April (76 page)

"It wasn't the only one. There has been more than one country knocking down the other guys sats, figuring in the confusion they'd never be blamed. We took advantage to kill a few really irritating birds ourselves Sir," he admitted and got an uncomfortable stare back.

"It was early morning there. Not many people out at all. Just enough light to where nobody would be star gazing. Looking from the West the sunrise interfered. Looking from the East it's all ocean, so except for a few islands, so you'd have to be on a boat. It's not like this happened over California. And there was no scheduled event like a satellite pass or meteor shower, to attract observers."

"The event was so brief, if you weren't looking right at the part of the sky where it happened, you didn't have time to turn your head. I'm surprised we had twenty observers. Four of them were air traffic controllers, looking at aircraft in that part of the sky and six were various aircraft crew, on a heading which placed the event in front of them. And most of them were pretty useless for detail. A few said the flash they saw went up to the sky and a few said it came down from the sky. The explosion itself was so dazzling, some didn't even notice any line to the ground underneath. As to an actual bearing, they placed it over a quarter of the horizon, so there was no pinpointing the source. It's unlikely further evidence will be forthcoming," he predicted.

"I'm sure the Japanese had a hand in this. After they recognized these vermin the day before, it's no coincidence," Hadley assured himself. "But I won't say anything to their ambassador without proof. It's useless to make accusations on hearsay. They may even say the fire was coming down on them, not going up and blame it on us."

The Colonel thought, after the Japanese demonstrating a completely unknown weapon of such power, perhaps the course of wisdom would be to find out a little more, before getting in their face about it. He didn't see they needed a second war with somebody else, possessing even more terrible new weapons. But he didn't want to be dragged off under arrest today, so he kept the idea to himself.

Hadley dismissed the relieved Colonel without any more questions and he lost no time in fleeing. He was thinking hard what would keep him from being called here again. If he could just get hurt somehow, badly enough to be relieved, but minor enough to still heal eventually. And believable. It's pretty hard to shoot your foot, when you don't even carry a side arm. But he might prefer to throw himself in front of a bus, rather than have to brief the President again. No, not a bus he thought, just a real low sports car, going slow in the parking lot. How badly could it hurt until EMS got there? Better than disappearing in a military police van in a hood and chains, knowing his parents would get a notice his citizenship was revoked and he had been declared an enemy of the state.

* * *

"I believe I have a conduit we can use to thank them," April said. "Can anyone find the Oriental lady reporter, who has been interviewing people so aggressively?"

* * *

"Excuse me," Margaret inserted herself politely. She waited until the young lady was done interviewing the gentleman having his lunch and then approached her.

"I'm Margaret Detweiler with security. Jon Davis and April Lewis asked me to inquire if you might consent to meet them. They have an interest in contacting Genji Akira and hoped you might help them."

"I wondered how long you'd allow me to run around loose," she said with a sneer. "You should be aware the pad here is recording my arrest and transmitting it real time to my agency."

"Oh, I'm so intimidated." Margaret allowed herself a show of teeth, that was not a smile. "They asked me to invite you politely and I have, but no one told me I had to kiss your snotty little ass. If you had any manners you'd have paid attention, to hear it was an invitation, not an arrest. If you don't want to be handed a story and invited into the inner circle of what's happening fine. We'll find some other way to contact Akira, which doesn't involve sucking up to a childish little creep like you. I'm sure the people of your agency," she nodded at the pad, "have seen enough of your golden personality to not be surprised you are such a fool, you make enemies when there was no need," she turned and walked away.

"Wait!" she called, "Perhaps I misunderstood what was happening. Can we talk?"

"No we cannot discuss
your
misunderstanding," Margaret snarled at her, spinning around. "You insult me and my nation and then try to blow off the fact you act like a damn spoiled child as a misunderstanding. By tomorrow you will be referring to it as
our
misunderstanding and by the next day it will be
my
failure to understand."

