Flagship Victory Read online

  “DeChang?” Engels’ tone was skeptical. “He’s dangerous. Too ambitious.”

  Admiral Gray stage-coughed. “I’ve known Emilio for quite a while. He’s vain and he’s arrogant, but he’s also visionary and competent. It was his vision for a war-winning battleship that got him squeezed out of the Committee, but it turned out he was ahead of his time. Remember, without Indomitable, the Liberation would have failed. Yes, he’d like to be the big boss again, but even at its worst, the Mutuality was no dictatorship. If our new Republic can’t channel one man’s ambition, it’s not worth saving.”

  “So how do we channel his ambition?” Engels asked.

  Benota said, “Before the Senate gets too comfortable with the Liberator’s absence and realize they’re really in charge, I’ll work with DeChang to pass an expansion of his executive tax-and-spend powers—only for the duration of the war, of course.”

  “Fine,” Engels replied. “How does that get us the forces we need for this fight—and for the next fight, and the next?—and we’re not even talking about the Opters yet.”

  Benota bounced his ham-like fist on the table. The VR sim was so good, Engels could hardly tell the man wasn’t really in the room. “We’ll get you the forces for your ‘Battle of Calypso.’ We may have to strip the rear areas of everything, we may have to create money we don’t have and make promises we can’t keep, but we’ll get you your ships. Heavens help us if you lose, though. The Republic won’t survive it.”

  Engels drew herself up. “I won’t lose. We won’t lose. If everyone here does their duty—and there are no leaks of this plan—then we’ll hurt the Huns so badly they’ll have to negotiate.”

  Chapter 6

  Straker in Opter-land

  Twelve sidespace transit days later, as he and Myrmidon approached their destination deep in Opter space, Straker was still smarting from Carla Engels’ harsh words aimed at his “stupidity and pigheadedness” in going alone.

  “Our new enemies want you dead and the Mutuality restored, and you go and hand yourself over to them, without even bringing Loco to watch your back!” she’d yelled over the comlink.

  “Can you imagine Loco on a sensitive spy mission?”

  She’d ignored that. “And even worse, you’re not even going to come see me first?”

  “No time, my love,” he’d said. “Every delay gives the Opters more chances to raid us, and for the Hundred Worlds to push deeper into our territory. You and Gray and Benota can handle the Huns and the war of fleets—I’m not a critical factor there. But only I can deal with the Opters, and that means understanding them, finding out the truth.”

  Engels had ranted and raved, but he’d held firm. Now, he and Myrmidon had arrived at the Alka System deep inside Opter territory, traveling on the agent’s fast courier. And she was fast. The same trip would have taken a capital ship six weeks or more and exhausted her fuel.

  Despite the speed, Straker was ready to get out of the cramped little vessel.

  The days had, however, given him the leisure to talk at length with Myrmidon—or Don, as he liked to call himself. “Don is a common enough phoneme in Earthan and most of the Old Earth languages that it usually passes easily on human worlds,” he’d explained.

  Straker had tried without success to find any holes in Don’s long skeins of conversation, his easy explanations of his views on Opters and humanity and the aliens on their various borders. He’d learned a lot, but he still had the nagging feeling he was being subtly led toward some viewpoint Don wanted.

  Straker hoped he survived the visit. This deep in enemy territory, everything became a long shot.

  And, until now, the Opter-man had provided proof of nothing.

  That was obviously about to change, as the screen showed multiple Opter ships plying the routes among the various planets, moons and facilities of the Alka System. Most of these were smaller than those humans would use—or at least, the crew portions were. Some of the freighters, for example, appeared to be composed of small, powerful tugs with cargo modules attached, rather than the usual Earthan arrangement of a hulled ship with internal bays. Probably Opters needed fewer amenities than humans.

  Don brought his scout ship into a planetary docking ring, a massive, amazing structure that floated above the planet’s equator in a perfect geosynchronous orbit. More than twenty-five thousand kilometers in circumference, it was attached to the world with dozens of space elevators, like spokes in a wheel.

