by Jay Allan
“If I could predict the nature of the adversary, rest assured we would already be meeting the threat. You believe we’ve thought of everything. But the real danger is, as it has been since the dawn of history, the enemy we cannot predict. This is what I seek always to defend against.”
Alamatto placed both palms on the table and pressed into it in an attempt to reassert control over the meeting. “You both raise valid concerns which we must weigh alongside other considerations.”
He paused to grace the table with a smooth smile; the poised, confident yet nonthreatening countenance ranked as one of his strongest assets.
“In my view the defense web is sufficiently strong for the time being, but mine is not the only opinion which matters. Are there any further observations, or shall we vote on the initiative?”
*
Deucali: Earth Alliance SW Regional Military Headquarters
General Liam O’Connell barreled down the hall from the QEC room toward his office. His nods to the junior officers he passed, when they occurred at all, were curt. The base headquarters bustled with activity even on this most typical of days; nevertheless, the crowd unfailingly parted to let his tall, burly form pass unhindered.
The Board meeting had gone well he thought. Personally he wasn’t all that worked up over the need for additional high-orbit defense arrays, but as a power play he must admit it was a shrewd maneuver.
Fionava seemed to be genuinely concerned by potential dangers from the frontiers of space beyond its borders. This world wasn’t subject to those concerns to so great an extent, but he was more than happy to join their cause if it meant greater resources and increased influence would come his way.
Deucali was one of the largest ‘Second Wave’ colonies, and its population continued to grow. With each passing year it exercised greater control over the smaller settlements in the Province. The colony’s star was on the ascension, no question about it. Without slowing he barked an order at a passing Lieutenant regarding the unfinished upgrades to the QEC room.
Alamatto was a weak-willed pussy. His entire career had been based on nothing more than the military establishment’s respect for his father—but were he alive, the elder Alamatto would be mortified by his excuse for a son. Solovy could be a royal pain in the ass, but she was little more than a pencil pusher; if she had ever seen live combat it had been back in the Bronze Age. As for the remainder of the Board, they weren’t worth wasting energy over.
At a crossway he abruptly stopped and pivoted to face the young man traversing the opposite hall. “Corporal, did your babysitter teach you to tuck your shirt in like that? Sharpen those creases before I lay eyes on you again, son.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
He had turned and moved on before the Corporal managed to stutter out the reply.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. The Northeastern Regional Commander, Rychen, was an obstacle waiting to happen. He oversaw the region closest to Senecan space, which alone made him a significant player. Granted, he also had won numerous medals in the Crux War, was respected by his peers and by all accounts was a shining beacon of honor and integrity. The man was without a doubt dangerous. But for the moment their interests were aligned, so Liam played nice.
He waved off a couple of officers trying to vie for his attention, strode into his office and closed the door behind him. In an earlier time it would have slammed, but doors didn’t do such things anymore. A shame, really.
After a quick sip of water he shifted his focus to the series of flashing files on his desk overlay. He evaluated, assigned and dispatched them with brutal efficiency, pausing only to scowl at the status update on the construction of the new sim training complex. He personally preferred old-school live fire exercises—sim training produced weak-willed soldiers like Alamatto—but the decision came straight from the politicians. No actual action required, he sent it on its way.
His scowl vanished at the next item; in the privacy of his office, it morphed into a smug smile. The Annual Founding Day Parade was next week. The entire 1st Deucali Brigade would be out in their dress blues, proudly showing what it meant to be an Earth Alliance Marine. It never failed to bring a tear to his eye to march through the streets at the head of his men. Though the Public Relations Staff Commander was responsible for the preparations, he had taken an active oversight role. He scheduled a meeting for 0700 the next morning to review the state of readiness.
The voice of his secretary interrupted his train of thought. “Sir, Commander Bradlen has arrived for your meeting.”
With a grimace he closed the various screens and straightened his jacket. “Send him in.”
An upstart lad, Bradlen had risen quickly in the ranks due to an overabundance of competence. He returned the salute of the young Commander. “At ease.”
“Yes, sir.” Bradlen sat down across the desk and opened a series of screens between them. “I’ve uploaded the latest supply reports and inventories as well as the shipment schedule for the next three months.”
He paused while O’Connell accessed the files. “As you can see, we’ll receive a new shipment of test drones next week, along with the new ware for the existing high-orbit defense array. I heard a rumor we were getting another array soon, sir. Any chance it’s true?”
Liam smiled thinly, the curl of his lips not otherwise impacting his expression. “I’m afraid that’s classified for now.”
“My mistake. Um, about the ware for the array…Earth says it’s ready for deployment, but I assume you’ll want it tested thoroughly first, sir?”
“You assume correctly, Commander.”
“Understood. I’ll arrange for it to be routed through Configuration/Testing before Implementation Services gets their hands on it.” He cleared his throat and seemed to hesitate in uncertainty.
“Spit it out, son, I don’t have all day here.”
“Right. Sir, I feel I should draw your attention to a discrepancy in the inventories for our VI short-range missiles. There’s a report on it in the files. The discrepancy occurred in the middle of the transition to the new inventory system, so it’s probably just a glitch, but….”
