It wasn’t a reassuring thought. She knew, all too well, just how corrupt the Grand Senate had become, simply through being able to pass power down the generations without a real challenge. Emperor Marius’s family might follow the same pattern, except they would have no true peers, no one who could challenge their petty cruelties. Marius himself might be a fine man – and she had to admit he was – but what would his children or grandchildren be like? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“We should,” she said. The first wave of bombings and other attacks had shocked the Federation, but it had also galvanised the security forces to root out the moles, root and branch. It would be far from easy to get an assassin close enough to Admiral Drake to make the kill, not since the Grand Senate had already tried to kill him. “But I don’t see how.”
“I will consider it,” General Erskine said. He paused. “But, for the moment, the war itself goes on.”
General Stuart nodded, then keyed a switch. A 3D holographic starchart appeared in front of them.
“We cannot attack Boston directly,” he said. “The defenses aren’t much more advanced than the defenses of Athena, but Commodore Garibaldi has had ample time to make improvements, prevent chaos software from infecting the whole system and repair his fleet before we were ready to attack. Now, we might win if we stormed the system, but the cost would be staggeringly high. Our best case would see us losing a third of our fleet merely trying to break through the Asimov Point, let alone storming the planet and its orbital facilities.”
Li frowned. “Don’t we have supporters on the planet itself?”
“Not enough,” General Erskine said. “Commodore Garibaldi has already taken precautions against another uprising.”
“So we will angle our attacks, instead, against worlds closer to Boston,” General Stuart said. “We will gain control of three separate Asimov Point chains, forcing Commodore Garibaldi to split his forces to cover the planet as well as the system. Eventually, we will be able to punch through and take Boston, forcing Commodore Garibaldi into a missile duel that will play to our strengths.”
“Until they duplicate the long-range missiles for themselves,” Li said. She looked down at the table. “How long will it take them to copy our weapons, now they’ve seen them in action?”
“Unknown,” General Stuart said. “Assuming they don’t have any samples to work from, I’d say at least six months to come up with a workable design and another six months to start mass production. But they may have a similar concept on the drawing board already, in which case the time to mass production will be considerably shorter.”
“All of that assumes they are in position to keep researching newer technology,” Li said. “We did hammer their production yards pretty hard.”
“Not hard enough,” General Stuart said. “They will be able to recover, if they have time.”
“Which brings us all the way back to taking out Boston,” Li added. She looked him in the eye. “We’ve tested ourselves against them now, General. Can we take the system?”
“I believe so,” General Stuart said. “But time is not on our side.”
Li nodded. The Outsiders had swept over nearly two hundred worlds, not counting the asteroid settlements and other minor habitations, but most of them were largely irrelevant to the overall outcome of the war. Their settlers might be enthusiastic, yet they brought nothing to the table. All they could really do was eliminate the Federation’s supervisors and pray the Outsiders won the war. The Federation would not be merciful if it returned to the sector to discover that countless investments had been destroyed, or nationalized.
She sighed. The Federation would not be merciful. It was practically becoming a refrain.
We won the first battles, she thought. But now the Federation is alert and knows we’re out here. The next battles will be far harder.
“Then you may commence preparations to take the system at once,” she said. “But remember not to risk everything on one blow.”
General Stuart nodded. “Understood,” he said. “We won’t let you down.”
* * *
“This isn’t a bad place to take leave,” Lieutenant Caleb Roebuck said, without irony. He and Uzi sat together in a cafe, drinking beer and watching as their subordinates had their fun. “I could spend a few years here.”
Uzi had to smile. “I suppose you could,” he agreed. “But there really isn’t anything remarkable here.”
Roebuck looked disbelieving. The spaceport strip consisted of nothing more than a dozen brothels, five gambling halls – they would have been called casinos, Uzi had heard, but there was a tax on casinos that didn’t apply to gambling halls – and at least thirty places to eat, drink and pick fights. He didn’t have the heart to tell Roebuck that there were places for shore leave on Earth where hundreds of thousands of spacers could be catered for at the same time, then pushed out when they ran out of money. There was no shortage of ways to separate a spacer or a soldier from his money and the people who ran the shore leave facilities knew all of them. By Earth’s standards, the spaceport was really quite small.
“But tell me,” Roebuck said. “Who are they?”
Uzi followed his gaze. A pair of near-naked women, wearing nothing more than silver thongs, stood there, smiling cheerfully at spacers and soldiers alike. They couldn’t have been more obviously prostitutes if they’d carried signs around, although they had a certain innocence that suggested they were part-timers, rather than dedicated prostitutes.
“They’re probably part-timers,” he said, finally. “They’re often inexperienced.”
Roebuck gave him a sharp look. “Part-timers?”
“The wages here aren’t very high,” Uzi said. “When a large number of ships arrive in orbit and their crews come down for shore leave, the young girls often come to the port and offer themselves, in exchange for a few credits. They book a hotel room and service three or four spacers a day, then they stagger off home and clean themselves as best as they can. Some of them find they like it and join the brothels, others swear never to do it again until they really, really, really, really need the money. And some of them die on the streets”
“I...they’re just...” Roebuck swallowed and started again. “But why?”
