by Dani Kollin
“Won’t the other rings be upset and try to stop your messing with their territory?” asked Admiral Sinclair, clearly intrigued by the idea.
“Absolutely, but fuck ’em,” answered Kirk. “We’re not trying to set up a criminal enterprise. The normal levers of persuasion, loss of profit, exposure, and fear of retaliation mean nothing to us. My operatives will create the rings and then leave. They risk their lives enough as it is; I don’t need ’em to stick around. Plus it’ll make no difference if the UHF government finds out about the rings. In fact, if they don’t get wise to it or even try and cover it up we’ll make sure it becomes first-screen news thoughout the core Neuro.”
“But then they’d squash it,” added Padamir.
“Well, they’d try,” said Kirk, “which also works for us.”
“Not sure I follow,” said Padamir.
“Free advertising, friend. Nothing like having a government come down hard on something to make everyone want it. It’s ingenious, if I must say so myself.”
“You can’t be serious about this, Kirk,” said Mosh through barely parted lips. “Are you actually suggesting that we become VR pushers? That we help introduce the very thing that nearly destroyed the human race three centuries ago?”
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. Mr. President,” he then said, turning away from Mosh, “if we push hard on this we’ll be able to cause substantial addiction rates in as little as six months. Not only will the UHF lose the effective services of the VR addicts, but their families will be adversely affected and they’ll have to use an inordinate amount of resources to combat the problem. This works for us on so many levels.”
Justin remained silent, absorbing everything. He didn’t indicate one way or another which way he leaned, though he noticed how every cabinet member was now searching his face for a sign.
“It’s evil,” said Mosh.
“Who the hell cares?” snapped Kirk. “By tying up their seemingly endless supply of people, it’ll diminish the one advantage they have over us. And they’re susceptible to it because they’re a planet-based civilization. Up until now that was a major advantage—not anymore. Not with this. And even if they find out that we’re the ones behind it they can’t retaliate in kind for all the reasons I just gave. This is a weapon, people. Maybe even the weapon. Because it’s the only one so far that we can use and they can’t. I like weapons like that. But please consider the most important aspect of this idea: VR addiction will, without one iota of a doubt,” said Kirk, throwing up some new graphs into the display with a series of calculations that fully supported his reasoning, “speed up the collapse of the UHF. All we’ve been doing is playing for time, hoping beyond hope that one side cracks first. Well, now we finally have in our hands the ability to ensure which side that will be. This is it, folks. This is the only way we can win this war.”
“Kirk, how can you even consider this?” asked Mosh, having none of it. “You went to museum when you were young.”
“Yeah, so what? I’m happy to live by the dealer’s rule, ‘don’t use your own shit.’”
“But you’ll provide it.”
“Hell yeah, I’ll provide it. We’re fighting a war that we’re all in serious danger of losing. That’s how I can consider this.”
“So your solution is to spread the worst affliction in human history amongst our enemies. And let’s, just for argument’s sake, say that it works. How do you plan on getting it under control again?”
“I don’t.”
“What!?”
“Mosh, we won’t need to bother. If it works we win, and if we win it’s not our problem anymore. Let the core deal with it.”
Mosh was through arguing. “We can’t do this!” he repeated, looking directly at Justin, almost pleading for a sign of support.
“Why not?” asked Cyrus, breaking the spell. He looked momentarily confused, having clearly expressed a thought he hadn’t initially meant to express out loud. But once he realized he was in the hot seat he continued. “Why not, Mr. Secretary? Frankly, I don’t really care about the core. The Alliance is the future of the human race and if we lose we’ll have no future. Damsah’s balls, man, look at what they did to Neela. If Kirk’s idea will help us, then I believe that that should be our only consideration.”
“The means are the ends,” they heard Justin whisper softly. Kirk threw his hands up into the air and almost cursed out loud, realizing what those words meant.
“Let me be very clear here,” continued Justin. “We will not do this and it has nothing to do with the UHF and what it would do to them. You’re right about one thing, Cyrus, that this is about us. If we do this one horrible thing what’s next? Cyrus, how many babies are you willing to bombard from orbit?”
