Knight's Move

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “If,” the Governor said. “I shall be commissioning an independent study of the military situation.”

  Glen frowned, doubtfully. It sounded promising, but he had his doubts. In his experience, independent studies generally came to whatever conclusion suited the person who had ordered them. He'd certainly seen his brothers struggling with the natural sycophantic tendency of their corporate flunkies. Even the most independent-minded had hesitated to contradict their bosses, even in private.

  “I shall be asking you to serve on the commission,” the Governor continued. “You will be the military representative.”

  “I see,” Glen said. “You do realise that I cannot abandon my post?”

  The Governor blinked in honest confusion. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am the commanding officer of this starship,” Glen said, as patiently as he could. “It is impossible for me to spend any time off the ship.”

  “You will be travelling through the border regions anyway,” the Governor said. “I can have you write in your reports, if necessary.”

  Glen eyed her for a long moment. Someone so high up couldn't be so ignorant of the basic realities, could they? But then, if the Governor wanted to make sure that the report supported her, she could easily take Glen’s reports and interpret them to suit herself. She would have the benefit of his name on the report, without any insights of his she found inconvenient. If she decided that there was no military threat, she could simply ignore a report that suggested the exact opposite.

  He scowled. If nothing else, he could send copies of his own reports to Admiral Patterson – and his brothers. They could make decisions based on actual data, rather than whatever the Governor chose to forward to them.

  “Very well,” he said, calmly. The Federation did need to know what was going on along the borders, even if it would take an outright invasion to convince the TFN to actually act. “It would be my pleasure.”

  The Governor relaxed, very slightly, and chatted about nothing for the next half hour. Glen listened, noting inwardly that she was actually pleasant company when she wanted to be, although she had a habit of dropping names and intimating that she was on friendly terms with all of them. It was possible that Theodore and her had spoken more than once – his brother had certainly played a major role in getting her the assignment – but somehow Glen doubted they were that friendly. Someone who argued that the big corporations should be taxed heavily to fund social programs would not be very popular at corporate HQ.

  Maybe they’re hoping that she will fall flat on her face, Glen thought. It didn't seem too likely, somehow. It was really going to too much trouble to remove a politician who had already been badly weakened by her previous scandal. Or maybe they just wanted to embarrass the Liberal-Progressives.

  “I meant to ask,” he said. “Why did you bring food and supplies for the alien refugees?”

  The Governor smiled at him. “Someone has to help,” she said. “And if it embarrasses others into actually living up to their obligations, so much the better.”

  And it makes good press back home, Glen thought, not for the first time.

  “It won’t go down well with the colonials,” he said, instead. “You went to a considerable amount of trouble and spent a vast amount of money to feed aliens when there are starving humans.”

  “Aliens are intelligent beings too,” the Governor said. “Just because they have green skin or tentacles doesn't make them less important than us. To believe otherwise is the mark of a barbarian.”

  She believed what she was saying, Glen realised. In the abstract, he even agreed with her; in real life, humanity came first. But it wasn't something he could explain. All he could do was brace himself for the colonial reaction to such largess when their people were having real problems finding food.

  “I would like the pleasure of your company at Government House,” the Governor said. “You would be more than welcome.”

  “I’ll certainly see if that’s possible,” Glen said, untruthfully. He intended to leave Fairfax as soon as the Governor and her staff disembarked. They’d worked out a patrol schedule that would allow them to cover enough of the border to get a feel for local conditions. If nothing else, he could certainly write the report she wanted. “But we do have a mission to complete.”

  He stood and walked towards the hatch. “Be diplomatic,” he said, before tapping the switch for exit. “These people have been through a lot of hardship, something you and your staff haven’t shared. The last thing they want is you lecturing or nagging them.”

  Somehow, he suspected she wouldn't listen.

  Chapter Twelve

  Home, Sandy thought.

  It had been years since she had last set foot on Fairfax. Years since she had told her father that she intended to transfer to the Federation Navy. Years since she had been called a traitor to her face by some of her dearest friends and comrades, none of whom had known what it was like to grow up the daughter of Gustav Mannerheim, General of the Colonial Militia. It had been the only way, she’d told herself, that she could breathe free.

  Fairfax didn't look that different to Earth. It was a blue-green sphere, floating in the endless sea of stars ... and surrounded by weapons platforms, orbital factories and shipyards. The Colonial Militia had never believed the war was over, even after the Battle of Sphere-Prime; they’d kept building up the defences until they were formidable. Maybe not as tough as Earth’s defences, but tough enough to give even the Dragons pause.

  “Take us into orbit,” the Captain ordered, quietly. “And then prepare the shuttle for departure.”

