Issue In Doubt

by David Sherman

  ISSUE IN DOUBT

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Issue In Doubt

  PROLOG: FIRST CONTACT

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  About the Author

  Dark Quest Books

  by David Sherman

  GET HER BACK!

  (A DEMONTECH NOVELLA)

  Dark Quest Books

  including David Sherman

  So It Begins

  By Other means

  Best Laid Plans

  Dogs of War

  PUBLISHED BY

  DTF Publications

  an imprint of Dark Quest, LLC

  Neal Levin, Publisher

  23 Alec Drive,

  Howell, New Jersey 07731

  www.darkquestbooks.com

  Copyright ©2013, David Sherman

  ISBN (trade paper): 978-1-937051-46-4

  All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

  All persons, places, and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyediting: Keith R.A. DeCandido

  Design: Mike and Danielle McPhail

  Cover Art: Mike McPhail, McP Digital Graphics

  www.mcp-concepts.com

  www.milscifi.com

  This book is dedicated to the memory of:

  Corporal John F. Mackie

  The first US Marine to earn

  The Medal of Honor;

  At the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff

  PROLOG: FIRST CONTACT

  McKinzie Elevator Base, Outside Millerton,

  Semi-Autonomous World Troy

  Samuel Rogers jerked when he heard the beeping of the proximity alert. He spun in his chair to look at the approach displays and his jaw dropped. With one hand he toggled the space-comm to hail the incoming ship, with the other he reached for the local comm to call Frederick Franklin, his boss.

  Franklin sounded groggy when he answered. “This better be good, Rogers. I just got to sleep.”

  “Sorry, Chief, but are we expecting any starships? One just popped up half an AU north. Uh oh.”

  “No, we aren’t expecting anyone. And what do you mean, ‘uh oh’?”

  “Chief—” Rodgers’ voice broke and he had to start again. “Chief, data coming in says the incoming starship is three klicks wide.”

  “Bullshit,” Franklin snapped. “There aren’t any starships that big!”

  “I know. It’s got to be an asteroid. And it’s on an intercept vector.”

  “There aren’t any asteroids north.” Franklin’s voice dropped to a barely intelligible mumble. “North, that would explain how it ‘just popped up.’” Indistinct noises sounded to Rogers like his boss was getting dressed. “Have you tried to hail her?”

  “The same time I called you. But half an AU. . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Stand by, I’m on my way.”

  “Standing by.” Rogers sounded relieved.

  Franklin burst into the spaceport’s operations room and headed straight for the approach displays. In seconds he absorbed the data, and let out a grunt.

  “Any reply yet?” he asked.

  Rogers shook his head. “Too soon, Chief.”

  Franklin grimaced; he should have realized that and not have asked such a dumb question. The starship—asteroid, whatever—was half an Astronomical Unit out, half the distance from old Earth to Sol. It would take about four minutes for the hail to reach the incoming object, and another four minutes for a reply to come back. Plus however much time it would take for whoever it was to decide to answer the hail. The two men watched the data display as time ticked by.

  After watching for another fifteen minutes, with no reply, and nothing but confirmation as to its velocity, vector, and probable impact time, Franklin decided to kick the problem upstairs.

  “Office of the President.” James Merton’s voice was thick when he answered the president’s comm; the night duty officer must have been dozing.

  “Jim, Fred here. We’ve got a situation that requires some attention from the boss.”

  “Can it wait until morning? Bill’s had a long day, and he’s dead to the world.”

  “Come morning, it might be too late to do anything.”

  “Come on, Fred,” Merton said. “No offense intended, but you’re an elevator operator. What kind of earth-shattering problem can you possibly have?”

  “Exactly that: a literally earth-shattering problem. There’s a large object on an intercept course. That’s large, as in planet-buster. It’ll be here in less than a standard day.”

  There was a momentary silence before Merton asked, “You aren’t kidding, are you?”

  “I wish. Stand by for the data.” Franklin nodded to Rogers, who transmitted a data set to the president’s office. A minute later, Franklin and Rogers heard Merton swear under his breath.

  “You called it, something that big really is a planet buster, isn’t it?” the duty officer asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Franklin answered.

  “Now, according to the data you sent me, the object is metallic, and it seems to have the density of a starship rather than the density of an asteroid. Am I reading those figures right?”

  “You’re reading right ,” Franklin said. “But nobody makes starships that big.”

  “At least nobody we know of,” Rogers murmured. “Have you tried to contact it, I mean, in case it is a starship?”

  “Yes, we did.” Franklin looked at Rogers, who held up four fingers. “Four times. No response.”

  “And you’re sure it’s on a collision course?”

  Franklin shivered. “Absolutely.”

  “Keep trying to make contact. I’ll wake the president.”