Uzi felt a sudden urge to shock the younger man. “Why do they do it? Because they need money. And why do they die?”
He smiled, humorlessly. “The brothels have rules,” he said. “You can have just about anything you want, as long as you book in advance. Get your kicks by slapping girls? You can find a girl willing to be slapped by you for a few extra credits. But step over the lines you paid for? You can expect to be yanked off the girl by a security guard and tossed naked into the streets.”
Roebuck looked sick.
Uzi went on, enjoying himself. “But the girls who come for a day or two have no protections,” he added. “They’re innocents, too. They don’t realize that someone might want more than a quick blowjob or a hasty screw in a hired bedroom. Some of them are beaten, some try to back out when they realize they’re actually selling themselves for money...and some are killed by the brothel owners. They don’t like the competition.”
“That’s...that’s awful,” Roebuck said.
“It could be worse,” Uzi said. “I was once hired to train soldiers on one side of an insurgency. Their leaders had a habit of kidnapping women from the other side of the insurgency and raping them, then telling the poor bitches they had a choice between working for them or going back home. And most of them stayed with the kidnappers, even though the choice was quite genuine. They could have gone home if they’d wished.”
Roebuck’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“Because their menfolk would have killed them for daring to be raped,” Uzi said. “You see, they felt that a proper woman simply couldn’t be raped. They genuinely believed that to be true. So, by definition, any woman who was actually raped was not a proper woman and had betrayed her family. She had to die.”
“The Federation was backing the side that was trying to crush those bastards,” Uzi said, just to see what sort of response he got. To Roebuck – and the other Outsiders – the Federation was the source of all evil. “It never bothered to just crush them from orbit.”
There were other tales he could tell, he knew, but he kept them to himself. The mercenaries had been forced to blend in with the locals, even share some of their pursuits. And some of them had made looting, raping and burning seem almost normal.
Roebuck shook his head. “We’re fighting to stop it,” he said. “We won’t let it continue.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Uzi said, dryly. “You do realize there’s a contradiction there?”
He smiled, then explained when Roebuck looked puzzled. “You talk about freeing the colony worlds from the iron grip of the Federation, allowing them to develop in their own way,” he pointed out. “But at the same time, you’re wanting to stop cultural practices that would be a great deal worse without the Federation’s interference. For every world birthed from a decent culture, Lieutenant, there is one birthed from a nightmare that was booted off Earth, centuries ago. And which ones do you consider worth protecting?”
Roebuck looked down at his hands. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But...but the Federation is a monster.”
“I don’t think that is in dispute,” Uzi said. The Grand Senate had committed more than its fair share of atrocities. “But tell me...can you form a government that large without committing monstrous acts of your own?”
“I thought you were on our side,” Roebuck said.
“I’m a mercenary,” Uzi countered. “I’m on the side of whoever pays me.”
It was true enough, he thought, even as Roebuck twisted his lips in disgust. To an idealist, the mercenary must seem the lowest form of being. But to a practical man, idealism itself was a weakness. No amount of idealism could bring warmth and security to a family. Only money – cold hard cash – or power could ensure either.
“Bah,” Roebuck said, finally.
He rose, dropped a credit on the table, then stalked off. Uzi watched him go, wondering what – if anything – would result from his gentle prodding. It was just possible that Roebuck would grow dissatisfied with the Outsiders, perhaps even be ready to be turned into a double-agent. Or he might rationalize his way through the contradiction and convince himself that he was still on the side of bright, unvarnished good. Uzi had met far too many people who talked themselves into believing that anything they did was justified, because it was in the name of the greater good.
The waitress – a young girl wearing a long dress buttoned up to her neck – strode over and picked up Roebuck’s abandoned glass. Uzi finished his glass with one long swallow, then passed it to the girl, making sure to keep his eyes on the swell of her covered breasts. The girl looked nervous as she scurried off, taking the credit with her. Uzi allowed himself a cold smile, taking a moment of amusement in the whole situation. She’d probably been harassed by just about everyone who came in for a drink, even though her clothing suggested she was off the market. Shaking his head, he stood and walked out of the door.
He heard the sound of someone gagging in an alleyway and peered inside, allowing his gaze to adapt to the gloom. A girl was on her knees in front of a man, who was zipping up his fly with practiced ease. The girl herself was spitting out the remains of his semen...She, Uzi decided, was definitely a newcomer to the whole game. Even the most man-hating whore would know to pretend it tasted sweet.
Too young, Uzi thought, feeling an odd flicker of sympathy. He was good at judging ages and the girl, he thought, was only seventeen at most. Perhaps younger. It wasn’t uncommon for girls to take tailored hormones in hopes of boosting their bodies, even when they were too young to handle it. The growth of the girl’s chest, out of proportion with the rest of her body, suggested she’d definitely had something done to it.
