After the Coup
John Scalzi
“How well can you take a punch?” asked Deputy Ambassador Schmidt.
Lieutenant Harry Wilson blinked and set down his drink. “You know, there are
number of places a conversation can go after a question like that,” he said.
“None of them end well.”
“I don’t mean it like that,” Schmidt said. He drummed the glass of his own
drink with his ngers. Harry noted the drumming, which was a favorite
nervous tell of Hart Schmidt’s. It made poker games with him fun. “I have a
very specic reason to ask you.”
“I would hope so,” Harry said. “Because as conversational ice breakers go, it’s
not in the top ten.”
Schmidt looked around the Clarke’s ofcer lounge. “Maybe this isn’t the best
place to talk about it,” he said.
Harry glanced around the lounge. It was singularly unappealing; a bunch of
magnetized folding chairs and equally magnetized card tables, and single
porthole from which the yellowish green limb of Korba-Aty was glowing, dully.
The drinks they were having came from the rack of vending machines built
into the wall. The only other person in the lounge was Lieutenant Grant, the
Clarke’s quartermaster; she was looking at her PDA and wearing headphones.
“It’s ne, Hart,” Harry said. “Enough with the melodrama. Spit it out already.”
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“Fine,” Schmidt said, and then drummed on his drink some more. Harry
waited. “Look, this mission isn’t going well,” he nally said.
“Really,” Harry said, dryly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Schmidt said.
“Don’t get defensive, Hart,” Harry said. “I’m not blaming you.”
“I just want to know how you came to that conclusion,” Schmidt said.
“You mean, how did I come to that conclusion despite the fact I’m this
mission’s mushroom,” Harry said.
Schmidt frowned. “I don’t know what that means,” he said.
“It means that you keep me in the dark and feed me shit,” Harry said.
“Ah,” Schmidt said. “Sorry.”
“It’s ne,” Harry said. “This is a Colonial Union diplomatic mission, and I’m
Colonial Defense Forces, and you don’t want me seen by the Korba because
you don’t want my presence to be interpreted as provocation. So while the rest
of you head down to the planet, and get to breathe real air and see actual
sunlight, I stay up here in this latrine of a spaceship, training your technicians
to use the eld generator and catching up on my reading. Which is going well,
incidentally. I just nished Anna Karenina.”
“How was it?” Schmidt said.
“Not bad,” Harry said. “The moral is to stay away from trains. The point is, I
know why I’m kept in the dark. Fine. Fair enough. But I’m not stupid, Hart.
Even if none of you tell me anything about the mission, I can tell it’s not going
well. All of you deputies and assistants come back to the Clarke looking like
you’ve had the crap beat out of you all day long. It’s a subtle hint.” He picked
up his drink and slugged some back.
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“Hmm. Anyway, yes,” Schmidt said. “The mission isn’t going well. The Korba
haven’t been nearly as receptive to our negotiations as we thought they might
be. We want to try something new. A new direction. A new diplomatic tack.”
“A new tack that is somehow focused on me getting punched,” Harry said,
setting his drink back down.
“Maybe,” Schmidt said.
“Once or repeatedly?” Harry asked.
“I think that would depend on your denition,” Schmidt said.
“Of ‘once’?” Harry asked.
“Of ‘punched,’ actually,” Schmidt said.
“I already have very deep reservations about this plan,” Harry said.
“Well, let me give you some context,” Schmidt said.
“Please do,” Harry said.
Schmidt produced his PDA and began to slide it over to Harry, then stopped
mid-way through the motion. “You know that everything I’m about to tell you
is classied.”
“Good lord, Hart,” Harry said. “I’m the only person on the Clarke who doesn’t
know what’s going on.” Harry reached over and took the PDA. On its screen
was the image of a battle cruiser of some sort, oating near a skyscraper. Or
more accurately, what was left of a skyscraper; it had been substantially
destroyed, likely by the battle cruiser. In the foreground of the picture, small,
vaguely-humanoid blotches seemed to be running from the ruined skyscraper.
“Nice picture,” Harry said.
“What do you think you’re seeing there?” Schmidt said.
“A strong case for not letting trainees drive a battle cruiser,” Harry said.
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“It’s an image taking during the recent Korban coup,” Schmidt said. “There
was a disagreement between the head of the military and the Korban civilian
leadership. That skyscraper is—well, was—the Korban administrative head-
quarters.”
“So the civilians lost that particular argument,” Harry said.
“Pretty much,” Schmidt said.
