A Learning Experience

Chapter Thirty-Two

Captain Perry/Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit

Kevin couldn’t help feeling nervous as Captain Perry returned to Sol. They’d been away for over two months and anything could have happened in that time. The Horde could have launched another attack, another alien race could have arrived… or all hell could have broken loose on Earth. It was a colossal relief, when the ship finally slipped out of FTL some distance from the moon, to exchange signals and counter-signals with Shadow Warrior and confirm that everything was fine.

He looked down at his display as the ship entered orbit around Earth. A number of dead satellites and pieces of space junk were gone, plucked out of orbit and taken to the moon to serve as raw materials. In their place, there were a handful of inflatable space stations and a couple of odd-looking spacecraft. It took him several moments to realise that they were intended to transport large numbers of colonists to the asteroid belt. And they were built with purely human technology.

Smiling, he keyed his display. “All hands will need to go through debriefing before starting shore leave on Earth,” he said. “Please don’t try to leave before then, as you also need to be briefed on conditions on the planet itself.”

He looked over at Jackson and nodded. “You have the bridge.”

“Aye, sir,” Jackson said. “I have the bridge.”

Kevin stood, walked through the hatch and down towards the teleport chamber. Flying back to Earth had felt quicker than travelling into unknown space, although he knew there was no real difference. Perhaps it was the effort of digging through the vast quantities of data they’d recovered from the alien world. The scientists had barely been seen outside their cabins and research compartments, where they had been working their way through technology the aliens considered primitive and pre-contact humanity would have considered incredibly advanced. In the meantime, Edward Romford and his staff had been working out the details for hiring troops from Earth. They seemed to believe there would be no shortage of volunteers.

He paused outside Carolyn’s door — they’d become closer on the return flight, although he still hadn’t managed to talk her into bed — then shook his head and walked on until he stepped into the teleport chamber. Inside, the teleport operator was already inspecting the system, as if he knew precisely how it worked. Kevin nodded to him, stepped up onto the pad and sent the command directly through the interface. The silver haze rose up around him, then faded away, revealing Shadow Warrior’s teleport bay.

“Steve,” he said. His brother was standing by the hatch, a grim half-smile on his face. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” Steve said. “Quite a bit has happened since you left.”

Kevin eyed him, worriedly, as Steve turned and led the way out of the compartment. His brother looked… tired, as if he had been working far too hard. Normally, Steve was brimming with energy, ready to do whatever he thought he had to do. But now… he was acting as if he had no energy at all. But Steve said nothing more until they were back in his cabin and the hatch was firmly closed.

“Take a beer from the fridge,” he said. “And pass me one while you’re at it.”

Kevin opened the fridge and discovered a handful of bottles of beer, rather than the cans he’d been expecting. Each of the bottles was marked with an image of the moon, etched into the glass, and a name he didn’t recognise.

“They were produced on the moon,” Steve said. “One of the moonshiners I knew from the ranch asked permission to set up a small brewery. I gave it to him and… well, those are the first results.”

“Lunar beer,” Kevin said. He opened his bottle and took a swig. It tasted faintly nutty, but it was better than most of the canned beer he’d drunk in his life. “A very small brewery?”

“For the moment,” Steve said. “He’s actually been talking about expanding his operations and trying to sell lunar beer on Earth.”

“I’m sure it would be a hit,” Kevin said, taking another sip. “Do you get free beer as his patron?”

Steve snorted. “I forgot to write that into the contract,” he said. “All I get is a dollar or two off the price.”

Kevin chuckled, then put the beer down on the table. “All right,” he said. “What’s been happening since I left?”

“I almost destroyed Iran,” Steve confessed. “And Saudi Arabia.”

Kevin stared at him. “What?”

He had no love for either country, although — if pressed — he would have had to admit that he preferred Iran to Saudi Arabia. The Iranians might hate America, but it was a honest hate, while the Saudis were torn between covert hatred and a desperate attempt to maintain the balancing act between the United States and their own religious fundamentalists. He knew just how much Saudi money had gone to support terrorists over the years… and lobbying efforts in Washington. The Jewish lobby was utterly overshadowed by the sheer power of the Arab lobby.

“They kidnapped Mariko,” Steve said, morbidly. “We tracked her down, took her back and dealt with the terrorist filth.”

Kevin held up a hand. “Wait,” he said. “Start at the beginning.”

The story didn’t seem to make much sense at first. According to the Iranian officials who had been captured, they’d worked with Saudi Arabia to counter the introduction of new Galactic technology on Earth. It seemed to make little sense — the Iranians were not given to gambling, no matter how fanatical their regime seemed — but Kevin had a feeling that they knew they were risking substantial unrest in the very near future. And besides, they’d believed they could count on the Saudis and the other Middle Eastern countries to prevent American retaliation. They simply hadn’t taken Steve and his new country seriously.

