Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1) (41 page)

“What happens
if they reject your offer?”

“Well, we go
ahead anyway, but with heavier hearts.”

“Okay, and
once again the date for this?”

“Within two
weeks.”

“So I guess
what we have here is an honest thief,” said Cortes as the stream
finished.  “But an honest thief is still a thief.  What do you have for
me?”  He looked around the table.  “Anyone?”

“We have
Ephialtes
,
of course, and we’re hoping to open diplomatic channels very soon on the back
of that,” said Farrell.

“We’re all
well aware of that,” said Cortes.  “How do we deal with this?  He
looks reasonable, almost.  How do we counter that?”

An adviser
stepped in.  “Well, he is admitting that what they’re planning to do,
indeed what they have done, is illegal.  So he’s conceded the moral high
ground to us, we can work with that.”

“Really? 
How does it help?  He’s just said that we’re right and he’s wrong, but
he’s still going ahead with it, and smiling and sounding reasonable as he does
so.  Just being right is scant consolation.  What can we do, in
practical terms?”

“The buyout
hasn’t gone through yet.  We could block it,” offered another adviser.

“How do we do
that?” said Cortes.

The adviser
hesitated.  “I’m not sure, sir, I’ll look into it.  There must be a
way to block the money at source.”

“Okay, let’s
go with that, if we can.  What else?”

“We can
advise the shareholders not to settle.  That would be another victory.”

“Goddammit! 
We don’t need moral victories!  Are we all going to sit around here
patting each other on the back telling each other how right we are and how we
all did the right thing as we watch this son of a bitch steal a planet from
us!?”

“It would
lessen their legitimacy.  We have to work with what we’ve got, Mr
President.  Little things like this will help us in the long run.  We
have a warship arriving there soon.  That’s our ace, but we still have to
work at these things.  They will make a difference.”

Cortes let
out a pent-up breath.  “Okay, go ahead and advise the shareholders
not to settle.  Is there anything we can do to induce them?”

“Not really,
sir.  It would look like bribery.  I would appeal to their civic duty
and sense of patriotism.  Anyone taking them up on the offer would be
literally selling out to an opposing power.  We can play up that aspect.”

“That’s good,
go with that.  What about a public campaign, you know, an advertising
campaign?  ‘Don’t Sell Out to Mars,’ or something like that?”

“It’s a risk,
sir.  If it backfired we could end up giving them even more
legitimacy.  I think targeting the shareholders and appealing to their
sense of national duty would be the way to go.”

“Okay. 
You can take care of that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything
else?  So we’re going to advise shareholders to hold out, and we’re going
to look into freezing Martian assets, right?  Physically stop them from
paying us off?”

“Yes, sir,”
the adviser said.  “If that’s possible we should definitely pursue that.”

“I want to be
kept up-to-date on this.  Any developments, any information
should come through my office.”

“Yes, Mr
President.”

“Anything
else?”

-

“Okay then,
that’s it.”

“My fellow
Americans.  You may have seen the recent stream by Charles Venkdt
explaining how he is going to buy Venkdt Mars Corp from the parent company here
on Earth without first consulting with that company.  Venkdt acknowledges
that this is illegal.  It is.  It would be theft on a grand
scale.  Mr Venkdt and his compatriots have already set up an illegitimate
government on Mars, breaking many other laws.  It can be seen from this
that Mr Venkdt has no respect for the law and no respect for private property. 
He is planning to steal one of the jewels of our industrial crown, and the fact
that he plans to give us a hefty tip afterwards is no consolation.  There
is no such thing as an honest thief, as there is no such thing as a legitimate
Martian government.

“Our grand
ship
Ephialtes
is heading to Mars, alone now that her sister, the tragic
Otus
, was cruelly taken from us, quite
possibly at the hands of Martian agents.  When
Ephialtes
arrives at
Mars we will step up our negotiations with Mr Venkdt and his colleagues and we
will seek to redress the grave injustice he is seeking to perpetrate against
us.

“We have
endured seven years of war and many of you have suffered hardships because of
that.  We have shown that we are a hardy people and that we will not back
down when we know we are right.  Venkdt and his cronies have no legitimacy
on Mars and they cannot take from us what is ours.

“We will not
stand for tyranny.

“When the US
began the Martian adventure nearly two hundred years ago we took that journey
for all mankind.  We were seeking out a new providence, as always pushing
ourselves against the very limits of what we were capable.  We didn’t know
then that Mars would grow into such an important outpost of our country,
contributing more than four fifths of our energy supplies and becoming an
important cornerstone of our economy.

“Mars is
important to us now and it will be even more important in the future. 
Beyond Mars sits the asteroid belt, which is rich with minerals and other raw
materials that will benefit us for many hundreds of years into the
future.  The asteroid belt is ripe for development and our Martian base is
a very necessary way station.  There is a bright future for Mars. 
The Martian people are at the very forefront of the human adventure.  They
will benefit enormously from the trade generated by the exploitation of the
asteroid belt.  The Martian people are our people.  They are us; we
are them.

 “This
current schism has been brought about wholly for the benefit of Charles Venkdt
and no one else.  I see a Mars united with the USAN growing in the future
into a very prosperous region.  One man stands in the way of that. 
That man, in a few short weeks, has already founded a military and built five
powerfully armed missile bases.  I ask you this: are those the actions of
a man of peace?  Are those the actions of a man who is confident that he
is doing the right thing, and following, as he calls it, ‘natural
justice’?  Or are they the actions of a tyrant?  Of someone who knows
he is committing a great crime and will need to defend himself against those
who would bring him to justice?

