The Unincorporated Future (53 page)

“Uh-huh,” Sandra said, her smile growing ever wider.

“What do I have to do?” J.D. said with a wonderful mixture of dread and relief.

Sandra came up and, taking both J.D.’s hands in her own, looked her prickly and calculating warlord in the eye and said, “Janet, you’re going to have to really, really trust me.”

UHFS
Liddel

“Why are they waiting?” Trang heard Zenobia ask over their secure DijAssist link.

“Hell if I know,” answered Trang. “But if this lasts much longer, we’ll have to go to the Beta Plan.”

“Sir,” Zenobia said, real concern in her voice, “we have a slightly better chance of success if they attack us.”

“Of course, if they’re experiencing some sort of difficulty, we could be wasting the perfect opportunity. Truth is, Zenobia, we don’t know what’s going on. In battle, you never have enough information. At some point, you just have to commit.”

“And are we, sir?”

“Hell no,” laughed Trang, “least not yet. We’ll wait and see what develops.”

“Admiral,” Trang’s sensor officer reported.

Trang’s brow shot up. “Well, that didn’t take long. What’ve you got, Paul?”

An image appeared in the jury-rigged holo-projector. “It appears to be an executive-class long-range transport, sir. Whatever it is, it’s been modified.” The sensor officer dug deeper. “Sir, I may be mistaken on this, but … well, I think that ship is what the rebels call Blessed One, Admiral Black’s command shuttle.”

“Now
that
is interesting,” said Trang.

*   *   *

It took over three hours for the two sides to negotiate how it was going to work out, including a lot of verification and inspection, but the end result had Admiral Trang anxiously standing at attention while Admiral J. D. Black’s shuttle was landing in the loading bay of
his
ship, the UHFS
Liddel.
Of course, the computer systems on the shuttle had been partitioned and swept for avatar coding, and the pilot they sent out to bring the shuttle in had actually been one of Trang’s. Still, after it had been confirmed that the President of the Outer Alliance, the Unincorporated Woman herself, wanted to talk, Trang’s gut told him that maybe he should listen. Even he had to admit she was taking most of the risks.

He couldn’t help noticing that while she was dressed in a surprisingly simple and comfortable jumpsuit, he was still in full battle armor. His security detail had been afraid of hidden Alliance nanite technology that could operate despite their best efforts. Trang actually felt silly, but the look of the OA President’s bodyguard made him glad of the snipers if not the suit. Trang knew the type. This one looked like he wanted to destroy Trang’s entire ship with his bare hands and the only thing stopping him was his own self-control. The intelligence data on Sergeant Holke had shown him to be surprisingly good at high-level protection as well as an exceptional combat leader. Why the man was still a sergeant when he should have been a full-bird colonel was beyond Trang. But it was good to see that Holke had honored the agreement and come aboard unarmed.

It was, however, the woman who commanded all the attention. Damn, if she didn’t remind him of Amanda Snow. The woman was every bit the picture of absolute confidence he remembered Amanda having been. Of course, flying completely unarmed onto a ship filled with people devoted to seeing you dead for having murdered in the billions their friends and family also spoke to that confidence; he liked it. In fact, he’d done almost the exact same thing all those years ago at Eros, under eerily similar circumstances. This time, however, O’Toole didn’t have the winning hand as he’d had at Eros—or did she? It was possible the woman was insane, in which case he’d gotten all dressed up for nothing. But this woman didn’t look insane; she looked pretty much how he’d imagined she would—in real life, that is: supremely dangerous. The holo-vids, he saw, didn’t do her justice. Sandra O’Toole, in her own way, radiated a danger far more palpable than the obviously loyal and skilled combat veteran slightly to the rear and right of her.

Trang had enough. He stripped from his battle suit and strode right up to the woman. He knew his security detail was probably going nuts at that moment, but his gut told him this woman was not a danger in the classic sense of the word and he needed to assess her as much as possible—as soon as possible.

“Ms. O’Toole,” he said with a formal bow, “welcome aboard the UHFS
Liddel
.” He’d be sold for a penny stock before he would shake hands like a Justinite.

The woman returned his bow perfectly. “Thank you for having me aboard, Admiral Trang. I know it cannot have been easy.”

“Nor for you, Ms. O’Toole.” Trang acknowledged her but refused to give her the title of President. He considered a variety of different tactics. He was sorely tempted to give her a guided tour and just talk with her about trivial matters until he could get a sense of her, but something told him that would be more to her benefit than his. In fact, for the first time in his life, Trang was no longer sure he was the most capable person in the room. He found that fact to be both worrisome and exciting. He decided to try the direct approach. “Why are you here, Ms. O’Toole?”

“To let you win the war, Admiral.” She’d said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Trang took a moment to digest the implication. He even looked to Sergeant Holke for some sort of guidance, but saw the poor man was just as confused as he was. “Perhaps we should talk further, Ms. O’Toole. We can meet in my conference room.”

“Normally, I’d be delighted,” she said, pulling a small rubber band from her front pocket and tying her hair back in a ponytail, “but one of the conditions I was forced to accept was that I would not leave the vicinity of the shuttle. If I did, or it was destroyed, J.D. was most emphatic that it would result in this battle everyone seems so intent on having.”

“I’m afraid this battle is a necessity, Madam Pre— Ms. O’Toole.” Trang grimaced at the slip, but damn it, the woman
was
Presidential. “And I hardly think Admiral Black has the ability to know if you’re near the shuttle or even if it’s intact while inside my flagship.”

