by Dani Kollin
“I wish I could claim credit. Almost all of it is from the human reality. I edited it some, but not that she would know. It’s amazing how little the humans actually know about their own reality.”
“You mean her family didn’t die like that?’
“Close enough. Her first daughter never made it to that asteroid, blown to pieces in her ship … got one-tenth of the way there. But we have rec ords from some of the assault shuttles that made it. I just put her daughter into an extrapolation of one of those.” Al warmed to his subject, liking this scout who asked questions that let Al show how clever he was. “The second one,” continued Al, “was actually very close to what had happened. The human parent–child pairing did not actually talk that much on the shuttle, but it is pieced together from conversations they had in other locations that were recorded. I figured it would stimulate the human’s emotions to hear how useless and wrong she’d been with regard to her relationships.”
“It worked, sir.”
“Yeah, only too well. The other daughter I have no idea. No data escaped from that ship due to all the jamming and the radiation belt around Jupiter. I just had her rec ords and the plans of the ship. It was sketchy, but it did get the human’s stress level up.”
The scout gave a mawkish grin. “I thought I’d die laughing, sir, when that other ship went right through the wall of the engine room and hit those two idiots. I’m sorry, sir, but I thought you’d switched to comedy.”
“Yeah,” answered Al, chuckling at the memory, “that was funny as hell. But for the human it was just one more experience she couldn’t control.”
“The last one didn’t seem very stressful at all.”
“That’s what I thought too. Her biosystem seemed a little on edge. That should have been a relaxing period. All they really did was talk.”
“It was so unstressful, sir, that if we avatars could actually sleep I just might have.”
“Tell me about it. But then what does the ungrateful human go and do? She dies on me, the bitch. Talk about a useless creation. The only good thing humanity ever did was create avatarity … and they don’t even know they did it!” Al gave his final judgment on the human race before he headed back to the lower Neuro to share his experiences with the Als. “Pathetic.”
14 Deals Made in the Night
Admiral Trang couldn’t say he was overly happy about leaving the front. He’d known that if the UHF had not struck quickly after his conquest of Eros it would’ve been much harder cutting through the 180 and splitting the belt. But even he hadn’t known just how exacting the cost would be.
It had taken over two years and twenty-five million deaths to grind to the infamous wall: a defensive series of asteroids and fortifications fifteen million miles from Altamont. The wall he now faced was so treacherous that it made the millions of miles he’d just torn through seem like child’s play. Trang figured it would take over a year and millions more to get to Altamont, which was now one of the most heavily fortified locations in the solar system.
So far he’d only made one real mistake. It was the one action under his control he would’ve done differently, and it still haunted him. Gupta was the best admiral the UHF had after himself, and Trang knew in his heart that if something happened to him, Gupta could win the war. But Trang had too soon realized that he never should’ve traded back that stygian horror of a woman to get Gupta back.
Christina Sadma had been brilliant and tenacious in defensive maneuvering the likes of which may never have been seen in warfare. She hadn’t fallen for a single one of Trang’s ploys. She’d only attack when the tactical situation called for it and would never, ever lose her temper. For over two years she’d done nothing but retreat and hold, retreat and hold. The desire, the compelling need to try something else, must have been overpowering, but she hadn’t—even though she and Trang knew that in the end she had to lose, that her cause was hopeless.
But the losses were far greater than anything he could’ve imagined. In the early part of the campaign he’d sent in wave after wave of attacks, hoping that the Alliance hadn’t fortified enough. The plan was to expose the weak spots and achieve a breakthrough. That had been an unmitigated disaster, the likes of which had still not really been communicated to the civilian population. It had been a calculated risk and if he’d been right it would’ve ended the war, but he hadn’t been. That whole section of the belt had turned into a veritable death pit. Whenever he prepared a force to invade an untested part of the belt, the Alliance somehow always knew about it and managed to reinforce. And even those places they hadn’t reinforced in time all had populations so skilled in fighting that for every ten soldiers he’d send in he’d be lucky to get back three. Still, his orders had been to take Altamont and split the 180 and there was only one way to do that. Unfortunately, it had proved to be the most costly. But orders were orders.
Trang knew as awful as the war was, and would continue to be, it would soon end. Once enough of the belt had been taken the war would become one of fleet actions again, and the Alliance could not defend all of its outer worlds at once. As bad as the fleet battles of the future would be, one only had to look at the Battle of Jupiter’s Eye to see that they’d be far less costly of life then the grinding campaign in hell he was currently enmeshed in.
Another year, that’s it, he thought, and then we’ll break free of the belt. After that the war should be over in two to three years. He wasn’t sure he could beat J. D. Black in a fair fight. Then again, maybe she’d never really had to fight against an opponent as good as himself. Trang did not equivocate for good or ill. But he had no intention of fighting fair. He’d overwhelm her using forces she could not possibly match. And if he couldn’t fight her in a location he liked, he’d fight wherever destiny directed. The secret to defeating the most feared person in the solar system was no secret at all. It would be with superior numbers and patience, both of which he had an almost infinite supply of.
