by Kal Spriggs
“Thank you, ma'am,” I answered.
“Reports I've seen from Erewhon suggest you did well there,” she went on. “The courier ship sent their data over before they docked. I skimmed your written report... I noticed some interesting gaps.”
I swallowed, “Yes, grandmother.” I filled her in quickly on the whole story of my encounters with both of the Drakkus royals, along with sending her the exact recordings directly to her implant.
She pursed her lips after I finished. “Interesting. It could be that she was fishing for information, seeing if you knew that your brother was still alive.”
“You don't think she knows anything?” I asked in surprise.
“She may have been told to say that just to gauge your response. Her father, Prince Ryujin, and Crown Prince Abraxus apparently don't see eye to eye. Our spies, the handful we had in place at the start of all this... well, the best that they could tell was that Prince Ryujin was on the outs with his father, the Emperor, and Crown Prince Abraxus was on the up and up. Princess Kiyu had attached herself to her uncle and publicly distanced herself from her father.”
I frowned at that, “Why?”
“Because dynastic inheritance can get rather bloody and if the Emperor happens to keel over dead, then the first thing Crown Prince Abraxus is going to do is make sure his brother suffers a rather fatal accident,” my grandmother said dryly. “Under those circumstances, the smart thing to do would be to suck up to him and make yourself useful rather than making yourself into another target.”
“Huh,” I considered it. “But she and her cousin didn't seem to be on friendly terms.”
“I'm guessing she made some kind of play for her father, possibly this data theft from Wessek's facility on Drakkus Prime,” The Admiral nodded. “I would guess that she burned bridges and put herself back in her father's side, painting a big target on herself in the process. I wish I knew what her father and she thought made it worthwhile.”
“You think we could leverage them?” I considered it. I hadn't even thought that maybe the Princess was looking for a way out.
“I think that the only thing more Byzantine than UN Star Guard politics is the politics internal to the Drakkus Empire's higher ranks,” The Admiral made a face. “And right now, we're dealing with both here at Harmony.”
“Both?” I blinked at her.
“I'll get into that a bit more when your friend comes in. I wanted to talk a bit about the Erewhon society, first,” she told me.
“Their 'neurodiversity,' you mean?” I swallowed as I thought about it. I'd had months to think about it and I still wasn't certain how I felt.
“I figured, when I saw you come down on orders for Erewhon, that it would come up,” she told me. “And it's an important part of dealing with them, in understanding them as allies and as people.”
I nodded. “I guess the part I'm having trouble wrapping my head around is the concept of choice. They consider it to be robbing a child of the opportunity to be what they were born to be, by changing their genes and environmental triggers in the prenatal genetic screening. But if a child is born as one of their 'neuro-diverse spectrum,' they're not really getting the choice to be normal, afterward, either.”
“There are... treatments,” The Admiral said it in a disapproving tone. “In fact, in the core colonies, back in the Parisian Sector, there are none of what the Erewhonese term 'neuro-diverse.' You can't say the same even on Century. It's a tiny fraction of the population, but they are there, to varying extents.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise.
“It's... well, elements of society don't really know how to react to them, they are relatively rare. Most are made comfortable and given over to whatever interests they have. It's not that they're incapable, mind you, just that our society doesn't really know how to fully integrate them. Rather a large number end up in engineering and science fields, more than you might realize.”
“Huh,” I answered.
“In truth,” the Admiral hesitated. I was shocked to realize that she didn't look entirely confident in speaking. “In truth,” she repeated, “our family has many of the 'spectrum' triggers... and we traditionally haven't used some of the genetic screening that the Erewhon are concerned with.”
“We haven't?” I stared at her. “But...”
“We've screened for genetic abnormalities and diseases,” she told me, “but there are certain creative and constructive traits that make us who we are and while most of human space has been quite happy to limit those traits, it's not something that our family has done, for a variety of reasons. And from what Doctor Schoeffelk's research into the implants suggests... well, some of how your brain interfaces so well with your implant may be due to elements of that 'diversity.'”
“What you're saying...”
“I'm saying that to the aspect of choice... would you chose to be a different person?” The Admiral asked. “Would you chose to be what you were born, or what someone else would have made of you?”
I opened my mouth to respond and then closed it again. Part of me had always envied my mother's height, which she got from the Admiral. I had times where I'd wanted to be smarter, faster, and to have made less mistakes. But to change the way I thought? The way I saw the world? How could I be that and still be who I was?
“I guess not,” I said after a moment. “I guess I like being me... being a little different.”
“Something to consider, then,” the Admiral said softly. “I don't know if the way that the Erewhon people have gone is the right way for everyone, but I don't think we can judge them wrong for it.”
“Commander Leath called them freaks,” I told her.
The Admiral's expression went hard. “Commander Leath is Admiral Drien's primary aide and has worked closely with him for decades. I don't doubt he echoes his superior's choice of term.” She shook her head, “Not everyone is happy with the idea of allying with the Erewhon, despite their strength in ships and technology.”
“What do you think, ma'am?” I asked.
The Admiral gave me a level look, “I think we're going to need all the allies we can get. And you'll see what I mean in a moment.”
