Victory Conditions (5 page)

“Yes,” Stella said. “I’ve got that in my implant, and it’s on most computers, in the word processing section. You could upload it into yours, now that you’ve got the adult model. But don’t use an outside source.” She had given in to his request for the most advanced implant on the grounds that he really did need it to do the research he was doing, and she needed someone as backup for the Vatta command set.

“I don’t know nearly as much as Zori,” Toby said, shoveling in the last of a serving of rice with vegetables. His lack of appetite had already dealt with a double serving of cultured turkey with gravy. “I don’t know all of the words I can even read.”

“We can’t ask Zori,” Stella reminded him.

“Not even when it’s this important?”

That was the sticking point. It was that important. If it came to it, if it meant life or death for Ky, or for planets, they would have to ask Zori—force Zori, if it came to it—to do the translation. Or her father.

“Any such request should come through official channels,” Stella said. “I’ve already given a copy of this to the Cascadian government; it’s their job to decide what to do with it. Though now that I know someone knows the language, or some of it, they need to know that.”

“It’ll get Zori in trouble,” Toby said. “Maybe I can figure out more of it.”

“I hope so,” Stella said.

Toby tapped a stylus on his desk. Zori could not be a traitor: that was a given. Zori had, however, taught him some words that appeared in a pirate transmission. That was a fact. Now that Stella knew that Zori knew some words, Stella was half convinced of her guilt. Zori’s father had taught Zori those words, and Zori’s father gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. He’d assumed it was what any boy felt around the father of the girl he loved, but maybe not. Maybe the man was a traitor. That didn’t mean Zori was. Zori’s father could be a traitor—both her parents could be traitors—and Zori could still be innocent. Zori’s father could have learned a few words—the ones he’d taught Zori—from someone else. Maybe he wasn’t a traitor. But if Stella told the government about Zori, then nobody would believe her innocence. He had to find a way to save her from that.

The first step was to find out if she knew all the words in the transmission—because that would mean she could translate the transmissions. If they went to the government themselves, then she could be a hero who translated pirate lingo, not a suspect.

But Stella had forbidden him to show Zori the transcripts or tell her what was going on. And if—he didn’t want to think this, but he could not help it—if she was guilty, if her father was a traitor and had raised her to be one, too, then showing her the transcripts would be as dangerous as Stella said. How could he find out if she knew more than the little she’d taught him, without breaking Stella’s rule?

A flash of worry that Zori might not like what he was thinking of doing was easy to banish. He was doing it for her, to protect her, and unless she was a traitor (and she could not be a traitor; that was a given) she would understand and agree, if—when—she found out.

“My parents like you,” Zori said before math the next day.

Toby couldn’t answer; he just nodded.

“Is your cousin causing problems?”

“Not…exactly. She says she thought she told your father about my escort.”

Zori gave him a look. “She thinks my father is lying? That’s an insult—”

“She didn’t say that.” Actually she had said that, but Toby was not going to admit it.

Zori settled back, lips tight. Then she looked at Toby again. “I…need to talk to you.”

“We can start this lesson when everyone is attentive.” That was Ser Galvan. Toby looked up just in time to avoid a mark for discourtesy.

During break, Zori and Toby ignored the nudges and winks of the rest of their class and backed into a corner with their snacks. Toby’s security were nearby, but in the noise of the break room, they could not be overheard. Probably.

“What?” Toby asked.

“My father says he likes you but sometimes…sometimes he’s just a little sneaky.”

“Sneaky?”

“I mean…yes it would be an insult if your cousin said he was lying about her having told him about your escort. And if she insults him, then he has a legal claim against her, and if he has a legal claim against her, then obviously he won’t let me see you. He might even take me out of school.”

“So…you think he li—he said that in order to find a way to break us up?”

“Maybe. It’s not always discourteous to lie…it’s wrong, but it’s not against the courtesy code. Not if you’re not under oath.”

“Wait a minute…you mean, it’s fine to lie, but wrong to complain that you’ve been lied to?”

“I wouldn’t say fine…it’s just not a discourtesy, whereas calling someone a liar is.”

“But if they are lying, and you know it, how are you supposed to handle it?”

“You can ignore it, if it’s not important, or you can report it, if it’s a criminal matter, or you can ask for a formal statement before a legal representative. That can be phrased without discourtesy.”

“I’d think that would make it worse,” Toby said. “If you ask for that, aren’t you in effect calling someone a liar in front of others?”

“No…not in our society. But anyway, if your cousin ever needs to challenge my father she needs to do it properly. Get legal counsel.”

“Mmm. And what do you think?”

“You’re asking me to indict my own father?”

“No, I’m asking what you think.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t answer that. It would be…it would be wrong. Worse than prot.”

