Talosian Chronicles 6: Armageddon

by Ben Winston

  The man looked like he was going to throw-up. "Ian, you know I worked with you, believed in what you were doing, but I think, deep down, I was hoping that somehow you were wrong."

  "I wish I was too, Sir. At least we were able to get more built than I originally believed we would be able to get done. In a fight of this type, victory can never be assured, but everything we are able to get done can only improve our odds of survival. We do still have more to do, but I know what they are planning is going to cost them. It's going to cost them a lot," Ian replied.

  "But will it be enough?" The man asked.

  "There is no way to know, Sir. The Empire is devoting most of their offensive capability in this galaxy to this single attack. It will be the largest, most destructive battle of this entire war. We are going to take losses, most likely heavy losses. It's going to be very bad, Sir, but we will get through this; we have too. There is no other alternative," Ian said grimly. "I'll go brief my people and get them started on final preparations. Admiral H'joles has already ordered the remaining available forces here.

  "I'll send a few techs down tonight and set up a few extra holographic emitters for the briefing in the morning. If time permits, I'll also prepare a press release that the world leaders will be able to use to inform the people of what's coming. Sir, that's not negotiable; they need to be told the truth now."

  "I'll make sure the staff knows you'll be here to install more equipment. I think you might want to put your people on alert for action down here as well. If any of the countries are going to do something, this will be the trigger for it," the man replied. "I think there has been a lot of secret planning going on. Some of our more militant members think that if they can take some of their neighbors before this attack, they will be allowed to do it and keep the land since you'll be too busy dealing with the external threat."

  "Idiots. They still think they can do whatever they want, even in the face of total destruction. Well, we won't need to do what your thinking, Sir. The one nice thing about all those nice new shiny weapons they have is that they can be turned off. We've told them from the beginning that we won't allow them to do anything like that," Ian said.

  "They're all betting that you won;t stop them because of your oath to protect and harm yourself. Basically, they believe the warning about preventing war is a bluff. I'll bet my office at least one of them will try something," the Secretary warned.

  Ian just shook his head. "Well, I'm not going remind them. If they dumb enough to try, then I'm dumb enough to educate them. None should get hurt either, but I suppose a few casualties are possible. I hope their aren't any, but it's possible. It will be embarrassing for the national leaders though; I'll make sure of that."

  "Well, we'll deal with it when it happens. I'll let you go since I know you have a lot yet to do. Take care of yourself, Admiral."

  "And you, Sir. I'll see you in the morning," Ian replied and closed the channel.

  "Alex, I need to speak to…" Ian began but she smiled.

  "Council Chairman Belden is on comm two, Sir," Alex said.

  Ian sighed. "You scare me sometimes, Alex." She giggled as he opened the channel to Luke Belden.

  "Ian, Alex said you had some important news. The rest of the Council is also listening in. What's up?" Luke asked.

  Ian gave him the information he had, and informed them of the meeting at the UN in the morning. Then he gave them a brief run down on the state of preparations so far and what he expected to be finished before the arrival of the enemy.

  "Since the world leaders themselves will be be present via tele-presence, we will also be there, Admiral. This is might be too much for Ambassador Lang to handle on her own. As for the countries trying something, Ambassador Ling did mention something about that; she felt that the most likely culprits would be India or Pakistan, Libya, Syria, China or North Korea," Luke replied. "We would have told you sooner, but none of us thought it was actually possible."

  Ian shook his head. "Never underestimate the greed or stupidity of an Earth Politician. If anyone does try something, I planned on going on live TV and ordering the weapons systems shut off. Maybe if we embarrass the first couple bad enough, the others will forget about their own agendas."

  "I doubt you will need to go on live TV, Admiral. Just the fact that the weapons shut down will be more than enough to get the point across. Doing more would simply rub their noses in it. While I do admit that does sound entertaining, we need to build unity now more than ever. We don't have the time or the freedom left to us for playing games with those idiots," Laura Johnson said from off screen.

  "I could order all lethal weapons in their hands set to stand-by for the time being. That should prevent the attempt at least," Ian suggested.

  "While I agree with you in principle, Admiral, I can see two potential issues with doing that. The first is that by doing so, it will be seen as a lack of trust on our part. Even though it's obviously justified, we can't make that decision. The second issue would be that they would find a weapons that work in place of the ones we gave them; a weapon that could damage or breach our armor. I admit that's a very remote possibility, but it is there and something we definitely do not want them to discover," another councilor said.

  Ian nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. So, I'll just wait until one of them steps on their own toes and then shut their weapons off. That'll prevent their aggression as well as uphold our oath to not let them misuse the weapons we gave them to harm each other. Thank you for the advice, Councilors."

  "No problem, Admiral, it's our job," Luke replied and winked at him. "Now, I suppose you need to go tell all of this to your command staff, right?"

  "Yes, I haven't briefed them yet. I also need to send some techs down to the UN to prepare for the big meeting," Ian replied. "Although, knowing my ever efficient aid, she probably already has."

