A House Divided

by Richard Fox

  “Del Aroz,” said the president, spinning his chair around to face one of the few men in the room not in uniform. Garret’s head of Information Services smiled from ear to ear. “Full-on media blitz. The Breitenfeld returns to save the day. I want interviews, combat footage, a movie like Last Stand on Takeni, but with less cringe. The Dotari returning the favor for us saving their bacon. Again.”

  “The script’s already in treatment. This should be viral enough to get the Black Knight out of the public zeitgeist,” Del Aroz said.

  “You mean to squash the video I ordered you to suppress weeks ago?” Garret gripped his armrests tight enough to turn his knuckles white.

  “That’s been a problem…” Del Aroz shifted in his seat. “We think Ibarran hackers have been sabotaging the algorithms to—”

  Garret turned back to the holo tank, ending the conversation with his chief propagandist.

  General Emery switched the holo tank back to the view of human-occupied space and a half-dozen star systems blinked amber.

  “Kesaht attacks continue in the outer systems,” Emery said. “Raids on low-population colonies followed by deeper jumps into the Crucible network. We finally realized the true purpose of these raids.” A wire diagram showing linked Crucibles appeared and several went off-line, leaving a single star system cut off.

  “They pruned back the Crucible network and isolated Syracuse,” Emery said. “It will take weeks to repair the Crucibles, and the Kesaht have Syracuse blockaded. The planet’s orbital defenses are holding, but we won’t be able to do an offset jump to send reinforcements for…”

  “Sixteen days,” Keeper said from Garret’s right. The woman looked like a well-built person in her early fifties with a lined face. That she was a former Strike Marine named Torni, her consciousness transferred into the last Xaros drone in the galaxy, was classified above everyone’s pay grade but Garret’s.

  “So that’s the Kesaht’s new strategy,” Garret said. “Isolate a planet and wear it down before we can help. Can Syracuse last that long?”

  “Not by the projections we’re running from the last data transmission from the colony,” Emery said. “The colony has a population of just under fifteen million, the biggest target the Kesaht have gone after to date.”

  Garret swung his chair to Del Arroz.

  “Sir?” Keeper asked. “There’s more to this.”

  Garret raised his hands in confusion.

  “The Breitenfeld managed to get into the Crucible network before the Kesaht cut off Syracuse. Admiral Valdar and the Dotari are on their way to the system now,” Keeper said.

  “Lead with that next time,” Garret said. “They have a chance?”

  “Valdar’s outnumbered nearly five to one by the Kesaht fleet,” Emery said. “But it is the Breitenfeld, the ship of miracles.”

  “We can’t depend on miracles. Get the Crucibles repaired and ready a relief expedition to Syracuse. Then I want evacuation plans drawn up for every phase-four colony that’s outside offset jump range from any fleet anchorage,” the president said.

  Murmurs went through the flag officers as the implications of that retreat worked through their minds.

  “If we pull back, we’re open to a mass driver attack,” Keeper said.

  “Then ramp up the macro-cannon build at our strong points,” Garret said. “We don’t have the ships to guard every single colony and we can’t leave our people out there for the Kesaht to pick off like low-hanging fruit. Speaking of the Kesaht, where are we on finding their home world? Or a colony? Something we can blow up and plant a flag on.”

  “The Kesaht will not be taken prisoner,” Keeper said. “Their ship’s computer cores slag as soon as the captain dies and we’ve recovered nothing from them. I haven’t detected them moving through the Crucible network, so they must be traveling in small packs. A massive fleet will send a graviton ripple through the network. They’re smart enough not to leave a trace back to wherever they’re coming from.”

  “So you’ve got nothing?”

  “There’s been a development. Colonel Gaeta?” Keeper looked to a hard-eyed woman in Pathfinder blue.

  “Mr. President,” Gaeta said as she waved a hand through the holo field and it zoomed in on a star. The designation came up as a series of letters and numbers, marked as Vishrakath territory. “The Vish had an outpost on the star. I say ‘had’ because the Kesaht raided the place three days ago. We picked up the distress signal through one of our implants we left in a connected Crucible back before we gave up this sector as part of the Hale Treaty.”

