Rich Man's War (3 page)

“Tight-beam transmission from
Guillotine
,” announced the comms tech. He read from a screen at his station, not turning around toward the ship’s captain or first officer. A navigational display near the tech showed the former yacht passing by. Both ships were just outside the two light-minute safe navigation zone around Edison.

“How’d it go?” asked the gravelly voice of the captain. He stood from his chair to walk over to the comms station. His first officer, Aaron Hawkins, stuck close to his side.

“
Guillotine’s
captain is in custody, all other hostiles KIA. Three friendly casualties including Agent in Charge. Marine team leader also seriously wounded.” He paused and then looked over his shoulder. “The acting mission leader is asking to speak to the captain.”

Hawkins opened his mouth to speak
, but found himself cut off. “The captain is unavailable,” said the captain. “Acknowledge their report and tell them to hold to the original plan. They jump to FTL as soon as they’re outside Edison’s gravity well.”

“Aye, aye, sir
.”

Hawkins eyed the ship’s captain. Though officially the first officer, Hawkins had much more of a background in intelligence and covert operations than
ship handling. Few first officers had to keep their captains completely restricted to the ship as part of their duties. “Looks like all the intel on where we’d find the
Guillotine
and her crew was right on the money,” said Hawkins.

“Yeah, what a shock,” came the somewhat annoyed reply. Casey looked his personal watchdog in the eye before passing him on the way back to his captain’s chair. “Can’t imagine who gave them all that great in
fo.”

* * *

“Yup. Request denied, hold to the original plan.” Alicia looked over to the gunny. She’d known Janeka long enough to learn the nuances within Janeka’s repertoire of expressions of displeasure. “Is that dodgy?”

Janeka glared at the large ship on the holographic display. “Only because the captain never met with
Lt. Crowder, either,” she frowned. “Or Willis.”

“That’s weird?” asked Alicia. Their course was locked in. Janeka and the computer had done most of the work. Alicia gave the ship on the screen another look. Her recruit company
had received more than a little training in ship recognition from Janeka and Chief Everett, but the vessel on the display didn’t look familiar to her at all. It might have been a stock passenger liner once upon a time, but had clearly been through considerable modification.

“At your rank, it wouldn’t be weird for you not to meet with a ship’s captain, no,” explained Janeka. “At my level, one would at least expect a handshake. But this ship brings us into a sovereign system for a covert op and the captain doesn’t want to meet anyone in charge? That’s dodgy.”

Considering it further, Alicia suggested, “Maybe it’s for the sake of deniability?”

Janeka shook her head. “No. A ship’s captain doesn’t get to play dumb. He has to know everything that happens on his ship. Doesn’t matter if he’s military or civilian. They hung around to monitor, too, not just drop us off and go on their way.”

“FTL jump in sixty seconds,” Alicia noted. They wouldn’t be outside Edison’s legal FTL line for it, but that paled in comparison to the other laws they’d just broken. Alicia dutifully announced the countdown as
Guillotine
passed out of the gravity wells of Edison and its moons. Laws against FTL jumps within a system existed for good reason, but at this distance from large bodies, the risks of a gravitic disaster were reasonably low.

Janeka input the commands to execute. Everyone on the ship felt the lurch as the ship transitioned from well below light speed to something far beyond it, but the lurch was much less pronounced than on most other vessels. It was a reminder of
Guillotine’s
original purpose; once upon a time, she’d been a luxury yacht built for a smooth and pleasant ride.

That thought pushed Janeka out of her seat once she was satisfied with immediate responsibilities. “Keep everything under control here,” she said. “I’m gonna make the rounds.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Alicia grinned. She dared a wink when Janeka looked back at her.

The gunnery sergeant
checked in on the wounded. She surveyed engineering and made sure someone was already dealing with the dead pirates strewn about the ship. She gave instructions to collect all the small arms on board. These were all necessary steps, but she had one other duty to fulfill. For that, she retrieved the big grey overcoat that she had ditched just inside the ship’s entryway upon boarding.

