An Honorable Defense Book 1 Crisis of Empire

by David : Thomas, T Thomas Drake

  Follard pursed his lips.

  “Your plan, Tad, is technically an offense against private property. The Pact has very strict regulations about freedom of individuals and corporations to conduct their business. We’d need airtight proof against them of treason. Governor Sallee won’t approve any move by Cluster Command otherwise.”

  “How about supplying arms without an export license?”

  “I’m sure the H.M.’s licenses have been carefully worded to cover every conceivable charge we might lodge.”

  “What I’m hearing,” Mora said haughtily, “is a distinct lack of backbone. If you want to stop these creeps, then do it. If you win, the governor can put whatever face on it she wants. If you lose, then Borking’s in the High Seat and we’re all traitors anyway.”

  Thwaite looked at his shoes. “She has a point.”

  “Halan?” Bertingas turned to his friend. “The Kona Tatsu maintains a separate judiciary. You’re technically both a judge and grand jury, if I remember one of our drunken conversations correctly.”

  “Technically. . .”

  “Could you prepare some warrants, restraining orders, sigils of arrest, or whatever the proper documentation is? Something for the proprietors of the privately held property known as Batavia to ‘show cause why they should not cease and desist the manufacture and sale of armed vessels,’ etc., etc.”

  “I could, I suppose. But how would you serve them?”

  “With an army,” Tad smiled.

  “Which one?”

  Bertingas pointed at the aliens who had accompanied Firkin.

  “Nay, Sir,” shied one of the Satyrs.

  “Not us, Sir,” said the other shaggy-legged recruit.

  The Ghibli just growled and leered at him.

  “You’re signed for a proper hitch,” he told them. “To follow orders and see action at the discretion of your commanding officer . . . Me.”

  “We’re really not very good, Sir.”

  “You seem to be learning surprisingly fast. At least to my eye.”

  “Appearances are deceiving.”

  “Patty? Can they move in battle formation? Will they stand in a pitched conflict? Can they fight?”

  The heavyset woman looked at the three aliens with narrowed eyes. For a moment, as she weighed details in her mind, the colonel that she had been in another life shone through.

  “Some will. Most will.”

  “Then, Halan, we’ll serve your warrants—or knock out that island trying.”

  “And Deirdre Sallee will see right through this sham. She’ll roll me, you, the Kona Tatsu, and your whole department up in a tight little ball and hand us all over to an outraged Valence Elidor. To dispose of as he chooses.”

  “No, she won’t,” Tad said with a grim smile. “She won’t have the option.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  * * *

  The gray service truck, salvaged from the garage of the displaced Kona Tatsu building, touched down on the lip of the airpad on Floor 123. Normally, the valets who ran the pad would wave a vehicle like that on. This truck, however, with its simple double flashes on the lower skirting, was the sort that most people believed ferried prisoners to and from the Down Camps. The valets tried to ignore it.

  Passing over the city center, Tad had briefly inspected the hole where the Follard’s headquarters had been. It was a neat hemisphere cut into the rich, dark earth. The sun was still baking out the moisture, turning the soil into crumbly brown clods—except where a broken pipe was pumping in water. The hole’s bottom showed a crosshatch, the sheered ends of support pilings that, in this river valley, had to be driven to bedrock—such as it was on a light-matter planet like Palaccio. Tad had caught a glimpse of other fractured connections: sewer, power, and communications lightguides.

  They wouldn’t be able to jump the building back to its original site. Not at all. Probably have to abandon that pile of stonework and plaster that lay up the valley and rebuild it down here.

  What a lot of trouble Follard had gone through to protect him! Bertingas was starting to feel grateful—which was a bad feeling for a conspirator to have.

  From the air, Tad had used the truck’s anonymous AID to signal Gina. Now she came out to the pad, stood and looked at the truck uncertainly, then got in. He lifted off and went into a parking orbit south of the Palace. She would not turn toward him for a long time.

  “We all thought you were dead. Or a prisoner.”

