Command Decision

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Do you think they’ll turn the ansible off?” someone asked.

  “No,” Pettygrew said. “Oh, they might, but if it’s working, it’s a source of income for them when anyone else uses it. I think I’d better contact Captain Vatta right away, even if she is busy.”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  Aboard Vanguard

  “Captain, Bassoon wants you,” Vanguard’s comtech said.

  Ky switched to that channel. “Vatta here.”

  “Captain Vatta, I’ve just had a disturbing message—via ansible—from ISC. Apparently my repair tripped some kind of automatic signal, and they’ve threatened to have Bassoon arrested anywhere we go, for violation of the Commercial Code.”

  “Did they get your ship ID?”

  “Yes. They stripped our beacon. I’d explained it was an emergency situation, with ships attacked and casualties, and they said that was no excuse. I…er…I shouldn’t have, but I did say I was part of the Space Defense Force—”

  “No reason you shouldn’t,” Ky said. “What happened?”

  “They said they had no record of any such organization. Of course they don’t, but…then they said it must be an illegal organization and they’d report that, too.”

  “That’s not good,” Ky said. “Not that I’m blaming you, Dan. It’s my fault, if it’s anyone but theirs. If they’d repaired their ansibles in a timely manner, none of this would’ve happened. I wish I knew if Rafe—the ISC person we had aboard for a while—was at ISC headquarters by now or not. He might be able to straighten this out, but trying to contact him could be tricky.”

  “They said any attempts to contact them would result in gathering more evidence against us,” Pettygrew said.

  “Well…I may have a roundabout way of doing it so they don’t know it’s us,” Ky said. “It’ll take awhile to work out, though. Meanwhile, we should get in a better defensive position in case something unfriendly comes through the jump point.”

  “Do you expect anyone?”

  “Not really. But we don’t want to be unpleasantly surprised, either by pirates or by an irate ISC ship. We can protect Metaire best if we’re not sitting on top of either the ansible position or Metaire itself.”

  “You know we expended a lot of our missiles—”

  “I know. We don’t want to fight a serious battle, but we could manage a fighting retreat. Metaire’s worse off than we are, and they’re still picking up their dead.”

  “There’s a lot of junk out there,” Pettygrew said. “It’ll take them days to find all the remains, if they can.”

  “Kalin’s hoping one of his messages got to the relief convoy so they can call in a hazmat ship,” Ky said. “But he’s not prepared to abandon the search just yet.” She had already added minesweepers and post-battle hazmat teams to her wish list, with the wry thought that Spaceforce Academy hadn’t really prepared her to organize a fleet. “You’ll need to reposition, and I’ll contact Argelos—we’ll have a brief all-ships conference in two hours.” If nothing happened before then. “Meanwhile, I’ll also tell Colonel Kalin what we’re up to.”

  “All-ships including Ransome’s Rangers?”

  Ky rolled her eyes. “I suppose…for the part of it they won’t think too boring. They served us well, whatever we think of them.”

  “True. Well, then, I’ll be on my way,” Pettygrew said.

  Two hours later, Ky convened the conference. “This will be short,” she said, “since we know that hostiles were undoubtedly made aware of the defeat of their people and may decide to attempt retaliation. We can’t leave, because Metaire is still retrieving casualties and several of us have Mackensee personnel, including wounded, aboard. I’ve discussed Metaire’s situation with the Mackensee officer in command. He’s expecting a group of Mackensee ships in ten to twelve days, but those ships think they’re bringing troops to change out for training exercises. He is unwilling to leave until they arrive. They will be armed, of course…and our first concern is that they not attack us, thinking we’re the enemy. We know these ships are coming, and approximately when. We don’t know about the others—the pirates and, unfortunately, ISC. Pirates are likely to attack in force, if they come. They will know we expended ammunition and there’s no place here to resupply; they will know that a Mackensee ship was seriously damaged and that Mackensee had many casualties…they may realize that we’re still here and more vulnerable than before. But since we don’t know if they’re coming, or when they might get here, or with how many ships if they do come, our ability to plan for them is limited. Our discussions earlier, you recall, led to some excellent suggestions for situations like this, so—” Ky put up a diagram. “This is what we’re going to do—”

  Nexus II,

  ISC Headquarters

  Rafe looked out the window at the swirls of snow and wished he were out there somewhere, anonymous, going about his business—whatever that might have been—able to stop in to any shop, ride on any carrier, without arousing attention. He had come to work in the private car, as usual, with his own private bodyguards; it was now the only way he could go anywhere.

