The Long Road Home (A Learning Experience Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  “They all signed the local agreements,” Rebecca protested.

  “Ink on paper,” Jenny countered. “Well, electronic signatures in a data matrix, but you get the idea. The only thing keeping the superpowers from breaking them is the threat of force. Those gravity points are a licence to print money. And now the Tokomak are in retreat, no longer able to threaten a thumping to anyone who breaks the rules, you can bet your pension that someone is going to try to grab them. They’d be able to charge through the nose if they manage to fortify the gravity points.”

  Elton nodded. The Solar Union had never carried out a gravity point assault, but he’d seen the simulations and watched records from the pre-stardrive days. Gravity point assaults had been hellishly costly, draining the resources of anyone foolhardy or desperate enough to launch them. Traditionally, the attacker needed an advantage of three to one to guarantee success; in space, attacking through a gravity point, it was more like ten to one. The Solar Navy had done what it could to prepare, but everyone agreed it was unlikely to be anything more than a bloody slaughter.

  “I assume you have contingency plans,” he mused. “Don’t the others?”

  “Only to evacuate every human on Hudson and beat a hasty retreat,” Jenny admitted. Her lips twisted in disgust “Like I said, we can't hold the system.”

  She met Elton’s eyes. “I wish I had something more to offer you,” she added. “Are you going to be staying?”

  “If you can arrange shore leave, I’d like to rotate my crew through the facilities,” Elton said, slowly. “Is that possible?”

  “I should be able to book a beachside resort for your personnel,” Jenny said. “It won’t be ideal, but ... Hudson is fairly used to providing entertainment for people from all over the galaxy. I was thinking more about looking up a few smugglers and seeing what they had to say. Even the Harmonies will have cracks in their defences.”

  “Good thinking,” Elton said. He cocked his head. “Will they tell you anything useful?”

  “Nothing of great value, I suspect,” Jenny said. “But they might be able to tell you what’s going on behind the scenes.”

  She shrugged. “I’ll see what I can dig up,” she added. “There’s no guarantee ...”

  “We can offer payment,” Rebecca said. “Or future favours.”

  “There’s a risk in dealing with smugglers,” Jenny noted. “And I’d prefer not to owe them any favours.”

  She closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them and looked at Elton. “I read your report,” she said. “Pirates and rebels ... right now, their civil war isn't a matter of great concern to anyone on Hudson. It’s too far away to be important.”

  “I thought as much,” Elton said. “In the long term, though ...”

  “There are a dozen other such wars underway,” Jenny told him. “I’ll pass on the warning about raiders, but ... most of the galactic races already know about the dangers. We may wind up organising more convoy escorts over the next few months.”

  Rebecca leaned forward. “Has there been any interest in the Grand Alliance out here?”

  “Nothing, save for a few snide remarks about minor powers,” Jenny said. She smiled, rather humourlessly. “Smashing a Tokomak fleet is impressive, but the vast majority of the civilians don’t really believe it happened. Even if it did, they think, it was a very long way away. A flea bite compared to the towering empire that has dominated known space since time out of mind.”

  She shrugged, expressively. “I’ve made the sensor records open to all,” she added, “but I don’t think they’re really convincing. There’s even a whole string of sites on the datanet dedicated to debunking them. Some of the details we left out for security reasons have been taken to mean that the whole set of records were faked. Others ... well, let’s just say that we have been accused of having an overactive imagination. I never knew I could imagine fighting in such a battle.”

  Elton nodded. Jenny had commanded a destroyer during the engagement, if he recalled correctly. She’d won a medal for taking out an enemy heavy cruiser in a point-blank engagement. It wasn't the sort of thing someone could fake easily, although he had to admit that - with enough computer power - anything could be faked. The VR sims that had lured a third of the crew into a fantasy world were proof of that.

  Rebecca coughed. “They accuse you of lying?”

  “Not directly,” Jenny said. “But they do come up with some fairly detailed analysis reports that prove the battle never happened.”

  Elton met her eyes. “How many of the local governments believe it was faked?”

  “I don’t think the governments do believe it was faked,” Jenny said. She smiled. “For a piece of fakery, there is some fairly impressive supporting evidence. But Elton ... many of the local powers are not inclined to annoy the Tokomak, if it can be avoided. Even if they don’t care about possible retaliation from the Tokomak, they don’t want to lower themselves to joining us. We’re tiny by their standards. Any contacts between us and them will be quite under the radar until we prove ourselves.”

  “Again,” Elton said.

  Jenny nodded. “I’ll ask around,” she added. “See if they know anything about the Harmonies and their coup. But I’d be surprised if there was anyone willing to talk to us, even unofficially.”

  “Of course,” Elton agreed. “They might not know anything either.”

