Insurrection

by Steve White

  DECLARATION

  "Novaya Rodina, eh?" Ladislaus Skjorning watched the blue and white planet as the crew of the TFNS Howard Anderson brought their ship into orbit. "I take it you're finding this a strange spot for a convention of traitors, Admiral Ashigara?"

  His eyes touched briefly upon the empty right cuff of the woman standing beside him. Analiese Ashigara was every bit as taciturn and unyielding as her severe exterior and precise Standard English suggested, but he felt a strange kinship for the hawk-faced woman with the almond eyes and white-streaked hair who'd given a hand for her beliefs.

  "I would have expected the convention to convene on Beaufort," she said calmly. "Beaufort is, after all, the home of the rebellion." It was like her, Ladislaus thought wryly, that she never resorted to euphemisms.

  "Aye, I can see why you might be thinking that, but Beaufort is too far from the frontiers. We've no command structure at all the now, and until we've had the creating of one, we're to need the shortest courier drone routes we can be finding. Novaya Rodina's well located for that."

  "Yes, I can see that. But I think perhaps there is more to it than that, Mister Skjorning."

  "Aye, there is. As you've said, Beaufort's to be a logical place—if it were a Kontravian rebellion we're after having. But we're after making this a Fringe-wide movement, so holding our convention somewhere else should be helping along a sense of unity, you see. I've the thinking it's Beaufort's to be the capitol of whatever it is we're to have the building of, but it's not the place to be declaring what we are."

  "That seems sensible," Ashigara said, nodding slowly.

  "Aye. But there's to be another reason. Have you had the hearing of the term 'bloody shirt,' Admiral Ashigara?"

  "'Bloody Shirt'? No, Mister Skjorning, I cannot say that I have."

  "It's to be an old Terran political term, Admiral, and what it's to mean is appealing to emotions on the basis of lost lives and hatred." Ladislaus' face was grim. "It's not a tactic I'm proud to be using, but it works; and Novaya Rodina's after being the best place to be doing it."

  Analiese Ashigara shook her head slowly. "I am more happy than ever to be a simple Fleet commander, Mister Skjorning. My mind does not work the way this business of creating a government appears to require."

  "Don't be feeling any loss over it," Ladislaus said very quietly. "It's not to be something I ever thought to have the doing of, either."

  He fell silent, watching the planet a moment longer, then left the bridge, and Admiral Ashigara turned her attention to the final approach maneuvers of her undermanned task force. No, she thought. She did not envy Ladislaus Skjorning at all.

  * * *

  The horde of delegates crowded the huge auditorium, their rumbling voices filling it like a solid presence, and the surviving Duma stood behind Ladislaus on the stage, surveying their visitors with slightly dazed eyes.

  Magda Petrovna stood at his elbow, her mobile face quite still. Only Ladislaus knew she intended to resign from the Duma to accept a commission in whatever they were going to call their navy, and only Magda sensed how much he envied her freedom to do just that. But it wasn't freedom for her; it was flight.

  She knew her own strengths: a flair for organization, level-headedness, moral courage, and compassion. But she also knew her weaknesses: blunt-spokenness, a tendency towards autocracy with those unable to keep up with her thoughts, and a well-developed capacity for hatred, and she felt that hate within her now, though few of her friends saw it or recognized it as the inevitable by-product of her compassion.

  She'd been able to accept her own sentence of death, but not the brutality of Pieter's murder. Not the cruelty which had nearly snapped Tatiana Illyushina's sanity. That had been too much, yet as long as she'd believed that only Waldeck's madness was responsible, she'd maintained a degree of detachment.

  But then the provisional government had found the special instructions from the Assembly in his safe.

  Waldeck need not have acted on them, but giving men like him such an option was like giving a vicious child a charged laser, and she would never forget that the Assembly had done so. She would never be able to flush the hatred from her mind if ever she must deal with that government. Besides—she felt herself smile affectionately—there was a better choice to head the Duma now. Well, two, perhaps, but Fedor would kill himself first! No, only one person had emerged from the day of the riots as Pieter's true successor, and that person was Tatiana Illyushina.

