Empire of the Fallen, page 4
‘All right,’ Constance said exasperatedly. ‘All right.’ She searched for the words. ‘You know the situation with the Kaygryn Empire.’
Yano steepled his fingers. The sync had given him white UNDM gloves, he noticed. ‘I watched your address, yes. Langdon Keita briefed me, too. Privately.’
‘They’re coming, Yano. They’re coming for the provar, and then they’re going to come for us because of Hadan’s Reach. Every kaygryn in this galaxy is going to join them, too. We are facing an unprecedented crisis and I am putting together an unprecedented crisis team.’
Yano felt his heart rate ratchet up a few notches. Now that Constance was getting to the point, he wasn’t as sure he wanted her to.
‘You still speak Argish?’ she asked.
‘Passably.’
Constance nodded. ‘Yano, we found kaygryn in the Zecad, as you probably know. Kaygryn Empire kaygryn. Pickled. Data sponged. Their preserved mindstates provide the routes across the Khāli Barrier. They are a map. The map.’
She told him all about it, everything JIC had managed to piece together with an army of translators, XD diplomats, and a selection of provari feudal lords and theocratic defectors. She spoke for fifteen minutes. When she finished, she sat down.
Yano looked at her. ‘Well… shit,’ he said. He paused. No, he had nothing to add. ‘Shit,’ he concluded.
Constance shook her head and clacked her tongue a few times. Her expression hardened. ‘They’re coming for us and I don’t know how to stop them.’
Yano closed his eyes. ‘Where do I fit in?’
Constance took a deep breath. ‘Thanks to the provar, we have the technology to effectively download your consciousness into one of the Kaygryn Empire bodies that we have. I want you and a UNIS agent, Lyra Staerck, to travel, in secret, into the Kaygryn Empire, and find out how to stop them.’
Yano’s mouth fell open. After ten seconds of silence, he made an odd noise that was part affront, part shock, and part terror.
‘Yano, you’re the best Xeno Division diplomat there is,’ Constance said matter-of-factly. ‘You can read them better than anyone else. You speak Argish. You’re familiar with both provari and kaygryn customs. And Agent Staerck; Agent Staerck has been studying the kaygryn for years. She’s a trained field agent and a top rate intelligence officer. You’d have a Special Warfare backup. I’m talking the best operatives we have. The very latest stealth and weapons technology. And if it doesn’t work, we’d pull you out straight away.’
Yano stared at her. His mind was in overdrive. They wanted to turn him into a fucking kaygryn?
‘You want to turn me into a fucking kaygryn?’
‘Yes,’ Constance said simply.
‘What about—wait, is that why you’ve kept Rutai sweet as well?’
Constance nodded. ‘I had a debrief with SPECWAR. The kaygryn is proficient in arms and, more importantly, is loyal to you. Given that almost every kaygryn in this galaxy now hates us, allies are hard to come by. He appeared fortuitously and we didn’t want to throw him back until we were sure he wouldn’t be useful. As it turns out, he will be.’
Yano should have expected the President to be a cynical person, given that they’d just spent six months at war, but it was depressing to hear all the same. Constance had always seemed above it. Principled.
‘There’s no way I’m doing this,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Forget it. I’ll help you with the provar on Vargonroth—hell, anywhere in the galaxy. I’ll negotiate with the kaygryn to stop blowing themselves and everything around them up. I’ll do whatever you want. But I’m not doing this. It’s fucking insane, Andrea.’
Constance blew her cheeks out. ‘Yano, do you know what I said to Agent Staerck?’
Yano bit back a dozen expletives and buried them in a petulant shrug. Of course he knew what she’d said to Staerck. She was about to say the same thing to him. ‘Tough shit?’ he said angrily.
‘Got it in one.’ She held up a hand before he could interject. She wasn’t apologetic any more. Any forbearance she might have granted him had disappeared. ‘Yano, Agent Staerck was decapitated on Uvolon by a provari rail strike. She’s been kept alive, in that state, for over half a year. She has just been returned to the UN after being marooned on a UNIS blackworld, and rather than growing her a new body, we’re going to save ourselves the trouble and stick her straight into a kaygryn. She’s a trained and capable field agent, yes, and happily she knows a lot about the kaygryn specifically, but there are hundreds if not thousands of those. No. The real reason is that she’s already basically just a mind, and we’re going to download it into an alien brain like an embedded holo code. It’s easy and it creates much less paperwork.
