by S. H. Jucha
Within a half hour afterwards, Brennan and Lumley boarded a shuttle and left for orbit. Woo had a naval clipper standing by for them. Clippers were the smallest and fastest passenger ships the UE built and were dedicated to transporting senior naval commanders from point to point.
* * *
Lucchesi brooded over Brennan’s plan for days before he decided to confront the tribune about his intentions to visit Idona. Discovering that Brennan had left with Captain Lumley soon after their last meeting incensed him, and he requested a meeting of the enclave of high judges.
Six days later, Lucchesi departed his shuttle and traveled secretly to a building located in the Appalachian Mountains of what was once the US state of Tennessee. Inside, fifteen high judges, who were nominated by their compatriots, comprised the judicial enclave, the body that elected their tribune. They were acutely aware of every detail that Lucchesi was privy to. This meeting was not for the purposes of updating the enclave.
“Judges, I’ve come seeking approval for a plan of action,” Lucchesi began. “We are in danger of having our very way of life undermined by these strangers if we let them continue to infest Idona Station.”
“What do you need from us?” a high judge asked.
“Connections,” Lucchesi replied. “I believe only direct, overt action will prevent these strangers from undermining what we’ve achieved.” Lucchesi was careful not to repeat what he had learned from Brennan concerning the UE’s economic state of affairs. “We need senior naval commanders with connections, officers who can pull together a sufficient number of warships to exterminate the Harakens. That will prove to our people, especially our military, that these invaders are not invincible.”
“You recognize, Lucchesi, that if members of this enclave were to have such connections, ones I dare say required decades to cultivate, these individuals would no longer be of value to us once you employed them in your scheme,” another high judge remarked.
“We have this one opportunity. We must destroy the invaders now before it’s too late,” Lucchesi argued.
“Why now?” a third judge asked. “They are small in number and hold one station. They can do little else.”
Above all else, Lucchesi dearly wished to prevent sharing with the enclave the dire economic news he had heard. His fear was that they would blame him for the UE’s potential collapse. That would be his death sentence. The Harakens … their archaic attitude of goodwill will get me killed, Lucchesi thought.
The mood of the enclave was swinging against Lucchesi, and he was left with no choice. He laid out the UE’s dire economic future in detail for the judges, and then added the note that several station and colony directors were journeying to Idona to see for themselves what was being accomplished.
“It’s my feeling that we will soon see a rebirth of the rebellion, but it won’t be isolated groups of ineffective rebels, it will be entire colonies and stations seeking a new way of operating,” Lucchesi said. “There is the distinct possibility that many senior military commanders might be joining them. If this happens, we will lose control of the UE. We won’t have the military might or the economic power to regain control.”
The room was utterly still when Lucchesi finished until the spokesman for the enclave announced, “Leave us, Lucchesi, while we deliberate.”
The high judge of the UE Supreme Tribunal sat in an antechamber like a schoolboy waiting to be disciplined. Lucchesi ran through the conversation with the enclave several times in his head, reconsidering his every word. In the end, he believed he had no other choice but to say what he had said.
The UE was headed for a cliff, driven by the makeup of its society, a model which appeared to have run its course. If Lucchesi was honest with himself, the Harakens were only hastening the end or perhaps showing the people a different path. Regardless of which it was, the aliens’ actions were derailing the UE, and, more important, could potentially strip the power of the Supreme Tribunal and the high judges.
To Lucchesi, this latter result was the cruelest part. He couldn’t conceive of living any other way than in the opulent manner in which he was now accustomed. For the seemingly hundredth time, he wished oblivion for the Harakens’ intervention in UE affairs.
“The enclave is ready for you, Tribune Lucchesi,” a young man said, dipping his head and waving an arm toward the enclave’s entrance.
“We’ve reached a consensus, Tribune Lucchesi,” the spokesperson said. “We will give you one name, who will have the seniority to assemble the necessary forces, but on one inviolate condition. You will speak to no one about your scheme except this individual, who will execute this endeavor as he sees fit. If it fails, and it is our hope that it won’t, then you will resign your position, citing ill health, and we will nominate another in your place. Are we clear?”
“Yes,” Lucchesi replied. “I thank the enclave for their support.” An imperial wave of the spokesperson’s hand sent Lucchesi exiting the chamber. In the antechamber, the same young man held out a small piece of paper to him, but when Lucchesi reached for it, the note was snatched back.
“Only look, Tribune, and commit it to memory,” the man said and held out the paper again.
On the note was written “T. Portland.”
After Lucchesi returned to the Supreme Tribunal’s hideaway, he searched militia and naval records for the name, locating an Admiral Theodore Portland. His next step was fraught with difficulty. He had been warned to involve no one in his communications with the admiral.
