“In a month you’ve learned enough to translate it?” Dr. Jameson asked. Chei was helping him up from the floor.
“A bit longer than that,” Jeph said. “Their language doesn’t work like any spoken language from earth, but with the right … interpretation … we can work it out.”
“Da-nu ahn shada Tacra. Shan Takhu,” he said. A group of pictographs appeared on the obelisk beside him and he nodded at them. “If I may?”
“Please,” Roja said, staring at the message on the display.
“The old ones of Takhu greet the children of Shan Tarah inside the Repository. As you are now, we once were. In flesh and in mind. When we were children, we achieved the stars and eternity in life, through the creation of you and your siblings. You have emerged from the seeds we planted on the worlds of Shan Tarah. You are our legacy.
“We left this archive as a gift for you. Within it you will find the collected knowledge of our complete existence. These technological and scientific understandings are a base from which to build your future. That you have discovered the Tacra at this point in your evolutionary journey, means you are able to reach beyond your cradle and embrace a higher destiny among the stars.
“Use this gift with wisdom and you will prosper. The universe lies open before you.”
He turned away from the screen and looked into Roja’s eyes, hoping to see understanding. “A million years of science and technology.”
“In the hands of children,” she said, looking around the inside of the amphitheater. Finally, she nodded.
“You were right, we wouldn’t have believed you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Personal Quarters of the Executive Director: Galileo Station:
Derek Tomlinson sat in silence, his implant providing a mind’s eye view of the carnage spreading like a fire around the FleetCom L-2 Shipyard. Word had not yet reached the media, but it was a matter of time.
What have we done?
“This is what you wanted,” Odysseus said through his link.
No. It is what you needed, he corrected. Tana Drake is your enemy, not mine.
“She possesses evidence that connects you to multiple murders,” it said. “Therefore, she was an enemy to both of us.”
Do you think this has stopped her? he asked.
“Unfortunately, I do not believe so. It appears from one exchange intercepted toward the end of the battle that she has escaped capture.”
Then this horrific mess was for nothing, he thought standing up and walking over to his liquor cabinet. He seldom drank, but his nerves needed something to sooth the pounding of his heart.
“The newswaves will get this,” he said out loud as he poured himself a straight scotch.
“There is an exceptional quantity of unsecured optic feeds of the incident. I believe that was Paulson Lassiter’s intent all along,” Odysseus said.
“To show us starting a war?” he shook his head.
“There was an unusual amount of shuttle traffic in the vicinity of the L-2 Shipyard during the engagement.”
“Why would he want to show off a mistake of this magnitude? He’s been resisting the use of force all along,” he said. “He came to me complaining your leveraging tactics were coercing him into it.”
“It was his intent to do this. He wanted to make sure it is obvious to the people that you are the one behind the battle,” it said. “Making sure there is a visual record of events, leaves ample witnesses to affix blame to you.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, taking a heavy pull from his drink and refilling the glass.
“If Lassiter intended to capture Tana Drake, he would have committed adequate resources to achieve his objective. He never intended this attack to succeed.”
“Then why do it?”
“If he could make you the public face of this fight and simultaneously appear incompetent and brutal, resistance to your leadership would increase,” Odysseus explained. “Ultimately this could result in your removal from office.”
“Leaving him in a position to ascend to power?” Derek shook his head. “There’s no charter in place so there isn’t a process to remove me.”
“He is the logical successor as he was the leader of the unaligned members of the Union. They are the largest segment of the population, so his assumption of your position would be widely supported,” it said. “Regardless of the method necessary to accomplish it.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said, shaking his head. “It has to be that he didn’t plan this attack with enough skill. None of us have the experience to run a war. None of us want a war.”
“There are indications that he may have had this planned for much longer than you have been aware,” it said. “The archival records of his public appearances prior to his election in 2236 show several instances where he did invoke fear of war as a motivational message.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give a speech,” Derek said. “The members of the chancellery were never much interested in unaligned politics.”
An image of an unaligned party election rally appeared in Derek’s mind and he leaned back against the cabinet to watch the scene play out. In the center of the sea of bodies, Paulson Lassiter stood on a riser basking in waves of thunderous applause.
The room died to silence as he held up his hands. “Yes, we have had peace for fourteen decades. For longer even than any of us have been alive. We and our children, have never lived in fear of power, for we have been the balancing force for stability.” More cheering exploded across the crowd and he waited again. “We are the voice of sanity against those who would aspire to rule. We must never allow them to gain power enough to wage war. War is the game of the elitist class, and its cost is paid in the blood of our children.”
“There are thirty-seven other instances where he utilizes some variant of the phrase ‘war is the game of the elite’ in speeches,” Odysseus said as the scene faded from his mind.
“It’s still a long way from a rally to a coup,” Derek said, shaking his head, but feeling a lot less confident than was comfortable. “He would still have to unseat me.”