  “I know. It seemed safest. How is Director Praise taking my disappearance?”

  “He smiles a lot. Of course, he always smiles a lot. He says you were a good man, but that you can be replaced.”

  “Has he replaced me yet?”

  “There’s talk . . .”

  “Who?”

  “Me—but it’s just talk. Coffeebreak badinage. You know.”

  “Sure.” Tad let it hang there, then went on. “Should I come back?”

  “You mean just—? Well, I wouldn’t fight you. I’d work with you. I’m not sure I’m ready for rank.”

  “I appreciate that, Gina. Really . . . How would Praise react if I came back?”

  “Disappointed, I think.”

  “Still, I’m his only link to those recruits he wanted so badly, am I not?”

  “He seems to have lost interest in all that.”

  “Ahh. Busywork for the bad boy in the department. A classic political gambit.”

  Gina nodded, then looked at him.

  “You seem leaner. More alive. More sure of yourself.”

  “It’s getting shot at—without result. As Sir Winston Churchill once said . . . We’re still getting funding for those training bases, aren’t we?”

  “Yes, the Director seems to have overlooked discontinuing that.”

  “Careless with Department money. That’s not like him. Can you guard my rear and keep those budgets open? No matter what he does?”

  “I guess I can. Unless Praise gives me a specific order to close them. Or until he finds out and challenges me on them. Why? Do you need the money?”

  “No, I need the bases, the troops, and their equipment kept intact for a while. No matter what Praise wants.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  “Since the very beginning, Gina. We all are. If I’m reading our hints and guesses right, those alien—excuse me, non-Human—troops could be all that stands between the Pact and all-out civil war.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can.”

  “Good, there’s something more I need.” He reached inside the tunic of the borrowed uniform and pulled out a sheaf of handwritten notes. “You remember the discussion we had—it seems so long ago—about the Haiken Maru?”

  “Do you think I would ever forget?”

  “No, of course not. I need it done, now, what we talked about then. These notes explain the subtext; follow and fill in as you have to. You’ll know how to handle it. The names are in a kind of substitution code, in case anyone takes these papers off you. Hint to get you started: read this as if it came from the Palace. Then all should come clear.”

  “From the Palace. That’s dangerous, Tad.”

  “Of course it is. I told you, we’re all that stands between the Pact and chaos. Be careful.”

  “You must trust me very much. After everything.”

  “Of course I trust you,” he said. I have no other choice, he thought.

  Bertingas brought the truck around and down in the street near a rail line that would take her back to Government Block.

  “Be careful,” he told her, “but don’t be too nervous. We always agreed that you could get away with this where I, being more visible—and now a hunted man—never could. Right?”

  She nodded, all serious.

  “If anyone asks,” he went on, “you haven’t seen me, don’t know about me, wish I was truly dead, and want my job. Right?”

  Gina tried to smile and couldn’t. One last time she put an arm arou
nd his neck, drew him close, and kissed him. Tad could taste the strange sweetness of her lips, like brass and silver mixed in a crucible and cooled. He kissed her back.

  She finally let him go.

  “Be careful yourself,” she said and slid out the door.

  Tad fed power to the fans, leaving her in a down-draft that swirled her skirt and streaked her hair. Gina waved once, then turned and walked off.

  Patty Firkin poked twice at the tarpaulin covering herself and rolled out from under the side bench in the back of the truck.

  “You are smooth, Bertingas,” she said, sliding into the seat Gina had just left.

  “Yeah, too smooth.”

  “Do you think she’ll do it for us?”

  “Sure. For me. She’ll get caught in the shakeup after she does it. She’ll be pulled apart by people not quite as gentle as Follard’s. And she knows all that. But, yes, she’ll do it.”

  “That’s all we want, Tad.”

  “For the Goddamned Pact.”

  “Right, for the Goddamned Pact,” Firkin replied. She was rubbing her upper arm, where Bertingas had once seen a thin red scarline.

