John Scalzi - The Last Colony

"You know this for sure," I said. "This has been discussed."

"Of course it hasn't," Szilard said. "It never will be. But it's what will happen. The Colonial Union knows that Roanoke is a symbol for the Conclave races as well, the site of their first defeat. It's inevitable that defeat will be revenged. The Colonial Union also knows that by not defending Roanoke, that revenge will happen sooner than later. And sooner will work better for what the Colonial Union needs."

"I don't understand," I said. "You're saying that in order to fight the Conclave, the Colonial Union needs its citizens to become soldiers. And to motivate them into volunteering, Roanoke needs to be destroyed. But you're telling me that the reason you chose Jane and I to lead Roanoke was because the Obin revere my daughter and would not allow the colony to be destroyed."

"It's not quite that simple," Szilard said. "The Obin would not allow your daughter to die, that much is true. They may or may not defend your colony. But the Obin offered you another advantage: knowledge."

"You've lost me again," I said.

"Stop playing the fool, Perry," Szilard said. "It's insulting. I know you know more about General Gau and the Conclave than you let on in that sham of an inquiry today. I know it because it was the Special Forces who prepared the dossier on General Gau and the Conclave for you, the one that rather sloppily left a tremendous amount of metadata in its files for you to find. I also know that your daughter's Obin bodyguards knew rather more about the Conclave than we could tell you in our dossier. That's how you knew you could trust General Gau at his word. And that's why you tried to convince him not to call his fleet. You knew it would be destroyed and you knew he would be compromised."

"You couldn't have known I'd look for that metadata," I said. "You were risking a lot on my curiosity."

"Not really," Szilard said. "Remember, you were largely incidental to the selection process. I left that information for Sagan to find. She was an intelligence officer for years. She would have looked for metadata in the files as a matter of course. The fact you found the information first is trivial. It would have been found. It does me no good to leave things to chance."

"But none of that information does me any good now," I said. "None of this changes the fact that Roanoke is in the crosshairs, and there's not a thing I can do about it. You were at the inquiry. I'll be lucky if they let me tell Jane what prison I'll be rotting in."

Szilard waved this off. "The inquiry determined that you acted responsibly and within your duties," he said. "You're free to return to Roanoke as soon as you and I are done here."

"I take it back," I said. "You weren't at the same inquiry I was at."

"It is true that both Butcher and Berkeley are entirely convinced you're absolutely incompetent," Szilard said. "Both of them initially voted to move you to the Colonial Affairs Court, where you would have been convicted and sentenced in about five minutes. However, I managed to convince them to switch their vote."

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Let's just say that it never pays to have things you don't want other people to know," Szilard said.

"You're blackmailing them," I said.

"I made them aware that every action has a consequence," Szilard said. "And in the fullness of their consideration they preferred the consequences of allowing you to return to Roanoke as opposed to the consequences of keeping you here. Ultimately it was all the same to them. They think you're going to die if you go back to Roanoke."

"I don't know that I blame them," I said.

"You could very well die," Szilard said. "But as I said, you have certain advantages. One of them is your relationship to the Obin.

Another is your wife. Between them you might manage to help Roanoke survive, and you with it."

"But we're back to the problem," I said. "The way you tell it, the Colonial Union needs Roanoke to die. By helping me to save Roanoke, you're working against the Colonial Union, General. You're a traitor."

"That's my problem, not yours," Szilard said. "I'm not worried about being branded a traitor. I'm worried about what happens if Roanoke falls."

"If Roanoke falls, the Colonial Union gets its soldiers," I said.

"And then it will go to war with most of the races in this part of space," Szilard said. "And it will lose. And in losing, humanity will be wiped out. All of it, from Roanoke all the way up. Even Earth will die, Perry. It will be wiped out and the billions there will have no idea why they're dying. Nothing will be saved. Humanity is on the brink of genocide. And it's a genocide we will have inflicted on ourselves. Unless you can stop it. Unless you can save Roanoke."

"I don't know if I can do that," I said. "Just before I came here, Roanoke was attacked. Just five missiles, but it took everything we had to keep them from wiping us out. If a whole group of Conclave races wants to grind us into dirt I don't know how we can stop them."

"You need to find a way," Szilard said.

"You're a general," I said. "You do it."

"I am doing it," Szilard said. "By giving the responsibility to you. I can't do any more than that without losing my place in the Colonial Union hierarchy And then I would be powerless. I've been doing what I can since this insane plan to attack the Conclave was formed. I used you as long as I could without letting you know, but we're beyond that now. Now you know. It's your job to save humanity, Perry."

"No pressure there," I said.

"You did it for years," Szilard said. "Don't you remember what they told you the job of Colonial Defense Forces was? To keep a place for humanity among the stars.' You did it then. You need to do it now."

"Then it was me and every other member of the CDF," I said. "The responsibility is a little more focused now."

"Then let me help," Szrard said. "Again, and for the last time. My intelligence corps has :old me that General Gau is going to be assassinated by a member of his own circle of advisers. Someone he trusts; indeed, someone he loves. This assassination will happen within the month. We have no other information. We have no way of informing GeneraI Gau of the assassination attempt, and even if we had a way, there's no way we could inform him, and no chance he would accept the information as genuine even if we could. If Gau dies, then alI the Conclave will reform around Ner-bros Eser, who plans to destroy the Colonial Union. If Nerbros Eser takes power, it's all over. The Colonial Union will fall. Humanity dies."

"What am I supposed to do with this information?" I asked.

"Find a way to use it," Szilard said. "And find it fast. And then ) be ready for everything that happens afterward. And one other thing, Perry. Tell Sagan that while I don't apologize for enhancing her abilities, I do regret the necessity. Let her also know that I suspect she has not yet explored the full range of her capabilities. Tell her that her BrainPal offers the complete range of command functions. Use those words, please."

"What does 'complete range of command functions' mean here?" I asked.

"Sagan can explain it to you if she likes," Szilard said. He reached over to the dash, pressed a button. Phoenix and Phoenix Station reappeared in the windows.

"Now," Szilard said. "Time to get you back to Roanoke, Administrator Perry. You've been gone too long, and you have much to do. Time to get to it, I'd say."

Save for Roanoke itself, the colony of Everest was the youngest human colony, settled just before the Conclave gave its warning tc other races not to colonize any longer. Like Roanoke, Everest defenses were modest: a pair of defense satellites and six beam turrets, three each for the two settlements, and one CDF cruiser on rotation. When Everest was hit, it was the Des Moines stationed over the settlements. A good ship and a good crew, but the Des Moines was not enough to counter the six Arrisian ships that skipped with daring precision into Everest space, firing missiles at the Des Moines and the defense satellites as they arrived. The Des Moines '