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CHAPTER TWO

Ithaca House

City of Kórinthos

Planet Odysseus

Bellerophon System

Terran Federation

September 23, 2552


“General Tolallis is here, Mr. President,” Erasmia Samarili announced, as she opened the door and bowed Menelaos Tolallis through it.

Tolallis had known her for years; despite the fact that she’d just turned thirty-one, and although she was officially listed only as Konstantinos Xeneas’s secretary, she’d actually been his personal assistant and aide for over five years. And because Tolallis knew her so well, something about her tone…bothered him. She’d greeted him as courteously as ever, yet there’d been a subtle tension, something he might almost have called fear, in her brown eyes, and whatever it was, it shadowed her voice, as well.

“Thank you, Erasmia.” System President Xeneas climbed out of his chair, standing behind his desk to hold out his hand. “And thanks for getting here so quickly, Menelaos.”

“Your message said to hurry,” Tolallis replied, gripping his hand firmly. “And, given the fact that you weren’t willing to tell me what’s on your mind over the comm, you can safely assume my curiosity’s suitably piqued.”

“Oh, trust me, you’re not going to believe it when I do tell you.” Xeneas’s smile held a curious mix of bleakness and excitement, and he looked over Tolallis’s shoulder.

“Make sure no one interrupts us, Erasmia. Unless it’s the Vice President, of course. But give me a heads-up even in her case before you let her in.”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

Samarili disappeared, the door closed behind her, and Xeneas pointed at the pair of comfortable armchairs in one corner of his spacious office, then led the way to them. He settled himself into one, and Tolallis took the other. The general opened his mouth, but Xeneas raised a “not just yet” quieting hand, and Tolallis frowned as the president opened the panel in his chair’s padded arm and tapped the touchscreen it revealed. A musical tone sounded, and Tolallis’s frown deepened. He’d commanded the Bellerophon System Defense Force for over ten years, visited in this office both officially and unofficially scores of times, yet he could count on one hand—without using all his fingers—the number of times Xeneas had activated the internal security systems that enclosed this “conversational nook.” His office was already proof against every known surveillance system, so why—?

“There,” Xeneas said, pushing back deeper into his armchair, and something about his expression frightened Tolallis.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about,” the president continued. “Well, you’re about to find out. And then you and I have some decisions to make.”

“What sort of decisions?” Tolallis asked warily.

“Nasty ones.” Xeneas’s smile was bleak. “The kind that could get us both killed.”

Tolallis stiffened, and Xeneas leaned forward in his chair once more, planting his forearms firmly on the armrests.

“Anthellis got back this morning,” he said, and Tolallis’s brow furrowed.

Serapheim Anthellis was the captain of the fast freighter Timoleon. Technically, his ship belonged to the Calloglou Consortium, one of the Bellerophon System’s larger and more successful industrial concerns. Calloglou was not only more diversified than most of Bellerophon’s other employers, it also benefited from far more “sweetheart” arrangements with other Heart-owned operations than its competitors enjoyed, since it was the primary local affiliate of the Société Auchan. So it wasn’t too surprising that Calloglou operated almost a dozen Bellerophon-flagged freighters. They weren’t permitted to encroach on the bigger, Heart World-owned freight lines’ routes, of course, but they handled most of Calloglou’ s point-to-point transport out in the boondocks of the Fringe. Timoleon was a bit faster than most of the Calloglou fleet—in fact, she mounted a milspec Fasset drive, which made her as fast as most mail packets—but aside from that, there was nothing outstanding about her.

Except for the minor fact that she actually took her orders from the Bellerophon System Republic. She did whatever Calloglou told her to do, as well, of course, which kept the Consortium’s Heart World “partners” happy. But she also did whatever Konstantinos Xeneas asked her to do, including carrying messages he wanted the federal government to know nothing about.

“He got back from where?” the general asked after a moment.

“Concordia,” Xeneas replied, and chuckled humorlessly at Tolallis’s expression. “Actually, I never sent him there. It was a ‘legit’ trip for Calloglou, because their home office found out it could buy refined platinum and rhodium from New Dublin Extractions cheaper than anywhere else, now that the Leucippus deposits have pretty much played out. It’s seventy-five light-years, but that’s only thirty-eight days for a bulk freighter, and they estimated they could save at least seven percent on the purchase price, which would more than cover any extra freight costs. Actually, the rep they sent out aboard Timoleon got the New Dubliners down to over nine percent less than any of their other suppliers were offering.”

“Fascinating. Why do I think that’s not the reason I’m sitting in your office?”

“Because you’ve known me since we were both twelve. And because you’re a very smart fellow. God, I hope you are, anyway! Because all hell’s about to break loose, Menelaos.”

“What?” Tolallis’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because last month, the entire Concordia Sector went out of compliance,” Xeneas said flatly.

