Straker took a deep breath, let it out, giving himself time to think. “A strong monarchy with established laws and traditions. Assuming the monarch is competent and benevolent. Everybody loves a good king... or queen.”
“Exactly. You need to be the king. Derek the First of Utopia.”
“Sounds idiotic.”
“So find another name. King Derek of House Straker. Grand Marshal Straker of the Breaker Empire. Derek Caesar. Doesn’t matter. Both sides need tradition—the military and the civilians—and you need to be a symbolic father to your people. Best to start sooner than later. I don’t mean to criticize, but…”
“But you’re about to anyway. Go ahead. We’re grownups here, Colonel. Hell, you’re older than I am. Give it to me straight.”
Winter folded his hands on the table in front of him. “I think we all hoped the Liberator would take over leading humanity and set things right when he had a chance. And he didn’t.”
“I didn’t, you mean.”
Winter nodded, his face bleakly sympathetic.
“Fair enough. Go on.”
“You let things drift, sir, hoping the politicians would magically transform the Republic into a place of freedom and prosperity. Instead, they did what they always do—screwed the people. The price of freedom is constant vigilance. We didn’t remain vigilant. I don’t want to see that happen all over again. You know history, sir. Power abhors a vacuum. If a good person doesn’t exert leadership, others will step in and steal everything.”
Straker considered. “The downfall of monarchies is always in the transition to the next ruler. The throne becomes the prize in a game of politics.”
“You said yourself that won’t be for decades. With Murdock’s rejuvenation tank, you might rule for centuries.”
“That sounds like its own kind of hell.”
“But it gives you options, sir. Abdicate in favor of someone else as competent as you are—in your own timing. You’ll always be there to grab the reins if things fall apart later. Isn’t that what the constitutional Liberator position was supposed to be in the Republic?”
Straker drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “All right. I’ll think about it.”
“Please do more than think, sir. Tempus fugit.”
“Time flees indeed….and the tide of history waits for no man when it turns.” Straker reached out to grasp Winter’s shoulder for a moment as he stood. “Thanks, Martin. And about the op… assuming I take mechsuits, the Guard will form the basis for my ground force—not First Bat. I’ll take the Hok marines but leave Cadre. I’ll need a few of your people as replacement pilots. You pick.”
“Anything I can do, sir.”
“Of course. See you later.”
* * *
Straker spent the rest of the daytime hours familiarizing himself with the enemy. Jilani had provided a vast, disorganized data dump of everything she knew about the various crimorgs around the Middle Reach. Indy had processed it, and Sinden was analyzing the relevant sections on the Korveni. He’d ordered her to brief the staff after dinner.
If her intel was accurate, Jilani was a one-woman wrecking crew—raiding Korveni facilities, ambushing their ships, passing free information to their criminal enemies. She hit other crimorgs from time to time but mainly for profit—which she plowed back into her guerilla war against the Korveni. When she did, she always made it appear that some other gang had done it.
So, he thought, she’s motivated. Doesn’t mean she’s trustworthy and honest, but it does mean as long as her interests and the Breakers’ aligned, she’d make a good ally. She’d certainly provided valuable information up until now.
Straker met his wife and children for dinner in their quarters—a ritual he and Carla tried to maintain in all but emergencies. He was surprised to see Mara there. She must have just returned, and she hugged him hard—a fierce, triumphant smile on her face. All the while Katie tugged at his hand and Johnny solemnly took the other.
“Good to see you back from the Opters, sis,” Derek said, effortlessly lifting both his children into his arms and talking past them. “I know that look. You got what you wanted.”
“I did—and more. The Miskor Queen I worked with assures me the biotech I got will cure the Rhinos. The report should be on your desk.”
“It’ll keep until morning. You can hit the high points when we sit down. For now…” He motorboated his children’s cheeks in turn, bringing forth shrieks of childish laughter.
“Daddy, stop it!” Katie commanded, pointing imperiously. “You’re bothering Johnny.”
