by Kali Altsoba
“No, Prime Minister. We in this room have no right to ask any of our children to die in another people’s fight. If we must do battle, as I believe we must, it won’t be to save Krevo’s lost freedoms. I grieve to see that brave people subjected to the whip hand of this brash and brutal Tennō, to the untender torments of his Kempeitai and SAC. Yet, I would not ask that any citizen of our Calmar Union die for Krevo. Not one. If this great confederation fights it will do so not to secure another people’s gain or to spare another star nation’s loss.”
“For what then? What is it you want of us, Georges? Why do you say we must fight?”
“If we fight we’ll do so for our own homes and greatest principles, for ideas and values whose destruction would ruin the possibility of peace and security for all the peoples of Orion. If we must make war, we’ll fight to ensure that what we are and what we value most will survive. That’s a war I am prepared to ask our fellow citizens to undertake, though only if we must, only when all else fails us. For the moment, I ask only that we prepare for the long-postponed day of decision. That we ready our peoples and armed forces to face the hour of gore when it comes.”
Angry grumbling breaks out directed at Briand. Much louder murmurs of assent rise over the table, a majority of heads nodding in grim agreement not with the prime minister but with the dissenter, the rogue star of Union politics, the last best hope they know there is for peace. They swing over to him not to favor war but against retreat and timidity, against vacillation and concession to bullying, against weakness that will more surely bring war.
LeClerc interjects: “This war’s no longer about Krevo. Its central issue is the balance of power in the Orion spur. The old balance that kept the Peace of Orion for three centuries is gone, and with it, survival of the idea of any free people living in free societies comes under threat.”
“General, I regret very much that Krevo will fall under the Grünen, for a time at least. Indeed, I pray that those benighted worlds surrender soon...” There are gasps of moral disgust at this ill-formed phrase. It’s a real mistake.
“I mean only that since defeat is coming, they should accept it more quickly in order to spare their battered peoples more suffering. We will do what we can for the refugees in our five sanctuaries. Krevo is only a small star-nation. Surely its fall won’t overturn the balance and order of things in all Orion? This great Union will stand untouched except by its grief for distant woe.”
Maçon takes up the torch: “Yes, Prime Minister, it’s true, Krevans are a small people. A minor power not given weight in councils of the mighty such as this. Look around: they are not here. They have no voice in rooms like this where their fate is decided, in Barda and Lowestoft and Novaya Uda. Who knows? Even in dark and silent Nalchik. A little people, true, true. But a free people. We, too, are a free people. Only we are a Power, capable of defending our worlds as Krevans can no longer defend theirs, as bravely as they’re surely trying, as wantonly as they’re now dying. Yet, if just one free world falls to unprovoked aggression, one free people is overrun by war and occupied by a tyrant power and worse ideas, then all free worlds must live in peril.”
Briand closes for his side: “What you lose on the battlefield can’t be easily won back in negotiations. It is time to truly lead your great people, Prime Minister. In peace if you can, but to war if you must. If the moment asks it. You must unite all the free peoples of Orion against a malignant threat erupting in the east. It is up to us Calmari to lead the defense of peace and order in Orion.”
Assenting voices grow louder. With his government now split, the tide turning out to violent seas and away from more peaceful shores, the prime minister throws overboard his last, best anchor.
“General, Admiral, my Ministers, all ladies and gentlemen of the Joint Cabinet and my government. It is time. I must tell you that an hour ago, just as this meeting began, I received a message directly from the Grün Tennō, Pyotr.”
Everyone sits bolt upright. Even poor Sanjay shakes off his self-pitying torpor and comes out of his chair slump to full alert.
“And I have already answered.”
***
Communications via hyperspace relay means Pyotr’s message is a half-day old. The coded missive bohr-jumped between pairs of LP stations in the middle passage, moving via dedicated channels linking 300+ star systems between Kestino and Kars. That astonishing zip-zag took microseconds. But the message took several more hours to travel as a traditional laser transmission, moving at mere light speed in normal spacetime on either end of the LP system.
