CHILDERS_Absurd Proposals

by Richard F. Weyand

  "Where we would normally see x number of ships in a system, we're consistently seeing fewer warships than we expect."

  "How many ships?"

  "About half of the normal contingent missing, across twenty or so star systems. We're estimating three hundred ships total that aren't where they should be," Durand said.

  "They're mustering."

  "That's what we think as well. So whatever is going to happen, it's starting."

  "So a month. Maybe two," Jan said.

  "That's our estimate."

  "I need something else from you. You probably already have it. I want designations, sensor readings, coordinates, whatever, for several kinds of targets in those twenty or so systems. Military space stations. Military spaceports. The executive residence. Secret police headquarters. Meeting place of the legislature. Where the oligarchs of these systems live, work, and play. I also want times. When is the legislature in session? When is the president going to be in the residence? That sort of thing. Do you have that?"

  "Yes. We collect that sort of thing routinely. We should be able to give you almost all of it," Durand said.

  "Good. If they attack us now, we are going to absolutely slaughter their navies. And after we sort through the debris enough to know whose ships they are, we're taking the war to them. I get tired of killing their spacers and letting these guys off the hook. This time we're not going to. We're going to clean out the rats this time."

  "That's outside the Commonwealth. Do you have authorization for those attacks?"

  Jan checked her watch.

  "I'm going to get the authorization. I have a shuttle picking me up from your roof in twenty minutes," Jan said.

  It was a private meeting in the Chairman's Residence. It was not on the Chairman's public schedule. It was a very small meeting, with Jan, Defense Minister Richard Wong, Foreign Minister Sally Howell, and Chairman Miriam Desai.

  "Good morning, Admiral Childers," Desai said.

  "Good morning, Madam Chairman, Ministers," Jan said.

  "I take it the moment of decision is at hand."

  "Yes, Ma'am. The Intelligence Division reports ships are disappearing from some twenty Outer Colony systems, probably three hundred ships in all. It is Intelligence Division's opinion, with which I concur, that the Outer Colonies are mustering for an attack on the Commonwealth."

  "Is this an attack we will have difficulty repelling, Admiral?"

  "No, Ma'am. We had expectations we would be able to win handily based on simulations. It appears based on extensive exercises our position is much better even than we anticipated. Further, we have received and worked up four more of the new cruiser destroyers, for a total of twelve. All things considered, we believe we will be able to destroy, not repel, the attackers with minimal to no losses ourselves."

  "Is that an optimistic assessment, Admiral, or a real one?" Desai asked.

  "My assessments generally tend toward the pessimistic side, Ma'am. You have to be able to plan to proceed with what you will actually have left, not what you hope to have left. But the exercises were illuminating as to the extent the new weapons systems have increased our capabilities."

  "I see. And the question then becomes, What do we do after we win?"

  "Yes, Ma'am," Jan said.

  "What is the status of the colonization effort?"

  "Earth started sending out survey drones two months ago. These run on a vast search loop, and the first ones should be returning for a data dump soon, before they head out again. We will survey the probables using the cruiser destroyers, and start to draw up a list of definite colony planets.

  "As for the colony ships themselves, Earth is committing first deliveries in the next three months. They will come very fast after that, with all two hundred ships complete within two years."

  "As fast as that?" Desai asked.

  "Yes, Ma'am. Earth's manufacturing capabilities are vast almost beyond belief. They won't even be breaking a sweat with that delivery schedule."

  "Amazing. So the colony effort is on schedule."

  "Yes, Ma'am," Jan said.

  "So what is your plan, in brief, for what you are calling secondary targets?"

  "The plan is to take out military targets – to destroy their ability to make war – and to decapitate the planetary government, all with minimal collateral damage to civilians. That's minimal collateral damage, not no collateral damage. None is impossible to attain while achieving the military goals. The basis for the plan is the Outer Colonies have been attacking us piecemeal under these same leaders for at least thirty years, and we have always responded only against their military. It is the leadership, though, which has continued to push this agenda."

