Skolian Empire Fan Fiction Index

 Part VI

The Second Battle of Gettysburg

Chapter 24

In which opposing combatants converge on an unsuspecting Pennsylvania town

            The stalemate between the Skolian diplomatic team and the Eubian supporters in the Allied Senate came to an abrupt end toward the end of September, a few weeks after Del’s Baltimore concert.  The triggering event occurred neither on stage at a holorock concert nor in the rarified confines of the Allied Senate.  Instead, appropriately enough, it happened in a sleepy little town eighty miles from the Allied capitol city, a town that had already witnessed a turning point in the ages-long war against slavery: Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

            Nobody was expecting a breakthrough.  The week leading up to that day was just as frustrating as the ones before it.  Senator Greeley’s alliance blustered and obfuscated every time the diplomatic effort appeared poised to make a little progress.  Kelric suspected a link to a large cash donation that had recently landed in that august politician’s campaign fund.  His clandestine investigation had traced the money through no less than six shell accounts and front organizations before they lost the trail, but there was reason to believe the ultimate source was the Traders.  However, guessing the source of the opposition didn’t help him figure out how to counter it.

            As with Gettysburg itself, there were many roads leading up to that confrontation, from many directions.  While unrelated in themselves, if even one or two of them had led elsewhere, the conflict might have played out quite differently:

Senator Townsend of California and his honorable colleague from Mississippi submitted dueling opinion pieces to a major news outlet.  While Greeley spoke in vague platitudes about the necessity to accept foreigners on their own terms regardless of any odd customs they might have, Townsend’s fiery rebuttal made frequent reference to North America’s own unsavory experience with slavery and its aftermath, using Greeley’s old, prominent Mississippi family as a specific example.

Sasha Loughten exercised a big sister’s prerogative one rainy afternoon and sent her little sister to the White House vid library in search of a copy of the newest hot teen holomovie, “Getting Your Burger,” forgetting that while the six-year-old could identify individual letters, she did not yet understand how they were grouped together into words.  Sasha had already discovered that the holomovie she wanted wouldn’t be out until the following week by the time Melanie presented her with an ancient historical vid describing a long-ago battle, so they made the best of a bad bargain and watched it anyway.

A group of Congressional pages met for drinks after work at a popular Washington nightclub.  As two of his associates expressed loud disbelief, the intern assigned to Senator Greeley maintained that his patron was actually a reasonable, pragmatic man when away from the cameras, and had a keen grasp of history in general, and the history of the North American continent in particular.  White House aide Lauren, waiting at the next table for her girlfriend to join her, filed the information away for future reference.

A Congressional recess was scheduled to shut down the Allied government for four days, and the negotiations with it, as most of the Senate left town to shake hands in their districts.  As if in celebration, the rain cleared up throughout the East Coast, which was predicted to have perfect weather over the weekend: sunny and with just a hint of crispness to set off the Fall colors.

And the personal medical unit in a small house in Reston, Virginia, broke down, leaving the head of the Eubian spy network on Earth to suffer through a throbbing hangover that made his inability to craft Allied-Skolian relations to his liking ten times more frustrating.

            “Do you think it might help if the President invited Imperator Skolia for another personal meeting?” the Secretary of Defense wondered at the midweek Cabinet meeting.  “That’s resulted in some real progress before.”

            State shook her head.  “The Skolians are actually being pretty reasonable, all things considered.  It’s Greeley and his friends who are blocking progress.  They don’t want an alliance with the Skolians at all, and they’re willing to make up six new objections a day to prevent it.”

            The President sighed wearily.  “I wish they would just come out and say why they don’t want this treaty.  There’s got to be some basic reason, apart from their ever-changing objections, or they wouldn’t keep going after those objections have been addressed.”

            “Still,” Defense persisted, “if you can’t make progress in one area…maybe you can persuade Imperator Skolia to bend a little more?”  His eyes lit up.  “Better yet, bring Greeley in on the meeting and do a little horse trading.”

             “The only one who can persuade Imperator Skolia to concede anything is his scapegrace brother, Prince Del-Kurj.”  Loughten let out a short, mirthless laugh.  “And after Greeley censored his hit song, can you imagine what ‘Del Arden’ would say if the two of them met face to face?  There’s a reason we kept them apart at the state dinner.”

            When the President described the exchange to her aide later, though, over lunch in the family quarters, Lauren shook her head.  “I’ve heard that Greeley is a pretty reasonable guy, when there aren’t any cameras around,” she said.  “A grandfatherly type with a passion for the history of the old United States.  You can’t get a treaty unless he agrees not to block it, so it might be worth a try to put him and the Imperator together and see what happens.”

            “If Greeley doesn’t want a treaty at all, why would he agree to such a thing?” Loughten asked.  “It’s too dangerous to try something like that.  If he and the Imperator go at each other without witnesses to keep them civil, it could blow up in our faces.”

            “Is it more dangerous than having the Skolians get tired of waiting for us to negotiate in good faith?”

            “You have a point, Lauren.”  Loughten looked away, unwilling to meet the trust in her aide’s gaze when she was failing to earn it.  Her eyes lit on a vid cube the girls had been telling her about, which was sitting on top of the mesh notepad that had contained the day’s news briefing, and she slowly smiled.  With renewed confidence, she turned her head back to meet Lauren’s gaze.  “You know, I think it’s worth a try, after all.  And I have the perfect pretext.”

            Senator Greeley was a senior politician who knew how the Washington game was played.  Well aware of how much political capital he was spending in his efforts to represent the interests of the patrons who were contributing so generously to his campaign fund, he was delighted to be offered a chance to recoup some of it by obliging the President on a matter in which his patrons had no interest whatsoever.  That it involved a chance to get on his favorite hobbyhorse made the invitation irresistible.

            “I would be delighted to show your daughters around the Gettysburg battlefield park,” he said, flashing a smile that seemed more genuine and less polished than usual.  “So few children have any real interest in history.  They spend their time lost in vids, never realizing that there are stories that are even more dramatic all around them.  Stories that really happened, and that could have changed everything if some small event had turned out differently.  Robert E. Lee’s daring plan to invade the North, Stuart’s raid, the Devil’s Den, Pickett’s Charge, the high water mark of the Confederacy…”

            Loughten laughed.  “I can see I picked the right person to capture my girls’ interest.”

            Greeley was already drafting an announcement to be sent to the press.  A photo op of him arriving at the White House and greeting the President and her children could be arranged, perhaps.  Something to show his constituents, most of whom neither knew nor cared about the reasons for the animosity between the Skolians and Eubians, that he was still on the job protecting their interests, despite the time he was wasting on scuttling the proposed Skolian treaty.

            Greeley was far less enthusiastic when he learned, after half the East Coast press had been notified about the trip and it was far too late to back out, that Imperator Skolia and his holorock-singing brother ‘Del Arden’ had been invited to join the outing.  That they would be joining the President’s party at the battlefield itself, leaving his photo op to take place as planned, was small consolation.

            “The President mouse-trapped me,” he complained to the man whom he thought was a particularly accommodating lobbyist for several Allied interstellar conglomerates that did business with the Eubian Concord.  Not for the first time, he wondered why Mr. Williams insisted on living in such obscurity:  Reston, of all places!  However, the out-of-the-way location did make it possible to visit without being recognized.  In the dim light of the study, the man’s eyes had a reddish tint.  If he drank enough to cause that sort of damage, he might well be hiding to prevent the word from getting back to the corporations who hired him.

            “This trip was supposed to be a nice, easy photo op,” he continued, taking a gulp from a snifter of very good brandy.  “Cute kids, fresh air, fall colors…and now the bloody Imperator of Skolia and his whining rock-star brother are along for the ride.”  He set the snifter down and his host immediately refilled it.  “It’s a good thing President Loughten’s security team decided to keep the press and the public out of the park while we’re there.  That should limit the damage.”

            Williams suddenly looked more alert.  “There won’t be anybody around but you, the President and her family, and the Skolians?”

            “That’s right,” Greeley said.  “There’s a decent chance any…heated exchanges…won’t end up on the mesh.”

            “Oh, you fool!”  The lobbyist sat upright.  “The Imperator and his brother are Ruby psions.  Telepaths. And with only a few other minds around, they’ll be able to read you like a textfile.”

            “Telepathy is just a myth the Skolians use to prevent us from accessing their Kyleweb technology,” the Senator stated confidently.

            Williams looked at him.  “I take it, then, that you haven’t had the training your military offers in how to shield you thoughts?”

            “Of course not,” Greeley snapped indignantly.  “That’s all rank superstition, and a waste of public dollars.”  Then he paused.  “Do you really think it matters?”

            The lobbyist looked into his own snifter for a long moment, then sighed as if reaching a decision.  “I suppose sometimes strong measures are justified,” he murmured. Standing, he walked over to the far wall of the study, on which was projected a blandly uninteresting, low-quality holo of a beach.  He reached out, tapped a sea urchin, and the holo disappeared, revealing a safe.

            “I’m not supposed to distribute samples at this time,” he explained as he opened the safe and reached inside, “but there’s a gadget here that will be of great assistance.”  He pulled out an object and held it out to the Senator.

            “What is it?”

            The object was metallic, about the size and shape of an orange.  There were several lights and buttons on its surface, which had the sleek look of off-world technology.

            “It’s an experimental device made by one of my employers,” Williams explained.  “A jammer of sorts.  If you use it when the Skolians are close, it will prevent them from making use of any stray thoughts you might have regarding our benefactors.”

            “Really?”  The Senator looked at the sphere skeptically, then reached out to take it.

            “Trust me,” the lobbyist said, his mind furiously refining his plans as he pointed out the controls.  “Now, here’s how it works…”

            Greeley’s photo op with the President and her family went off without a hitch.  The Senator was both an experienced grandfather and an enthusiastic, well-read amateur historian, albeit with a tendency to focus on the losing side of his favorite conflict, with endless speculation on what might have happened had things turned out differently.  However, that bias was as much a part of Southern culture as fried chicken, collard greens, and Baptist revival meetings.

            As the Presidential caravan moved north, Greeley soon had the girls caught up in the story of how the wily General Robert E. Lee, who had been holding back stronger and better-equipped Northern armies for two long years, came up with a daring and audacious plan.  He would cross the Potomac with his Army of Northern Virginia and invade the North, taking the battle to his enemies, relieving the pressure on besieged Virginia cities, and gathering critically needed supplies. 

            Greeley pointed through the tinted window of the Presidential limo at the gentle roll of the Blue Ridge Mountains, explaining how Lee’s battle-hardened veterans had crossed them and moved north through the Shenandoah Valley all the way to Pennsylvania, where they threatened the state capitol, Harrisburg, before the pursuing Union troops caused Lee to pull back and concentrate his forces.  He called up a map, showing the girls how nine major roads converged on Gettysburg, most of which figured in the battle.

             The road by which they approached the battlefield park was still known locally as the Chambersburg Pike.  Down it, on June 30, 1863, a Confederate brigade had marched toward Gettysburg to forage for supplies and had been spotted by Union cavalry, ending the long chase as both armies converged at the crossroads.

            The Presidential limo cut through the outskirts of Gettysburg proper and was soon pulling into the parking lot of the Visitors’ Center.  The park had been closed to the general public for the duration of their visit, so the parking lot was largely empty except for the vehicles of a skeleton park staff, the ever-present security details, and a battered delivery van sporting the logo of a well-known purveyor of snack foods.  Greeley sighed in relief as he stepped from the limo.  There was no second entourage waiting for them.  Perhaps the Imperator had decided not to join the expedition, after all?

            That hope was dashed as the door to the delivery van opened and Prince Del-Kurj jumped out.  The tiresome prince-turned-rock-star was dressed in worn jeans and an old T-shirt, looking neither royal nor famous.  The golden figure who emerged next wore his customary beige uniform.  Imperator Skolia did not do ‘informal,’ apparently.  His expressionless face bore its usual disturbing resemblance to an ancient Egyptian burial mask.  Greeley often wondered if the man was really human.  He just hoped the sneering prince and his grim brother wouldn’t spoil the children’s fun.

            “Del!” came a pair of high-pitched shrieks from behind him.

            Greeley was almost knocked off his feet as the President’s daughters stampeded past him and barreled into Prince Del-Kurj at full speed.  There was not a trace of the Skolian’s typical disaffected, holorocker sneer to be seen: the smile with which he greeted the children was a beautifully open, spontaneous expression of joy.

            The President exited the limo and joined Greeley, carrying her struggling youngest.  The toddler was reaching for his sisters so vigorously that he almost appeared to be swimming.  She set him down, holding him firmly in place as she inspected face, hands, and clothing for cleanliness.  “All right, Eddie,” she allowed, releasing him.  “You can go say hello.”

            Eddie chased after his sisters at his top speed, a surprisingly efficient waddle.  When he reached the other party, however, he detoured around Prince Del-Kurj and his sisters and tackled the Imperator’s closest knee.  His chubby arms were not quite able to reach around the massive limb.  Five feet above the toddler’s head, the Imperator’s head tilted downward—and the gold lips curved into a smile.  It wasn’t as broad a smile as his brother’s, but its warmth was unmistakable. 

            “That’s unexpected,” Greeley remarked, as the Imperator picked up the toddler and the group made its way toward them.  Four uniformed Jagernauts followed them, scanning the surroundings with professional paranoia. 

            “It is, isn’t it?” Loughten agreed.  Turning, she gave a formal bow and uttered a carefully rehearsed, “My greetings, Imperator Skolia,” in Iotic.

            The Imperator’s return bow and greeting were only slightly impeded by the need to balance the bouncing toddler against his hip.

            “It’s good to see you again, Prince Del-Kurj,” the President continued, giving up her attempt at Iotic.  The Allied etiquette that went with the English words required a handshake instead of a bow, but the singer’s hands were firmly in the possession of her daughters.  Loughten compromised by nodding her head and smiling, instead. 

            Greeley hoped that the prickly Skolian prince wouldn’t choose to view it as a deliberate slight to his honor. 

            If he did, he was uncharacteristically diplomatic and didn’t mention it.  Instead, the brilliant smile flashed again, and ‘Del Arden’ replied, “Thank you for inviting us to spend the day with you and your family.”  Then he turned to Greeley. His expression lost its warmth as he nodded a stiff greeting.  “Senator.”

            “Prince Del-Kurj.”  Greeley gave the Skolian a short bow in return, with the graciousness befitting a member of the unofficial aristocracy that used only one title, “Southern gentleman.”  Because this was a private, informal occasion and he didn’t want to spoil the children’s fun, he attempted to smooth over the awkwardness by remarking, “I must admit, I’m a little surprised to see that you arrived in a…snack food delivery van?”

