by Rod Carstens
“Finding much?”
“Nothing much yet. A pattern in certain messages is beginning to emerge. We think it is how they passed information to the hybrids embedded in Von Fleet, but we haven’t been able to crack the code or even tell what the messages were about. All we know is that Von Fleet had access to the most sensitive information in the Confederation and was feeding it to the Xotoli for a number of years.“
“Speaking of hybrids embedded in Von Fleet. How are we coming on identifying them?”
There was silence for a few moments, as if everyone were afraid to touch the subject. Usiche glanced across the table at Meir Fohlm, who was the head of the Office of Military Operations and her boss. Given the fact that Von Fleet provided security as well as armed forces for many planets, including in the Sol system, this was proving the most difficult of the problems with the nationalization of the Von Fleet Corporation.
Finally Usiche said, “I’ll take a swing at that one, Mr. Secretary. First, as soon as the nationalization was finalized, we disarmed and disbanded all of their security and private military units. As you know Von Fleet was providing security in hundreds of capacities on different worlds and in other systems, including Confederation facilities and departments. Those contracts are all now null and void and the Von Fleet people have been removed. We’ve been able to provide security for all Confederation facilities with Marines, but there are many private, municipal, and planet-wide contracts we have not completely replaced yet.
“We are working with some of the other corporations but in general, since Von Fleet, many systems don’t want corporations providing security. So to fill the gap we are seeing a number of those needing security asking us for training. We created a program to bring out of retirement former naval and Legionnaire personnel to meet these training needs.”
“And the fleet itself?”
“I have been personally monitoring the turnover of all the Von Fleet military craft. We are transitioning them to all-Confederation crews, but Von Fleet had a military fleet as large as the Confederation’s. After Rift they were making most of their revenue from contracts for protection for planets and systems. To meet that demand they were in the middle of a huge expansion of their existing fleet. We are moving as quickly as possible, but we still have a long way to go. The civilian ships are being detained when they come into a planet’s harbor, and the crews arrested until we can sort them out.”
For the first time in the meeting, Usiche saw a flash of fatigue cross Monnetal’s face. This was an impossible combination of events. The probable invasion of Earth at the same time as the discovery of the complicity of the largest and most powerful corporation in the Confederation. Which left the Confederation scrambling to replace the resources it had lost when Von Fleet’s vessels were confiscated. It left more unanswered questions lying on the table than she could imagine, and he was at the center of it all. The briefing went on for another hour, with reports from legislative affairs on bills authorizing the types of power needed to extract Von Fleet’s interests from a variety of entanglements.
“Public Affairs,” Monnetal said.
Carter Wong stood. “Sir, as you can imagine, the networks on all the worlds are filled with the nationalization of Von Fleet and all the nuances of that action. They are an endless loop of opinions and live polls on just about any question on this that you can imagine. I will say that the public seems to be solidly behind the action you took. Von Fleet has turned into a dirty word. But the markets in all the systems are in shambles. Von Fleet stock went to zero the minute you nationalized the company. I need to get with legal affairs to see if we can somehow prop up Von Fleet with enough funds to produce some sort of return for the stockholders. It was a widely held stock, and its fall is having effects on markets across the Confederation. We are going to have to find a way to use their ships and facilities, so the corporation will continue to exist in some fashion even under nationalization. To have it and all of its assets, human and physical, simply disappear from the marketplace would produce an economic downturn the likes of which we have never seen.”
“All right. When you have even the barest of an outline of how we can approach that and what the numbers look like, bring it to me. We need to get something done to get the markets quieted down. Carter, why don’t you put out a press release on this. Get with legal and come up with some good words as soon as possible. Run it by me before you release it. Let the public and the other corporations know we are working on fixing this.”
“Yes, sir.” Carter sat down and immediately began making notes on his pad.
Monnetal turned to Usiche again and said, “You’ve had your units monitoring the shipping lanes, harbors, and ports. What does it look like?”
“While the loss of the Von Fleet civilian transports has taken its toll on trade and on basic movement of resources, the other corporations are seeing this as a boon for them and are in a shipbuilding frenzy. Overall we’ve seen a drop of twenty-five percent in the traffic in the shipping lanes, and that number is still rising as we take the Von Fleet ships out of the line. No shortages have been but some of the space harbors are filling up with empty Von Fleet ships. Earth is a good example. New York Harbor has twenty-five ships empty of cargo and crews in their berths. The same is true for Beijing, Tokyo, Moscow, you name it. It’s getting crowded in orbit these days. The harbor masters are screaming but they’ll have to wait until we can figure out how to man those ships. Spaceports on the ground are complaining about the lack of revenue as their traffic has dropped with Von Fleet out of the mix.”
“They do love their money. We do need to get on that as soon as we can. I am going to create a new office that will specifically manage the staffing problem as soon as possible to get it off your plate, Admiral.”
“That would be very helpful, sir,” Usiche said.
Monnetal paused as if he wanted to make sure there was nothing else he needed to cover.
