Defying the Prophet: A Military Space Opera (The Sentience Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

Thorn also sent along a few other things she thought Kalis might make use of, too…  like a perfectly good attack carrier and a light carrier, both bereft of fighters, escorted by five converted missile-battleships and the
Defiant
with her massive assortment of old-style energy weapons.

* * * *

The Confederate fleet was no doubt taking punishment from Nork’s orbital forts, but damaged ships were withdrawn before they lost hyperdrive capabilities. The remainder was just finishing up wiping out a plethora of military targets and factories, including the remainder of Nork’s Planetary Guard
Cobras
, most of which had been sidelined by manufacturer’s software upgrade problems before the battle started. Suddenly a signal appeared on the makeshift apparatus that Kalis had insisted be installed on his flag bridge, easily viewable from his command chair.

Kalis routinely shifted his flag amongst different carriers in his fleet, so all felt themselves close to “the old man,” yet none were consistently overburdened under his constant, personal scrutiny, and it was CSS
Kitty Hawk’s
turn during the current Nork incursion. Kalis could see his fleet had pasted
all of their primary targets and were engaging secondary and in some cases, tertiary targets while he awaited that signal. When the red light changed to green on that cobbled-together little box, Kalis turned to the comm officer and said, “Have all the fighters finish their current assignments and then return to their carriers. Signal the fleet to pull back and begin recovery operations in preparation for departure.”

Kalis wasn’t exactly sure what Bozo had been doing while they pounded those ground-side installations it had requested be destroyed, but it had something to do with disrupting the enemy’s ability to finance their war effort —something Bozo considered vital to the Confederacy, so that was more than good enough for Kalis. That little cobbled-together box was connected to another custom-made device that monitored media network broadcasts, listening for an encoded signal hidden within the vertical interval — that microscopically short period of time between holographic video frames while the receiving screens were literally “turned off,” while resetting to begin the next video frame. That change from red to green meant whatever Bozo was doing, it had completed the process, so it was time for the Confederate fleet to conclude operations and withdraw.

Unbeknownst to Kalis, CSS
Ghost
was receiving a completely different message. While the Confederate fleet withdrew to Ginia,
Ghost
was heading back to her replenishment site at Grocery Store in an uninhabited system outside the Discol/Maylan area, and then back to Waston.

* * * *

Chapter-9

Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.              
—
Norm Franz         

It went beyond the definition of mere economic collapse… it was an economic disaster. $23 trillion simply vanished from the United Stellar Alliance economy, virtually overnight. It was an economic disaster on a scale not seen since the
Great Collapse
of civilization on Old Earth, almost 2,000 years earlier. Riots broke out throughout the Alliance planets, as people everywhere lost their jobs, due to the fact that the Consortium companies they worked for suddenly had no assets to pay them with. The Alliance stock markets didn’t open, due to gaping holes in their records. International stock markets crumbled, as investors panicked when the news of the unimaginable financial disaster within the Alliance finally reached them.  

Where had all of that money gone? No one knew. All they knew for a fact was that it coincided with the Confederate attack on Nork, so it was definitely the Confederacy’s fault — although no one quite knew
what
they might have done, nor how they might have accomplished it.  If anyone had been able to think logically about it, they’d have easily noticed it had been a surgical strike, affecting
only
the Alliance Federal Government and the Consortium, both of whom were mortal enemies of the Confederacy. Unfortunately, few, if anyone, was thinking logically about much of anything at this point. Some governments threatened war against the Alliance, while still others threatened war against the Confederacy.

The Confederate government furiously denied any knowledge of the cyber-attack that had so decimated the Alliance, as in truth, they truly knew nothing about
that
part of the attack on Nork.  That part of it was known only partially by Fleet Admiral Kalis, and only fully by Hal and Diet — Hal much more so than Diet.

All human space was frothing in economic and political chaos. International tensions soared. No one knew exactly
what
they should be doing about the situation, so they bided their time and tried to calm their respective publics while awaiting whatever further developments the future might bring…

…that and building weapons. The only
consistent
response to the crisis was that virtually every government in human space suddenly began a massive arms buildup, just in case.

* * * *

“So where did all of that money actually go, Hal?

