Reclamation (Book One of the Art of War Trilogy), page 16
‘You know the team?’
‘I read the brief, Bal,’ Yano said, allowing a note of irritation to creep into his voice. He loathed being babied.
‘Good,’ Bal said, smiling in a way that was calculated to annoy him further. Yano couldn’t help but laugh. It would do no good to get angry at Codey – the man had too many years of practice on him. ‘So, why are we here? Give me the sound bite.’
‘Mandatory summit under Galactic Protocol Nine,’ Yano said, reclining and watching the impressive vaulted architecture of Vhalyssia whip past. ‘From what the President tells me, the kaygryn attacked one of the Ascendancy crusade fleets in the Vadian Spiral and we don’t know why. Now the provar are wasting the kaygryn on Uvolon, some corvette and a group of militia attempting the summit of the Tiberean Mountains. Incidentally I’ve been to the Tiberean Mountains. Gorgeous place.’
Codey grunted.
‘About five hundred kaygryn killed,’ Yano continued. ‘No further attacks that I’ve been made aware of through any of the FTL channels – though the provar are still sitting in orbit from what I gather. Aurelius is keeping the cards close to the chest at the moment. Personally I’m encouraged that they’ve called a summit at all, since I wouldn’t put it past him to try and take that provari cruiser out.’
Codey grunted again. ‘We have Federal Socialists with us. Political support. Andrea Constance and Erik Graydon. They’ll be out of our way so don’t worry about them too much. To be honest with you, I’m not sure why the President sent them in the first place.’
‘Well, he likes to meddle in everything doesn’t he,’ Yano said, stopping himself from sneering. He had no love for Aurelius. Few in UNDM did. The Federal Socialists thought the Diplomatic Corps held too much power, and attaching idiots like Andrea Constance to the team was his way of asserting authority. It was like someone drawing a bead on you with a railgun.
‘Does she have authority to can the mission?’ Yano asked.
Codey nodded. ‘Yes, in the usual way. But she won’t.’
As diplomatic personnel, even the elite Exigency Corps Xeno Division, they were still answerable to the elected government. Constance had the authority to close down the mission if she wanted, though even Aurelius, for all his hot-headedness, wouldn’t kick that hornet’s nest.
‘Relax,’ Codey said after a short while. ‘You’ll have your time in the spotlight. Hell, you’re the darling of the UN media. Teenage girls have posters of you up in their rooms.’
Yano laughed like he didn’t care, but he secretly loved hearing little throwaway morsels like that. ‘Lot of interest in the foreign media,’ he said, pretending not to be interested in how eminent he was. ‘At least, the outlets I could translate.’
‘A lot of Tier Three wants to know how this is going to play out between the Ascendancy and the UN. I should imagine a lot of Tier Two does as well; it’s their worlds which will burn if it comes to war.’
Yano nodded. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than living in Tier Two: Contacted, technologically advanced civilisations but confined to their home planets and mandatorily unmolested under Galactic Protocol. Many were able to monitor Tier-Three broadcasts remotely, but as voices in the galactic community, they were all but ignored. They would be utterly powerless to protect themselves in the event of Tier-Three war, where proxy and brushfire conflicts ignited readily.
There was a brief, contemplative silence as both men watched the scenery before Codey said, ‘We have specific interests as well. I have an objectives list. I’ll not go through them now,’ he added with a glance shot at the ZEN, ‘but the President is, understandably, keen for this not to become another Hadan’s Reach.’
‘We’re not throwing the kaygryn to the wolves again?’
Codey murmured something. ‘We’re going to try to help it this time. If we can.’
‘I’m brimming with confidence. How wide is my mandate, by the way?’
‘As narrow as it gets,’ Codey said with a grin. ‘Though I managed to negotiate myself out of accompanying you to the toilet. They’ll let you do that by yourself.’
The cruiser concluded the short journey with a stomach-loosening swoop that brought them to the Voscmark Hotel, or rather, what the Xeno Division mission in Gonvarion called the Voscmark Hotel. The building was close to a kilometre tall and ancient even by zhahassi standards, made of fluted blocks of sturdy white stone and topped with a bronze dome inscribed with a number of murals, most of which had been weathered to obscurity. A number of massive violet pennants hung from the walls, fluttering in the hot breeze. The cruiser landed on a rectangular platform between two of them, halfway up the side of the building. The ZEN remained in the cruiser as Yano and Codey climbed out. Yano was braced for a wave of heat, but it was noticeably cooler five hundred metres above sea level. The cruiser powered into the sky with a hum of its engines, and they were both left standing on the old platform.
