Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (54 page)

Chapter 56: Tactical Imperatives

Jack Toranssen ran the meetings as a matter of course. He was not the most expert in the room, not by far, but he was the most senior, and he held the respect of all, even the like of most, a rare thing in a senior officer.

But these were strange times, and this was a strange meeting. The array of military strategists in the room came from as varied a background as any gathered in history. This was a veritable Tehran Conference of opposing ideals forced into unity, enemies of enemies, corralled after years of wrangling.

Jack was not immune to the irony of his position here. He was not unaware of how instrumental Neal and Ayala had been in quelling resistance as they moved toward this still young ideal, a truly global military council. But here they were, and here he now sat, at its head, as the most senior TASC officer, a force not destroyed by the quiet unseating of its leaders, but strengthened by the emergence of Minnie and Mynd as its true core.

The minds were the heart of TASC now, and every day they continued to cement their reputation for being inviolate and unswayable. Jack spoke with them often, and here, for all intents and purposes, he spoke for them, even though subroutines of theirs monitored this meeting place and even provided the means by which such disparate parties could communicate with each other.

He spoke now in English, and all heard in their respective tongues without delay as he said, “I know we all want to focus on the pending reply from the … Yallan fleet, is that right, John?”

John nodded, not smiling. This was not how John wanted his allies to meet the rest of his race, many of whom he knew were no more in favor of this war than he was. But it was what it was.

At John’s nodded approval, Jack went on. “The fact is, though, that any reply from them will necessarily take hours, maybe longer, and while our orbital and lunar observatories try to pinpoint their location in the night sky, we have much to do.”

With acquiescing nods from around the room, Jack went on, “Okay then, let’s start with a report from one of those observatories, shall we? Moira?”

At the vocal request, Moira appeared as a participant at the table. It was a clever trick. They had long ago relocated the bulk of the members of the committee to accommodations at District One, a complex that now spread for twenty miles up the southern tip of Sao Tome, and exceeded the island nation’s entire population several times over.

This allowed this group to meet in person, but when a member or a presenting party could not be present, as was often the case, Remy did what was called a partial virtual construct, overlaying an image right into the visual cortices of the meeting’s participants. So Moira now appeared to all the meeting’s participants to be sitting in front of them, her bashful smile juxtaposing her sharp eyes as she waited expectantly.

“Welcome, Moira, thanks for joining us,” said General Toranssen.

“Of course, Jack!” she replied, perkily.

“You have a report for us, Ms. Banks?” said the general.

She locked eyes with Jack, one of the many fascinating but frustratingly distant men she had met in the last few years, and began. “I do have a report, Jack, yes. It is far from conclusive, but I believe it must be looked into.

“If I can direct your attention to the first graphic portion of the report,” she said, and in the minds of the attendees an image asked for attention. When granted access, the image leapt up and into the center of each of their perspectives.

“Here we see the solar system, not to scale, of course,” she smiled at the preposterousness of such a notion. Where many might not have understood her point a few years ago, this was no simple planetary organization anymore, and all nodded at how silly it would be to believe for a moment that you could represent the solar system’s grand scale realistically and have any of its components except the un and perhaps Jupiter be even faintly discernible.

This was a new military for a new age, a skyward facing military, and they had earned their places at this table through the hard graft needed to get up to speed on the distances involved. They understood the new paradigm, the larger number of zeros this war’s measures were going to need.

“Here you can see the Earth. Here is Mars, which I mention only as its proximity to aphelion allows us to get a better glimpse at the approaching object and may be key to us singling out their estimated collision date.”

“Um, Moira,” said Jack, “let’s stay away from that term. All of our models and their own communication point to impact being highly unlikely. They are aiming, or were aimed, rather, as near-misses, more to disrupt our defensive work.”

“Of course, Jack,” said Moira, contrite, “sorry. Estimated … fly-by date.”

She smiled at him. Her description was perhaps erring now toward the innocuous, as their passing, if it was allowed to happen, would wreak seismic havoc on the world’s tides, weather, and, most importantly, threaten the very orbits of the elevators and their ancillary structures. But Jack let semantics lie and listened as Moira went on.

“We think we have them pinpointed. They would be easier to track but they are moving fast, incredibly so, as we had expected they would be.”

