Descent into Mayhem (Capicua Chronicles Book 1) (13 page)

Evacuation is most certainly not a concern here
, he mused.

“Passing through ...” he declared as he neared a sharp corner.

“Waiting ...” he heard, and as he made the corner he found a sergeant waiting for him at the node that followed.

“Good morning, commander. Or is it afternoon?” The sergeant asked.

Kaiser smiled and shook his hand.

“For all I know it’s the middle of the night, Mateus. How are you?”

“I’m well, sir. In fact, I’m better than well ...”

They chatted idly for a while, and Kaiser found himself wondering what the sergeant might want of him. The reason he knew Mateus wanted something of him was because he was aware of that fundamental trait among all human beings. People who knew each other quite well tended to ask for a favor and be done with it. People who did not usually pitter-pattered ceremoniously around the subject before committing themselves to the request.

“– which is why I have a favor to ask of you, if I may?” The sergeant finally declared to the commander’s relief.

Kaiser appeared momentarily pensive.

“I have not killed anyone for money in a long time, Sergeant. My back has been bothering me, you see ...”

The sergeant laughed.

“I need no one dead, commander. Do you remember Corporal Van Vuuren from tactical command?”

“Hmmm ... young, supple, with ginger hair so tightly bound you could bounce a coin off her cheeks, with –”

“Yes, her,” the sergeant interrupted stiffly, “My efforts seem to be paying off, and I’ve managed to convince her into dining with me at the refectory. The problem is ...”

“Let me guess, the copulation room has been reserved for the foreseeable future.”

“Well, yes commander ...” he admitted, glowing scarlet with embarrassment, “the newly-weds are living in it for the rest of the week. I was wondering whether I could use your room, sir ...”

“Hmm. My room has too many ears surrounding it. Lippard’s room, however, is near to the reactor. Which do you prefer, a silent audience or a noisy reactor?”

“Most definitely a noisy reactor, sir. Won’t Lieutenant Lippard object to this?”

“Why, of course not, my dear sergeant,” Kaiser scolded, as if the soldier was a fool for even considering that, “I and my better half do not mind an audience. Not even a noisy one, for that matter. Besides, she is in operations at the moment, probably, which is why I am up so early. Enjoy.” He finished, slipping him his partner’s access card as if he were trafficking forbidden substances.

The sergeant thanked him, promptly declaring that if there were anything he wished for in return, he needed only say so. Kaiser smiled and patted his back.

As Mateus was about to leave, however, Kaiser took him by the shoulder and drew him close.

“Pictures. I want pictures, my dear sergeant,” he whispered conspiratorially, his expression dead serious.

The sergeant laughed, not quite entertained, not entirely comfortable. He nodded curtly and promised there would be if she was willing, and went on his way.

Thinking of the fun he and Lippie could soon be having with the photos, Kaiser returned to his journey to Ebony Tower’s primary situation room.

Despite his rank and credentials, the commander found himself once more the subject of an interrogation protocol. The Tower’s security personnel were an independent structure answerable only to the Executives, and they knew it well. Four ISB soldiers manned the operational headquarters’ main access point. He was searched with the respect due to a man of his rank, and so he did not get a hand to the crotch, nor was he obliged to remove his shoes. As soon as the reason for his visit had been established, the commander was allowed to enter the room.

The Situation Room was the single largest division within the Tower, and its organization was evident from where he stood. The room was circular in conception, with the outermost ring acting as a corridor, from which walkways descended towards the floor. The innermost area, known as the tactical floor or more aptly as the arena, was the domain of Tactical Command. The arena was cluttered with luminous panels displaying ongoing events in exquisite detail, and complemented by a host of tacticians manning consoles. Presiding over them were the commander and his vice, both far too busy and aloof to receive him at the moment. The intermediate ring was cut into four sections by the descending walkways. The two rightmost sections comprised ground and air support. The opposing side comprised logistics and resupply, and an odd section where the personnel appeared to be in slumber. It was that section which Kaiser approached.

By all outward appearances the least busy of the bunch, Strategic Command nevertheless possessed the authority to overrule all other departments. Except for the Executive Council, of course, whose august members were still safely in orbit.

He approached the nearest of the seven strategists. The man in the reclining chair was old, his grey locks curling around an ancient pair of earmuffs, his eyes hidden beneath a frilly sleep mask clearly not originally his. Gently raising one of the earmuffs, the commander spoke into the elder’s battered ear.

“Ah, mein hengst, how I long to feel your rippling muscles between my sweaty thighs. You stud, you dominant stallion, how great is this urge to ride you, to pull at your crest, to pull at your –”

“Alright, alright, trash talker. I’m up.” The old man muttered, pulling the sleep mask up to peer at the grinning German. He shook his head irritably.

“There’s nothing more upsetting than that kind of mental contamination, German. I am connected to my fellows, and I felt the turbulence in them as soon as you began to speak.” He declared, distancing the back of his head from the interactive induction plate before any more contamination could take place.

“Ah, but that begs the question, my dear councilmember,” Kaiser countered, “Has my
contamination
perhaps begun to wet the thighs of the Frau Wenger beside you. Might I cop a feel to verify?”

The old man stared at Kaiser for a moment and then began to chuckle. He hastily stifled it and directed the mobile Suit commander away from his fellows, sparing a glance at the restless Lady Wenger, who had begun to display a distinctly unsettled expression. They set down on a bench in the quarter’s rest space and silently watched the arena as events unfolded. Things were clearly becoming ugly at the plantation.

“So, having trouble sleeping, are we?” the strategist began.