Liam snorted in clear disgust. “Goddamn warenuts. Every time they push out something ‘better’ it only makes things worse.”
“I…yes, sir. I can have Support run some diagnostics, see if they can find the problem—”
Liam shook his head in a manner which brooked no dissent. “Won’t be necessary. I will take great pleasure in informing Logistics Command they need to fix their crocked ware.”
“Of course, sir. If there’s nothing else?”
He had begun pulling up other reports; his head jerked in the direction of the door. “Dismissed.”
Once Bradlen departed, he dropped the illusion of activity. He sat silently as an epoch passed…then reopened the Inventory Discrepancy Report. Seconds ticked by while he simply stared at it, as though the authority of his glare might melt it away.
He didn’t know why he was hesitating. The decision had already been made; the deed already done. In many ways the decision had been made twenty-four years ago when he stood over his mother’s grave and made a vow, even if it had taken until two months ago for the opportunity for him to fulfill his vow to finally knock on his door.
He had expected the discrepancy to be discovered. In this hyper-cyberized, always-connected world they lived in, it would have been impossible to hide it—so he hadn’t tried. Instead he’d made sure the materials vanished during the hectic, confused inventory system transition, thereby providing a ready explanation for their ‘absence.’
Deucali Military HQ housed tens of thousands of armaments. Anyone who noticed a couple of dozen missiles unaccounted for would merely nod in agreement at how annoying the ‘damn ware bugs’ were and move on with their lives.
He swallowed hard, annoyed at the sudden dryness in his throat. No reason to become all emotional about it now. He had already sold his soul for a chance at vengeance, and there was no ge
tting it back.
He deleted the report from the system.
CHAPTER 5: Earth
Vancouver: EASC Headquarters
Miriam sat at her desk and tried to focus on reviewing next week’s schedule. For a moment, she failed.
She prided herself on superior compartmentalization skills…yet hours after the Board meeting, she couldn’t seem to shake a lingering unease. Disappointment. Annoyance.
Being overruled gave her no pleasure, particularly when the facts were on her side. Egos coupled with narcissistic insecurity had won out over logic and reason once again. Hopefully they wouldn’t come to regret this decision, or the dozens before it.
With a private groan she sat up straighter and returned to her calendar. Schedule.
The christening ceremony for the new cruiser EAS Thatcher was on Monday, followed by a status meeting for Project ANNIE. She had various staff meetings on Tuesday, then Phase II testing review of new biosynthetics for special forces in the evening. Wednesday she left for the TacRecon Conference in St. Petersburg.
Her mouth twitched involuntarily. She had tried to get Richard to go in her place—it was more his area of expertise anyway—but he was elbow-deep in the damn Trade Summit.
She didn’t want to go to St. Petersburg, where memories of David lurked around every corner and across every street. Even the places they had never visited held shadows of the stories he had told of his childhood.
She would need to visit her father-in-law while there. David had made certain his father received the latest in stem cell rejuvenation treatments, though the elder Solovy had accepted little else in the way of financial assistance. As a result, at one hundred sixteen years old he was built like a boxer and working low-altitude field construction ten hours a day.
It would be uncomfortable and melancholy. He would ask after Alexis, say, ‘I’ve always loved that little girl,’ leaving unsaid the insinuation ‘as opposed to how I feel about you.’ Her position of prominence meant nothing to him. In his own twisted way he would forever blame her for David’s death, ignoring the fact that David had joined the military six years prior to meeting her. He would inquire as to whatever man she must have moved on to by now, oblivious to the reality that in twenty-three years she hadn’t moved on; that she had no intention of ever moving on.
After two miserable hours she would excuse herself and return to her five-star hotel room, order her 250-credit room service, allow herself one glass of sherry and occupy her mind with vitally important matters of galactic security until she was too tired not to sleep.
She didn’t want to go. But she’d do it anyway, because it was her job, and because she didn’t trust anyone else other than Richard with the responsibility. At least next year the conference location rotated out to somewhere—anywhere—other than Russia.
She blinked to push aside the dangerously sentimental thoughts, opened the ANNIE briefing and proceeded to dive into breakdowns of recurrence quantification analysis, time series prediction, stochastic controls and most importantly, dynamic security feedback loops.
Nearly two hundred fifty years after the Hong Kong ‘incident,’ synthetic intelligences of all types were still locked down and circumscribed on every world, but nowhere more so than in the military. The Alliance didn’t curtail the advancement of non-cybernetic synthetic technology; they merely kept it corralled inside safety fences, as it were.
ANNIE (Artificial Neural Net Integration and Expansion) represented the most advanced Alliance-sanctioned synthetic neural net to date. It also promised to be the safest, most secure Artificial ever constructed, for they had had centuries to perfect every control and safeguard.
Yet believing such to be true was exactly what had resulted in the Hong Kong incident in the first place. So she intended to double- and if necessary triple-check the dynamic security feedback loop protocols.
She had made it through an entire third of the file when her secretary pinged her eVi to inform her the Minister for Extra-Solar Development was in the lobby asking to see her.