That’s 1.7 hours for the quantum-coded message to reach up from Pyotr’s inner sanctum in the Waldstätte Palast and the surface of Kestino to the outer relay-station, then zip-zag by bohr-jumps along the starry telegraph nearly instantaneously, then another 1.2 hours for locked-beam photon info to move through Kars system down to the coded receiver in the PM’s private office.
Same time to reply, leaving out time needed for two staffs to decode. The PM had less than an hour to read and consider the Tennō’s message, then compose a response, still on its way to Kestino 300+ systems away. Despite the quantum miracle of hyper-relays and bohr-coms over parsecs, there’s no superluminal way around Einstein’s speed limit for light-based messages in normal spacetime. Even so, it means that peace may still have a chance.
Except that hate and lies travel faster. It was always a long and outside hope that light-speed and FTL coms would be so revolutionary that they must promote progressive and universal change, as if that’s the only kind of change that’s possible. As if more familiarity and intimate contact among worlds must breed comity instead of contempt. As if radical communications technologies alone could stop the rise of Purity and other fanaticisms, when they really make it possible for hate and fear to move farther faster. As if the means and medium was ever more important than the message.
Light-speed coms inside systems and FTL hyper-relays across Orion allow the great mass of billions upon billions to be in constant communication about mostly nothing. To fall into the local memexes and stay inside fantasy and cold fusion lies for a lifetime. Speedier coms lets elites better deploy information as oppressive force, lets a lie travel FTL until it catches itself from behind. A lie like the Bad Camberg raid that spread over Orion before the truth made it out an air-lock. It’s out there still, banging on the outside asking to be let back in. Can you hear it? Didn’t think so.
Prime Minister Hoare summarizes Pyotr’s message. “The Tennō assures me personally that his sole desire is for our two great peoples never to go to war with one another again. He writes eloquently of losses to both our peoples in the last Orion War three centuries ago. I believe he’s sincere, and that this government must respond in kind. I have sent him my offer to travel personally to a neutral site, such as the Three Kingdoms or Helvetic Association. I said to him and I say to you that I will meet and hold talks directly with Pyotr III.”
There are gasps of shock and astonishment. No one saw this coming. Not Briand or Maçon or Leclerc. Not any of their cabinet enemies or supporters. Not Virgiliu Nicolescu, who’s paid to discover secrets but knows fewer than he believes and almost none of importance. Not slumping Sanjay Pradip, who was never let in on the real coms mission, though he set the PM up with his deepest backchannel contacts on Kestino, putting him in direct contact with his own counterpart in Grün intelligence. Now he knows why, and he’s frightened.
Prime Minister Hoare has an almost schoolboy look of prankish pleasure on his face. For he’s not done yet. “I’ll go to Kestino, if that’s Pyotr Shaka’s desire and what I must do to avoid war. I‘ll not lead this Union into a horrific conflict that might be avoided. I’m prepared to resign as Prime Minister if the Joint Cabinet doesn’t agree with me on this matter.” There it is: trump!
The room is stunned silent. Even Briand is impressed. ‘My, my. It’s true. Special providence protects children, flame-outs, and our prime minister.’ He appreciates how skilled a politician Rober
t Hoare really is, how cleverly deceptive to hold Pyotr’s message back until this rare moment when he was losing the argument and with it his cabinet and his government. Briand also sees confirmation of just how dangerously sincere is this self-anointed man of peace.
LeClerc is much harsher in his thoughts. ‘An envoy of war is the best ambassador to go to Pyotr, not this milksop prime minister. He’s sure to surrender everything merely for a signature.’
Briand and the War Hawks have been outmaneuvered just when they thought they gained the argument and won over a clear majority in the Joint Cabinet. Not to go to war, but at least and at last to undertake serious defense preparations. To commence all-Union call-ups to defend violated frontiers. To encourage free Neutrals. To give military support to the Krevan resistance.
