Indomitable (19 page)

Myriad delegation flags hung from the overhead, casting intermittent shadows across the Senate floor. Clusters of Marine Corps noncoms and officers ferried about in regular-dress uniforms, their white berets tucked beneath their arms. A sizable delegation from the Navy had turned out in its telltale regular-dress greens.

All at once a flight of hovercams converged on the north entrance.

“What's going on?” Kathy popped a handful of dried fruit into her mouth and leaned forward.

“There—the screen on the wall is zeroing in.” Promise inhaled sharply. “That's Fleet Admiral Ben-Ziser, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.” The admiral took the aisle at a determined pace, followed by two of his senior staffers. Several dozen politicians stood and pointed at the admiral.

“I don't understand. What's going on?” Kathy turned to Promise for an explanation.

“The admiral just entered from the north, Kathy. You understand the significance of that, right?”

Kathy shrugged and popped a hard candy into her mouth.

“Don't you know anything about Republican politics? The uniformed services—we—are supposed to be apolitical. I know. Not in this 'verse. Tradition says we always enter from the west side of the Senate building. We do not take sides in political turf wars.” They exchanged telling looks. “It's against Republican law.”

Admiral Miles Ben-Ziser was almost to the military's box, situated next to the interplanetary high court's.

Promise continued. “The west entrance is largely symbolic. But time has set this custom in ferrocrete. The New 'Verse Democratic and Labor Party and the Conservative Socialists always enter from the south. Centrists, the military, and the high court enter from the west, where leveler heads are said to prevail.” Promise rolled her eyes. “The minor parties—some would say the fringe parties—enter from the east.” The eastern parties included the War Hawks, the One 'Verse Alliance, and the Universal Catholic League, among others. “The Conservative Coalition and all of the hard-line, pro-military, pro-defense senators enter from the north. The admiral just made a political statement, and it won't sit well with the Congress.”

“Okay, I get it,” Kathy said. “Sounds minor if you ask me. What's the big deal?”

“Who sets the Fleet Forces' annual budget, Kathy?”

“Oh.”

“Right.”

The gallery noise died to a low-level murmur as the main screen switched to the west entrance. Heads turned like a wave across the Senate floor as Lieutenant General Felicia Granby entered the spheroid chamber, and walked down the politically correct radius, from the west. All cameras and pickups on her.

“She got her directions right,” Kathy said.

“Doesn't matter.” Promise shook her head. “Whatever happens won't change her fate. It's just a show. I was merely the opening act.”

Scuttlebutt said Granby's fate was already sealed. The general was being benched.

*   *   *

“… you advocate war when
we're at peace.” Senator Oman was visibly angry. “You'd spill our star nation's precious blood to sate your need for conquest. Well, let me tell you something, General, our republic does
not
deserve your wrath. And whatever their faults may be, neither do the Lusitanians. What's needed now is time, diplomacy, calmer heads, willing hearts. You have faith to move mountains, I give you that much. But, you've forgotten a more excellent way. A warrior like you probably wouldn't understand that.”

General Granby stayed in her seat. Hands folded, she spoke evenly into the pickup.

“‘… if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.'”

“I believe the senator is quoting from the Good Book. I tend to agree. However, the senator has forgotten one important fact. Love does not exist in a vacuum. It has obligations to fulfill.”

*   *   *

Granby closed her eyes
and spoke.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, always
protects
.

“We must protect ourselves, Senator. Our citizens deserve nothing less from us, and if we fail in this regard, what does that say about us as a star nation? As a people?

“Diplomacy has failed us, Senator. We have given our trust, spent our hope, and persevered through gross injustice. We have been patient. Releasing our territorial rights to plebiscite systems has failed us, Senator. We continue to give and the Lusitanians keep taking. We have been kind. Considering our star neighbor before ourselves has failed us, Senator. We have not boasted. We have refused to malign the Lusitanian Empire in the nets even when harsher words were deserved. We have not dishonored them, Senator. We have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid war and bloodshed. We have not been self-seeking. We have not been easily angered. We have overlooked a long list of wrongs. And now we come to the naked truth. We must
protect
ourselves.

