Powell’s wife and daughter had everyday lives to live and so did Romero’s wife and kids. Their work kept them busy and preoccupied their minds most of the time. This was no place for people without purpose. No place for family life. It was functional and uncomfortable to the uninitiated. Ultimately, it was a hole under the ground of an alien moon which, only remained by the skill and grit of the Outcast defenders. No, they would need to choose carefully before beckoning their loved-ones on a one-way trip to this place. And to do it, at the moment, they’d need to pull rank; all FTL-gate capacity was being used for shipping men and materiel to Exelon and onwards to Gaia via the smuggling network. Pulling ranking was something their sense of integrity would simply not allow – for the moment, anyway. The decision for Powell and Romero to escape to Exelon had been debated endlessly, despite their deputies doing sterling work in their absence and the constant communication. In hindsight, it seemed knee-jerk to some, but the counter arguments were strong. The alliance with Outcasts had been, and still was, the only possible route to victory and those allies truly appreciated humanity sending such important dignitaries. A strong alliance of mutual interest had been formed with the Outcasts. The mandate from a cooperative opposition in Washington and WGA allies had enabled Powell to make decisions with executive freedom. Efficiency was imperative because the clock was ticking. The asteroid meant that time was not on their side. Without intervention, in less than five months, the 10km-wide 375 Nemesis would smash into the Earth with devastating effect. Nothing had changed since the Korgax had altered its course and they were still the only ones with the power to avert the oncoming disaster. It was a key part of their grand strategy and they had proven themselves adept at manipulating human policy and action. Their murderous attack on the city of Kota Kinabalu during the opening speech of the UN Summit on Tropical Population Resettlement did two things. If there was any doubt in people's minds about the true nature of the enemy before the attack then it was surely dispelled. Secondly, some argued, that without it no deal would have been likely at the UN Summit. Distasteful as this line of reasoning was, considering the loss of so many lives, it was probably true. As it was, fifty-four nations had committed to taking in refugees from the Tropical regions. That was the first topic for President Powell and Defence Secretary Romero on Exelon and Vice President Blake Jefferson at Groom Lake AFB.
Powell heard the door swish open and in walked Romero, alone, apologising for his lateness. He’d had a fruitful meeting with General Rafai on the coalition field control structure once LG-Day had begun. Keen to get started, Powell secured a connection to the counterpart EQP transceiver with VP Jefferson on Earth.
“Stephen, Diego, good to hear your voices,” started Jefferson. “Unless there’s anything urgent from your side I’ll get straight into my update; this one’s a biggie, there’s a lot cover.”
“Sure, Blake, go on ahead,” answered Powell.
“Right, first an update on the resettlement from the Tropics. Our pledge was to process 100,000 a month, with a total cap of 4.5 million. That means forty-five months to get every evacuee into society. We’ll probably only get through 350,000 before the asteroid collision date. Of course we’re assuming our show of action will satisfy our erstwhile lords and masters,” he said, bitterly.
“And other nations? I have from a previous discussion there were a total of fifty-four countries which pledged. What do the numbers say now and how are well do we think they’ll actually fulfil their obligations?” asked Powell.
“That’s correct: fifty-four nations. It’s a mixed bag, but, numbers-wise, there are 3.75 billion people that need moving in total. Now, not all of them either want to move or will actually get registered in time – mainly due to the remoteness of many settlements. Not to mention the terrible administrations that run many parts of the Tropics. The UN thinks the 3.75 billion becomes more like 1.9 billion after accounting for these two factors, and criminals who are ineligible. If you do the math it doesn’t look good…”
“Go on...”
“We struggled to get 4.5 million agreed in the US and we’re one of the bigger nations in terms of land area and capacity to take people in. If you look at it simply, 1.9 billion into fifty-four countries is about 35 million each. And remember, many of these countries are smaller than us. Total pledges are no more than 120 million so far,” sighed Jefferson, exasperated by the impossible task the enemy had forced on them.
