Badger

by Kindal Debenham

  The crew descended on the hapless lieutenant, somehow scattering from the space in front of the docking tube and simultaneously converging on Trant’s position. Jacob watched them for a moment, and then turned to the three commanders still standing nearby. “I’ve made what arrangements I could for you, but we’re all squeezed in tight here. Commander Al-shira will send your assignments to your readers personally. Thank you for your patience, and again, welcome to Reefhome.”

  Flint accepted the welcome without words, and simply drifted off in the direction of the rest of the crew and officers. Commander Kenning speared Jacob with a half-contemptuous glare, and then seemed to swallow his pride. He saluted before he stormed off. Jacob watched the both of them go for a moment, wondering how he was going to handle the two problematic officers, and then turned back to Leon.

  The High Admiral’s son spoke before Jacob could. “So Al-shira’s back as your exec, huh? How convenient for everyone.” Leon actually chuckled, and Jacob felt his cheeks start to burn. He responded before the other man could say anything more condemning with so many witnesses around.

  “Glad to see you finally made it, Leon. Now I know you’re probably tired from your trip and you would probably like to find a bunk, but I need something from you first.”

  “Is that so?” Leon raised both eyebrows and spread his arms. “I would be happy to help, sir. Anything you ask.”

  “Good.” Jacob leaned close. “Because I’ll be damned if you get any sleep at all before you explain to me what the hell is going on!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “To sum it all up, it’s all the Odurans’ fault.”

  Jacob waited a few more moments to give Leon time to finish his explanation, but the commander merely sipped at the glass of water he’d requested and remained silent. After Jacob was sure Leon was finished, he shook his head. “It usually is, but I think you’re going to have to run that by me again. Maybe with a footnote for those of us who haven’t been lounging around a Celostian System Defense Station for the past few weeks?”

  A the other officers who were gathered informally in Jacob’s office chuckled. He had decided against holding an official conference since it would have lent a much more formal air to the proceedings. As it was, he could hardly have excluded Al-shira, who was indeed meant to be the fourth commander of the destroyer squadron. Isaac and Laurie invited themselves along regardless of Jacob’s feelings in the matter, but he was grateful for their presence as well. Turley had even joined the meeting, deciding for once to get his gossip at the source instead of waiting for it to filter through the grapevine.

  Leon was not about to be embarrassed in front of such an audience. He cast Jacob an imperious look and gestured dismissively. “My service aboard the Defense Stations of Celostia was far from lounging, my pedestrian friend. There were admiring coeds to pursue, young junior officers to take at poker, and once in a while a dirty bulkhead to clean. It was a trial, and to be truthful, I was loathe to leave those duties to come and entertain you louts here at the edge of civilization.”

  Isaac tossed a scrap of bread in his direction. “Oh shut up, you aristocrat. You know you missed us no matter what desk work they had you doing over there.”

  Leon grinned, his high class bearing fading away. “You’ve got me, Bellworth, but don’t think I’ll forget the fact you left me to rot while you hacked your way back into the thick of things. It took me months to get here!”

  The Gunnery officer snorted at Leon. “I just figured a highly born admiral’s son could do with a bit of effort. I’m not going to give it to you on a silver spoon like everyone else does, Nivrosky.”

  Laurie stepped hard on Isaac’s toe, and he jumped. She gave him a stern look, but the laughter dancing in her eyes stole much of the severity. “Stop taunting the nobly born, rabble rouser. You can harass each other later. I want to hear about what’s been going on back home.”

  Al-shira broke in, her curious gaze fixed on Leon. “I want to hear it as well. Continue, Commander Nivrosky.”

  “Well if that’s the case, allow me to explain.” Leon stood up and paced the length of the small cabin as if he were in a lecture hall. “You all know how chaotic the situation in the League has been, but there are a few details most people were unaware of until a week ago.”

  Jacob frowned. “What do you mean? Did Wayward change things after all?”

