by B. V. Larson
“Piping her through—she doesn’t sound cooperative.”
“She never does,” I said, grimacing as I made contact.
She was still flat on her back in our medical bay, recovering. She stared at me with baleful eyes that were swollen half-shut.
“What do you want, Sparhawk the traitor?”
“I want your two cruisers to help me destroy the variant fighters,” I said.
“Are you mad? Let our enemies destroy one another. Have you no concept of strategy?”
“What you suggest would be a good tactic, but not a good strategy. The variants have been broken. Their battleships are coming in now, but they’ve been targeted by more missiles. They’re unlikely to survive.”
“So are we, if we get any closer to this planet of mad-things.”
“We can’t stand by as a fellow colonist group is destroyed. They’re human—technically. They will remain a power after this battle as they have a few other star systems they’ve seeded. Therefore, strategy dictates we should—”
“All right,” she said. “Shut up, and I’ll tell my captains. They’re under no obligation to follow my orders, however, as I’ve lost my own command.”
“Let’s hope they still respect you enough to listen to sensible advice.”
She made a hissing sound. “Whatever I saw as admirable in you is a mystery to me now.”
With that, she disconnected. I couldn’t help to be anything but relieved to hear she no longer had a crush on me.
We watched tensely as Defiant glided into range of the Stroj home world. From here, the Stroj did have the option to blast us. I’d calculated that to be a justified risk as we were currently firing at their enemy. To further emphasize our value, I ordered my gunners to begin taking out variant fighters.
We popped them, two or three at a time, with each barrage of our cannons. It proved not to be quite as easy a task as I’d thought. The fighters, now deep in the soupy atmosphere of the Stroj home world, were defended by the heavy vapors and particles in the upper layers of gas that hung over any planet.
But some of them did go down with every shot. When two more cruisers came down to join us in our efforts, the destruction became pronounced. The number of variant fighters was dropping precipitously.
“Are the Stroj unleashing a new weapon?” Durris demanded. “We aren’t hitting all of these ships. We can’t be. They’re losing around a hundred a minute.”
We all studied the data, puzzled. It was Yamada who figured it out this time.
“They’re out of fuel,” she said. “On my scopes, I can see their contrails vanish seconds before each one goes down. They’re fighting until they drop to the ground and burn. Such dedication.”
“The dedication of army ants!” Rumbold declared. “Hah!”
We had nothing to add to that other than a sense of intense relief. The battle was soon over. The variants were brought down to the last craft.
Then, as we withdrew out of the range of the Stroj, we felt even greater relief. They weren’t firing on us.
I tried to contact them, but the overlord was either dead or uninterested in talk. We decided diplomacy was best left to another day and withdrew farther still.
Behind us, we left a burning hulk of a planet. The Stroj had suffered dearly. They weren’t wiped out, but conservative estimates placed their population losses at greater than fifty percent. Their military had lost over ninety percent of its strength as well.
Okto contacted me an hour or so later when our ships had been pulled away to the edge of the Stroj reach.
She was projected onto my range of vision by my implant. She was down, heavily bandaged and swollen. Her movements were labored and difficult.
“That was well-fought, Captain Sparhawk,” she said. “I’m impressed at your ability to grind together two enemies, like a woman determined to make dust out of boulders.”
“That wasn’t my initial intention,” I said, “but I thank you for the sentiment.”
“I’m calling you as a prisoner,” she said, “I’d ask for mercy, but it is not the way of my people.”
Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “Okto… you’ve never seemed to understand Earthmen. You’re not my prisoner. You’re free to go at any moment you wish.”
“A cruel joke,” she said. “I’m badly injured, and I’m calling you from your infirmary. I’ve assumed you’ve kept me alive as a hostage, but that’s pointless. My people do not pay ransoms or make diplomatic deals to save the life of failed captains.”
“Failed? How have you failed?”
“My ship has been destroyed. That is sick failure for any Alpha captain.”
“But you faced a much greater opponent. They lost their ships too—all of them. The Stroj even managed to take down the battleships with their missiles. There was bound to be losses on this campaign that we fought together. The sacrifice of your ship was a bold and brilliant attack that did terrible damage to the enemy. If your commanders back home can’t see that, they’re poor strategists indeed.”
She perked up a little. “You plan a coup, then?” she asked. “Your forces will attempt to conquer my home planet?”
“Certainly not,” I said. I would have laughed if the topic wasn’t so delicate.
“Your behavior is a mystery to me,” she said. “At one moment, Earthmen seem like vicious competitors. The next, they’re trying to tenderly help enemies like nursing mothers. Which are you, Sparhawk?”
“We’re both,” I admitted.
It occurred to me then that Okto was having trouble understanding Earthmen as we were all so different. True individuals, one to the next.
“Look,” I said. “The people from your world only come in two basic varieties. Alphas and Betas. On Earth, there are countless variations. Each man is an individual with varied behavior patterns.”
“Confusing…” she said. “I know that what you say must be true in theory, but we rarely encounter such variety in a single people. Among the stars, we’ve become isolated. Beta, as much as any world, is full of people who all think alike.”
