The ethos effect, p.32
The Ethos Effect, page 32
Why, suddenly, was there an increase in old-style religion? The uncertainty of the times? Its simplistic appeal? Van couldn’t say he knew. Finally, he went back to scanning headlines.
Miniature Steeds Woo Crowds... Sermons Exempt from Anti-Hate Laws...
That one was predictable, and depressing.
“Deep Ocean Catch Down... “Santorinae Nova No Threat...
Van went through almost a hundred headlines before another one caught his eye.
“IF Praises Equalization Act...”
What was the equalization act? Van kept searching until he came to a paragraph that made some sense.
... rationale for the Economic Equalization Act. Out-system multilaterals have come to control all the major avenues of commerce on Sandurst, skimming off profits and weakening Islyn. By requiring local divestiture, the Quorum has returned control of our economic destiny to our own people...
But what was local divestiture? He was afraid he had a good idea, and keyed in a search on the Equalization Act. There were twenty stories about the act—and not a single one said more than what he’d already found. The IF supported it, and the SE opposed it, and there was a great debate on what the effect would be, whether it would isolate Islyn or whether it would revitalize the planetary economy, but there wasn’t a single story that explained the terms of the act Feeling short on time, Van abandoned the Equalization Act and pressed on through the headlines and associated stories. Normally, he would have gone to the local IIS office, where he would have received a meaningful synopsis and analyses, but the Islyn office had been open less than ten years. The last report was over a year old—and that indicated none of the problems that were appearing in the more recent media reports.
“Commander?” Eri appeared in the stateroom doorway.
Van checked the time. Had three hours already passed? “Is Director Rezi here?”
“He is at the lock. He keeps looking over his shoulder.”
Van pulsed the lock open even before he left the stateroom.
Rezi was still looking at the lock when Van stood there on the ship side.
“Director Rezi... I’m sorry. I was tied up in some research, and the time got away from me. Do come aboard.”
Rezi looked at Van, as if comparing his presence to a mental image, then smiled. “I am certain you are busy, and I appreciate your making time for me.”
“That’s what we’re here for.” Van stepped back and let Rezi board the Joyau, immediately closing the ship lock behind the Islyn. “We’ll have to use my stateroom. We don’t have a conference room per se.”
Rezi glanced toward the cockpit, then toward Eri, who had donned a holstered stunner, Van noted. “You are like... Director Desoll? Your own pilot?”
“That’s correct. All senior directors are.” Van motioned for Rezi to enter the stateroom.
“You were a Coalition officer?”
“No. I was a Taran RSF commodore. Please sit down.” Van took the console chair, facing Rezi in the anchored easy chair.
“I assume your ship is screened, Director Van?”
“Very tightly. Are things that-bad?”
“Not yet, but they will be.”
“Why? How?”
“I apologize. Director Van. I do apologize.” Rezi produced two datacards from the narrow pack at his belt, half-standing to lean forward and set them on the flat space beside the console. “The first card has the authorizations and the transaction codes. I’ve transferred all IIS assets and arranged for all retainers, so long as possible, to be paid to and routed through the Bank of Raipur. That’s because the IF is about to push through a freeze on all funds transfers out of Islyn through Coalition or Argenti institutions. They already prohibited transfers from institutions associated with nonmajor systems—”
“Only Hyndji and Revenant institutions will be able to make those transfers?”
“That is correct.”
Van nodded. “And what about candidates for your position? That was a blind?”
“Exactly. Under the Economic Equalization Act, the majority interests of all out-system enterprises will have to be sold to Islynan citizens by the end of the calendar year. The local employees or directors automatically assume control of such entities unless other arrangements are made by that time. I arranged to purchase fifty-five percent of the local IIS office, rather than assuming control, because that way I can transfer funds for that purchase, and I can still rebate a proportionate share of earnings after expenses. The IF will not allow that to continue for too long, a year, two at the most.” Rezi shrugged. “I am only returning what is yours, and I will send the retainers and royalties as I can for as long as I can. That is the best that I can do. You will be able to verify that.”
“Who’s behind this? Really?” Van snapped out the question, hoping to catch Rezi off-guard enough to get a subvocalized response.
Revenants “The IF Party. They have spent five years working to pass the Equalization Act. I believe they are receiving funds and technical support from several Revenant multilaterals. You know AdVer; it has been an IIS client. They have served notice that they are severing the agreement with IIS because they have been purchased, and the new ownership feels that such an arrangement will no longer be beneficial.”
“The new ownership?”
“KLS. It is a Revenant multilateral headquartered in Braha.”
“What about MT?”
“Nothing so far. We are still providing services.”
“Xcil?”
Rezi shrugged.
Van nodded slowly. “The other datacard?”
“It contains information that may be of use to IIS.”
Van continued to press Rezi for almost two hours, but the man continued to impress him as generally honest. It would have been far easier for Rezi simply to wait and take all of the IIS local assets and future retainers—assuming the Equalization Act did in fact allow that.
In the end, he just thanked Rezi and saw him out the ship lock.
