Trial by Fire - eARC

by Charles E Gannon

  “Harmonies, rock-sibling; I sent no word.”

  “I have, this minute, a most interesting event to report.”

  Hu’urs Khraam waved a relaxed claw, eased himself into one of the room’s six belly-couches. “I know of what you speak; this room has antennae which are extensions of my own.”

  Shattered eggs! The old darkworm has fewer scruples than I thought…

  Perhaps Hu’urs Khraam genuinely possessed his reputed power to read minds; perhaps he saw the stunned sag in Darzhee Kut’s manipulator polyps; perhaps he simply anticipated the younger Arat Kur’s surprise. Whatever the cause, he seemed to respond to Darzhee Kut’s reaction as though it had been spoken aloud. “Too much is at stake for me not to know all that transpires in this room, particularly since it is where you and Urzueth Ragh have had to be my proxies against the pressure of First Voice and his First Fist. You have my gratitude, particularly, Darzhee Kut.”

  “It is my honor to echo your melodies in this place, Esteemed First Delegate. Regarding the Speaker Caine Riordan. I wonder if we should house him here, or in the fleet.”

  “Why the fleet?”

  “I fear for his safety from the Hkh’Rkh and from our human associates.”

  Hu’urs Khraam settled his belly down lower into the couch. “Let us keep him here. Attend my reasons. First, he returns to us as an emissary, not for asylum, and so we must house him where we would other emissaries: here on this planet. Secondly, we may wish to speak to him, have his immediate counsel at this delicate juncture, and I wish to watch his reactions both as he speaks to us and hears what we say. He may reveal much to us, this way.

  “Besides, Riordan’s arrival is most propitious, politically. We now have a means of resuming discourse with the humans without angering the Hkh’Rkh by either making or accepting a diplomatic overture, without appearing ‘weak,’ as they like to say. And be sure, the humans will also see the advantage of having a negotiator already in our midst, and whose unexpected presence necessitates that we reestablish contact with them. They cannot fail to have deduced why we elected not to resume discourse when they offered, so I suspect the humans will be glad for this serendipitous development.”

  “And hopefully they will also appreciate how Riordan may save them from making any further blunders.” Darzhee Kut lowered his voice slightly. “First Delegate Khraam, his decision to come out of hiding and risking proximity to the Hkh’Rkh and Ruap’s troops is a more noble gesture than our grandmothers’ songs ever led me to hope for in a human. Riordan’s act should be widely sung among our people.”

  But Hu’urs Khraam simply shifted as though he had discovered a pebble between his belly-plates. “His deed may be noble. But that may create a problem for us.”

  “How?”

  “Such a human, one who might harmonize and keep his word, could thereby influence our simpler rock-siblings to imagine that we must reciprocally deal fairly with him, with the humans. Worst of all, they might believe that our negotiations with the humans should be carried out in good faith.”

  “What?”

  “Darzhee Kut, surely you cannot believe that I expected the humans to meet the greater demands that the Hkh’Rkh imposed? You said so yourself.”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “Be still and hear the wise hymn of the coming decade, as envisioned by your elders. Unable to come quickly to agreement, the occupation of Earth will wear on. We shall turn over the planetside responsibilities to the Hkh’Rkh, but continue to provide orbital support. Their faces, not ours, shall thus be associated with the misery of Indonesia in particular, and this world in general. Negotiations will drag from months to years. Meanwhile our fleet will reconsolidate and carry our offensive beyond Ross 154, pushing into Junction system and continuing down the Big Green Main to Zeta Tucanae. With all of human space controlled, their capitulation becomes inevitable. The Hkh’Rkh are given Epsilon Indi as their war prize, thereby establishing them on the green world that can most obstruct human contact with the rest of the Green Main. We withdraw, still quibbling over a co-dominium of Barnard’s Star. By this point, the humans will have readily conceded to a staged withdrawal from their intrusion into our space at 70 Ophiuchi.”

