Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (31 page)

Blue had a broader concept. “We will occupy but a small portion of the entire galaxy, at least initially, but I expect that we will grow. The volume that we will have under our control includes what had been the separate boundaries of seventeen different species. Humans are the eighteenth species, but the rest of humanity already has their Planetary Union for themselves. What we propose is grander in scope, and has room for other species.”

He offered another name. “Calling us the Galactic Federation appears to describe our hopes and expectations more completely.”

Thus, the beginning of a vast governing edifice for the Milky Way was founded. There would be growing pains, some of them severe.

****

Maggi gave the Federation’s first president the news they had been awaiting. “Stewart, Henry just Comtapped me to say Poldark’s Governor Chastain received a reply by courier from the PU. Their Department of State accepted your proposal, in the letter that Chastain relayed for us, requesting to establish diplomatic relations with the PU.”

MacDougal, inaugurated only four days ago, grinned. “From a former mayor of Hub City, then Chairman of the Xenos city council, to the President of the Galactic Federation in eighteen months, and you think I automatically know
anything
about interstellar diplomacy?”

Her answer sounded exasperated. “I thought you would at least read the Vienna Conventions for Diplomatic Relations, which I sent you even before the election. It’s what the Ladies of the new Planetary Union adopted, when it formed the new government after the Collapse three hundred or so years ago. You should keep that in your wolfbat memory stack for quick recall, not just saved in your Comtap database.”

“Hey! I didn’t say I hadn’t read it, and I know what it says, but it doesn’t spell out the protocols to use for making the high-level contacts. Nor how to go about establishing official relations. I can’t just send a letter to President Medford claiming I’m President MacDougal, of a Galactic Federation she never heard of, saying ‘You don’t know me, but I’m the Head of State for some seven thousand or so habitable planets and four species, and I’d like to meet you.’ Her people who act as filters for the nut crowd would dump the letter into the loony bin category.”

“The Articles give you the steps to follow, Stewart.”

“Fine. Article 2 says we’ll send a ‘head of mission,’ and Article 4 says we, the sending State, must make certain the receiving State, the PU, agrees that the person I appoint to represent us will be accredited by them, meaning they will grant diplomatic immunity to our mission. It didn’t say how I go about doing that, or to whom I should address the letter. They have layers of government departments and a parliament and a president. On the other hand, we have
me
, and
sometimes
you, neither of us with real diplomatic experience in the PU.”

“That’s why we had Chief Haveram talk to Governor Chastain on Poldark. He owes us a ton of favors and goodwill. He told the Chief how to go about requesting diplomatic relations, to name the proposed ambassador and to request a meeting to present our mission.”

“Well, that turned out to be your name as our envoy, at least initially. You already told me that you wouldn’t stay as ambassador for very long, just to get the embassy established. Considering the fact that President Medford wants Tet imprisoned, shot, hung, and given a lethal injection, not necessarily done in that order, things may not work out for us. She’s publicly said our actions against the Krall, and the attack he promoted against K1 with the navy, Operation Forestall, provoked the Krall into the destruction of Meadow and Bootstrap.”

“Bullshit. Telour had already sent for the Dismantler
before
the joint attack on K1. He wanted four planets destroyed in payment for the attacks on their production worlds, and the disruption of the Poldark force reduction.”

“Yep. Still our doing, with Tet doing the planning and pulling the PU’s military strings. All you said just now shifts Telour’s decision to destroy human worlds to an earlier motivation, before the coordinated attack on K1. But it was still a result of Kobani actions.”

He shook his head. “The two of you walking into her grasp on Earth doesn’t seem safe. At least not for Tet, assuming they even accredit you as our ambassador. If the PU refuses to say if it will accept you as an ambassador, and invites you to come anyway, you simply don’t go and we find another candidate. Even if they grant you diplomatic immunity, and Tet goes along, he isn’t the ambassador. They can grab him.”

“Stewart, I sent my credentials and my personal history from the time after I was a citizen of Rhama. I now claim residence on Koban, and citizenship in the Galactic Federation, the capitol of which is Xenos, located on Haven. If I’m accepted, I’ll have diplomatic immunity before I return to Human Space to be accredited as our ambassador to them, and so will my mission representatives.”

“You don’t have a mission yet, so would you claim Tet as your military attaché? Article 7 says you may have to provide his name in advance upon their request. That will end the mission before it starts. How about listing him as part of your family?” Stewart asked.

She admitted her credentials, as submitted, did not mention a husband. “They know me as Margaret Fisher, also known as Maggi Fisher, a former resident of Rhama and an academic. I’m not obligated to notify them of my present marital status. They’ll know I had two children from a contract marriage eighty-three years ago, and that they are citizens of the PU. By virtue of the long expired contract marriage, and the passage of time, my son is emancipated from any legal reproduction obligations with payments to me if he has children, and my daughter was of course free of any obligation to me since age eighteen. I have no legal family ties per PU law, anywhere in Human Space, so they cannot be held to account to influence my actions.”

“You said it.
In Human Space
. You are married to Tet in our society, and the PU doesn’t know that, but if you make that claim, they don’t have to recognize a marriage in a society that employs illegal gene mods. He’ll still be subject to arrest.”

“Tet and I have some ideas along that line, and we don’t think they’ll go after him for several reasons. Don’t worry about him, or me. By the way, you’re welcome to come along as Head of State, Mister President.” She smiled at her old friend, who at one time wanted nothing more than to get off Koban and return to Human Space.

“My God, Good Lady, do you have any idea the mounds of work my new cabinet and I have to do? The proposed constitution will be up for a vote in both houses before it goes before the people for approval, and we have all those departments of government to form, and at least get a skeleton staff appointed to run them.”

