Future Shock, page 18
The shuttlebay opened up in front of them. Boswell guided the shuttle through the giant hatch and landed it neatly on the deck. A handful of officers and crew were already standing there, ready to welcome the contemporary guests to their ship. Hamish felt an odd little thrill at the sudden rustle of panic running through the compartment as the shuttlecraft hatch opened ... Cassidy didn’t seem to have panicked, he noted, but in this case she’d probably been spared by her own ignorance. Normally, opening a hatch without docking was suicide. Now ... there was a force field keeping the atmosphere inside the bay.
Boswell shot him a mischievous look. “My XO will conduct the tour,” he said, as the guests were invited out. “Do you want to remain with me or join the tour?”
Hamish hesitated. Boswell had been away from his ship for several weeks. Hamish didn’t fault him for passing the duty of escorting the visitors to his XO, not when he could retake command of the ship and make sure there were no problems requiring his immediate attention. And get a good night’s sleep, probably. Hamish knew he hadn’t slept well in the UN Compound, and he’d been far less involved in the discussions than his future counterpart, who’d had to play a multitude of different roles at the same time.
“If the tour isn’t showing them anywhere new, I’d prefer to stay with you,” he said. “Or borrow your shuttle to check in with my XO.”
“You’re more than welcome,” Boswell said. “I’ll have a pilot assigned to take you.”
Hamish glanced at the console. He had been watching Boswell fly, and he was fairly certain he could handle the shuttle himself, but ... no, probably better to let a pilot do it. It always looked simpler when you were the one watching, rather than the one actually doing the job ...
“Thank you,” he said, quietly. “That’ll be very convenient.”
“You’re welcome,” Boswell said. “Just make sure you’re back onboard for the council of war.”
***
“Welcome back, Commodore,” Director Julius Augustus said. “I hope you had a good time planetside.”
“It feels good to be home,” Ethan said, as he took his seat in the holochamber. “I didn’t see much of the planet, beyond a very strange New York. Shore leave is going to be a pain. None of our people are prepared for the contemporary world.”
“We’ll have a riot on our hands if we don’t,” Captain Rupert predicted. “Everyone has been jammed up for the last six weeks and they want out.”
“We’ll have to arrange something with the locals,” Ethan said. There was no point in offering shore leave on Coventry. The planet wasn’t – yet – the terraformed paradise that had been blasted into ash during the closing days of the war. “Perhaps we can allow shore leave to Luna or even Mars.”
“They’ll want Earth,” General Jenny Geddes predicted.
“And then they’ll be mugged, or worse,” Ethan said. His New York had no crime rate. The contemporary New York had a crime rate that was staggeringly high ... he just didn’t understand how anyone could live in such a hellhole. “This isn’t our Earth. They won’t be safe here.”
He let out a long breath. “Apart from the demand for shore leave, which we will try to handle, are there any matters that require immediate attention?”
“Our makeshift deep space sensor network hasn’t detected any signs of Diyang activity within two light-years of Earth,” Captain Markus Rodriguez said. The officer, the de facto second in command of the fleet, spoke with quiet assurance. “There’s no reason to think the Diyang have tried to resume the offensive, although our coverage is very limited, and if they knew what they were facing they might be able to catch us by surprise. We don’t have any idea of how they’re reacting to their defeat, sir, and they may not have a good idea of what really happened.”
Ethan grimaced. Any human commander – any reasonably smart human commander; history had plenty of examples of commanders who’d led their troops into danger through sheer fucking stupidity – would think twice about attacking a system that had swallowed up nearly a hundred starships. The Diyang would know – probably – that their ships had been lost without taking any human ships with them, the sort of disaster that would shock even the most bloody-minded officer in human history. But the Diyang weren’t human, and their whole system revolved around their concepts of honour and glory. It was just possible a nearby commander would risk a second attack on Earth.
But they have no concept of FTL sensors, he told himself, firmly. They won’t know how to avoid attracting attention. We’ll see them coming and intercept before it’s too late.
He leaned forward. “Now we have an understanding with the local governments, we should be able to take the offensive before the Diyang gather themselves and counterattack,” he said. “Hopefully, we can shock them before they do something that might take us by surprise.”
“Hopefully,” Jenny agreed. “They were quite tricky opponents, historically speaking, and they’re not inclined to give up in a hurry.”
“Neither are we.” Ethan glanced around the holochamber. “Anything else?”
Jenny frowned. “The Zargana have been very quiet,” she said. “That’s odd.”
“I’ll make time to speak to Y’Opohan personally,” Ethan said. It was hard enough for him to adjust to the past, their new home, and he doubted it would be any easier for the Zargana. Their local counterparts would execute them all – or at least try to – if they went home. The world that had birthed them was hundreds of years in the future. “We’ll see if we can arrange shore leave for them too.”
“That’ll be fun,” Jenny said, sarcastically. “They won’t blend in at all, sir, and ... they’ll be taken for hostile aliens. This world is barely used to the idea of one alien race – and that race is hostile.”
“Another problem for us to address,” Ethan said. “Is there anything else?”
