Summit

  (Starspeak)

  “Hey, Nai, Tasser,” I said several weeks earlier. I poked my head into the Jack’s mess looking for the most reliable aliens I knew. “I need a favor.”

  “Name it,” Tasser said.

  “I need a crash course in Coalition politics and history.”

  “Basically…the war?” Nai asked.

  “Yep.”

  ·····

  I thought the first order of business would be arranging a ceasefire.

  But it turns out—at least for aliens—that was literally the last step in the peace process. It seemed the military minds weren’t willing to compromise war footing until there was actual substance to the possibility of peace.

  “Coalition colonies can’t be expected to brook oversight from congressional agencies,” Admiral Fute insisted.

  “Fleets would mutiny on masse,” Cursozi agreed. “What’s the point of fighting for sovereignty if you just hand it away at the negotiating table?”

  “It’s Coalition propaganda about just that sovereignty that’s fueled its fleet recruitment,” Senator Adavir scoffed. “That obstacle is one of your own making.”

  I frowned, biting my tongue. The senator was fixating on Cursozi’s glib mutiny reminder without actually addressing the loss of sovereignty

  But Peudra’s preparations had involved putting me under fire, seeing if I could keep my mouth shut and let other people’s negotiations unfold. My job was to stay neutral and only chime in when human interests drifted into contention.

  I’d passed muster, but I still felt the temptation to blurt out.

  That was made somewhat easier, however, by my own lack of background knowledge.

  ·····

  “Seriously,” I told them, “I need to have at least a passing grasp of the background for this war.”

  “Well, how well do you understand the two factions?” Tasser asked.

  “I have the vaguest understanding—you know what? Let’s pretend I don’t,” I said.

  “Count me for double,” Jordan said, poking her head in the room. “Drew asked me about some of this stuff, and I couldn’t tell her anything.”

  Sid managed to overhear too, sliding into a seat without a word.

  “Sure, come on in,” Nai said, only half-complaining. “Poke around in the cabinets, we might have [popcorn] or some other snacks.”

  Tasser got right to business, however.

  “First thing to remember is this: there are people who fight the war, and people who declared or started it. These are not the same people,” he explained.

  “There are endless reasons why a soldier might choose to fight, and only occasionally do those reasons align with why any war is nominally fought,” Nai added. “If you wanted an oversimplified answer? The Coalition started the war because of money: it couldn’t afford not to.”

  Tasser gave a conciliatory nod, making his feelings clear: it was correct in essence but painted a poor picture of the truth.

  “That would be oversimplifying it a lot,” he said. “The war is being fought over one simple idea with a whole slew of complicated implications: secession. The Interstellar Congressional Assembly is a quasi-legal body that exercises legislative powers over interstellar travel, trade, colonization, and other ‘spacefaring’ matters of life. Though notably not…?”

  “Biology and medicine,” Jordan nodded. “That’s the Organic Authority.”

  Tasser and Nai both nodded.

  “Yes. At its core, any discussion of ending the war will involve the question of whether or not the Coalition’s systems, planets, and colonies rejoin the Assembly or not,” Nai elaborated. “If ‘no’, the Coalition’s systems would be formally independent, presiding over their own ‘spacefaring matters’. If ‘yes’, then the Assembly will need to find some way to change the things which drove so many systems away in the first place.”

  ·····

  “Food-grade ag-trade between C7 and first wave Vorak colonies was declining even before the Tayu,” Senator Adavir said. “Cammo-Caddo closes its ‘bread-basket’ to the most strained Vorak colonies. You’d have us believe that’s coincidence, not preamble aggression?”

  The Senator had aimed the accusation at Admiral Hakho—the purported leader of the Coalition delegation—but it was Admiral Fute who responded.

  “One of your own congress’ sub-committees made an inquiry into the possibility of collusion against Vorak colonies,” Fute said smoothly. “It was weather. The regions of Cammo-Caddo suited for growing the best crops for Vorak export suffered freezes well into the spring two years in a row. Contributed to more than a ten-percent dip in supply and the corresponding hike in prices.”

  “…Committee for Cargo and Freight Infrastructure?” the Senator asked, almost cowed.

  “Inquire study #3339746,” Fute confirmed with a click. “The Coalition declared its secession as a reaction, not by design. It’s all in your own public records, I assure you.”

  I was beginning to see the strategy the Coalition had devised with the three admirals it sent. Different admirals were responding to Fute was bafflingly intelligent. Save for me—and the Empress’ enigmatic and opaque mind—his psionics were the densest. Even with the reinforced firewalls the Admirals protected themselves with, I could trace the outline of a highly customized filing system in his mind.

