by Adam Vance
Jameson was the spokesman for the techs. They were the backbone of the FJ squadrons, the men and women who ran the space stations, who kept the pouches flying and the ammo coming and the stroidfarms fabbing. And the risk of losing them to this intrusive alien technology…the risk that they would be co-opted by the aliens…
“Captain,” Jameson said defiantly. “It’s not your decision. The PM has authorized us to move ahead with this.”
The Captain knew that already. The PM was nearly as old as HM, and his genetic makeup had made Lazarex treatments less effective each time. Now the Rhalbazani were offering a rejuvenation treatment that beat Lazarex hands-down…but only to a select few, of course. Allegedly because making it public would cause riots among people clamoring for it, but the Captain suspected it was so it could be the Rhalbazani’s Carrot of Compliance for Earth’s leadership.
The lure of Salvation had overwhelmed even his own people. Well, not all of them. The actual FJ force members were another matter. But losing the hearts and minds of the techs … If the Visitors were the enemy he suspected they were, then they had just cut the FJ’s supply lines.
These were his friends, his comrades, as essential a part of the Fallschirmjäger as any soldier. But their strength – their love for technical challenges, for new problems to solve, for new technology to employ – was now their weakness. Department 6C had recruited exactly the kind of mind that couldn’t resist the opportunity to make an evolutionary leap in their cognitive skills.
He knew that the PM had deliberately assigned this spot for the meeting. This lounge in the orbiting station above Earth was pitched so that the disc of the Visitors’ ship, now hovering discreetly over Berlin at a higher altitude, was never out of his audiences’ line of sight, like a prize in an arcade’s claw machine, that they had only to reach out and grab.
“Yes, that’s true. But if any of you feel as I do…please contact me after this meeting.” He left it open to the ingenuity of any dissidents as to how they’d contact him without tipping off the others.
Sergeant Kaplan looked at him afterward, went to say something, changed his mind.
“What is it, Sergeant?”
Kaplan’s eyes traveled over the faces of the rest of the squad, getting their consent to be the one to say what they were all thinking.
“Captain, it’s just that your appeals to the techs were…reasonable. Very persuasive and logical. But…maybe they needed was a little emotion, you know? A big ‘once more into the breach’ kinda thing.”
Chen laughed. “Yeah. Probably. I did the Mr. Spock thing again, didn’t I?”
It was funny, he thought. In the field, with native populations, he could be the most charming, extroverted person, matching his hosts drink for drink (inebriation was a basic component of all galactic civilizations). He could laugh and dance and sing their strange songs, even howl at the moon.
But with his own people, he didn’t do all that. Not just because he was the leader, but because he didn’t think he had to. The Conclusions Of Pure Reasoning were self-evident to him, and to his team. So he forgot that sometimes, especially back home, he should be more like his “native self” with people than his “Captain self.”
He sighed, running a hand over his buzzcut hair. “Next time, I’ll work on that, Sergeant. Sergeants,” he added, seeing the consensus on their faces. “Thank you. Let’s huddle.”
The team huddled like a football team, arms around each other. He switched to subvocalizing, and the tiny vibrations rippled across the team’s bodies, picked up by the sensitive detectors in their earcomms. There was no tech on the station that could pick up what he was saying.
“I won’t order you…I can’t order you to do this. It’s treason against the Union. It’s…”
“They have the boss, sir,” Hewitt said. “That’s all I need to know.”
The others nodded. “One for all, et cetera,” Cruz added.
And it was settled.
The Captain took Sergeant Archambault aside as the others sealed themselves into their pods. “Aster, I know that your partner is transitioning right now, and if you…”
“James understands, Captain. Remember, he was FJ Tech before he retired to stay home with Charlotte.”
He nodded. Archambault should have been going on leave right about now, as the couple had planned to be together during the difficult process of Jane’s transgendering into James.
She broke protocol and put a hand on his shoulder. “But thank you for asking. When I asked James if it was okay, he said, ‘Fuckin’ Jedi all the way,’ so that’s that.”
He laughed. “Okay. Thank him for me when you talk to him again.”
When they were all sealed in their pods, he gave the command to bundle them into a transport, and requested a course to Caladan. He was immediately cleared and the transport slipped into flashspace.
After that, when his ship was invisible to any known sensory detection system (even, he hoped, that of the Visitors), he committed his first rebellious act.
“Being FJ” often meant obeying the law but breaking the regulations. All too often, regulations are created to govern events that haven’t happened yet, which means they’re designed for the way their creators think things will happen…now how they end up happening.
And when they do happen, adhering to regulations often makes a bad situation worse. “Being FJ” meant adjusting to the facts on the ground, doing what was right when doing what was proper wouldn’t cut it.
They weren’t supposed to have 120 flash pouches on board. He had tinkered with the transport’s weighing system to fool it into believing he had none. They didn’t have enough energy to make it to Caladan with that many pouches, especially not if he diverted ship power to charge up their tiny flash drives.
But of course, Caladan wasn’t their goal. He stared hard at a red button on his contact lens display, and the pouches flew out of the transport like tracers, refolding flashspace to form their own routes.
The message he sent to every FJ squad was succinct.