And the Saudis might have expected them to take the fall, Kevin thought. That would be just what they would consider ideal.

“So they sent kidnappers after Mariko,” Kevin said. They clearly didn’t know Steve very well. He might not have been married to his partner, but she was his wife in all the ways that mattered. Steve would move Heaven and Earth to find her — and he had the technology to take a ghastly revenge for any harm they did to his lover. “And you found them?”

“We had a bit of help from the DHS,” Steve confessed. He looked down at his bottle of beer, then back up at Kevin. “I never thought I would be grateful for the bastards.”

He shrugged. “We found the ship, raided it and took her back,” he added. “And then we kidnapped the governments of all of the involved nations.”

Kevin couldn’t help it. He giggled.

“Funny,” he said. “And what happened to them?”

Steve smiled. “You won’t believe what turned up in the interrogations,” he said. “Quite apart from involvement in international terrorist activity and suchlike, we caught quite a few war criminals the ICC never bothered to charge with any crime. A few of the Iranians were responsible for the violent purge of pro-democracy activists, one of them was responsible for ordering his men to fire into gathered crowds… the Bahraini officials we captured were responsible for selling their country out to the Saudis. Naturally, we put all of the evidence on the internet.”

Kevin smiled back. “And how did you reach people whose opinions actually matter?”

“I think we did just that,” Steve said. “There’s almost no support for them on Earth, apart from a handful of pro forma protests.”

Kevin nodded in understanding. Whatever nations might say in public, it was very rare for dictators or religious theocrats to be held accountable for their crimes. Their subordinates could die like flies, if necessary, but it was rare to go directly after the dictator. Maybe there was some logic to it — the dictator was the only one who could actually surrender — yet it had always struck him as sick. Why kill the men who were forced to stand against American troops or carry out ghastly atrocities when the dictator himself remained immune?

It was the age-old problem, he knew, for anyone serving a dictator. Carry out the dictator’s orders and commit war crimes, wipe out entire villages, kill the men, rape the women and children… or take a suicidal stand against him? The moralists in the West expected the latter, but Steve knew better. Why would a random soldier in the Iraqi Army have refused an order to kill Kurds in job lots when he knew that Saddam would kill him and his entire family, while the West was unlikely to hold him to account? People willing to stand up and say no were very rare. Most of them did it from a safe distance.

Often a very safe distance, Kevin thought. He remembered Trotsky and shuddered. But sometimes not far enough.

“I see,” he said, finally. “And what’s happened in those countries now the leaders are gone?”

“Bahrain’s remaining government has been overwhelmed,” Steve said. “So far, they’re still arguing over the composition of their new government and eying both the Saudis and Iranians nervously. Saudi itself is having major problems with riots in the streets, Iran seems to be in a state of shock. Thankfully, as they are a much more established nation, the loss of the senior government hasn’t crippled their ability to feed their population.”

“Good,” Kevin said. “And what about yourself?”

Steve met his eyes. “I came far too close to obliterating half the Middle East,” he said. “What sort of monster does that make me?”

Kevin shrugged. “Do you know how many times I dreamed of something that would exterminate the population of Afghanistan?”

He stood up and started to pace. “I had this romantic vision of tribesmen sweeping majestically across the mountains, even though I knew it to be nonsense,” he admitted. “I lost it very quickly, when faced with a people who seemed to consider deception second nature. Everyone lied to us; civilians lied because they feared Taliban retaliation, soldiers lied because they didn’t want to admit they didn’t know what they were doing. It wasn’t long before I was thoroughly sick of the sheer hypocrisy underlying everything they said and did.

“Rape is illegal, but they force girls into marriage that is rape by any other name. Prostitution is illegal, yet the Taliban was quite happy to run brothels for its fighting men. Homosexuality is illegal, but catamites and outright male rape are common throughout Afghanistan. Drug abuse is illegal, yet they grow poppies to produce opium to help fund their war. Oh, there were times when I would have gladly slaughtered the bastards in job lots.

“But I didn’t, and you didn’t,” he concluded. “Having the thought doesn’t make you evil, it’s carrying it out that would take you across the moral event horizon. How many times have you considered homicide and never actually done it?”

Steve nodded, wordlessly.

“It’s good that you’ve learnt some of the limits of power,” Kevin added, returning to his seat. “But I don’t think you’ve crossed the line into outright evil.”

“Mongo chewed me out,” Steve said. “If he hadn’t…”

“Mariko would have done it,” Kevin said. “Or Charles. Or Vincent’s ghost would have risen from the grave to condemn you for committing genocide. Instead… you removed the guilty and gave their victims a chance to take the freedom they deserve.”

“Or plunge into civil war,” Steve said. “Saudi really doesn’t look good these days.”

Kevin smirked. “Fuck the bastards,” he said. “Now… my turn.”

