“True,” Steve agreed. He paused. “There is one other card we would like to put on the table.”
He leaned forward. “I understand that you are preparing one final push in Afghanistan,” he said. “We have some… devices and personnel that might be of assistance.”
“I believe that should be coordinated through the military,” the President said. He looked up at Henderson. “Colonel Henderson will act as the liaison officer between us, at least for the time before there is any public announcement. Colonel, I’ll get you high clearance and whatever else you need to get the job done properly.”
He stood. “It’s been an interesting meeting, Mr. Stuart. And if things were different, I might have joined you myself.”
Steve doubted it. The President was a professional politician, born into the political class and never experienced life outside it’s charmed circle. He had no idea what it was like to live, literally, on less than a dollar a day. Or how hard it was to struggle with government bureaucracy. Would he really have tried to make a go of it on his own?
But he kept the thought to himself. Kevin was right. There was no point in making enemies for no good reason. And the President could help them get everything they needed to succeed.
“I’d like to see your starship, one day,” the President added. There was an oddly wistful note in his voice. “My eldest daughter keeps talking about becoming an astronaut.”
“She’ll have her chance,” Steve said. He had a sudden mad impulse to teleport all three of them to the starship, to give them the grand tour. But he forced it down ruthlessly. If blocking the DHS raid had had unpleasant repercussions, what would kidnapping the President do? “They’ll all have their chance, if they are willing to try.”
He watched the President go, then turned to look at his old friend. “Ready to see a whole new world?”
Henderson nodded. “Are you… is all of this for real?”
“Have the van taken to somewhere safe for the FTD to examine,” Steve said. It would be brilliant if the FTD did figure out how to produce their own reactors. The interface had been far from helpful about how they worked. “And then I will take you somewhere that will really blow your mind.”
Chapter Thirteen
Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit
“This ship is really unbelievable,” Jürgen Affenzeller said. “And you can do so much from up here?”
Kevin had to smile. He rather liked Affenzeller, even if he had been the person who’d seen through the cloak of secrecy and realised that something was up. It was a pity he worked for the DHS, yet with some careful nurturing perhaps Affenzeller could be convinced to switch sides and join the growing lunar settlement.
“Yes, we can,” he said, keeping his doubts to himself. “And just wait until you see some of the stuff the aliens can do.”
He tapped a switch, accessing the live feed from thousands of nanotech drones scattered across Afghanistan. The level of access was just unbelievable, so much so that he doubted he could even begin to analyse it all, even with the help of the ship’s computers. Each of the Taliban fighters lying in ambush in yet another mid-sized Afghani town had a tiny drone firmly fixed to his head, without any clue the drone was there. Even the larger models were far too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Piece by piece, they were putting together a picture of the enemy network that had simply never existed beforehand. Couriers were identified, tagged and tracked as easily as tracking wild animals in the jungle. Each of their conversations were recorded, then scanned for incriminating keywords. When certain keywords were used, a second flight of drones would be dispatched to tag the next group of insurgents and continue the process. It had only been two days since Steve and the President had come to an agreement, of sorts, and the Taliban were already on the verge of defeat. But they didn’t know it yet.
He made a face as he looked down at some of the other reports. There were local policemen who weren’t Taliban, but preyed on the people they were meant to protect without even the fig leaf of religious justification used by the Taliban. Some of them were simple thugs, others were drug addicts, rapists or even paedophiles. Kevin shuddered at one particular memory, then silently blessed the Hordesmen who’d brought the starship to Earth. The new settlement would never have to compromise with evil just to make progress.
And they hate us because we support one set of their enemies while claiming to fight the other set, he thought, bitterly. No wonder the Taliban sometimes looks better than the alternative. They actually have a nose for government, even if it is harsh and brutal.
It was worse, he knew. The Afghani Government was corrupt, so much so that nearly half of the foreign aid poured into the country had vanished into Swiss bank accounts. Most of the ministers were put into office based on who they knew, rather than the results of any election, and were more interested in feathering their own nests than helping to fight the Taliban. No wonder half of them were left carefully alone by their enemies. They were better advertisements for the Taliban than anything the insurgents could do for themselves.
Affenzeller coughed. “Sir?”
“I got distracted,” Kevin confessed. On the display, the drones had also carefully marked the positions of over five hundred IEDs. “Are they ready to proceed.”
“Craig says so,” Affenzeller confirmed. “He’s with the front line, ready to advance.”
Kevin nodded. Over the past two months, Coalition forces had steadily surrounded the nondescript town, trapping over three hundred insurgents inside the net. Naturally, the insurgents had prepared themselves for war, using the civilian population as human shields and press-ganged labour while they rigged their homes for demolition. And, with the human shields preventing the Coalition from simply bombing the town to rubble, the insurgents had an excellent chance of killing a few American or British soldiers.
Or so they think, he reminded himself. Let’s see how this goes.
He checked the location of the civilians again, carefully. The insurgents had pushed veiled women and children forward, using them to shield their positions. Kevin shuddered — if the women survived the engagement they would almost certainly be killed by their menfolk afterwards — and then keyed a switch. One by one, the drones attached to the insurgents reported back. Everything was in position, ready to move.
“Remote controlled warfare,” he muttered. “The dream and the nightmare.”
He cleared his throat. “Tell the Colonel that we will trigger the drones in ten minutes,” he said. “And then he should advance with care.”
Almena was fourteen years old and terrified out of her mind. Once, her life had revolved around cooking, cleaning and trying to learn as much as she could from her schooling, after the old restrictions on girls going to school had been removed. Now, she was a helpless prisoner, caught in the arms of a strange male. The school had been destroyed, her teachers had been killed, her brothers had been taken away and her life had become a nightmare. All she wanted now was for it to end.
She twisted, slightly, in the man’s grasp. He was older than her, wearing flowing white robes that were badly stained with something, perhaps human blood. He’d already told her that they would be married, once the battle with the infidels was over. Almena knew that he could make his promise — his threat — come true. She’d always known, from the moment she knew the difference between males and females, that one day her father would decide a suitable match for her. Her opinion would barely have been considered. But now… her father had lost his power to someone even worse.