“I’m not sure I deserve one,” I said.
Grace laughed. “We know more about you than you might think. After the Mogats defeated the Earth Fleet, we found a video record among the late Admiral Huang’s possessions. The record included conversations you had with Huang about infiltrating the Mogat Fleet.”
“I didn’t know he kept a record of that,” I said.
“For his memoirs,” Grace explained. “Huang saw himself as a man of destiny.”
“I see,” I said.
“We also have received another account of your actions on the enemy ship. We know, for instance, that you were captured while transmitting Mogat battle plans to Huang.”
That was not entirely accurate. While I had managed to infiltrate the enemy flagship, my life as a spy did not last long. The Mogats caught me trying to sneak off of one of their battleships after planting a listening device on the bridge.
“How did you get onto their ship?” somebody called from the gallery.
“Excellent question,” Grace said. “How did you manage that?”
Again the room rang with applause.
I decided it might be prudent to leave some of the gorier details out. “Everybody knew that the Mogats were going to attack New Columbia,” I said. “I flew into Safe Harbor after the planetary authority evacuated the city. When the Mogats arrived, I located one of their commando teams and stowed away aboard their transport.” It sounded so simple and benevolent when I phrased it that way. I did not mention that I snapped a man’s neck and stole his uniform.
More applause. This time the applause was longer and louder than before.
I’d used the term “Mogat” in a less-than-accurate fashion. The majority of the sailors I ran into had come from the member planets of the Confederate Arms Treaty Organizations. The top officers and engineers were all Japanese from Ezer Kri. If I wanted to help establish an alliance between Earth, the Confederates, and the Japanese, however, I needed to downplay the roles that the Japanese and the Confederates had taken in the war. And we did need that alliance.
With their four hundred self-broadcasting ships, the Mogats would win the war rather easily if they fought us individually. If we formed an alliance, we might stand a chance, though I could not see how.
“As I understand it, you warned Admiral Huang that the Mogats planned to attack New Tuscany,” Grace said. “That was how he was able to rout their fleet.”
“I believe that is correct,” I said.
“Why have you returned to Earth, Colonel Harris?” Grace asked. William Grace, they called him “Wild Bill” Grace in the media, was a short, chubby man. He may have been five-foot-three, or maybe even shorter. He weighed a good three hundred pounds. He was bald from his forehead to his crown, with a bushy ring of gray hair running between his ears. He smiled genially, but something in his eyes suggested strength and suspicion.
“Yoshi Yamashiro, the governor of Shin Nippon, sent me,” I said. “He wants to form an alliance with the Unified Authority and the Confederate Arms.”
“Are you working for the Japanese?” Grace asked. The applause had vanished. The auditorium became as quiet as an operating room. Grace’s smile evaporated as he waited for me to answer.
“No, sir. Yamashiro found us stranded in space. He rescued us and brought us here, and he asked me to deliver the message that he wanted to make an alliance,” I said.
Several silent moments passed. It was the loudest sort of silence, with Grace glaring at me and curious onlookers watching to see what Freeman and I would do next.
“What does Governor Yamashiro have in mind?” Grace asked.
“The Mogats declared war on C.A.T.O. and the Japanese,” I said. C.A.T.O. was the Confederate Arms Treaty Organization.
“We were aware of their split,” Grace said.
That surprised me. Without the Broadcast Network, Earth should have been completely cut off. The beginnings of the Mogat-Confederate Arms War might have started near Earth space, but there should have been no way for Unified Authority Intelligence to track the progress of the war.
Then something that I should have noted from the start occurred to me. Admiral Brocius of the Central Cygnus Fleet was sitting in the gallery. He should have been marooned sixty thousand light-years away with the ships of his fleet. How could he have come for this meeting?
“The Mogats have the upper hand. They control more than four hundred ships.”
I supposed that Brocius might have been on Earth when the Mogats attacked Earth; but with the Republic on high alert and a mobile enemy, he would most likely have stayed with his fleet.
“The Japanese escaped with four battleships. Is that correct, Colonel?” Grace asked.
“Yes, sir, four ships,” I said.
Maybe Yamashiro had set us up. Maybe he knew what kind of reception awaited him on Earth. But why go to all of the trouble of finding me only to throw me to the wolves?
It wasn’t only Admiral Brocius. As I looked into the gallery, I started noticing other officers. Having served under Brocius, I spotted him before I saw the others; but they were there. I saw a commander whom I remembered from my days with the Scutum-Crux Fleet.
I did not have time for associating names, faces, and fleet locations. How did they know that I broadcasted the information about New Tuscany to Admiral Huang? Arrogant and antisynthetic, Huang would never have admitted that I gave him the information.
“How did you know the Japanese had four ships, sir?” I asked Grace. It did not make sense. The Mogats, the Japanese, and the Confederate Arms would all have that information, but how could they know it on Earth?
“We know a great deal about the battle between the Atkins Believers and the Confederate Arms,” Grace said. “The Unified Authority is not as stranded as you might think, Colonel Harris.”
CHAPTER TEN
When strangers flew an enemy ship into a city that was recently attacked, the government appointed organizations to watch over them. Whether it was Central Intelligence, or Republic Security, or Naval Intelligence, some agency had the job of watching us discreetly, and they did a fine job of it, too. Freeman and I knew someone was watching us, but we did not feel like prisoners.
When that first meeting ended, a government driver picked us up. He did not come in one of those long limousines that are so often used for VIPs, nor did he come in a troop carrier. He drove a sensible black sedan. As we stepped into the car, the driver introduced himself simply as, “The guy they pay for taking you wherever you want to go,” then drove us to the Washington Navy barracks, where we each had rooms in temporary housing meant for visiting officers.
By standards of a luxury hotel, our quarters had a certain spartan quality about them. By military standards, they were the Taj Mahal. Our rooms included a single bed, a three-by-three closet in which I found a freshly pressed uniform for a colonel in the Unified Authority Marines, a dresser, and a bathroom. Having grown up in a military orphanage and graduated to the Marines, I found these accommodations the utmost in comfort. Anything bigger would have left me feeling out of place.
The agency in charge of us did not post guards outside our doors, though they probably had people watching us from nearby buildings. The base commander gave Freeman and me our own electronic identity cards for use as keys to get in and out of the facilities. By all appearances, we could come and go as we pleased. My room must have been wired for sound and video, but I did not bother to check. Having nothing to hide, I had no reason to look for surveillance devices. They could watch me to their hearts’ content, I didn’t mind.
Freeman undoubtedly did check his room for microphones and cameras. He left nothing to chance.
He and I ate a very quiet dinner that first evening in the officers’ mess, then returned to our rooms. The next morning, we met at 0700 and had breakfast.
“It’s like they never had a war,” I told Freeman as I ate my eggs and bacon.