  ***

  The beach, Elton decided two days after dinner with Jenny Longlegs, would have been heavenly, if there wasn’t something subtly wrong with the sunlight. It was just a shade too bright ... no, it was something his mind refused to grasp. His skin had already darkened automatically to cope with the sunlight, but his eyes couldn't adapt so easily. And yet, it was a chance to relax and pretend, just for a day or two, that he wasn't the commanding officer of a starship. He could tolerate an alien sun.

  A number of his crew were swimming in the green sea or running up and down on the sandy beach, wearing skimpy bathing suits or going completely nude. His eyes followed a topless young officer, tracking her progress as she played nude volleyball with a number of other officers ... he told himself, firmly, that he shouldn't be looking at someone who was indisputably junior to him. Others, not hampered by higher rank, were flirting outrageously or heading off into the bulrushes to have some fun. He couldn't help feeling a flicker of amusement, remembering the last time he’d made love on the beach. He'd wound up with sand in delicate places.

  He looked up as a shadow fell over him. An alien was standing there, wrapped in a purple cloak that concealed everything but a pair of terrifyingly dark eyes. Elton sat up slowly, holding his hands out and careful not to make any sudden moves. There was no way to know what he was facing, let alone how the alien would react to anything that seemed hostile. It - he - might be nervous around so many humans.

  “Greetings,” the alien said. The voice was so flat that it had to come through a voder. “You are the human commander of Odyssey, are you not?”

  “Yes,” Elton said. The alien was speaking English? That was a surprise. Surely, speaking one of the galactic tongues would help them to understand each other. “I am.”

  “I am a broker in information,” the alien whispered. It still spoke in English. “I have been informed that you are interested in the Harmonies. Is that correct?”

  “It is,” Elton said. One of Jenny’s agents must have passed the word to the alien. “Do you have information to sell?”

  “Yes,” the alien whispered. “Much information has been denied to us. We know, though, that the Harmonies are quite disharmonious. Many factions are competing over which one will drive their future. Do you wish more precise information?”

  “Yes,” Elton said.

  The alien held out a credit chip. Elton blinked in surprise. He hadn't thought to bring a galactic credit chip, not when everything on the beach had been paid for in advance. He’d certainly had no reason to expect an information broker to seek him out, although he had a feelin
g it had been done to establish the broker’s credentials. Finding Elton amidst his crew was not a small achievement when, to aliens, all humans looked somewhat alike.

  And speaking in English is a way of showing just how much they know about us, he thought, reluctantly. And, perhaps, to put us at our ease.

  “I haven't brought my credit chip,” he said, after a moment. “But we will pay a reasonable amount for your data.”

  “Ten thousand local credits,” the alien stated. Its voice seemed louder, somehow. “I have a complete file, including everything I know and can source. It includes political outlines, astrographic data and other such materials.”

  “Give me a summary,” Elton challenged.

  “Payment,” the alien insisted. “I can provide account details instead, at cost.”

  Elton sighed. Ten thousand credits weren’t much, in the grand scheme of things, but he had no idea just how far the information broker could be trusted. ONI had openly admitted that it had no sources within the Kingdom of Harmonious Order. There was certainly no way to verify what they were being told. They might discover, after popping through the first pair of gravity points, that they’d been cheated.

  And making us pay the transfer fee will add an extra hundred credits to the bill, he thought, sourly. The local authorities took their cut, naturally. But we can afford it.

  “Give me the details,” he said, finally.

  The alien rattled off a string of numbers. Elton activated his implants, contacted the ship and ordered the transfer. There was a long pause as the alien waited, utterly motionless, until it received a confirmation that the transfer had gone through. And then a purple hand emerged from its robe, holding a single galactic-issue datachip. Elton took the datachip, trying to match what little he had seen of the information broker to any known race. His implants threw up too many possibilities for him to be sure.

  “We wish you a long and happy life,” the alien stated. It shuffled backwards. Elton wondered, suddenly, if the alien even had legs. “And you may contact us if you require more information.”

  Elton’s implants flashed up an alert, a second before a teleport field enveloped the alien and carried it away. His implants tried to track the beam, but the best they could do was locate the orbital platform that had scooped the alien up. No doubt it would materialise there and then be beamed somewhere else. Trying to relay a teleport beam through multiple stations was asking for signal degradation and certain death.

  He rose, placed the chip in his pocket and took one last look at the volleyball game. It wasn't much, not compared to a VR simulation, but it was real. His crew had needed, desperately, time away from their ship, even if it was just a few hours on an alien world. They were looking better already. Their captain probably looked better too.

  Shaking his head, he triggered his implants. A moment later, Odyssey’s teleporter scooped him up and deposited him on the teleport pad.

  “Inform Lieutenant Fisher that I have something for her,” he ordered, as he strode back to his cabin to change. It was hard to command respect in a pair of swimming trunks. “I’ll meet her in her office.”