  At any given moment, his brain was pulling up reports, statistical breakdowns, civil and military infrastructure analysis…Like no other alien I’d seen, Fute had utilized the dry, boring capacity of psionics to simply let his brain hold more information at his fingertips.

  Cursozi, by contrast, was more aggressive. Not minutes later, he was ready to point out military victories that would make the Assembly think twice about continuing the fighting.

  “I realize this airs rather close to tactical and strategic repartee, but I actually tend to agree with the Board Admirals,” Marshall Cacallay drawled. “It’s not a productive avenue of discussion to act like the Coalition planets made a concert effort to accrue resources and position ahead of their declaration…else it would show in their doctrine.”

  Military doctrine was the Marshal’s implication. It was little more than a petty snipe. Trying to impugn the Coalition’s military competence? Surely that had to be an attempt to sow some kind of emotions among the Coalition delegation…there weren’t any civilian leaders from the Coalition present to try pitting against the Admirals.

  Cursozi, however, was more than prepared to impugn some military competence himself.

  “You would know about deficient doctrine,” Cursozi mocked. “Vice-Admiral Dinsho played you for a fool above Blaylukor.”

  It was a blatant insult, but not one that was liable to raise tempers. The out-maneuvering in question had been a retreat. Vice-Admiral Dinsho had deftly avoided a battle Marshal Cacallay would have almost certainly won—a battle that massive amounts of work and planning had gone into forcing.

  Cursozi was needling them about their military failures on a bloodless day. It was the perfect thing to psych someone out in a negotiation like this one…at least to my amateur opinion.

  ·····

  “Call me an amateur, but aren’t those specific things important?” I asked. “What exactly actually drove the Coalition to secede? What started the war?”

  “Colonization, Trade, and the Tayu,” Nai answered.

  “What’s the Tayu?” Sid asked.

  “It was a Casti freight ship carrying textiles and bulk-seed,” she answered. “The Trade Commission…okay, part of the Assembly presides over inter-system trade. That’s the Trade Commission. They have a lot of rules about who’s allowed to ship what, when, where, why—”

  “The Tayu broke Assembly trade restrictions and got shot down,” Tasser said, turning to her. “You were doing so well, being so concise.”

  “Shut up,” she grumbled.

  “Congression law-enforcement agents tried blockading the ship, and eventually they shot it down when it refused to comply. The way the incident gets told in Congressional Assembly politics is that the Tayu was carrying luxury goods—the textiles. But if you hear it from almost everyone else, the bulk-seed is what actually gets people upset.”

  “And bulk-seed is…?”

  “Exactly what it sounds like,” Nai said. “It’s hermetically sealed steel containers filled to the brim with plant seeds. Crops. Plains. Forestry. There’s all kinds of mixes. They’re basically the final building block to the terraforming process: biosphere introduction.”

  “Once you’ve got the soil, water, air, and temperature of a planet where you want them, you can just scatter a few trillion seeds from the air,” Tasser explained. “Skip a decade, and you’ve got forests. Sometimes.”

  “Now who’s oversimplifying?” Nai said.

  “True,” Tasser clicked. “But that’s the gist.”

  “The Tayu,” I prompted them.

  “It was flying delivering Farnata seeds,” Nai explained. “The Razing was still fresh in everyone’s minds, the Assembly’s agencies hadn’t turned up any concrete information, and losing those seeds set back reconstruction years. Combined with the fact that the Assembly was slow to exempt the other Farnata systems from their contribution demands…”

  “The Tayu became an early symbol of all the reasons people wanted to leave the Assembly,” Tasser said. “There’s even a few songs about it.”

  “[Remember the Cant…]” I muttered, seeds instead of ice.

  “Point is, the five Farnata systems collectively withdrew from the Assembly,” Nai explained. “A Casti faction within the Assembly followed suit within a few months, and they joined together to form the Coalition as we know it now.”

  “What exactly does ‘contribution demands’ mean?” Jordan asked.

  “All governments collect taxes to function,” Tasser said. “Historically, that was in the form of goods, but once a society industrializes taxes are mostly just money…but Caleb, what do we know about money and spacefaring?”

  “Everyone uses different currency,” I said. Learning to handle the Jack’s bookkeeping had been a herculean labor. A single planet could use hundreds of different currencies. Talking about whole star systems? Multiple star systems would be even worse.

  “A lot of modern taxes are still monetary,” Tasser nods, but especially for interstellar governmental bodies, vendable goods are often preferred. Food supplies and other organic materials are valuable no matter where you go, so they’re often used.”