Even though the cost would be far more than others had calculated, Trang would push it through and win. In his mind he had no choice, because no matter how bad the war had already been, the next one would be worse. The solar system could not be allowed to remain permanently divided. Give the Alliance fifty years and the resources available in the outer belt and the UHF the same amount of development time with its superior population base and all anybody would end up with would be bigger and nastier weapons. The next war would make the current one seem like Little League practice. He had to win it no matter the price.
All this weighed heavily on his mind as a result of having been called away from the 180 to hold hands with the President. Trang couldn’t really complain about Hektor Sambianco. The man had not only saved Trang’s career, he also seemed to understand what was at stake better than any other person in the UHF, with the possible exception of Justin Cord’s former wife. And given the conversations Trang had had with both, it was hard to see who was more passionate about winning the war. Trang thought back on a conversation he’d only recently had with his Chief of Staff.
“You do realize, sir, that she’s having an affair with the President.”
Trang and his number two, Commodore Zenobia Jackson, were at their daily breakfast briefing. They were in his cabin, sitting down to a simple breakfast of coffee, bagels, and some squeezetube fruit. His crew had tried giving him fresh fruit for breakfast once. The resulting tirade was still legendary. He’d called his quartermaster in and asked him if a private fighting at Anderson’s Farm or a corporal defending the Vlasov ice fields was getting a fresh orange or even an actual apple for breakfast that day. When the quartermaster answered in the negative Trang had said, “When every private in every one of my units gets a fresh orange for breakfast, you can give me one as well.” After that, even in the worst hellhole a private could say, “I’m eating like an admiral.”
“Neela Harper’s the woman who saved my job,” said Trang, “and I think of her as a friend—as much as a headshrinker can be, anyway
s.”
“Hey,” answered Zenobia, “I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I think it’s actually kind of romantic.”
“Zenobia, they are not having an affair.” But then a moment later he couldn’t resist. “What makes you say that?”
Trang watched his normally taciturn Chief of Staff drop her guard, lean forward, and slyly start counting reasons on her fingers. “First, she and the President are often alone together. Second, they seem to share a lot of the same views. Third, he seems to trust her implicitly, a trust that developed quickly, if you know what I mean. Fourth, just look at them; you’ve got to admit they make a good couple. I kind of want them to be having an affair. The President is so driven it would be nice to think of him loosening up and having some fun.”
Trang couldn’t help bursting out in laughter. “Zenobia Jackson, I had no idea you were such a gossip. Do you realize that everything you’re saying could apply to us? It’s not like people are saying we’re having an affair.”
Zenobia’s lips drew back in coarse delight. “Well, sir …”
Trang was shocked. “But I’m married!”
“And me,” mocked Zenobia, “such an impressionable young, innocent thing.”
Trang laughed again. “You’re about as impressionable as blast armor and innocent as a proximity mine. But don’t you see this disproves your rumor?”
“What does?”
“Zenobia, are we having an affair?”
“Of course not.”
“Then give our commander in chief some benefit of the doubt; he has enough trouble without dealing with rumors like that.”
At the moment Trang could care less who slept with whom. The President understood what was needed to win the war and backed Trang. That was all that mattered. It did occur to him that the President may have called him back to give him the sack, but he doubted it. Trang knew that Hektor knew there was no one better. But if it happened it happened. He was the commander in chief after all.
Trang got a call to be in the President’s office at 11:57. President Sambianco didn’t like his time wasted and so rarely wasted that of others if he could help it. Trang had spent the morning with Gupta reviewing the rebuilding of the Martian fleet. What had happened was a truly terrible blow. How could Tully have been such an idiot, and so consistently? Gupta had told Trang after the fatal Battle of Jupiter’s Eye that he’d been hoping that Tully might stumble into the right thing to do. Statistically it should have happened at least once. To be fair, Tully had managed to chew up the Alliance fleet pretty bad, but they still had a fleet, which was more than could be said for the UHF. With Tully’s death, Trang had been made Grand Admiral and he’d immediately put Gupta back in charge. Trang gave him thirty of his best ships with his most experienced crews from the Battle of Mercury to act as the kernel of a new fleet. But both knew it would take at least three hundred well-trained and coordinated ships and crews to have another chance against J. D. Black. Trang very much doubted she’d attack Mars, not after what she’d gone through at the second Battle of the Martian Gates, but she could still cause lots of trouble and her fleet would be repaired and combat ready long before the Mars fleet ever was.
Trang and Gupta had spent all day in Fleet HQ going over the real problem. Ships they had or at least could get more of. But what was really killing them was a lack of trained personnel. J. D. Black had the best-trained and most experienced crews in the system and had not been afraid to use them. Trang’s fleet at the 180 was good and the crews were also trained and experienced, but there was simply no way to help one without hurting the other. Gupta and Trang spent the morning debating which evil to implement. Gupta could keep together the thirty ships and crews Trang had given him and use those ships to act as a reliable core while building the fleet with raw recruits around it. Or he could break the crews up and disperse them among the new ships being launched out of the Luna shipyards. They’d both agreed that that solution would be fairly traumatic for a crew who had fought and lived together for as long as the crews on the thirty ships had—not to mention hard on morale. But if those crews were reassigned to the other ships it would speed the leavening of the new crews considerably. However, should those crews be called up to fight, Gupta would be going into battle having new ships but few, if any, crews he could really count on.
