Soldiers

by John Dalmas

He nodded, barely.

  "Are you aware of how strong the evidence is against you?"

  Again his nod was slight.

  "Perfeta Stolz is an excellent attorney. But it is entirely possible that I can get you a lighter sentence than she can. Because leniency would be the entire thrust of my effort, while hers will be on getting the Front as much publicity as possible. Do you understand that also?"

  "That's how I want it," he repeated.

  She searched his face for some sign of defiance or stoicism, or perhaps nobility-the noble martyr. She found none of them. He looked defeated, his eyes avoiding hers. Not a promising hero for the Front. But Stolz had a reputation as a courtroom psychologist, with skill in preparing her clients.

  "Well then," she said, getting to her feet, "my best wishes for a successful trial." However you define success.

  Her blessing didn't sound entirely genuine. She was a competitor, a young soul, and didn't think much of surrender.

  ***

  Arraignment took place in a small closed chamber. Journalists were not allowed, though the attorneys might well find the media waiting in the Justice Building courtyard.

  Besides the panel of three judges, the chamber held Joseph Switzer, his counsel, the prosecutor, a bailiff, and two deputies flanking the accused. Switzer looked much better than he had three days past. He wore a business suit, stood straight, and looked not at the floor now, but at the chief justice. Though avoiding eye contact.

  Chief Justice Gil Hafiz spoke mildly to him. "For the record," he said, "are you Joseph Steven Switzer?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Have you been given a copy of the indictment?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Have you read it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Do you understand the charges?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good. Do you wish to speak for yourself, or do you want your defender to speak for you?"

  "I want my defender to speak for me."

  All three judges turned their eyes to Perfeta Stolz. "Counselor," Hafiz said, "how does the accused plead?"

  "Your Honor, as Mr. Switzer's counsel, I move that the indictment be set aside. The shooting took place on Luneburger's World, not on Terra. My client was born on Luneburger's World, grew up there, and has Luneburgian citizenship. Also, the military reservation was not Commonwealth property. And per Commonwealth versus Patel, CE 2781/05/17…" She completed the citation, along with the Supreme Court decision. "Therefore, the accused should be remanded to Luneburger's world, and tried there by the appropriate authorities."

  The chief justice glanced at the other judges, who sat attentive and impassive, then he leafed through his notes before looking back at Stolz. "As you know, Counselor, the legal term is `full rights of residency,' not citizenship. And your client had applied for and been granted full rights of Terran residency, with the accountability that accompanies it."

  Hafiz cocked an eyebrow at Stolz; she knew her plea had no grounds. She was preparing to play to the public, and within minutes of leaving would be speaking to the cameras. In his view it degraded the law, but within broad limits it was her right. If her client agreed, and if he understood what he'd agreed to. Hafiz was tempted to query the accused, but held his peace. He'd do nothing that could be used as a basis for appeal.

  Instead he continued to address Stolz. "Furthermore, at the moment of his injury and death, the victim was an employee of the Commonwealth government engaged in his governmental duties. The person who actually shot the victim was also an employee of the Commonwealth government, who at the time of the shooting was engaged in his governmental duties. Thus per Article 12, Section 3, of the Commonwealth Criminal Code, the crime unquestionably comes under Commonwealth jurisdiction. The murderer, a soldier, pleaded guilty as charged, before a court martial. His plea was accepted, and he has begun his sentence. Thus it is now appropriate for this court to try your client for the crime of contributing to murder."

  Stolz stood for a long moment as if disappointed-as if the court's decision was unexpected. Then she spoke again. "In that case, Your Honor, I must request a jury trial for my client."

  The judges had expected that, too. Jury trials were infrequent on Terra-three-judge panels were the norm-but in certain classes of crimes they could be granted. The chief justice turned to the prosecutor. "What say you to that, Mr. Prosecutor?"

