by Dani Kollin
The Eros front or what the Alliance calls the 180 front is starting to heat up. The return of Samuel Trang has led to new offensive operations in the area between the forces of the UHF and the forces of rebellion. Commodore Trang seems to be avoiding any all-out battles with the Alliance forces and is instead concentrating on a slow and steady approach. His strategy is to take and hold every settlement and asteroid of substantial size as he advances slowly toward his goal—the settlement of Altamont. The large asteroid is home to a group of religious fanatics who it’s rumored have given their absolute loyalty to the forces of rebellion and chaos. All this reporter can say is, can anyone really be surprised by that?
—N.N.N.
Admiral Joshua Sinclair was sitting on the Cliff House balcony having breakfast and following a new tradition, giving the President his morning briefing. Sinclair had ordered a cup of Earl Grey tea that had been grown in one of the farming settlements near Ceres. It had been part of the export market to Earth, but as that market was now cut off, Ceres and indeed the whole asteroid belt were being sold large amounts of high-quality tea at prices that were making it a very popular drink. It was helped by the fact that the core had almost all the coffee plantations and so coffee was both expensive and viewed as a slightly disloyal beverage to consume. At times the admiral missed his cup of joe, but there was a variant of tea called Imperial Gunpowder that he was becoming quite fond of. However, the President always drank Earl Grey and therefore so did Sinclair.
When Justin appeared Sinclair stood up and saluted. Justin waited until Sinclair was done and then shook his hand. “Morning, Joshua,” said Justin, inviting Sinclair to sit back down. “I hope you have good news to impart today.”
“Good morning, Mr. President. Yes, I do. We have the UHF afraid to leave the orbit of Mars. They won’t launch an attack until they have at least two hundred ships, and that will take months. We can rest secure and build our own forces.”
“And the bad news?”
“The 180, Mr. President. Trang is taking horrible losses, but his strategy is sound. We cannot launch a frontal attack with the forces we have and he’s not willing to launch a frontal attack on Altamont. Wish the bastard would; that place is a fortress now. But he’s killing us with the attritional shit. It plays right to the UHF’s strengths.”
“Casualties?”
They’re losing two for every one of ours,” answered Sinclair, lifting up the tea to his nose and smelling the intense aroma, “maybe even three, but they’re trying to keep that quiet.”
“But they outnumber us ten to one.”
Sinclair nodded uneasily. “As long as he’s willing to take those losses he’ll advance. At some point he’ll be in a position to assault Altamont.”
“And if we lose Altamont,” added Justin, “the belt is split.”
“Like I said … he’s a bastard.”
Justin picked up his tea, blew on the surface, and then took a sip. “So,” he said putting the cup back down onto the table, “what do you propose?”
“If it was anyone but Trang I’d send Christina fifty ships and let her take back Eros in one big battle. Then I’d have her fortify that position and send the ships back before the UHF takes effective action.”
“But?”
“But with Trang you never know. He may not lose, even heavily outnumbered. He was completely outclassed at the second Battle of Eros and still managed to hold on long enough for reinforcements to arrive. If we give Christina the ships she’ll try a climatic battle and if she loses we lose Altamont and the 180 immediately.”
Justin nodded and then picked up his cup again. As he slowly sipped the hot drink he played through the various scenarios in his head but only one solution came to mind. “We could send J.D. and let them fight it out.”
“Sir, if we sent J.D. we’d need to send enough of the fleet to make it worth it. Now we have very good intelligence coverage and so does the UHF. Fortunately, thanks to Secretary Olmstead—and to be perfectly honest I don’t really like the guy—theirs is not as good as ours. To Kirk’s credit he’s put a shroud over the Alliance’s movements that have had the UHF guessing for the better part of two years. But I doubt if even he could hide the fact that we’d be moving the bulk of our fleet and with it the best admiral in the system. If the UHF finds out and launches an attack we could lose the war right here at Ceres. They’d have an opportunity to cut the belt, but they’ll have done it from here without having to schlep all the way out to the 180 to do it. That is assuming J.D. can win against Trang.”
Justin looked up from his cup, surprised. “You think he’s actually better than her?”
“Honestly, I doubt it, Mr. President. But he doesn’t have to be better than her. He just has to outlast her. And to be perfectly frank, J.D. hasn’t really had to fight a worthy opponent. Her opposition until now has been weak willed, easily fooled, or oftentimes both. Trang will be neither; he’ll give our Admiral Black an honest fight, and the UHF outnumbers us in everything. I’m not sure we can win in an honest fight if it lasts long enough.”
“It almost sounds like you’re making an argument for an all-out battle now.”
Sinclair shook his head vigorously. “Not with the fate of the entire Alliance resting on it, sir. If Trang were here at the pivotal point of the battle I’d say yeah, let’s risk it. But if they want to waste Trang out at the 180 in a slow, grueling campaign it’ll give us a chance to win a couple of more victories over here and demoralize the UHF. In short, sir, I’d rather play the waiting game at the 180, because that’ll buy us some time. If we beat them down bad enough on our end, the war will be over before Trang ever reaches Altamont. And don’t forget, he’s got to cross over sixty-seven million miles of asteroids to get there.”
