The Rats, the Bats and the Ugly trtbav-2

by Eric Flint

  "He did, did he? Well, Brigadier, I put it to you thus. The reason you cannot reveal details is not because these are classified documents. It's because there was no plan. There is no evidence of any preparation at all at Brigade headquarters."

  "Objection. This is conjecture."

  "On the contrary," said Ogata, icily. "I have an impressive list of some one hundred witnesses who will testify that Brigade headquarters was in fact asleep, bar the guards."

  "The planned assault wasn't due for another two days, man!" bellowed Charlesworth.

  "I see. Despite the fact that the force field went down at 06h29 of that day, a crucial and deciding factor in this campaign. Are you claiming that Fitzhugh engineered this plan going into effect two days early?"

  "Fitzhugh engineered that the force field should go down then. It would have been a much more general collapse, but the weapon was triggered too early. And I can't tell you more because the information is classified."

  "How convenient, Brigadier," said Ogata. "It may interest you to know that we have expert testimony on force fields, and the possibility of 'bringing them down' from the outside. We have considerable evidence that the force field was collapsed from within, and that far from interfering with your plans, all that Major Fitzhugh did was to make the Fifth Infantry Corps take action on a target of opportunity, which you'd been ignoring."

  "That's nonsense," blustered Charlesworth. "And no one knows more about Magh' equipment than the military. There was certainly no 'target of opportunity.' We respond to those."

  "I would like the panel to note that Brigadier Charlesworth has stated under oath that a target of opportunity is responded to. I'll be calling Colonel Abramovitz, of Eastmoreland 2nd Conscript Regiment, and your Communications officer, Lieutenant Mussy, to the stand to prove that this is not in fact the case. Now, Brigadier, I would like to ask you about the operational capability of your command."

  "Objection. This has nothing to do with the case," snapped Tana.

  Ogata fixed her with his icy stare. She did not wilt, although any lesser mortal might have. "I thought the charge against Major Fitzhugh claimed that he had damaged the military operational capacity of the 4th Division. It therefore seems a sensible question, Your Honor. Entered as evidence we have a statistical analysis of the brigadier's command effectiveness: measures of territory lost, human, and materiel losses. I thought in the interests of legal economy, as the brigadier features as the least successful divisional commander on the front, he could clarify certain matters."

  ***

  By the time that Ogata had finished with Brigadier Charlesworth his credibility as a witness, and his ability as an officer, were in severe need of reinforcements. But Ogata made sure that when they moved to help, they too became targets. "So, Lieutenant Colonel Nygen. You did not actually go past the old second line of trench defense at Sector Delta 355?"

  "I'm a senior officer," answered Nygen. "We don't go into front-line positions."

  Ogata looked askance at him. "According to the information available, the new front was approximately thirty-six miles from you. Yet you've testified that Major Fitzhugh 'was endangering the troops' by 'attempting to lead them to their destruction.' You must have remarkable eyesight, Lieutenant Colonel."

  "Naturally, I had reports from officers in the field. This is the way the military works, sir, which you rear echelon chaps may not understand. A commander can't be everywhere and see everything. We learn to rely on the chain of command."

  "Thank you for informing us, Lieutenant Colonel," said Ogata. "So, please tell me which of your officers told you Fitzhugh was attempting to lead your troops to destruction, and endangering their lives?"

  "Lieutenant Colonel Burkoff," replied Nygen.

  Ogata raised his eyebrows. "Who just happens to be the only officer who died during this attack. I have spoken to every other officer who participated in this attack. I have a list of witnesses here who are prepared to state that they did not inform you of anything of the kind. I also have Lieutenant Colonel Burkoff's wireless operator as a witness, who will confirm that the lieutenant colonel never contacted you."

  "Objection, Your Honor," said Tana. "This is not the issue here. The issue is that risking three thousand men outside of the military chain of command can be considered as an attempt to lead them to their destruction. Anyway, in whom do we trust? Some conscript Vat radio-operator or a well-respected officer?"

