Battlespace (3 page)

So far
, he thought,
this is a hell of a welcome home
….

Headquarters
Star Marine Force Center
Twentynine Palms, California
1750 hours, PST

“Why,” Colonel Thomas Jackson Ramsey said as he took a seat at the conference table, “all the extra security? My people have calls they want to make, and they're justifiably curious about the Earth they've just come home to. But we appear to be under quarantine.”

“Quarantine is a good word for it, Colonel,” General Richard Foss told him. “Operating policy now calls for a gradual insertion of returning personnel into ordinary life. Things have changed a lot in twenty years, you know.”

“How much?”

“The political situation is…delicate.”

“It usually is. Damn it, what's going on?”

“The European Union has recognized the independent nation of Aztlan, along with Mexico, Brazil, and Quebec. All U.S. military bases are on full alert. The borders are closed. War may be eminent.”

“Jesus.” Ramsey frowned. “An EU ship brought us home.”

“The crisis flared up for the first time a year ago, about the time you were beginning deceleration, a half light-year out. Geneva recognized Aztlan independence, at least in principle, and was offering to broker talks. There was…concern, in some circles, that you people might be held hostage if war did break out.”

Ramsey nodded. The Aztlan question had been smoldering for some years, even before the
Derna
had left for Ishtar, and it really was only a matter of time before there was a final showdown. The
Aztlanistas
wanted a homeland—to be carved out of the southwestern states of the Federal Republic of North America, land they claimed had been unjustly taken from Mexico in the wars of 1848 and 2042. Since that homeland would consist of some of the United Federal Republic's choicest and most populous real estate—southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Baja, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua—Washington flatly refused to negotiate.

Unfortunately, there were a number of players in the world arena, including China and the EU, who would like to see the UFR taken down a notch or three, and breaking away 8 of the Federal Republic's 62 states would certainly accomplish that.

“Things were smoothed out,” General Foss continued. “Our AIs talked to their AIs, a summit conference was held at Pacifica, and things quieted down a bit.

“But two weeks ago, while you were still inbound out beyond the orbit of Saturn,
Aztlanistas
managed to smuggle a small AM bomb into the Federal Building in Sacramento. Twelve hundred dead—and the heart of the city leveled. At this point in time, Colonel, as you can imagine, there is con
siderable ill feeling toward people of Hispanic descent. Three days ago, anti-Latino rioting in New Chicago and in New York resulted in several hundred dead and over a thousand injured.”

“That still doesn't explain why my people are being held incommunicado, sir.”

Foss didn't reply for a long moment. His eyes seemed a bit unfocused and Ramsey waited. Possibly he was talking with someone else over his implant or downloading some key information.

“Colonel,” Foss said at last, “there are people in the current administration who were suggesting MIEU-1 shouldn't be allowed back to Earth.”

“What?”

Foss held up a hand. “You were working with the EU on Ishtar,” Foss said. “And you pulled that cute stunt that pulled the rug out from under PanTerra. There are some who question your loyalty, Colonel, and the loyalty of the Marines under your command.”

Ramsey came to his feet. “
Who
?” he demanded.

“Take it easy, Colonel.”

“I will
not
take it easy. Sir.
Who
is accusing my men of disloyalty?”

“Sit down, Colonel!” As Ramsey grudgingly took his seat, Foss folded his hands on the table and continued. “You know how rumors spread, Colonel. And how poisonous they can be. They take on a life of their own, sometimes, and do some horrific damage.”

“That does not answer the question, General.” Ramsey was furious. “If I screwed up with the Ishtaran state, then court-martial me. But I was responsible, not my men!”

“No one is talking about courts-martial, Colonel. Not yet, at any rate. You did overstep your authority, true, but there were…extenuating circumstances.”

“Like the fact that my orders were coming from eight-
point-three light-years away? And that something had to be done immediately?”

“Well, yes. More to the point, however, your mission required you to support the PanTerran representatives and their interests.”

“Which, it turned out, involved ‘liberating' human slaves from the Ahannu, so they could be shipped to Earth as contract laborers. Slavery, in other words.”

“Not slavery, Colonel…”

“Oh? What are you calling it these days?”

“Liberational relocation.”

“Bullshit. Sir. The
Sag-ura
have been shaped by ten thousand years of Ahannu selective breeding and conditioning.”
Sag-ura
was the name for the descendents of humans removed from Earth thousands of years before and taken to other worlds of the Ahannu empire. “PanTerra was planning on shipping them in cybehibe tubes back to Earth to be trained and sold as ‘domestics.' With no understanding of Earth–human culture, what chance would they have had for
real
freedom?”

“You made certain political decisions, Colonel.” He gave a grim, hard smile. “Do you realize that they're calling it ‘Ramsey's Peace' now?”

“Yes, sir. We helped facilitate the creation of an independent Sag-uran state, which should be able to look out for the interests of humans living on Ishtar.”

“And it was not within the purview of the Marines to dabble in local politics.”

“No, sir. Except that the Ahannu had surrendered. Earth was eight-and-a-half light-years away, and the EU–Brazilian military expedition was due to show up in another five months. Do you think they would have tried to guarantee the safety of the
Sag-ura
?”

“Probably not. Especially since they have PanTerran connections as well.” Foss cleared his throat. “The point, Colo
nel, is that you
did
overstep yourself by making the decisions you did. But that's not why I called you in here.”

