Artifice (Special Forces: FJ One Book 2)

by Adam Vance

  She was welcome at Court now, and she spent every day there, harvesting data. The RhalVai was the absolute ruler, and there was no legislature. But the aristocracy paid taxes and tribute, and he couldn’t run roughshod over them. And the military…well, the military dictated imperial policy. Or had, until recently.

  She found herself having the local version of tea with DuRhalVai Jekkita every afternoon in the xeriscaped garden she’d seen on her first day. The tea tasted terrible, but it didn’t make her sick, and part of diplomacy has always been about enduring the disgusting cuisine of other nations. Besides, there was good reason to accept the DuRhalVai’s invitation every day – a single day without taking tea could be interpreted as a loss of favor, of protection.

  “I’m curious,” she said on the fifth day of tea-taking, having allowed the conversation to remain innocuous until then. It was clear that her protector would not be volunteering any information, so it was time to pry. “In terms of succession…forgive me if I’m unfamiliar with your reproductive systems, or if it’s rude to even ask…”

  Jekkita waved it away. “Of course. The RhalVai has been mated before, to a female, and produced, as you say on Earth, ‘an heir and a spare.’”

  Hmm, HM thought, so he’s been doing his homework on us.

  “Having accomplished that, His Imperial Highness separated from his mate and joined with me.”

  “A love match?” HM couldn’t help but ask, after the DuRhalVai had mocked that of Vai Kotta and his clearly unsuitable wife.

  His laughter wasn’t translated by the device at his throat, but came out as a croaking, snapping sound. All the same, it was obviously amusement.

  “Yes…and no. The RhalVai and I were childhood friends. And our houses have been allied for some time. The former DuRhalVai…” He broke off, realizing he was saying too much. “More tea?”

  “Yes, please, I’d love some,” HM lied. She knew it was time to change the subject. “Vai Kotta has been extremely kind and generous, to me and to my people. But, and forgive me, I’ve been watching your mass entertainments and…well, the way Earth has been…approached is somewhat unusual for you?”

  “Yes,” he nodded. “I suppose you’re on to us there. We are not a peaceful people. War is the basis of our prosperity – perpetual conquest keeps all this going,” he said, waving a hand at the garden around them.

  “And, Director, I’ll be honest with you. There are some among us who believe that this model is not sustainable. There have been…setbacks recently. Dishonor has fallen on certain Vais and their houses, including that of the former DuRhalVai.”

  HM could feel her spine tingling. This was the sort of information she needed, but also the sort that could get her killed, if the wrong Rhal knew she had it. All the same, it all her willpower not to lean forward, hungry for more.

  “My cousin Vai Kotta is from an old family, a great house. A family so old that they were the patrons of the family who now holds the throne. Which is why Vai Kotta’s ideas have been…tolerated. It was simply too difficult to remove him from the game board.

  “His ideas are heretical, or nearly so. The Patriarch of our church would have him burnt at the stake, if he could.”

  “The idea that a new form of conquest is required,” HM couldn’t help say out loud. “One that is less resource-intensive, less destructive, that incites less rebellion and is more lucrative.”

  “Aren’t you the clever one,” the DuRhalVai smiled. “And the recent… setbacks have… adjusted the balance at court.”

  HM filled in the blanks for herself. The old DuRhalVai was part of a house that was responsible for a military loss, a significant one. Perhaps for the Rhal, any military loss was a disgrace. Who knew, after all, the level of technology they’d encountered on their conquered worlds… And so one faction fell, and another rose, and Vai Kotta had his opportunity, especially once his cousin was sitting at the RhalVai’s right hand.

  HM continued carefully. “When one gets to the point that more resources are expended in conquest than are attained in its achievement, the economic imbalance is hard to ignore.”

  He nodded. “There are many at court, Director, who are hoping that Vai Kotta fails. That Earth resists. And proves that only a heavy heel can be brought down on a new planet.”

  “And so…it would be in Earth’s best interest to…cooperate.” In other words, she thought grimly, for me to cooperate.

