Counterweight (35 page)

The monk pursed his lips for a moment, dragging the
floor-plan of the former magisters’ station up to a snap point in the air
between him and the Midgaard couple. “There is certainly room,” he muttered.
“We might want to include a roasting operation.”

Rick raised an eyebrow at Freya.

“He means he wants to roast coffee in Tsekoh,” she
explained. “They do a profitable sideline in coffee.”

She nodded at the monk. “Moonsilver – Alliance would raise a
fuss but they aren’t going to pull their franchises over it. We never offered
them a monopoly, so the Carbon Fellowship is more than welcome to set up shop.”
She reached out to change the floorplan to a three-dimensional model of the
city.

“You’ll need to move down five levels, so you don’t get into
a trade war with Moonsilver. We don’t want your acolytes dropping onto the
mining equipment down on the lower levels.” She frowned at the image for a
moment. “Fifteen percent tax on the coffee.”

Yo’Haled spread his hands. “A new monastery would have to
build its market for coffee,” he advised. “The staff and acolytes would drink
some of it but profits from public sale would be very low at first, even if our
tax was as low as five percent.” He inflected this last as a question.

“And those taxes would be a mere token at first.” Freya
smiled. “Small price for access to a market of more than twenty million
customers – a market currently served by only two other outlets.”

He nodded, extending his hand in the old Imperial gesture of
agreement.

She stood, holding out her hand as the monk came to his
feet.

He waved his hand over hers. “We have an agreement. Give us
a few weeks to arrange our staff and equipment and we’ll send a ship to set up
the new abbey.”

Rick saw him out, returning to stand in the doorway of the
deck, one hand holding the window frame. “Seems like such a small thing,” he
mused, “discussing taxes on a single coffee shop.”

She waved him over, supressing a grin at his irrational fear
of heights. “It’s a matter of protecting our rights as warlords,” she
explained. “The monastic orders are exempt from tax, except where they engage
in commercial enterprise unrelated to their order. If you don’t enforce these
small things, it becomes the norm to ignore them and it soon becomes all but
impossible to repair the damage.”

“It makes sense,” Rick agreed, “but it still seems silly
when you consider how little a year’s taxation from their coffee shop will add
up to.”

“It’s not about the money,” she insisted. “Our people
learned long ago that the pursuit of enrichment was far more destructive than
war. Our worlds, the worlds I will probably never see, don’t have growth
economies.

“If you were to visit Beringsburg or Midgaard itself, you’d
see the same prices that have been in effect for thousands of years. We have
carefully crafted controls that have evolved over the centuries to balance free
enterprise and public interest.”

“Is that like communism?’

She laughed. “Not at all. We simply guard against the
dangers inherent in a completely unrestricted free market economy. If we
didn’t, the major corporations would bend rules, hide funds and, eventually,
commit theft and fraud on such a grand scale that those who govern would be
held hostage by the enormity of corporate crimes.

“How do you bring a corporation to justice when it would
destroy your economy in the process?” She reached out and turned his face away
from the edge of the deck. “All you can do is leave them to carry on and let
the public believe in corporate accountability while you search for some way to
gradually undo the damage.”

Rick grimaced. “It reminds me of my Dad’s favorite saying –
a
pretty lie is easier to believe than an ugly truth.
” He shook his head. “I
thought I’d left that all behind me but I suppose it’s a universal truth.”

A warrior appeared at the door. “They’re here.”

Freya nodded, motioning for the new arrivals to be conducted
out to the deck.

He brought in Sam Fletcher, Norm Fletcher, Barry Fletcher
and Ivar, the leader of the Midgaard who’d been stranded for so long on 3428.
They stood before the young couple.

Rick looked them over. Ivar looked happy to be back in
civilization and the slight flush of his skin indicated he’d found a good
source of ale. Barry gave him an easy grin. His own face was slightly reddish
and it seemed a camaraderie of sorts now existed between him and Ivar.

