Commander

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Trajan, Ma’am?”

  “Yes. The Roman Emperor Trajan. You should read up on him, and realize this is the person the current Emperor of Sintar took as his role model. When James and his cohort attack him, he’s going to go Roman on them, and they aren’t going to know what hit them.”

  Queen Anne sighed.

  “And we’re going to get dragged into it right along with them.”

  “I first called for these meetings over six months ago,” King James said. “We’ve met four times now, and we still haven’t done anything but talk about it. And the provocations from Sintar continue unabated, including a big one in Phalia a week or so back. This is ludicrous. Maybe we should all take up knitting instead.”

  “Do I have a second for taking up knitting?” Queen Anne asked with icy sarcasm, and James reddened. “Motion fails for lack of a second.”

  “Sarcasm and knitting aside, I do think we should be doing something more,” said Guardian Julian Wendover, hereditary ruler of the Domain of Cascade.

  Wendover had been one of the thoughtful middle in their discussions.

  “What do you have in mind, Julian?”

  “I think we should put together a joint document, a missive to the Sintaran Emperor, a request they cease the things we have been discussing here that are the cause of the friction.”

  “An ultimatum,” King James said.

  “A request,” Wendover repeated.

  “Set aside the wording for a moment. Should we prepare a document such as Mr. Wendover describes. Hands, yes or no. Those in favor? Those opposed? The ayes have it. We will prepare such a document.

  “Next for the wording. Should we compose it for the moment as a request or an ultimatum? We will revisit this issue when we finalize it, this is just to decide the wording of the working document. Hands, request or ultimatum. Request? Ultimatum? All right, we will compose it as a request for now and decide the final wording on this point at the end.

  “We move on to the specific text of the request....”

  They worked on the document throughout the meeting and made good progress. At the end of their scheduled time, Queen Anne set the agenda.

  “For next time, then, we will all consider the document as it exists, and consider what improvements we might propose. Our goal is to have a completed document for consideration by the end of our next meeting.”

  “Another month,” King James groused to no one in particular.

  “But, you have made progress with your proposal,” King Albert said. “No small thing.”

  “I suppose.”

  It took all the next meeting to hammer out the language of the document, with the hardliners pushing toward more provocative language, the conciliators pushing toward softer, and the moderates proposing the compromises. By the end of the meeting, Queen Anne felt like she had been wrung out and hung to dry.

  “The last item to consider is the issue of language. Do we call it a request or an ultimatum? Hands, please. Request? Ultimatum? It remains a request.

  “Do we now move on to a vote on whether to approve the document?”

  “No sense working on it for two sessions if we aren’t going to use it,” King Albert said. “Let’s vote on it.”

  “Can I have a motion?”

  “I move we approve the document and transmit it to Sintar,” King Albert said.

  “Seconded,” Queen Jingda said.

  “We’re voting on the motion to approve the document and transmit it to Sintar. Hands, please. For the motion? Against the motion? The Ayes have it. The document is approved and will be transmitted to Sintar.”

  “How will it be transmitted?” King James asked.

  “I shall take it to Emperor Trajan myself,” Queen Anne said.

  Dunham, Peters, Saaret, and Suzanne were sitting out on the balcony with coffee after Sunday brunch. The twins had had breakfast with Dunham’s and Peters’s help earlier, and were taking a walk through the gardens with the staff this morning, after which they would have some time in the pool before lunch and a nap. This afternoon they would all celebrate Sean’s and Dee’s second birthday.

  “Will you meet with Queen Anne, Bobby?” Suzanne asked.

  “Of course,” Dunham said. “It never hurts to talk. More talking all along would have been good, but they weren’t interested in talking. They made that clear to our ambassadors.”

  “Why does she want to meet?”

  “She’ll present their demands for Sintar’s future behavior.”

  “Demands?” Suzanne asked.

  “Oh, they’ll be worded as requests, but they’ll amount to demands.”

  Suzanne looked back and forth between Peters and Saaret.

  “We’ve been all through this this week,” Saaret said.

  “So what kind of demands?” Suzanne asked Dunham.

  “That we stop escorting our vessels, that we don’t run any unmanned vessels into their territorial volumes, that we stop confronting and opposing their armed vessels when they interfere. All that sort of thing.”

  “And your response?”

  “I’ll refuse, Suzanne. Their demands are all in violation of their treaty agreements. And they do not make the same demands on anyone else, or say they will live up to the same conditions themselves. So first, it is a unilateral modification, without negotiation, of treaty obligations. That’s not how treaties work. If they want modifications to a treaty, they should be asking for negotiations. Second, because their demands are not binding on anyone else, only Sintar, they effectively are asking Sintar to agree to second-class status among star nations.”

  “Because, for example, their demands don’t apply equally to the Democracy of Planets.”

  “Or to themselves,” Dunham said. “Correct.”

  “All of which means there will be war.”

  “If they want to push it that far.”

  Suzanne gave him a stern look.

  “Yes,” Dunham said. “Most likely there will be war.”

