Sam had a hard time finishing the interrogation. He wanted to contact Bonaventure after about ten minutes but he knew he should do a thorough job, try to get as many answers as he could to the questions he knew his commodore would ask. After three quarters of an hour the uKa-Maat officer—Captain Lorppo—also began to get impatient. Well, they could always quiz him again if any new questions came up. He wasn’t going anywhere.
Half an hour later Sam was live with Bonaventure, but the commodore had included Cassandra Atwater-Jones as well and the time lag to and from the task force was over two minutes. Her image—very serious and frozen in mid-frown—looked on from the third virtual chair.
“Jesús, Bitka, you look like hell!” Bonaventure said as soon as the link opened.
“Yeah, getting some blisters from my burns, but Tamblinson say it looks a lot worse than it is.”
Bonaventure shook his head and turned back to the frozen image of Cassandra Atwater-Jones.
“Captain Bitka, serving as my acting N-2, has developed some sensitive intelligence which, from what little he has told me, I believe to be critical to my operational decision-making. I have asked Commander Atwater-Jones to join the conference as well. As I will be making several decisions based on this intelligence, and as those decisions may prove controversial and will be my responsibility alone, I am treating this conference as ‘privileged advice by staff,’ and so there will be no record of its content. Nothing either of you say can be used to shift any responsibility for my decisions to you. Is that understood?”
Sam felt a surge of excitement. He’d heard of “privileged advice by staff” conferences but had never been anywhere near one before.
“Understood, sir.”
The two-minute turnaround time seemed much longer.
“Quite clear, Commodore Bonaventure,” Cassandra answered at last. She looked at Bitka, her eyes wide. “Good lord, Bitka!”
“Worse than it looks,” Sam repeated.
“I am now blocking the data capture for this conference.” Bonaventure said. “There. We are off the record. Now, let’s talk some treason.”
That took Sam by surprise. Treason? What the hell was Bonaventure talking about? Was it some sort of euphemism? A joke? If it was meant to cut the tension, it hadn’t worked. One glance at the commodore’s unusually hard expression disabused Sam of that theory.
“Sam, let’s hear what your uKa-Maat captain had to say.”
“Yes, sir. As we suspected, a squadron of four uKa-Maat cruisers are working with the uBakai. All four of them are of a new class which we had some background on but it appears we incorrectly assessed. The aGavoosh word for their subtype translates roughly as ‘salvo cruiser.’ They spit out a lot of missiles all at once to overwhelm the point-defense systems of a target. It probably would have plowed us under if it hadn’t been for the sunflower-modified missiles we had.
“That much is interesting but fairly routine. The really radioactive information is all tied up in the politics of the war. He was still shaken up from his ship getting torn apart and half his crew dead, so he was a little disorganized and rambling, but very anxious to make us understand how much of a threat we’re under.”
“I’m going to interrupt here for a second, Bitka,” Bonaventure said. “Why is he anxious to warn us? We’re the enemy.”
“I wondered the same thing, sir. He doesn’t see it that way. His government’s not at war with us, so he figures maybe he’s not at war with us either.”
“So what are those four uKa-Maat salvo cruisers doing if they’re not at war with us?” Bonaventure demanded.
“Just getting to that, sir. The admiral running the uKa-Maat cruiser squadron told the captains and crews it was a secret mission authorized by their government, but the government couldn’t support it in public until they had drummed up domestic support for the war. But Captain Lorppo found out that was all bullshit. His own admiral is part of some secret society that’s staged the whole war. Even the uBakai home government didn’t know it was coming; it was cooked up out here by the fleet and the colonial government. Bakaa’s going along with it, although Lorppo doesn’t know why. That part sounds really odd, but all I can tell you is what he said. I can’t say that it’s true, but I’m pretty sure he believes it is. He’s taking a big chance telling us so much, but I think he’s more afraid of where this war may go than he is of the consequences for him. He struck me as a pretty honorable fellow.”
