What Needs Defending

by Hiroyuki Morioka

  “The folks over on the enemy side seem cool under pressure,” said Sporr as she gazed into planar space. There was something barbed in her tone, though. A recon fleet was meant to trample roughshod over the opposition in grand fashion. Yet the enemy was approaching in their orderly ranks.

  “Perhaps they’re just confused,” said Cfadiss. “And if they are, I feel their pain.”

  The enemy had to be well aware what kind of star system Lohbnahss was, and it was no strategic base. Why were the Abh mustering such hopelessly meager forces to defend such a worthless portal?

  “I’ve made up my mind,” said Sporr, lightly whipping the palm of her hand with her command baton. “Chief of Staff, send an inter-bubble communication to the enemy fleet.”

  “What do we tell them?”

  “That this battle is meaningless for both parties. Obviously, there’s no need to explain why it’s pointless for us. But isn’t it a bit absurd for the UH people to be taking losses just to reach 3-space a few hours sooner? But above all else, the enemy must think the Star Forces commander — namely, me — is an idiot, given they don’t know our extenuating circumstances. And I can’t stand the thought.”

  “Understood.” Cfadiss pretended not to hear the latter half of that explanation (even though she rather thoroughly emphasized it), and thereby regained his footing. “It’s certainly true that if the enemy fleet remains on alert for a while, then there’s no point in commencing battle from our side.”

  “The message should read... hmm... how about: ‘This is the Commander-in-Chief of Hunter Fleet 1, Commodore Sporr. Our objective lies in securing the Lohbnahss Portal for a brief period. Resistance is futile, so stay here and behave until we make our retreat.’”

  “I think it could use a little revising, ma’am,” Cfadiss offered nervously.

  “Is that right?” Sporr seemed displeased, but: “Fine, I leave it to you, then, Chief of Staff. There’s no time, so hurry.”

  “Roger that.” He saluted, and strode over to the Communications Officer. He’d completed the text of the message in the time it took him to make three steps. “You must have overheard about the inter-bubble communication. Here’s the text of the message: ‘This is Hunter Fleet 1 of the Imperial Star Forces. We do not wish to exchange fire. We promise we will leave this sector in six hours’ time. We hope you will refrain from advancing further.’ Got it?”

  “Understood.”

  And so the inter-bubble communication was sent. Moments later—

  “The enemy fleet has ceased moving,” said the Communications Officer happily, but their voice turned gloomy quickly. “A message from the enemy fleet’s Communications Officer: ‘This is the Sarrye Area Fleet of the United Humankind Peacekeepers. We will grant you a one hour grace period, after which you are to retreat at once.’”

  “If I could leave at once, we wouldn’t have taken positions to begin with. Are you telling me our opponents can’t even figure that out for themselves?” Sporr bit the joint of her pinky. “Tell them that one hour isn’t enough. Tell them we request a twenty-four hour grace period.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” Cfadiss looked back to face her, surprised. “I requested a six hour window earlier.”

  “They said it would take them five hours to relocate at the fastest. Realistically, we want twelve hours.”

  “But if we ask for twenty-four hours now...”

  “Chief of Staff, tell me, have you never engaged in trade?”

  “Correct. I’ve been in the Star Forces ever since coming of age.”

  “Then you might not know this, but the galaxy isn’t held aloft entirely by fixed prices. I could never be so gauche as to rob the enemy of the joys of haggling.”

  “Uh-huh...” Left with no other choice, Cfadiss composed the message and ordered it transmitted.

  One of the many difficulties facing inter-bubble communications was how long it took for back-and-forth exchanges to proceed. Fretful minute after fretful minute passed as they waited for the reply back.

  “It’s their reply,” said the Communications Officer. “Let’s see... ‘Earlier, you requested six hours. Now you request twenty-four hours. We are totally dumbfounded.’ End of message.”

