Reborn, page 17
Perhaps political terms in office needed to be extended to ten and fifty years at that point? At least as an interim step.
“Eventually, there will be an entire caste of people who were functionally immortal, troopers,” Valmy said simply. “Not the entire species, if we need to keep birthing new generations, but things will fold into two, distinct layers.”
“Won’t that knowledge drive more political instability, sir?” Vanlaere asked. “Revolutions initiated by folks on the outside?”
“Exactly why it has been kept quiet, Vanlaere,” he said. “But it will also be necessary to neuter such organizing pressures by offering those rebels the treatment. Making them one of us.”
“Trojan horse,” she offered.
Valmy understood. Let some radical tell you he has seen the light and will work to uphold the new system he is part of, while quietly working from the inside to destroy it.
“Power is one of two choices,” he replied.
That death was the other one was a given. He would be playing with fire at that point.
“So who do we need to contact and initiate, General?” Konicek asked now.
“A couple of Senators and House Chairmen,” he said. “I’ve been waiting a few days to see if our security is compromised, because the aliens have unknown capabilities.”
“Should we alert the rest of the base to prepare for an assault?” Vanlaere asked. “Daring is an expert at penetrating supposedly-secure facilities.”
“They are already alerted, merely by me being present,” Valmy smiled. “Once I make a few calls, it will be time for a couple of training exercises around here.”
CHAPTER 42
Looking around the starship’s empty mess hall with half a mug of coffee in one hand, Mitch would have liked more than one night and one breakfast with her up in Everett, but the deal with the aliens had seen him remaining with Yormevs while Ernesta returned to Tanerhald. Along with Joie and Romana.
Romy.
Something.
He wasn’t sure at this point, having moved on from the first two women emotionally. And all three would be leaving, one way or the other, when it was done.
“You look pensive,” a voice interrupted.
Stone. Sneaking up on people like he did.
“Thinking about tomorrows,” Mitch replied. “Wondering if Tanerhald will decide that we all know too much and have to leave, instead of Joie and the others.”
“Hard call,” Stone nodded.
Instead of continuing, the man moved to the coffee robots Yormevs had acquired from somewhere and pushed buttons. Careful, deliberate motions. Push the exact button correctly the first time, then move on.
That described the man that most people just sort of took for granted. Even Kehoe fell into that mistake from time to time. Overlooked because he didn’t draw attention to himself.
Stone joined him when the robots were done gurgling.
“If it were me, I’d make a clean sweep of things,” Stone said simply. “Too many people know too much, so I’d just grab ’em all and haul them off to a friendly planet somewhere, then keep them under constant observation for the rest of their lives, importing videos and consumer goods from Earth to keep them connected to their heritage.”
“You don’t think someone is going to go ahead and land a ship on the White House lawn and say We come in peace?” Mitch asked the older man.
Not that much older. Harder years. Stone was only a few years older than Mitch, but they had been vastly different. Enlisted at eighteen. Coming up on twenty years’ service, though currently Unlawfully Absent. Technically kidnapped, if anyone asked, and being held against his will.
Or something.
Mitch had lived a much softer life. And never shot anybody, unlike Stone.
“They’d have done that already,” Stone growled as he sipped his coffee. “Could do that tomorrow. No, they’re giving us one chance to take care of their problems, before they drop the hammer on us.”
“Think we can?” Mitch asked.
He and Stone had been two guys at opposite ends of a party, most of the time, with Kehoe between them. And the others. This was one of the first times the pair of them had chatted.
“I think that if Captain Daring can’t do it, nobody else would have gotten close,” Stone replied. “That’s about as good as I can estimate right now. We’ve got Kehoe planning and you looking. I’m at loose ends a lot, since he doesn’t need an office manager, so I’ve spent time training with the Clever Horse.”
“Who?”
“Cōng Mǎ,” Stone chuckled. “Her name means clever horse, translated roughly out of Cantonese.”
“I did not know that,” Mitch observed, a bit surprised.
But he supposed that a guy like Stone didn’t have anything to do except wait while the big hitters did their things. Planning. Training. Preparing. At least Mitch could dive headlong into various databases, looking for things that weren’t there.
Or were too well hidden.
Which kind of described the whole situation.
Mitch was about to say something when the hatch opened and Kehoe entered the space, Yormevs hot on his heels.
“There you are,” Kehoe said. “Carter’s contact came through.”
Mitch rose automatically.
Finally, something he could do.
CHAPTER 43
Joie was on her bunk, legs crossed and meditating. Ernesta was reading something on a tablet Tanerhald had gotten for her. Something cheap, trashy, and with a lurid cover featuring two spaceships fighting in an asteroid field. At least last time Joie had asked.
The door chimed. Then opened a moment later. Romana stepped in, followed by Carter and Tanerhald.
At least they’d both gone to bed dressed enough for barracks, since her room had suddenly turned into a meeting.
Joie watched the three standing there at the foot of her bed. Ernesta put her book reader down.
“You tell her,” Romana said to Carter.