“How does he know all this about his own admiral and the plan for the war?” Bonaventure asked.
“A high-ranking member of the uBakai admiral’s staff told him. Lorppo wouldn’t tell me who, but he clearly trusts the guy. Apparently there’s some dissention in the ranks over there. But here’s where it gets really interesting. They’re deliberately doing things that will provoke a reaction. They want us to hit them back, hard. Right now it’s a group of fanatics led by a few rogue admirals, but if they can get us to hit back hard against their homeworld, they figure a lot more Varoki nations will pile on. A lot of them are just looking for an excuse.
“He’s not sure how far they want to go but he thinks the long-term plan is genocide. If they can’t get enough Varoki nations on board for that, they’ll settle for bombing us back to the stone age, as we used to say.”
Bonaventure didn’t say anything for a few seconds as he chewed that over. Sam was surprised he didn’t look more shocked—Sam sure had been. Instead the commodore had the look of a man who already had a few pieces of a puzzle and just got the extra ones that made it all make sense. He nodded after a few moments and turned to the frozen image of Atwater-Jones.
“Your turn, Commander, although I’ll tell you, it sounds a lot like Operation Shangri-La to me.”
Operation Shangri-La? Sam had never heard anything about an operation with that code name.
“I would rather we had not brought that up, Commodore,” Cassandra said as soon as her image un-froze, “but I suppose it is the quarter-ton primate in the parlor. Before we wrestle with it, however, let me add some information from a report I just received via jump courier, which unfortunately seems to back up Captain Bitka’s analysis.
“As the last intelligence update reported, six uSokan cruisers were part of the uBakai fleet which attacked Earth. Unlike the four uKa-Maat cruisers, they did not have altered transponder codes, which is to say they openly flew their national colors. Officially both the uKa-Maat and uSokan governments have affirmed they do not consider a state of war to exist with any Earth nation, and they have issued orders for the rogue squadrons to return to Hazz’Akatu, the Varoki home world. That much we already knew.
“However, in the last two days a series of increasingly enthusiastic public demonstrations have taken place in the major uKa-Maat cities, particularly the capital, most of which are in favor of supporting the rogue squadron and joining the war alongside the uBakai. These are, of course, planned and orchestrated. There are very few spontaneous public displays in Varoki society. These, however, have at least the appearance of striking a genuinely popular note. A great many Varoki are not very fond of us, and some are using this opportunity to express their feelings in that regard.
“More alarmingly, similar demonstrations have taken place in seven other Varoki nations that we are aware of, including the Republic of Sokana. This is all developing as we speak, of course, and our intelligence-gathering resources on Hazz’Akatu are quite overwhelmed. At the moment they are reduced to little more than watching news feeds, so I cannot offer any assessment of whether this new fire will burn out quickly or continue to grow and spread, but we must be prepared for the more dangerous possibility.
“Which unfortunately brings us to Operation Shangri-La. There is an old joke, something of a tradition in British military intelligence, which all but requires me to begin this section of the brief with, ‘M’Lords, I have a cunning plan.’ To be precise, it is your Admiral Goldjune who is so blessed. He has championed a scheme to launch a counterstrike against H
azz’Akatu, the Varoki homeworld, originally limited to uBakai targets but now tentatively to include the uSokan. I imagine a number of uKa-Maat targets have been surveyed as well. It’s all rather vague, but the purpose seems to be to let the Varoki know how it feels for their home planet to be hit from orbit.”
“Shit!” Sam said, although Cassandra would not hear that since they weren’t transmitting down the long-distance tight beam during her speech. He frowned and it hurt his forehead where the burned skin bunched and wrinkled.
“You can say that again, Bitka,” the commodore said, his expression grim.
