The Great Symmetry (31 page)

“It was easier when our mission was to defend Arrow,” Roe said. “That was our duty. Defend our nation, defend our home. We were raised for it, trained for it, and we did it. That clarity made it easy to do everything that needed to be done. If there was ever a question of whether it was right, we thought of home. End of discussion.”

“And now?”

“Pax Commercia. It has been a good thing. Since the Pax arrived, this ship has not fired a shot. Compare that to the wars just before.”

“But that may change now.” Sonia suddenly changed her manner. She looked at him directly, more openly than he could have imagined even minutes before. For just a moment, he saw a parent. A mother.

“Yes, it may,
” he allowed.

“And how will you evaluate your duty, Captain?”

She was being foolish. Roe made a point of looking up and around.

“I have been helping Vice President Lobeck to prepare the D6,” Roe replied. “Hopefully we will not use it, but he believes that it may be necessary. Or perhaps it is a bluff, to extract a concession from the government of Kelter. A chess move.”

“It seems he has configured it in an
unusual way.”

“Yes,” Roe agreed. “Just one console, to control the entire weapon. Standard procedure has three control centers on three different ships, for redundancy.”

“But he seeks exclusive control.” Sonia speared some broccoli.

“Exactly so. One console, one person to give the final code. Either by voice or by a code on the keyboard. Directly controlling every detail – the personification of our sponsor.”

“And the new security guards. Under his direct command only,” she observed.

“Definitely a theme with our Mr. Lobeck. Did you notice their weapons? Blasters. A poor choice for on board a spacecraft. Gross collateral damage, whether they hit their target or not.”

“A weapon of fear.”

“Justified fear,” he told her. “To be hit with a blaster is the worst possible death. Once it touches you, the fire doesn’t stop even when it reaches your bones, until you are ash. I have seen it. In fact, I have done it,” he confessed.

He saw that even Sonia could not mask her reaction of disgust.

“For home,” he told her. “And country. As I understood it then.”

They ate the rest of their dinner in silence.

Alpha and Omega

Regardless of the fact the he had spent much of his life figuring out how to leave, Kelter was still the place where Evan had grown up. His home.

Evan
looked away from the matrix of numbers in front of him, and pondered his planet of origin. A stupid ball of dust and rock, with no redeeming features.

Of his original domestic family, everyone was gone except him. Evan’s father, departed suddenly, far too soon. His mother had moved to Caledonia, following both of Evan’s sisters. He hoped they would be safe there.

Domestic family. That was a funny phrase. Domestic – to do with a home. Living together. A few times over the years, he had heard that the single word “family” once referred to a collection of related people. He had no idea if that was true – it was the kind of myth that certain people would trot out at a party so they could appear to be learned and thoughtful.

His domestic family, now
light years apart. Perhaps someday he would have his own. At the right time.

Evan thought of the kids he had known from school. Many had scattered through the known worlds, finding someplace more interesting or that had greater opportunities than what Kelter had to offer. Only a few had stayed that
he knew of.

Evan found himself thinking of one man who was probably still on Kelter. Lawrence. The martial arts enthusiast.

In their school years, Lawrence had tormented Evan unceasingly. Evan had been a favorite demonstration subject of the latest throw, whether he wanted to be or not. On Kelter, you could throw an opponent many meters through the air if you had enough leverage. And not just the physical abuse, but the words as well. Evan had been shy and halting, especially when it came to talking with the young women
in his class, and Lawrence had gloried in pointing it out.

Just before lifting for Aurora, Evan had read an article about a man who had been devoting every spare moment in the past few years to teaching school children the confidence and martial skills to resist bullying or worse. Lawrence. Evan had read every word, and watched the accompanying video. Twice. It was him, all right. And as far as Evan could tell, it was real.

Evan took a moment to check. Lawrence
was just a few kilometers away, part way across Abilene. He had started his own studio. The page proudly described his community contributions.

If Kelter survived the next few hours, he really should go visit Lawrence, Evan thought. To thank him for what he was doing.

What if he had never left the station on Aurora? Evan pondered for the hundredth time his culpability in what might now be the destruction of an entire planet. He might have simply
continued to be another kind of captive scientist, churning out discoveries for his keepers. No matter what Affirmatix did with them, at least he would not have endangered so many other people.

He had created this problem. He would find a way to solve it. There was more to find in the Versari data. The Omega entries. If he could resolve the destinations of the Omega entries, it might give some tactical advantage to Kelter’s fleet. They could enter a glome from the completely opposite direction than what would be expected.
An infeasible glome could suddenly change into a direct route to another known world.

Evan brought up the graphical summary of the Omega entry data, according to his best translation. The listed destinations were just plain wrong, showing routes between major known worlds, when in fact robot exploration ships going into those glomes by their Omega entries had simply vanished.

The data also contained another impossibility. The time displacement dimension.

For the Alpha entries, the listed time displacement dimension had been spot on. Any ship that passed through a glome skipped forward in time, by just a fragment. Usually just a few milliseconds. And the Versari data recorded that displacement in an exact match to what was known.

For the Omega entries, as well as Evan could translate, the time displacements were
crazy, ranging from small negative values, which would be impossible, to vast positive numbers, billions of seconds.

There was a solution somewhere. He would find it, or if someone else did, he would help it to see the light of day.

There was another half hour left before they were due back in the main situation room, to witness the results of Kelter’s breakout attempt.

Evan turned to Kate, who was working beside him. “Let me show you what I’ve got so far,” he told her.

Breakout

Lobeck had expected a move to come eventually from the Kelter fleet, such as it was. Affirmatix had waited in position, like an invincible gladiator. There was no reason to waste energy and attention chasing the lesser opponent around the arena.

