“You have to make a choice about who is going to get hurt and how bad. Get someone in one of your special ops units and have him get close and toss a glass of red vinegar in the man’s face as he’s being hauled off to the airport... bound for China, not Bolivia. It has to be red vinegar, do you understand? It has to leave a visible stain on the man’s white shirt. If he’s wearing a coat, it has to be taken from him, or carried on his arm.
“The Chinese will write off the loss of face as having been balanced by the attack by a heathen Westerner. But the ‘acid tosser’ is going to have to be busted and tried. He’d better be very clean, because you can’t afford to have him publicly tracked back to you. The Chinese won’t care if they find out privately, but the news media will be all over it.”
The Australian PM looked at the President. “It would be easier if it was one of mine.”
“And would look bad if it was one of mine.” The President looked at Stephanie. “It’s tough, isn’t it, when the pedal hits the metal?”
“I understand; I wish you two understood better.”
Bob sighed. “We’ve both sent men into combat. There’s nothing you can do. Either you accept that men, and sometimes women, are going to get killed, but the mission is more important — or you go back to the farm.”
“Steph, once upon a time I was a pilot in the Air Force. I was a lawyer in civilian life, but a fighter pilot in the reserve,” the President said. “In the First Gulf War, I was a squadron commander. We received mission tasking from on high, but down at the squadron level we dealt the cards to our pilots. I’ve dropped live bombs on ‘targets.’” He made air quotes.
“I knew those targets were living, breathing people. I knew there was always a risk the bombs would go astray or we’d muffed the targeting. I flew every mission I could, because I couldn’t bear the thought of my men being up there without me. I had a share in what happened, win, lose or draw. It sucks rocks; let me tell you.
“Twice I relieved pilots who laughed and made fun of the people we were bombing. For some reason that’s never been made public and I’m glad of it, for them and me. But it’s just the simple facts of life: we kill our targets, but we don’t laugh about it.”
“I’m not laughing,” Stephanie said.
“No, I doubt you are. Leave Bob and me alone again.”
“I hope you aren’t trying to keep my skirts clean,” she told them.
Bob laughed. “Are you wearing a skirt?”
“Well... no.”
“Then, please. It’s one of those things that comes with executive authority. We just love plausible deniability. Leave this to us, please.”
Later Stephanie was sitting with her bare feet on a table, sipping from a glass of ice tea, with Charlie Rampling a few feet away, talking to a young man not much older than her son.
Charlie saw Stephanie wasn’t very cheerful and brought the young man over. “Steph, this is Mark Kinnion, an astronomer here in Australia. He’s scheduled on the first Australian interstellar expedition that’s to go in three months.”
Stephanie held out her hand and the fellow, about two years older than she was, shook her hand. “Are you a biologist like Dr. Rampling?” the astronomer asked.
“Actually, I’m more a jack of all trades,” Stephanie told him.
“I don’t recognize your uniform,” he told her.
Stephanie glanced at Charlie, who nodded. Ah! Carte blanche!
“Well, the American Space Service believes in splendiferous uniforms. I was the person in charge of the coffee service on the Ad Astra expedition.”
He glowed! He simply glowed! “You were on the Ad Astra?”
“Yep! Made coffee on the bridge for all of them, even General-what’s-his-name, before he screwed up and got himself killed. I also did environmental readings.”
“I was telling Dr. Rampling that Australia is going to need some good biologists for our flight. That maybe she should apply.”
Steph laughed. “What, Charlie? You don’t want to go to Procyon?”
“The Aussies are talking about an expedition out towards Orion. That would be interesting.”
“Orion is four, five hundred light years away, Charlie. Five or six hundred years from now, someone will go there. And it won’t be a big expedition, because that’s a star nursery. Stars that young will be a little too sporty for humanity for a couple of billion years.”
“We’ll be going to two F’s and a G,” the astronomer said defensively.
“Procyon is an F,” Stephanie mused. “Another star a little younger than the sun.”
One of the Australian aides came up to them. “Admiral Kinsella, the PM was wondering if you could spare him a few moments?”
“Certainly.” Stephanie was up and away, without really thinking about the chaos she’d left behind.
“Admiral Kinsella? That was Stephanie Kinsella?” the astronomer said, awestruck.
“Two things you don’t want ever want to say to her face: ‘I thought you’d be taller’ or ‘I thought you’d be older,’” Charlie observed.
“And you were there, too, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I feel like an ass.”
“Well, it was fun to be recruited — Steph used pretty much the same approach on me: ‘Want to see the Promised Land?’”
“Dr. Rampling, could I ask you a personal question?”
“No, I’m not married, but I do have a son your age.”
The young astronomer blushed. “Were you scared?”
“There are no windows on Ad Astra. None, zero, zip, nada. When we lifted, I watched the Earth fall away on a TV screen and I could feel it in the pit of my stomach — and it wasn’t just the acceleration.