There was a long pause. No one spoke.
“I’ll see you at the council of war tomorrow,” Ethan said. “Dismissed.”
He tapped the terminal, ending the conference. He hadn’t expected any real problems – and he would have been informed at once if something had changed – but it was good to check in with his officers. Their command structure hadn’t really been designed for any sort of long-term deployment, let alone being tossed back in time and completely isolated from the rest of the Federation. It was just something else he’d need to sort out, when he had the time.
Rachel materialised next to him. “We may have a problem.”
Ethan sighed, inwardly. “We may?”
“The analysts were data-mining,” Rachel said. “As per their orders, they were running historical files through the filters to make sure there was nothing too explosive before they were prepared for transfer to the local authorities. They found something big.”
“A scandal?” Ethan rubbed his forehead. “Someone who will be guilty, but isn’t yet?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Rachel said. She nodded to the terminal. “This is going to take some careful handling. And according to the treaty, we can’t keep it to ourselves.”
Ethan read the file, then swore. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”
“No,” Rachel agreed. “And I’ll bet pretty much anything that this isn’t going to be the only one.”
Chapter Nineteen: TFS John Birmingham, 2308
Captain Cao Zongying, Chinese Navy, felt oddly unsure of himself as he stepped into the future starship’s briefing compartment. The invitation had come as a surprise – he was hardly the highest-ranking naval officer – and the request he attend in person had been even more surprising, when holographic communications networks allowed far more people to attend meetings than could ever be crammed physically into a single compartment. It was odd and he didn’t like odd, after the universe had turned upside down. The lack of any clear direction from his government made it worse. He had a certain degree of discretion in military affairs, but this was more than just military. It was something that could – that had – changed the world.
He took a seat and accepted a mug of coffee – no cream, no sugar; just the way he liked it – as he waited for the rest of the naval personnel to join. A number of holograms hovered around, blurring together to make it impossible for him to be sure just how many there truly were, while the handful of physical attendees were reassuringly solid. The future personnel looked a little too good to his eyes, as if they’d stepped off recruiting posters and into the real world. He carefully didn’t betray any hint of amusement at the thought, although it was oddly reassuring despite the unease in his stomach. The human race hadn’t changed much in hundreds of years, if they were still vain enough to seek physical perfection. It suggested the future personnel were still human.
Another hologram shimmered into view ... no, an eHuman. Cao didn’t know if he should be amused or contemptuous that Commodore Boswell’s wife existed in a computer datacore. He knew an old classmate who had fallen for the charms of an AI girl, who hadn’t had any real existence, and ... it had been sickening, watching him fade away. He hadn’t had the moral fibre needed to earn a commission, let alone climb to the top ... did Boswell? Or was it something completely different? Cao didn’t pretend to know.
“It’s hard to say how accurate our historical files are at this point,” Rachel said, her image flickering slightly as she addressed the gathered council of war. Cao guessed it was deliberate, meant to remind the audience that she was an eHuman. Contemporary holographic tech was practically perfect, as long as you didn’t actually try to touch the hologram. “By now, it is at least possible that word has reached Diyang Prime, the homeworld of our enemies, and forced them into rethinking their tactics. However, we believe they will not have been able to make any significant changes to their current – ah, historical – dispositions, not unless events have changed more than we think possible.”
Which is uncertain, Cao thought. What was I in the other world?
He put the thought out of his head as he studied the holographic starchart hovering in front of him. It was the kind of insight into enemy dispositions, military bases and population centres a strategist would kill to enjoy, although – as Rachel had said – the longer they waited, the more out of date most of the information would become. The stars and planets themselves couldn’t be moved, but the fleets certainly could be redeployed as the Diyang came to grips with the new situation and tried to take countermeasures.
“We will deploy a scout to check, just to be sure, but assuming history remains broadly accurate, the Diyang 2nd Fleet will be mustering here, at Diyang-14,” Rachel continued. “Their original intention was to harass your fleets as they withdrew to Earth, or sweep up colonies you would have been forced to abandon, but in this timeline we suspect their commander will be waiting for all his ships to arrive before going on the offensive. Our intention is to deal with the fleet, preventing the enemy from launching any further strikes on human territory, before moving to Diyang Prime itself.”
Cao frowned as he worked out the distances. It would be one hell of a leap for Task Force Grant. They’d have serious problems reaching their destination, and getting back would be even harder, assuming they didn’t have to fight their way in and out of the target system. Rachel, not even a military officer, made it sound as easy as ordering a cup of coffee in a cafeteria. He felt his frown deepen as he looked at Anderson and saw him looking back, his eyes grim. Anderson had been the one who’d invited him to the future ship ... why?
“That’ll be a long jump,” Admiral Garland said. If the American minded being briefed by a civilian, he didn’t show it. “Do you think we can take the risk?”
“Yes.” Boswell spoke for the first time, his tone slightly ... off. “We’ll be leaving behind a handful of our ships, with most of our FTL missiles, which should be enough firepower to give even the Diyang pause. It’ll mean shortening the range when we attack Diyang-14, but that is a very minor price to pay for eliminating the threat once and for all.”