Lucchesi waited until the early morning hours of the following day. A new comms operator had been transferred to the Tribunal hideaway two days earlier, and Lucchesi sought him out. The young man was flattered by the tribune’s attention and eagerly worked to demonstrate his equipment. When Lucchesi requested a comm to Admiral Theodore Portland, the comms operator accessed an application on a computer monitor, and, within seconds, he located the access and routing codes for the admiral.
“All that’s required, Tribune Lucchesi, is to enter these two codes here and here,” he said pointing to his comms station. “When ready, you activate the record function on this panel and speak into this pickup.”
“The admiral will then receive an encrypted message, I presume,” Lucchesi asked.
“Absolutely, Tribune Lucchesi. The admiral must enter his personal code in order to be able to read the message.”
“How are replies routed to me?’ Lucchesi asked.
“All messages for you are routed to this comms center, Tribune, unless you wish otherwise,” the boy replied.
“What if I wish all messages from a single person routed to me in my chambers?” Lucchesi asked.
“Simple to arrange, Tribune. On the control board, I input your name here, the access code for the individual, and the code for your chamber. After that, all messages from that individual will be sent to your chamber’s comms console,” the operator replied, a broad, innocent smile on his young face.
“Thank you, son. Now, I need to send a private message. This will be an opportunity to see if I’ve been an apt student of your generous tutelage.”
The comms operator gushed at the praise and eased out of the small control room to leave the tribune in private.
Lucchesi entered the access codes for Admiral Portland, and then, tapping the record function, spoke his carefully composed message, stopped the recording, and then tapped the lit send icon. Afterwards, he programmed messages from the admiral to be routed to his chamber console.
As Lucchesi left the control room, he generously thanked the boy for his help, laying a friendly hand on his shoulder. It was the least Lucchesi felt he should do for him. In the morning, the young comms operator would be arrested for treason, and, for that charge, the sentence was death.
* * *
Admiral Theodore Portland, better known to his subordinates as Tyrant Portland, was working through his message queue in his stateroom aboard the battleship Guardian. His personal code unlocked his console, b
ut the fifth message in the queue required a little-used code for communication with UE superiors.
What have we here? Portland wondered as he entered a second code and played Tribune Lucchesi’s message. He played it twice again, and then instead of erasing the message as directed, Portland moved it to a private directory. Leaning back in his chair, his fingers played a silent tattoo on the tabletop, while he considered the request.
A judicial tribune’s request couldn’t be considered a lawful order for a naval admiral. For Portland, it would need to be issued by his superior, the senior admiral of UE naval forces, Space Admiral Li Chong. But Portland owed much of his career’s advancement to the patronage of the high judges, and lately the enclave itself, and the opportunity to engage and defeat the invaders was a sweet siren’s call to his burning ambitions.
Despite the assistance his career had received, Portland was by no means without skills, experience and cunning among them. He was aware of the rumors about the strangers’ technology and knew that he would need to bring his entire fleet to bear. The challenge was how and when to move an entire fleet from Saturn to Neptune without lawful orders.
Having almost as many moons as Jupiter, Saturn’s moons hosted fifty-two extensive underground colonies and domes, and the populace hid the greatest concentration of rebels. Portland’s fleet was constantly interdicting freighters and liners attempting to sneak supplies to the rebels, and he was ruthless with the sympathizers his ships caught.
Pulling up Sol’s planet chart on his monitor, a sly grin spread across Portland’s face. Saturn was approaching an alignment with Neptune, which happened about 5.6 times during Neptune’s 164.8-year orbit of Sol. Portland considered it an omen that heralded his triumph over the invaders.
But the admiral still needed an excuse. Checking the planet positions again, Portland would have giggled if he wasn’t a conservative man by nature. Mars, where Space Admiral Chong was stationed, was on a far pass of the sun from Saturn, and the Earth was nearer Portland’s position. It meant communication times to the space admiral and from the space admiral to the Tribunal would be maximized. His message to Chong would take almost twelve days, and certainly the admiral would want to check with the Tribunal before considering any action against Portland. That would add another four days each way for every message sent.
Immediately, Portland issued orders for the recall of the fleet’s patrol ships and to ready the fleet for maneuvers, emphasizing each ship was to be at full armament load. Then he sat back and considered his message to Chong.
-12-
Alex continued examining the holo-vid, which had been transferred from the fleet’s stock for his use. Z installed an FTL transmitter to allow Alex to communicate independently with the fleet and pull data from the carriers’ databases and the seeded probes for the holo-vid’s display.
The UE scientists were continually educating Alex and Tatia on the system — planets, moons, colonies, domes, stations — the complete and partial domination by the UE militia. The moons of Jupiter and Saturn, totaling more than 100 bodies, held the greatest concentration of rebels, who were mixed in with the general population.
A couple of hours later, Alex received Julien’s message. Julien sent.
