Warstrider: All Six Novels and An Original Novella

by Ian Douglas

  For revolution was brewing.

  Vic Hagan hugged Katya and gave her a brother's kiss. Lara Anders took her hand, beaming welcome. Harald Nicholson took her flight bag from her, and there were Lee Chung, Rudi Carlsson, Torolf Bondevik, Erica Jacobsen . . . God, it looked like half the company was present!

  Of them all, only Vic Hagan and the small, black-haired Lee Chung were, like Katya, native New Americans, all that were left of the original 2nd New American Minutemen who'd formed up right here in Jefferson just five years ago. Katya sometimes felt like a fugitive from the law of averages, for all of the rest were Lokans, men and women who'd signed on after the unit had been stationed on 36 Ophiuchi C-II and become the 5th Loki Warstriders.

  "Hi, people." she said as warmly as she could manage. "Dev's . . . he's not coming."

  She saw the disappointment in their faces, and the questions. After the unit had returned to Loki, only she and Dev had gone on to Earth to be honored by the Emperor. They'd expected that both of them would be coming back.

  "We've got a room for you at the Hamiltonian," Lara said.

  "Good," Katya said. "I'm just about dead."

  "Forget about sleep," Erica said. "You've had two months to sleep. Tonight, we've got something special planned."

  Katya groaned. Long trips always wore her out, not because they were strenuous but because they were boring. The flight to New America had taken sixty-three days, with stops at Loki and at P'an Ku along the way. The Transluxus was renowned for its extensive ViRsim drama and travel library, but Katya had always preferred the real thing to simulations, and never mind that there was supposed to be no reliable way to tell one from the other. Two months of virtual reality trips to various colony worlds, skin diving in the Great Barrier Reef, ViRdramas both modern and old, and a review of Imperial history since the Tokugawa Shogunate had been too much. The one ViRsex encounter she'd tried had left her unsatisfied and wistful.

  Why hadn't she been able to get through to Dev? Why couldn't he see that she had to do what she was doing?

  She'd not been able to talk freely at that damned orgy at Kodama's island, but she'd discussed it openly with him other times, during their stay on Earth. She'd told him about her contacts in Singapore Orbital with an underground organization that called itself the Network, and how she was convinced that the Empire, the real political power behind the Hegemony, was strangling human effort and creativity on every world of the Shichiju.

  In fact, she'd maintained such contacts for years. Only lately, though, since she'd seen Imperial stupidity and heavy-handedness in the Alyan campaign, had she finally begun working for the Network. The organization's goal was nothing less than the eventual overthrow of the Hegemony, and an end to Nihonjin rule of the worlds of the Frontier.

  Even on the twelve worlds of the Core, even on and around Earth itself, the Network was surprisingly strong, with a membership never accurately reported but certainly numbering in the hundreds of millions. The Empire was not popular, especially on the outlying worlds of the Frontier like New America, and the only reason it still held power was the fact that it still held the monopoly on interstellar travel.

  But when she'd told Dev about it, when she'd tried to explain how she felt about the Empire and its ruinous policies, he'd thought it was a joke, had actually laughed at her.

  Only much later did she realize how much Dev needed the Empire. She was pretty sure it had to do with his father's political rehabilitation, almost as though Dev thought he owed his father his loyalty to the Imperium.

  Not long after that. Katya had noticed that they were drifting apart. Dev had been terribly busy at the time, delivering a long series of lectures to the Hegemony Council on Space Exploration. With his medal and his new Imperial uniform and his endless round of appointments at the Court and with the Emperor's staff, he'd rapidly become inaccessible to her.

  She'd stuck it out for six weeks before deciding to give up and return to New America.

  They took a public magflitter to the Hamiltonian, where her old friends helped Katya unpack. Then they whisked her up twenty floors to a private suite decorated in dark wood paneling, thick carpets, wood-beamed ceilings, antique books, and a surprisingly realistic illusion of a fire in a great stone fireplace.

