Frays In The Weave

Heinrich led his men in dispersed formation across a muddy field. A night like this would have made that crossing a living h.e.l.l, but for TADATs in body walkers it could as well have been an exercise ground in glaring daylight.

He knew the army were unfit to enter drop shuttles as anything but tourists, but he"d never dreamed of a civilian authority capable of the atrocity they had lived though that week. Able was the keyword here. It took years of training and an artist"s determination to commit all the awful mistakes he"d seen. The army alone had what it took to find the teachers who could invent the new ones he"d never known existed and make sure every student copied them to a fault.

They rumbled onto the white stretch of highway he had known were here and turned west.

No, no civilian authority could have done this, not more than once at least. There was something called responsibility hidden away in their instructions and not a single employee would have kept his or her job after the unholy mess they created here.

The army though, they dispensed with anything mundane enough as the sheer concept of responsibility. They had replaced it by something they called chain of command, which usually resulted in no personal consequences as long as the commanding politician was happy, or at least not too discomforted, and the Federation couldn"t afford that, because that would mean admitting that the Federation itself had been at fault.

They ran in columns now. A thundering train of composite feet hammering on white stone.

Heinrich knew he was rambling. That he was ranting almost forgotten lessons by his old commander Radovic. Heinrich also knew why he"d do better than doubt whatever political a.s.sessment Radovic made. There was a reason one was an Admiral and one a lowly Major. Still, no way in h.e.l.l Erwin could even have imagined what Heinrich had witnessed here.

No way in h.e.l.l! An entire week to drop two hundred shuttles. Six fatal casualties when untrained shuttle pilots managed to miss a landing strip a mere three kilometres long and over five hundred meters wide. He shuddered. And then it had all gone worse, much, much worse.

He was on his way to Verd now. He and fourteen TADAT in full combat suit. No one, not even Ulfsdotir"s thugs would even have thought about raising weapons against anything like that. These were not the lightly armoured body walkers for scouting missions he had used for half a year.

And of course you could trust the army"s brains even less than paid muscles.

He had ordered his units not to return fire. They hadn"t, at least not until some stellar genius had the brilliant idea to train one of the roof mounted stationary guns against combat body walkers. They had to return fire then. Those guns were powerful enough to rip even these walkers to pieces.

Heinrich hoped the poor idiot never knew what happened when the gun, the mount point and part of the roof instantly turned to plasma.

He had to get to Verd before the mastermind lunatic back at the base decided to excel even further in his display of witlessness. Like attacking a sovereign nation. The last attempt fifteen years earlier had shown with brutal clarity what happened when you tried to attack this one. Six thousand dead. Two carriers lost in orbit. Heinrich was one of eight humans to survive that drop.

Erwin was another, and he needed to know what was happening. He might be navy now, but he had been TADAT before the political backlash had separated TADAT from the navy permanently. Now they were the closest thing the Federation had of an internationally accepted police force. A real pity Erwin had taken the other route.

But Gatekeeper is navy. We fired at a hospital and a city ship. Quarter of a million dead civilians. Five hundred years of relative peace ripped to shreds by one madman in Gatekeeper, and he hadn"t even been army.

#

Mairild greeted him sitting down in her chair. She had known this was coming. The reports were quite explicit.

"Madame, I have come to convey my most sincere apologies on behalf of our government," Rear Admiral Radovic said as soon as he had seated himself.

"And this apology is official?" she asked. This had to be done properly.

"Yes. The actions taken by Brigadier Goodard are illegal. The Terran Federation has signed several treaties regulating our conduct with autonomous organizations, not to mention sovereign states.

That was, as far as she was concerned one of her main problems. There weren"t supposed to be a diversity of sovereign states of outworlders, and now one hung like gleaming stars over her head, as if she didn"t have enough problems with the bright eye of the latest addition to the pantheon. "I"m quite interested in that part. You have to understand that we are quite upset with your withholding information about other nations for over fourteen years." You killed our men, and you killed everyone in one of your own sky cities.

Erwin winced. What was he supposed to do? She should have guessed of course. She took the presence of other kingdoms for granted. Why not outworlder ones?

"Am I to understand that the Federation is actively preventing a sovereign kingdom to make contact with us on their own terms?" She put as much ice into her voice as she could. This was supposed to be a scalding. The entire council waited next door and if half of them weren"t flat against it with their ears at the very moment she"d be surprised. Of course they wouldn"t understand the contents of the conversation, but she had to make it clear from her tone that this was a very one sided conversation. For once she didn"t have to act. She was scared beyond reason. Almost half of the population in Verd dead in an instant. What kind of weapons do you have?

"As I said, his is an illegal decision. Besides, you haven"t exactly been especially forthcoming with our attempts at making contact with other states here."

Good try, not good enough! "You explicitly asked that we contain your traders in Verd. Arthur Wallman wasn"t an official trader? Correct me if I"m wrong?"

From Erwin"s looks that cut his attempt short.

"What more have you to tell me of the illegal actions around the sky port?" This time the ice wasn"t faked. She was so frightened she wanted to cry.

"I will make my utmost to make certain the bodies are recovered and sent here," Erwin said.

"You murdered a full squadron of the Holy Inquisition doing the duty we had agreed upon on the place we had agreed upon and under terms we had agreed upon!" So, she was showing her hand?

Erwin looked as if he didn"t care. Maybe he had guessed all along that the council had sources of their own. "Yes, we did," he agreed. "Those responsible will be apprehended and brought to justice," he continued, and for the first time she saw a grim smile reach his eyes.

"How do you expect to prevent them from flying away?"

"Legal authorities are in command of the stationary sky ship. Any ship flying there will be searched and any ship refusing search will be destroyed."

She had to be satisfied with that answer. The young admiral was doing the best he could, but it wasn"t good enough. "And what about the act of war?"

"I"m afraid I don"t have the military means available to retake the lands illegally seized by Brigadier Goodard."

Mairild sighed. Of course you don"t, you"re alone, well, almost alone. "You have a small force here though," she said, once again showing her hand.

"Yes, Major Goldberger, I believe you"ve met him before," Erwin shot her am angry grin. She deserved that one, "apparently decided to report here with all the information and as much weaponry as possible."

"It"s only in order that I apologize for our misdirection last year," she conceded.

"Misdirection indeed!" He laughed sharply. "How many ships did they sink on your behalf?"

He already knew. Her spies among the new kind of outworlder visitors who had become so usual lately had gathered rumours about equipment similar to those holo cams she had seen, circling around her world. "All but ten or so. They were never involved in the action at the Narrow Sea," she admitted.

"Thanks for small favours," he said, then he sunk into his chair as if hesitating.

He can"t possibly have even more bad news? Or is he going to confess what happened to that sky city?

"There is one more thing. We apprehended the renegade newscaster as promised and had her transported off this planet."

"Yes?" Mairild did not like the way this was going.

"Brigadier Goodard had her awakened and attached to his staff. I"m afraid she"s back." He shared the discomfort with her before continuing. "He also gave the illegal order to arrest Arthur Wallman on charges of treason. I"m aware that this order is illegal in both of our nations. I"ve therefore taken the liberty to attach Major Goldberger"s entire unit as mister Wallman"s personal bodyguard to prevent this."

"You have?" She felt her face trembling.

"Yes, and I"m afraid he doesn"t get a say in it, provided you agree, of course."

"Provided I agree?" Part of the tension, far from all of it, but part ran off her, and she threw her head back and cackled with laughter. Listening council members or not, this gem was just too good not to enjoy.