‘Quite a view,’ Yano said, gazing around at the ancient, monolithic towers. The Voscmark wasn’t even the tallest building he could see, though it was certainly one of the most striking. It was a shame that most of the city was empty. There was no visible traffic, which immediately set it apart from ninety per cent of vehicle-choked UN cities. Indeed, it was practically silent, save the odd caw from the local avifauna. It put Yano in mind of one of the Terran ghost cities, vast metropolises on Earth gathering wildlife and dust following the Expansion.
‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, looking over his shoulder. Codey was busy consulting his IHD, given his vacant, slightly cross-eyed look.
‘The Zhahassi Commonwealth is massive,’ Codey said. ‘The zhahassi population isn’t.’ He shrugged. ‘A summit venue in the Demilitarised Zone doesn’t need permanent residents.’ He cancelled his IHD and blinked. ‘Most of those reporters you saw outside the spaceport live here, waiting for a scrap of a story, the latest political scuffle. That’s about it.’
‘Mm,’ Yano grunted, feeling vaguely melancholy about it. The moment passed quickly.
‘Come on,’ Codey said, ‘the team is waiting inside.’
They made their way through the archway that led away from the platform. Inside was a vast open hall, vaulted like a cathedral and covered in decorative murals. Yano’s IHD identified them as depicting the zhahassi’s first contact with each Tier-Three race, including with the then Xeno Division, though it seemed they wore different uniforms back then. He would have been happy to study the murals for hours, given their marvellous detail and vibrant colour, but Codey was already striding purposefully towards a side corridor. He followed, making a mental note to revisit them.
From the hall branched a warren of passageways, some leading to similar halls, others to briefing rooms, quarters and kitchens. The entire floor was leased semi-permanently to Xeno Division and had a dedicated staff of demilitarised ZENs to wait on them. The efficiency of it wasn’t in the least surprising, given that zhahassi diplomacy was, like a ZEN, a well-oiled machine. Yano smiled to himself, pleased with the joke.
It took them five minutes to reach the briefing chamber. It was a circular room with a domed roof, ringed with pane-less windows which let both light and fresh air in. It in fact appeared to Yano to be an old library, given its walls were lined with wooden bookshelves and filled with actual hardcopy books. In the centre was a wide table, likely a UN import given its human-friendly height, and around the table were an assortment of people muttering among themselves. The chatter stopped the moment he and Codey entered.
‘Special Envoy,’ Andrea Constance, Secretary of State for Xeno Affairs, spoke from the head of the table. ‘Welcome to Gonvarion.’
Those who had not noticed his and Codey’s arrival immediately turned to see him. Those from the Exigency Corps – Kaivan Bastian and Abena Ghani, the two junior envoys – stood up as a matter of professional courtesy. The rest, and irritatingly the majority, did not.
‘Thanks,’ Yano said, flashing Constance a smile. Her welcome had already annoyed him. ‘Good to be here.’
His IHD had already tagged each person with a little name, rank and organisation marker above their heads, but he let Codey perform the introductions anyway.
‘You know Kaivan and Abena,’ he said dutifully, indicating the standing envoys. Actually, Yano had no idea who either of them were, but it was an old custom within UNDM to pretend every other diplomat was at least an acquaintance.
‘Of course,’ he said, shaking their hands in turn and smiling warmly. Bastian’s handshake was too limp, causing him to instantly dislike the younger man. According to Yano’s IHD, he’d only just qualified from the UNDC’s ethics programme, making him next to useless. Ghani was equally uninspiring, though had at least had some experience in the field. Together they made two competent aides and nothing more. He’d keep them away from the sharp end of the summit.
‘From the Office of Xeno Affairs, you know Andrea Constance, of course,’ Codey continued. The woman nodded her head from the end of the table. She was the oldest in the room, insofar as anyone actually looked visibly elderly any more. Politicians tended to be the exception to the general, moneyed population, allowing a certain amount of wizening to creep into their facial features. Again, Yano didn’t like her, but then he didn’t like any Federal Socialists.
