by Darold Higa
“Lieutenant Takahashi, what exactly is going on?”
Lieutenant Takahashi had a pained face. “Captain Wainrite, I think it best if General Kobayashi brief you.”
Takahashi led Patricia to an office with a sign that read “General Kathrine Kobayashi, Unified Command Joint Chiefs Command.” Uniformed officers were running about her office, and General Kobayashi was seated at a chair, apparently talking on two communicators at the same time. Seeing Patricia standing there, she motioned both of them in.
“General Kobayashi, Captain Patricial Wainrite, Spincoran Royal Navy, as ordered.” Again Lieutenant Takahashi fired a crisp salute, which General Kobayashi returned.
“Thanks Jenny. I knew I could count on you. Please return to your unit and stand by for further orders.” Lieutenant Takahashi saluted again, did a sharp spin, and sped out the office. The other officers continued to run about, oblivious to the Lieutenant. “Captain Wainrite, you have my humblest of apologies.”
“Thank you General. You will have to forgive me if I am still confused. I was teaching a class when those military police showed up.”
“You haven’t heard? Ahh, and Lieutenant Takahashi was very tight lipped. Yes.” General Kobayashi nodded. “In that case, I regret to inform you that about two hours ago Narthia invaded Renspa, and caught nearly 25% of the Federal Space Forces in drydock. Your Queen promptly declared war on Narthia.”
“Then, why…”
General Kobayashi paused. “Well, quite frankly, Prime Minister Nishimura was about to honor our treaty obligations with Spincora when Senator Kobayashi called for a no confidence vote against the Prime Minister. Details are a bit sketchy at the moment, but it appears that key ruling party members may have been detained in their offices during the vote. In any case the government has collapsed, and Senator Kobayashi and the anti-Royalists forced a resolution through trying to remove the Royal family as the head of state. Conveniently he has also appointed himself Prime Minister. His first decree has been that the Government of New Marine abolish the Royal family and declare its loyalty to the Narthian Empire. His second order was for the military to round up and detain all Spincoran citizens living in New Marine.”
Patricia was stunned. She had always seen New Marine as a very peaceful and orderly planet. Unlike most of the hundreds of worlds in the Marginals, New Marine was as stable as Spincora itself, or so it had seemed. Even the anti-Royalist party seemed to only be advocating a symbolic removal of Royal authority. Now, it had appeared that the government on New Marine was a fragile and tenuous thing. Cautiously, she asked, “So, are you carrying out those orders?”
General Kobayashi frowned. “I am afraid that for the past hour, I have been unavailable to listen to orders from Senator Kobayashi because I am still carrying out the last standing order by the former Prime Minister Nishimura to prepare our military for combat against the Narthian Empire.”
Patricia understood. “That is what those military police were doing.”
General Kobayashi nodded. “Let me be frank and to the point. I would like you to relay to your commanders that no matter what official edicts come out of the anti-Royalists, only about 30% of the New Marine Army are behind them. 40% of the military don’t know who to listen to and are sitting in their barracks. The remaining 30% under my command are still loyal to the Queen. I refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Senator Kobayashi and have already had the Royal Guard evacuate the Royal Family. Unfortunately, we were caught completely by surprise and I’m afraid that we do not control communications offworld, and the fleet is split in two. To avoid turning the capital into a warzone, Royalist forces loyal to me are going to consolidate outside the city in the Northern Highlands.”
Patricia nodded. The commander of the Brightstar had joked that this would be a political assignment, but she was pretty sure that isn’t exactly what Commander Petrova meant. “I will relay your message. But I have one more question about Prime Minister Kobayashi.”
General Kobayashi looked Patricia straight in the eye, “Senator Kobayashi is my younger brother. That is why I am speaking to you directly like this.” General Kobayashi paused, looking dead serious. “I swear to you right here and now that I consider him an enemy of the constitution and the Royal family that I have sworn to defend, and he will die by my sword if need be. I don’t know if your commanders will believe it, but I swear that to you. I have arranged for your transport back to your ship. Captain Wainrite, if you can, please come back with help. Any help. I’ll need it. And now, if you will excuse me, I have a guerrilla war to plan. Lieutenant Takahashi will escort you to Shin-Akiba spaceport. We suspect that the military spaceport is under control of anti-Royalist forces. Considering how well planned this whole thing has been, I can only assume that Narthia is behind all of this. Earthspeed Captain, and I pray you return with good news.”
