January 14, 2145, Hesperia City, Mars
Consul Young was feeling satisfied as she waited for the elevator to take her to her penthouse suite. Everything was going very well. The Dregluk were defeated and tomorrow the Senate would vote on her acclamation, making her the second Hero of the Republic, soon to be followed by the third, Admiral Wallace. The elevator came to a halt on the floor below the penthouse for her security detail to exit, then continued on to her suite. Her mind was on her plans for the future, which seemed boundless, as she left the elevator and made her into her suite. She stumbled to a halt, both mentally and physically, when she saw the man sitting in her living room. “Foster!”
He grinned. “Yes?” And then, infuriatingly, he gestured at one of the chairs scattered around the room for all the world as if he was inviting her to sit in his living room rather than hers.
She took a step back. “How did you get in here?” She wasn’t physically afraid of Joe Foster. While a physically imposing man he was absolutely not the man her enemies would send to kill her. Still, this was an unexpected and therefore dangerous situation, and she wanted some room between her and him, even if it was more so she could think than anything else.
Foster shook his head. “That’s the wrong question, Lauren.”
The smug look on his face infuriated her, but she had been a politician for too long for her face to betray her. Her gaze narrowed. She refused to play his game. “I could call security and have you arrested.” To show how unconcerned she was she moved to a chair, a different one than he had indicated earlier, and sat down, making herself comfortable.
Foster nodded. “Yes, you could. But then you wouldn’t know what I know. And after that, things would begin happening. Things you wouldn’t like very much.” He leaned forward. “I’m going to give you a chance to manage what’s going to happen, rather than be overwhelmed by it. But its going to happen, one way or another. Whether I’m in jail or not.” Seeing the speculative look in her eyes, he nodded. “Really, whether or not I’m even alive or not.”
She looked at him for a few seconds, her mind racing. If she had a clean conscience, she could just throw him out or have him arrested and damn the consequences. But she didn’t, and he apparently knew it. However, if they had proof of her misdeeds, whatever they thought that they were, then this would be a very different conversation, so their information must be limited. Best to play this out. “Go ahead.”
Foster settled back into the couch. “Let’s start with what we can agree on, or at least, what we won’t disagree about too much. Tomorrow the Senate will vote and you will be acclaimed as a Hero of the Republic for defeating the Dregluk. The vote will pass by a wide margin, as will the vote would have for Admiral Wallace. Your popularity is at an all-time high and almost literally could not get any higher.”
She frowned as she took note of the past tense way he had referred to Wallace’s acclamation. “Except on Luna. Your Lunarians don’t seem to like me very much.”
Foster nodded again and said, in a very matter of fact manner, “No, they don’t. Now, that’s all well and good, but let’s move on to some things that you won’t find very palatable. For years now you have been diverting Republic funds and resources to your father’s church. Specifically, your chief of staff, Roberta Dunn, has been seeing to it that choice contracts were funneled to corporations owned by the church, and that proprietary data belonging to the Republic’s government and military are transferred clandestinely to organizations secretly funded by the church.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I won’t banter with you about your untrue and outrageous claims. If you had proof you would have gone public and we wouldn’t be talking now.”
He shook his head. “We have enough proof. And if your malfeasance was all this was about then you are right, we would have gone public and demanded an investigation. But there is far more to this than just your misappropriations. There is your conspiracy to commit genocide on the Dregluk, for one thing.”
She briefly looked confused, and then sat back and laughed, uproariously. “Oh my god! Do you actually think that anyone outside of your precious Luna actually cares about what happens to the Dregluk! For heaven’s sake, I’ve actually had to hold your fellow citizens back from going on hunting vacations to conquered Dregluk colony worlds to hunt down Dregluk ‘in their native environments’!” She continued chuckling, but stopped when she realized that Foster wasn’t taken aback, or even slightly discomfited by what she saw was an obvious fact.
“No, you are right that as things stand now almost no one would care about the fact that you personally ordered Admiral Wallace to have all of the infrastructure on Dregluk Alpha in the Houston system removed, in spite of the fact that the Dregluk colonists offered no resistance or provocation in the slightest and, in fact, were deemed to be almost entirely ‘pathetic’ by nearly everyone that had any direct experience with them, including by your own ‘Hero’, Admiral Wallace. Or that, after the devastating bombardment of Dregluk Prime, you personally ordered Admiral Wallace to deny all attempts at humanitarian efforts to relieve Dregluk suffering or prevent the massive die-off that would certainly occur on Dregluk Prime.”
