Normally during re-entry flights Jules would stare out the window at this point, nervously awaiting the reappearance of scenery, which would signify the end of the dangerous friction period. Over the course of history, re-entry had accounted for more spacecraft accidents than anything else. Accidents that were invariably fatal to the occupants. A single flaw in the heat shield, the simple result of a simple maintenance oversight, and the spacecraft in question would incinerate itself and everything inside of it. It was said that it usually happened so quickly that the occupants were dead before they even glimmered that something was wrong. Jules would ponder that knowledge while watching the streaks of intense heat outside his window, wondering what it was like to be there one moment and evaporated into ash the next, wondering if what was said was nothing but propaganda designed to make space travelers ride easier, if they actually died in burning agony, their deaths taking minutes.
But on this flight he paid scant attention to re-entry, not even breathing a sigh of relief when it was over and the many cities of Brazil, Venezuela, and Columbia regions could be seen glowing beneath them once more. As the wings deployed, slowing them further, and the T-7 turned northwest, heading across the Caribbean Sea towards North America, Jules continued his perusal of the attack on TNB, expressing guttural profanity but also feeling, very much against his will, a large measure of respect for the author of the attack. They had been caught with their pants down; nothing more, nothing less. But how could they have anticipated something like this? An attack on the base by so-called friendly forces? They had underestimated the MPG. It would not do to make such a mistake again.
WestHem Capital Building—Denver
The view was impressive from the large picture window in the executive council briefing room. The window looked east, out over the entire expanse of the thirty-eighth most populous city in WestHem; the sixty-third most populous in the solar system. The tops of innumerable high-rise buildings could be seen stretching away for kilometers in every visible direction. Each roof was dotted with landing pads and parked VTOLS, the transportation system for the elite. It was 0745, just fifteen minutes before the start of the workday, and the little craft could be seen buzzing and circling everywhere like flies, the computer systems that ran them delivering their corporate masters to their offices. Beyond the high rises of downtown were the housing complexes of the upper and then the middle class. Beyond those were the slums, which stretched to the horizon and beyond; thousands of square kilometers of unspeakably dangerous neighborhoods populated by more than eight million unemployed and unemployable. Every major city on the planet had similar ghettos of similar proportion.
Like most employed WestHem citizens, Admiral Jules got the screaming horrors at the mere thought of ever having to live in the squalor of WestHem's ghettos; the fate of those that suddenly had their income removed from them. They were the epitome of lawlessness and chaos. The cops themselves did not enter them in anything less than platoon strength; and even then they might take casualties. They only reason they did go in was to track down a person responsible for a crime against an employed person or to enforce the stringent breeding laws. Among themselves the unemployed were free to rape, kill, assault, rob, or even molest each other's children. They were an entity onto themselves with little chance to ever pull themselves free. They were not even counted in the census. As long as they stayed within their boundaries, obeyed the breeding law, and confined their crimes to each other, they were left alone, living on welfare money, free alcohol, free marijuana, free Internet, free substandard housing. He eyed the ghettos nervously from his chair in the briefing room while he awaited the arrival of the rulers of the western hemisphere. The TNB fiasco would be penned as his responsibility. Would they dismiss him for it? Remove his pension? Sentence him to live out his life in those ghettos? He vowed he would kill himself long before it came to that.
He was bleary from lack of sleep and his stomach burned from the three strong cups of coffee he'd consumed with his breakfast. He'd been up until well past 0400 researching and preparing his briefing; perhaps the most important briefing he would ever give in his career. He was dressed in his Class A uniform of course, all of his campaign and service metals neatly in place. Before him, at the large rounded oak table where the guests of the council sat, was an Internet terminal into which he'd already inserted the briefing disk he and his staff had created. At the front of the room, above the elevated seats that the executive council would soon occupy, was a larger screen, onto which his figures and the figures of the other briefers would appear.
Would there be other briefers? he wondered. Currently he and his staff were the only ones in the room besides the secret service team, who stood expressionless at their positions near the doors, the council chairs, and the window. Surely he would not be the only one called on the carpet for what had happened on Mars.
As if in answer to his question the door slid open behind him and General Wrath, the commander in chief of the Far Space marines entered. CINCFARMAR was his designation and Jules knew him well, on a first name basis in fact. The far space navy and marines, though full of the traditional animosity that had existed between the navy and the marines since the 1700s, worked closely together and relied upon each other. Wrath and Jules' jobs were closely entwined. The two were professional acquaintances, quite close in that regards, although not exactly friends.
"Richard," Jules greeted, offering a smile and an outstretched arm as the General and his staff entered the room.
Wrath, dressed in his own class-A uniform, little changed since the early twentieth century, shook his hand warmly. "Tanner," he greeted. "I see you're here for the same purpose as me."
Jules nodded his head cynically. "Yes I am. It seems our bosses want a few questions answered about what happened yesterday."
"Those fuckin' greenies," Wrath commented sourly. "Who the hell would have believed they were capable of this? And that bastard Sega." He shook his head. "He'd better hope the greenies kill his ass. Can you imagine? Surrendering all of the forces with barely a fight? He must've been mad."
The men took their seats, Wrath taking the chair next to Jules, Wrath's staff taking the seats on the other side. The marine general inserted his own briefing disk into the Internet terminal before his chair.
"Were you up all night too?" Jules asked, noting the bags under his counterparts' eyes.
Wrath nodded wearily. "This clusterfuck pulled me out of a formal dinner party. Not that that was upsetting; I hate those fuckin' things. But I spent the next five hours on a flight from Buenos Aires getting briefed in. We then stayed up all night researching and planning how to take that planet back from the greenies if it comes to that."
"Do you think the greenies will really vote for independence?" Jules asked him. "I mean, Whiting didn't exactly make it sound too hopeful in her speech or anything. She actually told them that they might not win. What kind of propaganda is that?"
Wrath shook his head. "I think they just might," he said. "Greenies are not like Earthlings. They don't think the same way we do. Think about where they came from; the unemployed. They actually like speeches like that, they actually like to fight the odds."
"They can't possibly beat us though," Jules pointed out. "What the hell are they thinking?"
"I don't know," Wrath answered. "She told them in her speech that we would send troops to take the planet back and you can bet your ass that we will. She can't possibly think that their little civilian soldier force and their cute little airplanes are going to stop us when we land a half a million troops with tanks, full hover support, artillery, and APCs on that flying shithole. We'll have them routed and mopped up in two days."