by Steve White
"You probably won't be surprised by this, Lad." He handed the single sheet over, and Ladislaus ran his eyes down it, then raised them to Thessen's face with renewed respect. As delegation security chief, he'd thought he knew all their avenues of information, but their intelligence network obviously reached further than he'd believed possible. What he held was a memo signed by Simon Taliaferro himself.
"It's no surprise, no," he said quietly.
"We've read your reports—and Fionna's. Is this memo accurate? Will the Amalgamation pass, do you think?"
"Like a doomwhale through nearcod," Ladislaus said flatly.
"Aye, I had the fearing of that." Thessen's Standard English lapsed briefly, then he shook himself.
"You should know, young Lad, that Capricorn brought a writ of extradition from Old Terra. I sent it back marked 'opened by mistake'—" a mutter of laughter filled the room "—but you're right; Fionna's murder is but the beginning. I've viewed the chips of that 'impeachment.'" The old man's face wrinkled with disgust. "It's clear there's no reasoning with them. Except, perhaps, this man Dieter, of all people. How say you, Lad?"
"Dieter?" Ladislaus frowned. "I'm thinking he's a good enough man . . . but he's only one man. Aye, he insulted Fionna, but he was drugging, and . . . in a way, that may have been the making of him. But whether he's to be surviving . . ." He broke off with a shrug.
"So no matter what he feels, there's little he can do, eh?"
"Aye. It's Taliaferro has them in his grip the now, and it's a mad seashrike with a mouthful of blood that man's to be. There's to be no stopping him!" He stopped, a little abashed by his own vehemence.
"Then, young Ladislaus," Thessen asked slowly, "what's to be done? Fionna spent twenty-five years seeking our rights. Was it all for naught?"
"Not for lack of trying," Ladislaus said grimly. "No one ever fought harder than Fionna. You know—you all know—she wanted no more than justice, no more than a transition. If even one Corporate World had reached out a hand to her—!"
"But fail we have?" Thessen pressed quietly.
"Aye, Mister President," Ladislaus said heavily. "We have."
"And it's that message you've been sharing with others, is it?" Thessen's old eyes were keen.
"Aye." Ladislaus looked up almost defiantly. "It's not to make any difference what wording I share, Mister President. You're to know that. And even if you're not to—" he drew a deep breath and committed himself "—it's to tell them I must."
"I see." Thessen's voice was very level. He glanced at his colleagues, and Ladislaus felt the tension. What he'd said was treason.
"Young Lad," Thessen said finally, "it's not quite fair we've been with you. This group—" he gestured around the table "—is more than just the leadership of the government. This—" he tapped the memo "—is no more than a part of what we've done. Are you, then, prepared to tell us the Federation is doomed? Is it to defy all of us you are? Knowing we're to have information even you are not to know?"
"Aye, Mister President. If so I must, then it's to defy you I will be doing! Fionna had the giving of her life for her dream, but her dream had no life of its own. I'm not to be seeing more! It's to be enough of our blood they've had the taking of! It's to be war they're waging, a war of 'laws' and 'writs' and 'reapportionments.' Well, to give them their war!" He was on his feet, blue eyes flashing, and his voice was rolling thunder in the chamber. "To give them a bellyful of war—and not with words!"
He choked himself off abruptly. Whatever he felt, whatever he thought, these were the leaders of his people. It was not proper to raise his voice to them, and his temerity shamed him. Yet he was resentful, too; resentful of their slowness, resentful that age and high position blinded them to what he saw so clearly.
He sank back into his chair, watching Thessen glance once more around the gathered faces. Here and there a head nodded slowly, wordlessly, and Ladislaus felt his heart sink at the slow confirmations.
"Ladislaus Skjorning," Thessen's voice was deeper and more powerful, his old face flushed, "it's to be too long you've had the living amongst Innerworlders!" The Beaufort dialect penetrated, and Ladislaus raised his head. He stared at Thessen's bearded face, and the old man smiled slowly. "Did you have the thinking it's to be only you to know these things, Lad?" The president shook his head. "We've had the thinking of such thoughts for long now, and we've had the preparing for it, as well. You're to make no rebellion against us, Lad Skjorning, for we're to be before you. Aye, young Lad—if it's to make war they are, then it's to make war we are, as well!"