  Leon shook his head. “Not…precisely. It turns out the Battle of Wayward—along with the supposed martyrdom of General Al-Mustafa—pushed the anti-Banks faction in the League to strike out. They’ve already established a new Central Council for the League and ‘elected’ a new President.”

  “What we didn’t know, however, was that ex-President Banks had not in fact been reluctant to attack us all this time.” Leon paused for effect. “Actually, he was trying to organize an effort to establish a peace treaty. One that recognized our independence.” Dead silence answered the statement, and Jacob realized his jaw was hanging open. Peace with the League…

  Before he could respond, Leon continued. “Banks’ efforts began a movement on several League worlds for peace, but Reverend Gates and the others opposed it. Their debates were rather…violent…in several cases. Entire populations were killed.”

  “Damn it all to hell.” Turley sounded equal parts outraged and stunned. “There’s been a civil war going on over there and Intelligence didn’t catch it? How the hell did they miss the Odurans shooting the crap out of each other all over their space?”

  Leon was the one who answered this time. “Partially because it wasn’t much of a war.” He sighed. “Apparently part of the peace movement in the League has been disarmament. Banks’ supporters tended to rip the weapons out of their warships and crush them into lumps they left in orbit. It was a statement that they no longer wanted to participate in the war.”

  Jacob remembered the frigate at Wayward, the one with its railgun mounts capped. Then he remembered Al-Mustafa’s ships appearing and opening fire—without hesitation and without mercy. “And Gates and his friends massacred them.”

  The commander nodded solemnly. “They’ve been focusing on low level purges for a while now. At first they must have thought a single bloodbath would have been enough to stop the movement. The fleet that hit Rigannin? They hit a League world named Cerestus first. The Reflection Project, as they called themselves, staged a partial evacuation of the populace. While they were doing so, fifty unarmed ships of various sizes went out to meet the enemy. A human shield for their world.” Leon shook his head. “Even the Oduran military couldn’t keep killing their own people like that, not when they didn’t even fight back. Gates and his people had to refocus all that guilt and disgust somewhere and they decided on us. The strike against Rigannin was in ‘retaliation for our corruption of their culture’ or some such nonsense.”

  Al-shira spoke up. “The attacks after Rigannin must have served the same purpose. But they’ve stopped since Wayward. What changed?”

  Leon grimaced. “Banks decided to try and reach out to the Union at Wayward, but Gates caught wind of it. He sent Al-Mustafa to destroy the station and bring back evidence of supposed ‘treachery’. When Al-Mustafa died, he became the evidence and a martyr too. Half the League now believes Banks and the entire peace movement is a band of traitors. They’re starting to come again, and this time the knives won’t stop. They’ll be exterminated.”

  Jacob shook his head. A bitter taste filled his mouth. “We can’t let that happen. They have to be nearly defenseless. And if they won’t fight…” He looked around the table. “Odurans or not, they’re still people.”

  Laurie cracked a smile in Jacob’s direction. “I wouldn’t have expected anything less from you, Hull.” She turned back to Leon. “Did they contact us to get military support?”

  “Worse.” Leon looked down at his hands. “They decided the League is no longer safe for them. Any of them. So they left.” He looked up, and Jacob met his eyes. “They aren’t asking for pro
tection, Jacob. They’re asking for asylum.”

  Isaac was the first to react. The rest of them—Jacob included—were far too shocked by the enormity of that news. “What? After everything Banks and his pals have done, we’re supposed to let them live here? And they’re planning on us fighting the rest of the League for them?”

  Leon shook his head. “I don’t know what their plans are, Isaac, but they’ve already begun garnering support. The former High Seat, for example, has been very eloquent in their favor.”

  Jacob grunted. Smithson’s predecessor, the High Seat von Clarence, had never been a favorite of his, but he had always been a compassionate man. He also happened to be at the head of a religious movement, ironic for a man whose early life was marked by scandals. He had appointed Smithson as the next High Seat so he could go on a revival journey of sorts, and he seemed to have a knack for throwing himself directly into the middle of any crisis. “So von Clarence is in favor. Is he alone?”

