Lord Banshee- Fugitive

by Russell O Redman

  Morris replied impatiently, “Of course we do, and we have a long list with steps we are taking for each item...”

  “Sir, my own list is very short. The three worst vulnerabilities are the Council, the TDF and the earth stations.

  “We are currently battling for the survival of the earth stations, which is ironic because the Imperium will need them. I suspect that the Emperor’s forces have been more effective than he intended and are scarcely under his control.

  “When I say the TDF, I do not mean the space-based wing of the TDF, which the Emperor also needs, but rather the ground forces that maintain the unity of the Earth despite long-standing rivalries amongst the regions. He will destroy the unity of the TDF if he can, intending to replace it with a new force under Martian control. You can see some of their plans on the walls around us. But he cannot replace the TDF because Mars itself is riddled with factions and his force would immediately disintegrate into heavily armed bandit gangs on a global scale.

  “We have reason to believe that the TDF HQ is right now struggling with an emoji attack, and probably also token attacks, internal conspiracies, and outright treachery. There are likely to be rebellions across the planet when the Emperor issues his ultimatum. The TDF will be unable to respond unless the attacks on TDF HQ can be halted. If the Imperium can split the TDF, the Earth will be thrown into an era of civil wars and atrocities with no relief in sight.

  “The Council itself is most vulnerable of all. The prosperity of the Earth depends upon the legitimacy of the Council with its mandate to maintain the environment, justice, and peace.

  “The Council is easily split into factions, but they are temporary. They debate the issue under consideration and dissolve when it is resolved. The Martians will reject this as a system of governance. They will try to replace it with a simple, hierarchical command structure, answerable only to the authorities on top. Factions will still form, but will fight for power with public debate, backroom conspiracy, and assassination when easier options fail. Factions formed to meet one challenge will persist, even though they are incompetent on any other issue. This is how people live and die on Mars, how people struggled to survive in most of the ancient empires of the Earth. The Martians understand the system and believe it is natural. I expect they will try to dissolve the Council, replacing it with an aristocracy filled with Shi Hongdi’s relatives and cronies.

  “Let me emphasize that the Terrestrial Council is NOT natural.

  “We are family animals, and it is natural for us to treat our political leaders as the elders of our extended families, with all the ties of affection and obedience that we give our parents. Equally naturally, our leaders do not know us personally. They expect us to be obedient, but do not return our affection.

  “Many evils follow from this simple fact. It is natural for authority to treat criticism as treachery. It is natural for the wealthy to aspire to ever greater wealth, ignoring the suffering of their employees and customers. It is natural for the corrupt to buy and sell privileges that other people cannot share. Entrenched power fears justice and cannot tolerate honesty. This is the natural form of government that has plagued humanity for thousands of years.

  “The very concept of human rights in defiance of a popular tyranny is unnatural. For the powerful to care about people too weak to help them is unnatural. The rule of law in defiance of the considered opinion of a recognized authority is unnatural. The maintenance of a healthy environment with programs that reduce the profits that keep business running is unnatural. The idea that the powerful should step aside when their terms expire is unnatural. Passing an important position to less experienced successors is unnatural.

  “The Council is a carefully crafted instrument that has taken centuries to develop, with desperate battles over every structure and every purpose. We will never rerun the Renaissance, the Reformation, the English Revolution, the Enlightenment, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the League of Nations, the United Nations and the Final War. Even if we did, we would reach a different conclusion. It would be a catastrophe to destroy the Council and replace it with something that may be natural but has brought only bloodshed and misery every time it has been tried.

  “With Shi Hongdi as a figurehead emperor on top, we could add some ceremony and it might be an improvement. It might even add some stability. Read Kong Zi to see what I mean and ask yourself whether Shi Hongdi would accept that rationale. Beneath him, we must preserve the Council with at most cosmetic changes to its current structure, the TDF as a unified force answering to the Council, and the earth stations as the gateways to the Earth’s economy. After that, we must extend the good governance that the Council has provided for the Earth to Mars and the outermost limits of the Belt. Only in that way can I see any hope for our survival.

  “Do not try to save me. I am responsible for my own life and for how it ends. I know what I am doing and there are much greater issues at stake. You have responsibility for the whole Earth.”

  Singh started, “Agent Douglas...”

  “Call me Brian. You are about to become free agents of a sort yourselves.”

  Morris tried, “That analysis of the workings of power condemns my entire family and all of my ancestors. You must have brass balls and steel skin to deliver a diatribe like that to… I was going to say ‘to my face’ but let me end it with ‘to the former head of Extraterrestrial Affairs’.

  “Oh Maa! As the former head of Extraterrestrial Affairs, I am on their list of people to execute, as are you, Anastasia. We are like Douglas here, except he thinks we can dodge the sword.

  “And in truth, you gave a fair summary of the history of the Mughal Empire. My ancestry does not give me much to boast about in the present company. The best of the Mughal emperors were arrogant, thieving, fratricidal warlords. The rest added laziness, corruption and incompetence to the mix.

