Scarcity (Special Forces: FJ One Book 1) (5 page)

The Department 6C cafeteria could be a guilt-inducing experience, Captain Chen thought. Its ceiling frescoes featured plump ladies frolicking with fat cherubs, an ironic reminder of the past. In the rest of Berlin, people were subsisting on the Basic Diet. But in here, arrayed below the frescoes was a mouth-watering selection of fresh salad makings, vegetable curries, real rice and wheat pasta, and even slabs of protein cake that didn’t taste like glue. And a beverage that even smelled like coffee.

“Am I dreaming,” Archambault said, “or do I taste…butter?”

Cruz took a bite of her curry. “Olive oil, maybe. Still. Tastes fantastic.”

“So,” Kaplan said. “What, honestly, could we do if this is a ‘foe’ situation? If we’re looking at overwhelming force.”

“Go rogue,” Cruz responded. “Go off the grid and go guerrilla. Into the jungle. Or what’s left of it.”

“You mean stay on Earth?” Kaplan raised an eyebrow. “Don’t we have a better chance hiding out on some far-flung planet?”

“Why would that be better?” Chen asked.

Kaplan waved his fork around. “To some degree, we’re the enemy here already. FJ, I mean. People resent us. We keep them from busting down the doors to new worlds, we keep order when they get to the new worlds, we ‘take sides’ when we defend the resident populations. We’re the cops, basically. So. Imagine that Marvin the Martian lands and takes over. Do we have the hearts and minds here to build a resistance? No.”

“Depends on how Marvin takes over,” Hewitt said. “If he comes in with guns blazing, these good people are gonna want someone who can blaze back.”

“Think about it,” Chen urged them. “Think on your history. Why does one power conquer a lesser one?”

“Resources,” Hewitt said. “Wealth.”

“Glory,” Cruz added. “A militaristic society that fetishizes combat. But then, I’m the Weapons sergeant,” he grinned.

“Distraction from the problems at home by pouring the distracted into war,” Archambault added. “The Nationalist, World War I model, where revolutionary energy was diverted into combat, and all the young men of revolutionary age were killed.”

“Racism,” Kaplan added. “Ethnic cleansing, the urge to destroy the ‘other.’”

“So,” Chen asked his team, “without knowing anything about them other than that they’re technologically superior, and a potential threat, what would you suggest as our contingency plan?”

“Prepare for insurgency,” Archambault said. “Get all the FJ units on the plan. Prepare to scatter across the known worlds. We’ve also got two worlds under observation, with no colonies yet – Bradbury and Asimov. Nobody there to rat us out to the new Overlords.”

The others nodded their agreement.

“Insurgency,” Chen said thoughtfully. “You all know the Boot Rules, though.”

They did. 21
st
century historian Max Boot had identified the three requirements for successful insurgency. First, a willingness to take casualties. There were 600 members of the FJ forces across a dozen worlds. That didn’t leave a lot of room for acceptable losses.

The second rule was that insurgents required some form of outside assistance – funding, weapons, temporary shelter outside the borders of the conflict state. That would be off the table, obviously.

“We don’t need to worry about rule number three, necessarily,” Cruz argued. “Yeah, you need a full-sized military to actually defeat the enemy, but we don’t need to defeat them. We just need to be Afghanistan, to beat them back and out. Cause enough attrition that it’s not worth their while to stay.”

“Which only buys us time till the next round,” Kaplan said.

“Which is better than nothing,” Chen said. “Buying time might be the only thing we can do,” he said decisively.

Archambault and Cruz looked at each other, silently noting the use of “can do” instead of “could do, if necessary.” Of course, mission planning inherently assumed that the worst had already happened.

“Comms, get ready to set up a meet with the rest of the FJ squads. If the situation goes badly, we’ll need a face to face, to keep our discussions off the grid.”

“Risky,” Hewitt frowned. “Fish in a barrel, if they want to nail us.”

“They’ll nail us for sure if they intercept conversations about our plans,” Comms said.

“Yes, you’re right about the risk,” Chen said. “But if Contact happens and I don’t feel good about it, I want to see as many of our people in person as I can, and get the sense of how many will be behind us on this.”

