“I don’t see why that would be offensive, Zeke Reynolds.”
Because you have a game piece for a head might not have been the most polite answer, so I just shrugged, which got me out of having to say his name.
“We are the Geometric Upstarts, Zeke Reynolds.”
“That’s the name of your species, Convex Icosahedron?” I asked. It sounded more like a mathematically inclined street gang.
Convex Icosahedron assured me that it was, in fact, the name of his species.
“And are you guys, uh, biological or artificial, Convex Icosahedron?”
“We are both and neither, Zeke Reynolds. But really, are any of us truly biological, Zeke Reynolds?”
I kind of felt that I, for one, was truly biological, but instead of making this point, I decided to smile like this was an insightful philosophical point and all my questions had been answered to my complete satisfaction.
I really hoped that this Geometric Upstart was better at providing an operational briefing than he was at making chitchat. Otherwise we were in serious trouble.
We entered an unmarked building that might have been someone’s home, but unlike the saloon, on the inside it appeared modern—or futuristic, I guess. Whatever it was that you expected from space-traveling aliens, this was it. The floors were made of a smooth white material, like tile but not quite so slippery. There were computers everywhere, screens displaying data and readouts, and stations were being worked by both Phands and other aliens. I did not see anyone else who might have been a Geometric Upstart, though. We moved through the room, and all the aliens turned to offer polite and respectful greetings to Convex Icosahedron. He might have been difficult to talk to, but he seemed to get a lot of genuine respect from the other renegades.
We entered what looked like a meeting room, and Convex Icosahedron told me to have a seat. “I will summon the others, and then we will begin the meeting, Zeke Reynolds.”
“I feel like we’re just wasting time,” I blurted out. “I don’t need all this formal stuff. I want to know what’s going on. I want to do something to find my friends and to help them.” Then, under pressure, I added, “Convex Icosahedron,” as though I merely hadn’t gotten to that part yet.
“I understand, Zeke Reynolds. This meeting should answer your questions and give you a clear sense of our intended direction, Zeke Reynolds.”
After an endless delay of about twenty minutes, the other participants began to file in, including Hopir-ka and Thindly-bak. Adiul-ip soon followed with Villainic.
“I hope all is to your satisfaction, Villainic,” Convex Icosahedron said.
“Of course,” he answered. “But I’m not fussy.”
I waited for Adiul-ip to press him to say Convex Icosahedron’s name, but the Phand didn’t seem to notice the lapse. Neither did the Geometric Upstart. Why was I not surprised that Villainic could somehow get away with violating that annoying rule?
A few more beings entered the room, mostly Phands, but a few other alien species I didn’t know. Then another human walked through the door. Under normal circumstances, this would have been a reason to cheer, but not this time. This was an older man, wearing an Earth military uniform. He had a head full of silver hair buzzed into a crewcut, and a patch over his right eye.
It was Colonel Richard Rage, the man who had betrayed me and my friends to Junup.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
I launched to my feet, pointing like a pod person. “What is he doing here?” I demanded.
Colonel Rage made a patting gesture with his hand. “Calm yourself, Zeke. I know what you must be thinking, so let me just put all my cards on the table. You were right and I was wrong. I made a bad deal with Junup, and I came to regret it.”
That was, in my view, putting it mildly. While the rest of us had been trying to find the Hidden Fortress and uncover the code for the Former military tech tree, Colonel Rage had made a secret bargain to turn us and the code over to Junup. I knew why he had done it. He wasn’t like Nora Price, evil and power-hungry. Colonel Rage was so focused on his duty to protect Earth that he would side with anyone, no matter how evil, if he thought things would turn out better for his home world. I partly understood this, but I also understood that when you cut deals with cruel and ambitious bad guys, you never get what you bargain for.
So while I didn’t hate Colonel Rage in the way I hated Nora Price, I didn’t want him around, either. He could be useful and smart and resourceful, but as soon as he had to choose between the right thing and what he believed to be his mission, he could be counted on to toss the right thing under the bus.
Besides, when a guy you don’t trust shows up at a top-secret facility, it’s time to get suspicious.
“How exactly did you just happen to end up here?” I demanded. “Am I supposed to believe this is coincidence? Because you being a spy for the other team seems a lot more likely to me. Maybe another deal with Junup? Or the Phands this time?”
“I didn’t happen to end up here,” Colonel Rage explained, still using his reasonable voice. “I was recruited.”
“I identified this alien as an insider who would be willing to work for our cause,” Convex Icosahedron said. “Given his military background and his motivation to weaken the Phandic Empire, bringing Colonel Rage into our group seemed a wise choice.”
I looked at him, waiting for him to say my name. He didn’t. Had I offended him somehow?
“The name-at-the-end-of-the-sentence thing isn’t proper etiquette when discussing military or tactical matters,” Adiul-ip whispered in my ear. “The protocol dropped as soon as Colonel Rage entered the room.”
I silently thanked the universe for this small mercy. “So Convex Icosahedron sends you a message saying to come to some desolate planet on the border of Phandic space, and you grab a space Uber?”
