*****
Kaiser woke suddenly in the darkness and slammed his head into an unseen panel.
“The Kaiser has woken,” he heard his neighbor say from the other side of the bulkhead. “It seems even royalty has nightmares, no?” the voice declared before letting escape a cackle.
Kaiser paused for a second, situating himself, and then he laughed, apologized, and greeted his neighbor. The voice belonged to Wei Guozhi, the Tower’s chief logistics organizer, and thus someone with whom it was important to be friendly with. He heard movement all around him, barely perceptible above the ship’s own noises, and realized that they were not the only ones who were awake.
“Greetings, comrades,” he called out cheerfully.
There were answering greetings, some enthusiastic, others not so much. He estimated that he could speak with five of his neighbors in that way, the remaining cubicles connecting with his accommodations only at its corners. Five neighbors who could hear him breaking wind were five too many, but the personal space more than made up for that. The sergeants were four per cubicle, while the lower-ranking personnel were eleven for a space roughly twice his own. They accomplished such a feat by sleeping in shifts. At least their beds were never cold.
Already Kaiser had grown accustomed to the potent gravity, and he rose gracefully from his bed, trying to not put an elbow into his immediate surroundings to keep the noise down. He turned on the emergency light only; it was all he needed. Stronger illumination would only cost him points from his card. He stopped in front of the compartment’s other perk; an aluminum lavatory before which a battered metal mirror hung. The face he saw there had more lines than he remembered from before their long journey. He suspected he had somehow aged in cryostasis, although the physician had scoffed at the statement, declaring instead that the higher gravity was pulling at the skin of his face in a way that only gave that impression. His hair appeared almost black in the red light. It was light brown, in fact, just shy of dirty-blonde. His grey eyes appeared darker in the light as well, with a burgundy tinge that made him look like a vampire.
He washed and brushed, and then uniformed himself in his more formal number two attire. He thought about his nightmare, trying to remember it but failing in the attempt. It was a now-familiar failure. Since his arrival on the planet, Kaiser’s dreams had not been tranquil, and one in particular had been recurring with increasing frequency. He remembered the dream only because of the emotions it elicited upon waking. Misery, guilt, helplessness, a tight ball of emotions that seemed to accumulate with every episode. He discarded the thought and pocketed his wallet, bidding his neighbors farewell before leaving his room.
Compared to the dim light of his quarters, the corridor was positively glowing, and he paused momentarily for his eyes to adjust. As an exclusively military structure, the Tower was small for the multitude of resources it accommodated. The consequence was a web of service passages so narrow, the only way for two people to cross in opposite directions was at nodes where they could pass abreast.
Evacuation is no 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 is 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 didn’t usually pitter-pattered 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 a little 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 considering it. “I and my better half do not mind an audience. Not even a noisy one, for that matter. Besides, she is out at the moment, 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, 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 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 slumbering. 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 my urge to ride you, to pull at your crest, to pull at your –”
“Alright, alright, you trash talker, I’m up,” the old man muttered irritably, pulling the sleep mask up to peer at the grinning German. He shook his head at his visitor.
“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 began to chuckle. He stifled it quickly 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 settled 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 mistake a little more easily than I did, councilman.”
The strategist deliberately avoided Kaiser’s eyes, focusing instead on the activity in the arena while the commander breathed heavily beside him. After a while, when Kaiser’s body was no longer taut with sudden anger, 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 similar circumstances. Even if they’re not annihilated, the knockout will keep them on the carpet long enough for us to get up to speed. 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 possibly expect to predict the outcome of attacking their capital?”
“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 strange 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 them. 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 occupation. We have crossed the infinity of space and many of us feel very small. We have establis
hed 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 emotional concepts, especially not when these are presented with the aim of suppressing one’s instinct to attack for fear of being attacked.
