Fleet Elements

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Legitimists?” said Terza in her soft voice. “Because we’re trying to restore the legitimate government?”

  “That’s more like it,” Vipsania said. “I think—”

  “Restorers!” said Lord Governor Binh. He had not meant to interrupt, but his contribution had been delayed a few seconds by its transmission from the planet’s surface.

  Vipsania made a face. “That sounds like we’re refurbishing an old building.”

  Sula grinned. “Aren’t we?” No one else seemed to find that amusing.

  “The Restoration, then,” said Roland.

  There was a brief debate between the Restorationers and the Legitimists, before the committee settled on Restoration for the name of their faction. Sula turned to Vipsania.

  “Lady Vipsania,” she said, “do you think you could compose and broadcast a Restoration manifesto?”

  “Of course,” she said. “But as soon as Zanshaa found out that Lady Michi had taken the Fourth Fleet, I was cut off from Imperial Broadcasting in most of the empire. I can only broadcast the manifesto in those systems we can control.”

  The Restoration had fifteen inhabited systems under its umbrella, and many of these were controlled only tenuously, on Michi’s side only insofar as they had not openly declared for the Zanshaa government. Terra, with its human majority, had shown enthusiastic support for Michi, as had Lord Mehrang’s Esley, and three other worlds that happened to have human governors. The newly discovered world Rol-mar, where Nikki Severin had destroyed the cruiser Beacon before the war had quite started, was in a state of rebellion against—apparently—everybody, and in any case was so sparsely populated that there was little point in trying to secure it or use its resources.

  Michi had armed several small ships and sent them to worlds that seemed less enthusiastic for her cause, and their antimatter missiles were expected to bring them into total compliance.

  “Broadcast to everyone you can,” Roland said. “Wormhole stations outside our sphere will pick up the messages and may send them on to somewhere.”

  “Nonii,” Sula said, “so that’s resolved.” She looked around the table. “I have another issue to raise, having to do with how we’re going to pay for this war. And to that end I’d like to introduce my aide, Ming Lin, the author of The Cosgrove Legacy.”

  Lin walked the committee through the same options she’d mentioned the other morning, and then came to a conclusion. “If we can sell bonds to finance the war, it’s by far the best option. The purchasers’ gratification will be delayed, but if we win, they’ll make a profit.”

  “If we win,” muttered one of the locals.

  “Miss Lin!” boomed Lord Governor Binh, his voice distorted by speakers to wince-inducing levels. “My government has most expert advice, and we have considered all these issues. In fact we’re preparing a bond issue through the local branch of the Imperial Bank.”

  “I’m aware of that, Lord Governor,” Lin said. “But what I fear is caution on the part of the public, even the Terran public. Not everyone will want to invest in what might be viewed as a treasonous enterprise, and be subject to penalties if we should lose.”

  Sula looked over the table and saw that the possibility of losing the war was making most of the committee uncomfortable. She took pleasure in the thought of politicians facing the same grim prospect of death as the military.

  It took a few moments for Lin’s words to reach Binh, and his reply to reach the ring.

  “We’ll know how well the bonds sell when we put them on the market.”

  “I’ll be buying them,” said Lord Mehrang.

  “And I,” said Vipsania.

  “We all will,” Terza said.

  “I hope everyone else is as committed to success as we are, Lord Governor,” Lin said. “But if some people are reluctant for whatever reason, I thought we might make use of the Bureau of Arrears and Obligations.” She tilted her head as she looked at the camera pickups. “Have you considered using the bureau, Governor Binh?”

  The committee watched Binh’s doubtful expression as he listened to the transmission, then made a reply.

  “Use it how, Miss Lin?”

  The Bureau of Arrears and Obligations had been set up at the start of the fiscal crisis, as the arch-speculator Cosgrove’s empire collapsed. The bureau was established to buy Cosgrove’s businesses and wind them up, but as the crisis spread, many businesses in which the Imperial Bank had an interest also failed, and the bureau found itself saddled with them as well.