Cao felt his stomach shift again. Something was wrong. And he had the nasty feeling it involved him. He tried to remain calm as Rachel finished her briefing, then stepped back to allow a uniformed officer to outline the plan of attack. It was almost brutally simple, and there were few places for the guests to suggest improvements. Perhaps that was a mistake, Cao noted coldly. He didn’t know any admiral, Chinese or otherwise, who would be happy with an attack plan forced down his throat with no input from him, no matter how brilliant it was. He made a mental note to raise the issue with Anderson later, once the discussions were over. It was only a matter of time before it caused a major diplomatic or military incident.
Admiral Garland looked at his peers. “We’ll need to clear the operation with our superiors,” he said, “and lay the groundwork properly, but it should be doable.”
The concern in his voice was obvious. Cao shared it. The plan seemed simple to Boswell – perhaps it was, with his advanced technology – but they were going to run up against some pretty hard limits of contemporary starships. Sustaining an offensive so many light-years from Earth was going to be a pain in the butt, without the purpose-built logistics ships that were supposed to come off the slips in a year or so ... that had come off the slips, in the shadowy alternate history. He made a mental note to raise that issue too, when he had a chance. Boswell was just too used to his ships and didn’t quite grasp the limitations his ancestors had faced.
“Thank you,” Boswell said. There was a faint edge to his voice. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss the precise details with Captains Anderson and Cao while you raise the issue with your superiors.”
Cao felt ill. Something was definitely up. Admiral Garland had picked up on it too, from the brief glance he shot Anderson. The unspoken orders were very clear. Find out what’s happening. Report back.
“Of course,” Admiral Garland said. Cao could hear the sudden ice in his tone. Could Boswell? The future captain was still a mystery in so many ways, the product of a society so different it was hard to tell just what motives truly drove him. “We’ll speak to you later.”
Boswell stood, motioning for Anderson and Cao to follow him into the next compartment. Cao felt as if a security officer had dropped by for a chat, a chat that would lead rapidly and inevitably to his execution. He knew classmates who had vanished ... everyone pretended they had never existed, even though they all knew what had really happened. If the security forces took an interest in you ...
“I apologise for asking you here in such a manner,” Boswell said, as soon as the hatch had closed behind them. “I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been urgent.”
Anderson nodded, curtly. Cao braced himself.
“It isn’t unknown for things to pop up urgently,” Anderson said, finally. “An advancing alien fleet, for one thing.”
“Or a future fleet.” Boswell smiled, although there was very little humour in it. Cao had the impression he was reluctant to discuss something important, something he needed to discuss. “This ... is something else.”
He paused, clearly considering what to say. “As part of the treaty, we are handing over a sizable chunk of near-future data – historical records – to your governments. This raises concerns about pre-crime ... if someone committed a crime in 2310, for example, but hasn’t actually committed it yet. Should we name them, even though they’re not yet guilty? Or should we say nothing and hope for the best?”
Cao had no answer. He’d never considered the problem and yet ... a very nasty idea was starting to form in his mind, a sudden awareness of what might be happening ...
“I think that decision needs to be taken by someone well above my pay grade,” Anderson said, glancing at Cao. “Why ...”
“Historically, the war against the Diyang was won – will be won – in four years,” Boswell said. Calmly. “The war spurred economic and technical development, as well as encouraging the development of new colonies in previously-unknown star systems. Unfortunately, this also encouraged the governments on Earth to tighten their grip, much as the corporations did during the first Rock Wars. The result was inevitable. Rebellions and revolutions, some systems managing to gain independence and others getting better – or worse – terms from their parent countries. It was a long and bloody period that changed the human race forever.”
“Right,” Cao said. He leaned forward. “Can we get to the point?”
Boswell didn’t seem offended by the question. “Years from now” – he looked Cao in the eyes – “you will lead a revolt against the Chinese Government.”
Cao stopped, dead. He would? He was loyal! He was loyal to his country and the Party and ... his thoughts ran in circles, sudden panic threatening to send him staggering to his knees or collapsing to the deck. He was dead. His family was dead. Everyone who had served under his command, or even been his immediate superiors, would be tainted by their association with a traitor and ...
He hadn’t even done it yet!
“I ...” He wanted to deny it, to throw it back in Boswell’s face as a lie, but ... somehow he knew it was true. “I ...”
“We can show you the records, if you like,” Boswell said. He took a simple datapad from the table and held it out. “We cannot edit the documents too far. They’ll spot some missing details and demand answers, which we won’t be able to offer without admitting we broke the treaty. If we name you, and we must ...”
He paused. “We decided to offer you, and the others like you, asylum. If you don’t want to return home, we will be happy to give you a home here.”
Cao hesitated. He was no traitor. He had sworn to serve his country, and he would ... it was his other self who was the traitor, a man who had clearly been exposed to ... to what? He eyed the datapad as if it were a poisonous snake, a piece of radioactive material from a nuclear power plant ... he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to ... but what choice did he have?
