Judas Unchained

“I’ve actually been to Far Away,” Justine said. “It is minimally habitable, and that’s after over a century and a half of grueling effort. It’s a huge mistake to class it among normal H-congruous worlds. These New48 will not be habitable; we have to get the populations off. I don’t know about Wessex, that’s exceptional, but the rest must be evacuated.”

“I am not proposing abandoning Wessex,” Rafael said. “However, there are now four and a half thousand fully armed Prime ships in the Wessex system. We don’t have four and a half thousand Douvoir missiles in our inventory, let alone the hundred seventy thousand we’ll need to eliminate Prime ships throughout the New48.”

“Did they really send that many through?” Toniea Gall asked.

“Yes,” Rafael said. “Which means we will have to evacuate the majority of these systems. The navy cannot deal with forty-eight armadas.”

“How many can you deal with?” Doi asked.

“Assuming the Moscow-class production continues unabated, we estimate we can clear five star systems before we face a loss of containment. We don’t yet know what kind of threat the ships pose. They have two options, both of which present unique difficulties for us. Firstly, they can head in to the H-congruous planets, and breach our defenses through sheer numbers, then land and establish an armed colony. It does of course mean that we can use quantumbusters against them when they are down and concentrated.”

“And the second option?” Crispin asked.

“They make a break for it. With an average of three and a half thousand ships in each system, they’ll possess enough equipment and manufacturing capability between them to put together an FTL drive eventually. Again, they will have to rendezvous to begin a manufacturing process, which will leave them vulnerable to a Douvoir missile.”

“How long will it take to manufacture a hundred and seventy thousand Douvoir missiles?” Toniea Gall asked.

“We could probably get them completed within nine months, providing we authorize a super crash-priority project. I’m not sure we have that kind of time available. If they are still planning on colonizing the New48, they could be in orbit around each of them within a week.”

“You’re talking about evacuation regardless of the Primes,” Justine said.

“Yes. That is our preferred option. Let them all land and take them out with a quantumbuster.”

“We’ve already got a monstrous refugee problem from the Lost23, and most of them were low-population worlds. How many people live on the New48?”

“Not including Wessex,” Nigel said, “about thirty-two billion people.” This time the silence was even more profound.

“It can’t be done,” Hans Brant said. “Can it?”

“Physically removing them through the wormholes is possible,” Nigel said. “However, accommodating a diaspora of such magnitude within the remaining Commonwealth is totally impractical. There is nowhere for that many people to live; feeding them on basic rations alone would virtually bankrupt the rest of us.”

“Then we have to face that prospect,” Justine said. “I for one will not even consider any proposal that includes abandoning these people. Wars inevitably instigate societal change; it looks like this is shaping up to be ours.”

“A noble sentiment, my dear,” Hans Brant said. “But even if the Senate were to assume draconian powers, and force the refugees on the rest of the Commonwealth, some planets would resist.”

“We cannot turn our backs on thirty-two billion lives!” Justine stormed.

“There is an alternative,” Nigel said quietly. “A risky one, of course.” This time he felt almost nothing but contempt at the way everyone turned to him with hope and desperation in their eyes. “We open up forty-seven fresh planets, and simply transfer the populations over directly so they can rebuild their societies.”

“For Christ’s sake, man,” Alan said. “You can’t dump billions of people on undeveloped worlds. They need cities, and infrastructure, government…food!”

“I know,” Nigel said. “That would all have to be prepared beforehand.”

“But…we’ve got less than a week,” Toniea Gall spluttered.

“As Einstein once said, time depends on the relative position of the observer.”

When President Doi officially closed the War Cabinet session, Justine waited in her chair while the other Dynasty leaders went over to Nigel to offer their thanks and congratulations. Even Heather was conciliatory enough to congratulate him. As for Doi, Justine had never seen the President so pathetically happy; she almost ran across the anteroom to tell Patricia Kantil the outcome. Patricia’s face was soon beaming a huge, incredulous smile.

How stupid, Justine thought. It was as if declaring something were possible had made it happen. And everything they’d agreed in cabinet was dependent on nothing else going wrong. How’s the Starflyer going to react?