The Militant Party’s man frowned. “None of the problems seem insoluble, on the figures,” he said suspiciously.
Eric kept his face impassive; somewhere within him, teeth were bared. You’ll be dancing to our tune for some time, headhunter, he thought coldly. The wall-screens were set to a number of channels; one showed the streets outside. Rain was falling out of season, mixed with frozen slush . . . We humans may have earned this, went through him. The plants and the beasts did not. His hand gestured to the scientist.
“Ah.” Snappdove tugged at his graying beard. He looked as if he had not slept for a week, and then in his uniform, but that was common enough here today.
“Hmm,” he continued. “Strategos, you are missing the, ah, the synergies between these problems.” His hands moved on the table before him, calling up data. They scrolled across one wall, next to a view of Draka infantry advancing cautiously through a shattered town. The troops were in full environment suits, ghosting forward across rubble that glistened with rain. It was raining in most places, right now.
“We lost some fifteen percent of our Citizen population,” he went on.
Unbelievable, Eric thought. Worse than our worst predictions.
“And twenty-two percent of the serfs. Three hundred million in all. But these losses are concentrated in the most highly skilled, educated components, you see? Then again, half our Earth-based manufacturin’ capacity is still operable. But crucial components are badly hit. And to rebuild, we need items that can only come from zero-G fabricators: exemplia, superconductors and high-quality bearings. Not to mention the electronics, of course.”
“Ghost in the machine,” the Faraday exec half-mumbled. They all glanced over at her. “We still haven’t gotten certain-sure tracers on that comp-plague,” she went on, and returned her gaze to her hands. “May have to close down all the fabricators commissioned in the last decade—what’s left of them—an’ start from scratch.”
Snappdove nodded. “So we need the orbital fabricators. But we lost mo’ than eighty percent of those. And of our launch capacity. We must rapidly increase our launch capacity, but”—he spread his hands—“much of the material needed for all forms of Earth-to-orbit launch is space-made. And so it goes.”
“Not to mention mo’ elemental problems. Miz Lauwrence?”
The Conservancy Directorate chief raised her head from her hands. “We stopped short of killing the planet,” she said dully. There’s someone who looks worse than I do, Eric thought with mild astonishment. “Just. Lucky the worst effects were in the northern hemisphere, where it was winter anyways. Even so”—she waved a hand to the screen that showed freezing rain dripping on the jacarandas and orange groves—“damn-all crops this year from anywheres. Not much in the north fo’ one, maybeso two years. Oceanic productivity will be way down, we got ice formin’ in the Adriatic, fo’ Freya’s sake. Even half normal will take a decade; it’ll be a century befo’ general levels are back to normal.” A death’s-head smile. “That’s assuming some beautiful synergism doesn’t kick us right ovah the edge.”
Eric looked over to the Agriculture Directorate’s representative. “We can make it,” he said. “If the transport system can get back to somewhere like thirty percent of normal in a year or two. And if there’s no more excess demands, and we impose the strictest rationing. We’ll have just enough in the stockpiles to tide us ovah without we have to eat the serfs.” A few hollow chuckles. “We’re already freezin’ down the livestock that died. Best we get control of the enemy territory’s grain-surplus areas as quick as may be.”
The Archon nodded to the Dominarch, the head of the Supreme General Staff. He was coolly professional as he took over control of the infosystem.
“Well, we made a mistake tryin’ fo’ immediate landings in North America,” he said. Casualty figures and losses in equipment flashed on the wall; his tone became slightly defensive at the slight but perceptible wince. On the screen beside the schematic a firefight was stabbing bright tongues of orange-red through the gray drizzle.
“Too much of our orbital capacity is out: reconnaissance and interdiction we don’t have. Not all that many organized fo’mations to oppose us, but we’re hurt badly, too; also, we’ve had to keep back a lot of troops to maintain order an’ help with relief efforts.” He paused. “An’ they had a damn good fallback force waitin’,” he said grimly. “Couple of cases, it was like stickin’ our dicks into a meatgrinder. It goin’ be a long time befo’ we get that area pacified. ’Specially if’n we have to give priority to economic uses of our launch capacity. We’re occupyin’ a few strategic areas, stompin’ on any major concentrations, an’ otherwise pullin’ back. Fo’ one thing, we still haven’t gotten the last of those subs.”
Snappdove joined in the general nod; Trincomalee had taken a hypersonic at short range only yesterday. “In any case, the survivors in North America would be almost as much trouble in labor camps,” he said. “Making better progress in some other areas we are, but . . . these are territories dependent on a mechanized agriculture. We cannot support it, and the industries that did we have smashed. Also, ground combat devours resources we need elsewhere, not so much of materiel as of trained personnel.”
“Aerospace?” Eric said.
A nod from another of the Arch-Strategoi. “Well,” she said, “in Cis-Lunar space, we won—if’n you consider bein’ almost wiped out as opposed to completely wiped out in those terms. Only Alliance installations survivin’ are in Britannia an’ New Edo, with our people from Aresopolis sittin’ on them. Aresopolis came off surprisin’ well, which is a good thing because fuck-all help we goin’ give them these next few years.”
“Outer system.”
A shrug. “Excellence, Mars is pretty safe, not least because what’s left of the Fleet is mostly in orbit around it. A lot of them with their compcores blown. Not much direct damage to the Martian installations; the comp-plague hit them bad, wors’n here, but they on a planet, which makes the life support easier. Trouble is, the Fleet units down are our best, the most modern.” Another shrug. “As fo’ the gas-giant moons, we be lucky just to keep them supplied, and that’s assumin’ no hostile action.”
“And in the Belt?”
“We lost. They whupped our ass, Excellence. We hurt them bad, totaled Ceres, but they’ve got pretty well complete control in there now. No offensive capability to speak of, but plenty of defense, all those tin cans with popguns an’ station-based weapons. And that starship. We don’t know much of its capacity, but we do know its auxiliaries are Loki on wheels; roughly equivalent to what’s left of our Fleet. Less the Lionheart, but they’re out of the picture and runnin’ their systems on the research computers.”
“Dominarch,” Eric said formally, “is it you opinion that, as matters stand, we can break the remainin’ enemy resistance?”
The head of the Domination’s military looked to either side at his peers, then nodded. “Depends on you definitions, Excellence. In Cis-Lunar space, not much of a problem, for what it’s worth. On Earth, we can prevent any organized military challenge, yes. Dependin’ on the resources made available”—he inclined his head toward Snappdove—“we can pacify the last of the Alliance territories in twenty to fifty years. Pacify to the point of bein’ open fo’ settlement. I expect some partisan activity fo’ a long, long time.”