by Peter Grant
He set the message aside for future consideration as he opened the old-fashioned envelope. To his astonishment, Pal Sejdiu had written to him personally.
Dear Commodore,
I thank and honor you for your willingness to help, not so much the innocent, as the less guilty among the Brotherhood. It is more than I would have expected of you – but then, you have let my son live, and my wife as well. Both acts are still astonishing to me. I thank you for your mercy toward them.
He went on to explain his proposal to look for a planet on which the Brotherhood could settle, and concluded:
I realize this goes further than your proposal to my wife, but I think it is essential that we find a home beyond the reach of our enemies. I understand that the fanatics among us, those truly committed to the Patriarch’s cause and his methods – which I now accept were wrong, even criminal – may not survive to reach it. Sadly, that includes most of our people, including many of my friends and colleagues. However, I realize that you cannot intervene to stop what is bearing down on us from the Big Three. In the words of the old proverb, we have already made our bed. You cannot spare us from having to lie on it – unless I find a new and better bed for us.
If I can find a new home for us, and move our people there, I ask you to help me keep it a secret from the Big Three and any others involved in this conflict. Once the Brotherhood is out of sight, I hope it will fall out of mind as well. I want us to focus on building our new home, as the Patriarch wished, but in a less selfish and destructive manner. Failing that, I see no future for the Brotherhood at all.
Pal provided a contact address on Neue Helvetica, and asked him to communicate directly by letter, to coordinate whatever they could. Finally, he asked, almost despairingly:
I realize that my wife and son are your prisoners. I thank you for accepting their limited parole, and treating them as well as you have. If there is any possibility whatsoever of allowing them to visit Neue Helvetica, under whatever restrictions you wish to impose, so that I might see them, I should be more grateful than I have words to express. I realize you are unlikely to grant this request; the Brotherhood and Hawkwood are effectively in a state of war, after all. Nevertheless, I hope you will understand a husband’s love for his wife and firstborn son, and consider it.
Cochrane couldn’t help grimacing. He didn’t have a son of his own, but had longed for one – something his first wife had denied him, because she ‘wanted to keep her figure’ and didn’t want the hard work of raising a child. Hui had already put him on notice that she wanted a large family, and he was looking forward to it, albeit with some trepidation. Their wedding would take place in less than a month, on her home planet.
“What the hell do I do now?” he muttered to himself as he set down the letter and sat back in his chair. Pal’s actions were understandable, even admirable from one perspective; but they threatened to derail certain long-cherished plans of his own for Hawkwood’s future. If he helped Pal, he might simultaneously hurt his own hopes. On the other hand, Pal’s and the Brotherhood’s latest decisions might play right into his hands, if he could take advantage of what Henry and Caitlin had learned on Neue Helvetica.
He thought about the problem for a long time, assessing alternatives, discarding them, looking for others. At last he picked up the letter and re-read it. Perhaps the key lay in Pal’s words. He’d said to his wife: “We must have a place of our own where we can be safe, where others cannot touch us,” and to him: “I think it is essential that we find a home beyond the reach of our enemies.” If that level of security could be achieved, even without a planet of their own, would that suffice?
Sighing, he called Tom. “You can let Mrs. Sejdiu have her husband’s letter. Tell her I’ll come up to orbit tomorrow morning to talk to her and the others about it.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
He took a deep breath as he replaced the handset. All sorts of things were happening almost simultaneously. He’d have to brief some of his staff, but not all of them, and not about the whole picture. Compartmentalization was even more important now, for fear of any breach of security. If the Brotherhood got one single hint, no matter how vague or small, of what he had in mind… or if any of the Big Three – even his purported ally, the Dragon Tong – learned of it… or if the Gesellschaft found out that both the Brotherhood and Hawkwood had been active on their planet… there might be hell to pay.
He didn’t sleep well that night. He had far too many problems occupying his thoughts. Even his impending wedding couldn’t take his mind off them.
12
Coupled
QIANJIN
“You may kiss the bride.”
Cochrane turned to Hui, leaned down and kissed her eager lips as the assembled guests broke into applause. They were both in full military uniform, rather than in traditional wedding garb, so she didn’t have to lift a veil out of the way or hold back her skirts. That also made it easier for them to turn and walk down the aisle together, arm in arm. Behind them, the Qianjin Fleet chaplain who had married them remained at the white-draped table, smiling as he watched them walk away.
More than half the guests wore Qianjin uniform as well. The remainder were Hui’s rather large extended family. Over four hundred people applauded loudly as they exited the auditorium, and turned into the large hall that had been set up for their reception.
“How does it feel to be married at last, after all your fears and worries?” Cochrane teased his bride.
She blushed. “I was silly, I know. Still, you were worth waiting for.”
“And you were, too.”
The reception was lavishly catered. Some of the guests excused themselves and made an early exit, but most stayed to enjoy themselves. Cochrane and Hui had asked that wedding gifts be kept small and simple, due to having to ship them all aboard their courier vessel when they returned to Constanta, but the quality and value of a large proportion of them made Hui gasp and clutch at her husband’s arm.
