By Other Means (11 page)

That was reason for the group to fall silent for a moment, considering that particular twist on things. The Admiral was right, though, and they all knew it. The only people they could trust right at the moment were other humans, and each of them were cynical enough to know that the only reason that was true was because no one had yet had a chance to be corrupted by the situation.

The day of
that
particular scenario was coming, and the countdown clock for it was probably much shorter than any of them would like to admit.

“The question is, what can we do about it?” Miram asked into the silence finally, looking around for an answer.

The other three exchanged glances, shaking their heads.

“Not much more than we’re already doing, Madame Ambassador,” Ruger admitted, “We continue the negotiations, we keep eyes and implants wide open and scanning, and we hope that the bulk of the Alliance is negotiating in good faith.”

Miram grunted, looking distinctly unhappy.

“I was afraid you were going to say that,” She said after a long moment.

 *****

On the Alliance station a strikingly similar meeting was taking place as the Ambassador sat down with the Master of Station, his security, and Sienel.

“So the reports were accurate. Do we know who the target was yet?”

Kriss nodded, meeting the Ambassador’s eyes, “You were, Ambassador.”

The Parithalian sighed, wishing he felt more surprised. He did not, however, so he had to continue playing what the game had passed to him.

“Well, this is awkward,” He admitted wryly, “starting negotiations while owing my life to a Terran?”

“She was acting to preserve her own detail, Ambassador,” Sienel advised with a tip of his head.

“Yes, yes, of course. Still it is a bit humorous, don’t you think?” The Parithalian asked lightly before becoming more serious, “I presume that you’ve locked security down more?”

“Yes, Ambassador,” Kriss nodded, “I don’t believe that this faction will be a problem in the future.”

“This faction?”

Kriss shrugged, “It’s quite clear that we have several different groups opposing this treaty, for wildly different reasons. Most likely at least one more will attempt something before it can be signed.”

“The Sentinel is, sadly, correct Ambassador,” Sienel said simply, stepping into the discussion, “I expect that the most likely outcome is that the next attempt will be made as we approach the signing, however. Capturing this conspirator will make the others more cautious, I believe they will hope for a time that negotiations will break down on their own.”

“No chance of that,” The Ambassador said simply, “Unless I very much miss my guess, the Terrans are as interested in this as we are.”

“Yes, that was my read as well. Curious, really,” Sienel said, “They annihilated one of our fleets, left no trace… why aren’t they pressuring us harder?”

The group considered that for a moment, but honestly they had no response.

Sienel shrugged, looking a little depressed by the total lack of ideas, “I suppose I am expecting too much. We’re still only beginning to learn their sub-lingual communications, and without a solid understanding of that, we know nothing of them that they do not want us to know.”

“Well hurry up and learn it,” The Ambassador muttered, “as nice as it is to have a reasonable opponent across the table, now I’m going to be driven to utter madness asking myself that question every time they capitulate on one of my points.”

SIenel smiled widely, “A pleasure to give you a taste of my world, Ambassador.”

“Get out,” The Ambassador ordered, humor mixed with disgust in his voice, “All of you, I need my rest before we begin again.”

*****

On the Mexico, Sorilla stared at the ceiling of her room as she sacked out in the narrow bunk.

The situation was playing out differently than she’d envisioned, and she was quickly finding herself in a position to be both more, and less, effective than she had expected. Her job was normally to slip in beneath the notice of the local officials, in this case the Alliance, and find dissidents to leverage into something that she could work with.

Not an easy job as a stranger in some third world country, but at least there she’d been human and most of the places she’d been sent her darker skin and some proper local dress allowed her to blend in decently. Here, she was working at a disadvantage right from the get go.

A disadvantage she’d just had blow up in her face, and now she was being watched by the local security service.

On the flip side, Sorilla thought she could probably play that into a little more access on the official side of things. Too bad that wasn’t her job, nor her specialty.

