Seize What's Held Dear

by Karl K Gallagher

  More applause, full hearted this time.

  “And to Hell with Bridge Yeager!”

  The crowd echoed it with feeling.

  “It’s time to go. Crew, board ship.”

  As the spacers filed into the airlock the audience drifted toward the red circle painted on the pavement. Those unfamiliar with spaceport operations were chivvied out of the danger zone by the rest.

  Vychan and Emlyn joined them. “Brave people,” said Vychan.

  “Yes, they are,” said Marcus.

  Dust blew in their faces as Azure Tarn’s gravitics lifted the ship into the air.

  “They’ll come back,” said Wynny.

  “I know. We just have to be patient.”

  They watched until the ship went out of sight above.

  ***

  Wynny was in a pensive mood that evening. Her body language made clear she didn’t want help with dinner. Marcus lay on the floor playing peek-a-boo with Niko. The baby was sitting up with help now.

  Giggles were amazing. So were baby kisses, in the form of open-mouthed head bonks once Niko flopped close enough to reach.

  Cleaning drool off father and son only took a moment when dinner was served. The parents took turns spooning Niko’s share into him.

  Wynny broke her silence with, “You’re taking this calmly.”

  “What? Oh, my parents leaving? It’s not the first time. I was off the ship for three years when I was at the Merchant Academy.”

  “It’s not just your parents. It’s your home, your co-workers, where you grew up. They may never come back.”

  Marcus nodded. “I’m worried. Going into Censorate space is dangerous. Just taking notes on hyperspace hazards could get them executed for spying.”

  Niko protested the delay in his next spoonful. His father gave him some mashed urchin.

  “But everything’s dangerous now,” Marcus continued. “Ships like ours were blown apart by a single missile. We could have all died in that battle. My parents watched me go off with the Marines.”

  Wynny took the spoon to serve Niko smushed seagrapes. “It’s not the danger. Sometimes a whole clan is wiped out. But you go together.”

  “What’s bothering you about it?” he asked.

  After giving Niko another spoonful, she admitted, “It’s the separation. I thought they’d be there if we needed help. It’s as if, say, you divorced me and I went back to Clan Goch.”

  “Hey.”

  “Let me finish. If the Provisional Government divorces you, you can’t go back to Azure Tarn. What would we do?”

  “I’d go back to the Concord Navy. Which could be unpleasant depending on what they assign me to. If they put me on a warship, we won’t see much of each other for a while. But the Navy does take care of families—houses, schools, all that.”

  She passed the spoon over. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Neither do I. But it’s only for the duration of the war.”

  That drew a bitter chuckle from her. “Until the Censorate gives up? We should live so long.”

  The high-protein urchin mush didn’t appeal to Niko after a taste of tweet fruit. He imitated Marcus’ yawn, though. “If they’re beaten hard enough, they’ll realize it’s unprofitable.”

  “I love your innocence.”

  After feeding Niko another spoonful, Marcus asked, “Hey, how does a whole clan get wiped out? I’d think any disaster would leave some survivors.”

  “In disaster movies, there’s a clan who doesn’t maintain their airseals. Their clanhome fills with water when the tsunami comes. In law . . .” Wynny grimaced. “If someone commits a crime so severe the entire assets of the clan and the blood of those responsible can’t balance it . . . then the entire clan will be executed.”

  Marcus shuddered.

  She shrugged. “The clan is responsible for the members. The members are responsible for the clan. On the bright side, it’s good for business. Corwynt exports lots of pharmaceuticals because everyone trusts our quality control.”

  ***

  Marcus’ new title, ‘Provisional Government Ombudsman,’ came with a larger office, closer to the main entrance of the ardal. The size wasn’t just for status. He’d receive up to a dozen visitors at once, which required more chairs, tables, and room to rearrange them.

  The governor had said, “I’m just making official what’s already happening. These people know you, they trust your connections, so they’ll talk to you instead of some stranger on an org chart. You’ve been doing a good job of introducing them to whoever can solve their problem. Keep it up.”

