Conventions of War

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Now I am called to further duty against the enemy, and I must leave you.”

  There were cries of “No!” from shocked fighters who hadn’t yet worked this out for themselves.

  “No one can take your achievements away from you,” she said. “Take pride in them, and never forget your comrades, or those who gave their lives.”

  She raised a hand. “Fortune attend you all.”

  Again the cheers sounded, and they resolved into a chant, “Su-la! Su-la! Su-la!” Her heart raced at the sound. She stepped back and let Lord Governor Eldey step forward.

  He gave a speech, and Sula heard none of it. I am mad to give this up, she kept thinking.

  Hiding from the Naxids had given her freedom. Now that she was Lady Sula again, she was once again in hiding, but from her own side.

  Afterward she joined Eldey in the vehicle that raced for the city. Overhead, multiple sonic booms announced the arrival of other shuttles that carried elements of Eldey’s support staff and the thousands of personnel that the empire was bringing to the capital.

  Bureaucrats to run the government, engineers to keep services going, and executioners to work their will on the vanquished. It was the way Zanshaa had always been governed.

  “I wish you had not so much emphasized those people bringing down a government through choice,” Eldey said. “We really can’t have that sort of thing. But otherwise I think you did very well with them.”

  “Thank you, my lord,” Sula said dully. Her mind still swam in the surge of emotion that had swept her that afternoon.

  He looked at her with his large eyes. “You might have a future as a politician,” he said.

  “I don’t have the money.”

  “Don’t you?” Eldey said softly. “Well, there are ways.”

  If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she might have asked what Eldey had in mind, but she just sat in the vehicle until it drew up to the Commandery, where the governor bade her good-night and continued on to his own residence.

  Her sleep that night was an empty blackness filled with roaring, as if she were at the center of a huge, invisible army, all calling her name.

  On Sula’s last morning in Zanshaa she reported to Lord Governor Eldey, gave him the passwords for the more critical files, and then formally resigned her command of Zanshaa’s military. She sent Macnamara, Spence, and her new cook, Rizal, ahead to the Wi-hun airstrip, and then had One-Step drive her to the city of the dead where Casimir lay in his stolen tomb.

  A bitter wind scattered flakes of snow over the dried, brown blossoms of the flowers the cliquemen had piled on the sepulcher. The monument installed before the tomb projected a three-dimensional holographic image of Casimir, but it lacked the touch of mordant humor and the slight aura of menace that she remembered. The hologram looked more like the pale, cold face she saw on the floor of the hospital morgue.

  Sula paused for a moment before the tomb, her hands in the pockets of her greatcoat, and then drew from her pocket the ju yao pot. She held it up to the faint light and saw Casimir’s holographic image reflected irregularly in the blue-green crackle of its glaze. A sharp pain pierced her breastbone. How many deaths had the pot survived, she wondered, in the millennia since it had been carried away from Honan just ahead of a Tatar invasion? How many owners had lifted their eyes to the pot and drawn peace and strength from its timeless beauty?

  Too many, she thought.

  She walked around the memorial to the tomb itself, to the brushed titanium slab that sealed the doorway. Her reflection wavered uncertainly in the cold light. She raised the pot and smashed it against the slab. It crumbled to bits between her fingers. A sob broke from her throat. She stomped the fragments with her feet, and then a weakness flooded her and she leaned against the tomb for support, her head pressed to the cold metal.

  You selfish bastard, she thought. You died and left me alone.

  The cold metal was a shooting pain against her forehead. She gathered her strength and pushed herself away from the tomb, then began the walk back to the car.

  Fragments of the pot crunched beneath her soles.

  Everything old is dead, she thought. Everything new begins now.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Lord Eldey kindly offered Sula the use of his private yacht, the Sivetta, which he would not be needing for the months he served as governor. Sula understood the historical reference to the grand old Torminel monarch, and Eldey was surprised and pleased that she knew.