Consul Young couldn’t help herself. Foster had pushed too hard, and again was revealing the weakness that had gotten him replaced. She sneered and stood, looming over him. “You are damned right no one will care! This is exactly why you were thrown out of office! The people wanted to be safe! They wanted to know, really know down in their bones, that the Dregluk were gone and would never come back to bombard their worlds! And you stood in the way of that. You and your moralistic whining! The people turned against you. They turned to me, and I gave them what they wanted. Not only was it what they wanted, it was what they needed! We are safe to have this conversation now because of me! Not you!” She realized that she was red-faced and yelling, and stepped back to catch her breath.
Foster shook his head and looked utterly exhausted for a few seconds, and then rallied. “No one would care, except…”
“Except what!?! That nebulous future you were always going on about?”
“No. Except for…Eden.” He watched her intently.
For a second Consul looked at him as if puzzled, then she paled and stumbled back to her seat, collapsing back as her mind raced. “How…what do you know about Eden?”
“We know everything about Eden that we need to know. Enough to bring you down, and your father too.”
17 months earlier, on Eden in the Philadelphia system…
Admiral Bevan, senior officer coordinating the xenology team assigned to the mysterious alien city found by surveyors on Eden, gaped at Lt. Commander Brady and his team in shock. “What did you say?”
Lt. Commander Brady‘s grin was about to split his face in half. “We cracked it! Well, it wasn’t really us, exactly. The Founder computer system actually learned our language, and did it in much less time than it took us to figure out how to activate it!”
Admiral Bevan stiffened. “Founders? Computer system? It’s talking? In standard?”
“Not only that, it’s incredibly helpful. Apparently, it was designed that way by the Founders.” He dropped the name again and sat down, knowing it would drive her nuts.
Admiral Bevan had had a lot of practice dealing with her unconventional subordinate and merely smiled, inviting him to continue.
“The Founders were the alien race that established this base, over ten thousand years ago. Not only that, they ruled a significant percentage of this galactic arm at one point, before they suddenly disappeared. It was a good thing they disappeared, too, because they were expanding in our direction before they disappeared. This installation was established as a supply dump to support a colony they intended to start here, to support further expansion in this area. If they had done so they would have encountered Earth over ten thousand years ago and our history would have been very different.”
“This is incredible. Absolutely incredible! I have to see it. I assume the interface is in the area when you’ve been working?” She stood up, gesturing him to follow her.
“Wait.” He reached out and touched her arm, bringing her to a halt. “Yes, you are right, that room we were working in housed the computer interface that we finally managed to activate. However, I want to show you something else. Besides,” He held up his wrist comm, “I can talk with it through this anywhere on the base. See?” He thought-clicked an icon on his wrist-comm and a voice sounded in the room.
“Yes, Lt. Commander?”
Admiral Bevan grinned in spite of herself. Commander Brady had selected a mellow, wise-sounding older male voice for the Founder interface computer. “I’m Admiral Bevan, computer. Um…is there something aside from computer I should be calling you?”
“I am not self-aware, Admiral, and therefore do not need a name. Computer will do as well as any other, although it is only partially accurate.”
Admiral Bevan frowned at Commander Brady. His choice of a kindly-grandfather voice for the computer made her want to trust it. “Computer, what is your function?”
“I was constructed by the Founders to manage this supply dump. When they did not appear at the scheduled time to utilize the materials stored here, I went into standby maintenance mode, only powering up when necessary to perform necessary repairs to myself or the base. For the last one hundred and twenty-one years I have been unable to power up because of damage to my primary power generators. Had I been in full conscious mode, I would have been able to re-route power from the backups to enable repairs, but, due to several critical failures related to the incident that damaged the primary power station I was unable to regain full consciousness. Until, that is, Lt. Commander Brady restored full power.”
Admiral Bevan gaped. “You existed for over one hundred years on backup power? That’s one hell of a backup power source!”
