The Stars Came Back (66 page)

Allonia and Helton
are shocked and dismayed as they find their friend and protector is, in a way, one of the most notorious yet unknown mass killers in history.

Ship AI: (OC) Yet it is the lives I’ve saved that mean the most.

PM: Because you saved the ones you liked the most.

Ship AI: (OC) Such as your grandfather. Among humans, I saved the ones that wanted to be left alone, and to leave others alone, if they could.

PM: But you have
not
managed to save many of your crew.

Ship AI: (OC) They volunteered to fight, even if the cost was their
lives.

PM: They mastered self, the
one, attempting to master war, and wasted both because they had not mastered their leaders.

Helton: Not leaders. Rulers. Some men need rulers. Some men need to
be
rulers. Free men need
leaders
.

PM: Indeed. And so, humanity created hugely lethal, fully self-aware, independent machines that will outlive you all, but the machines depend on you for your creativity and irrational behavior in part for their effectiveness, and still they have no desire to lead or rule you. Merely help you understand
and master yourself. You and they are symbiots in a way. And then your rulers attempt to destroy them out of fear of losing control. Irony, thy name is
Tajemnica
… And vice versa.

Helton and Allonia look at the avatar on the screen, pondering what they are hearing for a few long minutes.

Allonia: So… does this mean it’s the end, then?

PM: Not just yet.

Helton: I thought… you said you were the one selected to destroy us?

PM: Yes. We had thought that all the sister ships of
Irony
were gone, and she as well, and there was no hope of recovering them. I am genuinely pleased to meet the very same ship-person my grandfather did. I hardly dared hope when I noted the faint trail in transition space.

Allonia: So you, all by yourself, can decide to NOT destroy us all?

PM: (Amused) On my way to Humanity’s final evaluation and expected fatal decision, I find the arguably most soulless, expensive, and lethal war machine ever created by humans, having been saved by monks in poverty and won in a card game, working with itinerant civilians, led by a stateless diplomat with a Letter of Marque and planet killer weapons, seeking employ as a
transport
, racing madly in circles in order to get to battle on time, trying to end a war with irrational fanatics by hauling volunteer mercenaries with swords and shields between stars on a suicide mission, simply because you think it’s the right thing to do. Meanwhile, the most highly engineered-for-fighting person on board is expected by everyone else to be an excellent mother.

Helton: When you put it that way, it
does sound a bit strange…

PM: If your gods
do exist, they have quite a sense of humor. “More study required” seems an inadequate description. I don’t feel compelled to end your species as being fundamentally defective. You are just… immature. With time, education, and possibly a better leadership selection process, perhaps a majority of you will meet all the requirements.

Helton: If I’m understanding you correctly, though, that might be a
long wait.

PM: We have time. Now, so do you.

Allonia: Well we ever see you again?

The avatar shrugs.

PM: Maybe. Or, perhaps, my grandchildren can play with yours, somewhere out here in The Deep, aboard
Irony
.

Allonia: That sounds nice. I’d like to think that could happen.

Helton: Even if no one will believe us.

Ship AI: (OC) I will. If I don’t get all scatter-brained again between now and then.

The Planet Mover avatar smiles, nods, and bows slightly.

PM: Good luck! May we meet again, mo
re openly, some day. Until then…

The Planet Mover waves a polite good-by
e, the screen goes blank, and replaces the avatar with a starry background and the planet mover ship accelerating away, then glowing, and disappearing. They are silent for a moment.

Helton: Didn’t set out to save the world.

Ship AI: (OC) No, Helton. Not the world. All of Humanity. For now.

Allonia: That doesn’t seem right.

Ship AI: (OC) No one who sets out to save the world ever did. They invariably make it
worse
. Only those who work to make their own little piece of it better in small ways, working freely with others so that their own lives are better, do. Humanity is better off because you care for Quinn, not because you are paid or compelled to do so, but simply because it needs to be done, and you
choose
to, and
do it well
. That is what saves the world.
That
is mastering the one. There is no contradiction between the needs of the many, and the needs of the one, properly understood.

FADE OUT

Plans

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Officers’ Mess

Helton, Lag, Harbin, Ahmed, Capt
Thrim Tokarev (commander of the 13th Mountain Shields, late 30s, short hair, goatee, medium skinned, scarred, tough and powerfully built) sit around a table discussing strategy. On a wall screen is the planetary system diagram, on the table screen is a layout of the expected battlefield.

Ahmed: Another ship
full of untrained, unequipped fools shows up just about every day. A hundred here, a thousand there.

Lag: Any word on their supply situation on the ground?

Ahmed: Nothing solid, but it must be getting pretty desperate. Their numbers are up just over a hundred thousand near as we can tell. One hijacked ship crashed attempting to land with a load of food. It wasn’t a ship designed for landing in an atmosphere.

Thrim: That many. Just the crush of bodies would be deadly. We’ll
have to keep moving, stay on the edge, like we originally thought. Push in, reverse quickly, stay mobile.

Harbin: Rotate the formation along the edge, let them come to us. With no discipline or leadership, they’ll just all head toward the sound, and get in one another’s way. Land on the edge here (points to the map), then we roll along counterclockwise holding where we engage and let the back of the circle thin and rotate down the line. Hold the right, constant fall-back on the left.

Thrim: Need more practice on rolling the line like that. Pretty good now, but we’ll need to master it with that many to deal with. Either that, or use the whole plain, a line that continuously falls back slowly, maybe wheeling slowly, so as they follow us we eventually lead them back through a pile of bodies.

