Here We Stand, page 66
“Awesome,” Searle said. “You’re a one-woman intelligence service.”
Cosqui did that little side-to-side head movement that said she was pleased to be flattered. “Unless there’s a larger fleet waiting out of range, I think this visit is diplomatic. From what you’ve said, Nir-Tenbiku thinks humans are heavily armed. If he intended to attack, he’d have brought more support.”
“Maybe that’s all he’s got,” Searle said. “Or all we can see.”
“Shipyard gossip said the opposition had at least ten warships.”
“Whatever they’ve come to do, we need to be ready to smack them hard and fast at the first sign of trouble,” Ingram said. She was in her thinking pose, one arm folded across her chest and the other hand to her chin while she frowned at the array of screens. “Sol, what can you place inside the corvette via the gate? Can we use a nuke?”
“We can, Captain, or conventional explosives,” Solomon said. “It would be instant, and in the unlikely event of any survivors, they would have no idea that a gate had been used. No awkward questions left hanging.”
“So do we want to wipe them out, seize the ships, or warn them off?” Chris asked. “I’m not sure where we’re going here.”
It was a simple question, but not an easy choice. Chris and everyone else had prepared for a defensive action that assumed the base would be invaded and come under attack. It was straightforward: if aliens opened fire, the base responded with everything it had. But there were just two ships, and nobody knew if they were on their own or if they had backup lurking somewhere. Their disappearance wouldn’t remain a mystery, either. Someone back at base almost certainly knew where they were going and why.
Ingram didn’t appear to take the question as criticism. She seemed relaxed, like she was happy to be back doing something she understood and knew she did well. “I’d prefer Nir-Tenbiku to bugger off and not come back, actually,” she said. “I don’t want to blow anything up or cause casualties if we don’t have to, because we don’t know if we’ll end up calling down worse trouble on ourselves. If they do nothing hostile, then the ball’s in our court to make the wrong call. So while we need to be ready to launch an attack if things go wrong, I want to talk to them first, if only to confirm it really is the opposition.”
“But if this guy’s got a mole in his camp, the Protectorate are going to know all about us before long.”
“Then we’d better hope Nir-Tenbiku’s security’s tight.”
Ingram moved on. She wasn’t taking a vote on this. But that was the power-sharing deal they’d agreed. Chris, Trinder, and Marc ran the land forces, and she had control of everything in the sea, air, or space, so he’d defer to her and keep his misgivings to himself, just as he’d expected her to defer to him during the protests. His job was to defend the base on the ground if her plan failed. He was ready for that.
“Brad, get Curtis cranked up and stand by, just in case.”
“On my way, ma’am,” Searle said. “Come on, Cosqui.”
Cosqui muttered to herself and followed him. “It would have been better if we hadn’t stripped out so many parts.”
“But she can still fire her lasers.”
“We’ll know when we try.”
As Chris glanced their way, he realised Marc was now standing at the back of the room in a red Ainatio pressure suit, something he’d never seen the guy wear before. Chris could only interpret that as meaning he planned to board one of the ships. There was no need to do that to destroy them, so was Ingram thinking of extracting something or someone? Chris was all for retrieving useful stuff, but the last complication they needed after the Gan-Pamas debacle was another Jattan effectively held hostage in Nomad.
“Captain, are we planning to board?” Chris asked.
“I’m not ruling it out yet, but I’d prefer to avoid it,” Ingram said. “Until I know what their intention is, all options stay open.”
“We don’t need another Gan-Pamas.”
Chris couldn’t tell how she’d taken that, but she didn’t blink. “Okay, everybody patch into Sol’s translation so we can hear what’s going on,” she said. Her tone and folded arms said she was back on her bridge and ready to fight. “Let’s see if Nir-Tenbiku’s receiving. I hope he’s still connected to his probe.” She let out a breath and tapped the comms switch. “Unidentified vessels, this is Nomad Base. You’re entering Opis space without permission. Identify yourselves immediately or we’ll open fire.”
The silence dragged on. Ingram now had that tight-lipped look that said she was still the Butcher of Calais. She’d dodged the hard decision on whether to take Gan-Pamas alive, but vessels entering her space uninvited seemed to be a clear-cut issue.
“Unidentified Jattan vessels,” she repeated. “This is Nomad Base. Turn back now or you will be fired upon.”
Ingram pressed the mute button. Marc squeezed through the crush to talk to her for a moment before making his way out again. As he passed, he gave Chris a here-we-go-again look. Chris could only nod.
“Unidentified Jattan vessels,” Ingram said, slowly and more firmly this time. “This is your final warning. Turn back now or you will be fired upon.” She tapped her earpiece and stepped back from the console. “Ready, Sol?”
“Yes, Captain. Patrol ship first, conventional missile and gate standing by.”
Chris checked his watch. Ingram was counting down thirty seconds.
“I think he heard you, ma’am,” Hiyashi said. “Both of them look like they’re doing deceleration burns.”
“Good. At least they understood.”
Chris waited, not sure what Ingram defined as an end to the incursion. Did she want to see them spacefold away before she stood everyone down? Then the artificial voice Solomon had allocated to the Jattan response to Ingram’s message boomed from the speaker.