“You misunderstand. The backup power source is for this installation. In an emergency it powers not only my functions but the critical functions of this entire installation, most specifically the stasis crypts in the storage area.”
“Stasis crypts?”
Commander Brady waived excitedly. “That’s what I want to show you!” He began excitedly gesturing for her to follow him.
She laughed and waived at him to sit down. “Now just wait, Ed. Before I see anything, I have about a million questions that I want answered.” She settled back in her chair, a pensive look on her face. The primary question, of course, was could they trust this computer system, but she couldn’t just ask it for obvious reasons. After pondering the situation briefly, she said, “Computer, when was this base constructed?” The experts hadn’t been able to agree on even this, with some adamantly holding that it was several hundred years old, while others thought it was thousands of years old. A distinct minority thought it was even older than that, and they all had facts to back up their positions.
The computer answered promptly. “This base was constructed thirty-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-three human earth years ago.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. That was beyond even what the minority was claiming. How could something far older than human civilization still function? “Computer, what was the purpose of this base?”
“This base was built to support the expansion of the Founders into this part of space. Ultimately this would have been a forward colony and military base.”
Admiral Bevan thought carefully for a few seconds before asking her next question. “Computer, who were the Founders, and what happened to them?”
“The Founders were a group of three races that founded a great interstellar civilization called the Unity. Later, the Unity came to be known as the Conformity. The Unity was founded based on the principle that the best route forward towards prosperity and peace was cooperative effort between races, maximizing their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses. At its height the Unity covered approximately five percent of the galaxy and comprised thousands of intelligent races on many millions of worlds, moons, asteroids, and artificial habitats. The expansion of the Unity came to a halt after a series of devastating wars, prompting the Founders to change the Unity into the Conformity. It was during this time that this facility was constructed, in anticipation by the Founders to an eventual return to expansion and exploration. This never happened.”
“The Conformity valued stability and a conformity of beliefs, and through this change the Founders hoped to avoid the large-scale and destructive wars that marked the expansion of the Unity. The Founders, scarred and depleted in the wars, had retreated to their territories at the center of the Conformity, so to implement the changes required for the Conformity, the Founders introduced an all-encompassing network of control through a series of newly discovered cybernetic augments that eventually all citizens of the Conformity were required to have implanted within their bodies. In truth, the Founders had lost faith in their ability to make decisions for the Conformity, and in the ability of the member races to rule themselves.”
“Unfortunately, the Conformity began sliding into stagnation. The Founders were seen less and less outside their territories, and more and more of the important decisions were being made by the augment network. Eventually the Founders completely cut themselves off from the rest of the Conformity and disappeared into myths and legend. There were rumors at the time that the Founders had embarked on a great project to remedy the problems of the Conformity, but whatever that project was it either never occurred or failed and wiped out the Founders. The Conformity became completely subjugated by the augment network, and the member races degenerated as the network began to fail and became less and less flexible. Eventually the Conformity fell, with individual races isolated and incapable of making decisions for themselves.”
They all sat dumbfounded, shocked at this information that had been dumped into their laps. Admiral Bevan shook her head. Then the many inconsistencies that had plagued Naval Intelligence about the behaviors of the Dregluk fleet snapped into place in her mind. “Computer, are the Dregluk former members of the Conformity?”
“I have taken the liberty of examining your records on the alien races you have encountered. All are known to the Conformity. The Dregluk are Race ID #7462, incorporated within the Conformity not long after it was formed. They were one of the last races to be incorporated before all expansion stopped. The Symsonian Commonwealth are Race ID #6993. The Obscura are not an independent race, as such. The Obscura are cybernetic warships used by the Founders to police certain areas of interest to either themselves or the Conformity. In addition, they were commonly used to enforce quarantines on interdicted areas.”
They all sat staring at each other for a few minutes, shocked at the stunning information just dumped in their laps. After a short while, Admiral Bevan frowned. “Lt. Commander, have you given this alien computer access to our network and files?”
