by NB VanYoos
* * * *
According to the plan outlined on Siirneen, Tyler was required to set a meeting with the Emperor in five to eight days upon his return. It was a difficult order to fill, but at least they had given him a three day window. Unfortunately, it didn’t give Tyler much time to track down the Onyalum. Even if he succeeded in finding one, he was not convinced he could do anything about it. Despite Adanni’s suggestion, he didn’t believe another Onyalum would give in to threats of exposure.
After returning to Yooso, Tyler was busy with the Commission. His leadership was desperately needed to evaluate and make recommendations for the offensive. So far, everything they had employed to stall progress was working. Despite the delays, Admiral Teesen took it all in stride.
Clearly, the Emperor had cautioned patience while Tyler’s plan played out. Regardless of motives and stalling, the Commission was making progress. Troop readiness, supply chains, intelligence, and equipment availability were all shaping up for an offensive soon. Only Tyler knew the conflict would never get off the ground. Despite this, he welcomed the readiness—just in case.
Marshall Sliss was eerily quiet about Tyler’s trip to Siirneen. When mentioned at all, it usually revolved around the cover operations of the conference. Tyler was thankful the conference was productive. Feedback from the field commanders was positive, therefore suspicions were averted. Even so, Tyler’s request for health information on several important people was taken begrudgingly, and with great suspicion.
The Marshall accepted it calmly and only asked for what purpose the information would serve. Tyler lied with an excuse he was searching for ways to discredit individuals based on their health. The Marshall was clearly suspicious but accepted it anyway. When the Marshall noted the charges could be leveled at him, Tyler shrugged it off saying it wouldn’t matter as his time in office was nearing an end. The admission didn’t surprise the Marshall, but considering how long both had been at it, he might also be ready to retire.
Whatever the Marshall thought, he had taken the request and promised quick and discreet action. Tyler suspected the cool interactions with the Marshall were an indication his lies were eroding the Marshall’s trust. Tyler hoped what little trust remained would not be spent within the next eight days. After that, it probably wouldn’t matter.
Tyler ran on autopilot, letting much of the Admiral’s essence run the Commission. He participated only as much as needed, but the Admiral’s persona was a fabulous administrator, so Tyler contributed little.
Toosia’s cover story of taking care of family business on Siirneen had held up so far. Her family was suspicious, but daily calls to Siirneen alleviated them. Her calls to him, however, were not as normal. She told him of the activities she saw on Siirneen, including a heightened state of security. This alarmed him. The purpose of her staying was to keep her safe, and he considered having her come back to Poolto and move into their Tooland Estate, but the Governor talked him out of it. It was becoming clear the conspirators used her as a hostage to get Tyler to follow through. He didn’t force the issue, but his concerns steadily increased.
The Admiral’s staff was performing flawlessly since his announcement to step down. Their ability to get things done impressed the rest of the Commission. In fact, they made the rest of the Commission’s staff look practically incompetent in comparison. In particular, Officer Slaas was proving an incredible asset both on the trip to Siirneen and back on Poolto. She was even beginning to sound like the Marshall, and had both Officer Kooren and Vice Secretary Beelen doing her bidding. Tyler saw she would move up despite her boss stepping down. He made sure glowing letters of recommendation made it into her file and that several duty options were available when she left.
Her latest coup was recognizing severe omissions in the planned shortened field trials. She had stopped the trials even before consulting with the Commission, or Marshall Sliss. It was a bold move and she had come out on top. She had found two glaring problems everyone else had overlooked. Considering each proposal was several hundred pages in length, the catch was miraculous.
The good news was it proved to be a wonderful stalling technique that Admiral Teesen fumed over. It was his own staff that had missed the mistake when they created the proposals, so he couldn’t ignore the implications. They had lost face, while the Admiral had gained more ground.
There were downsides to the staff’s efficiency. The commission was making quick progress towards developing a readiness report with offensive recommendations. The current plan looked doable in several months despite stalling with field trials. Tyler wasn’t concerned. He knew it would soon mean nothing.
Fortunately, it gave him the opening he needed to meet with the Emperor. At their current pace, they would have recommendations in about six days. As the head of the Commission, Tyler was responsible for personally delivering it to both the Emperor and Admiral Teesen while transferring the Supreme Military Command. That meant turning over the Command Codes, which Admiral Teesen would change immediately. Tyler couldn’t let that happen. The good news was command turnover was a private affair, held in the Imperial Palace. It was a perfect way for Tyler to gain his audience while giving the conspirators their chance to end the conflict.