  The judge shook his head. "We trust in the law, and in dispassionate consideration of the evidence, Trial Counsel. Continue, Lieutenant Colonel Ogata."

  "Yes, sir. Lieutenant Colonel Nygen, are you aware that the casualties sustained in the attack, and subsequent capture of Delta 355, are the lowest day-by-day for an entire sector, for the entire course of the war?"

  Nygen snorted. "The fact that Major Fitzhugh was lucky has no bearing on the matter."

  "Indeed," Ogata agreed with an inclination of his head. "It would not have. But I am going to attempt to prove that the major was not lucky. He was effective. He did not betray the soldiers of the Army of Harmony and Reason to any enemy. He merely did what you were supposed to do. Pursue war against the Magh' in the most effective manner possible."

  "Objection."

  ***

  Fitz listened to the stream of objections, testimony and questions. Well, at least this was no kangaroo court. Ogata was also making no attempt to deny the "crimes" that Fitz had committed. Instead he was using Fitz's deeds to expose the simple lack of competence of the officers testifying. Whether they convicted him or not, Fitz knew that he'd finally opened up the army's General Staff like a tin can. And Ogata was taking care to expose the worms in that can to public scrutiny. Fitz wondered just how General Cartup-Kreutzler was enjoying this public demolition.

  Strangely enough, his concentration was not entirely on the trial. It was rather on the information that Ariel had brought him in the small hours of the morning. Details of what she called "the Crotchets' " military methods. There had to be ways of defeating those. And, if he read things aright, it was an issue that was going to be current pretty damn soon. If he got out of here, instead of on his way back to death row, that was going to be the next problem that was going to loom large.

  When the first of the prosecution's spying charge witnesses got up to testify, Fitz expected things to go backwards. After all, it was as neat a "stitching" as he had ever come across. It was his word against the counterintelligence security agent, and the agent had photographic evidence that would have convinced Fitz had he been one of the panel. Officer Paype gave his evidence with a straight face and great professionalism. He detailed convincingly how Major Conrad Fitzhugh had passed on detailed battle plans and taken large sums of money.

  Ogata stood up to cross-examine. "Officer Paype. As a counterintelligence officer of Special Branch, would you describe yourself as a skilled professional?"

  "I think that would be a fair description, sir," said the Special Branch operative.

  "And this… sting operation? Is it something of which you have prior experience?"

  "My record speaks for itself, sir. This is fourth one I've testified in, with the court reaching guilty verdicts in all cases. The Special Branch is the elite. We know exactly what we're doing."

  "And you would describe everything, including your record keeping, as 'professional'?" asked Ogata.

  The witness nodded. "As far as possible, sir. We are engaged in covert activities, so some of our records are restricted. We also can't compromise ongoing surveillance and operatives in place."

  "You've been one of these 'operatives in place'?"

  "Yes, sir," said Paype. "That's how I entrapped Major Fitzhugh."

  "In other words you're skilled at deception?"

  "Objection! The defense is attempting to lead the witness." Tana could see where this was going.

  Ogata was all innocence. "Your Honor, I am simply attempting to clearly establish the skills of the witness. I think it a fair questi
on. We have established he has successfully deceived a number of people in the past. That means he must be a very skilled liar. I don't see any other possible conclusion. I think we have established that he could possibly have lied his way into Major Fitzhugh's confidence. Is this not a fair conclusion?"

  The judge thought about it. Nodded. "It would seem that his profession must require a certain, shall we say, 'flexibility' with the truth. Continue, Lieutenant Colonel Ogata."

  "I have no need to, on that issue, Your Honor. I just wished to establish that the prosecution's witness is a professional liar."

  "Objection!"

  The judge looked thoughtful again.

  "May I put it another way, which perhaps my colleague will not object to," said Ogata, calmly. "The witness in question might have the very highest standards of loyalty to the State, but in order to do his job professionally, has to be a very good liar."