  He had dealt with the first of the morning’s work, and now he could not put off any longer the problem his father insisted was urgent. Here and there, in the vast territory where ISC had once held an unbreakable monopoly on long-distance communication, ansibles out of service were coming back online…but not because ISC repair crews had fixed them. Economically, in the short term at least, this was a good thing: the more ansibles, the more traffic, and the more traffic, the more profit. He had made this argument with his father. If they didn’t have to send a repair team, it saved costs; if the calls went through, they were paid.

  But his father insisted that it was a dangerous precedent, that letting systems fix their own ansibles was tantamount to giving them part ownership in them. It violated the old licensing agreements; it ran counter to those sections in the Universal Commercial Code that ISC had insisted on putting in.

  And what exercised his father most was the Slotter Key repair, which had been done—no secret about it—at the behest of Grace Lane Vatta, now Sub-Rector of Defense. In his father’s mind, the line of guilt from Lew Parmina ran straight to anyone he’d befriended…and he had befriended the Vatta family. Vattas were at least suspect, his father insisted. He had been appalled to learn that Rafe had spent time—a lot of time—with two surviving members of that family, that Rafe expressed anything other than suspicion of their motives.

  And now ISC’s legal staff were scrambling to deal with requests from an intellectual property lawyer on Cascadia who wanted to know where patents relevant to “mobile ansibles” might be filed. Rafe knew exactly where that request came from. Ky had said flat out she intended not only to use the shipboard ansible installed on Osman’s ship, but also to share the others with allies. Stella…Stella had seen the economic side; clearly she was preparing to manufacture and sell them. And Toby…whether the rest of the family knew it or not, Toby was one of those rare tech geniuses, and Rafe had recognized it. If Toby had been tinkering with the design, who knew what might come out of it?

  He hadn’t yet told his father about this, but he would have to soon. Though his father was progressing slowly in rehab—the brain damage had been more severe than they first hoped, and neural regeneration proceeded at its own measured rate—he insisted on being kept up to date on the main issues at ISC. If Rafe didn’t tell him, one of his old friends might—even though they had been told, by the doctors, not to talk business with him.

  He could imagine the response. His father had seemed, when he was a boy, so calm and reasonable…but now, in the wake of Lew Parmina’s betrayal and his own injuries, he had formed this one unshakable, irrational conclusion. Lew had counted the Vatta family as friends; therefore the Vatta family was, most likely, an enemy. The whole shipboard ansible mess was their fault—hadn’t such ansibles been found on a Vatta ship? And wasn’t it another Vatta who insisted on using them?
And now Stella Vatta was trying to find out about the relevant patents.

  “Excuse me, sir.” Emil Borcaster, borrowed from the family’s own legal firm as his personal assistant, tapped on the door frame. Emil had checked out clean, according to Gary’s people…unlike some of the other candidates for the job.

  “Yes, come in.”

  “There’s a new report on the ansible repair situation. A relay ansible’s been brought online by something calling itself the Space Defense Force, Third Fleet. We don’t have them in our records—they don’t have an account with us or anything—but I did a little digging. Our people on Adelaide report that a group of three ships showed up there, calling themselves the Space Defense Force, and made an ansible connection to the offices of Vatta Transport on Cascadia.”

  “Surely you jest,” Rafe said, swallowing the urge to scream and slam his head on the desk. Ky. It had to be Ky. What she was doing in Adelaide when she’d started off in the opposite direction, he didn’t know, but clearly she’d created that multisystem force she’d been talking about. The “Third Fleet” part sounded overdone, though. He was willing to bet it was a ruse, and all she had was what came with her.