Carter actually looked embarrassed, which wasn’t an emotion Joie would have thought he was capable of understanding, let alone feeling.
Did this mean he was growing up?
“Irene called,” Carter said simply. “Gave us the name of a place, but Romana’s friends can’t figure it out.”
Joie turned to her former sidekick and best friend with a questioning look.
“Feels like a base name, but a quick look at the records didn’t turn anything up,” Romana replied.
“We probably need Mitch, then,” Joie noted dryly.
Trust between the two alien sides was not particularly well developed at this point. Angry cops and neighborhood vigilantes both trying to achieve the same goal, but in different ways.
“That’s what I told him,” Romana nodded to the small alien leader.
Joie turned her attention to Tanerhald. Lavender skin. Bones that reminded her vaguely of a lizard, like a character from one of Ernesta’s books made into a vid.
“I need my whole team,” she said simply. “Without a lot of complicated nervousness. If I convince them to uncloak or whatever it is, can I ask you to only grab the Humans and leave the Heecha alone for now?”
The man stewed. Alien. Whatever. Dude In Charge.
Angry cop, asked to let the neighborhood vigilante group off with a warning.
By the burglar who had discovered that one of the neighbors is really a serial killer or something.
Shit had gotten weird.
“There must be a resolution to this, Joie Daring,” Tanerhald replied in a stiff voice.
“I understand,” Joie said. “But without them, I can’t do this, and you’ll end up doing whatever it is you originally planned. You have to tell me how badly do you want Humanity to survive as an industrial, technological species, Tanerhald.”
She watched the man rock back onto his heels, physically as well as metaphorically. He’d been playing the heavy through this whole tragedy, and it looked to Joie as though nobody had ever asked him what he wanted out of everything.
Or rather, what outcome would be enough.
“Humans are too dangerous, Daring,” he began, then waved her off when she opened her mouth. “And I understand that removing the troublemakers will reduce the threat. You are violent, unstable, and prone to destructive urges.”
“We’re not asking you to welcome us into galactic society,” Joie offered. “I wouldn’t want us out there myself. And you won’t just sail home afterwards, if we succeed, so you’ll be able to see if it works or if too much damage has been done to our joint culture by what Bandi’s bosses initiated two centuries ago. Do you want me to succeed, Tanerhald?”
Again, rocked to his core.
He’d come in here like a bank robber with a gun, waving it around like a magic wand. That never worked, except to control people who wanted to survive. A lot of folks never stopped to think what they really wanted, once everything they had been planning went sideways.
“Can you, Joie?” he finally asked. “Succeed?”
“We’re down to the part where Humans say or die trying,” she replied. “I intend to die trying. The others all signed up for that much even before we knew you existed, so not much has changed on that axis. But you control the cards. I can convince Yormevs, I think. You have to promise me now the opportunity to try. It comes down to you.”
Not the conversation he’d been expecting when he walked in here. That much was obvious in his eyes.
But the aliens were growing nervous. Desperate.
Did they want Humanity to survive?
She waited, having made her case.
Tanerhald surprised her by turning to Romana.
“I understand now,” he told her. “You said it, but I had to see it.”
“What?” Joie asked.
Not demanded. Asked.
Softly, instead of roughly.
“Romana told me that you could make me believe, Joie,” Tanerhald replied. “I doubted her. I was wrong. What do you need to succeed?”
“I need my friends,” Joie said. “Let me talk to Yormevs and I will convince him to meet you halfway, then we can go after Bouchard together.”
Joie unfolded and slid to the edge of the bed, meeting Ernesta doing the same. They both rose with matching grins. One Romana shared. Even Carter seemed to get it.
They could win.
Together.
CHAPTER 44
Joie had prepared herself for a number of different answers from Yormevs. A flat no wasn’t one of them.
“Why not?” she demanded, feeling the harsh glare of accusation from Tanerhald behind her.
It was a communications room, or something, where she’d been taken. Space to sit, plus a Brakhua female(?) she hadn’t been introduced to handling comm. Control panels with a lot of options. Headsets and microphones, plus overhead speakers.
Like before, she needed to use the gear Yormevs had supplied for Chile. Signals that came from anywhere, because the shield scattered their source. Radio, without triangulation, just so everyone was hidden from each other.
“Because those dipshit Brakhua don’t understand Human technology, Joie,” Yormevs replied in an angry voice. All the worse because he had to know his frenemy was listening in. “If you are serious, then you need to come here. Mitch has the connections into the various computer systems that he needs, but that took us months of time to set up. The Brakhua would probably require at least a year. No, you must come over to my ship. He can even come with you, if he has the courage.”
Joie took a deep breath as the bodies around her all gasped at the same moment. Now was exactly the moment when Yormevs could fuck it all up, if he wasn’t careful.
So could she.
“Stand by while I mute the line at this end,” she said, turning to the commtech and nodding.
That woman pushed a button on the console, hidden among dozens of others, and nodded back.
Joie focused her attention on Tanerhald.
