"They’re ready to go, and you need breakfast. Oh. Our three friends send me their regards, and told you to keep up the excellent work." Kalinin said.
Chapter 29
"In cases in which the deceased's body is substantially intact, it shall be returned via the Truce Facility to the deceased's National Forces for treatment in accord with pertinent national customs."
The Azores Convention, Article 286, in part.
AZORES CONVENTION NEGOTIATION FACILITY
Terceira, Azores Neutral Zone
August 23, 2176, 2:45 PM
Colonel Percival Ryerson, 18th Alabama Militia, stared for one more time into the dress mirror. Everything was in place. He'd already given his speech to the detachment. 'Men, we are here to perform the highest tribute a fighting man can give to an opponent's comrades in arms, namely returning them to their grieving relatives so that they may be buried in the soil they died to defend. Wrong though they may have been, they gave their lives for their country, and as comrades under the sword we honor their sentiments, however much we may deprecate the cause for which they fought. Let's do it perfectly right.'
The transport lurched to a stop on the runway, and shuddered as it wheeled to the disembarkation point. Ambassador Kiethley's voice, forwarded from the negotiation table, came over the speakers. "Thanks to the virtuous intervention of mutually known parties, parties with a knowledge of the hyperspace net, it has been our great good fortune that we are able to return fallen Federal European Union combatants far more swiftly than elsewise might have been the case. In accord with Article 286 of the Azores Convention, our honor guard will now return the bodies of the departed to their loved ones."
Slowly, the rear gate of the airliner lowered. Ryerson called out the orders. "Formation, Ten-Hut. Drummer. Slow March, March. Formation, forward, slow march, march!" Ryerson led his escort party forward, the deceased biosculpts riding on large gurneys. Within the airplane and on the ground, American cameras transmitted the images of the open caskets to the watching world. Whoever they had been, whatever their motives, Ryerson was determined to give them all the respect they had in his eyes earned.
The FEU receiving party waited a hundred yards away. "Formation, Halt! Formation, Hand...Salute!" Ryerson ordered. The gurneys continued on their way, automatically carrying the victims over the runway to the waiting FEU detachment. StarFleet, noted Ryerson, those are FEU StarFleet uniforms, and senior ones at that. The distant FEU men returned Ryerson's salute. "Formation, Ten-Hut! About...Face. Forward march, slow march...March!" Their task complete, Ryerson's detachment marched back on to the waiting transport plan.
At some time soon, Ryerson thought, he owed Sandra Miller a card of appreciation. He had been anything but enthusiastic about seeing her at the funerals two years ago. She had been as persistent as politeness allowed in her inquiries, and he and his Brothers Under The Wing had worked hard to keep doors closed in her face. She might have suggested almost anyone to escort the FEU combatants she had recovered, and she had chosen his unit, saying only that as the single formed unit that had taken the worst casualties in the Manchurian event, they had earned the privilege.
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, STARFLEET EUROPA
PARIS, FRANCE, FEDERAL EUROPEAN UNION
0815 HOURS ET 7 SEPTEMBER 2176
"Good morning, my Admiral," Fleet Senior Captain Villiers paused from hanging her coat to give Rohan a precise salute. "It is indeed a beautiful morning. I have your schedule on your office screen. Senior Commodore Beyerlein is already in your antechamber."
"Good Morning, Genevieve," Fleet High Admiral Bernard Rohan answered. "Do I see fresh croissants on your desk? Have I kept you up all night, so you must breakfast here? Was it work for the Fleet?"
"My breakfast," Villiers answered. "And you have never kept me up all night. Not with work for the Fleet, anyhow. Nor recently enough. I stopped at the Pasteur Reconstructive Institute, was delayed more than expected -- another peace demo being broken up by the flics -- on the way here, so I paused at the Gold Swan for filled croissants." She smiled. "A half-dozen more are in your office, awaiting you and Wilhelm."
"Magnificent!" A staff that satisfied his every need kept him focused on the first enemy. "May I ask who you know at the Pasteur Institute? Not your close friend, I trust." He hoped it had not been her former lover, a pleasant, tall man, not quite heavily built.