Then he made sure the Joyau was ready for emergency delocking before he began a second search, this one heading straight for the public law sections of the Quorum’s public access section. Public Law 24-21 contained all the provisions Rezi had cited. It also contained a provision stating that out-system ownership by entities with legal status in either the Rev or Hyndji systems would not be covered by PL 24-21 until two years after the initial effective date of the law.
Another hour later, Van walked out of his stateroom.
Eri was in the mess. “Now?”
“Let’s hope they’ll let us depart peacefully. But we’ll strap in, in case they don’t.”
Van did so, then brought both fusactors on line, throwing more power to the ship’s secondary shields—the ones that ran under the thin outer ablative layer of the hull. He dropped the ship grav to nil and unlinked from station power.
Sandurst Orbit Control, this is Coalition ship Joyau. Preparing for departure. Request departure clearance this time.
Joyau, control, wait one.
Van prepared to use full power on the thrusters if the station didn’t depower the lock magholds and dampers. Joyau. Reduce ship grav to nil and report. Ship grav at nil.
Depowering dampers. You are cleared for separation and low-power departure this time.
Van did not leave the cockpit until they were a good two hours outbound from Islyn.
Then, he went back to his stateroom to check over the cards Rezi had left. Van did not insert the cards he had received from Rezi into the ship system, nor into the separate IIS system in his stateroom, but into a third reader. The third reader was isolated physically and electronically from all other systems in order to determine data compatibility and to ensure that any datacard read contained no VDAs or the equivalent.
Van transferred the data on the first card to another card, running all the information through an assembly-disassembly and vetting process that separated the data from the structure beneath it before making the transfer. He did the same for the second and third cards.
The first card seemed to be exactly what Rezi had claimed. The second card contained information on every major business and multilateral on Islyn, including the share of out-system ownership and the name and home system of the owner. Even with a brief survey, Van could see that most of the key formulation, energy distribution, and communications multis had significant Revenant ownership.
For a time, he just looked blankly at the bookshelves.
Then he returned to the cockpit and began to set up the jump coordinates for Beldora.
Chapter 53
At the edge of the Islyn system, Van checked everything— accumulators, fusactors, and all the internal systems one last time, and then the jump coordinates for Beldora once more. Recalling his last nightmare, he ran a separate diagnostic on the jump generators before looking across the cockpit to the second seat where Eri sat. “Make sure you’re fully strapped in for high gee.”
“You sound more and more like Commander Desoll,” she observed, tightening her harness.
Did years of jumping into unfamiliar or semifarmliar systems do that? Van squared himself in the command couch and actuated the jump generator—implant/net driven on the Joyau, rather than manual as on an RSF ship. The cockpit turned inside out, black becoming white, white black, and grays and colors some inverted shades that were not colors at all for the endless instant that was a jumpshift.
Once back in normspace, even before checking the comparator inputs and coordinates, Van was checking the monitors, scanning all the EDIs as they registered—one frigate, and two corvettes, all with Revenant drive signatures. There were no other interstellar ships, but Van could make out fusactor drive in-system ships, ships that looked like mining tugs, but the tugs were well in-system, well inside the belt, and well away from normal system mining areas.
Why would so many mining tugs be that far in-system?
Van’s guts tightened. He could only think of one reason— using the tugs to gather system debris to bombard Beldora itself. Dealing with the tugs would have to wait because one of the corvettes was less than a thousand emkay away, turning from a parallel course toward the Joyau.
He glanced across the cockpit. “Eri... Rev ships all over the place. Prepare for high gee.”
“Yes, ser.” A faint smile crossed her face.
Van turned the Joyau toward the corvette, keeping his screens at standard, but accelerating toward the Revenant and widening the photon nets to full intake.
Five minutes passed, the two ships moving inexorably toward each other, before the corvette fired a single torp at the Joyau.
Van continued to accelerate toward the smaller Revenant ship, shifting power to the shields only as the torp neared the Joyau. The shields didn’t flicker with the explosion, and there was no strain on the accumulators as they picked up the mass and energy caught by the nets and funneled to them. At less than a quarter emkay the Revenant loosed two more torps, and shifted course slightly, off a head-to-head course.
Van turned the Joyau back onto a collision course.
The corvette swept into a tight turn away from the Joyau, angling on a cross-orbital course in-system, but more directly toward the Revenant frigate.
Both torps flared harmlessly against the Joyau’s shields.
Van eased the Joyau directly onto a stem chase, diverting more power into the drives and cutting out the Joyau’s artificial gravs, but the acceleration was only two gees, since that was enough to overtake the corvette long before the other Revenant ships could reach them. While the Joyau could hold her own against any single Revenant ship currently in the Beldora system, Van certainly didn’t want to take on two at once.
Yet another set of torps flared from the Revenant as the Joyau continued to cut the distance between the two ships.
Van could see the acceleration from both the frigate and the other corvette as they began to move toward the Joyau and the corvette, but it would take hours for either to reach them.
The corvette fired another set of torps.
The first set of torps detonated on the shields, as did the second set, several minutes later.
By then Van was almost on top of the Revenant corvette, and he was carrying more than a little mass in the photon nets. He began to condense the photon nets, concentrating the mass as much as he could, then contracted them, before squeezing and accelerating the mass into the corvette’s screens—he followed with a single torp.