  "Understood, Admiral. You will have my decision soon," Desai said.

  "One more thing if I might, Ma'am. One of their possible opening gambits is an assassination attempt on me. We have some indication that may in fact be in the works. We are taking steps to protect against it, but, if they are successful, I want you and Minister Wong to know Vice Admiral Tien Jessen is the only person who is completely involved in my planning – mostly his planning, actually – and he is my recommendation for my replacement."

  "I understand, Admiral. And, Admiral – Jan – please do take care."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Late the next afternoon Jan received a short encrypted message:

  FROM: DESAI

  TO: CHILDERS

  SUBJECT: SECONDARIES

  PROCEED AS DISCUSSED.

  SHARE WITH JESSEN.

  Bugging Out

  Lieutenant Commander Stuart Miller was in his room at the embassy, packing a nondescript bag with nondescript items, to match his nondescript clothes. Time to become plain old civilian Stewart Gillian again.

  Time to get the hell out of Jablonka.

  He had his three patsies in motion. He'd provided the guns, the time, the location. Just do the job and he would drop in and pick them up, right in the middle of the Navy Mall, and take them to a Brunswick ship hiding in hyperspace. They would be returned to Brunswick to a hero's welcome and a rich reward.

  After all, the Commonwealth started this war. It was being just as unfair to the Outer Colonies as it was being to them. That was just the way they operated, the bastards. It came down from the top, from Admiral Childers herself. And Admiral Childers was a valid military target. Not a civilian, after all.

  He'd even shown them the shuttle, hidden away under cover in the embassy's parking garage, ostensibly so they would be able to recognize it when it dropped in to pick them up. A fast, sleek, expensive, surface-to-orbit shuttle that would pop them out in no time.

  And they bought it. They bought it all. He thought it was the shuttle that sealed the deal. He saw the way they looked at each other as he showed it to them, and he knew he had them.

  Gillian uncovered the shuttle and stowed the cover in the luggage compartment. He maneuvered the little craft out of the parking garage to the shuttle pad and got a clearance to the civilian spaceport north of Jezgra, in the direction of Commonwealth Center. Do everything nice and quiet and by the book, now. No waves.

  He landed the shuttle at the spaceport in the rental company area. He was returning it early. It seemed his wife had decided not to take the yacht this trip. Even a yacht is tiny compared to a first class cabin, and she just didn't want to spend three weeks to Saarestik cooped up in the tiny ship. He'd finally given in rather than listen to her complain about it three weeks each way. So he didn't need the shuttle to get up to orbit after all. They would go up on the liner's shuttle.

  Having returned the shuttle and made his excuses, he headed into the passenger area. He should be able to catch the scheduled liner to Pahaadon, and from there he would double back to Brunswick.

  Stuart Gillian didn't know about all the additional cameras, too tiny to spot, that had been installed in the Jablonka Spaceport passenger terminal over the last six months.

  Shots Fired

  "Gun!"

&nb
sp; Two of Jan's security detail, the two that always walked behind her, hit her hard and took her to the ground on the lawn alongside the sidewalk as automatic weapons fire opened up. She had been walking to her latest monthly briefing with Admiral Durand in the Intelligence Building across the Mall from her office in the NOC.

  Before she hit the ground, she heard the shots, in weird syncopation. More than one weapon. At least two, she thought.

  She felt multiple impacts, and then she hit the ground, hard, and lost consciousness.

  Bill Campbell was just getting ready for the monthly meeting between himself, Jan, and Admiral Durand, when he heard automatic weapons fire outside. His office overlooked the Mall from the tenth floor of the Intelligence Division headquarters. He went to the windows and looked down across the Mall just in time to see the last of Jan's security detail go down. Security officers were running out of the NOC opposite.

  He also saw the two agents down on top of Jan. None of them were moving.

  Bill ran to the elevators, and waited in agony for the elevator car. While waiting, he pushed the emergency button on the transmitter he always carried.