A pause. “You think maybe they wouldn’t be?” Hewitt asked.

Chen sighed. “I think they will be. But you know, we’re all tired. Sick of fighting. What if Sky Daddy shows up to make it all better? How many of us would be overjoyed if we didn’t have to fight anymore?”

He sighed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this. Let’s hope it’s Alf the Friendly Alien and not Marvin the fucking Martian.”

His comm chimed and his contacts alerted him to a message from HM. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Captain, there’s a situation at the Xichang embarkation station. It’s looking like a riot that might develop into a full scale revolt. And…” She sighed. “I don’t have a lot of people I can trust in China right now. Pouching details to you now.”

The Captain accepted the pouch, and copied it to his team. They ran down the halls to the landing pad, and Department functionaries hastily made way, hugging the walls.

The shuttle was waiting outside. They jumped into their pods, sealed themselves in just as the shuttle took off, and went through the video and data on their contacts.

Today’s launch at Xichang was a big deal. It was the first embarkation for Alderaan, which some people thought was an inadvisable name – after all, in the film that inspired the naming, that planet had been blown to bits. A new colony departure was always a potential flash point for dissent – those who were “Left Behind” had a focus for their disappointment, and their anger.

Crowds were massing outside the station perimeter, and the video didn’t look good. The initial protestors, waving signs and shouting slogans, had been subsumed by a more aggressive group, who were throwing rocks and smoke bombs at the guards. The count looked to be about a thousand people and growing.

“Social has a rumor that a lot of the people in the embarkation line are wealthy citizens,” Comms reported. “Someone ran a facial recognition program on the feed.” Video of the embarkation was publicly broadcast. It was meant to be a celebration of humanity’s continuity, a “bon voyage” moment. Captain Chen often doubted the wisdom of that as a PR move.

“Then they correlated the facial recog results with some hacked financial data. And broadcast the stats on Social. About 15% of our new colonists are from the top 1%.”

“Shit,” Chen whispered. “Okay. Are they holding the countdown?”

“Negative.”

“Engineering, get on that. Stop that countdown clock.” The giant clock, like the ones that used to sit outside American space launch sites, was meant to encourage an air of festivity. Now it would do the opposite.

“Selection” was a tricky formula. It was calculated mostly on skills, temperament, and genetic diversity. Attempts were made to keep members of the same culture or community together – for instance, Australians on Tiamat.

But pure luck made up some part of any group. Everyone had to have a chance, a ray of hope, or the whole project would fail. The “lottery mentality” had to be encouraged – however slim your chances of being randomly selected, you had to believe “it could be you.”

But not everybody here was on the rioters’ side. Some of them desperately wanted to see that ship lift off. Everyone was encouraged to donate their eggs and sperm to the colony ships, promised that their future children could be born on other worlds. This gave colonies even more genetic diversity than the handful of living bodies onboard could provide. This “afterlife” had become as important to people, if not more so, than the one they’d been promised after death by their religions.

But if that many rich people were on the bus, then someone had gamed the system. That was HM’s problem now. FJ One’s problem was how to keep a protest from turning into a riot.

“Let’s go in with crowd control mentality, people. Weapons, I want stunners and clubs visible. Small arms concealed.”

“Roger that.”

“Engineering, what’s the temperature down there?”

“It’s hot. 36 degrees. Humid. You want some cooling?”

“Definitely. Subtle, please.”

“The megafans should be online today.”

Like most Chinese cities, Xichang still had the gigantic suction systems built to blow inversion layers of pollution out of the city and into the surrounding countryside. The end of toxic industrialism, and private ownership of cars, had obviated most of the need. They were only turned on to handle the massive pollution generated by a colony ship launch.

The shuttle touched down slowly in front of the gate, allowing the mob time to scatter, and the blast of air from its VTOL jets gave the recalcitrant a push back.

“And some cloud seeding would be nice. A good, soaking rainstorm.”

“On it.”

“Ma’am,” Chen said, getting his boss on the line. “We need an order to the colony ship to disembark. These folks need to see the line going in reverse.”

“I suppose the launch window is shot,” HM sighed.

“Yes, ma’am. We’re going to need a do-over on Selection here.”