She frowned in annoyance, and a bit of surprise. She didn’t care for people dropping by without an appointment, but the man was influential enough she couldn’t afford to rebuff him. “Give me two minutes before you send him in.”
The layers of screens vanished; she went to the cabinet to fix a cup of tea. By the time the Minister walked in she was in perfect form and smiling with poised grace.
“Minister Karolyn, so good to see you again.”
“And you, Admiral.” He half-bowed from the waist. She dipped her chin and gestured him toward the chair opposite her desk.
There was only one conceivable reason for the visit—but she never made assumptions where politicians were concerned. “What can I do for you?”
He nodded and adjusted himself awkwardly in the chair. “I apologize for the unannounced visit. I found myself in the area this afternoon and thought I might drop in.” Her left eyebrow raised the slightest bit. “I wanted to take the opportunity to impress upon you in person how much we want to see Alexis in the Deep Space Exploration directorship. She’s a stellar candidate who can bring new energy and initiative to the department.”
Her lips pursed briefly. “She would unquestionably do so, and I regret she was unable to accept your generous offer. But if I may be honest? This seems rather a lot of effort for a position which, while prestigious, is not one I consider to be world-altering. I imagine you have other qualified candidates.”
“Yes, obviously.” He fidgeted again, though this time it didn’t seem to be related to the comfort level of the chair. “If I may also be honest, Admiral, I’m getting a fair amount of pressure to make sure your daughter is named to this post, and soon.”
She suppressed a frown, but barely. It concerned her if political forces had taken an interest in Alexis without her knowledge. “Pressure? Wherever from? Alexis is hardly politically connected.”
“That’s the thing about political pressure, ma’am. One rarely can see from where it truly originates. All I can say is someone higher up than me very much wants your daughter in this job. So if you were able to reach out to her again and reiterate the degree of interest, I’d greatly appreciate it.”
She sipped her tea, both to buy herself a moment and to center her thoughts. She wasn’t eager to divulge the abysmal state of her relationship with her daughter to a stranger, much less a politician. But if there was any chance of Alexis accepting the position, she wanted to help make it happen. It would be good for her…eventually, it might be good for them. “Minister, do you have children?”
“I’m a bachelor, so not as far as I’m aware of.” He smiled.
She didn’t. “I see. You will not have experienced this yourself then, but like many children, my daughter developed a mind of her own before she was two years old and has never lost it. She stopped taking my advice around the time….” A shadow passed across her face she couldn’t fully disguise.
The security office on Le Grande Retraite was as bright and clean as the rest of the orbital luxury resort. A young lieutenant in a spotless uniform greeted her at the entryway with a salute. “Commodore Solovy. It’s an honor to meet you.”
She leveled a dismissive glare at him. “This is not a social call, Lieutenant. Take me to my daughter.”
His posture wilted as he stammered out a response. “Y-yes, ma’am. We put her in one of the interview rooms. I, um, gave her a juice. And some popcorn.”
She fell in beside him. “And the young man?”
“Uh, he was of age and no laws had been broken, so we weren’t able to detain him.” He stopped in front of a doorway and glanced at her, then hastily opened the door and stepped back.
Alexis tossed a kernel of popcorn in the air and caught it in her mouth. Her feet were clad in braided flip-flops and kicked up on the desk, legs crossed at the ankle. She was all elbows and knees, half a child and half a woman. Her hair was bound in long pigtails draped over her shoulders and down her chest
—strange, they somehow made her look older, not younger. Perhaps it was the sharp, spirited fire in her eyes. David’s eyes.
“Mom. Here to throw me in the brig?”
“I am here to take you home.”
Alexis gave a melodramatic sigh, rolled her eyes in exaggerated annoyance and pulled her feet off the desk. “Fine, whatever.”
She turned to the lieutenant. “Thank you for taking care of my daughter, Lieutenant. I do apologize for any inconvenience she may have caused you.”
“She was no trouble, ma’am.” He jumped when Alexis tossed the bag of popcorn to him as she passed.
“Thanks for the snack, mes’ye.”
Miriam didn’t say a word until they reached the ship. She set the autopilot then shifted in the seat. “What were you thinking? You are fourteen years old and had no business flying off-planet without supervision.”
“It’s not like it was far off-planet….” Her hand jerked toward the viewport dominated by Earth’s profile.
“How did you access the ship? The security should have prevented you from flying it.”
Alexis snorted. “Please. I hacked full access to it weeks ago. It actually recognizes me as its primary owner now, you know.”
“Not for long it doesn’t. You will— ”
“Did you even know I was gone until they called you? You didn’t, did you? You spent another night at the office, doing whatever the hell it is you do there.”
She felt her jaw tighten, but made certain her voice remained even. “I trusted you were mature enough so I didn’t need to check on you constantly, trusted you would respect your curfew and not, for instance, steal the family ship and run off with a boy four years older than you.”
“Nick? He’s a tupïtsa, and entirely too easy to impress. I was bored with him before we got to the station.”
“That is not the point. The point is I was mistaken. You aren’t worthy of my trust.”