Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer (8 page)

Reluctantly, the troops withdrew.

Greco himself hefted a PW20 in one hand, an EMP cannon in the other. The first would hardly bother Shan, but the latter should shut down all of his cybernetics. Schaeffer decided not to give the order to take him down. Shan had spoken the truth. He could have killed them both easily, but now he wanted to talk.

“All right then,” Schaeffer said, controlling his breathing with an effort of will. “What was this all about?”

“Would someone get this restrainer off me please?” Clayton asked from the floor. Schaeffer leaned over to pop the coded release, and the other man got to his feet, rubbing his chest and glowering.

Shan reached into a pocket and withdrew a compact tablet, turning its lit screen to face the others. “Read this, please,” he said with an air of deference.

“Citizen of Earth Declaration…and that pictogram is, what, your name?”

Shan nodded.

“You’re going to join EarthFleet?”

He nodded again.

“Why?”

Shan shrugged a very Western shrug, but said nothing. Schaeffer pursed his lips and thought for a moment, and then answered his own question. “I know why. Huen joined too, right? And you’re his buddy, so off you go.”

“That is as good an explanation as any. Why does this idea bother you?”

“It doesn’t –” But Schaeffer realized Shan was right. It did bother him. Was it because the Chinese had taken the difficult step that he himself had been contemplating, beating him to it? Or was it because this action contradicted his own cherished belief that Shan was up to no good. It could all still be a ploy; nothing said he couldn’t join EarthFleet but still be in the employ of his nation’s masters. If so, it was a very twisted route he followed.

Schaeffer realized he would have to either take a leap of faith about Shan, or hold onto his suspicions and sooner or later he would be replaced, for he had no doubt that the position of Steward was far too sensitive to be filled by any but actual Fleet personnel. Suddenly the thought of going back to the States, back to Earth, seemed like a retreat, a failure, and he realized what he wanted.

“All right. Good on you, Shan. I’m going to do it too.”

“What?” Clayton and Greco said simultaneously, staring at him. “That’s treason,” Clayton continued wonderingly.

“No it’s not,” Schaeffer retorted. “Not unless you think Admiral Absen and every other American joiner is a traitor. There’s nothing treasonous about giving up your citizenship, though it makes me sick to think about it. But it’s the right thing to do. I’m joining EarthFleet.” He held out his hand to Shan. “Bygones?”

“I am unfamiliar with that term,” Shan replied, “but I deduce its meaning. I agree.” He clasped hands with the redheaded American, swallowing the other’s in his massive paw. The Chinese’s eye twitched in a wink. “Now…perhaps I can offer you a job?”

Eight pair of eyes fastened on the Admiral: Okuda, Lieutenant Commanders Johnstone, Ford and Scoggins, Lieutenant Colonel Stallers, Lieutenant Mirza – and Rae Denham. Another woman with a short blonde bob cut, unknown to any except Absen, sat against the wall behind her, in the khaki uniform of Navy captain, outranking everyone but the admiral.

They all knew how unusual it was for a flag officer, even one many worked for directly, to call a meeting like this, with no staffers, no aides, just the ever-present Steward Tobias in his starched whites, guarding against treachery and assassination.

“Good morning, Red Team.” Absen cocked an eyebrow at the group, gauging reactions, but saying no more.

Finally Ford spoke up, clearing his throat. “Ah, sir, I presume that means we are going to work on anticipating the enemy?”

“No, Ford. You are going to work on
being
the enemy. You will get inside his head and come up with everything you can think of that he might do, based on his capabilities and psychology.”

“Psychology?” This from Scoggins. “What do we know about Meme psychology, or psychology at all?”

“Glad you asked, Ms. Scoggins. You all know who Ms. Raphaela Denham is, I presume, and this,” he indicated the unknown woman, “is Captain Christine Forman.”

“A chaplain?” Ford asked, as if in disbelief.

