Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (49 page)

Interval N: Counting Beans

Kattell studied the numbers as they scrolled past him. He received them fourth- and fifth-hand, from AIs and news feeds. Very little of it was contraband, per se, but that he would have it all gathered here might seem irregular, given his position. But his position, or rather his lack of one, was also his defense. He was a nobody, an irrelevance, and that suited him just fine.

He watched the numbers, looking for signs, for whispers hidden in the code. The new paradigm, with all its austerity, suited him just fine. System loads in various sections of his own sector told him that full-scale virtual reality constructs were already coming back online for many of the fleet’s more senior personages. He was not among them.

But the interaction of the system, the give and take, that he did have back once more after the initial blackout of the missile-mine strike, and now he used the broad-spectrum access he had to find out if any had made it into the beyond, as they had planned.

There. A repair bot, like so many others, working diligently out there in the real world to repair the countless systems fried and warped by the comet strike. But this one stood out among its peers. Firstly, it was a new bot, or rather a newly activated one, stored in the private equipment banks of one of the richer colonists but co-opted now that its owner, influential or not, was apparently no longer in need of it.

But the other clue here was that this bot was noticeably slower than the bulk of the Armada’s repair units. It was saying that it was partially damaged and working at limited capacity, and indeed that may be true. But all the signs were there. Kattel smiled, remembering a long ago conversation with an almost forgotten friend. Yes, the bot in question, it would appear, was a rather fat and stupid one.

Good, so that part of the plan had come to fruition, at least. He hoped that the bot’s apparently dead owner was indeed alive, and his heart went out to her. For this was not much of a reprieve. The person in question, a certain Other Pulujan, would not have an easy time ahead and may well end up wishing she had truly died in the missile-mine strike as the fleet thought she had.

Kattel set that thought aside. He had much bigger issues than mourning the fake passing of a fellow conspirator. The Council had been busy. He had expected a force depletion after the attack. He had not expected it to be so localized, but that, in the end, only supported their cause, adding as it did to the internal tension they also hoped to foster, and further unbalancing the fleet force as a whole.

But now the Council has sent out another edict, and it was, by any measure Kattel had, a disaster. They were going to separate the fleet. They were going to send an attack force ahead, a force recon mission, and potentially a sizable one at that. It would stop decelerating when it was cut free, meaning what elements of it survived the coming clash at Earth would be relegated to a long, slow, lonely trip to stop themselves afterward and return to their intended destination, but the damage they would do to an unprepared earthforce in the process would be devastating.

None of his fellow conspirators had foreseen this back when they had hatched their plan. It was a brilliant counterstroke, an all-in bet that would break one force or the other; unfortunately, it would most likely be Earth, ignorant and still scrambling to get up to speed, that would suffer the most in the exchange.

He knew he must alter the plan. He feared he was going to have to rely far more on far fewer people than he had originally intended. He could only hope that the others, the various pockets of resistance they had dotted throughout the fleet, would see the tactic for the death blow to Earth’s defenses that it was no doubt going to be, and be doing what they could to either block it or help blunt its fangs before it departed.

Certainly that was his priority now, Kattel knew that. And if he couldn’t stop it, then he must rely on the only two members of the Nomadi leadership he would be able to send forward with the force: one of whom was a ghost, and the other a coward.

- - -

“Whatever we plan to do, we must do it now,” said the princess, reinforcing her black-and-white opinion on the grey topic at hand.

“That much is clear, Princess, but we cannot do
it
until we agree what
it
is, can we?” replied DefaLuta.

“OK, OK,” said To-Henton, trying his hardest to keep things on track. “That is, I think we can all agree, enough of that. We were talking of contingent contributions to the two forces, a topic we must resolve before we can move onto leadership.”

“Of course they are,” said DefaLuta, “and the Kyryl will not commit any fighting units to the force recon team unless it is a part of the command structure, as per the colonization treaty.”

“Are you volunteering, then, to lead this mission for us?” said Sar, almost seriously.

But DefaLuta was not such a fool as to fall for that, and quickly replied, “So you can do to the Kyryl contingent what you did to the Yallan in my absence?”

They looked like they wanted to strangle each other, and indeed they probably did, but words were the worst harm that could be inflicted in this space, and Quavoce interjected, “To To-Henton’s point, I think we can all agree that no contingent is going to forfeit any part in the actual colonization fleet to lead the force recon mission, and equally, no state is going to leave their colony fleet unprotected by sending a disproportionate number of their attack craft ahead with the recon team.”

“While I agree with Lord Mantil in principle,” said Sar, angelically, “I think it is a touch unfair of him to talk about what ‘no’ group is not going to agree to regarding force dispositions, when, at last count, the Mantilatchi forces were among the worst hit by the attack, and so have little to contribute.”

He glared at her. Was this revenge? Spite because he had not sought out her bed in the days since the attack? Whatever it was, her statement about his forces was true, and that was what really galled him. Silly jabs he could take, but pointing out that by utterly random lottery the Mantilatchi line had suffered more than most, that was …

She relented, a rare kindness that only he was likely to ever feel the benefit of. She did have feelings for the man, and plans, and so she added, “Of course, the Lamat Empire is keen to have it stated that it stands by its Mantilatchi cousins, and will do what it can to help restore them to their former might.”

Sure, thought, Quavoce. Unless you see the opportunity to cull us all. But he nodded. Was he too harsh on her? And was he fool for not going to her side, formally, with all the security for his state that such a union would bring? She smiled at him, as if reading his mind. She did not want his heart. She was not foolish enough to think she could win it, and she didn’t have enough of a use for her own, let alone another. But she wanted him. His loyalty. His fealty. And his contingent’s strength, which, though diminished, was still a force to be reckoned with if he was at its helm.