  “This is a far more efficient system to access space than fusion-powered ships individually ascending and descending. It uses less energy, needs less gravitic compensation, and provides a better platform for orbital industry than parked asteroids,” Don said.

  “It’s also extremely fragile, vulnerable to attack or sabotage,” replied Straker. “Hit an asteroid with a bomb or missile, and you damage only that facility. This thing… if you could crack the structure, I bet the entire thing would unravel, buckle and come apart.”

  “Less than you might think. The materials used are stronger than duranium, based on genetically engineered spider-silk infused with graphenoid molecules. And Opter society is far less vulnerable to infiltration by humans. In a pinch, every Opter would take up arms for the defense of Nest and Hive.”

  “Meaning you think you’re superior?”

  “We are, in some ways. In the most obvious ones, perhaps. In others, no. I’ve come to respect humans on the whole, even while as individuals you vary wildly, and fail miserably to cooperate.” Don caught Straker’s gaze. “I’ve also come to realize that there is no one definition of superior. The human definition usually compares symmetries and declares one thing better than the other. That’s easy when militaries go head to head. It is not so easy in deciding, say, which approach to survival is better. Your dinosaurs dominated Old Earth—until an asteroid radically cooled their environment. All their size, ferocity and so-called superiority suddenly became irrelevant when their food sources vanished. Smaller, hardier things survived where the giants could not. In fact, ‘dinosaur’ became a metaphor for that which is doomed to extinction.”

  Straker grunted. “Adapt or die. I know that.”

  Don turned away. “Well summarized. But do you truly understand?”

  Straker had no answer, so he changed the subject. “I take it this is a Miskor world?”

  “Oh, no, Derek. This is a Sarmok Hive System, with only Sarmok Nests.” Don stood from his pilot’s seat and picked up a duffel bag he’d prepared beforehand, and gestured for Straker to pick up his own. He then took a few steps to the ship’s exit portal and pressed his palm to the sensor pad.

  The door opened wide onto an enormous flight deck for small craft. Beings of all sorts scurried to and fro with tremendous purpose. Some of their errands seemed inscrutable, but some were obvious—loaders pushing cargo, creatures with duffels not unlike Straker’s own, maintainers with tools, refuellers with tanks and hoses.

  The surprise for Straker was the high proportion of humans—okay, bipeds, at least—he could see. There were only a few dog-bees, a smattering of armed warrior wasps, and a fair number of the worker ants, composing perhaps a third of the beings here.

  The rest had two legs and two arms and many seemed indistinguishable from humans. Some had odd coloring—green, purple, bright red—and some had abnormal skin—scaly or chitinous or moist and glistening. But about half could have passed unnoticed on human worlds.

  “Welcome to Terra Nova,” Don said.

  “What?” Straker said sharply. “That means ‘New Earth,’ right? That’s pretty ballsy, you Opters calling this place after humanity’s home.”

  “You’ve never even been to Old Earth, you said.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “And if the Sarmok have their way, this is the breeding ground of a new humanity.”

  “Meaning?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Don took a step, but Straker grabbed his arm. “And how do I fit in here? Won’t they spot me
or smell me as different and arrest me?”

  “I took the liberty of altering your biochemistry slightly.”

  Straker shook the smaller man roughly. “You did what?”

  Don looked down at Straker’s grip, then back up to his eyes. “Don’t be a pussy, Derek. Your Hok biotech made you ninety percent Opter, as far as the average Facet you encounter can tell. I merely tweaked your scent to add Sarmok pheromone markers like my own. Only if you’re subjected to deeper bio-analysis could someone tell you’re not Hive-raised.”

  “I don’t trust you, dammit.”

  Don peeled Straker’s thumb and fingers off his arm. “Don’t be an idiot. You put yourself in my hands when you decided to come with me. Make a decision and stick with it. Otherwise, I might as well take you back right now.”