  “Which the Empire will win?”

  “Yes.”

  Suzanne looked at Saaret, and he nodded slightly.

  “All right. Well, thanks for humoring me, Bobby. I just want to know what’s going on.”

  “No problem, Suzanne. I understand.”

  The Tinder And The Spark

  Dunham already knew the contents of the document Queen Anne intended to deliver, of course. He had received a copy from King Michael as soon as it was passed. It had given him a week to decide how to approach the document and the meeting.

  Queen Anne had requested the meeting, and Dunham had responded with a code to access a simulation of a featureless room with two club chairs, which was his normal venue for meetings with people outside Sintar. For meetings with Sintar subjects, he used a simulation of his Imperial Palace office.

  He was there early, and waiting when she popped into existence in the simulation. Like him, she wore normal office dress. As host, he greeted her first.

  “Good morning, Your Highness.”

  “Good morning, Your Majesty.”

  “Please, have a seat, Your Highness,” Dunham said as he waved to the chairs.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  Queen Anne hadn’t known quite what to expect of the Emperor Trajan. He was a good-looking, athletic man in his late thirties – perhaps twenty years her junior – with a calm demeanor and startling white-blue eyes. As she took her seat, she thought perhaps the meeting would go well.

  “You asked for this meeting, Your Highness. Please, go ahead.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  She composed her thoughts before starting. She had several opening statements prepared, depending on how she found him. She opted for the friendliest.

  “The nineteen largest independent star nations have been meeting monthly for a number of months to discuss how we might best deescalate tensions with Sintar.”

  “A goal I share, Your Highness.”

  “That’s excellent
news, Your Majesty. During our meetings, we’ve come up with a few requests of Sintar we think could improve the situation a great deal.”

  “I would be pleased to look at them, Your Majesty.”

  “Here are our requests, Your Majesty.”

  Queen Anne pushed him the document over the connection, which the VR simulated as her handing it to him.

  Dunham took the document and read it carefully. It was the same document King Michael had sent him. So there was no double-dealing or subterfuge there. He looked up at her.

  “This is your opening position for the negotiations, then, Your Highness?”

  “Negotiations?”

  “And has the Democracy of Planets agreed to negotiations, or did you approach Sintar first?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand, Your Majesty.”

  Dunham waved his left hand at the document in his right.

  “These are changes to the commercial shipping treaty to which we are all signers, Your Highness. So I assumed this was your opening position on new terms for the commercial shipping agreement, and asked if the DP had been approached yet. I’m certainly willing to negotiate a new shipping treaty with all treaty partners.”

  “No. Um. Your Majesty, I think you misunderstand. We’re asking that Sintar accede to these requests.”

  “You ask that Sintar accept second-class status among star nations, Your Highness?”

  “Second-class status, Your Majesty?”

  “Of course, Your Highness. The treaty gives each signer certain rights and obliges them to certain duties that would otherwise not apply. You are asking Sintar, alone among signers to the treaty, to have lesser rights and greater obligations than the other star nations. That sounds like second-class status to me.”

  “But that is not the intent, Your Majesty. We are trying to deescalate tensions.”

  “As am I, Your Highness. But I cannot agree to accepting second-class status among star nations. Particularly when the Democracy of Planets, which incited those tensions in the first place, has no such obligations. I’m perfectly willing to negotiate a new – and reciprocal – shipping agreement, but I will not bind Sintar to some different and inferior status.”

  “What does the Democracy of Planets have to do with any of this, Your Majesty?”

  Dunham simply stared at her, and she reddened.

  “Yes, Your Highness. You and I both know the DP warned of a phantom expansionism on Sintar’s part, sold the independent star nations warships identical to theirs, then used the cover of just being another DP warship to make anonymous raids on Sintar’s commerce. And you and others told your navies to stand by and let it happen. Well, I will not let it happen. I will protect Sintar and its interests.”

  “But there will be war, Your Majesty.”

  “As I told King James of Garland, war with Sintar is one of your choices, Your Highness. Choose wisely.”

  “I don’t believe you can prevail against all nineteen of us, Your Majesty.”

  “Then your intelligence people have failed to keep you accurately informed, Your Highness.”

  Queen Anne watched him carefully through this exchange. He was not blustering. He seemed calm, at ease. Whether Sintar could defeat them or not, he believed it could, and would.

  “I will take your concerns back to our council, Your Majesty.”

  “And you might take your grievances to the Democracy of Planets, Your Highness.”

  “Well, that was disconcerting,” Queen Anne told Bruce Mallory, her prime minister.

  “The meeting, Your Highness?”

  “Yes. I felt like a naughty schoolchild brought up before the headmaster.”

  “He is what, fifteen years your junior, Ma’am?”

  “More like twenty, Mr. Mallory, but it didn’t matter. The Emperor Trajan is calm, assured, and confident of Sintar’s ability to defeat all of us, if it comes to that. I thought I might have to deal with a petulant child like James, and instead it felt like he was the adult in the room.”

