The Unincorporated Woman (54 page)

Michael Veritas reporting

AINS (Alliance Independent News Service)

Near the orbit of Mars, heading for Jupiter, UHFS
Redemption

Admiral Gupta looked over the status reports for his 330 ships. The number boggled his mind. He remembered reading the reports of the first battle fleet that the then-named Terran Federation had sent to Ceres in the first year of the war. Those ships had attacked the rebels’ capital city with twenty ships, the largest of which was the size of a medium cruiser. The twenty ships had become nineteen ships when the now usefully deceased Admiral Tully had actually sent the then brand-new Captain Samuel Trang away from that debacle in the making.

Gupta would get enraged when he considered that if Tully had only listened to Trang and allowed him to go after J. D. Black in her limping ship, so much of the death and destruction now being wreaked might never have occurred. But Gupta had to admit that Trang
had
been a too-assertive, obnoxious know-it-all back then. It had taken the Battle of Eros to convince Gupta that Sam Trang was the real deal and would be key to winning the war. Sadly, it had taken a lot more senseless loss to convince the UHF leadership of the same.

But now the truth was that 330 ships, impressive though they might be, were no guarantee of victory. It was certainly a very well-equipped fleet, with everything from frigates to heavy battle cruisers that Gupta knew should be classed as battleships. But for some reason, the term “battleship” would effect a pay scale change in the accounting of how much the government paid for the ships, and so there was no such thing as a battleship in the UHF fleet. Gupta was happy to have the three ships, no matter what the bean counters chose to call them. He was also glad to have the marine transports, supply craft and the fuel haulers that made up nearly a fifth of his force. The auxiliary ships slowed Gupta down some, but also made it possible for him to attack targets at ever-greater distances, like the one he was headed to now.

One of the salient facts of the war was that fleets ran on hydrogen-generated fusion. It was possible to use other sources, but to get and maintain the power needed to thrust the ever larger warships at combat speeds or even get to the ever more distant battle sites in something on the order of weeks as opposed to months, ships needed hydrogen. There were portable fusion reactors that could and did run on whatever garbage was thrown down their gullets, but their power output, though fine for home use, was not going to cut it for military operations. Only specially designed, military-grade reactors could provide the large and, more important, consistent power fleet operations demanded.

This had made the oceans of the Earth one of the most strategic resources the UHF had. Cut off from the obscenely abundant sources of hydrogen provided by the four gas giants of the Alliance, the UHF had been forced to extract hydrogen from the oceans and use the Beanstalk to ship it out of the Earth’s atmosphere and into low Earth orbit. From there it was shipped to Mars and the Belt and anywhere else military operations were being conducted, which meant that fuel haulers had to be created in ever greater numbers as the war went on. When a fleet was measured in just twenty ships and you were attacking a single asteroid, then the war could be fought with only five of the ships. With a fleet that numbered over a thousand and with operations taking place all over the Belt and beyond, the UHF needed thousands of the haulers. Abhay Gupta, once more in command of the Martian home fleet, had needed thirty of the specially made fuel haulers to take the war to Jupiter. If all went well, Abhay would refuel his tankers at the biggest gas station in the solar system and return home a hero—after he had eviscerated everything that made Jupiter worthwhile to the Alliance. And if that meant destroying the homes and livelihood of nearly a billion people, well, war was hell.

Cabinet Room, Ceres

Kirk Olmstead was feeling pleased with himself. On every major issue, the malleable President had sided with him. Or to be more accurate, had sided with Rabbi, a man still pretending to be a novice at the art of politics, but Kirk was no longer fooled. Besides, the President was willing to do what Rabbi wanted, and Rabbi seemed content to do what Kirk wanted—at least on the important issues. The war was being fought with a ruthlessness that Justin Cord could not have envisioned. The VR plague was starting to show its efficacy, given the recent spate of poorer-than-usual performances by the UHF economy. Of course, the UHF’s propaganda department was blaming it on the Outer Alliance, as they should, given that the Outer Alliance was actually to blame. But all traces had been covered and all witnesses had been silenced. The Alliance too had busted VR rings of its own and, as had the UHF, proclaimed it in its own press and implicated the UHF as the likely culprit.

