The Hot Gate: Troy Rising III-ARC

by John Ringo

“Two things,” Tyler said. “Both based upon trust. One, the groups that are starting to be used for the battlestations, the countries from which they derive, their motivations, have been questioned by other countries. Such was the case, officially, about Troy. ‘Instead of Horvath owning the orbitals, it’s the dangerous Americans.’ Unofficially, we were given every green light except by the Russians and the Chinese. Because when it comes down to reality, you gentlemen know very well that you trust us to fight and die as hard as possible to protect the solar system. And you also trust us not to use that power to dominate directly. We don’t say ‘Send us stuff or we’ll drop a rock on Santiago.’ Do we, Doctor Werden?”

  “No,” Werden said. “On the other hand...”

  “On the other hand we do throw our weight around rather aggressively when it comes to trade,” Tyler said. “And we do tend to tinker in other people’s governments. Wish we wouldn’t. However, two points have been expressed, quietly but definitively by various countries. The first is that, especially after the MASSEX, very few countries other than your own feel that you are capable of defending the solar system.”

  “That is...” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “An insult?” Tyler asked. “How about a rational examination of the facts at hand, Mister Foreign Minister? Then there is the fact that Argentina, Chile and El Salvador, primarily, have at their fingertips a fleet of boats which are capable of dropping an invasion force into Brazil, say, has come up, very quietly, as a very real and serious, not for the cameras at all, point of concern.”

  “We would never...” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “I know that,” Tyler said. “Among other things...still not exactly omnipotent in that area and you can’t get them to fly at all. Also, I trust that you would never do that. But other countries are less trusting. Giving South America it’s own, mobile mind you, battle station? Especially select South American countries? I do, you see, pay attention to politics, Doctor Barreiro.”

  “So it is out of the question,” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “No,” Tyler said. “I said I thought it was a good idea.”

  “Sir, with respect,” Admiral Duvall said. “I doubt you could get any traction. That is not a definitive policy statement of Alliance Navy, but from the point of view of my department, that is the official position based upon the experiences of the One-Four-Three.”

  “Due to the purely mechanical aspects,” Tyler said.

  “Yes, sir,” Duvall said. “That is the only department on which I can make a definite statement, sir. But it is definite. I believe you used the word unpersuasible. As would be department of tactics and department of astronautics.”

  “You don’t think we can do it,” Dr. Palencia said, nastily.

  “Cultural, gentlemen,” Tyler said, raising a hand. “Trust is the word. In your culture, trust, to the extent it truly exists, is based upon relationships. Would you agree to that statement in a non-binding but generally positive fashion, Doctor Barreiro? You know someone for a long time, they are generally an ally socially and therefore you can generally trust them to act in a manner in support of your position?”

  “Yes,” the Foreign Minister said.

  “Doctor Werden?”

  “I believe that statement has some validity, Mister Vernon.”

  “Then try to understand that in North American, and by that I mean what is generally meant by Norte, blanco, gringo if you will, culture, relationships are based upon trust. That may sound like a simple rephrase but it is as completely opposite as you can get. Especially when I add ‘proven trust.’ Experience of actions which prove that a person or group can be trusted. I would have you gentlemen really apply your, unquestionably fine, minds to that statement. Especially given the request you have posed to me. Relationships are based upon trust.”

  Dr. Velasquez leaned over and whispered in Dr. Werden’s ear.

  “So you are saying that any relationship between you and we is impossible because we have not proven we can be trusted,” Dr. Werden said.

  “You have, in fact, proven you cannot be,” Tyler said, nudging another file. “I would rather trust the French. And that is saying something.”

  “Then why are you, generally, in support of the premise?” Dr. Palencia asked.

  “Because,” Tyler said, grinning. “I am going to request that the Alliance give you an opportunity to prove yourselves. To regain trust.”

  “Sir, this is a purely internal military matter,” Admiral Duvall said. “While I respect your prominent position...”