  “Was it an act, Ma’am? The confidence?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Mallory.”

  Queen Anne ran back over the conversation in her mind.

  “Have the latest intelligence assessments anything new on Sintar, Mr. Mallory?”

  “No, Ma’am. The information on Sintar hasn’t changed.”

  “Which is to say it is all still conjecture and speculation.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “I can’t believe this!” King James of Garland thundered. “We are to reconvene to consider Sintar’s counterproposal for the negotiation of a new commercial shipping treaty? That could take years. Throughout all of which, that white-eyed bastard will continue to run his robot ships into Garland? Continue to shove us around? I don’t think so.”

  “What are we to do, though, Sire?” his foreign minister, Francis Schmitt-deVries, asked.

  “I’ll tell you what we do. The next one of those robot ships to come into this system, we tell them to get out.”

  “And if they don’t, Sire?”

  “Then we blow it to hell. Oh, we don’t touch their commercial shipping, but we don’t allow those robot ships in our system. And if they don’t leave, then we blow them up.”

  The SCV Thursday’s Child down-transitioned from hyperspace in the Garland system. She found herself facing two squadrons of battleships within missile range of her position. Her captain held his position and signaled the Imperial Navy, which signal was relayed to Admiral Maria della Espinoza.

  “Dispatch a hundred picket ships to Thursday’s Child’s position.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Three hours until arrival.”

  Thirty minutes after Thursday’s Child arrived, her escort of a single picket ship down-transitioned from hyperspace in front of her.

  “Defiant is being hailed, Ma’am.”

  “Tell Captain Demarest I’ll answer the hail, Comm,” Espinoza said.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Admiral Maria Della Espinoza here.”

  “Vice Admiral Harvey Fouracre here. Get your robot ship out of Garland space, Admiral Espinoza.”

  “Admiral Fouracre, we are exercising our right of peaceful transit under the commercial shipping treaty to which Garland is a signer.”

  “I don’t care what you think you’re doing, Admiral. Get that robot ship out of here or it will be destroyed.”

  “Negative, Admiral Fouracre. Unless you want your people to be the first casualties of a war between Garland and Sintar, you will honor your treaty obligations.”

  “Well, you were warned. Fouracre out.”

  “Has that robot ship begun maneuvers to leave the system?” Fouracre asked.

  “No, Sir. They’re both just sitting there.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Fifteen minutes since communications was cut, Sir.”

  “I want four missiles on that picket ship. Fire them from the edges of the formation so they come in at an angle. That way if any overfly they won’t hit the freighter.”

  “Yes, Sir. Four missiles on the picket ship.”

  “We have missile separation, Ma’am. Four missiles inbound.”

  “Attack Plan Alpha, Captain Demarest. Target the flag.”

  The picket ship crewed by the Defiant pivoted sharply on her bow thrusters and accelerated perpendicular to the line between Thursday’s Child and the center of the Garland formation.

  The two missiles coming in from the opposite side to which Defiant dodged kept her in sight and followed her around her turn as she circled for the Garland flagship. They had the inside line on her and were closing to attack range when she skewed hard again and corkscrewed away from them.

  As Defiant approached the Garland formation, all sixteen battleships opened up with their point-defense lasers. All aimed for the nose of the picket ship, but not all were successfully targeted. At the oblique angle some of the ships had on the picket ship, some of the misses struck the picket ship behind the urani
um nose cone. One point-defense laser hit Defiant in the reaction mass tanks, while another pierced her plasma bottle, and Defiant blew up short of the flagship.

  The two missiles coming in from the side to which Defiant dodged tried to turn, but lost sight of her almost immediately. They were seekers, however, and, when they lost sight of Defiant, they tried to reacquire the target.

  Having completed only a small part of their turn when they lost lock, Thursday’s Child was dead ahead.

  Terror, elation, and then terror ran through Admiral Fouracre. He had heard of the robot ships’ maneuverability, but hearing was not the same as seeing, particularly when you were being targeted. He expected to die in seconds as the robot ship bored in on his flagship.

  Then a point-defense laser somehow scored on the attacker, and she blew up. What was it that old infantry officer had said? ‘There is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at to no effect.’ Something like that.

  His relief was short-lived, however. In the excitement of fighting off the attacking robot ship, he had not paid attention to the overshoot of his missile launch. He had not aborted the missiles when they lost lock, and they had reacquired target on the Sintaran freighter. His crew was celebrating their survival with the destruction of the attacking robot ship when the freighter blew up in his display.

  “Shit!” Fouracre said with feeling.

  The response of Sintar to the destruction of the freighter was as predictable as sunrise. His mind raced, trying to figure out what to do.

  “Quick! What was it that destroyed that robot ship? Where did we hit it to cause it to blow up?”

  “I’m not sure, Sir.”

  “Well, look at the video and figure it out. Somehow, somebody hit it just right, probably by accident. We need to know how to kill those damned things right away.”

  “Yes, Sir. I’m on it.”

  It was an agonizing hour before he had his answer. An hour of waiting for death to arrive.