Shield of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  Red Flight broke down and away, toward the last of four Yevethan thrustships strung out in a line leading back to Doornik 319. In a few moments they picked up their cover fighters—the E-wings of the 16th Fighter Squadron’s Blue Flight.

  “That trailer’s ours, Blue Leader,” Tuke said. “Red Flight, arm your eggs and confirm acquisition by your targeting computers.”

  Each of the six bombers was carrying two fat T-33 plasma torpedoes, known among the crews as shield-busters or rotten eggs. Designed to detonate at the shield perimeter rather than to penetrate it, the plasma warheads of the T-33s created the most intense radiation burst of any New Republic weapon, several times the output of a capital ship’s ion cannon batteries.

  The focused cone of radiation was designed to overload ray-shielding generators, either burning them up with the feedback or pushing them overlimit with the bounceback. Once even one generator was down, the towers for the particle shields would be vulnerable to the turbolaser turrets on the gun frigates. If everything went according to plan, the carriers, already falling back behind the cruiser screen, would never come close to engaging the enemy directly.

  Their system entry had placed them a startlingly close 16,000 klicks from their targets, and the thrustship grew quickly in the scopes and screens as the bombers accelerated to attack velocity. At a range of three thousand kilometers, Tuketu ordered Red Flight to move into the open hex formation, which would give them all room for evasive maneuvers on the way in and an unobstructed power pullup on the way out.

  There was no sign of enemy snub fighters, but the flight began taking some fire from the thrustship at fifteen hundred kilometers. Hinking and jinking the K-wing violently, Tuketu alerted his weapons tech to the opportunity that created.

  “They’re firing through their shields, Skids—the beam scatter will give us the exact range to the boundary.”

  “Working on it now,” Skids answered, his head down over his control displays.

  “Hurry,” Tuketu said. “Drop point coming up fast.”

  There was an induction crackle as an ion bolt passed within twenty meters of the bomber. “Red Leader, Red Five—are you hearing this stuff on the command comm?”

  The moment the question was asked, Tuketu realized that there were other voices in the cockpit. “Cut the chatter, Red Flight,” he said automatically. “C One has to stay open.”

  “Red Leader, that’s not us—and it’s all over the spectrum, C One, C Two, the task force frequency, the Fifth’s hypercomm—are you listening to it, Red Leader? Do you hear what they’re saying?”

  The drop point was almost on them. Esege Tuketu forced himself to focus on the sounds he had been disregarding as extraneous.

  “—I am the Kubaz called Totolaya. I reside in the colony Morning Bell. I am a hostage of the Yevetha. If you attack, I will be killed—”

  On C2 the message was, “I am Brakka Barakas, an elder of New Brigia. I am a hostage of the Yevetha. If you attack us, I will be killed—”

  “Red Leader, Red Four. Shall we break off?”

  “Red Two here—Tuke, what do we do?”

  The decision had to be made in an instant. “Stay on target. Make your drops,” Tuke snapped.

  Just then an ion bolt from one of the thrustship batteries caught Red Four full on the port engine foil. The charge danced angrily over the surface of the bomber. Before it could reach the eggs, Red Four’s weapons tech released them.

  “Eggs away!” Skids cried.

  “—I am Liekas Tendo, a Morath mining engineer. I’m in a security cell on some kind of starship. They say these creatures holding us are Yevetha. They say if you attack us, I’ll be killed. Please don’t attack us—”

  Tuketu pulled the stick back sharply, kicking in the big slant-mounted third engine. The power of it quickly changed the bomber’s attitude and trajectory, pushing it out and away from the ship, the shields, and the explosions to come. As always, the pullout took Tuketu right to the brink of unconsciousness.

  “—I am Crandor Ijjix of the Norat Sovereignty. I have been taken hostage by invaders and held on their ship. To all vessels of the New Republic—do not attack, or we will be eradicated—”

  Red Four never made its pullout move. Disabled by the ion bolt, the K-wing continued falling in toward the thrustship, trailing its own torpedoes by a fraction of a second. When the plasma eggs reached the shield perimeter, Red Four was enveloped by the double fireball. The fragments that were hurled out of the cloud were closer in size to dust than to a spaceship.

