Rise of the Federation

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “I presented myself as an operative of Harrad-Sar. He is the Sisters’ chief slave, the one who handles Maltuvis.”

  “I remember him,” Tucker said. “All friendly and reasonable on the surface, even as he slips in the knife.”

  “Yes. His name gave me some access, though not the authority to walk you out of here openly. This way.”

  She led them to the prison laundry, and Tucker was almost touched to see that the old Earth prison-break clichés were alive and well on an alien world. Luckily, the lack of electronic security meant they could sneak out in the back of a laundry truck without their biosigns being detected. But Devna stayed behind as she helped the two men into the laundry bin. “Aren’t you coming?” Tucker asked.

  Devna shook her head. “I must be observed leaving the prison and returning to Harrad-Sar’s harem before you are missed. Once you are clear, you must find a way to return to Akleyro on your own. Your Malurian impersonators have done their parts; the resistance has no idea you have been taken, and their planned strike is only days away. The new factory in Veranith is their target, and they intend to attack before it goes online. You must hurry if you hope to stop them. With luck, I will meet you there in a few days.”

  Tucker was hesitant to trust her. Could this be some sort of trap? Was Maltuvis’s approach to torture more elaborate than he let on? But under the circumstances, he had no choice. He gave her a cautious nod. “We’ll see how things turn out.”

  Devna nodded back and hurried from the laundry room. Tucker and Ruiz lowered themselves into the bin and shut the lid. After a few moments, Ruiz whispered, “Amigo . . . is it weird that I’m excited she saw me naked? I mean, under the circumstances?”

  Tucker laughed weakly, welcoming the release of tension. “My friend, let me explain a few things about Orion women . . .”

  March 6, 2166

  Devna had placed a great deal of faith in Tucker and Ruiz’s resourcefulness. Even with their guard uniforms and helmets, Tucker knew, it would be next to impossible for two humans to blend in with a population of Saurians in the heart of the planet’s most xenophobic nation. Once they slipped out of the back of the prison laundry truck while it was stopped at a railway crossing in a largely empty, run-down neighborhood, the two men made for an abandoned building and forced their way inside. “We’ll wait here until sometime after daybreak,” Tucker said. “Most of the Saurians should be asleep by then. After that, we’ll try to find a sewer entrance.”

  “Okay,” Ruiz said, unfazed; no doubt his mining career had inured him to tight, smelly places. “But where do we want to go?”

  Tucker led him over to a half-barred window, inviting him to look through the gap. “There.”

  Through the grungy glass, they could both see the tall, delta-winged spindle shapes of several of Maltuvis’s orbital ships in the distance, accompanied by several cylindrical gantry towers and dozens of broad chimneys spewing thick clouds of smoke lit from below by the orange glow of factory forges. “One of Malparido’s spaceship plants,” Ruiz said, using one of his favorite Maltuvian malapropisms, the Spanish equivalent of “bastard.” “Are you loco, Trip? Why not just march into the Basilic Palace while we’re at it?”

  “Well, where else are we gonna find a ship that can get us halfway around the planet in time to stop the raid? Besides, we might learn something there. Garos didn’t know just how the disaster was supposed to be triggered; maybe seeing the inside of one of those factories will give us a clue.”

  Ruiz considered. “Maybe we can even find a way to sabotage this one ourselves. If the resistance hears about it, they may postpone their raid.”

  “Or they may decide to go sooner, before Maltuvis heightens security. Too risky, even if we could pull it off.”

  Ruiz nodded. “Come to think of it, the way Malpractice controls the flow of information, news of sabotage in M’Tezir might not even reach the rest of the planet.”

  “Heh. ‘Malpractice.’ I like that one.”

  “I’ve got a million of ’em.”

  Basilic Palace, M’Tezir

  Maltuvis sat hunched over the ornate desk in his lushly appointed private office, adding new revisions to the official state history text. After learning of the frustrating fact of the human spies’ escape from his prison, he took comfort in the exercise of rewriting the facts to suit his desires.