4563 July 05
Unnamed Beach on the Northwind Sea
Aurora
Renspa Federal Republic
Tessa Hawke hated waiting for clients to arrive. It always made her nervous. For her, waiting around was an occupational hazard. In fact the only “clients” that were ever punctual were undercover customs officers or local police. Most people interested in bypassing tariffs or cultural trade restrictions were usually either unprofessional merchants or amateur collectors, neither of whom were particularly good at keeping to a schedule. She glanced at her chronometer. Thirty minutes late was enough for her to worry that she was stuck with unclaimed cargo. Her policy was that she would wait one hour. If there was no contact from the client, she would consider the cargo forfeit. Most of the time she would at least get a nervous call to reschedule her delivery. Once before the client had failed to show up, also refusing any calls. It had been a hassle to sell the two paintings, but since she always collected 50% upfront and 50% in escrow, that particular deal had actually generated a fairly good profit. This time, the 2 bottles of Old Earth wine would be quite easy to resell.
Still, this particular stretch of isolated beach was an ideal meeting place. She didn’t mind being out of the ship, enjoying the beach and the sunlight. The deep blue oceans of Aurora were pristine due to their fanatical local environmental laws. Those laws also restricted tourism, so coastal development was minimal. She was dressed in her usual flight gear, but she wished she had packed a bikini. This would have been a great chance to get a tan. Plus, she noted, the collector was a cute guy. After dropping off the cargo she wouldn’t mind going to a nice lunch and who knows what else afterwards. Looking at the baggy jumpsuit she figured there was little chance for that in this outfit. She looked at her chronometer and let out a sigh. Even in paradise time crawled when waiting.
Suddenly her personal communicator began beeping furiously. Looking at the caller ID info, she was surprised to find that her ship was communicating with her. Thinking it was strange that the client would contact her via bubblespace, she triggered her neural implant and brought up a virtual datatank. Most people found implants distasteful, particularly considering that most passive neural interfaces datatanks provided nearly as much direct to brain bandwidth and control without any surgery or need for upgrades. Tessa was always on the move, so she found the implant and the inconvenience of occasional surgery upgrades well worth the expense.
As she operated her ship communications controls, she was surprised to find that it wasn’t her client. Instead, she was picking up a faint universal distress transponder coming from nearby. Tessa hesitated. On one hand, her business was far from legitimate. Answering a distress call could result in all kinds of difficult questions. On the other hand, she had a legitimate interstellar merchant’s license and part of license certification was having your emergency transponder log checked. The penalties for failing to respond to an emergency transponder were pretty stiff. Even without the penalties she felt obligated to respond. Luckily her cargo this trip was small, and on some Marginal worlds it wasn’t even illegal, so she could always write it off as her personal c
argo allotment if her ship was searched. Making up her mind she repacked the environmentally controlled case containing the two bottles of wine into her cargo rover and made her way back to her ship.
It was a short five minute drive back to the Kolga. She made it a habit of not doing exchanges at the ship. Maintaining a certain element of mystery about her and her ship had proven to be good for business. It had added to the mystique of doing business with the “Blue Valkyrie” as she was known in the business. Using her virtual console she had already powered up the ship and worked her way through the atmospheric pre-flight checklist. As she pulled up to the Kolga, Tessa couldn’t help but smile. The Kolga was a beautiful ship. Since she spent so much time in the ship, she always appreciated it when she could see the Kolga from the outside. Unlike most bubbledrive merchants, the Kolga was also streamlined for atmospheric travel. Featuring fusion-electric vector thrust turbines, she could go planetside wherever there was a sufficient atmosphere. In her line of work that was a necessity, since most skyhook terminal facilities were crawling with nosy customs agents. Since she was a customized version of the standard Aesir Meili merchant, the Kolga was expensive. So expensive that she was bought with a 100 year lease. Still, Tessa felt the Kolga was worth every last credit.