“Where do we come in?”Harry asked, handing back the PDA. “Are we trying to
restore the civilian government? Because, to be honest about it, that doesn’t
really sound like something the CU would care about.”
“We don’t,” Schmidt said, taking back the PDA. “Before the coup, the Korba
were barely on our radar at all. They had a non-expansionist policy. They had
their few worlds and they’d stood pat on them for centuries. We had no conict
with them, so we didn’t care about them. After the coup, the Korba are very
interested in expanding again.”
“This worries us,” Harry said.
“Not if we can point them toward expanding in the direction of some of our
enemies,” Schmidt said. “There are some races in this area who are pushing in
on us. If they had to worry about someone else, they’d have fewer resources to
hit us with.”
“See, that’s the Colonial Union I know,” Harry said. “Always happy to stick a
knife in someone else’s face. But none of this has anything to do with me
getting punched in the face.”
“Actually, it does,” Schmidt said. “We made a tactical error. This mission is a
diplomatic one, but the new leaders of Korba are military. They’re curious
about our military, and they’re especially curious about our CDF soldiers,
whom they’ve never encountered because our races have never fought. We’re
civilians; we don’t have any of our military on hand, and very little in terms of
military capability to show them. We brought them that eld generator you’ve
been training our technicians on, but that’s defensive technology. They’re
much more interested in our offensive capabilities. And they’re especially
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
interested in seeing our soldiers in action. Negotiations up to this point have
been going poorly because we’re not equipped to give them what they want.
But then we let it slip that we have a CDF member on the Clarke.”
“We let it slip,” Harry said.
“Well, I let it slip, actually,” Schmidt said. “Come on, Harry, don’t look at me
like that. This mission is failing. Some of us need this mission to succeed. My
career’s not exactly on re, you know. If this mission goes into the crapper, I’m
going to get reassigned to an archive basement.”
“I’d be more sympathetic if saving your career didn’t require blunt force
trauma for me,” Harry said.
Schmidt nodded, and then ducked his head a little, which Harry took as
something akin to an apology. “When we told them about you, they got very
excited, and we were asked by the Korban’s new leader—a direct request from
the head of state, Harry—if we would be willing to pit you against one of their
soldiers in a contest of skills,” Schmidt said. “It was strongly implied it would
make a real difference in the tenor of the negotiations.”
“So of course you said yes,” Harry said.
“Let me remind you of the part where I said the mission was going into the
crapper,” Schmidt said.
“There is a small aw in this plan,” Harry said. “Besides the part where I get
the crap kicked out me, I mean. Hart, I’m CDF, but I’m not a soldier. I’m a
technician. I’ve spent the last several years working in the military science
division of the Forces. That’s why I’m here, for God’s sake. I’m training your
people to use technology we developed. I’m not training them to ght, I’m
training them to twirl knobs.”
“You’ve still got the CDF genetic engineering,” Schmidt said, and pointed to
Harry’s sitting form. “Your body is still in top physical shape, whether you use
it or not. Your reexes are still fast as ever. You’re still as strong as ever. Look
at you, Harry. There’s nothing abby or squishy about you. You’re in as good a
shape as any soldier on the line.”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Harry said.
“Doesn’t it?” Schmidt said. “Tell me, Harry. Everyone else on this mission is an
unmodied human. Is there any one of us that you couldn’t take in hand to
hand combat?”
“Well, no. But you’re all soft,” Harry said.
“Thanks for that,” Schmidt said. He took a sip of his drink.
“My point is whether or not I’m engineered for combat, I haven’t been a soldier
for a very long time,” Harry said. “Fighting isn’t like riding a bicycle, Hart. You
can’t just pick it up without practice. If these guys are so hot to see CDF in
action, send a skip drone back to Phoenix and request a squad. They could be
here in a couple of days if you make it a priority request.”
“There’s no time, Harry,” Schmidt said. “The Korba want a combat exhibition
tonight. Actually,“—Schmidt checked the chronometer on his PDA—“in about
four and a half hours.”
“Oh, come on,” Harry said.
“They made the request this morning, Harry,” Schmidt said. “It’s not like I’ve
been keeping it from you. We told them about you, they made the request and
ten minutes later I was being hustled off to the shuttle back to the Clarke to tell
you. And here we are.”
“What is this ‘skill contest’ they want me to have?” Harry asked.
“It’s a ritualized combat thing,” Schmidt said. “It’s physical combat, but it’s
done as a sport. Like karate or fencing or wrestling. There are three rounds.
