by Chad Huskins
After the messenger left, Kalder looked over at Julian, Captain Desh, and Moira. They were all seated across from him on the observation deck, a single holo-projector sitting on the table between them. “It looks like there may be glory in the Republic’s future after all.” He wagged his finger in the air, and saw something promising in the first unclassified reports that had come to Voice of Reason in a data dump from Lord Ishimoto. Hundreds dead. A hundred more injured. But Phanes was secure. The only thing left to do was sweep up and chase the last Ascendancy ships away.
There were a few pics and vids of the fighting and the damage. The data was finally coming through now that the Ascendancy’s jamming had been undone. Most of Vastill had been untouched, but for a hundred miles all around the Dexannonhold. Aerial views showed jagged rivers of destruction.
Kalder did a search for helmet cam vids of soldiers on the ground.
Interesting. It appeared Captain Lyokh had survived. He and most of his wing. They were at the tip of the spear the whole time, this report said. They were victorious. Something useful here.
He waved a private message over to Julian, who received it and got to work immediately spreading the footage from Lyokh’s helmet cam. Lord Ishimoto’s captain had intended the vids and data for PI’s eyes only, and had merely wanted Captain Fee to relay them, but leaking the footage would be easy for Kalder, and difficult to trace back to him. Even once they did, it would be too late and the damage—the expanding Captain Lyokh’s celebrity—would already be done.
Kalder waved at the spreadsheets that were slowly scrolling on a pane floating in front of Desh. It was a representation of the Taka-Renault System. “I’m sorry, Captain. What were you saying about the infrastructure?”
Desh sighed the sigh of a man who had been thinking on this a lot, and had finally come to a decision. “You said to look for a way to turn Moira’s mistake into a positive, so I looked closely at the moons we know of in Taka-Renault, and I conferred with her, and we sussed it out together.”
Moira nodded, and waved at a blue-and-white Jovian planet, which the projector picked up and on zoomed in on it. “If the civilization is big enough by now, you can count on these moons being mined like hell. I’d say factories controlled by drones with a few human overseers. But that’s a guess, and that’s only if they haven’t totally annihilated themselves or set themselves back by nuclear war.”
Desh cleared his throat. “Right. All the civilizations I came across over the years, whether interstellar or semi-interstellar, pretty much figured out the sense of not only using drones to mine, but of setting up drone-making factories on the moons to keep the mining going year-round. So, if the society didn’t shoot itself in the foot, like Moira here says, I think we’ve got a shot at having a real ‘get’ here.”
A get in this case was any resource worth obtaining on the go. In the wake of the Battle of Phanes, Second Fleet was going to be hurting for resources. They had lost two ships, along with all souls aboard, but had gained twenty ships from the Brotherhood of Contrition, and were about to receive the four Kalder was bringing with him.
The Crusade was building.
“I’d like to voice my concern about invading a new civilization,” Moira said.
“It’s not invading, it’s returning,” Kalder replied. “There is a huge distinction. We are returning to our cousins, reconnecting a branch of humanity that was broken millennia ago.”
“Right, but from their viewpoint, you can be almost certain they’ll see it as an invasion. And if they do, we really should have a contingency plan.”
“I quite agree,” Kalder said. “I’ve come up with a staged plan for approaching the system. The first stage is to approach with a single destroyer and a complement of support ships, but not with the entirety of Second Fleet. We will hang at the edge of the system and see if we see any movements from them—if we don’t, we can probably be sure they don’t have the technology sufficient to reach us. I’ve also had Julian working on a few ‘re-contact packages’ that we will transmit, based off of past Romulus and Remus incidences.”
“What are in those packages?” Moira asked.
“Julian?”
His assistant cleared his throat. “Past occurrences of re-contact have gone better if the approaching party sends out data dumps and welcoming messages in all the languages that were abound during the time that the lost colony became disconnected.”
“But any of those languages could have changed a million different ways since then,” Moira argued.
“Which is why we’ve had Diogenes extrapolate on what sort of changes the primary langugaes might have undergone.”
“But how does a supercomputer figure that out?”
“Captain Fee’s got many comm specialists and xenolinguists on board. Senator Kalder foresaw that this might happen in our long journey, and this being a Crusade into unknown territories, it was always a possibility. So, the linguists worked with Diogenes to sort of reverse-engineer some of our more prominent modern languages, strip them down to their barest sounds and objectives, and then extrapolated a few variations that might have occurred over the centuries. It’s a lot of guesswork, but it’s something.”
“So, you’re going to shotgun-blast the Taka-Renault System with messages of peace in a thousand different made-up languages and hope one of them sticks?”
“It’s one gesture of peace,” Kalder said. “The other will be the sending of emissaries. There will be offerings, of course. If they need anything—food or supplies—we will offer to help. We will let them know we come in peace. We will get a sense of their resources and behaviors.”
Moira looked at him. “So you can know their objectives?”
Kalder tilted his head curiously. “You’ve been reading my book.”
“Determinacy. It’s not a bad read. You really think you can apply your ORB philosophy to this situation well enough for us to reconnect with a lost colony, and then just continue on to Dwimer, and with the Crusade?”
