Kilgore nodded. “Our scientists are figuring out what makes the metal unique as we speak. We’re being cautious, Mr. President. We don’t want any friendly fire incidents if we can prevent them.”
“Yes, no more screw-ups would be nice,” said Wakefield.
Before Chamberlain could respond, his chief of staff knocked on the door and stuck his head in.
“Mr. President. I have President Ivanov on the line.”
“Oh good, it’s the Russians,” muttered Chamberlain. “Someone civil.” He stared at Wakefield until she blinked and looked away. “Put him through, Rob.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. President,” came Ivanov’s overly friendly, heavy voice. His words were clipped. Chamberlain wondered if he affected that Russian stereotype to score points with his political rivals or cow them into compliance.
“Actually, it’s quite early in the morning here, Oleksiy,” said Chamberlain.
“Ah yes, of course. Waking to a nightmare instead of from one, ay?”
If you only knew. “Something like that. I’m meeting with my National Security Council now, Mr. President.”
“Indeed. I just had lunch with my own Security Council,” replied Ivanov gravely. “Very disturbing, these events at Britannia, no? It would seem our assumptions about how long it would be until we met the aliens again were a little off.”
“A little,” said Chamberlain. “Oleksiy, I guess you know why I’m calling. I know, when I formed the IDF, you weren’t keen on joining.” He paused a moment, as much to tamp down his own latent frustration on that point as to give his counterpart a moment to remember the conversation. “And I’m not calling to resurrect that discussion. But I am calling to ask for your help. Again.”
There was silence on the other end. A kind of grumbling contemplation, followed by Ivanov clearing his throat of its trademark gravel-and-cigarettes rumble. “I see. And what does Premier Wei say? And Supreme Leader el-Hashem?”
Chamberlain took a long sip of water till he emptied his glass. It was good that it wasn’t alcohol, he decided. He tended to run off at the mouth when he’d been drinking. “I’m still trying to reach Premier Wei. I have not yet reached out to Mr. el-Hashem but will do so, of course. But, Oleksiy, we both know—Russia’s is the most formidable military force next to the IDF.”
“Next to, Quentin?”
Shit, Chamberlain thought. He’d forgotten that damned Russian pride. But he had his own, too.
“There are ladies in the room here, Mr. President. Can we not whip them out and compare lengths right here and now?”
Ivanov’s bombastic laughter made Kathy Wakefield jump in her chair. That alone was worth the price of admission of her earlier sour attitude, Chamberlain decided.
“Right you are, Quentin! That’s what I love about Americans. Right to the point and no taboo is too sacred.” The grumbling contemplation returned. “But to your point, Quentin—yes, of course, we shall join forces again against this alien threat. We are one species, no? We—how do you say?—whip them once, we whip them again, yes? Together!”
Chamberlain visibly relaxed. Ivanov’s agreement had come entirely too easily, he knew. But a win was a win. “As to the command structure—”
“Let our admirals work that out. That is why we pay them!”
The president looked around the table. Every last member of his cabinet wore the exact same expression: shocked surprise. Leave it to Oleksiy Ivanov to finally find something they could all agree upon.
“Quentin, not to be rude—I must go for now. I will direct my Security Council chief to talk to your head of the Joint Chiefs, yes? But rest assured: you have the full support of the Russian Confederation and her unparalleled military might.”
Chamberlain forced himself to take a fake drink from his empty water glass. He didn’t care if the others saw. It was something to keep him from speaking too soon, appearing too fawning.
“Very well, President Ivanov. You have the gratitude of the entire UEF,” he said, trying to sound generous but not pompous. “And my personal thanks, Oleksiy.”
“That means so much, Quentin, coming from you. I will go now. To the future! As friends!”
Chapter 11
An Undisclosed Location in Russian Space
Russian President Oleksiy Ivanov switched off the feed. As soon as the camera’s red eye winked out, so did his amiable smile. He sighed and poured himself another vodka. The three he’d had before making the call to Chamberlain had loosened him up some. The trip here had worn him down, as it always did, and the vodka had helped. At least he couldn’t feel the stiffness in his joints anymore, even his lower back. Some people could tolerate multiple, extended jumps through q-space without batting an eyelash. Ivanov wasn’t one of them.
