by Dave Bara
“But—”
“No buts, George. The ladies are right. Commander Babayan will join the diplomatic contingent. Private Verhunce will fly the shuttle. The rest of the seats will be filled with the Science, Intel, and Economic teams. And that will leave you at the con, George. Thirty minutes after we land I want a second shuttle deployed. Make an excuse and say it’s an agricultural survey or something. But I want it ready at any moment to land and lend assistance if necessary,” I said.
“And me?” asked Karina, indignant. I looked down the conference table to her.
“You’ll have to stay put until we’ve had a chance to evaluate the situation on the ground. I’m sure there will be some sort of diplomatic dinner or some such thing. When that happens, I will have you down for it.” I said it with a finality that left no room for argument. Karina was still ready with a response.
“May I remind the captain that he and I both represent Union worlds in our royal capacities? Our greatest value to this mission is to be seen together, presenting a united front to the government of Sandosa.”
“Noted, Lieutenant,” I said. “But for now, the plans remain the same. All named staff is to be ready in the landing bay in two hours. Pack a bag for at least one overnight, if not two. All day shift bridge personnel are relieved and will be replaced with junior officers and night shift for the duration of our stay. Marines will be in full combat dress, excepting Chief Marker. Mr. Harrington and the Special Secretary will each have one accompanying marine wherever they go. Science, Intel, and Economic teams will get one marine escort per team or subteam, up to a max of six total marines. Two guards at the shuttle at all times on two-hour rotations. The relief shuttle will cycle through every six hours, and for now, keep the gunships out of sight in the landing bay,” I ordered.
“Will we just be replacing the twelve marines during the shuttle rotations, sir?” asked Marker.
“On the rotation cycle, yes. But the backup shuttle should be fully prepped and outfitted with thirty-six combat marines at all times.”
“Yes, sir. That only leaves two marines for the command party, sir.”
“Plus you, Mr. Marker. I’ll feel plenty safe,” I said.
“Aye, sir.”
“Captain, what about arming the command party?” asked Babayan. I thought about that for a second.
“Holstered honorary sidearms only. Is that clear?” There was a chorus of “Yes, sir” to that. The honorary coil pistols were usually reserved for military displays, and each one had just six shots worth of plasma in the small chambers. In this instance, though, I thought some sort of personal precaution was appropriate.
With that I ended the conference. The personnel lucky enough to go on the diplomatic mission headed back to the bridge and handed off their stations. Karina left the briefing room well ahead of me, and by the time I got back on the bridge she had relinquished her station to Ensign Lynne Layton and was gone from the bridge. I finished my final preparations in my office, then handed off the con to George Layton and made my way back to my stateroom, where I was sure I would face some angry words from my wife.
For once, I was wrong.
She was there all right, but she was sulking while I packed my bag with personal items.
“Don’t forget your toothbrush,” she said idly while flipping through a plasma magazine, lounging in her reading chair and already out of uniform. I didn’t take the bait, though, and just kept packing quietly, including the aforementioned toothbrush.
When I was finished I called up a yeoman to take my bags down to the Landing Bay. After he came and went, Karina and I sat together in silence for a few minutes, she in her chair and me across the room in one of the dining chairs from our small table, the bed between us. Finally she put her magazine down.
“I should be going to represent my people,” she said without looking at me. “The Special Secretary gets that privilege.”
“But that’s precisely why you’re not going,” I replied. “She has to be there for the working meetings as part of her job, and you don’t. I’ve always been a bit uncomfortable with this mission, and I don’t want to risk you when it’s unnecessary. The Sandosans have forwarded a day’s agenda to us: two hours of introductory talks, then six hours of formal talks, then a state dinner at 2000 hours in the premier’s palace. If you come down two hours before that on the 1800 rotation shuttle, then you can be formally presented at the dinner as my wife and a princess of Carinthia. Right now I’ve no need for a longscope lieutenant to fill one of only twenty-four available seats on the first shuttle,” I said.
“I’ve seen the list of formal meetings. I could help with the immigration negotiations.” It was actually a good point—she could—and I felt I had to give her something as a concession.
“Contact the Special Secretary and have her hook you up to the negotiations via a visual longwave, or whatever system they have. But I don’t want you to leave the ship until the dinner. I need to know you’re safe,” I said.
She accepted this concession with a nod, but, then she said, “Are you sure that you’ll need a princess of Carinthia at 2000 hours? You already have a princess with you, plus your Carinthian XO.” Her ego was bruised; I was smart enough to see that.
“I’ll need my loving and supportive wife, who just happens to be a princess of the realm. Will she be there?” I asked. She made me wait a long time before answering.
“She will,” she finally said. “Shall I pack a bag, or will you only require me for dinner and drinks?”
I thought about the answer to that question long and hard, then made the decision that was best for the mission.
“It will be safer if you spent the night aboard Defiant. And I would sleep better knowing you were here,” I finally said.
She was quiet for a long time, then replied, “As you wish, Captain.”
When there was nothing more forthcoming, I resigned myself to the impasse and got up to leave. As I opened the stateroom door she said one last thing to me.
