by Don Koch
President Johnson raised his hand and when recognized asked if it would be ok to send the assassin with them. Hank smiled and said, "Barana, please make it so."
Barana sent a thought intended to be heard by all,
"The new leader of North Korea has asked for a few minutes to speak. I told him that we would hear him out."
"My name is Han Dong Sun and I am the new president of North Korea. My predecessor has been deposed and as we speak is being turned over to the United Nations for trial by the world court for crimes against humanity. We have also started serious negotiations with South Korea to hopefully reunite the peninsula. Please accept my sincere apology for the craziness that has ensued for the past few years and culminating in the horror of the past two weeks. We invite the international community to provide inspections to assure the world that we are doing what we say we are doing. We ask that you consider some humanitarian aid because too many our 24.5 millions are starving and the onset of winter is upon us. With that General Stone, if it is your wish to return my assistant and I to our home, I will understand. Thank you for your forbearance."
Hank rose and started applauding. Others rose and did the same. Hank said, "President Han, Barana has confirmed that you are indeed doing what you have stated and I admit I am encouraged. We can also help you with the crises you now face with food and warm clothing. If you are willing to stay for a few minutes following this meeting, we will get that effort rolling. I believe the rest will support me in saying that you have earned a seat at this table."
"Leaders of the planet, the past three weeks have been undoubtedly traumatic for you. For that I am sorry but I must tell you that there is nothing of import that I would have changed given the circumstances. We nevertheless recognize that our efforts to recruit and prepare for the coming invasion have had an impact on you that some did not expect and I am not apologetic for the decisions made in that regard. In order to access persons needed we went initially to those in your societies that have been disenfranchised, ignored or discarded and offered them an opportunity that you did not. We offered them education and health. More than 1.4 billion of your people have decided to partake of this opportunity as of today and we expect that number to rise above 3 billion. So far, it appears that about half of that number decided to return to Earth. You can do the number crunching yourselves. What does that save you if you had provided those services. In some areas we have made serious inroads in some diseases that you have not been able to handle, AIDS, malaria, West Nile fever, Ebola to name a few. Hopefully we can continue to assist you in your efforts in these areas. It is not our purpose but is a benefit resulting from our mission. We will continue to offer the program for a few more weeks so that all who wish will have the opportunity to avail themselves of the program."
"Consider, what would be the impact if you did not have to be concerned about power generation and transmission of that power? Would it not be nice to have the many miles of power lines and poles made unnecessary? What if existing power from water and wind could be integrated with new power sources and the burning of coal, oil, wood or the use of fissionable material was no longer necessary? Power to provide heat for warmth or cooking where now trees are utilized? What could you do without that drain on your efforts and resources? What could you accomplish with war taken out of the equation? With some effort on your part, you can be in that position in about three to five years. This can be accomplished with Antoran technology and license but with your own resources. If you do not work or put effort into the creation of the resource you do not garner the advantages. Many of your existing factories can be retooled in a relatively short time and your people can be retrained in the new technologies in a few days to weeks. We do not intend to give this away without some return and we do not intend to make the rich even richer, though in some cases that may be the result. These technologies are going to be in the public domain and every person will be a shareholder in that technology. The profits resulting from the application of these technologies will inure to all stockholders. We will leave that structure for you to design and it must be international. You will design the oversight structure and it will be reviewed and approved by the Antoran Fleet before anything is released to you. That is step 1."
"The next step is the move into space. When the Glarin threat is dealt with, we will be able to focus on helping you to achieve access to the rest of the solar system and the stars. Initially this will be to access the resources of the solar system to improve life on Earth. Ultimately, this should lead to interaction with four independent colony planets that will initially be populated by people from Earth. There are also five other planets, four of them have a technology base similar to or slightly ahead of that on Earth. The fifth will not be ready for contact for some time yet since they are in their iron age. The Antoran Fleet is willing to lease ships for this effort. Those terms will need to be worked out, but will not be onerous, in fact quite the opposite."
"The final step involves your military. We have determined that we will revise the duration of the moratorium on incursions into the territory of another from 25 years to 100 years. It is our hope that this use of your manpower will be reduced substantially. Obviously there will be some need for internal functions such as those traditionally exercised by a national guard. These units generally deal with general civil disorder, national disasters, etc. Several governments have expressed an interest in the transfer of whole units to the Antoran Fleet. We have decided to accept these units. The conditions for this must include that the every member of such a unit must freely volunteer for such duty, must be granted honorable discharge, must be able to retain his or her citizenship should return to that country be desired after service, must agree to allegiance to the stations, must agree to be integrated with other units, must be permitted free access to the various locations on Earth and a few other requirements. Property owned by persons serving on station must be non-taxable. To protect the interest of the owners of the property, we intend to secure it against unauthorized entry. Those serving will be subject to a strict code of conduct. In fact they will be unable to become inebriated or utilize recreational drugs due to the medical enhancement package they receive. Any act of violence initiated against is a non-station person will be a court martial offense."