Rend FJ 1@EL
Thirty minutes later, their transport came out of flashspace over the “emergency location,” the place nobody would suspect as a meeting place, since it was so inhospitable.
To his relief, over the next few hours the answers came back. All of them. All the same.
OMW. On my way.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN – A MEETING OF THE TRIBES
There was no space station over Eden One. The only signs of civilization on the planet were the blast marks where rockets had recently dropped off prisoners. Only the recent ones were visible, because the jungle quickly reconquered the burnt spaces.
The first blue-green world humanity had discovered had been optimistically named before it turned out to be a horror show of monstrous beasts, reptiles, arachnids and insects. Mankind nearly had a collective nervous breakdown at the news that their first inhabitable world was…uninhabitable. Only the discovery of Caladan soon afterwards had blunted the shock.
The lifespan of an Eden One prisoner was between 0 days and (the record) six weeks, with the median being about 1 week. It was the Union’s oubliette, where you were gone and forgotten – and not mourned, if your crime was so terrible that it got you sent here. So there was no technology here, no satellites, nothing that could be hacked to alert anyone that a historic event was taking place – the first gathering of all the members of the Fallschirmjäger in one place.
The air was hot and humid, and FJ One’s members all had their uni fabric settings on maximum cooling and moisture wicking. The flamethrowers they were using to clear more space around their landing area didn’t help with the heat issue. But it was the fastest way to beat back the jungle and scare off predators, who’d learned to come running as if to a dinner bell at the sound of a landing rocket.
More shuttles landed, making slow descents, using their rockets to blast away more jungle. The Captain was pleased to see that the first arrival was FJ Six.
Captain Chamber
s grabbed him in a bear hug. “It’s good to see you, Dieter. What’s it been, fifteen years?”
“About that. Since we worked on New Canada.” That had been a difficult mission for the FJ forces. It was the one time that Department 6C had authorized a “regime change” in the local culture. The experiment had been watched carefully by hordes of anthropologists, think tankers, talking heads, and the general public. Taking out the local brutal tyrant had been both morally and practically necessary, and the fighting had been intense.
“How are Charlie and Charlie Jr.?”
“They’re good, real good, thanks. And you, still married to the force?”
“Yep.”
“How’s HM doing these days? Other than being abducted by aliens, that is?”
“Well, that’s part of what we need to talk about.”
Soon they were all there, six hundred of the best and brightest human beings alive today. Captain Chen looked out over them from a fresh tree stump. Men and women, most of them seasoned veterans who would never retire until they were forced to, to make room for some of the thousands of potential candidates hungry to join the Fallschirmjäger.
Every one of them dealt with the aches and pains of years of hardship, living like the natives on their exploratory missions. And many of them had the scars of combat, some with limbs now replaced by prosthetics. Lazarex treatments could reverse the aging process, stop the decay of your DNA, but it couldn’t heal scars or replace legs, or undo what years of stress and fatigue did to the mind.
They all had certain things in common. They were “scholar-soldiers,” Renaissance men and women who were linguists, sociologists, negotiators, lifelong learners, and physically fit and adventurous. And yes, willing to kill, when that was the only moral and pragmatic option in the face of evil.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said. “Here’s the situation as I see it.” He quickly laid out the facts on the ground for them.
Sergeant Cohen of FJ Seventy raised his hand. Chen nodded at him.
“Sir, I don’t hear any definitive facts that would make me suspect potential foul play. So far the Rhalbazani have done nothing but assist us. If they have the tech to suck up the whole Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and put out the Centralia Fire, then I’m assuming they have the tech to conquer us in a heartbeat if they want to.”
Several voices assented to that.
Captain Dorotskar was next. “I think we should think about the Rhalbazani the way we’d think about any indigenous population on a potential colony world. We’re open minded, non-judgmental, willing to work with any, well almost any kind of culture and government we find there. So why wouldn’t we apply the same standards to the Rhalbazani?”
“But,” Captain Chambers countered, “the difference is that we are on a lower rung of the food chain here. The generosity and patience we can afford to have with less-developed cultures may not work if we’re not the apex predator anymore.”
“What I don’t want to see happen,” Sergeant Cohen added, “is that we give them the impression that we’re unworthy of the kindness they’ve displayed so far. They really might be an infinitely wise and kind culture who’s ready to help us progress and evolve. And if we go to some kind of Defcon status, which I’m thinking is what you’re proposing, Captain, then…” He shrugged. “They might just take their toys and go home.”
Captain Chen nodded. “What I’m proposing is caution. Si vis pacem, para bellum.”
“But preparing for war can be seen as a warlike action,” someone added, a woman Chen didn’t recognize.
“Yes. But not preparing for war can be folly.”
“What’s HM’s stand on all this?”
“Her stand is…wary. You know the boss. Her philosophy is, prepare for any eventuality because chances are, the worst will happen soon enough.”
There was general laughter at the truth of that.
“Here’s what I propose. We move some stroidfarm ships around, away from the colonies, get some of them to at least set up shop on some remote asteroids. And we design some quickly executable action plans, if it all goes to shit. That way we don’t get caught with our pants down, if the worst case scenario is correct.”