"No, not Hercule," she answered, "Indeed, when last I saw him he was engaged to be married to a Fleet Commando, the young lady who passed through this office last month. I saw a mutual acquaintance. I visited Admiral Strasseman, who is going to be reconstructed after the little clash with the Americans, in which her ship was badly damaged. I fear they must start at her navel, and work down from there."
"I see," Rohan said. "When I saw her yesterday, she was less precise as to what was to be done."
"She says they guarantee a full recovery. And she sent her best. She will need at least a year before she can walk again. She will be on medical leave for several months, also. But she asked me to repeat to you a message: She asked me to ensure that you are not allowed to get out of practice." Villiers raised her eyebrows mock-quizzically. "I am confident that those were her exact words. I believe she meant it as an order, if you do not object."
"I see," Rohan said. "Practice? I should watch our allies lose another battle? Two were was not enough?"
"Practice, my Admiral. Practice, even though you are already perfect. I believe she had something more pleasant in mind than losing battles. Even more pleasant than winning battles. However, the Senior Commodore did give some indication that his work was urgent, and that he is rapidly approaching his statutory 32 hours of work for this week."
"Ahh, yes. Practice. Very good. But business awaits," Rohan answered. Had Marshal Strasseman actually said that? There were some reports that Villiers would not fabricate. As for Beyerlein, Rohan suspected that after 32 hours of work, Beyerlein's American counterpart would think he had reached Tuesday. It would of course be inconceivable to import such barbaric attitudes into the center of human civilization, even into minor provincial towns like Bordeaux or Marseilles, but Americans did work long hours. Sometimes their odd behavior had significant military consequences.
OFFICE OF THE COMMANDANT
SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, STARFLEET EUROPA
PARIS, FRANCE, FEDERAL EUROPEAN UNION
0818 HOURS ET 7 SEPTEMBER 2178
"Wilhelm, it is good to see you," Rohan said as he led the younger man into his office. Villiers had kept her word. The smells of new-baked croissants, butter a few hours from being churned, steamed bitter chocolate, and fresh-squeezed citrus piqued his nostrils. There was a proper spread, facing the wall monitor.
"Indeed. We are having breakfast, so this must not be work," Beyerlein agreed. At least, he thought, so matters would be interpreted in France. If the Greater Germans viewed matters differently, well, that was because they were good Germans, and had not yet explained to the French why Greater Germany was so much more efficient. "Which is just as well, because my legal time is indeed very short."
"Then let us as friends gossip about the state of the world, and following a leisurely repast we can turn to business," Rohan said. "Should we ever get to any business." If he did that too often, the Labor Office would get extremely upset, even with the High Admiral, but an occasional breakfast conversation and careful attention to overusing his statutorily mandated ten weeks of vacation every year kept them off his back.
"A most excellent idea," Beyerlein agreed, pouring citrus and chocolate for his superior. Neither of them noticed as minibots fanned out from Beyerlein's travel case, searching the room for bugs.
"Rumor has it that the Chamber of Ministers has agreed that StarFleet should lead the Inquiry into the total failure of our Allies’ operations," Rohan said. "Fortunately, we had no involvement with any rumored events at Alpha Centauri. Indeed, I believe that the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs have neglected to tell an
yone -- except the Chancellor, of course -- what we have heard from our allies about Centauri. Nor have we told anyone including the Gisbures that we had robot and other probes follow the Gisbures through the Warp Gate to Centauri. What gossip have you heard from our Allies, anyhow?"
"Gossip. Your croissants are excellent. You must tell me where you buy them, my Admiral," Beyerlein said. A slight hand-gesture marked the thought behind the words. They had talked about and tasted food, the most fundamental of all forms of relaxation other, of course, than drinking beer. "As for foreign gossip? We have substantial missions with the Felifers and the Gisbures, more modest contacts with the Bludjnappe. All three parties are being most delicate in what they are telling their own people. Nonetheless, it appears that the Gisbures and Bludgenappe committed a primary strike fleet to the Alpha Centauri attack. This is also consistent with what Admiral Strassemann reported. This amounted to nearly 140 million tons of warship. It appears that the Gisbures suffered extensive casualties, and substantially failed to withdraw. Also, an American superdreadnaught made a warp transition, appeared in the middle of the Gisbures fleet, and shot to pieces a substantial number of their gate keys. Those are truly expensive ships."
