by Chad Huskins
He wasn’t surprised.
Moira was pretty sure that Zeroists were terrific at keeping a game face—indeed, their whole lives were dedicated to such stoicism—but Kalder’s reaction to the Romulus and Remus Problem had been…well…
He wasn’t surprised. He knew Taka-Renault was occupied and he pretended he didn’t, and he was ready with a response.
But Moira herself had only discovered it by accident, by going through old data kept at a college of stellarpaths. So, if he knew, how did he know?
Then, on the heels of that, How old is this old bastard?
It was absurd to think that someone could be old enough to recall when the Taka-Renault System was first beginning to develop a government and expanding. Moira chastised herself for even thinking something so foolish. And yet…
Someone let out a loud groan, and pointed at the wall screen. Moira looked there, and saw an update on the Brood. It was as commonplace as a weather forecast. There were vids from distant satellites and daring explorers that showed clouds of the worldships floating silently through space, like the people recording them were following herds of migrating animals for research’s sake. Moira supposed that was probably part of it, but such news reports only served to decay the human spirit. Some of that gloominess was balanced, however, with another news profile of Lyokh. A lot of it sounded like soppy propaganda.
Someone somewhere is pushing it a little too hard.
It turned out, somebody else agreed with her.
A petty officer shouted out, “Oh, Jesus! I’m getting sick of this shit.” He walked over to the wall screen and waved at it, switched on a pornographic vid that had everyone in The Place To Be whistling and cheering.
An alarm went up. A voice came over the intercom, letting everyone know they were finished shopping for asteroids and were about to activate their A-drive again. Minutes later, the Voice of Reason shuddered, and Moira’s stomach lurched as the arti-grav and inertial dampeners fought to keep everyone rooted.
While Moira was reviewing their itinerary for the umpteenth time, a sailor plopped down in the seat beside her. It was a woman, skinny, with a grease-streaked face and a mechanic’s overalls. “Hey, sweet thing. What are you doing down here with all these asses?”
Moira looked at her. She was cute, with short-cropped blonde hair and a thin, knowing smile. “Waiting for someone to pick me up and take me back to their bunk.”
The sailor raised both her eyebrows. “I’ve got a bunkmate.”
“Can you kick them out?”
The woman chuckled. “I could probably get her to finish my shift for me. She owes me one.”
Moira looked at her nametag, then smiled and took her hand. “Then let’s cash in, Florence.”
As they headed out of The Place To Be, Moira thought, He wasn’t surprised. It nagged at her. But once they got to Florence’s bunk, it nagged her no more.
“I CAN TELL you this much,” said Captain Desh to the faces arrayed around him and Kalder on the holopanes. “I know this is uncomfortable for all of you.” He chuckled. “Hell, it’s uncomfortable for me. You guys don’t know me personally, but you know my history. You know my record. You’re as happy to see me as I am to see my hemorrhoids have returned. Bottom line? We’re stuck with each other, so let’s do what we can to be civil, what do you say?”
No one spoke, but there were a few reluctant nods. Kalder was glad to see Desh taking point, and it was good that, so far, the captains had been responsive to the people Kalder was choosing for his command coterie.
“Good. Item one on today’s agenda, the fab rooms,” Desh continued. “I know that you’ve all voiced concerns that the fab room boys are angry at pulling doubles, but we need the extra supplies. When we get to Phanes, we may be needed in a supporting role.”
Captain Fee of the Ferringer spoke around a thick black mustache, “Captain Desh, with all due respect, we were deployed with Tenth for almost a year, conducting constant patrols through Hermire. For the last three months, our people have been doing double duty. They need some rest. Now, seeing as how we are not intended to be a fighting force, only an escort to carry the senator to Phanes—”
“I know where this is going, but you can’t be so myopic that you think we’ll be in and out really quick,” Desh said.