“Many affected governments in the Tropics are now officially advising citizens to disperse into the countryside and take up arms. Some of the more coherent administrations are organising internal resettlement. They’re also distributing weapons and giving their citizenry guerrilla warfare training. If the Korgax want this planet, they’re going to have to fight for it acre-by-acre,” said Jefferson.
“Blake, we always knew that our efforts were not going to be enough to save all of them. We just need to hope that it’s enough to convince the Korgax that we’re playing ball,” replied Powell.
“Amen to that one,” said Jefferson.
“Let’s move onto research,” said Powell, sighing.
“FTL gate research is progressing nicely,” started Jefferson, as he went on to describe what he’d learnt earlier during his tour of the underground lab at Groom Lake.
“So you’re saying +/- 5km accuracy to Gaia and +/-1km to near-Earth space? Am I understanding that correctly?” asked Powell, with Romero listening intently, clearly holding back an overdue question.
“Why haven’t we heard about these numbers before? That’s an uncertainty we can start to work with! I mean, we could send through assets to Gaia itself, couldn’t we?” asked Romero, fired up more than Powell had seen him in some time.
“The new uncertainty figures are pretty recent and the R&D boys don’t like to overpromise without enough hard data. On whether we can transit through assets: that is something that needs to be thought about next, yes. We’re certainly entering that realm of possibility...” replied Jefferson as Romero, in his enthusiasm, interrupted.
“Obviously, we’re only taking air or space assets here if the precision is +/- 5km; I know we have literally nothing of a space force left – nothing that can put up a fight, anyway. So what are the thoughts with aircraft? Achieving air strike capability for LG-Day would be decisive, even if air superiority over Gaia is out of reach,” said Romero, turning to see who was entering the room. It was Christina Frewer, Deputy Science Chief. She hesitated as if requesting permission to stay. Powell waved her in, smiling. She sat on her mattress as unobtrusively as possible and listened to the call.
“It’s something that’s top of the Joint Chiefs’ agenda for tomorrow and the coming weeks. I know our allies are going to be made aware of this progress shortly too. Let’s see what they come up with.”
“Sure,” said Romero, “we’ll discuss this side too. What’s the latest on the nuclear programme?” asked Romero, referring to the number of man-portable nuclear devices they’d so-far managed to produce. These would be vital for LG-Day.
“The numbers are disappointing. Supply chains and strategic stocks were severely disrupted by the attacks, as you know, Diego. They’ve managed 312 units so far out of the 2,000 needed on the ground for LG-Day,” reported Jefferson.
“Wow. That is poor, especially considering there’s an assumed two-month lead time to smuggle them from Earth to Gaia. There’s going to be a major shortfall I’m afraid, Blake,” lamented Romero.
“Yes, there is, and I’m told there’s nothing much they can do about it. They’re going as fast as they can and that includes all WGA nations capable of producing them going at full production rate.”
“We need to find another way. It may be a matter of making the air asset thing work to supplement the backpack nuke shortfall,” speculated Romero.
“The news is similar on the battledroid front: production is lagging. Pretty much the same reasons: compromised supply chains, over ambitious targets…”
“
At least things are looking better this side with regard to covert troop numbers in place on Gaia already. We have 2,352 Special Forces troops now in place, complementing 5,250 Outcast troops. It would have been 2,356, but one patrol has not reported in now for two weeks and are officially MIA,” said Romero, voice turning deadly serious.
“The implications of this are serious, but not totally unexpected,” said Powell, wanting to highlight the issue.
“Yes, this is very serious. Any time we lose any of our people it’s a cause for concern of course, but it’s been doubly so ever since the Guardian-Impostor attack here that killed McIver and Wilke. The fear is the missing patrol has been captured and implanted with the enemy mind-control technology. We’ve already updated everyone here on the individuals’ identities. You need to make sure that every person and system in the WGA is gazetted on the four lost men or they could cause a lot of damage. Remember, these are US Army Rangers that are missing, not your average Joes,” said Romero.
