Lieutenants
By Scott Washburn
Warning: Spoilers for Captain Vorpatril's Alliance
First Interlude
"So,they're on their way?" asked Miles Vorkosigan.
"The fleet should be breaking orbit in just a few minutes," replied Gregor Vorbarra. He paused and ran his hands through his dark hair. There was a bit of gray showing in the temples now, Miles observed—just like on his own temples. "Why do I see myself saying a year from now: 'well, it seemed like a good idea at the time'?"
"You're really worried about this, aren't you?"
"Aren't you? By the time you include all the fleet personnel, support, diplomatic people, and various hangers-on, we're sending nearly 50,000 of our people to the back end of nowhere for purposes that look less and less clear every day. How many of them are going to be coming back in cryo-freeze—or not at all?"
"You've never really done this before, have you? Send troops into battle, I mean."
"Well, I suppose I was responsible for the men who fought at Vervain, but I wasn't really the one in command, as you'll recall." Gregor gave Miles an ironic smile.
"That was really something, wasn't it?" Miles smiled back.
"Growing nostalgic for the old days, Miles?"
"There are times when I still miss it, yes. Not so much now, but still… There's nothing quite like that adrenalin high just before going into action. Part excitement and part sheer terror." Miles paused and looked down at his boots. "It was scary being in combat, but the thing that scared me the most was knowing that if I screwed up a lot more than just me could die. My friends, my comrades… my command could die. I had gotten so damn proud of the Dendarii that the thought of seeing my creation destroyed was more horrible than just about anything else. I had nightmares about it. I'd be in the tactics room, watching the shuttles going down, and I'd suddenly realize there was some terrible mistake in my plan and even though there was still time to fix it, I'd be paralyzed in my chair, unable to move or say anything, just watching the disaster unfold. Usually that's when I woke up." He looked sheepishly at Gregor. "I never mentioned any of those dreams to Simon."
"No, I suppose not," said Gregor very softly. "That's the sort of the nightmare I'm living right now. Once the fleet makes its first jump I won't know if I've made a terrible mistake until it's far, far too late to do anything about it."
"It's a powerful force, Gregor. After the rendezvous with the other contingents, it's unlikely to encounter anything it can't handle."
"True," nodded the Emperor. "Even if the Nuevo Brasilians sent their entire fleet to try to intercept us, they couldn't win."
"And they'd end up at war with nearly all the great powers. They'd never risk it."
"No, you're right. But I'm not worried about some big disaster, just a series of small, on-going disasters once they get there. Miles, I've studied the histories of other missions like this—some going back a thousand years or more—and they rarely end well."
Miles frowned and then shrugged. "Well, there isn't anything we can do now. We're committed. We'll just have to hope that the people we're sending are up to the job."
A small smile appeared on Gregor's lips. "I'm still rather amazed about one of the people we're sending. I must admit that took me by surprise. But there was no reason for me to intervene and several not to."
Miles chuckled. "Well, at least we don't have to worry about him deliberately putting himself in harm's way."
"No, that's true."
"But you said you had something else you wanted to discuss?"
"Yes, it's something that Laisa brought to my attention. Some rather odd goings-on concerning Kibou-daini. I don't know if it's something for an auditor to get involved with yet, but I want your opinion."
"Okay, show me what you've got."
[Scene Break]
Deputy Counsel Lord Ivan Xav Vorpatril watched the fleet moving out of orbit from the observation lounge aboard the Imperial battleship Prince Serg. It was an impressive sight. Damned impressive. The biggest deployment of Barrayaran troops since the ill-fated invasion of Escobar over forty years previously. There had been a few fleet operations in the last decades that had contained more warships than this, but when you added in the transports and the large number of auxiliaries it was the biggest task force in more than a generation.
And Ivan was going along. Ivan and his wife, Tej.
It still seemed slightly incredible to him. He'd spent twenty years in the Imperial Forces and never once voluntarily gotten within light years of a combat zone. He'd been in a few combat zones, of course, but never by choice. Usually it had been Miles' fault. And now, mere months after retiring from the military he found himself heading toward a war zone—as a diplomat!