  A man stood in front of the fireplace, his beard more salt than pepper, his hair long and still mostly dark. He wore a costume typical of the New American Outback—kilt, plaid shoulder cloak, and tan blouse—and a white plastic commpac embracing the back of his head from ear to ear. "Hello, Captain Alessandro," he said, and to Katya's ears his Inglic carried the soft drawl of home. "I'm Travis Sinclair. I imagine you may have heard of me."

  Heard of him? Travis Sinclair was arguably New America's most famous citizen, the self-styled philosopher and political writer who'd helped form the New Constitutionalist Party. If any one man could be said to represent the disparate, fragmented, and contentious groups on forty worlds that called themselves the Network. Sinclair was it.

  "This . . . is an unexpected honor, sir."

  "Please, it's Travis. And you're Katya?"

  She nodded, totally at a loss for words as he extended his hand in the old-fashioned manner and she took it.

  Katya had seen Sinclair once, years ago, right here in Jefferson. He'd been in the capital to deliver a speech, and his call for resistance to the Imperium's dominion over human government had led to Hegemony-wide warrants for his arrest. She was pretty sure that her own interest in politics dated from that rally.

  Sinclair had been in hiding now for over eight years, though the who-was had it that he still managed to travel a lot among the Frontier worlds. How he'd kept from being picked up by the Directorate of Hegemony Security for this long was a mystery known only to the hundreds of loyal supporters who'd helped him stay free so far.

  "I apologize for all the secrecy bringing you up here," he said. "And for not telling you ahead of time who you were coming to see. But at last report, there was a reward of fifty thousand sen-en on this shaggy head. I have to be careful."

  "Fifty million yen?" Erica whistled. "That's a pretty fair chunk of credit."

  "Please," he said genially, gesturing toward a bar complete with a spidery-armed servot programmed for mixing drinks. "Grab yourself something wet and get comfortable. I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Katya."

  She refused the offer of a drink and took a seat, as the others scattered about the sunken conversation area and made themselves comfortable. "Why me?"

  "I've met the others, of course," Sinclair said. "And I appreciate their help. But I was particularly fascinated by the media accounts of you and . . . was it Dev? Dev Cameron. On Alya B-V. I'd like to hear more about that."

  "I'm afraid Dev isn't here."

  "I heard."

  "He's . . . well, I think he has too much of a commitment to the Empire. I'd hoped he would join the Network, but . . ." She shrugged.

  "That's too bad. What do you know about Project Yunagi?"

  Katya started. Dev had talked about that quite a bit, at least early on, before it became shrouded in secrecy. In fact, the two of them had spent much of the trip from Alya B back to Earth discussing the possibility that humans might one day be able to establish regular communications with the Xenophobes, ending the threat they posed to civilization without further war.

  "Some," she said cautiously. "We discussed it a lot. He had the idea that we could use DalRiss comels . . . uh . . . you know about them?" Sinclair nodded and she went on. "Anyway, that we could use comels to approach Xenos, even acquisitive-phase Xenos, and put a stop to their attacks. They don't think like we do and it might be hard finding some common ground, but something as simple as 'Don't eat our city and we won't wipe you out with nuclear depth charges' might work."

  Nuclear depth charges, first used on Loki, were the breakthrough that had ended the Xeno menace there. Kiloton atomic warheads were fitted into devices that used captured Xenophobe technology to sink them kil
ometers into the ground and detonate them . . . with catastrophic results for the deep-buried Xeno nests.

  "Could the Xenos respond to that kind of negotiation?"

  "He thinks so," Katya said. "I'm not so sure. They seem so . . . well, different. But he says the One he talked to was tremendously intelligent, more intelligent in absolute terms than a man, though the two can't really be compared to one another."

  "And what do you think, Katya?"

  "It might work. The person who tried it would have to be suicidal, though. To actually climb down a hole and touch one of those things . . ."

  "Mmm. Indeed." He seemed to be far away for a moment, thinking. "Captain," he said at last, "I must ask something of you. Something unpleasant. I know you've joined our organization on Earth, but frankly I need some proof of your commitment to us."

  Her eyes narrowed. "What kind of proof?"

  "These folks have all demonstrated their loyalty to the cause already. Each one of them has vouched for you, of course, but now I must know, directly. And, perhaps, it would be fair if I had the same pledge from you all."