Kalder was happy to see him not letting himself be rolled over by a man as senior as Fee. Here was Desh’s real test: Could he keep them in line, backed up by only Kalder’s perceived power and his own bullying methods?
“When we get to Phanes, the war will almost certainly still be going on.”
“The men are tired,” Fee said. “Tired sailors make mistakes.”
“Then tell them to pop some go-pills and stop their crying.”
Fee went silent.
Kalder knew how important and precious go-pills were for career military people. Each pill contained carbs, sugars, fibers, and unsaturated fats, combined with an engineered protein to provide energy and enhanced B-vitamins, and took the place of eating. Here at the Fall of Man, precious few factories remained that could produce them in large quantities. The Isoshi had tried to help with medical supplies, the Faedyans too, but the Brood had cut off too many supply lines, and so only the essentials were coming through these days.
“We cannot waste something so valuable on double shifts in the fab room,” Fee said. “We save go-pills for prolonged firefights, patrols, and other engagements.”
“Well, right now you’re going to use them to keep the fab rooms running. You don’t have to give them to everybody, just say…a quarter of the fab crews on each ship? That ought to do it.”
“You can’t just make such decisions for us—”
“I speak with Senator Kalder’s voice.”
“With all due respect to you and the senator, Kalder has been granted control over the Crusade itself, not us. The Crusade does not start until he reaches Phanes and the battle is over and the Visquain formally accept the Senate’s request to hand over some of their ships. This meeting is only out of respect for the both of you. We don’t have to include you on any strategy calls at all.”
“You will give them the fucking go-pills, Captain Fee. Or I’ll know the reason. On to item two,” Desh said, before any of them could object. “Protocols for ship-to-ship communication when we reach Phanes. Now, as I understand it, the whole system is being blanketed by jamming signals. Second Fleet is having a hell of a time talking to each other, only tightbeams are working right now. Some of the ships have working QECs, others don’t. I think we should run some drills today with the Comms One station of each of our ships, develop a shorthand for quick tactical changes. Brevity code works well enough under normal engagements, but the situation in Phanes sounds far worse than usual…”
Kalder listened to Desh take charge, and was glad of the outcome of this little test. It was a sign he had picked the right man for the job. Someone who understood the military politics side of things as well as Julian understood the Senate. He needed creatures in each realm, someone to interpret his will without him always having to be present. Proxies.
The discussions varied on issues concerning defense, and once or twice veered back to the issue of double shifts in the fab rooms, but always Desh held his ground on that.
Kalder let them talk. He let them all see that Desh was his man in all things. That way, they learned what channels they had to go through to reach him the next time they wanted to talk. Speak to Desh, and Desh will speak to Kalder. This created a much-needed barrier that would free up some of Kalder’s time to deal with other matters, such as what he had learned about the Queen of Mothers from Pennick, and what this could mean for future encounters with the Brood.
Suddenly, a chime went off at his side. Kalder checked his holotab. Even as he read it, he could hear other alerts coming to the captains on the screens.
Captain Fee spoke urgently to someone just off screen, “Sound general quarters at once. Ready plasma shield and get our defense guns cue
d up.”
Desh, the only one left out of the loop, looked at his employer and said, “What the hell’s going on?”
Kalder showed him his holotab, and the latest data from the Voice of Reason’s sensor room. “We have guests?”
Desh snatched the holotab out of his hand. “Ascendancy?”
“No, Captain. Registry shows a dozen Nqrarfonq-class ships. The Faedyans have come to say hello.”
THE FIRST THING that caught the eye when one spotted a ship built by any Faedyan nation was the strange warped W-shaped hull, which made it appear like an artist’s abstract sculpture moving silently through space. This was especially true of the Nqrarfonq-class.
Each Faedyan starship equaled about five Scythe-class ships in size. Enormous beasts, made out of some cousin alloy of the human-preferred compristeel. Their ships were usually a dark green, with thousands of darkened windows along the sides. They had few guns. They didn’t really need any offensive measures, since their hulls and energy shields were powerful enough to withstand all but the most powerful Isoshi ships. And the Brood, of course, but it went without saying that no one survived the Brood.
