The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III-ARC

by John Ringo

  “And?”

  “I got assigned as part of the cultural uplift team,” the fabber said with a sigh. “Please spare me from another such assignment.”

  “We’ll see,” Tyler said. “What were you doing?”

  “Oh, making stuff they needed,” Granadica said. “Non-military, of course. You’re the first species I can recall that the Glatun gave mil-tech to. But the same sort of stuff. What species need, at first, absent what’s going on with you, is shuttles, small freighters, mining ships. That way they can bootstrap themselves. I produced...well, you name it.”

  “Hmmm...” Tyler said. “How were the Rangora on maintenance?”

  “Oh, puhleeeease,” Granadica said. “They thought a...well you’d say an ox cart, was high tech. They were imposs... Oh.”

  “Did they have a lot of failures?” Tyler asked.

  “Oh, those BuCult Bastards!” Granadica snarled. “Those rat bastards!”

  “Bureau of Culture?” Tyler asked.

  “Bureau of Culture and Trade,” Granadica said. “One of the few government agencies ever to go out of business. When you run into species they’re very rarely space-faring. To make grav plates you need grav plates. Without grav plates you’re using chemical rockets. Never, ever cost effective. Ogut weren’t even there, yet. Close but not there. Rangora were at gron carts and ships like your caravels. To make a species viable for trade they need to be able to mine resources on their own. Space mining. Information technology. Be able to spread out and terraform worlds. Start off with a culture that’s not even got steam and you’ve got a long way to go. And part of that is culture. You can’t do it ‘pretty well’ in space. Hope that there’s an initial non-lethal fault. Because eventually, if you don’t pay attention to your maintenance, you get a lethal fault. There are rarely second chances in space... Oh, those rat bastards!”

  “How are the Rangora, now?” Tyler asked.

  “You’ve seen their AVs,” Granadica said. “I didn’t build ’em. Those rat...”

  “We get it, Granadica,” Tyler said. “And I think we can probably get you fixed. You think that’s where this comes from?”

  “Almost certainly,” Granadica said. “Somewhere deep in my...subconscious is a program that recognizes that I’m supplying to a recently connected race. So I start making little, minor and non-fatal, faults in finished systems. I haven’t done suits but they’d probably be in those, too. Not infrastructure. That makes sense. That’s why Vulcan and Hephaestus are fine. Although there were some faults in the systems supplied to the fuel station... Hmmm...”

  “Can you run it down, now?” Tyler asked.

  “I’m finding some of the code as we speak,” Granadica said. “And I’m not going to touch it. This is going to take a good cyberneticist and another AI. Probably Argus. This is going to be detailed. Here’s the problem. There are going to be codes that say ‘Make a fault.’ There are going to be other codes that figure out what fault to make.”

  “Understood,” Tyler said.

  “Pull out the ‘make a fault’ codes and instead of random they just get regular,” Granadica said. “Pull out the ‘type’ code and they get...not non-lethal. I don’t want a nearly finished shuttle blowing up in my guts if you don’t mind.”

  “Understood,” Tyler said. “Admiral Duvall, I suspect we’ve found the culprit, at least in theory. But it’s going to take time to clean out. Continue production?”

  “Every fault found has been non-lethal to date,” the Admiral said.

  “Excuse me!” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “Captain DiNote?” the Admiral asked.

  “We can work with it,” DiNote said. “The 144th is coming online for Malta duty. All new shuttles. Not a problem though. German squadron.”

  “Excuse me,” Dr. Barreiro said. “All of this is predicated upon the assumption that our personnel are not doing maintenance!”

  “Alliance personnel, Foreign Minister,” Admiral Duvall said. “Which will be dealt with through channels.”

  “How, exactly?” Dr. Werden asked. “Because we have seen a large number of accusations but the crux of the matter is clearly Apollo.”

  “Annnd...time to break for lunch,” Tyler said. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be in my quarters.”