  “I can think of a hundred angry retorts, but I also remember the family political lessons that I received as a child. They used a famous relative who had brought disgrace upon the family to illustrate everything I was to avoid. All of the honourable examples served on the Council or in the Ministry for Law Enforcement.”

  He stopped and we all stared blankly at each other for a moment.

  2357-03-06 09:30

  Battle Plan

  Singh began, “Unfortunately, I do not see how it helps us give advice to Cap Wang, who needs it urgently. Ideally, the Council would issue instructions to the TDF on the political position to be taken, which would be interpreted by the Admiralty and distributed to each captain. None of that can happen right now. What do we do?”

  Morris nodded, “At the best of times, it would take days to organize a coherent response, and we do not have days. The Council is probably still ignorant of the battle we have just survived, if for no other reason than the attack you are reporting in the TDF HQ and the unreliability of communications through MI. The Council has neither the time nor the information to give a sensible response. It sticks in my craw, but I am forced to agree with you that the Martian cause, if not the Imperium, has enough influence to dominate a vote. If they can make a credible threat against the economy, even an ultimatum from the Imperium might be accepted.

  “In a crisis, the Council would normally delegate the immediate, military response to the TDF following one of their prepared emergency scenarios. The TDF is apparently as helpless as the Council. I am quite sure they never considered such a drastic scenario. If a critical part of MI has changed sides, even just at the level of corrupting communications within the military, the TDF might take another month to sort out their chain of command and organize an effective response. Since the Admiralty is incapacitated, we cannot expect reinforcements from the Moon.

  “Dapeng expects an ultimatum within the next hour or two from the hypothetical Martian invasion forces. What gives me the most trouble is we have heard nothing about an incoming fleet, aside from the mysterious stealth fleet. We are largely on our own, with t
iny forces and uncertain intelligence. Whatever we say must be ambiguous enough to allow positions both for and against the Imperium, without committing the TDF to a battle that Dapeng has already told us we cannot win.

  “I expect you are right that the Imperium needs the earth stations, at least in the short term. They will use them as bargaining chips, making threats, but will want to preserve as many as possible because they are too expensive for even the Earth to replace quickly. I know the original designs sat in drawers waiting for funding for years before the Incursion made new construction mandatory. Even with an unlimited budget, the factories at L2 were struggling to refurbish freighters into warships while building jack-in-the-boxes for the earth stations. The Khrushchev barely started operations in time to service the Counterstrike fleet.

  “Let us assume that the ‘iron rain’ came from rail guns on the stealth fleet. Does that make sense Agent San Diego, Raul? Yes? Aside from threatening a repeat performance, how do any of you suppose the Martians intend to control the earth stations?”

  I thought for a few moments about my own deductions, scattered over the last few hours and days. “The Martian forces are here, well integrated into our current system. I doubt they are even a covert force waiting to seize control. Probably more like a large body of existing people who will soon declare their true allegiance while retaining their current positions. At least, that is how I would do it if I had the time to prepare.

  “Still, there must be military forces waiting to take advantage of the confusion that the ‘iron rain’, emoji and token attacks are supposed to be causing. They may not realize that we have put effective countermeasures in place against the emoji and token attacks and had enough warning to protect our people against the worse consequences of the ‘iron rain’.

  “As I think about it, every report I have heard about the Belter ships escaping from the earth stations over the last week says they went very far north or south before striking out for a real destination. There is something in the ecliptic that they are trying to avoid. The Martian ships left before the Belter ships really began their exodus. I will ask the team if anyone knows where they went.”

  I sent the request to the whole team not in the MI office. It occurred to me that they had been very quiet recently, not bothering me about anything. These people were too high-performance to sit playing games all day, and I wondered what they were doing. I got part of the answer back right away.

  Leilani sent, “I have been tracking the reports from the port authorities about the Belter and Martian ships. It has mostly been Belter ships in the last week, but there was a general exodus of Martian ships before that. The Belter ships that left early mostly seem to be headed directly to three or four destinations in the Belt, at an enormous cost in fuel. I hope they have enough. Later ships mostly went to either the Moon or to L1, presumably intending to take on fuel and supplies before continuing to the Belt.

  “The behaviour of the Martian ships was quite different. If we count only the ones that followed normal merchant routes to Mars and the Belt, there were roughly the normal number. However, in the last month there have been almost fifty additional departures, and almost as many the previous month. Those ships cut communications after half a day, as soon as they left the reporting range of the Port Authorities on the stations. They never responded to the Lunar authorities.

  “Fortunately, I am now officially a member of MI, so I have access to the active and passive navigation sensors tracking nearby ships. They are in parking orbits roughly a quarter of the way to lunar orbit. They have been joined by additional ships that seem to have arrived from the outer solar system. MI has said nothing about their unexpected silence, nor about their change in flight plans. They give not even a hint that those ships are still here. It freezes my guts. Has MI been that badly corrupted, or are those reports being embargoed by the same people who have been perverting our communications?

  “Either way, if the Incursion is any guide, we can expect those ships to be heavily armed. They are moving already and will arrive within hours if they intend to follow-up the ‘iron rain’ with an invasion.

