There was total silence around the table. Most of the cabinet stared down at the glossy wooden surface, not wanting to make eye contact with each other.
Wilson cleared his throat self-consciously and continued. “From the nature of the attacks, and the intelligence we have gathered subsequently, it appears that the aim of the Primes is to secure the industrial facilities on the Lost23 planets. Unlike us, they don’t appear to care about preserving the planetary environments. What we saw of their homeworld seems to support this; it was massively industrialized, and the pollution was orders of magnitude beyond anything we experienced here on Earth during the worst of the twenty-first century. Their priorities, therefore, are completely different from ours. That made them very difficult to predict. However, now they are in the open and we’re able to observe their activities directly, we can determine what actions they will have to pursue next. For instance, they will have to build up their occupation forces on the Lost23 in order to utilize them properly and secure them against any counterstrike we make. They will also mount a second attack against the Commonwealth, then a third, and a fourth. They will keep on attacking and pushing us back and back onto fewer worlds until we have none left.”
“What makes you certain of that?” Heather asked.
“We are at war,” Wilson said. He saw her glossed lips tighten at the phrase, censure leaking out of the flawless skin of her mid-fifties face like trace pheromones. Even though she was in a chic formal dark blue suit with her ginger hair folded into a neat braid, there was no way of disguising the authority she possessed. Heather was the only female head of a Big15 Intersolar Dynasty, her feminine appearance a very thin cloak worn over ruthless ambition and a razor-sharp political instinct. Just like him, and everyone else seated around the table, she hated being given bad news.
“War by its nature cannot be a static situation,” he continued, meeting her stare levelly. “They know that we will never accept the loss of those twenty-three planets. Either they continue to expand across the Commonwealth, wiping us out of galactic history, or we will do the same to them.”
“Are you suggesting we commit genocide against them?” Ramon DB asked lightly.
“Are you suggesting we become the victims of genocide?” Wilson countered. “This is not a war as we have fought them before. This is not a strategic struggle over key resources; we’re not fighting for control over tribal lands, or trade routes to the new colonies. Both us and the Primes are intersolar, there is no shortage of anything in the galaxy. They came here with one purpose, to kill us and to capture our worlds.”
“In that case we have experienced an analogous war in our history,” Hans Braunt said. “It would seem as if they are waging a religious crusade against us.”
“You could be right,” Wilson said. “Religion or some ideological variant of it was certainly one of the more popular theories among the strategic analysis teams. Their motivation can’t easily be explained any other way.”
“We can worry about the reason later,” Nigel said. “You’ve summarized where we stand. What does the navy want to do next? What do you need?”
“We’re proposing to meet the Prime aggression with a three-stage approach. First, a heavy infiltration and sabotage offensive on the Lost23; tie the Primes up on each planet, slow them down, divert their resources away from readying their next attack while we prepare for stage two.”
“I’m curious about the kinds of forces you envisage to pull that off,” Alan Hutchinson said.
“Commando-style troop units will be dropped onto the Lost23 through wormholes that will open for a very short duration. They’ll cause as much disruption as possible, combined with a comprehensive intelligence-gathering operation. So far we know very little about the Primes. This should help expand our knowledge base considerably. We’re hoping to perform several snatch missions so we can begin interrogation and memory reading procedures.”
“Just what kind of numbers are you talking about here?” Alan asked keenly. “To make any decent impact you’re going to need a lot of these guerrilla fighters.”
“We’re planning on sending an initial force of around ten thousand troops to each planet.”
“Ten thous … Christ, man, you’re talking about raising an army of a quarter of a million people.”
“We don’t see that as a problem,” Rafael said smoothly. “The new navy ground troop service will be opened to volunteers from the general population, of course; and history shows we’ll have a great many aspirants. Even multilifers tend to get aggressive when threatened. And just in case, we have a large reserve of people who can be more easily persuaded; people, in fact, more suited to this kind of work than most.” He opened his hands wide in reasonable appeal. “Please, most of the last few days have been spent drawing up these responses, and examining their feasibility; we’re not throwing out panic ideas here. Deploying these troops is not only possible, it is essential. We must regain the initiative.”
“Very well,” Hans said. “What’s stage two?”
“A fleet,” Wilson said flatly. “A very big fleet of warships. Not the kind we have now. We need to approach this from a radical perspective. We have to consider starships like the Second Chance and the StAsaph as our Kittyhawks, not even prototypes. We were lazy back then, putting together what we could with damn near off-the-shelf components.” He glanced over at Nigel. “I’m not criticizing; they were right for the time, but this is a new age that could well see us obliterated if we don’t recognize it. We need fast ships, not with marque five or six hyperdrives that are on the drawing board; I need a marque ten or more, a speed that can take us to Dyson Alpha in a week. They’ve got to be well protected, shields as strong as the original Dyson barriers were. They’ve got to have real weaponry, not nuclear missiles, not energy beams; give me relativistic attack drones, each warship loaded with a salvo of a hundred of the damn things which can all strike with the same power the Desperado unleashed. And most of all, I need thousands of them. Not dozens, not hundreds: thousands—enough to challenge that goddamn armada of ordinary ships which the Primes have. During their attack on the Lost23, they sent over thirty thousand ships through those wormholes; and they’ve got a hundred times that many back in their home system. If we’re going to go up against them, then we need to put the industrial output equivalent to a Big15 behind this effort, churn them out the way we do cars and trains.