  He’d tried to put Wynny on the payroll as his assistant. He already called her every other visitor for her to explain some point of clan customs or law. Concord anti-nepotism regulations blocked it. Explaining that to her hadn’t been fun.

  The hard part of the job was turning away those he couldn’t help. Corwyntis who thought the Censorate demonic sometimes believed the Fierans were wish-granting genies. Marcus was as gentle as he could be.

  When a familiar face appeared at his open door, he felt no desire to be gentle.

  “Richardson. Whatever scheme you’re cooking up to escape the consequences of your actions, I’m not helping.”

  “Correction, sir,” said the former Fieran. “I am Thomas Gething, and I’m here on the business of my clan. May we come in?”

  Marcus nodded warily.

  Thomas entered followed by a Corwynti who was in the same mid-twenties age range as Marcus and Thomas but showed much less milage.

  “This is Cai of Clan Iwan. They make the gravitic modules for floaters and small spacecraft.”

  He shook hands with them both. Cai was clutching a rolled-up holoprojector, so Marcus led them to some padded chairs with a low table between them.

  “Any big Navy news since I was discharged?” asked Thomas.

  Marcus shook his head. “The usual skirmishes between patrols. Some new ships have come in from Fiera. We’re trying to get a shipyard up and running here, but you really need something bigger than a clan to run one. Which is the Navy’s problem. What brings you here?”

  Thomas gave his partner a nod. “Sir, we want to help the Navy out.”

  “I was in the Bundoran militia,” said Cai proudly. “I never had a chance to fight, we were holding positions. But we wanted to do more.”

  “That was important duty,” said Marcus. “The Marines could attack knowing their flanks were safe.”

  “I’m not complaining. We want to do more. We want a militia for space.”

  “Not on warships,” added Thomas. “With our own vehicles.”

  Cai spread the projector out on the table. A hologram appeared. Four people sat in an egg-shaped vehicle. A solid disk filled the end behind them. Control consoles were in each one’s lap. The front half was transparent, giving them a wide view.

  “Looks like a personal ground to space flyer,” said Marcus. “Could maybe go interplanetary if you recharge in orbit.”

  “Yes, sir. Now we add this,” said Thomas.

  Cai tapped a button.

  New blocks appeared in red. Paired missile launchers on each side. A pair of beam emitters in the chin.

  “A fighter?”

  “A fighter, sir. Won’t match a Navy vacuum buggy, but it can keep up with a cruiser in air or aether. The hull is a shell for oceanographic and fisheries sensors. Clan Iwan makes the grav module for heavy airtrucks. We make the electronics in Clan Gething. And the rest are all made here. We could start building this today.”

  Marcus sank back in the chair. “I can see that being flown by a militia. The Navy would be happy for the help. But I don’t think the Provisional Government would buy many. We’re trying to avoid spending money in ways that might show favoritism.”

  Thomas grinned. “Well, that’s my contribution. All the design work is Cai’s. Here’s the thing: with all the tax cuts there’s a lot of clans with more cash than they’re used to having. We propose to sell fighters to
clans, or groups of two or four clans, to operate as a militia. Just like the militia helped with liberation.”

  “Hmmm.” Marcus thought.

  A few moments went by. Thomas waved Cai to silence as he started to say something. The engineer was going to burst if he didn’t get to talk.

  “You need the Provisional Government to authorize heavy weapons in private hands,” said Marcus. “You need Navy commitment to using the militia in combat. You’ll need training.”

  “Not sure how much training they’ll need,” said Thomas. “Gunnery, yes, but there’s lots of pilots and mechanics.”

  “Pilots need to learn formations and attack maneuvers. Mechanics have to learn weapons.” He looked at Cai. “What’s the fourth position?”

  “Sensor operator and navigator. They have two radars, a focused one aligned with the weapons, and a spherical one for situational awareness.”