We need a company man to fart around on that kind of work, I’m a combat trainer damn it.

Still, she could turn that access into a source of information that might help her with her task, if she could play it right.

She just needed to figure out how the hell she was supposed to play it right.

*****

“She’s been identified as a Major Aida.”

“Terran diplomatic security, I presume?”

“Official Alliance reports say so, however the unofficial notes tell a slightly different story.”

“Explain.”

“Sentinal Commander Kriss listed her as a potential Sentinel, but he cannot yet confirm. If she is a Sentinal…”

“Then she is not here as security, unless the Terrans are very different from us indeed.”

“Yes, Master.”

“very well, we have time. Have her followed, see what she does. We may be able to use her presence as the catalyst we need to start this balloon burning.”

“Yes, Master of Fleets.”

Sorilla broke with the main group on her second visit to the station, opting to ‘escort’ a minor functionary on his VIP tour of the facilities. She couldn’t learn what she needed to from the inside of a conference room, she needed to see the people. As much of the people as she could, given that she was on a space station that probably catered to the Alliance’s top ten percent.

Some judicious questions, combined with the Admiral’s earlier research, gave her an idea of how the local economy ran. It was what would vaguely be considered socialist on Earth, which didn’t surprise her. On the scale that the Alliance worked, a socialist economy would be unwieldy, inefficient, and likely corrupt… but it would function, if only barely.

Few other types would, from her knowledge of history, due to problems scaling them up.

Communism worked great, up to maybe four dozen people. Libertarianism was a bit better, and could handle thousands before it started to fall apart. Capitalism worked best on scale, but it too began to implode once you moved close to the billion mark or so and began to factor in multiple local governments.

Socialism always sucked, and tended to work like a glacier moving uphill, but it worked at pretty much every scale in the same way. It was reliable, even if you could only rely on it to piss you off and barely get anything done.

The Alliance wasn’t entirely socialist, however, and it didn’t take her too long to figure out why.

While they had money, in the strictest terms, its worth was effectively whatever the Alliance said it was. Plentiful power and basic practical energy to matter convertors had effectively destroyed most commodities trading, if they’d ever had such things, and, like Earth, food was produced in situ where it was needed.

That left tools and luxury items as the only things the average person would ever need to ‘buy’.

Sorilla waited for the group to be moving through a crowded area of the shop promenade before she decided to ‘get lost’ and begin browsing the area on her own. The Alliance races were friendly enough, few of them even bothered giving her a second glance as she moved through, though she supposed that wasn’t much of a surprise given the number of species and the sheer size of Alliance space.

It was likely that you could go your entire life in even a busy Alliance system and not see a representative of every species.

She used a cash card gifted to the Terrans to buy time on the local communications network. Sorilla expected it to be tracked, but that didn’t matter for the moment. She used the time to grab some news clips and stories, glancing over them and setting them to memory in her implants, then did the same as she continued to browse the local equivalent of the internet.

Three times she hit what she was pretty sure was a censorship firewall, blocking her out of what she’d tried to load. Sorilla did a little mental jig each time and made careful note of the place on the network she was looking. Those were pages she wanted to see, once she got an untraceable cash card and some time on a free system.

Find out what they censor, that will give me the things they’re scared of.

Censorship was never about morality, it was about fear. If a people wanted to hide something, it was because that was where you could kick them and make it hurt the hardest. Only a very scared people tried to hide information of any sort, and Sorilla knew that from the censorship she’d encountered through her career.

She’d just located a fourth such place on the network when she felt more than heard or saw someone approach from behind her.

Sorilla memorized the location and turned to see the space elf walking calmly toward her with what she thought was probably a knowing looking on his face.

“Get lost… Major, is it?” Sienel asked.

“Why yes, actually. It was terribly crowded, I got separated from the group,” Sorilla shrugged, “Decided to try and find an information page.”

“Of course,” he smiled thinly, seemingly amused. “Why don’t I escort you back to the Terran contingent.”