“Yes, I am,” Forman responded in the clipped, clenched-teeth accent of a Boston Brahmin, “and I hold a doctorate in psychology as well as several other degrees in related fields.” She stood to her full five-two and glided over in
Orion
’s low gravity to take a seat at the end of the table, opposite Absen. “Is there a problem?”

Stallers said in his Aussie twang, “Perhaps what we wonder is how you feel about killing Meme.”

“Just the same as killing wolves circling round the flock. You need have no fear on that score. ‘Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me’ refers to a shepherd’s weapons, after all. Now I suggest we get to business. The admiral’s time is valuable and I am sure we will have plenty of opportunity to explore personalities.”

“Thank you, Christine,” Absen headed off any further clashes. “Captain Forman is your psychology subject matter expert.” He turned to Rae. “And Ms. Denham will not be a full-time member of your team, but is your SME on the Meme, and will be available to you, I am told, at any time via secure comm.”

Rae nodded in confirmation. “I will give you the communication codes for the
Denham
, and I have programmed the ship to patch you through to me at any time.”

“The rest of you,” Absen went on, “are now assigned the primary mission of figuring out what the Destroyer can, might, and will do. You will maintain your currency in your specialties, but more than half your duty time will be taken up with this.”

“For how long, sir?” Scoggins asked, pushing a lock of her brown hair back behind her ear.

“As long as it takes. Maybe all the years until it arrives. Your collective job is to analyze every possibility and come up with the most likely enemy courses of action. You have to imagine yourselves in his position, with his capabilities. How would you attack Earth if you were Meme? What would be the most effective and efficient means to kill us off?”

“Kill us?” Okuda asked. “You think they’ve given up on conquering us and taking our bodies?”

“You tell me, Chief. What would you do in his place?”

Okuda grunted and sat back, thinking.

“Who’s in charge?” Ford glanced at Forman.

Absen replied, “Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right, Ford. Captain Forman is not a line officer, so she’s disqualified. Scoggins is senior of the line, so she’s it.”

Ford scowled sideways at her, and Scoggins smirked faintly back at him. “I guess it could be worse,” he grumbled.

“Ford, you better belay that attitude. I can always arrange a nice dirtside assignment. Fleet liaison to the Antarctic territories, perhaps.”

“Sorry, sir. Happy to be here, sir.” Ford straightened, and shut up.

“So Scoggins, you will take charge of this mob. Your orders are in the system, along with a very high priority to requisition resources. Don’t abuse it. You will have spaces on
Orion
for now, and computers, comms…move your quarters to be close. Put in for whatever other specialist assistants you need, up to a dozen or so – researchers, admin, intel ratings, technicians.”

“Yes, sir,” Scoggins responded with a wolfish grin.

“So,” Absen said, standing up, “I’ll leave you to it. You have four weeks until your first report, where you will brief me and the staff on everything you have come up with.”

The Red Team members sat on a low stage below one of the two enormous main screens that faced each other across the central space. A podium stood off to the left side, Lieutenant Commander Scoggins behind it.

Admiral Absen walked up onto the stage, waving for silence. The room, packed to capacity with personnel of all ranks and no rank, from every corner of Earth, quieted, to look expectantly at him.

General Travis Tyler sat in the front row. As newly-appointed EarthFleet J4, Joint Chief of Logistics, the operational insights and decisions here would have a great effect on his efforts to establish the military’s industry in space. With Brigadier General Bill Marshall by his side, he’d already whipped the supply and production chain into shape, ensuring Earth’s enormous groundside effort got put to use effectively and efficiently.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of Blue Team.” Absen was looking out at the audience when he said this. “Meet Red Team.” He waved toward the nine people behind him.

A murmur swept through the nearly two hundred on the floor below.

“And Red Team, meet Blue Team. Before today, you may not have known of each other’s existence. This was deliberate. I wanted to keep the crossflow of information to a minimum, to avoid contaminating the brainstorming process with responses to each other, until now.”

