The Unincorporated Future (2 page)

Tricia pursed her lips. “No, sir,” she finally admitted, keeping a level gaze, “I don’t.”

“Good. Now at least we’re dealing with facts rather than fiction. Let’s also not forget that the Alliance managed to evacuate the most productive elements, both human and matériel from the asteroid belt and will soon bring all that production back online far from our centers of power.”

“I have not forgotten, Mr. President.”

“Good. And of course, the pièce de résistance, their destruction of the Beanstalk, the single greatest edifice ever created by the human race, plus the near destruction of the Trans-Luna Shipyards, the biggest manufacturing enterprise in the solar system.”

A heavy sigh was the only answer that emanated from the Minister of Internal Affairs.

“Now,” said Hektor, leaning slightly forward in his chair, “please explain to me exactly how it is you plan on playing all that up as winning?”

Though she remained pensive and her manner formal, it was obvious that a battle was raging within as she searched for the right answer. “Sir,” she offered, “they started the war with four billion citizens and had control of everything from the asteroid belt to the Oort cloud. They’ve lost, by my estimate, two billion citizens to permanent death, capture, or exile; the entire asteroid belt; and now, effectively, Jupiter. They’ve lost their leader,” she said, referring to Justin Cord, “and most of their fanatical religious hierarchy to war and assassination. As you’ve so clearly illustrated, we’ve taken our lumps, but theirs—” She nodded grimly. “—theirs have been far worse.”

“Then why,” prodded Hektor, “are they still fighting, Minister?”

Tricia’s mouth hung open for a brief second and just as quickly snapped shut. The truth was that she, like anyone in a position of real power, had no ready answer. They’d all grasped at straws. In a fit of desperation, they’d sent Admiral Abhay Gupta to Jupiter, where his ceaseless slaughter of 179 million souls was supposed to have been the final exclamation mark on what had until then been a merciless path of destruction. Each bloody campaign, they’d all assured themselves, was to be the last. The Alliance would have to cave under such overwhelming pressure. And yet, it hadn’t. Tricia usually had an answer for everything, but now it was her silence that spoke volumes.

“Something must—”

“Not some
thing,
Tricia.” Hektor’s face glimmered slightly—a cat toying with its prey. “Some
one.
Think.”

“We’ve been over this, sir. While we agreed that the Jew should be watched more closely, I still find it hard to believe that he’d be the reason they continue to persevere. His organizational prowess is commendable, but no one rallies around him. No one screams the name ‘Rabbi’ from their rooftop. He’s not like Justin Cord.”

“No,” agreed Hektor. “Not like Justin Cord at all.” A small smile creased the corners of his mouth.

“You can’t be suggesting—”

“I can and I will. You missed it, Minister. But don’t rush to have yourself arrested. We all missed it. Sandra O’Toole is Justin Cord’s successor in every sense of the word. She is the one directing the energies of the Outer Alliance. She is the one giving them the leadership and the hope to continue this war. She,” he proclaimed with an assuredness that would brook no argument, “is the
X
factor.”

“But my informants—”

“Have been played like a fiddle.” Hektor reached under his desk, pulled out a file, and slid it across the desk.

She picked it up, and her eyes sprang to life as they scanned the information within. “How did you get this?”

“Like you, I have my sources.”

“It’s quite thorough.”

Hektor nodded. “She, not Rabbi, is the real source of the Alliance’s resistance. I was a fool not to see it initially, but now I know. Now I’m armed with the truth, and it’s telling me one thing and one thing only: With her gone, the war is over. What started with one death,” he said, referring to the Chairman’s assassination, “will end with one death. From this moment on, we must devote our resources to destroying the Unincorporated Woman. Sandra O’Toole must die.”

The Triangle Office
Ceres
Battle of Ceres
Day 1, Hour 3

Sergeant Holke looked about as unhappy as Sandra had ever seen him. The Cliff House was located close enough to the surface of Ceres that every bombardment could be felt and the office shook slightly from the continual impacts.

“Just a couple of more items, Sergeant,” Sandra said as if she were going to a ribbon cutting for a new church or day care center.

“Begging the President’s pardon,” scoffed Sergeant Holke, “but we have to get the fuck out of here—now!” Sandra was the last important official to be leaving the Cliff House. She was supervising the removal of a painting that had already assumed iconic proportions in the Alliance. It was of Justin Cord talking to the assault miners after the great victory at the Battle of the Needle’s Eye.

“The portrait is secure, Madam President,” said her Chief of Staff, Catalina Zohn. “The sergeant is right—you must leave now.”

“Nonsense, dear,” Sandra said airily. “I’m just a figurehead doing figurehead things. If I were lost, the Alliance would survive.”

Both Catalina and Sergeant Holke exchanged
yeah, right
looks. They both knew that ever since the Sermon in the Park, as the Alliance was calling Sandra’s memorial service after the Long Battle, she’d become more than a mere figurehead. Though even they would be hard-pressed to describe exactly what her being President meant, they did agree on one thing as they turned to her.

“Get out.”

With a sigh, Sandra took one last look around and then grabbed the briefcase that was attached via a thin cable to her wrist. It would look to the world that she was taking her important data disks or small objects of value. And indeed, there were those articles in the briefcase, but they were simply camouflage for the real objects of her power. An ancient VHS tape of a movie called
Tron
and the ribbon it was wrapped in, actually a high-density data cord. And finally a beautifully wrought gold and silver circlet that was in actuality a VR headband.

The office was shaken by a blast so large, all three were lifted off their feet. They floated in place for a moment until their internal magnetism could adhere them to the “floor.” But before Sandra could get both feet on the ground, Sergeant Holke had grabbed her by the upper arm.

