War Against the White Knights (7 page)

The term ‘White Knight’ is a human one, and comes from humanity’s own introduction to the brutal realities of not being alone in the galaxy. In the series of treaties known as the Vancouver Accords, the human race signed away many cherished freedoms – and a million of its children – in return for patronage from these powerful protectors who had chased away the rivals who had enslaved, occupied, and destroyed as they saw fit across the face of the Earth. Despite some harsh terms, the Vancouver Accords were popular at the time, and the White Knights were given their name because they appeared to be shining paladins who had ridden to humanity’s rescue.

Many other species use similar terms as their name for the White Knights. And in their own tales of a traumatic introduction to the Trans-Species Union, the White Knights often appear at just the right moment to make an offer that the humans or other supplicant civilizations can’t afford to turn down. Speculation persists as to whether the White Knights knew when to appear because they could peer into the future, or because the first waves of aliens to brutalize a new species into looking for protectors had secretly been working for the White Knights all along.

Either way, civil administration was always heavily constrained by the need to fulfil the terms of agreement with the White Knights, and as for the slave soldiers of military organizations, such as the Human Marine Corps, the White Knights made no pretense of caring about the liberties, rights, or welfare of those who fought in their name.

Civilian worlds could provide the luxuries of civilization, such as healthcare when you are sick, and provisions to care for those too old to look after themselves. There was none of that in the Human Marine Corps. You were useful, or you were dead. Marines did not retire. There were no old or frail slaves. If you were unable to perform your function, the resources you consumed – accommodation, food, air – were reassigned to someone who could. And with the genetic modifications, and social conditioning that encouraged rapid breeding, combined with mass-produced cryogenic facilities, there was always a ready supply of replacements ready to be thawed.

All of which created a serious challenge for the Human Legion. For the citizens of planets the Legion had liberated, who lived their lives one day at a time without cryogenic suspension, the Civil War seemed endless: a conflict that had endured for many generations, and was fought far away. These people expected rights and welfare, and a say in their own government, and they demanded it of a Human Legion led by escaped slaves who had no personal experience of any of this.

Arun McEwan referred to this as the Second Front: the struggle to produce stable and peaceful worlds in the wake of military liberation, while all the time contributing to the Legion’s war effort, and paying lip-service allegiance to the White Knight Emperor.

In many ways, this Second Front was fought as hard if not harder than the war of lasers and bombs and warships. And the consequences of that other war were felt long after the Civil War had ended.

“You procrastinate.”

“No, Your Elevance.”

“Wretched creature, forever grubbing around for allies and advantages before you dare to stand in my presence.”

“With respect, Your Elevance, this is far more than a rescue mission. I am directing a war to reclaim an empire in your name.”

“You do not! You grub and delay. The siege I face is not a static picture, McEwan. It is hard fought and my besiegers deploy every resource at their disposal with but one ambition: to see me dead.”

“I assure you, Your Elevance, that your liberation remains our highest priority.”

“So you keep saying. And yet you waste time yet again in this pointless battle you are about to fight, for a planet so unimportant I was unaware that it even formed part of my empire. Does this planet even have a name?”

Arun rolled his eyes at the Emperor’s petulant exaggeration. It seemed the embattled ruler of the White Knight Empire was feeling as humiliated as ever at being forced to talk directly with one of his human subjects. Arun did his best to keep his face impassive and eyes forward. Frustratingly, no image accompanied the Emperor’s communications, so Arun still had no idea what the White Knights looked like, but he wouldn’t have put it past the ruler of known space to have tiny robotic eyes in the cabin to see any disrespect. Now that the Hardits had allied with the New Empire, the outcome of the war was once more in the balance, and Arun no longer felt as confident in the Emperor’s presence.

“The planet is named Tallerman-3, Your Elevance. And its conquest is a vital prelude to your liberation. We must first secure our flanks.”

“You are a liar, General McEwan. There are no
flanks
in interstellar war, no legitimate reason why you should not turn your warfleet away from this foolish Tallerman endeavor and proceed immediately to my location.”

“The conduct of this war is my decision, Your Elevance. That was our agreement.”