You get scored on points. There are judges. From what I understand it’s mostly
harmless. You’re not going to be in any real danger.”
“Except for being punched,” Harry said.
“You’ll heal,” Schmidt said. “And anyway, you can punch back.”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“I don’t suppose I can pass,” Harry said.
“Sure, you can pass,” Schmidt said. “And then when the mission fails and
everyone on the mission is demoted into shit jobs and the Korba ally
themselves with our enemies and start looking at human colonies they can pick
off, you can bask in the knowledge that at least you came out of this all
unbruised.”
Harry sighed and drained his drink. “You owe me, Hart,” he said. “Not the
Colonial Union. You.”
“I can live with that,” Schmidt said.
“Fine,” Harry said. “So the plan is to go down there, ght with one their guys,
get beat up a little, and everyone walks away happy.”
“Mostly,” Schmidt said.
“Mostly,” Harry said.
“I have two requests for you from Ambassador Abumwe,” Schmidt said. “And
she said for me to say to that by ‘request,’ she means that if you don’t do them
both she will nd a way to make the rest of your natural existence one of
unceasing woe and misery.”
“Really,” Harry said.
“She was very precise about her word use,” Schmidt said.
“Lovely,” Harry said. “What are the requests?”
“The rst is that you keep the contest close,” Schmidt said. “We need to show
the Korba from the start that the reputation the CDF has is not undeserved.”
“Not knowing what the rules of the contest are, how it’s played or whether I’m
even physically capable of keeping up with it, sure, why not, I’ll keep it close,”
Harry said. “What’s the other request.”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“That you lose,” Schmidt said.
* * *
“The rules are simple,” Schmidt said, translating for the Korban who stood in
front of them. Normally Harry would use his BrainPal—the computer in his
head—to do a translation, but he didn’t have access to the Clarke’s network to
access the language. “There are three rounds: One round with Bongka—those
are like quarterstaffs, Harry—one round of hand-to-hand combat and one
round of water combat. There are no set times for any round; they continue
until all three judges have selected a victor, or until one of the combatants is
knocked unconscious. The chief judge here wants to make sure you
understand this.”
“I understand,” said Harry, staring at the Korban, who came up, roughly, to his
waist. The Korba were squat, bilaterally symmetrical, apparently muscular,
and covered by what appeared to be an innite amount of overlapping plates
and scales. What little information Harry could uncover about the Korban
physiology suggested that they were of some sort of amphibious stock, and that
they lived some of their lives in water. This would at least explain the “water
combat” round. The gathering hall they were in held no obvious water sources;
however. Harry wondered if something might not have been lost in translation.
The Korban began speaking again, and as he spoke and breathed, the plates
around his neck and chest moved in a motion that was indenably strange and
unsettling; it was almost like they didn’t quite go back in the same place they
started off at. Harry found them unintentionally hypnotic.
“Harry,” Schmidt said.
“Yes?” Harry said.
“You’re all right with the nudity?” Schmidt asked.
“Yes,” Harry said. “Wait. What?”
Schmidt sighed. “Pay attention, Harry,” he said. “The contest is performed in
the nude so that it’s purely a test of skill, no tricks. You’re okay with that?”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
Harry glanced around the gymnasium-like room they were in, lling up with
Korban spectators, human diplomats and Clarke crew members on shore
leave. In the crowd of humans he located Ambassador Abumwe, who gave him
a look that reinforced her earlier threat of unending misery. “So everyone gets
to see my bits,” Harry said.
“Afraid so,” Schmidt said. “All right, then?”
“Do I have a choice?” Harry asked.
“Not really,” Schmidt said.
“Then I guess I’m all right with it,” Harry said. “See if you can get them to
crank up the thermostat.”
“I’ll look into it.” Schmidt said something to the Korban, who replied at length.
Harry doubted they were actually speaking about the thermostat. The Korban
turned and uttered a surprisingly loud blast, his neck and chest plates spiking
out as he did so. Harry was suddenly reminded of a horny toad back on Earth.
From across the room another Korban approached, holding a staff just under
two meters in length, with the ends coated in what appeared to be red paint.
The Korban presented it to Harry, who took it. “Thanks,” he said. The Korban
ran off.
The judge started speaking. “He says that they apologize that they are unable
to give you a more attractive Bongka,” Schmidt translated, “but that your
height meant they had to craft one for you specially, and they did not have time
to hand it over to an artisan. He wants you to know, however, that it is fully
functional and you should not be at any disadvantage. He says you may strike
your opponent at will with the bongka, and on any part of the body, but only
with the tips; using the unmarked part of the bongka to strike your opponent
will result in lost points. You can block with the unmarked part, however.”
