Talosian Chronicles 3: Talosian Alliance (5 page)

“That’s a huge security issue, especially right now. Have you spoken to Janet Laskar about it?” Ian asked.

Luke nodded. “Yes I have, but there is little she can actually do about it, except evaluate the people after the fact. Luckily, so far, everyone has checked out. However, both of us feel it’s only a matter of time before someone pulls in somebody that shouldn't be here. If we don’t have any already, it’s only a matter of time before we get spies.”

“I’m actually surprised everyone checked out. I’ll speak to the Intelligence folks about forming a civilian agency under the Council so you have your own spies in the case we need them,” Ian said making a note to himself. “Perhaps pair them up with Janet’s recruiters, at least to begin with.”

Janet Laskar’s recruiting department was now a fully civilian department and worked with the Council instead of answering to Ian. She still worked with the military, and Ian still provided security for the recruiters, but her department was a civilian one.

“We’d appreciate that Ian. While it appears to not be a pressing matter for the time being, we feel it soon will be,” Luke replied.

Ian nodded agreement. “I needed to speak to you about another matter that couldn’t wait until the meeting. Commander Serena just informed me that a delegation from the Talosian High Command, as well as the High Council, will be coming here on a 'fact finding mission’. I don’t have the schedule yet, but I’ll get you a copy as soon as I know anything more."

“That’s just peachy. I know you like the High Command, Ian, but the civil government is seriously pissing the rest of us off. They are treating us like poor relations!” Luke said. “Now this mission you mentioned... Did they ask to come, or just tell us they’ll be arriving?”

“Well, it’s hard to say, since the message was second hand, Serena called to let me know they were leaving New Talos by the end of the day, which...” Ian checked his terminal, then turned back. “...was an hour ago. I got the feeling it was supposed to be a surprise, but Admiral Goya had Serena inform me as soon as he found out,”

Luke snorted. “I’m half tempted to tell you to treat them as hostile when they arrive in the sector.”

“I fully intend to, Luke. I’m going to scare the holy piss out of them,” Ian said smiling evilly. “They will be an unannounced ship in our space, and we will certainly react to that. After all, they could be Imperial spies!”

Luke chuckled. “Well, security is your department, Ian. You handle it the way you want to. I
might
apologize for it later; then again, I might not either.”

“One other thing, I would like to ask the permission of the Council to contact the Alliance of Races regarding our handling of the Caldarian situation on the planet,” Ian asked.

“Jenny finally got to you, huh?” Luke teased. “Seriously though, we were going to make that recommendation, since the affair deals with another race. The Alliance of Races actually has a Caldarian contingent. However, it would have been only a suggestion. We feel this falls into your purview and you should be allowed to deal with it as you see fit.”

“Well, you’re right, it does make sense. I didn’t know there was a Caldarian contingent to the Alliance; since history implies that they had all been destroyed," Ian stated.

“Yes it does, and the contingent is an advisory mission, not a voting member. The information we could access said that was because of the limited population, and not because of the earlier animosity. We feel that if we were to ally with them, we would be offered a similar position based on our population.”

Ian nodded. “That would make sense, after all, we really don’t have the population of even a small country yet.”

“The population of the planet would be counted as well, Ian. However, that still wouldn’t be enough. You would be correct in that we would only be offered an advisory position, if that. We’re simply too small to have that much effect on the rest of the races.”

Ian snorted. “To listen to Serena tell it, we will be the deciding factor in the war with the Empire! Okay, I’ll figure out how to contact the Alliance and speak to them about this. Perhaps, since there are still Caldarians here, this can be resolved peacefully. If I had known, I would have contacted them before planning on the mission began. I’ll hold the mission until we hear something back from them.”

Luke nodded. “If you would like some help there, let us know. We haven’t officially decided to approach them and offer our assistance in the war, but we have been getting ready for it. We have three folks that have been studying very hard to learn all they can about the other races and their governing bodies.” When Ian looked surprised, Luke grinned back. “We’re in a tougher neighborhood now Ian, we need to be able to talk in order to avoid stepping on other folks’ toes. Look, I have a meeting coming up in a few minutes. I’ll speak to the rest of the Council members for you, and we should have firm answers for you by the next meeting at the latest.”