  Sandy scowled. She had hoped that they could just leave as soon as the Governor had disembarked, but apparently the local government had requested the Captain’s presence at their reception for the Governor. Sandy hoped that Governor Wu wasn't expecting much; the colonies had never had the resources to waste on fanfare, even for people they actually respected. And Governor Wu, at the very least, was an unwelcome representative of a government that was resented, if not outright hated. Too many people remembered how the Fairfax Cluster had been abandoned by the Federation during the war.

  She looked down at the feed from the sensors, silently cataloguing the starships orbiting Fairfax. A dozen freighters, several cruisers and a single fleet carrier ... her mouth dropped open in shock as she realised that it wasn't a human carrier. Red icons flared to life around the carrier before the sensors registered the colonial IFF signal, bringing back memories of the war. The last time she'd been so close to a Dragon fleet carrier, she’d been trying to kill it – and it had been trying to kill her.

  A flight of starfighters departed the carrier and headed towards Dauntless, falling into a welcoming formation with an ease that spoke of long practice. Sandy was impressed that the Colonial Militia had managed to configure the alien carrier to launch human fighters; there had been some experiments with using captured ships during the war, but Dragon designs were largely impossible for humans to fly without heavy modification. She couldn't help feeling a tingle of fascination as she wondered how they’d solved the many problems involved in combining two different sets of technology, or in obtaining spare parts.

  But she knew that if she asked, wearing the Federation Navy’s uniform, she would receive no answer.

  “Good flyers,” the Captain noted. “Flash our running lights in response.”

  Sandy smiled. It was a gesture of respect – and one that was sorely lacking, not when most Federation Navy officers looked down on local militias. The starfighters waggled their wings in response and circled Dauntless, then headed back towards their carrier. Sandy studied the sensor readings, noting the signs of wear and tear on the equipment. It was good to know that the Colonial Militia was keeping up with its training routines, but worrying to realise just how badly they were stressing their drives. The Federation Navy had been cutting back sharply now the war was over and those starfighters would have been grounded in the TFN, with sharp rebukes issued t
o the pilots and maintenance crews. But the colonials had no alternative. They had to work with what they had.

  “We’re picking up two messages from the surface,” Danielle said. “They are welcoming the Governor to the surface.”

  Sandy blinked as the second message popped up on her console. She hadn't told anyone back home that she was on her way, but it seemed they’d found out anyway. Her father’s message invited her and her commanding officer to dinner, once the Governor had been landed and introduced to the government. Sandy sighed inwardly – no doubt Cynthia would see it as more evidence of unreliability – and forwarded the message to the Captain. She wasn't sure that she wanted to see her father again, but the Captain would probably welcome a chance to speak with the General without the Governor listening in.

  “Thank you,” the Captain said. He stood. “XO, you have the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sandy said. “I relieve you.”

  She took the command chair and placed her hands in her lap, running through calming exercises she’d learned as a child. Somehow, the thought of meeting her father again disturbed her more than she cared to admit. The old man was a stubborn plain-spoken bastard ... just like his daughter, she knew. And he had no love for the Federation. It was not going to be a pleasant dinner.

  “Commander,” Cooke said, “a light cruiser just exited hyperspace.”

  Sandy looked up at the display. “Our shadow?”

  “Almost certainly,” Cooke confirmed. “There's no need to alter one’s course to come into Fairfax along a precise route. She couldn't have come out so close to us by coincidence.”

  “True,” Sandy agreed. The light cruiser, squawking the ID of a Colonial Militia starship, kept its distance, but the sensors revealed a brief exchange of signals between her and the orbital stations. “Keep an eye on her, but don’t do anything else.”

  “Understood, Commander,” Cooke said.

  ***

  Glen had a feeling, going by what Sandy had said, that the colonials would be unimpressed with dress uniforms. If it had been up to him, he would have worn his normal uniform, perhaps with his Terran Cross to remind his hosts that he’d seen combat. But the Governor had insisted that he should wear his dress uniform and arguing had seemed a waste of time.

  The Governor was going over protocol with her staff, but Glen ignored them and concentrated on the view through the shuttle’s sensors. There was no way to avoid the fact that the Colonial Militia had built up a surprisingly large fleet – or that they were having problems maintaining it. Their ships looked older; the captured carrier appeared to be damaged, although that might easily have been routine maintenance. It was hard to tell if the carrier could actually enter hyperspace or if it was merely serving as a starfighter launch platform. If the latter, Glen suspected that preparing it to launch human-designed starfighters had been surprisingly easy.

  “That’s a full-sized carrier,” the Governor said, suddenly. She hadn't even noticed until one of her staff pointed it out. “I thought that was forbidden by law!”

