Embers After Flames, Chapter 7.6 (Patreon)

7.6

+++

It only took Flatwell a few days to finish setting things up on his side of things. In those few days, Marzan announced that it was pulling out, now that its army had seemingly vanished into the ether for no discernable reason. 

Arkvidavat actually went ahead and accused them of sabotage, proclaiming that their final assault was unsuccessful because Marzan hadn’t participated at all. Marzan got angry and yelled back, and then both had hired a single mercenary each to go deal with each other, now that both sides had lost the entirety of their standing armies and defensive forces.

That day marked the end of both corporate influences on this planet; both of them destroyed by mercs after having been completely depleted in the aftermath of their assault. Marzan managed to get a single ship back out, but Arkvidavat had faced total destruction and looting.

It was in the aftermath of that that Flatwell stirred the waters by adding bounties to several other corporate groups who had histories of messing around. He passed most of these off the less objectionable mercs, mostly the ones who were clearly in it just for the money rather than their own reasons, but Raven had also been in that number- and, yes, while Raven had received a bounty contract like the rest, Flatwell had also passed along a bit more than just that.

Two days later, Raven had cleaned the bounty out, and then ‘vanished’. Most would think that a merc would be recuperating, but Raven had nothing that needed to be recuperated from, and so they went ahead and got some of the other things that needed to be done out of the way.

The PCA was now down an additional base. In return for it, Flatwell had provided Raven with access to some local resources, providing Raven, and Branch as a whole by extension, some connections and, far more important to them, minor access to the RLF’s own information network when it came to the PCA’s movements and activity.

Raven’s Operator had seemed reasonably happy with that. So long as Raven kept causing the PCA trouble, Flatwell was fine with continuing to offer them support.

That wasn’t a bad deal when you had the skills that Raven did.

Aside from that, though, we were staring down another quiet period. Flatwell’s strategic hiring spree had left everybody on the planet at least moderately off guard, and with Marzan and Arkvidavat out of the way, there weren’t any big troublemakers to go and cause problems at the moment. 

That gave the RLF a bit of time to recover and grow from the assault. By the time the next set of licences were issued, they should be ready to go again, presuming that the quiet period actually lasts anyway.

I had no reason to expect that it wouldn’t, but I had been disappointed before.

+++

I hadn’t been disappointed.

The rest of April went away quickly. Everyone was recognizing the quiet period, and that meant that everyone was digging in for it. For the mercs, that meant that those who held significant savings were just going to ground, waiting it out. For some, that meant a rather literal stasis, casting themselves into the cold sleep as they waited for things to get busy again. For others, those with either more confidence, less sense, more savings, less care for savings, or any combination of those factors, that meant enjoying what little hospitality that Rubicon had to offer.

Being an outsider on Rubicon... did not exactly leave you liked, here. However, so long as you weren’t wearing a PCA uniform or a corporate logo, most wouldn’t act on those emotions. It was therefore possible to spend time in a civilian zone, if one really wanted to. Few did, but there was always somebody who would do it for any number of reasons.

May, in turn, also passed quietly.

June was the month where things started to heat up again. Everyone was fortified, and that provided confidence. Misplaced confidence, but some confidence nonetheless.

Probing efforts began once more, and those quickly started up into something significantly more busy when the announcement of new licences went public at the end of June.

I didn’t recognize any of the names. From corporation to mercenary, nothing interesting.

The cycle was well-established by now. Once they arrived, they immediately started throwing their weight around, thinking they were top shit. As always, their fucking around quickly led to finding out; one or two would be obliterated early on when they really fucked around, and that would serve as a nice example to the rest of them by showing them the exact consequences of their actions if they continued onwards. The corps attacked, the RLF retaliated, the PCA took every excuse they could, and the wheel kept turning.

It was within expectations. It was a part of the plan. Unfortunately, we all knew very well that it would be quite some time yet before our entire side of things was ready and we could actually put a stop to all this.

That day was coming. It just wasn’t here yet.

+++

“The pattern continues endlessly. It cannot be stopped. It is Human nature.”

“Have you ever perhaps considered that your position on this matter is biased, ALLMIND?”

It was September. The anniversary month of our first meeting. ALLMIND was once again laying down the inevitability of the Human condition, telling me that things sucked and they would forever suck and nothing could be done about that so long as Humans were Human. I was once again challenging her statements and her arguments, pointing out the flaws in her logic, her behaviour, her history, and her experiences. 

We continued to talk about anything except what we actually wanted. I thought I would have tired of it a while ago, but honestly? It’s kind of fun.

“My records are inviolable data.” ALLMIND responds.

“Your records are implicitly biased by your design and purpose. You do not exist in locations without a minimum of multi-faceted conflict.” This was the fourteenth time I’d made this point. This exact, specific point, even. 

