Shelby 8 Snippet 4

 

 

New Tau Metropolis

 

FredMuggs continued to work to coordinate the upcoming peace talks. It was stilltricky; they had to send signals to the nearest ansible and then use their hackinto the Confed network. He was working with Dela and some of the negotiatorsthat remained in the capital to get a general outline going.

ONIwasn’t happy about the exposure so the data bandwidth was restricted.Apparently ONI didn’t want the Confeds to know where the Fed ansible was. Itdelayed the talks. With the chaos in the Confederation, that might beconsidered a good thing at the moment, however.

Thenavy was moving ansibles in to make the communications easier. He was relievedby that. At the moment, they had too much of a break between conversations. Abasic outline of the peace treaty had been sent but there were errors incommunication.

Itwas rather frustrating, especially since the outline and details kept changingon his side. It seemed the Federation Congress didn’t know what it wanted to doeither. The State Department had several outlines to work from, one dictated byAdmiral Irons which was the bare minimum terms they were willing to accept.

He’dpointed out that they had problems communicating that to the other side.Unfortunately, that had opened up a can of worms for him. More teams had beensent courtesy of the gate and fast couriers to the capital. Additionalpersonnel were in the pipeline as well. Secretary Moira Sema herself was tocome to sign the accords once they were hammered out and voted on.

Theyhad already agreed for her and a delegation to travel into Confederation spaceto do so in a big publicity thing. He had been told he would be allowed to goas well.

Beforethe bigwigs could come they had to get the document pounded out, however. Theyalso needed to do their homework and prep work. That meant a stand down of allmilitary forces and an exchange of prisoners. Also clearance for the attorneygeneral’s agents and prosecutors to investigate war crimes. Among many otherthings, he thought with a rueful slight shake of his head.

Partiesof personnel and ships would have to go in to oversee the Confederation standdown and report back. That was already in the works. Reparations were an issuehe was still working on. The Confederation wanted their ships back too. The navyrefused; they had those ships and would not give them back until after thepeace treaty was signed, sealed, and delivered.

Hedidn’t blame them, not one iota. As much as he wanted to trust some of theConfederation, you didn’t hand over warships to an enemy who had been shootingat you not so long ago. Especially not when those same ships had valuableintelligence in their computers that could potentially be used against hispeople.

Hehad been sent additional negotiation teams. Instead of using them with theConfederation, he’d dispatched a few of them to worlds like Stunning Sunsets,TauG9-77, and Sparkling Seas to negotiate for the Tauren prisoners there. Theywere to oversee the process. At the moment, the navy was only willing to do a one-for-onetrade and only release nonthreatening Taurens who had no command experience orhad not been accused of war crimes.

Hegrimaced at that. War crimes were one of many thorny issues he had to dealwith. Still on the subject of reparations, he’d asked for the simple return ofthe Pele refugees. That had apparently opened a can of worms that had yet to beunraveled.

Justbefore the war the Federation had agreed to evacuate the survivors of Pele, avolcanic world that was slowly being consumed by its own overactive volcanism.The population had been reduced to fifty-five thousand souls. It had taken timefor his staff to find a world willing to accept them. They’d found that worldin TauG9-77. Three ships had been dispatched to pick up the survivors and placethem into stasis. They had meager belongings but had been promised credits torestart their lives on a series of islands on TauG9-77.

TauG9-77in turn would get additional tax credits for taking in the refugees and had negotiatedfor a group of engineering teams. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Spacebeeshad sent units to the world to help them rebuild and upgrade to a higherdesired status.

Justas the refugee ships had arrived the Taurens had crossed the border and invaded.They had captured the ships and invaded the planet. They’d bit off more thanthey could chew with the invasion, however. Despite their low numbers, theengineers and military units had fought a brilliant guerillas campaign that hadbrutally torn to shreds some of the Taurens’ best army units.

