Sherman munched on his burger. He nodded to White, aware that he was now being used as an unofficial therapist. He didn’t mind too much. He was hungry and wanted to eat, and it was easy enough to nod here and there and look sympathetic while White droned on.
“If it comes to a hot war it would be even more disastrous than the last one. At least there we were fighting foreigners, people who could legitimately be seen to be enemies of the USAN. If this thing kicks off we’ll be fighting our own people, and on what many of us still consider to be USAN soil. Can you imagine that? The absolute calamity of it. It would be like a civil war. I just can’t bear to think about it. And it would give Cortes a plausible reason to continue with his Restrictive War Measures. I know he only needs the slightest excuse to extend them. He’s trying to wriggle out of resuming elections as it is. He actually needs a crisis - it suits his agenda. If we can take the sting out of this, defuse the whole thing, I think we’ll be performing a great public duty. We can deprive Cortes of his war and get him kicked out of office.”
Sherman thought he’d toss a little barb into the mix. “And who would replace him? You?”
White took it in his stride, dodging with the ease of a career politician. “If the people elected me then yes, why not? But that’s the whole point; it should be down to the people, there should be elections. This whole thing stinks, it’s just not right. Everyone was scared during the war so they ate it up like it was just a normal thing, but it’s not normal. The people should be electing their president. He got them so scared they gave up their fundamental rights willingly. He told them he was going to do the right thing on their behalf, and they trusted him. Well, I wouldn’t be so trustful. I’ve seen him close up. I’ve seen it in his eyes. He wants another war, and he’s hell-bent on getting it. We can stop him.” He ran out of steam at that point and absentmindedly picked up one of his fries and ate it.
Sherman took a long sip from his soda. “You don’t have to worry about it,” he said. “We’ve got good people on this. Those ships will never get to Mars. Not in time to be useful, anyway. This whole thing will blow over. In two years no one will give a shit about it. There’ll be no war, and Cortes will have no excuse to continue with the War Measures. There’ll be an election, Gerard White will be elected president by a huge landslide. And they all live happily ever after, The End.”
White threw a fry at Sherman. “You son of a bitch,” he said, “this is serious. There are lives at stake here, the whole future of the USAN could be decided by this.”
The fry hit Sherman on the chin and fell into his lap. He stopped eating and looked directly at White. “Hey,” he said, “we’ve got our best people on this. It’s going to work out exactly how you want it, okay?”
White looked at him.
“Okay?” Sherman said again, with a low menace in his voice.
“Okay,” said White. “I’m sorry about the fry, I don’t know what came over me.” He looked flustered. Obviously, he had a lot on his mind.
“I accept your apology,” said Sherman, unconvincingly, and he carried on eating.
Meeting with Sherman made White late to his appointment with Zelman. As usual, per the rules of the arrangement, she had booked the hotel and sent him the details. When he arrived he had apologised for his tardiness and showered. He was wearing a bath robe now and had calmed down. It had been a stressful day and the champagne he was pouring would, he hoped, calm his nerves further. Madeline always had a soothing effect on him. As he handed a glass of champagne to her he said, “For you, my dear.” She took the glass from him and took a sip before setting it down on the bedside table.
“Tough day?” she said.
White shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “I feel like I’m the only person in this country who gives a shit any more. We’re sleepwalking into a dictatorship, and no one seems to give a damn.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad. The war’s been over for months now. He can’t hold out much longer, there’s no justification any more. You worry too much.”
White came around and lay on the bed next to Zelman. “I wish it was that simple,” he said. He took a slug from his champagne flute, which he then rested on his belly with two hands clasped around it as if it was some holy object. “He’s handling this Mars thing all wrong, way too heavy-handed. I think he’s looking for a fight. He’s got so used to fighting over the last few years he can’t think of any other way of dealing with things. And a fight plays right into his hands. He can go on about security issues and continue stripping away liberties here at home while he does it. He’ll continue with the suspension of elections on the pretext of national security again.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” said Zelman. “I mean, he’s an asshole, that’s not in question, but he’s not that sort of asshole, is he?”
“I don’t know,” said White, “I hope not. But it bothers me. I mean, it truly bothers me. The powers he instated for himself during the war are still in place. Not a single one of them has been rescinded. If he gets into a fight with the Martians that will be just the excuse he needs to hang on to them, maybe even add more. It’s not right, it’s not democracy, and it feels like no one gives a shit but me.”
Zelman put a hand on White’s arm. “That’s because you’re a good person,” she said, “and that’s why it’s so important that you’re his number two. A heartbeat away, remember? It’s part of your job to balance him out and keep him in check.”
“It is,” said White, “and I think I’m failing at it. I haven’t been able to do a damn thing to stop him fixing up those carriers and sending them to Mars. It’s the exact opposite of what he should be doing and I’ve been powerless to stop him.”