Kirk loved knowing the truth and lived for being at the center of the web, where the real decisions were made and where real power was wielded. Eventually he would have to eliminate Mosh, Rabbi, and Sinclair and replace them with more pliant stooges like the President. But there was no need to rock the boat just yet. When everyone’s rowing in your direction, it would be folly to kill the rowers. Kirk would wait until they’d gotten the boat where he needed it. He was good at being patient. In the meantime, he would line up his pawns and prepare his traps.

*   *   *

Sandra waited for Catalina to seal the door and take a seat. This was to be her first Cabinet meeting as Sandra’s official Chief of Staff, but Cat, as she liked to be called, had been doing the job for months now. It also helped that she’d once been Justin’s first executive assistant. Anyone who’d been Justin’s anything found that they were the new aristocracy of the Alliance, and therefore it came as no surprise that with the exception of Rabbi, all those currently in the meeting had known and worked with Justin at some point in time.

Sandra cleared her throat. “Kirk,” she said in tone suggesting subservience, “would you mind starting the meeting?”

Kirk’s bottom lip dropped slightly in surprise, though he recovered quickly as a slight smile graced his face. Mosh, noted Sandra, barely flinched but she could sense his displeasure.

“Abhay Gupta,” began Kirk, “and a large fleet of over three hundred vessels have left the Belt and are boosting for Jupiter. We must assume that they’ll arrive at their destination in two to three weeks, depending on how much fuel they’re willing to expend.”

“Well, which is it?
Two
or three weeks?” prodded Mosh. “Hell of a discrepancy when hours can make a difference.”

Sinclair nodded his agreement. “Tully took two weeks to make the same journey, but he arrived at Jupiter on empty. It limited his tactical choices in the battle that followed and contributed to his defeat.”

“Being a dumb-ass didn’t help either,” chortled Mosh.

“No,” agreed Sinclair, “thank Damsah, it didn’t. But I don’t see Gupta making the same mistake. If he could surprise us, sure he’d burn every last liter of hydrogen and coast the rest of the way. But we know he’s coming and will have weeks to prepare. Given that he knows that
we
know, we can rest assured he’ll take that extra week and arrive with enough hydrogen to give him more room to maneuver in battle.”

“In that case, it’s time to initiate Operation … er … Panty … Hose,” announced Hildegard, looking toward Sandra to see if she’d said the long-out-of-use word correctly. Sandra confirmed the name with a reassuring grin.

“It seemed applicable,” offered Sandra to the mute Cabinet members. “Panty hose were very sheer nylon stockings women used to wear. I figured an obsolete word would be good.”

“But,” wondered Mosh aloud, his brow forming into a V shape, “I fail to see the connection.”

Sandra’s eyes sparkled on her answer. “You never knew when they were going to run.”

The Cabinet continued to stare dubiously at their President.

“Run means ‘rip, tear.’” More blank stares. “Oh, never mind,” she finally blurted, rolling her eyes. “All in favor?”

The vote was unanimous.

Six and half million kilometers from Ceres, UHFS
Liddel

Grand Admiral Trang was in his command sphere, cursing the fact that half his fleet had problems with their new propulsion units. It seemed that the affected ships would be able to accelerate only at half thrust and would be severely hampered in their maneuverability. Trang also knew that the prime culprit in the current fiasco was none other than himself. He’d demanded that the overhauls be completed in six months, and to be fair, they had been. Just not to his specifications. The fleet yards around Mars had done an extraordinary job, practically creating from scratch the rear-firing rail guns that had proved so decisive for the Alliance in the Long Battle. But given the time constraint, the shipyard had to cut corners. How deep they’d been cut was only now becoming evident. Luckily, the main impediments seemed to mostly be with the code, some with hardware, and thankfully, not all with the structure. However, the biggest problem facing Samuel U. Trang, savior of Eros, hero of the Long Battle, and Grand Admiral to the largest military force ever assembled in the annals of human history, just so happened to be standing right in front of him.