  This time, even Leon paused. He struggled with some unidentifiable emotion. “No, Jacob. The Maxwells are with him, too.”

  The words hit the room like a railgun blast. Charles Maxwell had been a good man and an excellent ruler, though scandals had plagued the lives of his sons during the final years of the administration. The Regal High Seat, the absolute ruler of what would become the Celostian Union, had surrendered power as he neared the end of his life. His sons had apparently reformed, along with the friend of the family, a young von Clarence, and the people had awaited the chance to choose one of them to take his place as the next Regal High Seat.

  Maxwell, however, had other plans. At the end of the waves of scandals, he released a treatise that called for the formation of a new government and a decentralization of the authority his family had wielded for so long. Many of the reforms he had proposed had gone into the document that was eventually adopted as the Articles of Union, the Union’s constitution. The ministers and judges that he had relied on to administer the Celostian Empire balked at the steps their leader was taking, but the popular support had overwhelmingly accepted the chance for every man, as Charles had put it, to bear his own burden of choice.

  Many of the more conservative elements had opposed the changes brought by the Articles of Union, but they found themselves frustrated. The heirs of Charles Maxwell had completely vanished from the public sphere, preventing any chance to compel one of them to take the Regal High Seat, while their friend von Clarence was appointed as the first High Seat by Maxwell himself. The last Regal Seat had only lived for a few more years, long enough to see his newly founded Union face its first birth pangs and overcome them, before he died.

  Charles Maxwell was an almost legendary figure in the newborn Celostian Union, and his fame had easily spread to his remaining family. They had been careful not to use that fame—in fact, their complete and utter reclusiveness had led some to suspect von Clarence had either blackmailed them or they had defected to the Oduran League. Such rumors had persisted, and some of them had provided the pirates of Telos with reason enough for the Union’s first attempt at insurrection. If the heirs of the Maxwell line to stood to welcome the Oduran refugees, it would give opponents of the Asylum pause.

  “Well I’ll be damned. The Princes are back?” Turley sounded as amazed as Jacob felt. Leon nodded again, and Turley shook his head. “Just when I think I’ve seen everything, something new comes way the hell out of nowhere to surprise me. What are they doing now?”

  Isaac broke in before Leon could answer. “They’re not trying to undermine the Union are they? I know there’s a lot who’d like things back the way they were—the Federalists and all them—but we have a Union now. Not an Empire. They’ve got to know that.”

  The fervent statement raised eyebrows around the table, and Laurie laid a careful hand on her husband’s forearm. Isaac settled back into his seat, but his muscles bunched under his uniform and his eyes burned. Leon, for his part, seemed unsurprised by the reaction. “No, Isaac, none of them want the High Seat. In fact, they apparently knew about Charles’ plans to start a Union from the start, and they all supported the idea. They have broken their silence long enough to ask that the Oduran refugees be given a chance—and people are listening.”

  Isaac sat back, mollified. Jacob shook his head ruefully. Al-shira gave him a questioning look, and he answered with a weary smile. “All this trouble, and it’s over a handful of former Oduran leaders and where they’re going to live. Hard to imagine such a fuss over something so small.”

  Leon coughed, drawing Jacob’s attention. The grin he gave Jacob looked deathly grim. “I’m sorry Jacob. I must have misled you. Banks and his immediate supporters aren’t the only ones asking for asylum. They all are.” Jacob’s confusion must have been plain on his face, because Leon paused before continuing. “All seven hundred million of them.”

  Over the next two weeks, Jacob felt almost like he was in a daze. The blur of activity that sprang up on the docks dwarfed anything that had preceded the arrival of the new crewmen. Inspired either by Admiral Nivrosky’s call to arms or perhaps by the slightly more selfish motivation of not arriving to battle in a ship nowhere near prepared to stand up to enemy fire, the new crews combined their moderate experience with the expertise of the workers from Yorkshire’s crews. Most of them were relegated to simple tasks like basic rewiring jobs or the less delicate task of clearing out the areas for the new riftjump mechanisms and the new coolant tanks. Their efforts, while error prone and messier than those of the specialist technicians, meant Yorkshire’s men could focus more on the complex systems such as the new Capistans or the coolant lines. The squadron was looking more and more as if it would be ready weeks—if not months—ahead of schedule.