  On the shuttle from Zanshaa to the yacht, she flew past one of the huge merchant vessels that had brought supplies and personnel to the capital. The cargo ship was a gleaming mirror-bright dome, with the engine module on the far side like the stem of a mushroom. It was far larger than any Fleet warship, with room enough aboard to carry a cargo of ten thousand citizens; and it was only one of half a dozen ships brought to the capital. Clearly, the empire was very serious about keeping hold of Zanshaa now that they’d retaken it.

  Sivetta was a beautiful miniature palace, filled with elaborate mosaics of complex, interwoven geometric figures that dazzled and bewildered the eye, and managed to be more dazzling and bewildering the longer Sula looked at them. The crew was Torminel, but since Eldey had Terran aides, there were furniture and acceleration couches suitable for Terrans, and a cook who could assist her own cook, Rizal, in providing food other than raw meat served at blood temperatures. Sula had given Rizal money for food shopping before they’d left Zanshaa, and brought up as well a large collection of wine and spirits donated by the grateful merchants of the High City—an odd gift for someone who didn’t drink, Sula thought, but she supposed she’d spend time entertaining, and so the wine would come in handy.

  Not that she expected to spend much time enjoying the yacht’s comforts. She would be enduring long periods of high gee as Sivetta caught up with Confidence, which was orbiting the Zanshaa system with the rest of the Orthodox Fleet.

  Among the information sent her by Tork’s staff was an order of battle for the Orthodox Fleet. Scanning it, her eye immediately lit on the flagship of Michi Chen’s Cruiser Squadron 9—Illustrious, Captain Lord Gareth Martinez.

  At the name, her heart gave a surge.

  The last she’d heard of Martinez, he had become Michi Chen’s tactical officer. Now he actually commanded the flagship.

  She wondered how many of Illustrious’s people had to die or be captured by the enemy in order to accomplish that. It was how Martinez seemed to get his promotions.

  Her own ship, Confidence, was probably the smallest vessel that Tork could have offered her, a frigate with fourteen missile launchers, and it was normally an elcap’s command. Possibly, Tork had hoped she would refuse the appointment as beneath her dignity. If so, he would now be thumping the walls in chagrin.

  Confidence was a part of Light Squadron 17, a formation made up of five Terran frigates and four Torminel light cruisers, all of them commanded by lieutenant captains—which meant that as a full captain, she was now senior officer of the squadron and its commander, so long as Tork made no other dispositions.

  Tork, she realized, had decided not to offer a heavy cruiser, normally the province of a captain, but instead given her an entire squadron. This act of unexpected generosity struck her at first as a trap of some kind, though she couldn’t imagine what it would be. Did Tork expect that she’d fail in a squadron command, when she’d been mistress of an entire world? And then it occurred to her that the assignment might simply be an oversight. Tork had a lot on his mind: maybe it had slipped his mind that he’d handed her nine ships.

  But on further thought, that didn’t seem likely. A master of detail like Tork would not have made such a mistake.

  Maybe Lord Eldey’s support, complete with the loan of his yacht, had made Tork cautious about offending any of her powerful supporters, and therefore made him generous. Or perhaps he’d simply decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Clan Sula was one of the oldest and—at least until recently—most distinguished familie
s of Peers. Maybe Tork assumed that her genes would bring her into line.

  She gained a better idea of Tork’s motivations once she contacted her new command. From Sivetta she sent messages to each ship, requesting a full report on their status plus the data on the latest squadron maneuvers.

  The ships were in good order and, according to their officers, in an excellent state of training. Sula hadn’t expected the officers to say anything else, and assumed the data from the maneuvers would give her an idea of the real situation.

  The maneuvers showed ships moving in close formation, each move scripted well in advance. The side declared the victor of the maneuver had known it would win before the maneuver even started. Some of the squadron’s ships were a bit late or awkward in their course changes, but there was nothing very wrong with their performance.