"Try some of the preserves," Rohan said. "They're English, a gift of an intimate friend. For all the faults of English cuisine, their preserves are among the finest in the world. It seems that the Gisbures intercepted video coverage of the Azores funeral event, and were apoplectic. Burials are severely inconsonant with their memorial practices. Are there rumors as to how the Americans managed to stop this huge force? After all, except in works of fiction no one has ever found a way to seal a warp point against a strong attacker. Warp points are just too big."
"There was a large-scale battle," Beyerlein answered. "We had robot probes as observers. They were almost all destroyed. Admiral Strassemann's Ghostship went through the warp to recover the last of them, was detected, and barely escaped--hence her injuries. Starfleet Intelligence ships not known by our allies to be in the Qrel system recovered the rest of the bitransit torpedoes."
"I've heard no rumor that we ever spy on our allies," Rohan said, "which reminds me, when we finish breakfast and get to discussing business we really need to increase our intelligence budget most substantially."
"The torpedoes show an impossibly enormous American fleet englobing our allies' ships," Beyerlein announced. "If you believed the torpedoes and their mass estimates, the American fleet would have been a thousand capital ships, large numbers of auxiliaries, and new weapons. The gossip is that the Americans deployed torpedoes traveling nearly 3,000 kilometers per second relative to their ships."
"3,000 kps? That's enormous. I...none of our allies have mentioned torpedoes with that sort of transit velocities. Nor have we seen them in other joint operations. Is there gossip on how this is possible?" Rohan asked.
"Fleet intelligence suspects that the apparent American fleet was some sort of electromagnetic warfare trick," Beyerlein said, "mixed with bulk-hauler freighters that were blown apart to supply convincing amounts of plasma and wreckage. The real American ships passed unseen while making their attacks. Alternatively, what appeared to be American squadrons were in fact single American ships generating multiple images of themselves."
"The Americans managed to fool our good friends?" Rohan asked. "Felifer detection technology is, after all, extremely advanced. Gisbures technology is not much worse. Is this possible? Also, if the American fleet was actually much smaller, how did they manage to win?"
"I agree, my Admiral. The hypothesis has some apparent limitations. However, the alternatives that we have identified are even less palatable. If we simply believe what our allies say their instruments revealed, the Americans would have deployed a fleet of a thousand million tons. Unless there is a masked warp point someplace, for which we have found absolutely no evidence, the Americans would have had to start moving that fleet to Alpha Centauri some time ago. At the highest plausible rapidity, to be at Alpha Centauri now an American Fleet would have had to leave Sol more than a year ago. It would then have had to be reconditioned after such a long trip."
"I agree it would stagger the imagination for the American fleet to be so large," Rohan agreed politely. "Particularly when the main American fleet surely must still be in this Solar system. The social reactionaries of the Morbius sect can hardly have created the large modern economy needed to support a force as large as Starfleet Europa."
"This, of course, ignores the minor detail that we have seen no evidence that the Americans have a fleet of this size at Sol, your predecessor's interesting ideas notwithstanding," Beyerlein said. "Also, fleets are difficult to hide, and we saw no indication of a huge space fleet leaving Sol, either a year ago or whenever. They have a large fleet here. The American Fleet at Sol is far too small to have supplied the armada our opponents say they saw at Alpha Centauri."
"When we finish breakfast and turn to business, I really must remember to tell you that we need a complete reconditioning of our intelligence effort against the Americans. And I will not mean that as a critique of your enormous efforts, because relative to what you found two years ago there has already been an enormous change. In the meantime, there is another interesting bit of gossip," Rohan said. "One that must be repeated only with the greatest of discretion."
"And that would be?" asked Beyerlein.