  “By the way, Katerina needed something to do to keep her mind off her belly wound, so she followed up on the Fairy Dust. Just after the Fairy Dust exploded its bomb, a Belter ship called the Outer Tramp crossed lunar orbit en route to L1. Its name matches a Belter ship that Commerce claims arrived a few weeks before and has been doing business. I have not found any record of the Outer Tramp in the Port Authority’s files, but there are half a dozen Belter ships with names I cannot pronounce, so perhaps it was a nickname for one of them. Regardless, the telemetry of the outbound ship matches the Fairy Dust in every detail.

  “She believes that the ship we thought was the Fairy Dust was in fact the Outer Tramp. It was repainted to resemble the Fairy Dust and replayed the telemetry they had recorded from the real Fairy Dust, editing only the ID and time stamps.”

  I wanted to think about that last bit. It made a perverted kind of sense. The short refit was only a paint job on two ships, with the real Fairy Dust heading for L1 and the fake Fairy Dust moving over to the loading bay to take on an unknown cargo, already fitted with a bizarre drive and attitude control that might be standard issue in the Belt. Both the fake Fairy Dust and fake Hanuman had broadcast false telemetry and had been equipped with low-yield nuclear bombs intended to make an unintelligible political point.

  But Morris and Wang needed answers now, and I needed to give them something to use. If the Martians believed the earth stations were in chaos, they were probably coming with tools to control the glue bugs, the emoji and token attacks, and the holes punched by the “iron rain”. They would look like heroes, rescuing the earth stations in the nick of time. They would also expect the TDF to be completely helpless, which they almost were, but not quite. Wang would know how to use the ambiguity. Morris and Singh needed to make a statement on behalf of the Council that allowed the earth stations to accept Martian assistance with gratitude, but only for patching the holes.

  We called Wang into the conversation. He explained that he had requested total radio and laser silence from all the earth stations after the iron rain stopped, and all but the Magellan and Kamehameha had complied promptly. Even they had complied after half an hour, probably to disguise the fact that they had already switched sides. His explicit intent was to prevent the expected Martian fleet from knowing the true state of the stations, leaving the impression that they were near collapse.

  When Morris and I explained the concept that we pre-empt the Martian ultimatum by welcoming their warships as saviours and acclaiming the Emperor, he was silent for a minute. He told me that he still wanted to have me shot for such thoughts but agreed we might not have much choice. Singh grumbled agreement.

  Wang then suggested that the Council or one of its departments might issue an urgent request for aid after the recent and unexpected meteor shower that had damaged many of the stations. That would allow him to accept the presence of a Martian fleet without necessitating either a fight or a surrender.

  Morris immediately began to compose an appeal that his own office could issue to that effect, but Singh just hung there staring at me. Raul had drifted over beside her. Her eyes were steely with judgement as she grated out, “You want us to submit to the Imperium, after which you will escape through death.”

  “No, Sir. I want you to steal from the Imperium the one man who holds the factions together, who alone commands their respect. Give them Mars. They deserve it. But never, ever, give them an excuse to attack the Earth.

  “As for me, I believe they are here now, searching for me already. They can never forgive me. I can prolong my life for a few years by hiding, but millions will die if I do. I made that bargain once before and never will again.

  “You surely know that I tried to kill myself repeatedly after I returned from Mars. Do you know how? The few reports that even mention my ‘suicide attempts’ always leave that out. I tried repeatedly
to surrender myself for judgement, to confess on the public record the many crimes I committed on Mars. Minister Morris told me that I deserved to be executed for those crimes, but, Sir, you could not know even a quarter of what I did. My worst offences were never written into the reports.

  “Twelve times I tried to make a public confession, to open a case against myself, so that the Earth would know what was happening on Mars and where that unhappy world was going. The first time, I just submitted a written confession of the worst of my crimes, with an analysis of why I had done them. They threw me in the brig but refused to process the report. I broke out of the brig and tried again. I knew what had forced people to pay attention on Mars and tried all those tricks. I stole supplies. I assaulted officers. Before I got back to the Moon, I escaped for two days in the ship and turned off both life support and human waste recycling. It got worse after that, so bad that now I try very hard to avoid those memories. Twelve times my superiors deemed that the secrets I could expose were more important than justice for Mars. I used every trick I knew to penetrate that shell of silence but failed and was ultimately broken.

  “The cripple you see today is the result. I am incapable of consciously trying to kill myself, no matter how devious my plans, although I still retain the will to choose the best form for an inevitable death. In fact, I am barely capable of self-preservation. I remember those secrets, which I would prefer to have forgotten, but I cannot be tortured into revealing them. I still feel pain but am immune to its emotional and persuasive effects.

  “Leilani has coached me well enough that I can organize a team, but I try to lead by advice and example. I am terrified of what I might do if given command, because I remember what I have done.

  “I have had ten more years of life than I deserved. I still feel compassion and concern, but for other people, none for myself. I have learned to enjoy the company of other people, to cherish them as friends, to trust a few of them, and to love once more. It is a pallid imitation of real love, nothing like the enthusiastic, all embracing passion I felt before. You do not know how hard it is to love without trust, and to trust without friendship.”