  The DuRhalVai smiled. “Yes. Now, I must be honest with you. For you’ll find out soon enough, I suppose, court gossip being what it is. Someone will tell you in an effort to undermine your support for this plan.”

  “Now the bad news,” HM said bluntly.

  “Yes. A deal had to be struck with the military. To leave Earth alone, Vai Kotta will have to surrender the colonies. Once Earth is pacified, of course. We can’t have the news come home to your people and disrupt that plan, as it surely would.”

  HM felt sick. The boot…coming down on all the new worlds, all the humans, all the natives… The whole of human progress wiped out…

  But not yet. Diplomacy was an economy – what you bought and sold with its currency was time. Time for something to happen that would prevent the worst possible outcome, for a mobilization to complete, for a politician to die, for a truth to be revealed...

  “I see that you’ve become somewhat familiar with our world,” HM said. “Do you know the difference between bees and wasps?”

  The DuRhalVai narrowed his eyes. “I’m familiar with the insect, but I’m afraid I don’t know that story.”

  “Bees build their hives tightly, compactly, out of beeswax. Wasps build recklessly, casually, out of paper or wood pulp or even mud. Because those aren’t scarce resources, so there’s no need to conserve. Bees must be more…resourceful.”

  “I see. And would a bee’s resourcefulness extend to condemning the Fallschirmjäger’s attack on our ship as a traitorous and unauthorized act?”

  “The…I beg your pardon?”

  “Ah, of course, you weren’t aware. It appears that your FJ units gathered on Eden One to plan the destruction of the Earth’s new benefactors. And then launched an unprovoked attack on a Rhal vessel, killing all aboard. Not, of course, before most of the insurrectionists were eliminated, including your Captain Chen, the ringleader. But some, it appears, may have escaped. And it would behoove you, and your people, to denounce these treasonous elements. To ensure that no aid and comfort is given to them.”

  Her mind reeled. Chen. Dead… Who could reform the remnants of the force? What would the survivors do, where would they go? What chance did Earth have without them? Was there anyone among them who could step into his shoes, replace his experience, his knowledge…

  She would grieve later. She shut the door on all the feelings that tried to rush in and interfere with her. She had to think now, cry later.

  And this, she realized, was the heart of the matter. The reason for all the kindness the DuRhalVai had given her. She had to denounce her own forces, take away their legitimacy, their ability to gain support. To do otherwise would give the old school ammunition in their campaign to unseat Vai Kotta, it would show that Earth was a combatant, and only force could bring Earth to heel. Which in turn would disgrace and defeat Vai Kotta’s cousin, the DuRhalVai, and jeopardize his place at the RhalVai’s side.

  “I must…craft a statement. It would take some time for me to think on...”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Director, but I’m afraid you have two hours to write your statement. The announcement has been made, the communication links have been set up, and humanity is expecting to hear from you.”

  She nodded. “Two hours, then,” she agreed, the wheels turning in her head.

  For what she had in mind, it would be more than enough time.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN – DEPARTMENT 3D

  Aboard the ESS Bingwen Hewitt, FJ One listened grimly to the statement as Alex piped it in from the Rhal network. HM looked healthy and well taken care of
, as she grasped the edge of the podium and began to speak.

  “I come to you from the Palace of His Imperial Highness, the RhalVai Jekta.”

  General Chen watched her fingers, and bolted up straight. “Are we recording this?”

  “Yes sir,” Archambault confirmed.

  “I have been privileged to attend on his court and learn much about the Rhal civilization. And I can confirm that their intentions for Earth are peaceful and helpful. I am astonished and appalled to learn of the Fallschirmjäger’s attack on a peaceful Rhal vessel, and I must denounce their actions in the strongest possible terms. I urge all citizens to cooperate with the Rhal in the rebuilding of our broken planet and…”

  Chen smiled. The rest of the team looked at him oddly. “It’s code,” he said. “Hold on.”

  The statement was long and winding, full of diplomatic hot air.

  “It’s not like HM to say so little for so long,” Cruz said. “She’s always right to the point.”

