by Rolf Nelson
The political functionary stifled a chuckle in spite of himself, then looked at the boy expectantly, then looked to the door to prompt his exit.
“He can stay,” Helton countered, liking the subtle things going his way. “What better way to learn to be an adult than to watch and listen to them?”
“Highly irregular.”
Allonia shrugged dismissively. “We are talking about the fate of his home and family. He’s welcome to stay.” She looked at him sternly. “As long as you hold your questions and comments for later, and don’t make any more horrible puns.” Quinn agreed with a vigorous nodding of his head.
Tentatively, the two newcomers each selected a golden-brown piece from the steaming plate of fresh mollusk, looking at them dubiously before they pop them in and chew slowly, their skepticism giving way to pleased smiles. “Every bit as good as I remember them from Earth. Marvelous! Here, of all places.” The Ambassador shook his head in wonder and took another as he leaned back in his seat, letting out a sigh of contentment. “I got the message less than an hour ago. I was the only person on station available to meet you, I was told, but the exact nature of the meeting was rather unclear.” He sipped his mint julep absently. “The details were confusing and seemed contradictory. Androids and pirates and murderers, oh my! I was given the clear impression I was negotiating a surrender of dangerous criminals on a warship. I’m not really authorized to sign anything, just open negotiations for some sort of exchange, find out what your demands were, that sort of thing. I was certainly not expecting this. Perhaps it would be best if you start from the beginning and tell me what your side of the story is, then perhaps the directives I have received will be actionable.”
Three hours, two juleps, and many samples of Kwon’s culinary skill later, the ambassador had a much better understanding of the situation he was involved in. He’d toured the ship, heard the outline of their story, seen the book, and met most of the crew, family, and recently former conscripts aboard. On the one hand, the tale seemed outlandish. On the other, there were clearly a lot of very scared politicians with their eyes, and guns, on this odd little ship and surprisingly friendly crew. The open and genuine appreciation for the captain and his ship by the conscripts was the sort of thing he rarely saw. It was easy to forget the cute young lady was a highly engineered killer, the charming pilot had destroyed a frigate while fighting off other ships, the ship was an inhuman and ancient mass killer with planet-busters, and the captain was wanted dead or alive on almost every colonized planet. He detected none of the carefully guarded language and scripted kabuki he typically saw in diplomatic circles. Even the few questions and comments made by the boy were openly addressed in unusually plain language.
The demands were simple, clear, and reasonable on their face. And he knew that there was no way any government would ever agree, especially the one he represented. This one little ship represented a gigantic wild card in every political act, party, and government, and it couldn’t be left alone. It was too much power in one place, and everyone would both try to suborn their support and fear someone else would gain leverage on them first. The seemed like nice, honest people. But those could be the most dangerous kind.
If all that was not enough, the translation guide was more than a straw to a camel, it was a giant brick that would break the back of every nation that might be desired to be called such, for it spelled out the doom of every organization above the level of tribe. Planets would hate it. Corporations would hate it. Leaders of the various Faiths would either not understand it or fear its effect on the all established hierarchy. Sub-planet states would hate it. But the most productive people would embrace it, and that in itself would be deeply destabilizing.
The only thing that really puzzled him, if these seemingly earnest people could be believed, was the Planet Movers. Their carved message was threatening enough in its own way, but… why had they sought to destroy humans, and why had they changed their minds upon meeting this strange little ship and its crew? That question would keep him up for the rest of his life, he was sure. It was humanity’s new supergiant-sized known unknown.
Chapter XV
Recruiting
Captain Nomon sat quietly, nursing a beer in an out of the way watering hole he’d visited occasionally since he was a visiting ensign long ago. It hadn’t changed much, the brew was good, there weren’t many fights, and the music wasn’t too loud. It was a good place to sit and think, away from all the normal fluff that went with his rank. It was busier than normal, but a quiet crowd, mostly short-haired working-class men in quiet ones and twos also trying out the local product in frosty mugs. He was somewhat surprised when a woman, tall with short blond hair, tapped the chair next to him at his little table. “Is this taken?” she asked with a smile.
He didn’t recall seeing her come in, but he motioned for her to take a seat. “No, not at all. Please, be my guest.” He glanced up and down her figure, thinking she looked nice, fit and healthy if not quite as slender as he preferred. She was dressed nicely, not a party-girl flaunting or working-girl shameless, but professional, respectable. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked, returning her smile.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Thank you, I think, but what for?”
“Word is that the Montserrat had a very close encounter recently, and came back mostly intact.”
His smile faded, and he looked at her suspiciously. “Who are you?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m a navy brat. A friend of mine is on Montserrat. Power systems tech, had a wild story. Well, part of a wild story. He didn’t see much of it first hand, but the scuttlebutt was impressive. Thought I’d see if half of what he’d heard was true.” She tapped the table screen while she’s talking, ordering a half-liter of a light amber ale, and waved off his reflexive offer to pay with a brief “I can buy my own, thanks.”
“Reporter?”
“No. Pilot, actually.”
“Oh?”