  Hafiz knew the answer to that as well. The Office of the President had sent down a policy that, if requested, jury trials would be granted members of the Front for alleged Crimes of the First Category. Basically Hafiz disliked the policy. As a rule, juries came to the same conclusions as a panel of judges would have, while requiring much more time, expense, and turmoil. But he appreciated the government's situation.

  The prosecutor grimaced slightly; such a trial would turn into a Peace Front circus. "If the defense wants it so," he grumped, "we will not object."

  "Very well, Counselor," Hafiz said. "Your client shall have a jury trial." She had, he knew, a reputation for being very good in jury trials.

  She bobbed an almost bow in acknowledgement. "Thank you, Your Honor. Meanwhile, my client will not come to trial for a week or more. Therefore I respectfully request his release on bond."

  The prosecutor's exhalation was more hiss than sigh. Obviously she intended to fight over every proposed juror, eating up all the time possible, and providing a magnet for public attention. A Peace Front circus indeed.

  The chief justice smiled slightly. "Counselor, your request is denied."

  "On what grounds, Your Honor?"

  "On the grounds that whatever the outcome of his trial for contributing to the crime of murder, he will still face charges of inciting to mutiny."

  Stolz frowned. "Your Honor, I do not see what that has to do with my request. My client has complied with every order, responded to every request, without resistance." She appeared to grope for words, settling for "He is not a violent man. He decries violence, by persons as well as by governments."

  "The trial should cast light on that," Hafiz answered wryly. "It is, of course, possible to contribute to the crime of murder without intending that it go that far. We'll see. Meanwhile, your client stands before this court accused of two Crimes of the First Category. In such cases, the court has full discretion with regard to bail. Mr. Switzer has much reason to fear the outcomes of his trials, and there is an entire social class who would willingly undertake to conceal him or help him flee."

  Stolz's features had stiffened. "What social class, if you please, Your Honor?"

  "Let me answer it this way, Counselor. Who is paying your fees?"

  She answered indignantly. "The Peace Front, Your Honor. The party which more than any other decries this war and all violence."

  "Exactly." She plays her role well, he thought, for someone who belongs to the Center Party instead of the Front. He'd respect her more, he told himself, if her first allegiance was to the accused. But there was little she could do for him at any rate, and if the Front wanted to use Switzer for propaganda… He hoped, though, that Switzer really understood what was going on.

  She wasn't done yet. "Your Honor, I have one more request. A number of journalists have asked to interview my client." She took a small flat case from her pocket and held it out to him. "I told them to put their requests in writing, and that they might have to agree on one or two doing the interviews for all."

  The chief justice declined to receive the data chips; they were irrelevant. She took you by surprise on that one, Gil, he told himself. You're slowing down. "Denied again, Counselor," he replied. "If the court granted such privileges to accused felons, activists would commit crimes simply for the pulpit they provided."

  "Your Honor," Stolz said unhappily, "except for the jury trial, you have denied every request I've made for my client."

  "True. In fact, it seems to me you made those requests anticipating their denial. And I have no doubt you'll make good use of them after you leave this chamber."
/>   ***

  He was right, of course. She spent half an hour standing before cameras in the plaza outside, speaking carefully, but airing all her complaints. The court would provide the media with recordings and transcripts of the proceedings, but meanwhile, she'd put her own spin on them.

  Chapter 44

  Battle Master

  The CWS Altai, flagship of the 1st Sol Provisional Battle Force, was in hyperspace just seven days short of the Paraiso System. Its admiral, Alvaro Soong, lay propped on a pillow in his stateroom, hands cupped behind his head, reviewing. He was not a notable worrier. His usual style was to treat things matter-of-factly. But he'd made a decision-made and implemented it-that could wipe out whatever chance humanity had for survival. At least civilized survival.

  His rationale was that the chance being risked was thin. And if his decision worked out, it could substantially improve.

  If it worked out. He'd approached it on a gradient: "Just how good are you at battle games, Charley? Let me write a set of opening circumstances, and see what you can do with it."

