Fulcrums of the Universe: A TESS NOVEL #2

by Randy Moffat

  The video image ended squarely on my no doubt ruggedly handsome but messy puss and then faded out. Message sent. The Chinese had leaned on a lever to steal TESS tech… TESS had leaned back on the opposite end and the teeter totter was now going the other way.

  I looked around self consciously. Nobody gave me a thumbs up or a slap on the ass. I could hardly expect one for a declaration of war between TESS and one of the most populace nations on earth. China might have its own opinion… . but everyone who I could find to look at nearby was clearly with me without reservation.

  Thirteen minutes before weapons impact I got the call.

  I was in the L5 operations center when Sergeant First Class Rivera yelled over her shoulder.

  “Admiral. I have a video call being transferred by Mr. Murray from TESS headquarters at the Bat Caves up to us. It is Premier Wei Lau of China.”

  I nodded and the big monitor filled with the image of Lau. He looked tired and a bit miffed, but he had enough class to keep his emotions in Chinese check.

  “Admiral.” His English was bad but my Chinese was worse. “I want to ask you to abort your missiles.”

  “Rocks.” I corrected him.

  He looked confused and I heard an interpreter whisper in his ear off screen.

  “Rocks?” He asked looking even more confused.

  “Rocks.” I repeated. Something I had learned you cannot do too often to avoid misunderstanding in meetings across language barriers.

  “Can you please abort your… your… rocks? I need you to understand that the attack on TESS was not launched by the official government of China. We are currently involved in operations to suppress certain rogue reactionary elements of our society who have attacked the Chinese people themselves. It is these… bandits… who have attacked TESS not us. They are your real enemy. If you attack these bases you have outlined you will cripple our…”

  I held up my hand to forestall him throwing out further awkward verbiage that might cloud the issue.

  “You misunderstand, Premier. I mean precisely what I say. We have launched no missiles. No weapons that can be maneuvered like missiles as you seem to think. What will strike you launch facilities in a few minutes is simply what I said… Rocks. They were moved out of orbit some time ago and have been falling ever since. They will strike those points on the Earth whether I want them to or not. They will strike whether you want them to or not. They will crash into the planet at those precise locations at the speed of gravity at the stated times. At this point it is a given. Think of them as stones flung down a well. A very deep well. A gravity well. Basic physics. There is no changing their course. There is no communications with a rock. There is no recall to a boulder. There is no abort code buried in sophisticated electronics to make them stop. The rocks will continue to fall and to strike the ground at those locations. You should save any further appeals to me and focus your efforts on getting any personnel you can clear of those impact points. I can make only one guarantee. I assure you here and now Premier that once they strike they will obliterate those stations for all time.”

  Lau looked appalled for a minute.

  “Admiral. China is not…” He thought hard. “I am not… we cannot be responsible for…”

  “Cannot is a curious word for a nation that very recently used the word ‘could’ instead. A nation whose marines could be lifted to orbit and directly attacked TESS without warning. Chinese troops could do that then. It made China a nation whose soldiers could kill my TESS personnel without warning. A nation who troops could and did go to enormous lengths to bring fire and destruction to us living and working peacefully far away up here in space.”

  Lau was not used to contradiction at this level and it was crashing in on him now that he could not head off an attack that would certainly obliterate decades of effort by China in building a space program. Billions, perhaps trillions in investment would be wiped out at a stroke.

  “You must… must…”

  I looked at his curiously.

  “Must what, Mr. Lau?

  “See… sense… please. People might be… .” He waved his hands about hopelessly.

  “I think I am being sensible Mr. Lau. Very sensible. I am taking great pains to save Chinese lives. A courtesy that China certainly did not extend to ME, Mr. Lau. China did not extend the courtesy of telling US that we were going to be attacked. We were not warned our people were about to be killed. Which of us has the moral imperative here, Mr. Lau? War is a costly business, Mr. Lau. When you attack someone you take risks. Risks that your enemy will not defend themselves and strike back. That risk has now come home to you and your people. At least TESS is trying to save lives. We have not targeted cities, Mr. Lau. We could have. We may still have to target them if China does not recognize they have a… dragon by the tail… but for now we have targeted mere space launch facilities alone. Physical property only… simple objects like gantries, buildings and hunks of concrete poured in cunning ways. Mere facilities that were used to attack us. This is clear case of self defense, Mr. Premier. TESS will defend itself. We reserve that right. We have given you plenty of warning time to clear your facilities of personnel who might be injured or killed. When China attacked TESS it made an enemy in a moment. TESS is a considerate enemy however, one who respects human life, which is more than China has seen fit to be so far…”

  I could see that the word “cities” had finally sunk in. Lau licked his lips.

  “It was not China… .”

