Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (53 page)

Lund baulked
at that.  “I don’t think so,” she said.  “It doesn’t make sense. 
They have to be coming for us.  Anyway, we need to believe that, because
if they’re not coming for us nobody else is.”

“You can’t
just think it’s going to happen because you want to think it, Lund,” said
Lucero.

“That’s not
what I mean,” said Lund.  “What I mean is that if you’re using EMPs it
must be part of an overriding life preserving strategy.  That strategy
will include rescuing us from here, and not leaving us to die.  Think
about it from a political point of view.  The Martians were always saying
about how they wanted peace and wanted to avoid a war.  Just politically
it would be impossible for them to open fire on us and kill us all. 
That’s why they used the EMPs.  They wanted to disarm us, not kill
us.  They want to have us on the bulletins, smiling and looking relieved,
and thanking them for saving us.  You’re right, I do want to believe that
because it’s our only hope, but I do think it’s true, too.  It’s the only
thing that makes sense, logically.”

“So what are
we going to do about it?” said Lucero.

“Nothing. 
There’s nothing we can do, apart from wait.”

Lucero had
discovered early on that it was difficult to hold a serious meeting when the
participants are floating about the room.  It would be even more difficult
when the subject of the meeting pertained to the life or death of those
floating.  Lucero had no choice.  With no power the artificial
gravity was gone, so it was a floating meeting or no meeting.

“Okay
people,” she began, “I need to talk to you about the situation we find ourselves
in.  Obviously, I don’t need to tell you that we have no power or
electronics of any sort; I think that idea has got through to even the dumbest
of you by now.  We have food and plenty of
it, that
is not an issue.  We have oxygen to breathe, but we don’t have working
filters to scrub the CO
₂
from it.  Of course, that means
eventually we will run out of breathable air.  We’ve done some back-of-an-envelope
calculations on that and we think we probably have a good few days of air left,
so we can put that worry to one side for a moment.  A more pressing issue
is the temperature in here.  It’s going to get cold.  Again, we’ve
done some rough calculations on that and it looks like we’re losing a degree or
so Celsius every few hours.  You may have noticed it getting colder in
here already.  Well, that process is not going to stop and it’s going to
get a whole lot colder.  We’ve brought up extra apparel from the stores
and we should be fine even after we’ve dropped below zero Celsius, provided we are
wearing appropriate clothing.  But it’s going to keep getting colder after
that, and at some point it will become too cold for survival.

“So that’s
the bad news; after a few days we’re going to run out of breathable air and
it’s going to get way too cold in here for us to survive.  Don’t forget
the good news though; plenty of food.  Just focus on that, we’ve got
plenty of food.”

There were
some uneasy laughs.

“I’ve been in
discussion with Dr Lund and she has a theory about the Martian attack.  Dr
Lund believes that the Martians would not have used EMPs if they intended to
kill us.  She believes the purpose of the EMP attack was to preserve our
lives, and following on from that she believes the Martians will make an
attempt to rescue us.  Now, don’t get too excited about that.  That’s
Dr Lund’s theory, and although it appears to be logically sound we have no
evidence to support it.  In light of that I would like to say this:

“Should it
appear that the Martians are attempting to board
Ephialtes
we should
make every attempt to make friendly contact with them before assuming they mean
us any further harm.  If Dr Lund’s theory is correct and the Martians do
attempt to board the ship I think it’s safe to assume they will be armed, and
they will appear threatening.  They have no means of contacting us prior
to boarding, so they will be concerned that we will assume they are attacking
us.  For that reason we must absolutely not appear threatening to
them.  In the unlikely event that they come in guns blazing then you have
my unequivocal permission to fight back, if you can find any means to. 
But if they come at all we feel they will be coming to help us, and we will
have to do everything in our power to make sure they know that we know that.

“Is that
clear to everyone?”

“When are
they coming?” came a timid voice in the half-light.

“We don’t
know.  We don’t even know
if
they’re coming.”

“And they’ll
be able to save us all?”