  An hour and a half later, a three-man Navy rescue team under the command of Lieutenant (j.g.) Cyrus Hayden, rode the elevator up to Base 1, in geosynchronous orbit, where they boarded the tender John Andrews totake a closer look at the rapidly approaching object. If it was a starship their orders were to again attempt radio contact. If she did not reply, to attempt to board her. If the object was an unusual asteroid, Hayden and his men were to plant a nuclear device on its side, then back off to a safe distance before detonating the bomb. It was hoped that the explosion would deflect the object’s course enough to avoid the collision that was looking more certain with each passing minute.

  The North American Union Navy tender John Andrews was still 100,000 kilometers from the object when laser beams lanced out from it and shredded the tender.

  Twenty shocked minutes later, the orbital lasers of Troy’s defensive batteries shot beams of coherent light. The only effect the lasers seemed to have on the object, which was now obviously a warship from some unknown people, was to provide the enemy with the location of the defensive weapons. Within minutes, all of Troy’s orbital laser batteries were knocked out by counter-battery fire from the enemy starship. It had committed an act of war when it vaporized the John Andrews, hadn’t it? Didn’t that make it the enemy?

  When the enemy starship was a quarter million kilometers out, it fired braking rockets, which slowed its speed and altered its vector e
nough to reach high orbit rather than colliding with the planet. Small objects began flicking off it and heading toward the surface.

  Ground-based laser and missile batteries began firing at the small vessels. The mother-ship killed those batteries as easily as she had killed the orbital batteries.

  Shortly after that the first landers made planetfall, and reports of wholesale slaughter began coming in, William F. Lukes, President of Troy, ordered all the data they had on the invasion uploaded onto drones and the drones launched: Destination Earth.

  The unidentified enemy killed the first several drones, but stopped shooting them when it became obvious that they were running away rather than attacking.

  Two days later, four of the drones reached the Sol System via wormhole. It took ten more days for a North American Union Navy frigate to pick one of them up and carry it to Garroway Base on Mars, from where its coded message was transmitted to the NAU’s Supreme Military Headquarters on Earth.

  Chapter One

  Supreme Military Headquarters, Bellevue, Sarpy County, Federal Zone, North American Union

  Major General Joseph H. de Castro swept past the guards standing outside the entrance to the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and marched through the cavernous, darkly paneled outer office directly to the desk of Colonel Nicholas Fox, which sat below the colors of all the military services of the NAU.

  “Nick,” de Castro said, “I need to see the Chairman, right now. I don’t care who he’s meeting with.”

  Fox leaned back in his chair and looked up at de Castro with mild curiosity. “Joe, you know I can’t let people just barge in on the Chairman.” He shook his head. “His schedule today is packed tighter than a constipated jarhead. Maybe if he stops by the Flag Club later on, you can get a minute or two with him. Can’t help you, Joe.” Fox then looked intently at his console, as though he had pressing business to attend to. His behavior was insubordinate, but in this office, acting in his official capacity as gatekeeper to the Chairman, he effectively outranked anybody with fewer than four stars, and de Castro had only two.

  “If you knew what I have here,” de Castro tapped the right breast pocket of his uniform jacket, “you wouldn’t be wasting my time. I’d already be telling the Chairman what I’ve got.”

  “So tell me what you’ve got. I’ll decide if it’s important enough to disrupt the Chairman’s schedule.”

  De Castro glowered at Fox for a few seconds, then said, steely-voiced, “Have it your way, Nick. You can explain to the Chairman why I had to jump the chain.” He about-faced to march out, but Fox stopped him before he’d taken more than two steps.

  “Wait a minute, Joe. What do you mean, ‘jump the chain’?”

  De Castro half turned back. “I’m going fifty paces. This can’t wait.” Fifty paces was the distance from where he was to the offices of the Secretary of War.

  “You wouldn’t!” Fox said, shocked.

  “I will.”

  Colonel Fox opened his mouth to say something more, but thought for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “Wait one,” he said, and tapped his desk comm, the direct line to the Chairman’s inner sanctum.

  “Sir,” he said apologetically when the Chairman came on, “Major General de Castro is here. He says he has something that requires the Secretary’s immediate attention.” He paused to listen, answered, “No sir, he won’t tell me what it is.” Another pause to listen. “I’ll tell him, sir.” He looked at de Castro. “He’ll see you in a minute or so.”

  De Castro faced the door leading deeper into the Chairman’s offices, and stood at ease, patiently waiting. A moment later, the door opened and de Castro snapped to attention. Fleet Admiral Ira Clinton Welborn, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ushered out a man de Castro recognized as Field Marshal Carl Ludwig, Welborn’s counterpart in the European Union’s military. Welborn was making placating noises, and assuring Ludwig that he would have dinner with him at the Flag Club that evening.

  As soon as the EU’s military chief was gone, Welborn turned on de Castro and snarled. “This better be good. I’ve been getting close to a diplomatic breakthrough with that martinet, and you might have just bollixed it!”

  “It is, sir,” de Castro said in a strong voice.

