Bean Knowledge
*****
Eden
Velsharn
THERE WERE NO MORE DRILLS. The Madrid returned to fall into formation with the Beijing, the Washington, and the Tehran. By the time Liao returned to Operations, Paar had sent the required data. Liao wasted no time in distributing the information to the whole fleet.
The Piggyback docked with the Washington and began unloading the salvage and survivors.
Survivors.
The concept had seemed impossible to her. They had pulled living Humans from the ruin of Earth? It inspired a duality in her: hope that more people may be recovered, slim in number though they were; and guilt for assuming nobody could have survived the planet-wide hellish firestorm that had engulfed Earth.
A day’s worth of preparations were made, mainly checks to make sure the Beijing had truly survived its liftoff from Eden, and then she, Anderson, James, de Lugo, Sabeen, and Williams—the captains of the surviving ships in the fleet—arranged to meet aboard the Madrid. De Lugo was the first to arrive. He greeted Liao warmly as she took her seat, and she returned the gesture. Then James, Williams, and Sabeen arrived.
As Anderson entered, he did so with an Asian man with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a U.S. Air Force uniform and a stern look on his face. Her eyes met the stranger’s, and for a moment, she looked back into the past.
“Sheng?”
Discomfort pervaded everything, palpable and clear. Lieutenant Commander Gaulung Sheng had been assigned as Liao’s first officer upon taking command of the Beijing. It turned out that, aside from harbouring distinct resentment towards her over a command he perceived he deserved, he had been communicating with Ben behind the back of Fleet Command and herself.
He was dead, killed during an attempted mutiny, but his ghost—aged a decade and wearing another nation’s uniform—took a seat opposite her at the table.
“Andrew Decker-Sheng, actually, United States Air Force.” He spoke with a smooth, easy Midwest accent that betrayed little emotion. “I was stationed in NORAD and was recovered by the crew of the Rubens.”
“Any relation to Gaulung Sheng, from the People’s Liberation Army Navy?”
Decker-Sheng nodded professionally. “Gaulung was my half brother.”
“I see.” She did not know what else to say. Decker-Sheng would know of her involvement in Gaulung’s death, then. “What was your role at NORAD?”
“I was part of the team that was making contact with the construct you know as Ben.” He folded his hands. “Before you ask, Gaulung was invited to be part of that team and had access to some of those materials. He was not authorised to communicate directly with the construct and overstepped his authority. These infractions were discovered only after his death.”
Liao smelt a cover-up—the idea that everything had gone so horribly wrong all because of one person with peripheral involvement due to a shared family linage did not seem plausible to her at all—but that was neither the time nor the place to discuss it.
“I’m glad we were able to find survivors on Earth,” she said, and although she truly was, fate seemed to have an interesting idea of who to save. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you.” He tapped a key on the desk, and a topographical map lit up on the wall behind him. The images, sharply taken and with intricate amounts of detail, showed sweeping desert sands from which a large dome-like structure grew out, like a tumour on the surface of the planet. It bore a striking similarity to Karathi and Belthas IV.
Was every planet the Toralii Alliance occupied a desert world? She would have to ask Saara about that.
The material was annotated, with distinct weaknesses and attack vectors overlaid in stilted but clear English. Everyone was professional, cordial, and relaxed, but when her pen slipped out of her prosthetic fingers, everyone’s eyes save James’s followed her hand.
Might as well get it out of the way. “It’s working really well,” she said, flexing the fingers. “Aside from extremely fine tasks, which still take some adjustment. Fits nicely, no dramas so far. Drains chemical energy from my blood, with a little extra battery just to give it some kick when it needs it. The power source lasts about a year, so I don’t have to worry about getting it changed.” She twisted her hand, far further around than a biological one could. She wanted to extend the claws but didn’t know how. “Sensations of touch, heat, cold, pressure… everything’s there. Feels like the original, more or less, if a little strange.”
Acknowledging her prosthetic let the tension out of the air, and the topic shifted immediately.
“It’s a fascinating piece of technology,” said de Lugo. “And, of course, we’re glad to have you back.”
“Thank you.” Liao folded her hands, cupping her real hand in her prosthetic.
