Fleet Elements

by Walter Jon Williams

  Sula was quick to answer. “What’s wrong with being military dictators?” she said. “It’s what the Shaa did, after all—one day, Earth was running its own affairs, and the next a few dozen major cities had been destroyed and the Shaa were not only demanding submission, but that Terrans abandon their own civilization and adopt that of the Shaa.”

  “Did Terrans have civilization?” Vipsania asked. “I thought our ancestors were barbarians who lived in tents, rode horseback, and whacked each other with clubs.”

  “Terra had a great many civilizations,” Sula said. “We had space travel and installations in space.”

  “Did we?” Vipsania was surprised.

  “The Shaa didn’t really want us to know any of that, so the history hasn’t been taught. And as for barbarism, the Great Masters killed more humans in the first day than the Terrans had managed in their entire history.”

  Vipsania contemplated this. “Surely a single civilization is better,” she decided.

  Sula suppressed a smile. An ambitious woman like Vipsania could climb to the top of a single culture, but would be hard put to reign over a dozen at once.

  “In any case,” Sula said, “I don’t see why, once we’re in charge, we don’t keep on running things.” She waved a hand. “Handing power back to the Convocation is madness. A six-hundred-member committee running an empire? No wonder they ran straight into disaster.”

  “A lot would depend on who’s going to be dictator,” said Lord Mehrang. “Pick the wrong person, and—”

  “I didn’t intend just a single leader,” Sula said, and then smiled. “Though if you insisted on nominating me, I wouldn’t decline.”

  Lamey laughed. Lord Mehrang looked puzzled. “And if not a single dictator, then who?”

  “We could continue more or less as we are now, a small committee, with some additions to make it more representative of the population. But small—not an unwieldy beast like the Convocation.”

  “No one’s saying the composition of the leadership wouldn’t have to be altered,” Roland said. “Even the Convocation.” He was looking at Sula as if he were reevaluating everything he’d ever thought about her. “But what would you suggest?”

  “The Chinese empire chose their officials through competitive examinations,” Sula said. “And they lasted a few thousand years.”

  Ming Lin looked thoughtful. “I don’t think there’s anything in the Praxis against that idea,” she said.

  “That’s a profound change to our entire society,” Roland said, “and we can’t impose that kind of change instantly. We’re going to have to depend on Peers to carry out our program—there really isn’t anyone else in a position to do it.”

  “In that case,” Sula said, “we should make sure the Peers are neutered. The Peers were designed to be a class of collaborators who could be relied on to carry out the program of the Shaa. But once the Shaa were gone, the Peers tried to think for themselves, and that led to disaster.” She raised both hands in an offering gesture. “That’s why we should stay in charge. Make the Peers work for us, and for all’s sake make them stop thinking.”

  Terza was looking at her now through narrowed eyes. “How is it that you’re so virtuous that you should be running the empire?”

  “I’m not virtuous,” said Sula. “I’m competent. It’s the one quality that is never rewarded in our culture.” She waved her teacup. “When someone’s proposed for a position, someone might say, ‘Who’s her family?’ or ‘Where in the High City does she live?’ or ‘Who’s his patron?’ They never ask ‘Can he do the job?’” A mischievous idea occurred to her, and Sula surrendered to it, and nodded toward Terza. “I’m sure your husband can testify to that, Lady Terza.”

  Lamey could barely restrain himself from laughing. An angry flush threatened to rise in Terza’s cheeks, but it was checked—no doubt, Sula thought, by her breeding.

  Roland once more glided into the conversation, his soothing tone marred only slightly by his Laredo accent. “I think we should confine ourselves to the art of the possible,” Roland said. “We and our friends might be competent to run things for our lifetimes, but the legacy we’d leave will be a degenerate tyranny.”

  How is that any different from what we have now? Sula wanted to ask, but decided she’d probably filled her quota of outrage for the day.

  “We want to establish some kind of structure,” Roland said. “Something that will survive us, and that will address the problems that brought about our current crisis. To that end, I’ve been working out some ideas with Mister Braga.”

