“Lucius take your people and follow them.” Anton’s team was still outside the complex, well positioned to tail the Feds. And Marek could count on him not to do anything unfortunate. “Just make sure they retreat to Weston and don’t try to regroup and come back.”
“Acknowledged, lieuten…I mean John.” Anton’s combat memory was coming back, and the last time the two of them were in the field, Marek was lieutenant and Anton a sergeant. “Don’t worry; we’ll stay out of their way.
“Thanks, Lucius. Keep me posted.” He switched to the general line. “Doc, do we have anyone hit?” Jarod Simmons wasn’t really a doctor, but with ten years’ service as a medtech in the Corps, he was the closest thing they had to one.
“No, John.” Simmons’ voice was odd, high-pitched and nasal. It always surprised Marek, especially considering Simmons was over two meters tall and weighed better than 100 kilos. “I checked, and everybody seems OK.”
“Good.” Marek took a deep breath. He expected someone to complain about what he was about to say. “I want you to go out and see what you can do for the wounded Feds.” He paused, but Simmons, at least, didn’t object. “Aaron, put together a five man detail and help Doc.”
There was a long pause, then: “Yes, John.” Davis sounded like he had just tasted something bad, but he didn’t argue.
“Jack, how are we doing on those inbound transports?” Marek was reviewing his mental list of the most important weapons and equipment. They’d just bought time to load up another batch of supplies, and he wanted to make the most of it.
“Five minutes, John.” Winton’s response was immediate. “I just checked with them. We’re in the loading area, ready to go.”
“Good.” Marek was leaning over, typing on a keyboard. “I made a few changes to the manifest. Sending it to you right now.” He punched the last keys, zapping the document to Winton’s workstation in the loading dock. “I want this stuff on those trucks at lightspeed, Jack.” He paused. “The Feds will be back, and in much greater strength. And they won’t be so foolish next time. I want us out of here before that happens.”
“Yes, John.” Marek could hear noise in the background. “We’re already bringing the first palettes out to the bay.”
Marek sat down on the hard metal chair of the workstation and let out a long, deep breath. He knew they had gotten lucky, very lucky. Next time, he thought, things are going to be a lot tougher. He was right.
Chapter 8
Tranquility was booked weeks in advance. In Washbalt or London or New York there were many restaurants where the political and corporate elite met and enjoyed the perks of their privileged status. But there was only one truly five star eatery on the moon, and it was considered a must for anyone of consequence to eat there when visiting.
Hendrick Thoms masqueraded as a Corporate Magnate of moderate wealth and power, a junior Director of the megacorp GDL. His true job, however – the one that got him the GDL gig - was even more extraordinary, a high-ranking operative for Alliance Intelligence, specifically one placed to monitor activity in the senior naval command structure. GDL was the biggest defense contractor dealing with the navy, which put Thoms in an ideal position to monitor the top officers from outside the command structure.
But there were layers upon layers to Thoms – Magnate, spy, debauched libertine - and the bottom one, the one virtually no one saw…double agent, a mole working for the Martian Security Department. MSD had flipped Hendrick years before, using a fairly standard combination of bribery and blackmail. The relationship had been a mutually satisfactory one – Hendrick had found a nearly inexhaustible and highly untraceable funding source for some of his more expensive and private vices, and MSD had an information conduit highly placed in the Alliance Intelligence structure.
He was on the moon to meet with Roderick Vance, one of the richest men in the Martian Confederation. Vance-controlled interests owned and operated mining franchises all over the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems. They were set to discuss a major deal for GDL’s shipbuilding operation to purchase inexpensive ores from one of Vance’s companies. But that was just a cover - they had other topics to discuss as well, ones far more private. In addition to Vance’s many public pursuits was one other known only to a select few…running MSD.
Vance’s great-grandfather had been one of the founding fathers of the Confederation, a former American general who had settled on Mars in one of the early waves of colonization and later helped lead the independence movement. The Earth powers had blustered and threatened when their former colonies declared themselves an independent nation, but there was little they could do to stop it. The Unification Wars were raging, descending into the last horrific stages, when the coalescing Superpowers were throwing whatever they could at each other. There was little left – manpower, weapons, industry – to deploy against the Martian separatists.
While the Earth Superpowers fought each other to exhaustion, and nearly to extinction, the new Confederation grabbed most of the solar system’s useful bits of real estate and built a substantial navy to hold on to it. By the time the Treaty of Paris ended the wars on Earth, the Confederation was a formidable force in space and controlled most of the resources of the solar system. It was effectively the ninth Superpower, despite its vastly smaller population.
The Confederation wasn’t a true republic, but it was far more democratic than any of the nations of Earth. Influence was based on lineage, with greater representation given to the families that had been on Mars when independence was declared. But even recent immigrants had substantial rights, and the Confederation was almost completely without a destitute underclass like those so prevalent in the Earth Powers.
The Confederation generally remained neutral in the conflicts between the Superpowers. Its small interstellar holdings consisted of a few well-selected resource worlds and three major extra-solar colonies. The Martian military was small, but extremely well-trained and equipped, and none of the Powers wanted to make an enemy out of the Confederation. The Treaty of Paris forbade space combat in the Sol and Alpha Centauri systems, but the Confederation was not a signatory to that century-old document. It’s adherence to these constraints was entirely voluntary, and it could easily cause major problems for any of the Powers that provoked it.
Mars had also become somewhat of a haven for the upper classes in each of the Powers, a place where wealthy exiles were generally welcomed and strict secrecy laws governed banking. The major Martian financial institutions did enormous business with the political and corporate elites of the various Powers, allowing them to safeguard funds that might otherwise be subject to question or confiscation. In a world of constant paralyzing government oversight and rabid infighting between elites, privacy was a rare and valuable commodity. It was one in very short supply on Earth, and the Martian bankers were happy to provide it…at a price.
MSD didn’t operate with quite the unrestrained aggression of the other intelligence services, but it did try to keep an eye on the various Powers. The Confederation liked the balance of power, and its foreign policy was based on maintaining it. During the recent war, it had come close to entering on the side of the Alliance when it looked like that Power might be overwhelmed and crushingly defeated. But the Alliance turned things around and, in the end, won a decisive victory. Now the Confederation Council was concerned about the Alliance’s place in inter-power relations. Its recent victory, combined with its discovery of an ancient alien artifact of potentially incalculable scientific value, threatened to permanently shatter the balance of power and put the Alliance in a preeminent, and perhaps dominant, position over the others. That was something the Confederation considered unacceptable.