Solbidyum Wars Saga 9: At What Price (11 page)

Padaran interrupted.  “Admiral, I’ll do what I can to provide support from the troopers, but if there’s a major attack anywhere we’re going to have resource problems.”

“By the stars, Admiral, you don’t think we can put together something on this scale overnight, do you?” asked Howebim.

“No, but I’m hoping that what we
can
put together will be enough to keep society from totally
disintegrating
overnight.”

“There was a signal at the door.  The guard checked the visitor’s identity and announced that a medic had arrived with medication that A’Lappe ordered for my pain.

“Send him in,” I said with the hope of some relief.

“Sir, A’Lappe has recommended that you wear this device.  He advises that it will both reduce your pain and accelerate healing.  I’ll need to remove the electrode patches we applied earlier.  A’Lappe assures me this chest piece will perform the same function as the electrodes and will ease your pain at the same time.”

“Very well.  Do any of you object to him helping me put this thing on while we continue our discussion?” I asked those in the room.  No one objected, so the medic proceeded to help me out of my uniform jacket.  I heard a collective gasp as the deep bruise on my chest was revealed.

“By the stars, man, how are you even functioning?” exclaimed Howebim.

“It looks worse than it is,” I replied and then quickly added, “But not by much.”

“How…how did you survive that?!” stammered Padaran, wide-eyed and pale.  It looks like you should be dead, or at least laid up in bed and hooked up to life support!”

“Confidentially, I
was
dead… for a few minutes… I guess.  The cadets at the ceremony took resuscitative actions until they could get me hooked up to the med unit equipment in the patrol ship.  Had it not been for my body armor, I’d have been completely blown away – and I doubt there would have been enough of me left for A’Lappe to reassemble this time.”

“Admiral, you can’t keep doing stuff like this.  Sooner or later, your luck is going to run out,” said Padaran.

In my mind, I was thinking it already had, only no one else knew it.  I could tell I was running on a short fuse with the progressively complicated synthetic nerve rejection.

“Back to the matter at hand,” I replied, trying to get everyone back to the issue, “Have any of you collected any recent intelligence that might relate to this matter?”

“I might have something,” began Wabussie.  “About two weeks ago we started hearing unsubstantiated claims that the Brotherhood has been having problems with their production of God’s Sweat.  The FSO has since been trying to confirm the story that some sort of fungus is attacking the source plants, resulting in a greatly reduced product output.  The rumor implied that the mold has somehow made its way to several primary agricultural sites and production facilities on the worlds where they manufacture the drug.  It’s unclear how this happened, but from what we can tell, nearly two thirds of their production sites are infected.”

“So Ming’s threat isn’t coming about because he planned to create havoc by way of the addicts, but because he knows the Brotherhood won’t be able to meet the demand for the drug.  By making it sound as though the fault of the shortage falls on me and the Federation, he hopes to turn the God’s Sweat users against us.  Very shrewd.  Even if we release the information, it will do us no good.  Addicts in withdrawal will neither care, nor will they be rational enough to recognize the truth.  All they’ll understand is that they need their drugs and they aren’t getting them.  They’ll strike out at anyone and anything they perceive to be standing in their way, including other addicts.  The only one they won’t perceive as an adversary is the guy who supplies their drugs.  I’ve got to hand it to Ming; he’s clever.”

The medic finished applying my new pain inhibitor and assisted me with my jacket before leaving.

“Is there anything we can do to stop him?” asked Howebim.

“Not unless we have amassed vast supplies of this drug ourselves and plan to go into the drug business by providing the addicts with God’s Sweat to keep them mollified,” answered Wabussie.  “And even if we did have the drugs, there’s no way that we could go that route without creating even bigger problems.”

“I agree with Admiral Wabussie,” I said.  “We’re just going to have to deal with this the best that we can.  Howebim, how many God’s Sweat users do you estimate are in the Federation?”

“Roughly one hundred trillion or just slightly less than one percent of the Federation’s total population.  But the distribution isn’t equal across the Federation.  The centralized larger and wealthier worlds have a higher percentage of users than the smaller and more remote worlds.”

“One hundred trillion!  ONE HUNDRED TRILLION!  How in the stars are we supposed to contain that?!”  I had to force myself to calm down, because I couldn’t breathe.  “So, what are we talking about on a planet like Megelleon?”

“A million, maybe more.  It’s really hard to say.  We do know that the God’s Sweat that comes into Megelleon does so through numerous sources.  As fast as we find and shut down one source, a new one is established and distributing at full capacity.”

“What if we stop shutting them down for a few days – let their supply dry up naturally?  That might buy us some time,” I suggested.

“I see what you’re saying,” said Wabussie. “The supply will last longer without our intervention, giving us maybe an extra day or two before things get ugly.”

“I can see where that might work,” Howebim added, “But I don’t like it.”

“What have we got to lose?  We all know there is no cure for God’s Sweat addiction and that every addict dies in the end anyway either from the drug’s cumulative toxicity or from the withdrawal.  If we can delay or reduce the impact of the rioting by preventing them from going into withdrawal all at once, we may have some chance of controlling the violence.”  I paused briefly to think.  “Padaran, how many troopers do we have on each planet…on average?”

“On average, eight to ten million, with the exception of the smaller worlds where we retain something more on the order of six million,” replied Padaran.

“So if we take ten percent of our troops and put them on the streets and install the second-year cadets in administrative and processing roles at the bases, we might be able to deal with any organized violence,” I said, feeling a bit more at ease.

“Except that it won’t be organized,” replied Howebim.  “Strung-out drug users don’t organize.  They become crazed, rabid animals.  You’re going to need several troopers just to handle one addict.”