So far, everything moved forward. Despite this, Tyler felt certain his last days as the Admiral were drawing near. He tried to repress those thoughts and focus on what he would do if the Marshall found the information to track the Onyalum.
It was this thought that ran through his mind as he entered a conference room for a daily briefing. He wasn’t in the mood for the meeting, but he was the one to suggest them, so he was obligated to attend.
As he entered, most of the seats around the large table were already taken. The majority were occupied by the Commissioners and their top aides, while the rest of the staff sat along the inside walls. Tyler took his usual seat at the far end of the table and noticed Marshall Sliss was unusually absent. Fortunately, one of the Commissioners was missing, so Tyler didn’t feel compelled to start.
While they waited, Tyler looked over the daily agenda. Everything looked routine except a small entry at the bottom titled Intelligence Update. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t be unusual, but they’d just had an intelligence briefing the day before. It seemed unlikely pertinent intelligence would have suddenly surfaced. Tyler assumed they’d forgotten to remove it when updating the agenda. Still, a part of him was uneasy.
Finally, the missing Commissioner took his seat, removing Tyler’s last excuse to delay. He hoped the Marshall would eventually show up.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” Tyler began, “shall we get started?”
They settled in front of their opened viewers to follow along with the agenda. Tyler turned the meeting over to Officer Slaas who had become adept at running the meetings. She quickly reviewed the agenda before turning the proceedings over to the first speaker. Tyler noted she did not comment on the Intelligence Update at the bottom of the list. Perhaps it was only a typo.
Every speaker delivered their report in a crisp, military fashion, but Tyler’s mind kept dwelling on the Marshall and his failure to attend. It was not like the Marshall and Tyler was concerned. The Marshall’s distance had steadily increased, and Tyler worried the Marshall’s suspicions were deeply affecting their relationship.
Where could he be? Tyler thought.
Don’t worry, Adanni answered, he is too loyal to betray his beloved Admiral.
Tyler didn’t like the way Adanni had said it. He had great respect for the Marshall, regardless of what Adanni thought.
The man is a good man, Tyler retorted, something you wouldn’t know anything about!
But you do, drug dealer?
That stung. Tyler hated that Adanni had access to every one of his memories.
Adanni continued. Did you give Mr. Barkowski the same respect?
Tyler hadn’t thought about that name in years. It hurt deep to have the wounds reopened. Mr. Barkowski had been a neighbor of Tyl
er’s when Tyler had attended the community college. Mr. Barkowski stumbled upon Tyler’s drug transactions, and although Tyler hadn’t done anything about it, Raul sent men over to intimidate the man.
Tyler thought back to that incident with guilt and pain. The man had been a retired sergeant from the Army with a disability affecting his ability to walk. Tyler thought the man was a great neighbor, but he knew Mr. Barkowski wouldn’t keep the incident to himself. Mr. Barkowski was a good man and wanted people like Tyler out of the neighborhood.
Tyler pleaded with Raul to back off, but Raul insisted a show of weakness would hurt business. Unfortunately, Mr. Barkowski was not easily intimidated, and practically threw Raul’s goons out. Two days later, he found his dog beheaded in the backyard. Tyler knew that would keep the man quiet but moved to another part of town anyway. The guilt had been hard to live with.
Tyler had suppressed the incident for years, but now Adanni dredged it up and threw it in his face. Adanni had a point—Tyler’s past was filled with incidents where good people were hurt. Tyler had no response.
That’s what I thought. Adanni concluded.
Tyler was so lost in his memories, he barely heard something about intelligence? He snapped out of it and focused on the new speaker. It wasn’t a person he recognized.
“…and we believe this area has been the proving grounds for new weapons. Until recently, we hadn’t seen unusual testing at this facility. If our sources are correct in their analysis, Krildon recently conducted a test using a new particle weapon.”
Tyler’s heart skipped a beat.
“Although our sources did not see the test for themselves, reconnaissance photos afterwards revealed startling and disturbing facts.”
The man paused while he fiddled with some of the controls on the table. Immediately, a three dimensional image of an asteroid appeared above the center of the table. By itself, it didn’t seem startling, but the man continued to fiddle with the controls.
“Ah, there we are.” He said peering up from the console.
Tyler stared into the new image, disturbed by what he saw. One of the large craters from the first image was filled with red. It looked like a large piece of a red asteroid was jammed into it.
“The image you are seeing is the original image of this particular asteroid. The portion you see in red is the portion that is missing from our recent reconnaissance photos.” The man paused while his audience took in the implications. “Let me give you additional details so you understand the true enormity of what we are seeing.”
