by Kali Altsoba
Briand beefed up frontier security and ordered active anti-phantom patrols as soon as he took the oath as defense minister. That led to several incidents where NCU destroyers fought off Kaigun phantoms discovered operating illegally inside Calmari space. Both sides are keeping the fighting contained, and any and all losses classified as Ultra Secret. Still, it’s steadily escalating.
Grün and Calmari blood is being spilled in an undeclared but real naval shooting war at the border. The NCU is moving its major assets to the Imperium frontier in the south, to act as a deterrent in the first instance, to actively defend territory if needed. ACU generals are asking for 1,000 reserve divisions to be mobilized right away. He’s sympathetic. Robert Hoare is appalled.
The PM is upset over Briand’s approval of active patrolling. He doesn’t believe war is coming or is ever necessary, despite what’s happening to Krevo. Especially because of what’s happening to Krevo. “I don’t wish to stumble into war,” he warned Briand in a cabinet session a month ago. “No more than I wish to start one through direct confrontation. Call off your patrols.”
Briand won the vote in the Joint Cabinet, so the patrols are still going out. ACU divisions are harder to raise, but even that is happening quietly in the farther reaches of the Union. Truth be told, Briand would have defied even the Joint Cabinet. He thinks he answers to a higher court.
Hoare is sincere in a lamentation made in Open Time in the Lok Sabha. “How horrible and incredible it would be if we go down into nudger shelters or put our children into armed ships and send them off to settle a quarrel not of our making, over faraway systems of which we know little. After each war there’s always a little less liberty to save, out there and here at home. Let us not risk more retreat from our historic freedoms. There never was a good war in Orion or a bad peace. It’s better to shoot pointed words than to point weapons.”
Who could possibly disagree with that? Well, maybe dead and enslaved Krevans and the other Neutrals trembling in the shadow of Pyotr’s will and Grün fury and aggression. Maybe all farfolk in the frontier systems, where a hundreds of millions of sons and daughters will be forced to fight if Robert Hoare is wrong. Fight and lose, if the Calmar Union refuses to come to their aid.
Is there spine there, too? Perhaps.
For he also said: “Armed conflict is a nightmare to me. Yet, if I’m convinced that one Power is trying to dominate Orion by fear of its brute force, and sends out brutes to do it, I will say in this House that it must be resisted by us and all our ancient friends among the Neutrals.”
“Even if that means war?” the Leader of the Opposition shouted, out of order. No one cared. It was the only question anyone wanted answered.
“If it ever comes to that, regrettably yes.” the PM conceded the point, to applause and cheering from both sides of the Great House. But did he and does he really mean it? No, he doesn’t. He can’t. He won’t. War is just not in him.
He can’t conceive that the crisis will descend to that. Won’t concede that he may have to lead a great star nation into a Fourth Orion War. Not for any cause, not over any violated small Neutral or crass frontier provocation by a few Kaigun phantoms or Kempeitai spies will he do it.
He will not lead his people into battles to be fought with the awful weapons the Powers have already made. Not commit the Union to a vast conflict that will engage populations, consume resources, destroy many generations of peacetime time work and accomplishment. He will not start a war that must deploy the terrible achievements of science, of past, present, and greater horrors yet to come. But nor will he step aside for those who would. So he sits ramrod straight as his principles as Briand harangues, with a great surprise in his pocket.
Briand leans over the dark-grained table to demand sharper answers of Virgiliu. He almost threatens the Director. “What assurances can you give this government that your advice is sound today, when only last month you told the Joint Cabinet in this same room that not one Kaigun warship was in our space?” Virgiliu’s ample rolls of neck turn bright pink where they squeeze into a too snug collar that seems to be choking him just a little more tightly.
Briand is one of the Calmar Union’s biggest alpha dogs. When he barks, people listen. And he’s barking and snarling at Virgiliu. “As a result of your bad counsel we now look to enter a knife-fight carrying only a baguette and a brick of cheese.” He enjoys the look of utter shock that flits over Virgiliu’s face at this direct insult, before he can conceal it under aplomb.
‘Teton! The man’s self-love is so dense it’s a wonder he doesn’t collapse in on himself like a dying star. He has intelligence and some virtue, but no vices I can respect.’
He continues interrogating without waiting for answers, which he knows mean nothing. His purpose is to fatally discredit the prime minister’s inside man in front of the whole cabinet.
“You must be aware that just three days after you made that statement NCU patrols destroyed two phantoms in Amasia’s outer system and a third seeking to penetrate our yards at Narym? That was one boat out of three detected outside the Narym spaceyard. Is that right?”
Virgiliu is visibly purpling. “Whuhh, why yes, minister. But as you know...” Again, he’s interrupted in a way he never knew before today.
“Why should we believe what you say today and not the evidence of our own eyes and ears, which tell us that the Tennō has both the means and the intention to attack this Union?”
“Minister, I think that’s going too far. In my experience the evidence doesn’t support your extreme claim.” Recovering, Virgiliu glares, fixing Briand with his best how-dare-you-challenge-me stare. But this man doesn’t wilt like nearly everyone else when facing that famous visage and look.