  Both men-the one who occupied 210 pounds of primate body, and the one who weighed only 58 pounds, most of it a "bottle" of metal and synthetics-both knew what lay in the back of the admiral's mind. Are you good enough to direct a real battle with real warships? Are you really? Because the odds are heavily against us. I may be better at directing a space battle than any other officer in this battle force. At the Academy, my cumulative battle game score set a record. But if you can beat me decisively enough…

  Basically he was praying for a true genius in war gaming. And Charley had passed the test with ease, even flair. And a second, and a third…

  Soong himself was the default choice, but after extensive testing, he'd chosen Charley. For a while the choice had been reversible. Now it wasn't. Not if they were to engage the armada in the Paraiso System. They'd programmed too many changes into the Altai's battlecomp, trying to take maximum advantage of Charley's talents.

  Briefly the admiral turned his attention to his stateroom "window"-a large wall panel that in F-space usually gave a real-time view of the stars more clearly than an actual window could. But in hyperspace, the default view was of the F-space potentiality, as interpreted by the shipsmind, and it was neither esthetic nor ordinarily interesting. Usually it showed nothing at all. So he'd requested views of Terra. Terra, which he might never see again. Just now it showed the Swedish taiga-its trees sparse and stunted in the ever worsening climate. In the background was the great ice sheet of the Kjolen Range, intensely, painfully white in spring sunshine. It covered the fjelds as far north and south as the view permitted, and oozed slow white tongues of ice down the valleys toward the sea. A magnificent view, it also provided perspective. Many townsites and historical sites had been buried by the ice in this and many other valleys, leaving the region virtually abandoned. A few-a very few Sami had stayed, long since genetically more Swedish and Norwegian than Sami. They had relearned to herd reindeer, a valid lifestyle, given the climatic shift.

  A thought surfaced: if the Wyzhnyny prevailed, would they undertake to root out such tiny, harmless enclaves? That was what some of the colonies had been-small harmless enclaves in planetary wilderness. And seemingly the Wyzhnyny had rooted them out. From the alien point of view, he supposed it made sense.

  He pulled his attention away from the screen. In a week he'd emerge in the Paraiso System-the first inhabited system at which he could intercept the invader. How terrible, how overwhelming was that alien armada? How good were his Provos-his 1st Sol Provisional Battle Force? What chance did humanity have?

  You'll be the first to know, Alvaro, he told himself.

  He was not expected to win this battle, in the usual sense. Thank the Tao. He was to attack the enemy, cause as much damage as possible, then disappear into hyperspace before the invader could destroy him. And in the process learn as much as possible about enemy weaponry and tactics. Those were his orders. Engage, flee, and report.

  The decisive part-the most dangerous moment-would be just before escape into strange-space. That moment after the shield generators had shut down, but before the shields had sufficiently decayed to allow generation of a carrier bubble.

  War House deemed those waited-for reports so vital, they'd invested five of a seriously limited resource to make sure of them. In each battle group, the point battleship carried a savant communicator, and through that savant, a liaison officer was to give War House a running account of the fight. Then, when the fleet had escaped into hyperspace, the surviving commanders would debrief, again via savant.

  Though War House didn't know it in advance, the Altai was the exception. Her savant would be far too busy directing battle actions to give a running account. And afterward he'd rest, as long as needed, before channeling Soong's debrief.

  Soong hadn't told Kunming about his new battle master. War House might forbid following through on it. It seemed to him he would himself, if he were admiralty chief. Because War House hadn't personally tested Charley Gordon. And the battle would involve most of the battle-ready human warships and crews.

  And if somehow Kunming found out before the fact, and forbade it? Probably he'd ignore them. He'd spent weeks as Charley's assistant, developing strategies and tactics, modifying and remodifying procedures. But in simulation tests, he'd been a spectator, while Charley interacted with the Altai and the rest of the battle force in ways no one had thought of before.