  What was wrong was the sort of thing they had to perform in the first place.

  Now she knew why Tork had given her command of a squadron. Shackled to the old tactical system, her presence as squadron commander would make little difference. The worse she could do was bungle the maneuvers of her own ship, since the rest would be locked in their standard formations.

  Martinez, she thought, can’t you do anything right? You’d think he would have sold at least a few people on their new tactical system by now.

  She sighed. Clearly she had to do it herself.

  She took a long deep breath against the two-gravity acceleration, raised her heavy hands to the display attached to her deluxe, luxurious acceleration couch, and busied herself with Sivetta’s tactical computer. It was a machine as sophisticated as those used in Fleet warships, though without the proper database: she had to program in the characteristics of missiles from memory.

  She contacted Lord Alan Haz, Confidence’s first lieutenant. “I’d like the squadron to undertake an experiment,” she said. “What I intend is a free-form type of maneuver with no fixed outcome. Just do your best against the threat I’ve programmed into the scenario. In order to run it, you’ll have to add a patch to your tactical program—I’ll be sending that.”

  The first time Martinez had tried to run the new system in Corona’s computer, the tactical program had crashed. One of his officers—the one who had run off with PJ’s fiancée, she recalled—had created a software patch that solved the problem.

  “You’ll be commanding the squadron from Confidence,” Sula went on. “I’ll expect a report when you’re done, as well as the raw data. Good luck.”

  After sending the message, the scenario, and the software patch, she tried, in the heavy gravity, to relax onto the acceleration couch. It sent miniwaves pulsing along her back, massaging sore muscles and preventing blood from pooling.

  Her reply came some hours later. Lieutenant Haz was a well-scrubbed, square-shouldered man with the look of a person who had been a popular athlete in school. He had a deep, impressive voice and a tailored uniform that looked soft and rich even on video.

  “Thank you for the scenario, my lady. Lord Tork has scheduled no maneuvers for tomorrow, so we’ll be able to implement it then.” His look turned earnest. “I also appreciate your confidence in placing me in charge of the squadron. Thank you, my lady.”

  He ended the communication. Sula figured that Haz would be less thankful the next time she heard from him.

  She looked at the chronometer over her head and saw that it was over an hour before the ship’s acceleration decreased to one gravity.

  Over an hour till the next pee break.

  She would try to endure.

  “It was…well, frankly, it was a disaster.” Chagrin drew Haz’s mouth into a tight line. “We were wiped out. The enemy used tactics that we didn’t understand. We ran the scenario three times. The best results came when we starburst early—at least we took a few of the enemy with us that time.”

  Haz’s distress was so evident that Sula felt something like sympathy for how she’d tricked him. She had created a computer-controlled opposition force to battle Squadron 17, and though the enemy was equal in force, she’d programmed them with the new tactics. She’d just sent her own Squadron 17 into an ambush.

  “My condolences on the results of the experiment,” she sent in reply. “I have another experiment I would like you to undertake as soon as your other duties permit. I will broadcast the scenario at once.”

  The new scenario was similar, except the enemy was approaching head-on instead of converging at an angle. The next day, Haz reported similar results, though at least Squadron 17 had succeeded at destroying half the enemy before being annihilated.

  Sula had her next scenario ready, this time with Squadron 17 attempting to overtake an enemy. The enemy destroyed them.

  After the third virtual catastrophe, Sula scheduled a conference with Haz and all eight of the other captains. The conversation was almost normal, as the Orthodox Fleet on its circuit about Shaamah was racing past Sivetta at several times its rate of speed.

  Sula wore her decorations, having decided it might help to remind her underlings that she’d won battles and killed Naxids. She used a virtual reality rig to look at all her officers at once: she had their faces tiled in rows, three by three, in order of seniority, each labeled with their name and ship so she wouldn’t confuse them. An anxious expression spoiled Haz’s good looks. Perhaps he thought he was going to be blamed for three failures in succession.

