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  “I understand,” Jeff replied. “Home will arrive here later on today, but by no means do we need an immediate decision on whether they can stay. But is it permissible for them to orbit Derfhome while you consider the matter?” Jeff asked.

  “Oh yes. Denying that would be like refusing a traveler a safe bed by the hearth. Let them enjoy the hospitality of our space while we consider,” the First Mother said with a very Human expansive wave of her true hand. That made it law. “We’ll inform our people on Derfhome station we are aware of the incoming habitat and speak with you again after supper. Rather than sit there until dinner, with nothing of interest to you happening, go settle into your room and refresh yourselves as desired. We’ll keep these seats open for your return.” She leaned back and thrust a true arm in front of the next worker passing by, reassigning her to guide their guests.

  Chapter 3

  The young Derf who showed them to their room seemed excited to meet new Humans. She fairly babbled about their Human doctor and the fact her principal duty was being her assistant. She introduced herself as Pasteur following the custom of assuming a short name for Humans that honored someone they admired. Jeff was kind enough to not inquire if she realized her namesake was a male. He just introduced April to the medic very formally, assuming she already knew Lee. She pointed out the obvious features of their room even knowing Lee had stayed there many times. They just attributed it to her age, enthusiasm, and being an obvious fan of things Human.

  “I hope you don’t mind sharing a room,” Lee said. “Derf would never think to break us up into two rooms much less three. That sort of privacy just isn’t part of their social structure. Working groups are almost like family with Humans, and family is much looser, with child care shared and rotated among many relatives to expose cubs to different people and their activities. That’s how most of their primary education works. You don’t get specialized education until you are apprenticed out to someone.”

  “So, their homeschooling is village schooled instead of parent schooled?” April asked.

  “Yes, but when I stayed with my cousin in Michigan, they traded tutoring with other people much like the Derf. Some of them didn’t have children and did it unpaid, just because they enjoyed it. Negative tax people have a lot of time on their hands. My cousin certainly didn’t have any extra cash money to pay them for it.”

  “I’m surprised North America lets them home school in any form,” April said.

  “They had to be registered to public school, but the authorities long ago gave up trying to see if students sat in front of the screen and watched classes. The homeschooled are usually far enough ahead that they just take the state tests and do fine. Not that it matters, they pretty much pass you on to the next class if you take the test at all. It’s considered several kinds of cultural bias and discrimination to say any answers are wrong. Some of the negative tax people have been illiterate for three or four generations.”

  “What a waste,” Jeff said. “The Derf don’t go for that sort of foolishness I bet.”

  “Not the same way,” Lee said, “but Gordon would have been a barrel maker. That’s what they decided he was going to be apprenticed to do. So, they waste plenty of talent too.”

  Lee’s criticism made Jeff get a thoughtful face and silently look around the room.

  “You’re that sure we aren’t under surveillance?” he asked.

  “It wouldn’t occur to them to even buy the equipment,” Lee assured him. “The mindset just isn’t there. They are right out front and expect if they give an order it will be followed as law. There isn’t any history of conspiracy and skullduggery. If there is going to be dissent the males express it rather directly, with the axe, not a campaign of whispering to form a coup. Besides, I’d tell the Mothers that to their face if they brought it up and wanted to discuss it.”

  “I suppose there is a lot to be said for directness,” Jeff allowed. “I’d have found that much easier to deal with when I first met Heather and April. Now, they have me so trained to look for Human dissembling that I forget some people are still direct and uncomplicated.”

  April and Jeff both had their phones vibrate as they had them muted to not make a spectacle for the Derf. A quick look confirmed what they expected, Home was in the system and the commander in charge of the move, Deloris, wanted instructions.

  April told Jeff to take the call with a flip of her hand.

  “We have permission to orbit, Deloris,” Jeff said. “That may not be permanent. We are still negotiating with the Mothers. I suggest you park Home trailing at the same level and equatorial orbit as Derfhome station but within line of sight. Not behind the curve of the planet. I know that isn’t going to happen quickly, but you might advise their traffic control that’s what you intend in a few days.”

  “Over,” he added, knowing he was talking to a jump drone. That would tell it he was done and it would jump back to the outer system and play the recording for Deloris.

  There was a pause until it returned.

  “Yeah, I don’t have very precise orbital elements on the bodies of this system. I’ll see if I can get them when I talk to traffic control. It’s going to take a bit of celestial pool to make a chasing approach at the correct velocity. We’re going to have to fit a sleep period in so we’re fresh on our final approach. I’ll jump a drone in every few hours to check for messages until we get in talking range,” Deloris promised. “Oh, and expect several orbital shuttles to go to Derfhome station as soon as we announce we are in our final orbit and not going to do any more jumps. They are pestering me to know when that will be already. The explorer Snoopy undocked and departed for Fargone as soon as we jumped in. Also, expect a flood of messages when Home is close enough to tie into the local com system. Besides all the people who want to be doing business an hour after arriving there are about a dozen seriously peeved with Heather and with you since you are her peer and available to yell at. Over.”

  “Any particular complaint? Has anyone challenged me to a duel? Over.”

