Piece straightened. “To cut a long story short, I was assigned to a freighter crew with orders to jump ship when we reached the twins, the Alphan Stars. My mission was to make contact with dissidents there and see what, if any, support we could offer them. The dissidents were very pleased to see me, for obvious reasons, and we forged an alliance. They don’t think much of our chances, I should add, but they know we’re the only game in town.”
Hameeda nodded, slowly. “And how much of the story are you leaving out?”
“Just the details no one wants to know,” Piece said. “I’ll have to put them in my report, of course, but ... right now, no one wants to hear them. Anyway ... I was helping them to establish communications networks by piggybacking signals on the enemy communications systems and setting up operative cells for direct action. It wasn’t easy, as most of the dissidents hate each other almost as much as they hate the Tokomak, but ... we were getting somewhere when we heard the war had turned hot. Again.”
“Again,” Hameeda echoed.
“It was hard to be sure,” Piece said. “The Tokomak managed to blank out a great many reports before they reached us. They’re still pretty much in control of everything, corewards, and they’re cracking down hard. The dissidents lost a lot of cells after their enemies started peering into everything. The rest had to go deeper underground. There’s a lot - and I mean a lot - of people who’d turn on the Tokomak in an instant, if they thought they could win, but right now the Tokomak look to be in control.”
He took a sip of his tea. “My friends and I thought it might be a good idea to contact the fleet and request help,” he said. “We set out, intending to travel to Apsidal. It wasn’t easy. We had to take the long way ‘round. We were planning to swap ships here” - he jerked a finger at the bulkhead - “when you entered the system. I decided it might be easier to contact you and request a ride. Thank you.”
Hameeda smiled. “You’re welcome. Who are your companions?”
“Three representatives from the Alphan Twins,” Piece said. “They’re here to make the case for military support.”
“I see.” Hameeda activated the holographic projector and displayed a starchart. The Alphan Twins were close to Tokomak Prime, linked to the enemy stars by a single gravity point chain. She was mildly surprised the dissidents had managed to escape. The system had been enemy territory for so long that they probably no longer remembered being independent. “I can’t make that decision.”
“I know.” Piece studied the starchart with hungry eyes. “But I figure that whoever’s in command of the fleet can.”
“Quite.” Hameeda shot him a sharp look. “Why do they think they can win?”
Piece gave her a grim smile. “Technically, the system is owned and controlled - not ruled, controlled - by the Tokomak. Practically, the vast majority of the population consists of their servitors, entire races they’ve enslaved and put to work for them. They hate their masters with a passion ... hell, even the Galactics who live there hate their rulers. The entire system has been a tinder box for centuries. Really ... I’m not even sure the Tokomak are breaking even. Oppression and repression costs.”
Hameeda laughed, then sobered. “And they can’t reform because that would unleash forces that might destroy them.”
“Right now, I don’t think they can imagine having to reform.” Piece shrugged. “There was some hope that the new Empress would change things ... youth at the helm, they said, although the Empress is older than any living human. But there’s a war on and ... I don’t expect things to change in a hurry, if they ever do. They’ve already started slaughtering human slaves and cyborg soldiers.”
“Yeah.” Hameeda had never met a cyborg, but she’d heard the stories. The aliens had practically brain-burned them into monsters, unleashing them against their targets and then snapping the leash back as soon as the battle was over. They’d been grotesque parodies of the worst humanity had to offer, practically revelling in atrocities that would have made Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden blanch. “They really intend to destroy us, don’t they?”
“I think they won’t be happy until every last human is dead,” Piece said. “They were offering rewards for anyone who turned in a human for the extermination chambers, big rewards. I thought it might be better to leave before someone turned me in for the thirty pieces of silver.”
Hameeda allowed herself a moment of respect. Piece had lived and worked within enemy reach. If they’d known he was there, they could have taken him. And then ... she knew herself to be brave, but it was easy to be brave when the worst thing that could happen was a quick and painless death. Piece would have been brain-burned if he’d been caught, his mind destroyed by alien mental probes or his own implants. She wasn’t entirely sure how seriously to take his claims - she knew he could be mistaken - but if he was right ... she sent a mental command to the drives, ordering them to increase speed. The sooner they reached N-Gann, the better.
“They’ll do everything in their power to restore the status quo,” Piece said. “I think their next target will be their allies, the Galactics. Once they have all their ships online, once Earth is a blackened cinder and the Solar Union nothing more than space dust, they’ll turn on the Galactics. They’ll crush them all, knock them back to pre-space levels; they’ll impose controls that will make Earth’s worst police state look like the Solar Union. And I don’t want to know what they’ll do to the servitor races. Genocide, perhaps. They just can’t be trusted.”
“They’ll destroy their economy,” Hameeda protested. “They couldn’t survive without cheap labour.”
“I imagine they’ll bring more and more automation online,” Piece said, darkly. “It isn’t as if they don’t have the tech. They just built their empire on slave labour because they needed scapegoats for the Galactics to sneer at. And they could dispose of most of them without really upsetting their economy. I dare say they’ve already started putting together plans for mass genocide.”
