Ep.#15 - "That Which Other Men Cannot Do" (The Frontiers Saga) (49 page)

“Well, maybe not that
everything
is your
fault
, but you do always wonder if you could have done something different, something that would have prevented something bad from happening.”

“Perhaps, but that’s not the same thing.”

“No, but it is close. I know you,” Vladimir reiterated.

“Oh really? Then what am I thinking?”

Vladimir took another swig from the bottle, looked at Nathan, and thought. “You are thinking, ‘If only I had never struck up that deal with Tanna, and helped them get rid of the Jung, then all of this never would have happened.’”

“Not bad,” Nathan admitted, as he took another bite of his sandwich. “And it’s true, by the way. The entire planet, and everyone on it, would still be alive today, if I had never agreed to help them.”

“And if you hadn’t helped them, we would have run out of propellant. The Jung would have captured the Celestia, or at least, the Celestia would no longer exist, and Earth would probably still be under Jung control. You were doing what you thought was the right thing to do for your people, just as that Tannan… What was his name?”

“Garrett.”

“
Da
, Garrett. Just as Garrett thought he was doing at the time. It was just as much his decision as it was yours.”

“That’s the thing,” Nathan said. “Did I really have the right to make such a decision? Did I have the right to put so many lives in jeopardy?”

“You didn’t know you were putting their lives at risk at the time, Nathan,” Vladimir argued. “You thought you were
improving
their lives, by giving them their freedom.”

“But I was wrong.”

“No, you weren’t wrong. You simply could not have foreseen all the possibilities. Your decision to get involved with the Tannans, to help them achieve their freedom from the Jung… It is not the reason they died. They died because the Jung attacked them.”

“Because we helped them overthrow the Jung,” Nathan reminded him.

“I ask you which shirt looks better on me, the red or the blue, and you say the red, and then a madman kills me because he doesn’t like red shirts, is that your fault?”

“That’s not the same,” Nathan argued. “There’s no way for me to anticipate that a madman hell bent on killing people wearing red shirts is going to see you and kill you.”

“And at the time that you struck the deal with Garrett, you had no idea that the Jung routinely glassed worlds that defied them, did you?”

Nathan shrugged his shoulders. “I suppose not.”

“You can only do what you think is right, based on the information you have at the time that you make your decision,” Vladimir explained. “When are you going to get that through your head, Nathan?”

“Get what through my head?”

“What?”

Nathan smiled. “Must be the beer,” he said, taking another swig. “I get what you’re saying, Vlad, I really do. It’s just that being the captain, you sometimes get put in situations where you have to make decisions that affect far more people than you could imagine. You know it when you make the decisions. But you make them anyway, and then you have to live with the consequences. It’s damned tiring, sometimes.”

“Then quit,” Vladimir suggested.

Nathan looked at him, confused. “I can’t quit.”

“Sure you can,” Vladimir insisted. “I mean, you can’t quit the EDF, you enrolled for a ten-year term…”

“Actually, the EDF doesn’t exist anymore, so technically…”

“
Da, da, da,
” Vladimir replied. “That is a good point. It is also another discussion entirely. What
I
mean is that you could step down as captain, take some other job. Something less stressful, like, flying a cargo shuttle, perhaps?”

“I can’t do that,” Nathan said, taking another swig from the bottle. “I have to see this through, all the way to the end.”

Vladimir chuckled, taking the bottle back from Nathan. “
That,
is
why
you are the captain.” Vladimir took another drink from the bottle, then handed it back to Nathan. “Because you have ethics.”

“They have a cure for that, don’t they?” Nathan asked as he took the bottle back and took another drink.

“They do,” Vladimir replied. “You’re drinking it.”

* * *

Admiral Dumar sat at his desk, studying the intelligence analysis on the Jung home system. He had reviewed it nearly a dozen times over the past five days, ever since the Alliance council had asked him to submit a plan to attack the Jung homeworld. It had taken him less than a day to put together the plan and submit it to the council. That was four days ago, and with each passing day, he could not help but continually review his plans, looking for the slightest mistake that could snatch victory from their hands. In all those days of review, he had yet to find an error.

