“That concludes the agenda,” the chair of the Galactic Assembly announced, “is there any new business?”
The Dec Ambassador rose and addressed the assembly, “The Dec Empire protests in strongest terms the dishonorable actions of the Human Republic.”
“Ambassador Hamilton of the Human Republic, any response?”
The Human Republic had not deliberately tweaked the Dec's nose lately. It couldn't just be about the refusal to extradite slaves; that was old news. The Ambassador's staff frantically typed searches into their datapads, but he knew they wouldn't have the answer in time. How to make utter confusion look like strength...
“It would please the Republic,” he said with calm dignity, “to learn the nature of the Dec Empire's grievance.”
“You told this body” the Dec ambassador began, slowly and with menace, “that the Human renouncers were private individuals with no further tie to the Republic. And yet we find they are full of Human special forces causing mischief the Human Republic does not wish to sign its name to.”
“That is not true. The renouncers are humans who have separated themselves from the republic. No more, no less. It saddens us that they wish to do so, but we acknowledge their right. We have no further agenda in permitting this.”
“No further agenda. We have taken some of these humans as slaves and their subsequent actions are not those of civilians.”
“You have taken human slaves? “ Ambassador Hamilton almost growled the question.
“Human renouncers,” the Dec Ambassador replied smugly, “who are outside the Republic's protection, are they not?”
“They are. So we promised and so it shall be. We will make no more effort to free then than we would any other sentient being you have enslaved. “ His gaze swept the council chamber. No one has missed the giant loophole in his promise, nor the hint that they might prioritize slaves of the Dec. But it was a vague threat, and it was in no one's interest for him to clarify it.
The Dec didn't want to open that can of worms either. Instead he returned to his original claim, “But these humans were special forces, despite your promises.”
“If you will tell me their names and what they did, I will see what I can explain.”
“The first called herself Rebecca Stein. We acquired her near Tarsus B along with several outcast Denebrians and nearly five tons of survey and mining equipment, so we sent her to a mining colony.”
The Human ambassador looked down at the tablet his aid had just passed him. Humanity didn't exactly have a database of its people, but it had excellent search software. “We have records of her. Bachelor's in geology. Started a doctorate, then abandoned it, probably to do something more lucrative. No military training.”
“And was it her geology training that taught her to kill her overseer with a sledgehammer?”
“To wield a hammer? Yes. Killing? That's instinct.”
“To manage a hammer effectively on a high gravity world? This was a 5kg sledge on a 10m/s^2 planet.”
“Geologists do fieldwork. And that's hardly higher gravity than Earth. She was used to it. Evolved for it, even.”
“The overseer was armed with an energy whip!”
“Well that's your mistake right there. An energy whip is a torture implement, not a weapon. Horrible things, of course, but for sheer deadliness a hammer has it beat. Plus it showed her that she has little to lose by fighting. If you demonstrated intent to energy whip me and then handed me a deadly weapon I'd fight, even if the odds were bad. That's common sense, isn't it?”
Judging by the reactions around the council chamber, this sense was not common. The ambassador ignored it.
“The overseer,” the Dec ambassador snarled, “was a Rancor: twice her height, ten times her mass, with skin like solid stone!”
“You gave her a hammer specifically designed for smashing solid stone. And a species that large probably isn't from a high gravity world,” another aid passed a tablet, “3m/s^2 their homeworld has! He could probably barely move. No wonder she defeated him.”
“And then, instead of escaping, she freed all the other slaves. Is that an ordinary human thing to do?”
“I'd like to think so. It's the ideal we all strive for. Some fall short, of course.”
“Then she killed the mine owner --”
“I trust you're grateful to her for improving your race's average intelligence by doing so. I see nothing here outside what could be expected of an ordinary geologist. “
“I could almost believe that if this were all isolated incident. Less than a week later we captured Lawrence Sprin on a 'book signing tour'.”
Ambassador Hamilton needed no pad for this one, “Sprin really is an author. I've read some of his books myself. And we did not encourage him to renounce his citizenship; he did it to evade taxes. We were quite upset.”
“He was carrying a concealed weapon.”
“That's common enough among renouncers. They're outside of our police protection, after all, and apparently people keep trying to take them as slaves.”
“He sighted our capture squad at a distance of forty meters. He shot them all before they closed to twenty. It was a six-man squad!”
“The point of ranged weapons is to use them at range.”
“At that range? Against multiple moving targets? That level of shooting qualifies as top-ranked by our military's standards.”
“Then I suggest you tighten your standards. It's not that unusual for a Human recreational speed-shooter.”
“Recreational speed-shooter?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
“Yet another case, Bruce Ng, captured on his way back from an academic conference.”
Ambassador Hamilton looked at the next pad, “Again, no military backround. Seems to have been a mathematician. Published several papers about elliptic curves.” Bruce had also contributed extensively to several open-source projects, but there was no summary, so Hamilton didn't mention it.
“He was purchased by our navy, put into general labor in a destroyers slave pit.”
“I take it you regretted this?”
“He subverted the main computer! Dumped atmosphere everywhere except the slavepit! Took the destroyer for his own and began conducting raids on our military bases with it!”
“I would guess the destroyer's data security was built on elliptical curves?”
“That sounds vaguely familiar. I'm not really sure what it means.”
“It means you would be wise not to enslave mathematicians aboard it.”
“But he was captured! Defeated. Why didn't he stay defeated?”
“Why should he?”
“Because when one has been defeated, one gives up,” the Dec shouted. Several other delegate flinched away. “That's common sense.”
“Doesn't sound very sensible to me,” Hamilton said, unperturbed, “Loosing one battle doesn't mean you can't win the next – as these cases demonstrate. Now, if you gave them something to hope for from co-operation, they might try that, but if you put someone's back to a wall you should expect a fight to the death. That sort of 'giving up' you describe just isn't part of Human nature.”
“If that is really so,” the Dec Ambassador said slowly, “Then I propose every Human be categorized as a special forces soldier for purposes of interstellar law.”
Such a resolution would be very inconvenient for Human diplomacy and commerce, but Ambassador Hamilton liked the feeling behind it. He thought fast, and spoke slowly. “That would be unwise,” he said, “You see, Humanity has special forces soldiers. They are to the people you've described as your special forces are to your civilians. And if you described them as no more than human civilians, they might take offense.
“I really wouldn't care to see what they might do if they were offended.”
You can read Rebecca's Story in I Have A Hammer