  “The previous message was some sort of error. Ask them for twenty-four hours once again,” pressed Sporr, with a beguiling little smile. “With all due respect, the enemy commander is an amateur. The more they make unnecessary remarks, the longer the negotiations last.”

  “They might not be such sticklers regarding the norms of trade,” warned Cfadiss. “Especially the norms of trade in our society.”

  “Then we just fight them,” she said resolutely.

  “We’ve received another message: ‘We would like an explanation as to why you multiplied the grace period you are asking for by four.’”

  “Tell them we’ll explain why only after negotiations are complete.”

  “Message received: ‘We would like an explanation as to why you are keeping your reasons so secret.’”

  “That is also a secret.”

  “Message received: ‘It is difficult to regard you as negotiating in good faith.’”

  “Ask them whether we should take that as a notification that negotiations are off,” said Sporr, who was clearly enjoying this from the bottom of her heart. She didn’t even get this lively in the midst of one of her beloved trample-blitzes.

  “Aren’t you coming off a little strong?” worried Cfadiss. “If the enemy responds with a yes, then combat commences then and there.”

  “The enemy fleet hasn’t made a move. They’re attached to the idea of avoiding battle.”

  “But I think we should hedge our bets, just in case...”

  “It’s a thing of sadness when a business deal fails to coalesce. But it’s only by overcoming that sadness that people can attain greatness as traders. I think this will serve as good experience for you.”

  “I plan to serve the Star Forces for the rest of my days!”

  “Then you do yourself a disservice, Chief of Staff. You’re as good as throwing away half of the fun in life. Oh well. It’s your life, and I don’t mean to tell you how to live it. In any case, I’m the one making the deal here. Ask them the question, and ask them now.”

  “Roger.”

  This time around, it took an especially long time for the reply to reach them.

  “Message received: ‘We acknowledge it is too soon to draw a conclusion. We also understand that you have requested twenty-four hours’ time. However, we still ask that you retreat within one hour’s time.’”

  “The enemy commander is a good egg,” Sporr chuckled. “I don’t know who they are or where they’re from, but they pass muster as my playmate.”

  From the time they sent the first inter-bubble communication, thirty minutes had already passed.

  “How should we reply?” asked Cfadiss.

  “Explain to them the circumstances of why we’re stuck here. Take your time. Make it a real missive. I don’t mind if you embellish it a little, either.”

  “Understood, ma’am.” Cfadiss set himself to the task of drafting the missive, but he found himself racking his brain from the outset.

  “What is it?” asked Sporr.

  “I’m just puzzling over where to begin.”

  “How about beginning from the genesis of the universe?” suggested Sporr.

  “I’m afraid that would definitely be taken as just buying time.”

  “You really are a humorless sort through and through, aren’t you, Chief of Staff,” said Sporr, putting a hand to her forehead. “Fine. Start the story from when we arrived at the Lohbnahss Countdom.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Even starting the story from such a recent point, it would take some time to write out a neat and involved explanation. Cfadiss addressed the Communications Officer: “For the time being, tell them: ‘We cannot possibly retreat within an hour’s time. We will explain why shortly.’”

  The reason inter-bubble communication
took so long was because the amount of information transferred per unit time was excruciatingly tiny. And though EM waves and space-time particles were different, they were forced to transmit information via various combinations of small and long dash marks, much like the telegrams of the dawn of the age of science and technology. Moreover, if the gap between the mark was too short, they’d link up into one long indistinguishable mark, so they had to have a time gap of five seconds between each dash. In other words, even semaphore of old was more efficient than this.

  But at the moment, Cfadiss thanked this method for being so slow. It would easily take two hours for the whole body of the explanation to make it to them, and that was two hours of time in the bag. As soon as the missive was finished, it was handed to the Communications Officer and sent off.

  Yet a mere half hour after the beginning of the explanation, the enemy fleet interrupted with a response.

  “We do not need an explanation as to your situation. We have circumstances of our own to deal with. Those circumstances do not concern you. If you are still here in two hours’ time, we will boldly advance with intent to rout all who would block our path.”