She found Hannah Black in a chair in the ship’s galley. The pirate captain had her hands and feet tied to the chair, which was itself securely bolted to the floor. Awake and aware of her surroundings, Hannah watched but said nothing until Janeka stepped up to her.

“You’re military,” said Hannah. “Whose?”

“You’ll figure it out before too long.”

Hannah scowled and spit on the deck. She noted the look in Janeka’s eyes. “Have we met?”

“Not personally, no,” said Janeka. “I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, though.”

Hannah didn’t respond. She just watched and waited.

Janeka reached into her coat. She drew a soft, stained bit of comfort and warmth and put it on the table in front of Hannah. Then she walked away, leaving Hannah under the lifeless stare of an old, battered, bloody teddy bear.

Pieces on the Board

“Primary debt is a specific subset of sovereign debt.
It’s the long-term debt owed by an extraterrestrial colony for all those massive start-up costs of getting out into the stars in the first place. The Big Three of Lai Wa, NorthStar and CDC own almost all of that debt. Ironically, the government of Archangel is in the position to break from corporate dependency precisely because its primary debt is among the lowest in the Union, thanks to the financial support of the Catholic Church during the Expansion Era.

“
Archangel’s economy is the strongest of any state based around a single star and the ninth strongest in the Union overall. Yet the system’s anti-corporate stance and cessation of primary debt payments have sent Archangel’s credit plummeting to the bottom of the Union’s ranks. Given the enormous cost of the services Archangel must now provide for itself, it’s anyone’s guess as to how badly the system’s economy will tank.”

--Matt Gao, “Can Anyone Go It Alone?” Union Business Review, April 2276

“We’re looking at open warfare breaking out on Scheherazade within the month, sir,” explained David Kiribati, head of Archangel’s Intelligence Service. He leaned in close beside President Aguirre as he moved his fingers through the holographic projection in front of them, starting with a projection of the multiple stars that made up the Kingdom of Hashem and then zooming in on a single system, enlarging the fourth planet out from its star. “This system is nominally under Prince Kaseem’s oversight while remaining loyal to the king, but in reality the security forces, the government and most of the big domestic businesses are split between Prince Kaseem and Prince Murtada. We know Murtada is covertly stockpiling weapons and troops on the planet. The king knows it. NorthStar and Lai Wa know it. And given all that, it’s hard to believe Kaseem doesn’t know.”

“What makes us think NorthStar and Lai
Wa know?” asked President Aguirre. Numerous advisors and aides filled the president’s comfortable office, some seated and some standing. Only a handful would do the talking unless called upon.

“We have reason to believe that NorthStar has decided to back Murtada, sir
."

Aguirre
looked up with surprise. “I thought they wanted to tamp down on this whole feud before it gets worse. We expected them to back the king.”

“Murtada’s
political and religious platform makes him more attractive than the status quo, sir,” explained Theresa Cotton, Aguirre’s foreign minister. “For one thing, Murtada takes a much stricter line over the
Hajj
. He was deeply inspired by his own journey years ago, and—“

“I don’t need the theological underpinnings,” Aguirre cut her off. “What’s it all mean strategically?”

Theresa managed to control her frown. “It means a significant long-term uptick in travel if Murtada comes out on top, which puts easy money in NorthStar’s pocket. This also puts a theological twist on what was initially a straightforward fight for succession that will draw religious conservatives to fight for Murtada.”

“People will shoot each other over how low they set the economic bar for going to Mecca?”

“Mister President,” spoke up Admiral Yeoh, cutting through the room with her soft tone, “we still have communities in this system who denounce you as a false pope, when you’ve never claimed any religious authority. We humans seem bent on finding ways to separate ourselves from one another.”

Aguirre blinked at that, as did several others, mostly because Yeoh rarely offered existential commentary. She usually concerned
herself with empirical matters—as did the president. “So what do we expect?” he asked, turning his attention back to Kiribati. “If they start up a fight over Scheherazade, doesn’t the whole kingdom wind up in a civil war?”