  The emergency alarm sounded in the security headquarters on the Hill, the three houses on the breast of a hill south of Sigurdsen in which the CNO, the CNR, and the Planetary Commander lived.

  "What is it?" the watch commander asked.

  "Admiral Campbell's emergency transmitter has been activated. He's on base, Sir."

  "Go to full cordon on the Hill. Retrieve the children."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Bill came running out of the Intelligence Division headquarters as three emergency evac shuttles landed in the central plaza of the Mall. Medics scrambled out of all three. Two groups headed toward Jan and the security men that went down with her, the other to the other two security men that had returned fire. Three groups of security guards were covering what must be the shooters nearby.

  Other emergency evac shuttles were setting down at either end of the Mall and a couple of places midway on either side. Groups of people knotted around other fallen figures. The automatic weapons fire had been indiscriminate. It was a good thing it hadn't been during lunch, when the Mall would have been more crowded.

  Bill ran up to where the medics were beginning to work on Jan. She was bleeding profusely from the left leg, and they applied a tourniquet as he watched. They cut open her uniform blouse to reveal torso body armor beneath, spalled in multiple places with bullet impacts.

  "She took one through the leg, Sir. Entry and exit wound. It looks like the armor caught everything else," the squad leader said.

  "And unconscious?" Bill asked.

  "She hit the ground pretty hard, Sir. Probably concussion. We're getting her over to SMH right now."

  "Thank you, Chief. Carry on."

  They loaded Jan on a stretcher, and carried her to the nearest evac shuttle, which took off in a cloud of dust and cut grass for the base hospital.

  The remaining medics were now concentrating on the two security officers who had returned fire. The bodies of the two who had taken Jan down and protected her on the ground were being covered for the time being.

  With the major bleeding stopped and the two security officers loaded on stretchers, the medics moved them into the second evac shuttle and it took off for SMH.

  The medics then moved on to the shooters. One was dead, and the body was left where it lay for now. They worked on the other two for several minutes, then loaded them on to stretchers on the third shuttle. A security team swung aboard that shuttle as well.

  The remaining security teams secured the area. An evidence team from Intelligence Division was already individually packaging all the weapons on the scene and marking the shooters' locations. Bill looked up to see a returning evac shuttle settling down to pick up the bodies. It was only then he noticed four combat shuttles in the air over Sigurdsen, ready to provide an immediate security response to any further attacks.

  Bill walked back to the Intelligence Division headquarters, and asked the receptionist on his way through to ask the head of the Criminal Section to meet him in his office.

  "First thing is, lock us down. The base, and the planet," Bill said.

  "Already done, Sir," Rear Admiral Stefan Lyman said.

  "Have the computers run facial recognition of anyone headed out-system against all off-planet visitors. Look for who's trying to get out. We need to know who ran this op."

  "Yes, Sir. I think we're already doing that."

  "And get IDs on the shooters. Collect everything. Bank account records, message accounts, personal accounts in the computers. Everything you can find," Bill said.

  "That's in process, too, Sir."

  "OK, OK. You're on top of it. I just want to make sure we don't forget anything."

  "We're prepared for this sort of thing, Sir. We're running down our checklist right now," Lyman said.

  "Good. Carry on."

  "Yes, Sir."

  Lyman left, and Bill called home.

  "CNO's residence."

  "Hi, George, it's Bill. Are the kids OK?"

  "Yes, Admiral. Security picked them up at school and brought them home. We're having something of a party to keep them distracted."

  "Good. OK, just checking."

  "Yes, Sir. And how is Admiral Childers, Sir?" George asked.

  "We don't know yet, George. We just don't know."

  Bill's next stop was to report in to Admiral Durand.

  "Criminal Section is all over this, Sir. I guess they have a protocol in place, believe it or not. They were picking up evidence out there within fifteen minutes of the event," Bill said.