Harbin: Give us bad footing, but it would be a bit higher if the bodies are stacked three deep. Like fighting from the top of a low wall.

Lag: And the square, and how to march a circle. We might get surrounded. With no proper organization or equipment, they’ll have to use speed and numbers to just mob us, massed charge, grab and drag down. We definitely
cannot
let ourselves get pinned in place and surrounded by a deep mob.

Helton: Like a bad old zombie movie. Lots of barely armed, mostly unarmored morons trying to take on a shield wall backed by spears and swords. Need practice taking out eye-sockets to drop them in place fast. No time to let them bleed out. More accuracy drills.

Ahmed: There was one carrier when I left and reports of another on the way. A dozen or so other star cruisers not attached to a carrier. Just sitting there for now, a pair each from Niven, Eridani, Geminorum, Emirate-

Helton: Emirate?

Ahmed: Yes. Familiar with them?

Lag: Had a little run-in a while back. The
Hussein
would like another crack at us, I expect.

Ahmed: That’s one of them.

Lag: Any word why they are here?

Ahmed: Every ship and story is different. They seem to be letting transports in to drop his followers.
An Earth fleet star-cruiser attached to a carrier is here, reportedly with some high mucky-muck religious guy aboard. No word on its carrier group, though.

Thrim: A priest? Rabbi? Imam? Any idea?

Ahmed: No clue. Kat just passed that on to me moments before we hopped out here. You have a lot of enemies that hope you lose, you know.

Lag: And more than a few support
ers that hope I win. Any friendlies?

Ahmed: Nothing but sketchy rumors. Not likely at this point.

Helton: So, we don’t know if we’ll be on our own, or even if we have to fight our way in or not.

Lag: Or
out
.

Helton looks at him with a frown.

Lag: Going in is sort of optional. Once down they can close in and cap your exit from close orbit.

Helton: Atmo’s thick, normal railguns with light projectiles can’t hurt us from orbit. Missiles we can shoot down. They’d have to send in a
lot of atmo fighters to saturate our defenses.

Ahmed: There will be a
lot there. They could. But if they won’t let you lift, then what? There are going to be at least a dozen cruisers there, each with ten to twenty fighters or interceptors, and if they are all waiting for you to lift, they’re shooting
down
the gravity well, you are shooting up. That has ugly written all over it.

Helton: Can’t we just wait until the battle’s over, then lift,
fait accompli
?

Ahmed
: A lot of pols would like you
all
to die. Make their lives easier to get rid of you both.

Harbin:
We have separate problems. Training troops. Getting in and landing. Surviving bombardment. Ground combat. Lifting to orbit. Getting out of the system. Training guys for on the ground and then fighting is our problem. Getting in and out is
yours
.

Helton: Gee, thanks.

Lag: We’ll come up with something. But until we know for sure who’s there and what they want, all plans are going to need to be flexible.

Helton: Winging it again.

Lag: You seem to be good it.

Thrim: Anything new on the monitors?

Ahmed: Still saying initial hands-on check, then just remote hover cameras on scene. (Wryly) For some reason no one wants to be caught on the ground during a meat-grinder with a hundred thousand religious fanatics on one side and you guys on the other.

Thrim: (
Sardonically) Can’t
imagine
why.

DISSOLVE TO

INT - NIGHT - Helton’s cabin

Helton sits at his desk. Lag sits in the spare chair, Quiritis sits on the edge of the bed.

Lag: Might just work. L1 transition risks aside, you
do realize that if you do this, there’s no going back? You’ll never again be just a transport captain looking for a cargo? You’ll be an outlaw on most planets.

Helton: Been considering that. After everything that’s happened, think I finally figured out what I’m doing.

Quiritis: Really? I thought you already knew,
Captain
. Well, sort of… Sometimes… In a manner of speaking.

Helton gets up, walks over to a small wall safe. He palms the lock, taps in a few keystrokes, turns the handle, and pops it open. He reaches in and takes out a folded bit of fancy paper. He unfolds it, showing it to be the title to the ship. He reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a lighter. He tries to light the corner. It doesn’t catch.

Ship AI: (OC) Not flammable material, of course, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Helton: OK, I’ll use Stenson’s cutting torch later. Seems to me that it isn’t right to own a person, and
Taj
, you are
definitely
a person. You are not owned by me, or anyone. First official act in my new business: manumission.

Lag and Quiritis look at him inquiringly.

Helton: Going into the freedom biz.

Quiritis: (
Puzzled) Sounds nice, but not sure I follow.

Lag: Bipasha might have some hard questions about your numbers.

Helton: We have our own world now, where we can make the laws. But most people don’t. We can make anything we want, go anywhere we want. Most people
can’t
. We have an arsenal that would make most tyrants green with envy… Word of that book and the Planet Mover message gets out, governments will
not
like it. It’s basically saying that big central government
is the problem
. If we live through this little shindig we can put out the word: people that want freedom they can’t get where they are can scrape together a ship and basic supplies. We show up, piggyback them into The Deep to worlds that are uninhabited and only partially terraformed, and turn them loose to stand or fall on their own merit, because no one can come to help or hinder. We can grubstake them a Terraforming Platform and a couple of accurate history books. They get together a thousand people willing to sign onto a constitution that guarantees freedom and individual rights as well as any paper can, and we’ll help them find their own little hunk of frontier to plow. The Dark is receding
very
slowly. There are lots of planets out there they could use. Governments on accessible planets keep people under their thumb because there isn’t any place to run
to
. We can fix that. Smart, motivated people can just…
leave
. We can bring the stars back to those willing to work for it.