“Be careful, Peter.”
“I will,” I said, then hesitated. “Karina, I know it seems like I’m leaving you out, but please know that it’s because I love you and want to protect you from danger.”
She looked at me. “I know that, and I know that you know how much I care about you and want you to be safe as well,” she said.
“I do,” I said. When there was nothing more to say, I made my way to the Landing Deck.
I had a medic from the sickbay staff inject the Historian’s longwave transponders into the entire landing team before we boarded. I ordered the Intel section to monitor the entire party at all times and report every thirty minutes to George Layton on the bridge. He was unhappy about being a glorified babysitter, but he’d drawn the short straw, along with Karina.
“George,” I said into my ear com from the Landing Bay, “I know you want to be down there with us, but you are performing a vital role. You’ll be down soon enough. And make sure you get a longwave off through the ansible to the Admiralty that we are commencing full First Contact protocols with Sandosa.”
“Understood, sir,” he replied. I could tell he wasn’t happy, but he was down my priority list a ways. Lots of people were unhappy about not being selected for this mission.
I cut the line with Layton and turned to Marker. We were the only two not on board the shuttle.
“Shall we, sir?” he said. We made our way up the steps and into the pilot’s nest, where we each strapped in next to Verhunce, our marine pilot. She greeted me with a hello, and I returned the pleasantry. She’d been one of the survivors of the station battle at Jenarus, and I respected her greatly for how she had conducted herself there. She was a corporal now, and she’d earned it.
“Take us out, Corporal,” I said.
“Yes, sir,” she responded, and we moved smoothly off the deck of Defiant and into space o
ver Sandosa.
“How long will the descent take?” I asked Marker. He looked at his watch.
“About twenty minutes, sir, if we take the slow route. If you want to make it exciting . . .” He trailed off.
“Let’s just stick to slow and dull,” I said. “No need to scare the passengers or our hosts.”
Marker just smiled at that. Then he leaned in and whispered to me.
“I hope they have beer at the socials,” he said. Now I smiled.
“Me too.”
Precisely on time, Corporal Verhunce brought us down on a large landing field at the New Seville capitol complex. There was a military honor guard and a pair of decorated grandstands full of people waving colored streamers, the blue, red, and gray of the People’s Republic of Sandosa. The center of the complex was taken up by a bright red dais where numerous dignitaries awaited us.
It would have been an impressive sight, had it not been obviously staged. The PRS had all the hallmarks of a despotic twentieth-century socialist state. No matter how many times that model had been tried on different planets, it had always failed as a governing philosophy. I remembered reading a quote in school from a famous woman whose name I had forgotten, who said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” That rang true in my experience, and it seemed to ring true for Sandosa. As I glanced out the shuttle’s side door next to the pilot’s nest, I noticed a capitol complex of gray marble, mostly dirty gray marble. The main thoroughfare was clear of cars, but the road was dusty with dirt and grit, and a few unimpressive military vehicles stood watch. Over the dim gray skies of New Seville the Sandosa star shone meekly. I guessed it to be early morning of what was certain to be an unimpressive day, weather-wise.
“Sir?” asked Marker as we stood at the door threshold.
“You first, John, then Verhunce, then I’ll follow. The marines can deploy out the rear, but weapons are to be kept down, and they are to assume parade rest immediately. The rest of the dignitaries can follow me out the pilot’s nest door,” I said.
“Aye, sir.” With a nod to Verhunce, he unlatched the shuttle door, opened it, and let the staircase slide down to the tarmac. Then the impressive marine walked calmly down the stairs and stood to one side, and Verhunce followed and deployed to the other side. I took the five short steps down to the tarmac and waved to the adoring crowd, which cheered loudly, then stepped forward to allow the rest of the entourage to follow. Once we were set on the tarmac, a military band played music that sounded like a funeral dirge to me, hopefully not the planetary anthem. The crowd stood still and stoic as it played itself to a dismal end, none too soon for me. That was followed by more cheering and streamer-waving from the grandstands. A loudspeaker voice yelled out at the adoring crowd, no doubt introducing us in some sort of Asian-variant language. After a few minutes of this, things were brought to a halt by a pair of soldiers bringing up a podium and microphone for a man in military garb to come up and speak to us. He spoke again in Asian, as if we would understand, but I got the general gist that he was welcoming us to the PRS.
Soon we were approached by groups of children, who pinned plastic flowers to our uniforms while giving the ladies full fake bouquets. Janaan caught my eye, and I smiled at her. She seemed as amused by the phony display of affection as I was.
“Think they’ll let us go inside now, sir?” asked Marker. I smiled again.
“It is a bit brisk out here, isn’t it?” I deadpanned, keeping my formal smile pinned to my face.
“I’ve had warmer days in a space suit,” he replied.
Eventually the spokesman came up and introduced himself to us with a salute, which I returned. I didn’t retain his name, though, as he spoke poor Standard. Everything about him screamed “elder statesman,” and he eventually called up an honor guard, which escorted us to cold steel benches in one of the grandstands.
