The Borrega Test

by James Vincett

  The assembled officers stood and clapped. McFinn basked in the attention for several moments. “Does anyone have any questions?”

  Admiral Tor spoke. “Captain, what if the negotiations with the Tolkist faction fail?”

  “The negotiations will not fail, but if such an unlikely event happens, it will be the Imperial Navy’s duty to ensure the civil conflict in the Naati Hegemony does not spill over into the Union. We will just let them work things out for themselves. The Fifth Fleet is currently planning for this.”

  McFinn stepped off the lift onto the lower deck of the Crius. Arrington had already arrived. Two Marines, in fatigues and holding ion rifles, stood guard at the entrance to the ship’s holding cells.

  “I got your summons, Your Excellency.” McFinn said.

  “There is something you should see,” Arrington said, her mouth set in a straight line.

  “All right.”

  Arrington looked at the Marines, one pressed a switch and the door slid open. She led McFinn down a narrow corridor, the doors to small holding cells on either side. At the end of the corridor was a larger holding cell, the wall completely transparent. Another man, dressed in a white smock, stood beside the cell. He nodded. “Your Excellency.”

  “Captain McFinn?” Arrington said, “This is Dr. Krix. He is a specialist in Naati psychology and physiology.”

  McFinn shook Krix’s hand then looked into the holding cell. “The defector!”

  “We moved it off the fast courier after the welcoming ceremony. Of course, we do not want the rest of the crew to know.”

  The creature lay on its side on a long power stretcher. It looked emaciated; its once powerful chest and limbs shrunken and thin. An IV line fed into the creature’s arm, and medical equipment mounted underneath the stretcher monitored the alien’s vital signs. McFinn noticed sores and scabs on the alien’s body, its once dark hair streaked with gray and white. It looked like most of the spines and hair once on the creature’s back had fallen out.

  McFinn almost felt sorry for it. “Is it sick?”

  “Naati are pack animals,” Dr. Krix said. “They must be exposed to the pheromones secreted by other members of the pack. If not, they eventually suffer from various maladies, including cellular degeneration. Death is inevitable.”

  “This is Arch-Commander Noga of the Jureen Primary Bloodline,” Arrington said. “The upcoming negotiations with the Naati. None of the information it has given us has been confirmed independently.”

  “None of it?” McFinn asked.

  “None. I am telling you this to emphasize the precariousness of our position. We are relying on information from a known enemy, and an unknown, the Borregans. We must also take the information provided by both at face value. There is no way we can independently confirm it. Under normal circumstances, low-level diplomats would meet and set the stage for the upcoming negotiations. This has not taken place.”

  McFinn felt a hollowness form in his stomach. “We’re going in blind.”

  “Yes. However, we can draw some conclusions. Noga obviously willingly sacrificed itself to defect and bring us this information. It is motivated, and probably wants to see the negotiations take place.”

  “For all we know, it could have been forced to do so,” McFinn said.

  “I don’t think so,” Arrington replied. “I think its biggest motivation is fear.”

  “Fear? Of what?”

  “The Reactionary Faction. However, it would not tell me why. It has a message for you, Captain.” Arrington looked at Dr. Krix. “Wake it up.”

  McFinn’s mind reeled. “How could it even know me?”

  Krix touched his tablet, and after a few moments, the Naati’s eyelids flickered and opened. McFinn saw that its once red eyes looked clouded.

  “Speak to it,” Arrington said.

  McFinn didn’t even know how to begin such a conversation. “Arch-Commander Noga. I am Captain Joshua McFinn. Do you have a message for me?”

  The Naati raised its head a little. It spoke, the creature’s whines coarse and soft. McFinn’s pockcomp translated.

  “Commander McFinn?”

  “Yes. How do you know me?”

  The creature’s voice sounded like gravel inside a barrel. “The Anuvi Abominations.” It coughed. “They seek all those who were on the Anuvi Artifact.”

  Images of the Naati boarding action filled McFinn’s mind. In his memory, he saw the strange, pale Naati, and the vision he saw on the Coch’s command deck.