  He looked very uncertain how to proceed.

  “Who was it then, Mr. Lau?”

  “I told you it was the reactionaries… this man Hú…”

  “Mr. Lau…” I said quietly, feeling anything but. “Your own people are your own people, sir. I certainly cannot be responsible for policing up every lunatic who chooses to attack innocent people using China’s name, using China’s soldiers, using China’s resources, using China’s ships and using China’s own weapons. If it was a small subset of Chinese citizens who conspired to drive Chinese military personnel to attack us… . what is that to me, sir? Soldiers are not private property, sir. Soldiers are the instruments of state. These were Chinese soldiers, Mr. Lau. It was therefore China who attacked us. If you wish peace I suggest you take care of the critical business at hand first and clean up your own house—take command of your own soldiers for all time. I also recommend you immediately clear any people away from those sites, Mr. Premier… since they are going to disappear in mere minutes. They will be vaporized when those rocks strike, sir. You can call me back in a thirty minutes and we can discuss your surrender terms then.”

  He looked startled at the word ‘surrender’ even though I had used it before… but I cut his connection and he disappeared before he could comment.

  I was tired of talking to idiots. The love of my life was lying in a hospital bed.

  I gave the L5 and Gaia staff twenty more of my minutes despite my inclinations to bolt to the hospital. I watched the impacts of our rocks. By the end the entire tatters of my patience was required to spend those remaining minutes receiving status update briefings from various personnel. I wanted to be with Maureen, but I was the admiral, a professional they counted on right now and gritted my teeth. The staff sensed this. They could see me being calm, but felt my seething anger underneath and the urgent need for hurry leaking out through my eyes, voice and the occasional slip in my voice. I could tell by their sidebar whispers that they knew I was faking it. Maybe the spit in my eye and the froth around my lips gave me away. They were kind though. They made what they had to say succinct.

  We were busy turning turtle. All of our TESS personnel except our intelligence assets were reported now cleanly out of China and any surrounding countries. Any TESS facilities in easy reach of China were battened down; last out the door had been the Brutus team who had pocketed the key as they departed Ulan Bator for Polynesia.

&nbs
p; More slides showed we were on high alert across the planet and our security status was maxed out—ready for reprisals. Full clips and armor.

  I was still impatient and kept twirling my index finger in a “yahoo” hurry up sign. I needed to be by Maureen’s side and could barely concentrate. I felt my control slipping by stages. I couldn’t guarantee myself that I wouldn’t do something very rash if she ended up dead. I had a lot more rocks up here.

  The last briefer was one of Maureen’s protégés down Earth-side. He flicked through his allotted three slides rapidly that showed our money was being moved about as part of our greater security effort to ensure that no one in China could attack us economically. The moves were intended to protect our limited assets in that country. We had divested the obvious piles of cash quickly. The Caymen islands was enjoying collecting lots of fees from us for rapid money transfers. My attention was somewhere out past Pluto when something on the last slide caught my eye. Most of our income was in the form of payments from the nations of the Earth who wanted TESS to support them with space travel and transport. They tended to pay it altogether early in the fiscal year so that we had a huge pile of money in green ink that then began to attrite with red ink as the fiscal year went on and we spent it. It meant that we had a lot of green ink and plus signs on the balance sheets at the start of the fiscal year and then steadily dripped it away with red ink and minus signs over the next 11 months when we got a new infusion of cash. It was the kind of thing I rarely paid much attention to though I was aware that we tended to spend every penny we got from them. When money was briefed I was typically watching Maureen and waggling my eyebrows at her like a juvenile instead of paying attention to the slides. I did not usually need to pay attention to it since Maureen took care of it so well. I trusted Maureen with it. But now without her by my side my eye was caught by a green entry late in the year that I had never noticed before. I held up my hand to stop the slides advancing.

  “What’s that green entry in August?” I asked only really wanting to show I was alert. We kept the books in US dollars for ease of book keeping. I realized then that the entry was for an input to our income of $232 million dollars.

  Her aide said in a surprised but certain tone.

  “Return on investment.”

  “Investment?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, sir…” He replied.

  “What investment?” I asked.

  He responded in a relatively bored tone of voice that said a lot about the routine nature of it all.

  “Well, sir… Rear Admiral O’Hara has inserted certain small fees into the revised contracts with the Terran nations… the fees are quite modest, but are automatically shunted over into investment accounts on Earth. We are letting the money grow. We are seeking investments that are returning on average 12%. The Rear Admiral’s theory is that we will spend 5% of the return for growing TESS expenditures and then further reinvest the remaining interest to build up reserves of cash for future projects. This is one of the roll over returns from reinvestment.”

  I whistled.

  “So you are telling me that instead of being a charity… a break even economic entity… that we are now a ‘for profit’ outfit?”

