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Strategos (A Great Captain Roberts Tale!!) - Part 4 -
Chapter 10 - In a Dark Alley[]
Bad Dreams in Hyperspace[]
Daoshen hated this part…
He'd hated it all the way from Sian. He'd hated every single one of the jumps, at least. The images and false memories were upsetting, distracting, and at times, terrifying.
But, it would all be worth it, to have his father back.
He slid his hand over the insulated cover of the cryosleep chamber. I wish I could do more, Father. I wish I was the man you are.
Culmia had proven a slight distraction, as the foreign dignitary touring the disaster site, or the visiting VIP absorbing media attention and schmoozing with locals.
Proving the Confederation could be generous, even to distant strangers in a distant land.
"What does the news have for us today, Lian?" he asked his aide.
"They have an open auction this afternoon over HPG, a Tramp class, Divine Wisdom. Intact, a 'Prize sale'."
He smiled a genial smile like his father would. "Bid on it. The Alliance is starving for foreign credit and hard currency. And I think I may enjoy having an extra to gift to an appropriate Citizen of suitable character."
"I obey your Divine Wisdom, is there a cap?"
"No more than one hundred fifty percent of the going rate." Daoshen said. "We are generous, not stupid."
"It shall be done."
/\/\/\/\/\/\Discontinuity/\/\/\/\/\/\
…"RUN you fools!!" he screamed, as the reflecting shadows of Davion warships loomed and fire streak down from the skies themselves, savaging the royal grounds, the city around them, and the countryside in an orgy of random radiation and death by fire. All was lost, had been lost, when… when the deception had failed. Ian Davion's wrath had been slow in coming, and inevitable…
/\/\/\/\/\/\Discontinuity/\/\/\/\/\/\
Chancellor Daoshen Liao gasped as reality-a very real world of reality, one where Ian Davion had died young, instead of living to face the Clans in victory.
"Bad?"
"Always bad." Daoshen stated. "Visions of what could never be. A reminder of Heaven's truth in saving the Confederation… What could have been, but for the Heavenly Mandate."
It was a good excuse, and good rhetoric. Impossible memories of a history that did not happen, and a future that must not happen had dogged him from departure.
Bad Omens and reminders of the price of poor gambles.
In the distance, the star of Johnson glittered as the drive sail unfurled.
"Maybe…" Daoshen found himself musing. Maybe I should just ask first?
He dismissed the idea firmly. Even if the Alliance were WILLING to share the secrets, the Republic would kill any deal. They held the Alliance by the financial strings, and Stone would never countenance the idea of recovering Sun Tzu Liao to trouble his Republic and thwart his sick ambition for domination.
But the visions plagued Daoshen anyway. Dark omens promising a worse fate.
"Stealth." he said. "Though to be fair, I will offer them good terms, even knowing they won't accept," he told himself.
There is, after all, always the potential they would. Heaven sometimes smiles, not always a scowl.
How to meet an opportunity[]
Luck is the meeting…
…between 'opportunity' and 'preparation'. Her father once said that in a meeting when she was a small girl. She'd remembered it even when she'd almost forgotten his face.
Someone had been very prepared for this opportunity. "Mister Clef, I'm sorry, I don't understand the question," Jane Drillson stated. "It states quite clearly on, among other things, my identicard, that my name is Jane Drillson."
"It was enough of a revelation to have you censured from Parliament, miss…'Drillson'. Are you, or are you not, really Elizabeth Cameron?"
"Sir… sir… Elizabeth's been dead for centuries!" she deflected. "I'm not her. She died in that prison-hole on Devil's Breath."
"But you have her genetics."
"There are a limited number of genes in the human genome, with a limited number of combinations. Out of trillions of people, it's inevitable that-"
"And we have obtained copies through a confidential source that-"
She scowled. "Yes, Mister Clef, for your readers and no doubt YOUR amusement, yes. I was Elizabeth Cameron!" The live audience gasped as if they'd been prepped, which she wasn't sure they weren't. "But that identity died sometime in my second century as a prisoner. If you have the file, you know I don't want any part of that life. Penned like an animal, Mister Clef. Denied the basic rights every human being is entitled… for centuries."
