“Mobile forces aren’t cheap,” Sub-CEO Kamara agreed. “And we have none,” she added for the benefit of the rest of the congress. “We’ve had a graphic demonstration of what the mobile forces under Midway’s control can do to help us. I think it would not be wise to balk at paying less than we have in the past for use of Midway’s hypernet gate when we are also gaining potential defenders as a result.”
“Speaking of defense,” another representative said, “we’ll be happy to accept control of the dockyards from you as soon as we can lift soldiers up there.”
“The dockyards?” Drakon asked.
A pause followed, then the representative spoke more cautiously. “Yes. The primary orbiting dockyards. They belong to us.”
“We took them from the Syndicate government,” Drakon replied. “They were never under control of the Free Taroans.”
Kamara was watching him, her eyes hard. “You’re going to keep them.”
“We have every right to keep them,” Drakon pointed out.
A woman representative burst out loudly. “You won’t be able to sustain that facility without support from this planet!”
“You’re not threatening me, are you?” Drakon asked. “What happened to ‘thank you for the victory that gave us this planet mostly intact’? What happened to your gratitude? We’re not taking anything that you ever possessed. If you want to talk about joint-use agreements, I’m sure we can come up with something, but control of those docks will remain in our hands.”
“Threats would be meaningless,” Kamara said, as much to the other representatives as in reply to Drakon. She leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, her eyes fixed on his. “We know that there’s a partially completed battleship in the main construction dock. I assume you intend keeping that as well.”
Drakon nodded. “There’s a lot of work yet to be done before it can even leave the dock, but once the battleship is finished, it will be an important part of the defenses for our star system. And yours, should you choose to work with us.”
“Choose?” someone asked scornfully. “We have no choices here.”
“Yes, we do,” Kamara corrected. “We had no choices before because all we could do was hang on against the Syndicate forces and the Workers United. Now we can decide how to deal with control of this planet, and the control of the star system that comes with that. The orbiting docks are critical, but we can’t take them by force, not when Midway’s ground forces and mobile forces protect that facility.”
“We give in to blackmail?” the first man cried.
“We deal with reality.”
No one replied to that for a while. Drakon waited, impressed by how well Kamara was herding the other representatives into handling the situation. She might end up in control of this star system on her own.
“There are strong grounds for negotiating the status of the orbiting docks,” another woman finally said, trying to look bold as her gaze flicked nervously toward Drakon. “Any forces from Midway that remain here to protect those docks will also, of necessity, protect us. Unfortunately, we are an interim government. We need to establish the exact form of our government, win the approval of the citizens for that, then hold elections for all offices. But it will be hard to gain the people’s acceptance for the loss of the partially completed battleship.”
“If I may suggest,” Malin said, sounding somehow even more reasonable than before, “there is no certain time for such a government to be established, while the dangers that face us all exist now, and the need to keep commerce active and revitalized in this region is also a current requirement. You might consider granting a group of trusted citizens such as yourselves the power to reach temporary agreements on matters such as trade and mutual defense, those agreements to be subject to eventual ratification by whichever government is finally established. That would ensure that the government you establish has the final word but also enable us all to pursue actions necessary to the good of the citizens in the meantime.”
The congress members looked interested and impressed by Malin’s words. “But, the battleship…” one pressed.
“If the battleship were on the table,” Malin said, “then agreeing to its loss might create problems for your government. But as General Drakon pointed out, our forces took that battleship from the Syndicate government. It was ours before we ever spoke with the Free Taroans, so you’re not giving up anything.”
Kamara smiled coldly. “We will discuss this, but perhaps we can agree that, officially, the battleship was never a Free Taroan asset. Our government doesn’t need that kind of problem on top of everything else we have to deal with. Unofficially, though, the representatives of Free Taroa will expect some concessions for that.”
“Unofficially,” Malin replied, “we can discuss that.”
“May we send representatives back with you?” another representative asked. “To discuss these issues directly with President Iceni?”
“That’s fine with me,” Drakon said, wondering if they thought that Iceni would be any more willing than he to give away even a partially completed battleship hull. “We have some representatives with us from President Iceni who can discuss the trade agreements, and a proposed agreement on defense for you to look at. Colonel Malin will be your point of contact on that.” The last thing that he wanted to do was get personally bogged down negotiating trade agreements and parsing which comma went where.
“General,” another member of the interim congress began, smiling in the ingratiating manner that labeled him a trained executive. “Our own soldiers are limited in number, and we do face some security issues. You’re already keeping some ground forces on the orbiting docks. Perhaps if some more of your ground forces remained on the surface on a purely temporary basis—”
Frowns were already breaking out on many other faces as Drakon interrupted the speaker. “No. All my forces except those providing security on the orbital docks are going back to Midway. That was the agreement.” He made it sound like a great virtue, to be abiding by what he had said he would do, when in fact Drakon simply didn’t want his soldiers tied down in garrison duty in former WU-dominated areas. He knew without asking that such places were where the Free Taroans would want to employ soldiers from another star system. We’ve got what we want, and we’ve done as much dirty work as we’re going to do in this star system.
He managed to keep from going CEO on them again until the discussion ended, then Drakon left with a feeling of great relief.
He paused on the way out, ensuring that his security equipment was blocking any attempt at surveillance. “Good job jumping in there, Bran.”
Malin shrugged. “In matters like mutual defense and trade, our self-interest coincides with that of the Free Taroans. I didn’t want them short-circuiting the possibility of agreements with their clumsy attempts to get something for nothing.”
“Yeah. A few times in there I was really missing being a Syndicate CEO. I hope they get their acts together before this free star system goes completely down the tubes.” Drakon checked his security readouts again, but they were still secure. Even though the Free Taroans had piously announced that they would never allow the sort of routine surveillance that had characterized Syndicate rule, he suspected that they would bend those beliefs just as soon as they thought it necessary. “How is the recruiting of information sources and active agents going?”