  Magda glanced at the slim young woman. Daughter of one of Novaya Rodina's very few wealthy families, Tatiana had never faced the hard side of life before the rebellion. Then the earthquake shocks had come hard and fast, but Tatiana, to her own unending surprise, had met them all. Her oval face was still as beautiful, she looked as much like a teen-aged child as ever, but there was flint behind those blue eyes now. Flint and something else, something almost like Magda's own compassion, but not quite.

  But now, as acting Duma President, Magda had been granted a unique moment in history, and she stepped up to the lectern at Ladislaus' tiny nod. She drew a deep breath, and her gavel cracked on the wooden rest under the microphone. The sound echoed through the auditorium.

  "The first session of this convention of the provisional governments of the Fringe will come to order," she said.

  * * *

  "Well, Ladislaus, what do you think?" Magda refilled their vodka glasses and hid a smile as he picked his up cautiously. "Will it work?"

  "Aye, I'm thinking it will." Ladislaus sipped his second glass far more slowly as Magda threw back her own in approved Novaya Rodinan fashion. "It's not as if any of us have the thinking we can go back again." He looked meaningfully around the small gathering of the Convention's crucial leaders.

  "But it doesn't necessarily follow we can act together," Tatiana said. "Agreeing to hate the Corporate Worlds, yes." She smiled tightly. "But we're all so different! What else do we have in common?"

  "Don't be underestimating the strength of hate, Ms Illyushina." Ladislaus' answering smile was bleak. "But that's not all we're to be having. I'm thinking we're to have a better understanding of what the Federation is supposed to be than the Rump has. We're agreed in that."

  "True." Magda's cold voice raised eyebrows, but she leashed her rage and leaned back. Then she laughed. "Has it occurred to anyone else that we're not the radicals? We're the conservatives—they're the ones who've played fast and loose with the Constitution for over a century!"

  "Aye, so Fionna had the saying, often enough," Ladislaus nodded. "And we've no hope of building something really new—not in the time we're to have. So it's something old we must be building on."

  "So that's why you brought this along," Li Kai-lun mused, tapping the sheet of facsimile on the table and nodding slowly. His reaction pleased Ladislaus. Hangchow's diminutive chief convention delegate was not only her planetary president but a retired admiral, as well. His support—political and military—would be literally priceless in the weeks ahead.

  "Aye." Ladislaus ran a fingertip over the ancient lettering. "It's a federal system we're needing, Kai-lun. Centralization was the Corporate Worlds real error. It's to give the government the most power, but it's to concentrate too much authority in one place—and even with relays, slow communications are to make it clumsy in responding to crises . . . or people."

  "Agreed," Li said, then smiled. "And at least this constitution's got a good track record. If I remember my history, the United States did quite well for itself before the Great Eastern War."

  * * *

  ". . . and if fight we must, let it be under a common standard! I move to appoint a committee to select a suitable device for our battle flags."

  The stocky delegate from Lancelot swirled the brilliant cloak of his hereditary rank and sat, and Magda sighed. She found the barons and earls of Durandel rather wearing, but he might have a point—even if he was inclined towards purple prose.

  "Very well. It has been moved that we appoint a committe
e to design a flag for our new star nation," she said. "Is there a second?"

  "I second the motion, Ms Chairman." Magda blinked as Li Kai-lun spoke up. Now why was he supporting a motion which could only waste precious time and energy? She shrugged mentally. Undoubtedly he had a reason.

  "Very well. It has been moved and seconded that we appoint a committee to design a flag. All those in favor?" A rumble of "Ayes" answered. "Opposed?" There was not a sound. "The motion is carried. Mister Li, would you be so kind as to take charge of the matter?"

  "Of course, Ms Chairman."

  "Good. Now, to return to our agenda. . . ."

  * * *

  "But why, Ladislaus?" Tatiana demanded. "We have so many other things to do, why waste time designing a flag, of all things?"

  "Well," Ladislaus rumbled, "you might be noticing who Kai-lun had the recruiting of for his committee."

  "What? Who?" Tatiana asked, but Magda laughed suddenly.

  "Now I understand! Very neat, Lad! And how did you put Baron de Bertholet up to it?"

  "Jean de Bertholet isn't after being the worst sort, Magda. It's on our side he is, and he understands entirely."

  "Well I don't," Tatiana said.