‘It’s not the same with you. You’re not “dead”. You’re not off the books. You’re very much corporeal. But you are good at what you do. So good at what you do, in fact, that I’m willing to risk your life in the transplant. So yes. Tough shit, Zavian. It’s time to step up to the plate again and save your nation. Because if you don’t, you can zip around the galaxy to your heart’s content, sure, but then they’ll come for us and they’ll kill us all to a man, and you’ll damn well wish you’d done something about it when you had the chance.’
Her hands were trembling. Ordering people in this way clearly didn’t suit her. She fixed him in the eye nonetheless, daring him to refuse her.
But he couldn’t. Despite his rage, despite his affront and petulance and fear, he knew two things.
Firstly, he had to do it, for the sake of humankind.
And secondly, he didn’t have a choice.
‘Fine,’ he snapped, his lips peeled back into a sneer. He levelled a white-gloved finger at her. ‘But fuck you.’
THE CONCILIATOR
‘The problem with Tier Three is that everyone hates each other.’
UN satirical hourly GSW!
Constance crashed out of the sync with a splitting headache and a lousy temper.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ she exhaled. Her voice sounded tinny and close inside the dark capsule. She ran a shaky hand through her hair, composed herself, and shoved the door open.
Kurt Rankin, her impertinent chief communications officer, was waiting for her.
‘Ma’am President,’ he said, dismissing an ostentatious cloud of holos. ‘Your next meeting is in three minutes.’
Constance checked the time. ‘Yes,’ she muttered, and had her IHD neutralise her headache. The pain melted away, and in its place a feeling of energy and refreshment came over her. It did nothing for her temper though, and the presence of Rankin only compounded it. He may have excelled at his job, but by God was the man irritating.
‘How did it go?’ he asked, falling into step beside her. He wasn’t quite as tall as her, though on his comms officer salary he’d been able to afford some decent cosmetic enhancement.
Constance snorted. She could think of better ways to have spent the money.
‘That bad?’ he asked, misjudging her derision.
‘No,’ she said tersely. ‘And don’t ask me about it again. I’ve told you it’s classified.’
They walked quickly through the upper corridors of the Assembly Building, through the warren of access-restricted hallways and briefing rooms where dozens of senior military personnel reposed, and took a maglev elevator down to the building’s mezzanine level. There were hundreds more personnel here, including politicians, diplomats, alien legations and generals. During the war, all had observed the mandatory audio damper protocol; now a tsunami of sound battered them as every IHD in the vicinity clocked her approach.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, forcing herself to smile, ‘excuse me, sorry, can I just—thanks, yes I’m heading—just—through here, thanks, sorry, I have a meeting, one moment—’ And so it went on, until she was free of the press and on a clear stretch of carpet heading to the Volpone Suite, one of the Assembly Building’s caucus rooms.
She straightened out her blazer, and opened the door.
‘Isao Hasato,’ she said warmly on entry. The Kansubashi Imperial Envoy was sitting at the far end of the room with a huddled legation of his fellow diplomats. They stood and bowed respectfully enough, though Hasato a little stiffly. It was understandable; the Kansubashi Empire had been all but wiped out in the early days of the Ascendancy War. Thirteen worlds had been set alight by countless CAF bombardments that only a handful of colonies had withstood. The Imperial war effort had been stymied before it had begun, their only action the short-lived Battle of Uvolon. Thanks to a widespread perception that the UN had done little to assist its ally in those dark early days—a widespread perception which also happened to be true—UN–Kansubashi relations had never been frostier. Now the Empire was largely relegated to its artificial orbitats, a once proud and ancient civilisation reduced to little more than an insignificant UN Protectorate.
‘President,’ Hasato said. His voice was like two pieces of slate being rubbed together.