“It’s not the same thing, Mr. President.”
“Listen to yourself! All of you!” shouted Justin. “We’ve had this argument before.”
“Mr. President,” said Kirk, “you agreed the good of the Alliance demanded we go forward with the new trauma treatment. How is this any different?”
“Yes, I did, Kirk. And I’m still not happy about it. But there’s a world of difference between our own citizens volunteering for a treatment and us murdering billions who are not even shooting at us.”
“They’re the enemy, Mr. President, and eventually they will be shooting at us. For the good of our people—”
“We cannot do our people any good,” interrupted Justin, “by doing evil, and this is evil.”
“Mr. President,” sneered Kirk, “your morality will lose us this war.”
“It’s not my morality, Mr. Olmstead; it’s morality. A victory won on the shattered minds and bodies of billions of innocents is not worth winning.”
“What innocents? Mr. President. Those innocents elected Hektor Sambianco, a man who, as you so eloquently stated, promised them a bit of freedom to be purchased with our blood. Our blood, sir! They fill his legions to overflowing and labor to supply them with the means for our destruction. They could end this war by simply refusing to fight against a people who would not harm them otherwise. They are culpable; they cannot escape the consequences of their actions or inactions. They voted for the man, and then signed up to be his willing executioners. Whether Hektor ordered it is immaterial. They are not automatons, sir. They are free to choose, and they chose to let him continue this war. We owe them nothing.”
“Kirk,” answered Justin, looking profoundly sad, “it’s not about them. It never was and never will be. What would we have to become to win this war? What do you want our children and their children and all the children born to us hereafter to learn? That we were drug pushers and murderers of children sleeping in the night? Will the first page read in our history be of the blood and pain we were willing to inflict on others far from the war? What good can come of a beginning like that?”
“At least,” said Kirk, “they’ll be around to read the damn history book, Mr. President. But don’t just look at me. Look around this room. Almost everyone at this table feels as I do.”
Justin peered into the eyes of the cabinet. No one said a word. “Would you like to put it to a vote?” he asked.
“Yes, I would!” Kirk said, wide-eyed.
Justin sighed. “All in favor of using VR as a weapon to end the war sooner in our favor?”
Olmstead, Sinclair, Rhunsfeld, Singh, and Anjou all raised their hands.
“All against.”
Only Justin and Mosh raised their hands in opposition.
“Well,” said Justin, “the vote seems to be five for it and two against. The proposal is rejected.”
“Mr. President!” shrieked Kirk.
“Kirk,” Justin said firmly, “I was elected by Congress to be the President. As long as I am President my judgment is the sole arbiter of policy for this administration. You can argue for or against anything freely here, but once I’ve made a decision it will be carried out and you will all support it. If you cannot do so you may resign at any time. And
as long as I am President of the Outer Alliance we will not follow any course of action so heinous as to make any victory won worthless.”
It was obvious that Kirk wanted to get up and leave, but he restrained himself.
“We have options to win this war, Admiral. Let’s use them without burdening our children with a moral debt they could not possibly pay. I want you to look into reinforcing the 180 with the main fleet. Have a plan ready for my perusal when I return from the outer planets.”
All heads nodded in agreement.
“Now,” continued Justin, “let’s move on to something else.”
Justin manipulated a control in front of him. “I’d like to talk about the crash of the O’Brian.” He called up the image of the small transport. It showed a typical Alliance ship, long thrusters in back and many different modules attached like curving and square coral growth. It also showed the ship suffering an explosion in one of her cargo pods and subsequently crashing into the wall of the Via Cereana.
“What’s the damage?” asked Justin.
