Command Decision

by Elizabeth Moon

  “Yes, yes, I know that. There’s evidence the former president was complicit in the attack…cases are in court now.”

  “My point is, if the purpose of having privateers is to attack pirates, and the pirates are now coalescing into larger groups that no privateer alone can possibly handle, isn’t it time to have our privateers join forces with others? With Slotter Key Spaceforce, after we authorize their activity outside this system, or with the space forces of governments we know and trust?”

  “You mean, make privateers into a regular military force?” His brows went up again.

  “We already have military advisers on nearly all our privateers. This is a natural next step.”

  “It doesn’t seem natural to me. You’re talking about having them operate outside the system…we certainly can’t release Spaceforce ships for that. We have barely enough to guard our own system. If anything, we should call our privateers in—”

  “You have heard of forward scouts,” Grace said. “Early warning…that sort of thing? Let our privateers take on that role, only now operating in groups large enough to be effective against this new enemy. And if we call them in, we not only lose that, we gain the expense. The privateers have always been self-sufficient, though we gave them a cut rate on munitions if they resupplied here.”

  “You never cease to surprise me,” Kostanyan said. “You’re new in government and already you know what levers to lean on…”

  “When it comes to accounting, an interstellar business isn’t that far from a government,” Grace said. “Except that our bottom line always has to come out on the profit side of the ledger.”

  “So what, precisely, do you propose?”

  “Assuming you’re sure we can’t send Spaceforce along—”

  He shook his head. She could tell he meant it.

  “—then consider only the privateers,” Grace said. “Contact them. Tell them to assemble…I would suggest at Cascadia Station, since that’s where they can be fitted with onboard ansibles—”

  “We’ll need to find a commander for them. And staff, and support services—”

  “You already have a commander,” Grace said. “Ky Vatta’s already engaged this enemy, more than once, and she’s familiar with the tactical differences arising from the new communications technology.”

  “But she’s not even an Academy graduate,” Kostanyan said. “Even if she were, she’d be only an ensign, maybe a junior lieutenant.”

  “She has the experience,” Grace said. “And she holds a letter of marque from Slotter Key.”

  “And she’s a Vatta and you’re a Vatta and you’re telling me that Vatta is the only source of this new technology, which I’ve never heard of before. Without intending insult, I have to say that this smacks of…of…” He searched for a word.

  “Favoritism?” Grace suggested. “Nepotism, even? I agree. It could be interpreted that way, or it could be interpreted as the inverse of the hostility that led to most of my family being killed and our livelihood destroyed.” She smiled at him, letting her teeth show.

  “Your appointment was supposed to do that,” Kostanyan said.

  “My appointment was supposed to give me the access to do what needed to be done,” Grace said. “If that turns out to be good for both Slotter Key and Vatta…so be it.” She stared him in the face; he looked away first.

  “I have to be convinced it is good for everyone,” he said.

  “I have no wish to harm Slotter Key,” Grace said. “Nor does the Vatta family, the surviving remnants. This is my home. I want this system to survive; I want the people here to survive. No one should be targeted as we were; I take my duties as Rector very seriously. But the fact is that Vatta family members have done more than anyone else, up to this point.” She smiled, showing her teeth. He knew exactly what she meant, and she knew that he knew.

  “Well…I suppose Spaceforce is in agreement?”

  “I have not spoken with Spaceforce,” Grace said, raising her eyebrows. “It’s an executive decision; it would be inappropriate without your approval, and actually you should be the one to initiate the discussion.”

  “I’ll do that today,” he said. “At least this proposal doesn’t take our ships out of the system…”

  “You’re pushing very hard,” MacRobert said that night over dinner when she told him what she’d done. “You’re making some people nervous.”

  “Some people,” Grace said, with emphasis. “Some people would get nervous if you said boo above a whisper. You and I both know that there’s serious trouble out there, and the best way to keep it away from us is to go meet it.”

  “It’s all the Vatta connections,” MacRobert said. “Someone’s been snooping around the old stuff, looking for dirt.”

  Grace shrugged. “Big family, big money, big business. There’s dirt, if they know where to look, but no more dirt than anybody else.”

  “This Osman fellow…”

  “He’s dead now,” Grace said. “And a Vatta killed him.”

  “To silence him, some would say.”

  “Some would say anything,” Grace said. “So they’ve uncovered the family skeleton, have they?”

  “Not all of it, but some. Maybe enough to cause us trouble. I don’t suppose you could persuade your niece to allow the new tech to be sold under another name…?”

  Grace finished her fish. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’d think Slotter Key would like to have the credit. It’s Vatta family, yes, but Vatta has always been based on Slotter Key, so it’s a system thing as well.”

  “But your niece isn’t here, and another system’s getting the profits.”

  “She’d probably license manufacture here,” Grace said. “I hadn’t thought of that. Would it butter the right side of the bread if units were manufactured here as well?”

  “It would lessen the concern I’m hearing that Vatta is abandoning Slotter Key for Moscoe Confederation.”