“What other limbs can we replicate?” asked Decker-Sheng. “Legs? Organs?”
“I don’t know. Ask Dr. Saeed.” Liao avoided his eyes. Too many memories. “Anyway. Back to business.”
“Back to business,” Anderson echoed. He flashed a laser pointer at the screen. “According to the intel Paar sent over, this is the place. It’s a heavily fortified storage area for biological fauna and flora samples located on a backwater planet called Qadeem. Qadeem’s got a complex biosphere, but it’s ninety percent desert with very little flora aside from mould and algae. Normally, we’d just nuke the thing from orbit and be done with it, but we want what’s inside: rare plant specimens precious to the Iilan. Obviously, I don’t have to remind anyone how technologically advanced the Iilan are and how much their cooperation could help us in the future. They have weapons, biotech, computers, constructs… It’d be like a second Christmas. So the main thing is: don’t lose those plants.
“Iilan intelligence estimates that there are over eight tonnes of the stuff in their storage lockers. That’s a standard bio sample. Given the Iilan interest in the stuff, the Toralii might have taken more. The plants are fragile, however, which means a great deal of the plant matter is going to be ruined. The only other problem is when this stuff dies, it breaks down into a toxic compound. So if we lose even a bit of a sample, we might lose that whole unit because of contamination, so we have to be careful.
“Plan is as follows. Our ships will take orbital positions in the atmosphere. Since geosynchronous orbit won’t allow us to respond quickly enough, we’ll be taking turns coming up with firing solutions—HE missiles only, no nukes. We take out their surface-to-orbit guns, their AA batteries, and then we land.”
Anderson turned off the laser pointer. “I want to be clear on this one: these are going to be danger-close fire missions, with lots of friendlies and precious cargo on the ground. No chance for errors. That’s phase one.”
“Got it,” said James. “Blow up the ground defences. Don’t blow up the Marines. What’s phase two?”
“Take and hold. Our Marines will embark on Broadsword gunships and land half a kilometre out. They’ll then provide low-cover support for the assault.”
“Sounds good,” said Sabeen. “We secure the perimeter, crack the outer doors, grab what we need and leave.”
“That’s the plan,” said Anderson.
James nudged Liao’s side playfully. “Now we’re breaking and entering,” he said. “When do we get to rename Eden to New Detroit?”
She smiled but said nothing. Decker-Sheng’s presence stole the humour from her.
“And then,” said Anderson, “Decker-Sheng will arrange for phase three.”
“Three?” Liao inclined her head. “How is there a third step? We will have what we came for.”
“The attack will trigger an automated distress beacon to the Forerunner in the system,” said Anderson. “The Toralii will respond. They’ll want to secure the facility and take inventory of what we took. Fortunately, it’s not what we’re going to take that’ll be the surprise, it’ll be what we leave.”
“The virus,” she said, her voice hardening. “You want to infect the responders.”
“Of course,” said Decker-Sheng. “With the Toralii fleets in disarray after their recent defeat at Velsharn, the Toralii response will in all likelihood be drawn from various smaller units. After we have infected them, they will return to their point of origin and infect others. Helping the Iilan has presented a perfect opportunity to use this weapon of ours, to say nothing of the technological assistance they’ve promised for our aid. It truly does seem like a win-win.”
She narrowed her eyes at Anderson. “And this was your plan?”
He matched her stare, but there was something in his eyes—some flicker of doubt hidden under a steely professional attitude—that told her more than his words did. “It was Decker-Sheng’s,” he said, “but I endorse it. The Toralii Alliance scoured our planet. This seems to be a proportional response.”
The more Decker-Sheng had to do with anything, the more she disliked it, but she had to acknowledge it was a good plan. “Genocide for genocide,” she said, although the statement came without strength.
James shifted uneasily in his seat. Williams stared at a corner. Anderson held her gaze for some time as a tense, hostile silence enveloped everything.
“It most certainly is,” said Decker-Sheng. “And the virus is our only true way to wipe them out. We cannot fight the Toralii Alliance using ships and missiles. We must be smarter than that.”
“The war’s over.” Liao gripped her pen, steel fingers stroking the plastic. It cracked and splintered into a thousand pieces. “This is survival.”