  He changed into his uniform, then hurried down to the tactical compartment. Lieutenant Jayne Fisher had been in the first group to go down to the planet, if he recalled correctly. Her visible skin had darkened like his, while she looked happier than the crewmen who hadn’t had a chance to go down to the planet. He passed her the datachip, then sat down on a stool.

  “See what you make of this,” he said, as she examined the chip. “And make sure there aren't any unpleasant surprises.”

  “A fairly standard datachip,” Jayne mused. She ran it through a set of scans. “No hidden nanotech, as far as I can tell. Room for a few yottabytes of data ... not used, it seems. I don’t think there’s more than a few terabytes on the chip.”

  Elton shrugged. A lone human could spend his entire life reading eBooks or watching movies on a yottabyte-sized chip, if he wished. He doubted anyone could see everything on the chip before death came for them. The chip was staggeringly overdesigned, but that was practically a feature of Tokomak engineering. They’d wanted to make sure that everyone had a copy of everything they might possibly need.

  “I think we can insert it into a secured reader,” Jayne added, thoughtfully. “I’ll keep it isolated, of course.”

  “Please,” Elton said. Trying to sneak malware onto someone’s computer had been a danger even before First Contact, when humanity had discovered a whole string of nastier technological tricks. “Make sure you scan everything.”

  Jayne nodded and slotted the chip into a reader, then attached it to a remote AI system. The files would be suspended, then dissected and analysed, section by section. If there was any danger, it would be discovered before it could pose a threat. Unless it was something completely new ...

  “Files scanned,” Jayne said, finally. She cocked her head as she read the results, her implants blinking furiously. “Three hundred terabytes of data. No self-adjusting or autonomous programs detected. It’s raw data, sir; text, imagery and video files. It appears to be harmless.”

  “Directly harmless,” Elton corrected her, absently. “It proves nothing.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment. They were three weeks from Harmony, although they would enter the Kingdom of Harmonious Order much sooner. Time enough, perhaps, to analyse the files ... if, of course, they could be trusted. He’d have to ask Jenny about the information broker too. An information broker needed a reputation for honesty, but a desperate one might gamble that humanity wouldn't be in any position to take revenge.

  And a piece of false information might just get us killed, he thought. But we don’t have anything else to go on.

  “Have the files copied, then studied,” he ordered. “I want the ambassador and her staff to study them too.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jayne said.

  Chapter Eight

  So tell me ... when do we stop?

  Yes, we can offer assistance. Perhaps even we should offer assistance. But when do we stop? Do we help someone who is unwilling to take the opportunities, when offered, or unwilling to summon the nerve to make a clean break from their past? We do not rule their lives, do we? At what point do we say ‘enough’?

  -Solar Datanet, Political Forum (Grand Alliance Thoughts).

  “I cannot vouch for the broker,” Jenny said. Her holographic image looked pensive. “I believe him to be honest, but I cannot guarantee it.”

  Elton nodded. “The data we can match up does,” he agreed. “But that’s only the astrographic data. We cannot verify any of the political data.”

  He sat back in his chair. Two days of careful analysis, while the crew enjoyed their shore leave, had given them new insight into the Kingdom of Harmonious Order ... if, of course, it could be trusted. The data packet made it clear that the Harmonies were a very ordered society, more caste-ridden than pre-space India, something that made him wonder how they’d ever managed to have a coup in the first place. But then, divine right hadn't stopped countless European kings from being overthrown, murdered or simply rendered powerless by their political opponents. The Harmonies might be more human than they cared to admit.

  “I’ll be keeping an eye on the situation,” Jenny informed him. “My squadron will be at your disposal if you need it.”

  “If you can afford to leave Hudson,” Elton mused. “Can you?”

  Jenny shrugged. “Hudson isn't a human world,” she said. “Realistically, we’re just a large picket out to show the flag. I’m not saying there won’t be a price to pay if we go haring off into the unknown, but ... better to come to your assistance than leave you to die.”

  Elton had to smile. The Solar Navy had determined, long ago, that no one would be left behind, even if it meant prolonging the war. Jenny would come to his assistance if he ran into trouble, he was sure. But the difficulty would be informing her that he was in trouble. The Harmonies - and four other races - controlled the shippi
ng lines between Harmony and Hudson Base. He’d have problems hiring a courier boat if the local powers didn't want to get involved.

  Which is why we need to work on those FTL drones, he thought. But so far the techs haven’t produced a viable model.

  He pushed the thought aside. There was no point in wishing for something he didn't have.

  “I’ll send messages up the chain as long as I can,” he said, instead. “Send messages back to me, if you can.”

  “Of course,” Jenny said.

  She smiled, rather wanly. “I hope you and your crew enjoyed your shore leave here,” she said. “The facilities aren't much.”