  “Admiral,” Tyler said, holding up his hand. “I don’t have the way, yet, but I have an inkling. There’s something there. But I will only present that recommendation if I have a reasonable method of action. Does that, temporarily, satisfy your department’s position on this matter?”

  “Not unless there is a reasonable method of action,” Admiral Duvall said.

  “You are saying that your department is going to recommend...what exactly?” General Barcena asked.

  “The recommendation is not final,” Admiral Duvall said. “But based upon a hot-wash analysis of the inspection conducted post MASSEX and the maintenance issues found thereof, it is the general opinion of my department that the entire group of personnel are liable for the failure. There are personnel issues involved as well which are under review. However, it is the general tenor, of all departments involved as well as initial findings of meetings among policy makers, that the One-Four-Three as currently formed does not meet the conditions of ‘of Alliance standards’ under the Alliance Treaty and that, therefore, supplying countries are in violation of the Alliance Treaty.”

  “WHAT?” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “I was going to wait until one of the later meetings to present that initial hot-wash,” Admiral Duvall said. “But I was specifically charged to present the initial findings given the nature of the persons here gathered. Bottom-line, Mister Foreign Minister and Mister Foreign Minister, your personal interference and the interference of your government in normal military affairs have rendered the sole personnel and material your countries have supplied to the Alliance as unfit for operation. Ergo, you are not meeting ‘Alliance Standards.’ Ergo, absent rectification of these items your countries are not qualified for Alliance membership.”

  “We have poured out the treasure of our nations...” Dr. Werden said, stunned.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Tyler said. “It’s not even in the fine print. What you supply doesn’t matter. It has to be useable. Your units have to be able to fight. They can’t. They are not meeting standard.”

  Tyler sighed and leaned forward.

  “Gentlemen, you represent specific countries,” Tyler said. “The Alliance is charged with defending a good part of the world. In reality, the whole world and our solar system. In a very real war that has had enormous casualties.”

  “What Mister Vernon is saying,” Admiral Duvall said. “And what the Secretary of State will be saying again, in informal situations, is that this isn’t about diplomacy. This is about protecting the world. And if you do not meet the standards, you do not meet the standard. We have to be able to trust you to be there when we need you. And as Mister Vernon pointed out, you’ve failed that trust. The Alliance is, yes, primarily based upon US and Anglosphere countries. We like you in a general ‘they seem like nice people’ sort of way. But if you can’t have our back in a space battle, and your people have proven they don’t, then we’re not going to just let you slide.”

  “We paid for those shuttles!” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “And you’ll be paid back,” Admiral Duvall said. “Less negotiable expenses for the repairs that will be necessary due to lack of maintenance. Which are going to be hefty. We’ll try to sort out which are Apollo’s and probably fudge somewhere in the middle and the American taxpayer will eat it.”

  “Fudge some in our direction, too,” Tyler said. “I’ll tell my people not to geek.”

  “Thank you,” the Admiral said. “But the shuttle
s will be turned over to another group. One which can maintain them and fight them. One we can trust.”

  “And that, gentlemen, I would prefer to avoid,” Tyler said.

  “It is pretty far down the road, Mister Vernon,” Admiral Duvall said. “Quite frankly, if the Secretary sees one more missive from the State Department about EM Parker he has threatened to drop a rock on Buenos Aires and blame the Rangora. That is a joke, I hope you understand, Doctor Barreiro.”

  “One in very poor taste!” the Foreign Minister replied, hotly.

  “I don’t know how to fix this but strangely enough I want to,” Tyler said.

  “Why?” Dr. Palencia asked. “Your opinion of us, and our sons, is fairly evident.”

  “Is it?” Tyler said. “One more time and with feeling. I FLEW UP HERE ON A SHUTTLE MAINTAINED BY YOUR SON!”

  “One which your friend, Parker, was the division chief,” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “Oh, hell, yeah,” Tyler replied, leaning back. “Seriously. I’m surprised you were willing to fly on them at all. I knew it was Parker’s Division. One of a half dozen reasons that I asked for her. Because she wasn’t going to fly on shuttles she didn’t know were safe. Trust, again. I trusted her because she’d earned it. She’d proven herself again and again. Seriously. Think about it. You all know the true condition of the One-Four-Three and you all know why it exists. You say different because admitting fault in Latin cultures is tantamount to suicide. But you had to have some trepidation about getting into a shuttle that was maintained by the One-Four-Three.”

  “They assumed that since they were transporting DPs, special care would be taken,” Admiral Duvall said. “I think that the Ambassador waited until just before the shuttles landed to hint that that had not been the case. The Secretary wanted to send some from Alpha Flight.”

  “Point being?” Dr. Werden asked.

  “I would have developed a sudden stomach flu,” Admiral Benito said. “And recommended that you do the same, Foreign Minister.”

  “Effectively, it was,” Tyler said. “I wasn’t going to ride on one unless Parker said it was good.”

  “Because she is your friend,” Barreiro pointed out.

  “No,” Tyler said, sighing. “Try, again, to understand my culture. She is my friend because I admire her. I admire her because when she says something, you know it’s rock hard truth. And you had to have been there when she did her comet across the main bay. Video just doesn’t cut it.”

  “You don’t remove someone from an alliance,” General Barcena said. “It’s simply...not done. Everyone needs allies.”

  “We’re sort of down to bedrock,” Admiral Duvall said, sighing. “This isn’t about establishing and maintaining international relations. This is about survival of Terra. And, yes, survival of the United States and Canada and Britain and Germany and Japan and Australia who are the primary Alliance partners. The State Department has input on Alliance membership but the final call is the Department of Defense. We want everyone we can in this Alliance. But if you can’t cut the mustard, you don’t play.”

  She looked over at Vernon and shrugged.

  “Doctor Barreiro, Doctor Werden,” Tyler said. “Have you ever played football. What we Americans call soccer?”

  “Much,” Dr. Werden said.

  “As well,” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “You are in a football game when the game is tied and you’re in the last minutes,” Tyler said. “The enemy has the ball on your end of the field. You can bring new players on the field. Do you bring on someone who can play really well or the kid who can’t figure out which end is the goal?”

  “That was just insulting!” Dr. Barreiro said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” Admiral Duvall replied. “We’re about done producing the first Constitution for the Thermopylae. The decision has already been made that it’s going to a Japanese crew, not the Argentinean which was notionally considered. Most of the flotilla will be Japanese. The One-Four-Three is scheduled to be demobilized, temporarily, refurbished by Apollo and then turned over to a Thai unit. Essentially the Thermopylae will be moving to an all Asian, not South American, battlestation.”

  “And we will be told, ‘thank you very much for playing but you’re not good enough, goodbye,’ ” Dr. Barreiro said, angrily.

  “Yes,” Admiral Duvall said. “In prettier diplomatic language. Again, this is a decision of DOD not State. And the only thing that DOD cares about is ‘can you defend the solar system.’ The proven answer is: No. The President is in concurrence.”

  “Unless we can turn them around,” Tyler said.

  “I...” Admiral Duvall said then stopped. “Do you have a specific proposal?”

  “Not at this time,” Tyler said. “But I hope to have one by the end of this series of conferences. Obviously, the agendas are now moot. But I would strongly suggest that we continue as we have been going. If I can come up with a recommendation which meets your approval and SecNavs, we can pretend this meeting never happened.”

  “What would you recommend for the rest of the week?” Dr. Werden asked. “We do have other duties.”

  “The simple answer will sound insulting,” Tyler said.

  “What is one more insult?” Dr. Barreiro asked.

  “Then I would recommend that you gentlemen let myself and my people give you as much of a class on the necessities of survival in space as is possible in the next few days,” Tyler said. “This problem isn’t actually cultural. Or rather, the solution has to ignore culture. Space isn’t about culture except in the negative. Space is a binary solution set. You only have to breathe vacuum once to realize that at a very real emotional level.”

  “I do not intend to let any of these ministers breathe vacuum,” General Barcena said.