‘Please, sit,’ Constance said, sitting. A holo appeared above the desk between them automatically, and she cancelled it with a wave.
Hasato sat. The legation sat too.
‘Can I offer you a drink? Or something to eat?’ Constance asked. Hasato shook his head.
Constance cleared her throat. ‘Isao, was there something you wished to discuss?’ she asked pleasantly after twenty seconds of silence.
Hasato nodded, and fixed her in the eye. ‘President, I invited you here as a courtesy, to tell you that I will be opposing you in the Chamber this afternoon.’
There was another silence. The Kansubashi legation sat statue-still. Constance drew in a long breath. ‘Well, thanks for letting me know,’ she said after a while, a little flippantly. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?’
Hasato looked uncomfortable for a second. ‘President, perhaps you think that your alliance with the provar was some masterstroke, one that has given you infinite liberty to deal with Tier Three how you will. You move your allies and enemies around like pieces on the chessboard with little regard for the consequences. You are a very intelligent woman, so perhaps the fault lies with your advisors in not making you aware of this. At any rate, let me be clear: you are not making friends. Your executive actions are generating little but discord.’
Constance bristled. Her fingers contracted sharply against the table top. What insolence, what brazenness, was this? To lecture her on what certainly was a masterstroke alliance with the provar! She’d brought the entire war to a grinding halt almost single-handedly, at great personal and political cost and at real risk of her own arrest for treason. She was the only person in the galaxy with the foresight needed to do what had to be done, and here was this man with the gall to criticise her for it?
‘Perhaps if the Kan—’ she started, but the rest of the sentence died in her throat. Goddamn Hasato. She would not give him the satisfaction of her affront. ‘Isao, I’m sorry you feel the way you do,’ she said, riding an artificial calm provided by her IHD. ‘I hope I can change your mind in the Assembly later.’
She stood.
‘President,’ Hasato said, standing and bowing. ‘Despite what you may believe, I have nothing but the best intentions.’
‘Yes, well,’ Constance said, yanking open the door, ‘so do I.’
She left before Hasato could offer a response and moved quickly down the corridor. ‘Who’s next?’ she asked Rankin as he once again struggled to keep up with her. Her IHD had all of the information she required, of course, a little calendar of meetings that she could summon at will, but she preferred to ask. It made her feel presidential. And besides, Rankin always had the information at hand anyway.
‘You’re meeting the golgron legation in the Aries Suite.’
‘Great,’ she snapped.
Hasato had set a theme which the rest of her morning seemed bent on sticking to. The golgron legation under Vamanat Kos, hissing and clicking in their methane breather suits like a trio of anthropomorphic kitchen appliances, warned her that they would not stand for her ceding large swathes of the Perseus ore belt to the Ascendancy and would take the matter before the High Commission. The quorl delegation under McKone’s improbable old friend Aks-sta cautioned her that her authority over the Coalition had gone on for too long and that it was time to return her executive Coalition powers to the appropriate alien governments. By the time the last of her meetings had concluded, a terse exchange with the zhahassi legation of Zvell’s cronies, Constance’s mood was thunderous.
‘And I have to face down all these short-sighted morons in the Chamber in’—she checked the time—‘one hour!’
She physically pushed Rankin out the way and stepped into the nearest human female bathroom. It was mercifully empty. She approached the furthest sink and ran the cold tap, and began liberally applying cold water to her face. The mirror in front of her flooded with graphics when she looked at it, presenting her with a few timetable entries for the day’s business, some holo feeds of the main Chamber, even cosmetic tips based on its evaluation of her appearance. She cancelled them all and was left staring at her own dripping reflection.