“I believe command is already on it and all the necessary alerts have gone out. But I’ll double-check and make sure of it personally.”
Christina put up her hand and looked to Romero and Powell for permission to speak as if in school. Powell nodded – permission granted.
“I just came back from the Outcast lab. They’ve now completed their final autopsy on the sole live soldier from the Guardian-Impostor attack. They tried to remove the implant and save him, but were unsuccessful. It seems that the chip grows thousands of tendrils, weaving into the structure of the victim’s brain. These things are the thickness of a human hair and impossible to remove even with the Outcasts’ advanced nano-surgery techniques. I might not be able to do any better on Earth. So the bottom line is that until we can find a cure we need to view any affected individuals as the enemy,” she said.
“Thank you for the update, Christina. We’ve got to be on alert for impostors and ensure our troops know about them. Then their rules of engagement are to capture if it does not endanger themselves or friendlies, otherwise to shoot to kill. No different to any other enemy,” summarised Romero.
“While we’re on the subject of captured humans, we now have the identities of the three dead that Sorensen found on Gaia. We ran the skin samples he recovered through every DNA database we have access to and drew a blank. It took them a while, but the Australians got back to us yesterday. Turns out the three men found on Gaia were Aboriginals that went missing from a remote Outback town two months ago. They weren’t in the DNA database, so it took some detective work by the Australian Police to find them,” said Jefferson.
“Makes sense I suppose – remote place, easy for the Korgax to abduct unseen. It’s a worrying development though,” said Powell, his tone betraying the stress he was feeling over this emerging new front.
“You’re right, and for two reasons. Firstly, the fact that they can take these three guys undetected shows how badly our air defence radars and other sensors were compromised by their attacks. These three Aussies are, with no disrespect, nobodies – so the damage they could have done with their minds chipped was limited. Staff with security clearance, politicians and military – like the squad that’s gone MIA on Gaia – is of far more concern. But they didn’t take the three Aussies for mind control, as the skin samples have revealed to us.”
“So why were they taken?” asked Powell.
“The skin samples Sorensen recovered contained traces of an unknown nerve agent. The Korgax were using them to experiment on with chemical weapons.”
Both sides of the call went silent for what seemed like much longer than the several seconds it actually was. This revelation put a new and sinister perspective on the ruthlessness of the enemy. Obviously, the Korgax were not human, but the depth of their inhumanity was, nevertheless, unsettling. Conversely, thought Powell as he regarded the foe, the strategies they were considering were things that human regimes had considered many times in the past. And are we any better? We went straight for the WMDs, using a nuke to prevent them getting the FTL-drive, he thought. He was referring to the unsuccessful Operation Rapid Denial, in which they destroyed the base, thought to be holding the downed Santa Maria probe’s FTL drive. The Outcasts, by contrast, could have taught humanity a thing or two about morality, having vetoed the suggested use of chemical and biological weapons on Gaia. However, some use of nuclear weapons was inevitable if they were to win the war. Nothing else they had in their arsenal could pack a punch big enough to make up for what they lacked in troop numbers and heavy weapons on the enemy home world.
Romero spoke first. “Troops on Gaia will already have battlesuits which are fully rated for this type of threat, although we’ll have the new agent tested on the suits as a precaution. We’ll need to ensure all military and essential staff in the WGA are issued with the right equipment for this threat.”
“The concern is the general population,” remarked Powell.
“Yes, and we’ve had Homeland security and our allies’ counterpart agencies dig out what chemical attack civil defence plans they have. We’ll need to do what we can, but there are no guarantees. The enemy are dangerous on so many fronts: space dominance, their ground invasion build-up, the mind-control stuff and the asteroid. We’re so stretched in so many areas that we can't do it all,” said an exasperated Jefferson.
“That’s why we need to hit them hard on their home world and, while they’re busy dealing with it, divert the asteroid,” replied Romero with steely resolve, as he detected the first signs of defeatism creep into Jefferson’s words.
