Yolanda broke into her thoughts, thirty minutes later. “Admiral, the courier boat has dropped out of FTL. They’re broadcasting a diplomatic ID and requesting permission to board. They claim they’re carrying diplomats with full powers to negotiate.”
“I see,” Hoshiko said. She had signalled a willingness to talk, when she’d contacted enemy authorities during the early stages of the war, but there’d been no answer. She’d always assumed the Tokomak had figured they were certain to win the war and therefore saw no point in chatting to their enemies. “And they’re willing to come aboard?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Yolanda said. “They were clear on that.”
Hoshiko frowned. It was rare for the Tokomak to make such a concession. It could be a sign they’d finally accepted they had to deal with humanity as equals or ... she scowled, inwardly. It could also be a droll admission that a cramped courier boat was no place to hold any sort of discussion. But then, the Tokomak would probably prefer to be uncomfortable than make any sort of concession. Governor-General Ripen would be watching. So would half the galaxy.
“Inform them that we’ll beam them onboard, once they’re within range,” she ordered. “Put them through a complete biofilter and security scan, then bring them into the main teleport chamber. I’ll have Grandpa meet them there.”
She keyed her wristcom, updated Steve. He was the sole diplomat - her lips quirked at the thought of her grandfather being diplomatic - on the ship, although she did have wide-ranging powers to talk to the enemy if she had to. Someone would have to discuss peace terms, after all. She stood, passing fleet command to her subordinates as she headed for the teleport chamber. It was unlikely it was some kind of trick, but - if it was - Defiant would be the only ship affected.
Steve met her in the chamber. “I’ve given orders to clear a room for the discussions,” he said. “It isn’t quite what they’re used to, but it will do.”
“I’m sure it will,” Hoshiko said. She felt a little underdressed. Technically, she should be wearing her dress uniform and her grandfather should be wearing diplomatic robes. The Tokomak had dictated how they should look, along with so much else. But it would do them good to see the humans wearing whatever they liked. Besides, it was unlikely they’d know the difference. “Do you want me to attend the talks?”
“Probably not,” Steve said. He gave her a wink. “I may need to sneak out to consult with you at some point.”
Hoshiko raised her eyebrows. “You? Consult with me? With anyone?”
“It’s quite easy to let yourself be pushed towards a certain decision, in a face-to-face meeting,” Steve said. “If they think I have a control, if they think the person who makes the decisions is staying back, they won’t push me too hard.”
Probably, Hoshiko thought. How long has it been since they’ve had to treat anyone as equals?
She watched, grimly, as the teleport pad lit up. Two pillars of sparkling light appeared, rapidly blurring into two alien forms. The Tokomak were taller than she’d realised, so tall they were practically looking down on her. They wore long white robes, marking them as senior diplomats; their faces, disturbingly human, twitched in manners that were thoroughly inhuman. She reminded herself, once again, that they weren’t human. A twitch that meant something to humanity might be completely meaningless to them.
Steve stepped forward. “Welcome onboard,” he said, in perfect Galactic One. “We look forward to holding talks with you.”
“We are pleased to be here,” the lead alien said. She - Hoshiko thought she was female - had a high-pitched voice that grated on her ears. “Escort us to the conference room.”
“Of course,” Steve said. He pretended to pay no attention to Hoshiko as he turned to the hatch. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you right there.”
***
Steve had never been a career diplomat, although he’d never really seen that as a bad thing. In his experience, career diplomats spent more time pleasing their hosts, diluting demands until they became limp-wristed requests and generally making concessions that made life harder for the president and the military. It was understandable, he supposed, that one couldn’t speak softly and carry a big stick when no one believed the stick was actually going to be used, but not forgivable. A career diplomat would probably have listened to the entire opening babble without interruption. Steve had neither the patience nor the cast-iron bladder to tolerate an endless lecture on the glories of galactic history.
“Let me be blunt,” he said, curtly. The two aliens looked shocked. “We are at war. The war has already claimed millions of lives and will claim millions more, if we don’t put a stop to it.”
“That is why we’re here,” the smaller alien said. Steve thought he was a male, although it was hard to be sure. The Tokomak could change gender as easily as they changed their clothes. “If you leave our space, we will graciously grant you leave to depart.”
Steve had to laugh. He’d seen bare-faced effrontery before - his old comrades had joked, bitterly, that the Iraqis and Afghanis lost all the battles and won all the negotiations - but this one took the cake. The Tokomak couldn’t just order them to leave and seriously expect them to leave, could they? He was well aware of how easily diplomats could delude themselves, particularly when their hosts found ways to make them comfortable in exchange for cooperating, but there were limits. He was rather glad Hoshiko wasn’t in the compartment. She would not have taken their remark kindly.