He hadn't planned it. When he'd applied for a position in the Diplomatic Service he'd pulled some strings to get assigned to Lord Vorpinski's staff. Vorpinski had been a diplomat at large for many years. He travelled all over the Wormhole Nexus on Imperial business and Ivan and Tej had decided that it might be fun to travel for a few years before finally settling down somewhere and starting their family.
But the ink was barely dry on his appointment when Vorpinski was ordered to join the Barrayaran Expeditionary Force and go to Nova Paveo! Ivan could have backed out, but it would have burned up all those favors he'd called in for nothing. God only knew where he'd end up assigned instead. So, after some long talks with Tej they decided to go ahead. With any luck it wouldn't be a long assignment. With any luck there wouldn't be any combat…
"So, we're off." Ivan turned and smiled as Tej came to stand next to him and took his arm. "Our first adventure in a long time."
"The first one since we met. You really want to do this?"
"Don't start that again! We've made up our minds, remember? One last fling and then we start cranking out little Vorlings to make your mother happy."
"Hopefully to make us all happy. And Mamere's not getting any younger. Neither am I for that matter." Tej smiled and poked him but didn't answer. She was ten years younger than him and with the advantage of galactic gene screening and a uterine replicator birth, she'd probably out-live him by thirty years or more. That thought had been weighing on him more and more lately. Yes, one last fling and then children. Maybe he was finally ready for that…
"Ah, Ivan, there you are." They both turned to see Lord Vorpinski and his wife, Larissa, approaching. They were both in their sixties, but fit and energetic. "Quite a sight, eh?" Vorpinski pointed at the large viewport. "But I'm glad I'm seeing it from here! Did ten years aboard ship when I was a lad, and sometimes months would go by between chances to see outside. Glad we're not junior officers anymore, eh?"
"Yes, sir," agreed Ivan. "And I understand that Admiral Vorburke sets a very fine table, too."
"Yes! I've travelled with him a few times and he's got an excellent cook and a steward who is an absolute genius at procuring local delicacies from the worlds we stop at. There should be ample opportunities for that on this odyssey."
"Lots of formal dinners once we join up with the other contingents, I would imagine, sir. I assume they are all sending diplomatic parties as well?"
"Oh yes! Absolutely! In many ways this whole enterprise is a diplomatic one rather than military. It may have started out as a humanitarian mission, but once the great powers got involved, well, things took on a momentum of their own."
Ivan nodded. The situation in the Wormhole Nexus had a lot of similarities to the Age of Exploration and Colonization on Old Earth, centuries before space travel. A cluster of powerful worlds had grown up around a central core: Earth, Beta Colony, the Cetagandan Empire, Pol, Escobar, Barrayar and the Nuevo Brasilians, plus a dozen or so secondary powers. From there, hundreds of other colonies had spread out along the intricate chain of jump routes that was the Nexus. Some were sponsored by the governments of the Powers and far more were independent ventures. By this time no one really knew how far humanity had spread. Some estimates put the number of settled worlds in the thousands. In the early days, some of the Powers had visions of vast, galaxy-spanning empires. There had been a century or so, while Barrayar was locked in its own Time of Isolation, where there had been a mad race going on to grab the best planets and most strategic star systems and out-settle the competition.
But just as on Earth of the past, the vast distances and long travel times made it very hard for the mother worlds to hang on to their colonies for long. Time after time, worlds that had been expected to be the bases from which these new empires would grow, had decided that they wanted destinies of their own and would declare independence. The nature of the nexus made it easy for those bids for freedom. You could only get from one world to another by the wormhole jump routes that led from star to star. More often than not the route from a mother world to a colony passed through at least one star system held by some other power or by some independent world. And if that world decided that its sympathies lay with the rebels—or just wanted to screw with the mother world—well, they could make it very difficult for the 'rightful owners' to reinforce their garrisons. The centuries following the mad land-rush had seen the nascent empires shatter into hundreds of independent worlds that were just too hard to re-conquer to be worth the effort. Most of the Powers gave up on the whole idea.