Hank outlined some of the other details related to President Johnson and others previously without revealing that he had done so. He then continued, "Now that is quite a bit to think about. I would hope you get started on the planning phase of this quickly before unemployment in obsolete industries cripples your ability to do so. You are all free to remain here as long as you like. Merely tell Barana you are ready to return home and you will be returned. Thank you for your time."
He then approached President Han saying, "Mr. President, I am pleased that you are here and hopefully your county will join the rest in its desire for peace. I think we can help you with your food needs, at least in the short term. The question is, are you able to distribute the food we provide to those in need? How soon will you be ready to distribute what we can provide and how? We can use our shuttles to distribute a considerable amount in a short time. One other option is that we can probably handle your entire population on the stations and utilize the upgrade program to educate them and to bring their health up to par. This could start in two days and takes about a week. Since winter has started in Korea, Your people are not as concerned with farms but livestock might be an issue. So here is what I can offer you right now. First, starting tomorrow morning, massive delivery of food and heating supplies if you are able to receive them. Next, send a third of your people up here to use the education and health upgrade program, another third in 10 days and the final third 10 days after that. They will be fed during the time here and we will not offer the option to remain on station or emigrate to one of the colony worlds for the time being. We will see that you have sufficient food to get you through to harvest time next summer. Use your military t
o see that the livestock of persons coming up are cared for until your people return. I must warn you that the education your people will receive has a very strong civics element to it that includes fairly critical views of totalitarian regimes. It does discuss democratic processes and how they can be established. What do you think?
"General Stone, given what the world has faced from us in recent times, that is an extremely generous offer and I gladly accept it. It is time we contributed something to this world of ours. I would ask one more thing since I expect it will be a point of contention. Would you first run my officer corps through the 'civics' course, as you call it. It may be what is needed to realign their thinking in the appropriate direction."
"I admit that has me a bit worried. Your generals have been a bit too long in the grip of your predecessors. You may need a little extra to carry you through this time of change. I tell you this in confidence and ask that you not share it with anyone. I am a fairly strong telepath. One of the strong advantages to this is that people cannot tell me a lie without my knowing it for what it is. I know that you have not lied to me about anything you have said today. For that reason, I am going to offer you a gift. The gift has some conditions but for you those will not be offensive. I recently gave this gift to President Johnson. I think you read or heard about the assassination attempt on him yesterday. The gift I am offering is the same kind of shield. It is effective against all kinds of projectile, explosive devices, knives, etc. It will be revoked if you attempt to abuse or misuse or shift to using it for self gain. I am worried that some of your generals may want to grab the reins of power for their own purposes. Will you accept this gift?"
"I would be honored to do so and I will not abuse this trust."
Hank held his hand out in front of him and said, "Barana please." Immediately a small box appeared in his hand. He handed it to President Han and said "there are three vials in this box. One has your name on it. Open that vial and slowly pour that on your hand." President Han did as instructed. Hank went on, "In about fifteen minutes, the protection will be active. It takes about 12 hours to reach full strength. The other two vials are for your wife Park Hyun Jung and your daughter Han Eun Kyung, so they cannot be threatened to influence you. If either of them is attacked or any attempt is made to molest to abduct them, they will immediately be transported to safety and you will be advised where they are along with information of the perpetrators. That should allow you to move decisively and fearlessly. If you like, I can invite them here now and you can take care of that protection immediately. Also know that you can reach the station any time because Barana will be listening for you."
"General Stone, this is overwhelming, Can my voice be added to assure them that it is ok so they will not be frightened."
Hank smiled and said, "Of course. Barana, would you make the connection and after the Presidents wife is satisfied with her attire and appearance, transport them here to join President Han. Are my parents on board and available? Sam do you have a few minutes to join me?"
Shortly after, Alex, Mary and Sam arrived followed by the President Han's wife and daughter dressed in traditional Korean dress. After introductions were made, president Han gave his wife and daughter the vials and that was completed. President Han's wife was delighted with the attire that Barana had provided and was further excited by the fact that she could keep it. Hank then explained the task at hand and asked his parents with Barana's aid to get the operation rolling. He then asked Hardrock and Fudgenickle to join them. After they arrived, he took them aside and brought them up to speed, he asked them, "How many warships do you have ready for flight operations?"
Hardrock said, "its interesting you should ask that, we just came back from a flight training exercise, and we have pilots for two full Groups with Executive officers that in a pinch could fly another two groups, The only thing we need right now is Enlisted Weapons positions and those will be ready in about ten days. For the mission you are talking about, we have 5,000 ready to go right now and we can field another 15,000 using all Antoran crews. I really do not like sending them down there with no protection."