  “And following Farnata’s Razing, the planet no longer produced food for its colonies. The whole Kiraeni economy collapsed, and the Assembly is slow in all its actions, so it was slow to adjust what contribution it demanded from Farnata colonies. They did eventually readjust, but it didn’t move my people. The aid that came through the Assembly came far too slowly too. Other colonies skipped the Assembly’s agencies and organized aid directly. It came a lot sooner and did a lot more, so the Assembly was seen more and more as an obstacle rather than a boon. And sooner or later?”

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  “Everyone quits,” I nodded.

  “If it makes that much sense, why didn’t everyone quit then? Why does anyone stay part of it?” Sid asked.

  “Colonization, trade, and the Tayu. We went in reverse order,” Nai explained. “It could have been anything that set things off, the Tayu was just the piece of tinder that the spark happened to fall on. Trade and economics formed much of the rest…”

  “Colonization then,” I said.

  “I am…a lot more dispassionate about the Coalition’s philosophy than most,” Tasser said. “I’ve picked my side, but I don’t really believe in the cause as deeply as most others. It gives me a certain perspective not everyone in the Coalition will have. Suffice to say: the Assembly does fulfil an important role.”

  “It’s slow,” Nai explained.

  “…That’s by design?” I asked, surprised.

  “Somewhat,” she said. “In some ways. It doesn’t need to be slow about everything, but its crucial function is to slow and regulate interstellar colonization and population collapse.”

  “Population collapse?” Jordan asked.

  “See, you guys are such a good audience,” Nai smiled. “You’re picking up all the prompts exactly as we give them.”

  “Suppose you’re a poor Casti living in the worst slums of Nakrumum,” Tasser says. “You hear about this new colony made on another planet, Yawhere! You want to go, after all, they want workers and the new colonies are picked for abundant resources.”

  “Colonies never lack for people wanting to emigrate from the homeworlds,” I nodded.

  “Yep. But is that a question of supply, or demand?” Tasser asked.

  “…Supply,” I guessed. “Transporting people through space is expensive, starting a new life, that’s not going to appeal to everyone. Especially not the competent, highly skilled people who the colonies are desperate for to operate them. Those ‘human’ resources are scarce; they come at a premium.”

  “That’s a very ‘Terran’ answer,” Tasser said. “It mostly describes exactly the kind of people you abductees have had to become: highly skilled, but mostly unwilling to be out in space. It’s also wrong.”

  “It’s tempting to think most people wouldn’t throw themselves toward the stars on a whim like that, but, given the opportunity? For the prospect of a better life?” Nai said. “Practically everyone wants to go.”

  “…But not everyone can,” Jordan realized. “[Caleb, it’s like Japan or Korea with their aging populations. In their case, people are just dying from age, but the result is the same: a huge portion of the population just vanishes.]”

  “And bad things happen,” Sid deduced. “You called it ‘population collapse’ but it’s not just people, it’s the economy, infrastructure…”

  “If anyone was allowed to go out and make a new colony on a whim, completely unchecked, not only would the homeworlds experience population collapse, the colonies would also suffer greatly too, if not die out completely,” Nai added.

  “F6 and 7,” I recalled. “The colonies that had to shut down completely.”

  Nai nodded.

  “After our homeworld collapsed, two of the least established Kiraeni colony systems pulled up roots completely,” Nai said. “They abandoned everything because they wouldn’t be able to feed themselves without help from the homeworld. Do and Ake are empty husk systems to this day, complete [ghost towns].”

  “Even decades after beginning to cultivate their own food and agriculture, colony planets depend on the stability of the homeworld ecosystems,” Tasser said. “Those homeworlds are only capable of supporting so many colonies at once though.”

  “And the Assembly was the first governing body to successfully regulate the pace at which new colonies could be made, making sure people didn’t rush out to the stars too quickly,” Nai said.

  “The Beacons didn’t fill that function?” I asked. “They have to be expensive enough to make…”

  “They do,” Nai said, “but it’s a process that accelerates exponentially, and you really want to confront it before it happens, not after. If you have a planet’s population collapse, then you’re already too late, more or less.”

  “You might also be underestimating exactly how prolific the original Beacon projects were,” Tasser said. “How many Beacons do you think are out there, total?”

  I frowned. Not every star system was connected to every other. You had to jump through intermediate systems most of the time. Shirao C2 was on the high end with eleven, I knew…

  There were twelve Casti star systems, eleven Vorak, and five Farnata—formerly seven before the Razing.

  “[Ballpark…] fifty pairs?” I said.

