The Black Sheep (A Learning Experience Book 3) (6 page)

The hell of it, Griffin knew, was that Faison had a point.  Griffin was old enough to recall hundreds of small genocides carried out on Earth, each one watched by outside powers with overwhelming firepower and no will to intervene.  By the time something was done - if it was - the genocide was nearly completed and hundreds of thousands of people were dead.  And yet, the only problem had been lack of political will.  Stopping the Holocaust had required a full-scale war against Nazi Germany and it had been too late to save millions of victims.  The Nazis would have ignored a string of protests from the outside world as they completed their grisly task.

But we don’t know what we’re going to encounter at Amstar
, he thought.  The Solar Union had stopped a Tokomak fleet dead in its tracks, but who knew how powerful the Druavroks actually were?  Hoshiko might be right - they might not have been able to improve upon Tokomak technology - yet there was no way they could take that for granted. 
This might be the first shot in a whole new war
.

“Good,” Hoshiko said.  “Prepare your ships for departure.  If your crews have messages they wish to send, have them uploaded to the base before we leave.  I’ll be sending a standard report to Sol informing them of our discoveries and my intentions.”

And they won’t be able to tell you to stop
, Griffin thought. 
The year it would take for any message to reach you would be more than long enough for you to start a war.

“Dismissed,” Hoshiko said.

The holographic images vanished.  Griffin wondered, inwardly, just how many of the commanding officers
agreed
they had to intervene, but there was no way to know.  Hoshiko was right, after all; regulations insisted that they had to do everything in their power to protect human lives, even humans who weren't Solarians.  And besides, it
was
possible they’d make a few friends and allies at Amstar.

“You don’t approve,” Hoshiko said, flatly.

“No, I don’t,” Griffin agreed.  “Captain, there are too many unpredictable elements here.”

“That’s always true,” Hoshiko said.

“Yes, it is,” Griffin said.  “The problem here, however, is a matter of practicality.  Do we have enough firepower to compel the Druavroks to abandon Amstar?  If so, are they going to take the defeat lying down or will they launch a counterattack?  And if they do, can we stop it?”

“They’re hardly going to dispatch a full-sized fleet to Sol,” Hoshiko pointed out.  “It would be a blunder on the same level as dispatching a fleet and army to Sicily in the middle of the Peloponnesian War.  Their rivals will be delighted.”

“If they
have
rivals,” Griffin reminded her.  “Our intelligence concerning changes in this sector is sadly lacking.”

“Then it's high time we learned,” Hoshiko said.

Griffin took a breath.  “There's another issue, Captain,” he warned.  “One that you have to consider carefully.”

Hoshiko lifted a single eyebrow.

“We have an ... emotional revulsion at the thought of genocide,” Griffin said.  “The idea of committing mass slaughter of helpless innocents is bad enough, but exterminating every last member of a given race, or an ethnic group, is repulsive to us.  And that’s how it should be.

“But such emotions can also blind us to the
practicalities
,” he added, when she said nothing.  “We are one squadron of ships, Captain; nine heavy cruisers and a handful of support vessels, facing an alien empire of unknown power.  We may be about to bite off more than we can chew.  I understand the impulse to stop the genocide, but we also have to be aware of the dangers.  The Druavroks may not even be capable of understanding that genocide is wrong.  We could wind up going to war to impose our own view of the universe on them.”

“One shared by the Tokomak,” Hoshiko pointed out.  “They banned indiscriminate planetary strikes on pain of death and destruction.”

“But clearly not by the Druavroks,” Griffin countered.  “And the Tokomak are no longer around to enforce the rules.”

“I understand the risks,” Hoshiko said, after a moment.  She sounded almost pensive as she studied the remains of her tea.  “But they have to be faced.”

She cleared her throat.  “I want Captain Ryman and his crew to remain onboard, for the moment,” she added.  “
Speaker To Seafood
is to be turned over to the base - they can look after her until we return to Martina.  It's a five-day flight to Amstar at best possible speed, so Captain Ryman should be able to assist us by the time we arrive.”

“Aye, Captain,” Griffin said.

“I’ll record a message for Fleet Command now,” Hoshiko said, as she finished her tea and placed the cup on the table.  “If you wish to record a message of your own ...”

Griffin shook his head.  He did have his doubts, but there was no point in airing them to Fleet Command.  By the time they decided what - if anything - to do, the situation would have already moved on.  Hoshiko’s orders were so vague, at least in part, because there was no way she could call home and ask for clarification.  Her great-uncle had given her, quite literally, the power to bind and loose.  She could form an alliance with alien powers if she wished without ever overstepping the bounds of her authority.

“That won’t be necessary, Captain,” he said.  He finished his own coffee and rose.  “With your permission, I’ll see to the freighter and her crew.”

“Thank you,” Hoshiko said.  She gave him a smile.  “And thank you for your honest opinions too.”

But you’re not going to listen to them
, Griffin thought.  Hoshiko
was
the CO, after all.  The buck stopped with her. 
I tried
.

He left the cabin and headed down to his office.  There was work to do. 