“Red Team is responsible for coming up with enemy courses of action, or COAs. Blue Team is responsible for coming up with responses and counters to those COAs. That’s why Blue Team is so much larger – you will feed Earth’s nations with your reports and conclusions so that science and industry will be harnessed to your goals, and not waste effort on duplication or unfocused preparation. Every COA will be ranked by likelihood, and every COA will have a response plan developed by Blue Team, and associated resources – technologies, weapons – assigned to it. Ladies and gentlemen,” Absen said heavily, “you have your hands on the tiller. Your conclusions will steer Earth’s entire production capacity. You must do your work with excellence, and you must not fail. If you fail, Earth dies.”

With that declaration hanging heavily in the silence, Admiral Absen sat front and center of the nearest table, as expected of the most senior officer, and signaled Scoggins for the briefing to begin.

She took a deep breath, gazing around at the expectant faces. “Good afternoon Admiral, ladies and gentlemen. I am Lieutenant Commander Melissa Scoggins and on behalf of EarthFleet’s Red Team, welcome you to its first report.”

“Red Team’s mandate is to explore enemy COAs, based on his known and extrapolated capabilities and psychology. Our goal is to provide you, ah, Blue Team,” she smiled somewhat nervously, “with a set of scenarios to prepare for. Our hope is that, if we do our job well, when the Destroyer does show up, humanity will be ready for every eventuality, and will defeat the threat.”

Absen nodded reassuringly, and Scoggins thanked him with her eyes. She then introduced the team one by one, and moved on to the first set of slides.

“Our first, most obvious, and we believe most likely enemy COA, is a kinetic attack – to bomb Earth with objects – asteroids, comets, whatever they can find. There are hundreds of thousands of objects in the asteroid belt, many more in the Kuiper Belt, and billions on the Oort Cloud. This represents ammunition for the Meme. All they have to do is attach a drive and guidance system to accelerate an object on an interception course with Earth, or even as the scout ship attempted, to give a big one a push with its own drive.” She waved at a graphic depiction of space around the Solar System on the screen.

A Blue Team member in the front stood up. “Dr. Julia Tralenski, Minsk Institute of Astronomy. If they perform this operation far away in the Oort Cloud, they could send many objects – perhaps thousands – in coordination, at speed approaching half of that of light. How can we possibly stop such a thing?”

Several other Blue Team members popped up from their seats and began clamoring for attention. Absen turned, stood and snapped, “One at a time, please. You.” He pointed at the nearest, a young South Asian man.

“Dr. Narindra Kadesh, Bangalore Institute of Applied Physics. Only directed energy weapons such as lasers or particle beams can possibly intercept such objects.” He waved a pad, continuing in lilting English. “I have already worked out the necessary specifications for such devices, and their energy requirements. Given sufficient resources, I am convinced a constellation of orbital weapons could protect Earth from this type of attack.”

Absen said, “Thank you, Doctor. This is exactly the type of interaction we need down the line, but for now, let’s let Red Team lay out their initial findings. Most of you will all be spending the next weeks, months and even years working on this problem, right here.” Instead of sitting down in his seat, he moved off to stand in front of and below the podium, looking out over the audience, acting as a referee.

The man sat down with a nod, and Scoggins went on. “The next possibility, which could be considered a corollary or additional version of the kinetic body attack, is to use hypervelocity missiles like we encountered before. These living weapons could achieve almost any velocity, if the Destroyer fired them before it slowed down. While much smaller than the kinetic bodies in the first COA, they would be much harder to stop. For example, if they achieved ninety percent of lightspeed, we would not even see them until they were nine-tenths of the way in from their detection point – and if they maneuver, that will reduce interception possibility to almost zero. So, something must be developed to mitigate this enemy COA.”

Absen watched the crowd as they stirred and whispered to each other, discussing possibilities, but no one seemed to have an immediate and obvious answer. “I see this COA will take some effort to counter,” he observed. “Consider it your first major challenge, Blue Team: find a solution, or at least a theoretical approach. Go on, Scoggins,” he said over his shoulder.