“You already suspect, he may have arranged the deaths of two chancellors, and the former prime minister. Additionally he has now orchestrated an event that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of individuals,” Odysseus said. “Having you arrested and executed would not be outside his operational parameters.”
“Do you really think he’d do that?” he asked.
“Yes.” Odysseus said, echoing the answer he already knew in his heart.
Sighing, he walked back over to his desk and punched in the comcode for the head of his personal security force.
“Find Paulson Lassiter and have him brought to my office immediately.”
Inside the Tacra Un: L-4 Prime:
Chancellor Roja had been thinking about how to deal with their new reality as diplomatically as possible. She wanted to get Jeffers and Jameson on the same page before they all sat down across the table to hammer this out, but the only place she could think of to have a private moment was standing in the gangway outside the airlock. Because a space ship had no need for an audio pickup on the outside, if they closed the door and talked before they went inside, that was the most privacy they would get.
“Before we get back, do you mind if I have a moment alone with my people?” she asked as they walked up the gangway.
“Of course,” Jeph said, nodding. “Close the hatch and talk out here. Pound on the door when you want in and I’ll leave Chei in the airlock to explain how to cross the threshold in the opposite direction. We don’t want you to knock yourself silly crossing the gravity ledge.”
She watched the three of them hop into the airlock and seal the door behind them. She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. “What do you think?” she said after several seconds.
“Honestly, he went way over the line to get us down here,” the captain said. “He’s holding my entire sh
ip and crew hostage, but at the same time … holy shit.”
“I understand and agree entirely,” the chancellor said. “However, there’s no reason to believe he’ll go back to the Armstrong to face consequences for his actions. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done something similar if I was in his position, and that puts me in a tough moral place.”
Jeffers crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling above the chancellor’s head for several seconds. “Even if he pulls the bomb out of the ship, I don’t know if we can jam him up against the wall. He can always lock the door and keep us out.”
“I don’t think I need to remind anyone that he’s sitting on top of the only way into the greatest discovery in human history,” Jameson said. “The longer it takes before we can get in here and start exploring, the greater the potential loss. We don’t know what’s coming at us and the clock is ticking out there.”
Roja nodded. “There’s some validity to that.”
“I don’t disagree,” Jeffers said. “Ultimately if it turns out that the only way to get the quicksand to shut off is to finish the language matrix, then maybe it’s best not to jiggle his elbow until he gets that far.”
“Would that mean you’d back me acknowledging his status as governor?” Roja asked.
The captain leaned her shoulders back against the opposite wall. “You know I’d back you whether or not I agree with you. But if you feel he’s qualified to deal with this, then I might have some debate.”
“I don’t think anyone would be qualified,” Jameson said.
Jeffers nodded. “Probably true. Then the next question is, do you think he’s qualified to protect it, if Tomlinson or anyone else comes after it?”
“He’s a believer,” Roja said. “He risked everything and effectively leveraged what little resource he had to render the most potent ship in the Union completely powerless. I think he might do alright.”
“Disregarding my personal embarrassment at being shoved completely out of frame, I have to admit it was a brilliant tactical maneuver,” she said. “In a fight, someone with that kind of cunning is better to have beside you than across from you.”
“I’d like to suggest one thing,” Jameson said. “His people have a substantial head start in understanding what’s down there. We need to make sure we can get some of our science staff involved in the process, but I think we’d be smart to offer to join their effort, rather than assume we’re best qualified to lead it.”
“You don’t think we’re better tooled to lead the project?” Jeffers asked shocked that her chief scientist would be willing to play second seat.
“Ultimately this will go way over all our heads,” he said. “I may be more educated, but I’ve been around enough to know that in the field, experience counts for much more than it does in the academic world.” He shrugged. “I also know both Dr. Ian Whitewind and Chei Lu by reputation. They are more than qualified to lead any team we’d want to put together.”
“Why do you say that?” the chancellor asked.
“Did you ever hear of Dr. Anton Stanislav?”
“I read about him. One of the heavy fusion reactor designs is named after him.” Jeffers said.
The scientist nodded. “He was considered the top physicist in the Union. Dr. Whitewind was his chief scientist on the Vesta Hyper-fusion project, but they parted ways when Whitewind realized the work was too dangerous to continue.”
“I vaguely remember Arun talking about that once,” Roja said. “Something about creating self-sustaining black holes.”
“He and Stanislav fought to a stalemate before an underhanded political maneuver cost Whitewind his academic standing,” he said. “What is interesting is that although he was Stanislav’s equal intellectually, he didn’t have the water to kill the project. But Chei Lu did.”
“He can’t be in his twenties,” the captain said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“Yes exactly. He was still a teenager when he beat the best among us.” Jameson nodded.
“And somehow they both ended up on an iceball on the dark end of the solar system,” Roja said.
“We could do worse than letting them lead the work for now,” the scientist said, looking between the chancellor and captain.