  “I know what the Hale Treaty is,” Garret grumbled. “I signed the damned thing.”

  “The Vish were slow to respond,” Gaeta said. “Mostly because they sent three full battle swarms to react to the raid. I managed to get a Pathfinder team in and out before the Vish arrived.”

  The holo changed to Vishrakath domes surrounded by dead ant-like aliens on a world with bright orange skies.

  “Looks like a Kesaht raid,” Gaeta said. “At least thirty percent of the outpost’s personnel were unaccounted for. My team went to clone the system’s central computer and they found this.”

  The holo changed to a Vishrakath computer—loops of tightly wound, glowing cables stacked on top of each other like grapes on the vine. Deep inside the cluster was a length of cable that glowed with a slightly brighter hue.

  “Fascinating,” Garret deadpanned.

  “This isn’t Vishrakath tech, sir,” Gaeta said. “It’s…something else. One of my Pathfinders recognized it as being—”

  “Cut to the chase,” Garret said as sweat broke out across his forehead. He waved an aide over to him.

  “We were able to access the device and determined it’s a data shunt. We pulled the records on it and reprogramed the device to send us a copy of everything it sends in the future. The Vishrakath were tracking some unusual graviton readings across the Crucible network.” Gaeta swiped through the field again and the holo changed to a map of the galaxy. Crucible gates lit up across the stars seemingly at random.

  “And?” Garret rubbed a temple.

  “The detections correspond to known Ibarra Nation sightings,” Gaeta said. “The last was on Thesius, where we captured an Ibarran crew after they were ambushed by the Kesaht.”

  “The Kesaht tracked the Ibarrans?” A chill went down Garret’s spine.

  “The Vishrakath found a way to do it,” Gaeta said. “Then the Kesaht decided to piggyback off their system…and now we’re doing it too. Just how the Kesaht knew that this outpost had the tracking technology remains an intelligence gap.”

  “Don’t suppose they found the Ibarran capital of Navarre?” Garret asked.

  “Negative, sir. The tracks are incomplete. We think the system can’t pick up the Ibarrans when they use their own version of the Keystone gates,” Gaeta said.

  “I want to know about every single new reading that comes through,” Garret said. “The Ibarrans are still a threat to the Terran Union, am I clear?” he asked the conference room, receiving scattered responses of “Yes, sir” and nods.

  He turned away to the aide kneeling beside his chair and whispered, “I want Gaeta in my office after this. Classify every document from the mission to that Vish world Obsidian-3 right now, understood?”

  The aide nodded furiously, then passed a data slate to the president.

  Garret’s lips pressed into a thin line. “How long ago did Ambassador Ibanez arrive?” he asked.

  “Five minutes, sir. She’s heading straight for the Scottsdale House…just as you ordered.”

  Garret tossed the slate at the aide’s chest and scooted his seat closer to the table.

  “General, you’ve got fifteen minutes to get me up to speed on the rest of the war against the Kesaht,” Garret said. “Skip to the slide with our manning and warship construction and please tell me there’s some bureaucrat somewhere that needs his face bitten off. Please.”

  He tapped the bottle of pills in his coa
t pocket and reassured himself that relief was close.

  ****

  Ambassador Ibanez examined a burnt, torn flag in a glass case on the wall of Garret’s office. She knew the story of the 8th Fleet, how it was lost with all hands in deep space fighting against the Xaros armada that later besieged the solar system. The flag was one of the few artifacts that survived from the Midway when the Xaros used the ship as a Trojan horse to attack the Crucible over Ceres.

  Just why Garret insisted on keeping the garish memento in his office was lost to her. The picture of Admiral Makarov—the 8th Fleet’s first, last, and only commander—next to the flag gave her chills.

  Garret burst into the office and went straight for his desk.

  “Are we at war with the rest of the galaxy or not?” He opened a drawer of the wooden desk, a re-creation of the Resolute Desk used by presidents of the United States, and pulled out a glass bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses.