That was what Rick had hoped when he’d asked the Midgaard to
show Barry around Lychensee. He needed to start integrating his people back
into the Alliance. Caul Hrada and Admiral Towers, the co-leaders of the
Alliance, had been quick to see the advantages of having pre-cognitive
abilities on the bridges of all their warships.

Even Norm, stolid old Norm Fletcher, seemed to be warming up
to the idea of returning to the fold. Rick was sure he still detected the
occasional hint of elitist defiance in the old master-at-arms but Norm always
suppressed it quickly enough.

But where would Norm come down on the issue at hand?

Rick looked back at Barry. He couldn’t come straight to the
point, not with Sam’s relatively strong pre-cog abilities. “How’s the refit
going, Barry?”

A brilliant smile. “The old gal’s being re-plated, all the
emitters are getting switched out, the life support system for the new computer
core is going in next week and, if that weren’t enough, they say they want to
take up some of the hangar space to test out a tandem pitch lay-out for larger
vessels.”

As an engineer, Rick couldn’t help but hear warning bells.
“Will her structure hold up under that kind of force?”

Barry waved off the concern. “She’ll never be able to dance
with a Mark III Hussar but she’ll still beat seven kinds of hell out of any
Dactari ship we run into.”

“Are they paying for the equipment to try this experiment?”

Barry frowned. “They are,” he admitted. “Rick, what’s gonna
happen to her? Does she still belong to the Alliance or to us? I don’t want
them kicking us out of our home and putting their own crew aboard her.”

Rick sighed. “We made an agreement with Alliance command,”
he explained. “We promised to start providing bridge officers to the other
ships in the fleet.” He shrugged. “You knew we couldn’t keep the pre-cog
advantage to ourselves forever…”

Barry held out a hand. “Hold on,” he pleaded. “Don’t say
it!”

“You’ll be shipping out on the
Trafalgar
next week,”
Rick advised him in his best mournful tone. He waited for several seconds.

Then he grinned. “That way, you’ll get some proper training
from Captain Hardy before you return to conn the
Guadalcanal
out of the
refit dock.”

“Oh, you bastard!” Barry jumped over the low table between
them and wrapped Rick in a bear hug. “You magnificent, fornicating bastard!”

“C’mon,” Rick admonished, extracting himself from the
gleeful embrace. “I don’t want to spend the next few weeks with a cracked rib.”
He stepped back to get a better look at his old friend. “Did you forget how you
swore to our service after we got that old bucket into orbit? You’re not just
an Alliance officer; you’re one of
our
captains and they can’t take you
without our consent.”

Sam had been getting increasingly agitated and, hearing his
former protégé referred to as one of Rick’s captains finally goaded him into
speaking. “Do I really need to be here?”

Rick gestured to the spicewood wicker chair. “Have a seat,
Sam, and we’ll get to you shortly.”

Sam darted an alarmed glance at his former furniture,
suddenly in no doubt about the reason for his presence. Sweat began to bead on
his forehead in the cool night air.

“Huh,” Freya muttered. “Sam seems oddly reluctant to sit in
his own furniture. Isn’t that a little odd?” She looked at Norm. “What do you
think, Norm? Isnt that a little strange?”

Norm looked genuinely puzzled. His own ability wouldn’t show
him what Sam was seeing – not if Sam refused to sit in the chair. “It does
stretch the bounds of normality a bit, ma’am,” he managed to reply.

It was unlikely, then, that Norm was involved.

Rick nodded in agreement with Norm’s assessment. “Perhaps
he’s had second thoughts about the comfort-enhancing qualities of the explosive
device he installed shortly before he moved out of his former quarters.”

“Explosives, you say?” Norm looked at his former captain.
“Sam, what the hell did you think you were going to accomplish?” He sounded
genuinely angry. “We just redeemed ourselves from generations of dishonor and
you want to drag us straight back into the mud with an act of treason?”

“Treason?” Sam spluttered. “Where do they get off changing
our government? They didn’t assume control of the government on Chaco Benthic…”

“We’re the legal warlords of Chaco Benthic,” Freya cut him
off. “3428 was seized as a direct fief which makes us your legal government.”