Once the cargo rover was secured, she made her way to the cockpit and took off. The emergency transponder signal was weak, but it didn’t take her long to get a rough fix on the location of the pod. Again, she was surprised. Usually the Planetary Guard responded to these kinds of transponder calls out in the ocean. The transponder was a space type transponder, and most civilian planetside vessels wouldn’t even receive those signals. In a matter of minutes she closed in on the location of the transponder. The small orange escape pod was bobbing in the ocean. It looked like the kind of pod that starliners or other large passenger ships carried, suggesting a large-scale disaster of some sort. Tessa did a quick scan of the area to make sure there weren’t more of the pods floating around, since her vector thrust would kick up a considerable wake. Not finding any more pods in the area, she set the Kolga to descend next to the pod and put the ship on AI control. Working her way to the loading dock, she hit the button to open the large loading doors at the rear of her ship.
Grabbing a telescoping rigging hook, she snagged the escape pod and pulled it into the loading bay. The pod was heavy enough that Tessa figured that there must be at least 2 or 3 people inside. If her loading dock didn’t have rollers she would have had a hard time hauling the pod onboard. Once she had it onboard she read the safety card on the outside and followed the instructions to make sure that none of the seals had been damaged. It looked like it had made reentry, and some of the emergency tags had burned off. Not sure if anyone would be alive, she gingerly knocked on the sealed door of the pod. She jumped back and let out a little yelp when the seal on the pod door depressurized and the pod door popped open. A man in a very nice business suit popped out. When he turned around, Tessa’s jaw dropped. It was the President of the Renspan Federation.
Tessa sat across from the man who was now woofing down a bowl of stew in her galley. In her sickbay the AI doc was taking care of a woman who the President had identified as his chief of staff, and a man identified as Presidental Security Service agent. She had ordered the AI to return the ship to shore while she attempted to sort out what was going on. Her guest, with food in his stomach, seemed ready to talk.
“Thank you, Ms…“
“Uh, Hawke.” Somehow Tessa felt odd giving her name out, but did she really have a choice?
“Ah yes, thank you Ms. Hawke. I really appreciate your rescue.”
“You’re welcome, uh, Mr. President. Welcome aboard the Kolga.”
“Peter. Just call me Peter.”
“Uh, well, OK Peter. Actually, I’m baffled how you could have been out there for so long without any emergency response. Um, I’ll call the Planetary Guard and have them pick you up. The rest of your party is OK according to my ship AI doc.”
“Well, right now emergency services might be a bit…occupied. So you haven’t contacted anyone yet?”
“Uh, no. I’m sorry, I was so busy setting up the AI doc that I didn’t have a chance.”
“That’s good.” Tessa looked confused. “Perhaps I should explain, Ms. Hawke, but for now I would prefer if we don’t contact any authorities at the moment.”
“I’m sorry,si…Peter, I’m afraid I don’t understand.” Tessa’s mind raced. This was confusing. The smuggler wanted to contact the police and the President didn’t? Something was clearly not right.
“Ms. Hawke…”
“Oh sorry, please call me Tessa.”
“Tessa. What a pretty name. Anyway, Tessa, I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a quandary here. I notice your ship has bubblespace drive?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, did you say the name of this ship was the Kolga?” The President paused, looking as if a memory had suddenly hit him.
Tessa froze.
“Isn’t that one of the Billow Maidens?”
Tessa relaxed a bit. “Yes Peter. One of the nine sisters that represent different conditions at sea. She represents cold waves. Not too many people know the reference. I’m impressed.”
Peter paused again, looking deep in thought. “Ah, well perhaps you are not aware, but the Narthian Empire has invaded the Renspan Federation. While you were in the sick bay I took the liberty of accessing the local medianet.” Peter paused, as if he was trying to convince himself as well. “Aurora along with two dozen other worlds including Newport are under Narthian control. Our military was taken by complete surprise and are in total disarray. It also appears that the rest of the world thinks I’m dead.” Peter paused again, cracking a slight smile. “President Devon has just surrendered. That being the case, it might not be such a wise idea to contact the authorities.”
