Knight's Move

by Nuttall, Christopher

  “We were forced to fight to defend ourselves because there was no alternative. It was fight or be enslaved. Every man, woman and child in the Bottleneck Republic was on the front lines, no matter where they were. Even those furthest from the border were in constant peril, as enemy raiding parties sought to strike behind our lines. The occupied worlds were pushed into a violent insurgency in hopes of making the Dragons bleed before the human populations were completely wiped out. Every single one of us was in this war up to our necks.

  “And then the war came to an end.

  “We are not ungrateful for the Federation’s recovery and the massive offensive that ended the war. However, the scars of war have not yet faded – and they won’t, as long as we are unable to address all of the problems caused by the fighting. You say that we shouldn't be building up our military; we have asked for assistance from the Federation and it has not been granted. You say that we should be providing food and clothing for the aliens who remain on our worlds; we simply don’t have the resources to feed and clothe our own people, let alone aliens who were often part of the enemy occupation force. You want us to live by your laws, laws that we had no hand in writing, without offering us any benefits in exchange.

  “Nor do we trust you to keep our interests in mind. You have done nothing about the chaos along the border, or the ever-present risk that one of the Dragon warlords will eventually build up his military and restart the war. No, you care about the interests of the Core Worlds, worlds that were barely touched by the war. You know nothing about the true state of affairs out here – and yet you expect us to embrace your judgement?”

  “Our new government was hard won,” he concluded. “We will not simply allow ourselves to merge back into the Federation until we have proof that you will take us seriously and respond to our concerns.”

  The Governor’s jaw worked for a long moment as she stood up. “We are already attending to one concern,” she said. “I have brought six freighters of supplies with me for the alien refugees, supplies that will save you from having to feed them yourselves ...”

  Glen winced as angry shouting broke out within the chamber. As he’d expected, none of the colonials were happy about the convoy. The Governor ducked sharply as someone hurled a fruit at her head, her security staff moving forward to protect her. Glen hesitated, fighting the urge to climb under the table and hide. None of Theodore’s dinner parties had ever ended in a near riot ...

  He swore as an emergency alert downloaded itself into his implant. An attack on a colony on the edge of the Fairfax Cluster, specifically targeted on the alien refugee camp ...it looked as if someone had decided to take action personally.

  “QUIET,” the President bellowed, finally. He must have received the message too, Glen realised. It had come in over the planetary communications network. “We shall discuss the matter when tempers have calmed.”

  “We’ll take a look at the data, then we can discuss it,” the General said, as the room slowly emptied. “Can you and my daughter visit tomorrow lunchtime?”

  “I think so,” Glen said. Dauntless would probably have to investigate the attack – the Governor would insist on it – but there was no point in departing immediately. It would take at least ten days to reach Tyson’s Rest. “By then, we should have been able to crunch the data properly and get some answers.”

  He scowled as he looked over at the Governor. She looked shaken – and angry. No doubt some compliant PR officers would turn the mini-riot into an assassination attempt. She might even believe it herself.

  It didn't bode well for the future.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The farm was smaller than Sandy recalled, with a handful of people – mainly refugees – working in the fields. Once, there had been plenty of equipment even if it had been basic, but now the planet’s industry was still largely earmarked for supporting the war effort. And besides, there was no such thing as organised charity on Fairfax. Those refugees who could work were expected to work, if they couldn't join the military.

  She glanced over at the Captain as the vehicle came to a halt outside the farmhouse, wondering what he made of her childhood home. Gustav Mannerheim had bought the farm – literally – after ending his first stint in the planetary militia, only to be called up again when the Draconic War broke out. It simply wasn't very impressive, not compared to the towering corporate headquarters of Earth or Mars; the faint whiff in the air of too many animals pressed together didn't add to the atmosphere. But the Captain didn't show any visible reaction, beyond a slight smile. Perhaps he found it homey.

  Inside, there was a small buffet of cheese, cold meats and bread, laid out by a sallow-faced woman who managed to stare disapprovingly at both of them. Sandy kept her expression blank with an effort. Her mother had died young and, since then, her father had kept the house tidy with the help of a series of increasingly old housekeepers. He’d expected them to serve as surrogate mothers to Sandy too, but that had been too much to expect. None of them came close to the half-remembered figure of her mother.

  “Captain Knight,” her father said. His face was, as always, set in solid granite lines. “And Sandy. Welcome home.”

  “Father,” Sandy said.

  She scowled, then reluctantly accepted a hug. Her relationship with her father was complex – and private. On one hand, he had taught her everything from command authority to self-reliance; on the other, he had overshadowed her life to the point she’d joined the TFN to escape him. Not intentionally, she knew, but he hadn't been able to help it. Everyone knew Gustav Mannerheim and few would intentionally slight his daughter.