"They didn't drag me out of the cabbage patch yesterday youngster. I know how people like you manipulate both words and people. You want to start over? You can apologize decently to me and we'll take it from there. Otherwise you can go to hell. I won't take you to Jon, or especially April, because I suspect if you talk to her like you did me, she'll cut your ears off to make you reflect on your manner, while they're growing you new ones."

Adzusa looked back at the pad on the table. Margaret was not stupid. She was keenly aware she was thinking the pad was still in range to hear her voice and even worse the camera was pointed their direction. Everything she said would be transmitted below for all her coworkers and she'd have to live with it forever.

She looked like she had a mouthful of something very unpleasant, but swallowed it and moved forward. "I was badly mistaken about your intentions and your honor. Please forgive my hurtful words and let us start again with a restoration, by my apology," she said. And she bowed rather formally, with her hands clasped before her.

"Thank you. It's as nothing then. I'll forget it ever happened."
Like hell I will,
she thought, but she made nice-nice as well as she knew how and even did as good a bow as she could imitate, trying not to skimp on it for the camera.

"If you want to record or transmit our meeting and conversation, for your protection feel free. But the things you see might be so hot, you'll worry about keeping them on your pad. Do you have a really good encryption program, the North Americans are not going to crack, in not just a few days or hours, but in the next few decades?"

"I'm assured by the technician that produces such things for our agency, that the sun will grow old before anyone reads our exchanges."

"He sounds like our Heather," Margaret nodded, accepting her assessment. "Come on then," and gave a beckoning jerk, Earth style, with her head.

After they hard wire plugged Adzusa's pad into the com console to use her proprietary protocol, Akira himself answered his com from Adzusa's call, his hand still extended over the keyboard, when his image came on the screen. He was dressed casually in an open necked white shirt. A small smile of amusement or pleasure formed on his face. "Miss Lewis, it's a pleasure to see you. I hope you are well. It is a trying time now for your countrymen."

"Mr. Genji. I wish I could use your language properly to thank you. A weakness I will have to correct. But I know from your articles your command of English is masterful. We have a file we'd like to share with you first." She nodded to Adzusa, to feed it to him. "And we ask you to quietly convey our thanks also, to those in your government who have befriended us."

His eyebrows went up at the clear picture he received, showing a glaring thread of energy, connecting Southern Japan with the destruction of the missiles, but he said nothing about the image. "I simply said what was true. Some others would have been offended at me breaching their privacy. I'm glad you're not. I'm starting to see irritating the Lewis or Singh families is a very bad thing to do," his broad smile made clear it was not meant as disapproval.

"We feel you had a hand, in presenting us in such a favorable light they decided to aid us. So again, thank you." She had her toes hooked in the take hold, in front of the com desk. So despite the zero G she could end by bowing deeply, with downcast eyes and holding it indefinitely. It was a much better bow than the last she had given him.

"He's gone." Jon said in a moment. "He made a bow back to you, we can replay for you, but when he saw you holding, he decided not to spoil the moment and just quietly left. I think you made some points there."

"Are you allowed to share with me what is happening in your clash with North America?" Adzusa asked them. Standing to the back, Margaret noticed she seemed to have assumed a more respectful manner.

It had been April's idea, but she hesitated now that the woman was here. Jeff hovering in the background spoke to Adzusa with perfect Japanese and she responded with a shocked look. Whether at his use of the language, or what he said they didn't know.

Jeff observed them all attending their conversation and explained. "I don't mean to be rude. What I wanted to know I could express much more precisely in Japanese, but now I have to phrase it in English anyway," he said with a wry smile. "I asked her if she had been voting in the proposals. She said no, she didn't think she'd be here permanently and it didn't seem a proper thing to do and it might be difficult for her to pay the tax. I asked if she might not consider dual citizenship and it seems an upsetting idea to her right now.

 Are you going to tell her what we're planning? What do you think? If we make our next communication with the USNA public, will it hurt or help?" Heather asked.

"I don't think it will matter." Jon said. "Because I don't think they're
ready
to surrender. But it might help show we are restrained and bring some more countries to officially recognize us, if we show how we are dealing with them. Anybody have any contrary ideas? Speak up."