“It seems likely, sir,” said Kiribati. “That may not happen right away, but in the meantime
a ground war will break out on Scheherazade. Most of the serious combat spacecraft are on the other side of the kingdom facing off over the shipyards. When this gets rolling, we’ll see an initial rush to secure strategic assets on the ground. Government installations, the ground-side spaceports, infrastructure.

“And it’ll be ugly,” he added. “Part of the reason we know about this movement is that we
were able to identify particular officers in Murtada’s forces. A lot of them were involved in the initial massacres on Qal’at Khalil after the pirate attack there. Murtada has a thing for strong-arm tactics.”

“What
are the other parties doing about this?”

“Union Assembly diplomats are making the usual overtures, but they’re toothless. Lai
Wa seems content to let NorthStar take the lead in Hashem; we think there’s probably a
quid pro quo
arrangement there in exchange for concessions elsewhere in the Union. NorthStar has offered up intelligence and planning aid. They may even provide some of the heavy lifting to transport Murtada’s troops. It’s also possible they plan on providing manpower later to help stabilize the situation under a peacekeeping contract. We’ve got reports that they’ve increased training and simulations for occupation ops.”

“And what are we doing?”

Kiribati glanced at Yeoh before answering. “We’re moving in assets for evacuation. We have an Archangel Navy corvette in the system and a covert vessel under an Independent Shipping Guild registry should be there the day after tomorrow.”

“Is that enough to evacuate our people? We’ve got a full consulate staff there, right? Some civilian business operations?”

“Yes, sir,” Kiribati nodded. “The covert vessel should be able to handle the load.”

Admiral Yeoh spoke up
. “It wouldn’t hurt to have more in the way of military assets present, sir. Right now Prince Kaseem accepts his father’s instructions to allow foreign naval traffic, probably because it complicates Murtada’s plans. If and when Prince Murtada attacks, he’ll order all foreign vessels out of the system. That will naturally leave foreigners in the middle of a war zone until Murtada decides to let them go, and no one can say how long that might take. We need to be able to get in and get our people out as soon as the shooting starts—if not sooner,” she suggested pointedly.

“It’s complicated either way,”
Theresa said with a shake of her head. “If we wait too long, we put our people in jeopardy. However, if we pull out based on these suspicions, we could damage our relationships and maybe be blamed for creating a crisis atmosphere—especially if the king or Prince Khalil has some sort of diplomatic work going on to settle things down.”

“More importantly, we risk tipping our hand if we move in too soon,” frowned Kiribati. “Keeping one or two ships in the area seems like a reasonable precaution. If we evacuate preemptively, we’ll give the impres
sion that we know too much, which will jeopardize our sources.”

“I understand,” Aguirre said, holding up his hand. “Admiral, we can’t pull out now. I know it’s tough, but we have to wait and see how this unfolds.”

“Then as I said, sir, more overt military assets would help in the event of violence,” Yeoh replied.

Aguirre glanced toward Kiribati, who nodded. “We can’t send in a large force,” Kiribati warned, “but even adding one more Navy ship to the mix is a
definite improvement.”

“I don’t see a drawback either, sir,”
Theresa concurred. “We have every legal right to extract our citizens if fighting breaks out.”

“Al
l right, fair enough,” nodded Aguirre. “Admiral, go ahead and move some more people in, but don’t send anything big. We want to get
un
-involved, not sucked deeper into our neighbors’ mess.” He stared at the holographic star system and snorted. “NorthStar’s planning to put people on the ground to stabilize all this?”

“I think so, sir,” Kiribati replied. “And frankly, the
more deeply they’re involved in someone else’s civil war, the better off we are. It’ll take their attention off of us.”

“I’m afraid I must disagree, sir,” said Admiral Yeoh. Again, eyes turned toward her.

“You heard what David said about them training for an occupation?” asked the president.

“Yes, sir. I’ve seen the reports.”

“You don’t think they’re doing that to get ready for this?”

“No, sir,” maintained the admiral calmly. “I don’t believe that it’s the Kingdom of Hashem they plan to occupy, sir.”