“Bothering Johnny, huh? Well, maybe I should be bothering you!” He swung them both around like a human carnival ride and then tumbled gently together onto the play-mat to wrestle on the floor.
When playtime was over and they had taken their seats at the dinner table, Carla handed the adults flutes of champagne. “To reunions. Welcome home, Mara.”
“Thanks, Carla. It’s good to be back.”
“I want some champagne,” Katie declared.
“Not until you’re older, punkin,” Derek said. “Mara, so… you have a new biotech for the Rhinos. How’re you going to convince them to infect themselves with it?”
“I’m not. It’s highly contagious, and it’s subtle enough they shouldn’t even notice until they wonder why the birthrate is declining and their aggressiveness is normalized.”
“Normalized?” Carla asked sharply. “Sounds like you’re playing god with sentient biology, just like the Opters did with humans—messing with their minds and bodies without their consent.”
Mara glared. “I’m a doctor, sworn to do no harm. This is a cure, not a disease.”
“Administered without consent.”
“As a society, the Rhinos are non compos mentis. They’re not in their right minds. This is no different from committing a mentally ill person to a facility and forcing treatment on them, just on a grand scale. This will restore them to how they were before, nothing more. Oh, except they’ll be healthier all the way to the end of their longer lives—as originally intended by their own researchers.”
“I’m still not comfortable with it,” Carla said.
Mara slammed her empty flute down. If it wasn’t made of unbreakable crystal, it would’ve shattered. “These are the people who nuked one hundred million of their own—in order to reduce their population pressure. Then they lied and claimed we did it in their public media. I think correcting that madness outweighs comfortable.”
“And though I understand Carla’s reservations,” Derek said mildly, “I have to agree. This is necessary… as long as you’re sure the biotech cure will work as advertised.”
“I tested the science in simulations. I’ll turn it over to Murdock for an independent evaluation, and Indy can run her own tests. Once we’ve done that…do the Salamanders have any Rhino prisoners we could test it on?”
“I’ll ask.”
Carla frowned at that, but kept her silence. Derek hoped she realized this was an extraordinary situation. Sometimes, principles had to bend to practicality—or to higher principles. He recalled the words of one revered Old Earth statesman—something to the effect that if principles lead to destruction, principles must bend.
“Daddy, why is Mommy mad at Aunt Mara?” Johnny asked, his eyes large with impending tears.
“She’s not mad, silly,” Katie countered. “She dis-ap-proves.” She said this with a pompous gravity only a child could muster.
“My, what an enormous word for a six-year-old,” Mara said.
“Especially for one who’s not a brainiac,” Derek said. “You were reading medical school texts at six.”
Mara ignored Derek. “And you’re very perceptive, Katie. Mommy disapproves of something we’re talking about doing, but she’s not angry with me. I’m sure you disapprove of things from time to time, but it doesn’t mean you’ve gotten angry.”
“I disapprove of brussels sprouts.” Katie made a face as she poked the pieces on her plat
e. “And bedtime.”
The adults dissolved into laughter.
“I dis-prove bedtime too,” Johnny said. “And Missy Tomkins. She’s a mean girl.”
“Don’t worry, Johnny,” Katie said earnestly. “I’ll protect you.”
Derek eyed Carla. “I think it’s time to start the kids in Kung Jiu.”
“I won’t have them programmed to be warriors, Derek,” Carla snapped. “We both had enough of that growing up.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it—but the martial arts aren’t solely about self-defense. As you know.”
Carla waved off the impending argument. “I know. Sorry. How about we enjoy our dinner and not talk about controversial stuff right now?”
Derek knew she meant in front of the kids. “Sounds good. You both going to make the 1930 briefing?” he asked, checking his chrono.
They both signaled assent.
Carla pointed with her fork, a brussels sprout on its tines. “I guess what bothers me is this idea we’ll keep doing mercenary jobs for other people—like we’re enforcers, guns for hire.”
“We are,” Derek replied. “But if we’re smart and careful, we can pick and choose jobs we approve of.”
