Koban: When Empires Collide

by Stephen W Bennett

  “Otherwise, the targets of the missiles would also be gone before they arrived, and missile stealth will be scoured by abrasion with the tiny diamonds. If they fly down the brief tunnel you make, they can get closer before selecting a target, and the TD will have less time to see a stealthed missile creating a detectable wake. You might also shoot at them from below the belt, since they are orbiting near its bottom right now. They set all this up to give them warning of incoming stealthed missiles and ships. It won’t work against the Scouts, which can initiate a projected black hole close to the target ship, and then move it faster than they can detect it and doge.

  “Foxworthy had many of their wrecked ships examined at New Glasgow, and they don't place their three fusion bottles at the centers of their ships. One at the front, one at the rear, and one off centered from the armored Bridge in the middle. That was why a small hole driven through the center of a ship from the side didn’t do the same damage for the PU as we did to Crushers, Smashers, and both the Ragnar and Finth vessels. The TD build their ships according their own designs. They do have a backup combat center near the rear of their ships. Keep that in mind when the Scouts direct holes at them. Hit the middle and rear to take out two bottles, the Bridge, and the combat center.”

  “So, I guess we’re ready to get into position?” Thad was already group linked to his AI designated clanships and Scouts. Sarge would quickly Jump his force to Ver, and both would quickly Comtap to their own captains the details of the enemy dispositions, purpose of the tiny diamond clouds, and their overall strategy.

  “OK, people. Tell me when you’re in position. The other Mark IIs have been finding ground targets. Good luck, and let’s give these nuclear bomb users reason to negotiate. When the request to negotiate comes, I won’t be in any hurry to answer. I may forward the first calls to Howard Caldwell, if the bastards try to submit too damn fast.”

  ****

  Master Negotiator Gendap Falstor urgently tried to contact the demoted Stendal Gelander.

  “Chief Negotiator Gelander,” he used the title he’d stripped from him. “What did the Federation offer when they tried to get you to revoke our contract with the Emperor? What were their terms? They made no offer today before they started simultaneous attacks on both our Gen and Ver fleet elements. I need a negotiating advantage, and you must tell me what they offered to you. I know they called to you at the contracted world, which former Implementer Desh failed to force into submission. Their offer there can be in my initial proposal to them now.

  “This unannounced vigorous negotiation will cost us many ships, and a thousand orbits of future profits, and it must be stopped. We have not received the contract payments promised by the Thandol, and they no longer agree on who is their Emperor. We cannot collect our own tax payments if our fleet is too weak to negotiate with subservient species with strength.”

  He knew Gelander was on the other end of his call, because his developmental Negotiator had answered, and had murmured to someone before muting. Being a Master Negotiator, Falstor knew what would bring the disgraced official to the call station.

  “I offer you a conditional restoration to Chief Negotiator, with retroactive contract payments for your last mission.”

  The assistant passed on the offer, and returned. “Citizen Gelander says it must be irrevocable restoration for life, before he will share what was broadcast to him.”

  “Good for one hundred orbits.” He countered. A year on Gen was only three Earth standard months, so the counter offer was still low.

  “My trainer has asked me to say goodbye to you,” replied the assistant. If that were a serious threat it would have ended with a dead line. It remained open for further negotiation.

  Falstor silently simulated the frustration of chewing gristle for a moment, but the profit losses were mounting as the enemy negotiated vigerously. “Agreed. Chief Negotiator Gelander, you are restored for life, with back payment for your last contract.” It would be possible for Falstor to contract secretly with a junior Implementer, if Gelander was less than helpful. A lifetime contract agreement would end with his foreshortened life.

  Gelander’s own voice was heard next. “Accepted and recorded. You know of course, that because of your own contract with the Emperor in place, I was unable to respond with counter offers when they called us. That was one of the terms the Thandol negotiator demanded. That we not consider counter offers. They paid extra for that, you said.”

  Falstor didn’t need to hear a rehash of that disastrous contract. “Just tell me what they offered when they called you. I can present a lesser version of that as my opening counter negotiation. They started implementation as if they have a contract with a non-negotiable completion clause. They have never negotiated with us, and are not prepared to out-negotiate a Master Negotiator.”

  Gelander aspired to that rank himself, so he replied with confidence. “They made no advance demands here, nor did Implementer Desh when he started negotiations at their world. That says a great deal about them now.”

  That was Thack Delos speak for simply starting an attack without any explanation, or a presentation of advance terms of capitulation by the target. It implied only an unconditional surrender was acceptable. And, per the Thandol contract Falstor had accepted for the new Glasgow attack, they were to allow no pause in Contract Implementation at New Glasgow.

  “They asked to be left in peace. They offered to help us weaken the Thandol fleet, and overthrow the Emperor’s rule and fragment the Empire.”

  “That leaves little room for my counter offer,” Falstor complained. “They were not left in peace, they managed to block the Contract Implementation by Desh, and forced you to pause negotiations. They later weakened the Thandol fleets and fragmented the Empire without our reaching an agreement to join with them.”