The client glanced at him, nodded in an almost friendly manner and strode off down the alleyway. Uzi watched him go, then looked at the girl. The despair in her blue eyes would have been comical, under other circumstances. It was very definitely her first time on the streets. She’d probably thought she’d known what it was like until she actually did it. And then she’d had a very nasty surprise.
And, he told himself, isn’t that just like the Outsiders?
He could have her, he knew. She was a whore. He could pay for her. But, after everything he’d said, it wouldn’t have felt right. The thought bothered him – a conscience, after all this time? But he pushed it aside.
Reaching into his pocket, he produced a coin and tossed it to her, then turned and walked away.
Interlude One
From: The Chaos Years (5023)
The defeat of the Federation at Athena, the attacks against Earth and the flight to Boston effectively cost the Federation control of the Rim. Independence-seeking rebels on countless worlds threw the Federation’s control of everything from vital industrial nodes to Asimov Point junctions into doubt. The Federation, already weakened by the Justinian War, staggered under the blows. It seemed as though the collapse of central authority would not be too far away.
It still possessed overwhelming power. But all of its power meant nothing when the system itself was failing. The Grand Senate had weakened the bonds of loyalty that had allowed the Federation to survive the Inheritance Wars. Now, countless star systems thought more of independence, even of joining the Outsider Federation, rather than remaining loyal to the Federation. What had the Federation done for them? The benefits its rule brought were more than matched, even exceeded, by the downsides of being forced to submit themselves to the Grand Senate. What sort of security could anyone hope for when the Grand Senate could take whatever it wanted, whenever it wanted?
The Outsider Propaganda, thus, fell on fertile soil. Combined with the victories won by the fledgling Outsider Navy, it came close – very close – to convincing the wavering worlds that its success was inevitable. Everyone knew, eventually, that another stunning victory might convince rebel groups to strike while they had a chance, perhaps even throw the Federation off their worlds. And if that happened, it would prove fatal to the Federation’s cause.
As Commodore – later Admiral – Garibaldi struggled to hold the line and keep possession of vital junctions which would be desperately needed once the Federation Navy mounted a counterattack, Emperor Marius fought to gird the wavering Federation for war. But it was not easy. The Federation was in disarray...
...And, as Emperor Marius strove to keep the Federation intact, his actions made matters worse.
Much worse.
Chapter Twenty
One of the strangest contradictions of the Asimov Point network is that it can allow certain star systems to become chokepoints, while denying the enemy the ability to simply travel interstellar space to their destination. But if there happens to be a separate chain running near the vital chain, a raider can slip in through the cracks.
-The Federation Navy in Retrospect, 4199
Taurus, 4100
“Transit complete, sir.”
Captain Scott Palter nodded, tersely. Spartan was his first command, after serving as Commodore – now Admiral – Garibaldi’s tactical officer. It wasn’t lost on him that his promotion had come about as a direct result of the desperate need for experienced officers – or that he could lose his first command as quickly as he’d gained it, if he screwed up. The Federation Navy couldn’t afford mistakes any longer.
“Cloak us,” he ordered. There had been no point in trying to move through the Asimov Point cloaked. The device would have fluctuated when they made transit, allowing them to be spotted by any watching eyes. “Run a full sensor sweep, then move us to the RV point.”
“Aye, sir,” the sensor officer said.
Scott nodded, watching the display through cold blue eyes. Taurus was a di
sputed system, disputed in the sense that neither side felt able to divert the ships and fortifications needed to actually hold the system against determined attack. It possessed three Asimov Points, none of which had been particularly heavily defended before the war, and a planet whose inhabitants took as little interest in the outside universe as possible. Surprisingly, the Federation had honored their wish to be left alone. Scott had read through the files, but there had been nothing to suggest why the Federation had acted so badly out of character by leaving the population to themselves. Perhaps someone had shovelled out huge bribes, once upon a time.
Or there’s something else here that bears investigation, later, he told himself, as his ship headed towards its destination. Something one of the Grand Senators sought to conceal from the others.
He shrugged, then studied the tactical display. There was almost no activity in the system at all, at least as far as his passive sensors could tell. No one seemed to be mining the asteroids, let alone setting up other colonies or industrial nodes. It was odd, given the potential value of the system, but it would have to be explained later. Perhaps someone had been saving it for development when the sector received more investment, only to see the investment faded away when the Federation started to contract. Or...
“We’re in position, Captain,” the helmsman reported.
“Hold us here,” Scott ordered. “Deploy passive sensor platforms, then link us to them.”
He smiled to himself, grimly. There had been two battles fought in the system; once when the Outsiders had punched through to take control of the Asimov Points, then another when a squadron of Federation Navy battlecruisers had responded to the attack and chased the makeshift defenders back out of the system. Since then, it had been largely abandoned, but ONI swore blind that the Outsiders were using it to run supplies down to the forces besieging Boston. Admiral Garibaldi had ordered Scott to do what he could to interdict the supply lines.
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