Martian Balance

Copyright

Martian Balance

Copyright © 2025 Rollie Lawson

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-257-98777-1

Chapter 1 - Status Quo

Executive Council Meeting Room A

Denver, WestHem

Wednesday, May 7, 2234

Callum McBride was Chairman of the WestHem Executive Council, the ruling body of the Democratic Alliance of the Western Hemisphere. A generation prior he would have been the Chairperson, but WestHem was going through one of its periodic anti-political correctness campaigns. In addition to changing titles, military and naval bases had been renamed, and the WestHem Internet had been cleansed of anything that smacked of an anti-male bias.

This was considered highly appropriate, since it was women who had caused the failure of Operation Lemondrop, the high-tech plan to use quantum time travel to reverse the Martian Revolution. When it became obvious that the Martian terrorists and their slave population had managed to discover and counter the project, WestHem counterintelligence had traced the leaks to women working on the project. Several of the women had managed to escape, but others, all of whom had protested their innocence, were captured, tried, and executed. InfoGroup, the powerful WestHem Internet news provider, had argued for public trials, but more sensible minds had fortunately disagreed, arguing that Lemondrop was far too dangerous to even speculate about on vid. Instead, the charges were simply restricted to generic treason, aiding and abetting an enemy, and breaking security protocols. The trials weren’t broadcast, only the final sentences, as the women were executed by hanging in Victory Square.

Victory Square was considered more than a bit hyperbolic. It had been created from Victory Avenue, dedicated to the memory of all the soldiers, sailors, and airmen of WestHem after they defeated the Asiatic Alliance following World War III. That was a legitimate victory; WestHem and EastHem had utterly destroyed the Alliance following a war that killed roughly ten percent of Earth’s population.

What happened next wasn’t so victorious. When the Martian Revolutionary Wars had ended, the New Pentagon, the WestHem military and naval headquarters, was in flaming ruins. What was left was relocated to a pair of Welfare Service buildings on Victory Avenue. Over the next ten years the buildings were joined together and converted to the WestHem Alliance Military Headquarters. Meanwhile, Victory Avenue was changed to a public square dedicated to the amazing victories of WestHem over the Martians. What was never stated in public or on the Internet was that there had never been a victory over the Martians. The WestHem Navy and Marines had invaded Mars three times over a period of nine years. Each invasion had been bigger and better than the last, and all that had been accomplished was the deaths of over one-and-a-quarter million Marines and sailors, and the destruction of over one hundred and thirty warships. For their part, the Martians lost eleven thousand soldiers and sailors in combat, sixty thousand Martians stranded on Earth and in the WestHem military before summary execution, and three ships.

Women had been purged throughout government so they could return to proper and virtuous family lives. Virtue was considered to include additional children. For decades the middle class of WestHem had been declining in numbers. The military and navy only recruited from the middle class; nobody wanted the unemployed vermin in the slums surrounding every major city to have access to weaponry. What they were hoping was that the newly unemployed middle-class women would spend their increased free time by spreading their legs and letting their husbands breed more sons who could be drafted into the Marines and Navy. It wasn’t a notably successful strategy, but InfoGroup and the Department of Education simply lied, and celebrated every extra male birth.

It didn’t really matter to McBride. It had been almost eighty years since the Revolutionary Wars, and there was no institutional memory of the debacle. For that entire time InfoGroup and the WestHem government had been systematically lying to the public about what had happened, saying that while there had been minor casualties, they had allowed the Martian terrorists to retain control of Mars rather than chance the massive civilian casualties among the terrorist’s slaves that would occur during the certainly successful invasions if they had been allowed to continue.

The Executive Council Meeting had gone as planned, which wasn’t a surprise. Executive Council meetings were exquisitely scripted. They were planned weeks in advance, so that InfoGroup and NewsSys, InfoGroup’s smaller rival, could make accurate predictions to the viewers about what was being discussed. It would be rousing and inspiring and totally devoid of anything resembling accurate information. McBride had been recorded quizzing each of his department heads and discussing their incredibly positive responses. The news services would report the information as fact and blissfully boast about the wonders of WestHem’s civilization.

Then it was over. The Press Secretary, a man of no known vestige of honesty or truth, smiled and escorted the reporters and cameramen out of the room, refusing to answer any questions. That left the Chairman with his department heads. He began asking real questions, and got back answers, but he just wasn’t sure if anything they told him was true. The need to lie to the WestHem public had infected every part of WestHem’s government. Regardless, he smiled and nodded at their answers. Nobody was fighting anybody, and he simply needed to keep the lid on the myriad problems until he could retire and live in Aspen Colony in luxury.

The final person he spoke to was Justin Thoroughfare, the Secretary of War. He was the man responsible for the Marines and the Navy. If things got hot with EastHem, he would be responsible for fighting it. In some ways, he was the second most important member of the Council, responsible for protecting the six billion citizens of WestHem.