  The M’Tezir state’s histories had been written to favor the Basilic line and suitably denigrate its rival nations for generations. But now that Maltuvis ruled the world, he felt it only right to apply a more personal touch to the readjustment of history. His predecessors had been too delicate in their amendments to reality, attempting to limit them to assertions that could not be disproven by self-evident facts. But they had missed the point of the exercise. The true mark of power was to compel agreement with whatever statements you made, regardless of the listener’s knowledge of the facts. As Maltuvis’s word was now unchallenged, he could assert whatever he wanted. He could claim that the sun was in the sky at night, and any who pointed out otherwise would be arrested for speaking sedition. Only those who bowed to his reality would remain entitled to live in it.

  Not that he felt the need to go quite that far, at least for now. He could content himself with subtler redefinitions. The schools would still be compelled to teach them as the inviolable truth, after all—at least until he decided to change them again. But what new truths did he feel like inventing tonight? That all Lyaksti leaders had secretly been Clear Light cultists? That Veranith ritually sacrificed and devoured their young in public ceremonies? That humans had been genetically engineered as a slave race by ancient M’Tezir starfarers during their first conquest of the galaxy millennia ago? Now, that one had possibilities.

  Maltuvis was annoyed when he heard a familiar sound—the opening of the secret passageway that connected to Harrad-Sar’s hidden chamber within the palace. He turned to harangue the burly Orion for intruding on his entertainment, but was brought up short to see that his visitor was one of the females from Harrad-Sar’s personal harem. “What do you want?” he barked.

  The pale-skinned, black-haired female bowed and spoke in a breathy voice. “My lord Maltuvis. My name is Elevia.”

  “Yes, yes.” He had no interest in her identity. He could not remember having seen this one before, but he could barely tell them apart anyway.

  “I bear a message from Harrad-Sar. He apologizes for being unable to come himself, but he has urgent matters to attend to.”

  “As do I. Make it quick.”

  “My lord, it pertains to the spacecraft factory in Veranith, and the planned attack by the resistance. My master has approved an amendment to the plan. . . .”

  12

  COME MORNING, Tucker and Ruiz made their way to the ship factory via the sewer system and entered the complex through a drainage channel. The air grew increasingly foul as they moved deeper into the plant, and Tucker realized there was a flaw in his plan. “The Saurians can breathe this kind of stuff with no problem. They’ve got built-in filters, so they don’t need any kind of masks or pollution controls.”

  Ruiz coughed. “So how are we gonna survive in there?”

  “If they’re mostly shut down for the day, the worst of it should’ve cleared out by now. We can probably manage for a little while.”

  “But what then?”

  They soon emerged within the fabrication section of the complex, which was still running at reduced capacity for the day shift. Stifling heat and vapor rose from a row of foundry vats containing molten steel and aluminum to be poured into molds for casting the ships’ superstructure members. Opposite them, long strands of carbon fiber were being drawn through an elaborate series of heated rollers, high-pressure furnaces, oxidation ovens, and electrolytic baths, the chemical fumes further fouling the air. Beyond were large, intricate looms for weaving the carbon fibers into mats that were then coated in resin and molded into strong, lightweight fuselage components. Even in low-power mode, the heat and
fumes from the fabrication units were nearly unbearable. Tucker and Ruiz tried to breathe through the fabric of their uniform collars while Tucker searched for a plan of the complex.

  Finally, he found what he was looking for and led Ruiz there. The plant was empty enough that they were able to keep their distance from the Saurians they saw, who seemed unsurprised by the presence of people in security uniforms—and who stayed far enough away not to hear their coughing over the noise of the plant.

  Tucker’s destination was the cleanroom facility where the ships’ fine electronics were made. Saurians might not need their air filtered, but the ships’ computers and advanced circuitry certainly did. The pair of cleanroom suits that Tucker and Ruiz appropriated were designed to filter the air they exhaled rather than the air they took in, but they worked well enough, and they had the additional benefit of concealing the men’s faces as they moved deeper into the plant.