  Chapter 18

  Pairs in Private: CONFUSION

  The offices of Cluster Command were impressive.

  As Terrel Thwaite was locked through the main public entrance, led down corridors of chrome and granite, voice-IDed, retina-IDed, thumb-printed, pinky-printed, blood-sampled, and body-scanned, he let his cool mind count the ways by which Dindyma’s people were trying to impress him.

  First there was the physical separation. No suite or set of floors in the bland monolith of Government Block was distinctive enough for them. No adjunct to the Palace, itself an architectural confection in glass and steel, was private enough for them. No ornate private building like the Kona Tatsu’s, with its stone and rococo plasterwork—now happily removed from the city—was elegant enough for Cluster Command.

  No, they had to stake out a hundred hectares of rolling hills north of the city, fence it with wire and scanguides, and begin building their own collection of structures.

  Second, the buildings themselves. The pattern, Thwaite had once been told, was a Cistercian abbey of the early second millennium, B.P., from somewhere in the Earthly nation-state called France. Every dimension from the original plan had been multiplied by a factor of 2.471—but why that particular number, no one seemed to know. In the original model, the dark stone had been cut into blocks and stacked. At these new, larger dimensions, the architects had to create an underframe in steel and concrete, then face it with polished granite, outside and in. Where the supply of stone, or the mason’s art, had given out, the carvings, cornices, gargoyles, and finials were reproduced in chrome. The effect was austere, brutal, callous, dark—everything a collection of play-acting soldiers would want others to think of them.

  Third was the rigmarole. Thwaite had presented his electronic credentials at the door. Taking samples of his bone marrow—painful as the procedure might be—could prove nothing more about him.

  After walking half a mile, under heavy escort, mostly under cover from the sun and air, Thwaite was led into the presence of General Dindyma. And wasn’t his office grand? Grander than the converted ballroom where Halan Follard held court. Almost as grand as the pavilions from which Deirdre Sallee directed the Cluster’s political affairs.

  The commander’s office was the main chapel—or maybe the term was cathedral?—of the old abbey. Columns of banded stone and metalwork soared above the inlaid floor and met overheard in a branching parody of low-gravity trees. The screenwork at the far end, however, was original. Carved, blond wood depicted some kind of ritual torture of a nearly naked prisoner. It was impressive—and dusty.

  Before the screen lay a block of chiseled black stone, whose upper surface was supported by the figures of thirteen robed and bearded old men. Pollonius Dindyma used it for a desk. The insides of the block, Thwaite knew, had been hollowed out and held sophisticated equipment: a Battle Tech AID, star recorders, tactical holograms, a strategy tank—all to keep track of four destroyers and a monitor that would never leave this system except under tow.

  Now, now, Thwaite chided himself. Make nice with the old man. Best behavior.

  “Ah, Terrell” Dindyma half-rose from his chair to meet his guest.

  “General! So good of you to see me on such regrettably short notice.”

  “My pleasure.” The older man tipped his head politely. “Always ready to do a courtesy to our brothers in arms.”

  “Yes. Well. More than a courtesy, this time.”

  “Eh? You have a request of some sort to make?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve come to thank you for your swift responses.”

  “In the matter of . . . ?”

  “Ah! This room is secure, is it not? Even one’s closest aides and attendants must represent some risk of espionage, at times. All these columns and dead spaces—” Thwaite waved a hand around the great room “—must make a sweep . . .”

  “We sweep daily, Sir.” The general puffed up his chest and sniffed broadly. “Have no fear of your confidences. Out with them, man!”

  “Certainly. I’m referring to your preparations for aiding Central Fleet in its defensive actions against our mutual objective.”

  “Of course, no trouble at—‘mutual objective,’ you say? What might that be?”

  Thwaite dropped his head and looked at the general from under his own quite impressive eyebrows. “You did receive the secret orders from Her Excellency did you not?”

  “Hah-hmmm—er—of course. I can assure you we have the most cordial—secret orders? Yes, but—humm—no. No secret orders.”