  “No formal challenge, yet. A few feel they were kidnapped. They were removed from proximity to Central and other markets ruining their business. A couple of them had family or friends on the other habitats or the Moon and were separated. They feel an Assembly should have been called and everyone given time to decide what to do and leave for other places if they wished. Wouldn’t that have been nice? Jon Davis and Robert Lewis barely had time to get everybody docked before we grabbed them and jumped out. Once it was announced what was happening nobody wanted to pilot a shuttle away anyway. You couldn’t buy passage at any price. The other habs each had one shuttle go to Central but that was it. Oh, and we couldn’t position your zero g housing to bring with Home, so we made sure everybody was evacuated to Home and did a one jump drag to toss it into a solar orbit between Earth and Mars. That’s all we had time to do. Over.”

  “You save people from being shredded to hamburger and they still complain,” Jeff said. “I’d gladly put them back in front of the North American’s flying gravel pile if I could, but we have yet to build a time machine. We already knew we’d have to transport people to sort it out after the fact. That wasn’t hard to figure out at all. Thanks for putting the auxiliary housing where it can be recovered. I’d just written it off. Carry on, Deloris. Singh out,” he ended the call.

  “She got the hardest one to move,” April said. “With the extra ring Home is delicate and you can’t change its velocity much with thrusters. It would take forever to do so.”

  “Perhaps you should mount a lot of little thrusters all over it to distribute the force,” Lee suggested. “This is twice now that you’ve had to move it.”

  She thought about it a little more. “If you keep moving it, if say, you decide to take it along the route to the Badger’s world and the brown dwarf stars, you could mount its own synced jump drives.”

  “My goodness, you think big, Girl,” Jeff said. He didn’t want to remind her he had limited quantum mate
rial. His stepmother had moved her production to one of their safe worlds but still kept the facility small enough to be under her close personal control. He had to make decisions about creating another jump ship or equipping one they already had with a gravity lance. Jump drones were a necessity now, once they found how important they were for defense and communications. When Jeff found out how many drones were lost fighting North America he’d be horrified. Large fusion weapons were also worth building, but if you used them, the quantum fluid in them was lost forever. He was very anxious that the current war was going to use up a lot of their stocks of fluid.

  It deeply bothered Jeff that he couldn’t solve the black box problem its production presented. He was starting to think his mother imported things she didn’t need, just to throw him off, or might depend on some trace ingredient she could carry in a pocket. Suddenly, Lee’s researchers finding a solution to their material shortage seemed more likely their salvation than a risk.

  “Thank you. I don’t think Home masses any more than some of the alien ships we’ve seen. It’s just different because it spins instead of using gravity tech for the decks.” And is probably obsolete and will be seen as dated soon, Jeff thought for the first time but didn’t say out loud. It gave him a pang of distress to think that possible.

  “There is however a matter of security. We haven’t shared the details of our drive with our Home allies. The details of it are only known to a handful of people. Not even to all of Heather’s peers. I’d have to be certain any drives attached to move Home were very secure.”

  “Then all your fast ships are Central flagged?” Lee asked. “Somehow that detail never got explained to me.”

  Jeff shrugged. “Perhaps because we just take it for granted. To my knowledge, there are six Home registered vessels, all explorers, with the same sort of drives the Earthies use. Only two were present in the Solar System when we performed our Bug Out of the habs. One was docked to Home and one in orbit around the Moon. The others are all out exploring. The superluminal vessel Snoopy undocked from Home and departed on a Fargone vector after Home entered the Derfhome system.”

  “On your business?” Lee asked.

  “No. It’s a privately owned explorer. Where it goes and to what purpose is none of my business,” Jeff insisted. “That there are any Home flagged private explorers says a lot about how much wealth resides in Home. Last I looked, there are only thirty-some explorers owned by Earth governments, universities, or huge corporations.”

  “Well, that’s going to be a complication,” Lee said.

  “Why so?” Jeff asked her.

  “I’ve been holding my breath, waiting for the Claims Commission to cancel my claims and Gordon’s claims. We’ve had our bank on Ceres forward everything on deposit to Fargone and here. Any new royalty payments are automatically forwarded now. I just didn’t realize there are other non-Earth claimants. You can bet they will be excluded by the Claims Commission too.

  “That’s their problem to deal with,” Jeff said. “We don’t speak for them.”

  “I suspect they can speak for themselves,” Lee said. “This Snoopy that’s headed to Fargone, does it have any claims registered?”

  Jeff tapped a string of inquiries in his pad. “No living world, but it has a decent number of mining sites, fuel rights in good locations, and one water world. Since it is out of Home, it is a partnership of six people. You can safely assume they are all billionaires in any Earth currency. That’s pretty common now.”

  “Would they have followed all the rules the Earthies do?” Lee asked.

  “Sure, they’d have to qualify to use the Commission,” Jeff said, “which is just another reason Central flagged vessels don’t register finds with the Commission.”

  “Then what do you want to bet they are headed to Fargone to buy the latest weapons to replace the very limited sort they were allowed to carry as registered explorers?” Lee asked.

  “That seems likely,” Jeff admitted. “That’s just one more unintended consequence the Earthies may have neglected to take into account.

