Commodore Read online

  3

  Little took place for several hours once I was finished sending my little message. As everyone had anticipated, we at first received only the barest of official acknowledgements. After all, what minor functionary would risk anything more? The local revenue cutters acknowledged our presence as well. This even bordered on the encouraging, since although the quick little vessels were technically ships of His Majesty's fleet they'd long since effectively become part of the Hashimoto's private navy. This was understandable enough, as like everyone else naval officers preferred to be based on their homeworlds and so the officers of these vessels were practically all Hashimotos. I was particularly concerned about the cutters because, being fast, nimble and manned by fully-trained and qualified crews, they'd be essential to any Hashimoto opposition. Scattered all over the system as the ships were, for example, if fighting broke out they'd be the ones who carried the word to other systems and there'd be nothing we loyalists could do to prevent it. So I was more than a little relieved to see that they were behaving themselves… for the moment at least.

  Since no one could've known for certain that such a lull would develop after my little presentation, I hadn't scheduled anything for many hours after our Jump. As more and more time passed on the bridge, however, it soon became evident that nothing much was going to happen anytime soon. So I turned things over to Josiah and headed down to my cabin to strip off my uncomfortable full-dress uniform and maybe get some paperwork done. A battlecruiser, I'd already learned, carried strictly limited quantities of fuel, stores, and men. Yet, somewhere aboard the vessel a magical storage locker containing an infinite amount of red tape clearly had to exist. Someday, I promised myself, I'd make time to investigate the mystery more thoroughly. Once I was caught up on my paperwork, that was…

  "You shouldn't fret so much, sir," Nestor advised me over the top of his reader as I sat and signed the daily fuel consumption report, the daily weapons-availability report, the daily maintenance report… "Everything's going to be all right. Hashimoto will capitulate. They're in too poor a position not to. It's Wilkes we have to worry about."

  I nodded in agreement. Before leaving on this mission I'd been briefed by dozens of experts on various aspects of the situation, and virtually all of them were of the same opinion. Which Nestor well knew, as I'd insisted on bringing him along with me. "Leave them a graceful way out," Uncle Robert had declared, "and they'll trip all over each other to bow down to the new sovereign. I've been dealing with them for decades—the big mystery is how they got involved in such a high-stakes game in the first place. It's grossly out of character for them."

  "They'll test you," Nestor predicted. "Once and only once, if you respond assertively enough. Then they'll come fawning to eat out of your hand and swear the whole affair was a huge misunderstanding. It's how humans do things. They're obsessed by power and status games, but they also know how to back down when they've lost. Or at least the sane ones do. Relatively sane, that is."

  I smiled as I ring-stamped a form blessing the advancement of a certain Jacob Arlens to Able Spacer due to especially meritorious performance. Promoting people was a much more pleasant than dealing with Javelin's disciplinary cases, which fortunately were so few as to be almost non-existent. Everyone wanted to serve aboard the most famous and romantic active vessel in the navy, so for the most part my department heads were free to pick and choose from an ocean of volunteers. The results spoke for themselves. "You don't seem to think much of humans," I observed eventually.

  Nestor shrugged. "They're all different, of course. So some are a lot better than others. His Majesty, for example…" He smiled. "James would've made a fine Rabbit indeed, sir."

  "Heh!" I replied. "Don't say that in public, even though of course I understand that you mean well by it. Some might take is as lese majeste."

  I expected my aide to grin ever wider at that, but instead his smile faded. "That's just what I mean, sir," he explained. "Can you even imagine any Rabbit declaring it a crime merely to insult his dignity?"