            The prince’s lips moved in an involuntary upward twitch.  “It looks like one, yes.  Much less conspicuous than a limo, you have to admit.”

            “Let’s go inside!” Sasha demanded, impatient with the diplomacy. 

            The visitors’ center had glass cases full of antique photos, firearms, camping equipment, crude surgical kits, and other materials.  The children enjoyed the exhibits in an age-appropriate fashion:  Sasha walked ahead of the group, peering into each display case, asserting her independence as the big sister.  Melanie alternated between running ahead to be with her sister and running back to ask questions about the exhibits, while Eddie just ran laps around and through the adults.

            Greeley, wise to the childish attention span, answered Melanie’s questions patiently but briefly.  He found a much more attentive, if unexpected, audience in the Skolians.

            The Imperator’s questions, relayed through Prince Del-Kurj, showed a surprising grasp of the logistics required to move large groups of people and supplies using nothing but muscle power, and of the sort of tactics such limitations imposed.  The Senator would have assumed that the Skolian shared his enthusiasm for old history, except that his questions covered such basic information as the range and accuracy of the various gunpowder-based weapons.

            Perhaps sensing some of his confusion, Prince Del-Kurj broke off his translation to explain, “Our home planet Lyshriol still uses genetically modified horses as the primary means of transportation, but we never developed gunpowder.  Battles were fought using bows, lances, and swords, up until a little over fifty Earth years ago.  That’s when our brother Althor decided enough was enough.”

            “What did your brother do?” the Senator asked.  His curiosity was genuine: nobody on Earth knew very much about the Ruby Dynasty’s homeworld.

            The prince shrugged.  “He ‘borrowed’ a laser carbine and brought it to the party.  He had to demonstrate what it could do before anybody would pay attention, but there hasn’t been a full-fledged battle on Lyshriol since.”

            Greeley kept the party moving toward a room at the back that was almost filled with a diorama of the park and surrounding area.  Visitors could overlay on that background holographic markers showing the positions and movements of the various brigades on each day of the battle.  On the first day, the holos were concentrated to the north and west of the town.  By the beginning of the second day, the Northern troops had withdrawn to the high ground east and south of the town and created a fortified position there.  The Army of Northern Virginia had spent two days flinging itself against those entrenched positions, by the end of which fully a third of the 72,000 troops Lee had brought to the field were dead, wounded, captured, or missing.  The slightly larger Northern army lost a quarter of its strength, making the battle the most costly engagement ever fought in North America.  Although the war had continued for two more long years, Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had never again attempted to take the battle to enemy soil.

            The farmland over which the armies had fought so bitterly was a grisly mess as the armies withdrew, littered with bullets, scarred by cannonballs, and scattered with odd bits of human remains.  Bowing to necessity, the little town had turned a good portion of the area into a national cemetery, much of the rest into a national park, and had been making a comfortable living off of tourism ever since.

            Greeley did not spend much time dwelling on the battle’s aftermath, however.  It didn’t make nearly as good a story as the earlier parts, before a series of bad judgments and botched orders handed Lee a resounding defeat and the Confederacy with him. 

            Loss, after all, was not something that the Senator from Mississippi was willing to contemplate, even in an historical context.

Chapter 25

In which the opposing sides undertake maneuvers to find advantageous positions.

            When the girls had tired of replaying the holographic diorama, the sightseers went back outside.  Del breathed in the crisp fall air with gratitude.  His interest in unmechanized camping equipment was minimal, at least when it didn’t involve a ride across the Dalvador Plains, through the Stained Glass Forest, or into the Backbone Mountains.  The rolling hills of Pennsylvania were very different from anything on Lyshriol, but humanity’s birthplace had a charm all its own.  It was far more pleasant to be outside.

            After a brief pause for the President to take Eddie back inside to use the facilities, the group climbed into the Presidential limo to tour the battlefield.  Tyra and Kelric’s trio of Jagernaut bodyguards joined the President’s Secret Service detail in a second vehicle bristling with sensor arrays that acted as a mobile command post.  Del’s other two Jagernaut guards, Wasther and Ja’chmna, would stay with Cameron in the van.  That was only the visible tip of the security measures, of course.  Army troops from Carlisle Barracks near Harrisburg guarded the southern approaches, while a detachment of National Guards was stationed to the north to ensure that nobody got close enough to harm the President and her guests.  The state and local police formed another ring of protection outside of them, diverting traffic around the battlefield park.  It was quite probable that there had not been such a large military presence in the area since 1863.

            Del had lived with draconian security all his life, but he appreciated the illusion of semi-privacy.  At least the swarm of guards surrounding the park was keeping out of sight and far enough away that their minds could be ignored.

            The two vehicles headed north to where the historic confrontation had begun.  After viewing several monuments, the limo stopped under an observation platform that offered a good overview of the three ridges that Union cavalry officer John Buford had occupied on the first day of battle.  The girls, still restless after the long ride from Washington, D.C., were eager to climb the narrow ladder.  Their mother did not share their enthusiasm, at lest where her younger daughter was concerned.

            “It’s very high,” she told Melanie, “and the steps are a long way apart.”

            “I’m big enough!” the six-year-old insisted.  “I can do it.  You can come with me so I don’t fall.”  Her sister was already halfway up the ladder and she was literally twitching to follow.  Eddie, of course, was already comfortably perched on his own idea of an observation platform: Kelric’s broad shoulder.

            “I’m not dressed for climbing, dear,” the President said.  As the little girl turned to the next adult in line, she added, “And Senator Greeley has a bad knee.”

            “I’ll go up with her,” Del offered, heading off the incipient pout.

            That settled the matter.  Lips tight in concentration, Melanie clambered slowly up the ladder, which really wasn’t scaled to the proportions of a small child.  Nevertheless, she persevered, and with an occasional boost from Del made it all the way to the top and onto the platform.  The location had been carefully chosen to give a spectacular overview of the gently rolling hills.  The town of Gettysburg was clearly visible to the south and beyond it, they could look down the valley over which the second and third days of the battle had been fought.  Scanning the ridge on the far side, Del noted that what was a very gentle slope at their present location grew much steeper in the distance.  The two rounded hills that ended the ridge were knobby, with rocky outcroppings, and there was a freestanding rock formation in the middle of the valley, more or less in front of the hills.  He concluded that other things being equal, any force that held the farther, higher ridge would have the advantage.

            The girls ran back and forth across the platform.  Melanie found a plaque on which was printed a picture of the view with various important locations labeled.  Sasha read it out loud for her little sister, which finally allowed Del to connect some of the names that Greeley had been rattling off with real places.

            When it was time to rejoin the others, Sasha insisted on sliding down the fireman’s pole that occupied the far corner of the platform.  She yelled for her mother to watch, so of course Melanie wanted to try, too.  Del was inclined to let her: backing down the too-large ladder would be much more difficult for her than climbing it had been.  It would also increase his own chances of being kicked in the mouth, since he would have to go down before her to guide her feet to each new rung.

            “I slide down the pole at the school playground all the time,” Melanie assured him.  However, when they drew near the hole in its floor, she obviously found the twelve-foot drop intimidating.  The problem was compounded by her inability to reach the pole comfortably across the hole, which had been designed to let a large adult pass through.

            “It’s scary!” she admitted, clutching Del’s hand.

            “Oh, it’s not so bad,” Del reassured her.  Observing that Eddie had abandoned Kelric’s shoulder and was hot in pursuit of a small lizard, he switched languages to address his oversized brother.  “Kelric, would you spot Melanie down the pole?”

            The Imperator raised an eyebrow, but walked under the platform to stand by the pole.

            Del switched back to English.  “You see, Melanie?  Gold Man will catch you, so you only have to slide part of the way.  I’ll lift you over the hole so you can get a good grip.  All right?”

            The little girl looked over the situation carefully.  Kelric’s upstretched arms, added to his ridiculous height, left a drop of barely a meter.  “Okay,” she agreed.

            “That’s my girl!”  Without giving Melanie time for second thoughts, Del picked her up and held her over the hole.  She gripped the pole and wrapped her legs around it securely, then looked down.  Kelric met her eyes and uttered a phrase of encouragement in Trillian.  Del approved his brother’s choice:  Trillian was much more suited to childish play than the more formal Iotic and Kelric always sounded military when he spoke Skolian Flag.

            Melanie nodded her readiness and Del let her slide slowly through the hole until Kelric could take over.  She squealed in delight all the way down and when her feet were firmly back on the ground, she ran off to her mother, calling, “Did you see, Mommy?  I went down the pole all by myself!”

            The brothers exchanged grins, then Del grabbed the pole and hopped through the hole.

            Senator Greeley watched the whole thing with bemusement.  In all of the hours he had spent fighting the proposed Allied-Skolian treaty, he had thought he’d taken the measure of Skolia’s grim military commander and his sneering, holorock-singing brother.  While he was far too experienced a politician to believe that people who opposed his political goals had no interests outside that opposition, he would never have guessed that either of the Skolians was particularly fond of children. 

            Yet here they were, on perfectly comfortable terms with the President’s brood.  It wasn’t an act, either.  Greeley knew plenty of politicians who had perfected the art of baby-kissing.  A lot of them couldn’t manage their own kids at all.  The Imperator and Prince Del-Kurj acted like competent, experienced parents, always aware of where the children were and what they were doing, but not interfering unless it was necessary and they happened to be the closest adult.  It was one of the most unexpected things he’d seen in a long time, particularly as neither of the Skolians had children of their own, or at least none that his opposition research team knew about.

            It made him rethink his whole approach to the Skolian question.  Perhaps their leaders weren’t quite the mindlessly aggressive militants he’d believed.  If so, it might be possible to persuade them to let the Allied Worlds remain neutral in the Skolians’ centuries-long conflict with the Eubians.  An Allied Worlds that did not take sides could trade with both combatants, to the profit of the supporters who were padding his campaign fund.  Better yet, if that neutrality could be brokered into a position of strength, the Allied Worlds might actually prosper, much as tiny nation of Switzerland had done centuries before Old Earth reached for the stars and found them occupied by her long-lost, warring children.

            He pondered the implications as the group of sightseers worked their way down Seminary Ridge, from which position the Confederate troops had launched their attacks against the Union lines entrenched across the valley on the higher Cemetery Ridge.  Each brigade that had participated in the battle had its own monument and its own story, which Greeley related with genuine enthusiasm.  He was particularly eloquent in describing the heroism of “Pickett’s Charge,” during which three Confederate divisions, some 12,500 strong, had marched for three-quarters of a mile across an open field under heavy artillery fire to attack the center of the Union lines.  About fifty of them had succeeded in reaching the Union breastworks, only to be quickly overwhelmed.  In all, some 6,500 Confederates were killed, wounded, or captured in the assault, putting a decisive end to Lee’s best chance to defeat the Union Army of the Potomac.

            It was, however, the closest the South ever came to winning their war for secession.  The obsession of Southern voters and revisionist historians with the assault might account for why history had named the disastrous and ill-conceived venture after Major General George Pickett, who may have commanded only one of the three divisions that participated in the attack (and from the rear), but whose widow wrote three books shamelessly promoting his heroism in the cause of Southern supremacy after his death in 1875.  Lieutenant General James Longstreet, who had overall command of the three brigades, was given short shrift by Southern historians because he had joined the hated Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln after the war.  Being a Republican would not become acceptable for the ruling white class in the former Confederate states until the national (but not regional) Democratic party betrayed those who struggled to maintain the Southern way of life by imposing school integration and voting rights for non-whites on the South, almost a century after the war for succession ended.

            In the hundreds of years since the Battle of Gettysburg, Southern gentlemen had made a hobby of speculating about what might have happened if Pickett’s assault had succeeded in delivering an effective fighting force to the Union lines.  Fueled by a bottle or two of good Kentucky bourbon, it was possible to imagine a world in which Lee’s smaller army, ill-supplied but fanatically loyal to its charismatic leader, had succeeded in doing the impossible.  An independent Southern Confederacy would have preserved a culture where the rich landowners ruled as uncrowned kings and even the poorest white tenant farmer could rest secure in the Divine Providence that placed him above the darker-skinned slaves and freedmen.  Who, Southern gentlemen had been telling each other for centuries, had been far better off under the loving care of their civilized owners than they would have been running wild in Africa.

            It had genuinely never occurred to Greeley to wonder whether the slaves and their descendents agreed with that verdict.  What possible significance could the opinions of an inherently inferior, powerless underclass have, after all?

            One of the Senator’s ancestors had attacked the Union lines as a sharpshooter from a place called the Devil’s Den on the second day of battle, so they detoured for a closer look instead of continuing along the loop to where the Union lines had stretched on the other side of the valley.  The Den, Del discovered, was the outcropping of boulders he’d seen from the platform.  The monoliths lay in a jumbled pile, as if a giant had dumped a wheelbarrow full of granite cobblestones on the floor of the valley.  The children explored the nooks and crannies as Greeley explained how Confederate snipers had used the formation as cover from which to attack the Union emplacements on Little Round Top, less than half a mile away.

            Little Round Top, the smaller of the two rocky hills Del had seen from the platform, had formed the end of the Union lines.  It had also featured prominently in a vid the children had been watching.  Sasha looked at the rocky hill, measuring the slope, and announced, “I want to run up it, all the way to the top!”
            Melanie had grown impatient with the overabundance of monuments and was itching for some action, so she seconded this plan with an enthusiastic, “Yeah, let’s!”

            “All right, girls,” President Loughten agreed.  She, too, could read the signs of incipient childish rebellion.  “Go right up to the top and stay there.  We’ll drive around to meet you shortly.”

            Del was also a little tired of monuments and Greeley’s glorification of the soldiers who had died here in an attempt to preserve their “right” to own slaves.  He had long since lost any illusion that war was romantic or fun and he didn’t even share Kelric’s professional interest in the tactics that had been used.  He had dutifully picked up enough from Greeley to know that the man was absolutely set against any alliance between the Allied Words and the Imperialate.  He had no desire to spend any more time wallowing in the man’s sense of absolute entitlement, which rivaled that of a Majda queen and with far less justification.

            So when the girls urged him to come along, he told their mother, “We’ll meet you on the other side.” 

            A thought occurred to him.  “Oh, and Tyra, would you ask the van to meet us?  I think that basket of snacks we packed might taste pretty good, just now.”

            The girls cheered, then bolted up the hill.  Del took off after them, bounding easily in Earth’s light gravity.  Tyra and two of the Secret Service detail peeled off to follow, the Jagernaut speaking into her gauntlet as she ran.