  “No, sir; it’s not a joke. And the commanding officer of that group of ships was a Kylara Vatta. With an account at Adelaide Central Bank; the records on the financial ansible at Adelaide show a funds transfer to Vatta Transport on Cascadia.”

  “And I thought the day couldn’t get worse,” Rafe muttered.

  “Sir? But this makes it clearer, doesn’t it? The Vatta family is working against ISC.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Rafe asked.

  “Well…down in Enforcement, they’re saying that’s three. Grace Vatta pushing to get Slotter Key’s Spaceforce to meddle with their ansible. Stella Vatta trying to infringe our patents on ansible technology, and now Kylara Vatta and this illegally constituted organization calling itself Space Defense Force tampering with another ansible. Four if you count the shipboard ansibles on Osman Vatta’s ship. I know you don’t, but some do.”

  “There’s something you don’t know, Emil,” Rafe said. “As my assistant, you have to be in on this, but you must keep it quiet…besides us, only Legal knows, and they aren’t talking.”

  “What’s that, sir?”

  “We have no patents on the shipboard ansibles.”

  “What? Of course we do! ISC patent attorneys are famous for patenting anything and everything—”

  “Yes. And the decision was made, years back, to use that reputation, not actual recorded patents, to protect the mobile ansible technology.”

  “But…but that was stupid! Why—?”

  “The danger of letting it be known what was possible, even if it was protected under law. We’d have had to file the plans, including the details of how the design was kept from interfacing with system ansibles. At that point, someone somewhere could have accessed them, taken them to some system that wasn’t entirely within the law, and started manufacture.”

  “Did your father make that decision?”

  “No. But he concurred. What we have now is an attempt to stonewall while we see if there is any way at all we can claim rights in the technology, or if someone else—the pirates who are using it, for instance—managed to file patents on it in some out-of-the-way mudball where our staff doesn’t usually troll for inventions, because there aren’t any.”

  “Then—then Vatta Transport isn’t trying to infringe?”

  “No. They’re trying not to infringe—they actually inquired—and if they went on and manufactured onboard ansibles by the shipload, we’d have no legal complaint. Not at the moment, anyway.”

  “But if they’re just small, lightweight versions of system ansibles—I know ISC holds the patents on that—”

  “They’re not,” Rafe said. “I’ve examined them—and I already knew, pretty much, how they differed. It’s a mess, is what it is, and we’re not doing ourselves much good by stonewalling. I’m going to try to convince the Board of that.”

  “They won’t like it.”

  “I don’t like it. But with so many systems angry that we haven’t restored their communications, and our income stream still dropping, I don’t see that we’re going to get much satisfaction in the courts if we try to fight it.” Rafe shook his head. “The legitimate members of the Vatta family—and no, I don’t count Osman—found and used the shipboard technology that originated in our research labs. But they didn’t steal it from us; it had already been stolen because we didn’t protect it, either physically or legally. None of those units had been manufactured here. It’s one of the things I checked. Moreover, we didn’t take out the necessary patents, so…legally…there’s nothing underhanded at all in what Stella and Ky Vatta did about those.”

  “But the other—”

  “Vattas aren’t the only ones to do unauthorized ansible repair,” Rafe said. “We have a dozen, don’t we, on the list?”

  “Fourteen today, sir.”

  “Right. And only two of them remotely associated with Vattas.”

  “That we know of,” Emil said, scowling.

  “That we know of. Fine. But still…if Lew Parmina hadn’t made such a point of being friendly with them, would anyone seriously suspect them?”

  “No…I suppose not. But he did, and you said we still haven’t found all his people in the organization.”

  “Vattas aren’t his people. Just an ordinary—well, ordinary for rich—family he chose to be friends with. For all we know, as cover.” Though, now that he came to think of it, why had Lew Parmina chosen to get close to the Vatta family? And how close?

  Unfortunately, he couldn’t call Stella and ask her. That would raise an even bigger stink.

  “So—did Enforcement send a message on this latest repair thing?”