Johnny studied his food, and then aimed a finger-gun at a brussels sprout. “Pew! Pew pew!”
Carla hushed him and said, “But look at our situation now. We wanted a simple one-and-done. Now we’re embroiled in alien politics.”
“All the more reason to have our own homeland. One we control.”
She sighed. “I know. Before…them,” she gestured at the kids, “I lived for battle. Not the killing or destruction but for the challenge, the tactics, the clean chess game of it all. Not like your messy ground combat. Then we had these two, and five years of real life on Culloden… Now it all seems so muddled.”
“You’ve changed, Carla. We both have. You’re a mother, I’m a father…” Derek looked away. “A father to my people, Martin said I am—should be. So I get it. We made glorious careers out of knocking things down. Now, we want to build something.”
“We built something on Culloden, and it got taken from us, Derek. How can we be sure this won’t too?”
Derek picked up Carla’s hand in both of his own. “Nothing’s sure in life. But I promise you, we’ll have a real home. A place of our own, one we’ll defend.”
Johnny giggled. “Are you gonna kiss each other?”
“No they’re not,” Katie declared.
“Yes we are,” Derek replied, leaning across to kiss Carla tenderly and murmur, “Remember, my lioness, there’s a time for lying in the sun, and there’s a time to fight for your cubs—or go hunting.”
* * *
The 1930 briefing in the CCC saw Commander Sinden lay out the Korveni organization. “They have one main base on a planetoid in this nebula,” she said, bringing up graphics in the holotank. “It’s well hidden, but Captain Jilani assures me her intel is accurate. With its precise location and because there’s no nearby star to curve space, we can transit straight in to within weapons range and attack immediately.”
“Why would anyone build in a place where someone could transit right in?” Loco asked. “No curved-space buffer means no warning.”
“As long as the location remains secret, it makes for much faster operations,” Sinden replied. “It cuts hours or days off travel. The Korveni have a fleet of about twenty corsairs, small ships ranging from courier size up to frigate class. They can’t stand against more than one heavy cruiser, and we’ll have three available if we leave our two operational DNs here to protect Premdor and Breaker Island. The problem is, the Korveni can transit out as soon as they bring up their sidespace generators. We have to assume at least one of them will get away.”
“To where?” Straker asked. He already knew the answer from his studies, but it provided Sinden a segue.
“They have five smaller bases in star systems where there’s no effective government. If we think there’s been no warning, we’ll hit those immediately afterward to try to completely destroy the Korveni organization. If they do get off a courier or drone, we’ll head straight for Utopia and worry about their small bases later. Utopia is their next largest base, and their most important, economically—their prize jewel.”
“If it’s so juicy, why hasn’t it been attacked or taken by some other organization?” Loco asked.
“There’s a fascinating, multi-part answer to that question,” Sinden said, her usually emotionless face lighting up with wonder. “First, it’s hidden—hard to find.”
“What’s hard to find about a star and a planet?” Loco scoffed. “You can see stars from across the length of the galaxy.”
“Yes—if they’re not shielded.” Sinden waved her cursor and the holotank graphics changed. When next she spoke, it was with a tone of near-reverence, as if speaking of a holy object. “By a Dyson cylinder.”
Straker, forewarned, didn’t gasp in wonder the way many of the staff did. He watched Jilani, who sat relaxed with her arms crossed under her ample breasts. She smiled in satisfaction as Sinden revealed the surprise.
“A Dyson cylinder is only theoretical,” Zaxby said, sitting forward and focusing all four eyes on the holotank. “Until now, I see. Stunning.”
“Wait, wait. What’s a Dyson cylinder?” Loco asked.
“It’s a variant of a construct named for an Old Earth physicist—the Dyson sphere,” Sinden said. “Enclose a star completely in a massive globe. Depending on how it’s made, you might capture all its energy, inhabit its interior or exterior surface, even fill it with an atmosphere. Doing so might even hide the existence of the star itself from many sensors. But a sphere is probably the most difficult engineering construct, and there are advantages to using a smaller, narrower cylinder instead.”