  “That is what I tried to explain before the Board of Adjustors, that it was not my contract I was sent to negotiate, and I was only to monitor its implementation. It was your contract.” He wasn’t finished with his accusations.

  “The Emperor’s negotiator failed to reveal the poor experience of their own dealings with the Federation, and that of the Ragnar and Finth. Yet, in your hurry to gain a larger role in the annexation of the Federation, you did not investigate the doubtful claims of the Thandol. We were poorly prepared, and acted too recklessly, and you demanded no advance payment. Now we cannot collect any of the promised payments from a divided Empire.”

  “This is not the time to repeat that discussion. I have restored what was taken from you. I have just contracted with you to tell me how to negotiate with the Federation, based on your experience with them.”

  “You still try to negotiate with me using the false information the Thandol provided to you. The world we were sent to negotiate into surrender to the Emperor, did not belong to the Federation. It is in the realm of another human empire or government, called the Planetary Union. The Galactic Federation ships that came here even told you they were only allied with them. It was not the Federation that made offers to me at New Glasgow, a detail you did not provide to me. However, it was the Federation that wanted to negotiate with you here, and you did not reply, even when they said who they were.”

  He continued without elation, an emotion the Thack Delos did not consider having value or worth.

  “The Emperor’s contract did not prevent you from negotiating another contract if the Federation did not own New Glasgow. You missed that detail, and that was your error, not mine.” Next, he added a datum that perhaps Falstor did not possess, which suggested what the goal of the Federation was.

  “Implementer Desh spoke to me before you called, and told me what he learned from other Implementers in orbit. Many of these are not the same design ships of the Planetary Union, and some behave like the Krall clanships we were taught to recognize if we met them in battle. The smaller fleet they sent includes more of the small ships, armed just like the Federation ships sent here while the fleet was away, with gravity weapo
ns. There are larger versions of those that are attacking the surface of Dolbor Ver Delos. These must be Federation negotiators, and they have returned to offer us unprofitable vengeance, an item with no value to us.

  “I did not hear what Federation contract offers might be when we were called at New Glasgow, because that was not their world and they were not there. However, if they have the same negotiating position as the Planetary Union, it is too late for you to offer them peace, and the Empire has already been fragmented. I believe they want from us what the Emperor wanted of New Glasgow. Complete surrender. You may need to offer them what our ancestors offered to the Thandol, when they defeated us so long ago. Unconditional surrender to prevent our complete destruction.”

  “Surrender? Never! I have started rebuilding our fleet. We will rule all of Sector three.”

  “Do you think the Federation will let us rebuild a fleet for that purpose? Implementer Desh, who lives near the Galmore ship yard, reports they are attacking that yard with small black holes that we cannot block or destroy. How will you expand a destroyed fleet without ship yards? I think that whatever you offer the Federation, the Board of Adjusters will be unhappy with the result, and remove you with a punitive profit reduction.

  “I now have your recorded contract to restore my position. Perhaps you can make yourself more useful to the Board Adjusters than I am to you. Goodbye.” The line went dead.

  Gelander thought with cool satisfaction, Falstor will be unable to pay for a contract to end my life, but less than half the retroactive contract payment will end his.

  It was a good day when your expenses were far less than your profits.

  ****

  Thad warned, “They’re launching ships from the ground as quickly as they can get them crewed.”

  “OK.” Mirikami acknowledged. He’d been focused on shredding the ship yards and surrounding production facilities. “The Mark IIs will shift to them, and if you can have your Scouts hit them in the upper atmosphere, where their projectors work fine, we can take more of them out before they can Jump or even maneuver.”

  A brief Comtap link, and Thad said, “Done. They took down six before I finished talking.”

  Mirikami made a mild sounding observation. “Sarge has destroyed nearly three hundred ships at Ver, and hit their two ship yards with hundreds of gravity rods.”

  It sparked an expected hot response from Thad. “It isn’t a damned competition, but I point out that he has more ships in his command than I do, but we have killed three hundred twenty-eight, plus the six we just got for you.”

  “Slacker.” Sarge rebutted on the group link. “You took on more of the big slow Exterminators, while we had mostly the faster Marauders here. They keep Jumping,”

  Thad countered, “Alyson told us the TD hadn’t spread as thick a dust band at Ver. Your clanships can go in and win a quick dogfight when they’re in the clear.”

  “She ratted me out?” Sarge pretended outrage.

  “The AI assigned Sergey’s ship to my group. Husbands and wives talk.”

  “I’ll bet she told him we’re winning.” He gloated back.

  Maggi interrupted the testosterone competition. “There was just a transmission from Gen, sent in Thandol. Presumably from a sort of ruling body called the Board of Adjustors. They want to negotiate an equitable contract with us to cease our current negotiations, as they phrased things.

  “These cold bastards are all business orientated, with little or no emotion. That matches what Jorl’s lone prisoner, a female, revealed, as well as Fred’s two males. All three are equally dispassionate about what we’re doing to them, and concerned mainly with how their shares in the various contracts they have invested in with subservient species will be affected, should they lack the military resources to implement penalty clauses for non-payments.”