“But you have a location?” said the diminutive Commander Guowei, his young but brilliant face as stern as any in the room.

“We have a range,” Moira replied, cautiously. “A blur really. But enough to estimate their arrival as being between five and seven days from now.”

“Only five days,” said the Chinese commander, a boy still, by most standards, but a boy who had earned the respect of nearly everyone who had had the pleasure of working with him. But he was not one for nonchalance, and he sat now in silent retrospection as his keen intellect processed this information.

“
At least
five days,” reiterated Jack, “but that still has them very far out, Commander. Far enough to do something about, yes? Once we have confirmed their speed range to more manageable parameters, we will be able to dispatch a squadron of Skalm to intercept them. Is that still your belief, Ms. Banks?”

“Mine, and Dr. Hauptman’s, and Minnie’s,” she said, nodding.

“Now, on to the nature of that interception,” said Jack, turning to the young strategist once more.

“Yes, General Toranssen,” said Guowei, taking the lead as he had been warned he might need to. “We have been modeling ways to divert them, including the use of blunt force, as originally planned when we estimated the chances of this move on the Armada’s part. We had not, however, planned for any released debris to still be inhabited.”

Jack glanced at John, who was clearly uncomfortable with this turn as well, adding, as it did, to the list of crimes his race was guilty of in the eyes of the people in this very room. But humanity was not above reproach, and as if to emphasize humanity’s own culpability, the Brazilian general spoke up now, saying, “I feel for those people, of course, but I fail to see how that is our problem.”

John shot a look at the Brazilian man, then nodded. It was a fair point, not a kind one, but a fair one. But Jack did not see it that way.

“I think we can now categorize the people aboard the Yallan raft as refugees, whatever their original intent. At the very least they should be treated as POWs. As such, while their survival is certainly not our prime concern, it is not something I will have us discount out of hand.”

John and Jack locked eyes once more, and Jack remembered a promise made in the hold of the HMS
Dauntless
years ago. He still did not take John’s sacrifice lightly even to this day, and John saw that the man still intended to strive to earn John’s allegiance.

“If, then,” said Guowei, taking over once more, “we say that we are open to options that increase the Yallans’ chances of survival as long as they do not also increase the chance of damage to our own operations, then Moira and I have some potential options.”

Ignorant of the tension that had fleetingly filled the room, Moira spoke up again. “The key to our plan, Jack, lies in a mistake you just made.”

He glared at her, perhaps a bit too harshly, and she jerked backward a little, before saying, “It’s a common mistake. It is simply that we often refer to the coming object in the singular,
the
Yallan ship, when in fact it is many, linked together.”

Chapter 57: Watching the Wall

“You speak as if this is something we can agree to. Our parameters are clear. We have no negotiating power!” shouted DefaLuta over the ruckus.

It stilled a little from her wrath, but still emotions were high. The offer from the Yallans was incredibly tempting, and incredibly unexpected. But unfortunately, it was not theirs to accept.

In a quieter tone, DefaLuta went on. “The fact is that, as much as we might want to hear what they have to say, we cannot agree to their terms. When we voted on the motion to remove them from the fleet, they were excised from the Arbite’s records. We simply cannot help them, not without violating the treaty, and we all know what the Arbite would do then.”

“You talk and talk, DefaLuta,” said Sar Lamati, “but you don’t say anything we do not already know.”

“Maybe, dear princess, because you refuse to
listen
?” the Kyryl replied, her expression icy.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Sar, angelically, “but I, for one, am not proposing we bargain with the Yallans at all.”

“If we aren’t talking about negotiating with the Yallans,” said To-Henton, confused, “then what
are
we discussing?”

“If what the Yallans say is to be believed, then someone here is a traitor,” said Sar, eying them each in turn. “Someone in this very room.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And I, for one, would like to know who. I would like to know who betrayed us so that I can watch as the Arbite inters them and then I would like to request to be personally present for their punishment, which I intend to make both lengthy and supremely unpleasant.”

Quavoce stared at her. He shared her anger, or some measure of it. Questions and accusations had abounded throughout the group and the fleet as they had readied for the separation. They had not abated significantly during the ensuing final approach.

After the decision to separate, the Council’s isolated bodies had been moved into a lone carrier ship so they could hide in subspace behind the wave of hurtling Skalm for the final year of accelerated approach. So they could then command that attack, and then use the ship’s great engine to decelerate afterward and return to reclaim their prize.

