What made Heuron so vital to Fleet was its location — squarely on the far quarter flank of where human and tavalai space intersected, and close to where sard space began. Alo space, too, was a mere two jumps ‘above’, relative to its position upon the galactic plane, and for reasons known mostly to them, alo found it agreeable to put a permanent presence on Heuron such as they rarely put in any non-alo space. Thus Heuron had become a command-and-control centre for coordination between the triumvirate allies, despite being somewhat distant from chah'nas space. It had been a mustering point for many Fleet invasions and thrusts of the last thirty years, and remained a key hub in the merchant network, both military and civilian. For total human starship traffic, it was second only to Homeworld.
“Berthing list,” Shilu announced as they came through, following the final, course-correcting velocity dump to match their path to that of Heuron V’s.
“Copy, I got that,” said Shahaim, glancing over the list while Erik listened with one ear to Rooke’s ongoing conversation over jumpline integrity in Engineering. Heuron V was a monster system, seven starship-capable stations, hundreds of colonies, many of them former-tavalai but not all. The biggest was Hoffen, a 400+ berth behemoth in Lagrange between Tepanai, Heuron V’s largest moon, and Heuron V itself. “Nav buoy says Hoffen has eighty-six free berths about the gravity rim, and two free at the hub.”
“Com, query them,” said Erik. “Request one of those two hub berths. Say minor battle damage.”
“Com copies, requesting one of the hub berths,” said Shilu. Shahaim gave him an anxious look. Docking at the gravity rim, a combat carrier’s rotation cylinder was of course locked in place. This put three quarters of the crew cylinder out of action, particularly the marines back-quarter, which would be effectively upside down in dock. Usually this worked fine, since marines in hostile environments wanted to be out on the dock anyway, and marines in non-hostile environments wanted to hit the bars and other entertainments. Docked at the zero-G hub, Phoenix could keep the crew cylinder rotating, and keep back-quarter in full operations.
Stations knew this, and combat carriers under any kind of suspicion (meaning alien) were frequently denied a hub berth for that reason. Phoenix arriving in Heuron was suspicious in itself. Now requesting a hub-berth was more-so. But they had no choice, because for what was planned, marines were not optional.
“Lots of ships outbound,” said Geish, cycling through the new marks that Scan was throwing onto his screen. “I’m reading… seventeen outbound, nine of them warships, looks like a whole bunch of different headings. All of those nine are on priority departure, they’re breaking regular lanes, moving real fast.”
“So where are they going?” Shahaim wondered.
“Station feed says we’ve had another… thirty plus departures in the last day,” Jiri added. “That’s an awful lot of people leaving all close together.”
“Sir,” said Shilu, “I’m getting a lot of chatter off that buoy. It’s not on the official channels, the… the merchant channels are just crowded. I think the freighters have been loading stuff onto it.”
“Have a listen and give me a summary,” said Erik, not wanting to wade through a bunch of civilian messages. Any number of things could grab the attention of freighter captains so that they’d want to leave messages for other captains — price fluctuations, company collapses, legal actions. Something else had caught his eye. “Berth 117. Diamond. That’s Homeworld VIP transport.”
Kaspowitz gave him a quick stare. “Ali’s here. So that’s where he went.”
“Maybe not just Chairman Ali,” said Erik, starting to bite his nail, then remembering Trace’s admonishment. “Maybe Chairman Joseph too.” The two most powerful members of Spacer Congress. Erik’s Uncle Thani was the third, and everyone had wondered where they were, during the Homeworld parades. “Damn strange that number one and two in Spacer Congress weren’t present for the parades. It’s not like they didn’t have advance notice, and it’s not like politicians to miss great photo-ops.”
“Almost like they were using the parades as a distraction,” Kaspowitz added.
“Exactly.”
“Sir,” said Shilu. “The… all the traffic on the buoy is just one thing. Fleet’s passed an ordinance, and Chairman Ali signed it.”
“I’m sorry to sound dumb,” said Shahaim, “but what’s an ordinance?”
“Emergency legislation,” said Erik. “It bypasses the usual Congress vote in an emergency, just needs the head of Fleet and Spacer Congress to sign it. What’s it say?”