Most of them.
There had still been an occasional attempt over the years for someone to build a strong base in the outer reaches from which other worlds could be seized and held. Ivan had never really grasped just what these mother worlds hoped to accomplish. Taxes? Military strength? Prestige? Only the last one made any sense. It was hard to believe that any wealth or military strength that might be returned to the home world could pay back the original investment. Still, some worlds had tried.
The latest was the attempt by the Nuevo Brasilians. The EnBees, as they were commonly referred to, had been an almost-great power for a long time. Or perhaps a wannabe great power would be a more accurate description. They had grand visions, grand schemes, and some truly grand failures. One scheme, many centuries ago, had seen them try to build a genetically engineered clone army of super-soldiers. That had failed so spectacularly that it had nearly been the end of the EnBees right there. And it had so soured nearly everyone else on the very idea of super-soldiers that there had been few attempts ever since. Which was a good thing in Ivan's opinion.
Still, every few generations, the EnBees would raise a fuss by some abortive invasion attempt or massive military build-up that would force their neighbors to take notice until they calmed down again. They had always been a loose cannon.
The latest fuss centered around the colony world of Nova Paveo. From the briefing Ivan had received, he knew that it was a hospitable world in a star system that had a good number of wormhole exits. It had been colonized about a century earlier by what appeared to be an independent group with only a few cultural ties to the EnBees. As was most often the case, the most direct route to Nova Paveo led through a large number of systems controlled by other worlds. But what was only just now coming to light was the fact that the EnBees had discovered another, far more roundabout, route to Nova Paveo that passed through uninhabited systems or systems whose inhabitants didn't care about ships passing through. And so the EnBees had secretly pumped massive resources into Nova Paveo in hopes of creating an industrialized base for further expansion.
They had attempted to neutralize the threat of rebellion by only sending colonists with the strongest loyalty to the home world: grandees from their aristocratic class and workers who had gone through the most intense training and propaganda. And a very strong force of their feared secret police.
But once again, the EnBees had screwed up.
In spite of all their precautions, all their informers and agents and soldiers, there had still been a revolt. Information from ImpSec indicated that it had started out as a top-down coup rather than a popular revolution. The grandee sent as governor had decided that he was going to set up an empire of his own rather than work for the bosses back home. But the rebellion was only partially successful. There had been enough loyalists willing to fight that the governor had failed to seize the whole planet. The EnBees had brought in reinforcements to secure their remaining foothold. From there things had just gotten worse. The word was that the original leader had been killed, but before he went he'd managed—probably unintentionally—to turn the rebellion into an actual popular uprising. With rebels against loyalists it had turned into a bloody civil war.
This probably wouldn't have concerned the rest of the galaxy all that much—such things happened often enough, after all—except that the new rebel leaders had a knack for public relations and diplomacy. Realizing they would need outside help if they were to survive, they had gone right to the top. They hadn't bothered asking their weak neighbors for help; they'd gone to the Great Powers, distant though they might be. The fact that the EnBees had struck at the rebels with all their legendary brutality had given the rebel emissaries plenty of ammunition for their case. The Betans, always interested in maintaining the status quo, and the Polians, who had a deliberately cultivated reputation as peacemakers, had been quite receptive to the plea for help. In a rather remarkable bit of diplomatic maneuvering the rebels had managed to sell the idea of a multi-national peacekeeping force going to Nova Paveo. Clearly they were hoping that an enforced cease-fire would eventually become a de facto state of independence.
At face value it was a humanitarian mission, but behind the scenes there was a lot more going on. None of the Great Powers really trusted each other. The Great Game for dominance might have entered a long quiet period, but it never really ended. Each power was always on the lookout for something that might give it an edge over the others. Nova Paveo was not all that valuable a prize, but if the EnBees wanted it then maybe the Cetagandans would want it, too. Or Pol, or some coalition of Earth nations. Or Barrayar. No one was willing to let any one of the others have a free hand out there. So they were all coming along. And they would all be scheming and plotting and backstabbing the whole time.