  It was a good thing too, because the situation throughout the Union was beginning to make it look like his squadron would be needed on the front lines sooner rather than later. The messenger drones announcing the referendum had arrived on Leon’s heels, broadcasting the news throughout the system on the official communications channel reserved for the government services. Since that time there had been near chaos on the Station; a bewildering mix of debate, rivalry, and division had spilled over into even the work crews on the docks. Several times the newly-arrived Marines had to break up fist-fights between workers, crewmen, and even the odd officer.

  Every visit to the Station showed Jacob the frenzy of arguments was even more intense there. The latest reports on the referendum were blaring on every public newscreen, usually with at least a dozen avid viewers standing nearby. Arguments were voiced everywhere, from a quiet yet passionate disagreement between friends at a restaurant table to full on opposing demonstrations within the Tube or the Plaza, complete with signs, banners, and shouting hordes. Several times Jacob began to worry the entire Station would devolve into absolute anarchy, but the mobs he worried about so far had failed to appear, and the debate raged on.

  Even the traditional political parties were not proof against the madness. The Federalists were split right down the middle. Those supporting the asylum movement drew strength from the obvious blessing of the remaining Maxwells, as well as the actual opportunity to welcome peace with at least a fraction of the Oduran League. The opponents argued, just as passionately, that the Odurans were foreigners and outcasts, liable to undermine the strength of the military and guaranteed to disrupt any potential peace talks with the rest of the League—which coincidentally led the continually dangerous Oduran Fleet.

  The Independents were just as bitterly divided. While many echoed the refrain that these newcomers would only continue to throw fuel on the proverbial fire between the League and the Union, there were just as many who sang their praises. For every pundit or political leader who pointed out the dangers of welcoming in a population more used to dictatorships than free government, there were many who pointed out that much of the current population of the Union had once been welcomed as immigrants and fugitives from tyranny. Every speaker who criticized the increased need
these refugees would bring for military spending and defense was answered by another lauding the pacifist principles of the refugees and their willingness to lay down their lives for freedom.

  Each report and speech brought images of the refugee fleet. Since their arrival at the edge of Union space, the refugees had been allowed to linger in the borders of the Tiredel system. Their makeshift spacecraft seemed imposing in number and size, as long as someone did not focus the images. Once the details became clear, however, it quickly became apparent this was no invasion fleet. Not a single vessel carried a weapon. There wasn’t a single railgun, missile launcher, torpedo bay or plasma lance in the entire refugee fleet. Jacob had no idea how they had made it through pirate and raider infested territory to Celostian Union, and he had even less of an idea about how they would survive if the Union turned them away.

  The ships, if they could all be considered as such, appeared to have been scavenged and modified instead of purpose-built for the journey. Ore haulers with their holds converted to living space drifted next to former Oduran dreadnaughts with armor and weapons stripped away. Passenger ships with extra modules welded on were in formation with swarms of smaller freighters and trading ships. There were even larger craft Jacob could have sworn had started life as space stations, towed behind arrays of DE sails and obviously modified for riftjumping between the stars.

  It was difficult, when he studied those images, to picture the refugees as enemies. They were crewed with Odurans, with the same men and women he had likely fought and killed over the past two years of service, but his mind rejected that fact. When he saw those ships, he saw desperation, not avarice. He saw hopes, not threats. Jacob felt his heart stir every time he saw one of the ships begin to sputter and fall out of position. The refugees scrambled each time to repair the faltering vessel, but he knew if the issue was delayed for much longer the ships that had brought the former Odurans this far could begin to fail completely.