Instead, the Joint Cabinet votes immediately and by clear majority to authorize the PM’s personal summit with the Grün Tennō, Pyotr Shaka Oetkert III. The War Hawks are rebuffed. LeClerc, Maçon, Briand and seven ministers abstain on the resolution. They’re openly booed by cabinet colleagues, accused of war mongering and disloyalty to their leader.
Next comes authorization to the PM to deliver a formal message of the fervent desire for peace of all Calmari, along with approval of an All-Power Conference to be hosted by the Three Kingdoms (the Threes will be told, not asked, to do this). The summit will seek to negotiate a compromise with Pyotr, nothing short of a Second Peace of Orion. It’s all the PM could want.
Robert Hoare is deeply moved. ‘The upstart Briand and his War Hawks are isolated and utterly defeated. I shall now lead a supreme effort to avoid war, a last chance to save the Thousand Worlds from fires of hatred, red-toothed vengeance, vulgar despair. Let Georges Briand and his ilk weep!’ The last cut is too unkind. His rival is no warmonger. And his own plan is uncertain.
Ministers and aides rise to congratulate Prime Minister Hoare as a man of “vision and peace revealed.” Virgiliu trumpets the phrase while looking triumphantly and accusingly right at Briand. He’s planning to use it in tonight’s GovNeb interview. He plans to smear and ruin all the War Hawks.
LeClerc turns to Briand, implicitly admitting at least a tactical defeat. “Where in this last bastion of virtue can you and I go to have a fucking drink?”
Betrayed
As if in an old film, all changes suddenly and forever. Terrible alarms clang up and down all 240 stories of the Tour de Sécurité rising high over verdant Barda. Clarions of foreboding and violence ring out, unheard in almost 300 years. Everyone swivels to stare at Virgiliu, who gawps back in ignorance. It’s his building, yet he’s as baffled as them about what’s happening in it.
Demands are shouted for information, from the most powerful people in the Calmar Union. Demands to young, frightened and bewildered staff. Very Important Persons swell into Very Indignant Persons, but still meet protests of blanket ignorance from confused and nervous aides. Seconds become a minute, and the volume and vehemence of angry VIP demands acmes.
Then everyone falls silent at once as Virgiliu visibly ashens and sinks into his chair. Or more nearly, plunges down until the self-widening and fast-maneuvering smart chair intercepts and catches his falling bulk, with an audible fleshy plump! An ACU aide who rushed into the then clamoring Briefing Room is still whispering into his ear, a single fetching blond curl escaping from under a crisp blue beret to fall onto her pretty, sharply angular face.
They stand for another ten seconds in consuming silence, watching her whispering to the Great Man. Uncertainty and fear rise palpably to fill every cranny of the Briefing Room. No one ever before saw the Director so utterly ill-composed. He’s visibly quaking. His hand is shaking.
“What is it, Director?” It’s Briand.
Of course, he recovers first. To pose the question each needs answered yet dreads to hear. Then the defense minister cocks his head and steps to one side, putting a hand to his left ear in a gesture of ancient but unnecessary instinct. A secure message is arriving from MoD directly over his embedded dot-com link. It’s brainwave, not auditory. Yet ancient species habits die hard.
“I ... the Imperium.” Virgiliu chokes. The comely blonde aide loosens his collar and raises up a glass of water, spilling a little over his quivering chins on the way to his gawping mouth.
Robert Hoare steps toward his old friend. “What is the matter, Virgiliu? What are these awful sirens? Why are you so pale? My dear friend, you must tell us what is happening. Now!”
Virgiliu looks up, resembling more a distraught child than the great and famous man of secret influence who dominated politics and farfolk policy for over half a century. Until now.