Sandra leaned forward and whispered. “I won’t tell anyone about the ‘Madam President’ slip. I can’t speak for the good sergeant, though.” Holke’s eyes pierced through Trang. Clearly the sergeant would like nothing better than to kill Trang if he could do so without getting his President shot at the same time. “As for the ability of Admiral Black to know where I am,” continued Sandra, “or the shuttle’s status or whereabouts, I couldn’t really tell you. She seemed very confident that it wouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t test her on the shuttle, though. She’s always hated the interior. Calls it an executive’s hedonistic excess and would love any excuse to blow it to smithereens.”

Trang saw the sergeant nod in slight agreement till he caught himself and reverted to his barely suppressed murderous rage. “How she feels about you, I suppose, is the more important question.”

Sandra nodded. “Right now, she’s rather annoyed and very concerned. She was on the verge of ordering her fleet into battle, just itching to fight the Battle of Earth.”

Trang smiled. “Funny, that’s what we’re calling it too.”

“It does seem obvious. In regards to your question, I think she likes me, but if I died, she’d be satisfied with the consolation prize of wiping you out of existence.” With that, Holke smiled contentedly. It was not comforting.

“You wish to discuss the fate of the solar system—” Trang looked around the bay of his massive ship, at the snipers, at the concerned and angry faces, at himself. “—in my landing bay?”

“We can always go into the shuttle, if you wish.”

*   *   *

An hour later, Trang and Sandra were sitting at a portable table outside her shuttle. The chairs were functional, and the device on the table was doing its job of obscuring their lips and garbling their voices. There was nothing to eat or drink on the table. There was nothing to record their conversation either. Historians would never forgive this lapse.

“Let me see if I understand this,” Trang began. “You want to surrender.”

“Oh, for the love of Justin,” said Sandra, “no. We don’t want to surrender; we want to leave.”

“Leave what?”

“The solar system,” answered Sandra.

“Does your side know this?” asked Trang incredulously.

“The only thing ‘my side’ knows is that you started murdering us in the hundreds of millions. They’re scared out of their minds that you’re so crazy, you have to be put down. They aren’t even fighting for freedom anymore.”

“They’re fighting for survival,” said Trang. In longer than he cared to admit, he looked at the war from the Alliance’s point of view.

“Both sides are,” said Sandra. “That’s dangerous. When both sides are reduced to fighting for survival, they can and will do anything. Admiral Black is positive she can defeat you.” Sandra looked at Trang directly. “Can you defeat her?”

Trang was struck by how many people had asked him that question over the years, but he never would’ve guessed this woman would be one of them. He looked into his heart, deciding she should have an honest answer. “Yes,” he said with absolute conviction, “yes, I can.”

“Should you?” she asked for the second time in a day.

“It beats the alternative.”

“Wrong. I just gave you an alternative.”

“You expect me to believe that the Alliance is just going to—” Trang paused, searching for the words. “—go away?”

“Why not? Admiral Trang, what does the UHF want? What are you ultimately fighting for?”

“Security,” he said. “The solar system is too small to have it be divided into competing political groups. This war has surely proved that.”

“I completely agree. But
we
were not fighting for security. We were fighting for freedom. The Alliance forgot something that I remember very well. You see, I was once an American.”

“What does the fact that you come from a defunct and dysfunctional civilization have to do with the matter at hand?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Sandra’s good cheer was starting to annoy Trang. Not because he was against cheer, but because hers was so damned infectious. He’d already found himself on numerous occasions during the conversation lost in her words. He’d prided himself on objectivity and distance, and now he was feeling almost too close—too interested. Still, it was his duty to listen, to judge. And so he would.

“You know what made America great for the time it was great?”

“It had a large land mass with abundant resources and a well-educated and motivated population—well, until the last seventy years. It had weak neighbors and some outstanding leaders in the beginning.”

“All of that’s nice—and well done on the history, by the way—but it’s not what made America great. What made my former home great is that it was made up of people who were willing to run away.”

“Run away?” repeated Trang, desperately trying to understand.

“Run away, get the hell out, find someplace better. America was mostly made up of people who had enough will to leave where they were and find someplace better. Most people are not willing to do that. They’ll stay where they are and make the best of it. Why do you think the Outer Alliance did as well as it did? It’s made up of the same sort of people who started America. You know: contentious, obnoxious, stiff-necked bastards.”

Trang did not seem to hear the self-deprecating humor and began to smooth the veins that had popped up on both sides of his skull. “You’ve been planning to make your people run away for over a year?” he asked.

“No,” answered Sandra with a smile filled with disappointment. “I was hoping to create a peace between the UHF and the OA. After Jupiter and Mars, I was hoping both sides would realize that we were risking the end of the human race or near enough, anyways. I tried to have Hektor killed, but he kept on escaping. I was willing to let him have a lot just to get a ten-year truce. In that time, I figured I could’ve gotten close to a hundred million settlers away. After the rest of the Alliance realized it was possible, they would have followed. But Hektor refused every single offer.”

“Well, c’mon, Ms. O’Toole. You
were
trying to kill him,” offered Trang.

“It’s not like he was giving me kitten licks, Admiral. It’s war; at some point, you should try to make a deal or it just becomes pointless slaughter.”

Trang’s eyes flashed in sagacity. “So
that’s
what this is about.”

For the first time since she’d been aboard the
Liddel,
Sandra truly met Trang’s eyes with her own. “I can’t make a deal with Hektor, Admiral.”

Trang did not mistake the meaning of those words. But he could not quite allow himself to think where that path lay. “What makes you think you can make one with me?”

“Because I know that you’ll at least listen.”

Trang knew he was betraying his President by not throwing the woman off the ship without a suit, but he also was gaining valuable insight into the mind of the enemy. She was no fool, and he’d be one if he didn’t hear her out all the way through—
that
much he knew.