She didn’t say the rest. It would have sounded alarmist. Her warning carried more weight if it went unsaid.

“That sounds like a topic for another meeting,” noted Victor Hickman, the president’s chief of staff. He looked at the time on his holocom.

Aguirre took the hint. “Right. We’re late for the next one. I’ve got a line of CEOs outside the office waiting to see me. It’s one thing to alienate the Big Three, but I don’t want to leave our homegrown companies feeling snubbed, too. Was there any other urgent business?”

“No, sir,” answered Kiribati, Yeoh and the other officials simultaneously.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” said the president. Everyone else stood as he rose. The meeting promptly broke up.

Yeoh
ducked out of the conference room before Kiribati and his people. She dismissed her aides in outside the office and then waited. Standing with her hands clasped behind her back just outside the door, Yeoh caught Kiribati’s eye as he walked out with a couple of aides in tow. “David. A word?”

He nodded to his companions to send them on their way, then moved a few steps down the hallway
with her. “What’s on your mind, Admiral?”

She
noticed the change in his tone. He knew he was free to use her first name. Aguirre tried to maintain a collegial atmosphere among his top advisors, but Kiribati’s walls were up. She knew then that she would get nowhere, but she might as well ask and watch his reaction. “I had some questions about the operation on Edison. A few points were not covered in the briefing documents.”

“Such as?”

“The initial insertion,” Yeoh said, looking at him directly. The poker face Kiribati presented fit her expectations. “You listed a vessel under a ‘covert private registry’ out of New Corsica, but no other details. I’m aware that it was a large ship, perhaps a converted passenger liner?”

“
More or less.”

“Is it an Archangel asset, or some external resource?”

“It’s one of ours. I wouldn’t outsource something like this. What are you getting at, Admiral?”

Yeoh didn’t blink, but the man’s attitude raised her concerns. “
The Intelligence Service has always had vessels of its own, but something of that size surprises me. Mr. Kiribati, who is the captain of that ship?”

“As I said, it’s one of ours. I’m afraid the details are on a need-to-know basis.”

“You don’t believe I have a need to know about a combat-ready ship of that size operating in tandem with our military?”

“Admiral, all I can tell you is that the president has been fully briefed, and you do not have a need to know. I’ll thank you for leaving the matter alone.” With that, he turned and left.

Yeoh watched him walk away with thoughtful, narrowed eyes. She’d expected polite lies, not stonewalling. She’d smelled something fishy when Kiribati first proposed the operation—lacking pertinent details then just as now. Given the value of the mission, she’d agreed to provide a strike team, but her concerns remained. She was unable to relay her suspicions to those marines and still expect the operation to go smoothly. She had, however, made sure to fill the team with smart, observant people who’d think for themselves. They reported back to her that the insertion vessel was most certainly not just an ordinary passenger liner.

Unfortunately, none of them got the full tour
during their brief time on board. They didn’t get to meet the captain, either, which increased Yeoh’s concerns. Archangel held only so many people qualified to run a ship of that size and complexity who could also be trusted for dangerous and covert ops. Yeoh could account for all of them—those on active duty, the retirees and those in the private sector. As Kiribati had said, it wasn’t like him to outsource such a matter, so he wouldn’t have hired someone from beyond Archangel… would he?

Given the impending
problems on Scheherazade, it seemed likely that the ship would be in play again soon. Once the shooting started, the ships’ captains on scene would have to take charge and make decisions on behalf of all Archangel… and Yeoh had no sense at all of who commanded the largest ship.

Yeoh headed out toward the elevators
. The admiral quickly dismissed the idea of approaching President Aguirre directly on the matter. Kiribati’s bonds with the President ran deeper than those of a career military officer who’d been in place well before Aguirre was elected.

She couldn’t let this go, but
she couldn’t make noise about it, either. Military intelligence would likely be too unreliable here; the bonds between that division and Kiribati’s Intelligence Service were too widespread. Someone, perhaps even a well-meaning subordinate, would inevitably tip her hand.