Winning Peace - Chapter 27 (Patreon)

Harrison Kreuger sighed as he seated himself and looked around the room. Carrol Dunnings, a woman with a dark complexion and piercing blue eyes was to his left. Hercules Roberts, a man with skin a few shades lighter and eyes that were near coal-black was to his right. Zahir Chopra was beyond Carol, the red bindi on his forehead clarifying a personal allegiance to his Indian heritage even if the country had irrevocably shattered like so many others during the Short War and its aftermath. The final member of their little group was Aiko Andros, one of the only Japanese-descended women he'd ever seen with blonde hair and blue eyes.

“So, let's get the big news out of the way,” Harrison stated, waving his tablet for emphasis. “The Charon Device. As you all know, it was activated last month after a decision by the Stellar Council that most of us disagreed with.”

There were a few traded looks and irritated scowls at the reminder.

“Thankfully,” Harrison continued, “while the device did turn out to be some sort of spatial tunneling mechanism using the new dark matter element discovered in the Mars outpost, we didn't find hostile extraterrestrials on the other side. The companion device to Charon is located in a distant orbit around the star Arcturus.”

Tapping the tablet, a large holographic display fired up in the center of the table, showing the star and various pieces of stellar detritus orbiting it. The angry red giant stood in the middle of a few large gas giants and one massive asteroid belt. A few of the moons held potential for attempting experimental terraforming, but nothing sufficiently Earth-like was in the picture.

“Thirty six, almost thirty seven, lightyears in an instant,” Hercules noted absently. “Impressive.”

Aiko nodded, then reached out and pointed to one of the other icons on the outer orbit of the system. “Are these what I think they are?”

Harrison hummed in agreement, popping open a new hologram above the icon with a close up of the object. “Quick as always, Admiral Andros. Arcturus possesses a total of five transit devices. That includes one which we've confirmed allows transit back to the Sol System. Save for that one, though, the others all appear inactive and dormant, much like the Charon Device was when it was initially discovered.”

“So it's an entire system, then. Potentially extending across a minor or major portion of the galaxy,” Carol intuited. “Then why was it deactivated?”

“Perhaps because of disuse? The devices could have timers on them to shut down after a certain period. The one in Charon must not have been activated for millions of years given the shell of ice and dust coating it.” Hercules stated, shrugging.

“We're still exploring potential hypotheses, but that is one of them,” Zahir interjected. “Another is some sort of automatic shut-down code propagating through the system in the event of an emergency of some kind, with the devices 'resetting' after some length of time had lapsed.”

“Keep us abreast of whatever your people come up with, Dr. Chopra,” Harrison nodded at the man, then looked to the others. “Needless to say, but there are a great many unanswered questions here. Not knowing things, traditionally, makes people afraid. A fearful populace wants reassurance. I've been given full authorization to move forward with a military buildup by the Prime Minister.”

There were a number of inhalations and stiffened spines at the news.

“That's excellent news,” Carol exhaled slowly, relaxing into her seat. “We've been pushing for a fully-modern military for some years now. Even your predecessor was in favor of some enlargement of the armed forces, Director Kreuger.”

“He was, yes. With our technological edge and obvious... geographical advantages,” there were a few snorts and grins at the statement, “over our earth-bound competitors and threats, many of our politicians haven't seen the potential needs. They were even in favor of cutting down our allotment of search and rescue patrol frigates.”

“That is past now, though? How will we be moving forward, Director?” Zahir asked, leaning forward.

“The next ten years are going to be an acid test of all of the protocols my predecessor and I worked up,” he declared, making a gesture and dismissing the planetary system in favor of a series of ships and piloted war machines.”

Hercules scowled at one of the images in particular, picking it out of the slowly-rotating mass. “Must we? I'd thought the matter of the 'giant robots' had died down?”

Aiko, in contrast, grinned. “Not to out myself as a stereotype, but the responses we've gotten indicate they'll be useful propaganda pieces. Even with a doubtful utility, they still have a place in our forces.”

Harrison nodded at Hercules. “Think of it this way, General Roberts. You, at least, won't have to concern yourself with them given your position of authority is the Aerospace Force, not the Army.”

“Which would make them mine,” Carol stated with a smirk, though it faded quickly. “Even if I largely agree with your criticisms of the platforms, cutting the gundams down to forty feet instead of sixty makes things a lot less problematic on multiple levels. Still, outside of training, I look forward to seconding most of my mobile suits to Admiral Aiko.”

“Which I'll happily accept,” the woman stated with all the satisfaction of someone fulfilling a childhood dream. “What good are giant robots if you don't let them fight in space, anyway?”

Hercules discreetly rolled his eyes at the whole exchange and Zahir cleared his throat pointedly as he looked towards Harrison, who wore an expression of mixed exasperation and amusement. Nodding, the Minister of War leaned forward slightly and spoke up again.

