“Seventeen percent,” Ramdakan said. He stabbed his fusilli with his fork and shoved the noodles into his mouth. “Our stock is down seventeen percent in a single day.” He shook his head, disgusted.
As Father’s chief financial adviser, Ramdakan was one of the most influential members of the Board. He had been with the company since the beginning, and his iron grip on its purse strings was legendary. He had even flown with Father in the early days, back when Father had captained a small digger in the Belt and made ends meet scraping away at surface rock. Lem couldn’t imagine it. Sitting in a booth with Ramdakan for a single meal was bad enough. Living with him in a cramped ship for months on end would be intolerable.
“The company is resilient, Norja,” said Lem. “The stock will rebound.”
Ramdakan wiped a dollop of tomato ragout from the corner of his mouth. “How, Lem? Do you have any idea how much capital we sunk into the Vanguard drones? Any idea whatsoever?”
Lem knew exactly how much had been invested—down to the decimal place—but he dared not admit that to Ramdakan. That might lead to questions Lem didn’t want to answer. Like who in Father’s office had given him the information. It wouldn’t be difficult to figure that out—several people had seen Lem talking to Despoina that day. And the two of them had spent a considerable amount of time together in the days since. Lem had been careful to keep their interactions out of the public eye, but that didn’t necessarily mean their meetings had gone unnoticed.
It made Lem a little uneasy. If Ramdakan knew that Despoina was loose-lipped with Father’s business, it would be the end of her. Ramdakan would fire her in an instant and put her on the first shuttle back to Earth. He might even slap her with a lawsuit for good measure. Or drag her through the press and paint her as a floozy. Such tactics weren’t below the man. He had used them before to great effect. And it wouldn’t matter to Ramdakan that Despoina’s father was a personal friend of Ukko Jukes. Business was war. And in war there were no friends.
Lem felt a twinge of guilt. Des didn’t know she was doing anything wrong. Lem was Ukko Jukes’s son. What harm was there in telling him anything? And it’s not like Lem was fishing for information. Anything she told him came out in the natural progression of their conversations. How was your day? What did you work on? Did anything interesting happen? Sure, Lem might ask a follow-up question or two. But it’s not like he was probing. He wasn’t using her. He was just making conversation. He was giving Des a listening ear. It wasn’t his fault that she tended to be a little gossipy—a fact that had surprised him considering how quiet and shy she had been before their first date.
He could tell her that she was divulging secret information, of course. He could suggest she be more tight-lipped. But she seemed so happy to share it, so eager to give him something that pleased him, that Lem didn’t want to disappoint her.
Was she doing it to keep him close? he wondered. Was she trying to establish his need for her?
Lem tried not to think about it. And in the meantime, he had enjoyed their additional time together. She was not as insufferable as he had thought she might be. The exuberance she had demonstrated after their first night together had settled down considerably. She was almost normal now. Her giddiness had mellowed into a sweet admiration for him. And hey, was it a crime to be admired by a woman? Was he hurting anything really? Lem couldn’t say he found her attractive necessarily, but there was something charming about her. Her naïveté was almost endearing. He had even found himself looking forward to their get-togethers.
How strange, he thought. She was not his type. Not even remotely. And yet he couldn’t deny that he felt comfortable when they were together.
“Did you hear what I said?” Ramdakan asked.
Lem looked up from his lobster. “Sorry?”
“I said we’ve lost enough money to buy a small country, Lem. Enough to buy several. It’s like we gathered our assets into a giant mountain and set the whole thing ablaze.” He dove back in to his fusilli.
“I’m sorry about your stock options, Norja. It was a blow to all of us.”
The media had finally picked up on the failed drone attack, and the company stock, as Lem had predicted, was in a tailspin. Lem had wisely sold several thousand shares in anticipation of the news breaking, and he had maneuvered his other holdings into safer waters. So it hadn’t been as devastating a blow for him as it had been for others. Ramdakan, on the other hand, had likely lost his shirt.
