Demosthenes, nomansland.
Sang took only a few steps into the room before coming to an uncertain halt. He looked around warily.
“You insisted on speaking to me,” Bellona reminded him.
“I wanted to let you know we found the locator beacon and disabled it. It would have turned on when the reactor was activated, telling the Karassians the Aarens was active once more. It’s dead now.”
“A small prevention, applied too late to help. Anything else?”
“Fontana and Thecla have returned. Connie is brooding in her corner of the landing deck once more. They spent five hours searching in Cerce City. The popular bars remember seeing Khalil there at least once, yet there’s no trace of him.”
Bellona sighed. “Thank you. That’s it?”
“No.” Sang girded himself. “I think it’s time you left this suite.”
Bellona laughed. “Why?”
Sang’s lips thin for a moment. “You’ve been hiding in here for nearly eighteen hours and things are… You’re needed. At the very least, you should talk to Retha.”
She flinched. “And say what? ‘I’m sorry Vang is dead. I was a fool.’ You think that will make Retha feel better?”
“I think you would be surprised at the difference it will make,” Sang said quietly.
She shook her head. “No. I’m not ready.”
Sang shifted on his feet, frowning.
“What?” she demanded.
“You don’t get to choose when you’re ready or not,” Sang said. “That’s not how this works.”
“Excuse me?”
Sang took another step farther into the room. “You’re their leader. It’s not up to you to decide whether they need you or not.”
“Their leader?” She lurched to her feet. “I’m the one who got Vang killed. I led them right into the arms of the Homogeny and the Republic. I can’t get a single free world to do more than laugh at me. Khalil is missing. Connie is panicked. The bridge forge is possibly the worst idea I’ve ever had, unless we use it to toss Karassians through. And on top of all of that, the Republic and the Homogeny have put aside hundreds of years of hostility and are working together just because of me.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, chilled. “Those people out there don’t need me. I’m the last person they need.”
Sang nodded. “Have you asked yourself yet why the Republic and the Homogeny are coming after you?”
Bellona sighed. “What does it matter? They can outshoot me, out run me and squish me under their heels whenever they want. I was a fool for ever thinking that this could work, Sang.”
He took another step. He was in the middle of the room now. “I’m not Khalil,” he said. “He would say this in a way that makes sense, that would convince you of it and make you want to get out there and fight. All I can do is report.” He gave a tiny shrug. “You think you’re ineffective, that what you’re trying to do is worthless. I say you’re wrong.”
Bellona gave a tiny laugh. “That’s not a report, Sang. That’s an opinion. One without substance.”
“Do you remember watching the fishermen hunt for giant horse cuttles in the Arden Sea?”
Bellona stared at him. “What has that got to do with—”
Sang held up his hand. “I know. This is not poetry. It is not one of Khalil’s rousing speeches. Humor me. Do you remember how they catch the horse cuttles?”
Bellona sighed. “Depth charges dropped over the side. The deeper the better, because the biggest fish are very deep. They’re so big, some of them, that the charges would just disorient them and piss them off.”
“Then they’d rise to the surface and try to take on the boat and that’s when the hunters take over, so they can claim their trophy,” Sang finished. “Only, do you remember how long it took once the charges were dropped? That one excursion, when you were ten. You got bored.”
“I think I fell asleep,” she admitted, recalling the sparkling sea, the heat, the rocking motion of the boat and the sharp, rotting smell that wafted off the deck plates no matter where she stood.
“You said it just then: The deeper the better. A deep charge, a strong charge, brought up the biggest horse cuttles…and it took time for that to happen.”
Bellona shook her head. “I’m not following, Sang.”
“Nearly a year ago you dropped depth charges. You thought they were just little crackers. A shot across the bow. Yet the cuttles have surfaced and are fighting back and they are strong.”
Bellona gripped her sides, her heart giving a little thud in reaction.
Sang held out his hand to one side. “In two hundred years of war, neither the Homogeny nor the Republic have ever considered working together for a common aim. It was unthinkable. Then Ben Arany came along with his little fleet of insurgents. That worried them enough they shuffled next to each other to take him down, while pretending they were still enemies.”
“The city killer,” Bellona said. “Karassian technology, used by the Republic.”
“Apparently stolen while Karassia looked the other way,” Sang added. “Then you made a public declaration. A formal announcement that you would work to halt their aggressions and maintain peace and freedom for the free states.” He shook his head. “You scared them, Bellona. The thing they fear the most is an enemy greater than them. If the free worlds were ever to put aside their independence and work together, they would become an enemy that could defeat them. That’s what you told them you were going to do.”
Bellona stared at him, her heart starting to hurt, now. “They got together because of me.”
Sang nodded. “Publicly, this time, because they fear your threat that much. Look at the degree of the reaction, Bellona. Remember the resources both militaries have. They would have researched and analyzed and concluded that your threat, as simple and useless as it looks like on the surface, is dangerous.”
Bellona pressed her lips together, resisting the impulse to dismiss the idea. “The stronger the reaction, the great the depth charge,” she said, flipping the theory around.
Sang nodded. “Two big systems like the Republic and the Homogeny can only change directions slowly. That’s why it took a year for even this unofficial cooperative to emerge. Alliances and agreements and lobbying takes time.”
“It’s still only a few captains and admirals working together,” Bellona pointed out.
“It won’t stay that way,” Sang said with complete assurance. “The military officials are more agile than the politicians. They can afford to take greater risks…and they have. They’ll ask forgiveness of the united assemblies, then a formal alliance will be voted in because even the politicians are scared of what you represent.”
“A threat,” she repeated.
“A huge threat, that must be stomped on immediately and quickly, before your ideas take hold among the free worlds and become unstoppable.”
Bellona considered it. “The bigger the charge, the greater the reaction.”
Sang nodded. “Things are moving. That is why you can’t give up, now. There’s enough speed for you to jump. Then Vang won’t have died for nothing.”
Bellona let out a heavy sigh. “Okay.”
Sang looked startled. “Okay?”
Bellona gave him as good as smile as she could muster. “You’re not Khalil, yet you’re effective in your own way. I’m convinced. I’ll stop pouting now.”
Sang grew very still, his gaze turning inward.
“Sang?”
He held up his hand for silence.
She waited.
Sang’s gaze refocused on her. “I just received a sealed communication. From your mother.”
Bellona shook off her surprise. “What does she want?”
“Me.”
Bellona laughed. “You?”
“She cited the family economic constitution and says I am required to return to take up my prescribed post.”
Bellona considered that, her mind racing with a clarity that had been missing until Sang had lectured her. “You should go,” she said slowly.
“No!” he said stoutly. “I turned my back on the family just as you did.”
“You didn’t declare it publicly, the way I did,” Bellona told him. “I think it’s time you did.”