Tessa’s head spun again. She hadn’t bothered checking the medianets for a few hours as she relaxed once she made planetfall. She hated automatic newsfeeds, since people with neural implants were constantly bombarded with useless information. Even with a good AI filter, it was like having someone constantly screaming about one crisis or another inside your head. But, emergency rescues, Presidents and war? Her smuggling operation seemed downright pedestrian compared to the events which were unfolding in front of her.
“Well Tessa. Let me be frank. I think I have a good idea what you do.”
The President looked straight at Tessa. She was used to dealing with people who never quite looked her in the eye. A chill ran down her spine. She almost felt naked in front of this man.
“I certainly hope that you won’t take this as an insult, Tessa, but most legitimate merchants with interface capability don’t come to Aurora. Aurora’s major exports are bulk agricultural goods, and that means using the skyhook facility. It also means bulk freighters that don’t have interstellar bubblespace drives since they all transit via HyNet. I also notice that you don’t have a very large cargo bay, suggesting that you do mostly high-value courier deliveries. Courier agents are always part of corporate fleets, or if they are independent bonded couriers they are required to travel in pairs. Most of them couldn’t afford a ship like this anyway, Tessa, or should I say, Blue Valkyrie.”
Tessa’s heart skipped a beat.
“Uh, I’m not sure…”
Peter raised his hand. “Actually Tessa, an old friend of mine hired you once. A Federal agent with Customs got wind of the deal, but I used my influence to have the investigation dropped. The Customs authority showed me the large file they have on you. Personally I don’t care if we violate Narthian artifact laws, but since we did sign a treaty with them, we have an obligation to investigate these matters. I have to admit, when Jim showed me the painting I was impressed that anyone could get such a rare painting out of Narthia.” She suddenly realized which cargo the President was talking about. She had remembered how stunned she was when she got the job. She also remembered the elderly man that
met her to retrieve the painting. She was touched when the man opened the case right there and began to weep. The painting was an original Monet, one of his Water Lily paintings painted at Monet’s home at Giverny on Old Earth. She was never told what the price for the painting was, but she knew it must have been astronomical. It was a risky mission, since trading in Old Earth artifacts was a capital offense in Narthia. She had earned a hefty fee for the mission. Most of the time the items she brought were just more things that collectors felt the need to own. In fact she thought it was ironic that most of them seemed to lose interest in the item as soon as they took possession. Jim, if she remembered correctly, had been different. The president, it appeared, had very exceptional friends.
After a few awkward moments, Peter seemed to collect himself. “Tessa, I know you are very good at what you do. I would like to hire you for a very special mission. It will be more dangerous than sneaking paintings out of Narthia.” Peter paused for a moment. “I want to hire you to smuggle the President of Renspa to Nova Roma.”
4563 July 06
Central Military Command
Luna
Narthian Empire
Brigadier General Tsai looked at the datatank in front of him. While he had been grateful for the promotion, the stars on his shoulder only seemed to weigh him down. The surprise surrender by President Devon had been welcome news by the Central Military Committee, but it bothered General Tsai. Narthia occupied about 10% of Renspa’s territory. The HyNet between the border and Newport had also been secured, meaning that the fleet, which had been stripped of most of its logistical support could be resupplied without using precious bubblespace drive transports. Most of Renspa’s fleets remained scattered and disorganized. All good news, and probably the reason for his sudden promotion. Still, Humantide projections suggested that a large percentage of the Renspan forces would probably continue to fight, despite the surrender orders by Devon. However, in order to honor the Terran Law of War Conventions, a ceasefire was in effect for 24 hours to give Renspan forces the opportunity to surrender in good faith. As a result, all fleet offensive operations had stopped. The ceasefire did not prevent the continuing operation to occupy Newport, however, so that was proceeding as fast as the skyhooks and orbital landings would allow.