Hameeda didn’t want to think about it. Slaughtering an entire race ... it was a crime on a scale so big that she couldn’t even begin to grasp it. Hitler had killed well over six million people, directly or indirectly; the Tokomak would kill billions or trillions of people just to secure their position forever. They’d bathe the entire galaxy in blood. She couldn’t imagine they’d wipe out everyone - even they had their limits - but they could easily force the survivors to hide or flee for the Rim. And the Tokomak would come after them ...
She shuddered. “And then ... what?”
“I have no idea.” Piece shrugged. “They’ll probably go back to contemplating their own navels. It isn’t as if they have the drive to succeed any longer. Without the war, without the need to police tens of trillions of subjects, they might just start to decay again. Or ... who knows? Maybe they’ll change so much they’ll look back and realise they committed the worst set of crimes in the history of the entire galaxy.”
“Which won’t be any consolation to the souls of the dead,” Hameeda said, more sharply than she’d intended. “How could they even begin to atone for such a crime?”
She stared down at her hands. Humans didn’t live that long, not compared to the Galactics. The humans who were responsible for ordering and carrying out an endless stream of atrocities were dead. There was nothing to be gained by punishing their descendants. But the Tokomak were practically immortal. Their children, a hundred thousand years in the future, might start to ask their elders and betters why they’d committed such crimes. And what answer could their elders give? They’d have none.
No, she corrected herself. They’d tell their children that they had a choice between committing genocide and being the victims of genocide. And they’d rewrite the history books to make that true.
She shook her head. “We’ll be at N-Gann within the week,” she said. “You can tell Admiral Stuart your story. She’ll decide what to do about it.”
“A week?” Piece looked surprised. “How fast is this ship?”
“Classified,” Hameeda said. She snorted. Given a starchart, Piece could make an excellent guess at the LinkShip’s speed. Admiral Stuart would probably tell him to keep his guesses to himself. The Galactics hadn’t realised - yet - that there were ways to coax more speed out of a stardrive, if one removed the safety interlocks. If she was lucky, they never would. “And keep that to yourself, please.”
“My lips are sealed,” Piece assured her. “But you do realise, don’t you, that my companions will notice?”
“Yeah.” Hameeda shrugged. “I think that will be the admiral’s problem.”
She finished her drink and placed the mug in the washer. “I’ve had the servos make up a bed for you, in the spare room,” she said. It was designed to be reconfigured into anything from a secondary bedroom to an emergency cargo hold. “But you can go back into stasis if you like.”
“I have a report to write, if you’ll give me access to a terminal,” Piece said. “And I could do with some decompression.”
“There’s a full-scale entertainment suite down the corridor,” Hameeda said. “Feel free to use it, however you like.”
“A holodeck?” Piece blinked in surprise. “What sort of ship is this?”
“Classified,” Hameeda said, dryly. “Speaking of which, don’t try to access the datacore directly. It’ll take any unauthorised access as a hacking attempt and respond violently. You really don’t want to have it pushing back at you.”
“I know the rules,” Piece said. “And I wouldn’t dream of hacking a datacore when the ship was in flight.”
“You might spend the rest of your life in a detention cell, assuming you survived the experience,” Hameeda warned. She had no reason to think Piece would be so stupid, but she’d known enough operatives to realise the danger. Better to warn him off now than spend hours, afterwards, scraping his brains off the deck. “Just use the standard user interface and everything will be fine.”
“Understood.” Piece gave her a mischievous smile. “How many people are on this ship?”
“Classified,” Hameeda said. “Realistically speaking, you won’t see anyone else until we reach N-Gann.”
And you can draw whatever conclusions you like from that, she added, silently. She didn’t really want to admit she was the only crewmember, although Piece might already have deduced it for himself. You’ll be off this ship in a week or so anyway.
She stood. “I’ll show you to your cabin,” she said. “And you can write your report while we’re in transit.”
“Thanks,” Piece said. “I’m very glad you came by.”
Hameeda nodded, then led him down the corridor to the spare room. The servos had done a good job, hastily installing everything from a simple bed to a tiny washroom. It was smaller than her cabin, but still larger than the average living compartment on a cruiser. There was just enough room to swing a cat. Piece glanced into the washroom and whistled, appreciatively. Hameeda concealed her amusement with an effort. After spending so long in alien environments, using washrooms designed for all kinds of alien races, even a simple shower and toilet designed specifically for humans looked like the height of luxury. She allowed her eyes to wander up and down his back, noting the muscles and the signs of a stressful life. She’d heard stories about deep-cover agents. Some of them went so far as to disguise themselves as aliens. Her lips quirked at the thought. It couldn’t be easy. Who knew what would happen if the aliens caught a fake?
The Tokomak would probably be horrified, she mused. It was possible, in theory, to change race through nanotech. It wouldn’t be easy, nothing like as easy as gender or skin colour, but it could be done. How would they justify their supremacy if everyone could be a Tokomak?