“Ah, yes. The
agreement.
The expectations each of us placed on the other that you never seem to quite fulfill. The exchange of commitments was witnessed and recorded, human. It is legally binding. You are required to submit to all the terms that we agreed.”

“Yes, Your Elevance.”

“
All
of them.”

“I understand.”

“Good. I shall be magnanimous. You may have your foolish battle for this
Tallerman
, but then you must liberate my capital without so much as a single day’s procrastination. I have other means to break this siege, human. You are merely the most expedient. Your delay reduces the value of our alliance. Disappoint me again and I shall declare our agreement to be void and your species oath breakers. Should that happen, humanity will be exterminated throughout the galaxy, and you shall know yourself to be the cause of your race’s extinction. You shall be the last to die.”

“I shall not disappoint you, Your Elevance.”

“Spare your worthless words, General. Speak instead with your deeds.”

The Emperor of the White Knights shut down the FTL comm link and Arun heaved a huge sigh of relief. Del-Marie was so much better at this, but he would be in hiding by now or more likely a slave laborer somewhere in the enemy-occupied Tallerman System… Assuming he still lived.

Del had always claimed that it was a good thing the link to the Emperor was voice-only. He encouraged Arun to picture the Emperor as a bland-looking human being, neither too large to be intimidating, nor too weak to underestimate. But whenever Arun shut his eyes and tried to follow Del’s advice, he always pictured the Emperor as a swirling mass of angry red vapor, almost a demonic version of a Night Hummer. For all he knew, that was exactly how the veck looked.

His gaze was drawn to the trio of framed smart screens on one bulkhead of his cabin, above his little wooden cabinet. The screens cycled through images of Legion planets and leaders of the many allied species. They inspired him.

Oh, frakk!

He had forgotten the visitor he’d kept waiting outside while the Emperor had made his unscheduled rant.

Arun gestured for his hatch to open.

Romulus stood in the passageway, flanked by the four Marine guards in their battlesuits.

He looked pissed at being kept waiting, the scowl on his face just south of insubordinate.

“Good for you, Flight-Sergeant. Come in. I can give you ten minutes, and then I really do need to see Deputy Ambassador Tremayne. The coming battle depends utterly on our new cyber assault team understanding what the hell we need them to do.”

To his credit, Romulus managed not to show his impatience. “Thank you for seeing me, sir.” He followed Arun into his cabin and to the sofa chair in the tiny snug in one corner where Arun hosted guests informally. Halfway there he hesitated. “What did you mean,
good for you
?”

Arun took a seat and waited for Romulus to join him. “I meant there’s fight in you. Indignation whenever the universe doesn’t go your way, and that leads to an impulse to change things until they’re right. A drive to act. I was like that at your age.” He laughed bitterly. “I guess we wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“You don’t strike me as worn out, General McEwan. You still have your uses.”

Arun smiled. “Don’t push it, boy. I never said I was worn out. I’m more like…” Arun was tempted to answer with a joke, but avoiding thinking about himself had become a firm habit over the years, why he had surrounded himself with distractions and escapes. He studied Romulus while drumming fingers on the arm of his chair. He knew the young man’s history well, had cradled him in his arms many times when a baby. Romulus looked like his adopted mother, which didn’t make genetic sense, especially now that his skin was host to an alien parasite, but the way Romulus held himself even in a sofa chair reminded Arun of Colonel Nhlappo’s confidence in her own abilities. Tirunesh Nhlappo had made Arun’s life hell when he was a cadet. He almost missed the old war horse.

The set of this strange man’s face made it clear he expected an answer, exactly as Nhlappo’s had done so often when she was Arun’s senior drill instructor.

“I’m like a stone axe,” Arun explained. “Still sharp and effective, but my shape and purpose has been revealed out of the flint, carved by the hands of others. My fate is to be the supreme commander of the Human Legion. That’s all I am. I try but… everything else that I once was has been knapped away.”

His visitor wasn’t here to listen to Arun’s musings, but instead of irritation on Romulus’s face, he saw determination layered over something darker. Who could tell though, on a man with a trilobite face?