  “Not…” Ibanez said, “not yet.”

  “And how ‘yet’ are we?” Garret poured shots and slid one toward her, then he took out a pill bottle, popped two in his mouth, and washed them down with the liquor. He leaned back in his chair and let out a slow sigh.

  “That depends on you, and Congress.” She tossed back her shot and poured herself another one. “The Vishrakath and Naroosha want our blood, which isn’t unusual.”

  “But we removed the Ibarran colony on Balmaseda just as they demanded,” Garret said, taking a swig straight from the bottle.

  “You are technically correct.” She sat on an antique upholstered couch and crossed her legs. “But our military also fought side by side with the Ibarrans as soon as the Kesaht showed up. If there hadn’t been some bloodshed between us and the Ibarrans before the aliens showed up…we’d be in a slightly worse position than we are now.”

  “New Bastion’s not convinced the Ibarrans are our enemy too?”

  “‘The enemy of my enemy makes that first enemy my friend’ is pretzel logic—reasoning that’s hard to get across to alien ambassadors.” She sipped her whiskey. “The prevailing theory among the ambassadors is that we’d ally with the Ibarrans in a heartbeat.”

  “They’re not wrong.” Garret picked up a baseball from his desk and worked his hands against the leather.

  “And we’ve formally declared war against the Kesaht…but not the Ibarrans.”

  “The bill to declare war on Stacey and her tube babies is still in committee,” Garret said. “The public won’t have it. Not after the last almost-fight and that damn video with the Black Knight floating around.” He rolled his eyes, then asked, “New Bastion knows which side’s been attacking our colonies and murdering our people, don’t they?”

  “Most of the ambassadors are reasonable enough to see that,” she said. “But not all. The war with the Kesaht might have been enough to smooth over the current crisis as the Kesaht have been raiding more worlds, not just human ones. New Bastion’s OK with us doing all the fighting and dying to get rid of the Kesaht. But there’s a wrinkle.”

  Garret huffed and set his bottle on the desk.

  “The Ibarran prisoners from the Narvik,” Ibanez said. “They’re…not compliant with the Hale Treaty, are they?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Then by the treaty, they must be destroyed.” Ibanez held up a hand as Garret’s face went red. “Choir. I’m the choir. The Vishrakath are screaming about the treaty and somehow they know about the Narvik proccies. Which begs the question of who told them. Sure wasn’t the Dotari and it sure wasn’t us.”

  Garret opened a drawer and took out a pill blister.

  “You’ve had enough. I think.” Ibanez glanced from the pills to Garret.

  He tossed them back into the desk and slammed it shut.

  “What does New Bastion want from us?” he asked.

  Ibanez looked away and her voice lowered almost to a whisper. “For the Terran Union to comply with the treaty we signed in good faith.”

  “That’s a diplomatic way of saying we should execute them all.” Garret swiped the whiskey up and took a drink. “If we do that, we’re violating the Naissance Act that protects everyone in the Union against discrimination for the circumstances of their birth.”

  “The Ibarrans aren’t Union citizens. And if you’re worried about the Naissance Act, what about the military you’ve got stuffed in a bolt hole on Mars? The prison in Ulysses Tholis?”

  “They’re compromised—proccies the Ibarrans altered just before they took off. Sleeper agents. All of them.” He set the bottle back on the desk.

  “They don’t know what they are. The Ibarrans have to activate them first.”

  “Then we’re painted into a pretty tight corner, aren’t we?” Garret asked, his eyes wobbling from the alcohol and pills. “If we execute the Ibarran prisoners, the public will lose their goddamn minds. I don’t know what Stacey Ibarra will do, but I can guarantee she won’t take it well. If we don’t kill them off, then what? What will New Bastion do?”

  “Expel us and declare war in the same session. If we try not to slip on this ice, we’ll fall right through it.”

  Garret kicked the alcohol off his desk and it shattered against the wall. Ibanez clasped her hands on her lap and kept her head down.

  “Stall,” Garret said. “You get back to New Bastion and buy me at least a week.”