  "Well…" I temporized, thinking back over my relationships with my fellow bunnies. They seemed to think pretty highly of me, and yet… Back at the Academy, one night while I was eating dinner with the maintenance Rabbits someone had exchanged a filthy old tar-covered work-cap for my uniform hat. It'd been a good joke, and we'd all had fun together as I marched ramrod-erect up and down the slave quarters with it perched atop the rest of my immaculate cadet's uniform. In fact, it was one of the happiest memories of my life. As was the time when, back at my estate, my household staff had taken advantage of the fact that I was such a sound sleeper to paint my nose bright pink. I'd left it that way all day long, pretending not to notice while my fellow Rabbits convulsed over and over again with laughter at the sight. There was nothing innately wrong with having a pink nose, of course. But on me it looked silly indeed, sort of like a clown-nose on a human since it was so clearly a mismatch for the rest of my coloration. That'd been another fine day as well— in fact, I rather suspected that Nestor had been the brushman-in-chief. "No," I had to admit finally. "I can't."

  He nodded again, then turned his reader to face me. He was reading "The Prince", by Machiavelli. "This," he declared, "is sickening. And quintessentially human."

  I nodded back, if a bit reluctantly. The old classic had been required reading for my strategy class. "I agree."

  "Any self-respecting Rabbit would declare it a kind of pornography," he continued. "And yet, I find myself agreeing with the author over and over again, in regards to humans at least." He waved the reader at me. "If you want to understand our masters, this is the best instruction manual I've found so far." His lowered the book and his face fell. "Sir… You and I… We're being dragged into a cesspool."

  I nodded again, remembering how I'd visited the Mast at the Academy one last time before upping ship to take command of Javelin. Yet again, I hadn't been able to find it in my heart to climb it. "I won't argue with you, Nestor," I replied eventually. "The older I've grown and the more responsibilities I've taken on, the worse things I've been forced to do in the name of pursuing worthy goals." I sighed. "King Albert…. He seemed to feel the same way, for what it's worth. He wanted more than anything else to do what was good for humanity, and yet in practice he too was forced to resort to that monstrosity—" I pointed at the reader—"as his guide as well. Why? Because it's accurate."

  Nestor sighed. "You know," he said. "This isn't going at all as I expected. You were supposed to reassure me that humans are good creatures, you see, and that I must be extra-prejudiced against them because of… Of…"

  I nodded and spared my friend the pain of reminding him how badly and for how long he'd been abused by a human. "I fear that I can't do that, old friend. Or at least not in good faith. Instead, I have to offer you an even more depressing thought. For I fear this line of reasoning isn't anything new to me."

  Nestor's ears perked, though he said nothing.

  "Consider this," I said as I rose to return the bridge. "We're part human ourselves, though we and they both tend to carefully ignore the fact. The freer we Rabbits become, and the more power and responsibilities we take on for ourselves, the more powerful the human elements within us seem to grow." I sighed. "Or at least that's been my personal experience so far. Not a happy one either, I'll add."

  4

  In the end the Hashimotos behaved exactly as Nestor predicted, and perhaps as Machiavelli might've foreseen as well. They did indeed challenge us directly, in a manner worthy of my own double-entendre filled message to them. Only the once, however. And when I faced them down without blinking they folded up like a cheap card table. "Sir," my chief navigator reported a few seconds after my return to the bridge. "We've received permission to orbit. But…"

  I scowled. Lieutenant Clarke had an annoying tendency of not completing his reports without encouragement. He was otherwise highly competent, but needed to be broken of his bad habit before his hesitancy cost lives in a battle. Or, con
ceivably, cost us the battle itself. "But an African bull elephant wearing a yellow sweater sat on your console and shattered the monitor before you could read the entire message?" I demanded.

  His skin was very dark, but not so much so that you couldn't tell he was blushing. "No, sir. They, uh…"

  "Traffic Central demanded that we entertain them by making funny noises over the emergency frequency before they'd send us the specifics?"

  Clearly I wasn't helping matters; now he was stammering worse than ever. "I… Uh…"

  "They instructed us to take up an orbit just yards away from their main orbital battery, sir," Josiah interjected, defending the navigator. "Right under their guns, so to speak."

