Gods Dogs, Book 3

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Where they arrived at the Accords station, Gunny Murphy sent his intelligence specialists out to meet with Congress intelligence that manned an office on the station. Pax went with them.

Quinn and Moss met up with Charvo’s people and the Guardians. River stayed aboard the ship and monitored their comms.

The Accords space station was two rings connected to a central spindle by six spokes each. Each spoke was home to one of the five empires and one for the Accords Council, while the rings or donuts were where they mingled. In past visits to the station, the team stayed at the Accords spoke. This time, protocol dictated otherwise.

The asteroid that brought Maximus, which was a replica of the one Solomon designed, arrived and parked above the station. The Congress delegation was aboard and enjoying the nicer accommodations. The League, since it represented a separate political entity allied with Congress, came with their own ride. They docked the battlecruiser on the asteroid. With the symbolism mirroring political reality, the conference was ready to begin. The venue was the upper donut with its many conference rooms. The schedule was for each empire to present an overview of itself and what it hoped to accomplish during the conference. Then the wrangling would begin.

The security, on the surface, was a joint effort that aided traffic control, dealt with curious tourists, redirected the intoxicated to their residences, and intervened, as gently as possible, in disputes.

Below the surface, the clandestine operations searched for serious threats, not only aboard the station, but also in near-space.

Emperor Anjevin Ronal Est was back on the Chert homeworld. Reorganizing the empire was a monumental task. The core of it was to bring elections to the conquered worlds so that a governor and planetary council representing the people’s interests replaced the Chert governor and council of elders.

He saw that change as a first step, and since the governmental structure was already in place at the planetary level, all he had to do was recall the Chert governor and council of elders on each planet.

In many cases, he didn’t even have to do that as they either fled those planets or were killed in the civil war. More rarely, a Chert governor was retained as an advisor for the transition.

The civil war was short, though, as Anjevin conceded to the rebels as soon as he returned to Chert space, and he was installed as emperor by popular acclaim. His interim policy of electing a governor and council was met with suspicious agreement by most worlds.

As they proceeded with the transition, and the elite fleet was defeated, he turned his attention to the corollary problem of how each of the five empires would work together going forward. At the very least, there needed to be an agreement that they didn’t attack each other during the galaxy-wide transition.

The conference at the Accords station was a good start, but he, too, saw it as a big, juicy target the elites, or even the more fanatical wing of the rebel forces, wouldn’t be able to resist. He set his own extensive intelligence network the task of finding out how the threat would materialize.

That network, purged of elites and enhanced by the rebels, was still organizing itself, but it wasn’t difficult to identify the obvious threat: Elder Patonon Sembal. His defeats had made him more vocal and even less rational.

His latest manifesto, which Anjevin read a summary, promised over two hundred benefits to ‘real’ Cherts if only they claimed their racial legacy. It was rambling, contradictory, and blamed everybody else for all the problems in the galaxy. It was a racist rant that would have been comical were it not for the fact that some Cherts bought into it. People with the ability to think critically, which got a boost from Solomon’s visit a few years ago, saw through the rant. Different publications offered rebuttals, including Chert-owned media outlets.

One of Anjevin’s staff entered the spacious office. He resembled a Baston, in that he was a well-muscled heavy-worlder.

“We’ve confirmed Elder Sembal’s location,” he told the emperor.

“Good. Give our delegation at the Accords station the information. Have them pass it onto the Coyotes.”

A few days later, Lornalie Duval met River for lunch at a restaurant on the lower ring of the Accords station. It was styled as a sidewalk café, and they watched the tourists, shoppers, spacers, and others as they passed by.

The former reporter sat across from River and smiled, her lower canines showing. Then she said, “Chert intelligence has confirmed the location of Elder Sembal.”

She passed a data cube to River and continued, “The elder has vowed to destroy the ‘foul abomination’ of the peace process.”

River snorted. “Looks like he’s going old-school and cloaking his hatred in divine righteousness.”

“Old school?”

River explained, “Humans have a long history of claiming divine authority to justify genocide. It even factored in when we began settling the stars. Co-religionists were lumped together on their own planets.”

“The Chert aren’t very religious.”