            Eddie, who had been exploring the rocks in hopes of finding another lizard, ran after them as well, calling, “Wait for me!  Wait for me!”  The toddler’s voice got increasingly shrill as the distance between him and the others widened.

            Kelric watched the frantic toddler falling further and further behind, then shrugged.  Motioning for his own guard detail to follow, he quickly closed the distance, scooping Eddie up on the run.  The boy shrieked in delight as they loped after Del and the girls.

            It had not been lost on Greeley that while Prince Del-Kurj scampered up the hill with the energetic enthusiasm of a teenager, the Imperator ran with the same lupine economy of motion as his bodyguards, albeit with a slight hitch to his stride.  It was a sobering reminder of the essential differences between the brothers.

            “Del Arden” was a political troublemaker, an amateur who had never run for election or served as a leader, but who somehow felt that his ability to mesmerize the youth of North America with his dancing qualified him to have an influential voice in the foreign policy of two star empires.  Even the Skolians, with their exaggerated respect for the Ruby Dynasty, hadn’t let Prince Del-Kurj close to the negotiations.  While the boy was annoying as only an artist with a large audience could be, he was a lightweight.

            Imperator Skolia was no lightweight.  He not only commanded the deadliest military in space, he also had the reputation of being willing to use it.  The Allied Worlds had a long tradition of keeping their militaries under civilian control. When the ultimate authority for military action rested with a person who was more familiar with brokering political solutions to problems than military ones, and who knew that she would be held accountable to the citizens in her next election, military actions tended to be few in number, modest in size, and very politically popular.  Equally important, there had never been a successful takeover of political power by a military junta in Allied space.  Or at least, not one that had persisted.  The Allied Worlds knew the sorts of abuses that a military dictatorship spawned.

            The Skolians either hadn’t learned that hard lesson, or had ignored it.  The Imperator might be considered second in authority to the Ruby Pharaoh when it came to speaking for their people, but he enjoyed far fewer curbs on his power than Fitz McLane.  He couldn’t declare war, but he could wage it at will, with or without a declaration.  To make matters worse, Kelric Skolia, like most of his predecessors, was a combat veteran: a man who was used to thinking in terms of blowing up problems, and who might be mentally unstable from the stress of combat.  He might like to dandle toddlers, but Greeley didn’t want the inscrutable, freakishly colored bastard and his menacing flagship anywhere close to Mississippi.  The Eubians were so much more civilized and refined.  They knew how to recognize a superior example of the human race.

            The thought of the Eubians reminded him of the experimental jammer that Mr. Williams had given him.  Greeley did not for one moment believe that the Imperator and his brother were telepaths.  In his opinion, that claim was one of the more ingenious excuses for maintaining dynastic power known to history.  Earth’s scientists had never been able to document telepathy or duplicate the Skolians’ exaggerated claims.  No, the whole “psion” nonsense was an excuse to keep the Allied Worlds and the Eubians from gaining an independent capability for instantaneous communications across interstellar distances.  Maintaining that technological monopoly gave the Skolians a stranglehold on the trade of three empires.

            However, even if telepathy didn’t exist, there were plenty of other ways to eavesdrop on an opponent’s thoughts.  It was undisputable that the Skolians were masters at hacking any mesh-based system.  Some of the stories Mr. Williams had told him were the stuff of nightmares to any man whose career rested on the whims of an electorate and the attack ads of his opponents.  Greeley wouldn’t at all put it past the Skolians to, say, slip a bug into somebody’s pocket, or eavesdrop long distance through the elaborate biomech installed in the Jagernauts.  If Mr. Williams and his employers were willing to offer him state-of-the-art Eubian protection from real eavesdropping threats like that, he wasn’t too proud to accept. 

            “Well, Senator Greeley,” came the President’s voice from behind him, “it looks like we’ve been abandoned by our fellow sightseers.”

            Greeley chuckled, turning to face her.  “Being left behind is a hazard of being part of the older, wiser generation.”

            Loughten smiled back.  “Frankly, I’m surprised you managed to hold the girls’ attention as long as you did.  I assure you, they don’t show that sort of patience when I try to explain something so complicated.”

            “That’s because you’re their mother.”  Greeley gestured invitingly toward a boulder that was low and broad enough to serve as a bench.  “I promise, that’s temporary.  When they are all grown up with children of their own, you will be the fount of all wisdom.”

            “I understand it gets much worse before it gets better.”

            The Senator gave the President the same encouraging smile he used on his own children when they commed him to cry on his shoulder.  “Well, it does.  Teens are a trial to everyone, especially themselves.  Fortunately, it's a condition that is curable with time.”

            Judging that he had her suitably softened up, he continued.  “While we’re alone, I was wondering if you’d allow me to share some thoughts on the Skolian/Eubian situation with you?”

            Loughten looked a little wary, but nodded.  “Certainly, Senator.  I’m always happy to get your perspective on such issues.”

            “Thank you.  I’ve been concerned about…”  He broke off, rubbing his eyes.  “Excuse me.  Hay fever, you know.  I have a handkerchief somewhere…”  He made a show of searching his pockets.  When no handkerchief was to be found in the outside pocket of his jacket, he reached into an inside pocket.  “Ah, there it is.”  Working by feel, he pushed the button on the outside of the jammer as Mr. Williams had shown him, then pulled out the handkerchief he had placed beside it.

            He wiped his eyes, then put the handkerchief into one of the outside pockets.  “Now here is what I’ve been thinking…”

Chapter 26

In which an assault is launched

            When Senator Greeley pushed the button on the sphere he had hidden in the inside pocket of his jacket, he unknowingly set in motion a series of events that, in the perfect hindsight of future historians, would constitute the “high water mark” of the Eubian attempts to block the treaty between the Allied Worlds and the Skolian Imperialate.  Like the high water mark the Confederacy had won through Pickett’s Charge some four hundred years before and a mile and half to the north, it proved a Pyrrhic victory.

            On top of the Culp’s Hill observation tower, two miles north of the Devil’s Den, a woman was pacing impatiently back and forth.  She was dressed in the uniform of the National Guard, but it was slightly too big for her.  For the past two hours, she had been alternating between tracing the slow progress of the presidential limousine down Seminary Ridge and glancing at a small device in her hand. 

            “Come on, you idiot. It isn’t that hard...” she fumed under her breath, as a green indicator light persisted in staying green.  “Ah, there we are!”  She double-checked the device, confirming that the now-red light was staying that way, then picked up a white signal flag and waved it in a careful pattern.  When she was done, she waited a few seconds, then repeated the pattern.

            The semaphore was an outmoded signaling device, strictly limited to line-of-sight, but it had two clear advantages that more modern, mesh-based communication methods lacked.  It could neither be blocked by jamming devices nor overheard by eavesdropping devices…and its use left no trace on the ubiquitous mesh.  It was essential for the woman’s purpose that her message reach only its intended recipients and that no incriminating evidence be left behind for the inevitable investigations to discover.

            Four separate observers stationed along the northern edge of the park lowered their binoculars and passed the message on to their leaders.  Four separate clumps of “National Guards,” heavily armed with silenced weapons, killed three police officers, two park rangers, and a reporter who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, piled into their waiting vehicles, and started south.

            Another observer, standing on the roof of a residential tower in Gettysburg proper, set down the binoculars with which he had been watching one of the four groups move out and used his com to upload to his family’s public mesh a suggestion that they order a sausage and mushroom pizza for dinner that night.  Shortly after that, six helicopters took off from a secluded farm near Taneytown and raced toward Gettysburg.

            When the woman on Culp’s Hill had completed the second pattern, she methodically packed her device and flag in a nondescript duffle bag and descended the ladder of the observation tower.  She climbed into a waiting van and drove down the hill.  Her assigned part of the mission was over, but there was still time, if she hurried, to rejoin her associates and participate in the rest of the attack.

            She was so focused on that goal that she didn’t pay much attention to the snack food delivery van that was leaving the Visitor Center parking lot when she sped by.

            Mr. Williams had not been entirely candid about the capabilities of the “experimental” top-of-the-line Eubian military jammer that he had provided to the Senator.  While it did block all radio- and mesh-based signals within about two miles, it did nothing whatsoever to hinder telepathy. 

            “Gods help us!” Jagernaut Secondary Wasther swore, sitting bolt upright in his seat. “Cameron, get this hulk moving,” he ordered.  “That driver was thinking about joining her friends so she can help them assassinate the President’s whole party!”

            It was a measure of how thoroughly two years of guarding Del had destroyed Cameron’s former skepticism regarding the abilities of psions that the ASC Marine got the van moving forward before asking, “Can you warn them?”

            The Jagernaut was already pressing a finger against a button on his gauntlet.  He cursed again when there was no response.  “Jammed,” he reported succinctly.

            Cameron pushed the van faster.  “You would think that with modern tech, the days of human messengers carrying word across a battlefield would be long over.”  He steered the van around a curve, then added, “I don’t suppose you can reach them mentally?”

            “Maybe,” Wasther said.  “If anyone is listening.”  He took a deep, calming breath and lowered his barriers.

            Del and the girls made it to the top of Little Round Top well ahead of the others, scrambling over the loose rocks.  Panting, Sasha and Melanie promptly hid behind the remains of the Union breastworks to watch Kelric and the Jagernaut bodyguards picking their way up the steep slope at a less reckless pace, in deference to the Imperator’s damaged leg and the density of the underbrush.  At the base of the hill, the two Secret Service agents assigned to the President’s daughters puffed along in the rear.  Lacking both the boundless energy of youth and the biomechanical enhancements of the Jagernauts, they had been unable to keep up with the impromptu charge. 

            In the almost-deserted park, with Greeley’s irritating smugness safely across the valley, Del had taken the opportunity to drop his shields and enjoy the children’s uncomplicated happiness.  So, when Melanie complained of thirst, he reflexively reached out with his mind, trying to determine how close the van, with its basket of refreshments, might be.

            Del!  Wasther’s thought was carried on a wave of alarm and relief.  There is an assassination attempt coming, aimed at the President.  Get everybody to the parking area behind the hill; we’re almost there.

            The news drove all thoughts of lemonade and cookies out of his head.  Whirling, he shouted a warning down the hill in Skolian Flag.  It was a language well suited to conveying military information and all ISC officers had to be fluent in it.  Kelric immediately switched Eddie from his shoulder to a more protected carry in his arms and charged up the hill as fast as his bad leg could manage, the four Jagernauts forming a protective barrier around him.  The two Secret Service officers might not have understood Del’s warning, but they were skilled professionals.  Correctly deducing that there was trouble coming, they picked up their pace, crashing gamely through the tangle.

            Satisfied that Kelric was coming as fast as he could, Del told the girls to stay in their relatively protected positions behind the stone breastworks, then contacted Wasther again.  Can you give us any more details?

            Not much, the Jagernaut replied.  I just caught a glimpse, but I got the impression of several groups that were to converge rapidly, rather than snipers.  They planned well; they’re jamming all the frequencies I can test.

            The Union fortifications had been built by experienced troops and carefully preserved by the park historians.  They provided solid protection against projectile weapons, but it was necessary to stand, partially leaving that protection, to observe oncoming foes.  Before Kelric and Tyra could arrive and forbid it, Del climbed up to a vantage point from which he could see most of the valley. 

            All seemed quiet to the south, but there were four vehicles coming down the valley from the north, two along the Seminary Ridge road that the Presidential party had taken and two along the Emmitsburg Road, which ran directly down the middle of the northern portion of the valley before veering west.  They were plastered with ASC insignia and the people inside wore uniforms, but they should not be in the park.  On the off chance that the vehicles had been sent by more-than-usually alert units whose commanders had noticed the loss of mesh-based contact, Del lowered his barriers again. 

            The wash of violent thoughts and emotions sent him jumping hastily down off his perch.

            “Are those our assassins?” Kelric asked in Flag, handing Eddie off to his brother so he could use his hands to scramble over the breastworks.

            “Yes,” Del answered, untangling small fingers from his hair.  “I don’t think they know our party split up.  They’re all focused on the rocks out there in the middle.”

            “What’s going on?” one of the Secret Service agents demanded breathlessly, as he and his partner closed to within shouting range.

            The singer pointed at the approaching vehicles.  “Assassins.  They’re after President Loughten, we believe.” 

            One agent immediately reached for his com.  When the Allied frequencies proved to be just as blocked as the Skolian ones, he whirled to run back the way he came.

            “Wait!” Tyra barked, with all the authority of a senior Jagernaut.  Both agents paused, looking over their shoulders.

            “We’ve got to warn them!” the agent protested.

            “There’s no cover between the bottom of the hill and the President’s party,” Tyra continued in a quieter voice.  “Right now, they’re coming on slowly, confident that they have the advantage of surprise.  If they see you running toward the President, they’ll move in quickly and head you off long before you can shout a warning.”

            The Allied agents weren’t the only ones considering how to warn the President’s guards that trouble was coming.  The rest of the Skolians were busy considering their options, most of which were less than optimal.  A warning shot fired by one of the Jumblers carried by the Jagernauts, for instance, would be seen by both the President’s guards and its attackers.  While the President’s security detail would correctly deduce that they were under attack, they were most likely to assume that the Skolians were the aggressors.  They might even view the approaching assassins as reinforcements and allow them to approach into close range.  A warning shot would also reveal their own location.  If the assassins had not yet realized that the Presidential party had split up, the Jagernauts would just as soon keep it that way.

            A suggestion that the entire party shout a simple warning in unison, hoping to generate enough volume to be heard and understood, was vetoed by Del.  “The sound would distort as it hits those rocks,” he explained.  “They’d only be able to hear that we’re yelling, not what.  We’re supposed to be on a picnic.  They’ll assume that the kids wanted to play with echoes.”

            That was when Kelric demonstrated the tactical genius under pressure that had made him a top test pilot, allowed him to lead a fighting squad of Jagernauts into combat, and won him the unfeigned respect and loyalty of all four branches of the Skolian military.  In mere seconds he broke the problem down into its component elements:  the necessity of conveying a complicated and specific message across half a mile without electronic assistance, without alerting the oncoming assassins or betraying their own position—and he found the solution.

            Turning to his brother, he held out his hands for Eddie and snapped in Iotic, “Del, start yodeling!”

            Del’s eyes widened in understanding and he quickly surrendered the toddler. Whirling, he jumped back up onto the rocky outcropping.  In addition to the approaching vehicles, he had a clear view of the President and Senator Greeley sitting on a granite slab at the base of the Devil’s Den, half a mile away.  Taking the deep and controlled breath of a trained singer, he opened his mouth and let loose at full volume.