  With Lamey the fixer? Sula’s surprise turned to interest as she wondered exactly how Lamey planned to cash in on his ideas.

  “One difficulty is that our leaders are isolated in Zanshaa,” Lamey said. “They’re dependent on receiving information from a limited number of people in the empire, and often those people are out for their own advancement and don’t give a hang for the policies they’re supposed to be enacting.”

  Sula wondered if Lamey realized he was very much describing himself.

  “The Praxis mandates a clear line of direction and control,” Roland said. “From superior to inferior all the way down the line. But when the subordinates are months away, the superiors often receive an incorrect idea of the situation. So our thought is to create other entities entitled to report up the chain of responsibility.”

  “Create independent committees with different areas of expertise,” Lamey said. “In finance, in production, in labor, in agriculture, in resources, in security.”

  “How are you going to choose the membership?” Sula asked. “If local officials make the choice, they’re just going to pack the committees with their clients and cronies.”

  Roland spoke cautiously. “We had thought,” he said, “that the choice of membership would be more of a bottom-up procedure.”

  “Inferiors choosing their superiors?” Sula said. “Isn’t that democracy? And isn’t democracy absolutely forbidden by the Praxis?”

  “I’m not quite sure what democracy is, exactly,” said Lord Mehrang. He scratched one ear. “Isn’t it the same thing as anarchy?”

  “Democratic choice of those in authority is forbidden, yes,” said Roland. “But the committees won’t have any actual authority—they won’t create legislation, or issue or enforce decrees—but they’ll have the right to appeal. If they feel their interests are being neglected, they can appeal further up the line of authority, to the Convocation if necessary.”

  Sula considered this notion in light of her study of Earth history, then inwardly smiled. She turned to Roland. “Have you heard the term ‘workers’ soviet’?” she asked.

  Roland was puzzled. “No.”

  “You should probably look it up. And in any case you should stress firm party discipline.”

  Sula suspected that Roland’s committee scheme would cause little but chaos, but then Roland and Lamey might want chaos for reasons of their own. Whether there was chaos or not, Sula intended to make the most of any victory before Roland and his clique gave up their power to the Convocation, their industrial committee system, or some other useless entity.

  Certain people were going to disappear. Others were going to be tucked away in positions where they could do no harm. And others were going to find themselves promoted into positions of power.

  Roland might object to some of her plans, but then she had no intention of asking his permission before she set her friends to work.

  She had her own sources of power back on Zanshaa—and once upon a time, they had called themselves her army.

  Michi Chen’s jaundiced face, shot from an unflattering low angle, appeared in Sula’s sleeve display. “I’m putting you in charge of Division Three,” Michi said. “That’s twenty-six ships, light cruisers and frigates, in three squadrons, all just completing refit.”

  “Thank you, Lady Fleetcom,” said Sula.

  “You’ll be promoted to senior squadron leader,” Michi said. “You’ll have you
r choice of flagship, and of flag captain.”

  Sula had been expecting this appointment for some time, and her only real question had been to what rank Michi would promote her. She had been tempted to make a bet by buying a set of squadron leader shoulder boards but had restrained herself.

  “I’ll take Alana Haz for flag captain,” Sula said. “She was my premiere on Confidence, and we work well together.”

  “Very good.” Michi consulted a list offscreen. “Captain Haz has tentatively been assigned to Defense and has been working up a crew in simulation, though I can send her to another ship if you prefer.”

  “If I can inspect the ships available?”

  “I’ll alert the captain of the dockyard to expect you.”

  “Thank you, Lady Fleetcom.”

  Michi appended a file with details of ships, officers, and crew. Sula thanked her again and signed off.

  The call had come early in the morning, and Spence and Macnamara had just joined Sula in the kitchen, where she had been quietly drinking tea since a savage, bloody nightmare had jolted her awake a few hours earlier. Ming Lin, exhausted with shuttling to the planet and back for meetings with bankers and investors, was still asleep in her room.

