The Pavonis Insurgence Read online

  The latest communication from Earth had mentioned upcoming Space Force war games, possibly to be held in the Alpha Centauri system. As far as Vaughan knew, most Space Force activities involved running down the occasional smuggler or performing training exercises in unpopulated areas. He didn’t really see the point.

  He shrugged. Space combat tactics weren’t his specialty, nor were they supposed to be. It was hypothetical anyway. Except for a few space pirates—who usually ran rather than engaging in combat—space warfare was mostly theoretical. His job was to make sure the vehicles were available when the Velkaryan leadership needed them. At least the munitions factories were running on schedule.

  Aside from the missiles, New Toronto had a sizable and more-or-less legitimate small arms industry. Even the settled planets were settled in name only. The most populated planets—Sawyers World, Kakuloa, Verdigris itself, and a few others—had each only a fraction of one percent of the human population of Earth, with vast swathes of their planetary landmasses barely explored, much less settled. Sure, there was aerial and satellite imagery, and remote sensing scans, but nothing really matched a biologist’s or geologist’s feet on the ground.

  Or intelligent natives having already discovered and exploited useful minerals, or plants, or agricultural land.

  Vaughan pushed that train of thought aside and reviewed his inspection notes. Even without the warp drives, if they had fusion reactors for power, the ships could at least be flight tested. How difficult was it to move the fusion plant from one ship to another? Would it make sense to flight test what he could, then transfer power units to the other ships to test them? Anything that could be tested on ground power, such as instrumentation and life support, should have already been checked out. Should have. He’d better verify that.

  He called his aide, a local man named Soleck. “I want you to pull a random selection of the build sheets and logs for the ships in the field. Then we’re going to do a manual inspection to verify those.”

  “Yes, sir. How many ships, or what percentage?”

  “Pull the data for a quarter of them.”

  “That’s a lot of inspections,” Soleck said.

  “We’ll do a random sample of that sample. If we find problems, we’ll do more.” Vaughan thought for a moment. Bill Cardigan was competent, but he just wasn’t up to managing something of this scale. No vehicle came off the production line in perfect condition. “Pull the quality check reports for those ships too, if that’s separate from the build logs. Let’s see what they found and fixed.”

  “Okay, will do. Anything else?”

  “Not for now.”

  There should be roll-up reports on what sort of problems they ran into most often at the different manufacturing stages. That should be standard in any manufacturing, to identify bottlenecks and problem areas. He’d want to see those, too, but first, he wanted to discuss things with Cardigan.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  New Toronto

  “So, what are the fundamental limitations of production here?” Vaughan asked Cardigan and his assembled production team leads.

  “I think that’s pretty obvious. We don’t have enough fusion or warp modules. Fuselage assembly is well covered, likewise the life support systems, control systems, avionics—”

  Vaughan cut him off. “Yes, I get that. You’ve done a reasonable job so far, but it’s at the limits. What if we wanted to double production?”

  “Double?” Cardigan’s face paled. “We’d need to double the assembly facilities. We don’t have enough staff. I’m not sure we could get the raw materials fast enough. And that still leaves us without critical engine systems. And, how would we pay for all that?”

  “That’s a good question, but one that can be addressed after we figure out if we can double production, and how,” Vaughan said. “I want to see your production flow projections. I want to see where the bottlenecks are and where we’re wasting effort overproducing.”

  “Overproducing?” one of the leads asked.

  “If the life support team is producing two full systems for every hull that’s manufactured, that’s wasted effort. But you know this.”

  Cardigan nodded. That was basic production engineering. You needed some overcapacity to take up slack in a pinch, but otherwise, you were filling your warehouse with oversupply or paying your workers to sit idle part of the time.

  “What do you suggest? It’s not as if we can have a recycler technician assembling warp modules in his spare time.”

  “No? Perhaps not, but there may be skills that carry over. That’s an extreme example. Have someone look into optimizing the workforce. That may include getting rid of workers we don’t need.”

  “I think it’s really more of a supply problem. As I said, we’re short on components for critical engine systems, and so on. Homeworld Security monitors those. If we import more it will raise flags.”

  And there was the problem. They could import warp engine components, but if they weren’t exporting a corresponding number of manufactured ships, flags would be raised. Homeworld Security’s concerns included the possibility of random individuals warping off to parts unknown and disturbing some high-tech alien race that either didn’t want to be disturbed, or might otherwise have hostile intent. Officially that wasn’t a concern because officially the likelihood of high-tech aliens was remote, but in fact both the Velkaryans and Homeworld Security knew full-well that there was at least one, and probably more than one, technological alien species out there. They also both knew that the other likely knew it too. No, the official concern was that one of those ships might bring back some alien plague that would devastate Earth, either humans directly or a critical food crop. The Quarantine Directorate played a strong, if discreet, role within Homeworld Security. And, Vaughan knew, a lot of other clandestine activities were rolled under the Quarantine Directorate’s umbrella.

  Either way, Homeworld Security tried to keep a rather close track of how many warp-capable ships were out there and who owned them, and if significant numbers of same went unaccounted for, they would wonder why. That someone was assembling a space fleet would be an obvious answer, and would in itself make them nervous.