“This is Primary Nir-Tenbiku Dals, rightful Mediator of Jatt. I apologise for the manner of my arrival, Captain Ingram. I request an audience with you. I’m unarmed and I’ve come alone.”
So Nir-Tenbiku didn’t take no for an answer. Chris watched Ingram carefully. He expected her to blow the shit out of the ship, but she could be unpredictable
“But you’re not alone, Primary,” she said. “You have a Type Four corvette accompanying you, for instance.”
Chris thought for instance was just Ingram being conversational, but then he realised it was quite clever. If it came out in Jattan the way she delivered it in English, Nir-Tenbiku wouldn’t know if Nomad could only detect the Type Four or if Ingram was using it as an example. If he had more vessels standing off a lot further away, he’d have no idea of the range of Nomad’s sensors and if she could see more than she was letting on.
“Captain, the corvette transported my vessel here so that I wouldn’t enter your space in a warship and appear hostile,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “I’m sorry if we seemed to be a threat. We don’t want any conflict with you. Just a discussion.”
Chris had to hand it to him. He’d dumped that proverbial ball straight back in her court. Chris watched her expression change to narrow-eyed calculation, like she’d thought of something that would be more use to her than simple destruction. But she either had to fire now or find out what he wanted.
“Tell your frigate to stand off to five hundred thousand kilometres,” she said. “We’ll monitor the activity of her drive and her weapons systems to ensure that she does. Are you able to land in your vessel?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Hold your distance and await my next transmission.”
Ingram muted the channel and waited, looking at the screen over Hiyashi’s shoulder.
“Corvette’s changing course, ma’am,” Hiyashi said.
“Sol, Commander Searle — stand by.” Ingram turned to face the room. “I’m inclined to give him a chance to talk. Yes, I know I wanted them to leave us alone, but we’ve got to deal with Jattans at some point, and the opposition’s a source of intel. Turning him back now might mean using force. Anyone want to talk me out of it?”
Chris almost reminded her that Bissey had said that before he resigned. The guy was gradually being proven right on everything. It rankled, but Chris tried to learn a lesson from it.
“We were all for following Fred’s advice to behave like the new gangsters in town because that’s how they do things around here,” Chris said. “Okay, it’s a bad idea to start a fight we can’t finish, but we’re starting the relationship with a concession. And we’re going to get sucked into their feud just by having contact.”
“That depends on how I deal with Nir-Tenbiku,” Ingram said.
“Scare him over coffee and cookies, you mean?”
“That’s a good definition of diplomacy.”
“Okay, if talking doesn’t work, we can escalate any time.”
“I’m glad you see my point.” Ingram always said that when she thought people didn’t and she wanted to remind them who was boss. “So let’s get Nir-Tenbiku down here and have a chat.”
“If you’re bringing him here, he might ask to take his buddy’s body back with him,” Chris said. “Unless you’re going to ransom it, I’ll get the medics to prep it for transport.”
Ingram softened a little, but only from corundum to steel. “Thank you. Best to have it ready in case I need to play that card.”
Chris went outside and stood on the front steps, happy to get out of that room and breathe fresh air. After he’d messaged Dr Mendoza to prep Gan-Pamas’s body, he listened to the silence for a few moments. What were the teeriks going to make of all this? These Jattans definitely didn’t fit the description Fred had given. If they just wore an enemy down by constantly dropping in and asking to borrow a cup of sugar instead of going full scorched earth, that made them a lot more complicated to deal with. It’d become harder to work out when it was time to open fire.
Maybe Ingram really was the best commander to take them on, though, because Nir-Tenbiku’s polite but insistent style was kind of British, the way she’d probably wage war herself by turning up in a gunboat and saying she was terribly sorry but she had to invade.
Trinder joined him outside and stood with his arms folded, looking out across the green.
“I didn’t have a better idea,” he said.
“Me neither.”
“We got everyone to their shelter positions in record time, so there’s that. But I’d be happier if all the bomb shelters had been finished.”
“Any objections?” Chris asked.
“I was waiting for someone to say how convenient it was to have an alien invasion on election day, just after we brought back prison ships, but no, nothing. I think my abject terror looked genuine enough to convince them it wasn’t a stunt.”
“Where’s Howie?”
“Mangel’s looking after him in the Warehouse Ten basement. He’s set up some physics experiment to keep him occupied.”
“And the teeriks?”
“Apart from Cosqui and Fred, they’re still on the ships. It was easier and safer to leave them there with our guys.”
Chris’s mind went straight to asset denial and setting the vessels to self-destruct. “Safer for Earth. Easier to make sure the Jattans don’t get them.”
“Ah... no. I don’t think that was the plan.”
“I bet it’s occurred to Ingram, though.” Chris pointed across the green at Lee Ramsay’s gun truck. Lee was sitting behind the gun, looking bored. “Okay, I’m going to be over there. That’s my command centre until this is over.”
“Copy that. I’ll catch up with you later.”
Chris walked over to the truck. Lee gave him a hand up onto the flatbed and they stood surveying the base for a while.
“Hell of a day off you picked, huh?”