“Your father doesn’t even seem upset about it,” said Ramdakan. “That’s what kills me. The old Ukko would have been incensed. Now it’s all about the war. It’s all he thinks about.”
“Not without reason,” said Lem. “If we lose Earth, it won’t matter what the company does.”
Ramdakan rolled his eyes. “I’m sick of this. The sensationalism of it all. Earth isn’t falling, all right? This isn’t the end of the human race. The Formics are in China. That’s one country. One.” He shrugged. “China is overpopulated anyway.”
Lem raised his eyebrows.
Ramdakan put up his hands, palms out. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s awful what’s happening down there. It’s terrible. No excuse for it. But the press is acting like we could go the way of the dodo bird at any moment now. How many people are on this planet? Ten billion? Twelve billion? We’ve got the Formics outnumbered a million to one.”
“We haven’t stopped them yet. We’ve failed every attempt, in fact.”
“You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, Lem. That’s how it works. You try a few strategies until one sticks. It’s only a matter of time.”
“That’s what Father would say about the drones.”
Ramdakan shook his head. “I’m talking about the military, Lem. This is their problem. Not ours. We’re a company. Our job is to strengthen the company. And those drones were the future of this company. That was our golden goose. Now they’re ashes. The largest single investment this company has ever made in tech, and poof, it’s gone. It’s hard to bounce back from something like this, Lem. Hard. Nothing makes investors more skittish than a stain on your record with a lot of zeroes after it.”
“A kinder man would avoid saying I told you so,” said Lem. “But I am my father’s son. I told you so, Norja. I told you this business with the drones was a mistake. My father wouldn’t see sense either.”
Ramdakan grabbed his wineglass. “I’ve known your father for over thirty years, Lem. He’s made mistakes like any man, but I’ve never known him to be reckless. And this was reckless.”
Lem liked the sound of that. It had the ring of doubt to it. Ramdakan was more loyal to Father than most, and if Ramdakan’s confidence was starting to crack, it meant others were thinking the same. And if you gently tapped a crack long enough, the whole thing would split wide open.
“Dr. Benyawe used the same term,” said Lem. “‘Reckless.’”
Ramdakan nodded.
There was a part of Lem that wanted to believe that Father had changed. And for a moment, there at Project Parallax, as Father had told him about the survivors from El Cavador, Lem had actually believed it.
But later, as Lem had sat alone in his apartment considering the events, reality had settled in. Father wanted something. What exactly, Lem didn’t know, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that Father had done a kindness without expecting something in return. A lifetime of experience had taught Lem better.
“How are we spinning this with the press?” asked Lem.
“The truth for once,” said Ramdakan. “We’ll say your father was driven to protect the people of Earth, that ending this war and restoring peace is his highest priority. He’s a man possessed.” He waved a hand back and forth. “No, possessed is the wrong word. Determined, maybe. Vengeful.” He shrugged. “I don’t know the language. The PR people are putting it together. It’s a nice package. Vids of suffering children in China, the Formics gassing villages, your father from humble beginnings, rising from nothing, a fighter, scrappy. Nice heroic vibe to it.
Very globally patriotic. It turns a corporate disaster into a good image piece. Your father hates it. He threatened to fire the entire PR department. He said he wouldn’t be made into a sideshow. I talked him down off that cliff, thank you very much.” He poured himself more wine. Then he looked at his hand and held it out to Lem, palm down. “Look at that. You see that? Tremors. I’m shaking like a leaf these days. My blood pressure is through the ceiling. I tell my therapist I need to change to different medications; he tells me to get more rest.”
“Rest is a good prescription.”
“Our stock out of the toilet is a good prescription,” said Ramdakan. “We’re a mining corporation, Lem. We mine rocks. You know how many rocks we’re mining these days? Zippo. Every available ship in the Belt is doing recovery and rescue. And you know how much revenue that brings in.”
“The Formics cut through the Belt like a sword, Norja. We lost a lot of ships. We lost a whole settlement at Kleopatra. There’s cleanup to do.”