  “Please, be seated and eat,” the General said. “We have a great deal to discuss.”

  Sandy couldn't help feeling a twinge of homesickness as she took the bread and cheese. The handful of farms that were located nearby combined their products on a regular basis, allowing them to produce bread, cheese and meat for the farmers, along with a great deal else. If something happened to Fairfax City, her father had told her when she’d been a child, the farmers could just carry on. But the war had changed many things and not all for the better. What would happen, she asked herself, to the refugees.

  The thought made her scowl. At least they were human – and humans could integrate with the local population. Farmers had been spared conscription, but Sandy and her father were far from the only ones to abandon their farms and head out to join the militia, leaving wives and daughters behind to work the fields. By now, it was likely that a few dozen refugees had married into local families and effectively become locals. God alone knew what that would do to the planet’s culture.

  “We do,” the Captain agreed. He looked up, studying Sandy’s father with a frankness that surprised her. “What do you make of the reported attack?”

  The General considered it. “A criminal faction, perhaps,” he said, “or mercenaries. Or a group that merely wants revenge and doesn’t care who gets hurt along the way.”

  He sounded unconcerned, but Sandy could hear the simmering anger in his voice. Whoever had attacked Tyson’s Rest had smashed a planetary defence network, bombarded the civilian population and slaughtered thousands of alien refugees. It was unlikely that anyone in the Colonial Militia would shed tears for the aliens, but the human population of the planet wouldn't be much better off. The absence of mass bombardment might just ensure that they starved to death slowly, rather than being wiped out in a split second.

  “It’s possible,” the Captain agreed. “Do you have any clues, anything at all, that might point to the perpetrators?”

  Sandy felt her scowl deepen. Cynthia had examined the emergency broadcast and pointed out that the attack could have been carried out by the Colonial Militia. It was definitely a possibility, Sandy had to admit, but why would they have broadcast their own IFF signals, knowing that they would be picked up? Cynthia had countered that objection by noting that the idea could have been to make a statement, rather than a cowardly slaughter by unknown terroris
ts or raiders. The Captain had ended the argument by sarcastically reminding them that anyone could alter an IFF beacon and their presence proved nothing.

  “I strictly forbade revenge attacks on alien settlements,” the General said, finally. “While I fully agree that keeping those camps on our worlds is provocative, I feel that we gain nothing through mass slaughter. Repatriating them back to their homeworlds would be much simpler and probably have fewer repercussions.”

  “But some of them don’t have homeworlds to go to,” the Captain objected. “Or their worlds can't take them.”

  Sandy nodded. The alien homeworlds were in worse condition than most of the other occupied worlds. By now, they were having problems feeding their remaining populations, let alone tens of thousands of refugees coming to a home they’d never known. Given time, and plenty of support from the Federation, those worlds would become liveable again. But if there were objections to feeding alien refugees, she didn't want to think about the scale of objections to human investment in a long-term terraforming project.

  “Perhaps they can go to another world,” the Captain said. “I believe there were worlds that were effectively depopulated?”

  “The suggestion was made in council,” the General admitted. “But it received little popular support. Those worlds are ours.”

  “Leaving that aside for the moment,” Sandy said, wincing inwardly when her father turned his cold gaze on her, “what are we going to do about the attackers?”

  The Captain sighed. “Our Governor wishes me to investigate the situation,” he said. “She sees it as an attack on her personally; the refugee camp on Tyson’s Rest was one of the camps she intended to present with supplies. The timing doesn't work out, but ...”

  “Civilians,” the General sneered.

  Sandy nodded in agreement. No one in the Bottleneck Republic had known that the Governor intended to bring supplies to the alien refugees. Few in the Federation had known, or it would have leaked out; hell, Captain Knight hadn't known until the Governor had explained what she had in mind. It was unlikely in the extreme that someone had deliberately targeted a refugee camp knowing the Governor intended to take a personal interest in it, simply because they shouldn't have known ...

  Unless someone in the Federation had deliberately planned it that way. Someone who knew what the Governor intended to do. Someone who had acted to embarrass and humiliate her ...

  But the timing was too perfect to be real. Sandy was an experienced naval officer; she knew better than to think that anything could stay on schedule, no matter how desperately the officers and men worked to keep the timetable. Getting the message to Fairfax in the middle of the mini-riot after the Governor’s speech was just too perfect. It would require investigation, but her experience told her that the conspirators – if there were conspirators – had simply gotten lucky.

  She ran her hand through her hair, tiredly. Life had definitely been simpler when they’d been fighting the Dragons.

  “And what will you do,” the General asked, “if you find no trace of the attackers?”

  “I’ll do what seems best,” the Captain said. He studied the General for a long moment. “Do you have no idea at all?”