  “My lords,” she began. “You’ve now seen what can happen when unconventional tactics are used against standard Fleet formations. My question to you is this: would you rather be on the winning side, or the other?”

  There was a half-second delay in the reply.

  “We desire victory, my lady, of course.” This came from one of the Torminel captains.

  “Do you all agree?” Sula asked.

  They all murmured assent.

  “The squadron can conduct experiments based on these tactics,” Sula said. “But I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m imposing unwanted drills, and I don’t want to deal with resentment on that or any other account. If we’re to conduct these new experiments, I want you all to agree that this is desirable.”

  There was a hesitation. Some, Sula thought, were nonplused—they were used to giving or taking orders, and hadn’t encountered a situation in which they were required to express an opinion. Others seemed to be rapidly calculating the odds of their careers being sidetracked.

  It was Haz, after a moment’s pause, who clarified the situation.

  “My lady,” he said, “the Supreme Commander has forbidden us to practice unconventional tactics.”

  Ah. Hah. Perhaps the inadequacy of the Orthodox Fleet wasn’t Martinez’s fault after all.

  Though, truthfully, she preferred to believe otherwise.

  “Well,” Sula said, as her lips drew back in a snarl, “he hasn’t forbidden me from doing anything. I have received no orders on the subject whatsoever.” She glanced over the nine heads in the virtual array before her. “I still want agreement, however. Shall we conduct these exercises or not?”

  “I believe we should.” The statement came from one of the Torminel, labeled in Sula’s display as Captain Ayas of the light cruiser Challenger. “We worked with this system when Challenger was assigned to Chenforce, and it contributed to our victory at Protipanu.”

  “I agree with Captain Ayas,” Haz said stoutly.

  With two officers leading the way, the others fell in line, though some with hesitation. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as her army chanting her name, but it would do. Sula smiled.

  “Thank you, my lords,” she said. “We’ll begin with a security exercise. I will now censor all officers’ mail, which will be sent through me for forwarding to any appropriate address. All daily situation and activity reports will be passed through me. Neither officer nor enlisted shall refer to our private exercises in any conversation or mail with any other member of the Fleet.”

  She saw surprise and consternation among her officers.

 
“It is my intention,” she explained virtuously, “to avoid anything that might leave the Supreme Commander’s mind anything less than easy. He has many responsibilities, and he has far more important affairs than whether or not one of his squadrons is conducting experiments.”

  She smiled again, and saw a few hesitant, answering smiles among the Terrans.

  “Forgive me for what follows,” Sula said. “I don’t know you well, and I apologize in advance if you feel slighted, but I think this should be said.”

  She took a deep breath against the heavy gravities that pressed upon her. “Some officers may think that informing Lord Tork of our activities will be a road to his favor. Allow me to assure you that, whatever basis the Supreme Commander uses to determine promotion, performance isn’t one of them.”

  While they chewed that over, Sula continued.

  “Another consideration is that anyone unsettling the lord commander’s mind is unlikely to survive. First, if the performance of this squadron is not improved, the Naxids are likely to kill that person, along with the rest of you. And second, if the Naxids don’t kill you—” She took another long breath. “—rest assured that I will. I’ll cut off your damn head and claim captain’s privilege.”

  She took a few panting breaths while reaction rippled across the faces in her display. Shock, mostly—Peers weren’t used to people talking to them this way.

  “Later today I will send you a mathematical formula that is the basis behind the new tactics,” she said. “I will also record a lecture concerning the formula’s application.”

  “My lady,” Ayas said, “I have a record of exercises conducted by Chenforce.”

  “Very good. Please forward these to me at your convenience, and to the others as well.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “My lords,” Sula said, again looking over the faces in her display, “are there any questions?”

  “Yes.” One of the Terrans raised a hand, as if she were in school. “Is this the Foote Formula, or something else?”