“FTL ships are the sole advantage we have over the Primes right now. They don’t have them. If we can get that advanced technology working and deployed, then we stand a chance. With the kind of strike mobility I’m talking about we can outmaneuver them at a strategic level. We can block their next attack—that’s our second stage. Then after that we can scour space between here and Dyson Alpha to find out where that bastard Hell’s Gateway staging post is, and destroy it—stage three, threat elimination.”
“Sounds good to me,” Nigel said; he nodded his approval. “At least you’re talking the talk, thinking outside the box. We need that badly.”
“It’s bloody expensive talk,” Crispin murmured.
“I don’t believe you just said that,” Justine shot at him. The unexpected sharpness in her tone made everyone turn to look at her; it was pure Gore.
“Thirty-seven million humans dead, and you’re complaining about the cost of defending ourselves. Didn’t you hear what the Admiral just told us? The alternative is death. Real death, not just an inconvenient sleep-of-absence while your clinic grows you a new body. You will die, Crispin. And that lasts forever.”
“I wasn’t saying it was too expensive, my dear. I’d just like to point out that our finances will have to undergo a similar radical restructuring to pay for it. That’s if this wonderful new technology can be made to work.” He looked pointedly at Nigel, then Wilson.
“The theories are perfect,” Nigel said evenly. “Getting them to work in practice … well, Crispin, that’s where all your money comes in.”
“It’ll be your
taxes that get raised,” Crispin pointed out.
“And do you really think any of us gives a flying fuck about that right now? Get the Treasury to crunch the numbers, slap twenty or forty percent on taxes, work out the loans and bond issues we’ll have to float. Nobody cares about the inflation or recession or unsustainable growth it’ll cause. None of that crap matters if we lose. If we don’t have the money available to make this work there won’t be any finance market. We’ll be dead; we at this table have to recognize this even if we can never say so in public.”
“It’s not just finance,” Heather said. She nodded in Wilson’s direction. “I like your thinking on this.”
“Team effort,” he grunted.
“Sure, but your team’s heading in the right direction. We have to think way out of the left field and cooperate for a change. What gives me a fright is trying to realign our manufacturing capacity on this scale. It won’t be smooth, yet it must be done.”
“The SI could probably help,” Oliver Tam said.
“Possibly,” Heather said. She sounded like a schoolmistress displeased with a disruptive pupil. She exchanged a look with the other three Dynasty heads. “We’ll need to pull the rest into line.”
“They’re smart enough,” Nigel said. “And we have our own arrangements between ourselves.”
Heather gave a small shrug.
“What about the refugee situation?” Ramon DB inquired. “What place do they have in all these plans? Right now we have the entire surviving population from the Lost23 saturating the rest of the Commonwealth; they have no homes, no jobs, no life left. They look to us, to government, for leadership, some acknowledgment of their plight. There are hundreds of thousands of people flooding into Silvergalde, which can’t cope. I’m told the outside of Lyddington is beginning to resemble some kind of medieval refugee camp, with no water, no sanitation, and precious little food. And there’s the one big problem which I haven’t heard raised here today: the displacement. People on every world within a hundred light-years of the Lost23 are either taking vacations on the other side of the Commonwealth or trying to sell up and buy a house on a world where they think they’re going to be safe. They are afraid, and with good reason. What do we do about this? We must show them we know and understand their situation. That we will take action to resolve it.”
“Not today, and not in here,” President Doi said.
It was said in such a decisive and firm manner that she drew surprised glances from several people around the table. Ramon actually opened his mouth in astonishment.
“This is the War Cabinet, Senator Ramon,” she said. “In here we decide military strategy, that’s all. The displaced are an item for the general civil cabinet, if not a full debate in the Senate.”
“But they do impinge on military matters,” Ramon said. “They will affect the whole economy.”
“No,” Elaine said quickly. “The numbers are huge, admittedly. But in overall percentage terms they barely register. I will not let this cabinet get bogged down by the minutia of problems which are not in its direct remit. You are out of order, Senator. Please give the floor to someone else.”
Alan was making little attempt to hide his smile; one or two of the others looked mildly bemused. A positive and decisive Doi was not something they encountered very often. Realizing her sudden authority, she asked, “Admiral Columbia, do you envisage any policy change to our current planetary defenses?”
“No changes, ma’am. The force fields were extremely successful, even on the Lost23. We have plans to upgrade all city and civil area force fields, anticipating the Primes will launch a second attack. Arms manufacturers are also increasing production of combat aerobots for us, which proved invaluable during the preliminary bombardment. Electronic warfare systems are also a priority. But those are all purely defensive systems; all they can do is minimize damage in the event of an attack. To stop the attack we need that fleet.”
“Point taken, Admiral. I think we can move to a vote on the overall strategy.”