Ramdakan rolled his eyes. “Don’t get me started on Kleopatra. I never wanted to build a station on that rock to begin with. I was opposed to it from the beginning. And did you hear? The families of the deceased are forming a foundation now. The Families of Kleopatra, they’re calling themselves. We haven’t even recovered all the bodies yet, and they’ve formed a damn foundation.”
“They’re searching for support. Healing.”
“They’re searching for a class-action suit is what they’re searching for. You think these people want to sit around, sing ‘Kumbaya,’ and cry on each other’s shoulders? No, they want to suck us dry like leeches. Lawyers feed off this kind of thing. They’ll swarm to these people.”
“The company didn’t destroy the base,” said Lem. “The Formics did.”
Ramdakan laughed. “You think that makes any difference? They’ll say we didn’t build the base sturdy enough, that we didn’t provide adequate defenses.”
“You’re overreacting,” said Lem. “It was an act of war. Corporate law gives us immunity.”
“You’re young, Lem. Once your backside has been singed by a few lawsuits, you’ll remember this conversation and know that I’m right.”
“We have very good lawyers, Norja.”
“The best in the world,” Ramdakan agreed. “But that may not be enough. They’re saying the drone attack is what caused the second wave, Lem. All those ships in China, all those cities being gassed, all those people being turned into a gooey paste, they’re saying that’s our fault. They’re saying we poked the sleeping giant and the blood is on our hands. For a lawyer, it’s a feeding frenzy. This is Christmas come early. They hardly have to lift a finger to make bank on this. Just put the right person on the witness stand, and it’s like printing your own money. Kid with an eye patch. Old lady with a missing limb. Juries eat that crap with a spoon. It doesn’t matter who’s at fault, Lem. We have the money, so we’re the bad guys.”
“Maybe I can help,” said Lem.
Ramdakan looked dubious. “We’re not taking another loan from you, Lem. Your father nearly removed my head the last time you did that. Forget it.”
“Not a loan. A repurposing of resources.”
Ramdakan took a bite of his fusilli and narrowed his eyes, skeptical. “What resources?”
“We’ve got forty ships docked at Kotka right now with their crews and pilots sitting on their hands doing nothing.”
Kotka was the company’s largest docking station, positioned just beyond Luna. Asteroid mining ships on the Belt routes would dock there to refuel, restock, complete repairs, whatever. It had congested in recent weeks as ships came limping in from the Belt.
“Are you trying to raise my anxiety?” said Ramdakan. “Do you want to give me heart palpitations? Just hearing the word ‘Kotka’ grows an ulcer on my ulcer. The station is a bleeding wound right now. Money is pouring out of there like water. Food, salaries, heat. It’s doing nothing but draining us.”
“So why not turn it into revenue?” said Lem.
Ramdakan put down his fork and wiped his mouth. “You’ve got my attention.”
“We know that the Formics can send reinforcements from their ship now,” said Lem. “Who’s to say they won’t send more? Who’s to say they don’t have ten times that number ready to launch right now? And who’s to say those reinforcements will land in China next time? Couldn’t they just as easily drop into Europe, America, the Middle East?”
“The media is already saying that,” said Ramdakan. “What’s your point?”
“My point is this is a business opportunity if I ever saw one. Earth needs a shield, Norja, a defensive wall between it and the Formic ship. That way, if another round of Formic reinforcements is deployed, we’ll blast them before they reach the atmosphere. No military has done this yet because a) we didn’t know the Formics had reinforcements, and b) everyone has been too busy attacking the mothership. We’ve been playing offense when we should have been playing defense. And now, since every military spacecraft in the world has been destroyed in fruitless attacks, there’s no one else out here to provide this shield but us.”
“Our pilots aren’t soldiers, Lem.”
“Of course they are. I was out there, Norja. I saw normal people like you and me take on these bastards toe-to-toe. We’re miners, yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t want to defend our planet. Look at the Battle of the Belt, Norja. Do you think any of those ships were crewed by soldiers? No, they were manned by average people—people like the crews we have right now at Kotka.”