  “Well if that isn’t a sincere reply. Their commander must be a dyed-in-the-wool soldier. Just like you, Chief of Staff,” she said, with an air of disenchantment. “I suppose any further negotiations would be pointless.”

  “Might it be supply troubles?”

  “Probably. If they stick around here for more time than they ought, they’ll disperse into space-time particles without ever fighting.”

  It took vast amounts of energy to maintain a space-time bubble. No matter whether the bubble was staying in place or advancing at full speed, planar space sucked out the same amount of energy at any given point in time. If all of the energy was expended, the ships and people once wrapped in a cocoon of space-time particles would be exposed to the altogether alien physical laws of a parallel dimension, and disintegrate on a subatomic level.

  “On the other hand, if they’re talking of routing us, then they have enough stocked up to fight. Likely more than enough. We wouldn’t be able to chip away at their fuel reserves by prolonged negotiation, I reckon,” opined Cfadiss.

  “That’s enough. No more talk of prolonged negotiation,” said Sporr with a hateful tone. “When it comes to the art of the deal, you need to know when to call it quits.”

  “How do we reply, ma’am?” asked the Communications Officer.

  “Hmm. Oh, I know: ‘Your intentions have come in loud and clear. We are currently working to shift out of the way within two hours’ time, but we regret to inform you that it will be quite difficult. At present, we are freshening each other up for the work to come.’ How does that sound?”

  Surprised by the reasonableness of the message, so uncharacteristic of Sporr, Cfadiss nodded his approval to the Communications Officer.

  “We need to psych ourselves up, Chief of Staff.” She played with the command baton over her elegantly crossed legs. “The ladies and gentlemen of the enemy will be coming at us like bats out of hell. Even if they don’t, we still need to cope through an unfavorable scenario. What a drag.”

  “I’d like to avoid that if at all possible.”

  “I would, too. Send a conveyance ship. Let’s relay our back-and-forth up until now to Fïac Cfarér,” said Sporr. “Though of course, they must be working their hardest to round up bodies as we speak,” she added under her breath.

  Needless to say, the boarding process was proceeding with all due diligence. Whenever a raft would reach the amphibious ship Dacsaith, it would be left there without making a return trip. There was no longer any need to bring them back to shore. As a result, the Dacsaith was surrounded by a sort of makeshift terrain composed of rafts, floating unsteadily on the waves, and upon which lines of people awaited boarding. Those people weren’t inmates — the women of the West had all already entered planar space. The only ones left on the surface were the armed guards, exhaustion written all over their faces. Some were injured, and receiving medical attention even atop the unstable footing of the rafts.

  Meanwhile, the traffic ship deployed by Hunter Fleet 1 had alighted and was picking up personnel. The seating capacity of the kind of traffic ship that could be stowed inside of a larger warship was thirty at most, so in terms of numbers the staff wasn’t of much help, but the fact that they could get other asylum seekers to orbit without having them make it to shore first certainly made Tomasov’s task a whole lot easier.

  At last, seacraft arrived without pulling any more rafts. Once their crews embarked on the Dacsaith, the newly unmanned ships were quietly scuttled out to sea. No sadness sparkled within the eyes of their former passengers. Instead, they were clearly relieved to be freed from their strenuous toil.

  “The last traffic ship has taken the air,” reported the Üass Drocér (Communications Chief) of the Dacsaith.

  “Is that so?” Lafier nodded. She refrained from the pointless act of asking whether Jint was aboard it.

  “Fifteen minutes remain until the enemy fleet begins advancing,” stated the Senior Staff Officer of the Transport Unit.

  “Fifteen minutes, you say...” groaned Unit Commander Gabautec. “Now it’s just a matter of how much time Commodore Sporr can buy us.”

  Lafier nodded again, but she didn’t say anything. She was tired of chatting.

  “An airship is requesting deck-landing,” said the Communications Chief.