“Um…” Shilu was still listening with one ear. “It seems they’re putting a fifteen percent limit on Worlder ownership of Spacer assets. Also, um… limitations on Worlder citizenship, they’re saying any Worlder working for a Spacer institution for more than two years has to give up Worlder citizenship for Spacer.”
“Oh good god,” said Erik. And stared blankly at his screens. Had it all been for this? Was this the start of whatever the Captain had been fighting to prevent?
“I’m not sure I understand,” Shahaim said cautiously. “Fifteen percent… is that a lot?”
“Debogande Enterprises is about twenty-seven percent owned by Worlder interests,” said Erik. “To cut it by twelve percent… well. That’s about four times Fleet’s annual budget.”
“Fuck,” said Shahaim, wide-eyed.
“Yes,” Erik agreed. “They’re trying to cut the Worlders out of space entirely. Cut off their influence, cut off their citizens getting jobs in space, turn them all into Spacers after two years, can’t vote in Worlder elections any more, can’t get Worlder benefits… hope most of them won’t bother coming up here in the first place if there’s no long term prospect in it.”
“Gives Spacer authorities legal power over Worlder citizens,” Kaspowitz said grimly. “Can’t touch them if they’ve Worlder IDs. With Spacer IDs they can slap on travel restrictions, detain, question, blackball, the works. On security issues, Fleet can fuck around with Spacer civilian rights all they like, we’ve seen it before. Worlder civvies, not so much.”
“I’m…” Shilu fiddled with some incoming feeds, adjusting reception. “I’m getting some TV from Apilai. News feeds it looks like.” He blinked, then stared back at Erik. “There’s riots. A Spacer admin building’s on fire.”
Erik gritted his teeth. “And all this while everyone’s been marching up and down in parades on Homeworld. What a farce.”
“Always said marching was overrated,” said Kaspowitz. “Scan, check mark ID thirty-one, I think that’s two ships instead of one. Looks like an intercept in progress.”
“Hold on,” said Geish, double checking. “Um… yeah, good catch Nav. I have no transponders on either at this moment, but it looks like a sub-lighter and an FTL, probably a warship.”
“Could be another one of your family’s LC,” Shahaim remarked.
“Yeah, mommy’s not gonna be happy,” Erik muttered. “Get me a roster of all registered sub-lighters insystem, how many are we talking?”
“Hang on,” said Jiri. As Scan Two, he took all the secondary Scan functions Geish was too busy to manage. The most up-to-date roster on all insystem traffic would come from the stations. “I got it, Hoffen Station feed says eight hundred and ninety registered sub-lighters, eight hundred and nine of them currently operational, the rest in repair and overhaul. If you’re interested, I’ve got… sixty-two registered to Debogande-related industries.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds a bit low?”
“Dammit,” Erik muttered, and opened some new com links. “Hello Lisbeth? Lisbeth, I’m going to patch you, Jokono and Hiro into the bridge feed, please tell them to stand by.”
“Sure yes, hold on.” A pause as she did that. Some questioning looks around the bridge — it was irregular to let anyone from regular crew listen in on bridge chatter, let alone civilians. “Erik we’re all here, go ahead.”
“Guys, Chairman Ali and Chairman Joseph are both here, presumably Supreme Commander Chankow is too. T
hat’s the top leadership of Fleet and Spacer Congress both. They’ve passed an Ordinance restricting Worlder ownership of Spacer assets to fifteen percent, and said Worlder citizens can’t work for Spacer entities for more than two years without taking out Spacer citizenship and losing Worlder rights. All hell’s breaking loose, we’ve got ships running to all corners presumably to either spread the news, or to enforce it, and it looks like we’ve got Fleet interceptions of civilian sub-lighters taking place.” Even as he spoke, Geish flashed another two impending interceptions up on his screen.