  “The bureau has acquired stock in thousands of businesses,” Lin said. “We can sell the stock at face value, with the assurance that our government will buy it back at the end of the war. The stock isn’t a bond with our name on it, it’s not treason to buy it, it’s just a piece of stock in an insolvent company. The purchaser has a choice of selling the stock back to us after the war, or to try to make the business a success—which isn’t as hard as it sounds, since a lot of these businesses went down because the Imperial Bank increased reserve requirements at every bank throughout the empire, and suddenly money wasn’t available even for businesses that were turning a profit.” Lin paused for a moment, then added. “I’d also suggest decreasing those reserve requirements. War calls for easy money and a booming economy.”

  Governor Binh took a few moments to absorb all this and decided to address the last issue. “My advisers fear inflation.”

  Sula laughed. “If you don’t mind a little advice, I think your greatest fear should be that we’ll lose the war.”

  The room fell silent while the transmission bounded down to Harzapid’s surface, and then Terza’s soft voice rose into the silence. “I think we have reached the point where we must simply try everything.”

  Governor Binh pondered this for a moment, and then said, “I am willing to try anything you suggest, my lady, but I cannot both raise and lower reserve rates at the same time.”

  Now it was Roland’s turn to laugh. “Lower them, by all means!” he said. “Haven’t you read Miss Lin’s book?”

  Binh conceded, and Roland turned to Sula. “Do you have any other issues, Lady Sula?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid that I do.” Sula paused a moment while she wondered just how tactfully she could state the obvious.

  Fuck tact, she decided.

  “We’re called the Terran criminals,” she said. “And in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve seen very few people who aren’t Terran. There are only Terrans at this table, and only Terrans left in the Fleet. Yet we say that once we win, those we displaced will be welcomed back into their former roles. Why should they believe us? How many Daimong are carrying our message? How many Torminel?”

  “We are a bit short of volunteers among the other species,” Roland said. “It’s the Terran race that is being threatened. Others may offer their sympathy, but they’re unwilling to risk their lives for us. We have very few allies, and most of them are in places controlled by the enemy. They have to be cautious.”

  “There’s Lady Koridun,” Sula said. “She isn’t cautious at all. On Striver she strangled an enemy commander with her own belt, and she’s as committed to the Restoration as any of us.”

  Lamey grinned. “I remember her coming off the Striver with her mirrored gown and pistol,” he said. “Quite a picture!”

  Roland frowned. “How do you suggest we employ her?” he asked.

  “Get her some first-rate speechwriters and put her on video,” Sula said. “You need her to reach the non-Terrans in our sphere and tell them why the Restoration is worth fighting for.”

  “I can do that,” Vipsania said.

  “On second thought, she may not need the speechwriters,” Sula said. “Her conviction is genuine, and she’s eloquent enough putting forth her ideas. But she may need a little help keeping on point.”

  “My people are used to helping inexperienced people look good on camera,” Vipsania said. She looked at Sula and raised an eyebrow. “We helped you, if you recall, with The Nax
id War.”

  “Hah,” Sula said. “And here I thought my success was down to my poise, intellect, and rhetorical gifts.”

  Vipsania smiled. Sula didn’t trust her—she didn’t trust any Martinez—but Sula thought Vipsania could be relied on to follow her own self-interest, and right now her self-interest was definitely aligned with the Restoration.

  “I’d also recommend that Lady Koridun be appointed to some high office,” Sula said. “It would show she’s trusted.”

  Roland looked at her. “What office do you have in mind?”

  Fuck tact, Sula thought again. “Lady governor of a planet,” she said. She looked at the video screen. “Not necessarily your planet, Governor Binh.”

  There was another delay before Binh’s reply arrived. “I didn’t ask for this job,” he said. “And if you, or Lady Michi, or whoever is actually in charge up there so decides, I would step aside for Lady Koridun or anyone else.” The sentiment seemed heartfelt.

  “Lady Koridun is very young for such a senior post,” Terza said.

  “I’d recommend support from a very experienced staff,” Sula said.