“Yes!” I said. “That’s what I’m talking about. Earthmen sent out the variants. The people who did it were overcome with fear. They believed the rest of humanity out here among the stars wasn’t worth helping. After they met people like the Stroj, they became afraid of all colonists, and they decided to strike first.”
“You’ve just admitted to me that this action by the variants was intentional. That the variants were not mutineers.”
I hesitated for a moment then decided I didn’t even want to deny the truth. “That’s right,” I said, “but I’m an individual who disagrees with the others I spoke of. I came here to destroy what they unleashed.”
“A vast evil,” she said with feeling. “So many have died. By our thinking, you’re not much better. You’re a traitor to your world.”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I believe that all humans belong to the same species underneath, and we all owe each other respect and protection.”
“Protection against what?”
“Those who don’t ascribe to my point of view—criminals like the people who unleashed the variants.”
She stared at me for a moment. Her expression indicated she was trying hard to comprehend me.
At least she was trying to connect with someone who didn’t have her same mindset. That had to be a difficult trick for anyone from a clone race to pull off.
I was also fairly certain that males in general were completely baffling to her.
“Perhaps,” I said in conclusion, “your people and mine will come to understand one another in time.”
Privately, I wasn’t so sure.
-61-
Okto recovered quickly from her injuries, and she was able to walk two days after the battle. We decided to transfer her to one of the surviving Beta battle cruisers.
She seemed to accept that we were no longer blood-enemies. She wasn’t exactly friendly, but she wasn’t angry or accu
satory, either.
“When you come back to the Beta Cygnus system again,” she said, “we will only attack if you threaten us.”
“Excellent,” I said, taking her statement in the best possible light. “That’s a beginning. If Beta ships come to the Solar System, we’ll hold our fire until you’ve shown your intentions.”
That level of cooperation seemed to please her. She reached out a hand, startling me. Was she going to shake my hand?
No... Instead, she rubbed at the fabric of my sleeve.
“It’s too bad,” she said, “about Yamada. We could have enjoyed ourselves.”
I cleared my throat and let my hand drop without clasping hers.
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said, smiling. “Farewell.”
Okto left, limping onto an escape pod and closing the hatch. We watched as she traveled to her people’s ship and boarded safely.
Lorn was even easier to get rid of. We simply stuffed him into a survival pod and released it into friendly space. He grumbled steadily over the radio until we closed the channel. The pod turned away from us and headed back toward the Stroj home world.
“We could have taken him all the way home,” Yamada said.
“No way!” Rumbold said. “The Stroj are unpredictable. We’re lucky they never fired a missile at us that landed.”
“Rumbold’s right,” I said. “We couldn’t take the chance. I wonder what sort of greeting he’ll get when he returns home.”
“Maybe they’ll tear him apart and use him for spare parts,” Rumbold mused.
I had to admit it was a possibility. But I’d come to believe in Lorn’s resilience. If I’d ever met a survivor, it was Lorn.
All of us felt a distinct sense of relief as we turned away from the Stroj system and made our way back toward the outer regions of the star system.
Once our course was set and we were flying at a leisurely pace away from the bright white sun, I gathered my top staff and held a meeting. Where should we go next? That was the key question on the minds of my officers.
“Captain,” Durris said, speaking up first. “I think I speak for all of us when I say you’ve done a magnificent job out here. The variant rebellion—if you can call it that—has been put down. The trouble is: what do we do next?”
I looked at each of them, my eyes moving from face to face. Durris, Yamada, Rumbold, Director Vogel and a few other officers stared back. Morris was still recovering, and I was hoping to see Zye later back on Earth. It was good to have friendly people all around me.
“We’ve struck a blow for humanity today,” I said, “but that’s not good enough. Back home, there are forces at work. Forces that would undo everything we’ve done out here on the frontier.”
They shifted uncomfortably. Several frowned. These were Star Guard officers. They were used to following orders handed down from CENTCOM without question.
To allay their fears, I lifted a cautioning hand.
“Wait,” I said. “I’m not talking about starting some kind of coup or a rebellion against CENTCOM.”
They relaxed visibly. Some seemed to exhale for the first time since I’d started speaking.
“The forces I’m talking about are illegitimate. They exist outside our official government. They control all of us through terror at the top and ignorance at the bottom. Most Earthers are completely unaware of their existence.”
Proceeding to tell them all about the Council and the Chairman, I was surprised none of them scoffed or interrupted me. They’d seen too much and trusted me now more than ever.
In some cases, I’d let drop hints or even provided evidence. This time, I gave them a full briefing. Vogel helped with supportive testimony about what had happened to us at CENTCOM. Yamada backed me up by explaining how she had hacked my implant—and how she could do it for everyone else aboard.
They were listening, but they were glassy-eyed. For the most part, they wanted to go back home, back to Earth, back to their old lives. They wanted to leave war, strife and adventure behind and take a rest.
But it wasn’t to be. I explained the reason why next.
“So you see,” I said, “the Council created the fleet, manned it with variants, and sent it out to sweep away our own colonists. If we hadn’t gathered forces here and put a stop to it, the armada would have exterminated the Stroj and kept on going.”