“Mars and the
asteroid belt beyond are essential resources for the human race as we grow into
the future.  We absolutely cannot allow an armed fortress to stand between
us and our manifest destiny.  It is my sincerest hope that the people of
Mars will see sense and come to the table to negotiate a resettlement of the
Martian situation and the dismantling of the illegitimate Martian
government.  But I would ask you, my fellow Americans, to be prepared to
fight for what is ours.  The great
Ephialtes
will arrive in Martian
orbit within weeks.  If necessary, and with great reluctance, I will call
on our service men and women to take back what is ours.  Up to that point
the people of Mars will be given every opportunity to rectify the grave mistake
they have made.

“I would like
to finish tonight by telling you that, even as we speak, we are making
diplomatic approaches in an attempt to resolve this situation as quickly and as
peaceably as possible.  But as the last seven years have shown, the USAN
will not be pushed around and we most certainly will not be bought off.

“Thank you.”

Acevedo had
been asked to prepare a report by Andrews.  She worked mainly from the
telemetry data from
Ephialtes
, which was all normal. 
Ephialtes
was travelling through space at unprecedented speed and was coping well. 
All the data tallied with that from the simulations.  The worry was that
the rogue software which destroyed
Otus
had
been sophisticated enough to feed back false data to disguise its nefarious
purpose.  Acevedo had had a long conversation with Askel Lund.  Lund
had assured her that she was closely monitoring all systems and had put some
rudimentary fail-safes in place.  She had her own isolated system on
Ephialtes
and periodically would update all software on the ship. 
That was one line of defence.  She had also implemented some sophisticated
AIs which, she hoped, would monitor any other changes on the system.  The
rogue software had been extremely sophisticated.  She could see that from
what it had achieved.  But it was impossible to know exactly
how
sophisticated
it was.  On
Otus
it had avoided detection
successfully, but it was difficult to know if it would be able to react to
being hunted down.  She had so far managed to defeat it on
Ephialtes
,
but would it or its creator be able to learn from their mistakes and strike
again?

Acevedo was
satisfied that Lund was on top of the situation regarding the software, but it
seemed likely there was a saboteur on board
Ephialtes
.  Maybe rogue
software was not the only weapon in his or her armoury.  Acevedo ran
extensive background checks on everyone who had been aboard the shuttle. 
They all seemed to check out.  There were a handful of crew and twenty-six
commanders.  Every commander had been handpicked for the task and had seen
combat in World War IV.  It seemed unlikely that someone with such a
background would be willing to attack a capital ship of the USAN. 
Extensive deep searches of all their backgrounds threw up nothing.

The slightest
shred Acevedo had to go on was that two of the commanders had suffered brain
injuries in combat.  Commander Hayden Steiner and Commander Alan Meades
had both suffered head injuries, but were fully recovered.  Meades had
been severely concussed and was released after seventy-two hours of
observation.  Steiner’s injury had been more serious, but even he had been
cleared for duty within two months.  Maybe the injuries could have
affected their personalities or judgement?  She knew she was clutching at
straws.

She gave the
report to Andrews, who in turn was going to hand it over to Cortes.  In
summary the report said that the mission was proceeding as planned and the ship
was behaving as expected.  Training was continuing in the IVRs and the
commanders were all ready for combat.  They had been drilled over and over
on the missions for recapturing the essential Martian installations. 
Their morale was good and they were razor-sharp and ready to go.

The issue
with a potential saboteur was in hand.  There was a system in place to
protect the ship from any errant software and Askel Lund was working together
with Acevedo to try to find out how the rogue software had been introduced into
the system and by whom.  They were more than halfway to Mars and in a
couple of weeks would begin the deceleration process.

White hated
meeting in car parks.  To him it smacked of cheap thrillers and low-budget
spy films.  He also didn’t like the way he felt boxed in, with limited
escape routes.  There were cameras, too, in car parks, but Sherman had
assured him they had been taken out.  He had his most trusted Secret
Service agent double-check on that; he couldn’t take Sherman at his word.

When he
arrived Sherman wasn’t there.  He had to sit and wait in his car for five
minutes, his anger growing from a low simmer to a controlled boil.

Sherman made
no apology for arriving late.  He opened the door to White’s sedan and
slid into the rear passenger seat beside him.  He didn’t even give a
greeting.  White waited for him to say hello or to explain what had
happened.  When it was clear that Sherman wasn’t going to start the
conversation White spoke.  “Tell me that wasn’t us.”

“I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” said Sherman.

“You know
exactly what I’m talking about, and I want you to tell me it was nothing to do
with your man.”

“First of
all, he or she is
our
man, and secondly, he or she was just following
our instructions.”

White
paused.  He wanted to control the anger he felt.  He didn’t want to let
it get the better of him.  “Our instructions were to delay and obstruct
the mission.”

“I think
Otus
’
mission has been obstructed,” said
Sherman.

“That wasn’t
obstruction.  It was outright murder, as you well know.”

Sherman
looked out of the window.  He wouldn’t make eye contact with White. 
“When you deal with these sorts of people subtlety inevitably has to go out of
the window.  I got you what you wanted.  If you have cold feet now
that’s your problem.”

White
snorted.  “It’s your problem Sherman.  Your agent is out of
control.  Do you think they’re just going to let this one slip by? 
Tens of highly trained military personnel and billions of dollars of the most
sophisticated military hardware ever known.  They’re going to find out who
did it and they’re going to trace it all the way back to you.”