Now it was happening.

He studied the displays. The San Angelo and the San Miguel, the two capital ships belonging to the Kelter government, had left orbit around Forbie and were heading, with several smaller vessels, straight toward the Goodhope glome. If they wanted a battle, they were going to the right place.

Lobeck and Skylar worked together to evaluate all of the possibilities. Roe sent orders to elements of the fleet, strengthening their position in front of the glome.
Two large ships for Kelter against the twelve that awaited them.

It was not going to be a fair fight.

But as it turned out, that was not where it would occur. The Kelter ships abruptly began accelerating, as fast as each could muster, laterally, avoiding the direct clash.

It took a few moments to determine their new destination.

Why there? It was a
glome, all right, but it wasn’t feasible. A minimum of six hops to return to known space. Roe had stationed a light cruiser near the entry, just for completeness.

There must be some reason.

“The glome to G56T, we need a quick evaluation,” Lobeck told Skylar. “Is it
possible for any ship to make that circuit all the way back to Canberra?”

“Negative,” Skylar replied. “No ship can do that trip without adding fuel somewhere along the way, and they are all unexplored systems. It can’t be done.”

So if any of the ships made it to the glome, each might muster another hop, or two, or even three, before becoming helpless.

“Full chase anyway. Mister Roe, direct the fleet to pursue, and launch missiles as soon as feasible. That is an act of war, and we must respond.”

No single ship could do the trip.

Of course! It was a pyramid scheme. Only one ship had to make it back to known space. The others could give up their remaining fuel along the way. Lobeck became alarmed.

If you give desperate people a few hours, they will come up with something. Lobeck wasn’t sure who to be furious with.

“Full acceleration!” Lobeck ordered. “
Their destination is the G56T glome. Give it everything.”

Space battles were oddly different from those on land. The passage of time. Mathematics. Silence ruled on the bridge of the ship, except the hum of machinery, measured discussion, and the ever-present hiss of Skylar’s
air supply. For any given ship involved in a battle, nothing ever happened until everything happened.

Much of the battle was fought missile to missile. The Affirmatix fleet launched missiles whose mission was to hit and destroy the Kelter ships
. Kelter launched missiles to destroy those missiles before they struck. At close range, some missiles had other weapons, to blind or disable enemy missiles.

Affirmatix had a huge advantage in numbers. Generally, one counter missile could take out one attacking missile in a fire of mutual destruction. One easy way to overwhelm the counter missiles was to simply launch too many attackers.

But Kelter in turn had an advantage, in time and position. Even as the missiles began tangling in the vast space between the ships, it became clear that the Affirmatix fleet would not be able to stop at least some of the smaller ships from reaching the
glome.

Missiles collided with other missiles. Missiles stabbed with lasers, some even launched projectiles or sub-missiles so they could destroy and yet stay themselves intact.

“Concentrate the attack on the San Angelo,” Lobeck directed. It was the nearer of the two Kelter capital ships. If one of the ships was disabled or destroyed, they might then be able to concentrate fire on the other. It was a long shot.

The defense started slipping away from the San Angelo
. First one missile struck the ship, and then another. A third found its way to the target.

Still, it was not going to make a difference. The San Miguel would be able to provide enough cover for at least part of the squadron to make it to the glome. It simply needed to continue to the glome, leaving the San Angelo to its fate.

Then, everything changed.

Of the swarm of missiles that protected the San Miguel and the rest of the ships, more than
half peeled off away from the convoy and toward the San Angelo. Trying, evidently, to provide a last desperate defense of the doomed ship.

Easy pickings now. The San Angelo didn’t matter – missiles recently launched would take care of that battleship soon enough.

At Lobeck’s direction, Roe sent every missile in the fray at the San Miguel and then past it. Those that survived the journey proceeded to shred the convoy.

Soon only the two capital ships remained, both badly damaged.

Lobeck tracked the progress of the battle with satisfaction, as the pride of Kelter’s fleet went down fighting.

Do The Math

President Sanzite assembled them all. Three delegates, three other Presidents, and him. All seven of the Sisters were represented, at a very high level. The ship was standing off the glome to Goodhope, nominally as a member of the task force defending that position from any who might try to exit the system.

Sanzite addressed the assembled leaders. “We have seen that my Vice President, Arn Lobeck, has failed to contain the knowledge of our discovery despite his diligent efforts. Now it is widely known throughout Kelter. If the blockade is lifted, then the knowledge will spread through all of the known worlds in a matter of days. We cannot blockade the planet forever. So we find ourselves riding the tiger.

“Lobeck has a solution to this problem,” Sanzite continued. “He plans to use a D6 device to end all life on Kelter. Then he will clean up the remaining moons, stations, and vessels. I have carefully reviewed his plans, and I believe that he will succeed. The secret, our asset, can still be contained. The question before us, as representatives of our respective corporate bodies, is whether we should allow this, or whether we should instead intervene and prevent it.

“To best help us with that decision, I recommend that we view a feed from the bridge of the command ship. We have been receiving this for the purpose of relaying it, ostensibly to me, in my office outsystem. As far as I know, Lobeck still does not know that we are here in the Kelter system.”

They turned their attention to the large screen, and the feed began.

Arn Lobeck was addressing the crew on the bridge.

“We will be proceeding with this operation. That is not negotiable. However, I know that some of you who are present may find this difficult. That is completely understandable. So here is some information that may help you come to terms with the necessity of the action we are about to initiate.

“The price is high. Fifty million civilians. Most of them have committed no crime. You could say, on their behalf, that they will deserve justice for the wrong that is about to befall them. If that is so, then let the record state that I take full responsibility. As the ranking officer for our family, I am issuing the order.