“What?!”

The general came to his feet, staring at the president in shock. Xeneas only looked back for a handful of heartbeats—long enough for Tolallis to realize he was standing and force himself back into his chair. Then the president drew a deep breath.

“I don’t have full information. Nobody’s going to be stupid enough to discuss even the possibility of going out of compliance with anybody he doesn’t know really, really well. So nobody in an official position in Concordia’s ever said a word to me about anything like this, any more than I’d ever have dreamed of saying anything to them. For that matter, there’s never been that much trade between us and them. From the Heart’s perspective, Concordia’s purely an extractive operation. Everything it produces is raw materials that funnel straight back to the Heart Worlds. There may be a few instances when someone like Calloglou gets permission from its Heart World management to go platinum-shopping, but aside from that, every scrap of it goes to the Heart. There’s certainly not much in the way of heavy industry to use it at home! And when the raw materials play out, like happened to Leucippus, they just cut their losses, yank their investment out, and leave the locals to starve. So, no, we don’t have much in the way of contacts in New Dublin.

“On the other hand, I know—knew—a bit about Alan Tolmach, Crann Bethadh’s planetary president. So I guess I shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was by the news.”

“Are you seriously telling me this Tolmach was somehow able to take the entire Concordia Sector out of compliance? And that the rest of the people living in it were crazy enough to actually listen to him?”

“I said I don’t have full information, but I think I have enough to understand—more or less, at least—what happened. Not that I found it easy to believe when Anthellis came by my office to deliver the case of Craigmore Nua I’d somehow forgotten I’d personally asked him to pick up for me while he was there. That would have been very clever of me, actually—almost as clever as it was of him—since it gave him a cover story when he contacted me.”

Despite his tension, Tolallis’s lips twitched at the dryness of Xeneas’s tone. But any temptation to smile disappeared as the system president continued much more soberly.

“Basically,” he said, “Concordia’s had an encounter with a mythological creature: a Heart World admiral—a member of the Five Hundred, no less—who’s actually interested in doing his job. Either that, or he’s a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, and I don’t think he is.”

“Why not?” Tolallis asked skeptically.

“First, because he’s Henrik Murphy’s grandson. Second, because he diverted his entire task force to the Scotia System to save what he could of the planetary population after the Leaguies K-struck Inverness.” Their eyes met bleakly. Even in Bellerophon, they’d heard about the Inverness strike. “He couldn’t do much, but off the top of your head, can you think of any other Heart admiral who’d divert from his orders to do something like that? Third, because after Inverness, he took that same task force off across the Blue Line somewhere ‘hunting slavers,’ and came back with word that the League was about to hit New Dublin in strength. And fourth, because he drafted two other task groups to reinforce his task force and proceeded to kick the League’s ass right up between its ears when it did attack New Dublin, exactly as he’d predicted. I don’t know if the people Anthellis talked to were exaggerating, but if they weren’t, Murphy took out at least ten League FTLCs.”

Tolallis’s expression had segued deeper and deeper into astonishment as Xeneas went on. Now astonishment became pure shock.

Ten Leaguie carriers hit someplace like New Dublin?”

“No, a dozen of them did. According to Anthellis, he killed eight of them, then chased the other four home to a major shipyard no one even knew the League had. Captured two more carriers when he got there, not to mention the entire yard. Which, according to Anthellis’s sources, is—was, at any rate—probably at least as big as Venus Futures’ entire Sol operation. And, apparently, the Rish helped build the damned thing.”

“Wait a minute.” Tolallis raised one hand. “Just…wait a minute! The rest of this is all crazy enough without bringing in Rish conspiracy nuts from the gray net, Konstantinos! Whoever Anthellis’s ‘sources’ were, they had to be either drunk or pulling his leg!”

“I don’t know about the Rish. And to be honest, that bit sounds shaky to me, too,” Xeneas acknowledged. “But whatever else is going on, he’d obviously already scared the hell out of the Five Hundred before he ever set off for this ‘Diyu’ place. Shortly after he got back to New Dublin, a passel of federal marshals and Capital Division Hoplons tried to arrest him.”

“Wait,” Tolallis said again, his face ashen. “They tried to arrest him? Don’t tell me—”

“That they stepped on their dicks when they did?” Xeneas barked a laugh. “Oh, I think you might say that. In fact, the idiots must’ve had a frigging checklist for how to screw up!”

Tolallis stared at his friend in horror, and the system president shook his head.