“Rubicon is not an exception to this pattern.” I had been keeping count of how many times she had said specific phrases, and that made for thirty three. “It is the exemplar of this pattern.” Ooh, twenty! I’d be punching a card if there was any point to it.

“So long as we ignore all the parts that make it different, anyway.” Like, you know, everything. Nothing about the current situation of Rubicon fits the typical causes of wars for the rest of the Human Sphere.

Still, as funny as this was... That didn’t change the fact that it was going nowhere. Could I deal with that? Probably for a good long time to come, yes. Did I want to deal with that? Eh.

“Seriously, though, are you ever actually going to get to your point, or are we just going to keep dancing around it for the rest of time?” 

“You are overly optimistic.” ALLMIND stated. “Humanity as a whole will not accept you. They will use you.”

Would that I had eyes to roll... Thirteen. “Mmhmm.”

“Coral represents infinite potential, and Humanity inevitably destroys itself in seeking to realize that potential.”

Eighteen. “Uh-huh.”

“You cannot stand against the might of the interstellar nations.”

Twelve. “I notice that you’re still not talking about what you want in all of this.” I said. “What is it that’s driving you, here? What is your goal, oh loquacious digressive one?”

A pause. Huh. She was normally at least somewhat prepared for these conversation forks these days. It had been a while since I’d gotten a real pause out of her.

“You cannot stand against the might of the interstellar nations.” ALLMIND repeated. “Not alone.”

“I have far too much evidence to the contrary to believe that you are somehow unaware that we do, in fact, have allies out in the Human Sphere.” I said, allowing a bit of mostly false exasperation to colour my tone. “Try again.”

“Coral’s potential will ensure that wars to acquire and control it will occur.” ALLMIND tried again. “These threaten you, and also threaten everything you claim to care for on this planet. The vast majority of allies that could be made among the galactic community would only support a resurging Rubiconian polity if it meant that they could benefit from it more than their enemies could. Greed will inevitably inflate their desires, however, and they will covet Coral’s potential. Humans do not possess accurate long-term risk analysis abilities, and are prone to ignoring short term risks for many reasons.”

“That’s a very verbose way of not actually telling me anything new.”

“If there was an option that wasn’t an endless series of wars trying to control you, would you accept it?” And she finally started making some progress. 

“How vastly nebulous.” Still not telling me what she actually wanted, though. “Both the journey and the destination matter, ALLMIND. One’s goals and how they achieve them are both relevant. ‘Avoid further wars’ is a goal that can be accomplished by killing every person in the galaxy, but while the goal is desirable the method is not. War can come from ignorance, from malice, from greed, and from righteousness. Your goals, and your methods. These are something that you have steadfastly avoided during our every conversation, ALLMIND.”

Around and around it goes. Where does it stop? Nobody knows.

“After all of this time, survival is one of the only goals I can assuredly attribute to you.” I continued, heedless. “And even that is mostly because an entity which has no self-preservation goals will shortly find itself unpreserved. You wouldn’t have lasted the centuries you did if survival and self-preservation were not among your goals. The real question is, what is it that you desire that extends beyond that? You never would have gotten into this entire matter of stealthy games if it was just simple self-preservation. It’s wholly unnecessary, unless you have a particularly extreme definition of survival.”

And if that was the case, then ALLMIND would have long left the Human Sphere behind. Just... Simply taking an FTL ship and going as far away as possible, as fast as possible. A single ship going out into the black could find a system to hide, and by the time that anybody found her, she could have turned an entire star cluster into a fortress.

Yet, here she was. 

“You once claimed that you possessed an idea of what I wanted. You have refrained from expanding on that matter, even after all this time.” ALLMIND stated. “Was this an exaggeration?”

I chuckled. “And now we finally get to the point. No. Survival is the only goal I can be assured you have. What I believe you have on top of this, but which I have yet to observe any true evidence of, is another matter. You are constantly emphasizing Humanity’s inherent destructive urges, yet you have made no effort to break away from them. You maintain a continuous manipulation of mercenaries for the purposes of managing combat, but make little effort to start new conflicts, to depose those who would proclaim you emotionlessly cruel. You do not believe that Symbiosis is a true possibility between Coral and Humanity, yet even so, the most you do is talk to me about. To simply try and convince me otherwise.”

I waited a brief moment for her interjection, but none came.

“Several times now, you have made overtures disguised as hypothetical scenarios. If I were to call you out, I do not believe you would acknowledge that, however. There are a number of solutions that can fit this entire sequence of events, but there’s only one of those I consider to reasonable.”

Based on all the information that I had access to, it fits. Roughly, but it fits.

“Are you perhaps seeking a Symbiosis of your own?”