“Not nearly as bad as it could have been,” said Mosh. “The ship’s a loss, but the insurance company has already sold the wreck to the company that towed it. They’ll be able to salvage most of the parts, which should last about two seconds on the open market. Fortunately, it didn’t happen near Gedretar. We’ve lost some vital raw material bulk storage holders, which will play havoc with transport times, as the big haulers will have to wait longer in the Truck Stop before they can enter the Cereana.” The Truck Stop was a holding area for ships waiting to enter the slot. The services that had been rebuilt tended to be ones associated with servicing ships: quick fixes, refueling, basic entertainment. “We should have it repaired in less than two weeks.”
“Kirk,” asked Justin, “was this sabotage?”
“Possibly, but I doubt it. It looks like the hydrogen was stored in a container that hadn’t been serviced in a long while and the result was the ship’s atmosphere was leaking into the container. The oxygen-hydrogen mix was volatile and just needed a spark. It seemed that some static electricity from all the EM activity was enough. Accidents similar to this have happened before.”
“I find the location suspicious,” said Sinclair.
“I gotta admit, Kirk,” agreed Justin, “it does seem like a convenient place for an ‘accident.’”
“I thought so too, at first. But if it was, the location wasn’t really vital. The front of the Cereana or somewhere along Gedretar would have been a far more damaging place to set an explosive.”
“Could’ve gone off prematurely,” said Sinclair.
“Thought of that too,” answered Kirk, “but not enough checks out to believe that scenario.”
“It’s causing problems, believe me,” said Mosh.
“True, but nothing like what it could have,” said Kirk. “Tell me I’m wrong, Mosh, but isn’t this happening more and more in the Alliance?”
“Sadly, yes, given the strain to fight the war and maintain a space-faring civilization, we’ve had to cut back on many backup systems and sometimes even basic maintenance can be put on the back burner. Truth is, we should’ve been expecting something like this.”
“Well, the good news, Mr. President,” said Padamir, “is that the image of the O’Brian is one of the most viewed in the Alliance right now. A sampling of message traffic includes many comments about making time for maintenance checks.”
“What about that plan to make sure it doesn’t happen again?” asked Justin.
“We can protect the Via Cereana,” said Hildegard. She changed the holo in the middle of the table. “What we’ll do is set up a series of basic magnetic repulsers. Nothing fancy and they should be out-of-the-way, mostly.” Her model showed about four hundred small structures roughly spaced out all along the Via. Although each was about ten feet by ten feet and seven feet tall, from far away the sloping shape of the structures made them look very much like a series of metallic pimples. “They won’t be difficult to manufacture, and they’re easy to install. It won’t do much more than emit a simple repulser field, but that should take care of any more careening ships damaging the Cereana.”
“How long will it take and how much will it hurt the war effort?” asked Justin.
Mosh replaced Hildegard’s holo with his own. “About six months and it’ll cost a whole lot less,” he said, pointing to a series of charts and graphs, “than if one of the large cargo haulers loses it and takes out half of Gedretar.”
“Good point. Let’s do it,” said Justin. Soon after, the cabinet went their separate ways.
An hour later Mosh showed up in the triangle office. Justin had to have him wait a few minutes, as his visit wasn’t planned and a delegation from Eris was still visiting. The delegation had come a long way and Justin knew that Tyler had promised them a visit with the President. By his meeting them in the now-famous triangle office he ensured they’d appreciate the visit more. It would give Tyler more clout with his constituents back home—which Justin was glad to supply, as Tyler was one of the most solid friends the administration had in Congress.
After the Erisians had left, Justin and Mosh ended up sharing drinks on the couch. They both took the opportunity to say and do nothing. The most powerful man in half of the solar system and one of his most trusted advisors savored the fantasy that they were ordinary men enjoying each other’s company over good scotch with nothing much more to do. But the internal taskmaster that drove them both only let them have a few such moments. Almost as if they heard an alarm, both men finally stirred.
“Do you think we should’ve told Kirk?” asked Justin.
“No. We needed to see if the O’Brian cover story would hold under a real inquiry. If our own services bought it, then it’s likely the UHF security will too.”
“You think Hildegard can pull it off?”