“I would also like to mention stage four,” Columbia said.
“Stage four?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Seattle Project. The kind of weapon we can use to take the fight directly to Dyson Alpha.”
“I wasn’t aware we’d even reached prototype stage yet.”
“Hopefully, it will arrive within a few months,” Wilson said. “You know physicists, they don’t like deadlines. Not that they ever meet them anyway.”
“So it’s not something we have to consider immediately?” the President asked.
“No,” Wilson agreed cautiously. “But Admiral Columbia is right. Ultimately we may have to make the decision to use it.”
“We can fight them with warships,” Columbia said. “We can slow them down, we can possibly even force them back, though any prolonged war will be extremely costly to us, and not just in monetary terms. But if ultimately they prove implacably hostile to us, for whatever reason, then it will have to be used.”
“Genocide,” Elaine whispered. “Dear God.”
“It would be a collective decision,” Hans told her. “We would take it together, and share it with you.”
“The Seattle Project should continue to receive top priority,” Columbia said.
“Yes,” the President said, charily. “Very well, if no one else has any issues, I’d like to proceed to a vote on Admiral Kime’s proposal for a three-stage approach to engaging the Prime threat.”
“Proposed,” Heather said.
“Seconded,” Alan said.
“Very well,” the President said. “Those in favor?” She counted the raised hands. “Unanimous.”
Outside the cabinet room, little groups of aides were hanging around in the long corridor gossiping with each other. When the doors opened, they all quietened down and waited for their respective chief to walk past, before attaching themselves like so many iron filings. Justine had almost reached Sue Piken and Ross Gant-Wainright, the two senior staffers she’d inherited with Thompson’s office, when Ramon DB caught up with her.
“That was unlike you,” he said softly.
Justine stopped and gave him a impatient look, all ready to give him a snappy answer. The bright overhead lighting glinted off small droplets of sweat on his brow. His midnight-black OCtattoos were now quite visible across his cheeks and hands, a result of his previously ebony skin acquiring a grayish pallor. When she glanced down, she could see how tight his generous robe was. Her annoyance drained away. “You look tired,” she said, and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t suppose you’ve been taking it easy?”
He smiled fondly. “Have you?”
“My body is in its early twenties again. I can do the late nights and stress. You can’t.”
“Please, don’t go reminding me about your body at that age.” He put one hand playfully over his chest. “My heart can only take so much. By the way, you look tremendous in black.”
“Rammy! Look at those rings; you’ll never get them off, your fingers have swollen so much.” She took his hand and held on to it, examining the jewelry that was almost buried by pulpy flesh.
He squirmed like a guilty child. “Don’t nag, woman.”
“I’m not nagging. I’m telling you this straight: either you start looking after yourself or I personally will cart you off to the clinic for rejuvenation.”
“As if either of us can take time off for that right now.” He paused, uncertain of himself. “I heard about LA Galactic. Talk in the Senate dining room is that you knew the boy who was killed.”
“Yeah, I knew him. I was the one who put navy intelligence on him.”
Ramon gave her black dress a suspicious stare. “I hope you’re not blaming yourself for his death.”
“No.”
“You forget, my dear, I really do know you.”
“Did the Senate dining room know that the boy was killed by the same person who killed Thompson?”
“Yes. We’re quietly but firmly pressing Senate Sec
urity for some results.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Confidence in both branches of the navy is not terribly high right now.”
“It’ll improve.” For a moment Justine considered telling him about the Starflyer; Ramon would make a superb ally in the Senate, but he really wasn’t in good shape, and that would just add to his burden. Not yet, she told herself. “I’m sorry Doi cut you off in there,” she said. “I believe we do need to consider the refugee problem.”
“Actually, she was right to say that,” he said, and smiled broadly. “I’m just not used to our dear President being quite so forceful. It could well be we have waved good-bye to a politician and got a stateswoman in return. Now, that would be a first.”
“We’ll see. I’m not sure I believe in an age of miracles just yet. But I’ll be happy to back you up in the Senate on some kind of aid package for the refugees.” She caught sight of Wilson Kime talking to Crispin, and leaned forward to give Ramon a quick kiss. “I have to go. I’ll see you in the dining room, yes?”
“Of course.”
Justine hurried over to Wilson as he and Crispin shook hands. Several aides were waiting to pounce, and she could see Columbia coming out of the cabinet room. She wasn’t quite up to another direct confrontation with him right now.
“Admiral, could we talk for a moment, please?”
Wilson nodded amicably. “Certainly, Senator.”
“In private; there’s a conference room just down here.”
Wilson’s hesitation was hardly noticeable. “Very well.”
Justine’s e-butler gave the door an open code; her aides had reserved the room as soon as they all knew where the War Cabinet meeting was to be held. Wilson followed her in, his face registering polite curiosity. Then he saw Paula Myo sitting at the table inside, and frowned. “What is this?” he asked.
“Sorry to put you on the spot, Wilson,” Justine said. “But you probably know Admiral Columbia and I have had a disagreement on certain security matters. And he fired Investigator Myo from navy intelligence.”
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