  “They have no concerns for their families?” Mirikami inquired.

  “They have no families. Rather like the Krall, they hatch from anonymous egg clutches in swamps. They join society shortly after they lose their adolescent tails and gills, and walk onto land. After that they’re fed and housed, educated, and trained in some skill for the advancement and betterment of the common good, for which they owe their society a debt they must repay.

  “They mate based on contracts, with payments made between mates based on which one has had the greatest business or work success. After conception, the contract ends and they separate, with their genes passing on to what will presumably be the best offspring they could afford. The female deposits a clutch of eggs in some suitable marshy location, most of which hatch, and some fail the negotiation to survive and leave the swamp. Sort of the Krall and Torki models of early childhood, mixed with our fading Sign the Line marriage contracts with children addendums, in Human Space. They don't appear to experience much in the way of emotions, and as a relatively cold and evolved salamander, that may not be surprising.”

  “Well that’s all good to know, but what did they say?”

  “They offered to pay us forty percent of the taxes they can collect in Sector three if we cease damaging their means of collection.”

  “Holy crap. I wonder if we can even intimidate them into being afraid of us? All they proposed is to share what they force other species pay to them under duress and threats?”

  Maggi sounded offended. “You damn well know the Thandol took the major share of taxes, not the Thack Delos. They just insulted us with a low bid.”

  “Damn it. We don’t want a share of what they steal or extort from other species, at any percentage. We don’t want them forcibly dominating their neighbors at all, with or without use of nukes. Fair trade deals are fine, or just leave them alone.”

  “Tet, we’re going to have to deal with them in the only terms they comprehend. Negotiate some contract agreement that involves payments by them of material things they value, and that they must produce themselves. They don’t care about having anyone’s respect, or grant it to others, they don’t need to be liked, or enjoy the exercising of control or of power over others. Emotional based concepts of domination are of little value to them. They won’t feel a sense of fairness towards others that isn’t defined in the terms of a contract that can be enforced by one side or the other. The methods we used to control or restrain the Thandol, Ragnar, and Finth behaviors isn’t going to work with them. They won’t honor an agreement that doesn’t cost them material benefits, not if they can get around or ignore what they consider to be our irrational emotional demands, and try to impose those values on them.”

  “I guess I need to make them an offer they can’t refuse. But not until I break a few more kneecaps.”

  “You sound like the Godfather.” Maggi teased.

  “Who?” Mirikami asked.

  “What’s a Godfather? That some sort of religious reference?” Sarge wondered on the open link.

  Exasperated at having to explain another ancient film classic, she complained, “Have neither of you ever watched the golden age of flat screen entertainment movies of old Earth? You both act like some isolated Rim Worlder. If it isn’t on holographic Tri-Vid, and about some scandalous trash or action adventure, it isn’t worth watching.”

  “Dear, I love and respect your inquisitive mind. But you still have a strong dose of Rhama Old Colony snobbiness in you for Rimmers. You didn’t like that attitude much when Anna Cahill and her clique applied their elitist Hub World snobbery to you and Dillon, as if colonial people like you were rubes and hicks in the world of biological science and genetics.”

  “OK. I do apologize. For having broader interests than you and your hick friend, dear.”

  Sarge retorted, “I’m sure all the other hicks appreciate your gracious apology as much as I do.”

  “OK.” Mirikami deflected them, as usual. “Back to the attack at hand if you don’t mind. We have more new people to meet, shoot, and threaten.

  “The Thack Delos need to experience the severe repercussions of screwing with us, and of casually nuking
occupied planets. They must learn what the ultimate profit loss for them could be, even if we’re bluffing about the method, if not the actual promise of what will happen to them.” He switched to address his AI.

  “Jake?”

  “Yes, Sir,”

  “Play the planet busting video using the proper format, on as many of the security camera system frequencies you have identified for the planet below. It will eventually reach their leadership, I think.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Mirikami addressed his listeners on the group link. “Apparently, they don’t watch broadcast dramas and entertainment or sporting events. At least Jake didn’t find any planet wide examples. These appear to be an all work and no play sort of people. No wonder they’re such assholes to deal with. No sense of humor or artistic expression. If we knew their language I might place a dull public service ad of a boring contract negotiation right at the start of our broadcast. That might make the transmission a wild crowd favorite here and boost the ratings.”

  Thad asked, “Tet, how long do we hit them if they don’t answer?”

  “On this visit, the same length of time I want to hit them if they do answer, and even if they accept our terms. They get clobbered until we have eliminated half their existing fleet of warships, and all their ship yards and repair facilities. If they refuse to negotiate, we’ll leave, but return in less than a year. We’ll leave their commercial ships alone, but I noticed even they are armed.

  “If they refuse to concede and remain aggressive, they’ll run out of warships. If they still attempt to attack their neighbors with commercial vessels, they’ll be forced to revert to a pre-space travel society, including on their five colony worlds. We’ll hit them today until half their fleet is wreckage, or they give us some sign they understand.”