And so, here was Ivan. What a mess. Well, at least the food will be good.
"Dear," said Larissa Vorpinski to her husband, jogging Ivan out of his musings. "Did you know that Tej, here, is an absolute wiz at languages? She speaks about a dozen of them and is studying more. She'll be a real asset to you, I think."
"Really?" said Vorpinski looking interested. "Those earbug translators do the job, but are no substitute for actually speaking the language. You have a natural talent for them, Tej?"
"Yes sir," said Tej, shrugging. "They're fun. I hear a new language for a while and I seem to pick it right up. When I heard we'd be coming out here I started studying some of the more prominent languages used by the coalition and the Paveans. They have the most unusual variation on Portuguese, you know."
"No, I didn't know. Interesting. How about Cetagandan? I've tried for years to get a grasp on their language, but with no success."
"It is very tricky, sir," said Tej, nodding. "The actual vocabulary is straightforward enough, but they have all these complicated grammatical forms depending on who is speaking to whom. Haut to haut, ghem to ghem, haut to ghem, ghem to haut, and a whole set of variations depending on the specific ranks of the people speaking. And that's just for them talking to each other. When talking to foreigners there is another whole set of rules. I'm slowly getting the hang of them."
"That's wonderful. I may find some work for you, Tej!" Vorpinski grinned at her.
"I was hoping to do more than just be a tourist, sir." Tej smiled back at him.
"Well, I've never been one to let willing hands go idle!" Vorpinski glanced meaningfully at Ivan. "We're creating a nest for a whole batch of vipers here, and once they all arrive I can guarantee you that we'll all have our hands full!"
[Scene Break]
The young man stood in the driving sleet and shivered. The streets of Vorbarr Sultana were nearly deserted due to the weather, but the solemn funeral procession made its way down the boulevard as if there were thousands watching. Just a few days before, there had been thousands lining these streets, watching the departure of the Barrayaran Expeditionary Force. There were a still a few shriveled flower petals floating in the gutter.
The young man shook his head sadly. The old man who lay in the casket atop the horse-drawn carriage would have loved that parade, but he was already in the final stage of his death coma and had known nothing of it. The notion that Barrayar was once again flexing its muscles and sending its youth to the stars would have delighted the old man.
The only connection between the young man and the old was their mutual passion for politics and many common beliefs concerning those politics. When they had first met, the younger had clearly been the junior, a protégé, perhaps, but as the years passed and the youth matured and the elder had faded, they had been more like equals. The young man felt a strange empty feeling, like standing next to some enormous hole that had once been level ground.
I'm going to miss you, Old Man.
It was a strange thought. Neither one had ever shown even the slightest trace of affection for the other, fearing, perhaps, that it would be misinterpreted. But now that it was too late to matter, he had to admit that he'd liked the old codger.
The procession was led by a single drummer whose instrument was draped in black crepe and muffled so that the steady, slow beat seemed from far off. Due to the old man's distinguished military career in years long past, he was entitled to an escort of soldiers and the Academy's corps of cadets had supplied a company. The young man snorted silently when he saw that several of the cadets, marching at the half-step, black arm bands on their dress uniforms, rifles reversed, were girls.
That was a bit of irony: the old man had hated the notion of letting women into the military. He'd even taken some steps to sabotage the attempt of the very first woman trying to enter the military. Unsuccessfully as it turned out. The young man had felt it a waste of effort, but had never said so.
"It's a disgrace," said a voice at his elbow.
The young man jumped slightly. A stranger had come up next to him unseen. A man perhaps a few years older than him. "I beg your pardon?"
"Allowing those damn sluts to march in his escort!" snapped the man, pointing to the cadets. "Everyone knows he opposed letting them in. This is a deliberate slap in the face!"
The young man considered it for a moment but rather doubted that any such thing had been intended. But why was this fellow here and talking to him like this? "Excuse me, do I know you, sir?"
"We've never met, but I know your reputation," said the stranger. "My name is Vorritter."