  “Jojo—” Tuke closed his eyes for just a moment. “Skids, report results of bombing.”

  “Negative—negative, the shield’s still up,” Skids said disgustedly. “Red Two, Three, and Five did not drop their eggs, repeat, did not drop.”

  “Red Leader, this is Red Three weps. Tuke, I’m sorry—I just couldn’t do it. Not with hostages begging me not to.”

  “Son of a—you’re looking at a court-martial, Condor.”

  “I’ll accept the consequences. But I wasn’t going to help murder the people we came here to help.”

  “Blue Leader to Red Flight—you guys had better work it out back at the barn. Target is launching its own birds. Ten on the wing and more coming.”

  After one glance at the tracking display, Tuketu pushed the throttle forward and wheeled his bomber around so that the nose pointed back toward Indomitable. “Red Two, Red Three, Red Five, find a safe place to dump your bomb load. Everyone take it home, best possible speed. Red Leader to flight boss—five coming in, ETA four minutes.”

  It was four minutes of hell. The Yevethan fighters were fast and lethal, and the outnumbered E-wings couldn’t hold them off. Red Three was picked off returning from its bomb dump. Red Five took a hit on the port wing and another just behind the cockpit, and exploded in flames just before it reached the cover umbrella of the cruiser Gallant. Blue Flight fared even worse—only one of the bombers made it back to the comparative safety of Indomitable’s hangar bays.

  Helmet under his arm, his eyes hollow and his face drawn, Esege Tuketu stood near the flight boss as the casualties were posted on the status board. Jojo. Keek. Dopey and the Bear. Pacci. Nooch.

  When Miranda’s name went up, he no longer could stand the bloody litany and turned and slipped away.

  With his skin cold and pale, General A’baht watched from the bridge of Intrepid as variations on the same theme played out all over the battle zone.

  Every attack bomber, every cover fighter, every capital ship from both Task Force Aster and Task Force Blackvine received a continuous broadcast of hostage appeals on every comm channel used by the Fleet. Enough gunners hesitated and enough pilots turned away that not a single Yevethan capital ship was touched.

  And in the retreat—both the confused one that started spontaneously and the official one he ordered minutes later—nineteen of the Fleet’s small warbirds were destroyed. A hangar fire on the carrier Venture consumed fourteen more and left all three portside bays unusable. The cruiser Phalanx took a bow shot while pulling a crippled E-wing inside its shields with a tractor beam, and the damage went all the way back to the number 14 bulkhead.

  The cost in lives, counting the loss of Trenchant, ran to well over a thousand.

  But the full cost of the defeat went far beyond that, A’baht knew. And the ultimate cost in blood was beyond measuring.

  They are not afraid of us. They are not afraid of dying. There is nothing we can use to restrain their behavior but force—the war we didn’t want to fight.

  Intrepid lingered, hidden in the glare of Doornik 319’s star, while the Fifth Fleet forces jumped out of the system in ones and twos. Only when the carrier was the last ship remaining did A’baht turn away from the view-screens and descend to the main bridge on unsteady legs.

  “Captain Morano,” he said. “Take us out of here.”

  Behn-kihl-nahm walked the empty Memorial Corridor with long, impatient strides. Two maintenance engineers, neither accustom
ed to moving at that pace, struggled to keep up with him.

  At the end of the corridor he turned right, stopping under the sign over the entrance to the Senate Hall. He glanced up at it only briefly, reading it with a sigh in his heart.

  1000 DAYS WITHOUT

  A SHOT FIRED IN ANGER

  Remember,

  Peace Is No Accident

  Then the chairman turned and looked back, waiting for the maintenance men to join him. When they did, Behn-kihl-nahm pointed up at the sign.

  “Turn it off,” he said. “Take it down. Take it away.”