  "I hate the Empire," she said. "I don't know what else I could—"

  "Would you submit to a truthprobe on it?"

  "A linked truth assessment?" She swallowed. "I guess so. If I had to."

  "I don't like the idea any more than do you. You understand. I'm sure, that we can't accept the word of everyone who shows up on our doorstep volunteering to join our organization."

  "My oath's not enough. I suppose."

  "My dear, if I understand aright, you are still a reserve officer in the Hegemony. You're breaking your oath by not turning me in. Are you not?"

  She felt her cheeks burn. "Yes."

  "Actually, all I need is some RAM-stored statement of yours, something that might tell me what you feel about the movement. Can you think of something you might have said and stored that would help?"

  She thought, then nodded. "I"ve got something."

  He held out his hand, palm up. The threads of silver and gold embedded in his skin glinted in the room's overhead lighting. "Play it for me. Please."

  Katya nodded, then closed her eyes, composing herself. She stretched out her hand, touching palm interfaces. Using key alphanumeries, she called up a menu in her mind, ran a quick search, then requested a projection of a particular segment.

  Personal RAM file, extract 1213:281/41—

  Dev stood before her once again, resplendent in Imperial blacks, the Imperial Star glittering at his throat. Water music plopped and gurgled in the background above the murmured conversations of Kodama's guests.

  "Where are you going?" Dev asked. He clutched at a sensphere, squeezing it, knuckles white. "Loki? Or New America?"

  "Away from Earth and the Empire." She felt again the pain she'd felt that night. And she felt, too, Sinclair watching, measuring. It was possible for a good AI to determine whether a RAM segment was real or a digital construct, a fantasy, and that commpac he was wearing could serve as a modem, allowing an Artificial Intelligence to look over his shoulder, as it were. She reminded herself that it would be more interested in, say, the texture or the cloth in Dev's uniform than in her emotions.

  The thought steadied her somewhat, but she still felt embarrassed at this naked revelation.

  "I wish you'd change your mind."

  "And I wish you'd open your eyes, Dev. I wish you'd see what the Empire is, what it's doing . . ."

  Dev shook his head, eyes narrowing. "Arts and entertainment," he said softly.

  "I've said nothing treasonous," she snapped back. "And they don't own my mind. Not yet. And admit it. The fact that you feel you have to shut me up proves just how bad things are getting—here on Earth, anyway."

  "Things really aren't so bad."

  "Are you saying that for yourself, Dev? Or for your father?"

  "Leave him out of it!" He stopped, breathing hard, his face flushed. "You're wrong about the Empire, you know. Except for the odd insurrection or two, they've kept Man at peace for better than three centuries. The Core Worlds are prospering, the Frontier worlds are as free as they can be—"

  "Good God, Dev, why don't you link in and switch on? The Frontier has just as much freedom as the length of the Empire's leash. They control our trade with Earth and with the other colonies, tax us to death, and tell us we can't develop our own technological base . . . 'for our own good.' But then, you're an Earther, aren't you? Core World. So you wouldn't understand—"

  "That's quite enough, Katya," Sinclair's voice said, breaking in. "More than sufficient. Thank you."

  —Interrupt—

  Cancel. Return.

  She was again in the room on New America, blinking back the tears in her eyes.

  "That must have been difficult for you, Katya." Sinclair spread his arms. "Again, believe me. I'm terribly sorry to put you through that, but I had to be sure. You see, I have a very special need of your services, and we needed to be certain that we could trust you."

  "What services?" Katya demanded. "So far, Mr. Sinclair, we've been giving and you've been taking. Perhaps now you'd like to tell us what you want of us."

  "It's 'General Sinclair,' actually," he said a bit stiffly. "And we are fighting a war. Oh, the real shooting hasn't started, not yet, anyway. I pray God that it never does. But we are fighting for our independence from Dai Nihon. More, we are fighting for the chance to be ourselves. This may be the most important struggle our kind has ever faced. At stake is not just the survival of the Constitutionalist movement but the survival of the human species itself."

