Chris Kennedy - Do No Harm

The Tri-V screens in the hall showed various scenes from First Contact. The first screen showed a loop of the Buma representative from the Trade Guild, Shin-al-ra, stepping off the shuttle onto the reception barge in the Hudson River. Beside it was the frozen image of Ambassador Stephenson giving a thumbs-up to the cameras in the UN General Assembly. Alert viewers could see the slightly blurred image of the ISIL suicide bomber approaching the platform. The third screen showed an ashen-faced Ambassador Thales being escorted off the MinSha dropship after having witnessed the Unions retribution against Iran for the surprise attack.

Sun Tzu wrote He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot, will be victorious in The Art of War more than twenty-five hundred years before the Galactic Union came to Earth. Who can tell me how his quote could be applied to Human First Contact with the Union? The lecturer looked expectantly at his class. The students sat in orderly rows along the center and right side of the auditorium. He could see several students consulting slates. No looking up Ambassador Thales memoirs. Thats cheating.

If you aint cheating, you aint winning, came an anonymous voice from the back of the room.

Use your annunciators, please, the lecturer admonished. And to answer your comment, Mister Dillonsince I would recognize your voice anywhere, John Edwardthe expression is If you aint cheating, you aint trying. It was a favorite of Earths Air Combat operatives. However, in this course, if you cheat, you fail. If you fail, you wont be working for a merc company, and if youre not working for the mercs, youre stuck with either BLA or working the farming rafts. Unlike the vast majority of Earthers, the Azure Colony prided itself on not being dependent on the Basic Living Allowance, so he could see frowns on several faces.

After several moments of silence, a red light switched on in front of one of the students. At a nod, she stood and addressed the class. If ISIL had known the MinSha would turn Iran into radioactive waste, they wouldnt have assassinated the Trade Guild representative. Then they would have had many more mercenaries to kill aliens and get paid.

Another student announced his intention with the annunciator signal light. Again the instructor nodded, and he stood to counter his classmate: If they hadnt fought in the first place, the MinSha wouldnt have known Humans could fight, and there wouldnt be any merc companies.

The instructor shook his head and motioned both students to retake their seats. Liesl, I think Colonel Shirazi may object to your analogy using his slogan. I also think he would say Asbaran Solutions has done quite well using pure spite as a substitute for numbers. Hakeem, youve gotten a bit off topic, but dont you think Liesls logic also implies that mankind should never have taken the Alpha Contracts? The student mumbled something inaudible to the rest of the class, but it was picked up by the translation program on the lecturers slate. After a quick glance he smiled. No, I thought not.

Another red light came on high on the wall along the left side of the lecture hall. One-third of the room was filled with what looked like a large aquarium tank. It was relatively shallow, with a sandy bottom, and the water was only about half-a-meter deep. Several 1.25-meter-long cephalopodssimilar to an Earth octopiwere visible near the glass wall; their eyes with the strange W-shaped pupils periodically shifted from the Tri-V to the rest of the class. The top of the tank was open to the room so the inhabitants could interact with the students, and once the instructor had acknowledged the request to speak, one of the cephalopods rose to the surface and hung several of its arms over the edge of the tank. It didnt need to be physically in the air to address the class, but it was considered common courtesy.

Ambassador Thales witnessing of the MinSha attack was how he learned when to fight and when to stand. The voice was clearly synthesized and issued from several speakers around the room tuned to make it sound as if the voice came from the creature holding onto the side of the tank. Until the Alpha Contracts, no one on Earth knew their own capabilities with respect to the Galactics. Any knowledge anyone thought they had was inaccurate. Thus, the learning is much more important than the knowing . The victory lies in making sure you always learn.