  Early on, the admiral had been visited by anxiety, but the weeks of development and tests had left him quietly confident. Not of victory, but of Charley's genius and skills, and the wisdom of his own decision. The limitations of ships and weapons remained, along with the unknown abilities and resources of the Wyzhnyny.

  And that two-edged sword known as Murphy's Law, which threatened both fleets. Soong wondered if the Wyzhnyny recognized Murphy's Law. It seemed to him they must. It was inaccurate, of course. Murphy's Law-"Whatever can go wrong will go wrong"-had been predicated as humor. It was irony, not science. But by changing one word, you expressed a truth: "Whatever can go wrong may go wrong."

  In any case you did what you could, and Charley could outdo anyone.

  In normal gaming, a battle master gives the battlecomp a general strategy and a set of candidate tactics, via brief code words or phrases, very explicit. The battlecomp takes it from there, until that instruction is overridden by a new code word or phrase. Some gamers sometimes give a single such order. The secret to whatever success they have lies in evaluating the initial situation, and selecting or creating an effective strategy. The exercise itself is run entirely by the battlecomp.

  Charley, however, had come to the job with major advantages. His response time was faster than any other human gamer's, perhaps because his responses were mediated by a shorter, faster neural system.

  Charley knew the entire catalog of standard command codes, and had added numerous others of his own to make use of his special talents. And no one, to Soong's knowledge, was nearly so nimble with them. Charley could rattle off a sequence of appropriate commands, for a number of units, almost at the speed of thought. "Appropriate" involving the necessary allowances for unit momenta, signal time, equipment response times, and of course his own delivery rate in a command sequence.

  The battlecomp could, of course, handle the command function by default. But it could not know what Charley usually knows: the event vectors of the moment. His central genius.

  Meanwhile, in simulation, every warship in the fleet was carrying out battle actions bizarre and unimagined, even by the centuries of tactical wizards who'd labored anonymously at War House desks, programming, testing and gaming.

  Because creative and imaginative though they'd been, none of them had envisioned a resource like Charley Gordon.

  ***

  Estimated conservatively, the Provos would arrive in the fringe of the system twelve days before the Wyzhnyny's projected date of arrival. With the short closing jump, and a force n
o larger than Soong's, hours would be enough to form opening battle formations. So far, Charley's fleet drills had been in the virtual reality of the Altai's shipsmind. The rest of the fleet didn't know there was a new battle master. In the Paraiso System, the entire fleet would participate, its ships coordinated under Charley Gordon's direction, mediated by the Altai's shipsmind.

  ***

  Soong was on the bridge four hours before scheduled arrival. Already isogravs showed the system's primary, an F9 star without a name of its own, unless you consider catalog numbers. As soon as shipsmind had computed the optimum emergence solution, the admiral ordered an approach course and emergence tick, informing his battle force via that awkward set of phenomena called hyperspace radio.

  When that order had been acknowledged, he sent another: all hands were to be out of stasis before emergence, and ready to receive a live, all-hands briefing from the admiral and his battle master. Because the battle plan, tactics and protocols had changed greatly. The fleet's officers and crews needed to be set up for that; informed of what had happened, and how, reassured, and given confidence in the new command situation.

  ***

  On naval spacecraft, the signal for hyperspace emergence is a gong, mellow and golden, repeated over five seconds.

  Then the Provos popped into F-space scattered over a significant period-more than a millisecond-to occupy a million-cubic-mile volume of F-space shaped like a watermelon seed. Against a scintillant backdrop of stars, cold in aspect but hot, hot. The brightest, most vivid, being the molten-yellow primary only four billion miles away.

  The admiral gave his people thirty seconds to appreciate the sight. Then he began his all-hands address.

  "Officers and crew of the First Provos. We are in the fringe of the Paraiso System, and in a few minutes we'll begin to form battle units. Not the formations we've formed before, but something new. Something better. Something that will enable us to truly raise hell with the enemy when he appears.