“Yes, councilman, I am. It mystifies me. Despite not having any real reason for it, I have been having nightmares.”

“Perhaps your conscience is not clear.”

Kaiser laughed.

“I hardly have a need for a conscience, old man. In any case, that is not why I interrupted your work. Certain unnamable people have informed me that certain devices have been removed from storage.”

“Devices? I know nothing of such things.” The councilmember answered amiably enough. Kaiser insisted.

“Certainly I believe you but, taking into consideration the nature of these devices, as well as the highly qualified personnel who are prepping them, I must say –”

“Alright, Kaiser. Let’s assume your information is correct, for the sake of discussing a scenario, if for nothing else. Why would this be the business of an MS commander such as yourself?”

Kaiser smiled without humor.

“Because the last time you
strategists
made foolish decisions, I spent the four following years stuck on Mars cleaning up the mess. I guess you forgave your own fuckup a little more easily than I did, councilman.”

The strategist deliberately avoided Kaiser’s eyes, focusing instead on the events taking place in the arena and the plantation beyond. After a while, when the commander’s body had relaxed once more, the old man turned his face towards him.

“This is not Mars, Tommi.” He finally said, “Those chappies always knew we’d be knocking at their door sooner or later, so they made arrangements outside of our projections. These colonists, on the other hand, don’t even know we exist. Which is why the operation at the plantation is so vital to our future. If even one of those miners manages to slip free, will there be any reason not to hit them with everything we’ve got? Attacking before we’ve accumulated enough resources may be bad, but it is still better than being attacked under equal circumstances. Even if they are not annihilated, the knockout will keep them on the carpet long enough for our purposes to be fulfilled. Do you have any sound reason to counter that, commander?”

“Yes, although your ability to understand my rationality is questionable.”

“You’re speaking with the senior strategist of this mission, Kaiser! Do you –”

“That’s exactly my point, my dear councilman ...” Kaiser countered, “You have a very high opinion of yourself, at least for someone who has never hung from a monster’s teeth as a consequence of foolish decisions. Which is more dangerous? An army of a thousand before the first hammerblow of war, or one of five hundred after their families have been slaughtered? Your first mistake is presuming your attack will have the knockout effect you desire so much. Such an evaluation is not a matter of mathematics, it is instead one of gauging this country’s fighting spirit. That is why I have insisted so much on taking prisoners, to interrogate them, to understand them. Without knowledge of such a variable, how can you expect to predict the outcome of your decisions?”

“All I can say, Kaiser, is the following. Pray, if that is something you do, that prisoners are taken and no miners escape. Otherwise our course is set.”

Kaiser shook his head, wondering how such intelligent men could be so blind. He made one last attempt to explain.

“Let us imagine for a moment, my dear councilman, that you are one of these colonists. Some futile government service sends a group of miners and agricultural engineers to this remote plantation. After some time has passed, they realize there is no word on the miners. There is no habitation near to the mines, nor any military structures, and so there are no locals to establish contact with. They promptly presume that something of a technical nature has gone wrong. After a while, drones are sent out to locate the convoy, and these drones mysteriously fall out of the sky. After even more time has passed, they finally realize that an enemy exists to their south-east, and the army, there is always an army, of course, is notified. A mission is sent, and it does not return. A larger mission is sent, and it does not return. After a while, fear becomes a physical thing to them, and they will begin to see these events as disasters. Their fear will keep them from wishing to move to the south-east. The mines will be considered lost, and they will begin to prepare their defenses, to prepare their army.

“But here is the most interesting part, dear councilmember. Because the army’s command structure never received any real feedback from their lost forces, they will have no idea of how strong we are, how strong we have in the meantime become, or the nature or origin of our strengths. Such commanders will inevitably make the wrong decisions. They will remain a primitive force for not having been forced to evolve. And because of this, when we finally attack in full strength, they will be completely overwhelmed. With no need, I might add, for murdering their families beforehand. Between the two possible scenarios, attack or not attack, the second of these is much more attractive to I, the warfighter. Casualties will be lighter on both sides, and victory will be certain.”

The strategist nodded his head slowly as he listened, appearing to seriously consider Kaiser’s words. Once the officer had finished, however, he countered.

“As I thought, Kaiser, you have misunderstood our predicament entirely. The decision to attack or not attack is not simply a matter of strategy. It is a bureaucratic inevitability, much more connected to the way we operate than to any other variable. I may understand what you’re saying. You may understand what you’re saying. But our leadership is a democracy, as is our strategic council. And the fact that we can occasionally swim in each other’s minds does not change matters significantly. When in council, we can trade information visually and abstractly, even, but emotions are a different matter. Your reasoning is deeply connected to an emotional understanding of how people think and feel, and that is precisely the most difficult thing to directly transmit when in session. People tend to shy away from each other’s emotions. After all, there is something inherently threatening about the direct insertion of emotional concepts into other peoples’ brains. Information with no emotional charge is much safer, since we all have our own sacred cows enshrined in our heads, and nothing threatens these as greatly as emotions do.

“There is a saying by the classical philosopher, David Hume. One of my favorites, for that matter.
Reason is, and ought only to be, a slave to the passions
,
and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey the
m
. I like his words, and not because there is anything poetic about them. I like them because they’re true, and I know they’re true because of my profession. We have crossed the infinity of space and many of us feel very small. We have established ourselves on a planet with the intent of annexing it in Earth’s name, and many of us feel afraid because we know we’re intruders. And fearful people are not receptive to new and unusual emotions, especially when these are presented with the aim of suppressing one’s instinct of attacking for fear of being attacked.