“I told you I’d be blunt,” he reminded them. “You started this war. You attacked Earth” - it might be a shithole these days, but it was still home - “you launched a genocidal campaign against the human race, you broke diplomatic immunity and attempted to capture one of our ships and, finally, dispatched an even larger fleet to Sol in the hopes of finishing the job. It is clear to the entire galaxy that you intended to exterminate our race and enslave our allies. We have waged war against you in self-defence.”
“We chose to wage war in defence of the galactic order,” the male said. He showed no visible reaction to Steve’s bluntness. “You chose to wage war to upend the galactic order.”
Steve was tempted to point out that the galactic order was stacked against everyone unlucky enough not to reach space before they were discovered, and even they got the short end of the stick when the Tokomak wanted something they had, but he kept the remark to himself. It probably wouldn’t have helped matters. Instead, he leaned forward, trying to convey a sense of reasonableness. The Tokomak might not understand his body language, but the humans who’d watch the recording afterwards would.
“Here are our terms,” he said. “You will concede our independence and the independence of our allies, including the worlds we liberated during the war. You will concede our control of the gravity point chains leading from Sol to N-Gann, ensuring that you are unable to resume your advance on Earth. Outside those chains, you will permit our traders to use the gravity points freely, with no more tolls and tariffs than you impose on your own ships. You will formally apologise for your attack on Earth, in return for which we will not demand compensation or any other form of retribution. And you will pledge not to undertake any further offensive operations against us.”
The male made a hissing sound. “Do you expect us to agree to that?”
At least I managed to get under your skin, Steve thought. And you’re not even considering the prospects for altering the deal a few years down the line.
He scowled, inwardly. There was a great deal to be said for such a deal, if the Tokomak could be trusted to keep it. The Solar Union couldn’t liberate the whole galaxy. Indeed, Steve knew - better than most - that it wouldn’t be long before the giant enemy fleet was nothing more than scrap metal. He’d seen Admiral Glass’s projections, watched as improbable ideas started to leap off the drawing board and into real life. Really, he was irked the war had started so quickly. If they’d had another hundred years of peaceful development, the war would have been over within weeks and the Tokomak
would have lost. And the Pax Humanity would have spread over the galaxy.
“We are not disposed to let you get away with your aggression,” Steve informed him. “And we are not inclined to bow the knee to you” - the concept didn’t translate well, but he thought they understood - “and accept you as the masters of the known universe. We can and we will deal with you as equals - we would be willing to trade with you as equals - and even guarantee to let you keep what you currently hold, but not to let you dictate to us. You started this war. You will have to pay a price to end it.”
The female smiled, showing sharp pointed teeth. “And if we continue the war until we crush you?”
“Then you can dictate terms to us,” Steve said. “But, for the moment, we have the edge. And we’re not going to give it up.”
“Then we will discuss terms,” the female said. “Perhaps we should start with ...”
Steve sighed, then braced himself for a round of hard bargaining.
***
“They’re not serious,” Steve said, five hours later. “They’re not convinced they’ve lost. Not yet.”
Hoshiko nodded, studying the report from the xenospecialists. The Tokomak hadn’t asked for the compartment to be cleared of monitors, they hadn’t even swept the room themselves ... it suggested, very strongly, that they didn’t care about the outcome. They might be happy for the humans to take themselves back to their homeworld, giving up everything they’d captured for a gossamer-thin promise of peace, while planning their revenge fifty years down the line. They didn’t look ready to make any concessions that humanity could use to make it difficult for them to resume the offensive. They’d been quite insistent on either recovering the gravity point chains or having the right to move warships through them whenever they pleased. And they’d pressed hard for a blanket ban on fortifying the gravity points.
Which is pretty damn hypocritical, judging by how much effort they put into fortifying them when there was a real threat, Hoshiko thought. And they expect us to give up such an edge?
Steve shook his head. “There’s little of substance in the talks. I’m not sure if they’re delusional or simply buying time, but ... they’re already trying to sidetrack me with plans for a future conference, with diplomats from both sides assembled on neutral ground.”
“Is there such a place?” Hoshiko didn’t look up from the report. “Every world in the known galaxy belongs to one side or the other.”
“Quite.” Steve took a sip of his coffee. “Not to put too fine a point on it, I think they’re stalling for time. They want diplomats from Earth, with better accreditation, to handle the next round of talks. And they want a total freeze of operations on both sides while we prepare for the talks.”
“Out of the question,” Hoshiko said. “It will take a year - longer, now - to send a message to Earth and get a reply, let alone diplomats. In that time, they could bring more of their fleet online. No, Grandfather. We have to wage war now or risk total defeat.”
“I agree with your logic,” Steve said. “And I don’t think we could panic them into submission.”
“Not unless you told them it was a choice between victory or defeat,” Hoshiko said. “And they’d have reason to believe they might win.”