He downed the vodka and exhaled fatigue. The luncheon excuse was an inspired deception on the part of his aide. The call from the UEF president had come in while his ship, Command Point Alpha, was still docking. He could’ve taken the call on board, he supposed, but the doctor’s office with its cushioned chair and built-in Russian oak bookshelves served as more convincing window dressing. With any luck, it looked enough like an office in the Kremlin to fool the gullible amerikanskiy.
Ivanov doubted anyone would look closely enough at the feed to spot Arina Chuchnova’s doctorate in biogenetics hanging on the wall behind him. Chamberlain was likely so happy the Russians were once again a part of his little coalition, he was canceling his National Security Council meeting to change his underwear. Ivanov chortled at that image but only briefly. Before he sat down, he should’ve spotted Chuchnova’s diploma and moved it out of shot before making the call. But he was getting old, as his achy joints reminded him.
Ivanov poured another vodka and raised his glass.
To the future! As friends!
Indeed. A private little joke, that.
Friends.
That’s the word Balasz Soldova kept using to describe their relationship. Or, more accurately, the word his Swarm masters used when speaking through him. Once the research team had identified the right sub-spectrum of meta-space to find the frequency connecting Soldova to the aliens—well, the Russians hadn’t been able to shut them up.
They’d been quite forthcoming about their plans to conquer humanity. Made no attempt to hide them whatsoever. Oh, they’d called them by a different name. Our expression of friendship was one way they put it. Our desire to bring you into our greater cooperative society of species was another, more verbose favorite phrase.
“Our sole goal is to bring mankind into our coalition of civilizations,” Soldova had said in one conversation. “A collection of worlds and peoples coexisting peacefully with one another, each using their particular gifts to benefit the whole.”
We tried Communism once, Ivanov had thought bitterly in response to that. And every third generation or so, Lenin’s ghost returned to haunt Mother Russia in the form of neo-Communists when the status quo was less than satisfying. But it always failed, mired in the morass of its own unsustainable weight, however deeply its tenets might take hold in the moment. So Soldova’s expression of benefiting the whole by working as one couldn’t help but rub Ivanov the wrong way. Still, outwardly he’d smiled and nodded. He knew the pig the Swarm was selling, no matter how they dressed it up. And he knew the trick was letting the salesman believe he’d found a patsy, an easy mark. That kept the power of the negotiation in Oleksiy’s hands.
It was an old lesson, dearly bought, that had served him well his entire political career. When Ivanov was a boy, a man had come to his village selling a bottle of something he called lekarstvo. Sickness had swept through the elders and newborns that winter, and many had died. Young Oleksiy, the eldest son, shouldered three times the work to keep the rest of his family alive because his father too had fallen ill. He loved his father, his mother, his little sister Marina. The boy was only too glad to do the extra work, to be the man of the house and prove himself worthy of his father’s trust.
And then the man had come to town with his lekarstvo, his bottled cure. Oleksiy had begged his father to let him spend the ten rubles to buy it. Old Lady Marinov had bought a bottle, he said, and she was feeling better. Laughing even, and singing. But his father had called the traveler a zhulik, a shyster, and refused his son the rubles.
Oleksiy had begged until he cried. He didn’t want his father to die. And then, when the illness finally took the old man, pustules weeping blood long after his heart had stopped, Oleksiy had cried again, and inconsolably, for days.
Ivanov knew now that his father had been right, of course. The man who’d come to the village with his lekarstvo had been a charlatan, a man selling false hope that tasted exactly like vodka. But false hope had seemed to cure Old Lady Marinov. She actually had gotten better. And if his papa had allowed Oleksiy the ten rubles—a pittance now but a fortune then—perhaps he might have lived too. Even if the lekarstvo was a fake, maybe he would have lived like the old lady had lived. Lived to chase down the shyster and thrash him for taking advantage of old people and desperate parents terrified of burying another child.