  “Of course. They stripped the beacon off the ship involved—Bassoon, with Bissonet registry. In fact, it’s listed as part of the Bissonet Free Militia, which is—or was, until the recent unfortunate events—what Bissonet calls their privateers.”

  “And the captain is Kylara Vatta?”

  “No, no. Bassoon’s captain is Daniel Pettygrew. Vatta’s ship is the Vanguard, Moscoe Confederation registry. Anyway, Enforcement told Pettygrew that they didn’t recognize the organization as a legal entity, and that they’d stripped his beacon and filed a complaint against him in every available jurisdiction.”

  “Who’s in charge down there this shift? Oh, right, Jessie Squires. Get her for me, will you?”

  “You’re not going to rescind it, are you?”

  “Not personally, no. The more I can do through established channels, the better. I will convince Jessie it’s in our best interest to rescind it. Bissonet’s fallen to the pirates and their allies; Pettygrew’s a refugee. Yes, he probably knows our rules, but he’s actually done us a service. And if Pettygrew is with Ky Vatta, they’re hunting pirates—which is exactly what someone needs to do before they’re walking into this office and blowing our heads off.”

  “You don’t really think that could happen, do you, sir? We have our own space forces.”

  “Emil, you have never been in real danger in your life, have you? Ever been on a space station when someone blew a ship, or a hole in the station? Ever been in a ship someone else was trying to blow? Ever had even one weapon fired at you in your whole life?”

  “No…sir.” Emil looked confused.

  “I have. More times than I care to remember, someone has tried to kill me personally, or me along with a lot of other people they didn’t care about. I know we have, on the books, more armed spacecraft than anyone else we know about, and we have a lot of people assigned to Enforcement Division. And I know exactly what the reality is: this planet is as vulnerable as any other, this office is as vulnerable as any other, and you are as vulnerable as any other.”

  “And you, sir?”

  Rafe had two of his weapons out before Emil finished speaking. “I, Emil, am one degree less vulnerable becau
se I believe I can be killed.” Emil, he was glad to see, had turned an unpleasantly pale shade of his normal coloring. “Don’t panic, boy; I’m not going to kill you. But anything as big, as rich, as powerful, and as centralized as ISC has TARGET written on it in large glowing letters.” Rafe slid the needler back into its holster and the blade back up his sleeve.

  “But we’ve never been attacked—” Emil stopped as he saw Rafe’s expression. “Have we?”

  “The short answer is yes, but not for a long time. Aside from things like abduction, like my father, and attempts at assassination.” Rafe reached for one of the folders on his desk. “Let me read you something. Remember I asked for an update on Enforcement’s resources?”

  “Yes…”

  “ISC maintains an armed fleet—everyone knows that. The thing about armed fleets is that they cost a lot. Then you have to crew them: ships without crews don’t do you any good. And that costs a lot. Then you have to train the crews and keep them in practice: crews that never go on maneuvers are easy meat for those that do. And that costs a lot, not only for the munitions and fuel and other supplies to go on maneuvers, but also refitting and repair…because anything you use deteriorates, and rough use wears it out faster. Are you following this?”

  “Yes…”

  “So…” Rafe opened the file and started reading. “Average age of ISC armed vessels: sixty-eight years. Average age of ISC group commanders: sixty-four years. Average time from last weapons upgrade: thirty-seven years. Average interval since last maneuvers with live fire: six years. Percent of armed vessels deemed battle-ready—are you ready for this?—eleven.”

  Emil stared back at him, a mix of confusion and fright on his face. “That’s…not good, is it?”

  “That’s pathetic,” Rafe said. “We might be able to scare a backward colony planet into thinking we’re all-powerful, but any competent military force that knew what I now know wouldn’t hesitate to take us on. What’s protecting us right now is our reputation. Enforcement doesn’t understand that; they haven’t actually done much in a long time, so they think having thousands of ships on the books is the same as having thousands of ships that can actually fight. The back of this report is one long self-serving explanation of why the damning figures up front—that I insisted on seeing—don’t matter. But they do matter.”