Storm Clouds, page 7
part #1 of The Guild Wars Series
As the battle developed, he saw he’d been wrong. They weren’t police; they were security contractors. It started with fists, moved to clubs in moments, and then firearms and energy weapons.
In the end, Jim heaved a sigh of relief when the train rose on a magnetic field and smoothly moved out of the station. The security fence was bowing dangerously inward as the last cars passed, and the train accelerated away.
“Holy shit,” someone said behind them. Despite not being able to see the person, Jim nodded. He looked around the compartment. Maybe another 20-odd people had gotten aboard out of the thousand empty seats the conductor mentioned and the thousands waiting outside to get in. Jim hoped the next station wasn’t a replay of what he’d just seen.
* * *
Leaving Houston, Texas, Earth
Sansar tried to get some rest as the sub-orbital shuttle skimmed the edge of space. She was largely unsuccessful. She was leaving behind everyone in the Houston operation except for Bambi and one of her hand-picked security people. They’d pick up another team in DC when they landed.
Because of the sad state of transportation in the USA, Jim Cartwright had been forced to take a maglev train for his meeting. She’d put two of her people on the train with him, then elected to just meet them in her private jet upon arrival. It gave her half a day of extra work, although it cost her any extra sleep she might have gotten in DC by arriving ahead of the meetings as originally planned.
The gang leaders, Bodya Tomlin and Katana Rich, both elected to take her up on her offer. She’d increased surveillance on the pair as well as their organization and set them lose, as promised. So far in the days since their release, they’d kept their word. She’d arranged cash deliveries to keep them happy and had given them a few minor jobs. Most had been harassing rogue mercs or gathering intel. To her surprise, they were doing okay. It would work or it wouldn’t; there was no real risk to her either way.
As for Cat Lotta and her Section 51, Sansar had exactly squat. They’d carefully bugged Cat in every way they could, and every one of those bugs went offline 60 seconds after they’d let her go. It would have been more useful to put a tail on a Goka in a Tijuana buffet. Maybe if some of the Horde’s orbital intel assets were still available…but none of them had survived the war.
She’d first heard about Section 51 after the Peacemaker truce. Both Jim Cartwright and Alexis had encounters with a person Sansar’s own intel had pegged as an Earth Republic intelligence officer. The woman had gone by the name Adayn Christopher while undercover in Cartwright’s Cavaliers. She’d been spying on Jim Cartwright and reporting to her bosses. Sansar signed off on blowing the woman’s cover, and they revealed her real identity of Captain Adrianne McKenzie to Jim just before the war started.
All their data indicated she was an officer for EDI, the Earth Defense Intelligence Service. Sansar read through the data before getting on her flight and realized it was all just as fake as Cat Lotta’s story. Carefully constructed, painstakingly backed up, and a complete fabrication. She’d made a call to a contact in EDI and verified; there was no Adrianne McKenzie, nor had there ever been. Nobody had made such a call when they’d first outed her; it hadn’t seemed necessary.
There was nothing on Section 51 in the Horde’s records. She wanted to pretend it was nothing—smoke and mirrors by some solo operative—only the appearance of Cat Lotta ruined the whole idea. Their impressive technology added a level of concern for her and helped her reach a difficult conclusion. An incredibly powerful, well-equipped, and well-funded intelligence organization existed on Earth. One she’d known nothing about until only a few days ago.
Many years ago, she’d been stuck recovering from an injury and, like many people, spent the bedridden time watching old movies. Considering her lifestyle, it wasn’t a surprise she ended up watching the James Bond series of films. After all, there were 36 of them. The old ones were pretty primitive in the special effects shots and the newer ones were full of identity politics. Still, they were fun.
She was reminded of the revelation of Spectre’s existence. A huge intelligence organization unknown to MI6, which supposedly was the most well-connected, equipped, and manned intelligence organization on the planet. She snorted at that. Not in my lifetime. Anyway, MI6 was caught completely off guard by Spectre. It was everywhere, had moles inside MI6, was well-funded with uber-tech, and led by the super-genius Blofeld.
