Here We Stand, page 34




Hredt examined the parts of the wrecked probe again to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything. The fragments were spread out on the bench like an exploded view in a technical manual, each piece roughly in the position it would occupy in the intact device relative to the others. There were still some small fragments missing, possibly lost during Rikayl’s enthusiastic intervention, but it was sufficiently complete to begin repairing it. Ingram, Searle, and Devlin studied it from one side of the bench, and Marc and Trinder from the other. Chris sat on a chair by the wall, sketching something on his screen.
“So it’s the opposition,” Ingram said. “We haven’t picked up any chatter about this on the Protectorate’s channels, and we’ve already had one visit from the rebels, so that makes sense.”
“It might not make much difference,” Hredt said. “As I’ve said before, both would seize the ship, both would seize me and my commune, and both would regard you as hostile, although for different reasons.”
“But can the opposition wipe us out?”
“I don’t know, but they could probably do enormous damage.” Hredt had his own estimate of their capability based on the Protectorate’s specifications for Curtis. The prenu was designed to deal with exactly the kind of insurgency that the opposition and other malcontents would carry out. “The Jattan don’t actually know the opposition’s strength and resources, and neither do the Kugin, but they estimate they could fight a guerrilla war over a long period, damage key targets, and demoralise the civilian population with random attacks. But Kugin and Jattan generals don’t regard them as capable of the kind of military victory that would bring down the Protectorate.”
“A bit like us, then, really,” Trinder said.
“Remember that Curtis was originally designed for rapid reaction. The brief might have been over-ambitious with far too many unnecessary features, but the ship’s role was to deploy elite forces to Jattan colonies and other nations on Dal Mantir where there might be civil unrest. The plan was an initial fleet of twenty ships, each designed for fifty troops and their equipment. That would mean hit-and-run raids to put down rebellion before it had a chance to spread. If they’d thought they were going up against a peer adversary, they’d have commissioned very different vessels.”
“How did they deal with dissidents before that, though?” Ingram asked, then stopped and held up a forefinger as if she was interrupting herself. “Let’s roll this back, Fred. Run through the political situation for me again. I don’t think I’ve heard all the details. Or I’ve forgotten them.”
Hredt thought for a few moments. “Nir-Tenbiku Bac, the grandfather of Nir-Tenbiku Dals, was deposed as Mediator of Jatt — formally titled the True Heir of Jevezsyl, if that’s of interest — by members of his own cabinet. They secretly formed the Common Welfare Party and negotiated with Kugad to make the nation a protected client state in exchange for a favourable mineral export deal. It was a bloodless coup, at least as far as the Jattan people were concerned, but not so bloodless for Nir-Tenbiku’s loyalists.”
“Almost depressingly human, aren’t they?.”
“So Nir-Tenbiku Dals wants to avenge his grandfather, who was legally elected, and restore the old system of government, which would declare full independence from Kugad. That’s why he currently calls himself the Primary in Exile.”
Ingram glanced at Searle, who shrugged. Chris looked like he was more interested in staring at the wall, but he always did that when he was concentrating and working something out.
“I try not to take sides in foreign wars,” Ingram said. “But I don’t like quislings. The enemy within and all that. Stick them up against the wall.”
Hredt turned to his screen to look up quisling. “Yes, that’s correct. If you assume the Jattan people wished to remain an independent nation.”
“And did they?”
“Most did, because Jattans regard themselves as exceptional, so they see the Kugin as barbarians — which they are, of course — but the merchant class took a more pragmatic view of statehood.”
“They lined their pockets. Gosh, I’m shocked.”
Hredt liked that phrase. Lined their pockets. He made a mental note of it. “Yes, they did well out of the agreement, even if most Jattans didn’t.”
“But most Jattans have put up with it for years rather than burn the place down,” Marc said. “So they can’t be that upset. Which means the security assessment is that the rebels will never be more than a serious nuisance.”
“That’s how I understand it,” Hredt said. “But it might not be a lack of concern that keeps the population placated. The Protectorate secret police are quite brutal. We know. We designed their equipment.”
Chris finally looked up from his screen and joined the discussion. “Okay, Fred, the Protectorate guys want their ship back, but they’ll also hand you over to their Kugin overlords to show how loyal they are, yeah?”
“Correct.”
“And this Primary in Exile guy just wants the ship for whatever, and he’s not going to give Kugad any advantage over him, which would be you.”
“If you’re still thinking Nir-Tenbiku would welcome us as fellow rebels, you’d be mistaken,” Hredt said. “But you’re right that they wouldn’t return us to the Kugin.”
“They’re not going to advertise it if they succeed, either.”
“Definitely not.”
Marc shrugged. “Assuming they decide to come for us, at least we know we can detect them in time to do something about it, and that they’re limited in how much they can throw at us.”
“Where are they based, Fred?” Ingram asked. “Did you mention Esmos to me once?”
