Chapter 12
The Earth Ring rests at 35,800 kilometers, at the boundary to the geostationary orbital area called the Clarke Belt, above the Earth’s surface and is connected to the surface by the Stalks. Each Stalk is anchored by an asteroid that is in the geosynchronous orbit area. The length of the Ring, when completed, will be about 225,000 kilometers long, with most of the material used to build it coming from the Asteroid Belt. It is at its narrowest one kilometer wide and at its widest five kilometers wide. Its design allows it to flex slightly with gravitational forces caused by the passing of the Moon and the Sun as the Earth rotates. While solar wind, radiation pressure, and orbital perturbation cause some force on the Ring, low power ion thrusters powered year round account for station keeping within the desired orbit. The Ring is modeled after the Arcologies, where the Ring is split into sections that contain residential, business, and industrial areas separate. The Ring is also home to the hydroponics facilities that supply the surface Arcologies with the food needed to feed its population. The development of hydroponics allowed humans to increase the carrying capacity of the Earth system and to prevent humanity from becoming dependent on nonrenewable natural resources. This natural and environmentally friendly way to producing food, however, remained too expensive for most of the people living below the surface in the Arcologies. They instead fed on converted algae harvested from the oceans that were broken down into several combinations of molecules. Laser guided machinery, developed to the point where it became cheap enough for everyone to own, then used these molecule chains and atoms to form cheap food. This machine, called the food synthesizer, became the new microwave of the twentieth century that everyone owned. However, the taste of the synthetically made food was still not as tasty as food produced in the Rings. The people living in the Ring, though, fed off of the hydroponics made food because it was cheaper for them than it was for people living in the Arcologies. This was because of the difference in price caused by a long supply chain as the food needed to be shipped down via the Stalks.
-The History of the Earth Commonwealth
“Admiral Jevins, I told you everything we know about the Jupiter System right now.”
Admiral Jevins sighed to himself. He was looking at Admiral Umut, commander of Fleet Intelligence. He had Admiral Umut on the small holographic projector built into the desk he was sitting at rather than using his Exovision. Admiral Jevins believed it made the conversation a little more personal. “Yes, yes. But you haven’t told me much at all.”
“That is because most of our agents were killed during the initial Rebel attack.”
“So then they knew who our agents were?”
“We believe so.”
“That is not very reassuring. They would then know we are coming.”
“Your planned leave and the destroyers are blacked out from the normal intelligence circle. Only few others and I know what you are doing right now.”
“Yes, yes. Tell me when you get any more information.”
“Yes, Admiral. You will be the first to know.”
Admiral Umut’s image winked out from the projector. The Destroyers were finally constructed and their weapons payloads were being loaded. Admiral Jevins’ efforts to hasten the process had paid off. A skeleton crew was already on board running the ships through their shakedown procedure. It still didn’t make Admiral Jevins’ job any easier now that the construction and testing was complete. He had to meet up with the single destroyer and five fighters at Jupiter, even though he kept secret about the destroyer over there. It was still experimental after all, Jevins thought. It was the prototype. Something to hunt and to take care of increasingly heavily fortified pirate bases when they are found.
But now they had a bigger issue. The Rebels have disappeared from the Jupiter Ring System after their attack. Where was their base of operations? The fact that they could hide so well from the Commonwealth Marines stationed there meant that there had to be some government support on some level. But that would be impossible, Admiral Jevins thought. What would their gain be? It was a question that troubled him as he got up from his desk and made his way to the destroyers.
***
A large dust storm kicked up over what used to be called the Middle East. Surrounded by an endless desert and an isolation policy enforced by the THEL Shield and the Commonwealth military the dust storms and never-ending high winds added to the misery of its three hundred million inhabitants. After centuries of fighting, the civil war of the Islamic Republic between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites seemed to have no end in sight. Yet, the meeting of the Senate, something that was thought to be private and heavily guarded against hacking, was leaked out to both sides.
Instantly, all fronts of battle across the Islamic Republic halted. The two forces joined together against what they saw was a threat against their religion and their homeland. Talk of a pre-emptive invasion against them heightened their readiness against foreign invasion. Differences between their sides of their religion, seen as minor to the Commonwealth but major to them, were dropped as foes became brothers in a fight to prevent their way of life and religion from being taken over by what they saw was an oppressive Commonwealth that is ignorant to their way of life.
Or so, that is what the grunts on the ground were led to believe.
***
If Exsid was here with Darvin, he would be in heaven. Darvin hated the bitter taste of coffee, and the synthetically made kind was no better. But to Exsid, it would have been a dream come true. There were five other people in here with Darvin, and they looked confused as to why their link to the Central Net dropped out. “Sir,” Darvin said, addressing the only man behind the counter who obviously was the one who owned the establishment. “You have a storeroom in the basement?”
“Yes, I do. But why?” The man asked with a bit of hesitation in his voice. The man looked at Darvin’s name through his Exovision, noticing the police badge in front of his name. “Do you need something officer?”
