Merkiaari Wars: 03 - Operation Oracle Read online

  “Good then. What do you know of the political situation among Tei, Gina?”

  She frowned. “Nothing. I didn’t know there were political parties here.”

  “There aren’t. Shan government is very different to that found in the Alliance. The elders are like the Council, but they aren’t elected in some kind of parliament. They’re sent by their clans to advise Kajetan, and she was chosen from among them by that group. Eldest is a lifetime position. That’s the background. No parties or factions among the elders. They speak with one voice—Kajetan’s voice. Tei are different.”

  Kazim and Varya let out the low volume cough-like growl Shan used like a Human snort and then laughed together. James grinned. They knew how much of an understatement that was and were being politely sarcastic. Gina had learned most of the gestures and sounds Shan made to express themselves by now.

  “Why is that funny?” she asked.

  Varya waved the question aside. “You have to be Shan.”

  “An inside joke?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Kazim said.

  James continued. “There are three factions within Tei ranks based upon personal beliefs and attitudes. The progressives at one end of the scale believe in creating the Great Harmony out there among the stars. At the opposite end of the scale, you have the traditionalist Tei who believe in the old ways of doing things. An unkind label I’ve heard for them is the recessives. They’re not that bad. They don’t want to roll back progress, but they do want to slow it down and regulate it. Spacers are all progressive thinkers. The planet bound by and large would associate with the traditionalists.”

  She nodded and could already see a problem looming. “And the third faction?”

  James shrugged. “They’re in the middle, and not very effective. They could be called the harmony-first faction I suppose, always ready to compromise, and ever ready to mediate the other two factions. They’re the weakest group, mainly because they don’t stand for anything. They seem to spend most of their time calming down the hotheads in the other two factions.”

  “I can see where this is going, James. How serious is it?”

  “I knew you would. Judge for yourself how serious it is... there is currently a motion being debated to evacuate Child of Harmony in favour of pouring all available resources into the reconstruction effort on Harmony.”

  Gina gasped in surprised dismay, but Kazim and Varya seemed amused.

  “Will never happen,” Varya said.

  Kazim agreed. “Can’t happen regardless of anything the elders decide. Too many people, too few ships. It would take many orbits to evacuate everyone, and in that time the reconstruction here would be well along. It would have to be, just to support our people while they waited to be relocated to the homeworld. It won’t happen.”

  “I agree with Kazim,” Varya said. “Many living here would refuse to leave, they might even move into the wilds to avoid it. This is their home, not homeworld. Most were born here after all.”

  James nodded. “Yes, but the suggestion is an indication of how influence has shifted among Tei. I don’t know if Varya and Kazim agree with me, but the progressives lost many of their best people when Fleet and the stations were destroyed. All spacers are progressive thinkers, and most of them died when the Merki arrived. Harmony is firmly traditionalist now, while Child of Harmony is still progressive but weakened. And don’t forget, the population here was already much smaller.”

  Varya and Kazim obviously did agree. They didn’t need to voice it. Gina wondered how opinions among Tei would affect the future. Kajetan was already leading the Shan into the Alliance. That was a done deal and no way to back out now that Alliance blood had been spilled to liberate the system. Besides, it would be suicide. The Shan needed the Alliance for protection and would for years to come. The Merki could return at any time.

  She took a moment to squirt a compressed data packet to the General via TacNet containing her log of the last few minutes. She had a feeling he would find James’ explanation of the political scene interesting.

  “Good work,” Burgton said on viper comm a few minutes later. “See what else you can pick up. Keep me informed.”

  “Affirmative, sir,” Gina replied in the same way to keep their conversation private. To outside observers she was just thinking hard, and she was. Viper comm and TacNet both worked using a viper’s neural interface. “But I don’t see how the traditionalists have a leg to stand on. The Shan have to push hard and fast back into space, if for no other reason than meeting the Merki out there rather than down here where their cubs live.”

  “Agreed, but political shenanigans could slow their progress. They, and by extension the Alliance, can ill afford that. Fifth Fleet can’t be stationed here forever. Burgton out.”

  “Fuentez clear.”

  * * *

  5 ~ An Offer

  Elder Jutka’s home, Zuleika, Child of Harmony

  Burgton had time to review Gina’s data packet one more time before going in to the meeting. Its contents hadn’t changed, and his lips thinned. James’ analysis couldn’t be faulted, dearly though Burgton wished it could. Politics always fouled him and the regiment up, but not this time he vowed. He would not let the Shan fall foul of the same mistakes he had been forced to deal with. They deserved better.

  He was lucky in that Kajetan’s word was law. No matter what happened, the Shan would join the Alliance, but decisions here and elsewhere could reduce the speed and effectiveness of that joining. He wanted the Shan to realise their full potential. Yes, he had his own motives for that, but they deserved it.

  The Alliance had turned inward after the Merki War, and reduced exploration to almost nothing. Survey’s budget was a sick joke. The Shan should have been discovered over a hundred years ago, and would have been if not for the Council’s reluctance to stick the Alliance’s nose outside its own door! That decision was leading to stagnation and worse—the incidence of war between member worlds was way up.