What she didn’t know was if Section 51 was on her side, someone else’s side, or their own side entirely. If she had to guess, she’d guess their own side. Only, if that were the case, why risk their operative to save both Jim Cartwright and Alexis Cromwell? Risk her as an asset and risk their operation being uncovered. Which is exactly what they’ve done. More than uncovered, they’ve been naming themselves. Suddenly, it felt less like Section 51 was being uncovered, than Section 51 was coming out.
“Beginning reentry,” her pilot said over the cabin intercom.
Sansar checked her straps to be sure they were still secured and relaxed as the Gs began to build. In a few minutes they would be landing at Washington, DC, and the game would begin in earnest. Would Section 51 be there as well?
* * *
Arlington, Virginia, Earth
Jim and Buddha exited the Ballston maglev station. It had been converted years ago to act as both the district’s maglev arrival point and a metro rail station. A feasibility study showed it was impractical to put a maglev station within the boundaries of DC, so it was in Arlington instead.
By the time they’d arrived, all the empty seats had been filled from the eight stops along the route. The ripples in fuel and labor shortages were spreading all over the former nation and the world, but they were less obvious here since it was the center of the US government. Airlines were doing their best to keep certain cities as operational destinations. Houston obviously wasn’t one of them.
The landing zone for fliers was on the top of a multi-level cabstand. Jim looked up at the line to the roof and scowled. Instead, he went with Buddha to one of the regular cab lines and was riding along the Curtis Memorial Parkway toward the district only minutes later. It was even an extra-large cab.
“This is nice,” Buddha said as the automatic ground cab maneuvered into the HOV lane. As it was mid-afternoon, the traffic wasn’t terrible. A lot of Jim’s itinerary would depend on the various world leaders who were attending—it was an informal discussion, after all—so he used some of the time during the drive to watch the local news.
He could have used his pinplants on the universal wi-fi available in the DC area. Instead, he turned on the cab’s little Tri-V so Buddha could see as well. Immediately, he was watching a news report of a disturbance at the airport. Glad we didn’t land there after all. There were hundreds of people carrying signs and screaming. Jim narrowed his eyes as he looked at the signs.
“Down With Mercs!” “Make Them Pay!” “Outlaw Mercs!” “They Did This!”
“Oh, shit,” Buddha said.
“Yeah,” Jim agreed. He listened to the commentator.
“This crowd has been waiting for the arrival of Jim Cartwright, commander of one of the Four Horsemen units, who is rumored to be arriving today for a secret meeting with unknown parties. As you can see, they’re upset about the mercs and how they’ve already brought one war to Earth—”
Jim cut the Tri-V with a wave of his hand and a curse under his breath. There had always been a nasty undertone of hatred and resentment toward mercs on Earth, despite all the money they brought in. It looked like someone had weaponized it and aimed it at him.
“Why do they want to get you, Jimbo?” Buddha asked.
“I wish I knew,” he replied. “I’m just glad the plane didn’t work out after all.”
The cab dropped them at the main entrance to the small conference center Jim had arranged. No protestors there, so he knew the leaders weren’t the ones who caused the situation. It made no sense for them to get caught in the same net, which instantly made him doubt his conclusion.
They walked up the steps of the conference center. The old capital building was visible less than a mile away. It looked almost forlorn sitting there. A hundred years ago, when the US had joined the signatories to join the Galactic Union, it had become much less important. As the Earth Republic took on more and more responsibility, the capital became less and less used.
Jim had seen news reports in Houston about the US representatives trying to figure out how to deal with the Earth Republic collapsing. It was mostly arguing; little work was getting accomplished. The press was enjoying every moment of it. He decided getting off the street as quickly as possible was a good idea, even though they were in one of more than a dozen little conference centers.