Chapter Five

Heavy fighting spread across Bavaria for the first time in three months, following the effective collapse of the German Government.  The Bavarian Government has declared its intentions to preserve a little of Germany and its willingness to accept refugees of Germanic descent only.  Non-Germans are warned that they will be shot out of hand if they attempt to cross the border.

-Solar News Network, Year 54

“It’s hard to imagine,” Max Kratzok commented, “that there are other ships out there.”

Hoshiko nodded as she entered the observation blister and stepped up beside him.  There was literally nothing to see in FTL; nothing, save for an endless darkness that had been known to drive grown men into panic attacks.  It scared Earthers, who expected to see stars streaking past, but the Solarians saw nothing to fear.  They grew up surrounded by the endless darkness of interplanetary space, after all.  She peered into the darkness for a long moment, then turned to look at him.  The reporter was young, his brown hair cut close to his scalp and his features sculpted into a reassuring handsomeness that was too bland to be natural.  She couldn't help thinking that he hadn't - yet - learned the value of individuality.  But then, putting people at their ease so they would talk to him was part of his job.

“They’re wrapped in their own bubbles of compressed space-time,” Hoshiko said, as she sat down on the loveseat.  Traditionally, couples could use the observation blister for making out - assuming, of course, that they weren't on duty.  “They can't see us any more than we can see them, but they’re out there.”

“FTL sensors can pick them up, I assume,” Kratzok said.  “There’s no risk of an accidental collision?”

“The squadron is spread out,” Hoshiko confirmed.  “Even if we were flying in formation, Max, the odds of an accidental collision would be very low.  It takes deliberate malice to ram one starship into another at FTL speeds.”

Kratzok shrugged.  “I spoke to John Ryman,” he said, as he turned to look at her, leaning against the transparent bulkhead.  “The picture he painted wasn't pretty.”

“No,” Hoshiko agreed.  Captain Ryman’s son had been in line for a command of his own, before he’d landed on Amstar.  Now ... he was badly shaken by his sister’s rape, their narrow escape and the deaths of his friends.  “It wasn't pretty.”

“And we’re heading to Amstar to intervene,” Kratzok added.  “Is that a good idea?”

Hoshiko gave him a long look.  “On or off the record?”

“Whatever you want,” Kratzok said.  “I assume you’re recording the conversation yourself.”

“I am,” Hoshiko confirmed.

She smiled, rather tightly.  One advantage of implants that few Earthers realised was that
everything
could be recorded.  If Kratzok decided to publish a version of their conversation that was at odds with reality, she could upload her own version to the datanet and demand compensation for being misquoted.  Her grandfather had loathed reporters - or, at least, he’d loathed their editors - and he’d insisted on writing strong laws prohibiting the kind of bullshit, as he’d put it in his
Commentary
, that had brought the American media establishment to its knees.  Not that she’d
need
the recordings, if push came to shove; she could merely object to the quote and force them to prove she’d said what they claimed she’d said.  And if they couldn't, she could collect some pretty heavy compensation.  Most media outlets in the Solar Union knew better than to take the risk.

“Call it off the record, for the moment,” she said, carefully.  “I may change my mind later.”

Kratzok nodded in understanding.  “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

Hoshiko took a moment to think before answering the question.  It galled her, although she would never have admitted it, that she had no idea why Kratzok had requested the assignment to the
Jackie Fisher
.  The Solar Union Navy had no problems with embedded reporters, as long as they respected the limits, but
her
squadron had been dispatched so far from Sol that Kratzok’s reports wouldn't reach home for months.  She had wondered, absently, if he’d managed to get into trouble with his superiors too, yet there had been nothing in his file suggesting that he was anything other than a roving reporter in good standing.

And yet all of his followers will be discomforted by the lack of updates
, she thought.  Like most roving reporters, Kratzok had a private following of hundreds of thousands of people who read his reports.  They wouldn't be his exclusive fans, of course, and he had to work hard to keep their interest. 
He may lose them all before he gets home to start putting out new copy.

“I think we don’t have a choice,” she said.  She’d spoken briefly to the crew, once they’d departed Martina, giving the same rationale she’d given her captains.  Their standing orders called for them to protect humans and win allies and intervening in an ongoing genocide would serve as a way to do both.  “
Someone
has to do something.”

Kratzok met her eyes.  “Why us?”

“We’re the ones on the spot,” Hoshiko said, simply.

She smiled to herself as she remembered one of her few meetings with her legendary grandfather, when he’d slipped back into the Sol System as a private trader.  He’d been full of stories about men who’d passed the buck further and further up the chain of command instead of taking action for themselves, which ensured that the situation constantly worsened  and that the superiors
themselves
had to demand orders from
their
superiors.  Hoshiko had no idea why
anyone
would fight in a shit-tip like Afghanistan when the solar system was ready for the taking, but the principle was the same.  Nipping a problem in the bud tended to be cheaper, in the long run, than allowing it to fester.