Ladislaus gaped at the old man, and the pieces suddenly fell together. The copy of the memo, the channels of information, the persistent questioning—he'd come into this chamber convinced he alone saw what must be done, only to find they'd already seen it!
"We've had the making of our plans for long," Thessen said slowly, "yet we're to be old, Ladislaus. We're to be worn and tired—we're not to have the strength and youth for this. But it's to see you do. So to tell us, young Lad—will it be you who has the leading of us?"
"Aye," Ladislaus said softly. There was no hesitation in him, only the grim, cold certainty that it was for this moment he had been born and trained, and he looked around the circle of old faces, seeing the same bitter determination in the wise eyes and lined faces looking back at him. He nodded his head slowly, and when he spoke again, it was to swear an oath.
"Aye," he repeated. "It will be that!"
SECESSION
"If this be treason, make the most of it!"
William Patrick Henry,
Before the Virginia
House of Burgesses
Fleet Admiral Stepan Forsythe looked up from his paperwork as his communicator lit with the face of his staff communications officer.
"Yes, Mister Qwan?"
"Sir," Lieutenant Doris Qwan said carefully "we're picking up something from a Mobius Corp mail packet. A transmission, not a courier drone."
Forsythe cocked an eyebrow. A transmission meant they were in the same system as the packet, but why transmit at all? This system was uninhabited and far outside the Innerworld relay nets; logically there was no one to hear the message, except for the unmanned recorders in the warp point nav beacons.
"What sort of message, Lieutenant?"
"I . . . don't really know, sir. May I play it off for you?"
Forsythe nodded, and his screen flickered abruptly, then steadied with the image of a lean, uniformed man. The twisted-loop collar insignia of his firm was overlaid by the crossed starships of a Federation mail carrier's captain, and his dark, strong face was tense, almost frightened.
"This is Captain Donald Stiegman, Federation mail packet Rising Moon, TFMP-11329. The following information must reach government authorities as quickly as possible. Stand by to receive coded data; this is a Class One Priority signal." Forsythe stiffened. Class One Priority was assigned only to threats to the very existence of the Federation, and his finger stabbed the emergency buzzer on his desk as the screen dissolved into a blur of static. The image danced insanely for perhaps ten seconds, then cleared, replaced by Captain Stiegman's worried face. "Reverse course immediately. Do not enter the Kontravian Cluster. Get that message out. Stiegman, message ends."
Forsythe's cabin door opened as Captain Enwright and Commodore Samsonov hurried in past an astonished Marine sentry. They slid to a halt, faces anxious, but Forsythe motioned them to silence. He watched the screen blank briefly before the message repeated itself, then gestured both men to chairs and punched the override to recall Lieutenant Qwan.
"It's a loop, right, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir, with an 'all ships' header. We've been in-system over an hour without hearing a thing, so I think we caught his first transmission. I'd guess he came through from Bantu and started transmitting the moment he hit normal space."
"I see. Anything on that coded sequence?"
"No, sir. I'm afraid the computers haven't broken the scramble yet, much less the code. I th
ink he's using mail service protocols, sir."
"Very well. Keep on it and do what you can." Forsythe felt little hope. Mail service codes were at least as good as the Fleet's codes.
"Yes, sir. Any response?"
"Not yet. I'll get back to you."
Forsythe turned to his juniors. Enwright's expression was thoughtful and waiting; only someone who knew him well would recognize the questions burning in his hazel eyes, but the curiosity in Gregor Samsonov's wrinkled forehead and hooded brown eyes was more evident. Forsythe smiled a wintry smile as he nodded to his flag captain and his chief of staff.
"Gentlemen, it seems we have a mystery."
"Mystery, sir?" Trust Willis to ask the first question.
"You know as much as I do, Willis. You heard the message. Reactions?"
Enwright sat very erect. "A few points seem obvious, sir."
"Indeed?" Forsythe cocked his head. "Enumerate, please."