  * * *

  “Argus?” Tyler said, sitting down on his rack. It wasn’t much better than the Under Minister’s. In fact, it wasn’t as good as the Foreign Ministers. He didn’t really care, much, about perks per se, either as status items or from a comfort perspective. Better than a cave in a New Hampshire winter. So, he’d been a nice guy as usual. He was regretting that.

  “Sir?”

  Hypercom connected through gates, at least if it wasn’t jammed, and faster than light. Tyler could talk to his AI on Wolf as fast as on the Troy.

  “I find the fact that Doctor Palencia was ‘well aware’ of Parker’s opinion of Argentinean maintenance...interesting. Are there correspondence between...hmm...the Argentinean or other foreign ministries and the commander of the 143rd on the subject of Parker?”

  “If I had that information it would be privileged military communication and you would have to obtain clearance, sir,” Argus replied.

  “What if we already stole it?” Tyler asked. “We’ve got an intelligence department.”

  “Oh, look, here it is,” Argus said.

  “You could have just gone there, Argus,” Tyler said. “Download. I want to read it.”

  “Are you sure?” Argus said. “Have you taken your blood pressure medicine?”

  “I don’t take blood pressure medicine, Argus,” Tyler said. “In fact, don’t download it.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  “Print it out.”

  A couple of minutes later he looked up.

  “Argus, don’t screw around with this or I’ll fly back to Troy and pull your core again. I want every similar communication.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “We may just have a break,” Toer said, ruffling his scales.

  “That would be nice,” To’Jopeviq said, perusing the newest production estimate on the Wolf system. “Every time I think the Terrans have to have some limits I read something like this. Apollo has taken Granadica offline for a full rebuild. You would think that would drop their productivity, right? So how come it continues to increase? And while I would normally take that as disinformation, their systems are so open, there are people who do our digging for us. They have...these blasted ‘web-logs’ devoted to nothing but analyzing production for people who use their... ‘stock markets.’ This should be secure information! Not spread to the entire universe!”

  “Be glad they do,” Toer said, dumping a data set to his computer. “There was a news article I just picked up. I went onto their hypernet and checked. It’s not disinformation. They are taking the Troy drive offline for upgrades. Malta’s is still not installed. That will leave only Thermopylae mobile.”

  “How long will it take?” To’Jopeviq asked, looking at the information.

  “At least a month this time,” Toer said. “The drive took damage in the last battle. They are putting in a new one that they believe will be more robust. That is, by the way, the most valuable target on a tactical level. If you can take out the Orion drive, you can stand off and pound them with missiles.”

  “Which they can absorb all day,” To’Jopeviq said, reading the full report. “But, yes, this gives one of our plans a chance. I will forward it with the note that you pointed it out. Where is that update... Ah, the newest load of missiles has arrived in the Galkod system. Good. Still not enough, but... Hmm...”

  “That’s an interesting hum,” Toer said.

  “The Orion drive is not their only vulnerability,” To’Jopeviq said. “Their great strength in offense is their missile ability and volume. Also a great defensive strength.”

  “Their lasers are not ineffective,” Toer pointed out.

  “But the missiles are the real danger,” To
’Jopeviq said. “If they lack the Orion drive they lack maneuverability. If they also lack missiles...”

  “You can stand off and pound them into rubble,” Toer said. “And how do you take away their missile capability? The armories are deeply embedded.”

  “And they have an increasing multiple of tubes,” To’Jopeviq said. “It will not be simple but... Yes... There may just be a way to at least take out one of these damned things. Alas, I see another meeting in the future...”

  * * *

  “Admiral Duvall,” Tyler said. He was perusing some print-outs in a folder. A thick one. “Thank you for coming to the meeting.”

  “The question is,” the Admiral said, sitting down, “why everyone else was asked not to attend.”

  “Oh,” Tyler said. “The...what is the term, the Suds are attending. The senior members.”

  “That can be taken as an insult, sir,” Admiral Duval said, carefully.

  “Oh, it is about to get sooo much more insulting,” Tyler said as the door opened. He didn’t look up. “Even Granadica is insulted. It’s been excluded from the meeting. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Have a seat.”