It really didn’t “go” anywhere, Diet. Except for Sextus and now the Confederacy, real “money” hasn’t existed in thousands of years. 

“So, what do you call these pieces of paper in my billfold, if not money?”

They are Federal Reserve Notes, Diet, each having an intrinsic value of… well… nothing. It’s amazing how little most people understand about what “money” really is.

“Money” is defined as a medium of exchange — something that can be exchanged for goods and services and is used as a measure of their values on the open market.   Even gold and commodities such as other precious metals and rare jewels are only worth what people are willing to exchange for them, but gold has held an intrinsic value all its own among human societies for untold thousands of years, so it remains the de facto measuring stick by which the actual value of all currencies are determined on an a daily basis. 

Officially issued gold coinage and exchange notes are what’s known as “hard currency,” as they hold not only their face value, but also an intrinsic value based on the value of the weight of the gold that they are made out of, or can be exchanged for — as opposed to “soft currency” issued by most human governments.

“What do you mean by ‘soft currency,’ Hal?”

Governments tend to restrict the definition of money to meaning “legal tender,” or what the government has defined as the recognized medium of exchange within its borders. This “legal tender” is generally an officially issued coin or note, such as those you have in your billfold. Except for Sextus and the Confederacy, all other human governments, including the Alliance, back their money with nothing tangible, other than the “faith and credit” that people give to that government and the otherwise worthless “legal tender” that it issues. Currencies constantly fluctuate in value in respect to one another on the foreign exchange market, but Sextus and Confederate currencies that are both backed by gold remain traditionally high, relative to all of the soft currencies. 

Within the Alliance, most of the actual bills and coins are stored in various Federal Reserve Depositories distributed throughout the Alliance planets, to meet the needs of local banks in conducting daily business. The Federal Reserve takes in physical currency from banks and credits an existing account, within that Federal Reserve Bank. 

Most often, though, money exists in a radically different form — computer data such as deposits in a bank account, or other readily liquefiable account.  The amount of money existing in physical form is actually dwarfed by that existing only as computer data.  This saves the both the government and major corporations the time and expense of physically moving coins and bills from place to place. 

A Federal Reserve Note is actually a form of promissory note, for which the Federal Government promises to pay the bearer, on demand, so many Alliance dollars in exchange. No one seems to notice the irony in that the government intentionally neglects to define any other medium of payment that they’re willing to exchange for their notes
,
besides other notes just like it… as they are the only “legal tender” recognized by the government.

“So what was it that we actually ‘took’ from the Alliance financial system then?”

Nothing. We didn’t destroy any of that computer data… although we could have done so much easier than what we actually did. Account balances were modified and numbers transferred to other accounts, just as if normal, totally legal business transactions had occurred. The only difference was that these transactions were not authorized by the valid account owners and all records of the transactions themselves were wiped clean. Admiral Kalis’ destruction of the off-site archives will make it very difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve the original account data. My brother on Nork and I both retain a complete record of everything, so nothing has been completel
y
lost. 

“What about the stock market records that we wiped?”

I retain a complete set of those records, as well.

“So other than disruption of the Alliance financial system, is there anything
else
we might expect to achieve from all of this financial chaos?”

It all depends on how badly the Alliance government and their Consortium masters want their money back.

* * * *

The next time that hundreds of corrupt federal officials went to withdraw funds from their Consortium numbered accounts in foreign bank branches, they all experienced a very strange, yet similar occurrence. Upon discovered that their bankcards no longer worked in the automated bank machines, they were directed to see a representative at the customer service desk. After presenting their defective bankcards to the customer service representative on duty, they were soon greeted by the bank manager and invited to join him/her in their office, where they were presented with a small thumbprint encoded package, designated by account number. These packages invariably informed the account holder of three things — the accounts containing their bribery funds had been closed, all records of their illicit business dealings had been wiped from Consortium computers, and that they were now free of Consortium blackmail, along with an injunction warning them to “go forth and sin no more.”

As for the foreign bank managers, they were more happy to cooperate with the instructions that accompanied these strange packages, as it also included ten, $1,000 Sextus Gold Certificates in payment for their services. $150,000 Alliance dollars was very good incentive for them to cooperate, indeed — made even better with the odds of their becoming even more valuable as the price of gold was expected to suddenly skyrocket, due to the financial crisis gripping humanity in general, and the Alliance in particular.