  “I can do that,” she said. “You tell me what the week’s for and maybe I can manage a few more days.”

  “If we comply with the Hale Treaty, will New Bastion join the fight against the Kesaht?”

  “Several races have promised to join us, but not while our compliance is in question.”

  “So we end a few dozen Ibarran lives or lose millions of proper humans. That about sum up my options?”

  Ibanez stood and brushed her hair away from her face. “That’s a fair view on this situation. Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Then I’d call that a bargain.” He jabbed at an intercom button, missed, and managed to press it on the second try. “Sheila, get General Laran in here.”

  He sat back and kept his eyes on Ibanez as he rotated his seat a few inches from side to side.

  “I need to work up a distraction,” Garret said, “and you don’t need the details. Get out.”

  ****

  The weather on Navarre was unusually calm. Sunlight broke through the near-constant cloud cover and shone across a rain-slick parade square atop a massive building. Skyscrapers surrounded the square, the faint slopes of their sides closing into pyramids at their apex.

  On the parade field, ranks of legionnaires in their black armor stood in formation as they loaded onto troop transports at the far end of the square. They passed by several armor, all arrayed in a loose, even line just beyond the ramps of the transports. The armor knelt in prayer, swords gripped in their hands.

  Stacey Ibarra watched the soldiers from a balcony, her metal body gleaming in the sunlight, Ibarran officers standing behind her: General Hurson, with his armor plugs and red sash over his chest; Field Marshal Davoust, his bald pate gleaming almost as much as Stacey’s body; Admiral Makarov, who looked almost too young for her rank; and a final officer with a neat goatee.

  “Thank you for attending,” General Diaz said. “The legionnaires consider it a blessing from Saint Kallen to see you before they deploy off world for the first time.”

  “Of course they do,” Stacey said as a sprinkle of rain fell on her shoulders and hardened to ice almost instantly. Her doll-like face was almost unreadable as she raised a hand into the air.

  “Ferrum corde!” rose from thousands of throats and echoed off the skyscrapers. Iron Heart.

  “Marshal Davoust,” Stacey said, “what of the Narvik?”

  “Our agents in Terran space have gone underground due to security concerns,” Davoust said with a thick French accent. “But we have enough scattered reports to confirm that there were survivors. All rescued by the Terrans.”

  Stacey turned her head to
Hurson.

  “Morrigan lives, my lady,” said the commander of the Ibarran armor.

  “Does the common man know of the prisoners?” Stacey asked.

  “That they have our prisoners has been kept secret,” Davoust said.

  “And why do you think that is?” Stacey ran a hand against a railing, leaving a thin patina of ice.

  “Garret will have them all killed to placate New Bastion,” Admiral Makarov said. “There will be no public outcry if no one knows anything.”

  “He wouldn’t,” General Hurson said. “They’re prisoners of war at worst. To just execute them would be a violation of the laws of warfare.”

  “All those honorable notions went away after the Ember War,” Diaz said. “You’re judging Garret by our old standards.”

  “Standards Admiral Garret once held,” Hurson said. “He’s not so far gone that he forgets who he used to be…or how the Union remembers him.”

  “You’re letting your faith in him cloud your judgment,” Makarov said.

  “Faith is always a factor.” Hurson turned his chest slightly and light glinted off a Crusader cross badge on his sash.

  “And if our people have already been executed?” Ibarra asked.

  “War,” Diaz said. “If the Terran Union kills any of us for being procedurals, they’ll kill all of us.”

  “War,” Makarov said.

  “War,” said Davoust.

  “My armor is with the Lady,” Hurson said.

  “It will be war,” Stacey said. “The galaxy is full of enemies that see us as abominations to be killed on sight for nothing but what we are. There will be no quarter. No mercy…and it’s a war we’re not ready to win yet.”

  “The shipyards and procedural crèches are operating at full capacity,” Davoust said. “Expansion on all fronts as we—”

  “I know. I know.” Ibarra waved a hand at the marshal. “So long as Navarre and the first-phase worlds remain hidden, we might win a war of attrition. But it will take decades before we could take on all of New Bastion.”