“Hell, I have more than an idea of your workload Stewart. Why do you think I placed your name in nomination so quick, with an endorsement by Tet? We do think you are perfectly suited to be our first president, but it was partly a matter of self-defense. We sure as hell didn’t want anybody to nominate us! Congratulations, you got elected to the job. Sucker!” She laughed.

“Now you need people to do the work our new federation needs done, and we’ll have your back. There are people and aliens that will follow your lead, as we do what you and your new government needs done. The Prada and Torki have not had much say in running their lives for many generations, and have no recent experience in politics. The resurrected Raspani minds last had a civilization thousands of years ago, and the worlds and society where their knowledge applied are long gone. Our allies are all looking to humans, us Kobani specifically, to hold the Federation together while we consolidate our territory, and form the framework of a government. Take a break, come with us.”

“Gee thanks. I can’t get away.” MacDougal replied, considering all the measures waiting for him to read on his computer screen, the long list of people waiting to speak with him, the schedule of personal appearances his AI secretary had set up for him. He was grateful for his new Koban mods, because he’d need strength to keep up the pace, and speed to duck the people he didn’t want to bother him.

“You probably wouldn’t be away long. Pholowela will transport us to Earth in under three hours, and she can bring you back after the first day of introductions.”

“Are you kidding? There is no chance I could extract myself gracefully without giving offense, avoiding the social activities and dinners in our honor that could follow quickly. Besides, I don’t think someone as grand sounding as the President of the Galactic Federation should be seen as imploring the less grand sounding
Planetary
Union
to please recognize us.

“Stewart, we’re offering an
exchange
of ambassadors. They didn’t defeat the Krall Empire, we did. We now have control of an estimated ten times the number of habitable planets as exists within Human Space, and
vastly
more
than their volume of space. We represent six intelligent species within our Federation, and they only represent one of those same species. You will note I’ve included rippers and Krall’tapi as citizens. We must have them recognized as Federation citizens from the outset. The lack of a technological society for rippers before we met them doesn’t alter their intelligence, and a Krall’tapi is genetically distinct from the Krall, despite their similar external appearance.

“So, my friend, don’t tell me you don’t have a grasp of diplomacy. Your reasons not to accompany this first diplomatic mission were correct. I was wrong to ask you to come along. We have to look more imposing than we feel at present, but we will sure look imposing before long.”

“In what way?”

“Well, the captured Poldark and New Dublin fleets are now in the Koban system, and Tet says our four hundred ships inside former Krall territory, plus any added clanships they captured from Krall worlds will arrive here in several days. Except of course, for fifty ships that will continue to watch Krall worlds for straggler clanships that may have been in Jump Hole transits. We’ll have over four thousand four hundred ships here in the Koban system, the fifty watching Krall worlds, another twenty watching over K1, and five at Poldark and at New Dublin. That is truly an imposing navy.”

Stewart agreed. “That it is. One of the many things I have waiting for me to do today is to sign-off on the Prada and Torki work orders to delay commercial production schedules, and start removing the Krall performance restrictors from those captured clanships, so that a Kobani can fly them at maximum performance. Coldar says that another project to convert our ships to T-cubed Jump capability will require about three days per ship to install and test and the factory machinery to make the Jump Drive converters will begin mass production in a month on K1.”

He explained why K1 was being used. “We don’t want any more of our factory productivity diverted away from consumer goods and construction material. The Raspani and Torki are working with the Prada to convert one clanship production line in a repair facility on K1, for building the Jump Drive devices. We keep finding Krall wandering around on that continent, or some are finding ways to get over there, so they constantly have to be hunted down. The local Prada are not fully weaned from thinking of them as their rightful
Rulers
. Dozens of rippers stayed behind to do the patrolling around the domes with factories, and they have proved to be very enthusiastic, or so I understand.” He did an involuntary shiver. He’d forgiven his brother and sister-in-law’s death by a ripper, but some thoughts came uninvited.

“Coldar says the Prada can make a few hundred of the drive converters a day, once the automated line starts up. The software programming changes were easiest to obtain, since the Dismantler’s had the coding logic in their own systems to give us, ready to run. It’s written in a logic system for quantum computers that Max says wouldn’t run on any human designed quantum computers. Human systems still use what he calls qubits, with three states, and we need to build computers to use what the Raspani say is a better design with more than three states, if added dimensions into Tachyon Space are used, and thus compute faster. But what the crap do I know of quantum computing? I just authorize what they say they need.”

“Stewart, you have to delegate some of these tasks. Why the hell does the president need to sign orders for ship modifications or new computer production, which should be done by lower level slobs?”

Speaking of himself in third person, he answered, “Because the president hasn’t finished establishing various government departments or staffed them yet. Like a Defense Department or a Science and Research Department, or whichever one would have the proper lower level slobs to sign for the president. And your president unfortunately spends far too much time explaining this to well-meaning friends, who think his Cabinet members are low level slobs.”

“Right. See you later Mr. President.”

****

Tet pulled at his lip. “OK. So the Department of State expects us to arrive on May 1. Jacob says May Day is now a holiday on Earth, which should mean there would be residents and tourists walking around the capitol in the middle of the day. We want an impromptu audience that the President can’t stack in her favor.” He asked his AI about weather.

“Jakob, what’s the historical high temperature in Denver, the PU capitol of Earth, on May Day?”

“Sir, the diminishing effects of past global warming has lowered the average May Day temperature roughly five degrees Celsius in Denver over the last century. How far back in history do you wish me to include?”

“The last ten years will do I think.”

“The average high temperature has been 23 degrees Celsius, or a bit over 73 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“Rain chances for a May Day?”

“Denver is located on a semi-arid steppe, their sky is normally partly cloudy at that season, and in the last ten years there has been a 36% chance of any precipitation on the first day of May, but as the climate cools again that is gradually increasing.”