“Admiral Goldjune seems to appreciate large gestures,” Cassandra went on. “It’s always dangerous to think we understand people too well, but he does strike me as the sort of admiral who prefers large, decisive battles which settle everything in an afternoon. His sealed orders to Admiral Kayumati—which you are not privy to, Captain Bitka, but which the commodore and I have both read—are another example of that. Suffice it to say he was a member of the ‘push hard’ school.
“Were he Royal Navy, loyalty to the service would demand I say no more. But as he’s one of yours—and we are off the record—I will confess this fascination with big, quick solutions strikes me as the mark of a lazy and superficial mind, not willing to do the hard and often boring work necessary to earn success over the long haul. In short, I suspect he is a dilettante, and one whose hunger for simple answers may prove the undoing of our civilization, and perhaps even our species.
“I will now pause in the event you feel the need to offer a defense of your countryman, or perhaps a more nuanced view.”
Bonaventure shook his head. “No, that’s pretty much the way I see him, although I only met him once, very briefly, at a reception on the BW. He does have that reputation, though—charge ahead and sort the details out later. Bitka, you may feel differently. You’re by far the most tactically aggressive officer I know. Maybe you see something in the admiral I’m missing.”
Bonaventure’s words took Sam by surprise. The most tactically aggressive officer he knew? The description did not seem to fit him very well. He certainly hadn’t charged the uKa-Maat salvo cruiser just to feel the wind in his face. Of course, it had been . . . exhilarating.
“Why is it called Operation Shangri-La, do you know, sir?” he asked.
“Somebody on the combined staff must be a history buff. Right at the start of World War II the US launched a bomber strike against the Japanese home islands, the Doolittle Raid—sent from the carrier Hornet, coincidentally. When President Roosevelt was asked where the bombers came from, he said, ‘From Shangri-La.’ You know, the mythical place in the Himalayas.”
Sam nodded.
“So if Admiral Goldjune and the combined coalition command get this information, won’t they abort Shangri-La?”
Bonaventure turned to Cassandra’s frozen image. “Commander, you’re closer to the brass than we are. What do you think?”
After her image unfroze she shook her head. “It is of course a possibility, but Admiral Kayumati has been lobbying quite hard to get the operation cancelled and the fleet assets dedicated to it shifted here instead. Admiral Goldjune has rebuffed all such recomendations, and appears to have substantial political support from several of the Coalition governments. The testimony of one rogue Varoki captain, itself based on hearsay testimony from an unnamed uBakai staff officer, and all of it produced by officers under Kayumati’s command, will probably not carry much weight. Honestly, were I back on Earth I would have a hard time giving it much credence myself.
“So the question is: What is to be done?”
Cassandra’s image froze again.
What is to be done? What could they do, all the way out here, to alter fleet policy crafted back on Earth and Bronstein’s World. Not much, probably. But fleet policy was government policy, and government policy wasn’t made in a vacuum, was it? What had Cassandra said about the sealed orders to Admiral Kayumati being a product of the ‘push the uBakai hard’ school? Maybe there was something they could do after all.
“Sir, ever since I heard about the strike against Earth, I’ve had this feeling we’re all misreading this whole war. What Captain Lorppo said sort of brought it into focus. I don’t think the uBakai—or at least the guys behind this war—give a rat’s ass about K’tok. It’s just their excuse.”
“Excuse for what?”
“Putting us under the dirt. Not us personally. Humans. All of us. They aren’t trying to kill us over a rock. They’re trying to kill us because they just want us all dead. Admiral Goldjune may be too pigheaded to see it, but that doesn’t mean we all have to go gentle into that good night.”
He glanced at Cassandra’s frozen image, remembering the last time he had heard those words.
“Commodore, if we’re really here to talk some treason, hadn’t we better get down to it?”
Five hours later his commlink vibrated, waking Sam from a deep sleep, and he saw the ID code for Marina Filipenko, the OOD. He checked the time: 0147
He raised the light level in the cabin and made sure there were no urgent message alerts flashing on his work station before answering her.
“Yeah, Filipenko, what’s up?”