"Yes, sir. First, he doesn't have any drones or he'd've sent the message direct to a Fleet base. Secondly, whatever the message is, it's both urgent and hot. If it wasn't urgent, he wouldn't be transmitting; if it wasn't hot, he'd transmit in clear. Third, he's worried about pursuit. He's not in range of our scanners, so we sure as hell aren't in range of his. That means he's transmitting blind and hoping someone hears. Couple that with his injunction to clear out fast—" He shrugged. "He must be afraid there're bandits on his tail, and he's warning any unarmed civil ship to stay clear of them.
"And those three points, sir," he finished levelly, "lead to a fourth: he's absolutely right to declare a Priority One emergency."
Forsythe drummed gently on his desk. It was a mark of Enwright's true stature, he thought, that there wasn't even a trace of 'I told you so' in his voice. He glanced at his chief of staff.
"Gregor?"
"I'm afraid I have to agree, sir," Samsonov said unhappily.
Forsythe sighed heavily, feeling the full weight of his years, then nodded and managed a bleak smile. "Well, I'm afraid I agree, too. It seems you gentlemen were right to urge me to split the task force." It was a bitter admission, but he made it calmly, then turned to his communicator and punched up the flag deck. The screen lit with Lieutenant Qwan's face, and he could just see his operations officer behind her. He smiled to himself. Commander Rivera must have heard about his summons to Samsonov and Enwright.
"Lieutenant. Commander." His voice was as gravely courteous as ever. "Task Force orders, Commander. We will increase to flank and close the Bantu warp point. Detach the battle-cruisers and Admiral Ashigara's carriers—send them ahead of the battle line."
"Yes, sir," Rivera said crisply.
"Lieutenant Qwan, inform Admiral Ashigara of the situation and see to it she gets a copy of Rising Moon's message. Then I want a message transmitted to Rising Moon immediately. Message begins: Fleet Admiral Forsythe, CO TF 17, to Captain Donald Stiegman, master, TFMP Rising Moon. Message received—give him the time, Doris. My force headed to meet you at max. Estimate rendezvous with my advanced screen in—" he raised an eyebrow at Enwright.
"Call it nineteen hours, sir."
"In approximately nineteen standard hours, Lieutenant," Forsythe continued to Qwan. "Courier drone with your transmission dispatched. Good luck. Message ends. Got it?"
"Yes, sir. It's on the tape."
"Good. Send it standard civil service code, no scramble."
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you, Doris." Forsythe switched off the communicator and turned back to Enwright and Samsonov. "And now, gentlemen, let us give some thought to our circumstances." He smiled his bleak smile again. "Somehow I feel certain even my delicate touch will not suffice to make them any worse."
* * *
Vice Admiral Analiese Ashigara, slim and severe in her black and silver uniform, sat on the flag bridge of TFNS Basilisk and watched the bright dot of the mail packet on her display. She glanced at a com rating.
"Anything from the patrols, Ashworth?"
"No, sir. They're 150 light-seconds out, and they report nothing detectable in scanner range."
"Thank you." She glanced at her operations officer. If the recon fighters' exquisitely sensitive instruments weren't picking up anything, then there was nothing to pick up. "Recall them, Commander Dancing."
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Communications, raise Rising Moon."
"Aye, aye, sir."
There was silence on the bridge—the silence of a professional team aware of the dangers of unnecessary chatter—as Admiral Ashigara leaned back in her command chair and waited. Suddenly the main screen filled with the image of a dark, lean face wreathed in a huge smile of relief.
"Captain Stiegman, I am Vice Admiral Analiese Ashigara. I assume you have a reason for declaring a Priority One message condition?"
"I wish to hell I didn't," Stiegman said in a rich New Antwerp accent. "All hell's broken loose out here, ma'am, and no mistake. If you don't mind my asking, where's Admiral Forsythe?"
"He is following with the battle-line, Captain." Ashigara said. "I expect him in approximately six hours.'
"Battle-line?! Thank God!" Stiegman seemed to sag towards the pickup. "You don't know what's going on out here, Admiral! They're crazy! They—"
"Captain Stiegman," Ashigara cut him off, "I appreciate the strain you are obviously under. I would request, however, that you say nothing more over an open channel. I will, with your permission, send my cutter for you so that you can deliver your message to me in person. And confidentially."
"Yes." Stiegman inhaled deeply. "Certainly, Admiral. Send your cutter at once. The sooner I can tell someone else, the better, by God!"