He braced himself, then started to give a complete report of everything that had happened since they’d left Earth. Steve leaned forward, interested, when Kevin reached the section about the meeting with Friend and the deal to send human mercenaries to fight beside the aliens. They’d considered the possibility, ever since realising that humans had been abducted and turned into warriors by one alien race, but it was still an unpleasant surprise. Steve took a copy of the agreement, read through it very carefully, and then looked up.

“This is better than I expected,” he said. “Is there a sting in the tail?”

“As far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with any of the supplies or technical support they gave us,” Kevin said. He wasn’t blind to the implications of the aliens producing so much so quickly. From their point of view, it had to be a relatively small payment. “And we will progress much faster if we have help.”

He paused. “The terms and conditions are part of the agreement,” he added. “They’re not bad at all, at least from our point of view. I think they’re desperate.”

“It certainly looks that way,” Steve agreed. He looked up, suddenly. “But would the introduction of a handful of humans turn the tide? It sounds like the plot of a bad space opera.”

“It actually makes a certain kind of sense,” Kevin said. He’d downloaded texts on interstellar warfare from the alien database and read through them on the way home. “Their major planets are heavily defended, Steve. They have planet-based energy weapons, heavy force fields and plenty of other surprises. Taking the high orbitals would be tricky, to say the least; they’re forced to land troops and take out the planetary defence centres on the ground.”

He shivered, remembering some of the records they’d found on Ying. Invading a heavily-defended planet was incredibly difficult — and bloody. It made the greatest battles of the United States Marine Corps look like minor squabbles… which, from the alien point of view, he supposed they were. A race that counted hundreds of stars amid its empire wouldn’t be too impressed by either America or Japan. Why, even the British Empire at its height had only claimed a quarter of the world’s surface.

“But it also explains, I think, why we were left alone for so long,” he added. “The major powers in this part of the galaxy are involved in a long slow war.”

He’d read through the political notes too, although he had his doubts over how complete they actually were. One major power, backed by a far distant empire, was trying to dominate the rest of the sector, which seemed to be set to keep the wars going indefinitely. Kevin’s original thought — that the far-distant power had set out to create an endless war deliberately — seemed to have been right. As long as the minor powers were fighting, they weren’t threatening their far-distant power.

“Which leaves us with the problem of which side to support,” Steve mused.

Kevin slapped the table, hard. “Steve… these races… even the smallest of the interstellar powers is far more powerful than all of humanity put together,” he said. “Our best bet for survival, I think, is to ally ourselves with the side that hasn’t been force-cloning human tissue and use the time to build up our own position. We are, at best, a microstate. The major interstellar powers will laugh at us if we try to hold any pretensions to power.”

He shrugged. “Hell, the Horde has more starships than us.”

“I know,” Steve admitted.

Kevin sat back in his chair. “I propose we send them the mercenaries — or, rather, humans who are trained in observing and learning as much as possible from their surroundings,” he said. He’d spent a lot of time considering the practicalities on the flight home. “They come back to Earth for leave, we debrief them and learn everything they know. In the meantime, we use this the money we will be paid to build up our own forces. Eventually, we will be able to take the risk of stepping openly onto the galactic stage.”

Steve frowned. “There’s one problem with this,” he said. “Once the Varnar realise they’re facing human soldiers, and they will, they will attack Earth. Destroying our planet would cut off the supply of human troops.”

“That’s the risk we have to take,” Kevin said. He paused. “But we can use one of the ships we’re being sent to set up an isolated colony far beyond the edge of galactic civilisation. The human race will live on, even if Earth herself is destroyed. And we will come back for revenge one day.”

“I hope you’re right,” Steve said. He paused. “We could probably round up five thousand experienced soldiers, but if it’s going to be more than that we will need help from the planetary governments.”

Kevin nodded. “They’d want to have some involvement,” he agreed. “But I think we have very little choice.”

He stood. “There is some good news,” he admitted. “Between what we discovered on the trip out and the alien files we downloaded, we might be able to start mass production of human-built antigravity units within a year or two. And then the solar system would lie open in front of us.”

“The Mars Society will be delighted,” Steve commented. He grinned. “Assuming, of course, they stop arguing over the political structure of Mars to actually take note.”

Kevin smiled back. “Is Mars going to be one of the cantons?”

“I suspect we will end up with several cantons on Mars,” Steve said. “The real problem is dealing with the prisoners. Perhaps we can find them some hard labour on Mars.”

“I’m surprised you let them live,” Kevin commented.

“Oh, the ones who were truly guilty are dead,” Steve said. “As are the ones who committed foul crimes against their own people. But the others… finding them something to do is a little harder. Maybe we should just have them breaking rocks.”

“Good idea,” Kevin said. He smiled at the thought of fundamentalist clerics actually forced to work with their bare hands. “Make the bastards work for a living.”