“Our survival hinges on not living with the threat of death at every turn.” Decker-Sheng shook his head. “It is pointless to debate this.”
“We need to cooperate,” urged Liao. “The Alliance will leave us alone if we give them reason enough to. The Telvan will help us. Williams has a foot in the door with at least one of the Kel-Voran factions. The Iilan are in system now. We have help. We have allies. If we show ourselves to be as terrible as the Alliance, those allies will walk. We need to be better than our hate.”
“The decision is Anderson’s,” said Decker-Sheng, looking at Anderson. Liao, too, looked toward her American comrade.
Anderson said nothing for a time, eyes half closed as he ruminated.
“The plan is good,” Anderson said, his tone heavy, reluctant. “Phase three is approved.”
The plan was hatched out in detail. So much of a captain’s job was mundane—planning out the logistics of the operation, scheduling meetings with the other department heads, notifications and paperwork.
Fortunately, there was no more Fleet Command left, so any decisions they made did not have to be relayed to a higher authority and stayed among them all. Those included the decision to use the virus. Liao had made her case and been overruled. She understood Decker-Sheng’s point, truly, but was mass-murder of civilians, even if responding to the same, the only option they had?
As everyone else filed out, Liao touched Anderson on the shoulder. “Captain? A word?”
“Certainly,” he said, and when the other COs we gone, Anderson and Liao resumed their seats. “I’m assuming this is about the virus.”
“We’ll get to that.”
“Well then,” said Anderson. “What can I do for you?”
She wanted to defuse the problem they had with the virus. In truth, she needed Anderson, needed someone whom she could trust but who wouldn’t be biased or try to sugarcoat the reality of their situation. “I’m out of the loop,” Liao confessed. “Just like before, after… after Commodore Vong and all that mess. I need you to bring me up to speed. With everything.”
“I can do that,” he said. “But wouldn’t you rather hear it from Captain Grégoire?”
“I’ll be spending plenty of time with him later,” Liao said. The words spilled out accidently, and she hoped that Anderson didn’t catch the double meaning. “I’d rather hear it from you.”
“Well,” said Anderson, “things are going well. We’re consolidating our position. We’re going to see if the constructs can make us some gravity mines, hopefully ones that will work a bit better than the ones that defended Earth. Civic development on the surface continues.”
“I saw that.”
“Unfortunately,” said Anderson, “an operation like the assault on Qadeem is at the limit of our operational capacity. Anything bigger than a medium-sized facility, and we’re stretching ourselves too far. We’re committing the Washington and the Beijing to the assault, with the other ships remaining behind to protect Velsharn. Not enough ships, not enough soldiers. Especially the ships.”
“Not sure what we can do about that,” said Liao, “except hold up here and breed like rabbits.”
“Mmm, you’re not the only one who’s saying that. Fortunately, there’s a bit of a population explosion going on at the moment—lots of people having kids. Perhaps it’s an instinctual thing, from back in the day when Human civilisations were a lot smaller, but yeah. Let’s just say lots of people are doing their duty down there.”
“It could also be that there’s not a lot to do and those nights get awfully cold sometimes.”
“Or that,” said Anderson. He shook his head. “That doesn’t help us right now, helpful as it’s going to be in about twenty years. Right now, we need more ships, smaller ships. Like the Rubens. Something in the fifty-thousand-tonnes range or even smaller.”
“Smaller ships?” Liao asked. “I know the Rubens had significant success, but I always assumed that was because of its advanced technology and its ability to pass for a Toralii freighter.”
“Correct on both counts,” Anderson said, “but also not the full truth. Bigger is better, but better isn’t always better.”
She blinked. “You’ll have to explain that one, Captain.”
Anderson rubbed his chest as though it ached then spent a moment collecting his thoughts. “During the Second World War, the German Tiger was one of the most feared tanks on any front: a metal beast, hard as sin, with a cannon that spat death at absurd ranges. The Soviet T-34 could only penetrate the Tiger’s side armour at five hundred metres, but the Tiger could penetrate a T-34 frontal armour at up to two thousand meters. That’s a huge tactical deficiency.”