Briand was born into the same upper class as Virgiliu and Hoare, so he wears public authority just as easily. He’s a native of Helena, the richest and most aristocratic, and many would say the most beautiful, of Calmari worlds. He, too, was born to power and privilege.
Yet he struck out early to make his own mark in life. He attended Kars Military Academy instead of elite Helena University. He took a junior commission in the ACU, served five years, then left to run for election to the Lok Sabha. As a boy, more than once he had a vivid, waking vision that worries and haunts him to this day. A vision that he’s destined for a terrible greatness.
And worse, that he must lead the Calmar Union in its darkest crisis, for any one else will fall and fail. He must be the one to lead all Calmari in a terrible war for their very survival, that they may lose even so. It was an intense, repeated vision that made him a very odd boy indeed, yet whose incompleteness in his mind and life makes him always restless with frustrated moral drive and intensity of will. It’s why he drinks and smokes non-stop.
Briand is highly abrasive, as one result. Yet, over the course of his life he has gathered an intimate circle of intensely loyal friends and admirers and supporters. He’s capable of laser-like incisive thinking, but he’s emotional to a great fault, even weepy at times. And far from always sober at such an early hour as this meeting of the Joint Cabinet. Though today he’s sharp, alert and keen for the fight. He’s been preparing for today all his life.
He stares down the burbling, choked-on-pride Director of the SRG, slams him at his own game of trumping any argument with claims of privileged information. Counters with heavy body blows: “My evidence is exact. It comes directly from Combine agents and your own files.”
Virgiliu is speechless, which no one in the cabinets, or in the Calmar Union for that matter, has ever seen before today. ‘Down for the count. Next?’
“Perhaps Mr. Pradip would care to sit up and weigh in,” Briand barks, turning hard on the sulky little man from CIS. “How do you explain anti-Union and Purity propaganda we’re seeing on the official Grün memexes every day, more vicious and dishonest each new day?”
“Me? Explain what? I have no idea ..?”
“What about CIS field reports from Novaya Uda that I have here in my hand, th
at you and the Director have conspired to suppress?” Briand waives a parchment scroll at Sanjay. “This deep cover agent clearly states...” Now it’s his turn to be surprised by an interruption.
“CIS field reports from Kestino? How did you...? How dare you!” Even a worm will turn on its tormentor when cornered, and Sanjay Pradip’s back is against the proverbial angled wall.
“I am your minister. How dare you keep this from me? This one is from an agent deep under cover in the Jade Court who months ago identified the enormous mobilization there and all across the Imperium. She points directly to SAC’s genetist ideology, and to the person of the Tennō himself, as the prime originators of this war.” There are gasps of astonishment and outrage around the cabinet table.
Is the outrage directed at Pyotr or Briand? It’s still not clear which way a majority in the Joint Cabinet will go, but it’s leaning toward Briand.
Sanjay straightens, responding to the barking alpha dog with the snarl of a puppy. “Minister, I protest! It’s not proper to reveal that we have an operative on Kestino. Where did you get that report? Not from me! The minister must know it’s inadvisable for non-professionals to review raw intelligence without proper context provided by your analysts, by me, that is. In particular.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mr. Pradip. You’re just an analyst, and not a very good one truth be told. So just answer the question as it’s put to you.”
Briand’s pit-bull snarl carries real threat. Every ministers’ head snaps around at this harsh rebuke of a senior civil servant, a man with a spotless record and known to be a favorite of the PM. Is the humiliation tactical or strategic on Briand’s part. Or is it just “Georges being Georges, as usual”? As befits their lower stations, aides and assistants are more nervous over precedent.
“Those reports are off-the-record. You mustn’t reveal...”
Briand waves off Sanjay’s second protest. “CIS and SGR have clandestine agents in the Grün capital. I know it, you know it, the whole sacre tabarnak Joint Cabinet knows it. I’ll be damned if SDF and Pyotr don’t know it, too.”
“That would be a disaster of … ”
“The question isn’t which of our field agents said what to whom or when, or which of your subordinates walked Combine field reports around your ridiculous glass cubicle directly upstairs to my office. We’re beyond such petty things. The question is, what do our field agents say are the real intentions of Pyotr and the Curia?”
Sanjay is speechless. Virgiliu is still struggling to loosen his choking collar. Someone on that side of the argument better step up and take on Briand.
“While we’re at it, why have you two conspired, Mr. Pradip and Director Nicolescu? Why have you gone bohr lengths to hide vital information from members of this government?”
So, it’s strategic.
Beguiled
Without waiting for an answer Briand strikes hard again, glancing accusingly back-and-forth between the two directors of the civilian intelligence agencies as he thumps the dark walnut table, distributing contempt and blame.
“You advise us that the threat is minimal, yet each day it draws closer to our borders, and in places it has already crossed over. You say that we should stand down our patrols and ignore incursions into our territory for fear of accidental confrontations that might lead to unintended war. War is here. Intended by Pyotr all along. Warships have engaged. Lives have been lost.”