Under the mass/velocity impact, the corvette’s screens oscillated between amber and red, then flashed red and collapsed. The single torp was enough to turn the corvette into dust.
Van rebuilt the photon nets to collect as much energy and as mass as possible, and watched as the accumulators fed the mass to the fusactors. Then he studied the system, checking the plot, particularly of the cometary belt and the outer gas giants.
After a time, he adjusted the ship’s course, so that the Joyau angled both in-system and above the ecliptic. Again, he checked the positions of the mining tugs, but they were not that much closer to Beldora. That was both good and bad—good because he might have time, and bad because the slowness of their approach meant they were pushing all too many tonnes of mass.
Finally, he turned to Eri. “We’ll have about an hour before we meet the next Revenant.”
“How many are there?”
“Two more. A frigate and a corvette. They’ll probably try to coordinate an attack on us.” Van loosened his harness, then released it and stood. As usual, the back of his shipsuit was damp.
“Would you like some café, Commander? And something to eat?” Eri also unstrapped and stood, stretching.
“Yes, please.” He almost felt guilty. Almost The curried fish that Eri created with the compact formula-tor in the galley was tasty. That might have also been because he was hungrier than usual.
“We’re likely to see more combat-type situations in the next year,” Van said quietly. “Do you still want to stay on as tech?”
“Why would I not?”
“It’s going to get more dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous.” Eri sipped from her mug of green tea. “You do not move away from danger. Should I?”
Van laughed. “I had to ask. You told me how you became a tech for Commander Desoll, but never why.”
“I had been a Coalition tech before I had children. They grew up. My husband wanted me to raise him as well after they left the house. I did not want another child. So I left.” She shrugged. “IIS is better than the Service. You and Commander Desoll use your tools to make the Arm a better place. The Service only worked to make it a safer place for those who were Eco-Techs.” The impish grin appeared. “And I make far more credits than anywhere else.”
Van wondered what Eri did with the credits. He’d certainly never seen her spend much.
He concentrated on the shipnet. The Revenants were less than a half hour away. “We’d better button up. I need to get back forward. Thank you. I was hungry.”
“You’re welcome.” She motioned for him to go forward.
“Don’t be too long.”
“With you or Commander Desoll at the conn, that would not be wise.”
“I hope you’re not saying that we’re hard on techs.”
“You’re both hard on the unprepared.”
Van was afraid he understood. Even before he was fully strapped into the command couch, he was checking and calculating. The Revenant corvette and frigate had closed up, almost to the point where their shields overlapped. That alone told Van that their strategy was very basic—get close enough to fire enough torps to overload the Joyau’s shields.
While the Joyau could take the impact of three or four torps close to simultaneously, the frigate might be able to get off as many as four at once, and the corvette two. Van had no thought of allowing that to happen. He studied the system’s cosmography and density plot, then made a few more calculations, easing the Joyau ten degrees to starboard, still on close to a head-to-head intercept, but knowing that the Revenants would adjust their course.
He smiled as they did.
Eri slipped into the second seat and fastened her harness.
Van edged the Joyau another ten degrees starboard, watching the Revenant ships as they readjusted their course accordingly. The frigate was to the left of the corvette. That was why Van was edging the Joyau to starboard. Ten minutes passed in silence.
Unidentified Coalition vessel, you are intruding. Drop your shields immediately or be destroyed.
“I think not,” Van murmured under his breath. “I think not.”
He cut all power to the drives momentarily, used the steering thrusters to turn the Joyau ninety degrees to her course line, then pushed full power to the drives once more, watching as the separation between the Revenants and the Joyau widened. With both the recognition and response lag, Van opened up enough distance that the Joyau was beyond practical torp range. The Revenant frigate had responded first, not surprisingly, since the frigates were a newer class and probably had better monitors and EDIs than the corvette, which was something Van had factored into his plans.
The back sensors from the photon nets flashed amber, signifying greater density ahead, and isolated chunks of mass.
Van had to back off the power, recalculating the distance to the areas of increased dust and ice density and the Revenant frigate.
He found another corridor and angled the Joyau along it. The Revenant abruptly slowed, then altered course to follow the Joyau.
While most of the cosmic debris was dust-size or perhaps pebble-size, Van knew that there would be an ice fragment somewhere, large enough for his purposes. The question was not whether there was one there, but whether he could find one soon in the hundred-klick diameter of the photon screens at full extension. If he didn’t, he’d have to go to his alternate tactics.
Because Van was having to feel his way through the dust and debris, the frigate was gaining, and would be back in torp range within minutes. He eased more power to the drives, trying to stretch the time before he’d have to go into combat mode, whether he wanted to or not. Another series of warnings flashed amber from the monitors. Van grinned as he located the debris and one chunk of ice. He shifted the nets, reinforcing the area around the irregular mass of dust and ice, while easing the Joyau around his catch, then using the photon nets to hold the chunk of ice just before the Joyau. The Revenant’s EDI detectors would not register a nonradiating mass, and even closer in, laser imaging would not show something the size of a groundcar as separate from the Joyau itself.