  The Naati wheezed. “You saw the power there.”

  “Yes.” His memory flooded with images of Trik’s hand-to-hand combat with the Naati, Bacchus Freedman setting his sister Demeter on the Throne, the visions that engulfed them all as Demeter woke.

  “The Abominations are there, on Borrega, now. Digging.”

  “Digging? Digging for what?”

  The Naati said something, but the translator didn’t quite hear it.

  “Digging for what?”

  “The Enemy,” it said with a whimper.

  What enemy?

  He realized he was the last witness alive, with Cavanagh and the Freedman siblings dead. Cavanagh had ordered the others, Bandele, Beckenbaur, Dundas, Fuchs and Ferrel, to the surface. Trik, Baez, Gibbons, Guthrie, and Albrecht had all died defending against the final Naati assault.

  Then he saw it in his memory, clear as day, Demeter floating above the alien throne, the holographic sigils swirling around her.

  “Look up!” McFinn said; he held Cavanagh in his arms.

  The holographic image of moon zoomed into the tower, then along one of the steep-sided valleys meters above a dry riverbed, then out over the great northern ice-sheet. The view dove into the ice and then into the rock of the moon, down into the glowing mantle and thence to the powerful core of the world.

  The image immediately zoomed outward through the moon, out into the atmosphere, streaking by the spacecraft locked in vicious battle, whizzing past the purple sphere of Anuvi III and toward the yellow star at the center of the system.

  “It’s beautiful!” Cavanagh cried.

  The multi-colored holograms faded away; a yellow glow suffused the entire chamber. A concordant music filled the air, the symphony of the star. Sheets of yellow and white plasma whirled around the chamber to the music, caressing the figure of the gaunt woman floating above the great throne.

  Just as quickly, the star shrank, and the chamber filled with the darkness and silence of space, until the star shrunk to just a small point of light in the center of the chamber.

  “DEMETER!” Freedman cried. He held up his arms. The multi-colored holograms returned, whizzing from the curved walls of the spherical chamber, dancing in the air around the floating figure above the throne.

  MY BELOVED BROTHER

  The voice boomed in McFinn’s mind.

  GRIEVE NO LONGER; YOU HAVE SET ME FREE

  “We are still in danger!” Freedman cried. “You must destroy the enemy!”

  The huge holographic image zoomed in past the purple sphere and back to the moon. There, McFinn saw the ships locked in battle in orbit above the tower. The image zoomed into one of the Naati spacecraft, and McFinn saw Naati standing in the trenches on the command deck, a few others standing above them, growling and barking orders.

  WHAT HAVE THEY DONE?

  “They will kill us all!” Freedman cried.

  The image zoomed to the image of a Naati, standing naked on the command deck of the spacecraft. It zoomed into the Naati’s brain, the shape of a pear on its side, split into two lobes and creased like a walnut. The image zoomed into the frontal cortex, then into a spider-like cell, then into the cord-like nucleus, the ropy chromosomes, and the double helix of the creature’s DNA. The base pairs lit up in sequence.

  THEY, TOO, ARE SERVITORS, AS WE ARE

  “You must destroy them! They are the enemy!”

  NO; THE ENEMY IS NOT HERE; THE CHOSEN ARE SEARCHING FOR THEM

  Freedman let out a scream
of anguish. “HAVE YOU GONE MAD!?”

  YOU WILL COME WITH ME, BROTHER; WE WILL SEEK THE CHOSEN

  The enemy of the Harbingers; that is what the Naati was trying to tell him. Given the Harbingers’ power, McFinn couldn’t even begin to imagine what their enemies could be like. A cold fear settled on his heart. This was the fear driving the Tolkist faction to seek an alliance with the Hominin Union.

  “Did you tell this to the Intelligence Directorate?”

  “Yes,” it sighed. Its eyelids fluttered and closed. A tone sounded and the screens of the medical equipment attached to the power stretcher flat lined. As Krix entered the cell, McFinn turned away, the memories filling his consciousness.

