"Aw hell, the immunoboost had it working fine before we even got to SOCOM. But it's a hundred percent today. There might be a little soreness, well, call it stiffness. Don't hurt near as bad as a meter-long chunk of rebar being jammed through your thigh." Thomas flexed his hand. "Ain't modern medicine just amazing?"
"Oh well. Personal thoughts off, professional thoughts on." Clay nodded to his partner that it was time to go to work.
"Roger that, Gunny," the marine captain replied.
You read me, Clay?
Loud and clear, Captain.
Good. I'll check us in. Clay nodded with the slightest gesture to his partner as he slid his sunglasses on and activated the sensors on them. The display panels in the lenses began downloading situational awareness data from the sensors built into the glasses. The data was then broadcast DTM into their mindview, where both the wearer and their AICs could use it. The glasses had short-range lidar system, IR and QM imaging, and various color and polarization filters built in.
HQ one six zero zero Pennsylvania, over, he thought on the wide area net link.
HQ one six zero zero, here.
Clay Jackson, on.
Thomas Washington, on.
Roger that, Clay Jackson and Thomas Washington. I read you on site, lower security locker room. Shift transition is go.
Roger that, HQ.
"Thomas?" Moore turned the television off as the Secret Service agents swapped out. "Clay? I thought I told you two to take a couple days off." He looked at the marines sternly.
"Can't keep us away that easily, sir. I'll bet you don't take a day off." Thomas smiled at the president with a raised eybrow, barely noticeable over his sunglasses frames.
"Sir, how're the First Lady and Dee?" Clay asked.
"They're still in bed, I think. But fine."
"Good, sir." Clay had grown quite attached to Dee, as she would often request him to guard her. Dee often confided in him like the older brother that she didn't have, which was another factor in Clay's anger toward the damned politicians attacking her father.
"Sir," Thomas said sheepishly. "I, uh, apologize for allowing yesterday to happen and us being caught with our pants down so easily."
"Hell, Thomas, the entire nation was caught with their pants down. The DNI has never mentioned anything to me about a potential terrorist threat on Disney World. I mean, what the hell was that all about? Was it all just a ruse to take me hostage? Seems a bit much if you ask me."
"Yes, sir. But . . ." Thomas wasn't sure what else to say. In some way, he felt that he had let the president down.
"It all worked out, marine. Now buck up."
"Sir, we're here if you need us," Thomas said with a sharp single nod, and then stepped back against the wall. "Otherwise, we're not here, sir."
"Hell, marine, when you get off duty, we need to sit down and have a round of beers."
"Yes, sir. It would be an honor, Mr. President."
"Well, you have to believe that the Independents and the Democrats are going to make the most political hay that they can with this impeachment vote. The vote went as expected from a Dem and Indy dominated House and obviously did not bode well for the Republican President. Some say that the most unbelievable thing here is how little the president has come out and said in his defense this morning. After nearly four years of fighting with Congress over his failed policies to deal diplomatically with the Separatists and now this, he has had nothing to say. Is it a sign that he's given up?" Walt Mortimer was one of the so-called expert panel members for the Round Table of News and lead White House columnist for the Washington Post.
Mortimer had long been considered one of the "graybeards" of reporters on Washington, D.C., and on systemwide politics. He considered that a noble calling and that his job was to give the public the benefit of his years of experience and wisdom so they could make informed decisions about politics and their daily lives. Others might say that he had made a living by feeding shit to the American public.
"Walt, I disagree with you, as usual. Look at the clock for one thing. It's only noon in D.C., and the president had a heck of a day yesterday. If I were him, I'd be sleeping in for a week. I mean, when was the last time you got shot at and then shrugged it off and went back to work?" Alice St. John was quick to comment. "The president shouldn't come out and start blasting back until he's heard what is said today and has time to absorb all of the allegations. And what about the poor families of the terrorist attack yesterday? We should be talking about that. This entire impeachement is a farce, and it is nothing but politics at its worst. There isn't a citizen from Sol to Kuiper Station that doesn't see this phony impeachment as nothing but nasty election hijinks from the DNC. So, yes, the president should sit on his right to remain silent for a little while."