  “That’s assuming we can find anyone experienced in handling insurrection on this scale,” said Roland. “And we won’t.”

  “Naxids,” said Sula.

  Vipsania frowned. “That isn’t very amusing,” she said. “And even if true, the Naxids here remained loyal.”

  “I’ll be happy to be on Lady Koridun’s staff!” Lamey said. His smile was a brilliant white. “I’ve become experienced at outsider politics, and I’m more acceptable than a Naxid.”

  Sula resolved to warn Lady Koridun about Lamey sooner rather than later.

  Beyond deciding to call themselves the Restoration, nothing was actually resolved at the meeting, though Sula managed to get Ming Lin installed as a permanent committee member, and her sense of the others was that Lady Koridun would soon be appointed to an important post.

  Constable First Class Macnamara waited in the corridor outside the room and escorted Sula and Lin through the hotel to the electric car that would take them back to their residence. As the car whispered to life, Sula found herself thinking about the Naxids. After the failure of the Naxid Rebellion, the Naxids had been reduced to second-class status. They weren’t allowed in the military, or in many posts associated with internal security. There were still armed Naxid police, but these were mainly intended to police other Naxids. There were still Naxids in the Convocation, but their numbers had dropped by about two-thirds.

  All this despite the fact that the Naxid Rebellion had controlled at best a third of the empire, and that the vast majority of the Naxids had remained loyal, or at least quiescent.

  Sula wondered if there was any path to rehabilitate the Naxids. As Harzapid was the base for the Fourth Fleet, a great many former Naxid military resided here. Some had retired before the rebellion started, and some had been on active duty and interned until the war was over. There were other Naxids who were skilled at manufacturing and shipbuilding.

  All Sula had heard since her arrival had been of the lack of skilled personnel in critical positions. She wondered if Naxids could be quietly slipped into some of those posts.

  Yet she, herself, was renowned as a killer of Naxid rebels. She wondered if there was any chance that the Naxids would trust her.

  Only one way to find out, she decided.

  Dalkeith kept Bombardment of Los Angeles accelerating at a steady one gee for an hour, to make sure all shipboard systems were properly functioning, and then the warning sounded again and Los Angeles gradually accelerated to two gees. Martinez began deliberate, slow abdominal breathing—he was a yacht racer, was in very good condition, and he had endured many more gravities than this. Two gravities wasn’t torture, it was an inconvenience. But when Dalkeith increased to three gravities, he began to feel as if one of Lokan’s Torminel wrestlers was sitting on his chest.

  If a ship’s projected course called for high gravities—and Los Angeles’s certainly did—it was best to do as much acceleration as possible right at the start. The crew was fresher and could stand more punishment, and of course the more acceleration undergone early, the greater the distance traveled in a given amount of time.

  The oxygen content of the air had been increased to over thirty percent to make breathing easier, and to help heal the sprains and pulled muscles that high gee would inevitably cause.

  Martinez heard gasps and grunts coming from Santana and Banerjee, mixed with muttering and the occasional exclamation. They were gamely continuing the exercises Martinez had assigned them, responding to commands recorded in actual combat. Both were stumbling over their transmissions, but Santana was letting his frustration build into anger, and his responses were getting more garbled, not less.

  Martinez considered interrupting and telling Santana to take a breath and calm down, but he decided against speaking out. Santana had to find his own way, and besides, the three gravities sitting on his chest would calm him down sooner or later.

  In any case they had weeks before any possible encounter with the enemy.

  Martinez shifted one of his displays from the rapidly retreating planet to a view of Dalkeith and her command crew. They seemed to be operating with perfect confidence; but then the ship was flying in a straight line, without maneuvering, and they hadn’t been given any challenges as yet.

  Martinez would have to assign an exercise in the next few days, if Dalkeith didn’t do it first.

  Miniwaves pulsed from the acceleration couch, to keep his blood from pooling and prevent chafing and bedsores. Accelerations would not ease for another three hours, when there would be a one-hour break at half a gee for supper before acceleration was resumed.