Kaylee Trzepacz was standing erect, arms folded defiantly. The auburn in her hair, pulled back in a ponytail, perfectly matched the smattering of freckles on her nose. Amber eyes flecked with sprinkles of light green were staring warily at the man who’d given her a job but also, she always seemed to give the impression, wasted her time.

“Kaylee,” complained Trang, “enough with the Enginese. I’m only an admiral and can’t be expected to understand words with more than three syllables.”

“If I really believed that, sir, I wouldn’t have bothered to explain. However, in the spirit of dumbing it all down—two weeks.”

Trang opened his mouth to argue but Kaylee shot him a look from over the arch of her flaring, button nose. Trang could argue all he wanted, the answer would still be the same, so he bit his tongue. He wanted to curse, to demand better. But one of the reasons he’d chosen Kaylee from a cadre of the fleet’s finest was because when she said “two weeks” or “ten minutes” or “no way in this universe,” she meant exactly that. Other engineers had the habit of doubling or tripling their estimates in order to appear as geniuses. Such inefficiency angered Trang to no end. Still, just this once, Trang had wished that Kaylee wouldn’t be so … so … damned precise! Her expression, however, remained stoic, bordering on impertinent. Trang sighed heavily. It would be two weeks until his fleet was back up to full speed and not a moment less.

“Let’s get started, then.”

Kaylee saluted curtly and turned to leave, barking orders into her DijAssist before she’d even exited the command sphere. The room breathed a palpable sigh of relief when she was finally gone. It wasn’t that they didn’t like her—most did—it was that they could never,
ever
be that keyed in. When Kaylee was on, word was, you’d better be as on as well. Trang noticed the crew’s reaction and was pleased. He may not have gotten his ships as early as he would’ve liked, but damned if he hadn’t picked the right person for keeping them up to speed.
At least,
thought Trang,
we don’t really have anything to do for the next few weeks—except wait out Black
.

“Admiral,” barked the sensor officer, “we’re detecting a major energy spike at the Via Cereana.”

Had to open your big mouth, eh, Sam?
thought Trang, disconsolately shaking his head.
Since when does thinking count?
He allowed one more sigh and then got to work. “Are they preparing to fire, Lieutenant?”

“It
is
a massive energy buildup, sir. Certainly bigger than what they tried during the Long Battle.”

“Wonder what the bastards have planned this time? Alert the fleet, and let’s make sure we’re prepared to move—just in case they’ve figured out how to aim the damned thing.”

It was her idea that saved us. You must remember that Hildegard and I had only recently been saddled with perhaps the greatest technological flop the solar system had ever seen. Our “giant rail gun” idea had failed spectacularly, and though we had a few other ideas up our sleeve, nothing came close in terms of scale or magnitude. Had the gun worked properly, it could’ve easily won the war. And don’t think we didn’t spend every minute of every day chewing on that bitter fact. And then there she was. Sandra O’Toole, DijAssist in hand, pep speech at the ready. She didn’t just kick me and Hildegard out of our despair, she stomped it dead. I knew she’d been an engineer in her past life, but come on, she was still a good three hundred years behind the eight ball. But the diagrams! My goodness, you would not believe what she tossed up into the holo-tank that day. What she showed us, the sheer chutzpah of the project, made me and Hildegard gain a new appreciation for the people’s President. I’m not ashamed to admit it—Sandra O’Toole outengineered the supposedly genius engineers. But even more important, she gave us something to focus on. That damned project took so much of our time, we were too tired to feel sorry for ourselves. And the best part was, the damned thing worked! What I would’ve given just to see the faces of the UHF fleet when we started that sucker up.

Technically Speaking: The Kenji Isozaki Story

Six and half million kilometers from Ceres, UHFS
Liddel

“Admiral something or
things
appear to coming out of the Via Cereana.”

“Can you identify it?” demanded Trang, rubbing the now protruding vein at his temple.