“It’ll blow over,” said Zelman. “It’s just one of those things that seems like a big deal at the time. A year from now you’ll look back at this and wonder why it all seemed so important. I’m sure the Martians will back down, or we’ll be able to broker some sort of deal or leaseback or something. Cool heads will prevail, you’ll see.”
“It’s just that sort of thinking I’m worried about,” said White. “Everybody thinks these things just work themselves out and turn out okay in the end. That’s why they ignore every small incremental step towards disaster; because they think it won’t matter in the long run, but it does. We’ve seen that happen close-up within the last ten years. Everybody thought we wouldn’t go to war because it seemed we had too much to lose, and they had too much to lose, and that it wouldn’t benefit anyone. But what happened? Somehow we just wandered into it despite everything. And you know why? Because too many people who had the opportunity to do something just sat around saying, ‘Well, it’ll never come to that.’ But you know what? Sometimes it does come to that, and by then it’s too late. And it’s happening again now, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Oh come on,” said Zelman, “you’ve had your war. No one’s that unlucky. And Cortes had his fingers burned, too. The last thing he wants is another war.”
White looked despondently into the distance. “I hope you’re right,” he said. He put his champagne glass on the bedside table after draining it and rolled over onto his side to face Zelman. “Do you really think I’m being paranoid?” he said.
Zelman looked down at him. “Not paranoid,” she said. “Maybe a little over concerned. But that’s what makes you such an effective politician; you look out for the things that other people miss. You’re just doing your job, and doing it well.”
White closed his eyes. “I’m so tired,” he said.
“There, there,” said Zelman, stroking his hair. “You go to sleep, if that’s what you need.”
“It is,” said White sleepily. “I need to sleep.”
Elspeth had been following the streams from Earth as well as Mars. She kept her eyes on streams from government departments and business news. She had followed the developments with the Aloadae; there were live s
treams from the USAN’s defence department showing the refit. Occasionally the streams would cut off when there was material which was considered sensitive, but unclassified data on the refits was freely available.
Helios also published information and streams about its business. Information about the Aloadae and the personnel working on them was easy to come by.
Elspeth had used the information she gleaned from the various sources to put together stories on her own stream, detailing the political and military manoeuvrings of the USAN government and the newly formed Martian government.
Things on Mars were moving so fast it was difficult to keep up with them. All the senators and the president were new, of course, and their roles were too. There were many issues where people didn’t really know what they were supposed to be doing or how to proceed. They were making things up as they went. It was exciting and fun for Elspeth as there was an almost endless supply of news each day regarding the machinations of the senate and the office of the president. There were comic stories too, where people no longer knew who should be responsible for what. For all that, it seemed like the new Mars was forging ahead on a wave of optimism.
Elspeth was unusual for her age in that she was interested in such things. Most of her peers, like people of a similar age on Earth, didn’t pay much attention to the way their countries were run. They were comfortable, fed and housed, and had a myriad of distractions to keep them busy. The low-level underpinning of all that was of little concern to them. To Elspeth it was endlessly fascinating. She knew she was living through an incredibly important part of history. Mars would surely go on to grow and become a hugely important planet at the forefront of human expansion into the solar system and beyond, and here she was right there at the moment of independence. She was a keen student of history and could see that after the announcements and parties had come and gone the baby steps of the new Mars were unlikely to be without incident.
She could see the way the government of the USAN had been moving back on Earth. The government, and particularly the office of the president, had taken on more and more powers during the war and seemed reluctant to relinquish them now the war was over. She could see that the war had put a huge stress on the USAN’s economy and that the country was in eye-watering debt. Its population was spending more and more money that it didn’t have without even knowing or caring that it was doing it. The loss of one of the powerhouses of its economy, and its main source of energy, was going to make that situation far worse. The way she saw it, the USAN had to do something about its Martian problem. Looking at the USAN’s recent track record in foreign affairs, which had been conducted largely by its military, and watching the Aloadae slowly mutate day by day into interplanetary attack spacecraft, she figured that things were going to get interesting very soon. She put all this into her streams, but viewing figures were low. The revenue she made from advertising was barely enough to cover her hosting fees, but she enjoyed what she was doing and knew that she had to start somewhere and just keep pressing on. She had an exclusive interview with Bobby Karjalainen coming up soon. She thought that would bring her to a much wider audience. If the interview went well she planned to chop it up and stream it over consecutive days, almost like a miniseries. She hoped that people who sought her stream out for Bobby might then get a feel for it and come back for some of her other items. It was unlikely, she knew. Most of the people tuning in for Bobby would be there for his all-American good looks and his exciting war stories. But what the hell. She lived in hope.
C H A P T E R 1 9
An Act of War
Steiner, Foley and Johnson were recovering from the bone-shaking experience of being fired into space from the surface of the Earth when the alarm sounded.
“What the hell is that?” said Johnson.
Steiner shrugged, “I don’t know, a test, maybe?”
“It’s no drill,” said Foley.
“Please remain in your seats and await further instructions,” said an amplified voice, seemingly coming from nowhere.
“What is it? What’s going on?” said Johnson.