Lucero
shrugged.  “Listen, let me say it again, this is all just
conjecture.  We don’t know anything about their plans, they may not be
coming at all.  Prepare yourselves for that.  What I want to make
clear is if they do come, unless we see obvious indications to the contrary, we
can assume they’re coming to help us and we should act accordingly.”

“What if they
don’t come?” came another voice.  “What happens to us then?”

“I believe
I’ve already made that clear,” said Lucero.

“That’s just
one scenario,” said Lund, trying to keep some hope alive.  “In one
possible scenario it gets cold and we run out of air and that’s that.  But
there are many other scenarios, and the one I think most likely is that they
come for us and we all get out of here and
it’s
okay.”

“But when
will they come, if they come?”

“Soon.”

Foveaux concluded
her meeting with the rescue team by wishing them good luck.  The briefing
had consisted of going over the rescue plan.  There wasn’t much of a plan
at all.  It was to dock with
Ephialtes
, send the drone in on a
search mission, then follow the drone to any people it found.  The plan
assumed people were likely to be grouped together.  Human nature would
dictate that at a time of great stress and danger the people aboard
Ephialtes
would come together in a single space.

The rescue
team were equipped with loudhailers, as was the drone.  Their primary
concern was to convey to
Ephialtes
’ crew members that they were coming
to rescue them, not to continue the fight they had started two days earlier.

Bobby was to
be the team leader.  Foveaux thought, and Venkdt had agreed, that having
been in combat he would be able to deal with the stress of the mission better
than any of their other people.  Also, having been in combat he was likely
to be less trigger-happy.  Having seen the devastation a military
can inflict a combat vet can usually be relied upon to be a powerful advocate
for peace.

The rescue
team was small.  It was necessarily so in order to keep maximum space on
the shuttle to bring back survivors.  There was no particular need for a
large squad.  One of the mission parameters was that if they met any
resistance whatsoever they were to withdraw and leave the survivors to their
fate.

Ephialtes
was going to
be a difficult environment to work in.  With zero-g and no light it
would be hard to evacuate the ship if the evacuees were not compliant. 
They had considered flooding the ship with a knockout gas if that proved to be
the case, but the difficulties of spreading it around the ship and keeping it
in non-lethal dosages seemed insurmountable.  They assumed that once
they could communicate that they were there to save the occupants, the
occupants would comply and be rescued.  After all, their only other option
was to remain with the ship and die a cold, suffocating death to no purpose
whatsoever.

“That went pretty
well,” Bobby said to Foveaux as the briefing finished.

Foveaux
shrugged.  “That’s just words.  You’ve got the tricky part.”

“I think it’s
going to be pretty straightforward,” said Bobby.  “They have no weapons
and they must know the position they’re in.  I think they’ll greet us with
open arms.”

“You wouldn’t
be the first soldier in history to make that assumption and be proved wrong,”
said Foveaux.

Bobby
smiled.  “I guess not,” he said.  “But don’t forget that soldiers
before me have made that assumption and been proved right, too.”

“Are you
ready to go?” said Foveaux.

“Is ready as
I’m going to be,” replied Bobby.

“As soon as
you’re in your flight suit get down to the shuttle bay.”

“Yes,” said
Bobby.  “Where will you be?”

“I’ll be in the
operations room with Kostovich.  We’ll oversee the whole thing from
there.  Anything you need - information, advice,
backup - just let us know.”

“I’ll do
that,” said Bobby.

“Okay then,”
said Foveaux, “I’ll see you at the port in about thirty-six hours’
time.  I’ll get some transports there.  We’ll take the prisoners off
you as soon as you land.”

“I’ll see you
there, then,” said Bobby, and he left to prepare for the flight.

The launch of
the shuttle was uneventful, save for being delayed for an hour to allow a
sandstorm to pass.  Once they were in orbit they could see the remains of
the sandstorm drifting away from the city.  It looked beautiful from that
height.

From orbit it
would take them another few hours to reach
Ephialtes
, and then some more
time to dock and breach the hatch.  Bobby took the time to get to know his
team a little better.  They were not like the soldiers he was used to
working with.  He had been with the Commander Program for many years and
he was used to people who were extremely dedicated and focused.  The team
from the MSS seemed nice enough, but appeared to lack that ruthless focus and
cockiness that Bobby was used to amongst his
squadmates
.