  The judge nodded. Ogata's sheer imperturbability had that sort of effect.

  Ogata turned back to Paype. "So tell us, Officer. How did you manage to be turning over a hundred thousand dollars to Major Fitzhugh, and receiving war plans, on the night for which you claimed Travel and Expenses for operations in Port Durnford? We have logged the pay records as evidence." There was no need to point out that the rats had brought out the Special Branch pay records.

  "That's where the exchange took place," said Paype easily. "It proves rather than disproves my point."

  Ogata smiled for the first time in the entire case. "Being glib is an advantage to a liar. Sometimes it can trip you up. Are you sure this was the case?"

  The smile plainly put the wind up the witness. "I can't reveal operational details," he said, hastily.

  "How convenient," said Ogata, still smiling. "And what would you say if I told you that at the time you claim this exchange was happening, Major Fitzhugh was with General Cartup-Kreutzler at Divisional headquarters in Stanford?"

  "I said that I can't reveal exact details," said the agent. "But let's say that I wasn't actually in Port Durnford. I was entitled to T amp;E, but we have to be careful. We can't have some clerk in the pay-office giving away our place of operations."

  "I see. So we may assume you were in some place outside town? Possibly close to Stanford on the North Eastern Front?" asked Ogata in a mild tone.

  "You wouldn't be far wrong," smirked Paype.

  Ogata shook his head regretfully. "It is a great pity, for you, that I am not going to say that Major Fitzhugh was with General Cartup-Kreutzler visiting Divisional Headquarters in Stanford. If I did say that I would be as much of a liar as you are."

  After this, using convenient background information which the rats had brought in, Ogata soon had the confident Special Branch man falling nervously over his own feet.

  ***

  "He'll make the man necrotic yet," said Ariel quietly, from where she'd somehow managed to slip into the wainscoting above him.

  "You mean neurotic."

  "No, that's what Falstaff did to Visse's secretary."

  And thus passed the first day.

  ***

  Things went rather awry on the next day, when the defense called Doc to the stand to testify that they had created a target of opportunity. Doc and the judge had differing opinions.

  "To do so, rat, was against the law!" snapped the judge.

  "Judges," explained Doc kindly, "appear to think that the law is an immutable divinity, and that you are the voice of that divinity, to be obeyed. Unfortunately, Judge, history has proved that this is not the case."

  "I do not need to be instructed on the subject of law, rodent," said the judge, irritably. "The law is the foundation of our society and must be preserved. Now continue your testimony before I find you in contempt."

  Doc, caught up in the throes of a debate, cheerfully pressed on despite the threat. "Actually, metaphorically speaking, law is more like the mortar. It comes after, and to reinforce civilization, not before. And when the people, who are the bricks of our society, need to be reorganized, it's the old mortar that has to go. Justice, however, usually prevails eventually, because justice is actually a flexible and changing concept that is based on current mores, and exists in the eyes of most of the beholders. And I am not a rodent." He bared his sharp teeth. "As ought to be obvious, even to a judge."

  Needless to say, this went down like a ton of building rubble into the judge's swimming pool.

  He didn't like finding out that a military animal could not be held in contempt, either, as it was not actually a "person," legally speaking-but then, that's how the judge was trying to speak.

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Chapter 48

  Eric Flint

  The Rats, the Bats amp; the Ugly

  Inside the rock beneath the feet of the people.

  "You need to see this, Liepsich," said Lynne Stark. "The HAR Times and HBC were things we never counted on. We never made any plans for them. But they've obviously responded to the fact that Cartup is out of the equation and that they need market share. They've jumped onto the anti-Korozhet bandwagon. I'm faxing the front page of the HAR Times through to you. It's also on HBC's Today broadcast. You'll need to move even faster."

  When the fax arrived, Liepsich started swearing. "Damn those idiots to hell. Why the hell couldn't they have waited another twenty-fours?"