  “Yes,” Chen said. “She still is.”

  “It’s code,” Archambault guessed.

  Chen nodded distractedly, using the joystick to zoom in on HM’s hand on the podium. The code had been double layered. Micro movements of her fingers gave him the different keys to use to interpret her words.

  “Amazing,” Alex said as Chen unpacked the message HM had sent him. “I can decode it if you’d like, it seems to be accompanied by…Oh. Well. Would you look at that? Isn’t she clever?”

  Chen thanked the Flying Spaghetti Monster that HM was such a genius. She had not only crafted a carefully worded statement in English that indicated Earth’s submission, she had written it to accompany the “Windtalker” hand signals she and Chen had invented. Together, they comprised her secret message.

  He leaned back with a sigh when he was done. “Okay, people. We have a new mission. Alex, please put the message up on the vid.”

  HM’s words lit up the dark screen.

  I’ve been told that Captain Chen is dead. And only he can understand this message. So, if you are alive, Dieter, I need you to take everything you’ve ever learned, and turn it on its head. Take any remaining FJ forces and become insurgents, partisans, rebels. The Rhal military have been granted the colonies to plunder. Go make it hard for them.

  Leave me here, and think of me as the “agent in place.” The Rhal are a violent, militaristic culture. Vai Kotta is attempting “population centric” conquest on Earth, an opportunity he’s been given in response to recent Rhal military failures on other worlds.

  We are playing a dangerous game. For now, we’re better off if Vai Kotta succeeds on Earth. If he fails, the military comes in. We need to undermine Vai Kotta’s enemies, to invalidate their way of fighting wars. The more “disgrace” you can bring on them across the galaxy, the more time you buy me to make something happen here to win back Earth.

  Spread the word to the remaining teams. Department 6C is no more. We are now Department 3D. DISORGANIZING, DISRUPTING AND DEMOLISHING.

  “Fuck yeah,” Cruz whispered. “Where do we start?”

  “Um…” Marcus spoke up. “I have an idea.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN – NOW YOU KNOW HOW IT FEELS

  In the two weeks they’d been aboard the ship, Marcus had been the fastest to pick up the Rhal language from Alex’s total immersion lessons. Applying his Asperger’s Spectrum gifts to the intercepted comms, he’d found a pattern in a cluster of ship-to-ship messages.

  “It’s mostly related to some kind of station or base or something, I’m not exactly sure. The word they keep using is literally ‘cradle,’ so you know, being lizards and all, it could be related to a nest full of eggs, but…”

  “But that’s an awful lot of chatter about a nursery,” Archambault said.

  “It could be a supply depot, or a way station, but it’s clearly central to some kind of activity,” Marcus said. “If we’re looking for a target…”

  “Do we have a location?”

  “Approximately,” Archambault confirmed. “My density map indicates that most of the ships Marcus has tagged as discussing the ‘cradle’ sooner or later end up here.” She punched a star map up on the display.

  “Kaplan, let’s go check it out.”

  “You gotta give ‘em this,” Kaplan muttered as the object resolved on screen. “They think big.”

  They hovered out of sensor range, a probe sending back the images of what was clearly a Rhal shipyard. It resembled an old-fashioned manual lawn mower, Chen thought. It was a cylinder approximately three kilometers long and half a kilometer in diameter, with five blades around it. Each blade held five battleships in various states of construction along its length.

  The cylinder was divided into five sections – the first was devoted to raw materials and manufacture of the ship’s skeleton and hull, then the ship moved down to successive sections of the cylinder, for fitting out with internal systems and weapons, until finally they were ready for battle. Its end was pointed directly at the surface, and it was soon clear that a “space elevator” line was the route for bringing materials up from the moon.

  On the moon below, a city-sized cluster of lights stood out in the darkness. The probe turned its attention to the surface.

  It was swarming with miners and fabricators, transforming the moon’s raw materials into metals for the ships. The big spiders of the type that had brought them into Rhal space appeared in blue flashes, dumping the salvage that they’d seen (and nearly been) on the platform, where little figures sorted and carried it to various drop chutes.