“Get everyone into the basement, stay there. I think another Emergency Signal will be coming on soon,” Darvin said and turned back towards the store’s front windows. “Oh, and its detective,” Darvin said without looking back. He heard the owner herd the patrons into the basement with him through a door behind the counter.
“Do you know what’s happening?” The owner asked before he went down himself.
“No,” Darvin replied back, still staring outside the windows.
“Could today get any worse,” the owner said as he shut the door behind him. Darvin heard the sound of physical hard locks sliding into place and locking up with a click.
“Oh it can get worse,” Darvin muttered to himself. But I don’t know what it will be, he thought to himself.
***
Admiral Jevins locked himself into the command seat of his destroyer, linking it with the other ship as he settled in. His seat was in the back of the bridge, right next to the captain’s chair. In front lay the six officer seats that controlled the weapons systems, targeting systems, electrical supply systems, wormhole generator systems, internal security and damage control systems, and communication systems. There were five engineers and thirty other naval personnel spread throughout the ship that did the grunt work that kept the ship running. Each ship also held a small complement of fifty fully suited marines. They were also carrying extra cargo and supplies for the other ships they would be linking up with soon, along with fifteen workers on each ship for that purpose.
Admiral Jevins had toured the ship before, both virtual several times and in reality once. This ship wasn’t meant for being in space for more than three months away from a port at a time. The wormhole generator simply took up a quarter of the ship and when employed ate almost eighty percent of its electrical supply, preventing it from firing any weapons when in use. There was barely enough energy left over to supply the main engines and the life support systems, let alone keep the comms systems open.
They were still tethered
and hard docked into the naval port of the Earth Ring. Loading of the weapons payloads were taking longer than expected. However, Jevins knew better than to personally rush the workers himself for this part. Instead he called up the countdown in his Exovision. Two more hours to go, he thought. A lot can go wrong in half that time.
***
It wasn’t so much as Darvin heard an explosion, but he did hear the vibration of the windows he was looking out of. He was in the middle of thinking of running the last half mile to the temporary headquarters to see the Chief, when he noticed that the glass windows were shaking slightly with a vibration. It was when Darvin opened the store’s front door that he heard distant booms. Looking to his left, he saw that smoke was spreading out from a line of buildings only a half mile away.
It dawned on Darvin what was happening. The Commonwealth Marines and the Police would be ready for another attack and be dug in. The worst thing for the Rebels to do was to march openly down the Main Avenue or the other streets. They were blasting holes through the buildings, and most likely massacring the people inside as they went through. Darvin was powerless to do anything against them. He did what was against his training. He ran away from the source of danger and to the temporary headquarters. Running away from the smoke, Darvin didn’t even notice that the Emergency Signal had popped up into his Exovision again.
***
Exsid felt the faint reverberations run through the Ring as the explosions that Darvin was looking at were happening. He and the Marines both looked up as they felt it in their feet. The two Marines Exsid was with looked at each other through their helmets of their Powered Exoskeleton Armor. To Exsid they seemed to communicate something between them, or were reading something they were ordered to do.
One of the Marines turned towards Exsid. “Detective, you need to stay here. Orders came in. We are going topside. No matter what you are not allowed to proceed to ground level,” the Marine said through the external speakers of his suit.
“What’s happening?” Exsid asked as the Marines began to leave.
One turned around to address Exsid, “The action is about to start again.”
Exsid could only wonder what he could do to help. The Marines said he could not go to the ground level. That didn’t prevent him from reaching the corridors that connected the underground levels of the Ring.
***
It took Darvin under four minutes to reach the temporary headquarters for the Police. The officers were dug in along the perimeter of the partially ruined building that served as the headquarters. They saw him running down the avenue as fast as he could. They were laughing at him as he ran through the checkpoint. They all knew who he was, and they all knew they would tease him about running away like this for years to come.
Running through the ruins of the building that served as the temporary headquarters for the Jupiter Ring Three Police, Darvin found the Chief in one of the still standing rooms directing the hastily made defenses against the force they assumed was moving against them. It seemed the Chief did not think the Rebels would be back for a second attack.
Checking his Exovision Darvin saw that he was down to sixty percent oxygen levels in his artificial blood cells after the short run he just performed. He wasn’t breathing hard, since his regular blood cells weren’t taxed greatly and his artificial blood cells kept him going during the sprint without needing extra oxygen intake. It would still take a half hour for the oxygen levels to rise again to their maximum level, but they did their job.
“Darvin, about damn time you got here. What took you…” Chief Burns said as his voice trailed off at the end as he looked at Darvin. Darvin looked down at where the Chief was staring and noticed he was still holding the mug from Daniel’s Pub.
“I got the vial,” Darvin said, hoping to change the subject and holding it out for the Chief to take.
“Give it to me. Then get out to the lines out there. Arm up outside and to the left,” the Chief said as he took the vial.
Darvin sighed internally, thinking to himself that he dodged a bullet. He began to walk out of the room when he heard the Chief behind him speak again. “Oh, and Darvin.”