“The Lusitanian Empire does not respect our territorial boundaries or our sovereign laws. She has repeatedly tossed aside our overtures of peace. She has maligned us in the nets and boasted of her superiority instead. She is dishonorable, self-seeking, easily angered. Have we so soon forgotten the gross treaty violations—dare I say blatant acts of war—that occurred in the Montana system and on the planet itself, a Republican plebiscite world, just this past year, or the—how did you put it, Senator—ah yes, the ‘regrettable incidents' upon half a dozen of our worlds before that? Have you forgotten the precious Republican blood they spilled? Have you forgotten their queen's indifference to our diplomatic overtures?”

The general stood and looked to her right and left before turning around to appeal to the entire assembly. “Every time we back down they grow emboldened. And our diplomats offer them another olive branch and another system and another living world and more innocents instead of the guilt they deserve.” The general clenched her fists, and then to everyone's surprise she slammed the witness table. “We are negotiating from a position of weakness. Weakness, I say! Please, Senators, all I'm advocating is we reinforce our flanks, enlarge our ranks, and redeploy our assets to make the Lusies think twice before violating our borders again.”

“You—you're a warmonger, General.” Senator Oman's voice shook. “We need cooler heads in the military, not bullish, careerist, myopic generals preoccupied with their own greatness.”

Granby straightened her uniform. “You, Senator, are a feckless coward, a simpleton, and a pacifying fool.” A number of Marines and Sailors were on their feet and they looked ready to mutiny. “You advocate we wait and talk. Talk has soundly failed us, Senator. And wait? What are we waiting for? Another attack? More of our own dead and wounded? I say the time for a war footing is now. Now, Senator. Now! Before it's too late.”

Senator Oman's words drowned in a sea of murmurs as General Granby turned toward the exit to leave. “You have not been dismissed, General! General, do you hear me?”

 

Twenty-two

MAY 10
TH
, 92 A.E., STANDARD CALENDAR, 1902 HOURS

REPUBLIC OF ALIGNED WORLDS PLANETARY CAPITAL—HOLD

MARINE CORPS CENTRAL MOBILIZATION COMMAND

Lieutenant General Felicia Granby
spent the last day as the commander of CENT-MOBCOM hiding her true feelings. Changes were coming, at jump speed, changes far beyond her control. There were units to equip, ready, and deploy, and emerging threats to consider in multiple sectors. Notes to leave for her successor. Gear to procure, receive, and inventory. Classes to steer toward graduation. And last orders to give before the change of command, which she wouldn't be present for. “The task is taller than ever,” she'd said to her staff earlier in the day. Her final stand-up meeting. “You're prepared to handle them. I have complete faith in you. The Corps needs you now more than ever to help it prepare for what's coming.”
Even as my career ends.
She'd seen the recognition in their eyes. Several had wanted to say more. She'd held up a hand to avoid their questions. It was enough for them to know she was taking the fall for Sergeant Morris's death. And, she supposed, she was at fault for that. Still …

The truth came down to guns and butter. General Granby was a war general. She'd been doing what she could to prepare the Corps for the inevitable. The Lusitanian Empire had its eyes on Republican-controlled space, particularly the metal-heavy worlds in the verge. The Republican Press Corps and a glut of politicians warned that a war between the LE and the RAW would be the war to end all wars, that conceding a few systems here and there was far preferable to an interstellar conflagration, that peace was possible in our time. It was all utter foolishness. Did they not know history? It was long past time for the president, the Congress, and the Joint Chiefs of the Fleet Forces to wake up to the dangers pressing upon the Republic, and adopt a war footing.

The RAW-MC's commandant belonged to the prepare-and-wait camp. Granby had butted heads with him on several occasions. Her fight with Senator Oman before the Senate had finally done her in.