  War between Shan worlds was unlikely, impossible even. There were only two after all, and to make war on one another they needed ships. They had none. No, it wasn’t war he feared, it was the other fate he worried about. Seclusion. It seemed to him that the Shan as a people faced exactly the same situation that the Alliance had faced at the end of the Merki War. Back then, the Council had made the logical but bad choice not to pursue the war and finish the Merkiaari once and for all. The reasons were many and understandable, but they compounded the error by preventing further voyages of exploration beyond the borders. It was only much later that the Survey Corp. was reactivated in its current shamefully inadequate form.

  Elder Jutka’s home was larger and more impressive than Burgton had expected. When told they would hold a meeting at her home, he had imagined a small group of friends around a dining table. Silly of him. Jutka was an elder and as such her responsibilities were many. Her home was not a small family dwelling; it was government house, embassy, and civic centre all rolled into one. Jutka’s apartments, that private area where she dwelled with her mate, were only a small part of the sprawling building. When he arrived, Burgton noted the battle damage had yet to be repaired, but it was confined to only one wing of the building, and the fire had not spread beyond the rooms directly above it.

  The meeting was held in a large conference room obviously designed for the purpose. There was a large oval table made of a lustrous dark wood in the middle, but it stood no taller than sixty centimetres high. Carafes of water and empty glasses were positioned around the perimeter, and computer tablets for note taking were also provided. Shan ordinarily didn’t use chairs. They used padded mats on the floor. The only chairs Burgton had ever seen used by Shan were on their ships, and that was purely a safety issue. In space, acceleration couches and safety harness combinations, no matter their height from the deck, were necessary things.

  Burgton found a mat and sat cross-legged. The table was exactly the right height. He poured himself a glass of water while the room s
lowly filled with chattering Shan. Some of them found places and switched their computers on. Burgton pushed his aside and replaced it with his own compad. Others did similar things, though Shan tech was different, they had devices that filled the same function. James sat to his left with Tei’Varyk opposite him. Gina would have sat beside him, but he indicated the mat opposite next to Tei’Varyk. Burgton preferred looking people he was likely to converse with in the eye.

  Jutka settled herself, and the last few Shan, considered tardy now that the elder was ready to begin, quickly found places to sit. Jutka welcomed everyone to her home, introduced the Humans, and then opened the floor to the debate.

  Burgton listened and was sadly unsurprised to learn James’ analysis was dead on. No doubt Tei’Varyk had a lot to do with that. He considered James a friend and Humans in general as his people’s natural allies. He had probably kept James informed of events. This meeting was just another in a long line of useless hand wringing that often went on in the background while the real doers and shakers got on with the real work. Varya was right. The population of this world would not leave no matter what anyone said. Burgton had seen many of them already clearing the rubble from the streets as they drove through the city.

  Kazim orbited the room with his camera, pausing to film each person as they took their turn to address the room. The meeting wasn’t being aired live, so Kazim did not need to concern himself too much with editorial matters. He had explained to Gina earlier that his assignment was to cover the talks, which meant he was recording everything. Burgton realised what that could mean if he took the opportunity so casually handed to him with this invitation. He turned toward Jutka only to find her eyes already boring into him as if willing him to speak. He got the message loud and clear. As earlier, when she had used Gina to score points off Tei’Varyk, she now proposed to win the game by using him. He wasn’t opposed to being used, not for this, but he would bet almost anything she would be surprised how he did it.

  Burgton cleared his throat before the next speaker could begin reiterating the traditionalist line as so many had before her. The Shan woman hesitated, turning toward him with one ear canted at an angle while the other strained upward but swivelling toward him. Burgton smiled, it was an odd look for her. She blinked, and smiled uncertainly back at him.

  “Forgive the interruption, honoured lady,” Burgton said in his best Shan. “I have heard both sides of this debate now, and although I am sure your words would be as earnest as those preceding them, I do not feel I need them to understand your point of view.

  “I’m not Shan,” he continued and laughed when all the Shan did. “But I feel I’ve come to know you well. I admire you... I fear for you.”

  “It’s pleasing to me that you admire my people, General,” Tei’Varyk spoke without asking the elder for permission, but she didn’t seem to care. She was watching Burgton with a small satisfied smile. “But why do you fear for us? With your help the Merkiaari are defeated and already your Admiral Kuzov is helping us gather materials from the asteroids to begin construction of new orbital factories. What do you fear?”

  Burgton licked suddenly dry lips. “I’ve heard it said that Shan honour their ancestors and teach their younglings by telling stories of them and their deeds.”

  Tei’Varyk bowed in a sort of abbreviated nod. “The sagas are true tales, yes.”

  Burgton nodded. “Then I will answer your question with a story, a true story of my people but also of my own history.” Burgton took a moment to reflect upon what he wanted to say. Should he take them all the way back to Earth’s pre-colony days, or keep things more personal and recent. Personal he decided. “I’m over two centuries old. In that time I’ve seen war, and peace, and everything in between. I’ve seen earnest but ultimately stupid men lead my people in the wrong direction many times, and I’ve seen other men struggle to undo the damage, using up their energy and lives to right the wrongs they see around them. None of them saw what they did as evil or good. They just did what they thought was right.