I think it’s trouble, sir. It just came in broad band from a comsat. Not sure who bounced it to begin with.
“The uBakai task force show up?” he asked. It was only a matter of time before they did.
No, sir. It’s weirder than that. Someone has leaked Admiral Kayumati’s sealed orders, the ones we’ve been acting under, and broadcast it to everyone: us, the uBakai, everyone.
Well, that was quick, Sam thought.
“What do they say?” he asked, because that’s what she would expect him to.
They’re just coming in, sir. I haven’t had time to read them. I’ll dump a copy to your personal folder.
“Okay. If it’s broadband, I suppose everyone will read it pretty soon. May as well get out ahead of it. Don’t distribute copies to anyone else, though. Not until you have my okay.”
Sir, as you said, everyone will be able to get copies from every open database, including a couple dozen personal e-nexus cores on board.
“Yeah, but not from us. We still have a responsibility to safeguard whatever restricted information is under our control. This is probably sensitive, so I’ll have a read first. Thanks for the heads up.”
He cut the connection, put on a pair of viewer glasses, and accessed the new file. He read for five minutes, long enough to make sure this was the same version he had read earlier, and then took his glasses off. He floated in the middle of his stateroom for a few minutes, staring at the gray bulkhead. Then he nodded.
“Well, now we’ll see what happens.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
8 January 2134
(the next day) (eighteenth day in K’tok orbit)
Sam put his viewer glasses back on and spent the better part of an hour reading and rereading Kayumati’s sealed orders. After ten minutes he was interrupted by an urgent tight beam from Commodore Bonaventure, who thought they should call an immediate holoconference of the captains to discuss the leaked orders. Sam convinced him to hold off long enough to at least let the other captains read through them. Sam then got back to his own reading. He tried to read them with the clear mind of someone who had not read them before, tried to gauge the emotional effect they would have. He thought there were many interesting things about the orders.
One was that the orders included a cover memo from Captain Marietta Kleindienst, the task force chief of staff. The purpose of the limited and eyes-only distribution was so senior officers commanding ship divisions and squadrons could answer “potentially awkward questions” from junior officers. The date on the distribution note was 8 December, the day after the holoconference where Marina Filipenko had asked Kleindienst just such an awkward question concerning the task force orders. Filipenko would be interested to know that she had had a hand in getting these orders dist
ributed to a wider audience, one of whom had leaked them.
The second interesting thing was the specificity with which the orders directed Kayumati to respond to the uBaka fleet during peacetime.
“You are under no circumstances to allow any act of provocation to go unanswered. You are to respond to any potential act of violence with commensurate actual violence. Every act you take must leave the uBakai with the unambiguous certainty that we are prepared to go to war over access to K’tok and in defense of all Human colonists currently on the planet, regardless of their nationality. If additional colony vessels arrive, you are to prevent any interference with their approach to and landing on K’tok by any and all means at your disposal.”
The kicker was this line: “Any act of violence against your command, or against any colonists once you are on station with your task force, is to be treated as an act of war against the member states of the Outward Coalition. You will then respond as outlined in Annex Three.”
Any colonists? That was a guarantee of war right there, given the constant muttering violence along the borders. Sam stopped for a moment and took a few deep, slow breaths to keep his heart rate down.
Sam checked Annex Three; he hadn’t bothered to before, during the holoconference. It was essentially the invasion plan they had executed, but with some additional instructions.
“BuShips directs Commander, Combined Task Force One, to use the new Battle-class destroyers aggressively and in as many varied combat roles as their design allows. Operations staff, Combined Task Force One, will prepare a detailed evaluation of the performance of the destroyers deployed, with recommendations as to whether additional examples should be acquired and with respect to design enhancements. This priority is sufficiently high that Commander, Combined Task Force One is directed to consider the destroyers under his command expendable in pursuit of this information, provided their loss does not jeopardize the success of the mission.”
Chain of Command Page 29