“That’s unbelievable!” she whispered, awestruck, as she gingerly held a white jade figurine presented to her by an elderly couple. “Thank you so much – but you shouldn’t have! This is too much!”
“Nonsense,” the older man assured her airily. “You and your husband have done much to help us. This is a very small reward for so great a service.”
“I take it they were Dragon Tong?” Cochrane asked with a grin after they’d moved on, and Hui had, very carefully, handed the statuette and its thickly padded, carved wooden box to an aide.
“Yes. I may have kept the Tong at arms length, but some members of my family didn’t. Uncle Jing must have done very well for himself, if he was able to afford that gift; but then, it’s probably not from him alone. He’s merely the means for the Tong to convey it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know jade at all. Is it very valuable?”
“It’s from Old Home Earth, and well over a thousand years old. That one figurine would buy a big home – no, a mansion! – here on Qianjin, fully furnished, on a property large enough for a big landscaped garden and swimming-pool. It’d probably pay for a couple of very upmarket vehicles in the garage, too.”
He whistled softly. “What did we do to deserve that?”
“Your asteroid refining has made billions for the Tong out of its share, and you’ve also provided information about the Brotherhood that’s helped protect its mining operations. As Jing said, compared to that, the figurine probably isn’t too excessive a gift. It’s not the only jade we’ve been given, either. I suspect if we add up the value of all of them, it’ll come to a mind-boggling total.”
“Well, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, isn’t it?”
They spent a week on honeymoon in a highland resort, enjoying the windswept beauty of the mountains, hiking several hours each day. They shut out the rest of the world, not watching news vidcasts, ignoring the planetary web, wrapped up happily in each other.
They returned for a short cerem
ony at Qianjin’s Fleet Headquarters, where her boss, Admiral Kwan, formally announced her retirement from active service and her transfer to the Fleet’s Inactive Reserve. “I’m very sorry to lose your services,” he said with a wry smile, “but you’ve been extraordinarily valuable to the Intelligence Department over the past few years. You’ll continue to liaise unofficially with and for us until matters concerning the Albanian Brotherhood have been resolved, so we haven’t entirely lost you.”
“Not yet, sir,” she assured him with a smile. “I’ll still hold my present rank in Hawkwood Corporation, and I’m sure we’ll be keeping in touch for many years to come. We’re bound to get information from time to time that will be useful to you, and vice versa.”
After the ceremony, they met with the Admiral to discuss their future efforts. He told them what his agents on Patos had learned about recent developments, including a proposed attack on Hawkwood at Constanta. However, they had not managed to record the most recent meeting of the Brotherhood Council. Cochrane was able to pass on what Pal Sejdiu had told him about the abandonment of those attack plans, and the accelerated search for a planet under the Fatherland Project.
“I don’t know whether they’ll find an affordable planet that meets their needs, but they’re looking for one,” he told the Admiral. “We’ll be keeping an eye on that. We daren’t leave an enemy like the Brotherhood in a position to hurt us. If we don’t stop them at their present base, and at Patos, we’ll have to do so at their new home. I want to know where that’s going to be before they move there. It’ll make targeting them much easier.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but hopefully we can deal with them before that happens.”
“I was coming to that, sir. Our existing commitments in Mycenae, and now Larcuna, tie up many of our vessels. If we simultaneously have to attack the Brotherhood’s base, we’ll be overextended. I can only do it by stripping our bases of most of our fighting ships. Would Qianjin’s Fleet consider providing ships for a short time, to assist us? After all, we’ll be dealing with an enemy of Qianjin – or, ah, elements on Qianjin, shall we say?” They smiled gravely at each other. The Dragon Tong was never officially mentioned by the Fleet of its home planet. “Your vessels could either help patrol our security contract zones, or join our attack on the Brotherhood, which means we could leave some of our ships on patrol.”
“That would be difficult. We’re under very strict orders to never even consider an operation outside this system where our ships might be identified.”
“You have a squadron of eight corvettes built by Kang Industries, sir. We use the same model, with some modifications. They all have identical gravitic drive signatures. If you were to make a few of your corvettes available, how could anyone distinguish them from our vessels, particularly if they never actually laid eyes on them?”
The Admiral began to smile. “I see your point; and if we join your attack on the Brotherhood, our ships and crews would gain actual combat experience, something that’s very hard to come by for a Fleet like ours. Tell me more about what you have in mind.”
Cochrane explained for several minutes. “If you could send four of your corvettes to join in the attack on their base, there’d be no-one but ourselves and the Brotherhood to notice, and they won’t be in any position to identify you.”
“I see. I’ll have to take this to our Chief of Fleet Operations, of course. I think he might be interested. If he is, we’ll have to approach our political leaders for their permission to proceed. There’s no way of predicting how they’ll react.”
“I understand, sir. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.”
Hui spent the following day with her parents, brothers and sisters. Cochrane took the opportunity to hold a private meeting with Chen Huan, the Dragon Tong representative who’d accompanied Caitlin Ross to several conferences with the Big Three on Bintulu. His rank within the Tong had never been disclosed, but he was clearly a senior official.
