John felt an odd flicker of sympathy. If the General had been right, the Russian refugees would have been the last survivors of the human race. There wouldn't have been any choice, but to use the aliens to build a new civilisation and eventually settle accounts with the Tadpoles. But he’d been wrong and his people were now trapped. The nightmare they’d unleashed on the aliens wouldn't be forgiven. They literally had nowhere to go.
“He took another ship,” Tatyana said. “This one was crammed with women and children. He had them brought to Vesy, then shipped down to the surface and announced they would be the mothers of a whole new generation. Most of the women were shared out among his men, among those who supported him. The children were pushed aside to be raised by the soldiers, by the troops who still supported the General.”
Vesper, John thought.
“He’s going mad,” Tatyana said. “Isolation combined with the grim awareness of total failure ... it’s enough to drive anyone insane. His command crews are loyalists; anyone he doubted was moved down to the surface years ago. I don’t think he would have left me on the ship if the crew hadn't needed a doctor. And there’s nothing any of us can do.”
Hadfield snorted. “You don’t think about relieving him?”
“And if we did,” Tatyana asked, “what then? We’ll all still be shot when we get home.”
“We will see,” John said. He had a nasty suspicion she was right. The Russians had committed so many crimes it would be hard to decide which one they were actually being executed for. “What’s the current situation on the surface?”
“The God-King rules thousands of square miles,” Tatyana said. “We’ve been giving him radios and other toys to help maintain his domain. And quite a few other ideas. They didn't have any concept of political commissioners until we introduced it to him. Given time, he will rule the entire world, while the General starts building his own tech base.”
How long would it take, John asked himself silently, for them to build up a spacefaring tech base of their own?
But there was no way to know. Humanity had advanced in fits and starts; it had taken nearly eighty years to move from the early ballistic missiles to a working SSTO design, then another thirty to produce the first gravity drives. Going by humanity’s experience, it would take at least five hundred years to put the Vesy in space to stay. But humanity hadn't had a roadmap to the stars, handed out by more advanced aliens. The Vesy might reach the stars in less than a century, if they avoided all the false starts.
And yet, they couldn't remain hidden for a century, he thought. Even if we’re lost too, other starships will probe along the tramlines. They will discover this world and take steps.
The General had to know that, he thought. But he was desperate. Perhaps, if he managed to get the aliens into space before their world was discovered, he would be able to bargain with the human race. Cold logic suggested the scheme was unlikely to work, but what price logic when people were desperate? The General and his loyalists literally had nowhere else to go.
“Tell me about them,” he said, instead. “How close are they to humanity?”
“They’re nothing like us, internally,” Tatyana said. “I dissected a couple of them, back when we were studying their world. They’re basically egg-layers; they can mate at any time, like us, but when their females are in mating season they tend to lose control and submit to the first male they see. Their society is heavily patriarchal because of it. Mentally ...”
She shrugged. “I would say they had the same baseline intelligence as humanity,” she added, slowly. “In some ways, though, they are quite different. Their scents change, depending on emotions, and they pick up on this. I think they actually have problems lying to one another, although I can't be sure. They didn't seem to understand the concept when I asked.”
John frowned. “Translation problems?”
“Perhaps,” Tatyana said. “Their language is relatively simple, according to the computers, but impossible for humans to pronounce. They can speak Russian, though; by now, I would imagine that Russian is spreading with terrifying speed. Everyone in their hierarchy wants to be able to speak it.”
“So we could talk to them,” Hadfield said, slowly. “That’s ... interesting.”
“They lack quite a number of concepts,” Tatyana warned.
“I suppose they would,” John said. “One final question, then. Are there people on the surface who might help us?”
“Human or alien?” Tatyana asked. “Humans ... I don’t know. Just about everyone is scared of the General, Captain. A couple of men defied him and he had them both impaled. Aliens? There’s no shortage of resistance to the God-King, but it hasn't had much success. The bastard has been quite successful in keeping his boot firmly fixed on their necks.”
“I see,” John said. “I want you to tell us everything you can remember, no matter how unimportant, about the aliens and the remainder of your colony. Everything you tell us will be recorded, then studied.”
He looked at Lieutenant Forbes. “Please escort her back to the brig, then record everything she says,” he ordered. “I’ll have questions forwarded to you from other departments.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Forbes said.
She helped Tatyana to her feet, then marched her through the hatch. John sighed inwardly, then turned to Hadfield. The Marine seemed as stunned as he felt.
“The General is likely to do something stupid if we sneak back and return with reinforcements,” he said. Besides, he wasn't sure he wanted to pull Canberra away from Pegasus. The escort carrier would offer extra firepower, but it would leave the new colony exposed to potential enemies. “We have to deal with him now.”