  “Follow.” Welborn headed back to his inner sanctum. De Castro followed a pace behind and slightly to Welborn’s left. The two marched along a darkly wainscoted corridor with offices branching off to both sides, toward a wider space at the end, where a navy petty officer sat at a desk working on a comp. Two Marines in dress blues, a first lieutenant and a gunnery sergeant, both armed with holstered sidearms, stood at parade rest flanking the doorway to the inner sanctum. The two came to attention at Welborn’s approach. De Castro couldn’t help but notice that the gunnery sergeant had several more rows of ribbons on his chest than he himself did, and the lieutenant had nearly as many as the gunny. It was obvious that the Marines were from the combat arms.

  “Siddown,” Welborn snapped as the petty officer began to stand. She did and returned to her work. “Close it,” he snarled at the Marines. The door to the inner sanctum closed silently behind de Castro when the two swept past.

  Inside was an office only slightly less opulent than that of the Secretary of War himself. Its walls were covered with pictures of warships: paintings, engravings, lithographs, photographs, and holograms. Wooden ships: with rams and oars; with sails; with sails and cannon; iron clad with sails; iron clad with sails and steam engines. Steel ships: with guns in turrets, aircraft carriers with and without turrets and missiles. Space-going warships.

  Welborn headed for his massive desk and dropped into the leather-upholstered executive chair behind it. “All right, de Castro, what do you have?” He didn’t offer a seat.

  “This came in ten minutes ago, sir,” de Castro said as he fingered a crystal out of his right breast pocket. “By your leave, sir?” He made to insert the crystal in the comp to the side of the desk. Welborn grunted assent, and de Castro completed the action. In a second, a report appeared on the console. Welborn quickly read through it.

  “Images?”

  “They’re garbled, sir. The cryptographer who decoded the message and the watch officer who delivered it from her to me are attempting to clean them up now.”

  “Is anybody helping them?”

  “Only if they’re disobeying my orders. I instructed them to keep this between themselves, and to discuss it with nobody but me.”

  “Good. Instruct your security personnel to quarantine them as soon as they’re done. And I want the images zipped to me the instant they’re intelligible, no matter where I am. Right now, you and I are going to see the Secretary.”

  De Castro called in the orders to isolate the cryptographer and the watch officer as he followed the Chairman out of the office. He didn’t even glance at Colonel Fox as he passed through the outer office. Four minutes later, the two were face to face with Richmond P. Hobson, the Secretary of War himself, one of the three most important and powerful people in the entire North American Union.

  Hobson seated them in a conversational group of chairs around a small table, and made small talk while a Navy steward poured coffee. De Castro, who had never before been in this office, glanced around. Portraits were hung above dark blond wainscoting that looked like it might be real oak. De Castro recognized enough of the faces in the paintings to know that they were previous NAU Secretaries of War, and the Secretaries of Defense of the old United States, the Canadian Ministers of Defence, and the Mexican Ministers of Defense going back to the beginning of the twentieth century free-trade agreement among the three countries—the precursor of the North American Union.

  Hobson took a sip of coffee as the steward exited, then asked, “Well, Ira, what does J2 have that’s so important that you have to bring its director to me on such short notice?”

  “Show him,” Welborn said.

  “Yes sir.” De Castro looked around for a comp. Hobson pressed a button on t
he side of his chair and one arose from the side of the coffee table. “Thank you, sir.” De Castro inserted the crystal. He angled the display so the Secretary could read the report without leaning to the side.

  After a moment, Hobson sat back. “How firm is this?”

  “We haven’t had time to verify, sir,” de Castro said. “This only came in about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “What about images?”

  Welborn told him that the garbled images were being worked on, but he expected to have something shortly. De Castro nodded agreement.

  “We have to tell the President instantly,” Hobson said. “And get State in on it.” He pressed another button on the side of his chair, and a Navy lieutenant commander appeared inside the door.

  “Tom,” Hobson addressed him, “kindly contact your counterparts at the President’s office and SecState, and inform them that I request a meeting at the earliest possible moment. Emphasize that it’s of the gravest importance.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The lieutenant commander about-faced and exited.

  “Tom Irving,” Hobson told Welborn and de Castro, “good man.” He looked directly at Welborn. “When his tour with me is over, he deserves to have three full stripes, and be given a command.”

  Welborn nodded. “Sir, with a recommendation like that, I think a promotion and command assignment will be expedited.”

  “Do you think we should send a reconnaissance mission to Troy?” Hobson asked Welborn, getting back to the topic at hand.

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “I hoped you’d say that. Who do you recommend?”

  “Marine Force Recon.”

  “Oh?” Hobson cocked his head. “Not SEALs or Rangers?”

  “No, sir. Force Recon. While both SEALs and Rangers are adept at intelligence gathering, they spend as much time training in commando strikes. Force Recon spends almost all of its time and energy ‘snooping and pooping,’ as they call it, gathering intelligence. They fight only in extremis, and believe their mission has failed if they have to fight. I don’t want anybody fighting until we know who—or what—we’re up against.”