Sylvia Blake, former colonel in Her Majesty's Armed Forces and current Crisis Operations Director for the Ministry of Colonization, smiled back at him with smug contempt. "You never should have broken with the unit, Peter. If you'd stayed after the war, you might have earned yourself a ticket to success, like I did. As it is, I'm not sure you even work over the welfare threshold. Have you managed to rise above the dole, Major? I neglected to check."
Peter favored her with a tight smile. It was somehow comforting to know that nothing between them had changed. "I earn my ration credits honorably, Colonel, and a few luckies on top of that. How's the pay schedule here, lying on your back? Or are you more a 'bend over the desk' kind of girl?"
Her smile dropped and Peter's grew in response. She leaned forward, her eyes flashing in anger. "We don't really have time for playing catch-up. A situation has developed and I find myself in need of someone with your skills. How would you like to earn ten thousand Leisure and Luxury Credits for a single day's work?"
The number made his head swim. He felt vaguely guilty even discussing such an amount. "That's a whole lotta luckies. Who do I have to kill? You?"
She chuckled. "You'll never be that fortunate, but a degree of mayhem is involved."
"Hmph. Mayhem. I've been out of this business for a while. Surely there's some soldier you could task with this-and you don't even have to pay them any extra."
His old superior frowned. "That might be a preferred method, but my ministry is barred from using active troops in colonial situations without a full declaration of war. No, I need a contractor for one mission and one mission only, and I immediately thought of you."
"That's funny, Sylvia, because I seem to recall that you and I don't get along too well. In fact, I believe we parted on somewhat violent terms."
She shrugged. "Yes, you are an insufferable prick, but I need the best, so I go for the best. While not exactly the most obedient sort, in the end you've always done your duty and you always did it with style. That's what I want for my ten thousand luckies: duty to empire and a little of the old Sweeper flair."
He winced at his old title, but the thought of so much money kept him from stalking out immediately. "Okay, I'm listening. What do I have to do for this particular payoff?"
The colonel leaned forward. "It's simple, really. The administration would like you to inflict some . . . collateral damage upon the colony at New Poland."
Peter slumped, and all the half-formed ideas for how to spend his windfall suddenly fell apart. There would be no money because what she was asking was beyond ludicrous. It was patently impossible. "Well, the administration-and you-apparently need to have your collective heads examined. There's this great new thing called relativity. Heard of it? Seems it makes attacking another solar system pretty much impossible. Besides, my days of razing villages are far behind me. Find someone else to play with."
Her nasty smile returned. "Oh, that's unfortunate, Peter, because this job is simply perfect for you. It's got 'The Sweeper' written all over it, and though you might deny how you really feel, I know that has to count for something. You used to be a Combat Remote Operator-REMO for a whole company of Ripper AI's, and adjunct REMO for a squadron of Hornets. You used to make a difference. And what have you become? Some pathetic factory worker, driving an AI assembly line? Please! You must die a little bit each day. This, on the other hand, is real work, the work you were born for. Willing to give me a chance to explain?"
"Not particularly." He tried to reject what she was saying, but it was a hollow attempt.
"Tough." She tossed a slate in front of him. "Pay attention or walk home."
When he picked it up, a grainy, 2-D video began on its surface. The small datablock in the screen's corner identified the stately gentleman pictured as the governor of New Poland, an established farming colony a little over nineteen lightyears away, orbiting around Delta Pavonis.
The governor began to speak. "'When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.'
"Those elegant words, written over six hundred years ago, have not lost their power, or their importance, even in these times when Man is spread throughout the galaxy in seeming harmony. It is with the strength of those words that we formally declare our independence from the Empire of the Unified Earth, and the dissolution of our ties to her Majesty, Empress Eleanora De Marquez. We have been driven to this act by the empire's continual disregard for our needs and by the unjust, externally imposed limitations on our growth as a self sustaining society."
Sylvia reached across her desk and tapped the slate to pause the video. "It goes on like that for a while. The smug bastard wrote himself quite the speech, almost like he expects his 'declaration' will have historical significance. The short version is they're tired of working their little fingers to the bone to feed our teeming billions, in exchange for low quality meds and surplus nano-forges. They want us to recognize their independence and renegotiate a more equitable trade deal. If we refuse, they'll stop all harvest loading and divert the courses of the longships en route to Earth, returning them to New Poland.
"They're apparently serious, too. All commands to the New Poland longships via ZPL connection have been shut out. We're currently locked out from our own supply lines, which could only be due to sabotage." She settled back in her seat. "So, what do you think?"
Peter looked back down at the slate. The old man in the screen did not look like a mass murderer-but then again, statesmen rarely did. The longships were Earth's lifelines and the sole reasons for the existence of the colonies. Despite all the orbital greenhouses and the immense arcologies and stack-farms covering nearly every inch of land, extending even into the oceans themselves, the belabored old planet could no longer support her one hundred eight billion inhabitants without some form of external support. The colony worlds were their breadbasket, their only defense against a staggering near-genocide from starvation. Any interruption in the decades-long supply chain could result in the death of billions.
"Sounds like you need to start renegotiating," Peter answered with a shrug.
She stood up, and walked around her chair, coyly tracing her finger along its top. "And why do you say that, Peter?"
"Because we don't really have another choice. The New Poland colony is thirty-two years away via DMT longship. That's a pretty long lead time for a punitive assault, not to mention that it's essentially a one way trip for the grunts, with no possibility of relief or re-supply. That's a poor mission. Communication with the colony via zero path length wormhole, however, is instantaneous-you can talk to them immediately. Face it, the colonists can starve us out, but we can't touch them." Or could we? What is she not saying? Why am I here?
Sylvia looked him in the eye. "But we can't honestly negotiate with them, either. Do you know what would happen if we granted New Poland their independence? Next year, New Wales would want it. The year after that, Morgan's Rock, perhaps. It wouldn't end until every planet was freed and Mother Earth was left as nothing more than a vassal state, bled dry for our tech resources. It's hard to be an empire without imperialism."