“I believe if we don’t at least give a show of trying, we give the Corporatists and the Liberators something to throw at us later. Things will be worse for us if it turns out Second Fleet’s Visquain are reluctant to go on this Crusade, if they push back against me. The men and women on the Committee for the Continued Crusade will have all the more reason to discontinue our venture here.”
“You’re counting on turning this into a political move,” Desh said. His tone indicated he did not disapprove.
“I’m making sure it doesn’t sour our overall goal, as I’ve said.”
Desh shrugged. Julian smiled and nodded. Moira, Kalder noted, just stared at him.
“Now, before we convene, I want to talk a little about what we’re going to encounter at Phanes. I have been sent to take command of a portion of Second Fleet, and to take them along with us. The Brotherhood ships will be coming along, as well, giving us a sizeable fleet. However, there are commanders of each starship that will likely take umbrage to having their ships commandeered for our cause.”
“You can count on that,” Desh nodded. “I know if I were still flying my own ship, and you came along and retasked me to go on some weird search for artifacts, I’d be volcanic.”
Kalder nodded. “Which is why it’s important that the four of us understand that, as outsiders, we will have to stick together and show solidarity as a command structure. Myself as the overall commander of the Crusade Fleet—which is what we’re calling it, because Julian insists names matter to people—”
“They do,” Julian put in.
“—and Captain Desh as my liaison with the Visquain and ship commanders. Moira is our chief navigator. And Julian will assist all three of us in any items we may find ourselves in need of—profiles of service members and captains, political protocols, the contact information of anyone outside of the Crusade Fleet that you may need to speak with, that sort of thing.
“It is important that we stick together,” he reiterated. “Through solida
rity, we build discipline and dependency. Through dependency, we build a proper command infrastructure. Am I understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Julian said.
“Affirmative,” Desh said.
“Understood,” Moira sighed.
“Good.” He waved his hand to throw away the image of the Taka-Renault System and brought up a couple of panes of scrolling spreadsheets. “Now, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the ships being granted us from Second Fleet. I want you all to be familiar with their captains and their capacities. We will take a look at Fee’s most recent updates on damage done in the campaign, so that we know which ones are our weakest links.”
An hour later, they were finished and Moira and Desh had both been released. Once they were off the observation deck, Julian joined his mentor by the window and said, “Moira suspects.”
Kalder nodded. “I know.”
“Do you think it’s wise to keep her on past this point? We’ve already got what we need from her. We only risk her blabbing to someone about her suspicions by keeping her on.”
“Who would she blab to, Julian? Who would listen? Besides, at this point, she probably doesn’t even know what she suspects.” He waved his hand. “Monarch. Tell me what’s happening there.”
Julian sighed and looked at his holotab. “Pennick kept his word. He and his people supported the Xeno Nonconformist Bill like mad, and it has passed the Senate. The Two Consuls are expected to sign it today.”
“Good. I guess we can expect some kind of communiqué from Pennick sometime tomorrow, perhaps sooner. Please call to the Voice of Reason’s comms crews, let them know to monitor the QEC boards for any flash-messages from Monarch.”
“You think Pennick will call in the favor to support the Proprietary Worlds Rights Act this soon?”
Kalder shrugged. “Him, or someone else in his Arm.”
“You know, sir, they’ve already given you everything you wanted. They’ve handed you a fleet and a Crusade. You don’t have to support their Bill. At this point, you could…”
“I could what, Julian?”
Julian didn’t want to say it.
“Julian?”
“It’s just…this could make you appear weak, sir. That’s all. It will be the first time in memory that Kalder the Dreaded has changed his mind so radically on a piece of legislation. You’ve stood against monopolizations and planetary proprietorship for so long…”
“Are you suggesting we renege?” Kalder said.
For suggesting it, Julian looked disappointed even in himself.
“You know why I can’t do this. My greatest commodity is my word. The resources I bring to the table, and what influence I have left, are not so substantial that their promise alone can tantalize our opponents into going along with us. In order for my machinations to work, it must be understood that there is not even the slightest chance I might go back on my word. People listen to me because they understand I do not bend to an argument, not even one made by my own conscience when it tells me I would clearly benefit to renege on a deal.”
He nodded to this undeniable truth.
“Pennick supports me because I’ve granted him support of a Bill of his choosing, and because there is the possibility of an opening for the Imperatorship in the future, an opening I have said I will support him in filling. Those things are what’s going to keep him supporting us in our absence from Monarch.
“If we do those things, he remains on our side. He will be one of the few eyes and ears I can trust back there, because we can both trust that the man wants power. He will have told his fellow Corporatists of my promise, and the notion that the Corporate Arm may soon control the Imperator’s seat will have them all salivating. My word is what keeps this Crusade going, Julian. And my word alone.”
Julian nodded, obviously feeling dressed down. “Yes, sir. Of course. Apologies.”