The door chimed as she said that, “Enter!”
“Ma'am, Cadet Second Class Takenata, reporting,” Ashiri opened the hatch and stepped through and gave a crisp salute that my grandmother returned, “Captain Montoya said you were ready to see me?”
“I am, perfect timing,” The Admiral answered. I realized she must have sent for my friend with her implant, even as we were talking. Multifunction capabilities have improved, maybe she got an upgrade, I thought. My grandmother had a Tier Two implant, which had been the limits of the technology until recently. Tier Twos had the capability to allow a user to do some multitasking, but it mostly acted as an extension of the human brain, with added data storage and indexing and communications capabilities.
Ashiri and I had special prototype implants, the equivalent of Tier Three implants, made from a special material known as “quicksilver,” which was able to adapt and shape itself on the fly. But we'd also been young enough for the gestalt process to work, which had basically created an artificial intelligence to control the implant and meld with our minds. As a result, we could spin off our focus, multitasking to dozens of things on the fly.
“You two are the only cadets coming out to join the Centurions,” the Admiral walked over to stand behind her desk. “I don't know if you understand the importance of that, so I'm going to explain it... and then we're going to go into the rather unique situation out here.”
She took a seat and gestured at the two chairs. We both took seats, our backs straight as she went on. “You're assigned here as Cadet Auxiliaries. The rest of us,” she waved a hand at the ship, “are inactive Militia on 'loan' to serve as mercenaries with the Mercenary Guild. No active enlisted or officers of any Planetary Militia or System Defense Force are allowed to serve with a Guild Mercenary unit, with one exception: officer trainee
s.”
“What?” I asked in confusion.
“Ma'am,” Ashiri spoke up, “I think I understand, may I explain?” The Admiral nodded and my friend looked over at me, “It means we are still members of the Militia, we're still subject to our rules and regulations, and we are still protected as citizens and military members of Century.”
“Indeed,” my grandmother gave us a nod, “it also means that you're able to disregard orders from Guard officers who could legally order a Mercenary Guild officer to stand down, like say when they want us to get out of their way and let them do something.”
“Why would that matter, ma'am?” I asked.
The Admiral gave a cold smile, “Because that's exactly what they're trying to get us to do. So long as Century has a couple of their people here, though, who aren't wholly under the jurisdiction of the Mercenary Guild, we can use the pair of you to get around some of the Guard Peacekeeper Task Force's stupidity.” There was anger aplenty in her voice as she spoke and I wondered just how bad things must be out here that she was letting her frustration show.
“The Harmony Protectorate used to be an independent nation within the borders of Guard Space,” she went on a moment later. “Four inhabited systems, about twenty or so uninhabited ones, used for mining, refining, and that sort of thing. Over the past fifty years, the Mombara family has taken more and more control over the government. Elections became mostly a pro-forma thing in the last ten years. The Mombara family had strong ties with some of the mega-corporations based out of the Parisian Sector. A lot of the choicer mineral claims in those uninhabited systems were going to those corporations and the family was pocketing the money.”
“They were also taking bribes from pirate groups operating out of Vagyr and the Drakkus Empire,” The Admiral went on. “They were disposing of 'obsolete' military ships in the corvette through cruiser size range to just about anyone with the money.” She smiled a bit, “To be fair, Century actually bought our three most modern destroyers that way. Not all of their sales were to pirates.” Her smile faded, “But many of them were, and Harmony Protectorate ships were turning up in a lot of nasty places... including the destroyer that Wessek's people used to kill Summit Station.”
I sat back at that. I'd nearly died when the pirate vessel had attacked Kyle and I, after we'd set off some kind of trap hidden in software that had been used to make our Militia more vulnerable to attack. The pirate destroyer had hit Summit Station, killing off everyone aboard, and then pursued Kyle and I in our Firebolt fighters. We'd barely managed to hit it, killing it with antimatter bombs in a stunt that was crazy and stupid, but had still somehow worked.
“To top things off, they've recently delved into some kind of biological weapons program, we think it was just in the design phase, but we're not certain. Admiral Nashim Rao found out about it and he staged a coup. He removed the Mombara family and most of their supporters from power, held trials for all of the ones that he caught, and had them executed.”
Ashiri and I both held our breaths at that. It sounded like this guy wasn't the type to do things by a half-measure. “Do we believe what he's said, ma'am?” I asked.
“A day after the last executions, he stepped down and invited the Guard to send a peacekeeper force to oversee a transition to a duly elected government,” the Admiral answered. “Which certainly looks like he was playing fair. In any case, the Peacekeeping Task Force arrived about two months ago and in the time since, they've given out a lot of prime contracts to various mega-corporations to provide supplies and maintenance to the Protectorate's infrastructure and they've tried to promote a puppet of theirs for the referendum. So far, they've managed to alienate about eighty percent of the population. Their latest endeavor is to have mercenary ships in the system to stop vessels carrying aid, and to have the goods confiscated and destroyed... while the mega-corporation supplies are being sold at extortionate rates.”
