by Ivan Ertlov
The Professor gave her subordinate a look that was as scathing as it was reproachful.
"Mayor, you don't really take this crazy babble seriously, do you?"
Gonzales shrugged his shoulders.
"It would be just as crazy to ignore it completely. The last time I was in our star forge must have been three years ago, and everything seemed normal. But I haven't seen all the areas, and I'm no expert in space weapons design."
Frank stumbled.
"Three years ago? Professor, when was the last time you conducted an on-site inspection?"
She looked at him penetratingly, and for a brief moment, Frank feared that they had no chance of getting through to her for that reason alone because he had not penetrated her. But he was wrong about Mariella.
"Never. My father did, a few weeks before he passed away, but that was an unusual special visit. As I said, we trust our separation of powers, don't check each other permanently."
Dilara groaned, and if it was in the face of exorbitant stupidity, you couldn't blame her.
"You mean to tell me you don't keep up with what politics is doing and what the military is doing? That our mayor here - just an example, no offence - could be running a casino brothel for himself and his best friends without you noticing?"
The Professor made an offended face.
"Of course not! We have a sophisticated, strict reporting system. I get a detailed report on every operation, every incident, every plan, mutually certified by at least two writers."
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
"Listen, guys, I understand that you are suspicious; your socialisation in a society that sees humans as the root of all evil allows nothing else. Yes, Frank, that counts for you too, and if your paranoia was the reason you didn't want to go to bed with me, I'm as sorry for you as I am for myself. But you have seen our ships, our fields and our city. We can defend ourselves, but we are not out for war, if that is what you suspect. You have no evidence whatsoever ..."
"Oh yes, we do."
Florbsh rotated his pseudo-pod to the side, and Dilara's big eyes also turned to Frank in amazement.
"What, we do? "
He nodded with the hint of a victorious smile.
"Professor, you say you get reports on every operation. Would you be so kind as to call up the one from the kidnapping that led us here in the first place? That's when the entire mine of the Consortium was taken over, with ALL of the resources, wasn't it?"
Mariella nodded and snorted indignantly but nevertheless opened her antediluvian computer, which, apart from a mechanical - yes, seriously! - keyboard, also boasted a very weak holoprojector.
But still good enough to read a few numbers.
"All right, what do you want?"
"The raw material balance."
Mariella's fingers slid over the keyboard, noisily hammering in request after request until she finally sat back, satisfied.
"Four hundred tonnes of helium-3, two hundred tonnes of chucknorrisium, twenty-four tonnes of coltan, nine hundred kilos of lithium."
Frank nodded and placed his left hand on the table. Then, with a brief greenish flicker, the mini-projector of his arm unit jumped on, and a few seconds later, it began to spit out the desired numbers.
Helium-3:
912
Tons
Chucknorrisium:
528
Tons
Coltan:
97
Tons
Lithium:
21
Tons
Uranium:
928
Kilogram
"These are the loss figures that the person in charge reported to the board of the Consortium. So under-reported rather than over-reported, for career reasons. Look at the timestamp and blockchain identifier; that's the original report."
Gonzales stood up, took a deep breath and snorted noisily through both nostrils while Mariella looked at the numbers in bewilderment. But she wasn't defeated yet, tapping away on her keyboard again with furious verve.
"All right, next one, Grafohr asteroid belt, a quick operation two months ago. According to the report, the entire belt was harvested. I'll just mention one figure: fifty tons of platinum."
Frank nodded and now activated his interface.
Grafohr asteroid belt:
Platinum deposit confirmed
Estimated volume: 108 tonnes
"Shit."
Gonzales cut to the chase as he slumped back in his chair, and Dilara stood up triumphantly in front of the Professor.
"Well, are you convinced now?"
Her gaze slid irritably back and forth between her and Frank; there was something in it he couldn't place.
A residue of mistrust?
The desire to see them both burn in hell?
Jealousy?
"No, I am not convinced, but I am alarmed. These discrepancies must be clarified and explained ASAP. The military-industrial complex is subordinate to politics, and politics in turn ..."
"... actually you. Listen, how did you come up with these ideas back then? Well, not the one about the separation of powers, you can make that stuff up with enough social criticism or good booze, but the one about the military-industrial complex?"
She hesitated, took a deep breath and made an unconscious, sweeping gesture with her arms.
"Most of it was derived from human history. We have taken our cue from empires that could work their way up from total insignificance to the top of nations and all that in a very short time. In all of them, a strong military-industrial complex, a synthesis of national defence and large-scale production, was the unifying factor. Germany, for example, after the First World War, was disarmed and a poorhouse until ..."
Frank stared at her in horror.
"You took your cue from the Nazis?"
Mariella shook her head violently.
"No, of course not. Well, not only. If you look at the US in and after the Second World War, you can clearly see that ..."
This time it was Dilara who interrupted them.