  "I expected as much. Lyman is good at his job, and that organization has always been top-notch. That's one reason you're not familiar with them. We've never had to clean anything up there."

  "I guess everything we can do is under way at the moment."

  "So why are you still here, Bill? You can't make it go any faster, you'll just get in their way. Get yourself over to the hospital. See how she's doing," Durand said.

  "Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir."

  Sigurdsen Military Hospital was the CSF's premier hospital. The sprawling complex was on base but not on the Navy Mall. Bill had the car from the Hill take him around to the hospital, picking him up at the rear entrance of the Intelligence Division headquarters where the road access was. He went to the secure wing the Intelligence Division and Medical Division maintained, and was signed in after a thorough identification process, never mind he personally knew the guards.

  Bill checked in at the nurse's desk.

  "How's my wife doing? Admiral Childers?" he asked.

  "She's just gone into surgery, Sir, so no news for a while," the nurse said.

  Bill checked his watch.

  "She was stabilized, and they tried to save the two security guards first, Sir," she offered by way of explanation.

  "Ah. How are they doing? Will they make it?"

  "No, Sir. They tried, but...."

  Bill closed his eyes, shook his head. He looked at her again.

  "How many others?" Bill asked.

  "We've had almost two dozen admissions, Sir. Your wife and her security detail, the shooters, and another eighteen from around the Mall area. Five of the bystanders have died. The rest look like they'll make it."

  "All right. Thank you. Can you assign me a secure office space, please?"

  "Certainly, Sir."

  She had him swipe his thumb on a reader.

  "Number five, Sir, just down that hall there," she said, pointing. "We'll come get you when there is any news."

  "Thank you."

  Bill walked down the hall, found office number five, and swiped his thumb on the door pad. Inside was a military secure office, standard issue, one each. He sat in the desk chair and logged into the system.

  He had one terse mail from Vice Admiral Jessen, Jan's black programs chief:

  FROM: JESSEN

  TO: VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM
CAMPBELL, INTELLIGENCE DIVISION

  SUBJECT: (none)

  AM IN COMMAND NOC.

  MoD CONFIRMED.

  SENT WAR WARNING.

  PLS INFORM JC.

  There was also an update from Admiral Lyman:

  FROM: REAR ADMIRAL STEFAN LYMAN, INTELLIGENCE DIVISION

  TO: VICE ADMIRAL WILLIAM CAMPBELL, INTELLIGENCE DIVISION

  MESSAGE: PROGRESS

  BRUNSWICK NAVAL ATTACHE ATTEMPTED DEPARTURE FROM JABLONKA. IN DISGUISE. APPREHENDED. AT IDHQ.

  SHOOTERS RELEASED TO ID. AT IDHQ.

  The rest of his mails were routine, and he left them for his later attention.

  There was a knock on the door, and he released the lock from inside the system.

  "Come in," Bill said.

  A doctor entered, fresh from surgery.

  "Hi, doc."

  Bill waved him to a chair and the surgeon sat gratefully.

  "How's she doing?"

  "On the leg wound, the round passed lengthwise through the muscle of the leg. It missed both the bone and the femoral artery. She's going to have a limp for a while, but she should be able to work that out. It will probably take a couple of years to have full normal strength and mobility in that leg. And she'll have a couple of nasty scars. We did what we could to minimize that, but there's only so much we can do right now. We can touch that up down the road. She has some major bruising from the hits on her body armor. I think one of the ribs is separated, which is going to hurt like hell for a couple of months when she moves wrong, but that has to heal itself. She also has a minor concussion, apparently from hitting the ground, but there's no hematoma. She's lucky she hit the lawn and not the pavement. If she had hit the pavement the same way, it might be a different story. All in all, she's doing pretty good."

  "Has she regained consciousness?"

  "Oh, yes. She regained consciousness before we attempted surgery. She's in post-op now, and should be coming out of anesthesia soon. We can let you in there in a couple minutes, so you'll be there when she comes out of it."