They had passed the final year mostly in respite, but now the time for action approached, and this new call from the Yallans had reinvigorated the crucial question of how. Interred within the thick hull of an invisible carrier ship, massless, and formless in the wake of the vast sea of fighting craft it was preparing to send into battle, the Council now met once more, and Quavoce watched as Sar spread her malcontent.

“You know,” said the Hemmbar, impartial as ever, “the Yallans may be lying. Attempting one last time to get a reprieve from the fate we consigned them to.”

Sar stared at him, and said, “You know, Theer, if you weren’t so profoundly uninteresting I might suspect you were the traitor yourself. Maybe you are. Maybe you have fooled us all.”

The Hemmbar stared at her with unabashed surprise. Academic or not, he was not without a survival instinct, and now he started to bluster. “Princess Lamati, you surely cannot mean to suggest that the Hemmbar would engage in sabotage for … for what ends, Princess? What could possibly be our goal? We hold no claim to the foreign world, and carry few colonists.”

“A fair point, Hemmbar,” she said, shrugging, “but still. You did mysteriously engage in lengthy and often very pointed negotiations … or rather conversations … with the Nomadi Alliance. Conversations that led to the starting of your ‘Military Oversight Committee.’”

“That oversight body? What are you implying? That is a purely analytical committee, Princess,” said Theer-im Far, but the princess’s focus was already elsewhere, on Shtat, who was trying gallantly to meet her gaze.

“And that brings us to you,
Shtat.
” She almost spat his name, and seemed about to say more when Quavoce intervened.

“Princess, please. These are all familiar accusations, discussed at length before,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. “While I may even share some of your … concerns, we have investigated this quite exhaustively here, along with other points you have brought to the floor. In the absence of any conclusive evidence, can we leave these well-documented allegations for the Arbite and get on with the discussion at hand?”

She smiled at him, trying to forgive his abiding and unhealthy reasonableness, and said sweetly, “Of course, my lord. And that brings us back to the offer from the Yallans, an offer I say we should tell them we accept.”

“But …” said To-Henton.

But she was flagging him to a stop her hand, and already saying, “I did not say that we accept their offer, To, only that we
tell them
that we have.”

Quavoce shook his head. “Have we not tortured those poor people enough, Sar?”

“It is they, Lord Mantil, who look to bargain for their pathetic little lives with information that is crucial to the security of our fleet. I have no sympathy for them,” she said, haughtily.

It was impressive, thought Quavoce, her ability to justify her actions. It was a genuinely remarkable talent, but one he did not share.

“I, for one, will not have any part in false treaty,” he said, making sure to look his once-honorable friend, To-Henton, in the eye. “I will not lie during negotiations. No prize, however great, can sway me to do that.”

But To would not meet his gaze, and he saw that the man was with Sar, his own ambition subjugating and slaving him to her far greater thirst for power.

Sar looked at Quavoce in exasperation. If he wasn’t so goddamned honest, she would suspect him as well. And therein lay her greater frustration; everyone here seemed to have an excuse. Quavoce was too straight, To-Henton was too embroiled her own plans, Shtat was too weak, the Hemmbar too detached, and DefaLuta, despite all her many faults, was too self-serving.

She needed to know who the hell it was, she needed to know so badly that she wanted to scream. She turned to DefaLuta, now. She only needed two more votes.

“DefaLuta, will the Kyryl agree to tell the Yallans we intend to help them,” she said. Then, in an attempt to crack a whip at the end, she caveated, “or are you too worried about what they might say?”

DefaLuta openly laughed at the tactic, then said, “Oh Princess, how obvious you are.” But before the Lamat could focus her indignant fury into a vocal response, the Kyryl representative went on, “But don’t worry, you have my vote. The Yallans are not long for this world no matter what we do. Better to get what we can from them. A little hope in their last hours won’t do them any more harm.”

Quavoce looked at Shtat, but the man was staring at Sar like he was caught in her headlights. He nodded his ascent meekly and Quavoce felt the system move forward, quorum now reached. Sar would have her false parley, and the Yallans would have a chance to say what they had to say, deluded now with an empty promise of help.