Toby sheared away from that. “Look…can we meet after school? You have a free period last, don’t you?”

“Yes, but I can’t meet you then. I promised my mother I’d go to some boring women’s meeting with her. I can get out after dinner, though, as long as I’m home by nine. We could meet for ice cream or something.”

Toby looked into her eyes. Zori was trustworthy; she had to be. She loved him. And it was important to get this translated. “I’m trying to write an adventure story in…whatever it is you’ve been teaching me.”

“My family’s secret language…why?”

“Someday it will be
our
language. The way we’ve been saying things, you know. You’ve been speaking it for years…I’m trying to learn it. You know I’m more visual than you are; it’ll be easier for me if I write it down. And you said you didn’t have any texts.”

“I don’t think anyone writes in it,” Zori said. “It’s just for chat.”

“If your father uses it for business, maybe he writes memos in it.”

“I suppose.” She looked thoughtful. “But you’re writing in it?”

“Trying to,” Toby said. “I’m not very good at it. I thought it would be easier if I did it as a story. The dialogue so far sounds more like one of those adventure series for children. Well, except for the rude words. And I made up a bunch of words, too, because I don’t know enough.”

“Can I see it?”

“I guess.” Toby had put together a mishmash of the words he knew, a few he remembered, a few that he had guessed, and some he made up. “It’s a space battle: all this part is the bad guys. With the rude words you taught me, it’s easier to do their side. And I’m not sure of the spelling in a lot of places…”

“You’re making excuses. Let’s see…” She looked at his handcomp. “Wow. You’ve learned a lot…I don’t remember teaching you some of this—”

“It’s mostly made up, where I didn’t know the words,” Toby said. He had inserted a few made-up words into the text Ky had sent; this was only about a page of a transmission, with interpolated plot.

“But this—” Zori pointed. “—this really is the word for ‘ammunition.’ Lucky guess, Toby!” She grinned, then went back to reading, while Toby’s heart seemed to sink through his shoes. She knew more words. Why would her father teach her the word for ‘ammunition,’ anyway? “‘No profit in this, get out of here now’…I like that. So the pirates are running away from—who are the good guys?”

“Space rangers, of course. Who else?”

“This is wrong, this bit here. You made up
blaggorn,
didn’t you?”

“Yes. It’s supposed to mean ‘defeat’—”

“No, that’s
randik. Randik msendim
would be losing a bid to another bidder. This bit here means ‘lost too many ships to that…’ I didn’t teach you that word!” Zori’s cheeks reddened.

“Does it really mean anything?” Toby asked.

“A very bad word for a woman. Who is she supposed to be?”

“One of the good-guy captains,” Toby said.

“Oh, then that’s
kobi-parash.
Means ‘one of our captains.’ The other is just nasty.”

The buzzer went off. Zori handed the handcomp back. “I hope my father doesn’t find out you’re writing stories in our trade tongue, Toby. Don’t publish it. ’Specially not with all those really rude words.”

“I wouldn’t,” Toby said. No doubt now that Zori’s father’s trade tongue was that used by the pirates. He could not doubt Zori…but her father? If Stella’s father could turn out to be Osman Vatta…anyone’s father might be an enemy.

CHAPTER

THREE

Aboard Vanguard, in FTL Flight

Ky Vatta reset the controls in
Vanguard
’s fully programmable small-arms range and slipped another magazine into her Rossi-Smith. She fired at the lowest of the five targets, something with tentacles. A green light blinked. “Most of the pure target shooting I did was learning to shoot, from my parents.” Another shot, at the next higher, something with teeth; another green light. “Then I did some hunting. Not a lot—and some of it was archery—” Another shot, this time an armored space suit. Another green light. Ky took out the last two targets. “Your turn, Major.”

Major Douglas shook his head. “No thanks,” he said. “I’m past my peak—another time.”

Ky nodded, shut down the system, and reset the ventilation.

“But back to Turek,” Douglas continued. “My guess is that he’ll start going directly for ship manufacturers. He’s got Bissonet; they made their own warships, but not very big ones, and their capacity for their largest ships was limited to only about five a year. You blew a year’s production in one battle.”

“So he’d be looking for facilities that manufacture large ships in quantity?”

“Yes. Not many planetary space forces need those. Smaller ships are sufficient for most insystem jobs, handling the kind of pirate incursions most of us saw before Turek. So there hasn’t been a large market for them, and it’s been saturated by just a few manufacturers. I strongly recommend contacting those entities when we come back out of FTL and seeing if they’ve had any thefts, attacks, or even large orders recently.”

“And recently would be—”

“Within the past two to three standard years. The big ships take that long to complete.”

“Some systems might order larger ships now that they’ve seen the menace,” Ky said. “We need a better way of detecting the wrong kind of order, don’t we?”