  Alex grinned at him and nodded.

  "Okay, we'll let you go then Admiral. We'll see you tomorrow morning at the meeting," Luke replied.

  Ian nodded. "Thank you. I'll see you then."

  When the channel closed Ian simply opened the next channel. The lights in the room dimmed and the group of people he had wanted to speak to took holographic form before his desk. They were all seated and the group took up more room than the office actually had. The holographic generators created the illusion of the bigger room for the meeting.

  Ian nodded a greeting to everyone and began the briefing.

  Chapter Nine

  There were some issues with the Marines. None of the captured men died, but some of them did not make it back uninjured. Once they were treated, these men were kept in solitary confinement, even after reaching the Neptune's Massif platform holding center. As it turned out, Jesus Santiago was very much wanted for public trial and sentencing, but no one seemed to want to deal with the rest of the prisoners.

  In the case of the public officials that had been arrested, Interpol demanded they be released and returned to their homes immediately. They claimed the Terrans exceeded their mandate in the unfounded apprehension of civil servants whose only crime had been being powerless to stop the machinations of the drug lords.

  The Terran Council did exactly as they had been asked. They released the so called public servants. After making all the evidence discovered against them public via their web site, a Marine shuttle dropped them off at Interpol headquarters in France. When Interpol then sent them back to Colombia, the UN acting in cooperation with the world court, announced the suspension of Interpol's charter pending an investigation into the event and corruption in the leadership.

  Of the men that were offered to perform restitution by donning Marine armor and protecting the province in Colombia, all of the ex-militia accepted, one of the conditions of the agreement had been for the relocation of the new 'Marines' families to the shelter area under the compound. After the first week of training, every single man, and their families, filed a request to officially join the Terran Marines.

  Since n
o official government agencies wanted to deal with them anyway, the applications were accepted and they became Terran citizens.The event was publicized locally, and Lieutenant Marco requested assistance from the recruitment department as there were hundreds of people per day showing up at the compound wanting to join.

  The event wasn't isolated to that one compound either; it spread to other compounds in Colombia by the end of the week. When word got out, most of the South American compounds became swamped with people trying to apply. Most of them didn't really understand what it meant, but they knew it was a better life and the possibility of a job, so they were willing to try.

  Some were accepted, most left when they understood that they would have to leave the planet, or that the jobs that were available required training the people didn't believe they had access to. Ian was surprised to see he got a good number of ship's crew for the defense fleet from this type of recruitment.

  Two weeks before the expected attack, the inevitable event Ian had feared came to pass. A country equipped with new advanced weapons and armor tried to attack another country. Of the most likely, Ian though it would be China or perhaps one of the Islamic nations that tried it. Considering the relationship he had with the Croanian Marine Colonel Tr'aen, Premier Moon had been one of the last people Ian would have thought to try something stupid.

  Regardless, two weeks before the attack, ten full divisions of North Korean military roared south. Nuclear tipped cruise missiles were prepared for launch, and chemical weapons were supplied to the artillery units.

  As the massive military neared the DMZ Premier Moon announced to the world that today would be the long overdue consolidation of his country. He was still broadcasting his rhetoric when his troops reached the DMZ and stopped; all power to every armored suit, every hover tank, and armored transport shut down. The missiles were launched and those too crashed into the ground before crossing the border into the south. Artillery shells were fired, only to spray harmless blue colored water on the ground in front of the weapons. The North Korean war machine had been simply shut off.

  The broadcast by the North Korean leader was quietly shut down before anyone told him of the massive failure. However, Ian knew that once he was told, he ordered Colonel Tr'aen and all Terran personnel to be arrested and shot for treason. The event proved to be the straw that finally broke the tenuous grip Premier Moon had on reality. He was very quietly removed from office for 'health reasons'. Ian knew he had been put in a padded cell after he ordered his entire military put to death for their failure. North Korea did not reach agreement on who would replace him, but for a time, North Korean relations with the west were eased.

  China did not try to invade another country, but they did something almost as dumb. Years ago, they built up their naval forces in the South China Sea in order to claim the area as territorial waters. The attempt failed, but they never removed their forces nor did they abandon the bases they had built. Now, with the installation of advanced technology, They did lay claim to to that area, as well as the East China and Yellow Seas. By doing so, they completely isolated Taiwan, the east coast of the Koreas and parts of southern Japan.

  Ian just shook his head at the stupidity as he ordered their ships and planes shut off. When China demanded and explanation for their action, Ian told them that they would not tolerate any expansionism on the part of any country. China counter claimed they were not expanding anything; those waters had always been theirs; and they were simply enforcing their territorial boundaries. Ian refused to reactivate the weapons systems and suggested they speak to the UN to work out the details of their withdrawal from those areas.