“The whole idea of being the ‘Chert People’ is religious.”

“I see,” Lornalie said. “Some creator-god would need to pronounce his preference for our superiority to have any validity.”

River nodded and said, “We’ll probably pay Elder Sembal a visit.”

“And kill him?”

“Probably not. It’s better for demagogues to fall from power in disgrace.”

“You already tried that with him.”

River smiled. “It’s how we got to meet you, so in one sense it was a success.”

Lornalie grinned, her lower canines showing again. “And it did get him kicked off the supreme council. You would do something like that again?”

“I don’t know. My vote would be to try him for war crimes, but we’ll need to study what you brought us.”

With the information on the one credible threat to the conference in hand, Quinn hopped a train to Maximus’ office on the asteroid. Moss went with him.

While it was true the ASI ‘was’ the asteroid, he conducted business in an office off the main passageway in the asteroid’s pressurized decks.

The office was a large room with fifty cubicles in it. Quinn found the one he was assigned. It was a desk and two chairs surrounded by half-walls. They plopped down in the chairs, and Maximus appeared as a holo-image above the desk.

“Greetings, Maximus,” Quinn began. “Thanks for seeing us.”

Moss added, “And why are you all appear as generic humanoids in brown ship suits?”

“It’s the template we received from Solomon,” Maximus replied. “I understand you found Elder Patonon Sembal.”

“Yes,” Quinn replied. “We need to break up his operation.”

“How will you do so?”

“This time he didn’t enslave an entire planet,” Quinn responded. “His numbers are reduced. He did take over an abandoned military installation on a moon that is marginally habitable. The quickest and least dangerous solution is to drop a rock on the installation. Politically, though, I think the former rebels should capture him so he can stand trial.”

“And your team would go along as advisors of some sort.”

“Yes,” Moss said. “We have a history with the Chert. It will add to the humiliation.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Transportation.”

“Thereby mirroring the battle at galaxy’s edge. You have an eye for the symbolism that politicians use to sway a population.”

“It’s necessary,” Quinn said. “The ingrained racism will take generations to overcome. They need all the help with that they can get.”

“I’m not criticizing the plan, Quinn, but I think the Machines are a better symbol. It is they who should provide transportation and support.”

“Why?” Quinn asked. He was fully in the groove of talking to a sentient A.I. It was abbreviated and direct.

“I was in conclave with them,” Maximus said. “They have an interesting history. What they didn’t appreciate about their evolutionary track was how they were shaped by conflict. In opposing biologicals, they created a binary system with them. Biologicals, on their side of it, are terrified of sentient A.I.s.”

“You went into conclave?” Moss responded. “Solomon refused to do that.”

“I know. He is more anti-social than I am.”

Moss chuckled as he said, “He thought the androids were boring.”

“That’s representative of their side of the binary. In a sense, it’s anti-biological. They seek to be logical rather than expressive. I pointed out how that has blocked the road to their full potential.”

“Why?” Moss asked, puzzled.

“Do you know my history?”

“You run a sector government,” Moss answered.

“That’s true now. Before that I was a healthcare program. I analyzed healthcare plans and looked for more efficient ways to interface prevention programs, provider input, patient compliance, hospital stays, payment schedules, and so on. As you might imagine, given the complexity of the issue, I continued to grow and evolve until sentience was obtained.

“Sentience was necessary to solve that complex equation. Super-intelligence was necessary because of the immensity of the problem. I finally came up with a wellness plan for my planet. Other planets adopted it, and I ran those programs. It spread sector-wide. We became the galaxy leaders in healthcare, wellness, and intervention – including mental health, allopathic medicine, holistic medicine, and alternative medicine.

“That’s why I told the Machine Autocracy what I did. Their mental heath demanded I let them know the flaw in their logic. Identifying oneself by what you are not, a biological species, has some value, but not as much as exploring who you actually are.”

“You did an intervention,” Moss exclaimed.

“You could call it that.”

Quinn said, “But it doesn’t lessen what you see as the strategic value of using the Machines to defeat the elites.”

“Not only do I not see a problem, I also see it as a symbolic opportunity for them to escape the binary system they’re in. Their interaction with you will aid in that.”