“Well Erik, look, that’s…” Lisbeth took a breath, sounding flustered either from the situation, or from actually being asked to give advice to the commander of a combat carrier in a serious situation. “They can’t do that outside of martial law, I’m pretty sure. I mean I did some law on the side with my degree, and Mother’s taught me a whole lot more that affects the family. This sounds dangerously close to a coup, they need Worlder Congressional approval before doing anything that might affect Worlder business interests, and fifteen percent would be… well that’s economic vandalism, lots of people are going to be hurt by this. Working class even worse than us rich folk, it’ll be the station hands and techs who get laid off first, you watch. That’s a big chunk of Spacer business finance, Spacer business isn’t anywhere near as self-sufficient as these Fleet chauvinists like to think, we all take Worlder money and fifteen percent just isn’t going to cut it!”
Erik couldn’t help but feel a little pride. For a concise analysis on zero-notice, to bridge-crew who might not be as business-savvy as the heiress to such a massive fortune, it wasn’t bad at all. “Well Worlder reaction isn’t good, there’s some rioting on Apilai and Fleet are intercepting some civilian ships, probably they’re keeping tabs on those they think might be trouble. Which suggests there’s some kind of organised Worlder politics here that could fight back… and we’ve all heard of Heuron Dawn, but I hadn’t thought it was that widespread. Hiro and Jokono, can you guys add anything?”
“LC it’s Jokono. Heuron Dawn is on the domestic security watchlist. In a martial law situation, that would give Fleet the authority to crack down pretty hard. Detention without trial for up to a month without legal representation, for one thing.”
“Hiro, you used to work for Intel. Any idea how big Heuron Dawn is?”
“Well they’re not actually an organised political party,” came Hiro’s voice. “It’s more of an unofficial thing, they keep their membership secret but the estimate is that about a third of Apilai’s local congress are members. There’s even talk they have some local tavalai support, but I think that’s mostly a Spacer smear campaign. Intel consensus was that they’re not a militant group yet, but had the potential to become one if things got serious. I think this situation meets that definition.”
“In which scenario,” Jokono added, “the local Spacer security agencies would have orders to crack down on anyone with known Dawn ties. Private companies mostly, employment agencies, anyone in Spacer jurisdiction employing Worlders or Worlder sympathisers.”
“Yeah, and suddenly that two year Worlder employment restriction starts to make sense,” said Erik. “They don’t want Worlder patriots like Heuron Dawn building a base of support in Spacer jurisdiction. Thanks guys, I’d like all three of you to stay patched into Coms and listen to the chatter, see if you can help us figure out the situation.”
“Of course Erik, we’re on it,” said Lisbeth.
“Helm,” said Erik as he cut the com, “this looks like an opportunity to me. Under normal circumstances we’d have to stick to traffic guidelines, but this looks like a security situation. Fleet are intercepting local vessels, we’ve no idea if any of them are threatening to Fleet, we’re incoming with battle damage into a blind situation and we’re on a two minute light delay from station which will make a detailed assessment of the situation difficult.”
“I agree,” said Shahaim. “There’s a good security argument to boost V and go in fast. We could cut out a whole thirty hours of approach, buy ourselves some more time.”
“Plus they’re going to be busy,” Kaspowitz added. “We were betting on questions and suspicion, but with all this going on, they might barely notice.”
“Oh they’ll notice,” said Erik. “But either way we can’t waste the chance. Nav, lay us a course for mid-system boost at middle-V, let’s try to get to Hoffen Station as quickly as possible. Scan, stand by to switch transponder to orange alert.”
“Aye LC.”
* * *
Hoffen Station gave them a hub berth, and Phoenix dumped velocity close enough to leave them a mere five hours of low-V coasting to station.
The plan had been to claim they’d been intercepted one jump short of Homeworld by an unidentified assailant, who’d put the hole in their side and damaged their jumplines. This ambush could only have been carried out, they’d insist, by someone who’d known their route in advance, which suggested a leak, and thus a traitor of some kind at a very high level. Supreme Commander Chankow would have to be informed as soon as possible, and no one else was trustworthy, so they’d changed course and headed for Heuron… only to have their jumplines fail, and spot a rock that appeared settled and thus a useful place to do some self-repair, only to find it occupied by a hacksaw nest.