“Yes, I see what you’re getting at.  I’m afraid we have no choice.  Once the mayhem exceeds our ability to maintain security, we’ll have to declare martial law Federation-wide and impose strict curfews.  At some point, I fear we may have to use deadly force against anyone who resists or refuses to comply.”

“That’s not going to go over well with the citizens,” replied Howebim.

“No, I suspect not.  Let’s put together some plans and outline the protocols for the situations we expect to encounter, and then I’ll need to meet with Leader Pheosa about the situation.”

The meeting continued for several hours – long enough to order an additional meal, which I ate sparingly as we formulated a plan of action.  I lost track of time.  Gratefully, the special vest that A’Lappe sent for me to wear around my injured ribs helped considerably and made what otherwise would have been an unbearable situation possible to endure.

Late in the evening Commander Ircart was finally able to report back that the total number of the second-year JAC cadets Federation-wide numbered at approximately one trillion across the nearly one million Federation worlds.  That amounted to approximately one cadet for every one hundred God’s Sweat addicts – not a good ratio.  Of course, deployment of our ground troopers was also included in the planned operation, where possible, but the use of these resources would be kept as centralized as possible.  All ground forces were required to remain on alert, in the event the Brotherhood decided to strike in force anywhere.

As we sorted through the unknowns and tried to prepare for the worst, I wished Slater was still alive to help us.  He was far better in matters like this than me or anyone else I’d ever known.

It was sometime past midnight when we finally adjourned the meeting.  I knew Leader Pheosa would be asleep; and frankly, I needed rest myself, so I decided to wait until morning to discuss the plans with him.  I was too exhausted to return to the
NEW ORLEANS
and since the situation was still volatile, I decided to stay in my quarters on the
GLOMAR ROSA
.  I intended to take a shower and head straight to bed.  The last think I expected to see when I opened the door was Kala, Lunnie and Reide sitting before the news broadcasts, waiting for me to arrive.

“Dad!” cried Lunnie as she jumped up and ran to me.  I expected another air-hug, but instead she grabbed me and squeezed so hard that I nearly dropped to the floor.  I yelled out in pain, and she quickly jumped back, “Oh!  I’m sorry, dad, I’m sorry!  I forgot!”

“It’s alright,” I winced.  “Just don’t do it again.”

I glanced at Reide.  He’d changed out of his formal cadet uniform and was now wearing the uniform of a trooper with lieutenant’s stripes around the chest.  He looked so sharp.  I tried to give him a salute, but the motion gave me such shooting pains that I couldn’t quite make it.  I coughed and laughed a little, which only added to the pain.  “Sorry, son, it doesn’t look like I can salute tonight.  Congratulations.  I see you’re a full lieutenant now.”

I couldn’t help staring at Reide and Lunnie, my twins, my children.  I was overwhelmed with emotion and began weeping with pride and also out of sheer fatigue.  Immediately Kala and Lunnie helped me into a large easy chair.

“I’m so proud of you two…,” I said.  “…the way you responded to the attack at the parade grounds yesterday.  Not only did you save my life, but you saved untold others as well…and in ways you may never know.  That was some fast thinking and action on both your parts.

“Reide, your idea about flooding the base with fog to find the snipers… that was utterly brilliant.  You and Rory both deserve high praise for that discovery.”

“It was nothing really, dad, just something Rory and I discovered while goofing around in the lab one day.  I’d forgotten about it until the attack.”

“Well, needless to say, it saved a lot of lives and I suspect it will save even more in the future.  Well done.”  By now, I had regained my composure.

“Dad, are you alright?” asked Reide.  Lunnie and mom said you were unconscious and that your heart stopped from the projectile impact.”

“I’m not going to lie to you.  I'm hurting plenty at the moment,” I said.  “But I’ll survive.  More importantly, what are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be at the base or headed to an assignment somewhere?  Both of you?”

“Dad, I’m on leave for five days.  Did you forget?” Lunnie reminded me.

“And I have three days before I need to report to the base on New Birty in the Yaldan System,” said Reide.  “I wanted to see you and mother before I ship out.”

“I had forgotten, Lunnie, and I’m sorry to tell you, but your leaves may be canceled and you may be called to report for duty at any moment.”

“WHAT?” both twins exploded at once.

I quickly explained what was going on and how the Brotherhood’s threat to cut off distribution of God’s Sweat was actually Ming’s clever way of using their production deficit as a weapon against the Federation and how the panic and riots would impact the safety of every citizen and create military resource problems.  When I finished, both Lunnie and Reide looked very somber.

“That really messes things up,” said Reide.  “I was going to ask you if you minded if I brought a friend of mine to spend some time at the estate with me this weekend, so you could meet her.”

Behind Reide I saw Kala look at me with a slight smirk.

“Reide, you know you can invite your friends to come and visit the estate at any time.  We always have spare rooms for guests.  I’m sure there will be another opportunity later.”

“Yeah, but I wanted her to meet you and mom.  Plus, we’re going to be shipped out to different bases.  It may be a while before another opportunity comes up.”

“I’m sorry son, but this is the uncertainty of military life.”

“Tib, you look really exhausted, have you eaten?” Kala asked.

“Yes.  We ate during our meetings.  As for tired, I’m totally shot.  I have no idea when I slept last.”

Again, I looked at my kids who stood in front of me, only now they weren’t kids anymore.  Both were adult troopers now… and already heroes.  “I’m so proud of you both,” I repeated.

And then, in total exhaustion, I fell asleep with the three of them staring at me.

The next morning when I awoke I was racked with pain and I couldn’t get up.  I called out for Kala, but it was Lunnie who came through the door to assist me.”

“Are you alright, dad?” she asked.

“I can’t get up.  So much pain.  See if you can… help me sit forward.”

Lunnie gently, but with a firm hand, managed to get me to the edge of the easy chair.  I noticed I was still in my uniform from the night before.