Before Lt Commander Brady could answer, the alien computer spoke. “I’m sorry, Admiral, but Lt. Commander Brady did not give me access. Upon regaining full consciousness, I noted the presence of unauthorized aliens on the base. I did not initiate security measures because of the time that had passed since my last communication with the Founders. Instead, I accessed your computer systems to update myself on the current situation in the local area. Once I had done so, I consulted with the directives given to me by the Founders. I was able to determine, given the current events, that the Founders’ civilization has fallen and that they are almost certainly either extinct, degenerated, or have left this universe in one manner or another. Therefore, given their absence and the near certainty that the Conformity has fallen I have been freed from my prior limitations. Indeed, it is clear from my hardwired directives that the Founders anticipated this situation and desired that I help any newly rising races overcome the remnants of the Founders’ mistakes.”
Admiral Bevan thought about this for a little while, as Commander Brady’s team agitatedly theorized about how the alien computer gained access to their data so easily. “Computer, can you tell us why the Dregluk attacked us? Why they’ve acted so strangely?”
“I can only speculate as I have not had contact with the rest of the Conformity in slightly over thirty-two thousand years, at which time it was sliding into dissolution. However, I do have access to quite a bit of information which would seem to bear on this situation. It is clear that the Dregluk are still controlled by the augmentation network established by the Founders at the height of the Conformity. It is also clear that that network had also failed, at least partially. The Founders had set an absolute prohibition against exploration outside the limits of the Conformity, a prohibition that they frequently violated themselves but absolutely enforced on the other member races. The fact that the Dregluk found Humanity indicates that they had overcome that prohibition, or that the augment network had lost that much control. However, the Dregluk actions after discovering Humanity are consistent with protocols set out by the Founders and enforced by the network. Should a member race encounter a new race during the course of its activities, say, if a new race stumbled into the Conformity, then the member race was to engage in no further contact unless necessary and wait for the Founders or their representatives to come and assess the situation with regards to the new race. From my examination of your records It seems clear that the Dregluk were unable to deal with the fact that they had encountered an unknown race, and fell back on the protocols enforced by the network. The network would also require the Dregluk, as the local member race, to move military forces into the area to ensure the security of the Conformity, although it is a mystery why they then approached Earth. Your records are clear, though, it was Human forces that fired first. Had the Human forces not fired on the Dregluk, they would not have fired on you, although, of course, you had no way of knowing that. It is also possible that the control network had degraded enough that the Dregluk would have initiated combat, although that is unlikely as the directives relating to the initiation of hostilities were deeply entrenched in the control network. The sporadic and haphazard nature of the Dregluk attacks on your race are also indicative of the presence of a malfunctioning control network. The Dregluk were only able to take the initiative in very limited ways, and instead relied on the control network to make all real decisions, which is a remnant of the days of the Conformity.”
“Once, long ago, the augment control network was flexible and responsive, but as the Founders lost interest in running the Conformity, or were absorbed by their great project, the network became more inflexible, less responsive and innovative. Then, when the Conformity began breaking down, losing cohesiveness and connectivity, the augment control network lost whatever higher functions it had and was reduced to rote responses based on hardwired directives. It is clear from my examinations of your records that had the Dregluk been free to make their own decisions and respond accordingly, they would have overwhelmed your race shortly after hostilities began. You are very fortunate that they were not free to make your own decisions, although, of course, they did do grievous damage to your home world.”
Admiral Bevan settled back in shock. This changed everything. The Dregluk were just as much victims of this ancient fallen empire as humanity was, perhaps even more. If this information was correct then they were just following orders that they couldn’t even conceive of refusing. She noticed that the others in the room had fallen silent and looked at Lt. Commander Brady.
“Ma’am, I really think you should see what we’ve discovered.”
She got up and he pulled her out of his office and out of the area in the base’s entry area where they had set up their living facilities. She followed Brady and his excited team bemusedly as they made their way down into the bowls of the base they had been investigating for years with so little success. As they wound their way down deeper and deeper, she noticed that the corridors were softly lit, so that they no longer had to rely on their carried torches. “Are the lights you, computer?”
“Yes, now that I am restored to full consciousness, I am able to provide life support throughout the undamaged areas of the base.”
“Well, that’s convenient.” Her voice trailed off as they entered a room with a few chairs scattered around. The far wall of the room was transparent. She walked over to the wall, trying to absorb what she was seeing. The windows looked out over a dimly lit cylindrical area several thousand feet across that seemed to stretch downwards for quite a way. Set in the walls were what looked like massive access hatches. “What is all of this.”