  “Did you know about this?” McFinn asked Arrington.

  “No.”

  “If Noga told the Directorate, why didn’t the Directorate tell us?”

  “I don’t know, Captain, and this is just one more complication.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Arrington lowered her voice. “The Union is weakening, Captain. The Senate Worlds exploited Consul Nicolas’ weak rule for their own benefit at the expense of the Union. Rebellion is bubbling on several Imperial worlds in the Justified Conquest and the Frontiers. Her Majesty ascended the Throne one of the weakest Consuls in the history of the Union, and she needs to demonstrate her power as an example. If she can do this, convincingly, she can reassert her will.”

  Arrington paused and looked straight into McFinn’s eyes. “Listen and understand, Captain. If the negotiations on Borrega fail, Her Majesty will nevertheless order the Imperial Navy to bring Borrega within the fold.”

  McFinn felt like she had slapped him. “What?”

  “If we succeed in our negotiations with the Tolkist faction, Her Majesty will annex Borrega peacefully. The Union will then ally with the Tolkists to defeat the Reactionaries. We can then forge a lasting peace with the Naati. If the negotiations fail, she will annex Borrega by force, ostensibly to protect the Human inhabitants of that world.”

  “That would mean war with the Naati!”

  “That’s right, the Naati that are on the brink of a civil war.”

  “How do you know this?” A hard ball of anger formed in McFinn’s stomach.

  “Her Majesty told me.”

  McFinn’s mind reeled. “And you still agreed to the negotiations?”

  “We are all Her Majesty’s creatures, Captain. When the Consul tells you to do something, you do it, or she sends someone else. In her view the entire Union is at stake.”

  “If she’s so afraid, why doesn’t she just move against the Senate Worlds and the Imperial worlds in rebellion?”

  “Any crackdown would make her look like a tyrant and further the resolve of her enemies in the Union. In Her Majesty’s estimation, this brewing civil war in the Hegemony is easier to exploit. A peace treaty with the Naati would increase her prestige. Alternatively, a military victory over the Naati would serve as a powerful example to any considering rebellion. Either outcome would remove a longstanding threat to the Union; Her Majesty could then cover herself in glory, distribute the spoils, and consolidate her power.”

  “She lied to me. She said she wanted peace!” McFinn leaned against the wall with his head in his hands. “Why the ruse? Why not just attack? Why negotiate in bad faith?”

  “Because if the negotiations fail Her Majesty can blame the Naati.”

  McFinn felt sick. “Why are you telling me this? Surely she must have known you would?”

  Arrington sighed. “You’re a dog on a leash, Captain, a symbol of the Imperial Navy’s power. I’m the carrot and you’re the stick. She stroked your ego and charmed you. It doesn’t matter if you know the truth; if you pull out now you only disgrace yourself.”

  All of the idealism McFinn felt about the whole situation evaporated in an instant.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Arrington said. “You want to quit and run away, but this will happen with or without us. There is still some hope; if we can succeed in allying with the Tolkist faction, cooler heads may yet prevail. War can be averted, but only if we succeed in forging this alliance. Our ultimate goal here is to save lives. The negotiations must succeed. You now know what’s at stake.”

  McFinn found himself thinking about his Quonset hut on Turrentine; about taking his dogs out for a run; about climbing the glaciers.

  However, fate always had a different plan.

  Pederson

  We met in your lair last time. Next, we meet in mine.

  That was the entire message, but Pederson understood both the intent and the sender, so he boarded a shuttle to make the short trip from the Moon to Earth. He pulled out his tablet to review the latest information on his boss, Minister for Intelligence Robert McFinn.

  Pederson had set up a variety of spiders, worms, snakes and other automated vermin of varying intelligence to crawl Sol system’s communications and computer networks for anything interesting about Robert McFinn. Of course, the press releases, public documents and other public information released by the Crown or the Senate often mentioned Robert McFinn, but to Pederson all of that was meaningless.

  The financial information was far more interesting.