            The green, rolling valley and wooded hills of Gettysburg tended to absorb sound, rather than echoing it back.  With only the granite boulders of the Devil’s Den to bounce the sound off, Del was afraid that his singing wouldn’t be close enough to his efforts in the rocky Colorado canyon to be understood.  He dropped his mental shields and reached, hoping to catch any indication that his message had been received.

            “…but I honestly don’t think we’ll be able to stay truly neutral this time, Senator,” Hannah Loughten was saying.  “Like it or not, the evidence the Skolians have provided holds up under scrutiny.  We’ve verified quite a bit of it from other sources.  The Eubian Emperor Ur Qox did order his military to commit genocide against his own people on a planetary scale.  The current Emperor, Jaibriol Qox the Third, has never repudiated his grandfather’s actions.”

            “The Skolians are hardly an unbiased source of information,” Greeley protested.  “They’ve had several nasty, indecisive wars with the Eubians, and they’d be quite happy to drag us into the next one, as long as it was on their side.  As to the rest…I’ve been assured, by a source I think is more trustworthy than a holorock singer, that the late Emperor Qox never slaughtered Eubian citizens wholesale.”

            “He didn’t,” Loughten agreed.  “The only Eubian citizens are the few thousand Aristos that make up their ruling class.  All other Eubians are slaves.  Property that can be disposed of if it becomes dangerous or inconvenient, or merely at its owner’s whim.”

            Greeley shifted uncomfortably on the hard boulder.  “Surely you’re exaggerating,” he protested. 

            “I don’t think I am.”  Loughten shook her head sadly.  “I don’t like the idea of being dragged into the wars between the Skolians and the Eubians any more than you do, Senator, but can we afford to ally ourselves with an Empire that officially views all non-Aristos—including us and the Skolians—as their rightful slaves?”  She looked across the valley toward Little Round Top.  “Is that the sort of future we want to leave to our children?”

            As if to counter that gloomy prospect, a cheerfully strident song broke out across the valley.  Greeley smiled.  “My grandfather used to yodel like that.  I always liked it; that cheerful impudence was appealing to a young boy.”

            “Another irreconcilable difference between you and Imperator Skolia,” Hannah responded with a smile.  “Prince Del-Kurj told me that his brother can’t stand…”  Her voice trailed off as the song’s tempo and volume increased, and the smile disappeared from her face.  “I think they’re trying to warn us about something.”

            The noise stopped abruptly in the middle of a phrase.  There was about two seconds of total silence, then it resumed. 

            Loughten turned to the head of her security detail.  “Jerry, is there any disturbance being reported?”

            As the Secret Service agent spoke a soft inquiry into the mini-microphone on his wrist, the singing from across the valley stopped, then resumed once more.

            Loughten wasn’t surprised when Jerry turned to her with a curse.  “Communications are down,” he snapped, signaling to the other agents in the detail to move in.  Scanning up and down the valley, he grunted when he saw the National Guard vehicles approaching.  “At least somebody’s paying attention and sent reinforcements,” he commented.

            The yodeling continued without a break.  Loughten considered, then asked, “Are you sure those are reinforcements, Jerry?  The Skolians don’t seem to think so.”  The sound broke off, then restarted. 

            Jerry Thurgood hadn’t reached his current position without developing a firm conviction that the life of the President he protected was worth more than her dignity—or his own, if he overreacted to a threat that turned out to be imaginary.  “We’re pulling out,” he told his team. 

            Loughten looked over her shoulder at the hill up which her children had disappeared with the Skolians.  Hoping against hope that Mac Tylor’s information on Ruby telepaths was solid, she concentrated as hard as she could on a message—Get the children away!—and was immensely gratified when the singing stopped, this time for good.

            Del jumped down from his perch.  “They’re warned,” he reported.

            “Then we’re leaving,” Primary Najo, the head of Kelric’s security detail, announced.  “Now.”  Without waiting for assent, he and the other Jagernauts herded their two princes and the two girls toward the relative safety of the Little Round Top parking area and the van.  The Secret Service agents, hindered by their inability to speak Skolian Flag, brought up the rear.

            The van, spacious as it was, could not accommodate so many extra passengers.  After a few quick exchanges, Tyra, Wasther, and the junior of the two Secret Service agents were left behind, with orders to assist the President’s party if possible until help could arrive.

            As the van sped off, heading for the Taneytown Road and its access to Highway 15, the sound of gunfire broke out behind them.

            As the agents surrounding the President and Senator started pulling them around the stone formation toward the waiting presidential limousine, the attackers finally realized that they had lost the advantage of surprise and began firing.

            Even with modern, rapid-fire weapons aim counts for a lot, especially at a distance.  The two closest vehicles had been forced off-road by the westward kink in the Emmitsburg Road and were now bouncing over the rough ground of the valley floor.  As a result, the initial volley of bullets killed two agents and wounded one more, but left the President and Senator Greeley still untouched by the time the fleeing party reached a point where the rocks blocked their attackers’ line-of-sight. 

            The other two “National Guard” vehicles were on the same Seminary Ridge road down which the Presidential party had made its slow way earlier.  With a smoother firing platform, albeit a longer distance, some of their heavier weapons actually reached their assigned targets.  The first three tank-killer rounds missed, then the Presidential limousine and the support vehicle disappeared in fiery explosions, taking the two drivers with them and cutting off their primary target’s only means of escape.

            Jerry Thurgood cursed as the vehicles were destroyed, then looked around for cover.  Fortunately, he didn’t have to look far.  “Into the rocks!” he shouted, and the security detail switched directions.  Pushing their charges ahead, they sought defensible shelter in the cracks and crannies of the giant granite outcropping.

            The situation didn’t look good.  There were ten surviving agents to protect two targets against four vehicles full of attackers.  On the plus side, the longstanding military truism that it is easier to defend a fortification than to attack worked in their favor.  On the other hand, without communications, they might have to hold their position for quite a while before either somebody noticed they weren’t responding or the other half of their party escaped the jamming effect and could call in reinforcements.

            “Is there any way to send for help?” Senator Greeley asked.  He was handling the situation well—for an elderly civilian, that is—but Thurgood could tell that he was afraid. 

            “Not as long as they’re jamming us,” the agent answered honestly.  “Stay back here where they can’t see you, and maybe some of the troops out there will respond before my agents get overrun.”

            Greeley’s eyes widened, but he nodded and obediently crouched down in the relative safety of an interior cul-de-sac next to the President. 

            The Senator had, of course, completely forgotten Mr. Williams’s sphere, which still hummed in the inner pocket of his coat.

Chapter 27

In which two lucky shots decide the battle’s outcome.

            The modern weapons employed by the assassins in their attempt to kill President Loughten were much more powerful than the early rifles and revolvers used during the previous armed confrontation at the Devil’s Den.  The hand-held launchers that fired the tank-killer rounds alone would have made any Civil War-era artillery battery commander drool with envy.  However, there is a practical limit to how much firepower can be packed into a hand-held weapon.  That limit is significantly less than the firepower required to level a mountain—or even the fractured remnants of a mountain.

            Jerry Thurgood’s decision to pull the President out had forced the assassins to start their assault before they were ready.  If the President’s party had been able to reach their original goal, the limo, the tank-killer rounds would have been sufficient to win the day for the assassins.  However, Thurgood’s retreat into the Devil’s Den effectively neutralized that advantage.  He and his agents had managed to sequester the President and Senator in a small cave at the center of the maze of granite boulders and post guards at the most obvious entrances before the assassins got close enough for aimed fire.  By then, they had an additional irritant. 

            The higher, rockier hill known as Big Round Top was largely ignored in the previous battle fought at Gettysburg, despite the spectacular vantage point it provided, in favor of its smaller sibling, Little Round Top.  Big Round Top was simply too steep, too rocky, and had too many trees to fortify effectively in an era that relied on heavy, cast-iron artillery drawn by teams of horses or massed volleys from non-repeating (or barely repeating) rifles. 

            Tyra, Wasther, and Geoff Andresson, the junior Secret Service agent from the girls’ security detail, were not excessively handicapped by these geographic features.  From a rocky ledge with a good overview of the battle, they fired at targets of opportunity.  They didn’t score many direct hits—neither the Jagernauts’ Jumblers nor Andresson’s service revolver were intended as sniper weapons and the distance was significant.  They could, however, encourage the attackers to keep their heads down and limit their mobility, giving Thurgood’s defenders a better chance.

            When the six helicopters approached from the south, flying in close formation, Andresson paused in reloading his revolver.  “Reinforcements!  Thank goodness.”  He shook his head.  “It took them long enough to get here.  You’d think the noise would have made them sound the alarm long since.”

            Tyra, who was both less familiar with the markings designating Allied military helicopters and possessed of a more skeptical outlook, took advantage of the closeness of the formation’s flight path to their position to lower her mental barriers.  While she had a respectable Kyle rating, she lacked the extreme sensitivity and range possessed by some members of the Ruby Dynasty.  Fortunately, neither was required to sense the single thought on which the helicopters’ crews were focused.

            “Not our reinforcements!” she barked, bringing up her Jumbler.  “Theirs!”  She fired a quick, glancing shot across the windshield of one of the lead helicopters, hoping that the President’s security detail would heed the warning that they were not friendly.

            The speed with which Mr. Williams had been forced to act had also forced him to use the instruments close to hand.  There had been no time to petition ESC for a well-trained special ops team, and while Allied security measures contained loopholes that were easily exploited, the Skolians were subjecting all travelers to Earth from Eubian worlds to heightened scrutiny while their thrice-cursed Imperator was visiting.

            The instruments available to Mr. Williams were certain groups of disaffected Allied citizens who liked to consider themselves patriotic soldiers, but who hated their government too much to actually enlist in its military.  As Hannah Loughten had explained to Kelric and Del, most such groups were more inclined to talk than action.  However, Williams had spent the past year or so supplying selected “militia” organizations with military-grade weapons and instruction in how to use them.  His original intent had been to orchestrate an outbreak of “random” anti-government protests and violence to push Allied foreign policy away from a real alliance with the Skolians in the aftermath of the Radiance War.  This, his dupes could have managed handily, but carrying out a successful assassination attempt against a target whose protectors were likely to fight back was more complicated.  While the “militia’s” enthusiasm could not be faulted, their skills left much to be desired, their discipline was atrocious, and they lacked the sense of self-sacrifice that impels real soldiers to give their lives for the success of the mission.

            Williams’s agent in charge of the helicopter portion of the operation, a former Allied naval officer who had been involuntarily retired for insubordination, had no illusions about the quality of the troops under his command.  He had placed himself in one of the lead vehicles, hoping to lead by example.  This usually sound military strategy was to prove disastrous.  While all six helicopter pilots had demonstrated the ability to fly in close formation under peacetime conditions, their training had not yet covered how to do so under enemy fire.  The molecule-disintegrating anti-bition beam fired by Tyra’s Jumbler was attenuated by the atmosphere and by several small leafy branches.  The portion of the beam that actually hit the helicopter left a long, white divot in the reinforced windshield, but did not penetrate.

            It didn’t have to.

            Under enemy fire for the first time in his life, the pilot gave a shriek and jerked at the controls, trying to dodge away from the attack.  Normally, the autopilot would have performed an override of any pilot’s command that threatened instability or a collision.  However, the autopilots of all six craft had been disabled so that their computers could not prevent the vehicles from entering the no-fly zone that had been established around Gettysburg during the President’s visit.

            Without that protection, the pilot’s reaction sent his helicopter too close to the one flying beside it.  Two sets of whirring blades tried to mesh and failed, sending the first pair of helicopters—and the only experienced soldier in the group, the sortie’s leader—plunging toward the rocky slope below and scattering deadly metal shards in all directions.  One flew right over Andresson’s head, missing him by inches, before Wasther grabbed him and pulled him down behind a boulder.  Another shard decapitated one of the attackers around Devil’s Den, who had unwisely stood up to signal the helicopters to land on the more level ground just north of the Devil’s Den.

            The pilots of the second pair of helicopters were flying too closely behind their leaders.  They swerved away from each other, trying to dodge around their crashed compatriots.  The helicopter farthest from the hill succeeded in that it remained airborne, although a large chunk of metal debris penetrated the passenger compartment and another partially destroyed the landing skids.  Perhaps recognizing that it was now more liability than asset, it flew a wide curve over the Devil’s Den and headed back in the direction from which it came.  Its partner, with less room to dodge, caught one edge of a landing skid on a boulder halfway down Big Round Top.  The pilot panicked, lost control, and the vehicle tilted into a deadly tumble down the slope, killing two passengers from the first helicopter who had just struggled free of the wreckage.

            The remaining two helicopters had time to react more productively to the disaster.  The one farthest from the hill had space to maneuver and a more experienced pilot.  It was able to swing around the wreckage without damage, land on the relatively level field north of the Devil’s Den, and disgorge its reinforcements, the only one of the six helicopters to carry out its assignment as planned.  Its partner, the sixth and final helicopter, was restricted in its movements by the hill and by the danger of flying wreckage.  The pilot sensibly put it into a hover, seeking a clear flight path…

            And Wasther’s Jumbler tore into the tail rotor at close range. 

            An experienced, focused helicopter pilot should be able to manage a landing of sorts without the tail rotor, using forward momentum to provide some directional stability.  The sixth pilot made a valiant effort, despite the unnerving sudden demise of most of her flight group.  She held a steady course away from the hills and rocks of the Round Tops toward the more gentle slopes of Seminary Ridge, where the road beckoned with a smooth, paved surface.  It was only at the last moment, as she tried to adjust her course to thread between two marble obelisks memorializing the heroic efforts of Confederate troops native to the states of South Carolina and Georgia, that she lost control of the torque.  The helicopter began to spin wildly, an attempt at correction dipped a rotor into the ground, and the machine catapulted across the ridge in a fashion that would have brought tears of joy to the eyes of the Union artillery officers who once occupied the opposing ridge.

            “Good shooting,” Tyra complimented Wasther.  Then she nodded at the wreckage on the slope below.  “Let’s start rounding up the survivors so they don’t join their friends, shall we?”  Shaking her head, she observed plaintively, “Surely somebody has to notice there’s a battle going on here eventually?”

            Tyra could be forgiven for wondering why the Allied’s extensive security cordon was failing to respond to the barrage of gunfire and multiple helicopter crashes.  The answer lay, as it so often does, with the structure of the landscape over which the battle was fought:  in this case, the landscape of the ubiquitous mesh upon which all communications depended.  The mesh grew by attaching new nodes to the closest old ones in a semi-random fashion intended to link its endpoints as quickly as possible with major hubs to enable rapid data transfer.  For historical reasons, these attachments tended to follow well-established transportation and trade routes.