Cochrane chose his words very carefully as he described what they’d learned at Neue Helvetica. If Chen realized what Caitlin and Henry had really been doing, the Dragon Tong would almost certainly intervene, demanding its share of the spoils. He had no intention of allowing that to happen unless there was absolutely no alternative; but that meant being very cautious for now.
He concluded, “The problem is, the Gesellschaft got wind of our presence, and my people, including Caitlin, had to run for their lives. I want to send in replacements that the Gesellschaft won’t be able to identify, but they may need assistance. Would the Tong be willing to provide that, if necessary?”
“An interesting question.” Chen stroked his chin thoughtfully. “We have an extensive operation there. That’s only natural, of course – it’s it’s the headquarters of the United Planets, and a major node in the interplanetary financial system. All the Big Three are there. The Gesellschaft is independent, but it has a comfortable relationship with the Cosa Nostra; not a formal alliance, but an understanding. We try to respect such arrangements and keep our distance, just as the other members of the Big Three do with us on planets where we have similar relationships. If we help you, and the Gesellschaft finds out we are involved, and complains to the Cosa Nostra, that might lead to complications.”
“I see. I don’t want to cause you any difficulty. Could we arrange for anonymous assistance – nothing that would identify the Tong, or cause friction? Say, recommending sources of information or expertise, or gathering intelligence at arm’s length from our operations, or getting someone out of sight to a place of safety as quickly as possible, if the worst happens?”
“That might work. I shall have to ask permission from higher up, of course.”
“Of course. Would you please let me know as soon as possible whether the Tong can help, and if so, how we should go about asking for it on Neue Helvetica if it’s needed?”
“We shall send word to you on Constanta within a month.”
As their courier ship accelerated toward Qianjin’s system boundary, Cochrane and Hui settled down together in the tiny anteroom allocated to them. He looked around ruefully. “This isn’t much of a reception area for the head of an organization like Hawkwood. I’ll have to think of something better for official travel. We need to be able to impress potential customers, if necessary.”
She shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Frankly, I’ll be happier if you also have a few missiles to defend yourself on trips like that. An unarmed courier ship is practically an open invitation to the Brotherhood or other enemies to do something to you while you can’t stop them.”
Cochrane grimaced. “I wish I could argue with you, but I can’t. I’ll look into converting a missile pod into a VIP reception area, a conference room, display facilities and so on. With the missiles removed, that shouldn’t be too difficult. It can be loaded aboard a ship as the need arises, to make her a traveling venue for sales presentations. Using a warship will also help clients to get an idea of what we can offer. When she’s not doing presentations, she can load a second missile pod as usual, and revert to her normal duties. I’ll think of something else for personal travel.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” She wriggled into a more comfortable position in her chair. “Darling, I’ve been thinking about what Pal Sejdiu told you. What if he finds a suitable planet? How is he going to move everybody and everything to it, as well as all the basic infrastructure needed to start a colony? Everything will have to come from outside – water purification, power generation, accommodation, waste and sewage processing and disposal, food storage and preparation, and a whole raft of other things. They can’t have suppliers bring them to their planet and install them. If they talked about it, their enemies might hear, and be able to trace the Brotherhood to its new home. That means they’ve got to do all that themselves.
“It’ll take every freighter they’ve got to do all that. They only have one modern destroyer, according to Qianjin’s spies – the second, and the freighter carrying spare m
issiles for both of them, never arrived. They’ve got two more destroyers and a depot ship in orbit around New Skyros, but those have been detained by the United Planets. The rest of their destroyers on order will join them in detention, because they can’t take delivery. We know they disposed of the old destroyers they rescued from the scrapyard, after we destroyed two of them in the Mycenae system and killed their Patriarch. They figured the others weren’t up to modern combat operations.”
Cochrane smiled nastily. “We proved that to them, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. The only other armed ships they have are four fast freighters that they’ve fitted with missiles. They’re each the equivalent of a destroyer or better, in terms of firepower; but they’re going to need to use them as freighters, not as warships. If that’s the case, how are they going to defend their new planet, and protect and escort their freighters as they load people and supplies? Where are they going to get more warships? One destroyer won’t be enough.”
Cochrane frowned. “Dammit, why didn’t I think of that? You’re right. They must be planning to get more armed ships, and quickly, too – but from where? We know they’ve got enough money for them, but who would sell them modern warships under the counter? It takes time to set up a fake end user certificate, and place orders, and get them approved, like they did at New Skyros.”
They bounced the problem back and forth for half an hour, but could find no solution. Eventually they shelved the discussion, and enjoyed a simple supper with the officers and crew.
Late that night, as the courier ship prepared for its second hyper-jump of the journey, they were awakened by the alarm instructing everyone aboard to secure themselves in readiness for the jump. Cochrane sleepily reached out and pressed the button that drew a webbing net over their bed, then pulled it snugly down over them.