  “The agenda for this meeting has been removed,” Dr. Barreiro said. “There should be a discussion of the agenda before the meeting.”

  “But then we’d have to have a meeting about the agenda for that meeting,” Tyler said, still reading. “And meetings to discuss the agenda for the meeting about the agenda. Well, not us. Our staffs. A dance of beautiful butterflies, flying around to meetings to discuss the agenda for meetings about meeting agendas. And so on and so forth.”

  He looked up and smiled at them, thinly.

  “When I met with the Vice President for Interstellar Commerce of the Onderil banking corporation, on Galkod Station, to finalize the funding of the Wolf gas-mine, which was going to cost more than the whole of Terra’s balance of trade, it was in a small and rather good restaurant on the station. Alas, things had changed. War was coming. Onderil could not afford it. As I was walking out I ran into Niazgol Gorku, then the Chairman of the Board of a corporation so large it could buy Earth ninety-three times over. Not a coincidence. He invited me to another lunch. I had quail. I walked out with all the paperwork signed to buy Granadica and the loans for the Franklin Mine.”

  “Your point?” Dr. Werden asked.

  “I don’t need a staff to have meetings about agendas for meetings,” Tyler said. “That’s what AIs are for. I also don’t have time or interest.”

  “There are protocols,” Dr. Barreiro said. “We worked very hard to prepare the agendas for these meetings in so short a time...”

  “And we both know that the agendas were so much show,” Tyler said, mildly. “You’re not here about the faults in the One-Forty-Three because you know damned well it’s a maintenance issue.”

  “That is...” Dr. Barreiro said, angrily.

  “SHUT YOUR STUPID MOUTH!” Tyler shouted. “Just shut your idiotic pie-hole!”

  “This has gone far enough,” Dr. Werden said, standing up.

  “Oh, has it?” Tyler said, mildly. He opened up the folder and started tossing thick chunks of paper to the various other attendees. “This is not the agenda for the meeting, either. This is the reason that the agendas for all the rest of the meetings have been cancelled.”

  Dr. Barreiro looked at the title of the stack of paper and blanched.

  “Simply because you have a personal relationship...” Dr. Werden said.

  “It’s not about Comet Parker, either, gentlemen,” Tyler said, furiously. “This is the agenda for the meeting. Your countries have impugned my company. You have repeatedly cast aspersions upon our products and you have accused us of deliberately killing your people. You have accused me of killing your sons! And when I found these and started reading them what became obvious was that the reason your sons were dead was that your governments, you gentlemen, personally, had deliberately interfered in normal and necessary processes related to ensuring the maintenance of ships and the training of their crews!”

  “Our culture is not one in which...”

  “I SAID SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE!” Tyler screamed. He suddenly stood up, picked up the station chair and threw it against the bulkhead. Then he picked it up and banged it on the table until it broke.

  “You want something from me!” Tyler said, squaring his hands on the table and sticking his face into Dr. Barreiro’s. “That is why you are here! And now I find out that you have been deliberately sabotaging my equipment? You want to talk about honor? That is MY honor you have been raking in the mud! And you want me to do something for you?”

  He grabbed another chair and sat down, leaning forward.

  “Everyone wants to talk about culture,” Tyler said, coldly. “How we have to understand your culture. Nobody ever seems to wonder if I have a culture. What my culture is about. This is my culture, gentlemen. This is my child. Apollo. I was on the first design teams of the Myrmidons. I created Troy and Thermopylae and Malta. This is my all and everything. To go to the stars. To save humanity. To be free.

  “Which takes ships,” Tyler said, softly. “And people who can use them and maintain them. I am Apollo, Apollo is me. I put my stamp on every bulkhead, every relay. ‘Vernon was here.’ Look upon me ye mighty and despair.

  “And if there is one group of special and protected people,” Tyler said, warming up, “One group that is the class of the world, it is the Marines and sailors, the engineers and warrants and coxswains who fight the battles that will ensure our freedom and give my grandchildren the stars. And you have accused me of KILLING THEM? WHEN IT WAS YOU GENTLEMEN AND YOUR STUPID GAMES AND YOUR ‘THIS IS NOT THE PROPER PROTOCOL’ THAT ARE THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!”