Alice St. John of the System Review was the youngest member of the panel and looked it, with her shoulder-length black hair and more modern dress and demeanor. She was often the sole dissenting voice on the panel. After all, Alice never minded showing the tiniest hint of her cleavage or any restraint when calling one of the "elder reporters" on something that she thought was utter bullshit. Fortunately for Alice, she was smart and pretty and kept things lively, and so she was able to keep her job secure. Since Gail Fehrer had taken the lead ENN anchor desk spot, Alice had become more and more popular. It was fairly clear that Fehrer was an Alexander Moore White House supporter. It was had been a shift from business as usual with the media network, but their ratings had sored since.
"Then you believe he's guilty?" Britt Howard, the show's host and previous anchor of ENN until Gail Fehrer had exploded in popularity, put Alice on the spot.
"How did you get that out of what I just said?" Alice was flustered. "That is for the impeachment process to show months from now, but from all the evidence the public has been shown so far, I would say there is maybe a possibility that a leak in the executive branch exists, somewhere, but Moore? No way. So far, and I will keep on repeating this until it sinks in, this looks like typical political shinanigans to sway an election on Tuesday. President Moore has been pushing Capitol Hill with military buildup budget increases for four years now, and the Dems and Indies don't like it. They don't like the fact that when the Separatists left the Sol System, we lost contact with the Tau Ceti colony and likewise lost our major labor force that had been giving the decades Dem-dominated Congress a flourishing economy.
Now that cheap labor is gone, the economy is adjusting, and who's left holding the bag? I don't see the Dems or the Indies taking credit for that. And now we have yet another serious terror attack on American soil! I'd say after yesterday, there is reason for a strong military now more than ever," Alice replied.
"Oh that is rich, Alice," Mortimer retorted. "This sluggish economy and the terrorist attack were brought on by the White House's policies against the Separatists since the Exodus. It could be argued that the attacks yesterday were directly President Moore's fault."
"That is absurd, and I don't even know how to respond to that." Alice was clearly on the edge of losing her temper with the older editorialist. It was this flare to her personality that the viewers seemed to like. Britt stepped in to keep the peace by tossing a question to one of the other panalists.
"There are some saying it's not fair to attack the White House, President Moore specifically, the day after an event such as yesterday. What say you, George?" Britt Howard nodded to an older man with a trim goatee. George Denton was a columnist and editorialist for National Public Radio and California Free People's Tribune. He was also considered an elder of the political media industry.
"Well, Britt, all's fair in love and war. And politics is a much rougher game than either of those two. It would be stupid for the Dems not to bring this out right now. With the election looming and the polls so close, they have to do something to counter any boost that President Moore might gain from his, and I say this with suspicion, most opportune heroics that were broadcast live across the system."
; "Oh come on, George. You've seen the Disney video. Moore was struggling for his life and trying to protect his family," Alice said with a look of disgust on her face. "Suspicion of what? You think he set all this up himself just to win an election?"
"Perhaps." The news editor shrugged.
"What about the leaked classified memo from the Oval Office?" Mortimer added.
"Just because the president signed and dated a memo doesn't mean he is the one who leaked it," Alice retorted. "This is nonsense."
"That raises the question to all of us here around the table. Do you think that President Moore is guilty or not guilty of leaking this technology to the Separatist terrorists?" Britt nodded as he named his guests. "Walt?"
"Guilty."
"George?"
"Guilty."
"We know Alice's vote is not guilty. And I guess I'm still on the fence. So, the four of us here sort of match the latest polling data. About half of us think he's guilty, and the other half say it's too early to tell. What do you think? We'd like to see your response. So, please go to www.roundtable-news.com/todayspoll and let us know what you think. Now back to the day's headlines as they break in the ENN newsroom with . . ."