He had
suspected as much from the beginning.  In the Commander Program you could
expect all of your colleagues to be alpha types, but here he had to allow for a
range of different types of personality.  He thought they would do a good
job, mainly because he thought the job was a simple one.  If it hadn’t
been in space it would be absolutely routine.  It boiled down to simply
shepherding people off a spacecraft that was going to kill them and onto one
that was going to save their lives.  Even with the added wrinkle that the
people they were rescuing may not trust their motivation it still seemed like a
straightforward task to Bobby.  At a low level he felt quietly confident
that the team would execute the mission with minimal fuss and maximum
efficiency, despite the high stakes and their relative inexperience.  But
for him and him alone there was one additional factor lending the mission an
extra frisson: Askel.

Although in
his mind he had left Askel far behind and long ago, she had never been far from
his thoughts.  Hearing her name had been like a strangely pleasant punch
to the stomach; visceral, shocking and unexpectedly enjoyable.  Knowing
that he might soon see her again somehow recast his feelings about her. 
Where he had believed he had been letting her fade in his memories he now
realised he had been holding on to his thoughts of their time together,
reluctant to finally let her go.

With a few
hours left until the mission he decided to have a kip.

“Defence?”

“Nothing, Mr
President.  We have no interplanetary craft.”

“Foreign?”

“Nothing, Mr
President.  Anthony Karjalainen has been arrested.  Colonel Shaw is
still under house arrest.  She’s our senior person on the planet and as
far as we know she hasn’t been compromised.  But she’s not in a position
to do anything for us at the moment.”

“Okay,
defence, no interplanetary craft.  If we signed the orders here and now
how long would it be until we had one?”

Andrews had
anticipated the question.  She ruffled through her papers before
answering.  “A ship of the same class and size as
Ephialtes
and
Otus
would take approximately four years to build,
Mr President.”

Cortes
nodded.  “What can we do in the meantime?  For the next four years?”

“Mr
President, you’ve recently concluded one of the most damaging wars in human
history.  For the next four years I think we should consolidate our
position and plan for a future with an independent Mars.  After all, we
are the only market they have for their deuterium, so they need us just as much
as we need them,” said White.

“Plan for the
future,” said Cortes.  “We planned for a future in which we got our colony
back and secured our energy supplies.  Didn’t work out.  I think we
need an array of more flexible plans, don’t you?”

“Things don’t
always work out the way one hopes, Mr President.”

“No, they
don’t,” said Cortes, his laser beam eyes burning into White’s.

“I think it’s
advisable in a situation like this to look at what we have and try to make the
best of it.  Yes, our original intentions didn’t work out.  So what
have we got?  We need to look at that, think about what our long-term
goals are and how we are going to work towards them,” said White.

“What we have
got,” said Cortes, “is the square root of nothing.  We have lost our two
most powerful warships and along with them any influence we might have in the
Martian sphere.  We have also lost our energy supplies.  Without
Martian deuterium our entire economy, our entire way of life will grind to a
halt.  But even more important than both of those things, we have lost all
credibility in an unstable world.  Our enemies came to the negotiating
table because they believed we possessed the power to destroy them.  That
is how we achieved peace; by preparing for all-out war.  It was
partly bluff, as you all know.  Well, it looks like the Martians have
called us on that bluff and now we look like fools.  We have no hand to
play.  Do any of you think our enemies are not watching this unfold? 
Do any of you think that this incident is not going to affect our standing in
the world?  What has happened out there is an unmitigated disaster.”

There was
silence in the room.

“Where do we
go from here, Mr President?” said Brennan.

Cortes paused
before answering.  “First, the state of emergency and the Restrictive War
Measures must continue.  The stability of this nation is our absolute
priority.  I swore an oath to protect it, and I shall.  Secondly, and
in support of that, we have to suspend all military cutbacks.  As of now
the peace dividend is over.  The Asian Bloc is restless and we cannot
allow ourselves to fall back into war.  We need to continue strengthening
our military.  That is what brought peace.  The negotiations and the
treaties were just the endgame of that policy.  We achieved peace by
gearing up for massive,
annihilatory
war.  That
policy, now revived, must continue.  At home we have to increase
security.  Our enemies, whether Asian Bloc, Martian or independent will
seek to probe us for any weakness they can exploit.  We have to be ready
for them.”