She searched her own expression. She could understand the Coalition’s anger. All had suffered during the war. The golgron, who already had a longstanding feud with the provar over the Perseus ore belt, was now faced with losing hundreds of lightyears of territory to the provar, something which Constance was turning a blind eye to under the new UN–Ascendancy alliance. The quorl, who had been firm supporters of the UN at the start of the war and its most lax allies by the end of it, had largely escaped punishment, but always looked to score points off its old rival when power politics were in play. The zhahassi under Emperor Zvell, a politician the UN had backed and who had gone on to have all his opponents murdered to establish a dictatorship, had nearly been wiped out after the assault on Tassis. Their loyalty was being severely tested after having Zvell foisted on them in the first place, and now by the UN’s unilateral declaration of peace with the provar, something which they had not been consulted on. The kaygryn had withdrawn from Tier Three politics altogether and had committed themselves to state-sponsored terrorism across the galaxy. Missives arrived hourly of some new crisis where kaygryn militia had stormed a UNAF base or bombed a civilian area.
To top it all off, the people of the UN itself were still furious with the Ascendancy alliance. Constance had finally addressed the nation on the Kaygryn Empire two weeks ago, and still the people could not wrap their minds around it. They could not see that in fighting the Ascendancy to the complete destruction of one of them would only lead to the destruction of all of them. They wanted blood, no matter the cost.
They now needed to be more than the sum of their parts. Tier Three needed to become one nation, one voice, and it needed leaders that had the farsightedness to see it happen. Looking around at her peers, Constance knew that at that moment, she was the only one. That was why she had continued as President of both the UN and the Coalition. That was why she had extended her emergency powers through executive action. And if she had to lose a few small-minded friends on the way to save the galaxy, it was a small price to pay. The peace she had achieved with the Ascendancy was all the mandate she needed to press on with her agenda.
She left the bathroom with a renewed sense of purpose. With less than an hour before she addressed the Assembly, she strode briskly through the corridors and darted up a wide flight of stairs, heading for the presidential suite that overlooked both the mezzanine and the Assembly Chamber.
‘The Joint Chiefs are waiting for you,’ Rankin said, ‘in your office.’
‘I know,’ Constance replied, ‘I shan’t need you for this.’
‘Uh… ok. Very good, Ma’am.’
They were all waiting for her in her office: General Foster, Fleet Marshal Ellisburg, Commander Tavistock and the Director of UNIS, Adrian Kessler. Ellen Magnussen had resigned—sensibly, since Constance was going to fire her anyway—during the Ascendancy peace process. She had not yet approved a new strike commander, which was itself one of the reasons for this meeting. Although there was no agenda, she knew what the other reason would be.
‘Ma’am,’ they all murmured as she stepped into the office. With its glass walls and panoramic views of the Assembly Chamber and the rest of the building, it was like being in a private box in the Arrengate hypersled arena.
‘Keep your seats,’ she said, taking her own at the head of the table. ‘I’m speaking in forty-five minutes, so let’s keep this brief. Recommendations for strike commander?’
There was a general rustle around the room as people shifted in creaking seats and consulted holos. Eventually Foster, usually the most direct, said, ‘Ma’am, we were under the impression that we would be discussing your executive powers.’
‘Oh Christ, don’t you lot start,’ she snapped. ‘We have given these issues enough air. What could there possibly be left to discuss?’
‘Ma’am, no-one here doubts your abilities, or questions your wisdom. We are concerned about the manner in which we are being informed of your actions.’ There were a few embarrassed nods of agreement around the room. ‘You were the architect of the end of the war. You know I respect your courage and determination in pressing ahead with a plan that you knew would succeed when everyone else—myself included—doubted you. And it paid off.’ He spread his hands to indicate the other three. ‘We all know about the Kaygryn Empire. I admit I had my doubts, I think we all did. You saw it coming and you did what had to be done, and you’ve opened all our eyes.’ Now he pointed a finger at her in the most forward and impudent manner imaginable. ‘But it does not give you the right to do as you please. We have a system here. It is a fragile system. The golgron are pissed off. The zhahassi are pissed off—and lord knows we deserve their ire. The kaygryn are pissed off. You are taking emergency powers, granted to you in good faith by the Coalition, and extending them under executive authority when in fact the present danger has abated. The Ascendancy War is over. It will not restart. You give the provar too much and you do it in clandestine, opaque ways. You’ve surrounded yourself with an enclave of Special Warfare operatives and provari advisors and you’re plotting and scheming to the ignorance of all.’