  I nodded back and held Josiah's gaze for an extra second or two; he and I had worked together long enough that we read each other perfectly. He understood as well as I did why I'd just been so cruel to Lieutenant Clarke; after all, my first officer had lived through Richard's last battle just the same as I had. Therefore he too understood from firsthand experience just how vital split-seconds could become under combat conditions. This was after all the bridge of His Majesty's proudest battlecruiser, not a speech therapist's office. But by interjecting himself, my first officer had also made an implicit promise to deal with the situation on his own. Which was fine by me, so long as the matter was indeed addressed and put to bed. So I moved back to the subject at hand. "That's unacceptable," I replied. Then I turned once more to the still-blushing Lieutenant Clarke. "Make your course to take up standard orbit in the absolute least optimal position for their batteries," I ordered. "As far away from them on the average as possible."

  "Aye-aye sir," he replied. "Should I inform their controllers right away, or wait until the last minute?"

  "You shouldn't inform them at all," I replied, smiling. "Just do it, and let them shuffle traffic out of our way as necessary. Don't worry about your piloting license; I'll see to it that the order is properly logged to protect you." Then I turned to Josiah. "I'll bet you five credits they never say another word on the subject."

  "No bet, sir," he replied, shaking his head. "By then, they ought to be finally getting the message."

  And sure enough, get the message they did. Not long after the ground-attack echelon Jumped into the system with us, we began receiving increasingly frantic assurances of loyalty and friendship. As Machiavelli advised, it was indeed far better to be feared than loved. Three transports worth of marines was a large force indeed, more than enough to seize and hold the key points on almost any planet for long enough to cause the whole economy to grind to a halt. From there things grew very ugly very quickly in the absence of a surrender. Drugs grew short, fuel grew short, food grew short, potable water grew short… It wasn't a pretty way to make war. But it was effective as hell, and the Hashimotos were quite correct to assume that if push had come to shove I'd have inflicted every single one of these horrors on them and as many others as I could think of to boot.

  Given that the House of Hashimoto had figured out that they couldn't possibly come out on top, it was perhaps inevitable that they took another page out of Machiavelli's book by flattering us in the hope of currying favor and gaining influence. Soon the airwaves were alive with messages praising James, congratulating me on past victories, and declaring how lucky the House of Hashimoto was to be visited by both a Herald and a Royal Governor at one and the same time. I was awarded a large forested estate of my very own, and even Josiah was granted acreage right next door. Nestor rolled his eyes when he heard about it, then shook his head at his reader (which was still loaded with "The Prince"). While I was able to avoid most of the ensuing round of ceremonial dinners and tearful tributes to the goodness and wisdom of the new King James, I still had to get all dressed up six or seven times and try to keep a straight face as award after gaudy award was bestowed on the kind, merciful… Me. Meanwhile a little meaningful business was somehow squeezed in here and there among all the nonsense; it was agreed that Martijn would remain behind, for example, to serve as James's personal representative for a time. Still, it bordered on the hilarious to watch Lord Ise, the ranking noble currently in residence, thank Martijn with tears of gratitude running down his cheeks for promising to 'assist' the Hashimoto clan in instituting precisely the same military and economic reforms that they'd resisted James's accession to the throne and thus endangered the entire kingdom over in the first place. "Now we're free to pull our weight against the Empire at last," His Lordship declared at the largest state dinner, while Nestor and I nearly lapsed into a giggling fit. In fairness, it was just barely possible that Lord Ise might've been a secret supporter of Marcus's fight-to-the-finish proposals all along, and therefore an entirely sincere man. But…

  It wasn't very darned likely.

  Still, that particular dinner did produce something of real value, which made it unique among the series. Lord Juri, the Hashimoto pretender to the throne, was still on-planet. Though his House kept him mostly hidden away and out of the public eye, one of the few things we knew about him personally was that he loved warp gems and had even authored a scholarly book theorizing about their formation. "Dear Captain Birkenhead," he wrote me in a note hand-delivered by his personal footbunny just before I returned to Javelin. "I'm well aware of the recent frictions between your House and my own, and I ask you to believe me when I inform you that no one wishes James a longer and more successful reign than do I. Long live His Majesty King James! Also, please accept that I'm equally sincere in my admiration for your own most astounding accomplishments.