November 1, 2388 AD
Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)
New Tharsis Peninsula
Sunday, 1:35 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Sunday, 9:35 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time
Elle sat in her apartment atop the mountain Capitol Building looking out the window at the Madira Valley. The small table for two near the eastern wall was set with a standard place setting and was filled with the typical Sunday brunch array that she and Scotty had enjoyed for ages. The view of the Jovian in the moring light of Tau Ceti was casting brilliant violets and reds across the trees below. The view was absolutely breathtaking. Elle welcomed the Sunday brunches where she and Scotty would sit alone and talk freely. There was usually no need for her mask, and she usually left standing orders with her guards that there would be no interruptions while they were spending their Sunday morning together.
"You haven't touched your eggs, Sienna. Is everything okay?" Scotty sipped at some juice and then wiped his mouth with the corner of his napkin. "The pastries are quite delicious this morning." He made an attempt to be humourously pompous. Elle showed him only the slightest hint of amusement. She was preoccupied and mostly annoyed by it.
"I hadn't expected there to be two U.S. supercarriers attacking that Oort facililty. What the hell was that about? And using our own bomb to destroy the Phlegra before it hit Luna City was inspired."
"I've said all along we needed to get rid of Moore. A plan of his no doubt," Scotty said around a mouthful of blueberries and cream-filled pastry. "How this will sway the election is hard to calculate. I looked at it briefly last night. Too many coefficients in the model just can't be narrowed down. Especially now with the last word we have of this impeachment vote. I sure didn't see that coming."
"Models are never exactly right. But these are just anomalies that can be dealt with," Elle said. "The last word I have from our troops is that the facility has been completely lost. That gives the U.S. a QMT portal to Tau Ceti if they can figure out how to connect to us and hack our security system. I'd better have extra firewalls put in place." Elle wasn't really talking to Scotty, more just thinking aloud to herself.
"I can take care of that." Scotty nodded.
"No. I'll do it."
"Okay." Elle's voice seemed to take a different tone. A tone she used for emphasis, one she knew that Scotty didn't like. It was a tone she had when she was about to make a tough decision—usually the type of decision where people ended up dying.
"How did she escape, Scotty?" Elle slammed a fist against the table, rattling the dishes. Her rapid mood shift was something that she knew Scotty had seen over the years when it was necessary for her to shift from the cool, calculating genious statesperson to the hard warrior terrorist. Scotty had often warned her of creating a bipolar or even split personality problem, but Elle never took his comments seriously.
"What? Who?"
"You know damned well who. That CIA agent that managed to slip on board the Phlegra. The one that had infiltrated the Tangier family since the Exodus. The one that destroyed the jaunt drive of the battle cruiser at the last minute. The one who almost stopped our plans dead in their tracks. She was zip-tied to an examining table for God's sake. How did she escape?!"
Scotty leaned back in his chair and took a long, deep breath and then exhaled through his lips, making a motorboat sound. Elle watched his reaction closely for any signs of a poker face. Scotty had been at the poker-faced lying politician game as long as or longer than she had, so she didn't expect to catch any tells.
"I don't know. You should ask the doctor." He finished the last bite of a croissant.
"Of the sixty-seven crew returned on the snap-back, Dr. Ross was the only one of them that was dead. Had the ship not been on an extreme skeleton crew, the casualties would have been horrendous when she sabotaged the jaunt drive." Elle glared at Scotty a moment longer. "Ross had knife wounds to the head."
"I didn't realize. I went straight to the transport and came here after the teleport."
"Where did she get a knife, Scotty?"
"Again, Sienna, I'm not sure what this is about." Scotty sat cool and calm in his chair. "She was good."
"Not that good. We scanned her and she was completely naked and immobilized. She had help."
"What are you saying, Sienna?"