  “Okay then, let’s go back.”

  Myrmidon took a deep breath, sighed, shook his head, and turned back to his scout ship. “Great. Another five days cooped up a ship with no shower—and you.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “We’ll stay. I was testing you.”

  Don’s mouth curled as he looked sidelong at Straker. “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “This is my area of expertise, remember?”

  “What, deception?”

  “Spycraft. Psychological combat. Manipulation. You can’t beat me at my own game, Derek. You have to decide to trust me. You’re in my hands. Just like I decided to put myself in your hands when I came to you.”

  Straker rubbed the back of his neck. “But if you’re like the rest of these Opter creatures—these Facets, you called them?—then you’re programmed to consider yourself expendable, so you wouldn’t actually care whether you live or die. In fact, there could be a thousand Myrmidons, cloned to look and act the same and infiltrate us.”

  “That’s very astute. There are many of our infiltrators in your society—some highly placed indeed. And as I said, I’ve spent years living among you. But as for clones… every being with free will quickly becomes individualized once he lives among you. Your very randomness and lack of regimentation assures it. And once each of us assimilates into human culture, we’re free to defect, to form our own goals, morality, and beliefs about right and wrong. If we acted like Opters, we’d never blend in. A perfect fake, if truly perfect, is no longer a fake. It becomes real.”

  Straker barked a laugh. “All that philosophy is so much mental bullshit. You spin these theories that sound good, but in the end, what matters is that you’re so good at faking that we can’t tell—not without tests, like you said. So…”

  “So?”

  “So you’re right. I have to act like I trust you, even if I really don’t. The dice are cast.” Straker stuck a finger in Don’s chest. “But I’m watching you.”

  “Fair enough.” Don turned to walk toward a distant portal. “Now let’s get going before we attract attention. Human-opts are given a lot of leeway, but the insectoid Facets still tend to regard us as dangerously unstable. There have been cases of warriors killing us because they misunderstood some action that humans would find commonplace.”

  Straker followed alongside. “Such as?”

  “Such as getting drunk and starting a fistfight. Insectoids interpret that as a Facet gone insane.”

  “Okay, no barroom brawls.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, once we’re on the surface, different rules apply. There are areas where human Facets are given completely free rein, no matter the results.”

  “No matter the results?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “So they won’t interfere.”

  “Not once we’re on the surface. But we still have to play our roles. I’m an agent. You’re my trainee. Try to act like it.”

  Myrmidon wouldn’t answer any more questions about what that meant, so Straker allowed himself to be led along. After a minimum of processing, which consisted of a quick scan of his body and his baggage, they boarded a train down the nearest cable.

  Cable was a pale, weak word for the connecting tether their vehicle traversed. The tether measured at least a hundred meters across, and the train’s gravplating was set so that Straker felt as if they traveled upon a long, thin bridge from the ring behind them to the vertical wall of the blue planet in front of them. The top and sides of the train cars were made of transparent crystal. Apparently even Opters liked to take in the view as they traveled.

  All of their fellow passengers were humanoid. Most of the exotics—that’s what Don called the nonstandard ones—spoke some kind of clicking Opter language with each other. The standard humans mostly used Earthan, in a variety of perfectly ordinary accents, though two conversed in what Straker guessed was Chinese.

  “This is creepy,” said Straker. “I feel like I could be arriving at any human planet.”

  “Then we’ve done our job well,” Don replied.

  Straker realized he was speaking of the Opters—or maybe just the Sarmok—when he said “we,” as others around them might overhear. “Yes, we have,” Straker said, and reminded himself to be cautious.

  As he observed the fake humans, his main impression was of childlike happiness. Unlike Myrmidon, they didn’t seem like they would fit in with human society—or if they did, real humans would find them odd. He tried to figure out what it was.

  They acted like kids in growup bodies, he realized. Like ordinary civilian children untouched by hardship, as he was before the Hok killed his family. Not like the cadets at Academy, too old before their time and training for war. Yet they looked like adults.