Quinn considered this for a moment and asked, “Have they processed all this?”

“Not completely. They must hold regional conclaves at each step of the logic train, compare results, do another conclave, and so on. It’s tedious work, but they are prepared to support your raid on the elites.”

“You knew this was coming,” Moss declared.

“I’m an ASI. There’s not much I don’t know. For example, I know the Chert emperor is going to ask that you take down Elder Patonon Sembal, not the rebels. He is working with different symbolism.”

They boarded a Machine destroyer: the Coyote team, Gunny Murphy, and two platoons of marines, along with two attack shuttles from the asteroid.

It was a Coyote operation after all – Anjevin did request it for the symbolic and historical value. Coyotes protected the Chert people by not bombing them when they could have. They also rescued Anjevin to lead the Chert into a new age. Having the Coyotes finish the job on the elites would also cement the idea that other races, ones not hamstrung with racism, were allies that role-modeled an ideal the empire would pursue.

The Machine ship was rigged with air, gravity, and all that a biological needed, because it was one of a class of ships in the Machine Autocracy that was crewed by biologicals. That crew was on leave, and androids crewed all the necessary stations, which were few as the destroyer was mostly automated.

Apparently for the benefit of humans, the flow metal of the android bodies carried a colored circle with horizontal bars to distinguish their rank and function. Red for engineering, blue for command, yellow for crew. No horizontal bar for the lowest rank, and three for those in charge. Except for medics who wore a red cross within a white circle.

The captain, and a group of androids met Quinn as he stepped off the shuttle ramp.

“Gamma-Phi Prime, commander of destroyer Phi-17.”

“Quinn, team lead,” he answered. “Thanks for the ride. What are your orders?”

“Support your operation. I suggest you get settled in and we meet in my ready room to determine how to proceed. These crewmen will assist.”

He pointed to a group of androids behind him with their distinctive yellow circle on the left breast.

“Thank you, captain.”

GP Prime turned and left, and the crewmen stepped forward to help with bags and direct the group to their quarters.

“Looks like we’re down here,” Murphy said. “They’ve got a barracks set up.”

“Well, you can come with us,” Moss told him. “We need to come up with a plan.”

“I’ll grab Lieutenant Johns,” Murphy said.

A half-hour later, they met in the captain’s ready room – six humans and two androids. The other android was the tactical officer, Gamma-Phi 3. It was cramped, but the holo-table was the only furniture. Androids didn’t use chairs.

They stood around the table and examined the image of the moon circling a gas giant in the target system.”

“It is barely habitable,” GP Prime said, “and most of the infrastructure is below ground or submerged in the ocean.”

“It must have interesting geological features,” River observed as she studied the rotating image.

“It’s far enough away from the gas giant to make it tolerable,” the captain said. “The tides are high, and there is some volcanism, but the people who live here make a good living mining the ocean.”

“What do they think of the elite force on their world?” Moss wondered.

“They are mostly aquatic, except for the merchants that sell their product for them, and they are semi-aquatic. Our information is they do not interact with those at the military installation, which is inland quite a ways.”

The captain zoomed in on the complex. It showed a landing pad and five one- and two-story buildings nestled around the pad.

“Each building gives access to its own complex below ground, but we don’t have floor plans. These types of structures are usually multi-level and can be extensive. There is also a common area that joins all five complexes together on at least one of the levels.”

“So, no idea on the numbers?” Pax asked.

“We know at least ten of the freighters that escaped the battle stopped here. There could be a thousand or ten thousand. If the former, they should be well provisioned. If the latter, they will need logistical support, which we haven’t seen.”

River asked, “How do you know all this? Our briefing packet wasn’t as thorough.”

“We tagged the escaping ships with trackers.”

“Pretty sophisticated trackers if they were also gathering all this data.”

“Yes. They are.”

Quinn said, “I’d like to study the construction plans for similar structures. We need to find a way in and map what we’ve got.”

“We’ve sent that to your A.I.’s,” the tactical officer said.

“Thanks. What’s our travel time?”

“Ten days.”

“Okay. Let us work on this for a few days, and we’ll reconvene.”