            Gettysburg was a prosperous trading center in the days when transportation depended largely on horses and wealth was measured in physical goods.  That was why the Confederate Army dropped by in search of shoes.  However, the mesh was built to transport information, and Gettysburg was a long way from the East Coast hubs of New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.  It was almost equally far from the mesh hub generated by the University of Pennsylvania at State College.  Even the closest branch of the old Interstate system was separated from Gettysburg by a large state forest.  As a result of this physical isolation, mesh users in Gettysburg and the surrounding farming towns tied into the planet-wide system through a link to the sleepy state capitol at Harrisburg.  Under normal conditions, this connection was more than ample to handle traffic for what was, after all, a very small community.

            These were not normal circumstances.

            Mr. Williams was no General Robert E. Lee, who understood the importance of taking the high ground even if his generals were unable to win it for him.  The Eubian spymaster did understand, however, that his assassins would have a much better chance of carrying out their mission before they were killed if the security details protecting the President and Imperator could not communicate with each other or call for reinforcements.  The jammer he had provided to Senator Greeley had a range of about two miles, which Mr. Williams hoped would combine with the element of surprise to block the first calls for help and confuse the coordination of the wider security cordon just long enough for the targets to be gunned down.  What happened to his militia puppets afterward was not his concern:  he had made sure that there would be no traceable connection between himself and them.

            The Allied security forces were well aware of the limitations of the Gettysburg mesh node.  To facilitate communication among the security forces, they had brought in a portable, dedicated node with a satellite uplink.  Unfortunately, this node was based in the security van that followed the Presidential limo and thus became an early casualty of the engagement.  When the surrounding security forces heard the gunfire, every squad leader got on the mesh, demanding information and orders.  With the dedicated node gone, this traffic was automatically diverted to the local node.

            The local mesh might have handled even this sudden spike in demand, except that the President’s visit wasn’t the only event catching the interest of the citizens of Gettysburg that day.  It was a holiday, after all, and college football was resuming after a summer hiatus.  The particular game being broadcast that day was of special local interest because one of the starting quarterbacks was a boy from nearby Hanover who was playing quite well.  The spike generated by the security forces happened to coincide with a particularly controversial play involving the quarterback from Hanover that was being replayed in extra-high-definition slow motion while the commentators, referees, and audience debated fiercely whether the winning touchdown should be awarded.

            When the sports feed froze under the deluge of demands from the security forces, every football fan in Gettysburg got on the mesh, calling neighbors to find out if the problem was with their own screens, querying alternative sportsnews feeds for updates on the play, and complaining to the provider.  The Gettysburg meshnode struggled to divert some of the local traffic demand to other, subsidiary nodes connecting Gettysburg to the surrounding, even smaller towns, but these were already working at near capacity for the same reason.  Fail-safes in Harrisburg designed to limit netplagues noted the unprecedented spike in demand from Gettysburg and cut the connection.  The network supported by the Gettysburg node slowed to a crawl, then crashed completely, taking out mesh access for much of central Pennsylvania and Maryland and creating near-riots at more than one sports bar.

            It was not until the snack food delivery van-that-wasn’t reached the town of Fredrick in Maryland, some 35 miles away from Gettysburg, that its passengers were able to access a mesh node that linked directly to Baltimore.  If they had known the exact nature and extent of the problem, they could have headed due west from Gettysburg and picked up the State College node, or due east to Lancaster, which linked through Philadelphia.  However, in their attempt to distance themselves as rapidly and anonymously as possible from the battle, they had inadvertently chosen a route that forced them to traverse the entire “dead” zone.  Their delivery-van disguise also worked against them, as it required maintaining a reasonable pace.  Pennsylvania country roads being what they were, they were delayed behind a harvester, two tractors, a milk truck, and no less than three black, horse-drawn buggies.

            While the girls’ senior Secret Service agent reported in to his superiors, Kelric contacted his flagship and arranged for a shuttle to pick him up at the Baltimore spaceport.  Whatever the outcome of the confrontation at Gettysburg, he could best handle its aftermath from the Command Chair on the Roca’s Pride.  Eddie had cried himself to sleep in Kelric’s arms by the time they reached Thurmont, but the girls huddled on either side of Del, their faces streaked with tears.  It didn’t take telepathy to deduce the single thought running through every mind in the van:

            Had their warning come in time to save President Loughten?

            If Tyra’s lucky shot across the windshield of the lead helicopter had not had such a spectacular effect, the answer would have been no.  As it was, only one of the six helicopters was able to deliver its compliment of reinforcements to the attackers, and these did not include the group’s leader.  While there were a full dozen assorted survivors from the three crashed helicopters adorning the slopes of Big Round Top, only three of these were without serious injuries.  One was injudicious enough to point his weapon in the general direction of Tyra and her colleagues.  His immediate demise in an orange-tinted flash of molecular disintegration from Wasther’s Jumbler was sufficient to convince the others to surrender.

            The necessity of securing so many prisoners, injured or not, prevented the two Jagernauts from taking an active role in the battle around the Devil’s Den for almost half an hour.  Geoff Andresson, meanwhile, had found an undamaged, high-quality hunting rifle with a scope among the assorted weapons scattered around the wreckage and was putting it to good use, making the attackers surrounding the President’s refuge keep their heads down.

            The situation was settling down into a siege.  Without most of their reinforcements, the attackers lacked the numbers required to storm such a formidable fortress against determined defenders.  However, neither could the President’s small security detail break free of the trap into which they had placed themselves.  With a limited supply of ammunition and a gradually increasing number of casualties, they could only hope to hold out until rescue arrived.

            The attackers’ plan had always depended on speed and precision to deliver a locally overwhelming force within the security cordon, gun down their targets, then escape in the helicopters and disappear into various safehouses and new identities.  However, the one operational helicopter could carry at best a third of the attackers surrounding the boulders.  The gradual realization that most of them would have to be left behind to face the consequences of their actions when the outer security cordon finally responded made the attackers reckless.  Unable to get a clear shot at any of their targets, they simply sprayed as many bullets through the cracks in the boulders as they could, fueled by the need to destroy the objects of their hatred.

            It was not a bad strategy, under the circumstances.  Fire enough random shots in the general direction of a target, and some will hit their mark.  Four Secret Service agents died under the barrage and two more were wounded, decreasing the defenders’ rate of fire by more than half.  The number of assassins was shrinking, too, as the last of the prisoners on Big Round Top were secured, freeing Wasther to join Geoff Andresson’s sniping campaign.  In the distance, approaching vehicles from the south promised rescue at last.

            It might have been desperation that spoiled the aim of one particular attacker, or poor training, or just the noise and confusion even a relatively small battle can generate.  Whatever the reason, a bullet that was intended for a narrow crack in the rocks in which a Secret Service agent crouched went high.  It hit a boulder and ricocheted off, by chance threading through a different opening in the rocks.  It hit granite and changed direction again, losing some momentum but maintaining a respectable velocity…directly toward President Loughten, where she and Senator Greeley crouched in a protected cave within the pile of rocks.

            When the hastily organized rescue party finally won through to the Devil’s Den, the battered and bloody remnants of the Secret Service detail discovered a crying Senator Greeley kneeling by the side of the unconscious President, trying to staunch the river of blood flowing from her right shoulder with his handkerchief.

Some pictures to set the scene:

A useful map of the battlefield park can be downloaded from: http://www.nps.gov/gett/planyourvisit/brochures.htm

http://www.amesphotos.com/history/gettysburg/little_round_top.htm   A panoramic view from Little Round Top; the Devil’s Den is the pile of boulders just past the forested section, as you scan from left to right. The second photo is the view of both Round Tops from the lower portion of Seminary Ridge across the valley, where the Confederate lines were entrenched.

The Wikipedia article on Little Round Top has a nice view up the hill from Devil’s Den, showing how steep and rocky the slope really is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Little_Round_Top001.jpg

A nice set of shots in and around the Devil’s Den, giving a good impression of just how huge the boulders are: http://gburginfo.brinkster.net/VirtualTour-DD.htm

And one from inside the rock pile: http://www.flickr.com/photos/julz91/625719793/in/photostream/

Chapter 28

In which battle damage is assessed.

            When the shooting at the Devil’s Den ended, Tyra Jarin left the prisoners in Wasther’s charge and went to meet their rescuers, Geoff Andresson at her side.  The sniper fire from Big Round Top had prevented more than a handful of the attackers from reaching the surviving helicopter.  Those who did, discovered to their dismay that their conscientious pilot had been so unwise as to step outside to inspect her vehicle for damage.  That had been all the opportunity Andresson had required.  With escape cut off, many of the assassins had sold their lives dearly. The surviving remnant huddled in a sullen group, glaring impotently at the ASC forces surrounding them.  Somebody had found a stretcher and the unconscious President had been brought out of the rocks, her wounded shoulder heavily wrapped with a field dressing.  The bloodstained but uninjured Greeley stayed by her side, looking lost.

            Nearby stood the leader of the ASC relief force, a lieutenant who looked far too young for the task, but who seemed to be operating efficiently despite his obvious shock. Tyra was reminded that ASC, unlike its Skolian and Trader counterparts, had not fought a war in generations.  It was quite possible that the young officer had never seen a dead body before.  He looked up warily as the Jagernaut approached.

            “Jagernaut Primary Tyra Jarin, of Prince Del-Kurj’s security detail,” she introduced herself.  “This is Geoff Andresson, Secret Service agent assigned to guard the President’s children.”

            “Lieutenant Morris, Carlisle Barracks.”  He shook his head apologetically.  “I’m sorry.  So far, we’ve only found the President and Senator Greeley.  I don’t know what happened to your Imperator and the rest of his party.”

            “They were up that hill, with the President’s children,” Tyra informed him, pointing to Little Round Top.  “We pulled them out in our van, along with as many of the security team as would fit.”

            Morris’s face brightened.  “But that’s wonderful news!”

            “My colleague, Tertiary Wasther, has the survivors from those three crashed helicopters under guard,” Tyra continued, gesturing toward the wreckage behind her.  “If you could send someone to relieve him, I’d appreciate it.”

            “Of course,” Morris agreed, and gave the order.  By sending a messenger, since communications were still out.

            Thus reminded, Tyra said, “You might want to tell your troops to look out for the Eubian military-grade jammer that’s blocking communications.”

            “What makes you so sure it’s a Eubian jammer?” Moore asked, his suspicion obvious even to a non-empath.  “Our prisoners are all home-grown.”

            “If it were a Skolian jammer,” Tyra explained, grasping for patience, “Imperator Skolia’s override codes would have allowed him to turn it off.  If it were of Allied manufacture…forgive me, but ASC’s mesh security protocols are no barrier to any determined hack.  Only ESCom makes a jammer that Imperator Skolia and six Jagernauts can’t override.”

            “But how would Allied assassins get Eubian military equipment?”

            “That is the interesting question, isn’t it?” Tyra agreed.  “It would be a round, metallic object, about the size of one of those delicious orange-colored citrus fruits you grow south of here.”  She shaped her hands to demonstrate.

            Behind Morris, Senator Greeley gave a violent start.  Tyra turned her attention to him and observed, “Now, that was an interesting reaction, Senator.  Have you anything you would like to add to this discussion of ESCom spy equipment?”

            “No!” Greeley exclaimed, his right hand clutching at his coat as he backed away from the Jagernaut.  “I mean, I didn’t…don’t know what you mean!” 

            “Sergeant Asfardi!” Morris called, and a dusky-skinned woman came over and saluted.

            “Do me the kindness of finding out what is in the Senator’s pockets.”

            For a moment, Tyra thought Greeley might resist, but Asfardi was half his age and the Senator had fought all his battles with words.  He looked around at the circle of accusing eyes surrounding him, searching for even a hint of support or uncertainty, but found none.  As it became clear that he would not be able to talk his way out of the search, not even by invoking his privileged status, the fight went out of him.

            Asfardi’s search was efficient and within moments, the jammer had emerged from its hiding place.  Greeley took one look at the incriminating silver sphere and burst into tears. 

            “I just wanted my discussion with the President to be private,” he insisted.  “That’s all.  Mr. Williams said it would prevent the Skolians from eavesdropping, electronically or with that telepathy nonsense they claim their rulers use.”

            “And who is this Mr. Williams?” Morris asked.

            “He’s a lobbyist for a couple of Eubian trade conglomerates, I believe,” Greeley answered.  “He keeps a low profile.  I think he has a drinking problem, because his eyes are always reddish, but his advice has been useful.”

            “If he has red eyes, he’s either an Aristo or a halfbreed, high-ranking slave,” Tyra interjected.  “Just the sort of person ESCom would use as a spymaster.”

            Greeley ignored her and continued, explaining to Morris, “He told me that sphere would provide a small bubble of privacy so I could sound out the President on a possible solution to this impasse we’re in without the Skolians knowing.”  He looked at Morris in stark appeal.  “He said it was a prototype one of his clients was developing for the business market,”

            “And you believed him?”  Tyra shook her head in disgust. 

            “He didn’t say anything about sending in helicopters full of armed assassins,” the Senator protested. 

            “Of course he didn’t,” the Jagernaut said sarcastically.  “He’s got Aristo blood, if his eyes are red, which makes him almost a person to his masters.  Why would he tell his plans to a slave without a drop of that exalted heritage?  Particularly one who was fast outliving his usefulness and might say something awkward if he happened to survive?”

            Greeley’s eyes widened.  “I’m the best support the Eubians have in the Senate.  Why would they want me dead?”  It was obvious that he hadn’t previously considered that he might have been one of the intended targets of the assassins.

            Tyra looked at him with contemptuous pity.  “Because your Mr. Williams was lying to you about more than the identity of his employers.”  She gestured at the silvery sphere in Asfardi’s hands.  “That gadget will block all mesh and radio signals for two miles, but it can’t prevent a psion from picking up your thoughts if you’re close enough and the psion isn’t shielding.  Did he happen to ask you if you’d had the training ASC offers in how to raise mental shields?”

            “Why, yes he did,” the hapless Senator admitted.  “How did you know?”

            “That’s probably when he decided you had to die,” the Jagernaut continued.  “He couldn’t risk you thinking about him where the lack of other minds about might let the Imperator or Prince Del-Kurj pick it up.  It would have been simpler to just kill you himself, but this plan gave him a decent chance to assassinate President Loughten and Imperator Skolia, too.  If he’d succeeded…”  She shrugged.  “His masters at ESCom would have rewarded him well.  And billions more people would have died in the war of conquest they’d have launched.”

            Greeley looked down at his hands, which were shaking, then to the stretcher where the unconscious President Loughten lay.  “I didn’t know,” he insisted.  “How could I have guessed?”