“There’s only one flaw in your plan, Admiral.”
“Yes?”
“Hektor won’t give up.”
“If we can get his people to give up,” answered Sinclair, “it won’t matter what he wants.”
Justin nodded. “True enough, Admiral, but you may be forgetting something.”
“What might that be, Mr. President?”
“It works both ways.”
Uranium prices continue to increase as the supply decreases. It is one of the great contradictions of the war that all major commodities needed for a modern manufacturing civilization exist in abundance in the Alliance except for uranium, which is in abundance only on Earth and Venus. The Venusian deposits are untapped for obvious reasons, but the major supplies on Earth are being guarded like never before. Although most fusion reactors work with simple hydrogen mixes, which the Alliance has in such abundance as to be cruel, uranium is still needed for certain industrial and mining processes, and of course its use in the war effort is vital. If you have knowledge of any sources of uranium in the Alliance please help your nation, your world, your settlement, your friends and family fighting for our freedom. Let the Alliance know and you will be paid as fair a price as we can afford. Remember Neela Cord, folks. You can’t spend your credits in a psyche audit chamber.
—The Clara Roberts Show
AIR (Asteroid belt Information Radio) Network
Michael looked across at the man waiting to be interviewed. He couldn’t believe how much had changed since he and Justin had had their first recorded conversation and wondered if this one would be equally as consequential. Given the fallout from their first, there was a part of Michael desperately hoping it wouldn’t be.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. President.”
Justin’s smile acknowledging the compliment was tinged with sadness. Michael noted that that was becoming an ever-present trait of the leader of the Alliance.
“Michael, thank you for agreeing to this interview on such short notice. Before we begin I’d like to ask you a question … off the record if you don’t mind.”
“Of course, Mr. President.”
“Have you heard from Irma?”
That caught Michael by surprise. �
��No, sir. I’ve sent her some messages but have never gotten a reply. Have you been intercepting them?”
“We wouldn’t do that. Not that we’re angels, we’d probably censor the hell out of them, but you’d eventually get the message. Still, it’s not like there aren’t ways to get around that. Plus, we have families split down the middle by this war and even if we could stop all contact I very much doubt we would.”
“‘Very much doubt’ is not the same as ‘wouldn’t.’”
“No, it’s not,” agreed Justin, eyes narrowed knowingly. “Nevertheless I had to ask—”
“You’re wondering if she’s been ‘Neela’d,’” finished Michael, using one of the newest words making the rounds in the Alliance.
“Well, to put it bluntly, yes. The last time I did an interview with her she seemed a much different person. A hard-ass to be sure, but one who was as interested in reporting the truth as any reporter I’d ever met. Now she seems to be nothing but Hektor’s mouthpiece.”
“That’s a bias I’m afraid I can’t report on, Mr. President.”
Justin nodded appreciatively. “The fact that you’re covering the war from here speaks volumes as to your opinion of truth and accuracy, Michael. Not by one’s word but by one’s actions can you really get to know a man.”
Michael knew that Justin had stated the truth. And that Michael never would’ve been allowed to report on the war and what it was doing to humanity in the UHF the way he’d been allowed to in the Alliance.
“Bottom line, Michael,” continued Justin, “Irma’s actions seem out of character and I find it a little hard to believe that you don’t concur.”
Michael sighed. “This will sound strange coming from me, Mr. President, but in order to answer you I’d like to know if it too will be off-the-record.”
Justin laughed. “I thought this whole conversation was off-the-record. Some interview, huh?”
Michael smiled politely. “You know what I mean, Mr. President.”
“No promises, but if possible, it will be.”
Michael nodded, accepting. “Irma loves being a reporter, but she loves the system she’s a part of more. Incorporation never really conflicted with her job … that is, until you came along. But the death …” Michael paused. “The death of our friend Saundra had a profound impact on her. She was never the same after that.”
“It sounds to me like Saundra was more than a friend to you.”
Michael nodded sadly.
“I’m truly sorry about your loss, Michael.”
“Thank you, sir,” he answered, thinking back to his on-again, off-again relationship with the redheaded, freckle-faced beauty whose exuberance and catlike playfulness had entranced him for years. “She was a good woman, sir. We never really moved the relationship into serious mode because we were still just having fun, showing off … that sort of thing. But Irma … well, Irma, I’d daresay, might have loved her like a daughter. She loved us all that way.”
“I see.”
“There’s something else I guess you should know….”
“Yes?”
“Irma and Hektor had a fling a number of years back.”
Justin’s head tilted slightly, brows raised.
“I know. We kept it quiet for obvious reasons, conflict of interest and all, but it sure came in handy when we were all running around trying to get a line on you all those many years ago, the guy from the past that GCI had stashed away in a suspension chamber in their Boulder facility.”
“Long time ago,” agreed Justin.
“Either way, that only made the choice easier for Irma. She loved that world, Mr. President, and is now, like so many others, fighting to keep it.”
“The means justify the ends, in other words.”
