God's Dogs
Chapter 23

The visionary is the one who brings his or her voice into the world and who refuses to edit, rehearse, perform, or hide. It is the visionary who knows that the power of creativity is aligned with authenticity.

Angeles Arrien

As the outer ring of the Empire’s core world began to fall, Cedric intensified his three-pronged strategy to preserve his empire. He consolidated and reinforced, as best as he could, the remaining ships and ground troops at the borders of the empire. He ramped up production and deployment of his pirate fleet to give the League something else to worry about. Finally, he opened peace talks on the neutral world of Amantha. He sent a full delegation of 150 diplomats and their staff to ‘negotiate in good faith’ with the League. The League Senate dispatched an equally impressive delegation as well.

Among the members of the League’s delegates were two admirals, a marine general, Senator Leah Morrison, Senator Kim Than from Penglai, and Quinn’s Coyote team. There were fourteen other Senators, members from League Intelligence, and an array of competent staff. The delegation arrived under heavy escort, except for Quinn’s team. They had been in the Amantha system in the stealthed Satya for a week prior.

Captain John sent a laser-com to the command ship when the delegation entered the system to signal an ‘all clear.’ Then Satya joined the flotilla and dropped their stealth shield.

Amantha was a fully terraformed world. When discovered, it was at a rudimentary stage of development – what was called a ‘mold world.’ Terraforming it to an Earth standard, then, was both possible and permissible under colony law.

Eight moderate sized continents dotted the globe, surrounded by sixty percent oceans. Two moons orbited Amantha, along with a substantial band of space stations that supported asteroid mining, industry, research and development, entertainment, and living space.

Amantha was a well-established and powerful world with a formidable solar system defense network, an active interstellar commercial presence, and a planetary government of humans in partnership with an ASI – an artificial super-intelligence.

That partnership alone kept the Empire from trying to annex Amantha, as the Empire only allowed dumb A.I.s, more formally known as ANI – artificial narrow intelligence, or more colloquially as NSAI, non-sentient A.I. In between those was the AGI, the artificial general intelligence, or strong A.I. Grace was in this category, as were the Class 1, 2, and 3 A.I.s found on most League worlds, as well as operating on space ships.

ASI existed on other worlds, but they required an expensive infrastructure and high maintenance. They also needed a complex purpose for existence. The two other worlds with ASI were mostly dedicated to pure science, and they were part of the peer review process to which Raina’s team sent their published research.

On Amantha, the ASI was dedicated to commerce: new product development, trading alliances, transport innovation, accounting, logistics, defense, and so on. As such, Amantha was a rich world with a stable solar system population of eighteen billion. The citizens benefitted from very advanced nano-technology, which included life extension among its many entitlements. These innovations were exported once the next generation of advances were made available to the population. As such, the system enjoyed not only the most sophisticated of defense networks, but arguably the highest standard of living.

Because of all these factors, Amantha was an independent world. It didn't belong to the League. It did, however, have trade agreements with both the League and the Empire.

As Satya joined the League ships, the communication station on the bridge lit up.

“A message from the planet,” the comm officer alerted Captain John.

“On speaker.”

“Greetings, Satya,” a clear baritone announced. “This is Solomon, the ASI in this system. I’ve been monitoring your stealth ship’s movements for the last week. Have you found our preparations satisfactory?”

“Well, that answers one question,” Captain John muttered.

“Yeah,” the pilot chuckled. “We weren’t as stealthed as we thought.”

Captain John activated his comm. “Greetings, Solomon. All is well. And is there a penalty for our not-so-sneaky reconnaissance?”

“No, Captain Twin Bears, although you may be approached by our security staff expecting you to buy them drinks at the Blue Haven pub on C deck.”

“Roger that.”

“Welcome to Amantha.”

“We’re clear,” the comm officer said.

“Quinn,” Captain John called over the intercom. “Meet me in my ready room.”

Then Captain John stood and said, “You have the con, Jerry.”

“I have the con,” the XO snickered.

Quinn hustled to the ready room, knocked and entered. “Yeah, Captain.”

“Sit,” Captain John directed. “We may have a problem. The ASI, goes by the name Solomon, knew we were here, knows who we are, and given what they’re capable of is probably listening in right now.”

