The Unincorporated Future (28 page)

*   *   *

J.D. had seen enough. “Not Angela Wong after all,” she said humorously. “Still, I think it would be best if she were transferred over to the
Warprize II
.”

Marilynn’s mouth formed a dry smile. “I’ll take a shuttle over and bring Ms. Snow back personally. I should get started on the debriefing.” When J.D. nodded her assent, Marilynn saluted and strode off.

Amanda Snow,
J.D. said to herself, having the strangest feeling that this voyage to battle the enemy at their well-defended capital had just gotten a little more dangerous.

UHF Fleet HQ
Low orbit of Mars

Timian Ross, newly promoted to admiral, was not pleased by what he saw. He knew that something was wrong by the Alliance fleet’s lack of movement. They were not attacking or even getting in position to attack. They should at least have
tried
to destroy the facilities of the Martian Shipyards that had been sacrificially moved to the highest—and therefore most vulnerable—orbits. Those facilities were technically in the protection of the Martian orbat field as well as the fleet detachment still left at Mars, but they wouldn’t really be defended; everyone knew J.D.’s capabilities. As such the facilities could’ve been taken with minimal risk, but for some strange reason they hadn’t been. The Alliance fleet just stood there, waiting, driving the defenders into fits of anxious wonder. Timian had three hundred brand-new ships of all classes in orbit, but he knew that was as much of a problem as an asset. Brand-new ships and brand-new crews were practically useless in combat because it took time to get the ships properly fitted out and even more time to mesh that ship’s hardware, software, and crew. But the newly promoted admiral had just come to an awful conclusion—he was pretty sure that time had just run out.

General conference area
AWS
Warprize II
Alliance fleet
Near Mars

“Thank you for coming,” J.D. said to her five commodores and single admiral. “I know this space is larger than we require, but the conference room in my quarters has been—how shall I put this?—repurposed by necessity.”

The group of commodores snickered. “I hear she really likes her new room,” said Commodore Paladin, taking out a little colorfully wrapped box. “This should go nicely in it.”

“You created gift paper?” said Commodore Cortez as she took out a small plain box without any wrapping whatsoever.

“At least you two put it
in
something,” said Commodore Cho, taking out a 1/64-size scale model of her ship, the AWS
Busted Hole.
She placed it firmly on the table.

J.D. gave a half smile. “Did all my commodores get my daughter presents when they should’ve been concentrating on attacking a location where this fleet once suffered its worst defeat of the war?”

Although J.D.’s tone was light, the room suddenly grew chill. Guiltily, Commodore Waterman and Commodore Lee Park put their models on the table as well, with Park having wrapped his ship in pretty red ribbon.

From her ever growing scowl, it soon became obvious that J.D. was not amused. She appeared about to rip into the group when Suchitra spoke up. “That was my responsibility, Admiral. I told the commodores about the models that Chief Engineer Hamdi had made for Katy and in a fit of pride insinuated that they should do likewise. They were simply following my lead.”

As J.D. considered Suchitra’s words, her face became austere. “Did you tell them to bring these presents to a combat briefing as well?”

“I might have done exactly that, Admiral. Again, my apologies.”

J.D.’s eyes narrowed. “This is
not
over.”

Suchitra bowed her head.

Inwardly J.D. was pleased. Her second-in-command had taken a hit for the team, and they all knew it.

“My concern for my daughter,” continued J.D. “is
my
concern, but this fawning over a six-year-old, especially on the eve of battle, must stop. I bear part of the blame and will talk with certain individuals of my own crew to see that this spoiling to the point of distraction stops. You will all pass my wishes on to your subordinates as well.”

The commodores all nodded. Not one of them looked down to the gifts that now sat in quiet accusation before them.

J.D. set the holo-display above the table to show the area of potential battle. There was a dense cloud of orbats circling the planet as well as a large UHF fleet circling below them. The upper orbits were filled with stations and hastily positioned asteroids to protect those stations.

The enemy is at the gate,
thought J.D.

“It bears repeating, but the last time we came here we got our asses kicked. I want them to think that this”—J.D. now ran her fingers down the grooves of her face—“will make me overly cautious. This fleet
will
be cautious. As of now, I can’t tell you what our real plan is. You’re going into battle half blind, but if you follow the plan at its beginning, you will quickly understand what’s happening and why. Many of you are used to sharing battle plans with subordinates, but this time, I must ask you not to.”

“Better to be blind and led by a visionary,” offered Park.

“Than be sighted but led by the blind,” finished Suchitra, quoting an old Alhambra saying.

J.D. nodded, stood up, and without saying another word exited the room.

UHF Capitol
Burroughs
Mars

“Mr. President,” implored his security head, “you must evacuate to a secure, nontraceable location.”

“I’m under the protection of a large fleet and the densest orbat field in human history.”

“Mr. President, my review of the recent effectiveness of our orbat fields has not filled me with the greatest confidence. Further, you just so happen to be sitting smack-dab in the middle of a target that has maps detailing its very location on hundreds of Neuro sites—
and
with an enemy fleet less than three million kilometers away.”

“The orbats were quite effective once the glitch was fixed,” answered Hektor, quietly working away in the womb of his console. “I will trust them, but more important, the people of Mars and the UHF will see me trusting them—from this office.”

“Mr. President, I must insist—”

“Yes, it’s dangerous, Gretchen. Don’t you think I know that?” Hektor’s back was to her as he inserted some data crystals into a large computer. “But if I run and hide while we still have two impressive defensive arrays above our heads, the people will lose heart—and justifiably so.”