“You’re out of here,
now.
”

Sandra didn’t argue with the sergeant as he hustled her out. She feared she knew what the blast meant. “Sergeant Holke, did they just use—?”

“Atomics,” he said as he put her in the middle of four TDCs, or Too Deadly for Combat, the name given to the Presidential detail. He nodded, his hardened face showing few signs of the stress of battle. The next hour and a half were spent getting Sandra to the government’s new operating location, near the center of the Via Cereana. When Sandra arrived, she saw it was carved out of brand-new rock and was still being worked on. As they were checked through, Holke started giving her the rundown.

“Madam President, we’re calling this the New Executive Headquarters with the code name of ‘Briar Patch’ for reasons not given to me. The executive branch has been separated from Congress, which is in a different location. The complex is being dug out of new rock for security reasons—less chance of sabotage.” Holke stopped momentarily to verify his group’s identity to another set of steely-faced guards for what seemed like the hundredth time. “The complex is being lined with trilayer coating of flexible concrete, ceramic, and titanium extracts. They have built-in protections for radiation, nanite, and concussive attacks. The trilayer can also take a direct hit fairly well as long as it is not from the enemy’s main guns.”

“What if they get a nuke down here?” Sandra asked.

“If that happens, Madam President, it won’t much matter, because we can pretty much assume the rest of Ceres would already be lost.”

Sandra was itching to ask technical questions, but realized that Sergeant Holke neither knew the answers nor cared about the minutiae she found so captivating. The fact that they were walking through a complex with light, heat, power, working doors, and com stations that only hours before had been solid rock fascinated her to no end. That the interior layout itself seemed to cause more confusion than clarity made her smirk. Apparently, centuries of high-tech progress still hadn’t solved the problem of developing truly efficient working spaces.

Sandra couldn’t help but notice the looks she was getting from the people in the crowded corridors. It was overwhelmingly of relief. The President was safe and sound, and that seemed to add to their feeling of security. To the chagrin of the sergeant, who felt he’d finally got a respectable pace going, Sandra started working the line/corridor, giving reassuring glances, shaking hands, and stopping along the way to have her picture taken with the workers. She was faking it, being fairly certain that they were all going to be dead in the next couple of days, but no one could tell from seeing her in the new corridors of power as the confidence she was faking started to radiate outward.

The small group soon arrived at the new Cabinet room, which looked exactly like the old one. Same dimensions, same lighting, even the same furniture and equipment. There was however, one significant difference. When she entered, all conversation stopped, and everyone from the secretaries to the security techs making last-minute adjustments rose and waited for her to take a seat.

Sandra felt immense satisfaction at the honor, knowing what the sign of deference meant. Knowing with the power now vested in her, she could, if they managed to survive, affect real and sustained change and ultimately fulfill her promise to Justin Cord. She raised her brow slightly, smiled demurely, and then took her seat at the head of the table. The room cleared out of all nonessential personnel, with Sergeant Holke the last to go. He made a purposeful showing of scanning everyone’s face with a suspicious hawklike gaze as he departed. It had been decided that having a bodyguard inside during Cabinet meetings sent the wrong message, and now Holke had to wait outside, a change in circumstance he’d taken every opportunity to inform his boss that he was none too pleased with.

“Forgive me for being late,” started Sandra, “but we took a bit of detour getting here. She then looked over to the grand admiral. “Admiral Sinclair, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Joshua Sinclair rose up slowly, the terrible strain of the war showing in his hunched posture and the dark bags that had formed beneath his eyes. “Madam President—” Sinclair turned his head slowly to note the others in the room. “—fellow Cabinet officers, there’s really no way to sugarcoat this.” Sinclair exhaled deeply as his mouth formed into a perfect scowl. “We are well and truly fucked, and I take full responsibility.”

Sandra headed off the traditional march to resignation. “Fault is something we can assign
after
this battle is over, Admiral. Could you please tell us how we got into this situation and what we’re doing about it?”

Sinclair nodded. The air had gone out of his once blustery sails, but he soldiered on. “Bastard brought his fleet around to attack our decoy ice ships, and like a fool I thought he’d bought our ruse. With his rear ships exposed, I concentrated our orbats to attack. The irony is he used our greatest asset, maneuverable orbats, and turned it against us. It cost Trang just about every support ship he had but he turned those ships into bombs, then blew a crapload of our defensive orbats with them.”

“How long can he stay out here without his supply ships?” asked Hildegard.

“Depends on how much and what type of supplies he offloaded before destroying his auxiliaries,” answered Sinclair. “There are no more supply ships coming from Mars, I can tell you that. Apparently between the commitments to pacifying the Belt and the loss of an entire fleet at Jupiter, even the UHF is at a loss for supplying their needs. The good news is that Omad’s … er … Suchitra’s flotilla really smashed the hell out of the Trans-Luna Shipyards. They won’t be making ships for at least two or three months. But even with all that, we estimate that Trang can hang with us for at least another week before lack of ordnance or fuel forces him to head home.”

“So what’s happening now?” asked Mosh.

Sinclair called up an image of Ceres showing the position of Trang’s forces. “I’ve had to move our remaining orbats to the entrance and exit of the Via Cereana. If he can get any sort of atomic
into
the Via and detonate it, Ceres will break apart like a fist holding a firecracker. Unfortunately, this strategy has left the surface of Ceres open to uncontested attack, and for the last four hours Trang has been systematically blasting every surface installation we have larger than a shuttle.”

Sinclair’s DijAssist alerted him to an intrafleet communiqué. He quickly checked it and as he did his eyebrow shot up. “The bombardment has stopped.”

“Interesting,” said Sandra.

“How so?” asked Mosh.

“Trang has enough ordnance to lay on the hurt for at least the next four or five days without letup.”