But then, her grandfather had been used to a world where he could call Washington and expect an answer within minutes. 
She
lived in a universe where it could take hours to get a signal from one end of the solar system to the other, days to get a courier boat from Sol to the nearest inhabited star ... and six months for a one-way trip from Sol to Martina.  The vast authority she’d been given - she’d gone over her orders very carefully when she’d first been assigned to
Jackie Fisher
- was
necessary
.  It was unlikely that any problem would agree to wait for a year while she sent a request for orders to Sol and waited for a reply.

If, of course, I don’t get summarily dismissed for gross incompetence and stupidity
, she thought, ruefully. 
They wouldn't have sent me out here if they didn't have faith in my ability to use my own judgement
.

“So we are,” Kratzok agreed.

Hoshiko shrugged.  “There’s no one else in the sector I can ask for orders, or even for advice,” she said.  “I am ambassador-at-large as well as commander of the squadron and this ship.  The buck stops with me and I say yes, we have to put a stop to attempted genocide.  I hope you’ll explain that to the folks back home.”

“They may not care about events so far from Sol,” Kratzok pointed out.  “Earth’s collapse is absorbing most of their attention.”

“Idiots,” Hoshiko muttered.

She shook her head in disbelief.  A vast universe just waiting for humanity, enough space for every living human and the Solar Union was worried about affairs on a planet crammed with people too stupid to take advantage of the chance to leave.  It wasn't as if emigrating to the Solar Union was difficult, not when there was no shortage of receiving stations scattered around the globe.  And if the local governments tried to stop their people from fleeing, the Solar Navy could hand out a beating in an afternoon that would make them think twice.  No, the only thing stopping the locals from leaving was their own stupidity.

But then, in the Solar Union, you are expected to work and follow the rules
, she reminded herself. 
It isn't as if they’re hard rules to follow too
.

It was hard, very hard, to believe that Earth was anything other than a cesspit.  She’d been told that there were places on Earth where women were little better than slaves, places where great mobs of ill-trained idiots only survived because the government fed them, where criminals pleaded mental disorders and were let free, places where being the wrong colour, or the wrong religion, or the wrong ... well,
anything
... could lead to certain death.  Hoshiko found it hard to wrap her head around the concept of women being automatically inferior, let alone any of the other issues.  Surely, such a world would have collapsed into anarchy a long time ago.  Her teachers
had
to have been exaggerating ...

... And yet, if they weren't, why weren't far
more
people fleeing into space?

“Many of them have ties to Earth,” Kratzok pointed out.  “And even if they didn't, Earth represents a pool of untapped manpower.”

“Which could move to the Solar Union at any point,” Hoshiko noted.  Her grandfather had talked about self-selection, about how the best immigrants were the ones who were prepared to move and put in the hard work to earn money and blend in.  “And problems on Earth don’t concern us.”

Kratzok gave her a droll look.  “And problems on Amstar
do
?”

“
Touché
,” Hoshiko conceded.  “The difference, though, is that humans are not trying to slaughter other humans, but being slaughtered themselves by another race.  We are the protectors of humanity against outside threats.”

“And internal threats can go hang?”

“If an alien force attacked Earth for the third time, I would die in its defence,” Hoshiko said, dryly.  She
had
been at the Battle of Earth, after all.  “But there’s a limit to how much we can do to save Earth from itself.”

She looked past him, out into the darkness.  “We made a very deliberate decision to cut our ties with the past,” she added, slowly.  “To step
away
from Earth and its corrupt and inefficient governments, its hang-ups about proper behaviour and the right way to live.  I see no point in looking back.  If they want to wallow in squalor, let them.”

“Some people would say that was cruel,” Kratzok noted.

“And what,” Hoshiko asked, “would they have us do?

“We offer to take anyone who’s willing to work; hell, we even make sure that local governments can't keep people from leaving.  It isn't as if the Earthers don’t have access to the datanet.  Beyond that, what are we supposed to do?  Send in the troops, crush the local governments and rule the planet ourselves?  We’d have to create a police state infinitively nastier than anything that ever existed in human history just to root out the irredeemable bastards and condemn them to permanent imprisonment.  And what would creating such a state do to
us
?”

Hoshiko shuddered at the thought.  Her grandfather had been a great man, but his
Commentary
had talked, with a certain amount of fear, of the prospects for abusing Galactic Tech.  It was possible to strip privacy away completely, to monitor an entire population 24/7 ... and, with AIs to do the monitoring, escape would be completely impossible.  Hoshiko had grown up without many of the taboos that were taken for granted on Earth, but even
she
disliked the thought of being under constant observation.  And who knew what having so much access would do to the watchers?

Maybe that’s why so many religious people become fanatics
, she thought, grimly. 
They believe that they are being watched every hour of every day from birth until death.

And constant inescapable surveillance was only scratching the surface. 
She
had no fear of having implants installed in her brain, yet a redesigned implant would be enough to steal her independence and turn her into a drone.  A
Borg
.  Even the
worst
of criminals weren’t fitted with control implants, no matter what they’d done.  Stealing someone’s independence of mind was a taboo so strong that the merest hint of it was enough to start a full police investigation.   And if someone was discovered to be hacking implants or controlling unwilling victims, the Solar Union would never be satisfied with mere death.  Their revulsion would be so strong that the usual prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment would be forgotten.