  “Ah!” Thwaite contrived to appear embarrassed. He covered his eyes with a hand. Revealed them to smile again. “I must commend you on your discretion, General, your dedication to the canons of secrecy. You shame me with your sense of propriety,”

  “You’re too kind, Terrel. I’m sure it’s all a dreadful mix-up. Something to do with that new chief of staff at the Palace. Tell me, if I were to have received such orders, would I then be in a position to know ‘our mutual objective’?”

  “Of course, Sir. You would be positively brimming with enthusiasm for it.”

  “Would I? I would!” The general all but clapped his hands in excitement. “Now, supposing that we have suffered a mere clerical disqualification . . . could you divulge to me the nature of that objective?”

  “Certainly. It’s military.”

  “Ah! Military. Right in our line. Hardened?”

  “Some would say.”

  “Susceptible to reduction by tactical forces?”

  “Eminently.”

  “Does the objective have a name?”

  “It does.”

  “Might one hear it?”

  “Haiken Maru.”

  “Haiken—! Surely not! Their financial and mercantile transactions are the strength of the Cluster.”

  “As their base perfidies will be the undoing of this cluster,” Thwaite rejoined.

  “I’m sure the governor would have indicated . . .”

  “The governor is, in these delicate times, under a certain amount of restraint.”

  “Of course, of course. Haiken Maru, you say? Well, I never would have suspected. You have proofs, certainly?”

  “Ten ships destroyed or damaged in a mass attack. All signs point to the H.M. as responsible. We have even taken prisoners.”

  “Incontrovertible.”

  “No—talkative as well.”

  “Ah-hmmm. Yes . . . Our preparations, Captain, such as they are, must of necessity be meager. We have four superannuated destroyers, and one planetary monitor whose capabilities are less than ideal—”

  “Each branch of the military serves as best it can in this crisis, General. Even if that service is limited to an honorable surrender in the face of overwhelming force.”

  “Hmm? Ah—well put, Captain. Without hyperdrive, however, our Charlotten Broch would
be a sitting target in any orbit. Less effective even than your Gemini Base—with the usual apologies, of course.”

  Thwaite nodded his head grimly at the old jibe.

  “So you can see . . .” The general flapped his hands.

  “The objective, this time, is no more mobile than your Broch, Sir.”

  “Ah? A sort of counterpart Maginot, your hardened objective?”

  “As it were.”

  “Under control of the Haiken Maru?”

  “Exactly.”

  “There is only one facility in the Cluster which meets that description. Certainly the governor is not suggesting . . .”

  “Not openly. Not yet.”

  “Will she give her authority, at the appropriate time?” The General chewed at his mustache with his lower teeth.

  “I am assured of it.”

  “Then I will look into the preparation of a suitable plan. For our mutual defense.”

  “Excellent, General.”

  Thwaite knew enough not to press the advantage. He stood quickly and bowed himself down the length of the chapel’s nave, toward the narthrex.

  “One second, Captain!” Dindyma called. “What if we should be met with overwhelming force? Surrender, even on honorable terms, is not an option defined in the regulations of Cluster Command!”

  “Why then, General,” Thwaite replied, with his butt not three meters from the door and safety, “we shall all have the privilege of paying for our commissions a second time! Good day to you, Sir!”

  * * *

  “Try it again.”

  Patty Firkin slipped her hands into the player’s gloves attached to the Battle Tech and began rallying her ground forces. In the deep holo focus, under control of a competitive AID, were the shadowy walls and turrets of the fortress. It may once have had a natural shape, the shoreline of the island—revealed as Palaccio’s inland sea receded into mud and marsh—but now it was all hard lines and defensive angles. Star-shaped bastions and tall bartizans, scarps and counterscarps, machicolations and merlons toothed the water’s edge. Batavia was all towers of iron and ramparts of reinforced concrete.

  Or, that was the Batavia which their Battle Tech knew, and it was drawing on century-old plans retrieved from the Kona Tatsu archives.