  In a fit of anger, China demanded that control of the weapons be surrendered to them unconditionally as they were installed on Chinese property. Again Ian calmly refused, but offered to have the offending systems removed from all Chinese military assets. He also reminded the irate leaders of the impending arrival of the real enemies for which they had been given those weapons. China made an official apology to the UN, withdrew their fleets, and quietly asked Ian to repair the systems that had been damaged by their attempts to over-ride them.

  In actuality, Ian would have to have a good portion of those systems replaced. When the Chinese techs opened the control systems, they destroyed themselves.

  The event did manage to take the world's focus off North Korea and the failure of their nuclear and chemical warheads. No one noticed that the weapons had been destroyed and replaced with 'dummies' until after the attack had begun.

  The reaction of the public was somewhat less dramatic than expected. There were still riots and protests, but not on the scale the governments had feared. The public had known of the Terran Defense force for the last two years. Once that was discovered, and folks had a chance to think about what that meant, the possibility of attack became real.

  Interviews with normal citizens after knowledge of the installations went public showed that almost ninety percent of those asked believed that the government was covering up the truth about an attack. As it turned out, that opinion was shared by a good portion of the public.

  Still, there was the expected rioting, food hoarding, and increase in crime, but it was on a smaller scale. The Terran public relations people launched a huge campaign to inform the public about the enemy; who they were, what they looked like, and what was known of the reasons for the attack. They also created advertisements that warned people about approaching enemy soldiers and equipment, and what to do if they were caught outside a shelter during the attack.

  People in geologically unstable areas were encouraged to relocate, temporarily, to more stable areas. In the United States, massive shelters had been built along the east slope of the Rocky Mountains. More underground shelters had been built further inland on the east coast.

  Little could be done for island nations like Japan but the shelters had been built with extra reinforcements and stronger support equipment. Cuba, Haiti and the islands in that area also had very strong shelters built, but as many as possible were being evacuated to inland areas of other countries.

  The evacuations caused a great deal of unrest and also contributed to the crime rate. Very shortly, sever reports of Police brutality and use of excessive force against a specific former minority were made public and a huge outcry was raised. However, it was quickly and publicly shut down when not only the recorded footage of each of the incidents was also made public. In all but one case, the police officers was guilty of only doing his job, and reacted accordingly to the situation. In the two deaths that were reported, an autodoc was used to perform the autopsy.

  The first death was ruled a homicide, but not one at the hands of a police officer. The youth in question had been beaten severely just prior to the attempted arrest. The use of the stunner to detain the enraged youth did unfortunately kill him, but only as a result of the exacerbation of his existing wounds.

  The second unfortunate young woman died as a result of a heart attack due to an overdose of amphetamines. In the recorded police footage, the seventeen year old woman attacked police officers while they were trying to disperse a forming riot. The officers did not get the chance to use their stunners as the women collapsed on her own after repeatedly striking the shield of one officer with her fists and feet. Medical assistance was immediately summoned, but she was already deceased.

  In the one case of the police using excessive force, the video from the accused as well as several of other officers proved that the officer did indeed try to abuse a suspect. The officers with him did try to stop him, but he was enraged and even struck his fellow officers twice. The middle-aged Latino man was treated fro his wounds and released after it was shown he had done nothing wrong. The police officer was stripped of his badge and charged with aggravated assault and abuse of authority.

  That isn't to say there weren't other incidents with the police. Several cases of illegal search, harassment, and intimidation were documented. It was not a perfect system and adjustment
s had to be made, but it was better than the way it had been. Ideally there would be several AI assisting police in locating and removing illegal weapons, and tracking down criminals. But the resources for such a system simply weren't possible at the time.

  Some people did begin to panic when 'aliens' began to show up in public assisting the police in riot control and other large scale activities. One Montana community in the United States had been holding a mostly peaceful protest of the government when a group of more excitable individuals mistook the non-human Terran Marines as the enemy. Several civilians were injured in the resulting weapons fire before the people were subdued. Once the situation was explained to them, the group apologized, and assumed responsibility for the injured.

  The Hironian platoon leader understood the situation and, without his armor, began going around speaking to the smaller communities in the area about the Alliance and the troops sent here to help protect the planet. The group of citizens that had opened fire on the 'aliens' was only cited with reckless endangerment, misdemeanor level, and given community service.

  Of course, the entire event made global headlines and was turned into a big public relations event for the Defense Forces and the Alliance.

  The gangs in cities like New York and Los Angles were very unhappy with current events. The addition of Alliance Marines as an aid to local police all but shut down their business. Sensors in Marine armor could locate illegal substances and hidden weapons blocks away. Shoot-outs with police resulted in armored Marines simply walking up to the gang members and stunning them, even as the gang-banger was shooting at them. The police that had been fighting them for years thought it was a hoot, the gang leaders disagreed and began buying black-market RPGs and grenades.

  They quickly discovered that heavier weapons had as much affect on the armor as a hand gun. However, once they used the explosives for the first time, the Marines went on the offensive to get the military grade weapons off the streets. The increase in arrests quickly over-whelmed the prison system. There simply was not enough room for all the suspects being arrested.