I frowned as I listened. The United Nations wasn’t known for being so honest with its own people and I felt it boded ill. “Certain decisions have been taken,” the grey man concluded. “It has been decided to force the Heinlein Government to the table, by any means necessary.”
That, I decided as the silence grew longer, might not be possible. I hadn’t understood all the implications of Heinlein’s Government, but one I did understand — in hindsight — was that most of the Citizen’s Council would have escaped the destruction of their building, simply by not being there at the time. They preferred to use electronic communications systems and most of the people swept up by the Infantry had been nothing, but harmless workers. The UN had declared the Government captured, however, and no one had dared to disagree, openly.
The grey man looked at Shalenko. “Your orders are simple,” he said. “You are to take Devastator, with the two cruisers for escort, to Heinlein and destroy Valentine.”
I kept my face blank, somehow. Valentine was the second-largest city on Heinlein, although it would have vanished without trace in any of Earth’s crumbling metropolises. It had a population of over five hundred thousand if I recalled correctly — tiny compared to Earth’s population — and most of them had been penned inside the city by the Infantry, after the invasion. They’d resisted, of course, and the city had rapidly become a no-go area. I’d expected that the Infantry would have finally pacified it, but apparently they’d had other considerations. I wondered how many reporters had gone inside the ‘secure’ city and lived to tell the tale.
“Valentine has been picked for several reasons,” the grey man said, when we said nothing. “It is large enough to make our point, yet it is not worth preserving from our point of view. It makes the most sense as a target.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The UN had forsworn nuclear weapons on planetary surfaces for years. How could they break the strongest taboo the human race had? Even without that taboo, Heinlein had definitely built nukes of its own before the invasion. What was to stop them launching them against the UN’s Infantry? How much damage could they wreck if they took the gloves off.
“Devastator is certainly capable of destroying the city,” Shalenko said, dispassionately. I wanted to scream at him to stop, but it would only have destroyed my career for nothing. “I do not understand, however, why you require Devastator. Any cruiser or even a gunboat could destroy a whole city.”
“Devastator has something of a reputation on Heinlein,” the grey man said. “Besides, there are other considerations. The use of nuclear weapons is strongly prohibited on a planet’s surface without direct orders from the General Assembly and other starships might have problems overriding the safety systems built into their missiles. A monitor is designed for planetary bombardment.”
He stood up. “I trust that no one has any questions?” He asked. I was too stunned to speak. “You are cleared to depart Sol this evening and return as soon as you have completed your mission.”
“Thank you, sir,” Shalenko said. The grey man swept out of the hatch, which hissed closed behind him. “As Commodore, I will be commander of the mission. The George Robertson will provide our forward escort and scout, while the Jacques Delors will bring up the rear. We can expect the Heinlein Resistance to go all-out to stop us if they suspect our purpose, so we will maintain strict silence on our goals until we enter Heinlein orbit.”
“I protest,” Hardwick said. “I’m sure that none of my crew have links to Heinlein.”
“I merely wish to prevent any leaks before we have completed the mission,” Shalenko said. His words were so calm and composed that I almost forgot the horror lurking behind them. We were going to butcher the population of an entire city. We were going to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocents who had done nothing to deserve to die. We were even going to be killing UN Infantry who were trying to secure the city. I would have bet good money that they wouldn’t be warned in advance. “We will depart at 2200 precisely. Dismissed!”
He held up a hand as we turned to leave. “John, I want a word with you,” he added, before I could escape. “Remain behind.”
“I should be here too,” Deborah protested. “My orders clearly state…”
“And my orders clearly state that I am in complete control of every aspect of this mission,” Shalenko barked, so loudly that Deborah jumped. “My First Lieutenant will escort you to the mess, where you may eat if you wish, or to the airlock if you wish to return to the Jacques Delors ahead of its Captain. Leave.”
Deborah threw him a glance that could have killed and stalked out, head held high. I doubted that she’d gone very far — she was probably lurking outside the hatch, waiting for me and trying to listen through the solid metal — but at least she was gone.
“Political officers are always such a bore,” Shalenko commented, when we were alone together. I remembered the rumours that he and his political officer were lovers, but I didn’t believe them. The thought of Ellen Nakamura having anything to do with love… the mind couldn’t stand it. “I imagine that you have concerns, John?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, grimly. “We’re considering mass murder!”
“We’ve done more that consider it,” Shalenko said. “I checked that man’s credentials very carefully. He’s not just a messenger boy, John, but someone with very strong links right to the top. The message he passed on might have been signed by the General Assembly, but everyone who’s anyone in power agreed to it first. They knew the risks and accepted them for everyone else.”
I stared at him. “But, sir…”
He held up a hand. “There’s no more time, John,” he said. There was a finality in his tone that quelled protests more than even a royal chewing-out. “I prevented you from throwing your career away over this before, but this situation is different. The UN itself is in desperate waters and needs time to recover before the war is truly lost. I believe that there were even groups calling for nothing less than the complete eradication of Heinlein… and not a few other planets into the bargain.”
His eyes bored into mine. “If you insist on protesting this decision, I won’t be able to protect you any longer,” he added. “No one, not even Admiral Rutherford himself, will be able to prevent you from being summarily tried, convicted, stripped of rank and executed. They’re desperate, John. If you protest, you’ll lose everything and it will happen anyway!”
I looked at him. “Do they deserve it?”
“Does anyone?” Shalenko asked. “All I know is that if something doesn’t happen to break the logjam soon, the entire United Nations will come crashing down. The good we do will vanish along with the bad. The colonies will rebuild and seek to wage war on Earth, or maybe even on each other. The rule of law will be completely destroyed. We need to end the war on terms we can accept, or we all lose.”
I wanted to protest anyway, but he was right. I had to remain silent and wait for the right time to move. I wanted to move now, but we weren’t ready. A failure, with so many ships left untouched, would mean our swift annihilation. We needed more time. That time would be bought at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives.