by Don Koch
"We have 12 of the Grell carrier class ships and all of those have been upgraded to Lota standards and cloaking capability. The same is true for 6 of the battleships and 10 of the destroyers. We will continue to work on the remaining ships to see what we can make of them."
"That is great. Now we need to do some planning to see who goes with each task force and get them ready to go. Nikolay and Anya will be in charge of the Task Force A to the Grell fleet. Paulo and Rosa will be second for Earth with Fass and Ela for Lota. You will have six cloaked carriers, six cloaked Battleships and four cloaked destroyers. Your goal is to herd them on to Grell. Go out and shadow the Grell until you hear from the ship we are sending to the Grell System. From there, play it as you see it but do not let them continue on to Fair. If they are lying to us about any of this, they forfeit their retention of the two carriers and the three battleships. The reason we are sending so many ships with you is that our ships have been rigged to couple with a ship of like size and propel the linked ships at our current maximum speed. Once coupled, the cloaking covers both coupled ships. I want considerable fire power with this task force because I want the Grell military confined to their planet."
"The second task force going out is Task Force B to search for survivors at Lota. That will be led by Sider and Fema with Ed and Janie in second. They leave in two days."
"This may sound like a lot to do with limited resources, but I believe that we can do even more with exactly what we have. I have also been loading each of our operations with more ships and personnel than we likely need to perform each task. That comes under the better safe than sorry heading and will continue until I am satisfied that we can do more with fewer resources. That time is coming, but in the meantime we are learning what we can do with what we have."
Chapter 23 - Distractions
# Earth Orbit on the Solaran Ship Aston #
# Tuesday, August 9 #
“Aston, have we had anymore terrorist action or do things seem to have quieted down a bit?”
"Well that is annoying. I guess it is time to put a halt to their little game. Time for a visit. Who represents the most immediate threat?"
"Is he under investigation?"
“It seems to me that maybe a visit of the normal kind is not what is needed here. He needs to be treated more like our ‘Capos South of the Border’. We need to focus on his vulnerabilities and send him a real message that he can understand. One that will be felt in his pocketbook. I am assuming that there are no outstanding warrants for any actions for which he has been personally involved.”
“What about his minions?”
“I thought it might be. Let’s start packaging these minions up and delivering them to the appropriate authorities. Let’s do it unseen with sufficient evidence attached to leave no question as to who they are and why they are there as well as who they work for. Also, I want his computers searched. If he has any data on any computer about our people, I want it wiped. Same for backups. Anything we find on his computers relating to his misdeeds, I want shared with the SEC, the IRS, the FBI, any agency to whom it is useful. I want him and all his cronies tagged so they can’t lie about what they are doing. That should get his attention. What about number two on the list?”
“Let’s do the same with him as with Mr. Petruzzi. Remove his henchmen with warrants where we can and put the alphabet soup of Federal agencies on his tail. In addition, do the same with his computers. Can we change his access to those foreign accounts? Freeze them so he can not access them?”
“What about his US holdings?”
“Well let’s not play favorites. Let’s use the same treatment for both. I think it would be interesting to see what happens if some of their secure e-mails were to be delivered to the same Federal agencies.”
“I was thinking that Jim Cody would enjoy this one along with George Carter, Richard Clark and Irene Clark. That gives us a cop and three attorneys, two of whom have RICO expertise. I think that Fred Larson would be a good choice for his Economics expertise and finish the team with Mom, her management expertise should round off the team nicely. Jim may want some others and that is OK I would prefer that this not point back to us too visibly. I would like to see us push harder and faster than these guys can keep up with.”
“What of the third party?”
“I wonder what Chairman Sing would have to say about that?”
“You are of course correct.”
A minute later the eight Solarans were in the Premier’s office. Chairman Sing commented,
The Chairman reacted immediately,