  KOROZHET MAY HAVE BEEN

  SUPPLYING BOTH SIDES!

  Spectrographic examinations of metal items taken from the captured Magh' scorpiary and the metal parts of slowshields (shown below) are identical. Metallurgist Dr. Jason Fiennes confirms that this is "simply too improbable."

  "The one time in his life Fiennes has to be dead right," muttered Liepsich. "And it had to be today." He picked up the phone. Then put it down again, and left as fast as his falling-down jeans would allow.

  HARIT was almost an outgrowth of the old slowship. The ship's hull-metal was still the toughest human-made substance on the planet. The door he entered would have passed for a broom cupboard easily. Indeed, inside were several buckets and a mop.

  He used the password to activate the secret door.

  "Open Sez Me."

  ***

  The elevator dropped him into a part of Harmony and Reason that the colony had forgotten. When the ship arrived they'd been justifiably cautious about their Earth-ecology seeded planet. First access had been into the isolation test-chambers below the ship, from whence the portals had dealt with the remote sample vehicles, and later the suited scouts. The test chambers had been built tough. Tough enough to withstand anything the colonists could-or couldn't-think of. Within a month, the initial labs below the ship had been abandoned. Hull-metal and multiple layers of reenforced concrete-plaz lay above. Rock and a Faraday-cage surrounded it. Liepsich still had to marvel at the idea of having the kind of technology that could build something like this… and then abandon it. Harmony and Reason had been close to the Eden that the eco-seeders had promised. There were no inimical land-lifeforms, not even microscopic ones. There was no need for this place, and after that long confined journey onboard the slowship, no desire for anyone to stay here.

  The place wasn't abandoned now. When Sanjay Devi had shown it to him, back when the Korozhet had first arrived, only a few key technicians and scientists had come down here. At that stage, the Aladdin cave's entry had been undisguised. They'd started work on hiding it almost immediately. The ship still had treasures-too few to make a difference in the war-but too precious, as Sanjay had said, to give to those idiots to waste. It was down here that the soft-cybers and the slowshields had been researched. It was down here that the first scientists had died of the booby traps. Liepsich still had a piece of the shrapnel in his thigh.

  In the last three weeks, a lot of hardware from the captured scorpiary had found its way down here. So had a great deal of the command and control equipment from the ship above. So had a lot of the crew. The crew were the odd-fish in the colony. Granted a s
ingle share for their needed technical skills, many of them had stayed with the essential technical tasks that the colony needed them for, in those early years. Some had gone off to try business, or farming. But many had stayed. They were well rewarded and reasonably comfortable-and doing jobs that could only be done with the old Earth-made equipment on the ship.

  In the last three weeks they'd mostly been moved down here. It was crowded and busy. It was down here that the "virus" program was being created. In the meantime it was one of the places that no implanted person or animal could be allowed to know existed.

  One of the techs saluted him as he got out of the lift. It was getting too damned military down here for his taste.

  "Henry." He held up the piece of paper. "You'd better move us to condition orange. The Korozhet are not going to like this. They're not going to like it at all. If they lie their way out we've got some time. If there is no denial within the next couple of hours we've got problems, I reckon."

  "Condition orange declared two minutes back," said Henry M'Batha. "We picked it up too."

  As Liepsich walked over to the section that held the virus programmers, to see how they were getting on, he sighed. He got the feeling that humanity was riding around in a huge black fog-cloud, that was now turning into a thundercloud… with a lot of thunderheads rolling around loose in it. It was quite a question as to whom they would hit. And there was not a lot he could do about it.

  ***

  Talbot Cartup looked absolutely nothing like his normal self.

  Sanjay Devi found that very satisfying.

  "Are you sure that these calls can't be traced?" he demanded.

  "Trust me, Talbot. I was in charge of setting up the first telephone exchange here. Neither your call to Virginia Shaw nor to your various henchmen can be traced, Macbeth."