  Darzhee Kut almost stammered. “But in the scenario you propose, the Hkh’Rkh cannot independently reach their new colony on Epsilon Indi. Their ships are limited to seven-point-four-light-year shifts and cannot cross the—”

  “My song is not finished. In ten years, the humans will have rebuilt and will chafe at the Hkh’Rkh presence in their midst. Meanwhile, the Hkh’Rkh will have armed themselves rapidly with our aid, probably establishing shift-carrier construction facilities on Epsilon Indi. They will already be dreaming of seizing another green world along the main.”

  “But the humans will crush them.”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Our aid in this can turn the tide one way or the other, particularly given our presence, accepted or not, at Barnard’s Star.”

  “First Delegate, with respect, you are creating a future in which both these races will remain at war for decades to come. They will come to hate each other unremittingly. There will be genocide.”

  “Just so, Darzhee Kut, just so.”

  “But this is—”

  “This is their nature, Darzhee Kut. They cannot change it. Nor can we. But we can control it. We can control it so that they focus their savagery on each other and remain too embroiled in their reciprocal genocide to cast covetous eyes upon our worlds. They will cripple their economies with a series of wars. Before they are through, the Wholenest will have had time to refocus its energies and consensus to adapt to a perpetual war-footing. For with such savage neighbors as these, we have no other choice.”

  “So the disputes at Convocation, our negotiations with the humans, even our alliance with the Hkh’Rkh: these are all a ruse?”

  “Not entirely. We do need the Hkh’Rkh here to conduct the infantry operations. And we will indeed remain committed to supporting their demands for territorial concessions from the humans. But otherwise, my scruples are reserved for ensuring the welfare of my race, Darzhee Kut. Indeed, you might wish to be still for some moments, or hours, and ensure that your own scruples harmonize with that primary criterion.”

  Darzhee Kut suppressed a wave of dizziness. “What of honesty and honor, which the human Riordan shows by coming here?”

  “What of it? If all humans were capable of such deeds, such sacrifice, perhaps we would act differently. But they are not. They are as they ever were, and we must see to the safety of our Wholenest. That objective comes first and, if need be, at the expense of all other scruples and values. I’m sure you agree with that, do you not, Speaker Kut?”

  I do not. But he said, “This song is new to me, and I have yet to learn its harmonies. Forgive me, Hu’urs Khraam.”

  “No forgiveness is necessary. I had not envisioned a member of the Ee’ar caste learning of these plans so soon, but you are an exceptional Ee’ar, Darzhee Kut. In subsequent discussions with your rock-siblings and caste-peers, exercise the discretion I know you possess: do not mention this. Now, what insights have you gained into the current human strategy by studying their local records?”

  “As I feared, Hu’urs Khraam, very little. We selected Indonesia because of its disaffection from the world government, which made it a pariah among the greater nations. Consequently, it was not included in the innermost strategic circles.”

  “So there are no clues to why the humans did not destroy the antimatter refinery and refueling site on the asteroid they call Vesta?”

  Darzhee Kut signaled a negative. “The corporate spies employed by CoDevCo and the few reliable collaborators we have in the Indonesian military hypothesize that the Confederation did not believe our attack to be so imminent. Thus, they had only partially completed the job of rigging the asteroid facility with the necessary explosives when we arrived there—”

  “—But because our first flotilla seized Vesta and engaged their
fleet at Jupiter two days before the rest of our fleet shifted in beyond cislunar space, the humans had enough advance warning to disable the larger facility on the moon?”

  “This is their hypothesis, which agrees with our own. I am puzzled at your anxiety over this detail, Hu’urs Khraam.”

  “I have no logical justification for it, other than that this failure is atypical, given what we’ve observed of the humans.”

  “Esteemed Hu’urs Khraam, explicate, please.”

  “Consider how the humans disabled their lunar antimatter facility. They did not resort to bombs, but had the presence of mind to remove all those parts that would be simple for them to restore, but almost impossible for us to independently fabricate. How could that act of sabotage be managed so well and with such foresight, and the other so bungled?”

  “Humans are inconstant, Hu’urs Khraam. We have always known this.”