“I agree,” said Liao.
“So why did Germany lose? Unfortunately for the Nazi regime, a Tiger was complicated and expensive to manufacture. They only built thirteen hundred fifty or so Tigers over the whole war. Russia built around thirteen hundred T-34s a month. T-34s aren’t engineering wonders, that’s for sure, and they had their flaws… but the Tiger was plagued by reliability issues, punishing maintenance requirements, and an incompatibility of parts with everything else the Germans had. By contrast, the T-34 ran on whatever fuel you put in it and was simple, rugged, reliable, and ‘good enough.’ Sure, in a stand-up fight, they would be slaughtered—there was one battle where a single Tiger destroyed twenty-two T-34s and forced the rest of the company to retreat—but even with those staggering ratios, the Tiger was still coming out behind because the Soviets could always make more T-34s.” Anderson exhaled, a rough sound that made Liao suspect he had a cold. “We don’t need superweapons, Captain. We need ‘good enough.’”
She couldn’t help but agree. “What about the constructs? They can self-replicate, they can repair the Beijing well enough… even improve it. Saeed says they can build whole ships.”
“This is all true,” said Anderson. “Problem is, we don’t have enough constructs to do that in any appreciable time, and we can’t let the constructs build more of themselves because we need what we have, now. We’re up to a few hundred of the guys, which is fine, but soon they’ll need another datacore. Building those things takes rare metals we just don’t have access to right now. So we’re going to have to launch a survey mission to other planets in this system to try and see if we can find some. It’s a long process, but eventually we’re going to have enough to service our needs… eventually.”
“Lot of that going around,” Liao observed. Not enough time to get more resources, not enough resources to buy more time. They were stuck in a cycle of poverty. “What about our military assets? Anything we can do to bolster them in the short term?”
“We have a lot of strengths,” Anderson said, his tone suggesting that he had been having that kind of talk a lot. “Especially here on this little piece of the United States, the Washington. We like to believe that the American teaching philosophy encourages us to specialise in creativity, spontaneous planning, improvisation, making it up as we go, and hoping for the best. Obviously, we have plenty of hard rules too, and sometimes we don’t live up to our ideals. So while that’s true to some extent, there’s one part of our training where we both talk the talk and walk the walk: our supply lines. Our doctrine is to win through logistics.
“We outgun everyone, yep. We might outnumber our enemies too, sometimes. Those are our strengths. Our greatest strength is what we have in the depots and the trucks: the food, water, ammo, medicines, and support network to project force anywhere. That’s how we win. Take places like Afghanistan, for example. The Mujahideen were strong, brave, committed, and tough men, hard men accustomed to some of the harshest terrain in the entire history of Human existence, prepared to endure any pain, any suffering, for the chance to kill us.
“Determination counts for something. A lot, really. Courage… it’s important. In the end, though, you can’t will your way out of JDAMs, and our ability to put ten thousand pounds of bombs anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice, and do it over and over for ten years if necessary like clockwork, is what makes us win. Back in the day, they used to call it warheads on foreheads.”
Liao smiled. “You know, they used to tell me in military academy that the Americans were loose cannons on deck, that they were reckless, impulsive, dangerous. We used to say, ‘When the Germans shoot, the Brits duck. When the Brits shoot, the Germans duck. When the Americans shoot, everyone ducks.’”
Anderson laughed. “There’s truth in that. I’ll admit that we have problems with blue-on-blue, but part of that reason is the strict reporting we have for those kinds of incidents. Other nations just cover it up. We make a point of investigating and trying to improve our training techniques, no matter how painful that incident is. Blue-on-blue is a serious matter here, almost as serious as officers putting their hands in their pockets.”
Liao snorted with laughter. “Yeah. Pointless rules are part of every military. We had these stupid little straps we had to wear whenever we had PT, reflective things to stop vehicles hitting us or whatever.”
“Oh God,” said Anderson, his eyes wide. “You had PT belts as well?”
“You had belts?”
“They were straps, but we called them belts, bright green reflective things. I think we called them belts because that has fewer letters. It’s relieving that this kind of retardation wasn’t exclusive to the US military.”