  “The original Star Arrow projects launched more than three- hundred pairs of Beacons,” Nai explained. “There are detailed colonization plans for the next five-thousand years: what planets will be terraformed next, which ones are most viable for colonization, which ones have the most habitable planets…”

  “You’re kidding,” I said, aghast. “What are all those Beacons doing?”

  “They’re all dormant and inactive,” Nai said. “I know some people have talked about trying to communicate with them, wake them up, but the latest theory says that Beacons won’t become sapient without first a lengthy period of intelligent minds traversing them. So they’re all just…waiting out there. Barred for entry by the laws of the Assembly and Coalition.”

  “Back to the war then,” I said, “the Coalition performs the same function? Regulating the pace of colonization?”

  Nai nodded.

  “Then…the war is about perception,” I said. “The Coalition doesn’t think it needs the Assembly’s rules. They see the congress as useless.”

  Another nod.

  “And the Assembly can’t let that slide?” Sid asked.

  “It’s about sovereignty,” Tasser said. “The Assembly put itself in charge of something. It can’t maintain its authority if anyone can just join or leave on a whim. Being a member of the Assembly has to be meaningful.”

  “But you just showed it wasn’t,” I said. “The Coalition is pacing colonization too.”

  “Mmm, there’s arguments to be made the Coalition government isn’t doing as good a job on that front,” Nai said. “But the point to remember is that plenty of aliens out there think that the Assembly and its work is worth preserving.”

  “…And therefore is worth fighting for,” Sid recognized. “Worth fighting to prevent the Coalition from seceding.”

  ·····

  “What about the fleets themselves?” the Prolocutor spoke up. “Entertaining this hypothetical, Admirals, what would you see happen to your fleets if the seceding systems rejoined the Congressional Assembly?”

  “Largely the same as yours,” Admiral Hakho said. “I don’t think anyone here would pretend that we didn’t simply cannibalize Assembly fleets when we left. It wasn’t that long ago my rank was ‘Marshal’ Hakho instead of ‘Admiral’.”

  “So-called ‘Assembly fleets’ are commissioned by their home systems,” Prolocutor Unee said. “And by your own admission, you stole the fleets and their resources from Assembly members.”

  “Cute,” Hakho snorted. “Reparations?”

  The Prolocutor actually gave a chuckle back.

  “No, I meant more about demilitarizing. Has the Coalition given any effort to preventing its…‘dissatisfied elements’ from continuing hostility past the end of the war.”

  Hakho didn’t respond immediately, and I didn’t miss his eyes flick toward me for just a single micro-second.

  The Prolocutor was talking about Wolshu Kemon. Or those like him.

  Part of warfare meant undermining your enemies. Sometimes that meant helping the enemy of your enemy, even if they were bad people.

  But to my surprise, Peudra was actually the one who intervened.

  “I know firsthand the Assembly has its own dissatisfied elements that would threaten Coalition colonies,” they said smoothly.

  Capsody Maysh was the Coalition’s number one most-wanted, and it was an open secret they operated with at least tacit approval from Assembly law enforcement—if not outright funded by them.

  One of Peudra’s first extended stays with the Flotilla had been smack dab in the middle of Capsody’s not-so-little hostage gambit in Ramik C12.

  “Hostile elements will be leftover on both sides of the war,” Peudra said. “I don’t believe bickering about them is a productive use of this summit’s time.”

  They made a show of looking at the clock, letting the silence hang. The hurricane’s howling winds could be faintly heard dozens of feet above us.

  Some of those ‘hostile elements’ were in this system. We had a hurricane above us right now, no one could land.

  But what about after?

  There was a solid chance some Vorak military units would poke around just on the rumor of Coaltition presence here today.

  We were on the clock.

  “Everyone here has come a long way, through no small amount of opposition, and you wouldn’t have if peace wasn’t a priority. There are an estimated…thirty-nine hours of hurricane to wait out,” Peudra said. “In order to make the most use of them, I would propose a break be taken now. Rest yourselves. In two hours I’d like to return with both parties intent on discussing the merits of ending the war, rather than the obstacles.”

  Both delegations gave begrudging nods and withdrew to their respective wings of the bunker.

  Peudra let out a tense sigh, dropping the fa?ade.

  “I’m livid,” they confessed. “They’re too different.”

  “Strange to see it from the outside,” Tox said, “but I get what you mean.”

  “I don’t,” Halax admitted.

  “Me neither,” I said.

  “They’re like children!” Peudra complained. “Both sides just want to bring up all the ways the other side has been awful and cruel and unfair…it’s…it’s whining! I knew there would be plenty of this, I just wasn’t prepared for it to come out so soon in the proceedings.”