"The President and the Chancellor were each approached, most discretely, by the Felifers," Rohan said. "The Felifers are firmly convinced that the Gisbures lost at Alpha Centauri because the Bludjnappe betrayed them -- and, at one remove, betrayed the Felifers who are close allies of the Gisbures. Like all rational beings, the Felifers have no interest in revenge. However, their interests dictate that the Bludjnappe be taught a signal lesson on loyalty. They want our assistance to teach them that lesson. Our military assistance. The President has already asked me to draw up plans---in return the Felifers promise extensive technical assistance and intelligence data about the Bludjnappe and Gisbures Domains."
"Dear God. I have a matching piece of gossip," Beyerlein explained. "It seems the Gisbures and Bludjnappe have been having very private sessions with the High Commissioner, and certain Commissioners and State Presidents. The Russians. The Turks. The Algerians. They believe their meetings are totally secret, protected beyond detection by Gisbures microtronics. They forget that our friends the Felifers are also skilled in microtronics. They also forgot certain elements of tradecraft." Beyerlein decided not to explain that the light pipes illuminating the meeting room used by the High Commissioner of necessity carried light totally passively in both directions. "The Gisbures wax wroth against the Americans--they see the return of the Gisbures dead as a mortal insult."
"I see," Rohan said. "This does not sound encouraging."
"It appears that the Gisbures are trying to talk the High Commissioner into carrying out the letter of the Union New High Compact," Beyerlein said, "Under which by crude weight of numbers Slavs and Turks would play a larger role in the Core Governance Group, and Franco-German interests would be more weakly represented."
"Was there some explanation as to how this change was to be accomplished?" Rohan asked. "There is a reason that the Union vets all political parties, their candidates and programs, and subsidizes the most suitable. No matter the popular support for such a change, there is no political skeleton on which the flesh of such a change might grow."
"Unfortunately, there is," Beyerlein said. "The Gisbures offered support to the High Commissioner. Assistance in planning and performing what in practice would be a coup d'etat, performed by various Russian and Turkish Legions and support forces. A Gisbures Fleet would neutralize StarFleet Europa, to keep us from shifting Franco-German Legions back through any of the Sol warp points to counter the move. The Gisbures would then supply support for maintaining civic tranquility in France and Germany---rather like the Gendarmes for World Peace of the last century. The National Administrative University would be given educati
onal aid, to instruct the educated elite of their newer, subordinate place in the Newer World Order that would now be in place."
"I fear this seems more urgent even than breakfast," Rohan said, looking wistfully at the next of the croissants.
"My Admiral, it was my duty to act immediately to deal with this issue. Last night -- the reason my week is dying -- I reported directly to the Chancellor and the President what I had learned. This is irregular, but…" Beyerlein shrugged.
"Much better than having Mamelukes and Cossacks doing victory parades through the Arc d'Triomphe. What did you do?" Rohan asked.
"Four Legionary Corps are being transferred back from Hesperus to Earth," Beyerlein said. "Four French and German Legions. As well as the rest of the English Marines. And they are being replaced with the Brezhnev Corps, the Ataturk Corps, and the Islami Corps---the key units our friends had planned to use against us. The President immediately personally ordered --- it's in your morning briefing --- StarFleet Units at the Sol warp gates to bar the passage of major Gisbures units except by prior arrangement --- and StarFleet Warp Defense forces are being heavily reinforced. The High Commissioner? Let us say that very soon Europeans will be shocked, truly shocked, to earn that certain Commissioners from points East are corrupt and incompetent, and that the corruption reaches up to the highest possible levels. The evidence the Union Confidential Police presents will be the best that money can buy --- though I believe they will be manufacturing it internally rather than hiring external consultants."
"I'm glad you didn't wait for my week to end," Rohan said. "I really have to be more careful about reserving more time for late events that are not operational emergencies."
"I have done my duty, my Admiral," Beyerlein answered.
"Your rumors are remarkable," Rohan said. "Mine are much more dull. Lean back, enjoy the excellent chocolate, and I will tell you what I heard from the highest possible sources. In France and Germany."
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