In reality, McBride considered Thoroughfare a total moron. He was personable and handsome, the vidstar perfect face of WestHem’s defense system. Actually he was nothing more than Ares Alexander’s main lobbyist. Ares Alexander was the conglomerate built from Ares Incorporated, the main builder of WestHem’s naval warships, and Alexander Industries, the primary supplier of WestHem’s Marine weapons. Thoroughfare’s job wasn’t to defend WestHem, it was to make sure that Ares Alexander got everything possible from the WestHem budget, and more than what was possible if he could finagle it. That was his current mission.

“We need to be making some changes in our Order of Battle,” Thoroughfare stated.

“How so?” asked McBride. What did Ares Alexander want now? It had taken them fucking forever to rebuild after the last disastrous war! Only their nuclear arsenal had kept EastHem from rolling over them after Martian Vengeance had destroyed their fleet.

“We are somewhat overextended on manpower and readiness. We have too many older ships. We should be disposing of parts of our ghost fleet. That will free up both manpower and lower our maintenance costs.”

McBride nodded concomitantly. “Specifically?”

“We still have some Owls in stock. We get rid of them, and we can pay for at least two more Rattlers.” Rattlers were the popular name of the Rattlesnake, WestHem’s latest stealth ship. They were quiet and deadly, and every test had indicated they were at least as developed as anything EastHem or Mars had produced.

McBride nodded in understanding, still not agreeing. His primary sponsor was AgriCorp, the agricultural giant that produced and distributed almost all food in WestHem. Before the Revolution, the main government sponsor had been InfoGroup, but following their disastrous leadership during the Revolutionary Wars, they had dropped to a second-tier commercial power. Following the surrender and ceasefire, AgriCorp had taken the prime place in the corporate hierarchy, distributing the food they were receiving from Mars. “And?” he asked.

“We can send them to the scrapyard. They’ve been updated a couple of times, but they aren’t up to the Rattlers’ standard.”

McBride just kept nodding. Thoroughfare might have been telling the truth. He might also have been making shit up. It was all about what Ares Alexander wanted to do with the old ships, and a few ancient stealth ships would not change the balance of power throughout the Solar System.

“The scrapyard?”

Thoroughfare nodded and smiled. “They plan to disassemble them in their yard at Gonzo Three.” Gonzo Three was a combination scrapyard and new construction shipyard for small vessels.

McBride nodded and said, “Send over the paperwork. I can review it and sign off on it by the end of the week.” He was curious how much of the money from the scrapping would go toward new construction and how much would end up in somebody’s pocket, but it wasn’t important. The corporations ran the Solar System, and that was the simple truth. It wasn’t worth the trouble to find out and possibly lose his job.

“I’ll get it to you today.”

***

Executive Council Chamber

London, EastHem

Monday, May 12, 2234

The mood in the EastHem Executive Council was just as positive and upbeat as the one in Denver. The difference was that they were somewhat more justified in thinking so. EastHem’s last major military action was over a century ago, during the Jupiter War. WestHem had created a colony on Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons, along with a gas mine that fed Earth’s need for fusion fuel. EastHem had decided to create their own mine and colony around Callisto and stop paying WestHem for hydrogen. WestHem had disagreed and decided to evict EastHem from what they considered their property. It hadn’t worked out so well for WestHem. They sent an invasion force to Jupiter, which was trashed by EastHem. Meanwhile, EastHem retaliated by bombarding WestHem’s forces and cities on Mars. That was a major factor in the Martian Revolt fifteen years later.

Since then the EastHem Navy had mostly managed to avoid combat though there had been a messy attack on Mars’ Saturn colony. EastHem was run by corporate behemoths the same as WestHem was, and A&C Hydrogen had suborned an EastHem Henry-class stealth ship to attack Saturn and the Rhea gas mine. Instead, they were captured without getting off a single shot and sent back to EastHem; the ship, the Gustavus Adolphus, was destroyed after the capture.

Still, other than routine espionage missions to Mars, EastHem’s navy hadn’t done much at all for the last century. Instead, they had learned from WestHem’s various disasters and adjusted their Order of Battle accordingly. Despite their historical inaction, they considered themselves at least as capable as WestHem and probably as capable as the Martian Navy. They just didn’t have any reason to test their beliefs. It was much easier to simply allow Mars and WestHem to fight and weaken each other.

Amelia Westerhaus was the Chairperson of the Democratic Republic of the Eastern Hemisphere’s Executive Council. As such she headed the normal Monday morning Council meeting. As usual, it was a quiet meeting because EastHem wasn’t at war with anybody other than their own dissidents. They ignored the bluster out of WestHem, occasionally running a missile test to remind them that they had their own strength. As for Mars, EastHem behaved. They had concluded a century before that Mars had significant naval strength, and were probably almost as strong as EastHem, despite their smaller size.