* * *
"Well, Captain Stiegman," Admiral Forsythe said as he handed the man a drink. "I have the essentials of your story from Admiral Ashigara." He sounded too calm. The Galaxy was collapsing around his ears, and he sounded too calm about it all. "I don't yet have all the details, however, and I'd appreciate it if you'd summarize for my staff, as well."
"Summarize, Admiral?" Stiegman drained half the glass in a single gulp. "Gladly. In fact, I'll be delighted to let someone else worry about it for a while." His slowly easing tension wasn't lost on his listeners, and they hunched closer to him as he began.
"It started about a month ago," he said slowly. "I put into Bigelow with a mail consignment—they break it down on Hasdruble for transshipment to the rest of the cluster—and they told me my departure clearance and return cargo would be delayed a day or two." He shrugged. "Two days is a long layover, but I've had longer, so I didn't think much about it.
"But a few hours later, the port master called me up again—something about a viral infection and they couldn't find one of the people who'd been exposed. He agreed the odds were against their plague carrier being on board, but SOP required a search of the ship. Well, I wasn't too pleased, but nobody wants to chance another plague outbreak, so I agreed."
He paused and stared down into his drink. When he looked back up, his eyes were hot.
"But it wasn't any damned medical inspection party they sent aboard my ship," he grated. "It was an entire platoon of Marines—or they wore Marine combat zoots, anyway." He relaxed his muscles with a visible effort. "But they were already aboard, and no one in his right mind argues with a platoon of zoots, whoever's inside 'em." He shook his head slowly, remembering.
"They were polite as hell—I'll give the bastards that! But they posted two men in each drive room and two more on the bridge, and they told me—me, the skipper of a Federation mail packet, damn 'em!—that they had to 'detain' me." His lips twisted. "Wouldn't say why or for how long. Wouldn't say anything else. Just stood there and waited for their reliefs."
He growled something under his breath and finished his drink. Forsythe personally refilled the glass, to his obvious relief, and he sipped again, more slowly.
"Anyway, they had us. I tried getting a message out when I saw a Frontier Fleet cruiser on my screens, but they were on top of me in s
econds. No nastiness, you understand—just another guard suddenly appeared in the com section and they stripped off our drones in case I got any smart ideas about using them.
"At first, I thought it was some kind of mistake, but then I figured out the whole orbit port was in on it—whatever 'it' was. And at least some of those 'Marines' really were Marines. I'm sure of it. I considered piracy, a real medical emergency—hell, even a port-wide outbreak of mass insanity! But I never once considered what was really happening."
"And that was, Captain?" Willis Enwright prompted when Stiegman paused once more.
"Treason, Captain," the mail packet captain said harshly. "Goddamned, old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-fucking-wool treason! The whole damned system's decided to 'secede' from the Federation!"
The blood drained from Lieutenant Qwan's face. Enwright's features only tightened slowly, but Samsonov looked as if he'd been punched in the stomach and Rivera looked murderous. Only Forsythe seemed unaffected—but, then, only he had seen Admiral Ashigara's scrambled transmission.
"I see, Captain Stiegman," he said quietly. "And their objective, obviously, was to keep Rising Moon from letting the cat out of the bag?"
"Exactly. Took us a while to put it together, Admiral, but there had to be some contact between my tech crews and the port service personnel.
"Near as we can figure it, it all began a month or so after Ladislaus Skjorning got home. Nobody's sure whether it was his idea or whether it was his whole damned planet's notion, but Beaufort's where it started, and whoever planned it must've had one hell of an organization! Given the way the warp lines run, Beaufort's at the bottom of a sack; all the rest of the cluster sort of drains down to 'em. They knew what that meant, too, because they didn't start on Beaufort; they started from Beaufort."
"'From Beaufort'?" Enwright repeated.
"They sent out 'emissaries,' Captain. God only knows what kind of underground's been cooking away out here, but they sure as hell knew who to talk to where, and they sent out people like Stanislaus Skjorning and Dame MacTaggart. Hell, no wonder people listened! I'm a Fringer myself; I know how hot tempers are running out here since the MacTaggart murder. But goddamn it to hell, there's no excuse for a full-scale civil war!"