“My recommendation would be to see what orders have been made—quantities, payment sources, and so on—and then look for anomalies. The Moscoe Confederation may have useful data.”

“At some point Turek is going to run out of his own resources. There can’t be enough pirates in the universe to crew hundreds of ships, govern all the territory he’s conquered, do all the mundane chores that a fleet needs done. Who would join forces with someone like that, if they weren’t under direct threat?”

“A good question,” Douglas said. “I would say criminal organizations, but they’re a minority of the population. They are good at intimidating more people, though. Major political or religious movements?”

“There’s the anti-humods,” Pitt said.

“Like the people on Gretna,” Ky said. “But I don’t know how prevalent that view is—the militant side of it, I mean. The anti-humods I grew up with were harmless, just very earnest and ready to explain how the real human race was disappearing.”

“We have some concerns,” Douglas said, meaning Mackensee Military Assistance Corporation. “Our intel has been watching a couple of seriously anti-humod governments over the past ten years or so. They could be a source of funding, if Turek convinces them he’s anti-humod and out to restore the position so-called real humans deserve. If any of the governments on our list are the ones ordering warships, I’d be concerned.”

“Well, until we come out of FTL, we can’t even ask the questions,” Ky said. “Nor can I pick Captain Yamini’s brains, since he’s on another ship. So let me bounce another set of ideas off you, if you don’t mind—and that’s how best to use the slender tactical advantage we have of being able to tap Turek’s transmissions and operate in channels he doesn’t have. We hope.”

“Downjump fifteen minutes…secure for downjump…”

“Time flies,” Ky said. “I cut it too close. I’ll see you on the bridge.” She was there with five minutes to spare. Nothing should be here; this was just a convenient mapped jump point far from anything habitable or worth mining; there should be an ansible, though, for the convenience of passing ships, like theirs.

Or the enemy’s. As she’d ordered at the start of the voyage, weapons went live at T minus two. Ransome should be out now, advance scout for them. A minute crawled by, then another, then
Vanguard
lurched out of FTL into normal space, scan blurred by downjump turbulence.

“Nothing so far,” came the cheerful hail from Teddy Ransome. “Empty as a beer bottle in the morning, and the ansible’s live.”

“That’s good,” Ky said.

Argelos, Yamini, Pettygrew, and Baskerville all reported in within fifteen seconds of their expected time. The three lighter ships microjumped out to keep watch. Ky had allotted two hours here, time to strip the news from the ansible, share it, even discuss it, but she didn’t plan to have everyone clustered and vulnerable. The automated ansible had a minimal number of system boosters, but Ransome, reckless as always, microjumped within a quarter second of the ansible itself, stripped out the news bulletins, and shared them with the others immediately.

“That’s Turek,” Ky said, when the image of a man in crimson and black followed one of an explosion. “We’ve seen a picture of him before.”

“Interesting choice of postures,” Douglas said. “Notice—no podium, no column, the only scale to measure him is the sky and stars. The way he’s folded his arms—it’s like something off a poster, or a book cover. He’s claiming authority—”

You will all know my name…You will all fear my name…I am Gammis Turek…

“Insanity,” Hugh said. “Why would he send out something like this now?”

“To scare people,” Douglas said. “Interesting voice, too. Either he’s had voice training or he’s using a modification.”

“Let’s listen,” Ky said; they fell silent, and listened to the rest of it, watched the massacre of civilians, the town burning. Next came bulletins from different news services, commenting on Turek’s speech.

“Save those,” Ky said. “We don’t have much time; let’s consider Turek’s own statement first. Why would he give his name now? Remember that spy with the suicide trigger, who died saying his name?”

“He’s worried,” Douglas said. “Something has shaken his confidence in his plan.”

“I don’t know why,” Gordon Martin said. “We’ve bloodied his nose a couple of times, but no worse than that. So far he’s won every system he’s attacked.”

“That we know of,” Argelos said. “He might’ve been unsuccessful somewhere.”

“I agree,” Yamini said. “But even if he hasn’t had a major loss, he would be running into some problems of scale by now. I don’t care how many ships he’s got, he’s got to have crew for them—reliable crew, lots more than he started with—and he’s got to have supplies for them, and munitions, or the ships are useless for war. That’s a lot of resources. It isn’t just the money; it’s also the market—where’s he have to go for resupply?”

“If he’s got allies among the anti-humod systems,” Douglas said, “that may be his funding source. They could also be hauling his supplies in commercial vessels.”

“Geoffrey Baines’
Practical Tactics for Regional Conflicts,
” Yamini said. Ky stared at the screen, confused.