Once again he fiddled with the controls and the image changed. The image was quickly overlaid with various numbers and writing. Tyler ignored that and stared at the blue portion that was added to the red. It was not a large blue area, and in fact, was dwarfed by the red it sat within. Tyler feared the worst.
“As you can see, this asteroid was nearly the size of one of our fleet refurbishing asteroids. As you know, those facilities are capable of servicing ships nearly as large as our flagship.” Again, he paused while his words were absorbed.
Tyler already knew what they were seeing, and he dreaded what it might mean. He waited for the preliminary analysis.
The man started again. “The portion in blue represents how much of the asteroid would have been affected by a direct hit with our largest and most powerful missile. Yes, I said nuclear missile.”
Tyler watched the effect on the crowd. Everyone stared in horror, struck by the magnitude of what they were seeing. Not only was this suspected to be a particle weapon, it appeared to be capable of inflicting greater damage than their best weapons.
“As you can see, we believe the nominal yield of this new weapon is about one hundred times that of the yield of our largest missile. The part of the asteroid destroyed during this test was approximately thirty-one percent of the overall mass. Reconnaissance scans of the surrounding space confirm fragments in quantities nearly equal to the missing mass.”
That was enough for one of the Commissioners to react.
“Surely, that was not a particle weapon,” he said almost laughing, “they simply buried an atomic ordinance to create this effect.”
Several others spoke out in agreement with the Commissioner, but looked nervous.
“Vice Secretary Hool,” the man responded coolly, “Marshall Triin had the same assessment at first glance. However, if you look at the analysis of the debris field, you will notice the radioactive signature is nearly identical to that of a particle weapon, not an atomic one.”
The Commissioner would not back down. “You said nearly, what was different?”
“That we don’t understand,” the man conceded, “but it is nearly identical to a particle weapon signature.”
The Commissioner looked dubious, but Tyler didn’t want to participate in the discussion. He knew what they had discovered.
A staff member against the wall sat up and spoke. “If that is the result of a particle weapon, then how big is the weapon? How does it get so much yield, and is it being deployed throughout their fleet?”
Again, the audience murmured agreement with the questions.
“Well,” the man hesitated, “we don’t have sufficient intelligence to answer any of those questions—at this time.”
The room exploded with an uproar as voices offered suggestions on how to get the information, how to combat the new threat, or how to modify their own offensive plans. Tyler even thought he heard someone say they should abandon the offensive. All of it didn’t matter, so he took control.
When he stood, everyone sat down and turned their attention to him. He waited until it was quiet.
“Thank you, Officer…” he started.
“Liiri, sir,” the man humbly finished.
“Yes, Liiri,” Tyler was relieved for the reminder, “we thank you for this important bit of intelligence.”
Tyler watched as everyone around the room waited for him to express his opinions and give them direction.
“I know Marshall Triin is analyzing this intelligence and will undoubtedly provide each member of the Commission with a full report. After receiving that report, you should quickly provide your own analysis with an impact statement for your area. I assume Admiral Teesen has been briefed and that this information will eventually circulate throughout our field commands. Until then, we will wait patiently and hope additional intelligence can be ascertained to help answer the questions we have.”
Tyler turned to Officer Slaas. “Anything else?”
“No, sir.” She responded crisply.
“Very well, meeting adjourned.”
With that, Tyler left the room, avoiding the questions his fellow Commissioners were dying to ask. He knew they would wonder whether this intelligence would force them to abandon the offensive. Tyler knew the answer to those questions, but he wasn’t about to share them with anyone.
He hurried down the corridor towards his office, concerned about the information coming to light. If they believed it to be true, they would likely recommend an indefinite hold on the offensive until they could ascertain the real threat. Tyler thought about scrilt treated hulls, and realized Poolto would not survive the offensive. Unfortunately, if the Emperor did not concede, they would learn, too soon, the truth behind this intelligence.
Tyler wondered how it was gathered. It was just the kind of information that would make the current situation more dangerous and precarious. It was as if someone were constantly putting Tyler into a corner. Initially, he had wanted the offensive to be scrapped, but now, he needed it to attain his new goals, and this new information could prevent that. If the intelligence stalled the effort, Tyler wouldn’t have a report to deliver. Therefore, his meeting with the Emperor would only be to transfer power to Admiral Teesen. If that occurred, it would be hard to synchronize the situation with the peace ship.
Worse, Admiral Teesen could use this threat to demand the power transfer happen immediately. Tyler could understand the Emperor readily agreeing. That would
be a disaster and could destroy the peace efforts completely. In that case, Krildon would be forced to attack, and Poolto would likely be vanquished. Tyler’s mood deepened.