  "At any rate, the true purpose of this note is to invite you to my private rooms for a short visit tomorrow afternoon during which we might perhaps get to know one another a little. I'll also confess that I have a personal agenda to pursue. The warp-gem in your Sword of Orion, the one awarded for your defense of Zombie Station, is thought to be the third-largest extant. The second-largest is mounted atop His Majesty's crown, while the biggest of all sadly adorns His Imperial Majesty's brow. Since I'm most unlikely to ever have the opportunity to study either of these gems in detail, I was rather hoping that I might obtain permission to dismount yours, take certain measurements, and then return your well-earned Sword to you cleaned and polished as a token of my thanks. It'll only take an hour or so for my assistants to obtain the data I need for my research. Indeed, the cleaning and polishing will take longer than the measurements. Your Sword will be returned to you, better than ever, after our meeting."

  "I can't see anything wrong with it," Martijn opined at the conference I immediately called to discuss the matter.

  "Nor I," Sir Nicholas agreed. He was the Royal Governor I'd brought out with us but hadn't needed yet; in the meantime it made sense to pick his brain. "Your Sword, sir… Everyone in the galaxy is aware that it was fairly earned." He smiled. "I think even the Emperor himself might object if someone damaged or defiled it by underhanded means. Lord Juri certainly wouldn't dare do anything to it."

  I nodded and looked at Nestor, who should've been totally out of place at such a meeting but somehow wasn't. "That thing's a real pain in the tail to polish, sir," he replied with a smile. "If anyone ought to know, it's me. Please, take him up on the offer for my sake!" Everyone laughed, then the smile faded. "It's a pretext. He wants to speak to you in private, I bet. Though I don't doubt that he honestly wants the data as well."

  "That's how I read things too," I agreed. "So, that's how we'll proceed." I rose to my feet. "Besides," I continued. "I sort of think he and I might actually get along; apparently we're both interested in Fields, though perhaps from completely different directions." Then I shook my head. "I don't know about you guys, but this feels to me like the first honest and sincere communication we've received from a Hashimoto since we got here."

  5

  "It's so good to meet you, David!" Lord Juri, as he preferred to be called, greeted me as I was led back into the depths of his personal quarters. While he hadn't quite answered his own door at my knock, the nobleman had c
learly been waiting in the anteroom for my arrival.

  I smiled and nodded, then extended my right hand. "And you as well," I replied, looking around. Juri Hashimoto was practically an unknown quantity outside of his own family, and from what we'd been able to learn he was nearly as much of a mystery to most of his own kin. Thanks to the twisted intricacies of the laws of genealogy, he stood far closer to the Royal throne than to the leadership of his own House. So, within the Hashimoto world he was a relatively small fish. Apparently he lived like one, too—by noble standards Juri's lodgings were modest indeed. I sniffed the air discreetly, but could detect no olfactory evidence of his relationship to the Royal family. He was a distant cousin, which apparently wasn't enough to affect body odor. Nor could I see any facial resemblance.

  "Come in," he urged, clasping me across the shoulders like an old friend. "And let me show you my treasures!"

  I was a bit surprised at how quickly Lord Juri came to the point of his visit until we finally came to a long wall display loaded to the gills with warp gems. This was a working scientific collection, he was quick to point out, not a representation of the best and brightest. He smiled as he waxed eloquent about the various structural deformities and colors represented on his shelves; it was if he'd memorized everything there was to know about each and every individual sample. "This one," he'd say, pointing to a brick-red twinned gem with a dull, porous surface, "is known as a ruby butterfly. They're incredibly rare; only four are known to have formed to date. And each formed in an old-style quad-injected core. Whether this is significant data or a statistical fluke, no one can be certain. The gems occur too infrequently for us to infer much."