  “I’ll talk to Stella,” Grace said. “And I’ll have to see what I can scare up in manufacturing.”

  Stella agreed to license manufacture on Slotter Key, but insisted on safeguards so any pirate agents could not get the tech. “You’ll need to find a facility able to tool up quickly and still maintain quality control,” she said. Grace thought of grandmothers and eggs and sucking, but forbore to say so. “And security,” Stella went on. “These new units will give us an edge, but only if the pirates don’t get them.”

  “I’ve done that,” Grace said, practicing patience.

  “I’ll send you the specs,” Stella said. “But not the full package yet. I’ll want information on the facility and their estimate, after they’ve seen the specs, on time to production. And I control pricing.”

  That stung. “Stella, this is your home world—”

  “It’s the world that let outsiders kill my family and destroy our lives,” Stella said. “I know, the old government’s out and there’s a new government and you’re part of it. But that doesn’t bring my father, brothers, and sister back, or Ky’s parents, or any of our employees. It doesn’t change my responsibility as CEO of Vatta Enterprises and Vatta Transport, Ltd. Slotter Key is getting a special deal—I’m going to license manufacture there. That’s it.”

  Grace looked at that beautiful face, still breathtaking in its perfection. Of course Stella had changed; she had expected Stella to change. But this Stella had changed in a direction Grace had not anticipated. Was it Osman’s side of her, or something else?

  “Send me the information,” Grace said. “I’ll forward it, and we’ll get back to you very quickly. Has production started there?”

  “Not quite,” Stella said. “They’re retooling from another job.”

  “What would you sell units to Slotter Key privateers for?”

  “Same as anyone else, but for now we’re limiting initial sales to established military organizations. The first production run here is completely committed.”

  “Our privateers are being activated as an a
rm of Spaceforce,” Grace said. “The idea is to have them get together and act as one or two fleets. That should make them military enough for you.”

  “Have you talked to Ky about this?” Stella asked. “If you want her to command—”

  “No…I suppose I should. How can I get in touch with her?”

  “You’ll have to relay through me for now, and even I can’t contact her at the moment; she’s in FTL as far as I know, and I’m not sure when she’ll be back down, or if her destination has a working ansible. Once she’s out of FTL, I can contact her onboard ansible. If she lets me know she’s available, that is.”

  “Won’t she contact you right away?”

  Stella laughed. “Ky? In a way, she’s like you—she doesn’t call just to chat. She’ll call when she has something to say—or ask. She likes being off the leash.”

  Mackensee Military

  Assistance Corporation HQ

  The headquarters of MMAC looked much like any corporate headquarters: a typical office building, its lobby all shiny surfaces. Somewhat to Ky’s surprise, the young man who met her at the security gate was not in uniform, though from his bearing he could have been.

  “So glad you could come, Captain Vatta,” he said. “Chairman Becker is looking forward to meeting you.” He ushered her past the guards and into the express elevator. “I just wanted to express my own thanks for your actions at Boxtop. My brother was there; one of your ships took him in and gave him medical attention.”

  “Thank you,” Ky said. “Do you know which of our ships?”

  “Sharra’s Gift, ma’am. I know that’s not your flagship, but you’re the one in charge and…and you’re here.”

  “You’re more than welcome,” Ky said. “I wish we’d been able to save them all.”

  The elevator slowed, the display showing 31.

  Becker’s office, as well as the rest of the building, could have been any civilian executive’s, even her father’s. For an instant a wave of grief and nostalgia swept over her. She knew how offices like this worked; she could almost predict where to find the inevitable person in Admin who knew how to find anything at all, the person who kept the pipes operating, the whiz in Accounting who could fix any glitch.

  Her father had only limited information on MMAC in the implant she wore, all recent gleanings from that short period when she’d been in Mackensee hands. She knew—because they had briefed her—that MMAC’s CEO was one Arlen Becker, formerly a general. She had seen his image, so when the door to his private office opened and he came out, she knew at once who it was.

  What surprised her was how little she felt intimidated by him. He reminded her of the Commandant of Spaceforce Academy, but she was no longer the cadet who had feared the twitch of an eyelid.

  “You’ve done us an immense service, Captain Vatta,” he said, leading her into his office. “And a great courtesy in leaving your ship to come meet me here. We have much to discuss.” He waved her to a seat in the cluster of chairs around a small table.

  “I’m glad we could help,” Ky said.

  “Would you like something to drink? We have hot and cold—” The service module on the table lit with a selection.

  “Tea, please. Hot.”

  He tapped the module and then handed her a cup and saucer in porcelain that bore no signs of a corporate logo: small blue flowers alternated with red-and-gold butterflies. A plate in the same pattern held thin gold-edged rounds that looked like cookies.

  “One of my indulgences,” he said, nodding at her cup. “My wife inherited four generations of fine china, and this is a pattern she’s never liked and I always did, so I brought it here.”

  Ky wondered how long this would go on, but sipped her tea. It was his office, and his initiative for now.