“Yes, sir,” Hadfield said. “But getting him away from Vesy is not going to be easy.”
Chapter Thirty-One
John couldn't help feeling a certain sense of anticipation as he stepped into the briefing room and nodded to his senior officers, who had risen to their feet. It was childish, in a way, but this was a true challenge. Part of him just couldn't wait to get stuck into the pirates who had done so much harm, no matter what they thought they’d been doing. And the prospect of rescuing the kidnapped women and children was a valuable bonus.
“Be seated,” he said, as he took his seat. A hologram of Vesy floated over the table, drawing his eye towards it. The world looked surprisingly normal, compared to Tadpole Prime, but it hardly mattered. Earth set the standard for normal and she had given birth to an intelligent race. “The situation is dire.”
He took a breath. “We cannot afford to wait for reinforcements,” he continued. “It will take at least three months to get reinforcements from Earth, assuming they were dispatched at once. By then, the Russians will have realised that they’ve lost a ship. They will probably assume the worst and do something stupid.”
“Like butchering the womenfolk,” Hadfield put in, quietly.
John nodded. “We have two separate problems,” he said. “First, we have to disable or destroy the Russian ships. Our source” - Tatyana - “believes that none of the kidnapped women and children are kept onboard the ships, so we do not have to hold back. However, we also have no idea what weapons the assault transport carries. It may be a tougher customer than it seems.
“Second, we have to suppress the Russian base on the surface before they can give us another hostage situation,” he added. “Or, for that matter, convince the God-King to rise up against us and attack, stabbing us in the rear. That too will be tricky.”
He paused, inviting comment.
“The assault transport may be just a modified freighter, sir,” Howard commented. “It shouldn't pose a serious threat.”
“We don’t know that,” John said, although he privately agreed. There was little to be gained by wasting resources on an assault transport. The Russians would either control orbital space above the targeted planet or avoid the risk of launching an offensive. “We have to assume the worst.”
He switched the di
splay to show the star system, silently cursing the tyranny of physics under his breath. Timing would be everything ... and he knew, all too well, that it wouldn't be on their side.
“This is my plan,” he said. “We will arrive here” - he tapped a space along the tramline - “accompanied by a drone. The Russians will see us as a pair of private survey ships, here to survey the system for possible settlement. They will have no choice, but to come after us with both of their ships. It would be disastrous for them if a survey ship was to report back to Earth, detailing the presence of so many tramlines.”
“They would have problems intercepting us, sir,” Armstrong said. “We’d be too close to the tramline for their peace of mind.”
“But they would assume they have a ship behind us,” John pointed out. “We jump back through the tramline; they follow us, screaming a warning to their mining ship. We’d be caught between two fires.”
He paused. “Or so they will assume,” he said. “Instead, we are going to capture or destroy both ships. We’ll throw everything at them, up to and including the kitchen sink. Whatever happens, those ships are going to die.”
“Yes, sir,” Richards said.
John nodded to Hadfield. “Prior to showing ourselves to them,” he added, “we will slip the Marines into the planet’s atmosphere. Once the Russian ships have been engaged, the Marines will attack the Russian settlement and overwhelm it. The objective will be to prevent the Russians either slaughtering the hostages or setting up another hostage crisis, one that will be a great deal harder to resolve. We must, again, assume the worst. The Russians have nowhere to go. If they think they’re on the verge of being defeated, they will try and gore us as badly as they can before they go down.”
“We could offer to accept surrender, sir,” Richards suggested.
“We will try,” John said. “But the Russians have no reason to expect anything other than a short march to the hangman. They will have no reason to surrender.”
“The timing will be tricky,” Armstrong said. “The offensive would have to be mounted once the Russian ships were too far from the planet to double back.”
“We will launch the offensive once the Russian ships are engaged,” Hadfield said. “The settlers will know about it at the same moment as ourselves, but they won’t be ready. We will be.”
Howard had another, more pressing concern. “What if the locals attempt to intervene?”
“We’ll engage them, if necessary,” Hadfield said. “However, it is unlikely they can react fast enough to prevent us from overwhelming the Russians.”
John nodded. “We will head to orbit as quickly as possible, once the Russian ships have been dealt with,” he said. “If the compound has been secured, we can strike local formations from orbit, should they attempt to attack our positions.”
He shuddered, inwardly. It was unlikely the God-King would surrender his monopoly on Russian technology so calmly. Indeed, given what Tatyana had told him about the locals, Russian technology was all that kept him from overstretching himself and being slaughtered in an uprising. The slave pens didn't suggest a happy population. John shuddered, again, at what they’d seen from orbit. Something would have to be done about that, one day.