That’s what Soldova’s language reminded Oleksiy of now. A traveling salesman with a good pitch that wrapped what you knew to be true in what you hoped could be true: a one-ruble pig wearing a ten-ruble, painted smile.
Friends.
Members of a greater cooperative society of species.
Slaves with velvet shackles.
Ivanov poured another vodka. That was six, now. Or was it seven?
He shrugged. It was the Russian cure for everything, wasn’t it? He made a gritty sound from the back of his throat as the thought made him chuckle again.
The Swarm was an intergalactic snake oil salesman, a magician selling lekarstvo for a disease that didn’t exist. But Oleksiy had learned a valuable lesson as a boy. Always make friends with the magician. That way, you learn how he performs his tricks … and how to avoid being taken in by them.
“Mr. President?”
Dr. Arina Chuchnova’s voice sounded distant.
“President Ivanov?”
He looked up and smiled. She was a beautiful woman. He loved redheads, and that smile she wore all the time now looked so inviting. And Arina had brains sitting atop all that beauty. He stared at her supple body wrapped in a sexy white science coat. He thought of reaching up and so tenderly undoing the knot that held her hair pulled back, of setting her data PADD aside. But as the fantasy moved forward, as he pictured himself on top of her, his lower back began to ache again.
Getting old. There was no lekarstvo for that.
“Yes, Doctor?” He again found the smile he’d worn for the call with Chamberlain.
“Soldova is asking to speak with you, sir.”
“Is he?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. We mustn’t keep him waiting. Who knows what magic he will show us today?”
“Sir?”
Ivanov waved her off as he lifted himself, slowly, from the chair.
“Do you need help, Mr. President?”
He kept the smile in place. “How kind of you to ask. No, I can manage. Let us go and talk with our new friends.”
* * *
As he approached Soldova’s cell, Ivanov marveled at how his comrade’s circumstances had changed. When he’d first met him, Soldova had been cowering in a corner behind the thick, plastic transparent wall that separated them and claiming no knowledge of any Swarm or being their agent. Some judicious application of physical stress—and lack of atmospheric pressure—had awoken the connection.
Now that they were friends, his accommodations were more comfortable. Soldova sat naked in a lounge recliner staring at ancient human vids he never seemed to get enough of.
“Hello, Balasz,” said the Russian president pleasantly. “And what are we watching today?”
“An ancient social experiment,” replied Soldova without looking from the screen. “Something called Three’s Company.”
“Indeed?” Ivanov had no idea what he was talking about. “And is this experiment informative?”
Soldova turned to him, pressing the pause button. “We are learning so much about you, especially about your capacity for deception.” He affected a smile. It reminded Ivanov of the painted pig again. “Oleksiy, why have you committed your military to aid the UEF president?”
Ivanov was nonplussed but tried not to show it. The half a dozen shots of vodka weren’t his friends in that moment. He considered acting ignorant but knew instinctively that was the wrong road. Politics had taught him some invaluable life lessons as well. Truth, first. Then reshape it.
“I have to say, I’m astonished by how quickly you know this,” said Ivanov, injecting his voice with genuine admiration. “I just now completed a call with—”
“Our link provides us with information almost instantaneously,” interrupted Soldova. “When one of us learns something significant, we pass it to the others.”
“Shared consciousness through meta-space?” Ivanov flashed a look at Chuchnova, who was typing on her PADD. That could be downright dangerous, he thought. “How efficient.”
“Indeed. And you have yet to answer my question.” The smile widened, plastered on Soldova’s face. Even through the vodka haze, it made Ivanov uncomfortable.
Time for the reshaping.
“My promise to Chamberlain was a Trojan horse,” said Ivanov.
“A…?”
“A deception. To pretend to agree to help when, really, I have no intention of helping.”
“Ah, you are pretending to be something you’re not,” said Soldova, motioning toward the vidscreen. “Like in the experiment.”
