“Ten days ago from the time this signal was sent an invasion force out of the E-5 Discon comprising several hundred capital ships plus retinue and troop carriers attacked the Ruanthril system, inward from the E-5 Cluster. We assume it came as a surprise to them that Ruanthril had just received a new portal and been connected to the Mercatoria. It had not been part of the Complex before, which may help explain their miscalculation. In any event, elements of the Summed Fleet were present when the E-5 forces attacked. The attack was beaten off, with heavy losses on both sides.” At this, Fassin saw a look of something that certainly seemed like consternation pass over the face-parts of the Fleet Admiral Brimiaice. “Yes,” the image said, as though responding. “We were surprised too, frankly, and just had insufficient ships. Even more distressingly, the portal was subsequently destroyed.” Here, Fleet Admiral Brimiaice, a quaup, assumed the blank face of — if Fassin recalled his Facial [or equivalent] Expressions and Body Language of Mercatorial Species 101 course — vicariously shamed shock.
“Before that happened,” the hologram continued, “intelligence from the captured enemy flagship was transmitted into the Complex. It included a personal record belonging to their equivalent of a Grand-Admiral — the invasion fleet’s Supreme Commander — in which he recorded for posterity or his memoirs his puzzlement that so much of the vast military machine of which he was so proud to be a part was being directed not where it would carry the most weight or help capture the greatest number of systems in the shortest possible time — in other words, towards where the greatest mass of stars were, spin-ward, back, up, down and especially core-ward — but away from those regions, towards the almost empty galactic outskirts, towards the Southern Tendril Reefs, towards Stream Quaternary and the Ulubis system, or ‘the shit-nailed anus-probing finger at the end of a withered arm’, as he colourfully described it.”
Fassin nearly laughed. Most of the officials on the main ceremonial platforms, led by the humans, registered shock, horror or outrage in some form. The Hierchon’s esuit rolled back half a metre, as though physically struck.
The image took its time to look around the chamber. “Yes, unflattering. My apologies. You will be happy to know that the gentleman who was the source of this memorable image is currently helping the Combined Forces Intelligence Inquisitariat with its inquiries.”
Fassin watched a few slightly forced expressions of satisfaction appear. They really didn’t know any of this before, he thought. He’d assumed the Hierchon and his chums would have been granted some sort of sneak preview earlier, but this seemed to be as new to them as it was to him.
“We also, of course, have the pre-invasion probing-sequence profile for the E-5 Discon’s attempted conquest of Ruanthril,” the hologram said, “plus those of several other systems attacked by the same force-mix. The musings of the invasion fleet’s commander provide credible reason to believe Ulubis is under significant threat. The comparison of the pre-attack probing-sequence profile for Ruanthril with the recent raids on and other hostile actions within Ulubis system leads to the conclusion that said threat is imminent, within the time-frame of a few months to less than a year and a half. There is a long-accepted, high-consistency Beyonder attack profile, and the aggressions Ulubis system has been experiencing over the last three years are anomalous to that.”
Fassin suspected that this was a subtle criticism of the system intelligence and strategy services, and especially the Navarchy’s. Fleet Admiral Brimiaice looked unnaturally still, as though trying not to draw any unnecessary attention to himself. The information also pointed to something of a cover-up. Like Verpych, Fassin had thought these “anomalous’ attacks had begun just over a year ago; this AI had been given access to information indicating that they had been going on for two years before that. Well, that would come as no surprise to anyone. Being spoon-fed rosy-hued misinformation by the authorities was no more than people had come to expect — and pre-emptively discount. They only got suspicious when presented with what looked like the plain unvarnished truth.
“I do have more to say,” the image above the cooking-pot device told the assembled listeners. “However, I sense that some of you are already anxious to ask questions, and so at this point I would like to invite queries regarding what you have heard so far. No need to introduce yourselves, by the way — I know who you all are.”
Everybody looked at the Hierchon, who obligingly boomed, “Machine, what percentage of likelihood pertains to this invasion?”
The hologram did not look particularly impressed with this first question. It might even have sighed.
Fassin only half listened to the answer and paid even less attention to the following questions and answers; none of them added anything significant to what he’d already heard and mostly the questions boiled down to the categories: Are you sure? Are you mad? Are you lying, abomination? And, I won’t get blamed for any of this, will I?
He used the tap-screen to get a better idea of the relevant galactic topography. He called up a usefully scaled hologram and flicked between the local civilisational state of play as it had been understood until today — effectively two and a half centuries out of date — and the updated version that the AI signal had brought with it, which was only seventeen years old. As he did so, whole vast volumes of stars changed from one false colour to another, indicating where this Cluster Epiphany Five Disconnect hegemony had spread its influence.
“ — Resist them with all our might!” Fleet Admiral Brimiaice roared.
“I’m sure you will,” the hologram said. “However, all the indications are that even if you devoted yourself to all-out, full-time emergency war-craft construction and a full war economy, you will still be outnumbered several times over.”
Fleet Admiral Brimiaice then blustered.
Fassin had a question of his own, but it was a question for inside his own head, not one that he wished to ask the AI. It was a question he had the unpleasant feeling would at some point shortly be answered, though he sincerely hoped it wouldn’t. It was: What the hell does all this have to do with me?
“May I continue?” the image said after the next few contributions showed unmistakable signs of heading in the direction of becoming not so much questions as attestations of innocence, pledges of heroic determination, position-protection statements and attacks on other functionaries present within a wide spectrum of subtlety, biased towards the low end. The hologram gave a small, thin, regretful smile. “I realise that all the foregoing has come as something of a shock, for all of you. However, it is, I am afraid to say, in effect just a preamble to the most significant part of this communication.”
The image of Admiral Quile paused to let that sink in, too. Then the hologram said, “Now then. There is a gentleman amongst you who has no doubt been wondering for some little time what exactly he is doing here.”
Oh, shit, Fassin had time to think, then the image looked at him. Was it really looking at him now? Could everybody see the hologram looking at him? Heads, or other parts as appropriate, turned in his direction. That probably meant yes.
“Seer Fassin Taak, would you make yourself known to the others?”
Fassin heard the blood roar in his ears as he stood and gave a slow, if shallow, bow towards the Hierchon. He was getting that flesh-shrinking thing again. The chamber looked to be tipping, and he was glad to sit down again. He tried to control the blush that he felt building under his throat.