“Yes, it’s thought that they could be based there. It’s on Bhinu. Bhinu is shared by two dominant species, the paalie and the bidaren. Esmos is a bidaren state.”
“And those are the ones nobody messes with because they’re neutral. I suppose they’d have to be, with two species.”
“But Esmos is aggressively neutral,” Hredt said. “It’s hard to describe, but they allow anyone sanctuary there as long as they don’t interfere with Esmos or bring their disputes with them. That policy is honoured because they have a certain history.”
“This is the aggressively bit, I assume.”
“They razed the capital of Tari Kul to the ground for the assassination of a political rival on Esmosi soil. It was a long time ago, but it made a lasting impression. Even the Kugin know not to provoke them. They only have what you would call weapons of mass destruction, no substantial standing army for smaller conflicts. It’s either self-defence or complete destruction.”
Marc leaned on the bench next to Hredt. “Well, that’s one way of doing it.”
“What are we actually debating here?” Searle asked. “Our chances of beating the other guy, or who we might have to make friends with?”
“We’ve only looked at the worst scenario of a Jattan-Kugin alliance showing up,” Ingram said. “We might well be able to see off an incursion by the rebels. We have to assume they’ll be back, but everything else depends on how badly they want the ship.”
“And how badly we want to keep it,” Trinder said. “Do we?”
“Are you suggesting we hand her over?” Devlin asked.
“In the short term, we’d be better off with more Lammergeiers.”
“If all they want is the ship, sure, but we can be smart about how we do it,” Searle said. “We have to get something in return or we’ll look weak. You know, like we say to them, ‘Oh, this thing? Yeah, take it. Look, we’re building an operating base for our massive intergalactic fleet that’s coming soon, so if you guys play your cards right, we won’t ruin your revolution.’ Or words to that effect.”
Marc looked dubious. “Bluff only works for a so long. But it does give us a breathing space to bulk up.”
“But they don’t know we hold the ace. The Caisin gate. Which really is the great leveller.”
“We know our cover’s blown,” Ingram said. “When we confirm who’s blown it, we can scale our response as required.”
“We should try to intercept any ships exiting from spacefold around Opis,” Hredt said. “And a Caisin gateway would do that, of course. We can route them anywhere — into another sector or into a star.”
“Before we get into that, can you repair that probe?” Ingram asked. “We can assume whoever sent it wanted imaging, so they probably have visual on us, and they know the probe’s been brought down, therefore we won’t lose any advantage by returning the call. How do we establish contact with them?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Hredt wasn’t sure where this was going. It sounded extremely risky. “But what would you say to them?”
“I’d ask them to explain themselves, as it’s their second incursion into our territory.” Sometimes Ingram became a different person. Her smile faded, her tone became less animated, and she folded her arms. “I’m open to other suggestions, but unless breaking their toy has convinced them we’re too dangerous to be approached, which I doubt, then sitting here and doing nothing might make us look like an easy target.”
“Protectorate or rebels, they’re Jattan,” Hredt said. “They’re headstrong. They take ridiculous risks in battle and put their allies at risk too. They have enormous and totally misplaced confidence in their abilities.”
“We like that kind of enemy, actually,” Marc said. “But we usually get them as allies.”
“I meant that they would see any contact as yet another reason to launch an attack.”
Ingram was proving hard to convince. “If they’re that mindlessly gung-ho, then just sitting here might be equally provocative. They know we’re here. If they know that, they know we have the ship. If we have the ship, they know we have you.”
“And I know these creatures.” Was that the right word? Hredt thought he meant it neutrally, that they were a different species, but if he was honest with himself it was also because he disliked them. Jattans didn’t realise how foolish they were. “While I’ve never had any contact with the opposition, they’re likely to be even more driven by honour and the need to be heroic, because they were the losing side last time.”
“What’s your advice, then?”
“Do nothing. Wait. Set a trap. Eventually, they’ll show their hand. They’ll arrive here, miscalculate, and you can annihilate their forces.”
“That needs a big trap, though, and we don’t have one yet,” Marc said. “We could drive them off the first time, but if we don’t wipe them out, they could keep coming back and eventually grind us down because they can find reinforcements and we can’t. I assume they have more than a couple of thousand people to call on.”
It was a reasonable point. But Hredt could only give his opinion and hope they listened. He suspected they wouldn’t.
Trinder had been studying the fragments. He looked up. “While we were hunting for Gan-Pamas, you said that we’d need to show the Kugin that we were crazy psychos and launch a pre-emptive strike, and they might leave us alone because we’d look crazier than they were. I’m trying to square that with their relationship with the Jattans. Have I got this right? The Jattans want to fight everyone and go out in a blaze of glory, but the Kugin only kill you if you won’t hand over your lunch money, and they don’t like destroying anything they can make a profit from. That doesn’t fit too well.”
“But it’s true, more or less.”
“Did you have direct contact with Jattans, or did they just send snotty memos via your foremen?” Ingram asked.
“Snotty?”
“Arrogant. Conceited. Rude.”