“Yes Chief?”
“Next time you take your sweet time prancing along the flowers out there, your rear is mine.”
“Yes Chief,” Darvin said, his eyes traveling down to the ground in front of him. Not wanting to meet the Chief’s deadly eyes, Darvin made his way out of the room and headed over to the armory as quickly as he could.
As he went over to the officer giving out the arms and ammunition, Darvin still could not stop thinking about the water treatment plant and about the picture in his ruined cruiser in the park. He knew time was running out to investigate either one of them, let alone going to both was now not an option. Which one was more important? Darvin tried to think of a way to get to where he knew he needed to be, but he knew he would not be able to speak to the Chief at this moment after the stunt he just pulled.
“Hey Darvin, nice mug,” the officer said as he smirked.
“Thanks Josh. Give me something?” Darvin said as another building was blown apart. The invading force was now less than a half mile away.
“A straw for your mug maybe?”
“Ha,” Darvin said sarcastically while rolling his eyes. “Give me something already.”
“Alright, here are some fragmentation grenades and four clips of ammunition for your pistol.”
“No rifle?”
“You’re a detective. You’re not even certified for one.”
Darvin pointed towards the smoke curling up from the ruined buildings in the background. “And how is a pistol supposed to work against that?”
“Darvin, no one trusts you with a rifle.”
“Really? At a time like this?”
“Especially now.”
Darvin brought his hand up to his face and sighed. “Just give it to me already.”
Taking the clips and grenades, Darvin also took a belt that would hold everything. He hated how everyone always thought he was the laughing stock of the force. The other officers always made fun of him no matter how many cold cases he solved. There were so few officers to begin with because of such a low crime rate in the Rings to begin with. Only Exsid really treated him like a fellow colleague.
Darvin started walking over to the defensive line set up along the outside perimeter of the ruined walls of the main building the headquarters sat in. He paused about thirty feet from the line, where one of the few captains left were directing officers into a basic defensive pattern along the line. They had no chance, Darvin thought. No officer had the training for defensive action against an assault force. Darvin looked back the other way to where the water treatment plant was. He looked towards the police line one more time. He knew where he should be, and right here wasn’t the answer. Turning towards the park where the water treatment plant was, Darvin walked off without anyone noticing.
***
Exsid walked down the hallway towards an access way that was listed on the map in his Exovision. As he got in front of the door, he saw it was welded tightly from his side against the frame. After the third access point to the underground avenues that lead to the industrial side of the Rings, Exsid finally stopped. The Marines had to have welded the doors shut to protect their flank to a certain degree. No doubt it was also rigged on the other side most likely with automatic mini turrets, each of them probably packing a limited supply of armor piercing thermite rounds.
Walking back to the room that held Betty, Exsid began to wonder why he wasn’t allowed up top with the Marines. He was able to handle a rifle and was even a certified expert with it, unlike Darvin. His Biocomp was even loaded with targeting programs to help him aim with one. Yet, as he stared at the little girl’s sleeping face, Exsid began to wonder what he himself could do. He just couldn’t stand by doing nothing.
***
Chief Burns took his place outside on the defensive line. He had everyone called out to prote
ct it. They had lost contact with the bots outside the headquarters when the Central Net went down. There were none stationed here. They were all deployed at various points throughout the Ring. Yet, without access to the Central Net, the police would be unable to call back the bots to reinforce their lines. They were on their own.
The hundred foot long defensive line overlooked a street that separated it from the nearest building. It also sat on the Main Avenue that ran the length of the Ring. It made for as solid of a defensive structure that they could find. A key part, Burns thought, was that they were not connected to the underground passageways. It was both a benefit and a curse.
They had no retreat plan. There was nowhere they could run. Chief Burns had sent one officer running towards the hospital along the side of the Ring where the Commonwealth Marines were. Their only hope would be to last long enough for the Marines to arrive and reinforce them, hopefully flanking the Rebels as they were attacking his defensive line.
The second to last building in front of them blew up, sending smoke curling upwards towards the center of the Ring. All barrels among the eighty strong members were pointed across the street towards the last building that was left standing. Everyone that had made it back to the base when the Central Net went down was here. A few were on the rear end, lying across the single section of the rooftop of the ruined building. They were there to scout for the locations of the Rebels attacking them, yet the smoke obscured everything. It was impossible to see any movement within the ruins the invasion force was laying to waste in front of them.
For five minutes the officers stayed in position, waiting for a sign or something to show. Chief Burns grew uneasy. The Rebels had to know they were there. They were changing something. One of the number one rules in urban combat is to stay off of the streets. That was why they were blasting through the buildings. It created cover for them while allowing them to move forward with only being marginally hindered. It also proved to be a huge psychological weapon against the many civilians in and around the area. Chief Burns knew this, he had some training in the Commonwealth Army before he retired and got hired as a law enforcement officer. He could only hope that there weren’t many civilians trapped and killed as the invading force blasted its way through.
Rebels of Jupiter Page 16