The fact that they were in space deprived the Faedyan ship, at first, of true scale, for there was no backdrop to compare it to. It wasn’t until it came very, very close that it struck a person just how large such ships were. Kalder himself barely suppressed his awe. Desh let out a low, appreciative whistle, though he had seen a few of these in his time.
Kalder and Desh stood in CIC along with Captain Fee, watching the feed from the Voice of Reason’s aft cameras. They saw these enormous ships approaching, knowing that if the Faedyans wanted to ram them and annihilate them, they could, and it would hardly scratched the larger vessel.
“Which nation is it?” asked Kalder.
“Registries don’t show,” said Captain Fee. “But the red stripes amidships indicate the Moloqullor Federation of Assembled States.”
Kalder nodded. It seemed reasonable. Like most alien civilizations, the Faedyans were not monolithic—they might have a United Nations-style treaty that pushed equal agendas for all participating countries on their homeworld, but each nation had just as much right to explore space and make treaties (or break them) as any other nation of the same world. Faedya Cradle—so named by humans to identify clearly the origin point of their species, a habit humans had picked up ages ago to try to keep track of where everyone came from—was a Super-Earth-sized planet, with over four hundred nations spanning nine continents. Six of those nations were spacefaring, and had developed empires across vast stretches of space.
The Faedyan legacy was one fraught with its own ups and downs. The Tumaqoloc Kingdom, for example, was one of the more cosmically prolific Faedyan nations, and had risen to great heights long before humans even had copper wiring. The Kingdom had enslaved a primitive race of people called the Verspici, then became lost among the stars for a few hundred years. Even the Isoshi didn’t know where they had gone. When they finally reappeared, the Kingdom had incorporated the Verspici into their culture, even worshipped some of their gods, and had transformed into the Atalahachi Empire, named after some great demagogue or other that had rescued them from their ignorance. Kalder only knew of this story because, according to the Isoshi, Atalahachi the Demogogue had been known to collect artifacts from Worshipper sites, and was said to have a collection of ancient Scrolls.
Faedyan culture alone could take a single human a thousand years of study to fully understand, so ancient was its people. It was a reminder that humanity had entered the story late. Each society Man encountered came with its own centuries of strife and baggage, with tapestries of wars and religions, a whole history Man would never know. A history they couldn’t know, for it was just too large
Like the fields of stars themselves, Kalder pondered. Just as easily know them as know a single race.
On Faedya Cradle alone there were nine hundred spoken languages, the chief ones being Dudarotlokichkt and Basic Narcik, each one sounding as different from one another as English Standard and Prime Chinese. It had taken the Rothschild explorers thirty-seven years of recording Faedyan conversations and observing their culture before they could even master enough of Basic Narcik to ask a Faedyan for a glass of water, and not confuse it with a demand for a refill of wine.
Kalder looked over at Fee. “Did you send the data packet to them like I asked?”
“I did,” the captain said.
“Did they respond?”
“No.”
Desh looked over at them inquiringly. “Data packet? What data packet?”
“Just something to pass along to their leadership,” Kalder said.
“Like what?”
Kalder didn’t answer.
Desh eyed him a moment longer, but decided to let the matter rest. “Try hailing them again, Fee,” he said.
Captain Fee looked at him. His face suggested Desh think twice about telling him what to do on his own ship. But then he did as asked. “Comms One, conn. Send out another burst. Run our greeting through the interpreter again, this time try Dudarotlokichkt instead of Basic Narcik. Maybe they’re not from the Assembled States after all.”
“Comms One, aye, sir. Hailing again.”
Minutes went by. Nothing happened.
The giant fleet of Faedyan ships flew over them like blue whales of Earth Cradle, keeping a tight formation as they glided beyond, leaving humanity to its fate.
