“I want you to pass on a message,” Stuart said. He sounded in control of himself, but Gunter could hear the edge of rage underneath his words. “The Government of Iran launched the terror attacks in New York City as a diversion, so they could kidnap… kidnap one of my people. With the assistance of the American Government, we tracked down our missing person and captured the kidnappers. We have clear proof that they came from Iran and that their mission was ordered at the very highest levels.”
Gunter sucked in a breath. “Do you have proof of this?”
“We will give you full access to the recordings,” Stuart said, “but understand; we are not asking you to judge. Nor are we asking the United Nations for permission to go after the bastards who killed fifty-seven American citizens and kidnapped one of my people. We are going to go after them right now.”
He looked Gunter in the eye. “Right now, the senior government ministers of Iran are being taken from their country,” he said, “along with their entire council of religious leaders. They will be interrogated; the results of their interrogations may lead to the identification of others who need to be taken into custody. Instead of a full-scale invasion and the deaths of countless Iranians, the guilty — men who have held their own government in a state of tyranny since the revolution against the Shah — have been removed. They will be tried for their crimes and, if found guilty, executed.”
Gunter hesitated, unable to take in the sheer scope of what he was being told. “You are kidnapping the entire government?”
“We are taking its senior leadership,” Stuart said. He nodded to the display. “We are also eradicating every last trace of Iran’s WMD program. Their nuclear sites, their chemical weapons stockpiles and even their small selection of biological weapons are being removed and destroyed. The scientists will also be taken. They will not be permitted to return to Iran.
“Given what we could have done, in response to an outright act of war, this is a comparatively mild response,” he concluded. “But we want you to take a message to the world.
“Over the last seventy years, it has been extremely difficult to hold rogue states accountable for their actions. Their leaders don’t give a shit about random bombing raids or cruise missile attacks; no, they use them as propaganda to make us look like the bad guys. It took a full-scale invasion to hold Saddam to account for his actions, which forced us to fight a bitter insurgency in the country for eight years. Now, we have determined the best way to proceed, one that genuinely does hold the leadership of such states to account.
“For every attack we can trace back to a country, we will go after that country’s leadership,” he concluded. “We’re not interested in trying to force them to surrender, we’re not intent on claiming land for ourselves, we’re merely interested in punishing them for supporting terrorism. None of the arguments against sparing a country’s leadership will hold any ice with us. Such attacks will be avenged.
“There are those who will say, perhaps out of fear, that we are overreacting. But really, is our way not better than slaughtering thousands of innocents?”
“It certainly seems that way,” Gunter said, finding his voice. “But I know many governments will disagree.”
“Of course they will,” Steve said. “It isn’t sporting to go after your fellow leaders. It might give the bastards ideas.”
He paused, then went on. “This attack killed over fifty American citizens, citizens who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he added. “Does it seem right to let it go unavenged?”
“I don’t think so,” Gunter said. “But I think you’ve opened up one hell of a can of worms.”
“I know,” Steve said. “But we couldn’t leave it hanging either.”
“And that’s all that happened,” he concluded, as he sat next to Mariko. “The government is being interrogated now, while the rest of Iran seems stunned. They’ll react, sooner or later, but not for a while.”
He paused. “Am I a hypocrite?”
Mariko considered it for a long moment. “I don’t think you preached against war and devastation while unleashing war and devastation, so you’re not a hypocrite,” she said. “It’s no sin to change your mind or even admit that you might have been wrong.”
“I’m not good at that,” Steve admitted. Flexibility might be one of the watchwords of the Marine Corps, but he knew they couldn’t be too flexible. “I was prepared to burn Iran to ashes before Mongo…”
“Gave you a speech telling you that you were being a damn fool,” Mariko said, without heat. “And he was right.”
Steve sighed. “Whatever happened to girls that always supported their men, no matter what?”
“They only existed in fevered male imaginations,” Mariko said, dryly. “And besides, wouldn’t you prefer me to tell you when you’re being an asshole?”
“I suppose,” Steve said.
They sat for a long moment in silence, then Steve opened his mouth. “I didn’t really think through what I was doing, did I?”
“There comes a time when you have to act, rather than think,” Mariko said. “I’ve handled operations when the plan, as detailed as it was, suddenly went to hell and I had to improvise on the spot. And you’re very good at reacting to the unexpected.”
She paused. “But you’re also in a position where you have ample time to stop and think about what you’re doing,” she added. “And that is what you will have to do from now on.”
“I’m not going to run for President,” Steve said, suddenly. “After we hold elections, I’m going to find a place to set up a homestead and stay there. Someone else can take the reins for a while.”
Mariko reached out and touched his hand. “Wherever you go, I will be with you,” she said, softly. Her hand felt very warm against his coarse flesh. “Why don’t we set out as traders?”
Steve had to admit he was tempted. There was a whole universe out there, after all, and starships that could support a small number of humans indefinitely. They could take a small amount of trade goods and move from system to system, selling their wares. No one would know or care about their lives on Earth, assuming they cared about Earth at all. Instead, they’d just be two aliens among uncounted trillions.
“We could do that,” he said. But there were other problems, other issues. Did he have the right to take even a small trading starship for himself. “Once Earth is ready to defend itself, we could leave.”
“Oh, Steve,” Mariko said. She shook her head slowly, then reached out and pulled him towards her for a kiss. “You’ll never allow yourself to put down your work.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Captain Perry/Shadow Warrior, Earth Orbit
Kevin couldn’t help feeling nervous as Captain Perry returned to Sol. They’d been away for over two months and anything could have happened in that time. The Horde could have launched another attack, another alien race could have arrived… or all hell could have broken loose on Earth. It was a colossal relief, when the ship finally slipped out of FTL some distance from the moon, to exchange signals and counter-signals with Shadow Warrior and confirm that everything was fine.
He looked down at his display as the ship entered orbit around Earth. A number of dead satellites and pieces of space junk were gone, plucked out of orbit and taken to the moon to serve as raw materials. In their place, there were a handful of inflatable space stations and a couple of odd-looking spacecraft. It took him several moments to realise that they were intended to transport large numbers of colonists to the asteroid belt. And they were built with purely human technology.