“Which means,” Rick added, “Norm’s correct. You tried to
blow up your government, though how you thought it would work is beyond me. I
knew the bomb was there the instant I thought of sitting down…” He cocked his
head, staring at Sam, watching him fidget.

“You wanted to kill
Freya,
didn’t you?” He phrased it
as a question but his inflection made it clear a response wasn’t needed. He let
out a sigh. “Well, I don’t know what you thought you were doing but now we’re
left with a problem.

“Your ancestor already brought shame to the crew by leading
a mutiny. The last thing we need now is a public trial for treason. People will
say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Norm turned toward his former captain. “We could settle it
quick enough – all we need is a little poetic justice…”

He must have intended to shove Sam into the chair because
the former captain suddenly shouted in fear, leaping away from the
master-at-arms. His left foot went back and failed to find the deck. With his
arms thrown out in a vain attempt at regaining his balance, Sam seemed to hang
in space for a few heartbeats, then disappeared with a wail of terror.

 Forgetting his fear, Rick joined the others at the
edge, looking down into the gloom. There was no sign of Sam.

“It may be indelicate,” Eirar said quietly, “seeing as Sam
probably hasn’t hit bottom yet, but this
does
solve our problem.”

Rick nodded. “We say nothing about the bomb.” He looked at
Norm. “I expect you’ll be wanting to get back to the ship?”

A nod.

“Take your captain with you. Make sure you hand him over to
Hardy in good condition.”

“You won’t launch without me, right?” Barry stepped away
from the edge.

Rick shook his head. “Shipyard master figures another five
weeks. By then, we’ll have the CPC’s aboard and we can head back to 3428.”

The CPC’s, or Carbon/Concrete Printing Complexes, would be
turned loose in the canyon where the
Guadalcanal
had spent the last
century and a half. In a matter of months, the automated units would complete a
small arcology – a city habitat contained in a single structure.

The new arcology would cover only a few thousand square
meters at ground level but it would provide housing for a half million
inhabitants as well as commercial, industrial and agricultural spaces. It would
be built to its full size and the various zones would be adjusted to balance
the growing population until it stabilized at its design maximum.

It would be a clear signal to any Republic forces that the
Alliance was there to stay. There was no chance of seizing the world after a
quick skirmish, not with a large civilian population on the surface.

“Can’t wait to see those machines at work!” Barry declared.
“It’s hard to imagine – quarters like this but on 3428! The place sure won’t be
the same…”

“No,” Rick agreed quietly, glancing at the edge.

“It won’t…”

I’m enjoying the process of writing this series and
hopefully, you’ve been getting something out of it as well (I’m assuming that
few folks read a series all the way to book four just because they hate
it).  Word of mouth is a critical factor in the success of any story. If
you’ve enjoyed this one, please consider leaving a review at Amazon. Even a
couple of quick lines can make a huge difference and is very much appreciated.

Amazon
US

Amazon
UK

I’d like to take a few seconds to thank those who read the
book before it actually reaches the market.

Beta readers are fast becoming an indispensable part of the
process for so many writers. It’s very important to have a great editor (and I
think I do) but it helps to have others read your story as well. Each story is
test driven by several beta readers and they’ve had a positive impact.

One beta, in particular, saved me from an embarrassing
technical mistake regarding Glock pistols. Though I’ve had a chance to look at
Glocks while serving alongside Norwegian officers in the nineties, I wasn’t
aware of the innovative trigger safety. I think I was distracted at the time by
awareness of the century separating development of the local officer’s weapon
from the Browning 9mm hanging at my own hip.

I did, however, learn the Norwegian word ‘antikk’, which
they didn’t need to translate, seeing as they were indicating my firearm at the
time…

I’ve written that beta into this story as a background
character. I won’t say which one for the obvious reasons of privacy but the
beta in question will know who I mean.

Thanks for the help, guys!

I’ve loosely based the LRG on the Long Range Desert Group.
The LRDG operated in North Africa in WWII and they drew their men from around
the British Commonwealth. Founded by Major (at the time) Ralph Alger Bagnold,
the original plan was to use mostly Australian troops.