"With respect, my knowledge of Terran history may be limited, but even I know that America went to shit soon after. The Detroit ruins, Trump as president, the subjugation as China's eastern sphere of prosperity ..."
"So let me finish! It was the same everywhere - and here, look, even with pictures and drawings - in Japan, too, the military-industrial complex was a driver of prosperity and progress after total defeat in World War Two."
She had opened the drawer of her desk, pulled out a book, no, a booklet with a suspiciously colourful cover, and now slowly pushed it towards Dila and Frank.
"Ghost in the shell".
Frank breathed in and out intermittently, trying to find words that would fit the situation without being offensive.
There were none.
"What kind of professor are you, anyway? You based New Earth on a fucking manga?!"
*
The black glider approached the building of the planetary defence in a suspiciously inconspicuous manner. Gonzales himself was at the helm, and his grim expression made it abundantly clear what he thought of his own military at the moment.
"In there is Freezemayer's office on New Earth. When he's not on Hephaestus, he runs operations from this base. So whatever happens in our star forge - evidence and records can be found here too."
Frank peered ahead through the tinted windows. The sun was sending its first rays over the horizon, beginning to bathe the area in a golden yellow light. They were back at the spaceport, at the edge of the airfield, and their destination was nestled between the pilot tower and a standby hangar. It was a functional building, no more than a coated, single-storey concrete cuboid with a very massive-looking entrance door, in front of which a previously bored female guard was peering curiously in their direction.
Well, that should be the least of their problems; after all, they had the number one and two of the official planetary hierarchy in tow. No, not just in tow; Mariel
la took the lead as a matter of course, confident and calm despite her tension. On the other hand, Gonzales clearly showed his anger, and Frank fervently hoped that he would not let himself be carried away into some aggressive stupidity.
The soldier's curiosity gave way to a mixture of respect and awe when she saw who was marching straight towards her, followed by a suspicion when her gaze fell on Frank and Florbsh, and finally something that she quickly brushed off but became visible for a split second.
Disgust.
And it was at that moment that she eyed Dilara.
This was something Frank neither understood nor could accept, and above all, it confused him. The astrotelepath was - apart from four breasts, the jug ears and googly eyes - as human as one could be with NHS.
No matter how much latent xenophobia, how many unconscious prejudices had spread here, Dila was definitely not the obvious, logical target for it.
But that was a side note for later, something he could rack his brains over the next day as well.
For the moment, his attention was on the Professor who stood up in front of the guard - not threatening, but definitely awe-inspiring.
"Good morning!"
The soldier saluted briskly, stuck out her chest and really put in a massive effort to look as soldierly as possible.
"Good morning, Professor! How can I help you? The Rear Admiral and his adjutant are currently on an inspection tour in the star forge, so ..."
Mariella tried to suppress a growl, which she only partially succeeded in doing.
"I know that, Corporal. I need access to his office."
For a brief moment, the guard's features slipped. She looked uncertainly to the left, to the right, then back to Mariella.
"I am sorry, Professor, I cannot grant you access without the Rear Admiral."
"I think you misunderstood me. That wasn't a request; it was an order, Corporal! Open the door and take me to Freezemayer's office!"
The soldier swallowed, and the first beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
"Ma'am, I can't. I don't take my orders from civilians. If you let me consult with my major for a moment ..."
Gonzales' thread of patience was clearly less durable. With short, stamping steps, he walked past Mariella, stood half a metre in front of the guard and left no doubt that he meant business.
"Corporal, you are defying an order from the highest authority in our society. So I am telling you for the last time - open the door. You know who I am, and you know that one radio call from me is enough to get two hundred policemen to show up here. And they will provide us with access, one way or another, believe me."
The guard swallowed once more, even closing her eyes briefly with a groan, before shaking her head resolutely.
"I'm sorry, mayor. Orders are orders."
With a regretful shrug, Gonzales turned to his companions.
"It's no use. The young lady here is bound by her oath and duty, and there is nothing we can do but wait until Freezemayer is back. Or maybe ..."
With a speed that one would not have expected from the stocky man in his prime, he whirled around. At the same time, his right hand drove backwards, angled his elbow and thrust forward like an enraged sculptor. His fist drilled mercilessly into the pit of the soldier's stomach, who collapsed forward with a horrified, frightened expression on her face.
And it sank right into Gonzales' knee, which he had pulled up amazingly elegantly. Even as she fell unconscious to the floor, the mayor began to disarm and search her - until he triumphantly held up a crystal chip.
"This should solve our access problem."
The Professor nodded, half flabbergasted and half horrified, while Frank was still processing what had just happened. Only Dilara was grinning up to both flappy ears.
"Excellent shit, Mr Mayor, beyond excellent, indeed! Now we're talking!"
"The police see through the fingers of the guilty; but the innocent they suspect.
(Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas.)"
- Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis
10.
Balance of power
Only a few soldiers were inside the building, and none made any move to stop them. That might have been because they had no orders to get in their Professor's way, perhaps also because of the way Gonzales held the guard's laser carbine in his hands.
Determined, fierce, and threatening.
Resistlessly, they marched through the barren corridor, with not much more than polymer-coated concrete walls to the left and right, with a few doors in between, through which the occasional uniformed man discreetly disappeared as he identified the approaching troop. Freezemayer's office was waiting for them at the end of the corridor, and Gonzales quickly gained them access, thanks to the chip.
The room was not necessarily bland but almost as tastelessly furnished as Frank had suspected given Freezemayer's personality: a massive oak desk on which his terminal was enthroned, complete with a small projection unit, a red carpet the floor tormented by the castors of two black office chairs. These were reserved for visitors because the rear admiral had a heavy leather chair obtained for himself. On the wall behind the desk hung an oversized portrait of an old commander painted with manageable talent.
Frederick the Great, if Frank's modest knowledge of history did not deceive him. To the left and right on the walls were old-fashioned filing cabinets, an actually ridiculous anachronism.
But they were in no mood to laugh, and time was of the essence. With nimble fingers and a residue of righteous anger, Gonzales tampered with the door switch, locked the office from the inside, and additionally positioned himself with the gun in his hand.
Mariella took the hint, nodded gratefully at him and got to work. Apparently, the rear admiral had never heard of password protection, brainwave scanners or DNA protectors either because, after only a few minutes, hundreds of data sets were flickering in the air above the desk.
Dila and Frank, united in excited curiosity, also manoeuvred around the table, stood at the Professor's side, tried to elicit her secret from the notes, which at first glance seemed boring.
Personnel files, promotion proposals from mildly enthusiastic officers for far more motivated batches, material requirements, technical data of the latest infantry weapon prototypes.
Dilara whistled through her rows of teeth.
"Look at these guns, Frank. Portable pulse guns - well, really portable, not like our forty-kilo twin guns. For being cut off from the rest of the civilisations, they have an amazingly creative research department."
Frank nodded absent-mindedly - yes, the weapons were really impressive if the key figures were to be believed, but that wasn't why they were here. No pig in the Protectorate - and probably not El Porco on New Earth - gave a wet fart about what infantrymen carried into battle.
Apart from the Borsht, of course.
No, the true strength and threat of any military power in the spiral arm was measured in space combat capabilities, and there was no trace of that in the data yet.
Frank stumbled.
"What's that? Project Avenger?"
The Professor paused briefly, pausing her frantic search while Dilara wiggled her ears exuberantly.
"Ha, I know that one! That's one of your bromance comedies, where a big green muscle mountain and a flying demigod with a magic hammer beat each other up! I saw it at the Terran Museum; it was quite amusing."
Mariella screwed up her face and opened the associated data structure.
"I don't think Freezemayer put his films here, I've already been through these folders, and hero films weren't in there. I saw plenty of hentai, waifu, a worrying amount of furry and tentacle stuff, but no Avengers, and, wait, there's a bigger cluster with ...
... holy shit!"
Holy shit, that hit the spot, and involuntarily Frank took a step back when the Professor activated the visualisation of the data.
The eight armed freighters had been the truth, but the three squadrons of heavy fighters prov
ed to be a lie - there were thirty of them, twelve fighters each. That was a force that could not be underestimated - and which would provoke a corresponding reaction from the Protectorate.
At least, this thought seemed to have just occurred to Mariella, whose fingers were becoming as shaky as her voice.
"That - no one approved that. A small, purely defensive fleet, fast and agile, that was decided. And what is that!"
She zoomed in on an area where another type of ship could be seen. Four, maybe five times the size of the fighters, bulky and squat, vicious with its jet-black hull on which the brown segmented wings looked like foreign bodies.
Dilara growled.
"A destroyer, highly compact design, built precisely so that it can still be flown safely through the Kundahar wormhole. Which makes the system defence excuse no longer valid - Professor, this is a warship, and by that, I really mean built for war."
Frank swallowed, shook his head involuntarily and reached into Mariella's control panel, frantically pulling more data from the terminal.
"But only a prototype, they've only finished building three that are waiting to be tested. What worries me more is this - look, there's almost sixty per cent of the resource allocation spent on a weird side project. What the hell is that?"
Above their heads rotated a structure, no, a collection of structures, a circle of devices remotely reminiscent of the holoprojector that represented them to them. Each had a deep, bulky base, upscaled power conduits, an antenna array at the top — and oversized primary, secondary, and redundancy antimatter feeds to boot.
They rested in a kind of hemisphere whose external appearance Frank could not at first place, his mind could not comprehend. Dilara was quicker.
"That's Hephaestus! These things here - goodness, they must be hundreds of feet high, maybe more!"