"Scotty, I love you. And . . ." Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she inhaled to gain her compsure. "I . . . can't believe you could betray me like this. How long we've worked through our plans and how much we've sacrificed together for you to do this."
Elle reached under the table and pulled the railpistol from its hiding place. She thumbed the biometric ID tab, and the ready light turned green. She looked into her longtime lover's eyes as she brought the weapon up slowly. It had to be done.
"Don't do this, Sienna."
"Tell me the truth, Scotty. The truth."
"I, uh." Scotty cleared his throat. "I couldn't let you kill all those people, Sienna. Plan or not. Long-term or not. That would have been mass murder, and I couldn't let you bear the weight of that on your shoulders."
"Scotty." Elle sounded defeated and continued to cry. "I told you when you signed on to this that we had to sell our souls and that we were going to Hell."
"Don't give me that scapegoat religious nonsense. Do you truly think that knowing your soul will burn in Hell forever is justification enough for you to do whatever you want in this life? It's okay, I'll be punished for it in the afterlife," he said mockingly. "I have a son and three grandchildren and seven great-grandchilderen living in Luna City. You didn't think to warn me of your plan, so how are we in this together?"
"I was sparing you the heartache, because you couldn't have warned them if you knew."
"Bullshit. I could have managed it some way or the other. Even still, that doesn't justify it or make you, us, immune from murder on such a massive scale."
"We have all made sacrifices, Scotty."
"You know as well as I do that this plan has required us to live in Hell on Mars and at Kuiper Station and at Triton and even at times on Earth. That was our sacrifice, our Hell, Sienna. There is no need in making it Hell for innocent bystanders. For millions of innocent bystanders." Scotty leaned forward and slapped his palms on the table. "It has been Hell enough to live with the hundreds and thousands, tens of thousands of lives we have taken for the long-term betterment of mankind. There wasn't a point in letting that many people die just to sway this election, which I still argue is only a minor part of our plan anyway. I did this for you, Sienna. So if you have to take another life to protect your little Hell, then do it."
"Scotty . . ."
"Sienna, I love you. I did this for you."
"I love you too, Scotty." Elle pulled the trigger. The round entered between
his eyes just above the bridge of his nose, splattering the back of Scotty's head across the south wall of her apartment, leaving red and gray matter drooling down the transparent wall. Scotty's gaze never left her as he crumpled sideways to the floor.
Elle sat the pistol on the table and then continued to sob softly into the palms of her hands. Scotty had lied to her and repudiated her plan once now and that meant he would do it again. It had to be done.
Chapter 25
November 1, 2388 AD
Washington, D.C.
Sunday, 1:35 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
The NSA, the DNI, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the sec def are here, sir. Abigail roused Alexander from his power nap. The president had fallen asleep in his desk chair, and Abigail hadn't had the nerve to wake him up before.
What? Oh, you should have woken me earlier, Abigail.
Yes, Mr. President.
Send them in.
Alexander wiped his eyes with a tissue and then rubbed at them with his thumb and forefinger. He was still having a rough time overcoming his previous day. The constant badgering from the RNC chairwoman to fight back at the impeachment nonsense was also grating on his last nerve. He would get to it in good time. There was still well more than a day before the polls opened. He would think of something before then. Really, he would. In the meantime, he had the cleanup from the Seppy attack to deal with and the daily grind of running a country.
"Frank, Mike, Sylvia, Juan, y'all come in, come in. Have a seat." Moore tried to sound relaxed and eager to see them. After all, he hadn't been fully briefed on the situation in the Oort Cloud yet.
"Mr. President." General Sylvia Patourno smiled and shook his hand. "I can honestly say that I've never been happier to see you alive and well, sir."
"Thanks, Sylvia. Now let's hear about our operation out in the Oort, shall we?"
"Well, sir, I'll brief you and Juan will jump in here whenever." She nodded to the secretary of defense.
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