“One last thing, Luke, has the Council decided what to do about the planet? Since the last battle with the Caldarians, tensions down there have gotten worse. The President of the United States has been demanding daily contact with me, and the other countries are accusing and pointing fingers. Pretty soon all the saber rattling will escalate," Ian said.

“Yeah, we’ve noticed. We’ve agreed to make diplomatic contact with them, but haven’t decided the details yet. Since you are the one that handled first contact, so to speak, with the President, we were thinking about having you be the first to contact the UN and simply tell them that your leaders will be sending them an Ambassador to handle communications and requests,” Luke replied. “Think you can handle that?”

Ian nodded. “I’ll do my duty. If that’s what you folks want me to do, it’ll be done. I do happen to agree with you, and feel relieved that I won’t be the one handling all the political stuff. How do you want me to handle the Prez?”

“Just tell her what’s going on, we will be making contact with the UN, and she can direct all her questions to us through our ambassador once he gets set up,” Luke explained.

Ian nodded. “That should do. Thanks Luke.”

“We’re all very proud of you Ian. Keep up the fantastic work,” Luke replied as he ended the call.

Ian took a moment to enter a couple of more notes on his terminal, before once again contacting his new aide.

“Mel, could you come in here please?” Ian asked.

“I’ll be right there, Sir,” the girl replied.

Seconds later, the woman entered his office, and took a seat at one of the chairs in front of his desk.

“I’ll need you to schedule an appointment with Major Eischens regarding civilian counter-espionage, I may also need to contact the Alliance of Races; could you look into how to go about that please? I need to contact the Secretary General of the UN in such a manner that I will be taken seriously. Luke informed me that he already has a diplomatic mission set up for both the UN and the Alliance of Races.” Ian said.

“I can get all this handled for you, Sir, do you still wish to speak to the President of the US?”

“Yeah, I need to tell her that we will be handling all further communications through the UN,” Ian replied. “I just hope she'll actually listen to me this time.”

“What time frame are you thinking about for the scheduled meetings?” Mal asked.

“Since it’s getting late in the day, I’ll talk to the President and then have the meeting with Major Dancer and Chief Laskar. The rest, in the next couple of days, if you can," Ian replied. “I’ll also want to have a meeting with Major Brighton about how to handle the security situation once the Talosian VIPs arrive.”

“Of course, Sir. Will there be anything else?”

Ian shook his head. “No, that should do it for now. You might want to think about scheduling a tour for those Talosian VIPs.”

“I’ve already got that about half finished, Sir.” Mel said as she rose from her chair. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll get the President on the comm for you.”

Ian nodded and the girl scampered out.

While he waited, Ian got himself a Cappuccino and once again took his seat. He noticed the report on Cindy’s new pet project and grinned. He opened the report and was soon engrossed in the details of creating the new special operations groups called ‘Raptor Teams'. It was so secret that not even Serena knew about these. Ian, Jenny, three members of the Council that had approved it, and those directly involved in the project, were the only ones who knew what it was.

Basically, a team, not unlike a U.S. Navy S.E.A.L. team, would be sent out in their own specially built and modified ships. Ty Anders said that teams like this were a necessary part of modern warfare. They could be sent in behind enemy ‘lines’ to disrupt supply lines, command structures, and play general havoc in the enemy rear.

Because of their operational mandate, they would have to be very well trained and equipped. These folks would not have the option of rescue if caught; every mission would be against potentially over-whelming odds, and usually critical, surgical strikes that a larger force simply couldn’t pull off. Six people and one small, stealthed, ship could go into a hell of a lot of places a heavy cruiser couldn’t.

Just as he finished reading the production schedule for the first three ‘Raptors’, his comm beeped.

“Sir, I have the President for you,” Mel replied.

“Thanks Mel. Put her on please.”