Her honesty, and vehemence, took the journalist by some inner hook, because he flushed, his eyes widened, and then, to her shock (and the shock of the studio audience…)
"Oh god, I'm sorry…" he said.
"Who put you up to this?" she asked. "Normally someone making the claim you leveled as an accusation would be rightly considered as crazy as grand daddy's hatband!! I was held on Devil's Breath for a long time. So I have some genes that match someone from long ago… you'll notice I have no interest in pursuing any claim ON those genes beyond 'stop sticking me with needles'."
His composure returned, and he managed a weak laugh, "You got me there, Miss Drillson…"
"I still want to know who put you up to it, because it's remarkably cruel," she said easily. "To make you risk your reputation like that!" She offered him an indulgent smile. "I mean, the very idea!!"
"So, will you be appealing the censure and going forth to reclaim your seat?" he asked.
"I promised my constituents a limited term. I didn't get everything I wanted, and as you no doubt are aware, my term ended somewhat prematurely… but I DO keep my promises more often than my threats. I won't be running in the upcoming election. I'm told there's a very nice fellow going for my old seat, and I'd like to talk about how Daryl Roberts is the right man for the job!"
She had the Host in her palm, and the audience, and with them, an endorsement that would be worth at least ten polling points, and she knew it.
Leaking the truth that way, was HER preparation… and she knew how to meet an opportunity.
Conceding Near Defeat to defeated Enemy[]
"You almost…
…had me." The visitor wore a hilarious triangular hat over a long, absurd coat of blue, piped in gold thread.
Ethel didn't laugh. "You're Roberts. The Pirate."
"Guilty." Roberts sat down across from her in the interview room. "I wanted you to know, you had me cold. We weren't going to survive that setup you did. The save we got, it wasn't expected."
"You've murdered thousands!!"
The girl across from her fingered the hat. "Pirate?" she said. "Yeah, I did that. Shock being, I'm not proud of it. Let me tell you something, Commander Ethel Blythe… I’m proud of the liberations of several worlds-saving people from slavery and a fate worse than death. I'm proud of the enemy soldiers I've killed in combat… But I'm not proud of the commerce raiding in rear areas and I'm not proud of killing those merchanters… But I am proud of how I killed your boarding parties. Does that shock you?"
"You're shocked not to be proud of the thousands of mine you've killed?"
"No. Not really. There are things worthy of pride. Saving people, avenging the innocent?? Are things to be proud of. Freeing the oppressed? Absolutely. Gunning down merchant ships when they're not protected isn't one of them… but sending your 'soldiers' if you can call them that with a straight face to God for judgment? Yeah, you betcha I'm proud of that part."
“You’re just as insane as your machine people!”
"Hang on there. They are sane, Commander. I have imaginary friends who tell me things and I listen to them. By every normal measure, I'm significantly crazier than you think the AIs are!" she grinned widely. "I'm not going to kill you."
“You all make these ridiculous claims and expect me to believe I’m not going to be trotted out in front of a kangaroo court then shot. So I’m not sure what’s worse. That you are lying, or that you are telling the truth.”
"Due process, we lack these… kangaroos? You're a POW, not a war criminal," Amanda explained. "I didn't see any evidence you were involved in the flesh trades. You were just an officer doing her mission. It's why you're not going to be in front of a Tribunal. Instead, you're going to be trotted out in front of the press, to prove we didn't kill you… or the other forty one survivors from your ship."
“Then when no one is watching anymore? What cruelty awaits me then?”
"Well, once we've won, you'll be repatriated," Amanda stated. "I have a presidential finding to that effect. It's part of why you're not discussing your soul with god in person."
“What statement am I supposed to make?”
"Whatever statement you want." Amanda said. "You're a prisoner of war, not a slave. You can tell the press whatever you think is useful."
“How can you function like this?”
"Well, I do it with lots of rum." Amanda confided. "Lots and lots of rum."
“Not quite what I meant. I meant your government. Why would you trust me not to denounce you as monsters in front of the press?”
"Well, I also do it with lots of therapy, which is what you get when you talk to invisible people. As for the Government, your denouncement is likely to be expected, even anticipated. It will be proof you weren't coerced into telling lies."