  One of the engineers squinted up at the sign. “Do you want it put in the Senate storeroom?”

  Behn-kihl-nahm shook his head. “No. Just get it out of here, now. We won’t have any more use for it.”

  Then he hurried away from the broken dream and toward the Defense Council hearing chamber. The emergency meeting on the situation in Koornacht Cluster was waiting on his arrival to begin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Senate messenger at the gate to the President’s residence was as determined to be admitted as the security droid was determined to bar him from entering.

  “I don’t care what your protocols say—I am here on the authority of the acting chairman of the Ruling Council of the Senate, and my instructions are explicit,” the messenger was saying as Leia approached the gate from the inner walk. “I must deliver this message, and I may only deliver it into the hands of the Princess herself.”

  “Very well. Here I am,” Leia said.

  “Princess,” the messenger said, turning quickly and bowing his head slightly. “I apologize for the disruption—”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, reaching through the gate past S-EP1 for the stiff folder bearing the royal blue insignia. “Sleepy’s programming didn’t include the possibility of a summons. Someone will have to see to that, apparently.”

  The messenger bowed his head again. “My apologies again, Princess,” he said, and backed away.

  Leia did not open the folder before starting back toward the house. Of all the many bodies—councils, committees, commissions, and contractors—making up the complex organizational structure of the Senate of the New Republic, only one had the power to summon the President to appear before it.

  That one was the Ruling Council.

  Its name, which went back to the days of the Provisional government, was no longer descriptive of its role. Much of the power and responsibility of the transitional Ruling Council now rested elsewhere in the Senate, the General Ministry, or the Fleet Office. The New Republic had traded efficiency for democracy and oligarchy for bureaucracy—and had done so willingly and knowingly. A confederation of more than ten thousand systems could not be justly ruled by a self-elected few.

  But the one element of its old power which the Ruling Council had retained involved a special responsibility regarding the President. The drafters of the Charter were wary about creating too strong an executive—one who, unchecked, might be able to accumulate more and more power over time and become a dictator in fact if not in name. The cold truth was that Palpatine’s reign had begun not with a coup, but with his gaining power largely by legitimate means.

  As a check against that history being repeated, the Charter preserved the Ruling Council in the form of a supercommittee made up of the chairmen of the Senate Councils. The founders gave it the power both to void the election of a President and to initiate the recall of a sitting one. Ackbar had dubbed the Ruling Council “the speed brake on the ship of state.” But as often as it was spoken of, the Ruling Council met rarely, and had never been used for its intended purpose.

  Until now.

  The Council had already been seated, apparently arguing behind closed doors, for nearly an hour before Leia was brought in. Though a seat was provided for her, Leia chose to stand in the shallow well of the chambers. Even that only placed her at eye level with the seven senators seated around the arc of the panel. At the center was Doman Beruss, the crystal pyramid and striker resting near his hand. Behn-kihl-nahm was to his left, but would not look at her.

  “Madame President—Princess Leia—in the normal rotation, it would be Senator Praget’s turn to chair this session,” Beruss said. “However, due to the present circumstances, the Council has decided to advance the rotation to the next designated chair, so as to avoid any procedural conflicts. Do you have any objection to my chairing this session?”

  So that’s what the delay was about, Leia thought. “I have no objection.”

  “Very well,” said Beruss. “President Leia Organa Solo, you have been summoned before the Ruling Council for the discussion of a petition of recall against you.

  “A duly constituted member of this body has presented articles calling for a vote of no confidence on the following grounds: One, exceeding your Charter authority. Two, recklessly endangering the peace and the lives of citizens of the Republic. Three, issuing illegal orders to initiate hostilities against a sovereign state. Four, incompetence to properly carry out the duties of office.

  “Do you understand your rights and obligations in regard to a petition of recall? If so, please state them in your own words.”

