"Hello everyone, we'll skip the formalities given the situation," said Tohil gruffly, his admiral's collar loosened. "Rav, give us a status report."
Admiral Ravzan stood beside Tohil, in the communications room of Polyphemus, a heavily armed Tyger-class ship operating not far from Tybalt. While most of those on the call had the exhausted look of people who hadn't slept in two days, he seemed full of energy. Desperation? Facing him on a screen were about ten captains who had survived the assault on the Aleph, each in the comm room of their respective ship.
"Uh... so, two days ago, an individual-human or a Xeno with human appearance-possessing powers equal or even superior to the Transients, attacked the headquarters of the HS Council, and has since controlled both that location and the HS itself. In the operation, we lost an indeterminate number of ships and personnel, but we count at least the loss of Endymion Romulus and Endymion Remus, usually tasked with protecting Earth and the Earth-Mars corridor. It should be noted that according to the individual, who calls himself Aleph, these losses were caused by Transient maneuvers. Aleph then established what we've called a control zone roughly the size of a solar system, but this zone extends through the entangled gates, which means his influence reaches the Big Five, Earth, Prospero, Antioch, Alonso, Titus, and also Lennox-which, let us remember, produces antimatter. Furthermore, his 'control' also extends through the miniature entangled gates inside our Drifts, which enable LE synchronization."
"Control-what does that mean, Rav? Be specific," pressed Tohil.
"We're almost certain he can, like a Transient, read minds and alter individuals' psyches."
"You heard that? Assume he knows everything about us."
"As we speak, we've developed major technological innovations to isolate our Drifts from the HS, and still, we're not certain Aleph doesn't have an eye or an ear inside our ships. Our Drift Maps have been wiped. We're rebuilding them-some from memory."
"Tell us about the Stellar Fleet."
"99% of our fleet, following the crisis, either Drifting toward Earth or trying to flee, ended up blocked and unable to jump because of the map losses. That said, a few officers still know Drift coordinates by heart, but no one's dared to use them in the chaos, and it's basically the number one rule: never do that."
"Any ship not present at this war council is considered in enemy hands," Tohil stated grimly.
"Dear Captains and Admirals, I want you to consider this: the Stellar Fleet is the armed arm of humanity. But in fact, a large portion of that humanity has joined Aleph. This includes, among others, part of the Admiralty Council, which has defected to follow this new leader."
"Traitors!" roared Tohil. "Cowards! Unworthy of the uniform. But let's keep our composure. I want to reassure you. We're not planning any suicide missions. You know what? We might even, by mutual agreement, do like the others and bow to Aleph-even if all I want is to wring his neck. We are military. We are the Stellar Fleet. So whatever we do, we'll do it by the book-not out of fear. You know what I mean? With the dignity and honor of the Fleet. But first, I want to know you. So introduce yourselves, folks."
The invitation triggered a stunned silence in the room, especially as the first ship captain was a woman.
"Captain Miroslava Ivet, of the Endymion Alké. Captain for the past two days. The former captain, Ancalor Vlasto, is currently in the medical wing undergoing mental treatment. His entire family served aboard the Remus. We are fully operational and have three thousand personnel."
"Captain Silouanos Kerenza," said another, wearing a Psi brooch. "I'm on the Tyger Steropes and command a small fleet of six assault-class Ozymandias that I managed to salvage: Squadron Eulabee Alpha to Zeta. Each has an elite zero-G assault team. The Eulabee served on the orbit of Caliban-1 and Orion Prime."
"Captain Kenny-just Kenny-of the Tisiphone Anicroche. For what it's worth, I'll let you know that the Tisiphone has been repurposed as a cruise ship for military personnel too old for active service. That said, my passengers are ready to fight if mobilized, and I think they share Admiral Tohil's feelings about Aleph."
"Captain Margarita Lieke of the Endymion Deimos," said a woman with an exhausted face. "We've just returned from a five-year mission in Drift Five and I'm out of supplies for my three thousand crew. In two days, either we surrender, or we eat the sailors."
