Lord Banshee Lunatic (Nightmare Wars Book 3)

by Russell Redman

  “The Mao is heavily damaged but it doesn’t matter as much as I initially feared. We have been able to salvage the drive, reactors, and most of the control system. The hull is largely intact, although weaker in a few places than would be acceptable for combat operations. Those can be patched with new sheets of layered armour. The crew quarters are largely intact because we contained the damage before it became catastrophic. For that, we have you Banshees to thank. Inside the weapon bays, everything has been stripped out. The front of the ship is an empty shell.

  “Fortunately, we have a replacement battleship that just finished construction and is scheduled to start operational trials within the next week. With a replacement ship ready to go, there is no priority in finishing the repairs to the Mao.

  “You saw the images of the Hammerhead as it arrived at the Moon. You will be amused in a sickening way that the new battleship will have black splotches painted on the outer hull, as though the glue bugs were an aesthetic touch. The ostensible reason is that it is a recruiting decision; the splotches resemble the camouflage used on heavy equipment in the ground-based forces. They lend a uniformity to the external appearance that is visually pleasing on a recruiting poster. Of course, for combat operations in space, we would prefer a shiny coating like the pirates used but recruits usually don’t realize that.

  “Even the Hammerhead has a lot of salvageable parts. One reactor was ruined beyond repair, but the drive is intact. The plasma conduits that fed power to the drive were badly damaged, which is why the drive power dropped so precipitously, but they can be replaced without much effort. The crew quarters are a mess, but they are standard modules that would be replaced every five years in any case. Most of the hull is intact if a little pockmarked from the acid bugs. The meteor shield was destroyed while we were braking, as were all the laser pods and the front row of missile racks on one side, but the back row just needs a standard update kit. Again, the ruined parts were all standard components. If we wanted a puny little half-assed fast attack ship with a single row of missiles, we could slap in a few replacement modules, and stick on a new laser module and meteor shield. We could have it in operation within the month. Of course, the intention is to save the money and scrap it as soon as we have time.”

  He paused for a moment, so I filled the gap.

  Me/converse, “Wow. Glue bugs as a paint scheme. I will bet the deliberate paint splotches look better.”

  He continued, “You will have been one of the few people to see the inside of a battleship. We just introduced them six years ago and won’t be building more. Forward Command wants us to become their rapid reaction force. The fast attack ships have demonstrated their superiority in that role. I will accept that proposal only if a substantial force remains near the Earth with a mandate to protect shipping, innocent travel, and responsible government throughout near-Earth space, free from control by either Viceroy. We don’t yet know if that proposal will be approved.

  “Marcus was spearheading that effort, so his assassination was a real blow. I have not heard of any substantial progress since then. The assassin seems to have been extremely well prepared and may have been using the facilities of the Lunar Government, which is very troubling. Fortunately, several of our former senior staff have been able to return to duty and are willing to pick up the cause.”

  Me/converse, “If the ships are a mess, what about the crews? The crew of the Hammerhead were in terrible condition.”

  Wang/converse, “The crew of the Hammerhead who came with Thieu to the Moon are better off by far than the ones we left behind. A successful mission under competent leadership did wonders for their morale. It also helps that they are receiving therapy on the Moon. The earth stations are apparently quite depressing these days. The reports say that the TDF sections are like prisons with offices used as living space.

  “Overall, things are not good. We are short of crew in every capacity. Almost everyone near the earth stations was traumatized to some extent. The survivors of the Manilla Bay will require years of help. Most are going to have to be pensioned off because their terms of service will expire before they recover. Several other ships were as badly affected, although they did not have hysterical captains trying to blow them up. Here on the Moon, our counsellors are severely overworked. I doubt I can justify two counsellors for San Diego and Thieu much longer. We have put out an appeal to the spacer community for volunteers but it won’t surprise you that the response has been disappointing.

  “The sad part is that many of the traumatized people are perfectly capable of running the ship. They are just too frightened to go aboard, or refuse to fight any longer, or have confused loyalties. In many ways, the latter is the worst. Even I cannot tell them clearly who our enemy is now since they would be working for the people we all thought were the enemy. With such a total reversal of our external loyalties, I don’t even know how to begin a recruiting campaign.

  “Nor are we allowed to try until the situation stabilizes. Viceroy Wolong is openly hostile to continued recruitment from the Earth, which supplied ninety-five percent of our candidates.”

  Me/converse, “That will require some careful thought. Working with the enemy is almost the story of my life and it is only recently that I’ve learned how to do it without killing too many innocent people.

  “I know it has only been a few days, but could you update me on the situation at LUVN? Hospitals and medical treatments occupy more of my dreams now than they did a few weeks ago.”

  Wang/converse, “No doubt. Mine, too, in the few hours I get to sleep. I would summarize LUVN as the blazing heart of a political, military and cultural maelstrom. The military aspects are perhaps the easiest. The Imperium exerts loose control over a cordon of warships from variously six to ten different factions that all claim to be protecting LUVN. It changes every day as ships join and leave for reasons that I only hear about if someone bothers to inform our captains in the cordon. For the moment, they are not firing on LUVN and usually allow the few supply ships that are still moving to enter and leave unmolested.