“I was sort of counting on that.”

“You were?”

“The Empire won’t pull any tricks.”

“Well, neither can you.”

“We’re executive security, and that’s all.”

Captain John snorted. “Right.”

“No. Really, that’s it.” Then Quinn grinned. “We’re assuming Empire people will try to defect. So we’ll be high profile in case they want to approach a safe League representative.”

“Well, they know you can’t be compromised, but I won’t say you’re safe.”

Quinn laughed. “So, no problem?”

“Other than buying the Amantha security crew a beer, I guess we’re good.”

“Take us along for that. Maybe we can get a chance to talk to Solomon. I’ve never met an ASI.”

“That might be interesting.”

It took a few weeks for the delegates to settle in at the sprawling conference center near a resort beach town on Amantha. The Empire delegation took full advantage of the nitpicking opportunities in how the main hall’s set up and decoration should be. Finally, the preparation was complete.

Leah Morrison was with her team in one of the briefing rooms. With her were Kim Than and the aides. The aides were assembling the notes for the opening session on data pads. Quinn’s team was split with Quinn and Linda in the room, while Pax and River patrolled in the hall. They wore their dress uniforms and were unarmed, except for their nano-whip accessories.

“Alright, everybody,” Leah called out. “Listen up.”

The dozen people stilled and turned to Leah. She wore a flowing navy blue gown that draped both shoulders and was gathered at the waist.

“Rather than getting frustrated by whatever stalling tactics they will use, I want all of you looking for the people who want to defect.”

The aides began murmuring among themselves. Leah ignored them and continued, “The Empire won’t accept real peace until we force it on them, regardless of what some other of our esteemed colleagues think. The Empire will stall, and we will spirit away however many of their people that want out.”

An older man, dressed in League diplomatic attire, spoke up, “That may sabotage the talks.”

“It won’t,” Leah stated, “because they aren’t negotiating in good faith anyway. I do hope it will put some pressure on them, but my guess is they will ignore it.”

“Very well, Senator,” the man said. “I will need to report this to my supervisor.”

“Of course. Then I will expect all of you to mingle with Empire staff to give them the chance to ask you for help. When they do, direct them to one of the Coyotes.”

A chime sounded throughout the building, followed by an announcement: “A formal session begins in the main hall in ten minutes.”

The aides packed up, and the group meandered down the hall to the main conference room. It was located in the center of the building so that the delegates from each government would have offices in wings that were on opposite sides of the building.

A table dominated the center of the room, and the aides found their stations in three rows of computer desks behind the table.

The table was long enough to seat ten or twelve to a side. The principals were in the middle, flanked by leaders of different departments. For the League, this was the chairperson for the relevant Senate committees – defense, trade, research, the state department, and others.

Leah and Kim were co-chairs of the Senate Defense Committee and sat near the chief negotiator, Damien Ross. He was from Trivinium, a world that emphasized philosophy, logic, litigation, and mediation in its educational curricula.

On the other side, the Empire team was dressed in three different styles of uniform. FAST uniforms dominated. There appeared to be no civilian delegates.

Once all were seated, a brightly dressed man representing Amantha stepped to the head of the table and spoke, “According to the agreed upon agenda, this next hour is for opening statements. The Empire begins.”

A portly man near the center of the Empire team stood and intoned, “The Empire seeks relief from the League’s aggression.”

Then he went on to list every battle, every city lost on every world the League captured. It took him exactly half an hour.

When he sat, Senator Jonathan Smythe-Wilson rose to speak. As a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Trade, he lobbied to be first to speak.

“The League regrets the hardship caused by this grave misunderstanding.” Then he went on about how the resumption of trade, and its expansion, could heal the wounds of war.

When he finished, some fifteen minutes later, Leah Morrison stood.

“You started this mess," she began with some heat. "We will finish it. We know the recent plague of pirate fleets were built in Empire yards. We know your instructions for this meeting is to stall. We know you are consolidating your naval and ground forces for a counter-attack.

“What you need to know is this: You have one month to make these talks work. If we don’t have an agreement by then, we will launch an invasion that only unconditional surrender will halt.”

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