  “I have the right to hear a specification of the cause of action. I have the right to present whatever witnesses and evidence I choose in defense of my actions and performance,” Leia said. “I have the obligation to answer fully and truthfully all questions which may be put to me, as well as the obligation to appear before the Senate in assembly should you vote to sustain the petition.”

  “Very well,” said Beruss. “Senator Praget has brought the petition, and will lay out the specific articles.”

  That took Leia by surprise—she had been expecting the complainant to be Borsk Fey’lya. “Senator,” she said with a nod.

  Krall Praget eyed her briefly before he began, his gaze measuring her, judging her, ultimately dismissing her. For the duration of his presentation, he looked down along the curving table from his seat at the right end, addressing himself to Beruss and the other Council members, virtually ignoring Leia.

  Praget spoke for not quite an hour, then yielded back to Senator Beruss without asking Leia a single question. She could not tell whether he had decided he was unlikely to succeed in getting her to betray herself, or thought his case so strong that that was unnecessary.

  In contrast, Senator Rattagagech had a long series of very specific questions, but they were far less accusatory in tone than Praget’s exposition, or even his glances. The Elomin was trying to reconstruct the calculus of Leia’s decisions in painstaking detail, and even Praget grew impatient with him.

  “You either know what you stand for, or you don’t,” Praget said. “Relevance, Chairman, relevance—please instruct the Senator to be relevant or yield. The petition is offered on actions and results, not motives or intentions.”

  Rattagagech drew back in surprise. “Senator Praget, your fourth charge, of incompetence, demands a thorough assessment of the President’s judgment—”

  “Chairman, permission to amend the petition?”

  Beruss nodded. “As you wish.”

  “I strike and withdraw the fourth article in its entirety,” Praget said, then looked at Rattagagech. “Are you finished now?”

  The Elomin showed a peevish expression. “In light of the amendment, Chairman, I have no further questions for Princess Leia.”

  “Very well,” said Beruss. “Senator Fey’lya.”

  All along Leia had been expecting the gloves-off assault, the killing blow, to come from Borsk Fey’lya. Praget’s obvious eagerness to give the Bothan the floor only confirmed that expectation. But Fey’lya changed direction abruptly, leaving their expectations falling to the floor as dust.

  “President Organa Solo,” Fey’lya said, smiling politely. “I’m sorry we’ve had to take up so much of your time at such a critical juncture. I have just one question for you this morning. If you could revisit any of these decisions of the last sev
eral days, with no more knowledge than was available to you the first time, would you change any of them?”

  Leia blinked in surprise—Fey’lya might as well have laid his coat across a puddle for her. Praget gaped, then fell into a coughing fit.

  “No, Senator,” Leia said, unable to see a trap. “I believe we were right to demand that the Yevetha withdraw, and that I consulted properly with the Defense Council before doing so. I believe we were right to try to enforce the ultimatum with a blockade, and that I consulted properly with the Supreme Commander before doing so. I believe we were right to respond to the Yevethan ambush immediately with the forces available, and that General A’baht acted within his authority in doing so. The outcome wasn’t what we wanted, but not for reasons we had any cause to anticipate.”

  Praget snorted derisively at the last, but Fey’lya accepted her answer with a nod. “Thank you, Princess. Chairman Beruss?”

  The balance of the discussion was brief and inconsequential, and they voted with Leia still present. The vote was two to five against, with only Rattagagech joining Praget.

  “The petition fails,” said Beruss. “That being the only business before the Council, this session is adjourned.”

  Jaw set and an ugly look in his eyes, Praget headed directly for Fey’lya. Buoyed by relief, Leia headed for the corridor. Before she reached it, Behn-kihl-nahm joined her, and they walked away from the chambers together.

  “I thought it would be Fey’lya,” she said.

  “It will be,” Behn-kihl-nahm said. “Krall Praget got there first.”

  “Why?”

  “Turf violation,” Behn-kihl-nahm said. “You didn’t consult with Praget before acting. And the intelligence you depended on didn’t come through him.”

  “So why didn’t Fey’lya support him? Did someone forget to bring the rope for the hanging?”