  “However, there is no agreement amongst the factions in that cordon about who owns the facility or who should benefit first from its products. There have been three episodes already where ships have fired missiles or rail guns at each other. In one of them, the aggressor directly threatened to destroy the facility. Everyone else fired lasers and rail guns at that ship, disabled it, and sent teams to arrest the crew, but they couldn’t agree on who should make the arrest. That gave the crew enough time to patch up the drive. It escaped LUVN and is limping through the L1 complex with nowhere to turn for repairs or resupply.

  “And remember, that is the easy part.

  “I don’t even want to consider the political situation, although the creation of an Imperial Directorate of Commerce might allow them to register as an Imperial company outside the ownership of any one faction. Not my job, thank goodness.

  “As for LUVN itself, they are desperately short of labour. Some people were in transit when the Imperium arrived and are stranded now at various stations within L1. They have about half the facility still functioning, with the rest on a form of agricultural life support. They still hope to have a partial batch of meds ready in another month. That was intended to be the first full commercial shipment to Mars, three times more than the batch the pirates stole. They had contracted to ship it on the liner Ojalto.

  “Even the full batch would have filled only half the hold of a standard freighter, but its value would exceed the content of two fully loaded ore carriers coming from the Belt. None of the partners had thought through the security aspects of shipping. Can you imagine packing that kind of wealth on a liner? No one else would dare to board the ship.

  “I wish we could solve their labour problems by sending the Oxaquino sisters as guards. They are another maelstrom in themselves. LUVN management tried to fire them, but couldn’t because of the legal and corporate chaos. Now they seem to want to promote them. They have apparently
turned their personal lives around and are proving effective organizers and campaigners for their colleagues, most of whom have grudgingly accepted their leadership.

  “Evgenia tells me the Lunar lawyers are going mad trying to keep up with them. They are both under their own legal cloud but have managed to get several of their coworkers cleared of all charges without having a legal system capable of doing it.

  “As a measure of their new stature, there have been two attempts to kill them. One was organized by a pair of their coworkers who are now under suspicion of even worse crimes as lieutenants of Supervisor Rouseth.

  “If they were TDF, I would pack the pair of them into a missile and send them to Mars. They would either turn it into a verdant paradise or molten slag, fifty/fifty either way.”

  I tried to absorb all of that.

  Me/converse, “Wow again. Huge value, small package, needs heavy firepower to protect each shipment as it moves anywhere. What were they thinking of? They might want to purchase a FAS of their own, or rather a whole fleet if they are going to be making regular shipments.

  “I wish the Oxaquino sisters well and agree they should be sent back to LUVN as soon as possible. If the charges against them are not too serious, perhaps they could be held there pending trial, with a requirement for good behaviour as part of their mandated therapy. I bet they will need a full-time therapist at LUVN until the crisis blows over, and not just for them.

  “I wish my own behaviour could be managed so easily. Sir, I should inform you that I’ve been invited to a lunch meeting with the Political Officers from Syrtis and Qinghai Mining who were on the Lansdorf. It will be in Prosperity Square. I will be accompanied by Commander Sa’id. We have been working out details of my disguise and routes that we could take between here and there.”

  He was quiet for a moment, but was visibly shocked and was struggling to find suitable words.

  Wang/converse, “That is recklessly dangerous. The Banshees are unanimous that you must not take additional risks. They won’t tell me why except in vague generalities about critical secrets, but they insist that if you die prematurely it will trigger a horrendous catastrophe. Cap Thieu is particularly eloquent, but right now I’m not sure how seriously to take her fears. She has been mixing sexual, personal, social, political and military concerns indiscriminately since she returned from Valhalla. Personally, and I hope you don’t take more offence than I intend, I think my life would be much simpler without you. Why are you meeting with people who have every reason to execute you on the spot, not to mention the risk of targeted assassinations in the hallways?”

  Me/converse, “There is an even greater risk to everyone if I disappear into the Moon for too long. I will try to produce a report giving several scenarios involving my premature death that we have considered, which I hope will explain the problem. Besides, I’m trying to use the poloffs to accomplish my own goals. The whole Mission involves risks that must be managed and survived prior to the trial. I desperately need information about people and events in the Belt who I have almost completely neglected up to now. Their attitudes and reactions tell me more than any number of economic reports.

  “Have you received the slideshows with translated captions that Orderly Nasruddin, I mean Commander Sa’id, found?”

  Wang/converse, “I will wait impatiently for your report. I need to know enough about this mysterious threat to judge what we might do to avert it. In addition to the near-war around LUVN and trying to merge our two services without leaving the Earth and Moon defenceless, the Imperial Director of Security has been making demands that I hand over the Ghost, Sultan Mustafa, and several dozen other war criminals from the Incursion. The images they have are old, but some of them are unmistakably you in your former personae. Yet with so many criminals in the list, you cannot be all of them. Can you?”