“Walking on the surface of Mars was a big, big rush, even if there is little or nothing for a biologist to do there. I was surprised that Steph didn’t get out and walk around. When I asked her about it, she looked me right in the eye. ‘Charlie, the spacesuit you wear was made by the lowest bidder from specs a group of engineers drew up, none of whom has ever been in space. It’s dangerous out there. I’m going to get off at Tau Ceti and look around, but I’m not going to linger.’”
“Is that a yes?” he asked with a grin.
“I was nervous when we lifted off Earth, but exhilarated at the same time. Mars was a thrill, no doubt about it, and no one’s suit failed; not even the guys who took falls.
“The first time we went faster than light... that was scary, because it’s a little like being mildly sea-sick all the time.”
She laughed. “Steph is something else. The docs were debating if the effect was physical or psychological. She really laid into them. A hundred people wouldn’t experience the same physical symptoms at once without a common cause. I think that’s why she’s here. She gets through BS like no one else I’ve ever met.”
“And on Tau Ceti?” he asked.
“Walking out of the ship, there were a thousand things I wanted to look at. The plants, the animals... the more we learned the more we wanted to know. But when the call came that someone was down, and I found out the general was dead... yeah, I was scared. I think Steph was too, a little. The docs wanted to autopsy the body and she simply refused, telling them to freeze it and do the autopsy back on Earth.”
She smiled at him. “No, I was never so scared I couldn’t function.”
“I hope I do as well.”
“That you are concerned is a good sign.”
Stephanie, on the other hand, found the President pacing and the Prime Minister standing, looking out a window over Sydney harbor.
“Something’s come up,” Bob told her.
“Damned French,” Howie muttered under his breath.
“They want to break the Federation military into two parts. A ground support force and the ships,” Bob told her. “They’ve suggested a French commander for the ground support force.”
Stephanie thought for a moment, and nodded. “It’s not entirely a bad idea.
.. except about a French commander.”
“The idea was to have a single, integrated military. A space fleet.”
“I can’t help thinking of the Marines, Coast Guard and the like. Why are they separate? It’s because their missions are unique and they need their own unique approaches to the problems they face.
“Speaking of that reminds me we never made allowance for a ground component.”
“You really think it’s a good idea?” Howie asked.
“Sure. It’s all in a name. Our Space Fleet or whatever it is, will have branches, just like the military of most countries have. A ground support organization taking care of the port facilities, administration and all of that, a ground combat component and the ships and crews themselves. Right now the US picks someone from one of the various branches to be the Joint Chief of Staff. That’s not a problem.
“The other is a problem I told you about earlier, and it’s one you have to step on hard. A Frenchman might be in our Fleet or an American or Australian or whoever, and they may be nominated to command this or that. But they don’t serve in their national uniform and transfers have to be the equivalent of an enlistment, with all the bits and pieces enlistments entail. A contract for a period of time. Once they’ve enlisted, they’re in the Fleet, they are not Australians, Americans or French... just Fleet.”
She looked at them and sighed. “I suspect you’re thinking ‘if they’re not loyal to us, then they’re out of our control.’”
“Pretty much,” Howie said dryly.
“Well, that’s the whole point. They have to be independent and everyone has to see them as independent or it won’t work.”
She looked at the President for a long moment. “I’ve said the words a dozen times. I made no bones about it, but you never understood...” she whispered.
“Understood what?” Howie asked.
“Spaceships armed commensurate with the responsibility of their duty.”
“I assumed you mean nuclear weapons,” the President told her.
“Of course. Did you think you were going to retain control over those weapons?”
“Yes. Turning them over to someone else’s control is — unthinkable. I’d be impeached and rightly so.”
“Howie, do you remember your phone call during the Fore Trojan rescue? Where you wanted to talk to John Malcolm?”
He nodded. “I’d forgotten the time lag.”
“Howie, a ship out at Tau Ceti is twelve and a half days from Earth. If someone is trying to drop a rock the size of Pittsburgh on someone else’s colony out there, they’d have to, under your scenario, return to Earth, get permission and go back. That’s three and a half weeks. Bzzzzt! The colony has been vaporized for three of those weeks.”
“And that’s a simple example. We currently do not have full coverage of the area around Earth, where we know what’s going on. That’s one of the first tasks of this Fleet we’re proposing. Howie, a Gulfstream, like those I modified, out at the moon, could, if fully fueled, accelerate towards the Earth and arrive moving at about 40 kilometers a second.
“Would you care to hazard a guess at how long it would take to hit the Earth?”
“A day or two.”
“A couple of hours. In order to stop it, we have to find it early on, order a ship to intercept and have them do so and hit the target. I’d like to think we’ll be able to accomplish that at some point of time, but it’s not going to be easy. And if you blow up that ship with conventional explosives close to Earth? You’d reduce the damage that would occur on the ground, but it would still be horrific. Howie, Bob, that ship has to be vaporized as far from the planet as possible. There is no other option.
“Which means you would have very few minutes to make your decision. It would mean that even if it was the middle of the night, you’d have to wake, become alert, make a judgment and order it within minutes.
“Sure, in earth orbit we can afford passive restraint systems like what you’re used to, Howie. But you’re going to have to go back to living with a man with weapons codes at your shoulder for the rest of your time in office. And so would every American President who follows you. And I’m sure the proposed Federation wouldn’t be helped knowing they can’t shoot without permission from you. That doesn’t sound very much like independence to me.