  Marcus let the engineer keep talking, encouraging him with questions about the details. If he was going to take this crazy scheme to an admiral, he wanted to make sure the guy behind it knew his shit.

  Deciding if clans would be willing to buy fighters he’d leave to Wynny.

  ***

  “No further questions,” said the Master Chief Machinist’s Mate.

  Admiral Song said, “Very well. Mr. Iwan, you may take your seat.”

  “Thank you,” said Cai. His shirt was sticking to his skin. Even his embroidered vest showed sweat stains. He collapsed in a chair, seizing the glass of juice Marcus passed him.

  The admiral had gathered fighter experts with design, procurement, construction, maintenance, and combat experience. They’d spent five hours reviewing Cai’s design, including the component parts. They’d suggested many minor changes, but as the admiral polled the reviewers they all approved putting the fighter into production.

  The master chief was last. “It’s a mediocre bird, sir, but,” he paused to choose words, “that’s much better than a fighter that isn’t there at all.”

  “Agreed,” said Admiral Song. “Lieutenant Landry. Your request for Navy support.”

  Marcus went through his presentation with much less heckling than poor Cai received. He explained how militia would work—the Navy didn’t have the experience in working with irregulars that ground forces did. There was no objection to allowing clans to own the equipment and weapons. The need for fighter-experienced personnel brought fierce push-back.

  Admiral Song shook his head. “The trainers and simulation staff will hurt but we’ll get them back once the initial training is over. There’s no way we can spare anyone permanently as command staff.”

  “Sir. To be effective in combat the fighters will need experienced leadership.” Disagreeing with an admiral was not good for Marcus’ blood pressure. Or pulse.

  “The fighter squadrons in the Battle Off Fiera left their leaders behind and went in with just the recruits. They did a lot of damage. So will your militia.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’ll point out the militia will need someone who speaks their dialect. Someone they know and trust. Transferring one of my officers over as the militia commander would not be good for unit cohesion. I will shift your assignment to command of the militia. You can work out with the Governor how to juggle that with your Ombudsman duties.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He’d wanted a command in the militia. A squadron or group. But the whole thing? That was worse than taking over a platoon in combat.

  ***

  Welly always hated washing dishes back home on Fiera. And whenever it was her turn on the ship.

  Washing dishes as a member of Clan Goch she liked. Not the greasy fingers, scalded skin, and stinging soap. No one was ever alone in the Goch kitchen. The minimum wash up crew was four—scrubbing pots, feeding the dishwasher machine, using the sink, and drying.

  She didn’t just listen to the others chatter. They wanted to know Welly’s opinion on the latest gossip, and made her take a turn sharing her past. Welly supposed that when you expected to spend the rest of your life with someone, it was worth investing some effort in forming bonds with her.

  Back on Fiera she’d never seen relationships this strong. The strongest ones she’d heard of were military units, also a ‘rest of your life’ situation.

  Right now, her new family was dishing about the Provisional Government’s announcement of the city voting for a new mayor.

  “It’ll be someone from a fifth level clan who escaped arrest for collaboration,” said Beca. She was a second cousin once removed, married for two years to a guy from a trading clan in Narbeth.

  Welly mentally thanked Dilwyn again for drawing the clan family tree on the wall of their room.

  “I wouldn’t vote for someone who kissed Censy ass,” said Aunt Emlyn. Aunt was such a lovely, simple relationship.

  Ffion shook her head. “I have enough work to do without all this voting business.”

  “It doesn’t take long,” said Welly. That made her the center of attention. Beca even turned her back on the sink.

  “You’ve voted?” asked Emlyn.

  Welly put the rest of the mugs in their cabinet, certain that if she didn’t do it now, she’d be juggling them for a while. “Yes, several times. It’s just looking at a list of names and picking one.”

  “Choose how?” said Ffion.