  He felt a shimmering to his inner ears as Los Angeles began a series of yaws back and forth, both to test if the engines were gimbaling properly, and to train the crew in the sort of gyres used in combat, to avoid being a predictable target and falling prey to an enemy’s antiproton beams.

  Martinez saw something flash out of the corner of his eye, and he managed to twist his head away just as a large bolt, rolling in response to one of the ship’s yawing maneuvers, plummeted from a light fixture overhead at three times its normal weight. It clipped the corner of his couch, striking sparks, and then bounded into a corner of the room, where it hit the floor with a crack. Banerjee and Santana fell silent, and Santana spun his cage around to see if he could locate the source of the disturbance.

  Martinez’s heartbeat and adrenal glands caught up with the danger too late to be of any use, and he lay on his couch gasping for a moment while he stared up at the light fixture to see if the whole thing was about to wrench itself from the ceiling and cudgel out his brains, but the light dazzled him and he could see nothing.

  I could have lost an eye, he thought. He might even have been killed.

  He configured one of his displays to control the lighting in the room, and he turned off the light over his head, only to have ghost lights bloom on his retinas. He took command of the lights in the room, then tracked some spots to illuminate the fixture over his head, then peered at it with one of the room’s cameras. Even at high magnification the installation seemed completely stable.

  Some workman had let a bolt fall, or set it in place atop the fixture intending to use it, and then forgot where he’d put it.

  Martinez wondered how many other bolts were rolling free in the ship, ready to turn into bullets at high accelerations, and how many storage lockers or compromised fixtures lay ready to drop and crush unwary crew or smash some important control station or power connection.

  In the next few days they’d find out.

  The open-topped Sun Ray automobile provided little protection, and the explosion pummeled Sula’s ears and gut. Concussion blew her hair in her face, and it was a moment before she could make out what was going on ahead. She saw smoke and sprawling figures and debris bounding down the road, and she realized that what had blown up was a checkp
oint that separated the Fleet dockyard from an industrial area farther down the ring—and she saw Daimong with rifles sprinting through the smoke and wreckage, and she heard the crackle of fire.

  Macnamara had already braked to a stop. “Back up!” Sula shouted so that her words would penetrate Macnamara’s stunned eardrums.

  There was a time in her life when she was called the White Ghost and explosions such as these ruled the night—and the reflexes of the White Ghost hadn’t faded apparently, because everyone else was staring at the lost checkpoint while her vehicle was moving in reverse, away from the attack. She half crouched on the back seat and turned to look over her shoulder as her car dodged another vehicle and swerved into a new lane. Beside her, she saw Shawna Spence looking at the checkpoint with narrowed eyes as the engineer calculated lines of fire, angles of attack, the size of the explosive that had just gone off, all the elements of her own volatile domain.

  Around the vehicle, people were still staring, or turning to confer with each other. Sula reached into her holster for her sidearm and waved it. “Run!” she shouted. “Enemy attack!” Still looking over her shoulder, she saw the gold-on-brown ornament of the officers’ hostel coming nearer.

  “Fuck!” she said. “They’re after the officers’ quarters!”

  The Restoration’s command had far too few officers available. A strike on the officers’ hostel could deal the Fourth Fleet a deadly blow.

  Sula scanned the structures across the road, saw a narrow building with a canteen on the ground floor, and high windows on the stories above. She slapped Macnamara on the shoulder. “Park here!”

  The vehicle lurched over a curb and bent a traffic sign. Sula jumped out onto the road. “Follow me!”

  She sprinted for the canteen, which she now saw was called Rahul’s Cafe. It had an automatic door that began, very slowly, to open, and out of frustration she punched the door glass with her fist.

  Shots crackled in the air. People were starting to run now.

  Sula tried scraping through the opening door, caught a button on her tunic, and wrenched it free. The silver button sang as it struck the floor. The warm, humid air of the canteen was filled with cooking smells. Fleet personnel and civilian dockworkers stared at her, forks half raised from their plates. “Enemy attack!” she shouted and waved her pistol again. “Who here is armed?”