  Over the last decade, Robert McFinn had made sizable investments, public and private, in logistics, starship and vehicle manufacturing, industrial robotics, civil and military construction, terraforming and colonization, power systems, and military hardware.

  He has rigged the game and is placing his bets.

  His movements were less interesting. The man almost never left Earth, and when he did, it was only to visit Von Kármán Station in an official or ceremonial capacity. The Consul traveled more widely than her Minister for Intelligence did, and McFinn never accompanied Her Majesty when she left Sol System. As far as Pederson could tell, McFinn only traveled between his comfortable nest located in North America, Her Majesty’s palace in Montchauvet, Europe, and the city of Singapore, where the Senate met, with a few trips to the city of Lagos to consult with the Imperial bureaucracy.

  The man also never seemed to form any romantic or sexual attachments. Pederson’s computer minions found no information about romantic partners, one-night stands, or other sexual escapades.

  Makes it hard to blackmail the man.

  Pederson tapped the tablet and brought up satellite and surveillance images of McFinn’s residence in western North America. The man almost never received any visitors; the only comings and goings were his small support staff or the servants he employed. The place was located in a remote and isolated area of the North America Imperial Preservation District; Her Majesty herself had granted him permission to build a residence there.

  Pederson did not dare try to access McFinn’s official or personal correspondence: the encryption and trace safeguards were too powerful. Likewise, actual physical surveillance by drones or even agents was also dangerous, so Pederson had to content himself with what he could cull from the network.

  Finally, it seemed McFinn did not have a personal relationship with his son, Joshua, and never contacted his ex-wife, Jane. All appearances indicated Robert McFinn cared for little beyond his job and his money.

  Somewhat disappointing, really.

  The shuttle landed on a small and elevated pad. It was dark, and clouds obscured the Moon, stars, and orbital infrastructure visible from the surface. A driver and a vehicle waited for him, and the driver remained silent during the fifteen-minute drive to the residence. The building itself loomed tall in the darkness, and the car pulled in under the structure between several large pillars.

  When he got out of the vehicle, he heard water, and shivered in the slight chill. The driver wordlessly picked up Pederson’s bag and escorted him to an apartment with large windows. Feeling tired, Pederson laid down on the large, comfortable bed without removing his clothes and promptly fell asleep.

  Pederson stood on a large patio, the floor covered with fine blue slate tile. The rail looked to be made of teak
, as did the furniture. He stepped to the edge and looked over; the structure towered over the surrounding landscape. A stream of white water tumbled down from between a pair of pyramidal mountains just a kilometer distant and flowed underneath the structure. Snow covered the peaks, gray rock covered the shoulders of the mountains, and evergreens covered the lower slopes and the steep walls of the rough and rocky gorge, filling the cool air with scent. Birds chirped and flew by, and Pederson caught sight of animals in among the trees below.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it, Lars?” Pederson turned to see Robert McFinn, Minister for Intelligence, step onto the patio. The Minister wore a loose-fitting blue robe over a white shirt. He didn’t look a day older than the last time they met in person, almost ten years ago.

  “Yes, it is.”

  McFinn stepped to the rail and leaned on it. “Did you sleep well?”

  “No. Too noisy.” Pederson lied and gestured to the stream.

  McFinn laughed. “You were born in space, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what is it with those crumpled suits you GID guys wear? Why didn’t you wear the robe in your room? You look like a waiter!”

  Pederson just shrugged.

  Several servants appeared and placed a tablecloth and several platters and dishes on the large wooden table. Pederson smelled food and his stomach grumbled.

  “Let’s have some breakfast,” McFinn said and gestured to the table. He dismissed the servants and poured two cups of coffee. “Help yourself.”

  Pederson filled his plate and ate. The food was delicious, and the coffee excellent.

  They ate in silence for several minutes, and then McFinn spoke. “To the right is Wheeler Peak and to the left is Baker Peak. We are in the northeast corner of what was once the state of Nevada, in the now defunct United States of America. The North American Imperial Preservation District covers a large portion of the continent, from the Mississippi River west to the Sierra Nevada, and from thirty degrees latitude north to sixty degrees.”