  They soon made their way out of the fabrication center into the assembly plant proper, and both men had to halt and stare in astonishment. The assembly area was a vast hangar that towered hundreds of meters overhead and stretched dozens of meters down below the balcony where they stood, one of fifteen stories’ worth of balconies surrounding the assembly floor on three sides. Eight orbital ships in various stages of assembly, positioned vertically with their nose cones pointing to the arched roof, were evenly spaced across the immense floor in two rows of four. The pair nearest Tucker and Ruiz were bare frameworks, with each successive pair being closer to completion. Vast cranes slid on overhead tracks, several of them carrying nose cones, weapon emplacements, or nacelles awaiting attachment to the ship frames, while flatbeds on tracks in the factory floor carried the bulky reactors and exhaust nozzles to be attached from below. At the far end, the rails continued along a shallow ramp that rose toward a huge sliding wall whose base was at ground level. No doubt the completed ships would be rolled up the ramp to the launch gantries outside.

  Fortunately, there was also a series of enormous ventilation fans mounted in the walls just below the vaulted roof. Tucker and Ruiz were able to take off their cleanroom masks and breathe relatively freely. “I thought the Saurians didn’t need the ventilation,” Ruiz said between pants.

  Tucker laughed. “It’s to vent water vapor, keep the humidity down. A space this big can develop indoor weather if you aren’t careful.”

  “I’d be really impressed,” Ruiz said, “if this all wasn’t being done to murder and oppress people.”

  “Yeah, the Nazis were pretty great engineers too. It’s not the technology’s fault, it’s the fault of the people who decide how to use it.” He leaned forward over the rail to get a better look at the engine components below. “So go ahead, be as impressed as you want with the technology.”

  “I’m more interested in finding a working ship we can steal. And just how did you plan to get away with that, anyway?”

  “Hold on,” Tucker said. “Something’s not right.”

  “They’re primitive warp drives that barely even work. I bet there’s a ton that isn’t right.”

  “That’s just it. They’re too right.”

  Ruiz stared. “You having a delayed reaction from the torture?”

  “Come on, we need to get a closer look.”

  It took several minutes to descend the stairs to the factory floor; Saurians generally didn’t need elevators. They had to wait until a guard patrol went by, but they were finally able to make their way over to one of the half-assembled engines. “No, this isn’t right,” Tucker said as he inspected the unit. “There. The antimatter bottles are far too big.” He climbed up the catwalk, Ruiz following close behind, until he found a gap in the unfinished casing that let him examine the interior structure. “And that’s a dilithium articulation frame,” he added, his heart sinking. “Tony, these are second-generation warp drives.”

  “What? You mean these things are gonna have interstellar capability?”

  “Yeah. Nothing fast, no better than the early Boomer ships, but enough to reach other stars in a matter of months.”

  “My God. Maltuvis isn’t content with conquering Sauria. That’s why he’s making so many ships. He wants to build an interstellar empire.”

  “Tony . . . that’s not what worries me. I mean, yeah, it’s bad, long-term. But there’s a more immediate thing to worry about.”

  “Which is?”

  “Where’s he getting the antimatter? This many warp engines needing this much antideuterium . . .”

  Ruiz furrowed his brow. “The Orions must be shipping it in.”

  “That’d be pretty hard to hide. It’s easy enough to smuggle in a few agents, transmit the plans and engineering tutorials for this stuff. But bulk antimatter shipments would’ve been spotted, and would’ve given away that Maltuvis is getting offworld help.”

  “Which means . . .”

  “Yeah. We need to hold off on finding that ship, Tony. There’s something else we need to find first.”

  The layout of the plant was efficient, with direct physical paths from one stage of fabrication and construction to the next. That made it easy to backtrack to the source of the antimatter. The path led them through an annex with a long central passage bracketed by cylindrical assembly chambers for warp nacelles and antimatter bottles. Once they moved past those components, they discovered additional, smaller assembly chambers dedicated to the construction of something yet more alarming. “Torpedoes?” Ruiz asked in dismay.