"Surgeon Captain Sindri of the hospital ship Fuxi, Invictus class. It's a good old ship from 2500 but still holds up well. Captain Lieke, I have supplies for your crew, but not enough to last more than ten days. For context, the Invictus are the older Endymion models. Lots of space and good propulsion, but no weapons and a tiny crew made entirely of doctors."
"Captain Sirius," said an android with a robotic voice. "I'm a former Captain, passed through the After, but never left the military. I command a modest Ozy named the Kairos, packed with missiles. If you're looking for someone who can dive onto a target and blow up with it, I'm your ideal recruit."
It was a joke, but no one laughed. Sirius figured the assembly might seriously be considering him for a suicide mission.
"Captain Miltiades," said an old man with shining eyes. "Here as well, a modest Ozy named the Keres. I'm on a secret mission but it's moot now. I do have good news. I'm transporting a pair of Entangled Gates two meters in diameter, which I was supposed to bring back to Earth."
Tohil whistled in admiration. He imagined dropping a gate somewhere and sending the Eulabee squadron through it.
"Now that's a top-tier asset."
"I also have one or two tons of antimatter," added Miltiades. "That's a load worth what, two or three trillion thalers?"
"All that in a single Ozy?" asked Rav. "When you need to transport precious materials on busy routes, discretion is king."
"Captains Roman, Evgeniv, and Tena of the Antioch League Fleet," boomed a voice from a corner. "The League taught us to hate you, Tohil, but our leader Sashko decided to surrender to Aleph. We immediately mutinied and came with an elite squadron of Alexandrite-class ships. They're Antioch's equivalent of the Ozymandias-capable of lightning missions in atmosphere. They're equipped with high-power thermal beams and have the best grappling acceleration in the HS. We are the Moirai Commando: the ships Atropos, Lachesis, and Clotho. We're going to kill Aleph, and then I'll kill Sashko myself."
"We just signed a peace treaty with Antioch, for the record," noted Ravzan.
"I'll slit his throat and it won't be political," added Roman with Antioch's trademark deadpan.
"Captain Andreï of the Alecto Anicroche. Our ship isn't armed but-"
Tohil had said "hold on" and abruptly cut the feed. In private, he asked his colleague:
"Rav, what the hell is this crap? That loser Andreï? He's still in command of the Alecto?"
"Yes. He even led the peace talks between the League and the HS. Brilliantly, from what I-"
"Rav, I asked for him to be discharged. You kept him behind my back?"
"Not at all. He has the President's favor."
"The President of the HS?"
"And you know, all Endymions now have Psis aboard."
"You've always kept an eye on him, haven't you? I once saw a report on him lying around your desk."
"I monitor him like I monitor all anomalies."
"Dammit. Well, it's not like the situation wasn't already a total mess."
He reactivated the remote conference, took a breath-and noticed a new window had just opened. A Wau in armor appeared on the screen.
"Uh, Wau, do you have something to say to us?"
"Thank you for allowing my intrusion," said the Wau in his steady voice. "As you know, the Wau Order has a mission to protect humanity. If this meeting intends to lead an assault on Aleph, then I will join you."
"Uh... hold on... you have access codes to military comms?"
"Your protocols are remarkably secure, but not beyond our capabilities."
"Listen, Wau," Tohil shouted, already on edge, "this is a war council of the STELLAR FLEET. It does not concern you. GET OUT!"
"I'm staying, whether you like it or not. These are times when no one has the luxury of refusing help. I want to state two points. During the Lennox life-seed crisis, a Wau opposed your Endymions entering orbit. Alone, he breached the hull and disabled the main power source. One Wau is stronger than your most powerful ship. Second point, I personally confronted the one you call Aleph, who tried to kill me-and I survived. I am on your side; and though I don't expect thanks-which would nevertheless be appropriate-I believe my presence is legitimate here, if not valuable."
