by Aer-ki Jyr
And now there was this. As he read through David’s report the names of the six nations burned into his eyes and the centuries of patience he’d been granting them, coupled with this blatant ingratitude, fueled an anger in him that he had not felt since World War III.
Before he finished reading the report he mentally set it aside and stood up, beginning to pace the circumference of his 360 degree window as he thought. Part of him was kicking himself for not doing something sooner, and he came to the realization that he had partially created his own problem.
Conditions had been so bad on Earth in the beginning that even a partial improvement seemed to be a huge accomplishment…but now, looking back on those days, he knew he hadn’t done enough. He’d been hesitant to take on the nations of Earth because of a misplaced idea of sovereignty that he had created in order to get Star Force established.
He had created the idea that Earth operated on different rules than space, that it was somehow immune to responsibility. Yes, the combatants in WWIII had lost their colonies, but they hadn’t lost their territory on Earth. At the time Davis didn’t have the resources to fight a war on Earth, at least not a clean war, and take out the bad guys directly…Archon style, he reminded himself…so he punished them instead, and used that punishment as a tool to gain traction and influence with the others. That had, in turn, allowed him to begin some of the planet-changing trends that had worked so effectively.
He hadn’t made the wrong decision back then, but it was a decision that had negative consequences that he was only now fully seeing. He had been starving corruption to death rather than killing it quickly, because killing it quickly hadn’t been an option back then in Star Force’s infancy. Now though, was an entirely different matter, and had been for years.
By the fourth lap around his office everything had become crystal clear. He’d become so focused on working the problem that he hadn’t bothered to take a step back, clear his mind, and look at the playing field. His face was down in the dirt, fighting the battles that needed to be fought…and because of that he hadn’t even noticed the game change.
That was his mistake, and he was mentally kicking himself for the duration of the fifth lap, at the end of which he sat down and opened a personnel map that detailed the location of every single person in Star Force’s employ, in this case the Archons. He refined the map down to the 100 trailblazers, seeing that none of them were in Sol at present. He zoomed out to the nearest star systems, seeing that there were a handful nearby that could be recalled within weeks rather than months.
He went through the current mission assignments, trying to pick the one that he would inconvenience the least, eventually settling on Kent-076.
He typed out a brief recall order and set it off through the network, which would quickly get it transmitted through their interstellar relays out to the adjacent Dasher System…faster than a courier ship, anyway. The signal would still take days to reach the target, but that was considerably faster than the weeks it used to take him to get messages out to his people.
With nothing else to do on the matter, Davis went back to reading David’s report. When he finished it he set the interrogation information aside and moved on to a list of 183 medium priority items he had flagged on his current docket, with his staff adding things to it throughout the day.
10
April 17, 2451
Solar System
Earth
“What’s up?” Kent asked calmly as he leapt up the circular staircase and walked into Davis’s office.
Davis smiled. “I get to see you guys so rarely nowadays. What level are you up to now?”
“Ranger 82,” the trailblazer said as he pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Have you chosen a name for the next tier yet?”
“We’re batting around a few ideas, but last I heard Morgan was still 6 levels away, so we’ve still got some time to decide.”
“It’s not like you guys to have trouble naming things.”
Kent smirked. “No, we’ve just got too many good ideas and haven’t been able to nail them down yet.”
“Any new projects you guys are working on that I need to know about?”
Kent shrugged. “We’ve always got ideas kicking around.”
“Well, I’ve got one that I need your help with,” Davis said, abandoning his desk and standing up so he could look directly out the section of window behind his desk.
“Something big, I take it,” Kent said with a slight frown as he likewise stood and walked up beside Davis with both men staring out at the Atlantis cityscape as the sun was almost directly overhead, leaving no shadows to speak of.
“We’ve captured The Word leadership, which I assume you heard.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve learned from the Primarch how the organization began. Six nations created it in order to strike at us, then severed all ties to preserve deniability. I doubt the current governments even know their own history, but they’re going to pay the penalty regardless.”
“Which is?”
“They forfeit their sovereignty.”
Kent was silent for a moment. “What six?”
“France, China, the UK, Caribbean, Turkey, and the US.”
The trailblazer whistled.
Davis nodded. “Your thoughts?”
“Just them?”
The Director sighed. “Go ahead and say ‘I told you so.’”
“I don’t recall my ever saying anything.”
“No you didn’t. You let me handle Earth while you handled everything else, and you’ve done a better job of it.”
“We had a clean slate to work with,” Kent said, understanding that by ‘you’ he meant the trailblazers.
“Not on Kirit.”
“Earth owes you a big THANK YOU, not condemnation.”
“It’s not about them, it’s about what I could have done and failed to do.”