“Shit,” she cursed. FJ Nine had already laid the groundwork with Alderaan’s natives for the colonists’ arrival, which had been timed to coincide with an auspicious series of dates in their local religious calendar.

The squad’s pods extruded from the shuttle, and tilted vertically so they could land on their feet in defensive positions when the doors popped open.

“Comms, I need some disruption on the feeds. See who’s broadcasting the most incendiary messages and lock them out.”

“Roger that. Do you want any sonics?”

“Not yet. But put a couple transmitters in place just in case.”

The team’s field caps could withstand the force of a heavy object. They didn’t drop their cap bills into face shields yet, though. Coming in with face shields and riot gear was a signal to the crowd that this
was
a riot, and they’d usually act accordingly. All the team members were over six feet tall, which made a daunting impression, the sort that mounted police had used back when there were still horses on Earth.

The Captain held his hands up, a peaceful gesture. He used his override to access the public address system that would have, in better circumstances, counted down to zero and liftoff.

“Folks, we are aware of the situation here. Please take a look at your feeds, and you’ll see that the ship is unloading. I repeat, unloading. The ship will not depart today.”

Ragged cheers ensued from some, but there was another element here – radical Hasteners, from the sound of it.

“Let us on! The ship has to go today, doesn’t it? Let us go instead, we’re ready!”

“Yes, let the ship go! My eggs are on there! I want my children born on Alderaan!”

The Hastener faction started moving in on the squad.

“Draw stunners,” the Captain said loudly, unholstering his non-lethal weapon.

“You can’t stop progress!” the leader shouted. He was young and wild-looking, his shorn skull and tight clothes marking him as one of the far-right fringe. “Fuck the rich. We’re going on that ship tod…”

He jerked convulsively as a Tasercup latched onto his chest.

“Back up! Everyone back up! That’s an order!” The stiff breeze from the suction units was pulling at the waving signs now, and people in the crowd were staggering into each other.

“There’s only five of them! We can take ‘em!” another Hastener shouted.

“We will shoot to kill if you don’t stop where you are,” the Captain said in his loudest, coldest voice.

“Better to die here and now than to wait for the black lung to get us!” the new ringleader said. But he had stopped advancing, and was looking up at the sky.

A shadow fell over the scene, which the Captain assumed was the first rain cloud, ready to dampen some spirits. But then a gasp came from the crowd, and then a scream.

“Look!” someone shouted unnecessarily. Because now everyone was looking up.

It wasn’t a cloud. It wasn’t natural, its arc smooth and perfect, a long oval slipping into place over the city.

Captain Chen was glad he’d started making plans for the arrival of the aliens. Because whoever
they
were,
they
were already here.

The visitors hadn’t wasted any time. A second ship had appeared over Berlin, and minutes later, they sent an audio message delivered directly to the earcomms of the Earth Union’s Prime Minister, as well as HM and the Union Parliament delegates.

The voice was female, warm and soothing, something you’d hear at an airport to remind you to walk to the right and respect the loading zone.

“Peaceful greetings from your friendly visitors. We are neighbors, who also call the Orion Arm of the Milky Way our home. In your tongue, our name is ‘The Bringers of Justice.’ We encountered your probe craft, and learned of how you have advanced among the community of civilizations.

“As you were alerted to our presence, we felt it only right to contact you immediately to ease any potential fears. Upon discovering your planet’s dire need of assistance, we took the liberty of entering your space to render aid. We look forward to meeting you as soon as possible, to ease what is no doubt a great anxiety among your people about what their future now holds.”

HM packeted it to the Captain in Xichang, who relayed it to his team. As they shuttled back to Berlin at breakneck speed, they discussed it over the secure, wired, pod-to-pod systems. “Smooth,” Comms said. “Polished.”

“Everything explained, too,” Engineering added. “Tidied up the loss of the probes, the blips on our radar, and their justification for hauling ass to get here.”

“Basic commando principles,” Weapons added. “Shock, surprise, speed, and violence of action are your assets.”

“There’s no violence yet,” Medical said.