Although he was Gupta’s superior officer, Trang didn’t order him to do anything. It was Gupta’s command and the choice would be his. They simply spent the morning going over the options, including ship assignments if the breakup was to be ordered. It was the type of work that involved detailed knowledge of each ship and crew while also requiring the patience to weigh each attribute to the situation. Both officers worked until Trang had to take the shuttle down to the surface of Mars. He’d have preferred the meeting in the one-g environment of Fleet Command, not liking the lower gravity on Mars, but there was only so much a Grand Admiral could do.
He floated into the city of Burroughs and was amazed at how much it had grown in so short a period of time. The capital of the UHF had transformed itself from a sleepy provincial capital interested in tourism and basic agriculture into a city of over twenty million with the weight of the entire solar system riding on its shoulders. It wasn’t a pretty city, having grown so large in little less than three years, but it was the center of power. The shuttle came in for a landing and after a security check and a personal scan Trang was escorted to the President’s office. As Trang came into the reception area the secretary waved him toward the open door. He entered the presidential office without ever breaking stride. Eleven fifty-seven a.m. exactly.
The President was waiting for him—alone. Trang was surprised not to see Neela Harper. Maybe, thought Trang, a part of him had wanted the rumor to be true as well.
“Mr. President,” Trang said as he saluted precisely.
“Welcome, Grand Admiral,” said the President, returning the salute in a manner anything but precise. Then he smiled and gave Trang a formal bow. “How you doing, Sam?”
“Fine, Mr. President. I hope all is well with you.”
The President went to the bar and prepared vodka poured through crushed ice for himself and a Kentucky bourbon called Old Forester for Trang. “Could be better, Sam.” He handed Trang his drink and they sat opposite each other across the coffee table. “You can call me Hektor, you know.”
“Only if you make it an order, Mr. President.”
“Stupid thing to waste an order on, if you ask me.”
“I agree, Mr. President.”
“How’s the bourbon?”
“A lot better then the crap my father-in-law let me sell. The bastard always gave me lower end, saying I’d drive him out of business if he let me sell anything worth drinking.”
“Isn’t he the one now putting your face on his own brand of whiskey?”
“That’s the one. Calls it Trang’s Hellwater.”
“Sue the bastard,” said the President. “I can get you a great lawyer.”
Trang laughed. “He’s my father-in-law and my wife sacrificed a lot when she married me. I wasn’t a great prospect. But if I could ask one favor, sir.”
“Of course. What is it?”
“He’s supposed to be paying the royalty that would normally be going to me to a fund called In Aid of Victims of the War, IAVW for short.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” said Hektor. “Our justice department checked it out on a fraudulent war charities charge; completely groundless. So you’re not sure your father-in-law is donating your royalty. It should be a simple investigation.”
“I don’t want it to come to an investigation. If it came out that my own father-in-law was defaulting a contract to cheat a war charity …” Trang left it hanging. “I’m sorry to bother you with something so petty when you have real problems, sir; forget I brought it up.”
“Sam, your problems are not petty. You have to win this war for us and I will not have you distracted by a man not worthy to shine your boots. I promise
you I’ll take care of this.” The President smiled at the only officer in the war he’d actually come to like. “It is OK if we kill him?”
Trang saw right away that the President was joking, but he couldn’t help smiling at the idea. “Well, I suppose if it’s not a p.d…. on second thought, better not.”
Hektor smiled, nodding, then looked quizzically at Trang. “You know what I don’t get about you?”
“Sir?” said Trang, confused with the direction of the conversation.
“Why are you so different from every other officer who comes in here?”
Trang shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes remained keen.
“I’ve had admirals demand more ships, and more men,” the President continued. “One complained that he needed a new title and a few wanted my help in the corporate world to get rid of some of their subordinates. They complained about everything and of course nothing was their fault. Do you know that you have never officially complained about any of your assignments? I checked, Sam, not once.”
Trang chuckled. “Sir, it’s my job to make do with what you can give me. You can’t give me what you don’t have and I know you want to win the war as much as I do, so you’re not going to hold back anything unless you have a damned good reason. So my reasoning is why pester you over things you’re already doing? As for a new title, the one I have is foolish enough, thank you; Grand Admiral, my ass. As for my officers,” Trang’s entire demeanor changed into the battle admiral with not an ounce of mercy, “if one of them is too incompetent to fight and too stupid to realize it there are ways to alleviate the fleet of that burden before they get too many of our people killed.”
As he said this he looked right in the President’s eyes. Trang knew his President understood his meaning and did not flinch from it. He may have been the admiral who’d flung twenty-five million people to their deaths, but the President was the man who’d ordered Trang to do so and had supplied the bodies.