The genius of this particular tall tale, Erik thought, was that the least likely part of it — the encounter with the hacksaw nest — was actually true, and could be proved by the hacksaw parts they had in storage. He was hoping that that fact alone would at least buy them enough credibility to get the rest of their story accepted. The necessity to tell Supreme Commander Chankow of the traitor personally was also going to give him a face-to-face meeting… in which he’d do something to get some information from him. Exactly what, he hadn’t decided yet.
But closing in on Hoffen Station, no one from HQ had even asked to talk to Captain Pantillo, and Lieutenant Shilu’s brief operations report had gone unremarked upon. Unauthorised station traffic was blank, no civilian or other networks broadcasting, so they had no idea what the situation was on station. Erik guessed it was very busy, and simply no one had the time. He had Shilu put in a request to brief Supreme Commander Chankow, and it too went unanswered. What the hell was going on in there?
“Well that’s annoying,” said Trace, peering at the extra camera rig the techs had put above the command chair’s screens. “You get the whole system set up and you don’t even get to use it.” The command chair’s coms had a camera function, so the ship captain could be seen by whomever he was talking to. With superior officers, their use was compulsory. The engineering techs who’d installed the extra cameras insisted the software was simple enough — it would convert the feed of Erik’s face in realtime to look and sound like Captain Pantillo. The special effects weren’t hard for processors the size of Phoenix’s, and Erik was sure he knew the Captain’s mannerisms well enough to do a reasonable job — it was used from time to time to fool enemy ships and commanders they had reason to talk to, on the off-chance any of them believed what they saw. But so far no superior officer had called, and as commander on station, he was going to have to leave the ship as soon as they’d docked. That would leave Lieutenant Shahaim in the chair, and Erik wasn’t as sure of her acting ability.
“What does it mean?” asked Lieutenant Draper, who stood at the back of the bridge with Lieutenant Dufresne. With the LC off the ship, it was important that their two second-shift pilots knew the score first hand. “Why haven’t they called?”
“Several possibilities,” said Erik, watching the approaching bulk of Hoffen Station, slowly rotating, its rim filled with an endless, circling row of starships. “First, they’re on to us, and I’ll be arrested as soon as I leave the ship. In that case, Lieutenant Shahaim will be in command, and you are instructed to break dock immediately and run.”
“Yeah, that’s what you think,” said Trace, with a glance at Shahaim. Shahaim nodded knowingly.
Erik lo
oked back and forth. “You guys do actually know who’s the ranking officer here?”
“Sure,” Trace reasoned. “But as soon as you’re arrested, you’re out of the picture. And I think Lieutenant Shahaim and I are in agreement that the ship’s survival requires you in the chair.” Shahaim did not disagree with the younger woman. “Besides which, if you get arrested, I’ll get arrested, because I’m coming with you. And good luck keeping my Lieutenants on Phoenix if that happens.
“My alternative plan is that we go out armed and in force. It’s a messy station, we don’t know the security situation, and station’s not talking to us. We’ll assume a hostile dock and deter them from arresting us in the first place.”
Erik took a deep breath. A week ago he would have been angry, being contradicted by his partner in command (and in crime) in front of everyone. But it wasn’t a bad plan, and everyone’s consent that he was irreplaceable was flattering. “Sure,” he said. “You’re the ground combat specialist, let’s do that. Second option is they’re just too busy. I don’t buy that, there’s plenty of lower ranking officers on Hoffen, or in one of these other Fleet vessels, who could query us. Something else is going on.
“I personally favour a third option — this is politically complicated, and they’re very unhappy to see Phoenix here at this moment. They think Captain Pantillo is still alive, they’re wondering why the hell he’s here, and they don’t want to deal with him right now. Probably they think he’s up to something, so they’ll be very suspicious. I’d guess they don’t want to talk to him right now for fear that he’ll discern something about them. You know how good he was at reading faces.
“So everyone’s pretending to be too busy to speak to us right now… only they’re not entirely pretending, they probably are very busy. I’ve been in contact with Mitchell Klinger, CEO of Debogande Enterprises, Heuron Division. He’s agreed to see me and offered me secure quarters… he’s not a friend of the family but he’s known to be a very good manager, we should be able to get a good view of what’s going on from him. I think we can trust him but as the Major says, if we’ve enough guns along it shouldn’t matter either way.
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