  That was why many of the critical components were already being smuggled in. None of those were installed in ships destined to be sold on the market, of course. It wouldn’t do for some database comparison routine to notice that the serial numbers didn’t correspond to anything which had officially been sold to a company on Verdigris.

  CHAPTER 3: ARRIVAL AT VERDIGRIS

  Verdigris, in the jungle

  The going here was proving to be tougher than Burnside had expected; the jungle in this part of Verdigris was thick. He remembered Carson saying something about hacking through the jungle on the expedition where he had found that first, broken, talisman, and Roberts had mentioned clearing a landing area with an improvised daisy-cutter bomb, but he had thought they were exaggerating. Burnside’s experience in other forests and jungles had taught him that the upper tree canopy cut down on light to plants on the ground, so the undergrowth was relatively thin. Here on Verdigris, though, the undergrowth was as thick as it might be at the edge of a river or clearing elsewhere. Probably the local vegetation had adapted to light frequently dimmed by skyweed. Good for it, bad for me. Again, he regretted not taking up Captain Tevnar’s offer to set him down near a trail.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  “What will you do now?” Tevnar had asked when, orbiting the planet, a break in the skyweed had let them spot the newly-manufactured ships lined up at the New Toronto spaceport. “Are you sure you don’t want to come back to Taprobane with me? Roberts and Carson will be expecting you anyway.”

  “No, I need to check out what’s going on down there,” Burnside had said. “Vaughan was recalled here for a reason, one good enough to make him give up on the alien artifact you found.”

  “Perhaps the fake threw him off, and he decided he was being misled from the start.”

  “Maybe,” Burnside said, “but he seemed in a hurry to get here either way. If the Velkaryans are planning something with those ships, I need to find out what.”

  “You think they’re not just going to sell them?”

  “With no marketing campaign ahead of time? That’s unlikely. Anyway, there have been signs of funny business on this planet for a while. I need to get down there. Boots on the ground.” He was certain Ducayne already had boots on the ground—all UDT-administered planets had some kind of Homeworld Defense department, and at least one intelligence officer—but a planet was a big place, and things could be missed. He would coordinate with the local office when he landed, but Tevnar had no need to know all that.

  “Well then, clearly we can’t land at New Toronto. Shall I head for Verdigris City, or to Louisbourg?”

  “Neither,” he said. “That would attract attention. Vaughan’s people will be monitoring arrivals, especially anything coming from Tanith. They wouldn’t ignore a timoan-owned ship. I’d rather go in covertly, then head into the jungle and try to contact the snake-eyes,” Burnside said. “Some of them will have had contact with their counterparts in the cities. I want to learn what I can before heading to New Toronto.”

  “Snake-eyes? Why would you talk to the eyes of a snake?”

  Burnside chuckled. “It’s a nickname. It refers to the slit-pupils of the native Verdigran eyes, like a snake’s. Each clan or tribe has their own term for themselves, much like some of your species when we first met, and most of them regarded snake-eyes as an honorific. They consider snakes to be silent and skillful hunters.”

  Tevnar shook her head. Most timoans were not fond of snakes. “There are natives? Don’t you have the same hands-off policy with them that you do with us?”

  “No,” he said, “the native civilization on Verdigris collapsed thousands of years ago, and the circumstances of first contact were very different. Initially, we thought they’d all died out, but there are still Verdigrans living in the jungles, even a few that live on the fringes of the deserts.” Burnside said.

  “The current Verdigrans are believed to be a different sub-species from the original structure-builders,” he explained, “something like the Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons on Earth, if that means anything to you. The existing Verdigrans are fairly primitive and reclusive; we didn’t even realize they existed until settlement had started. They have small villages, but no stonework. Have you not visited Verdigris before?”

  “Just once, but it was a brief stop at the Verdigris City spaceport. I never saw any natives, just heard a bit about what native life to beware of if I did wander off.”

  “Ah, generally, the natives here don’t come near the spaceports, although there are some in the towns.”

  “Oh?” Tevnar said.

  “They avoid anything to do with archeologists. The tribes, even widely separated ones, have superstitions about the stone ruins here. Won’t go near them, although the reasons and stories are all different. Most of them involve punishment from the gods or something,” he said. “You’d have to ask Carson. But they know the ruins are Verdigran-built because they were here before humans landed, and because of the carvings on a lot of them. A lot of the decorations are representational and look more like the snake-eyes than humans.”

  “Speaking of, I imagine you don’t exactly look like a Verdigran native any more than you do a timoan. How do you expect to blend in? Do you even speak their language?”

  “I don’t expect to blend in. As for the language, I have a good ear, and a handy database of all known Verdigris dialects.” He waved his left wrist, displaying his omniphone. “Of course, if the Velkaryans start doing a round-up, I’ll be caught if they start checking out native villages. But a lot of the tribes are good at disappearing into the jungle. The story is that explorers often come across campsites that were recently abandoned but with no sign nearby of any natives. They could probably be found with an intensive search with IR and leaf-penetrating radar, but as far as I know, nobody has bothered. Some areas have been surveyed to get some kind of census, and as best possible keep human areas away from snake-eyes, but there’s a lot of unexplored territory out there, if you don’t count orbital scans.”

