship that I have shown you.”
He raked his claws across his bare chest where his vest parted, hard enough to draw lines of blood. He threw back his head and howled mournfully and the other Skrith at his table joined in, the otherworldly sound echoing through the chamber.
“I know you would help if you could, brother,” I told him. I wish I could say it was because his demonstration had moved me, but mostly it was all I could think of to keep him from slashing himself again. Who knew werewolves were cutters?
“I can help,” Joon-Pah said, giving the Chamblisi the Helta equivalent of the stinkeye. “I can’t bring the full might of the Helta with me, for like Anu Neeme Klas, I would need to return home and seek the approval of the Prime Facilitator. But I have the Truthseeker and all aboard her and I pledge them to the defense of your system as you came to the defense of ours.”
The One Who Shall Not Be Named Because I Couldn’t Remember It rose from her seat and waggled her tentacles so wildly at Joon-Pah that my translator didn’t even try to interpret the motion.
“This is a violation of the spirit of the Alliance!” I could barely hear the translation in my earbud over the Chamblisi’s screech, and her colors were pulsing from deep purple to black, which I assumed was not good. “For the Helta to aid these creatures in defiance of our vote is to declare that our membership holds no value for you!”
“To the Helta, your membership and your opinion hold great value,” Joon-Pah countered, eyeing the octopod with bared teeth. “To me, they mean nothing. I am the master of my ship and I shall do with her as I see fit. If my people wish to punish me for this, well, to quote my friends the Americans, they’ll need a long fucking ladder.”
The Chamblisi’s response was a squeal my comm unit couldn’t translate.
“Thank you,” I told Joon-Pah, offering him my hand.
He was, I understood even if the other races didn’t, volunteering to die beside us. It would have been an incredible gesture for a human, but I knew for the Helta, it was even more meaningful, since fighting against hopeless odds was a foreign concept to them.
“Of course,” he said, his grip firm in mine, and he attempted a human smile. “What are friends for?”
***
It felt good to be back on the Jambo.
On her bridge, leaning against the railing behind Olivera’s command station and watching the Skrith homeworld shrink behind us on the main screen, I could almost make myself forget what a disaster the whole trip had been. It seemed surreal, a fever dream. I hadn’t gone elk hunting with a spear or become blood brothers with a wolfman. That didn’t happen in real life.
I’m standing on the bridge of a starship about to jump into hyperspace. That doesn’t happen in real life, either.
I stifled a yawn, exhaustion dragging at me. Once we jumped, I was going to grab some sleep, no matter how dire the situation. I wasn’t going to be making sound decisions unless I closed my eyes for a couple of hours. I didn’t count getting blown up and losing consciousness as sleep.
“Incoming transmission from the Helta, General,” the communications officer announced almost before he could settle into his seat.
“Put it up,” Olivera ordered her with clear annoyance, slipping his tablet back into the holder affixed to his armrest.
The Helta delegation had lifted off shortly after us and their ship had to be breaking orbit by now. I wasn’t surprised they were calling already, since we hadn’t had time to discuss anything before we left the planet.
“Michael Olivera,” Joon-Pah said, his face occupying a third of the screen, an image of the monolithic mass of the Truthseeker beside it, “I do not mean to sound churlish, but I feel compelled to ask you, do we have a strategy beyond rushing headlong back to your system and hoping for the best?”
I snorted a laugh, trying to conceal it behind a cough with questionable success.
“Captain Joon-Pah,” Olivera replied, slitting his eyes at me, “I think Major Clanton has been a bad influence on you.”
“Andy Clanton told me more than once that he is a smartass reprobate whom I should not emulate,” Joon-Pah agreed, which would have been hurtful if it hadn’t been true. “But I am sorely lacking in human role models who trust me enough not to lie to me.”
Ouch. Joon-Pah might have forgiven us, but he clearly wasn’t ready to forget. Olivera’s face twitched as if the Helta had slapped him, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
“The Tevynians,” he said, his voice tightly controlled, “may be staging at some point along the route to Earth. My plan is to pop out in each system and check for enemy activity.” He threw a hand up in frustration. “I know it’s going to slow us down getting back, but as you say, we need something better than charging in headlong. I’m betting they’ll use Alpha Centauri. We know they have an observation post in the system, so it would make sense. We might be able to catch them with their pants down. Surprise is a force multiplier.”
“Force multiplier,” Joon-Pah repeated. “This is one of those words that my translator does not recognize and I have yet to learn the meaning of.”
“It means,” I supplied, “that surprise can make up for the fact we’re going to be badly outnumbered.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Joon-Pah asked. “If we are too late and they’re already in your Solar System? I have accepted the idea that I and my crew may face death in this venture, but I would prefer to be able to tell them it isn’t a certain thing, and it would be a boon to my own peace of mind if I knew we weren’t throwing our lives away on a hunch.”
“We’ll come out of hyperspace in the outer system and reconnoiter. There’s no point in strategizing with no intelligence, but we have one advantage: their alliance with the Chinese and the Russians means they won’t just carpet-bomb the planet. They’re going to be waiting for us and if we can figure out where they are, we can try to split them up and pick them off.”
Olivera sounded a lot like the coach of my high school football team when we faced the defending state champs in the first round of the playoffs. They beat us by four touchdowns.
“Very well. I assume you wish to scout the Alpha Centauri system with identical stealth.”
“Yeah, what that Tevynian assassin said about coming out in line with the star seems like a good idea. If the enemy is there, I have to assume they’re going to be near the habitable, because that’s where they left their spy satellite. We’ll effect a hyperdimensional translation about two light-seconds from the habitable, right in line with Alpha Centauri A, which should disguise our gamma signature, then we’re going to try something our research an
d development teams have been working on. I’m going to send you the specs before we jump so you can adjust your drive field accordingly.”
“Adjust it for what?”
Olivera smiled, clearly pleased with himself.
“We’ve figured out a way to adjust the drive field to distort the thermal and spectroscopic output from the ship. It can’t make us invisible obviously, because there’s no way to stop the thermal output, but it sure as hell can spread it out, hopefully enough to keep them from detecting us.”
“And when did you intend on sharing this discovery with us?”
The question took Olivera aback. He was used to Joon-Pah acting like the little brother in their relationship, I supposed.
“It hasn’t been used yet,” he said, as close as I’d seen him to dithering. “We only started testing it a couple months ago. They just gave us the specs before we left for the conference.”
I hadn’t heard about it, either, and I wondered if it would make Joon-Pah feel any better if I told him that, but I decided for once to keep my mouth shut.
“I suppose better late than never, as you say. Send us your coordinates for the planned entrance into the Alpha Centauri system. We will meet you there.”
The screen went dark and I saw more than one of the bridge crew looking back and forth from the screen to Olivera, their eyes wide.
“He’s pissed,” Julie said, never one to mince words.
“You think?” Olivera snapped. His glare bored into me like the lasers the Helta used to drill into asteroids. “Major Clanton,” he said, pushing up from his chair, “a word in private if you would.”
I cringed a little and followed him off the bridge, glancing at Julie. She mouthed “good luck” at me, which made me feel so much better. Olivera’s long, deliberate strides tried very hard to leave me behind, but I managed to keep up with a shuffling half-run until he stopped so abruptly that I nearly collided with him. He pushed open a hatch and gestured inside.