“Oh,” I made a face. “Please tell me we're not--”
“We are not,” the Admiral answered. “Those orders were illegal and Commodore Creed of Hammer Squadron, who is the mercenary task force commander, has made that clear to Major General Tibault. But she's pushing to have us all dismissed. She doesn't have that kind of pull, but things are likely to get ugly. In any case, the reason I'm telling both of you all of this is that you two will be our... special officers.”
“We're not officers, though, ma'am,” Ashiri frowned nervously.
“You're cadets, which the Militia recognizes as a rank above an NCO but below a commissioned officer. You're here as Cadet Auxiliaries... which in our ranking structure, grants you the role and authority of officers.”
I swallowed nervously at that. She wouldn't be telling us we had that kind of authority unless we were going to need to use it. That told me that we were going to be in way over our heads.
“When we go planet side and we're dealing with a civilian protest or a group of aid workers trying to bring in food, and a Guard Army officer gives an order to fire on what he perceives as a threat... you have the authority to countermand that order to any personnel under you command.”
Yep, I told myself, nailed it... we're in way over our heads.
“Which is why your additional duties, besides both of you being assigned to our Drake Squadrons, include commanding ground security teams that will be operating in concert with Guard Peacekeepers. Who won't want to do the dirty work of gunning down civilians themselves, they'll want to have their dirty mercenaries do it for them and take all the heat. You two will need to go into this with your eyes open, because things are going to be lively.”
“Yes, ma'am,” we responded in unison.
“Excellent,” the Admiral smiled. She rose from her desk. “Now, normally the pair of you would have a few hours to meet with your squadron commander, but unfortunately, I need to get down to the planet to meet with someone. This is a perfect time for the pair of you to meet the security teams you'll command. Let's go, shall we?”
***
Chapter 12: I Finally Step Foot On Another World
Ashiri and I sat in jump seats on what the Admiral had called a Valkyrie insertion shuttle. Lieutenant Tony Dutson sat across from us. The Admiral was up in the cockpit with the pilots. Ashiri and I had time to don our body armor and we'd been issued rifles and pistols from the armory. I wasn't familiar with the exact make, but we'd been talked through a function check and the weapons had a mechanical zero, so I hoped it would be accurate enough. They were considerably more advanced than the legacy M-11 that I normally carried at the academy.
“When we get down there, the main priority is escorting the Admiral and other VIPs. Hammer Squadron, that is, the MCA mercs, they command the overall mercenary contingent. But you'll get all kinds of Guard Army and Guard Fleet types trying to give us orders.” Lieutenant Dutson told us, his voice relaxed as the shuttle dropped down from orbit.
“What do we do about that?” I asked nervously. I wasn't exactly crazy about telling a commissioned officer from any nation “no.”
“If it's something stupid like guarding their vehicles or securing some site, just defer to higher, tell them you need to ask permission and ghost out of there with our guys. We're not rent-a-security, our ground teams are set up for protective details and assaults. We've got some grunts for full combat ops, but we don't want to drop them on the planet, not when the civilians are mostly pretty decent.”
Lieutenant Dutson shrugged, “Now, if it's something high priority... well, then you got to use your judgment. There's been a few cases where Guard Free Now has been putting some of their people in the crowds protesting against the Guard. There's been a few Guard Army personnel killed by snipers and ambush, a few more small bombs. They're jumpy and they'd rather waste a few civilians than put their own people at risk, and they'd rather use their grubby hired help to do that than take the bad press themselves.”
“Sir?” I asked, glancing at Ashiri to see if she'd understood all that. I certainly don't.<
br />
“Guard Free Now is a bunch of crazy nutjobs that want to take down the UN Star Guard and they do it by blowing up schools and hospitals and occasionally throwing grenades and taking potshots at Guard Army and Fleet elements,” Lieutenant Dutson sighed. “About one time in three, they decide that hitting mercenaries is just as good, so keep your eyes open. That said, the Harmony Protectorate has pretty relaxed weapons laws, sort of like back home. You'll see armed protestors. If they're carrying, no big deal. If they're brandishing, it's a bit more of an issue. Some of them like to fire victoriously in the air, now and again. Don't get jumpy, they do that for weddings, funerals, school graduations... they do that sort of thing a lot.”
“Sir,” I nodded. What the hock am I getting into?
“You're in a position where if a Guard officer gives you an order, you can reject it. Keep in mind, anyone who gets killed under your command, you're going to be the one bearing the consequences,” He gave us a humorless smile. “No pressure, right?”
He sat back, “I'll stick with third squad and the shuttle. The pair of you have First,” he pointed at me, “and Second squads,” he pointed at Ashiri. “I'll transfer squad rosters to you now.”
My implant pinged, to let me know I'd just received his transfer. “Mission is to protect the Admiral and assist her in getting Commodore Creed out of the Headquarters building. There's already a protest going, so expect rocks, bottles, and other, less pleasant, things to be thrown at us. Get in, maintain security, don't trust the Guard Army pukes to do it for you, and get our people out. Any questions?”
I had dozens, hundreds of questions. I opened my mouth to say just that, and the shuttle's thrusters fired, crushing me down in my jump-seat.