“Very good. You all have work to do. Get back to it. Admiral Raurk, Admiral Kitmura, and Mr. Fohlm, I would like you three to stay.”
When the room was emptied of the others, the Marine guards at the door closed and locked it.
“Well, that was not the most hopeful of briefings I’ve had over the years,” Monnetal said with a laugh and a shake of his head. He looked over at Usiche and Kitmura.
“I asked you three to stay behind because I wanted to discuss some details and they will call for speculation. You people in this room are used to speculation and that’s what I need right now, because while we are still gathering our facts I need some ideas to chew on. Admiral, how are you going to defend the system?”
Usiche leaned back in her chair and sighed. She had been struggling with how to prepare for an invasion when she had little intelligence about how, when, where, or the strategies the Xotoli would use.
“As you know, Mr. Secretary, I had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to put together the ships for the Chika invasion. I stripped the Aegis Fleet that normally stays here for protection. It was a risk I thought was worth taking given the stakes at Chika, but now it doesn’t look that smart. I have a skeleton of the fleet left and I’ve deployed them in the system. A few destroyers, cruisers, and one battleship. All of the new carriers were sent to Chika.”
Monnetal held up his hand to silence Usiche. “Admiral, I signed off on the Chika invasion. I too thought that it was worth the risk. Let’s not go back over things we cannot change. If they had fortified Chika, it would have cut us off from any direct routes to Ceti. Now they have closed that door for us and them.”
“To answer your question directly, until I know what ships Grogen was able to get through the wormhole I would hate to give a definitive answer on the fleet. But with your help after Rift we have been fortifying the system. The asteroid-belt project is almost finished. The last quadrant went online last week. Each quadrant now has several thousand asteroids either armed or mounted with sensors. Our goal is to have over two thousand differe
nt asteroids operational in each quadrant,” Raurk said.
“The Xotoli are going to have to find a way to figure out which ones are armed and which are not. It’s a problem I wouldn’t want as a commander. We have as of this morning seven thousand finished. We’ve turned Ceres into a fortified mini-planet and headquarters for all of the asteroid-belt quadrants. It has scrams, rails, missiles, and anything else we could scrape up. As with the larger asteroids it was mined by Von Fleet years ago and those mining sites were easy to turn into underground fortifications. We’ve also assigned a squadron of the new fighters to Ceres. So I feel good about the asteroid belt. I have also sent the first of the new direct action teams to each quadrant headquarters. We have more retired Legionnaires volunteering than we can process, so that is going well.”
“Will it stop them?” Monnetal asked.
“No, I’m afraid it won’t. But it sure as hell will give them a bloody nose getting through or around it. We've made good progress on Mars too. We've fortified the harbor and spaceport. What I don’t know yet is how many troops I have to station there. My plan before Chika was to assign at least a division but now I don’t know what I have. So I’m going to work with Sand as soon as they get back into the system and see what I can come up with.”
“The Mars Commissioner has been on my ass about the preparation, Admiral. I’ll hold him off as long as I can but I need something from you the soonest you can so I can give him an idea of what we will be doing,” Monnetal said.
Raurk nodded and glanced over at Kitmura. “We’ll get on it, sir.”
“Please continue,” Monnetal said.
“Well, Mars is predominately rural and agricultural with tourism and second homes as their only other sources of income. We feel that is a positive for defensive purposes. It is not as fragile as Earth with its complex of interdependent technologies to keep things running day to day. My hope is to station some mobile troops on Mars. I don’t think the Xotoli will be that interested in Mars, since Earth is their real prize. I feel they will bypass it and head straight for Earth. So I think I can leave a small, smart force to keep them busy without facing them directly if they land. It will be the first time we’ve had the opportunity to choose our fight, and keep it mobile. We’ve put some scrams, rails, etc., in the harbor. Since we’ve started providing protection to all shipping from Mars to Earth, there are always a number of naval units in and around the planet, so I feel good about Mars.”
“The Moon?” Monnetal asked.
“Well, we’ve essentially made the Moon a gun platform for any and all types of weapons and drones we’ve got in the arsenal. We turned all of the Von Fleet facilities into fortifications. The Xotoli will have to deal with it on some level. Otherwise we will be firing up their asses while they’re trying to invade Earth. Between the asteroid belt and the Moon, I hope to have given them a real black eye and bloody nose. Because once they get past the Moon, then the real fun begins. My anticipation is that we will have a running naval battle from Mars to Earth.”
“Sir, I must inject some logic here,” Fohlm suddenly interjected. “We have run hundreds of Earth-invasion scenarios through the simulators since Rift. No one has ever come up with a plausible strategy the Xotoli could use to invade. It is simply too easy for us to defend Earth. I have listened to the Admiral’s arguments for weeks, and I simply don’t agree. The cost of an invasion in terms of troops and ships is far greater than what they would gain.”
Monnetal said nothing. He simply looked at Usiche for a reply.