He paused. “HM is on a cultural exchange with the Rhalbazani now. She expects to be home in a month. If the duration of this exchange is…extended, I recommend that be the trigger for plan execution.”
“Is this HM’s recommendation?” Cohen asked bluntly.
“Yes. It is.” He and HM had thought long and hard about bringing her weight to bear on the decision. Everyone present had been through her rigorous personal screening process for potential FJ members. Every one of them here had been mentored by her, supported in their decisions by her, encouraged in their innovations. Personal loyalty would trump personal reservations, he knew. That could discourage constructive dissent, and lead them down a preordained path.
But events had already ordained it, the Captain and HM had decided.
“I want to be transparent with you. This is HM’s request, and mine. We have met the Rhalbazani representative, and our instincts and experience are setting off red lights and alarm bells. But we determined that, yes, this is a voting matter. It’s a risk for us, and for our species. You all are smart people with plenty of experience in cultural encounter. But HM and I ask you, please, let us prepare for the worst. We can do this vote by silent messaging…”
As one, six hundred hands shot up. Their faces were serious, some troubled, some certain. But they were united.
Chen smiled. “Or we can raise our hands,” he said, adding his own. “Now, let’s break up into divisions and do some strategizing.” The FJ sergeants began handing out holodisks. “Here are our projections of the best asteroid belts to start with…”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – WE’LL SAVE YOU A SEAT
The shuttles left Eden One, their vertical contrails diluting together into a pillar of smoke. Comms sent out the signal that would stake FJ One’s claim to a spot in orbit. From there they’d open flashspace, a discreet distance from any other ship.
Kaplan was about to push Go on their course back to Earth when a bright light nearly blinded him. The shuttle sensors immediately adjusted to dim the screens. “What the hell is…”
He didn’t get to finish his sentence before debris began peppering their shuttle – bits and pieces from the explosion of FJ Seventeen’s shuttle, blown to bits by a missile.
“Taking evasive action,” Engineering shouted. “Double strap in!” The Captain was lightly belted into the co-pilot’s seat to keep from drifting in zero gravity, but now he added the four point cross straps as the shuttle banked sharply.
There was no mistaking the blimp-like object that had emerged from the light. A Rhalbazani ship was sparkling as its hull released more projectiles, and small fighters fell out of it like glitter towards the surface.
“Going to flashspace now!” Engineering said.
“Hold that,” the Captain said.
The fighters racing towards the surface shot their own missiles. The explosions on the ground blew away the pillar of contrail smoke, replacing it with black clouds. Twenty FJ squads had still been on the ground, their shuttles waiting for the departure lane to clear. Red lights blinked in the Captain’s contacts as emergency beacons went off and were just as quickly terminated.
“Cap,” Weapons said, “this is a shuttle, we don’t have any defenses.”
The projectiles were easy to avoid. They couldn’t move too fast, because of the distance required to make course corrections. The shuttles were equipped with simple weaponry, used to blast away space debris in their paths, which the more creative pilots were now employing to detonate the missiles harmlessly.
The Rhalbazani ship stopped firing missiles, and started putting on a light show. Hundreds of blue lasers shot out, lazily tracing random patterns. Even the most skilled shuttle pilots’ evasive actions were no match for the unpredictable beams. They cut shuttles in two like carbobsid kni
ves.
Some shuttles found refuge behind the battleship, which for some perverse reason only had lasers on its forward hull. Having finished their work on the ground, the Rhalbazani fighters went after them. The enemy had min-EMP guns too, apparently. A fighter would fly at a shuttle, and suddenly the shuttle was floating, dead.
“Captain, we need to go,” Weapons urged again.
“Weapons, I have friends for you, coming online now.”
Weapons whooped. “Fuck yeah. Got ‘em, Cap.”
Si vis pacem, para bellum. Captain Chen had para’d for bellum even here. A blink of his eye as soon as the Rhalbazani ship had fired its first missile, and a fighting force of three hundred armed drones had flung itself off one of the asteroids in Eden One’s near orbit.
It was a violation of Scarcity principles – to “waste” an asteroid, and the energy expended by a stroidfarm ship to convert it, to make up a small drone army with no provocation, no hint of any need. But a good Fallschirmjäger knew when to break the rules.
“All FJ units,” the Captain broadcast. “Help is on the way. If you can get into flashspace, do it.”
“Captain, this is Trang,” a voice crackled roughly in his earcomm. “We’re dead in the water, sir.” Sergeant Trang had switched to the backup comm system, kept in an EMP-shielded box for emergencies.
“Roger that, FJ Seventy. All units who still have power, get to asteroid KL-1, and dock with the stroidfarm supply ship. Weapons, how are we doing?”
“Getting there, Cap.” The drones were fast and responsive, little globes dotted with jets all around for maximum maneuverability. If all else failed, they would just fling themselves at the target, using speed and mass in a kamikaze dive.
Now the little flashes on the hull of the enemy ship were their laser ports exploding. The fighters were diverted from picking off shuttles to fight the droid swarm.
Fourteen shuttles had power and made it to the stroidfarm supply ship intact. Hatches opened automatically to suck them inside the vessel.