  “I was a young man when the Merkiaari attacked us. I was just a soldier... a warrior, one among many thousands on my planet. There was no Alliance then. We didn’t need it. Earth’s many colonies had won their independence many centuries in the past. Like your ancestors, we fought battles between ourselves, but mostly, the colonies were at peace. We traded with each other, and even when at war we had rules. Looking back, those wars seem like play fighting to me now.”

  Burgton shook his head, his eyes distant. “Then came the Merki,” he said in a harsh voice. “And the peace was shattered. Everything was panic and chaos. No one knew what was happening. We sent ships to talk to the invaders, but none returned. We lost worlds in the Border Zone to the Merki while our leaders dithered and talked. What shall we do, they cried. We must make them talk to us. More ships were lost trying.

  “Worlds fought back and slowed the Merkiaari, mine did, others as well, but we didn’t fight smart. We didn’t join together. Finally, the obvious became clear to those in high places. I say obvious, because those of us actually fighting and dying knew it long before. The Merki would never stop. They had to be stopped, not talked into stopping. They couldn’t... can’t be talked to. The homeworld of man, Earth, stepped up and took control. Even then there was mistrust and many used the situation to gain political advantage.”

  Burgton gave each of the Shan a hard stare, aware that Kazim’s camera was glued to him. “The Alliance was born, and each member world donated ships and warriors to fight as one against the Merki. Soldiers like me were recruited and changed forever to fight that war in the desperate years of the slow retreat. We lost many millions of soldiers on worlds under alien suns far from home. Thousands of ships died at the heart of nuclear fires, in solar systems that meant nothing to their crews except the Merki were there and wanted them. Slowly we retreated, forced back and back, but then one day, a day like any other, something amazing happened. We started winning and it was the Merki who retreated. Decades of fighting saw the Merkiaari defeated. Defeated like here, but not destroyed. They’re still out there, readying themselves. Building more ships, breeding more troops, getting stronger, getting ready to come back and kill us all.”

  Burgton lifted his glass and drank his water. An alert flashed on his display, and surprised, he took note of it. The water was high in minerals. He dismissed the flashing datum.

  “At the end of the war, the Alliance faced exactly the same situation as you face here, but where you have two worlds to reconstruct, the Alliance had more than eighty. At that time, those eighty comprised almost half of the Alliance. The Council chose not to pursue the Merkiaari beyond our pre-war borders, and turned its attention to reconstruction. As you have. That decision allowed the Alliance to regain strength, but also allowed the Merki menace to remain a threat. The Merkiaari have regained its strength as well, and now here we are two hundred years on reaping the rewards of the Council’s decision.”

  Burgton turned to catch Jutka’s eye. “What you do here will have far reaching consequences. Remember that. If you decide to retreat to your homeworld, abandon your only colony world, abandon your dreams of expansion as the Alliance did back then, your descendants will curse your names.” Burgton said coldly, ignoring the shocked indrawn breaths. They needed shaking up. “When the Merki return and your younglings or their younglings fight for their lives or hide under the mountains as you so recently did, what do you think they will say of your choices made here today?”

  Jutka spoke up. “What would you have us do? We have no ships or the ability to make them. Even if we did, we must defend our worlds not scatter ourselves among the stars.”

  Burgton nodded. “Your words are familiar to me. I heard them spoken often by councillors back then. They were wrong then and they’re wrong now. I don’t have all the answers, I wish I did, but I do know that hiding upon any single world is not the answer. It’s not sound strategically, it’s not sound tactically come to that, it’s just
not safe for any race or species to put all their eggs—cubs in this instance—in one basket.”

  The entire room erupted in murmurs and questions. Jutka was no longer smiling at Burgton. Maybe she had expected a different argument. He didn’t care. He would make her see what was needed, or he would go directly to Kajetan herself.

  Burgton went on, “As for the immediate situation here on Child of Harmony. It’s obvious that the reconstruction must go ahead. If for no other reason than the change in season, you must get power back on in the cities. The weather has turned. It’s not that cold yet, but winter is coming. Unless you plan upon everyone spending years in the keeps, you need to rebuild your power plants and water pumping stations.

  “In the long term, you should explore and colonise nearby worlds. You need to do that and increase your population base rapidly. I know there are difficulties to overcome, but think on this: the Alliance found you while surveying worlds in this direction. What do you think the plans for those worlds are?”

  Silence.

  Burgton smiled a little as understanding slowly circled the room. Jutka was looking at him strangely, and he realised that this was the argument she had probably expected him to use in the first place. He didn’t laugh, but nodded to her instead.

  “If you don’t take those worlds, or claim the habitable ones at least,” Burgton went on. “I assure you that in a few years my people will. We’re expanding too slowly in my opinion, as I told you, but we are expanding.”

  Tei’Varyk had a faraway look in his eyes, but then he focused upon Burgton. “Before the war I spoke with Captain Colgan about this very thing. I expressed my wish to explore the stars and rebuild the Great Harmony out there. You do not know how much I want what you describe, General Burgton, but how can we explore and claim new worlds when we cannot even scrape together enough lift capacity to even reach orbit here without your help?”