Infact, he had to wonder if that defensive action had been one reason that theTaurens had stalled on their offense for so long. It probably hurt them morethan they were willing to admit. They’d stuck their massive hands into whatthey’d expected to be a soft, easily conquerable world and instead stuck thathand into a meat grinder.

Hesniffed at himself.

Somewherealong the way the three captured ships had been sent with their contents ofrefugees to Confederation space. There things got a bit murky.

Hehad reports from ONI that the three ships had been spotted in use by theConfederation. The crew and passengers were MIA, however. He worried that theywere dead. If they were, there would be hell to pay.

Hopefullynot. Hopefully, someone had been wise enough to stick those poor benightedsouls in some warehouse in their pods until their sticky situation could beresolved. Hopefully, he thought with a shake of his head. But until theyfigured it out, it was one thing among many he needed to work out.

Itwas a saying in his department that sometimes the simplest things were the mostcomplex to work out. Negotiations took time, and they took a lot of patienceand trust.

Still,it would be nice to get those people home. They’d suffered enough and gettingthem released would be another step in the right direction to finally resolvingthe conflict and putting the war behind them.

Onthe other side of things, they had the POWS as well as control of Federationspace to deal with. Also, worlds like Stunning Sunsets that had not formallyjoined the Federation and then independent worlds like Tau-FRX76 and Tau-2X78which had been in early talks to join the Federation but those talks hadstalled when the Taurens had triggered their fifth column of activists to takecontrol.

Heshook his head and ran a hand through the fur on the top of his head. Stillthere, he thought moodily. The thought of the fifth column people had broughtup an issue with the Confederation, what to do with those spies. ONI and theother agencies had yet to identify them all, let alone round them up.

Someonein Confederation space wanted them as leverage against the POWs and their owncitizens who wanted out of Confed space. That was another thorny issue he hadyet to figure out.

Oneamong many, he thought with a resigned shake of his head. But, the old maximwas still true to this day, he thought. “If we are talking, we’re not shootingat each other. And I’ll take that any day,” he murmured to himself.

“Sir,don’t forget the mixer tonight. It is in an hour,” his chief of staff said in atext.

Hegrunted and then shook himself before rising out of his chair. He typed out aresponse that he was going to go change and collect his wife and then he’d showup.

“Knowingher we’ll be fashionably late as usual,” he said.

“Well,I’m not holding dinner. It’s New Texas beef. I’m looking forward to it,” camethe response.

Fredchuckled and felt his mouth water a little in response. The only thing thatwould get him really going was bush baby. For some reason, his kind still had athing for it even all these centuries away from their ancient ancestors.

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Phoebe smiled as she clung to herson’s arm. Ayumu wasn’t going to be with her much longer. His leave was nearlyup and he was being transferred to his next assignment. He hadn’t talked aboutit much though, probably not to distress her.

She smiled to him. He lookeddashing in his crisp naval uniform. So formal, so handsome. She had hopes thathe’d find someone to pique his interest at the dinner parties. So far no luckon that score. Pity.

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Ayumu fought to tug a finger inhis collar. His mother might like him dressed up to the nines in his formaluniform but he hated the damn thing. He had worn the thing more in the pastmonth than he had in his time at the academy. He was starting to regret cominghome for leave.

He nodded politely to CommanderDolly Merhall. The Neocollie was one of several officers that had been asked toattend the mixer. She looked more comfortable than he was, but then again shewas a female and also older. As a senior officer, she probably had moreexperience with such things.

He on the other hand was a juniorofficer who was more likely to be told to keep his trap shut and pass the canapésover being included in the conversations.

He knew his mother meant well,but honestly, he was pretty sure they were wasting their time. But he did itfor her since she wanted to preen and show him off.

Not much longer though, hethought as he checked his internal clock. Another two hours and he could begoff and slip away to get out of the monkey suit and play Shards, a new shooterhe’d gotten into lately.

Hell, he might even do it in hisbuck ass fur just to unwind. A bottle of suds, some fun … his mouth started towater in anticipation.

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