  Me/converse, “I was pretty busy on Mars. I deliberately created confusion about which attacks I did personally, which ones I ordered others to do, and which ones happened without my knowledge. I don’t remember hearing about the Sultan Mustafa until recently but I would have to look at the others to see which atrocities they have in mind.”

  Wang/converse, “You are impossible! I’m sorry I told you anything! What sin did I commit in a former life to be reborn at the same time as you?”

  Me/converse, “I don’t know Sir, but it might have involved vengeful fairies. Did you get the slideshows?”

  Wang/converse, “I did but have not had time to view them. Why should I waste my time on tourist images?”

  Me/converse, “Because, Sir, the captions give a pocket history of the Incursion from a Belter perspective, naming heroes and battles that were fought in places I never knew were significant. The wars started earlier than any of us realized. I couldn’t date all the events they mention but one of the images showed a ruined building on Mars that I know had been rebuilt before I started university. Some of the battlegrounds are on the Earth and the Moon, years and even decades before the Incursion. There is one that happened just five years ago, in a place that I recognize from one of our cases in CI. One slide set is from Syrtis, the other from Qinghai Mining. I would dearly like to learn more, but I doubt I will have time to read a whole book. Lunar officials working with the Imperial military might want to explore these issues in far more depth that you or I would ever need to know.”

  Wang/converse, “So, not just pretty pictures. I will look at them over lunch today. Damn, it is hard to like you and hard to hate you, in equal measures. Your plan to make a big confession is pure insanity and is guaranteed to fail, no matter how much faith the Banshees have in you. Yet, I admire the selfless courage you show in trying to carry it through. I’m going to take a few moments to give Commander Sa’id a severe reprimand for setting up this meeting and to demand that Surgeon MacFinn explain what he thought he was doing in saving your life. Then, I suppose I will go and pretend that my lunch meeting with the Senior Captains is a suitable setting for travel photos. I think I will invite Cap Thieu if her counsellors will permit her to attend.”

  I began to understand Wang’s complaint about being left out of a comm argument as I watched anger, fear, determination and self-righteous indignation running across the faces of Wang, Nasruddin, and MacFinn. I could guess what they were saying and longed to defend my two guardians but dared not intervene.

  After we broke for lunch, I had a long, difficult discussion with MacFinn and Nasruddin about our lunch meeting with the poloffs. Like Wang, MacFinn was horrified at the risk, pointing out that I was already maxed out on my meds. Even minor injuries would leave scars that could not be repaired for at least another year. A serious injury would almost surely be fatal.

  Nasruddin pointed out that we had addressed these concerns by selecting appropriate body armour and choosing a low-risk route. All we had to do was get to Commerce and cross Prosperity Square. The recent assassinations had all taken place in corridors that had longstanding security problems, with too many hiding places and escape routes. We could avoid them and travel with an escort through the most problematic sections. I would be travelling in disguise, as would Nasruddin.

  I joined in the argument but refrained from mentioning a few additional risks that I considered acceptable. I knew with a certainty that no one else would.

  It went back and forth, but MacFinn finally insisted that he would come with us and wait in Commerce with an emergency team while we dined. He demanded that we bring a full squad of guards. He also recommended that Commerce and the Public Officers in the square be warned to beef up their security.

  Afterwards, I asked them to monitor me closely for a while as I attempted to create text summaries of the nightmares. I started a cycle of exercises, shut down my emotional responses to the extent I could, and went back to the terrible night on the Columbia when everything had fallen to pieces. I had suppressed my emotional response to the dreams but had only skimmed their content.

  In some ways, it was like writing an essay in school di
scussing the characters and structure of a flamboyant performance in the theatre. The critical difference was that I was a central actor in each of these tragedies. Once I abstracted that concept into the third person, I could step through each sequence.

  The dreams lasted from five minutes up to almost an hour, depending on whether the disaster exploded into a genocidal war immediately or built into one over the course of centuries. After the sequence was over, the memory faded into a few minutes of the normal random and meaningless babble of dreamtime before vanishing entirely. Starting with the initial scenario, the dreams skipped from one critical decision to the next, pausing long enough to illustrate the consequences of each mistake and the inevitability of a reaction. I had to remind myself that my method had been to take the most likely reaction, ignoring the possibility of extraordinary or altruistic responses that might invalidate my working model.

  It took almost as long to document each dream as it had taken to experience. Dreaming roughly once each hour over the course of the night, I summarized the whole set of nightmares in about four hours. I was surprised when I returned to full awareness to discover that I had run through five different exercises in a cycle each hour that I had spent working. I had been so focused that I had obeyed their instructions to change from one exercise to the next without noticing.

  I read through the document to be sure it made sense, encrypted it, and sent it off to the Banshees with a promise to continue the effort with the other nights. I decided to work backwards through the more recent nights. I had to break for dinner, but hit gold shortly after I resumed in the evening.