  One woman stood out from the crowd, though. Her measured gaze was different, direct and confident, and she glanced across the car at them a little too often.

  Straker nudged Don. “We’re being watched.”

  “I know,” Don murmured. “But now she knows you know, and now that you told me, she knows I know too. You make a bad spy, Derek.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A new operative, testing out her skills in a closed environment.” Don reached inside his tunic and produced a small leather folder, which he opened in her direction, and then shut with a snap. She nodded and departed the car. “She won’t bother us again.”

  “You sure there aren’t others watching?”

  “If they are, they’re using technical means, not their own eyes. As my trainee, the watchers will expect you to make mistakes, but if you make too many, I may have to send you back to the larval pods. Get it?”

  Straker processed this odd declaration, remembering Don was speaking for the benefit of possible listeners. “Sure, Don. I’ll try to do better. Sometimes I try too hard to act like one of those crazy weird humans.”

  “Yes, and you’re doing it now.”

  “Sorry. Just practicing.” Straker shut up for a while, until the transport approached the surface. When they were perhaps twenty kilometers from the surface—which still looked to Straker like a wall rather than the ground—he realized the scale of the construction he could see, and the extent of the cityscape.

  “How many people live here on Terra Nova?” Straker asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guess.”

  Don turned blandly toward Straker. “A trillion? Two?”

  Straker swallowed. “A thousand billion..? That seems impossible. That’s a hundred planet’s worth of people on one world. How do you feed everyone?”

  “With technology, and enough energy, anything’s possible. The environment is completely geo-engineered. Cities extend downward more than a thousand meters in many places, with plenty of hydroponic farms. Rather than thinking of Terra Nova as a planet, think of it as a giant habitat that happens to be big enough to sustain an atmosphere.”

  “It’s a damn hive.”

  “You’re starting to see.”

  When the train arrived at the Terra Nova surface, it followed a curving track that le
ft all the cars resting on level ground. The two men stepped out into a station that could have come from any human planet. Signs directed travelers to other tracks where trains would take them to destinations with half-familiar names like Caledonia, Hong Kong and Shepparton. Cafes and restaurants served food and drink to the populace, and music wafted from a piano a woman played near a fountain.

  “This is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” Straker muttered.

  “On the contrary, Derek. It’s one of the most ordinary things you’ve ever seen. What makes it weird is that you know it’s all manufactured and contrived.”

  “Like an amusement park, where the building fronts look like houses or hotels, but they actually contain rides.”

  Don nodded. “It’s the dissonance between the appearance and the underlying truth that gets you. In fact, new agents feel the same on their first assignments on a human world—except they have to accept that it’s real, and the exercises are over. If they get caught, they might never come back.”

  “So they do get caught?”

  “Of course. The human intelligence services apprehend our people quite often.”

  “So they know about Opt—um, our infiltration?”

  “Certain spy divisions know or suspect, but our agents’ biology is flawless, so those caught are generally believed to be from their human enemies, or from independent worlds.” Myrmidon began walking and Straker followed. “Let’s get going.”

  “Where to?” Straker asked.

  “Baltimore.”

  “That’s a place, right?”

  “Yes. It’s named for a city on Old Earth.”

  Myrmidon bought tickets with an ordinary credit stick. A maglev train whisked them hundreds of kilometers through a tube evacuated of air, allowing the vehicle to reach speeds impossible in atmosphere. Twenty minutes later they walked out onto the streets of Baltimore.

  Straker stopped abruptly, shocked at what he saw, as the crysteel doors of the train station slammed shut behind him. Ragged, filthy people stared at him, some drinking from liquor bottles, smoking various weeds, or even shooting drugs into their veins. They sat or lounged on streets littered with garbage or leaned against buildings covered with graffiti. Broken windows gaped like the mouths of concrete monsters, and a stench filled the air.