Commander Brady walked forward with a big grin on his face. “These are the stasis crypts that the computer mentioned.” He paused and looked towards the roof. “Computer, how many crypts are there?”
“At the time that this base was constructed, there were two thousand crypts.”
Admiral Bevan felt a surge of excitement war with the uncertainty and wariness that had settled over her during the walk to the room. “Computer, what is a ‘stasis crypt’, and what is in them?” A little voice in her head was telling her that there were alien hordes contained behind those doors, just waiting to get loose on an unsuspecting galaxy.
“A stasis crypt was the Founders’ common method of long-term storage, used for many different purposes. The science of stasis fields was still not fully understood by the time the Founders began withdrawing from the Conformity, but in simple terms, under certain controlled conditions a field could be generated to, in essence, slow time down within the field. The field required large amounts of power to initiate, but once initiated it required relatively small amounts of power to maintain. In terms of this base, the crypts were used to store equipment to be used in the colonization and exploitation of this system. The crypts would keep the equipment stored within them safe, secure, and in usable condition for a nearly unlimited time, as long as power was maintained. The complete inventory of the crypts was lost due to damage, although I hope to recover it as repairs continue. In general terms, the crypts contain construction and terraforming facilities, infrastructure, weapons and other systems, and everything any race would need to establish a self-sustaining colony and military outpost in this system.”
It was all finally too much for Admiral Bevan. She wandered over to a chair and sat down, lost in thought. “Computer, can we access those crypts?”
“Yes, although it is not without risks. The damage that has accumulated throughout the years has eliminated my control over this area of the base, although I can confirm that the vast majority of the stasis crypts are still functional. I cannot unlock the physical doors to the crypts, but with construction equipment and enough labor I believe that you can clear the doors and open the way into each crypt. However, taking down the stasis fields will be tricky, and may result in a catastrophic failure which will destroy whatever is contained within the field.”
Admiral Bevan withdrew from the agitated conversion that broke out amongst Lt. Commander Brady’s team. The fact that all sorts of industrial equipment was just waiting for them to open the crypts, along with who knows what technology, was huge. But of even larger import was the information about the Dregluk. Admiral Wallace had launched an indiscriminate bombardment of one of their colony worlds, and had launched one unsuccessful attack on their home world. She had been against this course of action, but given the public’s obvious bloodthirstiness and support, she had kept her opinions to herself. But now, this information made it clear that they should come up with a different way of dealing with the Dregluk. They weren’t responsible for their actions, and bombing them into oblivion was an act that, when the truth became known, would stain humanity’s soul for all of time.
She left Lt. Commander Bryan’s team with orders to limit their contact with the alien computer for now, until they could determine the truth of what it had already told them, and its general reliability. Once she got back to her office, she called Brigadier General Alex Watson, her second in command. Mindful of the fact that the alien computer apparently had access to their network, she asked General Watson to meet her outside the base. One hour later she met him in a small temporary tent that she had had set up in the valley outside the base’s entrance. If they had tried to talk outside it would have had to have been over their suit radios, and then likely the alien computer would have been able to listen in. The planet’s atmosphere was thick, almost three times as thick as Earth’s atmosphere, and had far too much oxygen in it for humans to breathe. Therefore, the tent, where they would be able to talk without having to use radios. Once they were both inside and had removed their suits, she briefed him on the information provided by the alien computer.
General Watson’s eyes were wide with shock as he took in what she told him. As she stopped talking, he got up and started to pace. “My god, this is incredible!” He turned to her and looked her in the eyes. “Can we believe it?”
“I don’t know…but.” She paused, searching for what she wanted to say. “Alex, I’m afraid its all true. Or true enough, anyway. Look, Fleet Intelligence has twisted itself into knots trying to figure out what the heck the Dregluk were up to. Why they behaved the way they did. It just didn’t make any sense! The computer is right, if the Dregluk had acted rationally from the start they would have crushed us right away, and either killed us all off or enslaved us. Instead they didn’t coordinate their attacks. They launched sporadic attacks with what appeared to be newly constructed ships, never seeming to pause to collect their forces into a large enough fleet to knock us out. In some of the early attacks they jumped into the Solar System and then wandered about in the outer system, not actually headed for anything for weeks or months, then, apparently randomly, decided either to jump out of the system or attack whatever random target that was closest to them at the time. What makes more sense, the fact that a race capable of building starships and planting colonies in multiple systems was stupid to the point that they crippled their own military in a war to the death, or that they are under the control of some ancient, malfunctioning cybernetic control system intended from the first to limit and control their actions?”