“The Russians have done a hell of a lot of damage, sir,” Richards said. “Shouldn't we be considering how best to approach the aliens?”
“I think that’s best left to the diplomats,” John said. The Vesy weren't a spacefaring race. It wouldn't be hard to pull out of the system entirely, or make contact later, once tempers had cooled. “They may feel we shouldn't have any further contact with the Vesy ...”
But their system wouldn't be left alone, John knew. Seven tramlines ... like Terra Nova, dozens of nations and hundreds of corporations would descend on the system, establishing research bases and using the tramlines as they saw fit. Vesy itself was a biological treasure trove, as the third planet to produce an intelligent race; it was highly unlikely that the World Court would be able to prevent humans from making further contact with the natives. And the native culture would both fascinate and horrify human civilians. There would be demands for everything from armed intervention - for the native’s own good, of course - to the forcible introduction of modern technology. It wouldn't be long before the native culture was worn to a nub.
And yet, would that be a bad thing? From what little they’d seen, the native culture was horrific. Like so many primitive human societies, their system was based on sexual, religious, racial and even intellectual apartheid. Destroying it could only be a good deed; introducing the aliens to a better way to live would be even better. The vast majority of Vesy might not even want to keep their culture, once they developed technology that would allow them to change it. And who could say they didn't have the right to live as they pleased?
And they will never rule their own system, he thought. By the time they make it into space, their system will be legally free to anyone who wants to use it.
He cleared his throat. “We will proceed to the tramline in seven hours,” he said. “Get some rest, then ready yourselves. All hell is about to break loose. Dismissed.”
“Inspirational, Captain,” Richards said, once they were alone. “But are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“Yes,” John said, flatly. Commander Watson would never have questioned him. But then, she cared nothing for anything outside her sphere of interest. “We can't let this go on, Phil.”
“I know,” Richards said. “But you’re taking one hell of a risk.”
John nodded. Warspite could be lost, countless light years from home. Or the Marines could lose the fight on the surface, forcing him to negotiate with desperate Russians. Or the Russians might leave the system, or slaughter the entire population of Vesy in a desperate attempt to hide what they’d done. They could do it, too; a single asteroid, propelled with enough force, could wipe out the entire planet.
“It has to be done,” he said, simply. “The traditions of the Royal Navy demand it.”
He smiled, tiredly. Francis Drake or Sir Walter Raleigh would probably not have disapproved of slavery, as long as they were doing the enslaving. But Nelson, Cunningham and poor doomed Gannett would have pitted themselves against a notionally superior force, if that was what it took to uphold the navy’s traditions. And Theodore Smith had died bravely, every weapon blazing to the last, to save the entire human race. He would not have backed down from such a challenge.
And that, John knew, was that.
***
“Dear Penny,” Percy said. “I don't know when you’ll get this letter, so I’ll make it short and sweet. We’ve found the missing women and children, but we've also found another alien race. Yes, another. You may want to inform your editor, if the news hasn't already hit the datanets by the time you get this message.”
He took a breath, then went on. “The Russians are holding their entire planet in bondage,” he added. “It looks like the remains of North Africa, only worse. They’re backing a madman, according to the prisoners, who is trying to enslave the entire world. And it falls to us to try and do something about it. In six hours time, I and the rest of the Marines will be launched on a do-or-die mission. For some of us, it will be do-and-die. They made me learn Russian during training, so I will be the point man. That’s the poor bastard who normally gets shot at first. I may not come back.
“If I don’t ...”
He broke off, considering. Like all of the Marines, he’d written a will prior to leaving Earth; it had felt odd to write it, but he knew it needed to be done. Death came for everyone, in the end; a young soldier, part of the finest fighting force in the world, could still die in combat, or be so badly wounded he had to be invalidated out of the service. And if that happened, his family had to be cared for ...
“If I don’t come back,” he said, “remember I love you.”
It was a bitter thought. He’d fought with his sister for years. They’d battled each other over everything from toys to mo
vies, to boyfriends and girlfriends ... and yet, when the tidal waves had rolled over the west coast, they’d put their differences aside and struggled together to survive. He’d been protective of her and she, he understood now, had been protective of him. How much time had they wasted scrabbling like cats and dogs?
But we needed to grow up, he thought. Our parents were gone.
That, too, was a bitter thought. Their father had died on Ark Royal, but at least they knew he was dead. No one had ever found a trace of Molly Schneider. Percy knew the odds were against it, yet there were times when he wondered if she had found a sugar daddy and vanished to somewhere the floodwaters had never touched. His mother hadn’t been a bad person, not really, but the influx of prize money from Ark Royal had ruined her. Percy wondered, sometimes, if it would have ruined him too.
[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Page 32