  “Yeah. And from the design of those casings, I’d say they’re photonic. Antimatter-based.”

  “More antimatter. Where’s he getting it?”

  It wasn’t long before they found out. At the end of the annex was a balcony overlooking a massive toroidal structure surrounded by multiple large, spherical fusion reactors configured to feed it power. Tucker shook his head grimly. “A quantum charge reversal system,” he said, having to speak loudly over the echoing roar of the mechanism. “An antimatter generator.”

  “It’s huge!” Ruiz shouted back.

  “It has to be. Even our best QCRS generators have an efficiency of only a few percent—you need to put in thirty, forty times as much deuterium in as you get antideuterium out. That’s why we build them on places like the surface of Mercury—plenty of raw solar power to make up for the inefficiency. This rig, I doubt it’s as much as half a percent. It must be putting an incredible drain on the country’s power grid. No wonder we saw so few signs of life out in the city.”

  He led Ruiz back out into the annex so they could hear each other better. “So that’s good, right?” the mining engineer asked. “It means it can’t be making very much antimatter.”

  “That’s the thing about antimatter—you don’t need much. That’s the other reason we build them on Mercury—because if one of those things goes up, you don’t want anyone living nearby.”

  Ruiz’s eyes widened as the true horrific implications began to sink in. “Trip, this thing is right in the middle of a city! How stable is it? How safe?”

  “Given how hard they have to be running it to power all these warp drives and torpedoes? Not very. It wouldn’t take much to overload its containment fields.”

  The younger man crossed himself. “Dios. If the other ship factories have this kind of generator . . .”

  Tucker nodded. The possibility had occurred to him as soon as he’d laid eyes on the QCRS, but his intelligence training had hardened him. Now that he saw the horror in Ruiz’s eyes, he began to feel it too. “This is why the Sisters didn’t give Garos anything that would trigger the disaster. It’s already in the factory. The resistance will go in there to blow it up, not knowing the antimatter generator is there. They blow the plant, set off the generator . . .” His throat tightened. It was hard to say it. “It could blow up an entire city. The ecological disaster could ravage a whole country.”

  “And since these ships aren’t supposed to have more than trace quantities of antimatter . . .”

  “Maltuvis could
claim that Starfleet provided it. That they recklessly gave it to an extremist group that wasn’t afraid to use it. The Federation would get blamed for the cataclysm.”

  Ruiz clenched his fists. “And wouldn’t that just give the tin-pot fascist the perfect excuse to start an interstellar war . . . and make the Saurians want it.”

  The possibilities were becoming clear in Tucker’s mind. “He’s still a long way from having the resources to attack the Federation directly. These ships would take years to reach Federation space. But with the Orions’ help, he could begin to conquer nearer worlds. Use their resources and populations to add to his military strength, broaden his influence. Given time . . . it’s possible he could build a big enough empire out here to pose a threat to the Federation in years to come.”

  “And even before then,” Ruiz said, “the Federation would be blamed for letting it happen. Every conquest Maltuvis achieved would be one more stain on humanity’s reputation. Could the Federation even survive that?”

  Tucker didn’t want to try answering that question. Either way, this had now become about something much bigger than Section 31.

  Birnam

  The Endeavour crew’s study of the dryads had proceeded slowly, for the dryads lived slowly. Even mobile trees still went through life at a stately pace. But it was difficult for Hoshi Sato to continue working in such proximity to Farid Najafi. She had no choice in the matter; those were her orders, and attempting to get out of them for personal reasons would be dereliction of duty. And to his credit, Najafi had not attempted any advances over the past few days. “I’m a Boomer,” he’d explained the first time they’d been alone together since the incident. “We live with the same people for years on end, even lifetimes. We understand how bad it is to disrupt a committed relationship. It can make things pretty toxic.

  “But we also understand,” he’d gone on, “that running away isn’t an option. If you have an issue with a shipmate, you work through it or you get over it. You forget the past and focus on the next thing you have to do. So can we just do that? Focus on the dryads from here on?”