“Yes, sir. In her mind they do.”
Justin nodded. “What about you, Michael?”
“Me, sir?”
“Yes. What is Michael Veritas fighting for?”
Michael paused. No one had ever asked him the question before and he’d never bothered to formulate an answer. Instead he spoke on instinct. “There must be an accurate record of these events, Mr. President. Not just those of the admirals, presidents, and corporate CEOs, but everyone. Our race almost always forgets who actually fights and suffers when we lose the ability to discuss … and therefore end up resorting to force. In almost every record of war I’ve ever come across we forget about the penny—or what ever they were referred to in your time.”
“The poor,” answered Justin, “or ironically, the minorities—but not based on shares.”
“Yes, right,” Michael said, nodding, “on race if I recall.”
Justin tipped his head forward.
“Well, sir, I don’t want that to happen anymore. I may be naïve, but I need people to know that this war is not only about humanity, it’s about the individual humans themselves.”
Justin looked at Michael very intently before responding. “Did you know what I was going to say as part of our ‘on-the-record’ interview?”
Michael shook his head. “I’m a good reporter, sir, but not that good.”
Justin relaxed slightly. “Well, let’s begin, then. I’m sure you’re curious.”
Michael released his two micro mediabot recorders into the air and cleared his mind.
“Greetings, this is Michael Veritas. I’m sitting with the President of the Outer Alliance, Justin Cord. He’s invited me to the presidential suite, otherwise referred to by most as the Cliff House. In an unusual move this interview will be broadcast almost immediately after being recorded. A live broadcast is not possible due to security considerations, but I’m assured by the President that before I leave the Cliff House this interview will be viewed by the Alliance and, where not blocked, the UHF limited only by the speed of light.” As Michael turned his attention to Justin the micro media bots swung around.
“This is an unusual method for us to talk, Mr. President. Why did you wish to meet this way?”
“It seems that any time anyone has anything to say we gather a crowd and give a speech.”
“You dislike your speeches, Mr. President?”
Justin smiled. “Not at all, Mr. Veritas. I love my speeches. Who wouldn’t like to have millions of people cheering your every word? I’m not immune to the temptations of pride any more than the next man. But what I’m prepared to discuss is something I purposely did not want introduced in a speech. It’s something that deals with an issue so central to this conflict and to every human being that I felt it needed to be addressed to every human being systemwide, and to night it starts with you.”
Michael nodded.
“This is an issue,” continued Justin, “that I want each and every person to hear and understand—not as a group, not within the context of a rabble-rousing crowd but of a one-on-one talk to an individual, because ultimately that’s what this war’s about.”
Justin paused for a second, collecting his thoughts, then continued. “Recently Hektor Sambianco, the President of the UHF, announced a new policy. He said he was prepared to give majority to any person who signed up for ser vice in this ongoing war. On the surface it seems to be a generous, even amazing offer. At a huge expense his government will give vast numbers of people a chance to have greater, even real control over their destinies. Are you familiar with this majority proclamation, Michael?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Out of curiosity, what’s your take on it?”
Michael was slightly taken aback, but then he smirked. Table turning, after all, was the Cord way. “Well, sir, I’d say it’s a success. It’s clearly been very popular in the UHF and has made recruiting much easier. It’s even been reported that they’ve had to turn people away because of the overflow.”
“All true, Michael, and difficult as the proclamation will be from our military’s point of view, it’s not really the issue that’s caused me concern. We’ve always been outnumbered and always will be.”
“So what is your concern, then?�
�
Justin smiled amiably. “Care to guess?”
“Sure,” Michael said in the flash of a grin. “Some members of Congress and the press have stated that with the UHF agreeing to give so many of its citizens majority, the differences between the UHF and the Alliance are now not as great they used to be.”
“Yes. The fuzzier the line in the sand the more difficult it is to figure out what exactly we’re fighting for.”
“It’s a compelling argument, Mr. President.”
“Indeed it is, Michael. But let’s dig deeper, shall we? What did Hektor really offer his people? The nuts and bolts of the proclamation is this: Fight for the UHF and we’ll give you back a little more freedom. Freedom, I might add, that most of you lost when you were too young to realize what you’d given up. So again, Hektor Sambianco is asking you to risk your life in order to get back what should never have been taken.” Justin then paused and looked directly into one of the floating mediabots. “A few precious drops of freedom for a river of blood. It doesn’t matter if the blood is yours or ours; the price will be paid.”
A moment of silence followed Justin’s words and then he looked back toward Michael. “The Alliance doesn’t have to deal with the situation in quite the same way because most of us own a majority of ourselves, but trust me, it’s still an issue. Our two main factions, the NoShares and the Shareholders, deal with it every day. In fact, we too have had to tiptoe around it for fear of jeopardizing the very foundation of our Alliance. Still, the issue has become so ingrained we’ve lost sight of the basic difference between the UHF and ourselves. And we too must ask the burning question: What are we fighting for? We now know what the UHF is fighting for—the freedom we’re already in possession of. But is that all we’re really fighting for? To maintain the majority we already possess?”