  “But what do you hope to gain? A few stone-age natives aren’t going to make any difference to the Velkaryan’s fleet building. You might keep some of them out of the camps, but are the Velkaryans even going to bother the ones in the jungle?”

  “They may be stone-age, but they’re intelligent. Mostly I want information, but if it comes down to it, they can learn to use modern tools and weapons–well, those that don’t require reading or computer skills–as well as anyone. Those raised with computers can learn to use them, too, as you well know.”

  “That is true. But are you going to arm the natives?”

  “That’s not my plan,” he said, shaking his head. It wasn’t, at least not as a first resort. “If it does come to that, I’ll figure out something.”

  “Would you assemble a snake-eye army together to fight the Velkaryans? Even if they fight as fiercely as timoans, surely they would be slaughtered!”

  Burnside hid his amusement at Tevnar’s comparison. He knew that timoans could indeed be fierce fighters, not unlike Viking berserkers by some stories, but the thought of iron-age timoans going up against modern weapons . . . of course, that wasn’t what Tevnar had meant.

  “No, not that,” he said. “Just to disrupt their production systems a little. It’s called asymmetric warfare. This probably won’t mean much to you, but the various resistance groups in our World War II, for example, disrupted Nazi communications, transportation, factories, and so on, without necessarily shooting up Nazi soldiers. Although they did take out high-ranking officers when a good opportunity presented itself.”

  “The concept is familiar, if not the details. My planet has a history of clan warfare itself; we just hadn’t developed the technology for anything bigger before humans showed up. But you seem to know a lot about it.”

  “Part training, part personal interest. Much of the training was so that I could recognize it if I saw it, not so much to implement it. But that too.”

  Tevnar slowly shook her head. “This whole thing is going in a dark direction. I hope Taprobane can stay out of it.”

  “I hope we can all stay out of it, but the Velkaryans seem to want to make the first move. Maybe I can do something here to frustrate their plans, give time for wiser heads to prevail.”

  “You seem set on this,” she said. “I still think you should go back and report in first.”

  Ordinarily, Burnside would agree, but time might be of the essence. “I don’t see another way,” he said. “I can do more good here. You can take my reports back to Carson, who will get them to my boss. If I leave with you, getting someone back here will only get harder. Do you see any other options?”

  She didn’t. She shook her head. “No, but neither of us has all the information.”

  “Nor does my boss. Even if he does know about their ship-building—which he might have figured out from other data—he won’t know how far they’ve gotten or what they’re doing to the local inhabitants,” Burnside said grimly. “And if he does know, he can’t prove it. If we can get him evidence that someone could bring to the UDT council, it might persuade them to do something.”

  “You staying here won’t change that one way or the other.”

  “It might, and I can give him an ace in the hole if things turn nasty.”

  She scoffed at that. “Just how is he going to contact you?”

  That was something Burnside had given some thought to. His omniphone could contact a ship in orbit, if the ship knew to listen, but it could also be overheard, and what if he lost it? He could use the local UDT intelligence office, of course, but that would mean staying in constant communication with them, and it would hamper what he intended to do. He would find a way; he just needed to know if there was anyone to contact. “I’ll contact him. If he needs to get my attention, I’ll be looking for a sign at regular intervals. The details will be in my report. He’ll know what to do.”

  “All right, if you insist on going AWOL and taking an extended vacation here, I can’t stop you.” She gave him the timoan equivalent of a grin. “Not short of kidnapping you and keeping you on the ship until we’re at Taprobane.”

  “You could, but you won’t. You know I need to do this.”

  She sighed. “I do. All right, figure out where do you want me to set you down. If I can land near a lake, I can refuel.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t take the ship down, too much risk of it being detected. Do you have to refuel?”

  “Yes, to make it to Taprobane, but this system’s gas giant, Zeus, has an ice moon where I can refuel. Why don’t you come along until I’m done with that? It will give you time to plan your next moves and give me any information you want to pass on to your boss. Don’t forget that Captain Roberts will be waiting for me on Taprobane.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea.”

  “Are you planning to use the bail-out pack, then?”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” Burnside had said.

  Tevnar made a gesture that Burnside took to mean something like “okay, it’s your funeral” and went forward to set course for her refueling stop.

  Burnside strapped himself into a seat at the galley table and brought up maps of Verdigris on a monitor. He had some planning to do.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The gas giant, Zeus, had several icy moons. The one Tevnar picked to land on was much like Saturn’s moon Enceladus, about 500 kilometers in diameter and covered with a thick, icy crust. They had found life on Enceladus, primitive microorganisms, in the ocean under the ice. Burnside idly wondered if this moon had the like.

  Like Enceladus, periodic geysers through cracks in the crust spewed water high above the surface, where much of it immediately froze and settled out as clean, white snow. As far as Tevnar was concerned, that made it ideal for refueling the Razgon; there would be a minimum of impurities to filter out.