I clicked over to my private com line with Marker as the wind howled through the marble square. “Looks like you’re shit out of luck with the beer, Chief,” I said.
“My ass is sticking to this bench,” Marker replied through the com. I tried not to laugh.
Over the next twenty minutes we were presented with a parade of low-grade military equipment that likely would not have impressed the North Palace Guard back on Quantar. Everything was polished, but nothing was new, and most of it seemed like it was for policing the populace, not fighting. I smiled and returned soldiers’ salutes, and blissfully, we were finally taken inside to what seemed to be the main administrative building.
Once there we met military attachés who finally spoke some decent Standard, if haltingly, and after being warmed up with tea in a reception area, we were ushered to the second floor, where we were seated around a long rectangular table which could easily accommodate forty. At the head of the table was a podium that was adorned with the Sandosan flag, the same colors as the streamers but with a single red-and-gold-piped star in the center. We were invited to use the restrooms and then were refreshed with more tea and some small snacks, which were surprisingly sweet-tasting. After a few more minutes of this, the room started filling up with Sandosan representatives, who staked out their seats and began chatting informally with our representatives, especially Harrington and the Special Secretary.
“What do you think so far, sir?” asked Babayan, who was flanking me on my right. I looked at Marker and we both smiled, and then I turned back to her.
“Not impressed so far. They must know who I am, yet except for that elder statesman and a few of the attachés, no one has even formally greeted me yet,” I said.
“Maybe it’s possible they think Harrington outranks you,” said Marker. “They’ve been communicating with him exclusively for the last year.”
“Could be,” I said.
“Actually, sir, I was wondering what your first impressions were of them as potential allies, or as Union members,” said Babayan. I was a bit chagrined by her reminder that there were priorities other than me on this visit.
“Of course,” I started. “First impressions are that the time between the Imperial Civil War and today has not been kind to Sandosa. It doesn’t look like a developing society. In fact, it looks to be just the opposite—declining, and possibly failing.”
“I wouldn’t let my marines use that military equipment for target practice,” piped in Marker.
“Your impressions, XO?” I asked Babayan.
She shrugged. “Based on what we’ve seen, which admittedly isn’t much, I’d say they were about a five on the societal scale, maybe a three on the industrial,” she said.
“Not exactly top of the list for Union admission. It’s more likely they’d only get a trade agreement, if that, but that depends on the Union Special Secretary,” I said, glancing across the table at Janaan, who was engaged in a smiling conversation with a Sandosan woman in military uniform bearing the rank of captain. “Anyway, it depends on what they truly have to offer. And right now Quantar and Carinthia don’t need women.” We all laughed.
A few minutes later things finally began to get going.
A man in a civilian suit gray as the skies over New Seville entered from the rear of the room through some simple French doors. He was the first dignitary I’d seen in civilian garb. He was a grim-looking man, never smiling, talking to a couple of flunkies in his own language. I’d have guessed him to be about fifty, but it was hard to tell. His face was lined and his skin pale, like everything here. I wondered if this was the premier, a man whose name I couldn’t quite remember from Harrington’s briefings. Just at that moment I got a touch on my elbow from Harrington.
“Just in time,” I said, standing to greet the merchant. “Is that the premier?”
Harrington shook his head. “No. That’s the vice premier, the man who runs day-to-day operations of the government, Kay Jen Kho. He prefers to be referred to as just Kho
, with his title first, of course.”
“Of course. Vice Premier Kho,” I repeated for practice.
“The first premier is Uto Kim. You probably won’t meet him until the state dinner tonight.”
“Good to know.”
“Things should be getting underway here soon. I caution you not to take these people at first appearance. They may be far more sophisticated than what they’ve shown us so far,” Harrington said.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I replied. Harrington nodded and started to move off, but I stopped him with a hand on the arm.
“One more question. I haven’t seen a single one of the original immigrants, the Iberians, not even as a servant. What’s the story there?” I asked.
Harrington looked very uncomfortable at my question, but then he nodded at the podium as the vice premier moved toward it, preparing to speak. “Later,” he said, then made his way back across the table.
“Problem, sir?” asked Babayan. I shook my head as I sat back down.
“Not sure yet, XO,” I said.
At that a man began pounding a gavel, and the entire room came to order quickly. He stepped up to the microphone and spoke in Standard to the room.
“On behalf of First Premier Uto Kim and his Glorious Wife, Lady Mae Zhen Kim, I call this meeting to order. We are here to greet the first interstellar visitors to our world of Sandosa in many years. We are excited about the possibilities these talks hold and look forward to discussing how we can all work together in the future to the benefit of Sandosa, Pendax, and the other members of the Union of Stellar Republics,” he said. That was the first time I’d heard that title used in a long time. Most of us just called it “The Union.” The man banged on the gavel a couple more times and then introduced Vice Premier Kho, who approached the podium and began speaking in his native tongue. The second man now sat to one side of the podium, and as Kho finished a statement, he translated into his own microphone for the rest of us. His Standard was by far the best I’d heard from anyone here so far.