  She needed to look Ffion up on the tree when she went back to her room. All Welly could remember was that Ffion inmarried recently.

  “I’d read the news articles about them, and there’d be lots of ‘vote for me’ advertisements.” She explained the mechanics of voting and how they differed between the Sulu Republic and Lombardia, where she’d lived for a couple of years.

  Emlyn looked thoughtful. “How do people get on the list?”

  “Depends on the office. For important ones there are organizations that each select a candidate. Sometimes they need to collect names of people who support them running. If it’s a minor job they just fill out a form.”

  “Vychan was joking about running for mayor. I’m wondering if he should.”

  Beca let a plate slip, barely catching it before it hit the counter. “But he’s always so busy!”

  “He was.” Emlyn shook her head. “With so many taxes repealed, clans are trading with each other for cash instead of needing a broker to arrange barter. All his contacts are apologizing, but they have no work for him.”

  “That’s a support base,” said Welly. “They know and trust him, so he can ask for their votes.”

  “People vote for people they worked with?” Ffion asked.

  “Yes. Or some kind of connection. Political parties collect people and politicians who agree on things. Someone running for a higher office will talk of accomplishments in a lower one. Or they’ll promise to do what people would want?”

  Beca said, “Do they keep the promises?”

  “Ha! Sometimes. If they keep them, they’re more likely to be re-elected.”

  “How do they know what to promise?”

  “Following talk on the net. Polling, that’s sending workers out to ask people questions. Or they just want to do something and hope the voters will like it too.”

  Emlyn cocked her head at Welly. “Did you learn all this in school?”

  “Um, sort of.” She flushed. “I was campaign manager for a friend who was running for student government president at our college.”

  That, with some other extracurriculars, trashed Welly’s grades so thoroughly she’d been politely invited to explore options outside academia.

  The concept of student clubs run by the students instead of teachers took some explaining.

  “If Vychan ran for mayor, you would be his campaign manager,” said Emlyn.

  Welly gulped. “That’s a thousand times more complicated than what I did in school!”

  “But you’re more experienced than anyone else in Bundoran.”

  ***

  “Tell me you’re joking,” said Admiral
Song.

  Marcus replied, “We need something simple that they want to wear.”

  He wore the ‘Naval Militia uniform’ . . . a soft black canvas vest over civilian clothes. Epaulettes on each shoulder bore four stripes each, parallel with their outer edges. His first and last name was embroidered on his right side. The left bore his Concord ribbons and the gunner badge—a missile crossed with a stylized beamer.

  “If you can’t make them wear a full uniform, how are they going to have the discipline to do system maintenance?” said the admiral.

  “That kind of discipline is for people you kick off your ship if they don’t meet your standards. That doesn’t work when they take the ship with them because they paid for it.”

  The Navy careerist’s face softened as he thought through that.

  Marcus continued, “There’s also the Censorate factor. Corwyntis associate full uniforms with Censorial security and tax officials. That’s why Fierans get a better reception in camouflage than dress uniforms. They don’t recognize cammies as a uniform.

  “I see. Very well, then. Is there a unit insignia?”

  “That’s the back. A group badge, with a stripe around it in squad colors.”

  He put some examples on the wall display. Cartoon sea monsters, fists, weapons, and abstract symbols.

  Song nodded. “Rank structure?”

  Marcus put up another chart. “Each fighter has an officer and three enlisted as crew.”

  Officers had from one to four stripes as ‘officer,’ squad leader, group leader, and wing leader. Enlisted were junior spacers, spacers, or senior spacers, with one to three chevrons. The third column drew the admiral’s attention.

  “You have separate ranks for the staff?”

  A ‘staff spacer’ wore a hollow star. A ‘staff officer’ a solid one. ‘Senior staff officers’ wore two stars.

  Marcus said, “I was dealing with too many people who wanted a staff post to gain easy rank. So officer insignia reflects position, not a pay grade.” He shrugged. “It’s not like we’re paying them.”