“Do you think they even care?” Desh asked.
Kalder sighed. “They have their own problems, their own histories to write. I’m sure we are just one more obscure fact of the universe, a small cloud of life that wandered away from our homeworld, not rating nearly high enough to warrant their attention on most days. After all, they’re being harassed by the Brood as well. And battling with one another. And blaming one another. They have their own leaders pointing fingers, their own offspring waiting for them back home. And what are we, Captain Desh? Just fellow namers of things. That’s all we are, drifters adrift, naming things, and trying to outrun the inevitable.”
“There’s more to it than that. They ought to be helping us.”
“Ought to be? What does this mean? By evolutionary compulsions alone, you and I ought to be forcing our seed onto multiple women, with or without their consent, spreading our DNA for maximum diversity of the gene pool. But we’ve evolved with needs beyond that. Imaginations, morals, ethics, systems of law, and an appreciation for individual rights. Those things keep our lesser natures at bay, which in turns keeps chaos away, and allows us to have the order required to build civilizations and starships, so that you and I can stand here and say what ought and ought not to happen.
“And while we’re deciding what ought to be, we are constantly struggling with the evils of others, the nearsightedness and corruption of the very worst of our species. But all species endure this. We have our ups and our downs, and so do our needs. You’re telling me, that in this maelstrom of the rising and falling of needs, the rising and falling of whole empires, that a civilization as advanced as that,” he said, gesturing at the Faedyan ships in the distance, “is supposed to take time out of their day to care about what happens to us? How many other worlds have they seen crumble? And what if they did pause to make allies of us? How many allies must they have seen turn on them, take advantage of them? And what use can we be at our current technological level? Surely we must seem as useless to their own war efforts as a bunch of savages in a canoe looks to a submarine going off to war with a nation armed with nukes.”
Kalder thought on that. He considered what chapter of their existence those Faedyan ships were currently in. He thought about Man’s current chapter, and wondered if its story might be coming to a close.
He shrugged. “Still, it was rude of them,” he said. “While all civilizations may crumble, the most civilized thing we can do is at least say hello.”
PRIOR TO COMING to work for Kalder, Moira had never dabbled much in politics. She ha
d spent her entire life traveling the cosmos without any idea of the machinations that kept it running. It was easy to lose track of it all. Each terraformed planet had at least a dozen separate nations inhabiting it, and those nations came to their own understanding as to how to conduct business locally, but in turn they all belonged to the Republic of Aligned Worlds. Since receiving the commission from Kalder, she had spent some time getting to know her government, and the scope of it floored her.
But even though Moira understood little about political sciences, the sheer size and breadth of human civilization alone (discounting all xeno cultures) seemed to make collapse inevitable. When she tried to imagine a system that could possibly keep all these worlds in perfect order and agreement, she failed.
But there were people who still stubbornly tried. They were a rare breed. People like Pennick, Notombis, and Hossel. People with a drive few ever knew. And then there was Kalder. Virtually everything he did was a pronouncement of his liberation from convention.
The more she thought about Kalder, the more she envied him. His Zeroistic path was a difficult one to stick to, and yet he had.
Moira’s life had never demanded she know much about the workings of government. Her mother had been a stellarpath of the College and spent her younger years simultaneously breastfeeding Moira and apprenticing under navigators on numerous ice haulers and cargo ships. She had never met her father in person, only seen his face over recordings sent to her from where he was stationed as a Space Force guard in numerous faraway systems. He’d died trying to evacuate a space station during a Brood attack.
Perhaps Moira ought to have learned more about the politics that had placed her father in danger. After all, it was the decision of the Imperator and his Senate to divert resources from that particular space station years before, which had left them underprepared to evacuate quickly. Politics had also helped determine whether or not Moira, her sisters, and her mother received Tragedy Pay for his death, because his body was never found and thus it could not be proven he’d actually died.