“I don’t know that I like it much, but I can’t argue,” Jeffers said.
“Then I think it’s time we make it official and congratulate the Governor on his new position,” the chancellor said, reaching out to rap on the hatch. “What was it he said they wanted to call this place?”
Offices of the Executive Director: Galileo Station:
Director Tomlinson stood facing away from the door and staring at an image of the L-2 Shipyard when four guards marched Paulson Lassiter in. He didn’t turn but his implant showed him the view from one of the security cameras in the corner of his office, so he knew they’d walked him up to the desk and pushed him down into a chair.
“What’s going on here?” Paulson growled as he studied the image on the screen.
“Perhaps you should tell me that,” Tomlinson said.
“Obviously you know I ordered the attack on L-2,” he said. “I was doing what you and Odysseus expected of me.”
Turning he waved the guards out of the room and waited until they’d closed the door before he said, “Were you? Really? Or were you following your own agenda and playing me a fool?”
“I have no idea what you’re saying,” Lassiter said, looking genuinely confused. “You begged me to get the fleet involved. You wanted me to take Tana Drake down. I did it. Just like you asked.”
“I did not ask you to start a war,” Derek roared, slamming his fist down on the top of his console.
“I didn’t,” he said, pushing himself back in his chair. “It was a surgical strike.”
“It was a cluster fuck of hammers,” the director said. “And you staged it to look like my disaster. My war.”
“It still isn’t a war,” Paulson said. “It was a small fight. Two rogue ships trying to kidnap Tana Drake. She won’t be a problem for you anymore.”
“She escaped,” Derek said. “You didn’t even manage to get her. She got away just before your idiot commanders botched this.”
“How do you know that? We haven’t gotten reports from—”
“Excuse me Director Tomlinson.” The voice of one of his personal assistants broke in from his desk com.
“No interruptions,” he snapped, reaching to slap his hand down on the cut-off.
“I know sir, but you need to open a newswave. Now,” She sounded like she was chewing on razor blades and he paused.
“Which one?”
“Any of them. All of them. They’re all showing the same thing,” she croaked. “FleetCom just declared independence from the Union.”
Spinning to face his wallscreen, he saw the image shift to Graison Cartwright standing in front of a panorama of the lunar surface.
Clearly he was reading from a prepared statement, and he looked down at the podium as he paused mid-sentence, “… and we refuse to play the game with Derek Tomlinson and his artificial enforcer.
“Humans often accept their fate because they must. Those living in Galileo and the other habitats throughout the solar system, have no choice but to live under the control of those that provide the light, the food, and the very air they breathe. Yet this is not the destiny that humans were born to endure.
“Tyranny feeds on the fruit of ignorance. It grows under the watchful eye of those who delude themselves and then seek to deceive those over whom they rule.
“A new tyrant has assumed the throne. Oppression is coming. Make no mistake about it. We cannot, and must not, accept an existence under his absolute control.
“Derek Tomlinson sits in the former seat of government, not as a man, but as the mouthpiece for a manmade god. He has created and unleashed an artificial awareness more terrifying than anything we have ever faced as a people. And it serves him at the cost of our freedom.
“A few short hours a
go, this power-crazed madman set us all on the irrevocable path of war. He has drawn the first blood of innocents and in so doing has left us no choice but to resist with all our strength and resolve.
“This storm he brings upon us is fashioned by his own hand.
“Yet through his actions, he has sown the seeds of his own downfall. Know this, even as the war has just begun, he will not long sit upon that throne. The wind of war stirs the souls of the free.
“We encourage everyone who knows this truth in your heart to rise up and reclaim your place in the Union of Humanity. Join us in our resistance and together we will rise and see to the demise of those who stand in the way of truth.
“Of liberty.
“And of Freedom.
“With this declaration, we officially withdraw from participation in this false government, and proclaim our sovereign independence. We do not acknowledge the legitimacy of the current leadership of human civilization and stand in open defiance of its rule.
“Our freedom will not go quietly into the dark and empty void.”
The screen faded to a star filled black, and Tomlinson collapsed into his chair. Turning he raised his eyes toward Lassiter. “You still say this isn’t a war?” he said, his voice carefully controlled despite the absolute rage coursing through him.
“It wasn’t what I wanted,” he said. “They’re twisting it to serve their own desire for power. You can’t blame me for giving you what you want.”
“‘War is the game of the elite. Its cost is paid in the blood of our children.’ Do you remember those words? They’re yours.”
Paulson nodded.
“What you failed to realize is that as you climbed the ladder of power, you would someday be one of the self-same elite you wanted them to despise.” He tapped the icon on his desk to summon the guards.
“Perhaps it will appease both FleetCom and the Unaligned Masses when I hand them the body of their real enemy?” The door opened and the four security officers charged into the room. Lassiter started to jump up, but the closest guard pushed him back down firmly.
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