“That would be true, except for two reasons. One, they don’t care about the cost in troops because they use hybrids to do most of the fighting. The second and most important reason, and the one that overrides all other analysis of their capabilities, is this is a religious war to them. They see us as defilers of their resources who must be eradicated. We have seen in our own history that when religion is the driver, the deaths of soldiers or followers do not matter. The only thing that matters is the destruction of the perceived religious enemies. You put those two together and you have a lethal combination. We can’t assume they will use any form of logic we understand to determine what they should do. All we can do is defeat them.”
Monnetal frowned and said, “Give me your best guess how they will invade.”
Usiche glanced at Kitmura and said, “I’ve had Kitmura on this. As you know he’s the one who predicted Rift before it happened. So I asked him to do some brainstorming. We’ve been over it several times, and I think he has at least a good guess.”
Kitmura stood and began to pace as he started to brief. “Sir, I think the Ceti example is a good guess at how they will attack. They will first destroy cities that they feel are not needed. While they’re destroying the cities they don’t need, they will send their troops to the cities they do want intact. Not unlike Rift. So there will be a combination of naval and ground warfare on and around Earth. They don’t want to destroy what are considered sacred resources so they won't use nukes. The real battle will be on the ground, and the navy will be fighting for orbital supremacy. According to reports we had from Sand, on Chika he saw more Xotoli mixed with the hybrids than he has ever seen. It’s my feeling that the invasion force will have as many Xotoli as hybrids. But there is a big difference between Rift and Earth.”
Kitmura paused and pulled up a 3-D holo. It depicted the various power, communication, and food-distribution systems on Earth. He continued.
“As you can see, Earth is an urbanized planet dependent upon a complex set of interconnected systems to provide power, food, and water to the billions on the planet. Rift was primarily a military base. We are a very different story here. If I were the Xotoli staff planner, I would take out all of the tightly coupled systems that provide power, food, and water. They could do that by destroying the cities they don’t think are necessary. You blow that many big holes in the interconnected infrastructure systems, and even with all our redundant and standalone systems in place, eventually the entire plantary system will collapse. Then I would invade and not worry about the civilians who get in the way.”
Monnetal sat there for a moment. “Billions of men, women, and children without power, food, or water. That is a grim picture you’re drawing.”
“If they do that we will have civil unrest on top of an invasion. It’s a very good strategy, I am afraid,” Usiche said. “It will add pressure on us without costing almost anything militarily. Kitmura reminded me that at any given time there is only about a week’s worth of food on hand in any of our cities. We need all of the supply systems that provide the population with what they need to survive, or in seven days people will begin to starve."
“Billions of people,” Monnetal said quietly.
“Yes, sir,” Kitmura replied.
“How long will it take before people begin to starve?”
Kitmura glanced at Usiche, who nodded for him to go ahead. “Sir, it will depend on how much money you have. The more money, the longer you will last. The poor will die first, and it will slowly work its way up—forgive me, sir—but up the economic food chain. The rich will last much longer.”
“Even with all the sustainability we have built in to our Mega structures? Like the closed-loop kitchens and hydroponics tanks in most of the homes today?” Monnetal asked.
“You still need power to keep it all going. A food printer needs power and organic material to produce a meal. Earth’s resources cannot support our current population. We depend too much on ships to bring us most of the consumables we need to survive. Then we need our infrastructure to distribute those supplies. That is what the Confederation’s economy is built on—the trading of commodities between the planets. We get agricultural commodities and they buy our finished technologies. You know better than I do most of those commodities are not available here. As far as power goes, we can only go so far with local infrastructure to provide enough power for the technologies we consider essential before they fail. We are so urbanized we are very vulner
able to this type of attack. You start by destroying whole cities, and it goes south.”
“Not a pretty picture.”
“No, sir. The more complex a society, the more easily it can be toppled if you use the right amount of force applied correctly.”
“Sir, I must interject here,” Fohlm said, his voice rising. “We have worked on the plans for invading an advanced planet for decades. We have never been able to get around the simple fact that a fortified planet that knows they are to be attacked has too many different ways to destroy ships in orbit. The advantage goes to the planet. It’s too big, and will require too many troops and supplies for a sustained invasion. The numbers just don’t add up.”
“Sir, Mars does provide for the majority of the basic agricultural needs here on Earth. If Admiral Raurk could keep those shipping lanes open and run escorted convoys we might be able to last for quite a while, but that is asking a lot, given the Xotoli’s naval power,” Kitmura replied.
“I’ve already ordered convoying for all ships coming from Mars. I have made it a priority only surpassed by the Earth’s protection.”
Monnetal sighed and rubbed his forehead. Usiche knew just how grim a situation they were facing. It would take more than just military power to come close to winning this one.
As Usiche watched his face change, it was his eyes she noticed. There was an absolute calm, a stillness she had not seen before. No fear, no indecision. Just a stillness. This man was up to this task, Usiche thought. As overwhelming as it was, she suddenly knew he would make the decision that would have to be made, no matter how difficult.
Chpater 5
Asteroid Fortifications Command