"Can the cargo bays be configured to prevent access to any other part of the ship? Can the cargo be offloaded without having persons on the ground come aboard?"
Hardrock replied, "Absolutely and the ships shields will prevent entry of anything not approved from the flight deck. Things can go out but nothing gets in."
"Oh boy, things just got easier. The Antorans can't fight back and they won't need to because nothing they have down there can get to them. Lets rejoin the others." They rejoined the rest of the group and Hank said, Mr. President, what is the maximum number of distribution points you can have ready tomorrow to receive goods?"
President Han said, "I think that will be about 2490 to 2495."
"OK, here is what we need. We will need the coordinates for each location and the number of people you want to feed from that location. As soon as we have that we can start deliveries. The deliveries will be made from our warships so you might want to warn your people not to panic because these things are daunting. They will be making their deliveries from a hovering position. Each packet will include verbal instructions on how to use it. It will be simple. Pretty much, press this button and stand back. We will also show visual instructions at the communicator sites. Tell your Generals that we have a low tolerance for treachery and remind them about what happened at the DMZ. We should be able to finish deliveries by the following day. Let them know this is what comes of cooperating with one's neighbor rather than belligerence. We will also need the first wave of upgrade persons to report to the communicator stations dotted in all of your population centers two days after the food arrives. If any issues arise, let us know and we will do what we can to help. We are going to tell South Korea what we are doing and offer them assistance where they need it. If you want neutral ground to hold your talks with the South, we can offer you the use of this conference facility or one exactly like it. I wish you well in this endeavor. One less hot spot in the world is a good thing."
Later that evening, Hank and Sam were chatting about how well things were coming together. Hank said, "Sam honey, what say we take a few days and go down to the lodge. It looks like Juneau is getting an early snowstorm and the Chilkat Mountains have to be seen to be seen to be believed. Also we have this huge feather bed that feels like you are sinking forever when you are in it. If we are needed for anything, Barana will let us know. What do you think?"
Sam replied, "Why General Stone, Ah do declare, there is a twinkle in your eye, whatever do you have in mind? Hmmm, lets do it."
Chapter 23: Planning for the First Encounter
Station 1 in Earth Orbit –
December 1 – C Day 93.
Hank was having a staff meeting and Joe was giving a status report of unit readiness. Joe said, "Frankly, I did not believe that we would be at this state of readiness this soon. We now have crews and ground crews for all warships. We are still working on tactics we will want to have developed, but ten Divisions are ready now. We have a solid officer corps for those ten Divisions. The rest will be up to speed in another month. We are running Division level simulations and those are looking very good. We are ready to take action with the seven Glarin ships that are closest to us and we have detailed scans of every inch of each of those ships. Josh has prepared a proposed plan of action for addressing them. It is pretty clear that our shielding far surpasses anything they can throw at us. Josh will describe what he has in mind."
Josh rose and said, "There is really nothing elaborate about this, so I have applied the KISS principle here. I have also kept in mind that our real interest is intelligence. First we dislodge them from FTL by overloading their FTL capacitors. That will dump them into normal space at a fairly low speed. It looks like their shields will be down until the capacitors are recharged and that means that they cannot transition back into FTL for roughly 11 days. During that time they will be essentially defenseless. Wh
en we bump them out of FTL, we will immediately hail them in Glarin and try to determine how it is they are where they are. When we hail, we will reveal two of the Type 2 Stations. Their response to the hail should give us a fair amount of information about them and their intent. They are currently about 49.5 Light Years distant. So we need about two days to arrive at their position. Right now we have a division on location tracking them and supplementing their scans. We have really fine detail on everything on those vessels. Their stasis units are remarkably like ours but have a slightly different shape. The units are similar to Antoran stasis technology. That may prove useful later on. All of the scans have been shared with all AI's and the analysis from that tells me we are ready."
"I am proposing that we send out two divisions, 9th Division under Isaac David and 12th Division under John Hawk. Ninth Division will engage and 12th Division will observe. Stations 142 and 162 are currently on location and they are to return upon arrival of the 9th and 12th Divisions so they can receive crews for their warships and projectors. They will be part of 2nd Division, that has been taking part in Project Upgrade and that will give us another operational division. Once there and in place, Station 12 will activate projectors to drop the Glarin into normal space and initiate the confrontation. I am proposing that Rose and I conduct that meeting. We are both strong telepaths and have a good grasp of the Glarin language. I would also like to take a team of twenty telepaths to get a sure read on the veracity of whatever they tell us. They will have to come up to speed on the Glarin language. At the very least that may enhance the intelligence we can gather about the Glarin. We will have to play it by ear from there."