  “Perhaps, but consider this. We caught almost all their naval carriers in one trap at Barnard’s Star, and then more here, in their home system. We could hardly ask for better outcomes, Darzhee Kut. Yet—”

  “Yet what?”

  “Yet their tactics in each engagement showed great ingenuity and skill. At Barnard’s Star, they spent as few hulls as possible and yet, by turns, slowed us, inflicted maximum damage, and saved half of their own force. And here, on the ground, they routinely confound us with outdated technology amplified by their martial acumen, and by their canny observation of our weaknesses, of our unfamiliarity with the craft of war, and of the Hkh’Rkh’s tendencies toward tactical impetuosity.”

  “Yes, Hu’urs Khraam, but let us consider their failures, also. They did save many of their capital ships at Barnard’s Star, but those hulls are now stranded in that system. And those that they did lose were captained by individuals who evinced little imagination or verve; those ships seemed to be slavishly following a preset battle plan. And here on their home world, the humans’ greatest corporate houses have become our allies and are undoing the defenses of their own species. So again: humanity is defined by its variations, its inconstancies.”

  “Perhaps. But there was no such variation or inconstancy in their push to the stars, Speaker Kut. The speed and efficiency of their expansion was so great that all of the members of the Accord, even the Dornaani, were caught off-guard. I find it hard to believe that now, with their survival at stake, and their known talent for war and destruction, that they would perform so unevenly. It is an oddness, and it troubles me.” He rose; Darzhee distinctly heard one of the linking-integuments in his belly-plates creak. “It probably troubles me because I am too old.”

  “With respect, Hu’urs Khraam, you—”

  “I am old, Darzhee Kut, even for one of the Hur caste. At any rate, it was folly for me to attend this undertaking myself. One of the younger Hur, such as—”

  “Revered Hu’urs Khraam, none but you was suited for this great mission. Every deephall in the Wholenest knew it.”

  “Bah. Did they know I would be tested to my very death-song by these Hkh’Rkh? Every day, their overlord First Voice places the same petitions before me. Attack the great cities, the great powers, of this planet. North America, Eurasia, the Chinese littoral. They are weak, he says. We have no reason to think so, I reply. The EMP warheads crippled them, he asserts. Yes, crippled their civilian sector, I counter, but we disabled little or none of their military equipment, so far as we can tell. We have orbital control, he thunders, and we must use it so that they will respect us—and they will respect nothing less than a full-scale attack. I point out the troubles we are having here, on one medium-sized island. He dismisses these difficulties as byproducts of our ‘restrictive rules of engagement.’ Another sign of Arat Kur weakness and lack of resolve.” The First Delegate rose. His manipulator polyps quivered a bit—from strain or pain, Darzhee Kut could not discern. “I tell you, young Kut, it is the Hkh’Rkh, not the humans, that will be the death of me. Now, I must settle into my quarters and find the harmonies that have escaped me this day.”

  “And what do I do about Caine Riordan?”

  “Do? Do about him? What do you mean?”

  “How do we best respond to his gesture, to the potentials for peace and trust that his deed invites us to consider?”

  “Here, young Kut, is what you must do. You must remind yourself—hourly—that Caine Riordan is but one human. He is an aberration among them, a flicker of conscience that his own megacorporate kin would have extinguished if he had not run far and fast. Do not let his noble deed seduce you into thinking the rest of his race are capable of something similar.”

  Darzhee Kut held his mandibles very still. The troubling nature of humans had long been known to the higher castes of the Wholenest, but at this moment, in the face of contrary possibilities, Hu’urs Khraam’s counsel sounded suspiciously like unthinking speciate bigotry. “And Riordan himself. What do I tell him?”

  Hu’urs Khraam looked at Darzhee Kut closely. “Tell him that his deed was noble and we are grateful for it. And, if you think he is ready to hear it, you should also tell him that we can already measure how much his deed will change the outcome of this war.”

  “Really? How much?”

  “Not at all.”

  BOOK TWO

  COUNTERATTACK

  Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment—that which they cannot anticipate.