It was a daring plan, one that made a lot of assumptions about how the Jung would react, but there was no way around that. Although they had tested the Jung tactics many times in battle, military forces tended to behave differently when defending their home turf, as opposed to foreign battlefields.

A knock came at the admiral’s door. The admiral looked up and saw President Scott, standing in the doorway. “Mister President,” the admiral said in surprise. “I was not aware you were coming.”

“It’s a surprise visit,” the president said. “However, I would have expected your staff to at least alert you of my arrival.”

“I left strict orders not to be disturbed unless we were under attack,” Admiral Dumar explained as he rose from his chair. “But I am surprised they didn’t feel your presence was worthy of interruption. I shall have to speak to them.”

“I’m kidding,” President Scott said. “I actually never told anyone I was coming. I didn’t even use the presidential shuttle. My security team and I just caught a ride on one of your personnel shuttles. Your staff didn’t even know I was here until I entered the command wing. So, go easy on them.”

“Of course. Please, have a seat, Mister President,” the admiral offered, coming around his desk to sit on the same side as the president. “So, why all the secrecy?”

“The media loves to make a big deal out of every move I make these days,” President Scott explained. “Especially with Galiardi and his people squawking at anyone with a camera. Besides, I wanted to talk to you in person, and I know you’re a busy man.”

“No more so than you.”

“Nevertheless.”

“What is it you wish to speak to me about?” the admiral wondered.

“I’ll get straight to the point,” President Scott said. “Several members of the council are concerned about how the Jung will react,
if
we attack their homeworld. Now, I know what you told us when you presented your plan. But I also know that you were playing it safe, taking a middle ground, so to speak. I don’t blame you, considering all the pressure from Galiardi’s group. So I decided to come to you, and ask you straight up. How do you think the Jung will react? And don’t worry, I won’t hold you to it. I just want to know what you really think.”

“I see,” the admiral replied. “I’m afraid my answer will not be as simple as you might have hoped. You see, the Jung are not as simple and straightforward of a society as you might think. They have many factions, or ‘castes’. Each of these castes has different branches and layers. And each of them will react differently.”

“Try to simplify it for me, Admiral,” President Scott suggested.

“Well, take the three main factions within the ruling caste,” the admiral continued. “First, you have the Isolationists. I speak of them first, because they are the original Jung Empire. They couldn’t care less about conquering the Sol sector, or any other part of the galaxy. Their primary concern is the Jung home system, and the nearby systems that made up their empire for the first five centuries after the bio-digital plague. Their reaction will be to withdraw and protect their own core. They will likely call for a cease-fire, and offer to enter into negotiations. They might even do that
without
us having to attack them. Then there are the Core Expansionists. They are the ones who pushed to expand and conquer the Sol sector. Their original justification might have been to ensure the safety of the original Jung Empire, which they felt was threatened by the resurrection of the core worlds of Earth, but their true goal is to grow the core empire in traditional fashion, from its center outward.”

“And how might they react?” President Scott wondered.

“I expect their pride to be the biggest problem. It’s bad enough that we’ve been wiping them out all over the core the past few months, but when we attack their home system, they’re going to want revenge, and in a big way.
They
are the ones who will be the biggest threat.
They
are the ones who will want to rally their forces and send everything they’ve got to destroy us. Fortunately, they are not the controlling party.
That
would be the Isolationists.”

“That’s good for us, then,” the president surmised.

“Yes, and no,” the admiral corrected. “You see, although the Isolationists control the government of the Jung homeworld, they do not control the military, or the worlds that the military has conquered. At least not directly. So, it is entirely possible that the Core Expansionists would ignore a decision by the Isolationists to call for a cease-fire. In fact, they might even attack during peace negotiations, without the Isolationists’ foreknowledge.”

President Scott sighed. “Not simple at all.”