  "I'm not sure I understand," Rudi said.

  "Diversity." Sinclair said, whispering the word as though it were holy. "Our species thrives on diversity. In human society, as in nature, it's survival of the fittest, with a million failures for every million-and-one experiments. American Independence in 1776. The French Republic. The Bolsheviks and Communism. The Nazis. The American Left Socialists. The Greens. All of them were social experiments of one sort or another. Some succeeded, at least for a time. Others destroyed themselves, top-heavy and slippery with blood. The Hegemony was an experiment too, but for the first time it's an experiment with all of Mankind's eggs in one small basket. If it fails . . ." He raised a hand, then let it fall.

  "Ancient Greece became the beacon for Western civilization," Sinclair continued. "Why? The separate city-states—Athens, Sparta, Corinth, a hundred others—each evolved on its own, isolated from the others by the mountains that divided their tiny peninsula. When exchanges between the city-states began, new ideas took root, new ways of looking at the world were discovered. Democracy. Atomic theory. Heliocentrism. It was a golden age that touches our lives even today.

  "The move into space should have opened the opportunity for social experimentation." Sinclair said. "In a way, it may be unfortunate that we stumbled across the K-T drive so soon. Maybe, if we'd had a few thousand years of developing separate societies in separate, scattered worlds and planetoids, each with its own vision of what makes life worth living . . ." He shrugged. "But it didn't happen that way. And now the Hegemony is directing our cultural evolution, and with a damned heavy hand. Our lords care less for their colonies than they do for the means of exploiting them. We have one approved culture, one approved way of doing things. Our growth is stifled by the taxes Kyoto drops on us to pay for feeding the arcologies on Earth. We need to shake loose, find the stars again, and make room for a thousand destinies instead of only one!"

  "Won't all those destinies make for some pretty nasty wars?" Katya wanted to know. "I seem to recall that there was as much fighting between those old Greek city-states as there was cultural exchange."

  "Greece was limited in area, and limited in productivity. We face the challenge of expanding into a Galaxy of four hundred billion stars. I think there will be room for us, in all of our diversity, without resorting to war."

  It was, Katya thought, an optimist's ViRdrama, a universe of plenty with war obsolete. Somehow,
she could not quite believe in it. Man would remain Man, however far he spread.

  "In the meantime." Sinclair said, "I need you. All of you."

  Katya thought she saw where he was going. "Operation Yunagi," she said. "You're afraid that if Dev communicates with the Xenos, the Hegemony'll find a way to use them against you!"

  "That's part of it. My sources tell me that he and at least one DalRiss comel have already been dispatched to Eridu for the attempt.

  "So, I have a proposal for you gentlemen and ladies, one that is strictly for volunteers. I and my staff are leaving for Eridu in three days. I would like the eight of you to accompany us. Once there, we'll join up with the local Network. You can be of invaluable help there, by the way, organizing and training our military forces.

  "But more important. I want to assemble an assault team to steal a DalRiss comel, get it to a safe place, and use it to communicate with the Xenos for our side." He waited, smiling expectantly. "Well? What do you say?"

  "You," Katya said quietly and with great deliberation, "are out of your goking mind!"

  Chapter 5

  Chi Draconis V offers exobiologists special insight into the evolution of life, and special problems as well, for the stellar explosion that transformed the star's binary companion into a white dwarf must have sterilized the system's worlds within the past billion years.

  Yet life, of bewildering variety and energy, undeniably exists today on Eridu. Togo and Namura (2465) have suggested that the system's F7 sun, coupled with the world's slow rotation, introduced sufficient cyclical variations in temperature to favor the evolution of complex life from prebiotic compounds that fortuitously survived that early holocaust. Even so. Eridu remains a testimony to the native stubbornness and tenacity of Life, wherever in the universe it may be found.

  —Dawnings: A Survey of Evolutions

  Dr. Ella Grant Walker

  C.E. 2488

  Dawnings was one of the twelve books in Hayai's tiny shipboard library, and Dev read it through three times during the passage to Chi Draconis. He paid particular attention to Walker's chapter on Eridu.