“He didn’t send me a message, son,” Colonel Rage said, making no effort to hide his impatience. “He came and got me. He was waiting for me when I got out of the john one morning and said I could come with him and fight our mutual enemies or stay and be Junup’s stooge. After what happened at the Hidden Fortress, I didn’t have to think about that one for long.”
If Convex Icosahedron could identify Colonel Rage as someone who would be willing to help his cause, I figured he must have a pretty good intelligence network. Even better, if he could position himself so he was ready to pounce the moment they got done washing their hands, he had to have the technology to infiltrate enemy facilities.
I looked around the room and saw a bunch of Phands, a few aliens I didn’t know, Colonel Rage, Convex Icosahedron, and Villainic. Of all of them, Villainic was the guy I trusted most, which said something about my situation.
Obviously, I didn’t get a vote about Colonel Rage, or anyone else, being involved in whatever they were cooking up. It was better to go along for now.
“Okay, so let’s hear what you have to say,” I told them.
In the center of the room, a holographic projection of Confederation Central appeared above the table. “As you all know,” Convex Icosahedron began, “the ability of the Phandic Empire to expand and conquer was halted after Zeke Reynolds and his allies provided the Confederation with technology that brought the era of Phandic military superiority to an end. That act also revitalized this resistance movement. The period of imperial containment did not last long, however. Following the murder of Director Ghli Wixxix, the being known as Junup rose to power. He made a secret alliance with the empress, allowing her once more to pursue the expansion of her borders in exchange for her covert support of Junup’s position. We know he encouraged the empress to conquer the planet Earth, Zeke Reynolds’s home world. It is my assessment that the best way to restore the more favorable balance of power is to remove Junup from his office and return Confederation leadership to a traditional pacifist who will, once more, limit the empress’s ambitions.”
Everyone nodded sagely, including Villainic, like this analysis so far measur
ed up to his exacting standards. I ground my teeth.
Responding to some unseen cue, the image of Confederation Central began to rotate, so we could see the underside. “I have been able to infiltrate secret Confederation databases to acquire this detailed schematic of Confederation Central. My analysis has revealed a cluster of power nodules that make the entire structure vulnerable. A single small ship, if armed with a dark-matter torpedo, could enter an access port here.” He gestured with a gloved hand, and a square tunnel on the underside was now glowing red. “The torpedo, if fired at precisely the right point, will cause a chain reaction, destroying Confederation Central, thus removing Junup from the equation.” The graphic now depicted a missile moving forward through the shaft and stroking the power nodules. Animated waves of energy radiated outward, and the animated Confederation Central began to break apart before being consumed by flames.
The various aliens in the room murmured with approval.
“The destruction of this city will produce numerous beneficial results,” Convex Icosahedron continued. “Power will shift elsewhere, and based on my analysis of the surviving politicians, the Confederation will fall into more traditional, peaceful hands. The Phandic Empire will once more be contained. This is, without doubt, the most certain method of restoring order to the Confederation, the consequence of which will be greater galactic stability. Any questions?”
No one had any. They all nodded like this plan made complete sense. I, however, had many questions, but none more pressing than whether or not they were completely insane.
“Are you telling me that you want to Death Star the capital of the Confederation?” I asked, somehow keeping my horror out of my voice.
“Your fantasy stories aren’t really relevant to our cause, Zeke,” said Colonel Rage gently. “Do you have a point to make?”
“The point,” I said, “is not that this plan comes right out of Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope. The point is that it’s bonkers. You want to destroy the capital of the Confederation, a city with millions of beings, just to get rid of Junup? Doesn’t that seem a little excessive?”
“I have run the numbers,” Convex Icosahedron said, “and this plan provides a near one hundred percent chance of success. Nothing else even comes close to that level of certainty.”
“If you’re so bent on killing beings, why not send someone to Confederation Central to take out Junup?”
“We’re not assassins,” Convex Icosahedron explained with an unmistakably insulted tone.
I took a deep breath and tried not to sound hysterical. “Then send someone to kidnap him! Put him in jail! There are better options here than destroying an entire city!”
“I’m afraid there are not,” said Convex Icosahedron. “I appreciate your earnest desire to preserve life, but you cannot suppose we have not considered what you propose. I reviewed all possible projections, and the numbers don’t support those approaches. The assassination scenario has a 47.0978 percent chance of either failing outright or resulting in a similarly inclined politician rising to power. The numbers on the kidnapping scenario are even worse. In both cases, the likelihood of the Phandic Empire discovering our operation is unacceptably high. When you project these numbers out over just the next century, the loss of innocent life is nearly triple that involved in the destruction of Confederation Central. The plan I have proposed is by far the least costly in terms of bloodshed, and that is only over a hundred years. Over two hundred or five hundred the number of lives saved becomes astounding. There really is no other option. I hope you will see that, because your skill with dark-matter missiles is legendary, and we wish for you to pilot the ship that will destroy Junup’s power base.”