Douglas smacked his forehead. “Yes! That’s what I was thinking of. That’s his playbook; that’s what he’s been using. And that picture of Baines, the frontispiece, all dressed up in some kind of costume—”

“The Royal Irregulars,” Yamini said. “Blue and yellow, instead of maroon and black.”

“Explain, please,” Ky said. “I don’t remember that source in our tactical studies.”

“You wouldn’t,” Yamini said, “because we didn’t use it. Baines wasn’t actually military; he was an enthusiast, an amateur historian. His tactical instincts were good but he didn’t really understand modern space warfare.”

“It’s been effective for Turek so far,” Ky pointed out.

“Yes, but Baines doesn’t go beyond the elementary. Look, you’ve been able to defeat his people even when you were outnumbered,” Yamini said. “You picked up his tactical approach right away; you were able to improvise something effective against him.”

“Why didn’t he use something else?”

“Maybe he doesn’t know which to use. Most texts now assume a force with certain proportions of ship types he may not have. Or maybe he can’t get his people to understand them—”

“Or he doesn’t trust them,” Douglas said. “He started with criminals, pirates and stationside both. People so unreliable he had to implant them with suicide triggers to be sure they wouldn’t blab his name.”

“He’s got instant communication,” Ky said. “And people he doesn’t completely trust…that’s going to constrain his tactics, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely,” Yamini said. “And inhibit his subordinates, and annoy them, too.”

“Downjump turbulence!” Lee said from the pilot’s seat.

Hugh turned to look at the screen himself as other ships reported the same. “Estimates?”

“By the turbulence, big and fast.” He looked at Ky. Douglas, to one side, looked as though he wanted to speak but didn’t.

“We run,” Ky said. Hugh looked surprised, but Douglas gave a tiny nod. “Priority’s getting to Cascadia.” She spoke to all the ships. “Close formation, jump on my mark. Come out at the next jump point in the same formation as here, weapons hot, and immediately go into Yellow Three.” She waited as they acknowledged and Teddy Ransome microjumped back to his place, then gave them the signal. The safe haven of FTL closed around
Vanguard
once again.

“What do you think that was?” Hugh asked.

“Worst case, pursuit,” Ky said. “And maybe we just missed our chance to take out Turek…but I don’t think so. I’m wondering if somebody found out where we were going, and that was a tight formation of his ships.”

“You mean a leak from Mackensee?” Douglas asked, frowning.

“Not necessarily.” Ky felt stupid for not having thought this through before. “Turek knew we left Boxtop with you—the logical destination was your home planet. He must know Stella’s in Cascadia, and that I’d go there; this is on the logical route. All it would take is one person on your home world telling him when we left. Would you vouch for everyone in your system?” Ky asked.

“No,” Douglas said. “But I don’t like the idea that we might have a leak somewhere. Or that there was someone to intercept and act on it so quickly. If that was pursuit, they were within an hour of us. And they probably know where we’re headed next.”

“Or it could’ve been someone making a fast transit through because they were worried, having run into that broadcast somewhere else,” Hugh said. “Have to say, I’m glad you decided to leave, though. Just in case.”

“Let’s look at the rest of what we pulled off the ansible,” Ky said. “I’m sure the others are.”

The first, time-stamped only shortly after Turek’s broadcast, were simply comments on it, but down the stack came more disturbing reports. One of Sallyon’s two manned ansible stations had been blown—apparently by local terrorists—with the loss of all its personnel. A second message from Turek made it clear that this was because they had “harbored” ships from Bissonet’s militia, and that he would do worse to anyone who supported an allied force opposing him.

“They deserve it,” Martin said. “After the way he treated you.”

“Nobody deserves it,” Ky said, “even when it makes a tidy picture.”

“Notice this is the second time he’s mentioned an allied force,” Douglas said. “I think he’s realized that potential because you’ve bested his people twice now. If he has agents on Slotter Key—and it would be smart to assume he does—he may know Slotter Key privateers have been ordered to Cascadia. Or agents at intermediate stops or on Cascadia may see a buildup.”

Cascadia Station

Despite his conviction that Cascadia Station was safe, Toby had no intention of making Stella angry enough to forbid his going out at all. He told his escort where he was going, and did not object when they fell in behind him. Everyone knew the O’Keefe Ice Cream Palace. Everyone knew it was the place lots of students met in the evenings, just as they knew that
ice cream
had multiple meanings, not all related to frozen treats. He had been there before, many times.

Zori would be there at 1945, she’d said. He slid into a booth and ordered his usual, five variations on the theme of chocolate. She didn’t expect him to wait for her; she’d order her own when she arrived. His two escorts watched the chaos with obvious disdain as he ate. He could imagine what they were thinking: kids, noise, silliness, stupidity, possible infractions of the code of courtesy. Gales of laughter from the other side of the room underlined that. Toby craned his neck, trying to see what it was.