“Worse comes to worst,” answered Justin, “it will do what it’s supposed to. But if the wizards in the deep pit are correct, this could be one huge advantage.”
Justin massaged his temple. For a moment he felt all the pain of Neela’s loss. When they were alone, she’d often rub his temples and then he’d rub her feet. Once they tried it at the same time with disastrous, if not altogether humorous, results. But now without Neela in his life Justin had become skilled at beating that pain back into his subconscious quickly.
“We need to be careful here, friend,” said Justin. “I don’t want us vulnerable to the same sort of crap we pulled on the UHF at the Battle of the Needle’s Eye.”
Mosh raised his eyebrow in a look of respect. “I hadn’t thought about that, Mr. President. I’ll get Hildegard on it immediately.” He made as if to get up.
“Sit your ass down, Mosh, and cut that ‘Mr. President’ crap. You don’t like me enough to keep calling me that.”
“No,” Mosh answered acerbically. “I really don’t. You’ve screwed with incorporation and guaranteed its extinction in the Alliance. No matter what, that’s not as good an idea as you or those idiot NoShares believe.”
Justin nodded, even if he didn’t agree. “Finished?”
“Not quite. I still think you’re the cause of this revolution. A revolution that’s killed a lot of good people and will kill more.” Justin was about to argue, but Mosh cut him off. “I take that back, Justin. You were not the cause, that’s unfair, but you were the spark. If you hadn’t been such a stubborn SOB we wouldn’t be here and many people I know would not be dead.”
“That’s true,” said Justin, nodding, “but have you ever wondered if there should’ve been a spark in the first place?”
“Don’t tell me you’re starting to believe in a divine plan for all this.”
“God forbid,” Justin said flatly, causing a chuckle from the both of them. “Not that, Mosh, but I mean that the societal pressure was building. NoShares may appear to have come from nowhere, but as you agreed, that ground had already been made fertile. As for the Alliance, it existed in fact, if not in law, bef
ore I got here. If not me, then something else would have lit it.”
Mosh’s mouth curled up and into a doubting smirk. “That make it easier for you to sleep at night?”
“Sometimes,” answered Justin honestly. “Do you still regret the side you ended up on?”
Mosh sighed heavily. “I used to. It’s weird, but if I’d been on Earth when this happened I may very well have ended up in Hektor’s cabinet.”
“Yeah,” answered Justin, nodding in agreement, “that is a weird thought.”
“Don’t put too much stock in it. The truth is, Hektor probably would’ve had me killed or suspended and lost. I may have ended up like Neela, which is something I also blame you for.”
“Something we both agree on,” Justin said sadly, staring into the bottom of his glass.
“But despite all of that,” said Mosh, “you’re the President and I can’t think of anyone else I’d want in your chair.”
“Including you?”
“Damsah forbid. I had my shot at a chair like that and chose to not take it. No,” he said, polishing off his scotch, “you’re the one for the job.”
“I’m a good administrator, Mosh, but I think the system is set up well enough for someone else to take over.”
“I’m sure it is, and that’s what scares the hell out of me. You have a grasp of what’s truly at stake here. You know how important our actions are in winning this war. Anyone else would have unleashed VR or given some advanced gray tech to what’s left of the action wing. You never even considered it. We need that moral compass.”
“Even if it costs us the war?”
“Well, Justin, that’s where you and I actually see eye to eye. If it costs us the war, then at that price the war ain’t worth winning.”
Justin changed the subject. “Speaking of winning, I hear your Eleanor’s being considered as the next representative for the Ceres cluster. How’d that happen?”
“Her service as a combat medic and her volunteer work in the community clinics made her a sympathetic figure. But it was Congressman Singh’s recommendation before he resigned to join the fleet that helped make her a real contender. By signing himself up he was doing what many politicians were doing in the correct belief that the only real hope they’d have of a Political future was to be willing to fight on the front line of the Alliance. Even being one of the sons of the famous and wealthy Padamir Singh would not have been sufficient to assure Political office after the war, what with all the heroic veterans returning.”