“Randy didn’t save everyone on Kirit,” Kent reminded him. “That really bothered him, and Tom especially. Eventually they realized they had to stop reworking past problems and focus on the current ones, but the idea that you didn’t save someone you could have isn’t something that should sit well with you.”
“Ignoring those that were lost feels like a betrayal.”
“Don’t ignore them. Keep the anger and a list, then when you come across a time traveling Delorean you can go back and save them.”
Davis kept his eyes on the cityscape, but a smirk curled up the right side of his face.
“Stop considering yourself to be responsible for the fate of others,” Kent advised. “Star Force is your family and your responsibility, and as such it has responsibilities to you. Others do not, and the blame for their fate isn’t on you at all. If you deny them responsibility for themselves, then they have no sovereignty. If they do, then they are responsible for themselves. Randy didn’t cause the Kiritas to have problems, he was the solution…and you have to make certain you don’t blur the two together.”
“But to stand by and watch while people suffer when you have the ability to stop it…”
“Tom said the same thing. He didn’t have enough foodstuffs to feed everyone, so he had to prioritize. If he reduced rations to some he could have saved others, but then how far should he have gone? He needed a section of the population healthy and working to increase their foodstuff production. There were people right in front of him who were starving to death that he could have shared his own foodstuffs with and didn’t. Why didn’t he?”
“He had to keep training.”
“Why?”
“That’s a dumb question, especially for an Archon.”
“Is training more important than someone’s life?”
“He shouldn’t have to suffer for someone else’s problems.”
“You didn’t answer the question,” Kent pointed out.
“My gut says both answers are wrong. You don’t ignore the person when you have the ability to save them, but at the sa
me time you don’t compromise yourself.”
“So what do you do?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“They didn’t either for a long time, but eventually they figured it out.”
“Please share,” Davis prompted.
“They’re Archons. They’re going to help someone if they’re in need, period, so the question is a trick of fate that seems designed to try and get the Archon to choose to not be himself. Or as Paul would put it, choose to turn to the darkside.”
“That’s exactly what it feels like.”
“But like all trick questions, the solution lies in understanding the error in the way the question is stated. Randy and Tom felt responsible for the Kiritas, but they weren’t. So long as they weren’t causing the suffering, they could stand by and watch without interfering if they chose. They didn’t have to save anyone. Now, they couldn’t live with themselves if they stood by and did nothing when they had the power to do something, but everything they did from the point they got there was bonus points. They couldn’t go negative, because the lives of the Kiritas weren’t their responsibility.”
“I see the distinction, but it still doesn’t sit well.”
“No it doesn’t. Randy and Tom wouldn’t be satisfied unless they saved everyone, which was why they had to force themselves to keep their own rations separate from the Kiritas, else they would have scrimped and diminished themselves to save as many as they could, all the while kicking themselves for not saving more. It was driving them crazy, and after a while they just had to shut it out and focus on one piece of the problem. That wasn’t betraying the others, just acknowledging that they couldn’t help them…and if they couldn’t help them, there was no need for them to watch.”
“Turn a blind eye?”
“To the emotions that serve no purpose, yes. You will never tolerate suffering. It will always bother you if you’re a good person.”
“But I could have done something different. I wasn’t limited by supplies.”
“Such as?”
“Take over Earth.”
“Why didn’t we?”
Davis sighed. “Because I outlined a basic code of conduct for the nations that was far better than their previous behavior, but not good enough. And now that they’re in compliance with my own demands, how do I justify punishing them for that compliance?”
“Do you expect a rookie to do the work of a veteran?”
“No.”
“At some point the rookie becomes the veteran. When do the expectations change?”
Davis closed his eyes and leaned forward, banging his head against the clear window in a ‘doh’ moment.
“How do you guys get so smart?”
“We bounce ideas off each other, and there are 100 of us…but there’s only one of you.”
“Unfortunately,” Davis said, pulling his head away from the glass.
“What do you want me to do?” Kent asked, finally looking over at the slightly shorter, but equally trim man.
“The Word killed a lot of our people, and as such the nations that created it struck against us in a way they thought would insulate them from reprisal. They thought wrong. Take them out, annex their territories.”
“Surprise or forewarned?”
“How much trouble is forewarned going to be for you?”
“If you give me time to set things up beforehand, it won’t be a problem. If you need to berate them immediately I can still make it work.”
“Can you make it bloodless?”
“On our part, yes. But I can’t guarantee anything against their stupidity.”
“Their countries must suffer responsibility for their actions…not the present day individuals.”
“Clean capture is possible if handled carefully, but we won’t be in full control. Some idiot with a rocket launcher shooting at us could miss and hit civilians. That part we can never control.”
“Try to lock down as much stupidity like that as you can, but it’s our weaponsfire that I’m concerned about.”