The targeted men are thunderstruck at the direct, personal assault. It’s not over. “You two advise pusillanimity, even as marauders burn Krevan worlds and we take into sanctuary millions of determined fighters and hundreds of millions of refugees. You say ‘retreat, accept defeat.’”
“No, minister! I never said...” Briand ignores Sanjay’s sputtering, weak tea protest. He turns directly to face the red-throat swellings and still soundless puffing of Virgiliu Nicolescu.
“You tell us not to alert frontier garrisons, to avoid provoking the Imperium. It’s true that no one is a hero to his valet, yet you would have us all live and act as though we’re a nation of valets. I say to this room that the evidence is as mountainous as yourself, Director. Tennō Pyotr and his legions are planning a wider war. He’ll not stop at conquest of the United Planets.”
“Really, Minister Briand, that’s quite enough. I don’t think what you say is correct.” It’s Prime Minister Hoare, breaking his brooding silence at last. Coming to rescue his supporters.
“How is it false, Prime Minister? It’s in my hand, in reports from...”
“What you hold is a whisper. Why would Pyotr want war? Whichever side may call itself victor there are no true winners in war. Grünen are not mad. They must know that war with us, an invasion of our frontiers, won’t remain long in our space alone. They must know that we’ll bring down horror upon their worlds, too. We’re not little Krevo. If they attack us we have powerful fleets and armies that will carry terrible calamity back to all Grün worlds.”
“They know it, Prime Minister. And they don’t. They judge us weak and indecisive. They will take us to the edge of war, then over it. They think we’ll concede some worlds to them to save all the others. Are they wrong? Is there some place we will, you will, draw a bright red line and say: ‘Stop! You must not cross or it means war.’ Is there such a line?”
“I don’t wish it, I don’t. We must seek by all means to avoid this great evil we call war, an evil which if it befalls will fall on all of us, Calmari and Grünen and Neutral alike. We must discover the causes of our too long conflict with the Imperium, then remove and resolve them. We must return all Orion to the rule of law and justice among the great star nations. We must discuss with good will all issues that divide us. We must be careful that we don’t trip over our too thick pride and fall haughty and unintended into the foul pit of war.”
This is the strong-voiced man of peace, the Robert Hoare his people love and voted into high office three times in succession. This is the voice of goodness, reason and moral progress. And looming defeat.
“There is great and deep wisdom in what you say, Prime Minister,” Briand concedes, without feigning or dissembling. “But is there time enough left to the wise to avoid war? If this thing cannot be avoided, it’s best to engage now, from strength. On our terms and timing, not Pyotr’s.”
“We must make that time. Never believe that the wild tides of war are smooth or quick. If we take the Thousand Worlds on a rough and wind-blown sea we can’t know what tossed waters or cyclones we might meet before the end. We’ll no longer chart our own way, be masters of our own policy. We shall be blown about by unforeseen, uncontrollable, and primal forces.”
“I also do not want war, Prime Minister. Nor do I seek war. No one in this room does.”
“Why then do you argue so strongly in war’s direction, Georges?”
“Because war is coming regardless of our desires, despite our hope for civilized discourse with Pyotr and peaceful resolution of conflict. I fear that not all among our foes are as rational as we would hope or have a right to expect. These new Grün leaders from Purity like to juggle fire.”
“So we must juggle too? What becomes of the rule of law in Orion? Our wisest ancestors banished war in law, in the Peace of Orion that serves us so well still. Do you say they erred?”
“I say they lived in peacetime. Or rather, in a time of utter exhaustion after the Great Powers all failed to win the Third Orion War and sought not peace but a long truce. In time of war the law of iron is the only law that matters. Facing war, the law falls mute. Power’s a thing unto itself in such raw times.”
“A bleak view.”
“Yet true, nonetheless. In war, law is silent while blood and iron rule. To think that they do not, and worse, to act as if they do not, is to dangle our people’s lives and our best hopes over the gaping mouth of The Wolf. Real and ravenous war, raw fighting, is red in tooth and claw. A red and unnatural peace of death and defeat will devour us all if we fail in this coming war.”
; “You are right to fear The Wolf. Yet you say to feed it with our sacred and sacrificed youths. Serve them to it morsel by morsel, company upon company, ship after ship. Serve to The Wolf all our peaceful worlds.”
“That’s unfair! Say it to Pyotr instead! I say only that Calmari stand at the event horizon of our Age. One slip and this Union will die, ripped into dust. Our best values may plunge into the abyss while our memory drifts away on a whirling nebula of defeat, eddying into the void. This government and Union must not continue on the present course, determined on indeterminacy, resolved to irresolution, dedicated to drift and vacillation and weakness. We must act.”
“Would you have us all die for Krevo, Georges? Do you ask that we send our sons and daughters in great fleets and armies built with wasted treasure to liberate those distant, flaming worlds? Do you ask us to expose hundreds of our own fair worlds to frightful destruction to save those few who are not our kin or concern, to save far-off worlds that already burn?”