“Got it,” Harry said. “I can hit anywhere? Aren’t they worried about someone
losing an eye?”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
Schmidt asked. “He says that if you manage to take an eye, then it counts.
Every hit or attack with a tip is fair.” Schmidt was quiet for a moment as the
judge spoke at length. “Apparently the Korba can regenerate lost limbs and
some organs, eventually. They don’t see losing one as a huge problem.”
“I thought you said there were rules, Hart,” Harry said.
“My mistake,” Schmidt said.
“You and I are going to have a talk after all of this is done,” Harry said.
Schmidt didn’t answer this because the judge had started speaking again. “The
judge wants to know if you have a second. If you don’t have one he will be
happy to provide you one.”
“Do I have a second?” Harry said.
“I didn’t know you needed one,” Schmidt said.
“Hart, please make an effort to be useful to me,” Harry asked.
“Well, I’m translating,” Schmidt said.
“I only have your word for that,” Harry said. “Tell the judge that you’re my
second.”
“What? Harry, I can’t,” Schmidt said. “I’m supposed to be sitting with the
Ambassador.”
“And I’m supposed to be in a bunk on the Clarke reading the rst part of
Brothers Karamazov,” Harry said. “Clearly this is a disappointing day for both
of us. Suck it up, Hart. Tell him.”
Schmidt told him; the judge started speaking at length to Schmidt, chest and
neck plates shifting as he did so. Harry glanced back over to the seating area
provided the Colonial Union diplomats and Clarke crew, who shifted in their
rows. The stands were half-sized for humans; they sat with their knees
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
bunched into their chests like parents at a pre-school open house. They didn’t
look in the least bit comfortable.
Good, thought Harry.
The judge stopped speaking, turned toward Harry, and did something with his
scales that caused a wave-like ripple to go around his head. Harry shuddered
involuntarily; the judge seemed to take that as a response. He left.
“We’re going to start in just a minute,” Schmidt said. “Now might be a good
time for you to strip.”
Harry set down his bongka and took off his jacket. “I don’t suppose you’re
going to strip,” he said. “Being my second and all.”
“The judge didn’t say anything about it in the job description,” Schmidt said.
He took the jacket from Harry.
“What is your job description?” Harry asked.
“I’m supposed to research your opponent and give you tips on how to beat
him,” Schmidt said.
“What do you know about my opponent?” Harry asked. He was out of his shirt
and was slipping off his trousers.
“My guess is that he will be short,” Schmidt said.
“How do I beat him?” Harry said. He slipped of his shoes and let his toes test
the spongy ooring.
“You’re not supposed to beat him,” Schmidt said. “You’re supposed to tie and
then take a fall.”
Harry grunted and handed Schmidt his pants, socks and shoes. “Am I correct
in assuming that there are several species of legume that would do a better job
being my second than you, Hart?”
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John Scalzi | After the Coup
“Sorry, Harry,” Schmidt said. “I’m ying by the seat of my pants here.”
“And my pants,” Harry said.
“I guess that’s true,” Schmidt said. He looked at the nude Harry and counted
the number of apparel he was holding. “Where’s your underwear?” he asked.
“Today was laundry day,” Harry said.
“You went commando to a diplomatic function?” Schmidt asked. The horror in
his voice was unmistakable.
“Yes, Hart, I went commando to a diplomatic function,” Harry said, and then
motioned to his body. “And now, as you can see, I’m going Spartan so a midget
can whack me with a stick.” He bent and picked up his Bongka. “Honestly,
Hart. Help me out here. Focus a little.”
“All right,”Hart said, and glanced at the pile of clothes he was holding. “Let me
just put these somewhere.” He started off toward the human seating area.
As Hart did this, three Korba approached Harry. One was the judge from
earlier. Another Korban was carrying his own bongka, proportional to his own
height; Harry’s opponent. The third was a step behind Harry’s opponent;
Harry guessed it was the other second.
The three Korba stopped directly in front of Harry. The one holding the
bongka handed it to his second, looked up at Harry, and then thrust out his
hands, palms forward, making a grunting noise as he did so. Harry hadn’t the
slightest idea what to do with this. So he handed his bongka to Schmidt, who
had just come running up, thrust his own hands forward, and returned the
motion. “Jazz hands,” Harry said.
The Korban seemed satised, took back his bongka, and headed toward the
other side of the gym. The judge spoke, and held up something in his ha
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