  “Is that airship the landworld administration’s?” The Unit Commander turned to the Captain. “Are they technologically advanced enough?”

  “So it would seem. At least, it can land on deck. It can’t do resupplying or outfitting, of course.”

  “Then there’s no issue here.”

  The airship landed on the take-off deck, and down came about ten armed guards. At the head of the contingent walked Tomasov, the man who was determined to end his extremely short stint as Landworld Citizen Representative. As for the airship itself, they had no choice but to discard it, which the crew set about doing. As they busied themselves readying it for disposal, Tomasov entered the bridge.

  “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person, Your Highness Lady Agent.” He saluted.

  Lafier returned the courtesy.

  “Erm... please, take this...” Tomasov proffered something.

  Lafier’s eyes reeled wide. There was no room for doubt. In Tomasov’s hands lay Jint’s wristgear.

  “What are you trying to say?” Before she realized it, she was grilling him.

  “Well, you see, at some point the uprising became much more disorganized, and even exhibited signs of infighting, so we thought we might still be able to rescue His Excellency your Adjunct if we could just pinpoint his location. As such, we asked the manor for their help, and they scanned the planet’s surface and calculated his current position.”

  “I had no idea...” Their Captain, namely herself, hadn’t been there, so Sobash, who was still aboard the Basrogrh, must have handled Tomasov’s request. It was strange, however, that they hadn’t apprised Lafier at all. Perhaps Ecryua had done it by herself for some reason. No matter: it wouldn’t serve her to pry now, of all times.

  “Actually, they didn’t pinpoint his position so much as the position of this, err... what’s this thing called again? In any case, they found this mobile computer...”

  “And?” said Lafier, her body seizing up in anticipation of the worst. “What has become of the man?”

  “We don’t know. All we found was the mobile computer. It had been on the person of one of the inmates. Said inmate apparently believed it to be a simple watch, and showed no indication of knowing its true worth. As for His Excellency himself...”

  Her eyes, which were darker than dark and yet radiated with great luster, bade Tomasov continue.

  “We couldn’t find the time to locate his exact position.”

  “I see...” Lafier tried to bottle up her disappointment so no one would notice. “I commend an
d thank you.”

  “I never thought I would hear those words in reply, ma’am,” Tomasov saluted again, moved. “I’m truly sorry I don’t have any welcome news for Your Highness. Now then, if I may take my leave.”

  As she watched Tomasov walk away and out of the bridge, Lafier clasped the wristgear to her breast.

  “All have boarded,” said Unit Commander Gabautec quietly.

  “Then we shall take off immediately,” ordered Lafier.

  Slowly, the amphibious ship Dacsaith began to move, thereby throwing off the rafts that had encircled it over the water. Its huge frame accelerated in the blink of an eye, rushing up into the blue yonder even as the brine sprayed.

  “It’s time,” Cfadiss whispered to his Commander-in-Chief.

  “The enemy fleet has begun to advance,” reported the Communications Officer nary a moment later.

  “I love it when people are hard and fast with the time,” said Sporr, pointing at the officer with her command baton. “I command all of my ships to prepare for mine battle. Now, punch the signal of challenge, if you please.”

  “We’re engaging?” asked Cfadiss.

  “Of course, silly,” she responded casually. “We still have ships of ours stuck in the Countdom of Lohbnahss.”

  “But we bought so much time through the negotiations. Haven’t we already fulfilled our mission?”

  “You could interpret it that way,” she said, cocking her head and placing her baton on one cheek. “But, interpretation overruled, Chief of Staff.”

  “Understood.” If his commander had decided to engage, then there was nothing left to say. Cfadiss screwed up his resolve.

  The enemy fleet was splitting into two, each half with varying speeds. There were the ships advancing ahead of the rest, and the ships left in their wake.

  “Can I assume the ships at their rear are there for resupplying?” asked Sporr.

  “If they are, then they’re being pretty obvious about it,” replied Cfadiss.