“Now, I've also gotten the Prime Minister to agree to a limited run of military-only nanofabbers. We'll be looking at a thousand apiece of the commercial-grade, industrial-grade, and the scientific-grade specialty fabbers. Sadly, I couldn't get us an allocation of fabber-forges to go along with them, so we'll be limited to this initial grant for the immediate future. There was mention of a reevaluation after we'd hit a few of our manpower and equipment goals, though, and all of our fabbers are of the largest size available.”

The rest of the room nodded at Harrison's announcement. Zahir, in particular, speaking up in response. “What about the Lunar Ring? I hope we've been given births for development.”

The Minster nodded in reply. “We've been authorized to use the next five births that come online, which have been reclassified as purely military construction sites and are being re-engineered by the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Ministry of Intelligence to proper standards. Until they open, though, we've been granted the old Armstrong City Dockyard for practical testing purposes.”

Aiko sighed and shrugged. “It's better than nothing. Even with the outdated equipment and accommodations, we can start assembling a good number of aerospace fighters and training personnel.”

Zahir perked up at that. “Dare I hope you got authorization for the Military District we'd designed?”

Harrison grimaced and shook his head. “Not all of it, at least not yet. We do have the greenlight for breaking ground on the dedicated military college, officer training grounds, and manufacturing plant for all of the equipment, though. I believe they'll be moving forward with Minister Stimpson's proposal regarding the Martian arcology-factory.”

Carol frowned, shaking her head. “It's political backroom dealing, I suppose. Not ideal, and it will hurt us in the immediate future, but there is some good sense in not having all our eggs in one basket.”

“So Luna is keeping the training centers and officer schools along with the shipyards,” Hercules stated. “Mars is getting the equipment manufacturing facilities. Am I to take it that Earth is going to be getting the vehicles?”

Harrison nodded. “With the discovery of this 'element zero' material, it becomes much easier to lift goods out of gravity wells. We'll be modifying plans for one of the Australia arcologies near the new spaceport to construct vehicles, principally meaning the spider tanks. Northern Europe has put in a bid for an arcology-factory focusing on aerospace fighters after we're done prototyping them here on Luna.”

“What about the power armor?” Carol asked, rubbing at her chin. “I'm going to guess Texas, but I'm hoping I'm wrong.”

 Harrison sighed and shook his head. “The Stellar Council is trying to keep them politically isolated from the Neo-Confederacy and needed a bone to throw them. In conjunction with rebuilding the old Houston Spaceport and bringing it up to modern standards, we'll have a lock on moving them more firmly under our umbrella.”

The female general sighed. “Needs must when the devil drives, I suppose.”

“What about drone manufacturing?” Zahir asked suddenly, his gaze intent. “Our emergent doctrine is heavily dependent on several types of drones. I very much hope we won't have to be pulling those out of a gravity well given the numbers we'll be needing.”

Thankfully, Harrison shook his head. “No, thankfully. Given the variety and materials needed, it was only common sense to parcel the drones out to the various colonies. Ceres will be the largest, specifically, and serve as the logistical hub to package them together into the swarms we'll need. The politicians are still arguing over who'll get the manufactories for the dedicated drone-carriers, but Venus is looking to invest in developing a few local asteroids that it's brought into artificially stable trojan orbits. The logistics won't be quite as clean given they'll need to move nanofabber stock up from harvesting stations on the floating cities, but it's better than the current alternatives.”

Zahir nodded, leaning back in his chair. “Feasible, I suppose, if a bit messy. Thankfully, we won't need that6 many drone-carriers, especially if we'll be altering plans to consider these transit devices as natural choke points. Even if my dream of a Lunar Military District is dead in the water, this will at least provide good experience for moving men and material around efficiently.”

“I wouldn't say the dream is dead,” Hercules stated consideringly, looking to the Minister for permission before flipping the hologram back to Arcturus. “We aren't anywhere close t o it, but if this system is a transit corridor for multiple other devices, as it seems, we'll need to secure it eventually. Both for the purpose of maintaining a second layer of defense for the Sol System and ensuring that humanity as a whole can't be bottled up into a single system at the whim of some alien force.”

“I see where you're going with this,” Harrison nodded slowly, looking the system over with new eyes before turning to Zahir. “Have your think tanks do some feasibility studies on the asteroid and moons as well as a full artificial station, Dr. Chopra. We'll table the Military District plans for now, but I'd like a tentative revised proposal for an Arcturus Military Complex.”

“It's a good idea,” Aiko nodded her agreement. “With some enlargement, the facilities we're talking about here in Sol will be able to meet the needs to defend Sol. As miraculous as the nanofabbers can seem, it does take time to get proper economies of scale set up around them when constructing more complex machinery and equipment. Especially with the kinds of sizes we're talking about.”

“You'll need a full shipyard as well,” Carrol commented thoughtfully. “Possibly with something in trans-Neputian orbit to act as a waypoint. Civilian, Industrial, and Military. We'll need some kind of major station out there, too.”

“Titania or Proteus would be optimal, as long as the first doesn't have anything microbial living in that hypothetical layer of water under its crust,” Zahir stated. “I'd recommend Triton as well, but with the confirmation of primitive life there a few years back we'd get all kinds of protests trying to turn it into a military logistical hub.”