Boot camp had been an unfun place, but she had some good memories from there, too. “Stupid people place equal importance on all things.”
“Very wise,” said Anderson, his smile genuine. “I’ll remember that.”
“I’m Chinese. We practically speak in proverbs and riddles. We love stories.” She flicked her metal fingers, rubbing two of them together. It produced a strange sensation on her synthetic skin. “How are you doing with ammo?”
“The Washington is less conservative with our rounds than we’d like, but that’s because I’d rather waste ammo than lives.”
Liao had to concede that point. “I think the rest of the fleet need to adopt that philosophy. Bullets we can replace quickly. New Humans take longer. Every time we lose someone, that’s one less of our species, at a time when the numbers of Humans are the only real thing we can use to keep score.”
“Yeah.” Anderson considered. “Fortunately, though, missiles and railgun slugs are pretty easy to make. Sometimes, people assume that they’re difficult, but the engineering principles are simple and well documented.”
“Assumptions are usually the mother of all fuckups.”
“And inaccuracies,” Anderson added. “Life’s strange like that.”
Liao “So. PT belts. Ammo shortages. Logistical issues. You have a lot of stories, Anderson.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
Liao leaned on her armrest. “What else you got?”
Anderson clicked his tongue. “How about the ten-year US occupation in Afghanistan? The common man simply assumes that period to be one of the bloodiest in Afghani history. The truth is quite different. They had the most peaceful ten-year period in recent history.”
All she had heard about was sectarian violence and endless cycles of killing. “Really?”
“Yeah. Believe me, I’m not about to debate 2000s-era US military policy, but in the eighties, when the Soviets were invading, there were an estimated eight hundred fifty thousand to one point five million civilians dead. Five million refugees. Four hundred thousand purely political killings. Then in the nineties, there was a lot of civil conflict, and figures get a bit hard to discover, but sufficient enough to say there are hundreds of thousands of deaths. Militants would go door to door looking for Hazaras and Shias, and if they found them, execute them. Cold blooded as all hell.”
“So how did things under America go?”
“Between the years of 2001 to 2013, it was no picnic, but only about sixteen thousand to nineteen thousand civilians were killed, and that’s with much better record keeping and oversight. Those times were the best time to be a civilian in Afghanistan since the Soviets got involved.”
Her perception of those events was quite different. It was hard to believe, but Anderson spoke with the quiet confidence of someone who memorised textbooks. She settled back in her chair. “I didn’t know that.”
“Honestly, I didn’t want to believe it until I’d heard about it for myself.”
Liao considered. “Why are you telling me this?”
“It’s important,” said Anderson. “The old military instructor who told me that? He’s dead now. All his experience, knowledge, history… all dead with him. The only thing we can do is share things amongst ourselves. I’m passing along his hard-won knowledge, and I’m hoping you can apply it to our present situation.”
To the Toralii? She couldn’t see how, but another thought occurred. “Bean knowledge,” said Liao. “We need bean knowledge.”
“Bean knowledge?”
“It’s a Japanese idiom. Knowledge of small things. Trivia. We need to preserve the trivia of our species.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He did raise an eyebrow. “Since when did Chinese people start sprouting Japanese idioms?”
“Since there’s no China anymore and no Japan either.” Liao folded her arms. “Believe me, when I was growing up, all I heard about was how barbaric the Japanese were during World War II, but you know what? All those fuckers are dead. Every last one of them. Time to move on.”
“Sounds good,” said Anderson, and he stood up. “Well, let me know if I can do anything more to help.”
“There was one thing,” said Liao, inhaling slightly. “I want Decker-Sheng off this mission and out of our senior staff briefings. If we’re going to do this thing, I don’t want him to have any part of it.”
Anderson affixed her with a firm stare. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible. He’s a senior officer, one of the few we have left, and we need him as part of this team.” His voice softened. “Decker-Sheng shares blood with the man you killed, but he’s not his brother. He’s barely stepped foot in China and hardly knew him.”
“I don’t trust him.” She couldn’t quite articulate why. “It’s not his family connections. It’s more than that. Why was he in NORAD? Out of all the Humans we could have possibly dragged out of that place, why did we get him? He’s been a part of this fleet for less than a day, and he’s already in charge of a major operation?”