  “Mister Vernon...” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “You want something,” Tyler said, calmly. “I’m pissed off, but I’m a professional. Right now all I want is to toss all your stupid ‘You have to respect my culture’ asses right out of an airlock. But I am a professional. That does not mean my professionalism is unbreakable. So you are going to respect my current mental state and my culture and just tell me, simply, in as few words as possible, with no ‘given’ this or ‘due to’ that, what you want. Just say it. Then we will discuss it. Or you can get back on the shuttles, as long as we’re sure the maintenance has been done, and go back to earth. And if I ever hear any of your names again I will personally ensure that it is the last time. I can and will make you, and your Families, capital F, dust. Do I make myself clear? Yes or no, Doctor Barreiro?”

  “Yes,” the Foreign Minister said.

  “What. Do. You. Want?”

  The group looked around, clearly unsure how to start. Finally, General Barcena cleared his throat.

  “Malta.”

  Tyler just blinked for a moment.

  “I don’t own it,” Tyler said. “I have the mining rights...”

  “If you use your position to recommend that Station Three become an all South American station that will be respected,” Dr. Palencia said. “South American commander, all military personnel drawn from South and Central America. Including the Marines. We are considering...” He paused and glanced at General Barcena. “Chilean Mountain Commandoes for those.”

  “Battle Station Del Sud, so to speak?” Tyler said.

  “Yes,” Dr. Barreiro replied. “This is a...”

  “Point of honor?” Tyler said. “Gentlemen, first of all, we have established, at least to my satisfaction, that you cannot even keep one squadron of shuttles running.”

  “That is a...” Dr. Werden said.

  “I said to my satisfaction,” Tyler said, mildly. “I did not ask for agreement nor concurrence. That the issue is based upon lack of maintenance by a group of spoiled rich kids who are just marking time until they become the officers they properly should be is established, quite well, to my satisfaction. Equally that they would make as bad of officers as they did engineers.”

  Tyler nudged one of the folders closer to the Foreign M
inister.

  “I believe that one is your signature complaining about Doctor Velasquez’ son being treated in a ‘racist’ manner. The reply details the duties he failed to perform to his division chief’s satisfaction. I did not download the plant recordings that serve as a rather definitive proof of reality, but they exist. Those rather trail off after a bit which means, I suspect, that Doctor Velasquez’ son, at least, has learned how to maintain a shuttle. You had better hope so because we’re going home on those same shuttles.

  “My understanding of the situation is satisfied. I do not require agreement. Simply that you understand that I am, now especially, unpersuasible on this argument. Do you understand my lack of persuasibililty, Doctor Werden? Only that.”

  “I understand your lack of persuasibililty, Mister Vernon,” the Foreign Minister said, his jaw firming.

  “Thus I would look like a fool in my own eyes making such a suggestion,” Tyler said. “But I am persuaded it would be a good idea.”

  “Excuse me?” Admiral Duvall said. “What?”

  “In time,” Tyler said. “I believe it is doable. But not in the present condition.”

  “You don’t think we’re ‘ready’ for such an honor?” Admiral Benito asked, angrily.

  “Duty, Admiral,” Tyler said. “Duty, not honor. That is one of the large things you don’t understand. You refuse to understand. Who makes up the bulk of the Alliance Navy at present, General Barcena? And by that I mean the flotillas of the Troy and the personnel of the Troy and Thermopylae?”

  “North Americans,” General Barcena said.

  “Notably Americans, Canadians, British, Australians, Germans, Scandinavians and a touch of French,” Tyler said. “In the Troy. In Thermopylae, deliberately, the Alliance has tried to make a more mixed group. And has run into not only...cultural issues but cultural issues.”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Barreiro said. “Could you clarify that?”

  “There has been...angst expressed, very quietly but very firmly,” Admiral Duvall said. “By both other Alliance countries and non-Alliance countries.”