  Spence and Macnamara had heard Michi’s message, and they looked at her expectantly, as if they expected Sula to charge to the dockyards immediately.

  “We can finish breakfast,” Sula told them. “And I want a shower before I go climbing through ships under construction.”

  She was on her way to the shower when she got a call from one of the guards on the hostel’s newly installed security gate.

  “My lady, there is a former lieutenant Shankaracharya who wishes to see you.”

  Shankaracharya? Former lieutenant? The name tickled Sula’s memory. She was confident he’d never served on one of her ships, but she couldn’t swear she hadn’t met him at some point in her career.

  “What does he want?”

  “He won’t say. But he’s here with his wife.”

  That tickled another memory, but again Sula couldn’t place it, and her shower was calling.

  “Well,” she asked, “are they armed? Do they have a bomb?”

  “No, my lady.”

  “Let them wait in the lobby.”

  Twenty minutes later Sula arrived in the lobby, her skin scrubbed and aglow. She wore a Fleet jumpsuit suitable for climbing around in half-converted ships, and a soft undress cap to keep her hair clean. Spence and Macnamara followed. They both wore sidearms, and Macnamara carried Sula’s Sidney Mark One over his shoulder.

  Damage from the Legion raid still scarred the lobby, with broken light fixtures and pictures of distinguished Fleet officers shot full of holes. Sula’s visitors sat on a sofa placed beneath a pattern of bullet marks, and they rose as she came down the stair. Memory returned as soon as she saw their faces.

  “Mister Shankaracharya,” Sula said, and then nodded at his wife. “Sempronia,” she said. “I’m afraid I don’t know whether you use Shankaracharya or Martinez these days. Your family doesn’t talk about you.”

  “I don’t talk about them, either,” said Sempronia.

  Sempronia was the youngest and least conventional of the three Martinez sisters. Her siblings shared a certain look—olive skin, dark hair and eyes, sturdy, mesomorphic bodies. But Sempronia had light brown hair, hazel eyes, a slim silhouette, and a lively disposition.

  Too lively for some tastes. Before the war her social-climbing family had figured to jump several grades in the High City hierarchy by engaging Sempronia to PJ Ngeni—colorful, useless, and indigent, but a member of the powerful and prestigious Ngeni clan. Sempronia had kept him at arm’s length, but PJ had managed to fall hopelessly in love with her anyway, and he’d been crushed when Sempronia had run off with Nikkul Shankaracharya, one of her brother’s officers.

  The Martinez clan had offered up another sacrifice, the middle sister, Walpurga, and there had been a sham wedding to PJ before Walpurga fled Zanshaa ahead of the Naxid advance. PJ stayed behind, and Sula assumed it was because he preferred the company of the invading Naxids to those of his wife and in-laws.

  Sula, working undercover in the capital, had found PJ only too willing to join the Secret Army. He was so well placed that he was able to provide valuable intelligence, but he yearned for action, apparently with the intention of proving to Sempronia that he was worthy of the love she had no intention of giving him. Sula had kept him out of the fighting until the very last, and he died on the day she stormed the High City, carrying a rifle he never had the chance to fire.

  As for Nikkul Shankaracharya, he was something of a mystery. He’d served under Gareth Martinez, but he’d left Martinez’s ship under some kind of cloud, and then Sempronia had promptly married him.

  Not that he wasn’t worth a second look. Slightly built, with smooth cocoa skin, liquid dark eyes, and curling hair that hung in ringlets to his collar, he looked like a slightly bruised angel, and Sula could understand why Sempronia might turn protective on his behalf.

  “I’m a Shankaracharya,” Sempronia said. “That other name I never use.”

  A Martinez who so comprehensively despised her own family could only earn Sula’s admiration. “What can I do for you, then?” Sula said.

  “My family manufactures electronics,” Shankaracharya said. “In fact, we manufacture the sensor suite that’s standard on all the new Exploration Service ships, and which is being retrofitted into the older ships as they come in for refit.”

  “Congratulations?” Sula offered.