“That’s my only real option isn’t it?” Ethel sank in her chair.
"Telling the truth as you see it, is always an option," Roberts told her. "I find it's freeing not to pretend I'm… 'sane' when I see people nobody else does. Or speak to beings nobody else takes seriously." She slid a deck of cards from her sleeve, and started shuffling. "Tell the truth as you see it and let the chips fall where they fall, Commander Blythe. If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said."
“This is what my instructors meant when they said there will come a time I just cannot win, and how I handle it is what will matter.”, she admitted
"I reject the notion of a no-win scenario. Mind, there are always lots of ways to lose. You almost had me as I said." The girl started laying out cards, and Ethel realized these weren't playing cards, they were tarot cards. "But finding HOW to win can be tricky, sometimes you have to adjust your criteria for victory."
“What is this?”, Ethel asked
"Oh, it's a game," Roberts told her. "See, everyone remembers that Tarot cards are used by fortune-tellers in spaceports for coin. But it seems most forget the cards themselves are actually part of more than a few ancient games. This one's like 'solitaire'."
“So you’re not going to try and ‘read my fortune’.” she asked
"That would require your future to be in hands other than your own. The conditions are obvious, what you do with them isn't-because that's inside your own mind." Amanda said. "Mister Nichols taught me that."
“I feel like my life is spinning out of my control. A nation I was proud to serve is being called slave mongers and indecent, and now I’m being put into a position where anything I say serves my enemy’s position.” she admitted
"Thing with that, is that if you see it, and it's true, then you change it." Amanda said. "I grew up in a nation convinced of their powerlessness. I'm an Outworlder. We were so weak our government invited a foreigner to take over our defense, because we couldn't do it… And now, we're swinging in the big leagues, with a Navy and everything we didn't have when I was born… If you tell the truth, then you must face the truth, and if you believe your nation should be better. Then you should consider what it needs to be better... and act. I acted, I maybe did it because I'm nuts, but I did it, and it shifted things."
“I think the machine person may have been right. I’m too stupid to see this as anything other than a special kind of torture.”
"Seeing the truth usually is. I still have nightmares about what I did to your merchanters," Roberts said quietly. "I still have dark thoughts about what it means, what I became during that operation, and what it did to my soul."
“Can I go back to my cell now? I think I’d like to be alone for a while.” she asked
Roberts nodded. "Yeah, I just wanted to let you know-you didn't do anything wrong in that ambush. You did a good job, you just didn't have fortune on your side." She scooped up the cards, and disappeared them. "So you can be proud of yourself. You did your job right, you just weren't lucky."
“Luck is for the unprepared.” she told her captor.
"We were unprepared, luck was on our side, but it's not on you that it was." Roberts tipped her hat. "You were the toughest opponent I've faced yet. I can't say I'm looking forward to the guy who trained you."
And walked out.
Time for work is at hand[]
"Words of…
…wisdom, Amanda?" David Foster half reclined against the bulkhead. "Really?"
"Credit where it's due," Amanda said. "Also, the Great ones in the stories always give a tip-o'-the-hat to a valiant opponent. And she really DID have us up against the wall and about to start wi' the screwing. Olivia's arrival saved our asses."
"So you chose a grand gesture." the old Admiral told her.
"Yeah. Part of getting right with god over the merchant ships," she told him. "Acknowledge fault, accept responsibility, move forward." She paused. "We are moving forward, aren't we?"
"We are." he nodded.
"I made the maps, we know for a fact where they are, how good they are, what must be done," she listed off. "And what to avoid if possible."
“You’ll have plenty of help. At least once this summit is over.” Billie Hoel entered the office.
"Then, mateys, it's time we got to work." Amanda stated. "El Dorado, Cibola, Nueva Bilboa, they're awaiting us like old Cartegena. We'll bring them fire and thunder and freedom, and an end to that scurvy regime."
"Is it bad I almost understood those references?"
“This is the first time her Ladyship has had her entire fleet active at the same time, ever. Needless to say, as a combat AI this is an exciting time for me. We have the hammer and now we’re going to ring the bell of liberty.”
"We're going to ring something… so let's start with the obvious: it's time to start planning OUR offensive."