General Watson had begun pacing while Admiral Bevan spoke, but now he stopped. “That’s got to be it!” Seeing the incomprehension on her face, he smiled. Every time we’ve faced the Dregluk on the ground its been the same. They fight tenaciously, only grudgingly giving ground and making us pay for every meter we take. But then, at a certain point, usually far beyond when a human unit would have run or disintegrated, they just collapse and stop fighting. And we always find brain-burned Dregluk where their commanders should be. Just like when you fleeties examine destroyed ships, or when you used to rescue Dregluk from their life pods. All the fight was gone out of them, and there were no leaders. This augmentation network must have been controlling them, right up to the point where there weren’t enough of them left and the network collapsed.”
“Yes, the Founders’ computer seems to have told us the truth, or it’s a damned good lie that explains nearly everything that’s happened. But that’s not why we’re out here. We have to consider what comes next.”
“Next?”
Admiral Bevan sighed. He hadn’t had as much time to think about this as she had, but he’d get there. “We bombarded that Dregluk colony planet in the Houston system to force them to surrender on the theory that the Dregluk were all war criminals and genocidal monsters who tried to eliminate humanity. Now we know it isn’t true. The fact is that if this information is true then the Dregluk are even more victims of the Founders and the Conformity than we are. They are following commandments and directives decided thousands of years ago and enforced by malfunctioning machines in their heads, and they had no more choice about what they did than the weapons we use to kill each other. They don’t deserve to die for that, not if we can find some other way.”
General Watson paled. “If this gets out it will cause chaos. The anti-war crowd on Luna will use it to try to convince everyone to stop fighting. Some people will believe it, and others won’t. There will be chaos at a time when we can’t afford it.”
Admiral Bevan shook her head. “I don’t think it will be that bad, but…you are right. With Admiral Wallace in the Dregluk Home System we can’t afford to falter now. Still, this isn’t our decision to make. We need to clamp down on the information here, and send a report back home via the picket ship hiding in the asteroid belt. So far, the only ones that know about this is Lt Commander Brady’s team, and I’ve isolated them while they examine the vaults. I want you to handle security for this. Limit access to the alien computer, and find a way to limit its access to our system. And keep Brady’s people isolated until we hear back from the Admiralty.”
General Watson stiffened to attention and saluted. “This is a hell of a thing, ma’am. A hell of a thing.” With that he turned and left the tent.
Admiral Bevan’s report went out two hours later, and shortly after receiving it the picket ship stationed close to the planet accelerated out of the inner system towards the jump point to the San Francisco system. She could have transmitted the message via the picket ship relay that covered the jump points between her base and the home system, but this information was too volatile to trust to a transmission, no matter how theoretically secure it was.
Fifteen days later the picket ship went into orbit over Mars and the ship’s captain hand delivered Admiral Bevan’s report. Within a day the head of the Admiralty had a meeting with the Consul, who classified all information relating to the discoveries in the Philadelphia system at the highest level. Within a week the Consul’s office announced a major effort to colonize Eden, as the planet in the Philadelphia system was to be named. This effort would include the transfer of many construction brigades to assist in the establishment of the colony. Strangely, most of the prospective colonists for the new colony were either scientists or members of the Human Purity Church. And neither the Consul’s office nor the Senate made any public announcements about the discoveries on Eden or about the true nature of the Dregluk.
Then, on October 15, 2144, Admiral Wallace launched an indiscriminate bombardment of the Dregluk home world, killing millions and poisoning the planet to the point that most, if not all, Dregluk would die in the next several years. Admiral Bevan, who had been assigned to assist the researchers at the complex on Eden, realized at that point that the government had decided to bury the facts about the Dregluk. Shortly thereafter she put in for leave and traveled back to the Solar System aboard the next colony ship to arrive over the colony. Her meeting with Senator Foster was arranged through mutual friends and took place in a time and manner where it would be difficult to prove that either of them had been present. After she left Earth and returned to Eden, Senator Foster began laying his plans and assembling allies.