“There’s no regular routine on this ship,” she told him, putting the thought aside for later consideration. “If you want something to eat or drink, just go to the galley and ask the processors. Ditto for clothes and supplies. Or use the onboard communications network to call me. Don’t try to explore. This whole ship is ...”
“Classified,” Piece said, quickly. “I do know the score.”
“I know,” Hameeda said. They shared a smile. “We’ll be at N-Gann very soon.”
“I was expecting the trip to take another month, at least.” Piece shrugged. “There were rumours of chokepoints being closed, of entire fleets going missing ... right now, a week sounds like a miracle. We can be there and back before they notice we’re gone.”
“I hope you’re right,” Hameeda said. “And that the Admiral listens to you.”
And that this doesn’t get a lot of innocent people killed for nothing, her thoughts added. The Tokomak won’t hesitate to crack down hard if they get even a sniff of rebellion.
Chapter Six
“An interesting report,” Hoshiko said, once Samuel Piece and his allies had been shown out of her ready room. “What do you make of it, Grandpa?”
Steve Stuart sat up from where he’d been half-lying on the sofa. “I think we should treat it with extreme caution,” he said. “I also think you’re the one who has to make the final call.”
“Gee, thanks,” Hoshiko said, dryly. “As if I didn’t already know that.”
“Good thing I reminded you, then,” Steve said. He grinned at her, resting his hands on his knees. “I suppose the real question, therefore, is if we should try to take advantage of it or not.”
Hoshiko scowled. She’d listened, very carefully, to the alien pitch. The dissidents believed they could rise against the Tokomak, taking and holding their worlds - their entire binary star system - long enough for her fleet to come to the rescue. Indeed, with a little help, their position might become practically impregnable. But, at the same time, it would disrupt her plans if she sent aid to the Alphan Twins ... and, if she failed to get help to the aliens in time, the Tokomak would slaughter them. And yet ...
She allowed her scowl to deepen as she considered the possibilities. A rebellion on the Twins, combined with one prong of her fleet moving towards the Twins, would pose a threat the Tokomak could not afford to ignore. They would have to send ships to the Twins, giving her a chance to stick a knife in their backs. But the timing would be a nightmare and ... she shuddered, all too aware of how many people might die because she couldn’t get help to them in time. The hell of it was that cold logic insisted she should send enough help to inspire a revolution, even if she couldn’t save it from being crushed. Their deaths might buy her time to win the war.
And lose my soul, she reflected. She knew she might have to launch a planetary bombardment, if human worlds were scorched clean of life by the aliens, but ... she wanted to postpone that decision as long as possible. It was inhuman to consider mass slaughter as a viable military tactic. What would it cost us, in the long run, if we encouraged the dissidents to rise and then left them to die?
“You have several options,” Steve said. “You can send help, but encourage them to put off the rebellion until our ships actually enter the system. This lets us make use of the uprising, without running the risk of watching helplessly as they get slaughtered. You can send help and encourage them to rise now, which will distract the enemy at the price of getting untold millions of people killed. Or you can do nothing, aware that the dissidents might rise at any moment anyway ...”
Hoshiko glared at him. “Do you have anything useful to say?”
“Yes.” Steve met her eyes, earnestly. “There’s no perfect answer. Not here. And you may not be in control of events anyway. War is a democracy ...”
“And the enemy always gets a vote,” Hoshiko finished. “And not just the enemy, either. Our prospective friends and allies always get a vote too.”
She sat back at her desk, silently running through the calculations. It would take roughly a month, according to the analysts, to get a sizable force to the Twins. That hadn’t been a problem a day ago, when there had been no reason to think there was a time limit. Indeed, she’d planned for Force One to take its time. The Tokomak wouldn’t be
drawn out of place if they didn’t have time to notice the advancing fleet and take countermeasures. She’d planned to do everything short of ringing up the enemy commander and personally telling him she was on the way. But now ...
“It’s never easy to make such a call,” Steve said. “You should start by giving up any thought of controlling what’s to come.”
Hoshiko gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?”
“I had to work with ... allies ... in Afghanistan,” Steve said. “Our commanders, who were literally on the other side of the world, thought our allies were bought and paid for. They thought they’d do as they were told. They couldn’t have been more wrong. The allies had their own interests, their own reasons for joining us ... if things changed, if we looked like bad allies or losers, they’d change sides in a heartbeat. It was maddening, but ... to us, it was appalling. To them, it made a great deal of sense.”
“How so?” Hoshiko cocked an eyebrow. “Weren’t they like you?”
Steve shrugged. “An Afghan warlord was ... still is, unfortunately ... a big man because he has a band of fighters under his control. If they died, his power died with them. He didn’t want to send them into intense battles because it might cost him everything. There wasn’t any sort of bribe we could offer that would compete with self-interest. And then ... we were supposed to turn a blind eye to their conduct, even when it reflected badly on us. We had to ignore filthy fucking paedophiles because it was politically incorrect to draw attention to it, which gave our enemies a field day ...”
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