  “You make it sound so glib,” Halax said. “Both sides objections were anything but trivial. Starving people, lingering terrorists, those aren’t empty concerns.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Peudra said. “But what keeps going unsaid is how both sides are using those things as excuses to keep killing people not in this room.”

  They took a shaky breath, forcing some calm back into their gut.

  “As far as reasons to kill each other? Fine. I understand why those are reasons to start a war, but this war is bigger than that. It’s ten wars all still being fought because no one wants to end just one of them.”

  ·····

  “What would it take to end the war then?” I asked.

  Nai and Tasser both hesitated.

  “No idea,” she said.

  “That’s a really complicated question because of how the war is being fought,” Tasser explained. “The Coalition military is led by the Admiralty Board. They’re all the military leaders who seceded with their individual systems.”

  “When the war first broke out, the Coalition had an insane advantage in coordination,” Nai said. “All the systems that seceded took it seriously and actually formed one Coalition. Military responses especially were unified across multiple star systems.”

  “By comparison, the Assembly didn’t recognize ‘the Coalition’ as one cohesive entity for several years,” Tasser said. “They saw it as seven different rebelling Casti systems, plus the Farnata systems off on the side…there’s still streaks of this attitude to this day, but they really thought of it as a fighting seven different wars in the beginning.”

  “Marshal Tispas and the Red Sails were actually instrumental in changing that,” Nai said. “The Assembly got its act together on the battlefield, and the difference in economies started to swing their way. The Assembly just had more planets and colonies to contribute to their war effort. They even made big strides to take control of Coalition systems, like C2.”

  “And that’s exactly where you come in,” Tasser said, pointing to me specifically. “The Coalition was on its back foot, being pressed on all sides, and then some idiot decided to abduct some human with psionic nonsense in his brain.”

  I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous with the gazes Sid and Jordan were currently directing at me.

  “I am not exaggerating when I say this, Caleb: psionics? They’ve changed the course of history and the war,” Nai said. “I’ve talked with soldiers from all the war fronts? Every one of them says the same things. Coalition psionics are just better. You’ve revolutionized logistics in all fields.”

  “You realize that means my creation is intensifying a war?” I said. “It’s not something I’m super jazzed about.”

  “I do,” Nai said, “which is actually why I’m glad Jordan dropped in on this. I was going to grab her if not.”

  “Why?” Jordan asked.

  “Because as much as Caleb’s psionics have enabled the Coalition to fight? You might be able to use yours to force both sides to stop,” Nai said.

  “You mean…?” I asked.

  Nai nodded.

  “Tasser isn’t the only one who doesn’t have much passion for the casus belli,” Nai said, looking right at Jordan. “I’ve threatened the Coalition before when I thought they were screwing up. How do you feel about helping me do it again?”

  (Side?) Cast List

  Cacallay Trifon; Vorak. Marshal to the Horror Wings and a prominent warhawk in the Interstellar Congressional Assembly.

  Cursozi, Wandi; Casti. A member of the Coalition's Admiralty Board. Most don't know it, but Cursozi is ahead of the curve in understanding the implications of how psionics will revolutionize warefare.

  Fute, Ieodan; Casti. An admiral known for his towering intellect, caution, and judgement. Thought to be one of the most vocal proponents for peace in the Coalition.

  Hakho, Set; Casti. A prominent and respected Coalition Admiral and a deliberate commander. He is wary of the Humans and the large ripples they're leaving in their wake.

  Kesto, Adavir; Casti. A Senator in the Assembly representing one of the Casti worlds that didn't join the Coalition. Once a highly savvy political operative, now he holds prominent office.

  Peudra Cuvay; Vorak. A new(ish) ally of Caleb and the Flotilla who's proved invaluable for their connections and diplomatic influence.

  Shor, Akutang; Casti. A vice-admiral under Cursozi. Warhawk and not shy about it. Deferential to authority—especially rank.

  Tane Ko-Jon-Tav; Farnata. AKA Empress. She is the strongest Adept alive. Her epithet comes from a word describing ancient autocrats' rights and conferred abilities. Simply? She can do anything.

  Tockunot, Odellag; Casti. A vice-admiral under Laranta. One of the first to learn of Caleb and the abductions.

  Tox Serignar; Vorak. Sibling to Tox Frebi, the Marshal of the Deep Coils leads one of the Assembly's fleets against the Coalition. They're renowned for their patience and speedy strategies equally.

  Unee Brabalk; Vorak. The Prolocutor for the whole of the V1 system. One of the highest executive authorities in any government, interstellar or otherwise.