“They won’t change their minds, nor will they accept the unusual reasoning you have to offer. Only the complete destruction of the convoy might give them reason to pause, but even then they must know there will be follow-ups. All you will have for your efforts, dear Kaiser, is my vote and my attempt to dispassionately reason with fearful people. I have long given up on trying more advanced methods of thought transmission. The emotional whiplash one receives in return nearly destroyed me once. I have learned my lesson.”
The strategist became silent, and he returned to his attention to the events at the arena. There were plainly no survivors at the clearing, and Kaiser was thankful for that, despite the lack of prisoners that entailed. He observed from a bird’s eye view as Lippard approached the location where the drone had pegged the fugitive truck, his paramour certainly as aware as he was of the need to dispatch all civilians before any could escape. The fate of the planet hung on it and, after all, a small dose of genocide could perhaps prevent a larger one from taking place. That was how vaccinations had originally worked, or so he had read somewhere.
The commander sensed movement to his rear, but decided to ignore it. Moments later someone politely cleared his throat. The deep rumble confirmed Kaiser’s suspicion. Turning towards the ISB officer, Kaiser presented him with his brightest smile. The officer rewarded him with a humorless grin.
“Excuse me, commander. I trust the motive for your visit has been satisfied?” he declared.
Kaiser sighed and thought on the matter. He then nodded curtly and bid the strategist a good evening.
“It’s morning, by the way,” the officer corrected. “The director of strategy should return to his post. I’ll accompany you to the door, Commander.”
Shortly afterwards, Kaiser was stalking along the corridor, his mind racing as he considered what needed to be done. Making a quick decision, he made for the armory.
The installations occupied the tower’s entire second level, the first two levels being accessible by stairs or, alternatively, through the chute-and-pole rig that had been the main highway in microgravity. Kaiser naturally used the firepole, his inner child overruling any concern he might have had for doing the stunt under the intense gravity, and he reached the second level in an instant, coming face-to-face with an ISB checkpoint at the armory’s only entrance.
Their presence did not bode well for the future. He put on his brightest smile and approached the Principal Chief in command of the checkpoint. The chief smiled back, and Kaiser suddenly knew the guard had already been contacted by his superior two floors above. Kaiser widened his smile for good measure.
“Good morning, Chief, I hope you would not mind me visiting my armorers. We have been having some problems with our platform safeties ...”
The chief nodded amiably enough.
“I see, commander. As much as it pains me to, I am unable to allow you to pass for the moment,” he explained with exaggerated pain. “The armorers are at the moment tasked with an important mission, and until its conclusion they will not –”
The double gates opened behind the chief and a specialist exited at once. As all lay their eyes upon his wiry frame, he stopped, planted his hands on his waist and sighed heavily.
“Done.” he declared. “And I’m also done for the day. You may all go fuck yourselves.”
The specialist took off at a stroll, the ISB personnel daring only to raise their eyebrows as he passed them by. Kaiser gave the chief a farewell nod and followed the departing soldier.
He caught up with him at the elevator.
“Specialist Tarento, I am told our cooks foolishly left their desserts unguarded –”
“No, Commander, I will not go on another adventure with you. I’ll go to the belvedere. If you like you may accompany me, and then perhaps we can have a conversation.”
“I would enjoy such a conversation, if the belvedere wasn’t tapped. The reactor, however, isn’t. We –”
“Is this corridor tapped?”
“I think not.”
The specialist leaned close and whispered.
“What I have to say won’t take long. The number of devices they had us prep goes well beyond tactical use. They are committed to some more strategic objective ...”
“How many?” Kaiser asked.
“All of them. Forty units have been tasked to Tactical Command. The remainder are with strategic. Didn’t you say you were going to do something about this?”
Kaiser felt an upwelling of emotion he had only ever felt before in that most unpleasant dream. He smiled automatically, but no answer was forthcoming. Tarento shrugged.
“There’s no reason to get too emotional about this. It’s mostly humans who are going to die. There are already too many of those in the universe, I think.”
“Yes, my kinder, but what cries they make when they expire,” Kaiser sighed.