“We're getting ahead of ourselves,” Hercules called out, drawing attention back to the current matters. “Looking to the future is all well and good and we should be drawing up hypothetical plans in the event we need to speak on them to the politicians or public at large, but we have much more immediate concerns.”

“General Roberts is correct,” Harrison nodded, sighing. “Each of you have authorization to begin inducting as many personnel as you can, provided they pass the necessary screenings at any rate. We're going to be entering a period of serious growing pains over the next several years, so I'd suggest picking out your more seasoned subordinates and having them train replacements in preparation for promoting your current staff into higher positions. We're going to be needing at least twice the number of generals and admirals we have right now as well, so keep that in mind when looking over personnel lists in the future.”

“Has the policy on UNAS staff changed?” Carrol asked suddenly, her voice neutral, but nonetheless drawing expressions of disapproval around the table.

 “Considered them... situationally loosened,” Harrison stated after a long moment. “Make sure they're completely clean and have iron-clad reasoning for picking them up. I'd really rather not have someone decide to make a political spectacle should we accidentally hire one of Rodney Holmes' boot camp buddies.. I'd much rather see former EU officers or, if it comes to it, Latin American ones. Try to avoid grabbing too many Australians without running it by me first, though. We don't want to rock the boat too much there, given how intact their spaceport infrastructure is.”

“I'd be happier if we could avoid Earth-born personnel at all,” Zahir objected.

Harrison grimaced. “Noted and overruled, Dr. Chopra. I'd very much appreciate it if you could use your connections to reach out to whoever or whatever might be left of the Indian military and see if they want to move up in the world.”

The scientist grunted, looking displeased at the request, but sighed and nodded. “There are a few people I know of who might still be alive.”

“Good,” Harrison nodded, before visibly pausing. “If they want to bring their families, that's fine of course. However, try to shuffle any staff they want on board. Don't refuse them, mind you, just-”

“Keep them from forming patronage networks within their expat communities,” Carrol stated, understanding t he thrust of the instruction.

“-and maybe come up with a better way to phrase it in official documentation,” Harrison snorted. “But, yes. We don't want corruption like that spreading. See if you can't convince them to take on new aides and junior officers from our established corps on the basis of familiarizing them with their new postings.”

Hercules smirked. “A rather basic excuse, but a good one nevertheless.”

“If that's everything, then...” Harrison began, looking around the room once again.

“Ah... I was wondering if we'd already used our allocation of Black Papers for this quarter?” Aiko asked, coloring slightly in the face.

Zahir huffed and shook his head. “It's a minor setback, Admiral. The new ship design will incorporate both the Ahab Wave Generators and Minovsky Reactors on schedule. Don't worry. There's no need to involve that man in this.”

Aiko grimaced. “I don't mean to undercut your abilities, Dr. Chopra, but it's nearing the end of the quarter anyway. If we don't use them they just go to waste.”

“Do we even know where he is?” Hercules asked, frowning. “I don't want to send this kind of communication over unsecured lines.”

Harrison sighed deeply. “Last we saw, he was visiting Mars. At least this time he did us the favor of taking the public transit service.”

“Instead of just popping up randoming where and when he pleases,” Carrol scoffed.

Aiko grimaced. “Playing Devil's Advocate here-” Several chuckles came from that remark, unintentional as it was, she'd take them. “-but he did hand over the stealth technology when pressed on it.”

“After ruining the career of the Minister who decided to play hardball with him,” Zahir nearly sneered. “Besides, only a fool would think he's handed over everything given how he can still elude our networks so effortlessly. And you all should remember how quick he was to publish on the so-called ‘mass effect.’ It’s pathetically transparent that he knew of it before its official discovery!”

“Enough.” Harrison stated, his eyes hard with resolve. “Ezekiel Lopez is a citizen in good standing of the Stellar Council and nothing else. I'll submit the Black Paper to Sasha Tuigamala and, if we receive a White Paper in reply, then it is her reply. Not anyone else's. We have enough to do right now without borrowing trouble by summoning up more demons than we can put down.”

Zahir snorted, looking displeased at the outcome. “Fine, rely on the prodigy, see if I care.”

Harrison grimaced as the brown-skinned man rose and stomped off without excusing himself. Looking around, he asked. “If there's nothing else?” No one spoke. “Very well, we'll be moving forward with the plans. Call my secretary if any issues arise and we'll meet again next month to discuss progress.”

~~~

...and done! Okay, that's almost all of the teching-up chapters. We've got two-three more and I plan to do at least one more Winning Peace chapter this month. So aliens will be happening very soon.

Uhh... next up is Where Your God Is. I resisted the urge to do it first, but I'd really like to get back to it for the weekend chapter.

After that... I'm not too sure. Next week is my birthday, so I might be a little busier than normal. I'll still try and get at least two updates out, though.

Rock on, stay awesome, and than you again for all your support!