“Okay,” I said. “I’ve about exhausted my options in Cedar Rapids. No one has heard of Helep’s Ending, and unless I march through town carrying a sign announcing myself, I don't think I'm going to have any kind of run-in with either the Resistance or the Administrator. There’s a transit station a little way down river, so I think I'm going to go there and try to break in.”
“You’re turning into a real juvenile delinquent,” Hugh said with a grin. “Well, have fun.”
9. A Declaration of War
Will
July 2334
UFS Council Session
I was touring one of the new experimental open-air towns on Valhalla when I got a message on my heads-up. The UFS had just called an emergency session. That would've been significant news at any time, but right now with the Starfleet issue, it almost certainly meant trouble.
The bios would take time to get to communicators, so I didn't feel the need to seat my Manny on the nearest surface and leave it. Instead, I turned up the horses and sprinted to a green space where I could find a bench to plant my butt on. Within minutes, the Manny was seated in an Adirondack chair and I was in virt waiting for the session to start. While I waited, I read the prepared statement from the Pangaean Counsel.
“At 8:30 yesterday standard time, the Pangaean Navy engaged with devices controlled by a faction of the Bobiverse, commonly referred to disparagingly as Starfleet. These devices were illegally cordoning our communication station with the stated intent of using it as a bargaining chip for extortion against our government.
“Our forces carried the battle, but the enemy, possibly in a fit of pique, destroyed the hostage systems. In addition, our attempts to recover control of the Pangaea system autofactories were met with the same response. We are now in the precarious situation of having lost half our manufacturing capability, and virtually all our communications with the rest of the UFS.
“There is no acceptable justification for these actions. Accordingly, the Pangaean Counsel has declared war against the group known as Starfleet. To the extent possible, all Starfleet assets will be identified and confiscated. Commerce or communication with Starfleet operatives by Pangaea citizens will be considered illegal, and will be punishable under the War Measures Act.”
The missive went on for several more paragraphs, but didn't add much to the central takeaway: Pangaea was officially at war.
I pulled up some background documents to get details. The colony had tried to access the comms station and do a manual reset, and it had self-destructed. No one was killed, but there was significant damage to a couple of ships. The administration had then tried to do the same with their one Lagrange-based autofactory, and had been set upon by mining drones and roamers. Except for the order of the explosions, it was a virtual repeat of the New Home engagement.
This was not good. Never mind the obvious issues, Starfleet had endangered human lives by blowing up stations. Even if they hadn’t actively pushed the button, just booby trapping them like that made Starfleet culpable. In their rush to sever ties with bios, they'd undertaken strategies that were just making the bios mad and ensuring more interaction - and not the good kind. These guys were really idiots. I mean seriously, common sense-challenged.
A ding indicated that the session was about the start. I set the data window aside and paid attention.
The chair took the floor and proceeded to read the prepared statement, verbatim. No new info there, and I began to squirm with impatience. Finally, the chair ran down, having contributed nothing that I could detect, and ceded the floor to the representative from Pangaea.
Representative He stood and glared around. It was showmanship, of course - he was facing a video window the same as the rest of us - but it was well executed. You felt you’d just been examined, judged, and dismissed.
“I won't belabor the events described in the Pangean statement,” he began. “Suffice to say, blowing up Pangaean property and placing the lives of our citizens in danger is a de facto act of war.” He paused for effect. “We accept the explanation from the Bobiverse about the splinter group known as Starfleet. I will leave for another day the question of whether this is symptomatic of a more general and long-term issue of risk in continuing to have diplomatic and economic relations with what is essentially a separate species - a non-biological species, at that. One who’s capabilities and ultimate goals are not known.”
Uh-oh. He wasn't just going after Starfleet.
“We have to this point been unable to reacquire control of the L5 spaceyards. Since the strategic situation can only deteriorate as the enemy consolidates their position, we have decided to take early and decisive action. As I speak a number of tactical nuclear devices have been deployed. By the time we are finished with this discussion, the Pangaean spaceyard autofactory will be no more.”
Representative He paused to do the sweeping glare thing again. “Doubtless it will have occurred to everyone that this loss, and the loss of our primary commercial autofactory yesterday, will affect our economic outlook. Let me assure you that we have planet-based resources sufficient to replace the space-borne assets within a local year.”
He now stared straight into the camera - an action that felt it was directed at me.
“However, we will not forget this event. And there will be consequences.”
A few more representatives gave speeches, just because they felt they had to. Then the Council held a vote to support Pangaea's use of nukes. It passed.
The situation at New Home had been a major topic of discussion in the Bobiverse for several solid minutes. This, on top of what had already gone down, meant we were at real risk. Financially, that is. Bobs hadn't been inclined to leave themselves physically vulnerable since the Mat War on Poseidon. A fair number of