No one did, so he turned and regarded Adzusa. "We have been bombarding North America and North American ships and bases all over the world, with a weapon of which we don't intend to disclose the details to you, or anyone. Their anti-ballistic missile sites and virtually the entire aerospace industry and production and storage for nuclear weapons, are damaged beyond any quick repair. The bases known to us to launch and retrieve shuttles or space planes, such as the Cape, Vandenberg, Edwards, Elgin and Groom Lake are non-functional. NA Space Command is gone and several hundred military aircraft all over the world. Quite a few of the ICBM sites also, but we cut off yesterday a bit short, to give them time to ponder where things stand."

"We are going to give them a chance to surrender before picking back up. We could hit all the power plants and electric grids and data backbones if we wanted and millions of people would die in the coming winter. We could destroy their military centers with armor and other surface weapons. We could finish off all the minor escorts for the carriers we hit too. But we figure stripping them so badly would leave them wide open, to someone like China coming in and taking the Continent over."

"So, if they refuse peace, next we are going to bust many of their important bridges, clean up the remaining missiles and start striking various well loved public monuments, which have powerful emotional value, before we are forced to hurt more civilians. Part of the reason for the change in tactics, is because they are trying to down play what's been done in the news outlets. We have identified what we think is a deep command bunker, we're going to hit too. Do you want to witness our surrender request and report it?

"Yes, please. But all this you say you've destroyed - how can we verify this? We hear much confusion out of North America right now, especially with the earthquake in San Diego." She stopped suddenly, scanning their faces and got a startled expression on her face. "Did you do that? Did you do something so violent it seemed an earthquake ?"

"It was a accident," Nam-Kah assured her. "We used our weapons too close to some fault lines and it was an unintended consequence - my personal error really. I had data I should have seen would predict this. We'll try not to do it again." She looked quite embarrassed.

"You'll
try
not to do it again?" Do you hear yourself? She asked indignantly. "Can you picture what an earthquake does to an area? Have any of you ever been down there in one?"

"Yes." Nam-Kah assured her. "I've been in an earthquake, quite a big one actually. And I can assure you we realize it can be similar in destruction to a nuclear bomb. However you saw on the video we sent your boss, how the North Americans just tried to hit us with two nuclear bombs. They fully intended to kill every man, woman and child here, including
you
! So don't get high and mighty with us about weapons of mass destruction. We're trying to soften our blows and the USNA is out to murder us all with no restraint."

Adzusa nodded slowly, visibly but reluctantly absorbing the idea. She shook her head, either in wonder or as if to clear it. "Silly me, I was going to say much of the world will not believe you have hurt them so badly and suggest you release some video of the actual strikes. Now I find you are embarrassed at possessing power I never dreamed of. The other I'll report for you. If I did try to report this new thing, I can assure you nobody would believe it."

"We couldn't
prove
it even if we wanted it made public," Nam-Kah assured her. "To prove it would require using the weapon systematically on faulted and faultless areas and seeing what the seismic response is. I don't think that's a very good idea."

"That is a good idea about the video though," April countered. "Let's give her the record of hitting Kwajalein and what else?" she inquired of the whole crew.

"The carrier group in the Indian ocean, with the submersible and Aegis cruisers," Allen suggested, getting a nod of approval all around. "It will lay a groundwork of credibility."

Adzusa was given the appropriate files and set her pad up to record the conference they'd try to hold. She made very sure she was not on camera herself for the call.

Jon wasn't sure who to call. He did a web search for - Pentagon contact - and found a site for pentagon.af.mil. When he looked at the contact info there was an address for an executive secretariat, but when he clicked on it he got an access forbidden screen. This was not the sort of thing he could just leave in a e-mail. What kind of an office didn't have video conferencing anymore? Did they expect him to use smoke signals? There was a voice only number, so he tried calling it, although he was determined to see whoever he talked to. The number yielded a voice mail system, not even a decent AI. It had an endless number of options, none of which suited what he needed. By waiting at the end he would get an operator. When the line was finally answered by a live person, it had taken seven minutes.