            The sun was setting over the Potomac before Fitz McLane had dealt with the most pressing security issues.  That, unfortunately, left him free to deal with the diplomatic fallout.  With the civilian head of the Allied Worlds undergoing emergency surgery at Walter Reed, he was the logical choice to tender his government’s sincere apologies to the Skolians for endangering their Imperator and his brother.

            It was a duty he would gladly have avoided, most particularly since the ranking Skolian representative on Earth, the one to whom he had to tender that apology, was the unforgiving Kelric Skolia, not the more diplomatic and approachable Ambassador Tron. 

            The Imperator, however, did not look particularly angry when the call was placed through to his quarters on his flagship Roca’s Pride, just tired.  Well, it had been a long day for everybody concerned.

            “My greetings, Imperator Skolia,” Fitz said carefully, pressing the limits of his knowledge of Iotic and hoping that he wasn’t fatally mispronouncing the greeting.  Still, the protocol people insisted that it was an important sign of his sincerity to offer the initial greeting in the Imperator’s language, even if he had to rely on a translator for the rest of the conversation.

            “My greetings, General McLane,” came the response in equally awkward English.  Then, to Fitz’s astonishment, the Imperator switched to Skolian Flag, a language in which the Allied General was moderately fluent.  “Might I trouble you for a private conversation?”

            While it made sense to use a common language and not introduce translation errors, it was an unheard-of concession during a diplomatic exchange, particularly since the Skolians were the aggrieved party.  Fitz could think of only two logical reasons for such an unprecedented action: the Imperator either wished to convey the extreme depth of his displeasure in terms that otherwise might start a war, or he was reserving the official Skolian response for later, when it could be used for maximum diplomatic effect to force favorable changes in the proposed treaty.  On the less-logical side, perhaps the Skolian leader was as tired of the endless circular diplomatic debates as the rest of them. 

            In either case, there could be only one response, and he offered it in Skolian Flag.  “Of course, Imperator Skolia.”

            He dismissed the translator and aides who had been standing by, then turned back to the screen.  “How can I help you?”

            “Primary Jarin reports that President Loughten was badly injured during the assassination attempt.  I trust that her prognosis is good?”

            This was a less belligerent opening than he had feared.  “The President took a bullet through the shoulder.  The surgeons think it can be repaired, but she lost a lot of blood.  We’ll know more in the morning.”

            “That’s excellent news.”  A colder tone chilled his voice as he asked, “Do you have any further intelligence regarding the assassins?”

            Fitz shook his head.  “Nothing definitive.  The ‘Mr. Williams’ who gave Senator Greeley the jammer has disappeared.  We’re watching the starports, but the chances are that he was off planet before the attack happened.”

            “If he was an ESCom spymaster, you won’t find him,” the Imperator agreed.

            “The assassins themselves were local malcontents.  We may be able to find out how Williams recruited them when the mesh technicians reestablish the crashed node and its subsidiaries, but that’s going to take weeks.”

            One golden eyebrow lifted.  “There was that much damage to the hardware?”

            “The hardware’s fine, but the anti-meshplague defenses in Harrisburg wiped the programming clean.  The technicians will have to start from scratch.” 

            “With that much of a head start, the survivors will have had plenty of time to erase all traces of the conspiracy and disappear underground.”

            “I know.”  Fitz strove to keep any hint of defensiveness from his voice.  It wasn’t a secret that Skolian mesh technology, built around the faster-than-light Kylespace links, was faster and more efficient than the entirely mechanical Allied and Eubian systems.  There wasn’t much that could be done about it: only the Skolians had access to the Kyle technology left behind by the ancient Ruby Empire, and they kept those secrets close lest the Eubians use it against them. 

            “If the mechanical structure is intact, I can rebuild the node in an hour or two…if you wish.”

            Fitz managed to keep his jaw from dropping, but it was a near thing.  “An hour or two?” he asked in disbelief.

            The massive shoulders shrugged in what the Allied general thought might be an apology.  “Dehya could do it faster, and my father could weave nodes as fluidly as he sang.  I don’t have their subtlety, and it’s been a long day, but I can at least get the mesh restored by morning.  And start a search for our assassins, as well.  With luck, it might find something before they have time to erase all the evidence.”

            “That is…extraordinarily generous of you,” Fitz managed to get out.

            “You’re welcome.”

            After the Skolian leader’s unprecedented offer, Fitz was hesitant to make any further demands.  However, he was accountable to his Commander-in-Chief, and he knew what her first question was going to be.  “The White House reports that President Loughten’s children are unaccounted for, as is one of their security detail.  Primary Jarin said that they left Gettysburg with you and your security detail.  Are they with you?”

            “I sent the children home with Del,” came the answer.  “It seemed safest not to send them back to the White House and proud as I am of my flagship, the Annandale estate is a much more child-friendly environment.”  The gold hands spread in a plea for understanding.  “I do apologize for not letting you know sooner, but I wasn’t sure how badly your security has been compromised.  I thought it safest to wait until I could talk to you in person.”

            “No harm done,” Fitz hastened to offer assurance.  “As confused as matters have been this afternoon, it’s just as well that the children were elsewhere.”  The general rubbed a hand over his tired eyes, hoping the massage would allow them to stay focused for another few hours.  “I’ll arrange for somebody to pick them up.  Their closest relative is an aunt who’s offworld at the moment, I believe, but she might be able to come take care of them until President Loughten is out of the hospital.”

            The Imperator gave him a measuring look.  “They are welcome to stay at the Annandale estate under Del’s care until their mother recovers enough to make other arrangements.  I’m adding extra security there for a while, but I don’t anticipate trouble.  The Eubians were after your leaders, this time.”

            Fitz looked startled, then shook his head.  “I thank you for the generous offer, Imperator Skolia, but the children really ought to be under the care of a counselor with experience in helping children cope with this sort of extreme, senseless violence.”

            “I agree,” the Imperator said in a level voice.  “That’s why I made the suggestion.”  His voice took on a bleak edge, as if triggered by some unhappy memory.  “I assure you, Del has a great deal of practical experience helping children through exactly this kind of trauma.  He’s very good at it.  I can give you my personal assurance of that.”

            Since there really wasn’t a better solution available on short notice, Fitz agreed to let the children stay in Annandale for the moment.  He wasn’t really worried that the Skolians would harm them, hold them hostage, or otherwise abuse the trust.  However, the conversation kept nagging at him as he dealt with the continuing chaos the assassination attempt had engendered.  It concerned him enough to consult with Mac.

            “There’s something about the way the Imperator responded that I’m not understanding,” he complained, after the manager had watched the tape of the exchange.  “I have the sinking suspicion that it’s important, too.  Maybe the whole key to this Skolian mess that’s been haunting us since Prince Del-Kurj decided to stay on Earth.”

            Mac replayed the tape.  “His personal assurance…  You’re right, there’s something about the way the Imperator says that…”  He gazed off into the distance for a moment, then stiffened as he turned back to Fitz.  “Del says he used to babysit Kelric when he was young.  Let’s look at that a moment.  The Imperator is, what, a little over sixty years old?  For Del to have been left in charge, it had to be after Prince Eldrin left Skyfall to marry the Pharaoh and after Prince Althor had entered the Dieshan Military Academy.  That puts it around…”  He calculated, then named a date.  “Wasn’t that during the first war the Skolians had with the Eubians?  The one in which Del’s father was tortured by a Trader agent and his mother was also captured?  The time he’s talking about in Carnelians Finale?”

            Fitz checked the calculations.  “That would be about right, yes.”

            “Fitz…who would have been taking care of the younger Ruby heirs on Skyfall, when their parents and older siblings were getting themselves beaten to hell and back?”

            The general thought about it for a moment, then paled.  “No wonder the Imperator goes half insane with worry any time Del is threatened.  We’ve been playing with fire and we didn’t even know it.”

            Mac nodded.  “We have.  Del isn’t a disregarded failure or a black sheep, whatever his own opinion of himself.  Or not only those.  He’s also the one who kept the family together through some of their hardest traumas.  That drug reaction that landed him in an artificial womb for forty-five years… He’d been taking on burdens no teenager should have to face, for years.  It’s no wonder he wanted to play a little, see what a normal adolescence is like.  As recreational drugs go, taus are an extremely safe choice—for anybody but Del.”

Chapter 29

In which the hunt for root causes begins.

            When Hannah Loughten opened her eyes for the second time since the assassination attempt, it was to a sterile hospital room.  The monitors beeped and hummed annoyingly, just as they had in the recovery room earlier, but this time she was not so heavily drugged that she couldn’t think.  It was a slow and laborious process, but she could do it. 

            A nurse was hovering at her bedside.  After some negotiation, Hannah was able to get a drink of water.  When she couldn’t get a straight answer to her questions, however, she kicked the woman out of the room under orders to send in somebody who could tell her what was happening.

            It turned out to be Fitz, looking even more exhausted than usual.  He didn’t try to hide his relief at seeing her conscious.

            “How bad is the damage?” she asked him, indicating her heavily bandaged shoulder with a nod.

            “The doctors tell me that you were hit by a ricochet.  The bullet went through your left shoulder and nicked an artery.  You lost a lot of blood before they got the bleeding stopped.  They can’t be sure whether it damaged any nerves yet.  The good news is, you’ll probably recover all or nearly all the function.”

            “I’m glad to hear it.  What about the rest of the party?”

            “Six Secret Service agents were killed, three were wounded, none as badly as you.  Your limo and chase car, with all their equipment, were pretty much destroyed.”

            “The children?”

            “Are safe and uninjured.  The Skolian bodyguards pulled them out with the Imperator and Prince Del-Kurj.  They’re staying at Del’s Annandale estate for the moment.”  Fitz noticed her astonishment.  “Del offered, and they seem very comfortable with him.  Besides, at the moment, the Skolian security team is less likely to be compromised than ours.” 

            “I’m sure they’re effective, but how much can we really trust them?”

            “We’d have lost everybody without them.”  He shook his head in amazement.  “They not only spotted the attackers moving in from their hostile emotions, but the two Jagernauts the Imperator left behind somehow managed to fight off five of the six helicopters full of reinforcements the assassins had in reserve.  Those Jumblers are nasty, nasty weapons.”

            “You haven’t mentioned Senator Greeley.  Was he injured?”

            The General’s jaw set and his eyes blazed with fury.  “The Senator from Mississippi is unharmed, except for some minor scratches from flying rock shards.  He is also under arrest, under suspicion of treason.”

            Hannah felt her jaw drop.  “What?”

            “He was carrying a Eubian military-grade jammer.  He triggered it just before the attack to prevent your guards from coordinating with each other or calling for help.”  The general shrugged.  “His lawyers are claiming that the Skolians planted it on him, but they can’t explain how it got into the inside pocket of his suit without his noticing.  The thing weighs almost a pound.  Also, his fingerprints were all over it.”

            A cold anger swept through Hannah Loughten, sweeping away the drug-induced fog.  A spike of pain burned through her shoulder, but she felt much more herself.  “I knew Greeley was in the pay of corporate sponsors who want to expand trade with the Eubians, but I didn’t think he was the sort of person who’d deliberately send children into an assassination attempt.”

            “How much Greeley knew about the plan is currently unknown.  The Skolians are working on the assumption that he was also a target.”

            Hannah blinked in astonishment.  “That’s unexpected.  After all the grief he’s given them over the treaty, I’d have thought they’d be after his head.  Literally.”  The Skolian Imperialate, unlike the Allied Worlds, still allowed executions as a punishment for major crimes, especially those of a political nature.

            “I can only assume they know something we don’t, and they’re not telling us about it.”  The General clenched his hands into fists in frustration.  “Apparently, their desire for an alliance has its limits, when it comes to sharing military intelligence.”

            Hannah considered a moment, then shook her head.  Carefully, so as not to jostle her shoulder, which had settled into a steady throb.  “The Imperator and his brother are telepaths, Fitz.  If Greeley had known we were about to be attacked, they’d have picked it up long before it happened.”  She gave a wry smile.  “Of course, to disclose that would be to confess they were snooping.  I admit to mixed feelings about such spying, even though that particular talent allowed Prince Del-Kurj to warn us in time to get under cover.” 

            “I can have some of our psychological experts teach you and your staff the fundamentals of mind-shielding.  Of course, we only have the word of the Skolians regarding how effective that is.”  He spread his hands in admission of the paradox.

            Hannah considered, then nodded.  “Not a bad idea, when there’s time to take on a new project.  Since it appears we’ll be dealing with the Ruby Dynasty in person for a while longer.” 

            “To tell you the truth, it’s not their mind-reading abilities that scare me the most about the Ruby Dynasty,” the General admitted.  “Everyone agrees those are strictly limited.  It’s their mesh technology that worries me.  They’re so far ahead of us in mesh design that we might as well be sending up smoke signals.”

            “The Eubians can’t send messages faster than light, either,” Hannah consoled him.  “At least, not without help from the Skolians.”

            “It’s not just that,” Fitz admitted, looking stressed.  “Part of the reason it took the security cordon so long to respond when you were attacked is that the local mesh node collapsed under the load when the mobile node was destroyed.  The fail-safes saved the hardware, but the programming that turns it into a useful mesh couldn’t be salvaged.  Our techs were estimating two to three weeks to restore function.”

            “Were estimating?”

            Her five-star general’s unease grew, if anything.  “I mentioned that to Imperator Skolia, when he asked how we were coming with our investigation.  He pointed out that the delay would allow any surviving assassins and their accomplices to destroy incriminating evidence, and offered to restore the node.”  His haunted eyes met hers.  “It took him just two hours to build and install it, Hannah.  Two hours—and Chet Fau-Lin, the lead technician on the team who tested it for me, was literally weeping with astonishment, babbling about how the programming is so tight, so stable, and so flexible that it works like thought itself.”

            “And has this marvelous node returned any information on the assassins?” Hannah Loughten asked in her driest tone. 

            “Our people are working on it,” Fitz said. 

            A commotion out in the hallway caught their attention.  Frowning, the General moved to place himself between the bed and the door.  The sound wasn’t that of a fight, however.  Mixed with the adult voices was the high-pitched babble of childish voices.  Hannah’s shoulder seemed to throb a little less as she said, “Fitz, I don’t think that’s another assassination attempt.”

            At the same time, the door opened and the nurse announced, “Madam President, your children are here to see you.”  She turned and frowned out into the hallway.  “Five minutes only.  She needs her rest.”

            “I promise, we won’t overtire her,” Prince Del-Kurj’s resonant voice assured the nurse.  That formidable individual blushed scarlet, then stepped aside, smoothing down her starched uniform.

