by Dani Kollin
Michael docked at the War Prize and checked in. Though they all knew him well, he was still made to endure the rigorous security protocol. He never once complained, feeling honored that he’d even been allowed in the famous vessel’s hallowed halls. Once he was cleared he gathered his belongings and cut through the interior of the ship on his way to the appointment—late, he thought irritably. His agitation threw him a little off course, and as he made his way past large groups of spacers and miners and through an unfamiliar jumble of passageways he stumbled quite accidentally into one of the assault bays. It was, he could see, a large cargo hangar modified for the supply and launch of troops and equipment. He knew the type—it could open many doors simultaneously, one at a time, or the entire hangar depending on the payload. But it wasn’t being used for any payload-specific functions now.
The large, cavernous room was filled with some of the toughest-looking combat soldiers Michael had ever seen. From the tired but intense look in their eyes he could tell that they were all hardened vets. The sheer lethality of the assembled men and women permeated the air and was obvious by the confident ease with which they carried themselves. Their uniforms were sloppy, but their equipment was pristine. They looked like they might have just come off of some sort of training drill. But they weren’t training now. They were encircling a small open area occupied by a single man, the back of whose head was all that Michael could make out. He figured there had to be nearly a hundred sitting, all looking toward the center. Behind those were other vets standing up. And farther back, perched on top of the assault shuttles and leaning out their open doors, were even more.
Without thinking Michael picked up his holo-recorder and took a single shot. He was never able to explain why he hadn’t set the device to record, but his second image in as many hours would end up capturing something so stirring and personal that many would later argue it should never have been caught in the first place.
All the faces of the men and women emanated contentment and understanding as they looked toward their President. Justin had turned profile into the camera and his face had a gentle yet deeply wistful smile. But it was also the love he felt for each and every one in that bay that the picture had so perfectly captured. It was the bond of a father to his children. Of the 312 men and women positively identified in the picture fewer than 20 were to survive the war.
Burroughs, Mars
Hektor Sambianco looked through the reports and felt a moment of deep and abiding rage. It was inconceivable to him that he could lose this war. But it seemed that that was what every incompetent moron in a uniform was trying to do. The Alliance had victory after brilliant victory and all he had were two, both of which paled in comparison to any one of the enemy’s. Not for the first time or the last would he think about Janet Delgado and the strange twist of fate that made her the premier military talent of the age as well as a citizen of the Alliance. But now he had a cabinet meeting to attend. He took the short walk from his purposely utilitarian residence to the presidential office and then into an adjoining chamber. The press had made good use of the fact that this President, working in conditions many a penny could relate to, was living up to his minority background.
Hektor walked into the cabinet room and immediately sat down, tossing his stack of notes and crystals onto the table. Sitting across from him was Brenda Gomutulu, the former head of GCI Accounting whom Hektor had taken with him into the presidency. She was settling into her new role as minister of the economy and he could already tell by the way she was eyeing him that he was going to get hit with some bad news. To her left was Irma Sobbelgé, his minister of information. To Hektor’s left sat Moftasa Narajj, the minister of defense. He had a dark complexion, thin slits for eyes, and a mouth that always looked like it had been sealed shut until actual words came out. Hektor was beginning to realize that he was also a man who was far out of his depth. He’d have to be replaced, and soon. To Brenda’s right was GCI’s former DepDir of Special Operations and now the minister of internal affairs, Tricia Pakagopolis—renowned for her successful capture of Neela Harper. She was of medium build with a finely sculpted face, dark black hair, and possessing a subtle yet standoffish beauty. To Tricia’s right sat the minister of justice, Franklin Higgins IV. Though Higgins didn’t look a day over thirty-five, he had the weathered mien of someone who’d seen it all. His lightly flecked hair, permanently arched brow, and well-manicured nails bespoke his pedigree. Higgins had been from money so old it had been rumored that they had majority before there was majority.
“OK,” said Hektor, looking around the table. “Who has the worst news?”
Tricia spoke first. “The pennies have coined a new slogan. It’s going to hurt our recruiting efforts.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the draft, would it?” asked Hektor.
Tricia nodded soberly.
“We have the legal right to draft minorities at will,” groused Franklin. “The precedents will hold up in court.”
“Yeah, until Cord comes to the rescue of the ‘poor’ pennies and burns your precious court house to the ground,” said Irma evenly.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” answered Franklin. “He’d never get that far.”
“He will if fifteen billion pennies revolt all at once,” answered Irma, “which is what’ll happen if you try to draft them against their will.” Irma may not have been a penny—someone owning the bare minimum of themselves allowed by law—but she’d once been a minority and it was obvious she didn’t like Franklin’s condescending tone.
“Tell us what’s been making the rounds of the Neuro,” said Hektor to the information minister.
“‘Majority Plight/Minority Fight.’”
Hektor nodded through a scowl.
“Doesn’t it help that I’m a minority now?”
“Quite a bit,” answered Irma, “but the casualties are coming primarily from penny stocks. It’s still not a lot in comparison to the general minority population, but as the war continues …” She didn’t bother to finish the sentence.