“Like a giant hab wrapped around a star,” Straker said. He’d been waiting to use that visual shortcut ever since he reviewed the info.
“Correct, sir,” Sinden said, activating the graphic. The wheel-like cylinder enclosing the star began to spin like an orbital habitat, though much more slowly. “Unlike a sphere, where spin would cause everything to flow downslope toward the equator, a cylinder provides a vast interior surface, functionally flat to those inside.”
“How vast?” Engels asked. “A cylinder the size of a planetary orbit beggars belief.”
“That is true, ma’am. There are no known materials that could stand the strain of spin, if built to that scale. A typical Goldilocks Zone planetary orbit radius might be 100,000,000 kilometers, to choose a nice round number. The technology needed to build such a thing would be millenia ahead of ours. Fortunately, this construct is far smaller—though still huge.” She zoomed in and activated a scale next to the graphic.
“Only 20,200 kilometers in radius,” Zaxby said. “Approximately five thousand times smaller than your example, yet still the largest habitat I’ve ever seen. With a width of approximately 10,000 kilometers, it should contain the usable surface area of ten planets in one convenient location. Quite reasonable, very useful. But a Dyson construct implies a star at the center. There is no star class known small enough to fit inside.”
“But there is a star inside,” Jilani said, leaning forward. “I saw it as a little girl. It provided heat and light like any other sun. There’s a moon that makes tides. Obviously, whoever built Utopia was far more advanced than we are. They must’ve figured out how to create a mini-star system that mimics a normal planetary day and night.”
“And Utopia was uninhabited when you landed?” Engels asked.
“Only animals and plants—a functioning ecosystem, reasonably fit for humans or other oxygen-breathers. I do remember trouble with animals. We had to move the first settlement.”
“An environment fit for humans? Some coincidence.”
Jilani shrugged. “I seem to recall when we landed it was cold compared to Seconda Venezia, but that was twenty years ago. I don’t remember the details, or whether the seasons change… All I know is, wh
at’s left of my people, my family, is there—and they grow Erbaccia for the Korveni. Maybe the builders were similar to humans—or Ruxin, for that matter.”
“Yes,” Zaxby said, “it’s more likely that a large-brained aquatic species like ours would evolve enough to create such an advanced structure—and a water-oxygen environment is the most common underpinning of planetary life. And, it’s possible there’s an automated system that adapts to the inhabitants.”
“So, less coincidence than you might think,” said Sinden with a frown. “In practical terms, however, it doesn’t matter. I suggest our concern is with the facts as they stand, rather than theories regarding how those facts came to be.”
“One hell of a prize,” Colonel Keller said. “One habitat, worth ten green planets, concentrated in one system. That’s vast economic wealth—and hardly anybody knows about it. It can’t be seen at a distance, and it’s small enough that you won’t find it on gravitic scans unless you’re specifically looking for it. Sir,” she turned to Straker, “this would serve all our needs ten thousand times over.”
“But others will covet it,” Commodore Gray said. “If we destroy the Korveni as an organization, but even one of them escapes with the knowledge, they’ll sell the information and we’ll have pirates and colonizers showing up within a few months.”
“Very few know,” Jilani said. “I’m sure the location of Utopia is a closely guarded secret for exactly that reason—any of the Korveni could sell the info and become rich by themselves. Only one ship travels there every couple of months, and only the captain and the pilot have the coordinates. It took me years to find it, and I knew it existed and what to look for. If we do it right, we can contain the knowledge. If we don’t… isn’t this worth fighting for and defending?”
“It is,” said Straker. “We can’t give up before we even start just because it’s risky—but I do need everyone involved to plan carefully, to mitigate the risks. I know enough about the Korveni to know that every member deserves to die. This isn’t some government from above, where the little people are powerless to stop the evil outside their own reach. Every Korveni is party to murder, enslavement, trafficking in sentients and addictive drugs, piracy—every way you can victimize someone, they do it. So, the plans you come up with will be no-holds-barred, all-out war.”
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