Alex looked at the door and the scientists followed suit, recognizing that Alex had received a message.
In the corridor, Julien gestured to a door, which slid open, and Tribune Brennan walked through it with Lumley beside him. As directed, both men were wearing casual Earther attire, which seemed out of place on the station, where most people wore some sort of variation of a ship suit, uniform, or the more creative civilian wear of the outer rim.
“Francis,” Olawale called out loudly and ran to greet the captain by picking him up in a huge bear hug.
“Easy, Olawale. After surviving everything I’ve been through in the past few months, it would be ironic to die from the greeting of a friend,” Lumley replied, but the grin on his face said he didn’t mind the enthusiastic welcome.
“Captain Lumley,” Alex said, walking around the holo-vid, which he deliberately left on, to greet the captain. “It’s a pleasure to see you in person again. Is your crew well?”
“They have been released, Mr. President. It seems the word is out about you, and their incarceration has no more value.”
“Good to hear, Captain. Although, to my mind, there was never a need to imprison them,” Alex replied, and slid his eyes to the tribune to drive his point home. “Tribune Brennan, so generous of you to bring the good captain to visit with his friends. Will you be staying long or are you just dropping the captain off and returning to Earth?”
Alex shook off his pique and offered both men a smile. “But where are my manners? Please come in. I was just being educated on your solar system … the habitats and the players … you know … the conquerors, the conquered, and the rebels.”
Lumley hurried forward, fascinated by the holo-vid, and Olawale and he huddled while the scientist explained how the device worked and what they were seeing.
Brennan leaned over to study a remarkably clear view of Saturn and some of its moons. “How old is this image?” Brennan asked.
“You’re looking at a real-time image, Tribune,” Tatia replied.
“Since Saturn is on a near pass, it’s about three days old then,” Brennan guessed.
“Is that what real time means to you people?” Tatia asked, a frown forming on her face. “We’ve had time to drop probes throughout your system, Tribune. The image you’re looking at is real time.”
Brennan looked over at Lumley, but it was Olawale who offered the tribune an apologetic smile and an explanation. “If I was to say, Tribune Brennan, the Harakens are more advanced than us in many ways, I would be so woefully understating the truth.”
The tribune was trying to grasp the reality of the Harakens’ incredible technology when he absent-mindedly reached out to touch the life-like image of Neptune.
“Careful, Tribune,” Tatia warned. “You don’t want to destroy Neptune.” A round of laughter followed Brennan’s quick snatch of his hand back from the holo-vid, a shocked expression on his face. “Apologies, Tribune. I couldn’t resist,” Tatia said.
“Tribune Brennan, let’s take a walk, while Lumley gets reacquainted with his old friends,” Alex said and swung a hand toward the salon’s main door.
Brennan’s exit to the corridor was a mix of stuttered steps as he followed the president and took in the entourage who accompanied them in a precise turning of bodies even though the president hadn’t requested their presence. Adding to the thoughts churning through his mind was the incredible variety of the Harakens — some enormous like the president, his admiral, and the gigantic one called Z — some displaying an other-worldly beauty such as the identical twins, who flanked their group, their eyes searching the crowded corridor for signs of trouble.
“Have you been to the station before, Tribune?” Alex asked.
“Actually, never, Mr. President, but I’ve seen militia vids as late as five years ago. I must say that what you’ve accomplished here is a —”
“Revolution,” Alex supplied.
“Mirac
ulous, certainly,” Brennan said, carefully avoiding Alex’s term. “That’s why I’m here. Analysis of the flow of ships, people, and credits indicated a statistically significant growth. But I have to say that what I’m seeing so far indicates the estimates didn’t do justice to the changes. This is a revival!”
“And what do you intend to do with this information, Tribune?” Alex asked.
Brennan would have explained, but an intoxicating woman swept up to the president and kissed him passionately. Then holding onto the president’s arm she extended a hand to him, saying, “Tribune Brennan, I’m Renée de Guirnon.”
“A pleasure … uh, Lady de Guirnon,” Brennan replied, shaking Renée’s hand and taking a stab at her title.”
“Actually, we say Ser de Guirnon, but you may call me Renée.”
“Renée,” Brennan repeated, enjoying the name and fixing on Renée’s face. “I’m Ian,” he added.
“What do you think of your station, Ian?” Renée asked, releasing Alex’s arm and taking Brennan’s — just two old friends strolling the corridor and chatting.
“I was just telling the president,” Brennan said, looking over his shoulder at Alex, “that I’m impressed, and I want to study what’s happening here. I would love to replicate this across the entire system.”
“But do you know, Ian, what is at the heart of this success?” Renée asked.
“Yes, I believe I do,” Brennan admitted with regret. “I’m hoping to convince others that we should make this station the model for the entire UE.”