Across the room, on Ian’s big monitor, the image of the President took form. Checking her local time, Ian nodded to her. “Good Afternoon, Madam President. How are you today?”

“Stressed. Look Commander, I know we got off on the wrong foot, but that whole situation took all of us completely by surprise, and we had no idea how to handle it. We felt that the last thing we needed was some kid with delusions of grandeur getting in our way. I hope you can forgive us and see it from our side,” the woman said, with a hopeful look on her face.

Ian nodded. “Oh yeah, I can understand it quite well. The last thing I needed was for your fighters to get in my way, but you didn’t know that either. There was also the small matter of the ship they were based out of to deal with as well."

“I’ve been led to believe it wasn’t an easy battle for you, and you lost a lot of people. Since I’m alone in here, and no one else will ever say it; thank you for defending us, Commander,” the President said. She was a different person then when others were present that was for certain.

“The reason I’m calling you is that I’m supposed to be badgering you to demand the return of the crashed ships from the battle. As you can imagine, my people are slitting each other’s throats to get a look at them,” she said, coming to the point.

“Madam President, did anyone tell you why we took them to begin with?” Ian asked.

“Admiral Hawkins told us that you didn’t want any of the advanced weaponry or power systems falling into ‘the wrong hands'. I assume you consider us to be included in that?” she replied.

“Unfortunately, I do. I’m sorry, Madam President, but letting you reverse engineer those craft would have given you the weapons and tools needed to take over the rest of the planet. It would have given you a vastly over-whelming advantage over the other countries, not to mention the ability to destroy the planet in ways from which it could never recover. It is our duty to protect the planet, Ma’am, even if it means protecting it from itself,” Ian explained.

“That’s kind of insulting, if you look at it from my side of this,” she said.

Ian nodded. “Yes Ma’am, I know it is, I don’t mean it that way, but I’m not a politician, either. If it helps, we won’t let anyone else have it either. We will be making contact with the UN and asking to send an ambassador to handle the political stuff. But even then, we won’t allow this technology out. We will be slowly introducing other technologies, but those will be ones that are meant to help both economically as well as in a humanitarian capacity.”

She gave a small grunt of a chuckle. “You mean those gasless engines you were trying to get produced? You should know by now that they will never be approved. The tech was disproved by hundreds of scientists.”

“Then why does it work?” Ian simply.

“What do you mean?”

“We built a bunch of them. In fact, I have a hummer that is powered by one of those engines, and it works great. In fact, the reason we picked that model is because it’s the most reviled SUV on the planet from an ecological stand point. The one I have has no petroleum products in it at all. While there are some systems that are not Terran, they are not required for the operation of the vehicle. The parts that are, are all made from Terran available metals and products. It even cost less to build, with more safety features than the original version,” Ian explained. “I’d send you one, but I can’t do anything that might show favoritism.” The last he said grinning, and she chuckled.

“So basically, you’re telling me no on returning the wrecks, and from now on, go through the UN to contact you?” the President said.

“Well, we’re not yet set up with the UN. In fact, I imagine we will take them by complete surprise. I’ll be contacting them very soon," Ian replied.

The older woman nodded. “The Security Council will be meeting in special session starting on Friday to discuss the battle that took place here. That might be a good time for you to introduce yourself. If you would prefer, I can have Ambassador Michaels introduce you.”

“Thank you for the offer, Madam President, but we’re going to have enough of a problem with the other countries accusing us of being an ‘American' force based solely on the fact that most of our people are from that country. No, I think we should simply do it ourselves, that way, there will be no implied connection between us and you.”

The woman nodded. “I can understand that. Most would see you as a puppet of American policy, but I thought I would offer anyway.”

“I agree, and thank you for the offer. I feel that I should mention, we will be dressed in full combat armor. So any attempt to subdue us would be a bad idea,” Ian said. “I'm not threatening you, Madam President. I’m actually trying to save lives. We won’t take any offensive action; we won’t need to. But your bullets will bounce off our armor, and those ricocheting bullets could hurt others.”