            “Mommy!” a chorus of high-pitched voices greeted her, as the girls dodged past the nurse and ran into the room.  Hannah braced herself for the pain of a jostled shoulder but they hugged her feet, instead.  They even managed not to bump the bed.  Much.

            “We’ve been picking apples and I got to hear the band practice and we made applesauce but Del says we have to go to school tomorrow and do we really have to?” Sasha began.

            Her sister was yelling in counterpoint, “I rode a pony but Sasha couldn’t because she’s too big and I drawed you a picture but I forgot it but I’ll bring it tomorrow and…”

            “Mommy!” a new yell came from the door, perilously close to tears.  Prince Del-Kurj followed her offspring into the room, dressed casually as he had been the day before, in worn mesh jeans and a T-shirt.  The Skolian held a struggling Eddie firmly under one arm, a sensible precaution against the tendency of toddlers to wander off and explore.  He set the boy down and with a wail, Eddie ran to hug her. 

            Fitz stepped back from the bed and watched the reunion.  Skeptical as he’d been when the Imperator offered to leave the President’s children in his brother’s care, they seemed to be doing well.  Better than they would have done if they were back at the White House, anyway, in the care of a staff that was in crisis mode. 

            That this supported Mac’s insight into Prince Del-Kurj’s role as substitute parent for his younger siblings during the first Radiance War was less reassuring than it might be, given the holorock singer’s ability to attract trouble.

            The Skolian prince turned to Fitz and gave him an ironic wave.  “Hi, General!”

            “Good afternoon, Your Highness,” Fitz offered in return, with a short bow.  He hoped the obeisance and use of Del’s title would substitute for the diplomatic faux pas of speaking in his own language.  He was not in the mood to struggle with Iotic, when the singer spoke perfectly good English.

            “You’ve saved me an argument with your staff,” Del continued.  “Kelric left me a message for you.”

            “A message?”  The General wondered why the Imperator had chosen to send a message through a brother who was almost completely uninvolved in official dealings with the Allied government, instead of through the Ambassador or by simply comming his office in Annapolis.

            “Yes.  He’s had to leave orbit.  There was a problem with a pirate fleet blockading commerce in the Quivan system.  The Roca is best positioned to respond before they can disappear.”

            “I see.”  Fitz wondered if the hasty departure was also intended as a personal rebuke to himself, as the Allied officer in charge of securing the safety of the Allied Worlds and their citizens, for allowing a presumed Eubian spymaster to operate so freely on Earth itself.  “I hope this doesn’t mean your government is abandoning the treaty?”  He couldn’t blame the Skolians for doing so, after the way the Eubians had managed to play the Allied government like a puppet, but he had no desire to have his government opened to even greater Eubian influence.

            “Not at all,” the prince hastened to assure him.  “But it’s not likely that much will be accomplished until this current mess is sorted out.  Mother is on her way out from Parthonia.  She’ll arrive in a week or so, by which time progress should be possible again.”

            “I see.”  The news brought home once again the huge advantage that the Kyleweb gave the Skolians.  An Allied world under siege would not have been able to call for help in time for ASC to respond so effectively.  That the Skolian Foreign Affairs Minister could so easily afford to divert to Earth to take up where her sons had left off, in full confidence that she could communicate, at length and in real time, with her colleagues on Parthonia, was equally impressive. 

            “Kelric built a search for the assassins into the new Gettysburg node before he left,” Del continued blithely.  “The program is keyed so that both of us are needed to run it.  I can come to your office when I’ve dropped the girls off at the White House to pack some clothes and incidentals.  Oh, and we’ll need your virtual conference room.”

            The prince turned back to the bed, frowning in concern.  “All right, girls.  Your mother needs to rest now, so she can heal.  Say good-bye, Eddie.  We can come back and visit again tomorrow.”

            With what he freely admitted was petty satisfaction, Fitz noted that even three boisterous children were no match for a Skolian Ruby prince’s ability to arbitrarily impose his own plan of action on others.  It almost countered his realization that Del had spoken just before, not after, the President’s face had turned pale with exhaustion.

            The virtual conference room shimmered into existence around Fitz, showing four blank walls.  Prince Del appeared beside him, dressed in the same worn jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing, rips, stains, and all.  Fitz’s own uniform looked freshly pressed, unlike the one he was actually wearing.  He had long since left permanent instructions with the computer that ran the virtual reality conference room to make sure he was presentable at all times.

            The Skolian prince looked around at the bare walls curiously.

            “I suppose we should try to contact the Gettysburg node,” Fitz suggested.  In response to the verbal cue, a console appeared in the middle of the floor.  Fitz stepped up to it and looked at the keyboard, trying to remember if Skolian consoles used the same arrangement as Allied ones.  That could be inconvenient for the maintenance techs, if the node’s grasp of English was as limited as its creator’s.  These keys were labeled with Allied letters, though, not Skolian glyphs. Hoping for the best, he touched what should be the proper button.

            To his relief, the console lit and prompted him for his codes.  He entered them, making a mental note to have them changed.  While the Skolians probably could break Allied security protocols if they worked at it, there was no reason to make it easy for them.  The console paused for a moment, then said, “Identity accepted.  Welcome, General McLane.”

            From then on, things got very strange.

            The console switched to a lilting language the General didn’t understand.  “What’s that?” he asked.

            “It’s Trillian,” Del said absently.  “It wants me to sing the third verse of a song my father wrote for Mother.” 

            The prince took an easy breath and sang an operatic waterfall of notes, soaring well into the range normally used by sopranos.  His voice chimed oddly on some of the notes.  The console hummed in response, then the blank walls took on an uneven texture, with vertical blue-green streaks on the lower half and violet mottled with blue above.  The effect was much like a painting by Monet.

            “What’s that?” Fitz asked, looking around at the display.

            Del gave a put-upon sigh.  “Proof that Kelric lacks anything resembling an artistic imagination, as if it was needed,” he grumbled.  The prince frowned at the walls a moment.  The colors shifted and sharpened, the console disappeared, and they were standing on a low mound in the middle of a rolling, grassy prairie.  No, it wasn’t grass:  it was tubular, blue-green reeds with round growths at their tips.  As Fitz watched, one of the growths popped, releasing a shower of silvery glitter.  Above them, blue clouds floated in a lavender sky.  The degree of detail in the simulation took Fitz’s breath away.

            With a start, the General noticed that his companion’s mesh jeans, T-shirt, and tennis shoes had disappeared.  In their place, Del wore the same sort of blue trousers, black boots, and embroidered shirt that he had donned for Anne’s wedding, except that these clothes were more worn and there was a leather gauntlet on his right arm.  The Skolian looked completely at home in the odd garments.  Fitz was less pleased when he discovered that his own crisp uniform had also been modified by the addition of a large leather satchel hanging over his shoulder.  While the leather was supple, it was also old and stained.

            “That’s more like it,” Prince Del-Kurj grumbled.  He flashed Fitz a mercurial grin.  “Welcome to Lyshriol, General.  Let’s go hunting.”  He flung out his right arm and whistled.  With an answering screech, a large bird swooped down for a landing, sharp talons grasping the leather gauntlet and cruelly curved beak chittering a greeting. 

            “What’s that?” Fitz asked.  He was familiar with many of Earth’s raptors, and he was pretty sure that none of them had iridescent blue and purple feathers, or silvery claws.

            “Kelric’s search program,” answered the prince absently, gently scratching one feathery eyebrow.  “Mostly, anyway.  Let’s see what we can catch.”  He threw the bird into the air and it took flight, soaring into the lavender sky.  It circled, stalled, then dove for the ground.  “I think we’ve got a hit,” Del grinned.  He whistled again and the bird took flight, a ball of fur hanging from its talons.  It didn’t work for height this time, but came directly to Del’s gauntlet.  He murmured liquid words of praise as he untangled the dead, bloody prey from the cruel talons, then it held out for Fitz’s inspection.  “Here, put this in your game bag.”

            “Is that what this is?” the General asked, prodding the leather satchel.

            “Yup.”

            Gingerly, Fitz opened the pouch, then took the battered lump of fur from Del.  It was a rodent of some kind, he decided, but not quite like any of the Earth vermin he knew.  It looked like a cross between a mangy gopher and a deformed rat.  Wrinkling his mouth in distaste, he dropped the bloody trophy into the bag.

            Del had already relaunched the bird and was watching it soar upward.  It circled higher, until it was barely a dot in the lavender sky.

            “Del!  What are you doing in the Blue?”

            In the way of virtual simulations, a man had appeared beside them.  He was shorter than Del but taller than Fitz.  His white-blonde hair and slightly pointed ears gave him a wild, fey look that matched his primitive, fur-and-leather garments.  Over one shoulder was slung a bow and across the other, a quiver of arrows.  He might have been a stock character from any number of sim games based on groups of caped adventurers wandering through vaguely medieval, magical realms, but a sim programmer could never have made a character move with that lithe grace, or managed to make the fine hair respond so realistically to the variations in the breeze.

            “My greetings, Shannon!”  Del grinned, hugging the newcomer.  “It’s good to see you.  How are Chaniece and the boys?”

            “Worried,” the archer answered succinctly.  “Chaniece said something was wrong yesterday, so I told her I’d ask Aunt Dehya what was going on.”

            “Kelric and I ran into some trouble, but we’re fine,” Del hastened to reassure him.  “That’s why I’m here:  Kelric got diverted, so he asked me to help General McLane here track down the troublemakers.”  He turned to Fitz.  “General, this is my brother Shannon.”

            Fitz had enough presence of mind to bow and murmur, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.”  The rest of him was wondering just how Del’s brother, who as far as he knew was light years away on Skyfall, had made it into a simulation running on a minor Earth node. 

            “What news from Lyshriol?” Del asked.

            “Chaniece and Vyrl agreed to plant the north field in those new sour bubbles he developed.  They’re supposed to handle the wetter soil without rotting.  Delson won the footrace last market day.  He really is doing well with his running.”

            Del grinned.  “Good for him!”

            Shannon nodded, then continued.  “Jacqui is helping me train the young lyrine.  I’ve told him that if he does a good job, he can have Winddancer’s next foal for his own.”

            The singer considered, then nodded.  “Her foals tend to be sensible.  Is Vyrl working on any other projects?”

            Shannon shrugged.  “You know Vyrl.  He’s always working on something.  Mostly, though, he’s working on designing better crops for his new wife’s people.”

            As they gossiped, the two brothers turned to watch the hawk, which was circling lower now.  “I think she sees something,” Del said, as the bird swooped nearer.

            “Uh-oh, trouble,” Shannon warned, pointing at the sky beyond.  “A vulture-eagle.”

            Fitz squinted, then saw a larger dot above and behind Del’s hawk.  The new bird shrilled a challenge and prepared to dive down.

            Del swore, with some creativity and in multiple languages.

            “I’ve got it,” Shannon said calmly. 

            In one of those disorienting jumps for which virtual reality was famous, the elfin prince had his bow out and an arrow on the string.  The bow was a simple wooden stave tied with what looked like a length of animal sinew, meticulously handcrafted but with neither pulleys to provide a mechanical assist nor anything more complicated than a few scratches on the wood to aid in aiming.  There was no way that such a device could possibly shoot far enough to reach Del’s hawk, much less its pursuer.  Nevertheless, moments after the arrow flew, the second bird plummeted toward the ground.  With a shriek of triumph, the blue and violet hawk landed on its erstwhile foe.  A moment later, in a clear violation of physics, it flew toward them, dangling the arrow-pierced carcass from its talons. 

            “Your techs will want to look at this,” Del said, removing the arrow and handing Fitz the trophy.  “Better put it in a different compartment from the gorple.” 

            The General compared the size of his satchel with that of their latest acquisition.  It didn’t take a tape measure to see that the latter was twice the size of the former.

            “Go on,” Shannon said with a fey laugh.  “It’ll fit.”

            Thus encouraged, Fitz made the attempt and found that his “game bag” could hold objects larger than it was, like the magic backpacks in the fairy stories his mother had read to him as a child.  Del prepared to launch his hawk again.

            “My greetings,” a silvery voice said from right behind them. 

            The three men turned, disconcerted, then Del and his brother greeted the newcomer in unison, “Aunt Dehya!”

Chapter 30

In which Fitz McLane has second thoughts about accepting foreign aid.

            General Fitz McLane liked his world predictable.  Having Del’s brother Shannon appear in the Gettysburg node virtual simulation was odd enough.  The appearance of their aunt crossed the line into problematic.

            Shannon’s bow and quiver disappeared, leaving his arms free to hug the newcomer, while Del secured the hawk’s jesses on a perch that had conveniently sprung into being beside him, attached to the top of a post that was driven securely into the ground.  Then Del also offered a hug, leaning down to drop an affectionate kiss on his aunt’s forehead.

            Fitz hung back, looking at the small, deceptively fragile figure.  Dressed in a simple white jumpsuit, with long black hair hanging free to her waist, she looked like a lost waif.  The General wasn’t fooled.  Del’s “Aunt Dehya” was the second oldest human being alive, a reclusive mathematical genius who had the reputation of being able to manipulate the Kyleweb like no other.

            She smiled fondly as she hugged her nephews, every inch the indulgent aunt.  Then she turned to Fitz.  She was still dressed in the informal jumpsuit, she still looked like a fragile porcelain doll, but in that moment she became Dyhianna Selei, the Ruby Pharaoh, the most iron-willed ruler in known space.

            “General McLane,” she greeted him, in a distinctly frosty tone.

            “Your Highness,” Fitz returned, bowing perhaps a little deeper than protocol strictly required.  With luck, she would interpret it correctly as an apology for the recent lapse in Allied security.  While the Imperator had seemed to place the blame on the Eubians, Fitz feared that the Pharaoh would be less forgiving of the carelessness that had endangered two of her nephews. 

            “I trust you are making progress in bringing your latest group of troublemakers to account?” she asked, dashing his hopes that she might be inclined toward leniency.

            Despite decades in the military, where strict etiquette demanded a complete deadpan while being dressed down by a higher-ranking officer, Fitz felt himself wince.

            “Stop giving the poor General a hard time, Aunt Dehya,” Del scolded lightly, moving the hawk back onto his gauntlet.  “The Eubians just got their claws into one privileged idiot of a Senator and some exceptionally stupid malcontents. We’re hunting them down now.”

            Fitz was reminded of an old saying regarding “friends like these.”

            The Pharaoh gave her scapegrace nephew a considering look, then allowed her attention to be diverted to Del’s hawk, much to Fitz’s relief.  “She’s a fine bird,” came the grudging admission.  The slight form leaned closer and the avian head turned to look at her.  One delicate finger reached out to scratch the feathered head, then traced down the bird’s back, over the wings, and down to the tip of the tail.