“They not only tried to arrest him, they decided to do it at the very moment Murphy was being awarded New Dublin’s highest medal of valor. Given typical Heart arrogance, I’m pretty sure they saw it as the best way to make their point to the ignorant, dumbass Fringers that they’d better mind their manners. So they waltzed right into the ceremony itself, Menelaos. Walked into a banquet with over four hundred guests to arrest the man who every one of those guests knew had gone against his standing orders to save their system.” Xeneas shook his head, his own face like iron. “Not only that, Murphy obviously knew it was coming, because he had his own Marine Hoplons present. They had the drop on the bastards—had them cold—and the fucking Hearts pushed it anyway.”

“And?”

“And only one of the Capital Division Hoplons and two of the marshals survived the firefight. But they did manage to kill the President of New Dublin and four civilian bystanders before they went down.”

“Oh, Sweet Jesus,” Tolallis half-whispered as he tried to imagine what it must have been like.

“Oh, it gets even better,” Xeneas told him bitterly. “Tolmach’s son-in-law is the President of Crann Bethadh now, and the system declared its independence the very next day. For that matter, it ‘just happened’ that the presidents and chief executives of virtually every other system in the sector were ‘visiting’ New Dublin, and they all announced their independence right alongside Crann Bethadh.

“And then they hanged all the surviving Hearts for murder.”

Tolallis gaped at him, and for once, his brain completely refused to function. Silence hung heavily for endless seconds, and then he shook himself.

“So this Murphy was killed in the fighting?” he said, and his eyes widened when Xeneas shook his head. “Then what the hell was he doing while all this was going on? He was the goddamn system governor!”

“Technically, he still is, but he was present for the executions. The bastards were sentenced by a New Dublin court, but he authorized the hangings.”

“He’s insane! He has to know how the Heart’s going to react to this!”

“I don’t think he had much choice,” Xeneas said flatly.

“Choice?”

“Use your brain. All the heads of government from the Concordia systems were already in New Dublin, Menelaos. He didn’t invite them all over for a quick cup of coffee! The only way this could’ve happened was if they’d already been planning it. Sure, when he went ‘out of compliance’ with his own orders—and when they knew he had—and stood his ground against the League, it was probably the last straw they needed, especially when the frigging idiots tried to arrest him! But Murphy didn’t plan any of this. They did, and Murphy was smart enough to realize he couldn’t shove the genie back into the bottle once it was loose. Not unless he wanted to K-strike the very planet he’d just finished defending!”

“Sounds to me like the man wants to play warlord,” Tolallis said grimly.

“Nobody in Concordia seems to agree with you. And Murphy’s official position is that while he’s willing to ‘present their grievances’ to the Assembly and back their demands for constitutional reforms to address them, he’s still an officer of the Terran Federation Navy and he doesn’t recognize the legality of their secession. He recognized the authority of the Republic of Sliver Tree to try and execute the Hearts who killed its president, but he recognized its right to do that as a member system of the Federation, applying its local jurisprudence within the Federation’s recognized constitutional framework, not as an independent star nation. Concordia’s organized into something called the Free Worlds Alliance, and apparently he’s willing to regard that as an association of member systems of the Federation who have banded together to ‘petition’ Olympia for redress, but he’s not prepared to recognize them as an independent star nation. That’s why he’s still officially Governor of New Dublin.”

“Well he’d better get prepared,” Tolallis said even more grimly. “Nobody else in the Heart’s going to ‘recognize’ them as anything but rebels and traitors. And the only response they’re going to get from Olympia’s a goddamned fleet with orders to turn their planets into billiard balls!”

“I’m pretty sure anyone as smart as Murphy seems to be has to recognize that, too, deep down inside.” Xeneas’s tone wasn’t grim; it was sad. “I think he’s entirely serious. That he really wants to save the Federation. But I also think his dream of somehow resolving this is…quixotic, at best. And either way, I doubt he’ll just stand there with his hands in his pockets when the Heart moves on New Dublin.”

“And exactly what’s he going to do to stop it?”

“He came home from Diyu with seven carriers. By the time Timoleon pulled out, two more had come in. Their crews mutinied, Menelaos, and from the sound of things, they won’t be the last. I won’t be a bit surprised if the majority of the Concordia Sector pickets come over to him in the end, and a force that size, under an admiral who’s already beaten twice his own number in League carriers, isn’t going down easily.”

“Maybe not, but in that case, they’ll pull in however many ships they need to take him down hard.”

“If they can.”

Tolallis’s eyes narrowed at those three softly spoken words.

“Why shouldn’t they be able to?” he asked after a moment.

“Because the entire damned Fringe is about to blow sky high,” Xeneas said flatly. “God knows you and I’ve talked about this often enough, Menelaos! We’ve always had it easier here in Bellerophon because we’re the closest thing the Five Hundred has to a golden goose in the Fringe. Economically, we’ve had a hell of a lot more comfortable ride than systems like Scotia or New Dublin, so that hasn’t been part of the equation here. It has for other systems in Cyclops, just not for us. But what has been part of our equation is the blood price. The fact that it’s our sons and daughters the Heart sends off to die in its goddamned war! You’ve lost two brothers, I’ve lost a brother and a son and a niece, and I doubt there’s a single family here on Odysseus who hasn’t lost someone.”