“Thank you,” Sorilla said, “I’d be very grateful.”

“I have no doubt,” He said, gesturing, “This way.”

The two started walking across the public area, and Sorilla couldn’t help it.

“So, just curious,” She asked, “but how long were you watching me?”

“Me personally, or someone working for me?”

“Either.”

“The whole time,” He answered candidly, “I’m sure you’re not surprised.”

“Of course not, I guessed that even if there wasn’t someone watching me they’d find me quickly once I used this,” Sorilla held up the cash card.

“Likely,” Sienel nodded, “though I believe that quite a few of those were given out, so they’re only being monitored in a general sort of way. We didn’t know who would receive them, you see.”

Sorilla smiled, “And now that you know this is mine?”

Sienel shrugged, “nothing changes. By tomorrow you will have traded with someone, no?”

“No, probably not,” Sorilla shrugged, she honestly didn’t see the need. If she needed to truly get lost on the station, she wouldn’t use a card at all.

There would be another economy, there always was. Under the table, cash or trade only. In this case, probably some form of barter system. Sorilla was familiar with barter economies, they were somewhere between communes and libertarian ideals in terms of effectiveness, and she’d been immersed in enough of them to know her way around.

“Of course,” Sienel said lightly as they walked, “still, if you’d wanted to explore all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m more of a beg forgiveness kind of girl.”

“Pardon?” The slim alien looked genuinely perplexed by her statement, “You do not seem the sort to beg for anything.”

Sorilla grinned, then quoted, “It is better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.”

Sienel considered that for a moment before nodding slowly, “Ah. Yes, that does fit my impression of you.”

“Damn right.”

“You could at least have waited until after we were officially no longer at war before begging forgiveness, however?” He told her with a slight scowl, “The truce has yet to be signed, as I recall.”

Sorilla actually managed to look a little sheepish, a feeling she’d not felt since boot camp, or near enough.

“That’s actually a fair point,” She admitted, “you know, if I hadn’t gotten lost accidentally.”

“Yes, accidentally,” Sienel almost made her laugh when Sorilla could have sworn he’d rolled his eyes. “Try to schedule any further accidents for after the signing, if you please. You are technically still an enemy combatant, and by the strictest interpretations of the rules of warfare, I’m required to shoot you.”

“I’ll do my best,” Sorilla answered dryly, “as a favor to you, of course.”

That was the first time she had ever heard an Alien laugh.

*****

Admiral Ruger looked up as his subordinate was escorted into the room by the alien they’d identified as the local spook. He remained silent as the Major walked quietly over to a free seat and settled in. He opened a direct link and activated his subvocal systems.

“How long before they were on you?”

Sorilla didn’t look over at him, but a burst returned in short order.

“They never got off me.”

Ruger nodded, “As expected. Chances of advancing mission goals?”

“Not my field. We need a spook.”

“We have you.” Ruger told her.

He noted Sorilla snort softly, shaking her head. Strictly speaking he’d just lied to her, and she probably knew it. They didn’t want to expose their infiltration experts before they had enough data to give them a fighting chance. That was one reason they were leading with Major Aida.

She was unlikely to manage any significant infiltration, but that wasn’t really what anyone wanted from her. Ruger and his team needed every hand they could get gathering basic intelligence on the Alliance.

He wasn’t looking for classified data, military strategies, or anything of that nature. What Ruger desperately needed was vital information like the median income for Alliance citizens, what their favorite entertainment was, and what sort of news was being fed to them. It seemed like insignificant data, but if you wanted to send in an infiltrator, it was data you needed to know.

The Major could poke around, flailing wildly while being watched, and get all that for them without and serious suspicion. She was also uniquely qualified to analyse the information on site and prioritise objectives based on what she learned. She was a cultural specialist who had trained her entire life to spot weak points in a cultural psyche, then strike them precisely and cleanly to shatter a people’s soul if that was what it took.