March 2131, Somewhere over VadimCaptain Ramos had only met the Concordant once, back in '26. Back then, the Concordant was on the ground, running the machinery of empire out of a windowless war room in Vanderberg Air Force Base. Come to think of it, the Concordant would always be on the ground in one way or another. Last Ramos had heard, they were moving him to permanent mobile quarters aboard the
Raphael, a palatial warship designed to comfortably house him and his staff. He'd be a resident of space for the rest of his life...apparently, but he seemed like the sort of man who would always have his boots firmly on the ground. The day Ramos had been herded into his office with a handful of other junior officers, he'd seen a man solidly and happily behind the times: there were the requisite battlescreens and system overlays, but through some ingenious trick of photonics, the Concordant had arranged to have them laser-projected onto dark, mirror-like lacquered hardwood. His desk was a stocky oak monstrosity replete with globes of every world yet colonized...designed, apparently, to be just a bit too big to fit firmly in the Concordant's hand. The rear wall of the room had, mounted like the pelt of a hunted animal, a sprawling starmap of known space done up with ink and parchment. The thing was completely impractical, but imbued the entire room with a feeling of authority and absolute, archaic power. Leopoldo Franca, concordant of the nine worlds, was not an idiot. He knew the difficulties inherent in projecting the entirety of human exploration on parchment, it warped things, but it made the most important concept plainer: This was Franca's universe, and he would draw it however he saw fit. Ramos imagined that, even now, the Concordant's armed guard was disassembling the entire office, bit by bit, and rebuilding it aboard the
Raphael. Woe betide whoever folded Franca's map incorrectly
Back then, Ramos had been the commander of a supply ship making runs to Monticello, carrying automated equipment designed to turn the planet from a nature preserve to a fully functional colony. The meeting had lasted exactly seven minutes. He entered the office, renounced his nationality, and handed over the access codes to his ship and its robotic cargo. The funny thing was, he didn't remember what Franca looked like at all...and Franca hadn't said a word. The room had done all the talking. The unconditional surrender of his ship had had its advantages. Now Ramos was the captain of the battlecruiser
Monticello, a warship that easily possessed the requisite weaponry to destroy all life on the planet it was named for. The
Monticello had 627 utterly loyal electroparticle weapons powerful enough to bore holes through asteroids, and a captain's office with a map of Monticello, done up in parchment and ink. He was in this room now, with his first mate, analyzing surface reports of another, darker world.
"Vadim is a lifeless husk." The first mate said, "Can't be more than three million people on it, and they're deep underground."
"It's seven million, actually." Ramos said, "And it's not their welfare I'm concerned about, it's...well it's nuanced."
"You have reservations about blowing up an unmanned communications post that was built fifty years ago..." The first mate said. "You must have some nuance indeed to contradict a direct order from the Concordant himself."
The sun was rising over the rocky curve of Vadim, beams lanced through the portal to Ramos' right, unpreturbed by the planet's thin atmosphere. 50,000 kilometers away, LP117 was rising as well. In 10 minutes, it would pass into the firing range of the
Monticello's neon cannons, and be promptly atomized, as per the Concordant's instructions. The ship's science officer had concluded, in his final report on the matter, that the post would be rendered into ionic dust save for the bottom ~10%, and some bits near the top, none of which would have the slightest chance to damage surface settlements below. They would be flung out into space, or crash into the Seyit Kabuk outback near the planet's North Pole, the loneliest part of a lonely world, at the absolute backwater of Concordant space.
"Tell me commander," Ramos asked. "When you recieved your orders to blow LP117 out of the sky, what was the reason they gave you?"
"Weapons test." the first mate replied, "We've never tried targeting the neon cannons at fleet intercept speed. As a final-fire weapon it's fairly critical they work in a close-range, high-velocity encounter like this one, and..."
"And you didn't think it was the least bit suspicious that we had to fly clear out here, 2 weeks away from anything, to do that?"
"Well...those were my orders, so..."
"Commander you surely understand that you have my permission to speak freely on this matter. Contrary to what your former superiors on Titan might have told you, there are not covert listening devices embedded into every room on the ship."
The commander thought for quite some time, and then replied.
"Well in general folks back home are paranoid. I've heard the usual stories: That LP117 is some kind of secret communications hub for subterranean research labs of the old NATO-Russo order...that there's like, a freeze locker onboard that still has Ivanova Kuzmin's body in suspended animation..."
"But you don't think that?"
"No sir, I don't."
"Then what do you think."
"Frankly sir, this is a showing of the flag."
(
Concordance of Worlds, Seal and Naval Insignia, Circa 2131)
"Explain..."
"Franca's trying to make a point. LP117 is the last piece of Nato-Russo infrastructure in space, and the Vadimi are the only folks that haven't come 'round to the new way of thinking. They've been able to persist so long because they're so far removed from everything, and because they live on a lifeless ball of rock with no strategic resources whatsoever...but Franca's gotta show them that we're out here too...that this is
his lifeless ball of rock."
"A showing of the flag, huh?"
"It's an old naval term."
"We don't exactly have a flag."
"We have armor decals, and a weapon with an emissions signature that will be clearly visible from the surface."
Ramos sighed.
"Yes, this was more or less my take on the matter as well, though I'm not sure I've heard the exact term for it."
Ramos' first mate shrugged. "Well since we're speaking freely sir, I've got to ask: what are your extremely nuanced objections to a showing of the flag."
"It's hard to put into words." Ramos admitted, "And not because of the listening devices. It's just...well this is there world isn't it? By the terms of the Concordance of Worlds they own the place, we merely police it."
"They own the world," The first made said, "But past high orbit, it's ours, besides, it's not like they use it for anything."
"They specifically asked that we not destroy it." Ramos said, "A formal objection was lodged."
"And the Concordant formally considered the objection and then pcoketed it." The first mate said, "He has the right to do that, you know."
Ramos nodded. "We're going through with it, don't get me wrong. I just wanted to mention my objections to it, however lukewarm and abstract they might be."
"May I ask why?"
"Because number one, you'll outlive me, and in case you see a day where we've done more than simply show the flag to these people, I want you to know that at least one guy, out there at the very beginning of it all, had the right idea."
The commander nodded. A discreet, barely audible chirp registered from the weapons bridge outside, indicating the forward scanners had resolved LP117 to the targeting computer's satisfaction, and it was now a valid contact.
"But your orders still stand?" The commander asked, clearly not quite sure what he was doing in the Captain's office.
Ramos sighed. "Aye, the orders still stand. Show the flag, commander...."