“Robert, I mean, Prime Minister … I have...” He catches himself at last, and lunges into the terrible news. “I have confirmed reports that Kaigun warships and fleets are entering Calmari space. Attacks are being made against our system flotillas at Novaya Bator, Narym and Amasia. Heavy ground force landings have taken place on Novaya Bator and Narym. More are expected at Amasia. They’re heading for the east coast of the supercontinent Lemuria. Robert, please…”
Robert Hoare reels backwards, catching himself with an unsteady hand on the edge of the walnut table. A second smart chair rolls over to arrest his stumble, inserting itself just behind his wobbly knees. He eases himself into the plush mockleather. He’s too stunned to stand. The chair gives a low purr of metaphysical satisfaction at being so anticipatory and useful, and accurate.
Briand breaks in. “It’s worse than that. MoD reports that seven, wait ... ten of our border systems have come under simultaneous Imperium attack. Given the time lag in light speed coms, we should hear more report in over the next hour or so. MoD is cold calling all border HQs.”
“Ten! Which ones?” It’s Admiral Maçon, already thinking about where his fleets are, and how many of his jacks and jennies must be dead or dying along the southern frontier systems.
“Wait ... wait. Good lords! No!”
“What is it Georges? Tell us quickly.” This time, it’s LeClerc.
“It’s Krakoya! That’s a two-planet Krevan system abutting the Dauran border. It’s calling for help. MoD confirms that Krakoya is under massive invasion by a Dauran drop-ship fleet.”
“Dauran? It must be a mistake.” Maçon moves to stand beside Briand.
“MoD says a local flotilla is rising to challenge the DRN, that it looks like a suicide mission by the last ships in-system. Ground assault is expected on Krakoya I shortly after.”
Maçon corrects the inevitable time-delay error: “That means they started the main attack nearly three USH ago. They must be in the inner system by now, but it’s too soon for any assault ships to be on the ground.”
“That’s right, but…”
“Hold, hold ... message coming in from NCU Central. We don’t think the KRN has any warships left in Krakoya. The Dauran fleet blew past whatever it was came up to fight them. They’re wide open in the inner system.”
“The Twins are undefended.” LeClerc gives a bitter laugh as he walks over to stand beside Maçon and Briand. “The KRA moved everything it has to systems already under attack, just as we have been moving our main assets south to face Pyotr. Now, with Daura moving in the north against Krevo…”
“Are you saying we are also exposed in our northeastern systems?” Its one of the younger War Hawks. She’s only been in the Lok Sabra for a year, and in the cabinet for a month. Her homeworld is up there, and all her family. Up along the far northeast frontier of the Union.
“Let’s hope Jahandar’s appetite is only for Neutrals, and not as great as Pyotr’s is revealed to be. Or we’re sunk. We’re almost naked in the north.”
More ministers are gathering around Briand, and not just the War Hawks. Most of the Joint Cabinet has moved over. Robert Hoare is alone beside panting Virgiliu, both recovering from shock in softly purring chairs. Well, one chair is purring. The other one is panting heavily.
LeClerc adds: “I went on a good-will mission to the Twins three years
ago. Krakoya I is the bigger of two inhabited planets. But both are stripped of main defenses. Every KRA ground unit left months ago to fight in their western systems, to hold back Pyotr’s other invasions.”
“How do you know?” the same junior minister asks LeClerc. Her worry makes her bold.
“Refugees on the Exodus ships that made sanctuary told us.”
Briand scans the display thrown up before his retina by a quantum dot linking to the MoD main coms center on Kars, working independently of Caspia. “New message coming in now. It’s from the Krevan government-in-exile on Harsa. It’s confirmation. Daurans, repeat Daurans, not Grünen are moving into the inner Krakoya system.”
“I can triple confirm,” adds Maçon. “KRN liaison confirms. My gods, she says the War Government has ordered what’s left of the local garrison to oppose landings on Krakoya I with tokamak white-plasma ground cannon!”