“No, the only way this works is if the Federation makes those decisions on its own.”
“I can’t cede that much sovereignty to some other government. True, I can’t be reelected, but my party would like a shot at winning an election in the next hundred years. If I went with this, we’d be forever remembered as traitors.”
“Howie, the only sovereignty ‘lost,’” she made air quotes around the last word, “is sovereignty you don’t currently have... that is, outside the atmosphere. All the Federation can do if they don’t like what some government does is to decertify them.
“It’s ships from governments not with the program that would be at risk.
“It’s back to carrots and sticks. The biggest carrot is off-world travel. The biggest stick is its absence. Can you imagine what would happen to a country in this day and age if you could shut off its foreign trade?”
Bob nodded. “Australia understands that well enough, Steph. I hate to do this, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave again.”
Steph shook her head. “Look, you don’t have to apologize. All I want to do here is be heard. I want this idea to have a chance at being implemented. Compared to that, not having access to private conversations between world leaders is no big.”
She waved a half salute and left.
Late the same evening Steph was back. “I saw the response to the French proposal,” she told the two. “I could see from the French envoy’s reaction that he didn’t expect you to agree and then run with it.”
“It caught them flat-footed. They made a token objection about sovereignty and putting too many eggs in one basket, but that put them arguing against their own proposal. At this point no one wants to go to the mat about where the lines run on the organization chart. At some point that will become the main focus and every bit as bitter as any negotiation ever is,” Howie explained.
“We need something to focus people’s attention on what we’re doing,” Bob suggested. “So far the negotiations, for most people, mean absolutely nothing. Not very many Australians care at all about off-planet colonies. They are not engaged.”
“Neither is the average American, although the conservative blogosphere is rumbling about loss of sovereignty. Black helicopters are back,” Howie lamented.
Stephanie laughed. “Probably no aircraft type has been hit as hard as the world of helicopters. They were always noisy and difficult to fly. Marginal aircraft, for the most part. Howie, do you remember what Admiral Delgado said on the day you gave him the Space Service?”
“He said a number of things.”
“About his excitement at watching an F-16 lift vertically off a carrier deck.”
“I remember that. I used to drive hot jets. I was tempted to invite myself for a demonstration, but there never seems to be enough time.”
“Sir, you should make time. You also might want to find a new Navy Liaison; the one you’ve got now isn’t a patch on John Gilly.”
“I have to agree,” Howie told Steph.
“Sir, one thing you have to understand about naval admirals: they are not in the business of letting grass grow under their hind ends.”
The PM laughed first, followed by the President. “I like that,” Howie told Steph, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. “Grass growing under admirals.”
Stephanie had been patient and when he finished she smiled wickedly at them. “You didn’t hear John mention to Delgado that torpedoes, some of them, are propelled by gas turbines.”
“Gas turbine is a red flag phrase, right?” Howie asked.
“Yes, indeed. The Air Force had a good laugh about the Navy hanging new versions of the Mark 48 torpedo, two of them, from
the wings of an F-16. The Navy had the last laugh, of course. They’ve been shooting holes in some of the inner belt asteroids, sir.”
“I’m impressed,” the President told her. “And here I thought the Space Service had no spacecraft, just stuff they borrowed and no weapons.”
“Sir, it takes a lot of courage to fly a modified F-16 outside the orbit of Mars and back, particularly with tons of explosive strapped to your wings. But, that’s really secondary, sir.”
“Secondary, Steph?” he said, reminding her obliquely to be informal.
“Sir, the Mark 48 torpedo is nuclear-capable.”
The two heads of state looked at Stephanie as if she’d grown horns.
“They haven’t tested a warhead, have they, Howie?” Bob asked anxiously.
“Bob, this is the first I’ve heard of this.”
“Like I said, Howie. The Navy is made up of a number of competing groups. Since John Gilly did so well, and was a carrier captain, the carrier proponents got to send you another man. Except the new guy has never served on another class of vessel, and while he was a pilot, he flew COD aircraft... the Navy’s package express delivery service. He can’t stand subs and he doesn’t like fighter jocks.”
Howie sighed heavily. “I tried to make it clear to John why I valued him so highly. Because he wasn’t interested in telling me what I wanted to hear, and above all, he didn’t tell me what he thought I wanted to hear. The new guy hardly talks at all, and when he does, he kisses my ass.”
“You had an aide like that? And you let him go?” Bob said, wheezing with laughter.
Howie glared at him and Bob settled back. “Sorry, I’d kill for someone like that on my staff.”
“So, the bottom line is that the Space Service is flight testing weapons and weapons systems, is that it, Steph?”
“Yes, Howie. I’m glad you said it that way, because a modified F-16 isn’t going to be able to cut it for any useful extra atmospheric work, except in emergencies. However working with a number of companies, the Space Service will have a half dozen ships of their own flying by the end of the year. They will have weapons that have been tried and tested.”
Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) Page 23