Inside, he met the manager, who looked flustered. “We were not expecting your meeting to be controversial,” the man complained.
“How would it be controversial?” Jim asked.
The man looked pained. “The protests,” he said, making helpless gestures. “Against mercs…”
“So what?” Jim said.
“I’m concerned for my facility, of course.”
“We have a contract,” Jim said. Buddha came up behind him and the manager spotted him, his eyes going wide. “It would cost me extra money. You wouldn’t want to disappoint my financial manager,” Jim said, glancing at Buddha. “Would you?”
“No,” the man squeaked. “I was just concerned. I hope you understand?”
“Oh, completely,” Jim said. He pulled out his slate. “Now, could you please share the list of guests who’ve arrived?”
Jim was impressed—everyone who’d RSVPed was there. He checked his slate for personal communications from his other guests. He nodded his head in satisfaction. So far, so good. He gave the manager some instructions and pulled Buddha aside.
“I’m beginning to think the manager is the one who called the press.”
“Why would he endanger his own business?” Buddha wondered.
“He didn’t think there would be problems here,” Jim reminded him. “He expected the trouble to happen at the airport.”
“Oh hell, you’re right!”
“Either he was involved, or he’s the source of the leak. I think he’s involved.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothing,” Jim said and shrugged. “The leaders all have their own security, and we’ve got ours. The conference center has its own hotel. We go forward.”
* * *
Like the process leading up to the meeting, the other Horsemen had helped Jim extensively to put his plans into motion. Nigel’s insights into the political realities of the Middle East were vital. After fusion power and electric/hydrogen-powered vehicles gutted the oil industry, that area of the world went largely quiet. Without trillions of dollars flowing in to foment rage and revenge, nobody cared as much. Everything settled down to quiet desperation and poverty. Only roughly half their number had backed the Earth Republic’s formation, and they were now eager for a seat at the table.
Alexis helped give Jim a better picture of how interstellar commerce worked in all its varying glory…and how Earth had been largely left out of it to the current day. “Believe it or not, mercs are less than one percent of the galactic economy,” she’d told him. While the statement made perfect sense, Jim was still surprised when confronted with it. She gave him a much better picture of Earth’s potential in the galaxy.
Finally, Sansar helped him put together a comprehensive defense scheme. Earth had been conquered with laughable ease for one simple reason—humanity had taken no interest in defending itself. After the Alpha Contracts more than 100 years ago, Earth’s superpowers had sacrificed their ability to project power. All they maintained were nuclear deterrence and the equivalent of National Guard units. The mercs wielded far more firepower, and with starships, they could deploy it quickly.
Between Alexis and Sansar, they’d developed a comprehensive, layered defense plan for Earth. All told, he had five gigabytes of notes, slides, and recordings on his pinplants, which were duplicated on his slate. Considering how little space each file took up, it was a lot of files. Jim decided against any large, shiny Tri-V presentations because the conference center lacked a big Tri-V system. The DC area had facilities with the capability to present them, but renting one would have drawn immediate attention to his plans.
More attention than I’ve already drawn.
The rather reluctant facility manager led Buddha and Jim into the auditorium they had rented. At 500 seats, it was indeed one of the smaller locations in the Baltimore/Arlington area. It was designed off an amphitheater layout, with a medium-sized stage and seats laid out in a 90-degree arc climbing to a height of around ten meters above the stage. It matched the literature Lieutenant Jordan emailed him.
“Your guests are in the adjoining meeting rooms having appetizers and drinks as instructed,” the manager said. “Please inform my staff when you wish them to enter.”
“And the other guests?”
“They’re in the bar.”
Jim grinned and nodded. “Where else would they be?” The manager gave him a pained look as Jim walked onto the stage and looked over the wireless presentation suite. It was good enough for him to link to with his pinplants, so he did and began running display tests.