“I meant with
regards to Mars,” said Brennan.

Cortes
shrugged.  “Well, that’s one for the foreign office,” said Cortes. 
“We need the deuterium and they are the only place we can get it in sufficient
quantities.  It’s not a secure source anymore but it’s the only one we
have.  For the immediate future I guess we will have to deal with the
Martians.  Farrell, I expect you to have something worked out by the end
of the month.  The deuterium has to keep flowing.  I don’t want to
formally recognise the Martian government, so fudge something if you have to. 
Just keep the deuterium coming.”

“Yes, sir,”
said Farrell.

“So that’s
it?  A fudge?” said White.

“What do you
suggest?  There are no other options open to us.  We tried and we
failed.  Goddammit, recognise their sovereignty if you have to, but we
need that deuterium.  What else are we going to do?”

“We could
just talk to them,” said White, “like I suggested in the first place.”

Cortes looked
at White with an unnatural stillness.  “Like you suggested in the first
place,” he said.  “We just roll over and let them steal our planet. 
That’s how you’d have played it?”

“Of course
not,” said White.  “I’d have negotiated, talked with them, made various
proposals, give-and-take, you know?  And I’m damn sure we
would have ended up in a better position than the one we find ourselves in now.”

Cortes
frowned and nodded.  “Then I guess we should have done what you
suggested.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?  With hindsight
you’d have made a better decision than the president of the USAN.  You
know what?  With hindsight the president of the USAN would have made a
better decision than the one he did.”

“Yes, Mr
President,” said White.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply -”

“Don’t
grovel,” said Cortes.  “It makes you look weak.”

“Mr
President,” said Farrell, “you said that for the immediate future we would deal
with the Martians.  Obviously, I’ll get onto that right away.  I’m
sure we can come to an arrangement with them that will be beneficial to us
all.  I don’t see that being a problem.  I just want to ask, do we
have a policy for the long term?”

“Yes we do,”
said Cortes.  “Andrews, you said four years, is that right?”

Andrews was
startled.  “Yes, sir.  The original
Aloadae
took five years
each, drawing board to commissioning.  My understanding from Helios is
that with the infrastructure now in place, and based on the practical
experiences they had of building the first two, they would be able to build one
now in four years.  And that would be to the new specification, including
all of Lund’s modifications - the new engines and so forth.”

“Sounds
great,” said Cortes.  “Tell them we want six.”

“Peter! 
Peter!”  White ran awkwardly down the corridor, his hand raised partly in
salutation and partly like a schoolchild who eagerly knows the answer. 
Peter Brennan was walking away and did not notice.

“Peter,” said
White, finally catching up.

Brennan did
not stop walking.  “Hello, Gerard.”

“What did you
make of that?”

Brennan
shrugged.  “Sort of makes sense, I guess.  I don’t know how we’re
going to pay for it.  But needs must, I suppose.”

“He’ll never
get a budget for that past congress.  We’re trillions of dollars in debt
already, we just can’t afford it.  But Farrell has the go-ahead to
negotiate with the Martians.  This thing will all be sorted out by
Christmas.  In a year’s time no one, not even him, will give a damn about
all this.”

“You think
so?” said Brennan, giving White a sideways look.  “The president I know is
nothing if not determined.  He’ll get those carriers yet and we’ll clear
up this mess.”

White continued
walking beside Brennan as they left the building.  “Even if that happens
we have to deal with them for four years.  We’ll get used to it, they’ll
get used to it,
he’ll
get used to it.  It’s good
that we didn’t get involved in using force.  I mean, putting aside the
terrible cost in lives as well as treasure, I think the outcome is pretty
good.”

“Good?”

“Yes. 
Assuming Farrell succeeds, which I’m sure he will.  We have
peace, that
has to be a good thing, right?”