  "You would if you'd seen the membership of that committee," Magda chuckled. "Between them, Lad and Kai-lun have shunted most of the 'noblemen' in the Convention off to a harmless flag-designing mission."

  "Aye," Ladislaus nodded. "Not that I really think they're after creating a new hereditary aristocracy for us all, but it's not to be hurting a thing to be certain of it when the constitution's debated, now is it?"

  "Ladislaus," Tatiana said sternly, "you're an underhanded, devious man."

  "Aye," Ladislaus agreed calmly. "That I am."

  * * *

  "Ladislaus," Magda said, "I'd like you to meet Rupert M'tana."

  Ladislaus looked up from his paperwork and frowned at the dark-skinned officer. M'tana returned an equally measuring look, and Ladislaus propped one elbow on a chair arm.

  "Captain M'tana," he rumbled thoughtfully, "you're to be the senior prisoner, I'm thinking?"

  "Yes, sir. I was Admiral Waldeck's flag captain."

  "I see." Ladislaus' lips twisted in distaste despite himself.

  "Just a moment, Lad," Magda said quietly. "I think, perhaps, you don't entirely understand. At the time of Pieter's execution, Waldeck had placed Captain M'tana under close arrest."

  "Aye?" Ladislaus' blue eyes returned to M'tana's face, even more thoughtful now. "And why might that have been, Captain?"

  "I . . . disagreed with his decision, Mister Skjorning."

  "I see," Ladislaus said in an entirely different tone. He waved at two chairs and M'tana and Magda sank into them. "I've memory enough of my time in the Fleet to be understanding how far you must have pushed him, Captain. But, if I may have the asking, what's to be bringing you here?"

  "The captain has a suggestion, Lad—a good one, I think," Magda said. "He approached me with it because we're both Navy or ex-Navy and we've come to know one another pretty well."

  "Ah?" Ladislaus cocked a bushy eyebrow. "And just what is it you and the captain are after cooking up here, Magda?"

  "It's like this, Lad. Like Beaufort, we had a number of . . . friends in various places in the Innerworlds. We spent years cultivating that network, but now that actual fighting's begun, we're cut off from it."

  "Aye," Ladislaus nodded. "We're to have the same problem at Beaufort."

  "Right. Well, Captain M'tana may have come up with a way to put part of our network back on line."

  "Have you, now?" Ladislaus bent a hard look on M'tana. The captain shifted slightly in his chair but met it unflinchingly.

  "Yes, sir. Understand something, Mister Skjorning. I'm an Innerworlder—a Heart Worlder—but when my people settled Xhosa, they didn't exactly do so completely voluntarily. I think we knew something about oppression, then, but we've forgotten since. We should have remembered, and that means we have a responsibility here. I don't want to see the Federation torn apart; in that respect, at least, you and I will never agree. But what I want and what's going to happen are two different things. There's no way to paper over the cracks this time—too much blood's already been shed.

  "So as I see it, I can either join my fellow prisoners in refusing to give you any aid while we wait hopefully for repatriation and—with luck—another chance to contribute to the killing, or I can help you people. Not because I love your rebellion—I don't—but because the sooner the Federation realizes it can't win even if it defeats you militarily, the better."

  "I see." Ladislaus grinned slowly. "Captain, I've the thinking I'm to like you—and I'm betting that's not to matter a solitary damn to you. But you've the right. It has gone too far for healing. So how is it you're to be helping?"

  "What Captain M'tana suggested to me," Magda said, "ties in with our plans to allow correspondence between prisoners and their families. We'll give him the codes and address of our contact on Xhosa and his 'letters home' will reopen our best conduit."

  Ladislaus studied M'tana's face, seeking some sign of treachery, any intent to betray. He saw exactly nothing.

  "You're to have the knowing, Captain," he said quietly, "of the penalty if the Federation is ever to be finding out about this?"

  "I do," M'tana said flatly. "But I know—now—what the Assembly's done to you people, and my oath is to the Federation, not just its government. If I can help shorten the war and reduce the killing, I have to do it. Besides—" he looked uncomfortable "—I don't enjoy killing Terrans, Mister Skjorning, not even ones who are technically traitors."

  "I see," Ladislaus said yet again. Then he added slowly. "Let's have the discussing of the details, then, Captain. . . ."