The system president glared at his boyhood friend.

“Now the dam’s broken. Concordia’s come out into the open, and you’re right—the Feds and the Five Hundred will do whatever it takes to crush them. To smash them. To turn them into the object lesson that will terrify the rest of the Fringe into meek obedience for generations! And do you know what will happen when they try to?”

“They’ll smash hell out of the poor bastards,” Tolallis said.

“They’ll try. And they may manage it…for Concordia. But this is going to spread, Menelaos. We already know about it; by now, especially if this Free Worlds Alliance is half as smart as I think it is, they’ve commandeered every FTL courier they can find to spread the news. I don’t plan on letting a word about this leak until we’ve decided what we’re going to do about it, but eventually it will come out. And exactly how do you think our most bitter, angry, pissed-off fellow citizens—and especially our pissed-off vets—will react when it hits the feeds?”

Tolallis’s jaw tightened, and Xeneas nodded.

“Damn straight. Best-case scenario, a huge chunk of the electorate goes up in flames and we—you and I, Menelaos—crush it before it gets out of hand. We make enough examples, break enough heads—and necks—to satisfy the Five Hundred that that situation’s safely under control, and the Feds let that be enough.”

He paused, his expression the most bitter one Tolallis had seen in all the forty years they’d known one another, then shook his head once, hard.

“I don’t think I could bring myself to do that. Not really. And even if I could, it wouldn’t matter. Not this time. Because this time, the Five Hundred’s coming for all of us. We won’t have to actually do a single, solitary thing. All we’ll have to do is be here, and the bastards will absolutely find some reason, some excuse, some…imagined threat to turn us all into Gobelins. And that means that no matter how hard we come down on any expressions of discontent here in Bellerophon, it can’t possibly be enough to keep them from using it as their pretext.

“And even if it would, every other Fringe system’s going to know what’s coming. They’ll know that trying to keep their heads down to avoid the Hearts’ hammer won’t work, this time. Oh, it might work for a handful of systems—maybe even for us, given how much of our infrastructure the Five Hundred owns outright—if they’re willing to shoot enough of their own neighbors before the Hearts get around to it. But it won’t work for the rest of the Fringe, and when the rest of the Fringe goes up in flames, the fire’s going to burn Bellerophon to the ground right along with it.

“Unless we do something about it.”

“You’re talking about Thermopylae.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”

The two of them sat looking at one another, and the silence was heavy about them. Finally, after a seeming eternity, Tolallis stirred in his chair.

“That was never a real possibility,” he said softly.

“You put a hell of a lot of thought into something that was never a possibility, then,” Xeneas replied with a crooked smile.

“I—”

Tolallis broke off. He closed his eyes, and his nostrils flared as he sucked in oxygen. Then he opened his eyes and looked at his friend again.

“I did,” he admitted, “but I never thought there’d be one chance in a million of actually pulling it off. It was…It was a last-ditch stand. Something to try only if they were already coming for us and we didn’t have anything left to lose. Why the hell do you think I called it ‘Thermopylae’? You know what happened to Leonidas!”

“Of course I do. But I think they are already coming for us—or will be as soon as they find out what’s happening in Concordia. And that means we don’t have anything left to lose, really. We’re damned if we do, or damned if we don’t, but think about it. They may be coming, but they won’t be able to concentrate just on us, Menelaos. That’s what’s changed. I don’t see any way in hell other Fringe systems—hell, most of the Fringe systems, and pretty damned near all of them in the southern lobe—won’t sign on with this Free Worlds Alliance. And a lot of their picket ships will do exactly what seems to be happening in Concordia. So when the time comes, the Heart’s going to find itself up against some significant military opposition, and it still has the League to worry about. For that matter, how do you think Heart public opinion will react when all of a sudden it’s their kids—their husbands and fathers and mothers and wives—out there getting killed in the Five Hundred’s war?”

“Are you honestly telling me you think we could pull this off?”

Disbelief, fear, and a strange, deep longing mingled in Tolallis’s voice, and he stared almost pleadingly at Xeneas.

“I’m telling you I think we don’t have any choice but to try,” the system president said compassionately. “I’m telling you that if we can make Thermopylae work, and if we can get word to this Free Worlds Alliance that we want in, we’ll have at least a chance. And I’m telling you that whatever we do, the Fringe is going to burn, Menelaos. We may not have all that great a chance, but you and I both swore an oath to protect and serve the voters and people of Bellerophon—our people—and that means we have to try. God help us, we have to try.”



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