  The General’s face twisted into a scowl. “The Colonial Militia has been recruiting officers and crewmen with experience,” he said. “Quite a few of them were downsized” – he made the word a curse – “and forced to leave the Federation Navy. However, we have open links with the mercenary community and have even hired a few of them from time to time.”

  Sandy nodded, impatiently. The Federation disapproved of mercenaries, but the colonies tended to hire them if they needed armed support – or offered basing facilities, in exchange for first call on their services. It was yet another dispute between the Federation and the Bottleneck Republic; the Republic simply didn't bother to provide any supervision, or enforce the Federation’s ban on certain kinds of mercenary starship. But mercenaries were in high demand in the aftermath of the war. No doubt the minor taxes on mercenary operations helped the colonies pay for their military. And it gave them a pool of experienced spacers to call on, if necessary.

  “Quite a few have been taking up contracts and vanishing,” the General said. “We don’t know where they’ve gone, but we know what they all have in common.”

  The Captain leaned forward. “What?”

  “Ruthlessness,” the General said, simply. “Quite a few of them have been charged or threatened with being charged for war crimes. Several of them were kicked out of Vince’s Vandals for extreme violence. Which is really quite worrying, when you think about it.”

  Sandy winced. Vince’s Vandals had been known for racking up the highest level of casualties in mercenary operations in recent history, before the unit had been effectively shattered during a long campaign on an enemy-infested world. They had also achieved the unusual status of being the only mercenary organisation to be threatened with arrest by both the Federation and the Bottleneck Republic. The thought of what Vince – a sociopath – had considered extreme violence was terrifying.

  “I see,” the Captain said. “And where have they gone?”

  “That we don't know,” the General admitted. “We don’t track mercenaries once they leave our soil. Whoever hired them – and we can only assume they were hired by someone – is a mystery. So is their destination.”

  “So we don’t have the slightest idea if there is a connection or not,” Sandy said, out loud. “It could just be a misinterpretation of the data.”

  “It could,” her father agreed. Like the TFN, the Colonial Militia had been stung by intelligence analysts who weren’t half as smart as they thought they were. “But it is a rather odd coincidence.”

  The Captain nodded. “Could it be that someone hired them to go after the refugee camps?”

  “It's possible,” the General said. “There’s no shortage of people who might want a little revenge, even if it’s directed against aliens who aren't Dragons. But the sort of funding to hire those guys is rare in the cluster. It would require a planet, I think; those mercenaries don’t work for free.”

  “No, they don't,” the Captain agreed.

  Sandy took another bite of her bread and cheese, then took a sip of water. It was odd watching her father and the Captain interacting, as if they were both suspicious of one another and yet committed to working together. Which they were, in a sense; legally, the Colonial Militia was subordinate to the Federation. But the Captain knew better than to assume that invoking such rights would actually work.

  It could be worse, she thought, wryly. I could have brought home a lover!

  “There is a different question that needs to be addressed,” the General said. “Just what are the long-term intentions of the Federation? Because, and let me be blunt here, we were outraged to discover just how badly our representative had been misquoted.”

  Sandy fought to hide a smile. Windy had recorded the entire dinner party on Dauntless – but so had Feingold, without bothering to inform anyone that he was making his own recording of the event. When the official version had come out, it had been carefully edited to make it clear that the Bottleneck Republic was populated by barbarians who were prepared to starve their own people rather than accept help from the Federation. But Feingold had released his own version as soon as he reached Fairfax.

  The Bottleneck Republic had a tradition; if someone was libelled, slandered or misquoted they could say so ... and place the onus of proving the claims on the speaker. And if someone couldn't prove it, they could be challenged to a duel – or simply forced out of public life. The network of contracts that governed life in the Federation simply didn't exist in the colonies. If a person’s word was considered all-important, a reputation for being a liar would follow someone for the rest of their life.

  Windy hadn't been challenged. But it was unlikely that anyone on Fairfax would believe a word she said in future. Why should they?

  “The Federation is uncertain its
elf,” the Captain confessed. “There are factions that would probably want to ensure that the Fairfax Cluster remained under the Federation’s jurisdiction and factions that couldn't really don’t care. You might want to approach the Federation as a united power bloc and demand entry on those terms. If nothing else, they would have to accept you or shatter the consensus on unity.”

  He shook his head. “If matters stay the way they are, you might just win effective independence anyway. But this attack is likely to concentrate a few minds on the situation out here.”

  Sandy scowled. It had honestly never occurred to her until she'd transferred into the TFN just how easily the news media could manipulate public opinion. Lacking any way to check facts for themselves – the Federation’s libel laws seemed to be written to practically encourage it, as long as the victim wasn’t rich or powerful – the public believed what they were told. Even the pervasive influence of independent writers and reviewers on the datanet didn't help the vast majority of the population.