“And it’s equally obvious from the news of the battlefront that the war’s going to continue, at least for the foreseeable future,” added Narajj.
“And that’s where my bad news comes in,” said Brenda.
Hektor gave her a one-sided grin. “Alright. What’ve you got?”
“Do you want the worst of it first or last?”
“OK, Brenda, save the best … um, worst for last.”
“Yes, Mr. President. Then we’ll start with the resource problem. Commodities are getting incredibly scarce. The prices are going through the roof. We had high hopes that Eros would be able to take the edge off, but the latest projections are that it will be at least six months before the settlement produces enough to feed itself. And then at least another year before the basic support structures in the suburbs around it are reconstructed to begin viable export operations.”
“Go on.”
“We managed to avoid the commodity problem until now because the crises before the war had dislocated and slowed the economy, trapping a huge amount of commodity shipments from the belt and the outer planets. They simply piled up.”
“Piled up?”
“Yes, sir. All over Earth/Luna, the Beanstalk, anywhere we could pile them. We mistakenly thought we’d have enough to provide a price depressant for the next twenty years. Instead we got two.”
“OK, Brenda. Got it. Suggestions, please.”
“Well, the high prices are causing the usual effects, like trying to find alternative sources in the areas we control, creating alternate commodities, and of course having people use less. Mines are being reopened on Earth and serious resource surveys are taking place on Mars for the first time. But to extract transports and boost those commodities out of the gravity wells of a planet just makes them cost and time prohibitive. Most of our industry is orbital, thank Damsah. As far as getting the resources is concerned, as long as the war is a market factor the planetary extracti
on of commodities will be economical. Repair is also becoming a big growth industry. That will help stave off a consumer market collapse for a little while.”
“I assume there’s more,” Hektor said dourly.
“Yes, sir. The economy is taking a hit. Even with military forces increasing at an exponential rate and all the war building, the civilian sector is getting reamed. A lot of industries lack the resources to continue functioning within a war time economy’s unforgiving circular effect. It’s making the Crisis of a few years ago seem like a pleasant holiday. Like I said, the war is giving us some leeway. For reasons that are beyond me the general populace is willing to put up with far more dislocation if they feel it’s being caused by a war versus some other factor. I don’t understand it too well, but I’m damn well going to take advantage of it. But we need to get these people jobs, Mr. President, or in a year’s time Justin won’t need to win; we’ll collapse.”
“And that was the least worst news?”
Brenda nodded. “You said to save the worst for the last, so I did.”
“Great.” And then with his hand he indicated she continue.
“All of our currencies are collapsing. When we have no recognized medium of exchange our economy goes poof.”
“I didn’t realize that ‘poof’ was a standard economic term.”
“Oh, it’s not,” answered Brenda with a bland smile, “but it’ll do.”
“Suggestions, please.”
“Do what the Alliance is doing and issue a dominant fiat currency.”
The table broke into howls of dissent. The loudest came from Franklin, but all the others had equally bad things to say about fictional money and government toilet paper. Hektor didn’t join in, waiting for the protest to die down.
“Brenda, if my own cabinet won’t accept it, how can I get the people, let alone the corporations, to go along?”
“Mr. President, none of the other currencies can handle the debt load this war is causing. We must have an expandable and frankly confiscatory currency if we’re to have any hope of surviving the war economically. I’m not saying we won’t pay a horrible price for this after the war. I should probably be arrested and shot for the mess this will make, but—”
“But if we don’t win none of it will make any difference.”
“Yes, sir. I’m done now.”
“Indeed,” answered Hektor, mulling over the suggestion. After a moment he looked back over to his finance minister. “Brenda, does it have to be called a currency?”
“I don’t understand, Mr. President. What else would you call it?”
“Bonds. We need to get an amendment for the purposes of the war, but the government will issue bearer bonds, redeemable in government securities, commodities, and dividend revenue say some twenty years after the war is over. We phase out the bonds after the war. Admittedly the effects will be with us for the next fifty years.”
Brenda’s face did a dance of contortions as she worked out the suggestion in her head.
“The bonds will fluctuate horribly against the other currencies depending on the war,” she finally answered.
“Let the damn things fluctuate as long as they’re there.”
Brenda nodded, impressed. “It could work.”
“Good. I can sell bonds to the UHF; it won’t be easy, but it’ll be a hell of a lot better than trying to force them to accept a fiat currency.”
“But it is a fiat currency,” said Franklin in anguish.
“Of course it is.” Hektor barely held back saying “you idiot.” “Everyone will even know it is, but as long as we don’t call it one we’ll be able to get away with it, barely.” Hektor took a moment and felt an inner shudder at just how much long-term damage these mea sures were going to do to what up until now had been a nearly perfectly functioning market economy.
Now the bastard Cord’s turning me into a Damsah-cursed socialist, thought Hektor bitterly. Then he turned his intemperate glare on the defense minister, who seemed to shrink into his seat.