  “Not what I meant,” Tyler replied. “Wolf is a mass of space industry. You guys want to know what it takes to really survive in space, this is the place. And the gas mine is very freaking cool. Heck, I’d strongly recommend going over to the shuttles for not just a meet and greet, isn’t this neat, but spend time with your sons and your subordinate’s sons seeing what they do. And asking them why they do it. Try to understand that if the US military had the same cultural approach, we would be unable to do this. We’d have the whole squadron of boats deadlined.”

  “We have had similar situations in the past,” Duvall said. “Ships that simply were not up to snuff. Maintenance is a major issue in water Navy as well.”

  “What did you do?” Tyler asked.

  “Canned everyone in a position to affect the overall running of the ship,” Duvall said. “Starting with the captain and working down. Complete retrain for the crew. Usually complete replacement of the senior NCOs and chain of command. Napoleon said it best with a little paraphrase. There are no bad ships. There are only bad officers and NCOs. Which, for political and cultural reasons, is very difficult to do in South American countries.”

  “What gets me is, I know that Argentineans and Chileans can do this!” Tyler said, waving his hands in the air. “We buy some very high end parts from you guys! Stuff that’s hard to make and has to be perfect! And it is! You make great stuff! You can’t make them if you don’t pay attention to detail! You can do this! Why can’t you do it in the One-Four-Three? These are your ‘best and brightest,’ right?”

  “Finding such people is...extremely difficult,” Admiral Benito said.

  “Do you think we send every starry-eyed kid who comes to a recruiting station into space, Admiral?” Duvall said, chuckling. “Failure rate in A school for space based operations is right at sixty percent.”

  “Ditto here,” Tyler said. “About the same fail rate at Apollo’s training center. And most of the people applying are Americans so it’s not racist.”

  “Which is why we’d really prefer not to have to remove people from the Alliance,” Admiral Duvall said. “This isn’t World War Two and masses of conscripts help. The US, Canada, Australia, cannot supply enough force. We need the bodies. And the mone
y. But warm bodies won’t do it. We need, absolutely require for survival, people who can do the jobs. Sorry.”

  “So you will send our sons home in disgrace,” Dr. Velasquez said, quietly.

  “Disgrace is cultural,” Admiral Duvall said, shrugging. “From one of my briefings on the subject, it would appear that an inability to perform ‘minor mechanical work’ is anything but a disgrace in your culture. Quite the opposite. That being said, everyone in Parker’s division we’d be willing to retain. Which just says that it’s actually Parker. But there’s no form for that. Your son has passed the review with flying colors, Under Minister. And Under Minister. They’re boats are as close to perfect as you could wish. I understand from the same briefing that that is potentially a liability in their home culture. Which, from our POV, sort of says it all.”

  EIGHTEEN

  “Parker, MOGs.”

  “Yes, sir?” Dana said.

  With the afternoon conference cancelled, Parker wasn’t going to have her little sheep wandering adrift. As soon as they got the word it was definitely cancelled, she rounded them up and had them in the boats faster than you could say Preventative Maintenance Checks and Services. She’d sent Palencia over to Boat One, under the supervision of the Chief, while she worked on Twenty-Three and Velasquez took Twenty-Four.

  “Afternoon reschedule now explained,” DiNote commed. “We’re doing a dog and pony. Bring Twenty-Three into Bay One, Twenty-Four into Bay Two. The ministers and muckety mucks are going to ‘observe maintenance operations.’ ”

  “Oh, joy,” Dana said. “Twenty-Three to Bay One, aye. Twenty-Four to Bay Two, aye.”

  “Palencia and Velasquez are to do the dog and pony,” DiNote said. “Which, by order, is to ‘perform initial portion of thirty day standard checks and service.’ Benito and Mutant will stand by in the flight compartments to explain flight operations. You and Thermal will stand by in the cargo zone to explain maintenance issues and general operations. The ministers are anticipated to be present for up to two hours.”

  “That’s a pretty long dog and pony, sir,” Dana said, frowning.