“Yes, and every single one of those ships in the Battle of the Belt was destroyed, Lem. You want to send our boys out there to die?”
“That’s just it. We’re not sending them to attack. We’re not putting them up against the mothership. We’re sending them to form a wall to stop additional reinforcements. We’re waiting for troop transports to come to us. And let’s not forget that these are transports, tiny ships. Our PKs could take them out easily.”
“Where’s the revenue generation? What you’re proposing would drive us into bankruptcy.”
“Every nation on Earth will pay through the nose for us to provide this wall. They don’t have a choice. Either they finance it or they have nothing between them and Formics raining down on their cities and gassing their civilians. We have relationships with these countries. Most of them are our clients already. Tell them we only ask that they help cover the cost of ship maintenance, fuel, supplies, and salaries. Then we inflate those expenses and pocket the difference. And if they don’t want to unite and form a single, global shield directly between Earth and the ship, we do it on a country-by-country basis. So the U.S. buys a shield to protect U.S. airspace. And Russia buys a shield for Russian airspace. Et cetera. In the absence of a fleet, I guarantee you these countries will pay through the nose. And if they don’t, we go to the private sector. Companies with large, valuable real-estate holdings will pay to have those properties protected, even from near-Earth orbit. The business model works regardless of the client. We’re giving people what no one else can, Norja. Peace of mind.”
“And what about the pilots and crew?” asked Ramdakan. “How do you know they’ll agree to something like this? Right now they’re getting paid for doing nothing.”
“The ship I captained to the Kuiper Belt is docked at Kotka. It’s called the Makarhu. The current captain, Chubs, is a friend of mine. He would jump at the chance. The rest of the crew would as well. I know them. They want this. And Chubs is a respected captain among the other crews. He can sway them. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll dangle the money carrot. Everyone will get double time plus hazard pay.”
Ramdakan scoffed. “How could we afford that?”
“We won’t have to,” said Lem. “Earth will foot the bill a hundred times over. Best of all, the company looks like the savior and shield of the world.”
Ramdakan was quiet a moment, his fusilli long forgotten. Finally he said, “Why are you coming to me with this? Why not go to yo
ur father?”
Because I need the Board to see I have value, Lem might have said. Because I’m not about to throw Father a lifeline and pull him out of the grave he’s dug himself. Because I need to bring the company success while it still feels the sting of Father’s failure.
But aloud Lem said what Ramdakan needed to hear. “Because I trust you, Norja. Because you understand finances and profit potential better than anyone. Even better than Father. You can build the model for this in your sleep. You could sell it to the Board today if you wanted to.”
Ramdakan nodded. He liked the sound of that. He pushed his plate away. “Have you written this up, given it a framework?”
Lem tapped his wrist pad. “I just put it in your in-box.”
Ramdakan nodded again. “I’ll talk to some people and get back to you. We’d need to move on this quickly.”
“I agree.”
Ramdakan made a move to leave but then hesitated and looked back. “Your father won’t run this company forever, Lem. There are some who say he shouldn’t be running it now, particularly after this business with the drones. But I’m not one of them. Ornery and headstrong as he is, I’m with him to the bitter end. You can count on me for that.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Lem.
“But when the day of his departure does come, I hope you’ll stay with us, Lem. Even if the company goes in a different direction. We can always use someone with your skills.”
Lem kept his face unreadable but inside alarms were going off. “What do you mean a different direction?”
“I know you, Lem. I’ve known you since you were a bump in your mother’s belly. You’re ambitious, just like your father. You’re so much like him when he was your age, it’s frightening. But there are those on the Board who want nothing to do with you. They know you want to run this company, and they’ll fight you tooth and nail for it.”
It took a moment for Lem to find words and when he did he tried making a joke of it. “I’m not sure which is more surprising, that there are people who think I’m gunning for the company or that I have enemies on the Board.”
Earth Awakens (The First Formic War) Page 17