“Exactly,” Weapons agreed. “If you’ve got the first three, you don’t need much of the fourth. And parking two gigantic motherships over the planet, that got here from deep space in less time than it takes us to get to a near colony… Well, the threat of violence is there, isn’t it. If they’ve got the power to do that, they can kick our asses.”

The Captain felt a surge of pride. None of his people were freaking out, none of them had wobbled in the face of…well, the biggest thing to happen to humanity ever. Even more than the discovery of other habitable worlds within our reach, this was…

HM beeped in his earcomm. “Your presence is requested at this event, Captain. By our visitors.”

“Copy that. En route.” He flipped to the local channel. “They asked for me by name. For a bunch of folks who’ve known about our existence for a week, they’ve done a lot of homework already.”

“I don’t believe it,” HM said.

“This is like…a movie,” the Captain replied.

“Yes. That’s the point, isn’t it. They’ve certainly done a lot of research on us in a short amount of time.”

“Including Jungian archetypes, it seems.”

Two ships had appeared in Earth’s skies, like giant blimps. One hovered over the world capital of Berlin, and the other over Xichang. It had been important to them, obviously, to stop the liftoff. The Captain and HM had racked their brains over that decision, trying to come up with a positive reason why an alien race would impede a colony ship from reaching its destination.

And now, out of the belly of the blimp over Berlin came a disc. As it descended, they could see the clear dome on top of it. Landing gear telescoped out of the disc.

Neither of them said the two words out loud. The rest of the world said it for them on Social.

It made sense, if this was deliberate. For them to present themselves to a new culture in a familiar, non-threatening form. To land in what was, as everyone knew, a flying saucer.

The flying saucer extruded a ramp, and the door opened. The whole world was watching. Who, what, was here among us? Did they look like us? Were they giant insects? Robots? The Captain thought about Arthur C. Clarke’s “Childhood’s End,” in which the aliens hid themselves for fifty years, until religion had become a thing of the past, before emerging from their ship, big and red with horns and tails. He was all ready for Michael Rennie and Gort to walk out in their shiny silver suits, if it came to that.

Three of them emerged, and the world gasped. It was all true, then, all the sightings, all the legends, all the rumors. Little green men.

They were dead ringers for the aliens in “Close Encounters,” with their bald blue-green humanoid heads, their Keane Eyes and tentative smiles. They wore flowing robes like Roman senators, and their motions were elegant, as they glided towards the waiting delegation.

Each of them had a little blue disc at the base of the throat. Their necks looked far too slim to hold such big heads, the Captain thought.

The leader was the tallest, and it stepped forward and inclined its head, and its throat disk flashed.

The voice was that of a human male. “We are sorry for the abrupt nature of our arrival, but all our readings of your biosphere indicated that there was no time to lose. I am Vai Kotta, leader of this delegation from my people, the Rhalbazani.”

The Prime Minister of the New Union, Magnus Abboud, stepped forward and nearly tripped on himself as he reached for the alien’s hand. The PM wasn’t the worst representative of humanity, but he was a politician, and his hand-shaking instinct was unquenchable even in this most awe-inspiring of moments.

The Captain was watching the three aliens closely. In each of them, there was just a flutter of the eyelids, a…revulsion? Body language was body language, the Captain had learned, and these bodies had stiffened for a moment before regaining their equilibrium.

Vai Kotta’s smile hadn’t left his face, but he demurred. “We are sorry, but it is not our custom to touch. No offense is implied.”

“Of course,” the PM said, nearly groveling. “My sincerest apologies.”

Alerts began ringing in the Captain’s earcomm. “That megablimp over Xichang just darted east,” Comms said in his ear. “It’s over the Pacific Ocean now. And there are saucers coming out of it, splitting up and….”

His comms went silent as Vai Kotta raised a hand, perhaps stilling them himself. “That would be your warning systems, but there is no need for alarm. We are taking action to assist you. The thing you call the Great Pacific Trash Patch is being funneled into one of our craft. The coal fire that has been burning on the American East Coast is being extinguished by another craft. The fallout from the Hanbit nuclear disaster is being contained and cleaned up. And of course we’re cleaning up the ‘space junk’ from around Earth’s orbit.”

The smile, or as much of one as that little mouth could manage, turned up its corners some more.

“You see, as we said, we are here to help.”