“Moftasa, what the hell happened out there? We had their fleet outnumbered three to two with ships that were as good as, if not better than, theirs. Even if their crews are superior, something I find aggravating considering how much we’ve paid to train ours, it should’ve at least been a draw.”
“Mr. President, it has to do with our rail-gun technology.”
“Go on.”
“Uh, yes, Mr. President. Well, our guns use something called a phased magnetic field.”
“You’re starting to lose me, Moftasa.”
“Sorry, sir, near as we can figure they tapped into the magnetic exhaust of our guns and reversed their phase. Essentially they forced a 180-degree shift, which sent the magnetic exhaust back into the gun.”
“Which did what exactly?”
“Destructive interference, Mr. President. Once their phase shifter missiles were used up, our rail guns returned to full working order … but by then it was too late.”
Hektor’s eyes narrowed.
“Brilliant. Can we defend against this or, better yet, use it against the Alliance?”
The defense minister perked up. “Defend against it, yes. The short-term solution is to ‘contaminate’ our magnetic exhaust field with some additional random phases, but it’s not foolproof.”
“How so?”
“Well, without getting too technical, sir, they’ll eventually figure out how to get through our contamination and find the coherent signal to reverse it again.”
“So then, what’s the long-term solution?”
Moftasa remained quiet for a moment, clearly not wanting to be the bearer of bad news.
“We’d need to completely redesign our rail guns, sir.”
“What?”
“We’d have to make them so that their magnetic exhaust will always be incoherent—couldn’t ever be messed with and we’ll have to assume that the Alliance has already done this to theirs.”
The others in the room looked on glumly.
Hektor was exasperated. “Are they really that much better than us?”
“Yes, oh hell yes,” said Tricia. “We’ve gone over this before, Mr. President, but allow me to review in light of our latest defeat.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “The Alliance is a space-based civilization. They live on low-gravity dwarf planets or microgravity asteroids. They’re far more familiar with the nano-assisted musculature that can make the jumps between microgravity of the belt to the two-thirds that Ceres uses at its habitat levels. Frankly, we won’t have a real advantage in any environment unless they launch an invasion of Earth.”
Hektor nodded with a forced smile. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“To continue,” said Trisha, “they live in hostile artificial environments and have always been at the end of all the supply chains and technology curves. To be honest, anyone would think that would be a huge disadvantage, but they’ve learned—evolved, really—to think creatively while the core worlds have learned—”
“To wait for technology to come to them,” finished Irma.
“Yes. The good news is we outnumber them nine to one and have people easily as creative and capable. We just need to get them into the right positions. Those that are planet bound now will eventually learn to think and fight like Alliance miners—at least the ones that survive will. Our huge advantage in industrial production will turn the tide. If we don’t lose heart or collapse first.”
“We’re forgetting an important factor in all of this,” added Franklin. “Consequences.”
“Meaning?” asked Irma.
“Meaning there has to be a consequence for all this failure. The people need to know that it won’t be tolerated at any level. Sorry, Moftasa,” he said, looking over to the defense minister, “but we also need the military to be held responsible. I’d want courts-martial to be more broadly publicized, for example. Let’s give the public someone to blame while letting other military officers know that if they screw up they
won’t quietly get to go home to a cushy corporate office after losing battles, destroying equipment, and killing our personnel through their gross incompetence.”
Everyone looked to Moftasa, who was nodding his head solemnly. “I couldn’t agree more, Franklin, which is why … which is why I’ve decided to tender my resignation.”
There were no protestations, no attempts at dissuasion, just a quiet, uncomfortable silence. “I’m sorry, Moftasa,” Hektor finally said, “but Franklin is correct. And your choice is noble. Responsibility has to start at the top.”
“I understand, sir. It’s for the best.” Hektor wasn’t the only one in the room to notice the look of abject relief on the now former defense minister’s face.
Tricia spoke next in a cautionary voice. “Many of these officers have powerful connections within the largest corporations. They won’t be easy targets or powerless victims.”
“Then,” added Franklin, “I’d suggest you start with this Trang fellow and maybe even Gupta as well. “Neither have strong corporate connections.”
“And,” added Hektor, “it’ll be a clarion call to the other officers out there that we’re prepared to go after bigger fish.” He then nodded his head appreciatively. “I like it.”
“Sir,” interjected Moftasa, “Captain Gupta did get away from the last battle with all four of his troop transports intact.”
“I sincerely doubt his ability to run away will be a cogent defense in his court-martial,” Franklin offered dourly.
The cabinet looked to Hektor for a response.
“We have things to do and a war to win,” Hektor answered, his non-response sealing Gupta’s fate. “Moftasa, stay awhile. I need your advice.”
Neela paced the waiting room, walking in nervous circles in front of a reception-ist’s desk, the last barrier into an office she’d spent the last two days trying to reach. She couldn’t figure out the source of her discontent. Normally once she’d made up her mind to do something she felt her doubts and fears fade, but ever since she’d decided to see Hektor it was like a part of her mind had an itch that couldn’t be scratched. Even as she was pacing, her left hand rose unsummoned to scratch her head.