  —Sun Tzu

  Part One

  January 12, 2120

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “Spooky Hollow” restricted area, north of Perth, Earth

  Downing glanced up at the mission clock: 2120.01.12 Z1006.48 local. Twelve seconds to go.

  The commo officer’s voice called the last warning. “Coming up on projected signal reception: ten seconds.”

  He turned to Alnduul. “You can tell when an interstellar superstring is perturbed by a shift drive, even at this range?”

  “Yes, but this is true only if we know which superstring to monitor and if the phenomenon is, fundamentally speaking, local. Theoretically, one should be able to detect a perturbation of a superstring anywhere along its ‘length’ at the instant it occurs, for the string has no dimensions as we understand them.”

  Downing frowned. “That would seem to hold out the possibility of almost instantaneous communication, regardless of distance.”

  “So many have hoped. But the technology to do so remains elusive.”

  Considering that the Dornaani had had—at least—several thousand years to identify the necessary technological fix, Downing put this option from his mind.

  Commo officer John Campbell of the Australian Air Force nodded at his control panel. “And—mark. Projecting that transmission has been received by the shift-carrier Tanku-sha Maru at a range of three point five light-days.” He turned to Downing. “And now, sir?”

  “And now, we wait.”

  Evidently, they were not going to have to wait for long. Alnduul’s associate made a finger-streaming gesture. The Dornaani leaned their heads together. Alnduul listened, his lids fluttered. He straightened, looked at Downing. “The Tanku-sha Maru has now entered shift space as per the instructions you sent on January eighth.”

  Which meant that it was already at its destination and sending the signal that would activate the final, fateful phase of Case Leo Gap. Either that or a freak drive failure had destroyed the Tanku-sha Maru and, with it, any hope of retaking the Solar System. Downing tried not to swallow audibly. “Lieutenant Campbell, please check the light-pins in the Dornaani holosphere’s close-up of Jakarta. Are our delivery assets for Case Timber Pony currently in striking range?”

  The young lieutenant from Perth studied the alien device for a moment. “Confirmed in range, sir. The green one is within the optimum activation footprint now. The other two are within five kilometers.” The youn
g Perther looked up. “Orders, sir?”

  Downing felt the collective eyes of his staff, the veteran security detachment, and even the Dornaani upon him. He swallowed. “Set the infiltration units’ final assault clock for three hours. Send the word to the irregular units that they will go active along with the preparatory barrage in ten minutes, but to await a final confirmation before jumpoff.” Because if the interstellar cavalry fails to come over the hill by then, a general ground attack will be suicide.

  “Messages sent to all units, sir.” The Aussie continued to look at him, unblinking, waiting.

  Downing closed his eyes—and saw Nolan’s smile. He smiled back. It was always your show, old boy. We’ve just been playing the notes you composed.

  Downing opened his eyes. “Start the clock. And let’s get ourselves airborne. We will soon have a battlefield to assess.”

  Central Jakarta, Earth

  Tygg, his hand covering the ear bud connected by wire to a short-range pager, muttered, “They’ve started the clock.”

  Trevor glanced at him. “Just now?”

  “Yeh. Well, a few seconds ago, given the delay between the ground repeaters from the Sundas to here. The general festivities start in ten minutes. Our own special party starts in a little less than three hours. Unless everyone gets waved off.”

  “Does that give us enough time for a stealthy approach?” Trevor looked out the window, saw the minarets of the Istiqlal Mosque rising up across a short stretch of the Merdeka Square.

  Tygg checked his watch. “Should. Our mob is ready to gather at the head of the assault route.”

  “Okay, then let’s get our own teams moving into place. Page mine along with yours, will you?”

  “Already done. How do the Roaches and Sloths look? Antsy?”

  Trevor raised his binoculars, made sure the laser rangefinder was off, scanned the recently walled complex that rose up beyond the Indonesian Supreme Court building which lay just to the west of the presidential palace. He looked for signs of activity at that part of the enemy perimeter. Nothing out of the ordinary. Trevor bit his lip—