“It’s my operation,” Anderson reminded her, something he seemed reluctant to say. “My plan. We got him and many others. Sometimes the universe has a strange sense of irony, Captain.” He tilted his head slightly. “Is this going to be a problem?”
Would it? Her suspicions about Decker-Sheng ate at her. She wanted to protest, but Liao had put up with worse things. “No,” she said.
“Inform me if this position changes.”
“Will do,” said Liao, standing as well. “I should park the ship in low orbit. Then I should have a word to Iraj and make sure our tests went okay.”
“Agreed. I’ll walk you to the airlock, shall I?”
“I’d like that,” she said, putting her cap back on. She went to leave but saw something on Anderson’s face that made her stop. “You okay, Captain?”
“No,” he said frankly. “The Iilan are the toughest, strongest kids on the block. Just because they don’t want to fight doesn’t mean they can’t pack a wallop when they want to. The Toralii know what they want. They know where it is.”
She had meant “physically,” but his answer satisfied her. “You think we could be sailing into a trap,” Liao reasoned, with a fair amount of agreement.
Anderson put his chin in his hands. “I think we’d be foolish to think, now that even the mighty have been bloodied, that the Toralii Alliance have forgotten about us.”
She couldn’t agree more. “I should return to the Beijing,” she said. “I have a lot of work to do, and when it’s done, I’d like to catch a Broadsword to Eden. I have business on the surface.”
“This isn’t about Decker-Sheng, is it?”
Normally such a question might be inappropriate but not amongst command staff. It was good that he checked.
“No.” She had told Keller she would see to the Toralii prisoners. Although Liao was not enamoured with the idea of fair treatment for the Toralii, Keller had made a good point.
Still, she should at least see for herself.
“Just making sure we’re still Human.”
A passerby was happy to help Liao find where the prisoners were being kept. The Toralii had been an obvious addition to the settlement and, apparently, were being held in one of the underground bunkers, which the crew of the Tehran had modified into an improvised prison. Although she was not thrilled about their bunker space being used to house those who’d formerly bombarded said bunkers, they would be, at the very least, well protected.
Liao was not a tall woman, but she still stooped as she stepped through the threshold of the staircase leading into the underground bunker. Several cages had been hastily assembled in the far corner of the dimly lit artificial cave, and two Iranian Marines from the Tehran stood guard.
Liao approached. “Petty Officer, I would like to speak with one of the prisoners, please.”
“Of course, Captain.” They stood aside.
Liao regarded the prisoners. There were seven of them, and they sat on wooden squares laid over bare floors. Liao was taken aback by their appearance. Saara always took great care of her fur, but those Toralii were the opposite, their body hair tangled and disheveled, their posture stooped as they sat in the uncomfortable, cold cells. They looked uncomfortable and miserable. One of the Toralii was wounded, lying on her back, bandages stained with purple Toralii blood.
She recognised them all, vaguely, from their capture. Liao did not see their leader.
A tall, grey-furred Toralii shuffled to the front of the cage. He was wearing a Toralii translation device. Liao had no idea where they had gotten it from—the Knight, presumably.
[“I am Crewman First Rank Kkezi,”] he said. [“I speak for the crew.”]
“Where is their leader?” Liao asked. “The one with the white fur?”
[“Dead,”] he said. [“She attempted to escape. Your guards killed her during the attempt, and Airmaiden Jara was wounded.”]
Keller might have disagreed, but Liao’s posture remained neutral. “I’m afraid I don’t have a lot of sympathy for you.”
[“I do not recall asking for any.”] Kkezi’s tone was even. [“It is war.”]
“It is war,” echoed Liao. “That doesn’t mean we abandon our principles.”
He regarded her new arm. [“You were injured in the battle?”]
The question surprised her. For a moment, she felt a twinge of guilt. Despite his filthy surroundings and wounded subordinates, Kkezi had taken the time to ask about her welfare. “Yes, but I’m not here to talk about that.” Liao folded her hands in front of her, cupping her real hand in her prosthetic. “How was your journey down here?”
[“Swift,”] he said. [“We flew on one of your ships, the larger armed transports.”]