Tohil was breathing so heavily that everyone could hear it. Andreï made a small hand gesture as if to say "why not?" and Rav nodded.
A silence fell. Then Tohil resumed:
"We are in a Hiroshima and Nagasaki-type situation… except we're the surviving Japanese. We're facing a show of force beyond us, and what's more, our army is down to a handful of fighters I wouldn't even send to resolve a medieval Xeno-world conflict. The other three Admiralty members have already surrendered-those traitors. Today we have few options. We can counterattack-with a good plan. But honestly, we are warriors with rifles or spears facing a nuclear bomb. And though I have a reputation as a fighter, I respect my men's lives. We could also surrender with honor, negotiating our capitulation. Or even scuttle ourselves. Rav and I will decide, but we're open to your views."
"I have to think about the survival of my three thousand sailors," said Margarita.
"Unless we somehow retake an HS planet-something better than some backwater like Fang-they'll die if we don't surrender."
"We didn't join you to surrender," said Roman, leader of the League squadron, firmly. "We'll part ways if that's your choice."
"Scuttling an Endymion to keep it from the enemy-why not," noted Sindri. "Scuttling a hospital ship ignores what's in front of us: fellow humans."
Tohil was seething. He felt desperately powerless, faced with clashing opinions that only weakened an already hopeless situation.
Andreï raised his hand, and that was the last straw. Tohil slammed his fist on the table and stood up to leave. Silence fell as he vanished from the screen. Muffled noises could be heard, as if he were hitting a wall. Rav stood up too, and there was a murmur of indistinct exchange. Then both admirals sat back down at the table.
"Captain Andreï?" asked Admiral Ravzan.
"I have a solution."
His calm, assured, gentle voice spoke with such clarity that it imposed a hopeful silence.
"Negotiate peace?" Tohil asked, his voice thick with hatred.
"With Aleph? That's impossible. My solution is this: We fall back, we tend to our wounds, we find a chink in the armor, we counterattack without mercy. And we win."
"Goddamn it, Andreï, you're the light in this fucking darkness! Except that, without the details, your plan is shit!" Tohil exploded.
"My men…" said Margarita.
"If I may? Please don't interrupt me-many issues have been raised, and I'm trying to focus to find solutions to all of them. So, here's what we'll do. You'll ask your bridge officers to connect you in a secondary comm room with Pallas."
He stepped aside and showed on the screen a woman with a Psi brooch at her collar.
"I need your coordinates, all of you. We're going to give you Drift instructions to reach a small unnamed world with a perfectly breathable atmosphere for us. Let's call it Camerone. We'll be absolutely beyond Aleph's reach for a few months… if I understand his operational mode correctly. It's a bit hot, and basically a rocky desert, but there are great rivers."
"Excuse me, Andreï," said Rav, "you asked us not to interrupt you, but how do you know this planet, and how can you calculate Drift coordinates on the fly without Leonardo?"
"Do we really have time to discuss that? Every second counts."
"Well, yeah, kinda," Tohil replied. "When I program a Drift, I like to know where the info comes from-so I don't end up in intergalactic void."
"Fair. I was assigned to orbit around Valentine for the past seven years. A punishment from high command for diverging opinions. There wasn't much to do, so I got into Xeno expeditions. Some Xeno civilizations, like us, send explorers to other worlds, and we have an info-sharing agreement. You'll laugh, but their reports are really short and just say 'viable world' or 'non-viable world', and we take them at face value. And the LE takes them at face value. No one thought that a non-viable world for a Xeno might be perfectly viable for us. We never asked the question because we already have too many colonizable planets, you see? But I thought, someday this will be useful. So, in my map room, I have over four hundred planets viable for humanity, but considered uninhabitable by the LE. Can we continue?"
"No," said Ravzan. "I want to know how you'll do the Drift calculations. Don't tell me you've got a secured protocol with Leonardo."