‘The undersecretary, Erik Graydon.’ That earned Yano a curt nod, and he responded in kind.
‘Andrea’s two comms officers, Bennett Yuh and Tanja Henrikson.’
It was here that Yano paused. He didn’t give a flying shit about Bennett Yuh, little obsequious dolt as he was likely to be. His attentions were on Tanja Henrikson, who was gorgeous and naturally so, since she clearly hadn’t undergone cosmetic enhancement. What she was doing traipsing around with that sow Constance he didn’t know, but what he did know was that, before the end of the summit, he was going to sleep with her.
‘Hi,’ he said neutrally, utilising all of his training to decipher her demeanour. Already he could tell that she was irritatingly loyal to her employer, though her façade of professionalism was just that – a façade. She was clearly nervous, not unlike the two envoys he’d been sent from UNDM, and anxiety could always be exploited. She was cynical enough to see through any overt attempt on his part to befriend her, however, and his devastating good looks would make her assume he was as promiscuous as he actually was. A challenge, then, though not an insurmountable one.
‘This is our press attaché, Charlotte Asha,’ Codey continued with a tone that told Yano he’d been clocked.
‘United Information’s diplomatic correspondent,’ Yano said, ignoring his second. He recognised her instantly as one of the few UI reporters officially sanctioned by Xeno Division, graded on their charts as ‘Onside’. She was physically nearer to him than the others, so they shook hands.
‘Glad someone watches it,’ she said, smiling. She’d been cosmetically enhanced, much like himself, though in such a way as to make it look natural. Very expensive, certainly, and he would have staked his life on United Information having footed the bill. Her hand lingered for the briefest of moments against his, letting him know that she would be exceptionally easy to sleep with. He sighed inwardly. Reporters were just no fun.
With the introductions concluded, Yano took a spare seat between Charlotte and Abena. He had no doubt that to anyone else, the assembled personnel represented the pinnacle of the UN’s diplomatic offering, a collection of calm, professional and incredibly intelligent and talented individuals in whom the UN could repose its confidence. To him, he’d been given the dregs, a collection of morons scraped from the UNDM bar at closing and ushered into a Fleet Auxiliary voidbreaker.
‘Well, you’re all aware of the situation,’ Codey said. ‘You all read the news – or in your case, Charlotte, make it.’ That drew a smattering of laughs. He manipulated the desk terminal in front of him and a holo of Uvolon, rendered in beautiful detail, sprang into focus in the centre of the table. ‘Suffice it to say, the kaygryn attacked an Ascendancy crusade fleet about ten hours ago, the provar are… understandably annoyed about it. That’s what we do know. What we do not know is why the kaygryn attacked it. Finding that out will be one of the goals of this summit. As always, information is king.’
He altered the focus of the holo so that it enhanced a landmass in the northern hemisphere and highlighted two nation states in red and blue respectively. ‘This is Vos’Shan,’ he said, pointing to the larger of the two countries, ‘home to thirty million kaygryn. This is Anternis, which you’ll all be familiar with from the news.’
Nods all round. Of course, everyone knew this, thought Yano, but it never hurt to ensure everyone was reading from the same page.
‘Reports from Commander Aryn Vance, head of the UNAF base on Anternis, have confirmed the following publicly: that the Ascendancy has stationed a naval cruiser in orbit, which has now fired two kinetic rail strikes – that’s a “KRS” in military parlance – the first of which hit and destroyed a kaygryn corvette over the Bayscillic Ocean just south of Anternis City, and the second of which hit a convoy of kaygryn militia here, in the historically neutral Tiberean borderlands. The Vos’Shan’i militia were apparently transporting, inter alia, surface-to-orbit weaponry in what was a routine military exercise before they were all killed. Estimated casualties stand currently at five hundred kaygryn and nil human, and that is the way we all intend to keep it. Understood?’
Nods and grunts all round.
‘What about the military units which have been placed on the border?’ Andrea Constance asked. She waved her hand irritably at Yuh. ‘I heard that we’ve moved… Bennett, what were you telling me earlier?’