“My apologies,” said Arun. “I expect you’re here to talk about your mother.”

“No, sir. My half-brother.”

“Remus? Last I heard he’d put in for a transfer to rejoin the Wolves, but his service leading a fighter squadron is so exemplary he was refused. I’m not sure he would thank me if I intervened, but—”

“No, General. My
other
half-brother.”

“Oh.” Guilt rippled through Arun. Nhlappo’s natural son, Zug, had been Arun’s best friend and he hadn’t thought of that friend for years. Zug had only been nineteen when he died in the Fall of Detroit. Arun had been a different person then. “Tell me what you want to know.”

They talked about Serge Rhenolotte, or Zug as his friends had known him. In a time of peace and freedom, Zug would have been a scientist; his passion, xenobiology. He would have loved the multi-species Human Legion. If he’d lived to team up with his friend Del-Marie, they could have cut down on the chronic miscommunication between allied species. But Zug had been buried decades ago under Detroit, and Del-Marie had been stranded on Tallerman when the planet fell, presumed dead. What a waste.

As he reminisced, Arun realized that Romulus didn’t have any specific questions, and had barely said a word. This meeting wasn’t about acquiring information; it was probably the young man’s way of preparing for the battle to come.

It happened. Lovers made up, scores were settled, things that needed saying were said, maybe wishes fulfilled if you were lucky. Soldiers cleared house before a battle because they could never be sure they’d get another chance to do so.

Arun was happy to help, but he still had responsibilities as a commander, and that meant he needed to be getting his ass over to Deck Eleven.

As Romulus thanked Arun for his valuable time, Arun found himself asking a question of his own. “What shall we do when the war is over, Romulus? When we have our freedom… what happens next?”

“I don’t know, sir. What do
you
think should happen?”

Arun smiled. “You should be a diplomat, son.” He shrugged, unsure what Romulus had woken in him to ask such a personal thing. “To answer my question, I don’t know. I almost don’t care. So long as I hand over power to a new generation who won’t abuse their position, I don’t care what they do. My duty will be over.”

“Let’s hope so, sir.”

They stood up, but before he ushered the younger man from his cabin, Arun remembered his manners. “I nearly forgot to ask. How’s Janna?”

If Arun had snap-kicked Romulus in the nuts, it wouldn’t have produced such a pained expression on Romulus’s face. What was wrong with the man? Was he seriously jealous of Arun’s fling with Janna? That had been… what, twenty years ago?

“She’s fine, sir,” said Romulus, his hurt buried beneath a fixed expression, a technique in which Arun suspected Romulus was expert. “It is difficult not serving alongside her.”

“Do you want a transfer? Is that what this visit has been about?”

“No, sir.” Romulus sounded genuinely offended. “I’m too good a fighter pilot.”

“You worry about Janna, don’t you?”

“All the time.”

Arun could understand the younger man’s concern and frustration.

“It’s okay,” Arun said. “Look.”

He thought an instruction at Barney, his AI who spent most of his time these days beneath a flap of false skin under Arun’s right ear, connected to his brain.

The images within the three picture frames on the bulkhead changed. The left one now showed Arun as he had been at seventeen; just a kid with big ideas. With him was Osman, one of the two jokers in Blue Squad, now long-dead. Next was Xin Lee at eighteen, ripe with youth in the last moments before the Civil War changed everything. Last was Colonel Lee as she was now, in her early thirties; still the most beautiful woman in the fleet, still with that self-assured swagger, but the look in her eyes had altered forever. Xin had seen too much, that radiant confidence hardened into wariness. And yet the protective hand over the half-formed life in her belly showed she still hadn’t given up hope for a better future.

Arun bit his lip, resisting the temptation to set one of the images to look upon Springer before the war. The fifty-year old version of Deputy Ambassador Tremayne was waiting for him on Deck Eleven.

“Why are you showing me these?” asked Romulus.

Arun had almost forgotten the boy was here. This was why he tried not to dwell on his past: it threatened to trap him. He told Barney to replace the images. This time they showed the most recent images Barney could find of Janna and Remus, and an image of Zug from his cadet days, with his arm around Arun.