We Only Need the Heads by John Scalzi Page A

Her tone had returned. She turned to face him again.
    “Sorry, ma’am,” Schmidt said, hastily, and gestured at his PDA. “I’m not there yet.”
    Abumwe grimaced but kept whatever comment about Schmidt that was running through her head to herself. “Trade and tourism access to Bula worlds,” she said instead. “How many ships, how large the ships, how many humans on the ground on Bulati and its colony worlds at one time, and so on.”
    “We’ve done that before,” Schmidt said. “That shouldn’t be a problem.”
    “There’s a wrinkle that’s not in your orders,” Abumwe said. Schmidt looked up from his PDA. “There’s a Bula colony world named Wantji. It was one of the last ones the Bula claimed before the Conclave told the unaffiliated races they could no longer colonize. They haven’t put any of their people on it yet because they don’t know how the Conclave would react to that.”
    “What about it?” Schmidt asked.
    “Three days ago, the CDF received a skip drone from Wantji with an emergency distress message in it,” Abumwe said.
    Why would the Bula on an officially uninhabited planet send the Colonial Defense Forces a distress message? Schmidt almost asked, but didn’t. He realized it was exactly the sort of question that would make the ambassador think he was even more stupid than she already believed he was. Instead he attempted to figure out the question on his own.
    After a few seconds, it came to him. “A wildcat colony,” he said.
    “Yes,” Abumwe said. “A wildcat colony that the Bula don’t appear to know anything about at the moment.”
    “We’re not telling them it’s there?” Schmidt asked.
    “Not yet,” Abumwe said. “The CDF is sending a ship first.”
    “We’re sending a warship into Bula territory to check on a human colony that’s not supposed to be there?” Schmidt said, slightly incredulously. “Ambassador, this is a very bad idea—”
    “Of course it’s a bad idea!” Abumwe snapped. “Stop informing me of obvious things, Schmidt.”
    “Sorry,” Schmidt said.
    “Our job in the negotiations is twofold,” Abumwe said. “We negotiate the trade and tourism rights. We also negotiate them slowly enough that the Tubingen is able to get to Wantji and pluck that wildcat colony—or what’s left of it—from the planet.”
    “Without telling the Bula,” Schmidt said. He kept the skepticism from his voice as politely as possible.
    “The thinking is that if the Bula aren’t aware of it now, there is no point in making them aware,” Abumwe said. “And if they become aware, then the wildcatters will have been removed before they present a genuine diplomatic issue.”
    “As long as they overlook a CDF ship having done time over their planet,” Schmidt said.
    “The thinking is that the Tubingen will be long gone before the Bula know they’re there,” Abumwe said.
    Schmidt refrained from saying, It’s still a bad idea, and chose something else instead. “You said it’s the Tubingen that’s heading to this colony planet,” he said.
    “Yes,” Abumwe said. “What about it?”
    Schmidt accessed his PDA and searched through his message queue. “Harry Wilson was attached to the Tubingen a few days ago,” he said, and turned his PDA to the ambassador to show her the message Wilson had sent him. “Its CDF platoon lost their systems guy on Brindle. Harry was stepping in for their current mission. Which would be this one, wouldn’t it.”
    “Yet another team member of mine farmed out,” Abumwe said. “What is your point?”
    “My point is that it could be useful for us to have someone on the ground on this,” Schmidt said. “You know we’re getting dealt a bad hand here, ma’am. At the very least Harry can tell us how bad of a hand it actually is.”
    “Asking your CDF friend for information on an active military mission is a fine way to get yourself shot, Schmidt,” Abumwe said.
    “I suppose it would be,” Schmidt said.
    Abumwe was silent