‘Seven GV11b Interdictor-variant Goliaths,’ Bennett replied. ‘Moved to the Tiberean border.’
‘You’ve pre-empted me,’ Codey said, smiling in such a way as to convey tested patience. ‘You’re correct, of course,’ he continued, highlighting the position on the map of the Goliaths. ‘Under orders from the President, a squadron of seven amrocovs–’
‘You know we don’t know what amrocovs are, Balthazar,’ Constance said. Yano was beginning to form the impression that Codey and the Secretary of State didn’t get on.
‘Tanks, Andrea,’ Codey said, looking her directly in the eye. ‘Big, human-shaped tanks. Advanced Mechanised Multi-Role Combat Vehicle. Amrocov. I have a hardcopy file on them if you’d like to read up on it?’
‘Yes, that would be perfect, thank you,’ she replied, knowing full well that Codey had no such thing.
Everyone pretended to study the holo for a few seconds as Codey refocussed it.
‘Under orders from the President,’ he continued, not quite through clenched teeth, ‘a squadron of seven Goliaths has been stationed on the border to prevent kaygryn refugees from entering Anternis. The President has made it clear that as a matter of policy, protecting the human population is his number one priority. Allowing a flood of kaygryn refugees over the border will only inflame the situation. We are not throwing them to the wolves; we just have to prioritise our own people – that’s the party line, understood?’
Another chorus of assent. The holo changed with a wave of Codey’s hand and now displayed a trio of UN destroyers and one enormous ship, labelled as the UNS Achilles.
‘The President and Joint Chiefs at UNSOC have decided to dispatch a trio of warships, operating as a “quick-reaction force” out of Navem Sigma, to Uvolon post-haste. The force is led by Captain Jacob Rynn and will arrive ahead of the Achilles, a stellar disaster contingency craft, in the very unlikely instance we need to evacuate the colony. The ships are to observe the situation and ensure that no harm befalls any UN citizens – essentially escort duty for the Ascendancy cruiser. There is intense media speculation that this particular move will be seen as inflammatory and counterproductive; it is therefore incumbent upon all of us to ensure that the situation is not misconstrued.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Constance said drily.
‘It’s your party’s policy,’ Yano snapped.
‘It’s the President’s policy,’ she retorted. ‘The dangers of this course of action are well rehearsed. New Carthage, for one.’
‘Nonetheless,’ Codey said loudly, ‘we’re all on the same team and we’re all playing from the same rulebook. The quick-reaction force is due to arrive in the small hours of tomorrow morning, local time. The President released this statement earlier today.’ The map of Uvolon changed to a UI feed of the all-network broadcast of the Presidential Address. In front of a small retinue of UNSOC generals, he calmly delivered a narrative on the situation and what was being branded a policy of ‘limited Fleet oversight’ to ensure the safety of UN citizens. They watched it in silence for five minutes before Codey cancelled it.
‘Does he think the provar will watch this?’ Charlotte Asha asked. ‘We have second-by-second figures on broadcast uptake. I can tell you right now, most Ascendancy worlds actively block UN signals.’
‘Can we assume that Ascendancy SIGINT will pick it up?’ Bennett Yuh asked.
‘Our government will have told the provar,’ Codey said wearily, ‘on that we can count. The question now will be how the provar choose to receive that information. We cannot rule out the possibility that they’ll simply ignore it. Our job at the summit tomorrow will be to reinforce the position that unjustified violence in all forms is to be condemned, irrespective of how it is initiated. We called the summit, so we can hardly be taken to be the aggressor.’
‘You’re assuming a lot there, Balthazar,’ Andrea said.
‘This is diplomacy, Andrea. I do not assume anything until I have it in writing.’
‘We’ll be calling for a ceasefire,’ Yano interjected, growing weary of the feud. ‘I’ll send the provar executors our position statements tonight once they’re finalised. We’re going to ram home the point that talking, or “constructive dialogue” to use McKone’s favourite phrase, is the way forward. The provar won’t be so rash as to blow the quick-reaction force into radioactive dust with the whole galaxy watching.’ He wondered idly why this had become a soothing session for the attendant Federal Socialists. Or was it themselves they were trying to convince?