“Let’s get onto the asteroid diversion plan next. How did talks with the British go?” asked Powell.
The British Special Space Service would supply two of the four-man squad that would deal with the asteroid. The other two would be Outcast technicians. The basic plan was to take out the escorting destroyer with a fleet of fighter drones jumped from Exelon. Next, they’d commandeer the Korgax thrusters on the asteroid and reactivate them – the same thrusters they’d used to nudge it onto a collision course with Earth. The Outcasts were adamant that they knew enough about Korgax technology to get past security protocols and use the thrusters to divert the asteroid. The fate of the Earth would be in their hands as the effects of the approaching apocalypse became more pronounced with every passing week. Relying on the Outcasts this way brought a new meaning to the word trust. The asteroid – 375 Nemesis – was now clearly visible with many of the more powerful amateur telescopes. On its present course, it would grow to be a looming presence, even with the naked eye. Behaviours had already changed because of the threat. Inflation had ran amok in many countries; even in more stable economies it was the highest it had been in generations. The gold price had gone up too, but less than many analysts had predicted. Buyers were in two distinct camps: those that still saw it as a safe haven if a post-apocalyptic society developed, and those that figured there was no safe haven once the asteroid hit. Consumer spending had skyrocketed, as no one bothered saving and more and more people just lived for the day. Absenteeism was rife as people spent more time doing the things they loved and spending time with friends and family. Property prices – particularly in cities, and even more so in Tropical cities – had collapsed. The fear of further attacks from the enemy fleet in orbit weighed on everyone’s minds after Kota Kinabalu. Many of these once bustling, crowded metropolises were now eerily quiet. It was almost as if the apocalypse had already arrived. Sprawling refugee camps had sprung up at borders all across the world as the masses tried to flee tropical countries of their own accord. There was no way out for most of them and many would perish – in the camps or in the violence that was bound to ensue. With humans seen by the enemy as little more than vermin, the future was bleak for hundreds of millions of men, women and children.
“The talk with the Brits went well. They’ve confirmed the availability of Captain Buick and Sergeant Hart – two of the men that went to Gaia. If anyone can make Operation Pinball work, these guys can,” concl
uded Jefferson, referring to asteroid diversion plan.
With so many facets to this problem, Powell felt his head starting to spin with all the permutations and combinations. Once they’d clicked off and he had a minute to think, sitting on his mattress, his logical mind took over. It told him there were still two priorities above all else – win the battle for Gaia and divert the asteroid. Everything else was secondary. The latter had a defined plan with only the details to work. On the taking of Gaia: he had to admit, reluctantly, that there was no winning plan yet. All the simulations showed only one outcome: a heavy defeat for the human-Outcast alliance. In truth, he wasn’t fully sold on the asteroid plan. What they needed was a knockout blow, but unfortunately, neither President Powell nor anyone else seemed to know where it would come from.
***
Later that evening they had some rare downtime after tolerating the latest attempt at making the Outcast cuisine more appetising to human taste buds. The three so-called VIPs – Powell, Romero and Christina – shared their quarters with the two secret servicemen who were quietly shooting the shit in the corner, while playing cards. The Outcast food was bland and unvarying. It usually consisted of some sort of alien seafood with a seaweed-like vegetable and something akin to edible sponge. They were told by their hosts that it was because of the lack of biodiversity on the artificially-created habitat in the caves of Exelon. They’d populated the water-filled underground cave network on the otherwise cold, wispy-atmosphere planet with as many species as they could preserve when fleeing Gaia. Geothermal heating kept the cave water hot to the point where they actually needed to cool it down lest they boil in it. Apparently many of the delicacies from their homeworld of Gaia were not sustainable there. That was another, more practical reason, for them wanting their planet back, thought Powell, as he washed the aftertaste of the seaweed down with some water.
The Vassal World (The First Exoplanet Book 2) Page 12