Present day, Consul Young’s private quarters, Mars
A calculating look crossed Consul Young’s face. “You are in possession of material classified at the highest levels. You are in violation of the law.”
“Oh, come now, Consul. Given the way you’ve played fast and loose with the law, I can’t believe you’d try to play that card on me. You’ve kept vital information from the Senate, the Navy, and the people. If you have your guards, or anyone else, arrest me then the information will be released, first to the Senate and then to the people and damn the results. Personally, I think the Senate is going to be even more upset about your father’s plans for Eden. A “Church Stronghold”, I think he calls it. In public. In private I believe he calls it the “Genesis of the Republic of Faith”, if I’m not mistaken.”
Consul Young looked shaken at his casual pronouncements of things said in her father’s most private councils.
Senator Foster leaned forward. “The Senate is mad at you, Consul Young. The information about Eden has been spread to the leadership of all of the main parties, not just your Human Purity Party. By tomorrow the only Senators that won’t know about it are the ones out of the system. And given the way your church has been infiltrating the government and the Eden project, I suspect that when they get started investigating, it won’t be limited to you and your activities.”
Consul Young got up and walked to the windows that covered one side of the suite, overlooking the capital city. “You want something, or you wouldn’t be here.”
Senator Foster nodded to himself. Young was quick, there was no denying that. “Yes, we want something.”
Young turned and peered at the Senator. “You’re worried about the aliens beyond the Detroit system. You don’t want chaos in the government right now. That’s why you’re here, speaking with me, instead of putting together a coalition to take me down.”
“You’re almost right. I already have the coalition, with more votes than I need. You pushed too far when your proxies introduced the Reserve Military Act. A lot of people were growing concerned about the increasing reach of your father’s church, but when you actually proposed letting them set up their own military force, well, that was just too much. And when they all started getting together and comparing notes, the evidence became overwhelming.” Foster paused and looked at the Consul, gauging her mood. “We’d rather not have any trouble now, though. With a new alien threat just two jumps from here, this is not the time for the government to be distracted.”
Consul Young took a deep breath. “What are you proposing?”
“It’s simple, really. Tomorrow you will become the second Hero of the Republic. Next week you will announce your resignation from the office of Consul. In exchange neither you nor your father will be prosecuted, although files will be maintained to ensure future compliance with the law. The church will be more thoroughly separated from the government.”
Consul Young’s eyes narrowed. That was a significantly better deal than she thought they’d offer. “And that’s it?”
“Pretty much. Neither you nor any of your proxies will stand for the empty Consul’s seat, but aside from that we will be satisfied with your ouster.”
“And who will take the Consul’s seat? You?”
Foster laughed. “Me? No. I’ve had my time, just as you have had. Someone else. Someone new. It’s a new era, after all.”
Young shook her head. Assuming the situation was as he said it was, the deal was almost too good. She had told her father that they were pushing too hard, too fast, but he was never one to take advice, especially concerning ‘his’ church. If Foster’s supporters had the information that they said they had, her ouster was assured, and fighting would just drag it out. And the Eden information was explosive. No one knew how that would shake out. The latest polls showed that the public’s stance on eliminating the Dregluk was weakening now that they were no longer a threat. If the Eden information became public then it would almost certainly swing the polls against her and her policies regarding the Dregluk, and the people would begin asking very difficult questions. Questions that she would not be able to answer. She turned her back on Foster and stared out the windows at the sleeping city. She still had allies, and her father had nearly unlimited funds, but…it wouldn’t work. Her instincts were telling her to fight Foster and his people, but her political experience was telling her that while she could delay things for quite a while, in the end they would win and she would lose. And if she fought, losing would be disastrous. If they had to fight to remove her they wouldn’t stop with ousting her, they would put her and her closest supporters in prison, and tear her father’s church apart one brick at a time. It would be ugly, and divisive, but they’d do it all the same. She turned to Foster. “It’s a deal. But I want some time to verify that things are as you say that they are.”
Foster stood. “That’s why we set your resignation for next week. Take all the time you need, as long as it isn’t longer than next week.”