Be honest, Felicia. Your mouth got you cashiered. Doesn't matter if you were right. You can be dead right and still wrong.

The general sank into her office chair. She hadn't picked a fight with just any senator, either. Senator Oman was a senior member on the HWAC, and a minority leader in the Senate. Head of the New 'Verse Democratic and Labor Party. Watching Oman stand in protest and turn red with anger had been immensely satisfying, at least in the moment, even as a claxon had sounded in the back of her mind.

Be honest, Felicia. It wasn't worth it.

Oman's party had a standing arrangement with the Conservative Coalition, which was a motley alliance held together by two imperatives: securing interstellar trade routes and preserving the upward curve of the gross systems product. Oman's ilk had voted to give the defense department enough money to build a strong deterrent—at least on screen—and that had kept the pro-military parties in check. The balance of power was shifting. Scuttlebutt said Oman had threatened to pull her votes from several pieces of legislation, including a defense reauthorization bill that the Corps desperately needed, unless she got her way, and Oman's way had included the head of a three-star general.

There was a knock at her door.

“Mm?”

“Ma'am, the commandant just commed. He's fifteen mikes out.”

“That was nice of him.” Granby tapped her fingers on her glass-like workstation in time to the ticking metronome mounted on the wall. For the first time in a long time, perhaps for as long as she could remember life in the Corps, she had nothing pressing to do and all the time in the 'verse to do it in.

“If you say so, ma'am.” Sergeant Major Shaun Lake stood at ease, one foot inside the office of the commanding general, Republic of Aligned Worlds Marine Corps Central Mobilization Command. Lake's hands were tucked into the small of her back. Like the general, she was dressed in her navy-blue regular-dress uniform and white blouse. Seven gold stripes rode each shoulder, three up top and four below; the gold star cluster nestled between the chevrons and the rockers. Her short-waist jacket hung open at her sides. Four hash marks cut across both sleeves, one for every five years of service. Lake was well on her way to a fifth. Minimum glittery and ribbons covered her heart. The sergeant major looked hard at the personal case on the floor beside the general's desk, and the full crate of personal effects next to it. Lake took her time scanning the empty walls and shelves of an office she'd spent more time in during the past three years than with her husband and children in their base housing. When she finally looked back at the general what she saw gave her pause. Granby's eyes were as black as her obsidian dress shoes, and they looked pissed off.

The general clasped her hands together on her desktop, forcing a tight smile. “Please come in, Sergeant Major.” Granby dipped her head and smiled. “This is still my office and you're still my senior noncommissioned advisor … and friend.”

“To the end, ma'am,” the sergeant major said.

“Appropriate words, Shaun. To the end … and right off the galactic cliff. Never thought I'd see the day. Figured a beam would get me before
that
happened.” Granby gave Lake an apologetic look. “That was an awful thing to say at a time like this.” The general held up a hand in apology. “We must have some compassion for the commandant. After all, he had a warhead named Oman pointed at his budget, all because of me. He needs well-equipped boots and retrofitted mechsuits and the lift capability to ferry them around the 'verse, all the AIs and drones he can talk the Congress out of, and the flexibility to build the Corps of the future. He's not asking for much, is he?” Granby inhaled. “What he does not need is an uppity three-star who can't keep her mouth shut. He didn't have a choice.”

“If you say so, ma'am,” Lake said after a long moment. “It's still wrong benching you like this.”

Granby waved her hand dismissively. “Never believe your own press, Sergeant Major. You might start thinking you're indispensable.”

“General, I—I know you don't.…”

“Thank you, Shaun. I do know and I am grateful, truly. Now, you have a career to tend to, which no longer involves me. I will not see yours plummet into oblivion because of my mistakes. I've already spoken with the commandant about it. You will not be put out to rust in some backwater, godforsaken command. As long as you don't create a fuss. Let me go quietly, let this go, here, now. Please.”