  “There are only the six ships,” Jeff reminded her, “but if they cut them off, they can act against North America or other commission members. They may seek reprisals for their losses or conduct attacks in retribution.” He stopped, with an astonished look on his face.

  “What?” Lee demanded. “You might as well have yelled Eureka!”

  “Back, during our war of rebellion, the Assembly authorized blanket letters of marque and reprisal for all Home vessels while we were at war with North America. There was never any reason to rescind that law. One would assume they retain force since the treaty was broken by the North Americans. I doubt the Assembly is in a mood to do so now, and even if the ship captains decide it applies to any registered members of the Claims Commission, I also doubt they would make any move to reprove them.”

  “Oh great. We may have pirates now,” Lee said. And if they poach other nations’ vessels, they may set all the other Earthies against us, not just North America.”

  “No indeed. Privateers,” Jeff insisted. “It’s a very different thing. Just ask Gordon.”

  * * *

  Lloyd was prepared for rage when he reported the loss of Huma Bhabha and the Improbable. Not at him. He knew Heather wasn’t an empty-headed despot who would shoot the bearer of bad news. He deeply feared for North America, however. Instead, her reaction was barely visible. Heather’s nostrils flared as she took a long deep breath and her lips narrowed in a thin angry line. Somehow that still managed to send a chill up Lloyd’s back. He had to suppress the urge to lift a hand and smooth the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

  “Dakota, post a note to all ship owners and pilots. Effective immediately, you need not risk yourselves to leave smaller vessels for USNA to evacuate. This is due to the loss of a Central vessel to an elaborate ambush. Do not pursue fleeing ships to turn them back. They may lead you into a trap using X-heads as a minefield. Destroy them at the furthest possible range. If you come upon other Central forces in the field inform them of this order.”

  “I’m on it,” Dakota said and left the room.

  “Mr. Maddox, do you require rest or supplies before I give you another assignment?” Heather asked.

  “No, Ma’am. I’m mid-day in my sleep cycle and was assured on landing that my ship is being fueled and serviced. I haven’t made a dent in onboard stores. I expended a munition and was told I’d have a new one in the rack when I returned. I’m ready to do whatever you command.”

  “There are still a few small USNA ships in Earth orbit that April couldn’t ID. Military supply vessels, a couple of frigates, and even a few jump capable cutters. April got most of them. Disable them all and challenge any about which you are uncertain to identify themselves or have their drive spaces destroyed. They are well warned about what we are doing and our tactics now, so be that much more cautious. If you get no response, and can’t identify them visually, disable them. Your computer will have the profiles and last known orbit of all USNA vessels we have identified. If you have any doubts about their response disable them. If you accidentally damage the vessel of another nation, I won’t see you held personally liable. Do you need anything?”

  “This is going to be a short, intense campaign. Do you have somebody who is not a pilot but familiar with flight operations and weapons systems to sit second to me? I can concentrate on flying then and they can talk and run the drones and missiles for me,” Lloyd requested.

  “I have a jump apprentice if you are willing to further her training,” Heather offered.

  “That’s fine, and thank you,” Lloyd said.

  Heather’s eyes flickered briefly in her spex. “Ms. Orlov, would you consent to sit the weapons board for Lloyd Maddox on Lloyd’s Lady?”

  After a pause, she added. “Whenever you can get to the field and join him. I suggest you take a couple of changes of suit liners.”

  “She’ll be there,” Heather told him.

&
nbsp; “Are we going to remove North American vessels that haven’t lifted?” Lloyd asked.

  “Leave that to me,” Heather told him. “I intend to remove North American spaceports, the supporting infrastructure for space operations, and the production of most aerospace materials. I’m done playing softball with them.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll try to beat Ms. Orlov to my ship if you are done with me.”

  “Quite done. I’m sorry to send you right back out when you’ve had such a shocking experience,” Heather said.

  “It’s war,” Lloyd said. “I expect it to be gut-wrenching and ugly.”

  “Yes, and I suspect the North Americans may think it is mostly over. They haven’t had time to get reports from their furthest bases or any of their smaller vessels bringing refugees home. They are about to find out it’s just starting and I’m no longer in a mood to even entertain a surrender. They have a history of serial surrender and proving false to it. This time we simply remove their ability to support a space industry. I regret we ever allowed them to regain it after the Home revolution. I’m going to make it clear to them that in the future we will bombard any space facilities they try to rebuild without notice. North America is permanently out of the space business.”

  Lloyd nodded his understanding of that and exited quickly. Heather was going to be very busy.

  * * *

  “To the various Earth news services, from the Sovereign of Central: The USNA, after orchestrating an attack on the trio of Home habitats before their stated deadline, has abused my efforts to minimize casualties in removing North American military presence in the heavens. The USNA base at Survey System 4803 not only refused to surrender but destroyed a Central vessel in a cunning ambush. The base was destroyed and my orders currently propagating to all our forces are to stop offering quarter to any USNA forces. The effort to leave freighters or minor warships to evacuate surrendering personnel is rescinded. North America is put on notice to vacate any space-related facilities immediately as they are subject to immediate destruction.”