Brennan
stopped.  “I share the president’s view that ‘peace at any cost’ is a
faulty position.  There are some costs that are too high to bear. 
He’s right, you know, about what our enemies will make of this.  It was
the
Aloadae
that brought the Asian Bloc to the negotiating table. 
They’re gone, squandered on this internecine spat.  That leaves us weak at
home and abroad.  Farrell might be able to patch up the deuterium
supplies, so we’re out of the hole on that, but we’re now in far greater
trouble than you seem to be able to see.”

“Peter, come
on.  That’s a lot of bull.  We avoided getting dragged into another
conflict.  It’s good, you know it is.”

“You’re privy
to the intelligence briefings.  You know what they think in Beijing. 
If they don’t see us building new carriers right away they’ll know we are ripe
for the taking.  Hell, even if we start building tomorrow they might just
speed up their plans to get in before the four years are up.  We are in a
very parlous state.”

“Well,” said
White, “I just wanted to thank you for all your support.  I disagree with
you, but I look forward to working with you in getting all this back on track.”

“I don’t
think we’ll be working together.  You’re politically valuable to the
president.  You represent something he doesn’t, and the public like
you.  You appeal to the middle classes.  But following this screw-up
you’re going to be confined to PR stuff.  You know, popping up on the
bulletins saying the stuff the liberal intelligentsia likes to hear, opening
schools and that sort of thing.  Leave the difficult stuff to me.”

White looked
at Brennan.  “I’m the vice president.  I know my influence is
limited, but I am part of this administration.  I intend to execute my
role to its fullest extent.

Brennan took
White’s hand and shook it.  “I wish you the very best of luck with
that.”  He didn’t add ‘And you’ll need it,’ but his meaning was
clear.  He turned and carried on walking.  White remained still.

The timing of
a live stream from the New White House could be used to gauge its importance,
or its perceived importance to the president and his advisers.  Cortes had
had this stream set up for eight o’clock in the evening such that it would be
after most people were home from work but would not yet have gone to bed.

Live streams
were not widely watched.  People whose aggregators were set to pick up on
politics, or current affairs, or maybe just ‘Cortes’ would find the stream at
their leisure.  The commentators might make a note of the timing, which
was a traditional hangover from bygone eras, and relay that to their
audiences.  Really, it had just become part of the ritual.  A serious
announcement had to go out at ‘Prime Time’, an anachronistic concept that few
even understood the meaning of.

So it was
that President Cortes began his address to the nation, in a mainland USAN prime
time that no one understood the meaning of, and to a country that spanned
around the globe, so the time it went out may have been prime or not, depending
on where the viewer was.  At least the tradition was upheld, so there was
that.

“My fellow
Americans.  I, like the rest of you, have been following the news streams
from Mars.  The crew of our great and stricken ship
Ephialtes
are,
as I speak, in grave and mortal danger.  It is our hope that the mission,
announced by Martian representatives, to rescue the crew will be
successful.  We all hope and pray that they make it out of there, and that
they are eventually returned to their loved ones here on Earth.

“
Ephialtes
and her crew were going to Mars to protect all of our futures.  Martian
secession, based on a spurious election, and with no mandate in law, was and
remains a crime against our great nation.  Had
Ephialtes
and her
sister
Otus
not been so cruelly struck down we
would have sought to redress that crime in the coming months.  That, now,
shall not pass.

“I would like
to take this opportunity to thank those on Mars who will be saving our sons and
daughters, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers from the fate that would
otherwise await them.  But I would also like to remind you that it was the
criminal Martian revolutionaries who did this to us and our kin.  They
have compounded their original great crime by attacking USAN ships and
personnel, and no amount of magnanimity will atone for that.

“In light of
this attack on the USAN I have decided that the current state of emergency will
not be rescinded as we had all hoped it would be at the conclusion of the last
great war
.  Our enemies have been able to use underhand
tactics against us, and it seems likely that our information systems are
compromised.  We believe that information useful to the enemy has been
leaked or cracked from our systems.  Until we route out these weaknesses,
the state of emergency will have to remain, and I thank you for your understanding
on that.