Kalder turned to him, and gave him the briefest touch on the shoulder. For a Zeroist, the gesture was as enormous and rare as a supermassive black hole. “It is already forgotten, for you are still learning. This is what the Course of Honors is all about. Learning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, let’s talk about something else more pressing. Our mission is manifold, Julian, and one of the reasons we were sent was because I promised that we would, upon arriving at Phanes, and assuming it had been brought under Republic protection, communicate with this High Priestess on behalf of the Republic. So, let us go over the reports of the first contact that Gold Wing made with her, and decide what it is we want to say to this woman.”
“I’M TELLING YOU, he knows something,” Moira said.
“He’s a politician,” said Desh, throwing back another drink. “I’m sure he knows lots of somethings.” He waved his empty glass to a server bot, who raced across the length of The Place To Be and gave him a refill of some some unknown swill. Desh claimed that he had been on many different ships in his life, and that they all had their own unique brand of swill. He had called it each ship’s “flavor.”
Moira disliked Desh instantly. As a person, that is. He was rude, far too presumptive, and a terrible loser at porhl, which she had learned the night before. But that was just his person. As far as some of is individual quirks, like speaking his mind without obfuscation, Moira could at least appreciate that.
She glanced over at one of the holo-projectors, which was playing another news program on a loop. Probably old information by now—they were still in their FTL bubble, and the Voice of Reason had a shoddy QEC receiver, so a lot of news they saw was outdated.
“—think the success of the Phanes campaign will reinvigorate interest in re-connection efforts?” a woman who was dressed in a tight black suit said to a man who looked like he had finally run out of regens. Their holographic representations were a little grainy and transparent, making them look like ghosts.
The words at the bottom of the screen identified him as Ruck Distowl, one of the brilliant minds behind the Faith 6A report, which was invaluable to politicians and businessmen because it claimed to read the mind of the galaxy’s citizens. “I don’t think the Phanes campaign will do it alone,” Distowl said. “But if the rumors are true that the Crusade Fleet will be heading towards a Romulus and Remus Problem, it will be interesting to see if that helps or hurts the chances of the Crusade’s future.”
“What are your personal feelings on it?”
Distowl frowned for a moment, then brightened. “If we reconnect with a lost colony, it would do a lot to shore up the Republic’s numbers, gain us new resources, possibly new ships if they have them, and possibly reignite humanity’s pioneering spirit and notion of ‘oneness.’ It could be very healthy for us.”
“Can you tell us a little bit about how the public is feeling about the victory at Phanes?” the woman asked, leaning in. “Has there been time for you to get a sense of what—”
“He’s gonna fuck us all in the ass,” Desh said.
Moira looked away from the holo. “What? Who?”
“The old man. He’s gonna take what he wants and leave us with our assholes bleeding.”
Moira was puzzled. “You don’t trust him?”
“About as far as I can fling a Brood worldship,” he said.
“So why are you with him?”
“Because oblivion awaits, and the man raised me up out of obscurity. I have loyalty for a person like that. Call it a weakness. Valmoldt the Flayer could come back to life and start conquering worlds again, but if he helped me get a commission, I’d probably turn a blind eye to all those heads he put on pikes.”
“What is it you think he will do? How’s he going to fuck us?”
“Not ‘us’ us. You and me and Julian, we’re going to be fine. He needs us. Unless he doesn’t.” He shrugged, and downed his drink. “But the ‘us’ that is humanity? That’s real fucked, trust me on that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because, I know the man, I know his type. I’ve seen it too ma
ny times to count. Zeroist, my ass.”
Moira thought this was interesting, so she pursued it. “You think it’s all an act?”
“I think it’s all an act. He may not even be aware of it himself, but it’s an act, all right.”
“Then what are his true intentions?”
“If I was a betting man?”
Moira snorted. “The game of porhl last night says you are, even if you’re a shitty one.”
He laughed at her, and gave her a predatory look with his eyes that said he wanted either to fuck her or punch her. Perhaps both. “Let’s use Kalder’s ORB method to analyze him.”
Moira smirked skeptically. “You’ve been reading Determinacy?”
“I skimmed it,” he said. “Let’s try to determine his objectives. To do that, we gotta look at his resources and behaviors, right? Let’s start with behaviors.” He started ticking them off on his fingers. “Kalder makes deals behind closed doors—no big surprise there, he’s a politician. But, if what you told me last night is true, he killed an assassin with his bare hands, or at least with the help of a bot’s hands. So, he’s not above getting his hands dirty. He surrounds himself with a tight cabal of talented people—you, me, and that weird assistant of his. He’s got me taking control of the captains, which isolates him, keeps him away from any criticisms the captains might have of his behavior, and makes it so they gotta go through me to talk to him. He’s making himself unavailable to them. He keeps a calm and collected exterior, says he’s a devout Zeroist, which ought to mean he’s divesting himself of worldly things, and yet he’s accruing a fleet.”
Moira had started off listening with skepticism, but now she was paying close attention, enrapturing by Desh’s sudden cleverness. When he got his next drink, he downed it, belched, and continued.
“Now let’s look at his resources. Soon, he’ll have Second Fleet, or at least a portion of it. He’s got us, as I mentioned before. He’s got Pennick and others in the Senate doing basically what he says right now. So he now holds both political and military sway.” Desh looked at the empty glass in his hand. “What does all that tell us about his objectives?”