  “Very much so…” He agreed. “Rear Admiral O’Hara is quite adamant that TESS be able to grow and will in time be fully independent financially. As she articulates it to me, TESS must be clear of any threat of non-payment by the screwy countries Earthside… ever.”

  “So if I read this right we made 242 million clams in this particular rollover… which implies we have more than 2 billion dollars accumulated already?”

  “Oh, yes, Sir. Closer to four actually. You see…”

  I had not seen before. I did see after he explained rapidly over the next three minutes. My girlfriend was building TESS into a financial empire. We were a going concern thanks to her and she had never even told me. Even in the privacy of our boudoir. That’s my girl.

  I turned and walked off abruptly then because I was blinking my eyes hard… something had gotten into them. That woman may be close to death but she was certainly killing me. I went to her side.

  They had hurriedly fitted out a chamber near the triage center and put her in it by herself. Even badly wounded they respected her and manifested it in privacy. She lay on a mattress strapped to the floor. Another loose strap kept her on the mattress and a sheet and blanket kept her from becoming chilled. She had an IV drip in her arm and was out cold. There was no one there. No nurse. No doctor. Too many casualties. Too much to do right now. The medicos we had were too busy. She looked small alone in that big space. Fragile. Her face was the color of white cotton and her hair straggled wetly across the pillow in a tangle. I studied her face and my heart felt like it would seize up to see her hurt like this. A solid ache in my chest. There was a vacant place where her lower leg should have been. She was breathing regularly though. That was a good sign I thought as I stood looking down and on the edge of indulging in tears.

  I was out of practice at them though and instead I sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress, wrapped my arms across her, gripping a shoulder and upper arm I rested my head on her breast feeling those hot tears almost begin to fill my eyes while I reassured myself I could hear her heart beating strongly and pick out a bit of a wheeze from her respiration. I lifted and bent my head gently over her face and kissed her lips lightly, trying for something like a breath of warm summer breeze. I had timed it well. She pulled a Snow White and opened her eyes at that moment. They were unfocused and dopey at first, but came more into focus as she blinked repeatedly. She seemed finally to recognize me and half smiled groggily.

  “Bear.” She breathed, her eyes still soft, but with a gathering of intelligence in them. “You’re crushing my breast, sweetie.”

  “Opps… sorry.” I shifted my elbow a bit off her tender mammary and cupped her cheek gently. “Welcome back, Beautiful!”

  She blinked and focused more, puzzling things out for a while. I was so chuft to have her back and talking I just leaned there on my arms and took her face in, letting hope creep back into my defrosting heart.

  “How’d we do?” She asked finally. She had marshaled at least some of her memories.

  “We kicked their ass.” I smiled back.

  She smiled weakly back.

  “So gimmie the bad news then.” She said.

  “Bad news?” I asked, innocence personified.

  “You always have bad news.” She said softly focusing now. She was shaking off the dope somewhat. “Especially when you look at me like that.” She tried to smile again, but couldn’t get it quite right. The drugs were still in her.

  I thought about that a moment. I considered denial, but we knew each other too well now. I sighed.

  “OK… There are two pieces of bad news actually. I hesitate to tell you in your delicate condition.”

  She snorted weakly.

  “Condition? Since when have you ever been shy about announcing the bad stuff? At least too me you big lug. Just tell me!” She commanded. She was awake enough.

  She smiled harder this time and it came across a bit unsteadily I thought. Ordering me around helped her though. They had obviously given her the good shit. I thought about it. Bossy female pheromones cut the dope a smidge. Now was the time to tell her though before the cotton wool wore off completely. She was still just high enough. It might mellow her responses out. Soften any blow.

  “Now… no name calling.” I took a breath. Let it out. “I am sorry to tell you that the first piece of bad news is that you have lost the lower third of your left leg, Lass. They took it off to save you. You lost a lot of blood and the tissues had frozen up some. Bones crushed etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah. They did it to save you.” I said tenderly.

  Watching her face I felt rather than saw her move her legs as quickly as she could to test her feet and my story.
/>   She twitched the corners of her lips upward and responded rather bravely.

  “I thought I felt light on my feet.”

  I smiled with all my teeth, impressed by her machismo. As always.

  “Brave girl!” I said meaning it. “I have been cruising the internet… turns out the human body, especially the limbs operate as class one, class two and class three levers. I told you the universe is a series of levers! I have a reservation in already on a really cool mechanical replacement lever for a leg and foot… . titanium steel. Stronger than bone. You’ll be a freaking superwoman. I am only holding back my credit card until I found out if you want it painted metallic red or the matt paisley with those flecks of sparkle in the paint you see on tricked out Harleys… .”