"You met Sweet Sun, my Xeno mathematician, seven years ago. The one with a hundred billion hyperconnected neurons. He loves this kind of math."
"OK," said Tohil, in a dazed state. "Continue."
"We patch our wounds. Margarita, I haven't forgotten you. Seven years ago, we were already conducting very promising experiments on plants-and I love botany myself. We managed to develop here plants as magical as those on Prospero, capable of producing endless fruits. We'll propagate all that quickly, and if your crew agrees to eat vegetables and tighten their belts for a while-and then take up gardening on Camerone-no one will starve."
"Thank you, captain, thank you," said Margarita, on the verge of tears.
"We'll also clone Sweet Sun. His species reproduces by mitosis. You'll each get a piece and have your own onboard computer. We have a magnificent map room. We'll go back to a geographic approach to the universe by charting it all from Camerone, world by world. We'll go beneath them like submarines from the era of ocean wars on Mythic Earth. Pallas, go ahead-we have no time to lose."
The officer stood up and saluted him, and the other captains gave orders to their second-in-command.
"I have several strategies, but I won't reveal them here and now. If Aleph captures you tomorrow, the risk is too great. But here's the idea: fallback to Camerone. Stabilize the situation. Play a few wildcards. And in three years at most, we launch our counterattack. It still sounds vague, but we have a good chance."
"Why three years?" asked Tohil, now captivated by the man he had despised ten minutes earlier.
"It won't be less than two years and a day," said Andreï with a small smile. "But three years is a good upper limit. I can't reveal why just yet. Oh, I see our ships have started the Drift-perfect. I also have a favor to ask. I had a global plan, but I was missing a reliable agent-and our friend Wau here can help. I'll need to step away from the theater of operations to prepare the counterattack I mentioned, and someone needs to place the wildcards I told you about. I think Wau, if he agrees, is perfectly suited."
"He's not part of the Stellar Fleet," said Admiral Ravzan. "He's an unknown with a mask. I volunteer instead."
"Ravzan, you'll be the pillar of our resistance and you'll have a role to play. We live in desperate times-the times of gentleman adventurer alliances, of alliances beyond conventional norms. This Wau faced off with Garen Antor, and if he's captured, our plan is still protected-I'm sure of it."
"Who is Garen Antor?" asked Tohil.
"He is Aleph," said the Wau. "As for me, I accept this task. And you?"
"Give us a minute," said Tohil, cutting the communication once again.
Disoriented but not despairing, Tohil said in private, in a calmer voice to his comrade:
"Andreï-you know him, you've read all his files and everything... right?"
"Yes."
"You trust him?"
"To be honest, he's mentally unstable, but after what he just presented, it's hard to deny he's a brilliant strategist who knows how to keep a cool head."
"A brilliant strategist?"
"I'll tell you something incredible-he beats AIs at chess."
"That's impossible. Even with a massive brain, he couldn't. I mean, AIs win before we even move a piece."
"I've seen him do it. He's a child of the Lodovico Project. They did things to his brain. We need to be very careful, but if he has a plan, we might follow it. But caution is essential."
"And what about the Wau?"
"I have no trust in the Wau. I don't like where this is going."
"It's the best plan, though. But I've got a good feeling about those two. Tell me, Rav-am I a bastard for shelving Andreï for seven years?"
"The world was shelved, my friend. For now, Andreï has spoken. Let's watch him act before drawing conclusions."
"You're kind, but no. The truth is, I'm a bastard."
He reestablished the communication.
"Alright, the Wau gets the reins. But we also want to know your plan. You'll need a plan B if our masked friend gets caught."
"I wasn't planning otherwise, Admirals. Dear captains, we'll leave you now. See you soon on Camerone."
They all saluted him with the utmost respect. And Andreï dismissed the others, keeping only the Wau and the Admirals to discuss his plans. Tohil then realized that at no point had he formally approved the Captain's plan in the name of the Fleet. He had simply imposed himself on them all-without a fight.