            Fitz blinked.  The hawk suddenly looked more intensely real.  Its feathers fluffed, each individual barb on each feather gleamed, and its talons looked sharp enough to cut diamond.

            “Let’s see what you can catch, now, hmm?” the Pharaoh crooned.

            The hawk’s head cocked sideways in a listening attitude.  The leather ties binding it to the perch disappeared, it crouched, then launched in a flurry of wingbeats.  In mere moments, it was out of sight.

            The Skolian ruler then proceeded to chat with her nephews while they waited for the hawk to return.  This time, Fitz could not understand their words.  He wondered if the absence of translation was the Pharaoh’s doing, or Del’s. 

            “There she is!” Shannon called in English a few minutes later, pointing in quite a different direction from that in which the bird had disappeared. 

            So, Fitz thought, as he scanned the sky in the indicated direction, it looks like I’m being allowed to understand any words directly related to the search, but not any of the family gossip.  Fair enough.  His eyes were no longer young, but it wasn’t long before he, too, could make out the form of the returning hawk.  From its cruel talons dangled a rope fishing net, in which several dozen of the gopher-rats were tangled.

            Del snickered.  “Aunt Deyha, hawks don’t use nets!”

            “This hawk does,” the Pharaoh pointed out primly, as the bird deposited its load of trapped rodents at her feet, then hopped back onto Del’s perch.  “It’s much more efficient to round up all the vermin at once than to catch them one by one.  It gives them less time to scatter.”  She picked up the net and its captives with one delicate finger and presented them to Fitz.  “This is for your game bag, General McLane.” 

            “Thank you for your assistance, Pharaoh Dyhianna,” he responded, relieving her of the burden.  At least, after the vulture-eagle, he was confident that they would fit.

            The Skolian ruler turned her back on him, a clear dismissal, then spent a few more minutes in incomprehensible conversation with her nephews.  At the end of it, she simply disappeared.

            “Only Aunt Dehya would think to arm a hawk with a net,” Del chuckled, shaking his head.

            “Next thing you know, she’ll be equipping pack lyrine with wheelbarrows,” his brother Shannon agreed. 

            Since Fitz could now understand the two princes perfectly well, he concluded that it was the Pharaoh who had been blocking whatever translation program was being used. 

            “Shannon, can you take the hawk back to the mews?” Del asked.  “And give my love to Chaniece and tell her that Kelric and I are perfectly fine?”

            “Sure,” Shannon said, as the bow and quiver of arrows reappeared, slung over his shoulders.  He held out a hand that was suddenly encased by a leather gauntlet like Del’s, except the leather had a carefully sewn patch across the back of the hand, and then he chirruped in encouragement.  With great dignity, the hawk jumped carefully across to the new glove and settled calmly for the ride as Shannon strode off across the prairie.  In the way of virtual simulations, he faded into the distance much faster than one would expect from the speed of his walk.

            “We’d better be getting back, too, General,” Del said, as the rolling prairie faded back into an oddly painted virtual conference room.  The prince nodded toward the console.  “I think you can download your catch and the vulture-eagle into that.

            Fitz put a hand to his waist, where he discovered that the bulky satchel had been replaced by a small silk pouch.  He reached inside and found a portable data cube.  With unfeigned relief that he wasn’t being required to skin and gut virtual vermin, he popped the cube into a port on the console and started a download into a firewall-secured memory bank.

            After their virtual-reality suits had been shed, hospitality had been offered and refused, and Prince Del had left for the White House to pick up the President’s children and their baggage and return them to his estate, Fitz spent the next three hours reviewing as much as he could understand of the information that Allied Intelligence had put together on the Skolian Kyleweb, while ASC routine and not-so-routine business languished on his desktop.  It was four hours after the simulation ended, and he had switched to scanning the dossiers ASC maintained on the members of the Ruby Dynasty, when his aide Major Baxton told him that Chet Fau-Lin was ready to report.

            “It’s about time,” the General grumbled under his breath, then ordered Baxton to show the man in. 

            Fau-Lin was the civilian head of the tech team that had been monitoring the Gettysburg node since it had been reinstalled so abruptly.  Fitz generally preferred to use technical support within the ASC chain of command, but Fau-Lin was the best mesh design expert available.  He was also rather short and his shaggy, badly combed hair grew well beyond the regulation military length.  A distinct five-o-clock-two-days-ago shadow, with matching dark circles underneath his eyes, suggested that grooming had been set aside in the face of other priorities. 

            “So, did the Imperator’s search turn up anything useful?” Fitz asked him.

            “A dozen or more names. Security is going through them.  They’ll report directly to you when they know anything specific.”

            The General nodded.  “And how is our newest node behaving itself?”

            “It seems to be working well, but…”  The programmer’s eyes grew haunted.  “General, I don’t know what Imperator Skolia installed on the Gettysburg node, but it doesn’t behave like any programming I’ve ever encountered.”  Fau-Lin’s black eyes met his as the man confessed, “I don’t have the faintest idea how it works.  What happened while you were in the sim?”

            “I was hoping you could tell me that,” Fitz countered.  “What did your monitors see in the node?  They should have recorded all the activity, right?”

            “The monitors seemed to be working well at first,” the mesh wizard agreed.  “They recorded you and Prince Del-Kurj entering the virtual conference room, verifying your identity, and calling up a hidden routine on the node.  That was pretty much what I was expecting.  But then, an outside program took over the simulation.”

            “An outside program?” Fitz frowned.  “From where?”

            “That’s just it!  I don’t know where it came from, it just appeared.  Out of nowhere.” Fau-Lin’s frustration was quite obvious even in the absence of Ruby-level empathy.  “I had every possible hard and soft link to that node monitored, recording exactly what each was doing as it happened.  This programming wasn’t on the node before the sim began; I confirmed that.  The sim didn’t try to contact any outside node.  It wasn’t programming itself, either.”

            “What was this outside programming doing?” the general asked, trying to get the little man focused back on his report.

            Fau-Lin frowned.  “I couldn’t copy it, but I did get a few snapshots as it ran.  Most of it seemed to be instructions adding background detail to your simulation.  Things like leaves and bugs and clouds, in odd colors.  Brilliant work—it would win awards from any simgame company—but it didn’t seem to have any function other than decoration.”

            Fitz blinked.  “After we ran the security check, the décor changed as the search program started to run,” he said slowly.  “Then Prince Del-Kurj complained that his brother lacked imagination and it suddenly changed to a very detailed sim of his home planet, Skyfall.  That makes Del the logical suspect for your rogue programmer, but as far as we know, he doesn’t know anything at all about programming.  Hell, he can’t even read or write, not even in his native languages.  Not to mention that he was in a bloody sim at the time.  He couldn’t have programmed anything from there.  Right?”

            “Not unless he could reprogram the sim just by thinking at it,” Fau-Lin agreed.  “Your conference room is set to allow each participant to modify his or her own image only.  That programming remains intact—I checked it three times.” 

            The general nodded encouragingly.

            “The modified programming ran several searches, then the whole sim changed again, adding a whole additional layer of detail and modifying the search image.  That was a third programmer.  I’d stake my life on it.  I’ve dissected a lot of code in my time, and every programmer has their own style, makes their own little mistakes.  This was the tightest, cleanest programming I’ve ever seen, bar none.  I’m in awe of the person who designed it.”

            “The Ruby Pharaoh does seem to have that effect on people,” Fitz remarked dryly.

            “The Ruby Pharaoh?”  Fau-Lin blinked.  “I thought the Imperator programmed the node?”

            “He did.  But Pharaoh Dyhianna wandered into the sim while it was running.  No, don’t ask me how.  I don’t know.  The Skolians say that there isn’t a firewall or security block that can stop her.  Perhaps they’re right.”

            “She didn’t program the countercode that caught the trap program on your datacube,” the programmer said.  “That was a fourth person.”

            “Prince Shannon,” Fitz answered the unasked question, remembering an arrow arcing up toward a vulture-eagle.  “To the best of our knowledge, he has never left Skyfall, having chosen to join a group of nomadic, stone age hunter-gatherers living in a remote mountain area when he was eight.”

            “So what was he doing writing sophisticated spyware code to protect a search program running on an Earth node?” Fau-Lin asked.  “How was he able to program anything with an eight-year-old’s education? For that matter, how could he even know the search program existed?”

            “Those are excellent questions,” Fitz agreed.  “I wish I knew the answers.  Is it possible that you can discover them by dissecting the search program itself?”

            The little man shook his head.  “I might have been able to, but the search program disappeared completely from the Gettysburg node as soon as it finished running.  It wasn’t erased; that would have left a record that would allow us to reconstruct it, at least partially.  As far as I can tell, it disappeared into the same black hole from which the node was being accessed.”  He met Fitz’s eyes squarely.  “General McLane, I’ll write up a nice, neat report for you; that’s what I’m paid the fancy consulting fees for, after all.  But all it will do is take a lot of bytes to say that I haven’t the faintest idea how that node operates, how the search was programmed, or where it went when it was finished.”

            As the frustrated Fau-Lin left his office, the general’s gaze went back to the dossiers on his screen.  He thought about a hawk being carried back to the family castle on a young prince’s wrist and he wondered, just for a moment, how programming might look in a universe where code could, in fact, write itself in response to a thought?

            Del was less upset at the thought of an extended maternal visit than he would have been before his mother’s astonishing statement at Anne’s wedding.  Ricki, on the other hand, was seriously considering taking a long vacation to the most remote, backward slum she could find, until her almost-fiancée’s mother had departed safely back to Imperial space.

            When she announced her misgivings to said almost-fiancée a week later, however, he was less than sympathetic.  “Oh, come on, Ricki,” he said, shaking his head in a fashion that further tangled his wine-colored hair, which was already disordered from the morning’s just-finished recording session. 

            “Mother will mostly be occupied with the talks, just like Kelric was,” he continued.  “It’s not like she’s coming here to investigate you or anything like that.”

            “Del, she’s your mother,” Ricki explained as patiently as she could manage, reminding herself that the estrogen-challenged often overlooked the obvious.  “She missed her opportunity at Anne’s wedding because of the crowd, but believe me, she intends to make up for it this trip.  She’s not going to let any mere diplomatic crisis involving the future of two interstellar empires prevent her from putting me through a harsher interrogation than even your notorious namesake could have managed.”

            “Ricki, you have nothing to fear from my mother,” Del pleaded, covering her hands with his oddly hinged ones.  “You’ve passed all the security checks both our governments have run.  There’s nothing in your past that’s so terrible it would cause a crisis.” 

            “Ah, but you see, your mother will be far more interested in the future.  And how can I reassure her that I’d be a good wife for you when I haven’t the faintest idea whether that’s true?  I don’t know anything about being married, much less how to be a princess-by-marriage.  I can’t even speak to your mother without a translator, I don’t know Skolian politics or etiquette…”

            Her lover’s lips twitched.  “Compared to the choices made by some of my family, you’re a very respectable spouse for a Ruby heir.”

            Ricki knew she was being charmed, but she couldn’t help taking the bait when it was offered so…charmingly.  “I thought that the Assembly arranged marriages for your family?”

            “They tried.  They succeeded with Eldrin and Aunt Dehya, but Kurj told them what they could do with their arrangements and married his commoner mistress.  Althor did marry Vaj Majda, who was considered quite acceptable as a Ruby consort, until they made it a three-way marriage with a light-sculpture artist from a colony almost as backward as Lyshriol.  They arranged a marriage with Vaj’s sister Devon for my brother Vyrl, so he eloped with the daughter of the Dalvador butcher.  Shannon topped that by marrying a wild nomad from the mountains.  Kelric came back from the war with an aging Eubian taskmaster slave as a wife.  Besides, mother can hardly protest, because she threw over the most perfect prince the royal houses of Raylicon had produced in three generations for an illiterate farmer from a planet so remote that its one spaceport saw fewer than a dozen ships in a year.”

            “Your father?”

            “Yes.”  His irrepressible grin flashed.  “So you see, Ricki, nobody is going to be anything but relieved that I want to marry a literate, sophisticated, talented, drop-dead-gorgeous woman like you.”  He punctuated each adjective with a brief kiss, and her body registered its own objections to her plan to stay away until Del’s mother left.

            As if of its own accord, her body leaned toward him and her arms slipped around his waist.  “I think,” she admitted slowly, “that I’m starting to get used to the idea of marrying Del Arden, the holorock singer.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to the idea of marrying Prince Del-Kurj, whose family rules nine hundred planets.”

            “We’re well matched, then,” Del admitted.  “Why do you think I’ve spent most of my life hiding out on Lyshriol, planting bubbles and training lyrine foals?”

            He held her for a long moment, then said, “Look, I can’t promise that the Skolian newsies won’t treat a marriage between us as a two-week political scandal, because they will.  Controversy sells views, after all.  But the Assembly won’t squawk, the newsies will move on to some other scandal, and my family will be glad that I’m going respectable.”  He squeezed her, then let her go.  “And all of that will be happening far, far away from here.  All we’ll have to worry about is the Allied entertainment newsies.”

            “You forget all the female Del Arden fans who will be outraged that you’re no longer available,” Ricki pointed out, squaring her shoulders.

            Del gave her a cocky grin.  “Well, those Jagernauts Kelric foisted off on me have to earn their keep somehow.”

            “Huh.”

            “Let’s take a night off from the whole mess: Imperial politics, holorock, and all,” he suggested. 

            “How in the world could we do that?  You’re not planning on ditching your bodyguards, are you?”

            He shook his head.  “No, I promised Kelric I’d be good.  But we can get away for a while, even so.  I’ll take you out to dinner, anywhere you want.  Someplace with a private room so we don’t have anybody staring at us.  Then we’ll go spend the night at Prime-Nova’s suite.”  Del’s mobile features assumed a puppy-dog pleading.  “Say yes, do!”

            Even knowing it was an act, Ricki’s lips twitched in an unwilling smile.  “Anywhere I want?” she asked.

            Del’s head cocked in consideration.  “Well, anywhere in the Washington area,” he amended his offer.  “It’s Tuesday; I’ve got the Madrigals this afternoon.”  Del had taken up an informal position as vocal coach for the Thomas Jefferson High School Madrigals when Juan-Carlos complained that while the music teacher was a decent bandleader, she knew nothing about voice production.

            It was a fair offer, and Ricki very much wanted to eat a good meal and spend the night alone with her lover.  “Niccolo’s,” she said firmly.  “Come as you are.  It’s a working-class sports bar, but they serve the best Italian you ever tasted, and it’s close by.”

            “Done!” he said, and kissed her soundly.

Part Seven

Index to The Price of Peace

Skolian Empire Fan Fiction Index

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