  * * *

  "Well, Chang?" Commodore Li Han tipped back her chair in Longbow's briefing room as she regarded her chief of staff. Commander Robert Tomanaga, her new battlegroup operations officer, sat beside Tsing, and the pair of them were flanked by Lieutenant Commander Esther Kane and Lieutenant David Reznick, Han's staff astrogator and electronics officer.

  "Commander Tomanaga and I have gone over the Fleet ops plan, sir," Tsing replied. "We'll know better after we run it on the tac simulator, but for now, it looks solid."

  "You agree, Commander?" Han turned her eyes to Tomanaga.

  "Yes, sir. Oh, we could use more weight of metal, but quality counts more than quantity." He grinned, and Han frowned mentally, bothered by his brashness and wondering if her worry was justified. Tomanaga was certainly qualified on paper; but all of her staff officers were qualified "on paper," with no real experience in their new positions. Nor did she have any, and with an inexperienced staff under a commodore who was herself as green as grass . . . She hid a shudder and nodded calmly.

  "Run it down for us, Commander," she said.

  "Yes, sir. First, I'd like to put our own operation in perspective to the overall situation. Our operational problems are complicated enough, but we think the Rump's are worse. So far, about seventy percent of Frontier Fleet has come over or been taken by our units, and it looks like we've got about twenty percent of Battle Fleet, too, but our forces are scattered all over the Fringe. With only drones for communication, concentrating them for operations is going to take time and, for the immediate future, our units here at Novaya Rodina constitute Admiral Ashigara's full disposable strength."

  Han stifled an urge to hurry him up. There was time, and it was better to be sure her entire staff understood Fleet HQ's viewpoint.

  "Admiral Ashigara's intelligence people estimate that the Rump has suffered losses we don't know about, and that fighter losses have probably been extremely high because so many fighter jocks were Fringers. That's a bit speculative, sir, but it matches our own experience. At any rate, the Rump is undoubtedly strapped for striking forces, but has the advantage of an intact command, better communications, and the interior position; they can move what they have from point to point faster than we can shift around
the periphery.

  "Our own immediate strategic need is to secure our frontiers before the Rump begins to recover, for which purpose Fleet plans a series of attacks on choke points. Our own operation against Cimmaron will cut off four separate Rump axes of attack,"

  He touched his panel, and the briefing room lights died. A hologram appeared over the table, and light from the tangled warp lines glittered briefly in his eyes as he picked up a pointer.

  "Here's Cimmaron," he touched a tiny light dot. "Only two transits away via Redwing, but Redwing's covered by The Line. The forts are cut off now, but Fleet prefers to isolate them rather than attack them." Han felt a mental nod circle the table. No one wanted to tangle with those forts.

  "So," Tomanaga went on, "we'll go from Novaya Rodina to Donwaltz—" his pointer hopped from star to star as he spoke "—to MXL-23 to Lassa to Aklumar to Cimmaron—a much longer route, but one we own as far as Aklumar. Because of its length, we're going in with only carriers, battle-cruisers, and light units, since battle-line units would slow us by thirty percent. On the other hand, there are no fortifications at Aklumar—thanks to the Treaty of Tycho—and they won't know we're coming, so we ought to retain the advantage of surprise until the moment we hit Cimmaron."

  He laid the pointer aside and brought the light back up.

  "Our best analysis of the defense is a guess," he admitted, showing an edge of concern at last. "The Fleet base's fixed defenses are negligible, but Cimmaron Skywatch is quite heavy: eleven type-four orbital forts, three covering the Aklumar warp point. Before the mutinies, there was also a strong OWP-based fighter force, and despite Fleet's estimate, there's no guarantee they haven't brought their fighter strength back up. They must be as aware of Cimmaron's strategic value as we are, so the system undoubtedly has priority for reinforcements."

  He paused to let the numbers sink in, then went on.

  "What we have, after essential detachments, is two battle-cruiser groups (ours and Commodore Petrovna's) and four carrier groups with approximately three hundred fighters embarked, plus escorts. The balance of force should be with us, but our edge is slim and we don't have any superdreadnoughts or monitors. Without them, the battle-cruisers will have to keep Skywatch occupied until the carriers can stabilize their catapults and launch."