“We would meet Jattan naval officers and procurement staff,” Hredt said. “So they were snotty in person.”
Trinder did that little movement humans often made when they were about to say something controversial. He raised his eyebrows and lowered his chin. “If the Kugin are the steadying influence on the Jattans, maybe we should think longer term about a deal with them.”
Hredt was horrified. “But you know what they’re like. How can you say this?”
“But we don’t know. You’re not at risk. They won’t even know you’re around. As far as we’re concerned, there’s an abandoned ship here and that’s all.”
“You don’t understand what you’re taking on.”
Marc looked at Chris and seemed to get a discreet nod from him. “Okay, back to basics,” he said. “Capability matters more than intent. Our immediate problem is the rebels, because they know where we are, and if they’ll come after us again no matter what we do, we might as well try to contact them and warn them off. On the other hand, if they’ve kept their heads down for years to avoid the Protectorate, that tells me they aren’t such mad bastards after all. They know how to bide their time. So it comes down to the ship. What can it do that we can’t achieve with the Caisin gate, the Lammergeiers, and our existing fleet upgraded to FTL? If Curtis is armed transport for Jattan shock troops, the gate’s a better piece of kit for insertions in every respect.”
“Yeah, I don’t think Curtis gives us any edge at all at the moment,” Chris said. “But it’s a valuable bargaining chip. Sorry, Brad. I know you wanted to give the ship a run.”
“I’d rather have peace and quiet for this colony,” Searle said. “But I’m gutted, yeah. It would have been fun.”
Marc looked at Hredt. “Fred, I know you nicked it, and our law says it belongs to the Jattans, but if we apply finders-keepers it’s still more your ship than ours. What do you think?”
They were missing the point, even Marc. This would be a short-term measure. If the opposition succeeded in overthrowing the Protectorate, they’d become much the same except they’d probably be at war with the Kugin, and Nomad Base would be seen as aiding them when scores were eventually settled. But Marc was right about one thing: the humans didn’t have numbers on their side, even against the opposition. They weren’t going to get reinforcements from Earth for years.
“I still think you should wait and see,” Hredt said. “If they try again, then respond with maximum force.”
He wanted to say that there was no option that avoided coming into conflict with one nation or another, but they obviously knew that. He felt ashamed that with all the commune’s knowledge and skills, there was so little they could do to help them avoid conflict. But teeriks were uniquely qualified to help them win it.
“Let’s see what we can do with this probe first and revisit it then,” Ingram said. She was either bored or she’d already made up her mind to do something else. Hredt had learned how humans said no without actually saying it. “I’m going to send a message to all residents explaining what’s happened. Call me if you need me.”
Hredt sometimes found it hard to predict whether humans would keep something secret or tell everyone about it. The others hung around for a while after Ingram left because Searle and Devlin wanted to examine the probe themselves.
“Can we watch you do it?” Devlin asked. “A drive small enough to fit into a tennis ball is astonishing.”
“I could have dismantled one of ours to show you,” Hredt said.
Searle poked a wary finger into the neatly-arranged debris. “Yeah, but we need this one working.”
“Ours are larger and separate into smaller probes when they reach their destination,” Hredt said, working out what he’d need to replace the buckled composite shell. “But this is a single optical version.”
“So which part is the propulsion unit?” Devlin asked.
“This object here.” He indicated the small ovoid. “The fuel’s still sealed, so there’s no danger.”
“Oh, now you tell us,” Searle said, leaning right over it.
They seemed genuinely fascinated, not just trying to learn what they could so that they no longer needed teeriks, which was what Solomon seemed to be doing. Hredt understood why Solomon was doing it. The AI would survive indefinitely, whereas the future of the commune was doubtful unless they could find other like-minded teeriks to carry on bloodlines. They would probably die out. Solomon wanted to be able to operate the technology if that day came, but he was probably too polite to put it in those terms. Hredt just wished he’d say so outright and then they could plan ahead better.
“What would have happened if that thing decided to spacefold while we had hold of it?” Chris asked.
“It might well have ripped off your hand,” Hredt said. “Or your whole arm.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Has it got presets?” Marc asked. “If you power it up again, will it remember where it was transmitting before it was hit?”
“If the opposition have any sense, they’d do the same as we did by disguising the return signal,” Hredt said. “It might even self-destruct.”
“Great. Workplace safety rules are vastly overrated.”
“But I doubt it.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d be poking around if you thought it’d vaporise the room. But I was thinking more about how we send a message, if that’s what we end up doing.”
Hredt still had hopes of talking Ingram out of that. “It could still be linked to the opposition’s receiving station, but if it can’t create a spacefold, and there’s no relay nearby, its signal will take a long time to reach Esmos, Ocaiy, or wherever they’re based.” He watched Marc frown, the usual reaction when it emerged that Hredt hadn’t told him something. “Ocaiy is one of the Jattan colonies, Marc. I’ll ask Solomon to label the charts.”
“Thanks.”