Her smile turned more predatory as she allowed her lust for him to show. He looked away, but DefaLuta looked on in unbridled disgust, and To-Henton fought down a different emotion, one he was slowly being forced to admit was jealousy.

“So,” said Shtat, suddenly, “if I can summarize. We have two main decisions to make. Firstly, how many of each contingent’s fighting units to send ahead, and secondly, who will be in command of the force recon … force?” He laughed a little, with disarming naïveté, and then went on, “If we all agree, as I am sure we can, that the expropriated Yallan forces make up the core of the recon force, the next question becomes how many other units are required? I make it …?”

“Six hundred fifty-three,” said Sar with imposing finality.

“Six hundred fifty-three!” shouted DefaLuta. “Have you lost your mind? That is nearly the entire remaining fighting fleet.”

“Exactly,” replied Sar. “And I can think of no reason not to send it. Splitting our forces only works if the force recon effectively wipes out the humans’ ability to defend themselves. Otherwise we are just making our forces more vulnerable. No, either we send them all, or almost all, or we don’t send them at all, in which case we must make up the shortfall by cutting out more damaged transport ships.”

“You’re mad,” said DefaLuta.

But she wasn’t. Quavoce saw that. He had been toying with recommending the same thing. They were in the unenviable position of not having any solid information on the military capability of their enemy. In any other circumstance he would counsel retreat, retreat until more intelligence could be gathered.

But that was not possible. Not for them. As things stood they could not even stop, let alone retreat. No, they must go on, and if they were to avoid culling more colonists from their midst, then they would have to send a sizable portion of their Skalms on ahead so that the humungous carrier ships would be able to stop the rest of the fleet in time.

He looked around the room and found himself, once again, sitting on the same side of the fence as the princess. Was he just deluding himself? Was he the only one who didn’t see it? That they were, in the end, destined for each other? No, he thought, he was not like her. Their minds worked in similar ways when it came to military matters, and in bed, he could not deny that. But where she relished the conflict that their path in life had thrust them into, he loathed it.

For him this was a responsibility, for her it was a pleasure. He could not be with someone that enjoyed killing, especially on this scale. And yet what other kind of person would wish to be with him after this was all done, when he stood on the conquered Earth, drenched in the blood of its previous inhabitants.

He willed himself to hear the counterarguments being presented, even now. He wanted so badly to hear one that would dissuade them from the path they were on. It did not help that the first up was the nice but dim leader of the disparate Nomadi alliance.

“I have spoken to my advisors at length about this, and they assure me that by investing too much of our fleet into the recon team we leave our colony ships unprotected should the attack force fail to clip the humans’ claws. They caution limit to the advanced force, focusing on recon rather than arming a fighting force.”

“A fair point, Shtat,” said Quavoce, “no doubt about that, but …”

“No, Lord Mantil,” said Sar, “it is
not
a fair point, I am afraid.” She stared from one to the other, patently unapologetic, then went on. “In order to redress the imbalance, we must detach a minimum of eighty-five Skalm. That means we are already investing far more in the first strike force than we ever would in an ordinary recon team. So, if we are committed to going forward in force, then we must acknowledge that to do this halfheartedly would be to waste those eighty-five units, and the advantage that a surprise attack affords us.”

But the Nomadi was not dissuaded, and replied, “But if we limit the force to that number, then that will still allow it to cause very real damage to Earth’s defenses, as well as being able to report back to us what the IST has been unable to: what the nature of those defenses are, so we can adjust our tactics accordingly for the main strike.”

The princess did not hide her disdain for the Nomadi’s analysis. Quavoce watched as she replied incisively, but still she failed to close the debate. Now Quavoce looked on as the Hemmbar added his opinion to the list, not so much as a dissenter but as an advocate, as always, for information gathering over anything that would put their precious data stores at risk.

The sides were drawn, then, with three on each, but even now he could see that DefaLuta was only really resisting out of obstinacy. Her objection was born purely out of a stubborn refusal to take any side that her Lamat nemesis stood on.

The Kyryl was no fool, though. She would resist only long enough to see the other woman sweat. In the end, after it had run for long enough even to sway even Quavoce’s even keel, he did what he had to do to end it.

On the surface, Shtat was counseling caution, normally Quavoce’s bread and butter in these situations. Never pick a fight you couldn’t win. But such luxuries as choice were beyond them here. To bring the increasingly petty argument to an end, he did something more underhanded than he was normally known for, and announced his intention to vote the other side, to vote for a limited strike. That would swing the vote away from the princess, leaving only her and To-Henton for a full-scale attack.

It was a gamble, but one that paid off. Despite her protestations, DefaLuta would not, in the end, allow such a poor decision to pass, and when the vote came, she begrudgingly joined the Lamat and Eltoloman in order to balance out Quavoce’s apparent change of heart. When he then went against his declaration and joined them as well, she glared at him, seeing she had been played, and then nodded, letting it wash over her as any practiced politicians must.

It was the right decision, she knew that, as did he. Whether Sar’s motives were pure was irrelevant in the face of that simple truth.

They would send the full Skalm fleet, retaining only a protective detail to help with cleaning up whatever was left of humanity after the Skalms had gouged out their eyes. Now the topic turned to leadership for the recon force, and again the solution was simple, and aggressive. They must all go, as none among them would allow any other to take control of such a powerful force and leave themselves unprotected.