“Indeed,” Admiral Dumar agreed. “And finally, we have the Conquerors, whose goals have very little to do with the core empire, or the Jung worlds in the Sol sector. The Conquerors are aware that there are many human-inhabited worlds further out in the galaxy, and they want to go out and establish their
own
empires. They would likely still align themselves with the Jung empires of old, but that is not guaranteed. It is almost impossible to predict how they will react. They may side with the Core Expansionists, in which case we will be in even greater peril. On the other hand, they may simply decide that it is not their concern, and go about their escapades further out in the galaxy.”

“So, that is why you want a fail-safe, a way to guarantee that the Jung will
not
attack
any
Alliance member world, lest they risk their own destruction.”

“Precisely,” the admiral replied. “It is the only way to exert
any
level of control over all three main factions. Imminent threat of destruction.”

President Scott leaned back in his chair. “Well, Admiral, the council did like your attack plan. They thought it was bold enough, and destructive enough to make the Jung think hard about continuing their activities in the Sol sector, but conservative enough to maintain a reasonable level of post-attack defense. However, they still did not want to commit to such an all-out attack against the Jung homeworld.”

“I see,” the admiral replied. Although part of him was disappointed, another was relieved.

President Scott stood. “However, what swayed their vote was the fact that the loss of the Tannan propellant pipeline represents a serious short-term reduction in not only our own propellant supplies, but also the financial resources that have made us able to procure so many of the basic resources that many of the member worlds, Earth included, still desperately need. In other words, as much as we dislike the idea of provoking the Jung further, we feel we have little choice. The Jung attack on Tanna must not go unanswered. Your attack on the Jung home system has been approved. Furthermore, you are instructed to carry out the attack at the earliest possible date, so as to capitalize on the fervor of support the destruction of Tanna has generated for the Alliance across all worlds.”

“Thank you, Mister President,” the admiral said as he stood up to see the president off.

“I only hope we are doing the right thing, Admiral. To be honest, it feels very much like we are about to poke a hibernating bear with a very pointed stick.”

* * *

The captains and lead tactical officers, as well as the CAGs from both the Aurora and the Celestia, were gathered in the Karuzara’s main mission briefing room. None of them had been told the topic of the briefing, but they all had their suspicions.

Captain Nash and his lead tactical officer were the last to arrive, making their way over to sit next to Jessica and Nathan.

“I was wondering if you were going to make it,” Jessica said under her breath as her brother sat down next to her.

“Captains,” Robert said in greeting to both Nathan, and to Cameron, who was sitting to Nathan’s left, along with her lead tactical officer, Lieutenant Delaveaga.

“Did you get to fly your new ship here?” Jessica asked in jest.

“Nope. Took a shuttle, like everyone else.” He gestured to his tactical officer. “Jess, this is my lead TO, Nessa Monath. Lieutenant, this is my sister, Jessica, her CO, Nathan Scott, the Celestia’s CO, Cameron Taylor, and her lead TO, Luis Delaveaga.”

“A pleasure to meet you all,” Lieutenant Monath greeted.

“Koharan?” Jessica asked, recognizing her accent.

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied.

“How’d you end up as TO?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“The lieutenant was trained by the Jung as a weapons systems engineer,” Robert explained. “That, and her high scores on the tactical improvisation simulations got her the spot. Not luck. Any idea why we’re here?”

“Nope,” Jessica replied. “But I’d bet a month’s pay that it’s got something to do with attacking the Jung home system.”

“It’s about time,” Nathan mumbled.

“It’s only been nine days,” Cameron retorted.

“Eight days too long,” Nathan replied.

“No argument here,” Jessica agreed.

Admiral Dumar entered the briefing room, followed by several assistants, as well as Commander Bowden.

“Admiral on deck!” the guard at the door announced, causing all in attendance to rise to their feet and stand at attention.

“Seal the room,” the admiral ordered as he walked to the podium in the corner of the room. The guards at both entrances closed and locked the doors, after which, one of the admiral’s assistants activated the sound curtain.