  There was something about their movements that was strange, irregular. Not human, but certainly hominid in shape. And not at all efficient…

  “Holy shit,” Cruz muttered. “Those are people down there. Who the hell puts life forms to work on an airless planet?”

  “Yes,” Alex said. “It is ridiculous, nonsensical, to risk lives on tasks that any basic mecha can do. Unless, of course, you have vast armies of slave labor from across your empire, whom you work to death at far less expense than a mecha would cost.”

  “That’s…” Archambault was lost for words.

  “Barbaric,” Chen said grimly. “I think you’re looking for the word barbaric.”

  They watched in horror as one of the workers stumbled, his suit caught on a piece of scrap. The alien writhed, trying to get free, its movements panicky. The other creatures stopped for a moment to watch, but did nothing. Within seconds, the alien grew still, the atmosphere in its torn suit sucked out into space.

  The clamps they’d seen on the salvage platform quickly emerged from the factory floor, sawing and cutting down the back of the suit, extracting the body, and hurling it into space, sucking the suit back into the surface for recycling.

  And the other workers went back to their duties, numbed to what must be a constant occurrence.

  “Alex,” Chen asked. “Do we have the firepower to destroy that cylinder?”

  “No. You could do some damage, but there are three ships at the end of the line that are ready to launch at full capacity, as well as about a hundred fighters on the ground on the moon, controlled by AI. You’ve got about ten on the Hewitt that I could send in response.”

  “So they do worry about invaders.”

  “Oh, no,” Alex said. “Those are to put down the occasional slave rebellions. But they’d do the trick against this ship.”

  “Look at this,” Kaplan said, turning the probe back to the cylinder and zooming in on the outward-facing end. “See those? Thrusters, around the edges and on top. In case there’s an explosion, or they get hit by an asteroid, they can push themselves back into place.”

  “If we can get control of those,” Cruz said, “we could push the ship…” He stopped. “In to some empty part of the moon?”

  They all knew that wasn’t a solution. The cylinder formed a straight line pointing at the moonbase. There was only one option.

  Chen said it. “We blow up the elevator link on the moonside end.
We fire the spaceside thrusters, and we crash the station into the moon. We destroy the shipyard and the Rhal’s ability to rebuild it, at least for some time to come. The Rhal lose twenty five battleships and…Alex?”

  “This would reduce their future manufacturing capacity by one hundred and seventy five battleships over the next year.”

  “We kill all those innocent people,” Archambault said dubiously. “To destroy what, two percent of the Rhal fleet?”

  Cruz shook his head. “To destroy two percent, yeah, but there’s the psychological value as well. The Rhal will know we’re here, and that we’re still in action. They’ll know we have some kind of assistance, if we’re using a Rhal ship. They’ll become paranoid, looking for the enemy within, the ones who ‘betrayed’ them by giving us one of their own ships. We take the video and disseminate it, and the galaxy knows the Rhal aren’t invulnerable. Shit…how can we not do this?”

  “Because of the innocent lives down there,” Archambault countered.

  “All of whom are going to die soon anyway,” Cruz said brutally. “You saw that happen. It’s a fucking concentration camp and they’re being worked to death. It would be a mercy to end it.”

  “How do we do it?” Kaplan asked. “Marcus, I don’t suppose you could hack their…”

  Marcus’ eye roll was all he needed in reply. “This isn’t ‘Independence Day,’ the aliens don’t program in Visual Basic. We can get to the thrusters.” He took control of the probe and zoomed in. “See that sign? It’s next to each thruster. It’s the Rhal sigil for ‘emergency.’ It’s an access panel for repairs.”

  “Or overrides,” Chen guessed.

  “Yep. But there’s one thing to be aware of,” Marcus added. “This ship we’re on, it’s got…well, it’s like an IP address. And all the shuttles on it, all the fighters, have dependent addresses. We can use this ship once, for one action. Then we have to run. We’ll never get near a legit target again without being identified as an enemy.”