“I think this is our new normal,” Chris said. “Ingram’s agreed to talk to Nir-Tenbiku.”
“Are they going to move Elcano as a precaution?”
“Nobody raised it. Yesterday’s panic. We’ve got a new one to play with now. A crisis a day, like an advent calendar.”
“Does anyone ever stick to a plan around here?”
Chris shrugged. “Doesn’t look like it.”
“We’ll always be guessing our way through this.”
“Yeah, think how much worse it’d be if we had experts.”
“Amen. Does Ingram know what she’s doing?”
Chris sat down on the edge of the side panel and thought it over. “As much as any of us do. She’s defending an island again. We’re the island and ships are ships, wherever they are. She knows how to do that really well.”
Lee opened a pack of jerky and shared it with him. “Nobody wants to be the first human to start a war with aliens, though. Not even her.”
“But it’s pretty much human history. Meet a new society, check it out, get in a fight with it.”
“Could be worse,” Lee said. “She might do a deal with them. And then we’ll have politics in paradise.”
“You mean more politics. There’s already a deal with Britain.”
Nomad Base had been manned for just six months. They should have still been preoccupied with the basics like expanding food production, having kids, and maybe exploring the rest of the planet a little. Instead they’d become a miniature nation with the complications and baggage of a big country, amassed overnight rather than by centuries of mistakes and learning hard lessons. Chris wondered how they’d ever roll that back and have their fresh start now. There was no blank page to return to.
“I hope she’s too smart for that,” he said.
“But are the Jattans? We won’t be able to avoid them. We’re going to get galaxy politics whether we want it or not.”
For all Nomad’s isolation, it still had neighbours, and they couldn’t be erased and forgotten either. Even keeping them at arm’s length and making Opis a no-go area would shape how the colony grew and behaved. Chris realised there was a real future at stake now, not the kind he’d had on Earth, where the question was how it would all inevitably end, but continuity and possibilities stretching generations ahead. What he did now would determine how it turned out. There was nothing amazing about that, and regular folks probably took the idea for granted, but it was amazing for him. He never thought he’d be able to see the world that way. It was worrying and uplifting at the same time.
Maybe the feeling wouldn’t last, but the uninvited Jattans had done him a favour. They’d made him realise he had more to lose than his own limited life. He was part of something bigger, and he had a stake in a future he’d never see, a future that he now cared about a lot more than he ever thought he would.
In a back-to-front, accidental kind of way, the Jattans had taught him the real meaning of optimism.
* * *
Hangar 3, Nomad Base: fifteen minutes since last contact with Nir-Tenbiku.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Ingram looked Marc over with a frown. “Boarding isn’t really necessary. We can do the security checks when the ship lands.”
Marc put his helmet on and ran his suit’s safety checks to make sure everything was connected and sealed. He hadn’t done this for nearly fifteen years, and even then he hadn’t done it anywhere near often enough to feel relaxed about it. The unfamiliar suit was one of Ainatio’s lightweight emergency escape types in case he ended up gating into a depressurised compartment or missing Nir-Tenbiku’s ship completely, but it still crimped his movement. It was hard enough manoeuvring inside a Jattan-sized ship without the extra bulk.
He bloody well hated space.
His brief acquaintance with it hadn’t filled him with a sense of wonder. It just depressed him. The sheer emptiness he saw when he first transferred to an orbital for a training exercise looked agonisingly lonely rather than awe-inspiring, and he never saw a clear sky the same way again. Sometimes his focus would flip like inverting an optical illusion, and instead of bright blue infinity he saw a thin layer of gas and then absolutely cold, black, hostile lifelessness stretching further than he could ever imagine. If anything went wrong today and he ended up drifting in space, he’d just vent the suit and get it over with. He couldn’t think of a worse way to die than waiting for his air to run out and having nothing to look at in his final moments except that lonely darkness. When it came to death, he wanted either instant oblivion from a competent sniper or a nice view to say goodbye to.
And then there was the helmet. He’d never admitted it to anyone, but enclosed helmets made him claustrophobic in a way that breathing apparatus didn’t. He’d have been downgraded for operations if the brass had known and — far worse — he’d have been humiliated. He forced himself to slow his breathing and pressed the external speaker control on his sleeve.
“Yeah, I know this looks like overkill,” he said. “But if that ship’s full of nukes or chemical weapons, security checks here are going to make sod all difference. I need to board before it lands.”
Marc stretched and squatted in the suit, testing its range of mobility again. Searle watched like he was doing his best not to offer helpful suggestions.
“You reckon you can dock okay?” Marc asked.
“Cosqui’s going to give me a hand.”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“So once I’m in, do I reseal the hatch or do you?”
“We can close it in the same way that we open it,” Cosqui said. “It’s the escape hatch. Rescue or salvage teams need their own method of access if the crew’s unable to respond.”
“Good.” Marc took off his helmet and sucked in fresh air that wasn’t really any different from the suit’s supply. It just tasted better when he wasn’t trapped. “Once I’m in, detach and get clear. Don’t stay tethered. If the ship’s booby-trapped for whatever reason, you’re fucked as well. Pull out to a safe distance and keep your laser on him.”