“We won’t kill anyone that’s not shooting at us,” Kent promised.
“Can you capture the ones that are?”
“To a point, yes.”
“This has to be completely clean.”
“Then a direct assault isn’t the solution.”
“I sense a suggestion forming,” Davis noted sarcastically.
“‘Take them out’ can mean a lot of things. Define it more specifically.”
“Take possession of their countries.”
“To do that we have to acquire and hold select infrastructure, not battle their military. While that will happen if they choose to resist, if we can get to ground first and secure targets, it’ll be them attacking us, not the other way around.”
“Better, but that’s not a full solution if we’re having to shoot them down.”
“We won’t have to,” Kent said with a smirk.
“Explain to the kindergartener please.”
“We can take their personnel down with stingers easy enough, it’s their aircraft that are the problem. We disable them and they crash. But if we deploy shield generators and ward off their attacks long enough they’ll run out of ordinance and fuel. If we quietly take out their refueling capabilities we can neutralize them without having to destroy them.”
Davis smiled broadly. “That’s why I’m not an Archon. That never even occurred to me.”
“We’re both problem solvers. Your economic prowess surpasses ours.”
“Perhaps, but I wouldn’t count you guys out in any contest.”
“Wise.”
“Can you do this?”
“You mean without us becoming the bad guys? Yes, I can. But it will take a while to set up.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need a distraction…and an eyeball.”
Davis frowned, not sure what he was saying.
“Guess you haven’t seen that movie.”
“Apparently not. Which one?”
“The first Avengers.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America?”
“All in the same movie?”
“Yeah. Looks like you’ve got some homework to do.”
“Indeed,” Davis said, mentally adding the movie to his to-do list. The more Archon references he was aware of the better. “In the meantime, translation please?”
“None needed. It was a joke. I’ll have to assemble equipment and personnel to hit all sites simultaneously, even if we don’t end up handling it that way. That means a lot of recalls from outside Earth or using a handful of veterans along with a mass of rookies.”
“Can you get by with the personnel in this system?”
“More than enough, but getting them all here isn’t going to happen overnight, and I’m going to need target lists for each country, including up to date intelligence on their military units and locations.”
“A lot of prep work then?”
“When were you planning on letting them know?”
“The Word has been captured without public knowledge, so there’s no timetable to work off of. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”
“And what about the rest of the planet?”
“You had to pass a series of tests to become an Archon, and just about every other Star Force member has had to do the same. It’s time the nations of Earth had theirs.”
“And the independent colonies?”
“I’ll write up a protocol outlining the basic requirements of sovereignty that will apply to everyone. If a nation, colony, or faction doesn’t measure up they’ll forfeit back to Star Force. We’ll reorganize and fix the problem through some sort of arrangement or fully annex them. It’ll also provide a framework for splinter nations to gain legitimacy. You probably aren’t aware of the number of requests we get to recognize independence?”
“Not all of them, but I do know that a lot of loose colonies are out there.”
/> “We even get requests to declare a ship a sovereign nation. So many people are eager to create their own little empires without a clue to the responsibilities that entails. It’s time I laid it out for them.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already.”
“I guess I have been piecemeal, but I’ve been making one very large mistake that you’ve just opened my eyes to. I’ve been respecting the original group of nations as peers without treating them as such. Not one of them would be doing what it needed to without Star Force leverage, which a true peer would. That means we have no peers, just children to babysit. Children that I’ve been giving adult privileges to. They’ve had more than enough time to learn and grow, so now we test them. Those that pass will gain a level of freedom equal to their skills, with total anonymity reserved only for peers.”
“So we are taking over the planet,” Kent said with a satisfied smile.
“They won’t like it. And I’m pretty sure our allies aren’t going to be too keen on it either, but give them a route to full anonymity and a few of them might chase it. As for everyone else, they’re going to rant and rave about me having too much power…”
“Tough,” Kent summed up pithily.
“It’s amazing how simplistic you guys make everything.”
“These governments and people you’re worrying about are all kids that we’re protecting from the lizards and all other manner of threats. They get no say until they show some skill.”
“Would you like to give the speech?”
“My speeches often involve physical stimuli, so talking into a camera is somewhat limiting my communications capability.”
Davis shook his head slowly. “I sooo miss having you guys around.”
“Nothing like planning a global takeover to get the band back together,” Kent quipped. “This will also diminish the likelihood that another Word will rise up, won’t it?”
“That thought crossed my mind about two minutes ago. Yes, it will. They won’t have any more political holes to hide in. Until a nation reaches full sovereignty, if that ever happens, Star Force security will have a presence in all territories. That won’t guarantee an end to covert criminal organizations, but it will make it a lot harder for them to hide in the shadows.”