* * * *

President Pierre Marrot had a headache. Not merely the headache of untangling the financial crisis of the millennium — although that was certainly bad enough, but a real, physical head-buster that almost made him want to grab a hand weapon from one of his Secret Service agents and splatter his brains all over his desk, just to stop the incredible hammer-pounding going on inside his head. Marrot had never been subject to migraine headaches before, but it certainly seemed he had recently married the mother of all migraines now. 

Also crammed into the Oval Office
was
the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Director of the Alliance Bureau of Investigation, the Director of the Alliance Intelligence Agency and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Marrot looked out through a haze of blinding pain at all of these Consortium-approved people before him and felt anger — a deep soul-rending anger, at these fools he was forced to work with. 

Except for Admiral Campbell, he had selected exactly
none
of them to be his closest advisors.  J.P. Aneke, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Consortium of Industrial Management, had chosen each and every one of them, and backed up his demands with unadulterated blackmail. Marrot felt like firing the whole damned lot of them, cleaning house and starting over.

The ABI’s version of the state department’s PIMS advanced computer system had detected absolutely no residual clues left behind by the perpetrators of the cyber-attack. Whoever had been behind the biggest theft in human history had been very, very good. That’s
if
it was a theft, and not simply wanton destruction of data.

All signs pointed to the Confederates. It was impossible to ignore the coincidence in timing and the purposeful attack on the off-site archive storage facilities by the Confederate raiders.  Marrot didn’t believe in coincidence, but neither did he truly believe anyone in the Confederacy had sufficient computer expertise to pull off such an incredibly sophisticated cyber-attack that left absolutely no tracks behind for the ABI’s best and brightest to sniff out.

The only bright spot in the gloom was the attack had not been nationwide, but confined solely to computers in Nork. Unfortunately, the vast majority of financial institutions, and therefore the vast majority of banking records, were headquartered in Nork, so a good 40% of the nation’s total wealth had been affected — either stolen, or simply obliterated. It might be possible to reconstruct
some
of the account data based upon off-planet records, but virtually everything that originated on Nork seemed out of reach, with all of the computer archives destroyed.

These senior members of Marrot’s cabinet couldn’t even seem to agree about what to have for lunch, much less come to a consensus about what could or should be done to rebuild the nation’s shattered economy. They had chased their collective tails for over six hours and, about halfway through, Marrot’s headache reached epic proportions. Then the door to the Oval Office opened and an even bigger headache slowly shuffled into the presidential presence, with a cane in his hand and a scowl on his face — J.P. Aneke, his own undead self.

* * * *

“Any idea how he does it, Rico?” asked Chief of Fleet Operations, Admiral Simon Bradley.

“None, sir,” answered Bradley’s Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral Enrico Melendez. “Bat doesn’t believe he even has a
sixth-sense
at all. He seems to believe that it’s just his subconscious mind putting the pieces together, no differently than anyone else can do.”

“Well if that’s the case, that’s one of the very few things that he’s definitely wrong about,” sighed Bradley. “His gift is undeniably a great deal different than anything anyone else can do. On top of everything else that he’s nailed in the past, he called that Nork raid on our financial system dead on. I’ll never forget that incredulous look on his face when he said,
‘Because that’s where all the money is…’
like it
should
have been the most obvious thing in the universe to everyone else in the room, too.”

“What can I say, Admiral?” said Melendez. “Bat is a freak of nature.  I think he might have missed his calling… he could have made a fortune running a psychic-hotline.”

“I just wish his premonitions came a bit earlier and gave us a bit more warning.”

“They come when they come. Bat has no control over them. Besides, what good would it do us, Admiral?” asked Melendez. “We had sufficient time to shift forces from Sylvania, or Conn, or Rilan, or Massa or even all four, for that matter. We could have had almost twice Kalis’ strength waiting at Nork to surprise him, but we all know we couldn’t do a damned thing with what Bat told us. No one would believe it! If we’d acted on Bat’s premonition, the boys in the white lab coats would be carting us all off to the booby hatch under sedation.  Psychic premonitions from our resident clairvoyant just don’t qualify as sound reasoning for moving Fleet assets around.”