“But that’s just it,” Durris said, interrupting at last. “Isn’t this over, Captain? The fleet’s gone. It’s been put down.”
I shook my head. “They’re building more ships—new variants, a new carrier, more battleships. They’ll send this new fleet out on the same mission as the last. They’ve been building since we left, and they’ll keep sending out fleets until the job is done. Only then will they declare that Earth is safe—with them still in charge, of course.”
“But we can expose them, surely,” he pressed. “All we have to do is fly home, go directly to the press, and release all the evidence you’ve just shown us. They’d never get away with their plotting at that point!”
Vogel leaned forward, shaking his head. “You don’t understand these people. They will transmit a morning update the moment we return to the Solar System. In fact, auto-update software is buried in the data core of this ship. Defiant will log in for the update the moment they can get a patch file transmitted to our location. You won’t remember anything about a Council or a Chairman soon after you return to the Solar System.”
Durris turned to me. “But you will!” he said. “You’ve hacked your implant. You’ve bypassed it. Yamada and Vogel can hack all our implants—even the variants. We’ll be whole of mind when we get back home.”
“We could do that,” I said, “and we could broadcast our message as you suggest. What do you think they’ll do next?”
He blinked, thinking hard. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll give up. Maybe they’ll go into hiding after we expose them.”
I gave him a grim smile. “I will suggest another scenario. They will alter the minds of those who have heard our messages. The masses will wake up believing we are traitors. After all, haven’t we just destroyed Earth’s own fleet? Are we not villains of the worst stripe?”
“But… won’t the people believe us?”
“Perhaps they will at first, but not after they’re updated. If we go home and expose the Council, they will act. They will rewrite history and send their battleships—of which they should have two by now—to destroy us.”
“Two battleships?” Durris asked, incredulous.
“Yes,” I said. “Resolution, and another vessel built while we were on our voyage.”
“We can’t stop two battleships with one battered cruiser,” Durris said.
“No,” I agreed. “That’s why we have to take a different course of action. Vogel?”
Director Vogel leaned forward to explain. “We have a hard choice to make. We could accept our fates and rejoin Earth. All of us who have hacked implants must remove them. We’ll then be updated, and if we’re lucky, we’ll be allowed to live.”
“That’s not going to work!” Yamada said in concern. “They’ll know what we did. They’ll be furious. We destroyed trillions of credits worth of hardware!”
“Well,” Vogel said dismissively, “I didn’t say that path would be easy or plausible. But neither is the other one.”
“What is the other path, Director?” Rumbold asked, speaking up for the first time.
Vogel leaned forward, lowered his voice, and spoke quietly. His manner was similar to that of any conspirator throughout time.
“We’ll go home immune to updates, and we’ll behave triumphantly. We can doctor our logs and after-action reports. In our scenario, the Stroj were the ones who defeated the variants after heavy losses. We’ll claim the mission a success, and we’ll point to our realignment with the Beta colonists as proof.”
“They don’t even like the Betas,” Rumbold pointed out.
Vogel shrugged again. “It doesn’t matter. We�
��ll look innocent. That will allow us to approach Earth in a stealthy manner. We won’t be cloaked, mind you, but we’ll be taken in as a friend.”
Durris appeared to give an involuntary shudder. “What you speak of is treason. Vile treachery!”
“No!” I said, entering the conversation again. They all looked at me. “No. We’re not going to lift a finger against Star Guard or our legitimate government. Instead, we’ll deal with the Council directly.”
“How?” Durris asked.
Vogel and I exchanged glances. “Before we get into that, I want you all to tell me what you’re thinking right now. Where do your hearts lie?”
They looked glum all around. Circumstances had put us all in an impossible situation.
“All I ever wanted to do,” Yamada said, “is live the noble life of a naval officer. A spacer in Star Guard. I never wanted any of this!”
“None of us asked for this duty,” I admitted, “but here we are. Sometimes, war is thrust upon a military man from an unexpected angle. At that point, hard choices must be made.”
Vogel looked at me sidelong. “What about you, Sparhawk?” he asked. “Are we looking at a rare man like George Washington, or are you more like Napoleon? Will you see the need for a strong leader after this is over? Someone dedicated to straightening Earth out in his own image?”
“A good question,” I said, waving down Rumbold, who’d begun to sputter angrily at the director. “I’m not seeking glory or rulership. I doubt such things would even be possible. With the Council excised, our government should function the way it was meant to. No further intervention should be necessary.”
“Are you sure about that?” Durris asked. “Have you asked yourself how Earth has been so peaceful for so long? What will you say when a rebellious leader rises, or a foolish movement threatens to tear Earth apart?”
“Let it happen,” I said, “as it should have all along. Let the chaos of a disorderly society engulf us all. People managed to thrive before the oldsters and their ‘morning updates’, so why should they fail to do so after they’re gone?”
Rumbold slapped the table with an open palm. “I’m in,” he said. “If we don’t do this now, we’ll never get another chance to make things right.”