  Shankaracharya hesitated. Sempronia spoke out.

  “It’s better than the suite the Fleet uses,” she said. “But we can’t get a hearing here—Michi Chen’s turned us down without giving us an interview.”

  At the bidding of her in-laws, Sula assumed. “I sympathize,” she said. “But I’m not sure what I can do to help you.”

  “Just look at the performance statistics!” Sempronia urged. “The lidar can be tuned to specific frequencies, and that will help in penetrating the plasma bursts caused by missile explosions. You’ll be able to see farther into an enemy screen and spot more missiles coming at you.”

  “Plasma frequency decreases as the burst expands and cools,” Shankaracharya said. “Our lidar will compensate automatically and seek the frequency best suited for penetrating the screen.”

  Sula considered this. “I can see it would be useful,” she said. “Can you give me the specifications for the sensor suite? And more importantly, do you have tests?”

  “We didn’t test it against missiles, no,” Shankaracharya said. He seemed almost embarrassed to admit it. “But it is designed to—”

  “You could ask Captain Severin!” Sempronia said. “And Lady Starkey, who’s just used the suite on a long exploration journey.”

  “I’ll do that,” Sula said. “But they haven’t tested it against missile bursts either, I suppose.”

  “I can’t imagine that they have,” Shankaracharya said.

  “Perhaps a test would be in order, then. But in the meantime, if you have the specifications?”

  Shankaracharya passed Sula a data foil, which she pocketed. “I’ll review the data,” she said, “and see where I can go from there. But no promises.”

  Shankaracharya bobbed his head in thanks. “We appreciate it, Lady Sula.”

  Sula looked at Sempronia, and thought, And if I can make your family look bad, all the better.

  Sula’s car, an ovoid in viridian green, had already pulled to the curb under its own guidance. The car had a hard top, which made Sula feel a little less exposed when on the move. She took her Sidney from Macnamara and sat in the rear seat, and Macnamara and Spence shared the front, with Spence behind the controls. She took the vehicle off autopilot and steered the car into the sparse traffic, heading for the dockyard and Defense.

  As they neared the docks proper, Sula saw that almost everyone on the street was wearing some kind of uniform. For some time her car was
stuck behind a cargo carrier pulling several trailers full of Fleet supplies, but this drew away into a warehouse district, and then the vast expanse of the docks opened before them, a smooth dark plain dotted with moorings that stretched into what seemed to be the infinite distance.

  “Is that Lady Michi?” Spence asked, and Sula craned her neck to see another viridian-green car, a Hunhao limousine, traveling in the opposite direction, toward the warehouse area. The long vehicle was open, and Michi Chen was visible in the back, surrounded by members of her staff. Sula raised a hand as they passed, but Michi was intent on a conversation with her aide Sandra Yuen, and Michi’s car sped by.

  “Defense is the third mooring,” Macnamara said, and then suddenly a flash seared the dockyard and a thunderous blast hammered Sula’s ears. She turned to look behind her and saw only wreckage and billowing smoke covering the warehouse district.

  “Find us some cover,” Sula said, and Spence accelerated as she spun the car around. Sula’s ears rang, and she could barely hear the bolt of her Sidney as she yanked it back, then put the weapon on safety.

  The nearest cover was a truck that was waiting in a line to load from one of the warehouses, and Spence stopped the car in its lee. Sula was out of the car before it had quite stopped, moving to the front of the truck body and crouching low. The acid reek of explosives stung the air. Sula peered from the front of the truck, the rifle at her shoulder, expecting at any moment to hear the rattle of firearms and see the Legion in their black uniforms appear through the smoke and debris.

  No gunfire was heard. No black uniforms were seen. The gouts of flame from a warehouse were suppressed by remotely operated firefighting robots deploying from the gridded ceiling above. And then, as the smoke faded and the dust settled, Sula saw a warehouse with its façade collapsed, and before it a vehicle clipped over, and viridian-clad bodies lying over the dark surface of the road.

  “Shit!” Sula said. “That’s Michi’s car!”