  “We owe you a lot,” he said, setting his cup down. “We would certainly have lost both of the ships in the training exercise, and quite possibly those of the relief convoy as well, if you had not shown up and helped us out. I’ve read the detailed reports of our people on the scene. And of course I’m familiar with our earlier encounters with you, from that unfortunate business at Sabine to the contract at Lastway.”

  Ky nodded.

  “My people tell me that you have some novel technology for sale, and some proposition you’d like to lay before us. But first, if you don’t mind—our ansible has been out for almost a planetary cycle, until a few days ago, and we’re still behind on events. You’ve been out and around: I’d like to have your assessment of what’s going on, as far as you’re willing to give it.”

  Ky took another swallow of tea, looked at the cookies, and decided not to risk choking on crumbs while talking. “There’s a lot I don’t know,” she said. “But this is what we’ve put together.” She laid out all she knew of the attacks on systems, citing the three she knew for sure.

  “That’s a very organized report,” Becker said, pursing his lips. “I can see you learned something in the Academy. So—do you think the ansible system’s breakup is the result of the same people?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Ky said, “but it must have made their plan easier to execute. They have communications and others don’t—”

  “Ah…these shipboard ansibles or whatever they are?”

  “Yes. That’s what they are: small ansibles that give the pirates real-time communications with one another.”

  “Even between systems?”

  “Yes. They don’t work in FTL flight, of course, but in real space they’re the same as system ansibles. Better, in a way, because there’s no lightlag from ship to ship due to the distance from a ship to the system ansible.”

  “And you have some? You’re selling them?”

  “They were on the ship I—we—captured. The one Osman stole from the Vatta family. He must have been working with the pirates.”

  “Colonel Bandes described the way you used that capability in this recent battle—I can certainly see that ships not so equipped would be easy meat for those that are.” He took another sip of his tea. “We would be interested in purchasing such units from you, subject to approval by our Technology Assessment group. In fact, if you wanted to sell all your remaining units, we’d be delighted. But let me, for the moment, go back to your own actions. The last direct report we had of you, you had an older, small ship—the tradeship with which you started—and the ship you had taken from Osman, a larger ship originally built as a tradeship, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Ky said. She explained how she and Gary Tobai had separated and how they finally came back together. He didn’t need to know about her problems with Stella or the trial of identity, but he did need to know about her first experience with a multisystem force. He listened intently, not interrupting, until she finished.

  “Why do you call yourself part of a third fleet when there’s nothing but you?” he asked then.

  “Misdirection,” Ky said.

  “I see. But you really have only three ships of any size, two of them originally trading vessels, only one purpose-built for combat. What can you possibly hope to achieve with such a unit?”

  “With all due respect, sir, Ransome’s Rangers have considerably more value when fitted with onboard ansibles than conventional tables of organization would suggest. As you know, we were able to take on four of the pirate ships and sustain no damage. If we had not been short of munitions, we could have been much more help in the larger battle.”

  “Your communications ability was invaluable there, I agree. But I cannot see that your Space Defense Force is any more than—forgive me—a forlorn hope. You have no contract for financial support from any government, no resources for resupply of ships, munitions, or basic supplies.”

  “I believe we can get such support,” Ky said.

  “Perhaps…though allow me to say that my experience in dealing with governments is greater than yours, and I think it highly unlikely. Effective as your small force may be—out of proportion to its size—it will still look puny to those used to
thinking in terms of dozens of ships purpose-built for war.” He cleared his throat. “Now…as you know…we are grateful for your assistance; it is due to you that we lost only one ship, that casualties were less than they might have been, and that the relief convoy didn’t run straight into disaster. We have authorized replacement of munitions and a small amount of financial bonus beyond that.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “We are not prepared, however, to release any of our ships to join you, which I believe is what you hoped for, and part of the proposition you wanted to lay before me.”

  “I did, yes, sir.”

  “If we saw support from governments, commitment of sufficient resources, we might indeed cooperate and join such an effort. We would be amenable to a contract with such governments. If your assessment of the enemy strength is accurate—and I have no reason to doubt it—then this is what must happen in future. But it will be done by governments reaching agreement with one another, not by an individual, however courageous and talented.”

  Ky had to admit that made sense—it was the argument others had made—but she didn’t like it.

  “There’s another problem,” he said. “Your ships are all converted merchanters, aren’t they?”

  “More or less,” Ky said. She wondered what Teddy Ransome would think of his decorative little vessels being called merchanters.

  “I don’t know how far you got into engineering, at your military academy,” Becker said. “But there are problems involved in converting ships built to haul cargo into fighting ships.”

  Ky scowled. “Privateers have been doing it for a long time—”

  “Right,” Becker said. “But they’re lightly armed, and they don’t fight very often. Most of the time, privateers fire off a few missiles or scorch someone with a beam, the pirate surrenders or runs off, and the whole thing lasts maybe a half hour. Even so, ships used as privateers have a shorter life span—and less time between refits—than ships purpose-built for combat. Two things go wrong with conversions—one involving the more powerful engines you put in, and the other involving the way the ship is used.”