Ramsey worked to control his anger. “Yes, sir.”

“There is widespread suspicion that MIEU-1 was working with the EU on Ishtar.”

“Reasonable enough. We
were
. Under orders.”

“Indeed. And by brokering that agreement with the natives and creating that Sag-uran state, whatever it's called…”

“
Dumu-gir Kalam
, sir.”

“Whatever. You
did
steal a march on the EU. They couldn't very well abrogate treaties you'd written and signed, not without an incident and some very bad press back home.”

“So the Accord is holding up?”

“Has for the ten years since you left, Colonel, yes. As for the future? Who knows? The EU have established a diplomatic mission on Ishtar, now.”

“So they're playing by the rules, at least.”

“For now. But my concern is what's happening on
this
planet. On Earth. Specifically, we have people—both in the government and ordinary Joes and Janes on the streets—who think you were somehow collaborating with the EU on Ishtar. And they know that the EU brought you back to Earth on one of their transports.”

“Well, it was that or have us stay there with them.”

“It was decided to have MIEU-1 return to Earth, Colonel. Protecting UFR interests on Ishtar is the Army's job now.” An Army occupational force consisting of elements of the First Extrasolar Special Operations Group had accompanied the EU and Brazilian joint expedition. “However, that has caused some serious problems for us here.”

“My men are loyal, General,” Ramsey said through clenched teeth. “You can't lock them away without a fair hearing.”

Foss sighed. “Colonel, it's not just the loyalty question. You should know that. The Ahannu are the focus of the biggest religious brouhaha since Adam and Eve got their
eviction notice in Eden. Some people think they are gods—or the descendents of gods—and that our proper place is at their feet, worshipping them.”

“Crackpots.”

“Some think they're demons and think it's wrong to have any political dealings with them at all. Some think they're the underdogs, poor, misunderstood little primitives, and the big, bad Marines are out to commit high-tech genocide. Some think they're your stereotypical bug-eyed monsters lusting after human females, slave masters who must be punished. The Papessa is saying the Ahannu ought to be stopped from keeping slaves. The Anti-Pope is saying we have to treat the Ahannu as friends and equals and to respect their traditions. The list goes on and on.

“The point is, Colonel, you and your people have come back to Earth at a rather sensitive time. You can't help but be caught up in the politics—and the religious controversy. You've just stepped off the boat, Colonel, and smack into quicksand.”

“If you're looking for a scapegoat, General, you're free to take a shot at me. I'll fight it, but you can try. But it is a monstrous injustice to blame the men under my command for—”

“No one is blaming them, Colonel. Or you. But I needed to make sure you understood the…ah…delicate nature of your position here.”

“You've got my attention, sir. That's for damned sure.”

“We have a new situation, one that calls for MIEU-1's special, um, talents.”

“Another deployment, General?”

He nodded. “Another deployment.”

“To where?”

“To Sirius. Eight-point-six light-years out. The brightest star in Earth's night sky.”

That pricked Ramsey's interest. “The
Wings of Isis
, sir? She found something?”

“Link in, Colonel, and I'll fill you in with what we know.”

Ramsey closed his eyes and felt the familiar inner shiver as data began to flow, downloading through his cereblink.

“These images were laser-transmitted to us as they were being made,” Foss said. “They arrived two years ago. The star on the left is Sirius A. The other is Sirius B, the white dwarf. And the Wheel….”

“An alien artifact?”

Foss nodded.

“What is it? A space station? A space habitat of some kind?”

“No. At least…we don't think so.”

“That density reading,” Ramsey said, examining the data. “That can't be right.”

“According to gravitometric scans made by the
Wings of Isis
, it is,” Foss replied.

“Neutronium? Collapsed matter?”

“The density's not
that
high. Most of that thing is actually hollow. But we think we know what's going on. Think of that hoop as a kind of particle accelerator, like the hundred-kilometer supercollider at Mare Humorum on the moon.”

“Okay….”

“Now imagine, instead of subatomic particles, what you have whirling around inside that giant racetrack are tiny black holes. And they're moving at close to the speed of light.”

“
Black holes
? My God, why?”

“Best guess is that what we're looking at here is an inside-out Tipler Machine.”

“A what?”

“Here's the data.”

Frank Tipler had been a prominent physicist at the turn of the twenty-first century. Among other things, he'd suggested the mechanism for a means of bypassing space, of jumping from here to there without the tedious process of moving through the space in between. His scheme had called for building a very long cylinder, one hundred kilometers long, ten kilometers wide, and made of neutronium—the ultra-dense collapsed matter of a neutron star. Rotate the thing two thousand times a second, so the surface is moving at half the speed of light. Theoretically, according to Tipler, the rotating mass would drag space and time with it, opening paths through both above the surface. By following a carefully plotted course around the rotating cylinder, a starship pilot could cross light-years in an instant…and would be able to fly back and forth through time as well.

The whole thing was just a thought experiment, of course. No one seriously expected anyone to ever be able to squash neutron stars together in order to make their own time machine.

But someone, evidently, had figured out another way to do the same thing.

“So that thing's a time machine?” Ramsey asked after he'd had a moment to digest the download.

“Space
and
time,” Foss replied. “Space-time equivalence, remember? We think this must be one of several identical
gateways, constructed around different stars. You fly into one and come out another. We don't know if they use the time travel component at all, though the smart money says they don't. They would screw causality to hell and gone if they did. Now. Watch….”