Buddha stood and watched Jim look one way and bring up an image on one of the big flat panel displays, then look another direction and do so again. Jim guessed it had a somewhat mystical look about it, making things appear by only looking at the displays. For his part, Jim felt pretty uncomfortable in his brand-new dress uniform. It was patterned off the US Army dress uniform from the 21st century, only without as much brass. The uniform sported merc qualification ribbons on his chest and golden eagles on his shoulders. Buddha looked almost as uncomfortable with the silver oak leaves on his shoulders.
About halfway through the setup, Splunk yawned and finally woke up. Jim had set his bag down at the edge of the stage, and her big blue-on-blue eyes were staring at him. “You finally awake?”
“Yes,
She eats more than I do. Jim tried to remember when he last ate. Five hours ago on the maglev? He went over to the bag and grabbed a couple of the meat sticks. Splunk gave him the evil eye. “There’re plenty,” he said. She still scowled as he started to eat one. “Buddha? I think we’re ready. You want to go tell our reluctant host to start letting in the guests?”
“You bet, Jimbo.”
Jim nodded and linked his pinplants with the audio system. A generic inspirational soundtrack played over the speakers as he waited. A minute later, the doors opened, and people started filing in.
* * *
It only took five minutes for all the guests to find seats. Jim had placed four tiny cameras at the corners of the stage to give him a better view of the entire auditorium. Most of the representatives had assistants, as was allowed by his invitation. All appeared curious and interested.
He counted a total of 322 heads using his pinplants. With 145 invites and two each, it meant more than a few brought a third in addition to a second. He didn’t have any issues with it; that was why he’d picked a venue big enough for all of them to bring two. It looked like a few might be spouses; others were obviously bodyguards pretending to be diplomatic types.
They sat in groups, mostly. A lot of those from Europe knew each other, of course, as did those in attendance from Africa, South America, and Asia. The tiny number of Middle East leaders who’d been part of the Republic all kept to themselves and eyed each other suspiciously. Once everyone had found a seat, Jim triggered the lights to dim and the music to fade. What little conversation had been going on also faded.
“Welcome,” he said. His voice was broadcast from his pinplants, but he moved his mouth along as well, just to keep from weirding anyone out. “Thank you for coming. I am Colonel Jim Cartwright, commander and CEO of Cartwright’s Cavaliers. I represent the Four Horsemen in this discussion.” There was a round of hesitant but polite applause. Jim began his multimedia display.
“Attending today are 145 of the 150 members of the former Earth Republic.” There was a mumble from the crowd, which he’d been expecting. “Yes, I did say former. Please have no doubt, the Earth Republic is dead. General Peepo, along with the Mercenary Guild and various entities on our own planet, made sure of that. Nobody will ever again trust it, depend on it, or owe allegiance to it. Frankly, I don’t think anyone ever did in the first place.” This time a murmur of agreement swept through the crowd.
“The passing of the Earth Republic has brought us together, here. What we need to talk about is multi-fold. Like, how did this happen? What went wrong, and how can we avoid it again?”
“You mean what did you do wrong, don’t you?”
Thanks to his pinplants and the cameras, Jim could see and identify anyone who spoke. The speaker was Tamara Tremblay, the current Prime Minister of Canada. The man seated next to her was Arnold Martin, her Minister of Foreign Affairs. He nodded once and looked at Jim.
“No, I mean we, madam Prime Minister. The Horsemen, and mercs in general, share a good deal of the blame. Complacency was a big part of it. Ego another part. And probably greed was in there, too. However, greed and complacency were also to blame for the governments’ side of this fiasco.”
There were grumbles from the crowd, and several made dismissive gestures. Jim brought a graph onto one of the side displays. “Don’t agree? This is the chart of the tax burdens your countries levy against the incomes of mercs. The lowest is two percent in Argentina.” He looked at that country’s leader. “The only thing that kept your nation from being a prospering hub of merc activity was that you added a yearly licensing fee of 5,000 GCU per company in each unit.” Argentina’s president looked away.
