‘You know how I feel about it,’ General Rhodes said.
It had been forty minutes since Yashego had received the news, and he’d assembled his crisis committee. They sat around the antique wooden briefing table opposite his desk, while Government House VIs deadzoned the room from electronic scrutiny per SOP. The air was charged with anger and anticipation.
‘The final decision comes down to you, Governor,’ Rhodes added.
How convenient, Yashego thought, that it all comes down to me. They’ve clamoured for years to tell me what to do. Now they resile from the responsibility like frightened children. They should be ashamed to call themselves Ariadnians. Well: cometh the hour, cometh the man.
‘Let’s go through the options one last time. We’ll give everyone a chance to say their piece. Then I will select a course of action,’ Yashego said, holding back his anger.
The room of faces stared back at him. There was General Rhodes, head of Ariadne’s Thesean UNAF contingent; Jennifer Brock, his chief of staff; Cole Hicks, the UN’s Minos legate; and Hester Juarez, Chief of the Theseus Metropolitan Police Department. He had not invited any of the city’s councillors. He, the UN Governor, had sole discretion on how to proceed under well-known Terran Hegemony Code provisions, even without the authority the flash had conferred on him.
‘Our first option is to prepare for an attack. To call up every reservist, to put every UNAF trooper on high alert, and to put the civilian population into orbital bombardment shelters.’
‘That would be a much more attractive option if we had citywide force shields,’ Juarez grumbled.
‘Don’t!’ Yashego suddenly snapped, brandishing a finger. Everyone in the room flinched. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t say that. When Vargonroth offered to fit Ariadne with force shields, you were vocal enough in your opposition in the council chamber! “UN meddling in the Outer Ring”! You’ve waived your right to complain about that! We all have.’
Juarez went the colour of beetroot, offering nothing by way of rejoinder.
‘Does anyone have any comment on option one?’ Yashego asked through clenched teeth. But the room was silent with contempt. They hated him. He was a proud, local man, an Ariadnian through-and-through. He had been a vociferous critic of the UN for decades. But now he was the Governor; and while being the Governor had seemed like a brilliant way of undermining the UN’s grip on Ariadne from the inside, actually a lot of lives and livelihoods suddenly depended on him being reasonable, even-handed, and following many UN policies which he had opposed his entire adult life. Policies which, when one inspected them from inside the government, actually made economic sense. Policies which were so entrenched, so key to the fabric of everyone’s lives—their free housing, education, food and drink for life, guaranteed as UN citizens, accepted begrudgingly and hypocritically, but accepted nonetheless—that to unpick them would be colonial suicide. Suddenly, he’d found he couldn’t attack the UN with as much vigour as he’d once felt able.
Now when his staff looked at him, they didn’t see a proud Ariadnian beaten into line by the big boys in Arrengate; they saw a cut-him-and-he-bleeds-blue UN man. Giving him the Governorship was the smartest move Vargonroth could have made. How he loathed them for it. Well. They’ll see soon enough.
‘Option two.’ He forged ahead. ‘We evacuate. We have access to a single cosmic disaster contingency craft, the UNS Helios. It has capacity for five hundred thousand, which is a tenth of one percent of the population of Theseus and Minos. After factoring in VIPs and their families, we would operate a lottery for the remaining places, which would be a matter of having the Governorate VIs choose randomly from the active IHDs.
‘With both options one and two, I anticipate widespread civil disorder in the best possible scenario and the total breakdown of society in the worst.’ He paused to cough. ‘Though neither would matter particularly if the Ascendancy turned up.’ He coughed again. No-one intervened or offered their thoughts. He quashed a surge of irritation.
‘The third and final option is to do nothing. To do and say nothing. In fact, to lie; to tell the people that the Fleet is indeed coming. Of course, this would buy us hours, perhaps a day at most. In this age of complete info-saturation, word would get out soon enough.’
He reclined in his chair, steepling his fingers. ‘I know which option I prefer, but absent any further comments—or options—I think a show of hands is probably the way to go. So: fortify the colonies?’ General Rhodes’ hand predictably rose. ‘Evacuate?’ Everyone else. ‘Do nothing.’
Only Yashego’s hand went up.
The room bristled. Looks were exchanged. Murmurs.
‘Governor, you can’t seriously advocate doing nothing?’ Brock said.
Yashego smiled. ‘No, not nothing. Apologies, what I meant to say was I advocate doing none of those options. Or rather, I advocate a hybrid of some of them. We will ready our forces, for all the good that will do. But I will not jam millions of people into orbital bombardment shelters. There isn’t enough space for everyone anyway, and that’s a short-term solution. A few days at most.’ He pushed himself away from the table and stood up. ‘And we will not evacuate. We wanted this. All of us around this table. We wanted our independence from the UN, and now we finally have it. I will not abandon Ariadne and flee to the nearest UN Fleet, tails between our legs, leaving almost every single man, woman and child on this world to die. No, I will not, and neither will you.
‘But nor will we do nothing. People have a right to know. We will tell the people the truth: that the UN has abandoned us, and that we have finally gained our independence. Whatever will happen will happen, but we will face it like proud Ariadnians.’
There was another, aghast silence. Yashego had to stop himself from smiling. Didn’t expect that, did you?
‘Governor, you said yourself…’ Rhodes said uncomfortably. Tact did not become him. ‘There will be riots, mobs, looting…’
‘Nonetheless, the people have a right to know what the UN thinks of them. If that is their reaction, so be it,’ Yashego said simply.
‘What of the winter solstice celebrations in Minos?’ Hicks asked moronically.
Yashego snorted with all the derision he could muster. ‘What about them?’
Rhodes cleared his throat. ‘Governor, no one in this room has ever doubted your loyalty to the Ariadnian cause’—
‘Excellent. I assure you there’s no need to make a habit of it now.’ He finished authoring the missive on his IHD, then posted it to the Governorate VI for general population distribution on the emergency channel.
—‘but may I advise… discretion?’ Rhodes continued paused to clear his throat, which turned into a minor coughing fit.
Yashego turned and looked out of the large arched window which afforded him a panorama of Theseus. ‘You may advise it,’ he said, smiling a sad smile. Outside, the first sounds of panic rose with the morning sun. ‘For all the good it will do.’