- - -

Closer to the center of a solar system now crowding with invading bodies, the Council were not the only ones responding to an offer from the Yallans. They’d had two hands to play, and in their desperation they had cheated, and gone all-in on both.

Þalía, the young Norwegian pilot, now pulled into graduation a year early, called out to her squadron as they finished their slingshot around the moon and began to close with the block of Yallan ships coming at them.

Þalía:
‘interceptor squadron, we have clearance to come to [speed, traj.] and close with the yallans. target packages to come follow gravitational fix.’

A series of pings resounded in her mind, nestled as it was in its hardened plasma bath in a small compartment in one of her Skalm’s akas while her body waited at home. She knew, on some level, of her evisceration, but the fundamental difference between her and the abducted North Korean children discovered at Deception Island was that she did this voluntarily, though mostly because she absolutely loved it, this feeling, this coursing sensation of power in her wings.

She was hungering to unleash her cores on the Yallan fleet, to open them up. But more than that, exercise in limited, even humanitarian dissection, she longed for the real fight to come, a fight she still thought was a year off.

But all that was about to change.

- - -

“We cannot wait any longer,” said the chairman. “If they see the strike force behind us before we tell them of its presence, then they will know we have withheld precious information.”

“Yes, because they will know they are doomed,” said Freyam, manically. “Then we can negotiate with them again, not as supplicants, but as victors, pretending we speak for the fleet as a whole.”

“Don’t be a fool, Freyam, and don’t make the mistake of assuming they are fools, either. That we have been abandoned by our Armada is as painfully obvious to the humans as it should be to you.”

“The Council has promised to help us!” shouted Freyam, slamming his palms to the table. “Yet you persist in withholding what they request!”

“The Council’s promises, my dear Freyam, are not worth the paper they are not even printed on,” she said quietly. After the Council had contacted them, she had requested that their offer be sent from the Arbite itself, to prove its credibility. They had blustered in return about being insulted and having their honor questioned and the chairman had laughed humorlessly.

Freyam looked like a lost child. “That cannot be, Chairman,” he said, looking down. “If their offer is false, then … then we … well, then we are …” His voice trailed away.

The chairman did not respond. She merely stood up, not taking her eyes from him. He was right, he just refused to accept what he knew, deep down, was true. They were done.

The only question that remained now was the same one they had been faced with the day they had been cut free: what was going to be the manner of their death? If it were up to her she would see the humans burn for what they had done to her innocent and blissfully ignorant daughter, but the truth was that with humanity there still existed a slim chance. Not of rescue, but of at least survival. It would just be a longer death, but then what was all life but a long death, anyway, she thought, such was her outlook.

How her view of the universe had changed this last year, she thought.

She did not announce her final decision to the board. They were all useless anyway. The best of them had died in the attack that had nearly killed her as well, and they had been replaced with fools like Freyam, though he, at least, had a spine.

Using the executive powers granted her as chairman in their unabated wartime form, she stepped from her board room, still delusionally well appointed, and sent a message to the approaching human squadron.

“Earth force. As you approach, I feel it only right to share with you a suspicion we have. We cannot be sure, as we were left bereft of all but the most civilian of scanning tools, but we have reason to believe that there is another section of the Mobiliei Armada about four days behind us, hiding in our wake. We do not know their scale, but we would be remiss if we did not tell you of it, as you have agreed to at least let us live, if not to actually help slow our passage.”

She smiled. That should at least protect them from the human’s wrath for a while longer. Now to deal with her traitorous former colleagues. John Hunt, or rather Shtat Palpatum, you came to us to appeal to our gentler sides. In your ignorance of our ability to communicate, your identity to a fleet you did not know was so close behind us, you showed us your face and spoke in earnest. How should we repay you?

And how should we repay Mobilius as a whole?

She opened the second connection, the one facing into their past, rather than their uncertain future, to a council that had so thoroughly betrayed her, and said:

“Council members, former peers. You have asked for a good faith gesture on our part, in lieu of your promise to help us avoid the coming violent passage through Earth’s near-space. Very well, as it would seem we have no other choice, we agree. On the topic of the identity of the Agent of the Advanced Team who betrayed us all, that Agent’s identity is … Princess Sar Lamati.”

The chairman almost wished she could be there to watch. They wouldn’t believe it, not really, but she wished she could see the little bitch squirm, just for a moment.