“Academy trained for smaller ships, got shifted to officer shuttles. Now deep survey work, some cargo hauling, this and that. My friend knew I liked a good story, thought I might be able to find you here…. So, is it?”
“Does your friend have a name?”
“Of course,” she grinned, “but I don’t want to get him in trouble.”
Nomon leaned back, suspicious but curious. “How about you tell me something, prove your connection a bit?”
“Easy. One of the port hangar doors malfunctioned so you couldn’t launch all your interceptors at first. Nukes make the news; things like that don’t.”
The captain nodded acknowledgment that it was certainly something nobody outside the ship crew, or a reader of page 15 in appendix A of the formal report, might know about.
“And drive core two is failing, the maneuver stress chasing that target nearly broke it. It’s being overhauled now. Must be bad to do it at a civilian dock.”
“Hmmm… That’s not something even in the official report. But any drive or power tech would know about it, rightly enough…. So if you know everything already, what do you want to hear from me?” He took a sip, licked the foam from his lip, and looked at her quizzically.
“That’s just a technical detail. I want to know what a match-up like that was really like, what decisions were being made. What’s a ship so dangerous you need more firepower than a normal carrier fleet like? What were you thinking, what was the biggest surprise? You don’t need to share anything classified, or name names, just… make an impression from a front-row seat in close action. I flew landers for the Navy for a while but never took one into combat for them.” Her face looked honestly interested, curious, and pretty.
“Well… it started out a total star-party, with a half dozen admirals from each of five different navies, all arguing they should be in charge. Things were getting ugly when a couple of them sort of pulled a handful of us aside and just said ‘go do it,’ then saw that we got f
ed intel as it was verified. We worked out a plan…”
Half an hour later, his audience of one listening in rapt attention, he concluded “… but in the end, we got him. Only a little bit of debris on the surface, but between a thousand meters of water in the open sea and a dozen nukes… we got him.” He took another sip from his mug to soothe his throat from an energetic tale being told well.
“Her,” she corrected.
“Hmmm?” he raised his eyebrows quizzically over the brim of his brew.
“Her,” she repeated. “The pilot was a woman.” Using a brief glance and a subtle elbow gesture she directed his eyes to a nearby table where two solid-looking men sat. They offered the slightest of salutes with the mugs in their hands, and the slight bulge in armpits and waistbands become obvious. Glancing toward another table, he saw two more men “casually” noticing them. He stiffened, glanced around at the dozen suddenly very marine looking young men not paying as much attention to the drinks in front of them as they might normally.
“Don’t worry captain, they are just making sure I’m safe.” He looked at her hard, his expression calculating, while hers remained smiling and friendly. “Seriously, you tell an excellent tale. Fascinating and well told, decent tactics and execution. But you got a few details wrong. The avalanche wasn’t an accident. We fired the BFR at extreme velocity just as the valley was entered. The projectile vaporized from atmospheric friction before it could impact the ground. The resulting thunderclap brought it all down, the loop skyward was just to buy time while the snow and ice fell and filled the air. And although you gave her a hard run between surprise, a good plan, and vastly superior numbers, you didn’t destroy Tajemnica. She’s waterproof. You should have noted that the first detonation at sea was a megaton-yield warhead, bigger than anything you carry. It was set off just high enough to cover our dive into the ocean. We managed to get to one of the few places we thought was deep enough. We had to take on water to keep from bobbing around like a cork without the drives on such high power you would have detected them even under that many fathoms, and some of the debris was stuff that got washed out of the cargo bay.”
“We?” He was both incredulous and unable to not believe her.
She nodded, a very genuine-looking smile on her lips. “I was piloting. Just me, the cook, and a kid on the bridge. The boy asked if we could hide in the snow, the cook asked if seafood was an option. We might have done more damage to your task force, but the captain and some of our normal crew were temporarily off ship, and we had expended a lot of ordnance getting there. You really did make us work for it. Seven to one was not what I wanted to wake up to that morning.”
“So why are you really here?” His words were hard, cold, his eyes flinty.
“Oh, please don’t take it the wrong way, Captain Nomon. I’m not taunting you. I really wanted to know what you thought. I didn’t want to destroy those ships, but I had no choice if I wanted to survive. If we wanted to live…. I assume you’d do the same, fight as hard as you can?”
His look gave her the answer as clear as any words could.
“So what will you do when you face a couple Armadillos that are not caught by surprise? Or maybe a dozen… with full magazines?” She paused and drained the last of her drink. “Does that give you nightmares? Are your elected leaders worth dying for any more? We really don’t want to see men like you die. You are doing your job as best you can, and just being used as pawns in the political game. More Armadillos are being made. And they need good captains. Perhaps you could be one, if you’d like…. Or you can face them in your frigate.”
“I… are you trying to induce me to desert?”
“No. Hire you, sort of.”
“…Why me?”
“You are competent. But not unique. The same offer is going out a number of… suitable… people. Captains. Admirals. Commanders. Marines. Techs. Specialists. Non-coms. The ships are picky, but-”
“The ships are picky?”