Brakhua got darker when they got angry. And this was anger, not fear or embarrassment. This was a general somewhere, wishing to verbally rip somebody a new asshole in public.
Joie took a breath. She was surrounded by Ernesta, Romana, and Carter, but Tanerhald was the one who mattered right now.
“I’m sorry,” Joie said delicately. “Is he right?”
Never push. Another lesson she’d been picking up from Ernesta. And Bandi, weird as that has been. You can lead the conversation, but forcing it was like pushing wet spaghetti.
Tanerhald’s jaw muscles stood out like he was grinding his teeth in rage. His eyes spoke volumes.
But then, nobody likes to be shown up by a lesser enemy. Especially when you’ve underestimated them. And it looked like Tanerhald had with Yormevs.
Tanerhald nodded. Slowly. Almost painfully.
“If time is of the essence, as you say, then maybe he’s right and we need to do this from his ship,” Joie said. “I promise you that I will return afterwards.”
“And me,” Carter barked. “Though I’d stay here as a hostage or something if I thought it would help.”
Joie felt her jaw drop open. Looking at her two friends, at least she wasn’t alone.
Carter Faulkener? The notorious terrorist warlord, offering himself up instead of sending someone else?
He grinned ruefully as everybody was staring at him.
“Somebody’s gotta, Joie,” he murmured. “They won’t trust it otherwise.”
She nodded gratefully. If nothing else, she’d lived long enough to see that goofball grow up.
What the fuck was the world coming to?
“Tanerhald?” Joie asked.
Long, painful moment. Previously in supreme control, suddenly the man wasn’t. And didn’t know how to handle it.
Joie could offer all sorts of advice on the topic. And Tanerhald had never had to listen to his ear cook or smell his eyeball shorting out.
Tanerhald sucked a deep breath in, then released it through his nose.
“Yes,” he said in a pained voice.
“Thank you.”
Joie smiled and turned back to the commtech. That woman did something and the line was live again.
“Yormevs, he has agreed,” Joie said. “We’ll need your coordinates, and in about fifteen minutes, I’ll need you to drop your shields so we can send a team over. Then Mitch and Kehoe can get to digging with what Irene found for us.”
“I’m relying on you, Joie,” Yormevs replied in a questioning voice.
“So is the rest of the galaxy, Yormevs,” she said. “Let’s not fuck things up at this late a date, please?”
“Understood,” the man sounded chagrined now. “Fifteen minutes.”
Joie felt her emotions kind of flow out of herself and leak all over the table. Ernesta put a hand on her shoulder and strength seemed to radiate from it. Joie drew on that. Romana and Carter added their hands a moment later, giving her enough to stand up.
Joie towered over Tanerhald, but the Brakhua were all a tiny species, compared to Heecha or Danorak. At least physically.
The other two were cowards, at the end of the day, unwilling to stand up in the light of day for what they believed, while the Brakhua in Tanerhald had taken it upon themselves to protect the galaxy from threats like Humans.
“I’m coming with you,” Tanerhald announced.
Joie wondered if her jaw would break, as many times as it had fallen open in shock recently.
“I was only planning on taking my team over,” she said shakily.
Tanerhald smiled and it was suddenly filled with warmth.
“No,” he replied. “You told that shitbird Yormevs Coeurle that you needed all your friends if you were going to succeed. I would like to be included in that category, Joie Daring.”
She wondered if she was going to cry, then just let it, tears rolling down her face. Ernesta leaned in and wrapped an arm around her waist, not quite holding her up, but close.
Joie opened her mouth, but couldn’t make anything come out.
Tanerhald’s smile, however, got bigger.
She drew warmth and strength from it as well.
She could do this thing.
All the galaxy was at risk, but she had friends she’d never imagined possible.
CHAPTER 45
Bandi refused to remain in his room, regardless of what that Heecha had advised. At least that fool hadn’t tried to order him or anything. Then they might have had words. And punches.
Instead, he was down in the big messhall that the Heecha fool had ordered cleared of all tables and people, leaving only a empty auditorium. The Heecha was probably behind several sets of sealed frame doors with weapons, but Bandi had also refused to cower before the Brakhua.
What were they going to do? Execute him for uplifting a primitive species?
Not a lot of change there. And he honestly did have it coming. Hadn’t been his idea, lo those many centuries ago, but he could have refused. Could have stood up and said “Wait one damned minute” when it came up.
Except that he hadn’t. The Party had commanded a thing, then ordered him to manage it.
And he had. Oh, how he had.
And look at where it had gotten them.
At least he could look at the Creator of the Universe soon and know it had taken a Human to beat him. Deep in his soul, where he never even whispered it to himself, Bandi knew that the others were frightened of that more than anything else.
That Humans could be that smart, as well as that dangerous.
So he had a mug of coffee in one hand, ankles crossed as he sat in the only chair, wearing a cheap suit that needed to be pressed as he leaned back and waited. Fool Heecha were afraid to be here. Afraid to stand up and admit that they’d been sneaking around the law.
Bandi didn’t have too many shits left to give.
And Joie needed him.