“We call them Broadswords,” Liao said. “After one of the ancient, traditional weapons of our people.”
[“Our military identifies them as zakkul. It means The Workhorse of Death. The design is simple. Rugged. Surprisingly powerful. Difficult to destroy.”]
“Strange for a Toralii to speak of another species’ technology with such reverence.”
[“We do not underestimate you Humans. We may have in the past, but we do not now. We see you as a potential threat to our dominance… or, at the very least, we did. That is why we destroyed your world.”]
Rage bubbled up within her at the mention of Earth. She fought to suppress it although the metal in her arm creaked as her fingers tightened.
There was something else, too—some kind of muscle tightness she couldn’t quite place.
“We’re a little angry about that, to be honest.”
Kkezi sat in the dirt. [“Your rage is undeniable and understandable. But you must know: even after our losses, assuming the entire fleet was burned to ashes, we will not be cowed. We lost significant fleet assets against the rogue construct your people empowered. We lost significantly more against your forces in orbit of this world. These losses will not discourage our wrath, only defer it. We are undeterred.”]
“You see,” said Liao, “I was afraid you were going to say that. And for the record: I believe you. I don’t think you’re alone, either. Your people will keep fighting us, will keep throwing ships and soldiers and weapons at us until either we are all dead or we physically deny you.”
[“The second outcome will not be possible for you. With respect, Captain, you should submit to the first.”]
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Liao crouched in the dirt on the far side of the cage. “Listen. I can help you out here. Living in a lightless hole isn’t good for anyone. I know your welfare isn’t exactly the most important thing on our minds right now, but I’ll be frank with you: we need your help.”
He regarded her with understandably sceptical eyes, which glinted in the darkness of the bunker. [“I do not see how helping you, assuming we even can, provides us as individuals or our species as a collective any particular benefit.”]
“I’m not promising much because we don’t have a lot to give. We can arrange for better accommodation. I’m considering returning you to the Knight—the ship you were being held on before you arrived here—if for no other reason than guarding you on the surface, this close to our landing area and the Beijing, is making me a little uneasy.”
[“Would it not make more tactical sense to keep us as far away from spacecraft as possible? What if we overpower your crew and escape with the ship or turn its weapons on the settlement below?”]
Liao smiled. “In that event, our ships will destroy you. Further, I doubt you will be able to stage such a takeover. I know the sailors on that ship, and they are hard, rough men. Besides, we have a substantial stockpile of nerve gas, and our protective gear will not fit Toralii.”
Kkezi snorted, his ears flicking forward. [“You would tell me of your countermeasures?”]
“I will tell you of some of our countermeasures with the aim of discouraging you from taking what you feel to be an easy opportunity.” She inhaled, reaching up and touching the metal bar of the cage with her metal prosthetic, running a finger down the bar with a faint metal-on-metal scrape. “What I am instead suggesting is that you help us with information and share your knowledge with us, and we can place some trust in you… trust, of course, being a commodity that is earned, not given freely.”
[“You will perform the debriefing yourself?”]
“I can’t promise this. You will be placed under the jurisdiction of Commander Sabeen, the commanding officer of the Knight, and she’ll be responsible for your welfare. However, she answers to me.”
He considered, regarding Liao for a long moment in silence, and then his eyes signalled a change in his demeanour that went from openly hostile to interested. [“What do you wish to know?”]
By the time the sun went down, Liao had left with a notepad full of tactical information—some in freeform notes, some in bullet form— and a promise to have the Toralii escorted back to the Knight in the morning.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, and she had spent too long talking to them, but it was an excellent exercise and one that had paid off to deal with personally. It was gratifying to have agency again, to effect positive change in her universe.
So when she finally got a chance to return to the Beijing, the Broadsword had been called away on other duties. Her real arm was sore from writing, and her prosthetic one itched slightly—a symptom on the long list of possible maladies Saeed had given her. That one, the list had said, would fade in time. She hoped her absence would not cause any drama. There were other things she could do on Eden.
The itching persisted. Scratching did not abate it, and the eyes of the people of Eden watched her as she moved, unable to find respite from their constant gazes.
So she walked.