  Glen snorted. The treaties that had given birth to the Federation Navy had conceded that it would have a monopoly on superdreadnaughts and fleet carriers – few planetary militias wanted them in any case – but captured enemy ships were something of a loophole. Most captured ships would be dissected, then melted down for scrap; it was unusual, to say the least, to put an alien ship into friendly service. But it wasn't technically illegal.

  “That could give them a considerable advantage,” Windy said. “What if they turn it on the Federation?”

  “One carrier doesn't pose a major threat,” Glen pointed out, dryly. “There’s no such thing as an invincible ship.”

  He decided to spare them the rest of the lecture. There was no way to know just how capable the carrier was in her current state, but even if she was at full capacity it was still no match for the Bottleneck Squadron, let alone the rest of the TFN. And if she wasn’t at full capacity they'd be fools to throw her into combat. But the Colonial Militia had a reputation for desperate stunts ...

  The shuttle descended into the planet’s atmosphere and headed towards Fairfax City. It was a smaller metropolis than any major city on Earth or Mars, but the population believed in being spread out over the planet’s surface. The Dragons had a habit of bombing population centres from orbit and then landing ground troops to round up any survivors, even though taking hostages would probably have suited them better in the long run. But their biology tended to push them away from forming family bonds ... or understanding why they were so important to humanity. They’d never really understood why murdering someone’s family could drive them to extremes in a desperate quest to take revenge.

  There were a handful of military installations around the city – and a giant Planetary Defence Centre constructed on top of a nearby mountain. No forcefields crackled through the air, but Glen was sure there were forcefield generators emplaced near the city, if only to ensure that all of the defensive works weren't wasted. A forcefield would make the difference between forcing the enemy to carry out a ground assault and simply throwing projectiles at the defences until they were smashed into rubble.

  “They have been busy,” the Governor breathed, as the shuttle approached the spaceport. Hundreds of starfighters and assault boats were lined up on the concrete, ready for immediate departure. For the first time, Governor Wu sounded as though she were taking the colonials seriously. “How many ships is that?”

  Glen concealed his amusement with an effort. The assembled starfighters might just fill a single fleet carrier, if there was a carrier that could take so many different types of starfighter without having supply problems. There were at least seven different make of attack fighter on the tarmac, including two designs that had been outdated even before the war. Up close, it was clear that many of the fighters had been modified in non-standard ways; several of them had additional power cells or weapons bolted to the hull. Glen would have hated to be the supply officer in charge of keeping them all flying. The Federation Navy would simply have replaced them all with the latest designs.

  But that wasn't an option for the colonials, he knew. They did have an industrial base of their own, but it was largely devoted to producing new starships and keeping the ones they had running. For starfighters, they were forced to fall back on what they could buy, beg, borrow or scrounge. One of the reports had even suggested that the Colonial Militia had bought the entire contents of some naval junkyards, a report that made little sense until one remembered how desperate the colonials were for spare parts.

  The shuttle dropped to the ground and landed, so gently that Glen barely felt the bump. He wanted to hang back again, but the Governor motioned impatiently for him to follow her out of the shuttle, onto the tarmac. A handful of people were waiting for her, slouching rather than standing to attention. Glen couldn't help wondering, as he sensed the Governor’s back stiffening in disapproval, if it was a calculated insult or colonial informality.

  He studied the colonials with some interest. Sandy was the only person he’d met from the Fairfax Cluster and she’d been in the Federation Navy long enough to pick up the Navy attitude. These colonials looked ... slovenly. Their leader wore a suit, complete with a top hat, that made him look like someone out of a historical romance, while a grim-faced military officer wore a khaki uniform. The others seemed to have worn whatever they fancied; one woman wore a dress that showed off the tops of her breasts, another was completely buttoned up despite the heat. There didn't seem to be any formal dress code at all.

  “Madame Governor,” the leader said, removing his hat. His accent was thick, but understandable. “Welcome to Fairfax.”

  He extended his hand. Governor Wu hesitated, then took it and shook hands firmly. President Bjorn Paulsen– the briefing notes had identified most of the senior officers and politicians on Fairfax – looked more open and friendly than any politician Glen had met in the Federation, genuine in a way such politicians rarely w
ere. It could have been an act – politicians knew they had to look like they were part of the common herd even though they weren't – but there was something about it that convinced Glen it was real. Oddly, the slovenly look helped, he decided. This was a man who had little patience for appearances.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Governor Wu said. “It’s good to be here.”

  “We have prepared a small reception for you in Government House,” the President said, taking her hand and guiding her towards a large car resting at the edge of the spaceport. “There are people who would like to meet you, just to confirm for themselves that the Federation has not abandoned them again.”

  There was a faint edge in his voice, Glen noticed – and he would have bet good money that Governor Wu noticed it too. When she spoke, her voice was stiff.

  “The Federation never chose to abandon you,” she said. “There was simply no choice.”