Ivanov shrugged. “I suppose. By promising Chamberlain Russian aid, he will come to rely on it in planning his defenses. And when our ships don’t, in fact, help at all, he will be all the weaker. And you will be the stronger for it.”
“Ah,” said Soldova again, that unnerving smile still firmly in place. “You help us by deceiving him.”
“Exactly.”
Soldova nodded. “I understand. Thank you for explaining, Mr. President.”
Ivanov nodded. “Of course. Was there anything else?” His knees were aching. And that damned expression on Soldova’s face reminded him of a psychotic clown. He needed a drink.
“Not at this time,” said Soldova. “I have more research to do.”
The president inclined his head. “In that case, my trip here was long and I must—”
“But, President Ivanov, understand one thing.” The tone changed. The smile stayed. “Never attempt to deceive us. For I have merely to think a thought….”
Ivanov heard the data PADD clatter to the floor, then saw a blur of motion to his right. He turned quickly to find the point of a data pen pricking his Adam’s apple. Chuchnova had reached her free hand around to grip the back of his neck, and the rubber glove she wore bit at his skin. Her ruby red lips parted, less inviting now. “…and we will find a new friend to lead your people to their better future,” she finished for Soldova.
Ivanov blinked, nodding curtly. Now that was a new magic trick.
He really needed that drink.
Chapter 12
Britannia Sector
Britannia, Continent of Kent
Port Tilbury
Getting out of the Sol System was easy. Getting here, though—that had been challenging. More so than he’d anticipated, and he knew he had the aliens to thank for that. Then again, he had the aliens to thank for his cover, too. Military personnel were flying fast and furious around the UEF, and one more officer flitting among the chaos created little suspicion. Good thing he’d managed to commandeer an officer’s uniform.
To the naked eye, Codeine appeared as one more replacement among many, and all of them headed for their berths aboard the Defense Force warships in orbit above Britannia. A lot of officers and crew alike had died in the battle the day before. And while the Admiralty hadn’t been keen on sending more ships to the
Britannia system to aid in its defense, they’d had plenty of personnel to spare. So here he was, with forged orders to report to the ISS Avenger without delay.
Stepping off the transport onto the wharf at Tilbury, Codeine did his best to blend in. It wasn’t very hard. At that moment, Tilbury was a mixed, murmuring mass of civilian and military personnel, half of them coming and half of them going. The civvies, most trying to carry all their worldly possessions in overstuffed, hastily packed luggage, vied for space on the passenger liners headed—well, anywhere but Britannia. Rumors were rampant that the Swarm would return at any moment to finish the job of obliterating the planet. Mothers huddled with children, and fathers shouldered against one another to get to the front of the line and purchase overpriced luxury liner tickets. A few harsh words here and there could be heard between elbows, but no one complained about the prices for passage off planet.
The incoming crowd, while much smaller, was also more smartly dressed. Codeine stood in a milling line with other IDF personnel, waiting to be ushered onto transports for their final destinations. The uniform he’d procured from the dead lieutenant on Lunar Base stretched snugly along the length of his tall frame. The duffle bag over his shoulder made him look like everyone else, and if anyone inspected it, they’d find the personal effects and spare uniforms once belonging to an earnest, now dead IDF officer. Should they dig more deeply, they’d find the tools of an assassin’s trade wrapped inside the sheep’s clothing of the other.
“Sir?” said a pretty blonde ensign with a PADD in her hand. “Can I scan your assignment?”
Codeine stepped up so her scanner could read the chest insignia he’d also taken off the unfortunate lieutenant. The data encoded in it had originally destined the officer for the ISS Constitution in orbit at Lunar Base. But a little hacking later, and the tall man wearing the slightly tight officer’s uniform was being herded onto the first transport of replacements destined for Churchill Station.
“Where you headed, sir?” she asked.
Legacy Fleet: Avenger (Kindle Worlds) (The First Swarm War Book 2) Page 7