She weighed the odds, grimly. The fleet might win, particularly if she was prepared to be ruthless, or ... the balance was more even than she’d have liked. There was no way to know what had happened to Admiral Teller ... her eyes shifted to the alien courier boat, holding station near the fleet. She could send the marines to take possession of the ship and raid its files, but ... she rather suspected they’d be wiped of anything beyond navigational data. The Tokomak hadn’t known how she’d react to a diplomatic mission. They must have feared she’d blow the courier right out of space.
We still could, she mused. And yet, what would that do to our reputation?
“I could win the war in a single day,” she said. “Or lose it. That’s still true.”
“Yes,” Steve agreed. “But if you do nothing, they’ll have time to adapt to us.”
“And crush us, next year,” Hoshiko said. She’d seen the projections. Unless humanity came up with a whole new weapons system, they’d be steamrollered by an immense fleet and crushed like bugs. “Put like that, there’s really no choice at all.”
She glanced at the report, then up at him. “How much authority do they have?”
“They say they have practically unlimited authority, combined with an understanding of what they can and can’t promise us,” Steve said. He looked as if he wanted to spit. “I don’t believe them.”
Hoshiko nodded, stiffly. She had authority too, and guidelines that would bite her if she pushed her authority too far. The Tokomak would probably be the same. They’d have some authority, but they’d be disowned if they promised too much. And there was no way to know what might be too much. She rather suspected that even their best offer, the one that came with a very nasty sting in the tail, was more than their superiors would care to accept.
“Give them an ultimatum,” she said. “They can agree to our terms for a practical end to the war, with everything we want wrapped up in a nice little bow, or the war can resume until one of us emerges victorious. And then send them back home to tell their superiors. We’ll follow with the entire fleet. If they agree, with us pushing into their system, the war is over. If not, we fight it out.”
Steve nodded. “Good thinking.”
“And see if you can stall them a little too.” Hoshiko checked the updates. “We’ll be ready to leave in a day or two. We may as well cut their warning time as short as possible. You can give them the ultimatum when we’re ready to go.”
“They’ll still have a few days of warning,” Steve pointed out. “That could be decisive.”
“If that matters, we’re completely screwed anyway,” Hoshiko countered. Three days wouldn’t matter ... less than three days, if the diplomats didn’t realise she was following them, loaded for bear. It wasn’t enough time to matter. “One way or the other, Grandfather, it will all be over soon.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Neola was in an absolutely foul mood as she marched towards the council chambers, escorted by two of her aides and a squad of armed - and loyal - soldiers. The flight back from the Twins had been nightmarish, the experience taunting her with visions of her ships, spread out like beads on a string, being jumped and ambushed one by one. She’d watched, helplessly, as word spread ahead of her, the remaining allied ships taking their leave almost as soon as they had a chance to run. There had been no way to stop them. Tokomak Prime was under threat.
And we had to send orders to redeploy all of our remaining ships from the gravity point chain, she thought. She knew, all too well, that the human fleet she’d battered would be able to push its way down the chain once it recuperated from the battle, threatening the homeworld from a different direction. Thankfully, the gravity point fortifications at the far end of the chain were almost impregnable. Those fools! Those utter fools!
Her mood didn’t improve as she walked into the council chamber itself, leaving her escort watching the doors. The newscasts were normally bland to the point of uselessness, even after she’d taken the helm, but now ... she cursed the reporters who dared panic the population with the truth, just as she cursed the ‘advisors’ who’d stripped her of supreme power and authority. The newscasts should have been shut down by now, but ... it was unprecedented. Of course it was unprecedented. Normally, the truth was quite good enough to publish. But now ... she cast her mind back to the first reports she’d read as she reached the system. The Tokomak homeworld was on the verge of panic.
She glared around the chamber as she took her seat, noting that only two councillors had deigned to attend the meeting they’d called. The others had probably remembered urgent business a few thousand light years away, as if running and hiding would make a difference if Tokomak Prime fell. The empire would fall with it ... and if it didn’t, she’d regain
full power and punish them for their cowardice. They would be sent into permanent exile on a hellworld or maybe just dumped on a human-dominated planet ... or what remained of it after she’d completed her grisly task. It had been a mistake to let any of the younger races climb into space. If they’d been confined to their planets ...
“The humans have rejected our terms,” Coordinator Hakav. “They have dared issue us an ultimatum.”
“The humans are not stupid.” Neola hated the human race with every fibre of her being, but she’d concede that much. And even an intellectually-challenged race would smell a rat after reading the statements from Tokomak Prime. “They knew you weren’t serious.”
She bit down the urge to remind them it was all their fault. If she’d been allowed to keep her fleet at Tokomak Prime, she could have responded to the human advance before it threatened the homeworld itself. Or she could have made a stand at Tokomak Prime itself, with thousands of warships and the extremely heavy planetary defences backing her up. Now ... she still had ships and men, but she was grimly aware she didn’t have much time. The human fleet was probably already on its way. They’d never have a better chance to win the war outright.
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