Calling it Junup’s power base did not change the fact that it was a city full of millions of beings going about their business. I was not about to play any part in their ridiculous plan. I’d sabotage it if I had to, though I hardly knew how I could do that. “Don’t you see that if you try to carry this out, you become evil? Colonel Rage, haven’t you learned that lesson yet? If you want to be one of the good guys, you have to act like one of the good guys. You don’t kill innocent beings because some computer program tells you the numbers say it’s the best way to go.”
“You’ve got a good heart, son, and I appreciate that,” Colonel Rage said, “but these folks are the resistance. It’s their show. If they think this is how we get the aliens off Earth, then I’m in favor of it.”
Once again, Colonel Rage was only worrying about Earth. It was natural, maybe even smart, to put his own planet first, but he kept thinking of our home world as an isolated speck in the galaxy. It wasn’t anymore. We were part of this community now, and what happened in the Confederation mattered to us. I wanted to try to explain this, but I knew he wouldn’t listen. They had all decided that I was some idealistic kid who was too starry-eyed to see the hard truths.
“You want everything to be black and white,” Colonel Rage continued, “but you don’t know how politics and politicians works. Once Ghli Wixxix died, there was a powerful shift in how the Confederation saw Earth and its place in the galaxy. I understand these things in a way you simply can’t. I even tried to talk them into helping Earth.”
“It’s true,” Adiul-ip said. “He did.”
“They had a plan,” the colonel told me. “The planet’s conquest was a high-profile deal in the Phandic media, so they thought that if they could liberate Earth, it would set off a chain reaction that would destabilize the empire and bring down Junup. I even talked them into opening one of their transporter tunnels to Earth.”
“That’s your obscure escape planet?” I asked Adiul-ip.
“It served our purposes,” he said, “and if we had to get away in an emergency, it made sense to go someplace we could help to create an uprising against the empress.”
“So let’s do that!” I said. “I like that plan!”
“Sadly, the projections do not look promising,” Convex Icosahedron said. “You will see that there are too many ways for things to go wrong. Too many risks. The elimination of Confederation Central is much cleaner and more precise. More predictable. The numbers are always truthful.”
I stood up, because I realized I had them. I knew something they didn’t know, and that meant that all their predictions were out of whack. “Yeah, well, your numbers are wrong, because your information is wrong. Director Ghli Wixxix is still alive.”
This had their attention. Everyone turned to look at me with utter fascination. Everyone but Villainic, who was cleaning his fingernails and humming softly.
“How can you know this?” Adiul-ip demanded. “What is your source?”
“Dr. Roop,” I said. “He dug into the files when he was holed up in the Hidden Fortress. Our plan was to rescue Ghli Wixxix. Once she was restored to office, Junup would be exposed, and then things would go back to the way they were. We still have the problem of the Former military tech tree, but that’s a long-term one. In the short term, the Phands are back to being contained. And it’s done with maybe no violence at all.”
Convex Icosahedron cocked his twenty-sided head as if giving the matter some thought. Maybe it was my imagination, but the colors seemed to be cycling more rapidly. “If this is true, and if the rescue mission were to proceed successfully, then the operation would have nearly as high a chance of success as the one already proposed. Unfortunately, even a preliminary review of the numbers indicates that there are too many things that could go wrong during a rescue attempt. There is even a roughly thirty-two percent chance of Ghli Wixxix being killed while escaping, our operatives being captured, and this base being discovered before we can return to the original plan. No, destroying Confederation Central remains the best option.”
“Hold on,” Colonel Rage said. “You made it clear that even without Junup the political situation was too unstable to play out dependably. But if the old director is alive, then it changes everything. It guarantees a return to the way things were before.”
> “Yes, the numbers trend toward stability,” Convex Icosahedron agreed, “but that does not alter the fact that the odds of getting to that point of stability are unfavorable.”
“It sounds to me like it’s a chance worth taking,” the colonel continued. “I wasn’t going to oppose this operation if we were going to trade Junup for another alien just like him, but if Zeke is right, and we have a shot to return things to the status quo prior to Junup’s rise to power, we should take it.”
“It is a risk,” said Thindly-bak. “If Zeke’s plan were to fail, then we would have lost everything and exposed our movement.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” Adiul-ip said. “We have an opportunity before us, a genuine opportunity to reshape galactic politics for centuries to come. Think of it—an end to conquest and war. I will remind everyone that Convex Icosahedron has projected that if Confederation Central is destroyed, there is an eighty-seven percent chance that within twenty years the Phandic Empire will transition to a peaceful, representative government on the Confederation model. No one wants to destroy a city, but think what we gain. Future generations will thank us.”
There was a murmur of assent all around the room. They actually meant to blow up Confederation Central rather than rescue Ghli Wixxix. No, it was more terrifying than that. This wasn’t some thought experiment. I was sitting in on a meeting with a bunch of lunatics who loved the idea of destroying the greatest place that ever existed because a wacko without a face thought that the numbers looked pretty good.
I slowly sat back down because I was afraid I was going to barf. There was no way I would fly the mission, but my sitting it out would not stop this terrible thing from happening. The renegades would just find another pilot. Maybe I could sabotage a ship, or even a base, but this thing was bigger than I was. I’d made my best arguments, and they had ignored them. I had been outvoted, and I did not see any way their minds were going to change.