“When the situation changes—,” began the security chief.

“
If
the situation changes,” corrected Hektor, swinging his chair around and finally deigning to make eye contact, “I’ll consider your contingency plan.”

The security chief shot him a dubious look.

“Really, I will. But until then, I’m staying put and so is the entire government.”

Munitions Bay 3
AWS
Warprize II

From the security of a sealed loft, the chief officer peered out the window to the cavernous bay below. It was filled to the brim with rocks of all shapes and sizes. Some were the size of softballs while others were the size of escape pods. In a ship known for its immaculateness, the small-sized asteroids had been dumped into the center of the bay, piled up like the detritus found at a Terran construction site.

“I still don’t know why she had us schlep a bay full of rocks.”

“Not just us, I’ve heard,” answered one of the techies.

“Yeah,” confirmed the chief, “all the heavy cruisers got at least one bay full.”

“Then my guess is to fling ’em at the orbats.”

The chief’s brow furrowed. “But that makes no sense.”

“Why not? Didn’t we throw asteroids at ’em in the Second Battle of the Martian Gates?”

“Yeah, but we picked them up locally.”

“Hmm,” grunted the techie as he sidled up to the chief and stared down into the bay. “My guess is they’re not ordinary rocks.”

“How so?”

“Haven’t you noticed? They haven’t moved a centimeter since we broke orbit.”

The chief grabbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Huh.”

“I think they’ve been magnetized.”

The chief officer studied the rubble. He would’ve liked to go down and kick a few just to test out his subordinate’s theory, but he and the entire bay crew had been given strict orders not to enter the space for any reason whatsoever. “To what end?” he finally asked.

“Dunno. But normally, asteroids are not magnetized.”

“Normally?”

“Well, there are exceptions, of course—irons, stony-irons, and some chondrites—but those are few and far between.”

“Still doesn’t explain why we’ve schlepped them this whole way.”

“Beats me,” said the techie, sitting back down at his array, “I just work here.”

UHF fleet HQ
In low orbit above Mars

Admiral Timian Ross was oddly relieved when J.D. finally started pressing her attack. The UHF’s archnemesis had flung a massive barrage of small asteroids aimed at his orbats and had then positioned her fleet at a safe distance behind the unfolding streams. The maneuver would put the Alliance armada in range of the Martian fleet and orbats, but only for a brief moments. Black, saw Timian, was playing it safe, hoping her distraction of the streams would allow her to get in a few shots without risking too much of her fleet. It was a more cautious version of her Second Battle at the Martian Gates.

The strategy made perfect sense, given that Mars was the only place J. D. Black had ever really lost a battle outright. If there was any place in the solar system she would err on the side of caution, it would be here. Fortunately, Timian had counted on that. He leaned over the huge holo-table and scanned all the incoming data. If nothing changed, he may lose fifteen or twenty orbats, but Mars was now ringed with close to a thousand; he could take the losses. Plus, he’d be able to get in a few of his own shots. Tit for tat was just fine with him. If this was to be the OA’s strategy, it would take J. D. Black’s fleet months to whittle down the thousand-strong orbat defenses of Mars.
And months,
thought Timian,
I do have.

Right on cue, the Martian orbats sent a volley of defensive fire arcing up toward the incoming asteroid streams. In an impressive display of precision targeting and kinetic energy, the defensive volleys impacted and then scattered the enemy’s incoming attack, reducing the tens of thousands of potentially deadly streams of rocks to hundreds of thousands of deflected pebbles. At that moment, the guns of J.D.’s fleet exploded in a volley of fire that sent more death hurtling toward the orbats currently massed over the northern hemisphere of the planet. That volley, knew Timian, would be met by a defensive wall of fire every bit as impressive as the one that had just stopped the asteroid streams. Round one was looking more and more like a draw.

Though all seemed to be going according to plan, Timian remained overly cautious. He’d seen far too many of his contemporaries fall into the complacency trap. He’d accept, for now, that Admiral Black was playing it safe and would respond in kind, but all the while he kept on thinking,
Where might the anomaly be?

“Admiral,” said the sensor officer, “they’re re-forming.”

“Who’s re-forming, Lieutenant?”

“Not who, sir,
what.
The asteroids. Look—” He pointed to the holo-tank. “They’re … they’re re-forming.” The crew of the admiral’s command sphere watched in awe as the vast clouds of pebbles seemed to find each other and then re-form back into newly shaped but equally as deadly clumps of rock.

“How is that possible?” asked Timian, slack jawed.

“They appear to be … well, magnetized, sir.”

“But asteroids aren’t…” Timian couldn’t finish his own sentence as he watched the clouds’ ghostly reanimation.

“No, sir, they’re not. I’m not even sure they’re organic. They’re all communicating with each other … sending out what appear to be hundreds of thousands of standard locator beacon signals.”

The holo-display continued to paint a grim picture: The orbats of the northern hemisphere were now completely exposed, having expended the bulk of their defensive fire on Admiral Black’s massive incoming volley while the true threat had been heading straight toward them all along. Timian Ross’s crew watched helplessley as the overwhelmed orbats quickly vectored in on the new threat. But between trying to quell J.D.’s battle cruiser fire
and
the thousands of newly re-formed asteroid streams, the orbats didn’t stand a chance. One by one, they began disappearing from the planet’s outer perimeter in the holo-display until a few minutes later, all that was left was a large gaping hole in the defenses of the northern hemisphere of Mars. J. D Black could now sail right in, unimpeded—and she hadn’t lost a single ship.