“An Armadillo-class ship has a fully self-aware AI. Not the most creative beings, but they have wicked-fast execution. They work best with a volunteer crew of the right sorts of people. You can’t take the ship over, it doesn’t do so well without a human crew. They are not the enemy they are made out to be by your command.”
“You sure fought like the enemy.”
“We were being attacked by a squadron with orders to nuke us on sight…. Do you like being away from your family?”
“What’s my family got to do with this? Are you threatening them?”
“Oh, no, not at all. Quite the opposite. A naval officer is away from the family for a long time. It’s hard on them. I’ve seen the stress first-hand. Part of the reason I left the navy is a few too many thought women were aboard to be nothing but their play-things, and too many of them were. On an Armadillo, family can come along. We have three generations on Taj. Tajemnica is a warship, but she is so much more.”
The screen on his table lit up with Taj’s avatar, the armored tanker, chewing on a cigar. “Howdy, again. Some of my friends call me Taj.” He flashed a grin. “Can’t kneel. No knees.” Nomon’s face showed his surprise plainly at this unexpected jocularity.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Nope.” Taj’s avatar blew a smoke-ring out of the corner of his mouth without removing the stogie from the other. “Added another pip on the Order of Plissken medal, though…. Time’s comin’, bub, where men like you will have t’ pick a side: the people in power, or just plain people. If you don’t make up your mind soon, it’ll be chosen for you, and the power players are not above using your family to help you decide, if you catch my drift.” The avatar removed the stogie from his mouth and leaned forward as if to look Captain Nomon in the eye, heart-to-heart. “Read your history. Letting someone else select your side is always a bad plan, because they never have your best interests in mind. You’re a skilled commander, a good balance of aggressiveness and prudence. Hate to see that go to waste because you misremembered the oath you took, and what you swore it to. I highly recommend rereading it.”
Nomon looked acutely at the image, then at Quiritis, realizing the proximity that must exist with the ship. Reading his expression, Taj’s avatar morphed into the armored woman and shook her head. “Your fleet lost when it outnumbered me seven to one, after catching us by surprise on the ground at range. Your ship is sleek and elegant and powerful, built for long range attrition battles in deep space where it’s all over before you can possibly see the enemy with the unaided eye, and high-altitude support roles in a thin atmosphere.
“Up close and ugly is my job. I was designed to go keel to keel with anything in existence and turn its innards into outards, to make a landing zone lethal for the enemy and comfy for my crew. My first battle was more than four centuries ago; I engaged the biggest warship then in space so closely I gave her powder burns. I passed so fast their turrets couldn’t track and target-lock as I utterly destroyed her without resorting to nukes. Your ship is crippled, you have no backup, I have the element of surprise, and my main weapon’s muzzle is eight hundred seventy two meters from your command chair.” The avatar smiled grimly, her green eye flashing, and the Possenti cross on the left eye glowing a faint red. “You cannot win. You cannot stop us. You can only get your entire command and many innocent people on this station killed. Or…. You can read, learn, and decide at your leisure while finishing your beer.”
Quiritis glanced at her wrist com and stood up, then handed him an electronic business card. “It was genuinely a pleasure to meet you, Captain. It’s an offer we’d like you to seriously consider. This has contact and other information, and a checklist of things to consider before you make any decisions you can’t rescind. If you start to hear about people disappearing, competent people who might have been passed over for promotion because they are good at their jobs but not the office games, you have a pretty good guess where they are going.”
Captain Nomon watched her walk out, gracefully weaving betw
een the tables on the way, preceded by two of the young men that “happened” to be near the door suddenly deciding they needed to leave, and followed shortly by a half dozen others, leaving several more possible watchers behind to keep an eye on him. The mugs at the various tables they left were no more than half empty, cash left beside them in large enough denomination to ensure nobody working there would remember a thing. A professional security detail, and not a small one. The security cameras would undoubtedly have a miraculously well-timed failure as well, he was sure.
Much to think about, indeed. He’d never look at an AWOL report the same.
Tag
Captain Zorba sat back in the ready room off the Kestrel’s bridge, relaxing after another long day. Patrols were usually boring, but the continuous high state of alert and confusion in the last few weeks had been draining. He’d never before been ordered to be in so many places at once, and he’d been crisscrossing the system and its planets, moons, and stations like a madman chasing ghosts. Starting with the week when that damnable little ship had fought hard then sneaked in through a heavy screen, landed, and taken out M’boto’s frigate trying to flee. He’d never had to launch nukes for real before, let alone twice against the same target. Since then the paranoia had gotten worse, peaking and quieting before flaring up again, with orders that never had enough detail or background. After yet another rush to do nothing, he was finally getting a chance to park at a civilized station, pick up supplies, relax a few minutes, and maybe even exchange some enlistment-expired crewmen if Central managed to coordinate ships properly for once.
The com light blinked at him from his desk, but his closed eyes took no notice. It flashed more insistently, then beeped once, making his breathing stop for a momentary fraction of a second before he inhaled deeply and sat upright. Tapping the icon once, he read the caller ID. Tag! is all it said. Odd, he thought. Normally it would be name and rank, or job title. He double-tapped it. The cheerful face that popped up on the screen smiling out at him made his blood freeze.