Prologue
Master Chin, the ancient Chinese department head of the Special Operations branch of Penglai’s Foreign Service, was reviewing last year’s operational history. He was preparing the goals for next year to present at the Foreign Service interagency forum.
The Foreign Service structure wasn’t as rigidly segmented as other 500+ worlds in the inter-stellar League tended to be. His colleague, Master Lu, for example, ran Coyote operations but also acted as one of the militia’s training directors. Master Wong ran R&D but also worked in conjunction with Penglai University’s science departments.
Penglai, in general, was more relaxed in its governmental structure than other worlds as well, for the most part because no one really wanted the available jobs. Government service called to many citizens, to be sure. Buddhism, the unofficial philosophy of this world, if nothing else, fostered service. What it didn’t tolerate was power over others.
Leadership became the responsibility of the elders, whether they wanted it or not. They weren’t coerced exactly. It was more that when a bunch of people asked an elder to serve, then he or she was honor-bound to do so.
Master Chin was going on twenty years in his position, and he felt he was getting better at steering a course for Penglai in the increasingly complex world of interstellar politics. With the advent of life-extension therapies, it looked like he would be here for a while. His colleagues seemed to agree, in that they hadn’t asked him to step down.
Since the League of Worlds, of which Penglai was a member, was accepted into the Galactic Congress, the galaxy-spanning agency that promoted peace and trade throughout its many regional centers, new problems had arisen. The League was granted ‘exceptional’ status, which meant it was exempt from an older member’s sponsorship – the normal way a new member was received into the Congress. There was good news and bad news that accrued from their ‘exceptional’ status. Chin wasn’t sure what to expect on the bad news side of the ledger in the coming months, and that was worrisome. The initial bad news, a plot to discredit a Coyote team and halt League scientists from attending a conference, culminated in their ‘exceptional’ status finding approval. The good news was League post-graduate students were now free to attend Congress universities. Trade had opened up between the League and the Congress. So there was some cross-fertilization going on that seemed to benefit both.
Another concern specific to Penglai was their intelligence assets. Since it was only a single world, their intelligence apparatus was never as extensive as the League’s, but the reliance on Coyote teams to solve League, and now Congress, problems gave Penglai a higher profile than other worlds. That called for a more extensive intelligence program than they now employed. Chin decided a slow build up on that front was indicated.
The relationship with the League was cordial, at least at the operational level, but politicians were in abundance nevertheless, and they didn’t necessarily, or even usually, follow a leadership model. They routinely followed a self-interest model. Chin needed to know the real back-story to a request for Coyote teams so they weren’t used unethically. It was a constant problem, but one a more elaborate intelligence service would help alleviate.
He knew he could count on the teams to refuse unethical or illegal orders, but when they did so, it caused not only logistical confusion, but also diplomatic crises. It was better to refuse those assignments at the outset, which was another reason for a better intelligence network.
The Congress requests, since they originated from the ASI (artificial super-intelligence) Tau-14, were less problematic. The problem there was more a cultural one. He was planning on developing a cultural training program for Foreign Service employees and operatives to ease those tensions. The Galactic Congress was filled with many sentient species, and many of them were not humanoid. It was an ongoing case of culture shock for Penglai diplomats and Foreign Service agents in dealing with Congress residents. Chin pushed that project from his mind and looked at Lu’s report on the Coyotes.
Rand had retired and was settled into a training schedule. Wylie was nearing retirement, but he was still operational and led his team with his usual aplomb. Jolene and her team had meshed into a formidable tool for almost any task. The rest of the 300 teams were within the performance parameters that had been developed to judge operational readiness and proficiency.
He noted in his review that Quinn’s team had completed their six-month block leave, helped train a new group of recruits, sharpened themselves as the OpFor against various militias, and were once more operational.
Chin considered Quinn’s team to be the go-to team for complex, seemingly no-win assignments that were, at least to those requesting a Coyote team, vital to League or Congress stability. At the moment, there wasn’t such a crisis on the horizon, but the human ASI Solomon, the League’s liaison with the Congress, was hinting that there was probably one in the near future. Solomon liked to hint. Chin figured it tickled his warped sense of humor.
Chin sighed. That was tomorrow’s problem. Today he was determined to finish his annual report.