“It’s a problem,” said Steiner. “They’re dealing with it, go back to sleep.”
“Back to sleep? Goddammit, I don’t like no goddamn problems on no goddamn spacecraft. We could all get killed up here.”
“It’s fine,” said Steiner. “It’s probably instrumentation or something simple. We’ll be at Ephialtes in two hours, anyway. After that we won’t care what happens to this rust bucket.”
“Two hours is a long time,” said Johnson.
The unlocatable voice appeared around them again. “We’re having some technical problems and are in contact with the ground, who are looking at solutions for us. We will keep you advised of the situation. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
“Sheeeeeet!” said Johnson. “That doesn’t sound like instrumentation to me. That sounds like they’ve got an actual problem. Sheeeeet!”
Steiner turned to Foley. “What do you think? Serious?”
Foley shrugged, “We’re still here, ain’t we?”
The lights flickered off and on in the cabin and the spacecraft gave a slight judder.
“I am not liking that,” said Johnson.
“I think there may be something up,” said Steiner.
They waited a further few minutes and the disembodied voice appeared again. “We have a significant malfunction with one of our life support systems. There is no need for alarm. The malfunction is not critical and we have more than enough oxygen to get to Ephialtes. Due to the nature of the leak, and as a safety precaution, we will dock within the next half-hour with Otus, which is currently two thousand kilometres away, eight thousand kilometres nearer than Ephialtes. Do not be alarmed.”
“Damn,” said Johnson. “Do not be alarmed. That’s just great, I won’t be alarmed. Even if I’ve got no goddamned air to breathe, I won’t be alarmed, if you say so.”
Twenty-three minutes later they docked with Otus, and after a short period of confusion they floated aboard.
Otus was a vast playground to them. Otus’ own detachment of commanders had arrived a few days earlier, and old friends and comrades acted as happy guides. Despite repeatedly being chased off by Helios engineers and Otus’ crew the commanders were all over the place. It seemed like a packed ferry, with people wandering about excitedly and wandering back again.
Ephialtes crew were asked to stay in the day areas while Helios engineers helped to ascertain the problem with the shuttle. The airlock through which the shuttle was docked contained data feeds which were pulled over to Otus for analysis.
Adam Speight spent some time on the job himself. It soon became apparent that shortly after the shuttle had escaped the Earth’s atmosphere it had performed an emergency purge of its oxygen supplies, quickly venting most of them off into space. Speight analysed and reanalysed the data but could not make sense of it. It certainly appeared to be a software glitch, but he ran many simulations and could not replicate the error. As a precaution he replaced the main and auxiliary computers on the shuttle and replaced the software with the version he had set his AIs to modifying. He had added a number of redundant routines that prevented any purges without explicit human intervention. He believed that would make the shuttle safe for its journey back to Earth, where he recommended it underwent a more thorough accident investigation. All that remained was for Otus to donate some of its huge oxygen supplies to the shuttle and it would be able to continue on its way to Ephialtes.
That meant a few more hours of impromptu R&R for the commanders on board. Steiner had set himself up in the bar area and had amused himself by winding Johnson up. It was so easy he could hardly resist. Foley had disappeared. He said he had run into an old comrade who’d been posted to Otus and they were away somewhere reliving past glories.
Twelve hours later they were back aboard the shuttle and headed to Ephialtes.
Work on Ephialtes was nearing completion. They had taken ab
oard their compliment of commanders and shipped home most of the Helios workers. A handful of software engineers and other specialists remained for the last few days of snagging and testing.
Askel had been working on data from Otus. They had made their 0.5 burn for a trip around the Moon. The information from the trip was invaluable. All systems had performed remarkably well. Data from the 0.5 burn, when extrapolated to a full burn, tallied exceptionally closely to the models. There would be no need for Ephialtes to run a similar extended test - the two ships and the alterations to them were close to identical. The data for one would suffice for the other.
There were some very minor adjustments to be made, mostly to the guidance systems. Askel had set her AIs to the task. There were also some last minute issues to resolve with the stores. They would have to wait an extra two days for their final delivery due to an unforeseen issue with one of the HLV shuttles. It irked Askel slightly. She and her team had worked crazy hours and with absolute dedication, and she was looking forward to delivering the upgraded Ephialtes two days ahead of what was already an ambitious schedule. Now, due to something as mundane as a broken down shuttle, she would be forced to deliver it merely on time. She felt that she had been robbed of her moment of glory. Of course, delivering this project on time was a staggering achievement in itself, but what she had achieved was even more impressive than that. People wouldn’t know, or believe or care, if she told them that she would have delivered two days ahead of schedule if not for a minor fault on some crummy shuttle. ‘C’est la vie,’ she thought.
Askel’s slight fixation on the shuttle’s infuriating deficiency grew when she received a call from Speight. He wanted to talk over the final checks before launch the next day. Otus was heading out for Mars.
“The data from the trip to Luna looked great to me. Did you drill down into it? Anything we need to know?”
Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) Page 29