Amelia had risen through the EastHem political ranks with the sponsorship of Gastronomie, the French food superpower. Huge amounts of food were imported from Mars, for the relatively minor cost of three tankers full of hydrogen a month. That was a pittance now, since Mars was producing much more from their Rhea gas mine. Still, that was the treaty amount and was enough food to keep the African continent from dying of starvation. The corporate political power had shifted from TrueNews, the EastHem Internet powerhouse, to Gastronomie after the first Martian War. EastHem had agreed to support Mars with hydrogen tankers and received half the Martian agricultural surplus. Gastronomie became the most important EastHem corporation overnight. Ever since then, Gastronomie sponsored the best politicians in EastHem and the Chairperson.

Amelia went around the table, taking verbal reports; her staff would review the written reports. Finally her eyes settled on Lord Admiral James Bishop, the Chief of Naval Operations for the EastHem Navy, the Navy’s senior officer. “Admiral, greetings. How goes the Navy?”

Bishop smiled. EastHem wasn’t at war, so he was happy. As long as nothing happened to disturb that situation, he would be able to retire to the French Alps in a few years. If war broke out, he was probably going to be retired to the African ghetto of Lagos, where his white face would have him killed by the end of the first day. “Good, Madame Chairperson, good. Nothing has changed since last week, and Intel suggests nothing is happening to change it.”

“Any changes in WestHem’s dispositions?”

Bishop shook his head. “They’re finally cleaning out their ghost fleet. They are scrapping their remaining Owls. Supposedly this will raise some funds for more of their Rattlesnake class of advanced stealth ships, but I doubt it.” Westerhaus gave him a curious look, and he added, “It’s a lot more likely they’ll scrap the ships and somebody at Ares Alexander will pocket the change.”

She shrugged knowingly. It was how things worked in WestHem - and EastHem. You just couldn’t admit it. “How many Owls?”

“A total of six, but half of them are totally shot. They’ve been hangar queens for fifty years, providing parts. They’re worthless.”

She nodded. “Any changes with Mars?”

It was Bishop’s turn to shrug. “Not that we can tell. It’s no surprise that Mars has the most difficult Navy to investigate. It’s impossible to penetrate their Navy, so we are limited to the information we can get from bars and restaurants and the like. We can determine patterns and dispositions, but it’s often later than we want. Still, as it stands, there’s nothing changed for the last few months.”

“Thank you, Lord Admiral. I understand the difficulties.”

“If anything pops up, you’ll be my first call,” he replied.

Both of them realized what a lie that was. She would be his second call. His first call would be to his handler at Kriegsmarine Konstruktion, EastHem’s main naval builder.

***

Flag Admiral Office

Triad Naval Base, Mars Orbit

Monday, May 12, 2234

Vice Admiral Henny Bongwater flicked off the connection to the Martian Governor’s office in New Pittsburgh. Unlike WestHem or EastHem, she and her Martian Planetary Guard colleague didn’t have to physically be present at the weekly status meetings with the Governor and Martian Cabinet. They tended to stay at their headquarters, where they could actually get something done. Besides, it wasn’t like they had to worry about their communications being intercepted. Since the Revolution, Martian Planetary Intelligence had both Earthling militaries totally compromised. The MPI saying was that if a WestHem or EastHem flag officer scratched his ass, they already knew which hand did the scratching.

Bongwater looked at her adjutant and asked, “Did I fuck it up?”

Captain Hallee Berry laughed. “Sorry, Boss, they won’t be able to fire you for another week.”

“Too bad. I was hoping to be forced out and have to get a job in Proctor. Shoveling shit in a stockyard might be better than dealing with politicians.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, let’s doublecheck a few things. Unlike our Earthling cousins, I like to know where our ships are and what they’re doing,” said Bongwater.

In response, Berry tapped her keyboard and said, “Fuckin’ A! Jackson, grab your shit. It’s showtime.” There was a muted response, and she closed the circuit with a chuckle. “Jackson will be along in a minute. He’ll have a complete breakdown.”

“I’m going to the head. Pour us all some coffee, please.” Bongwater stood and went into the hall. Martian military and naval protocol was enormously simpler than anything on Earth. A WestHem or EastHem admiral would have had a huge suite attached to his office, including a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and parlor. On Mars, you used the bathroom off the corridor.

Captain Jackson Reed entered the office about a minute after Bongwater left, and he took the coffee mug Captain Berry had offered. “Eden Dark Roast! Ahhh!” he said with a smile.

“Good shit,” agreed the vice admiral as she returned. She motioned the other two to places beside her at a conference table. “Jackson, you’re on.”

Reed plugged a thumb drive into the computer on the desk and waited for the display to show a view of the planetary orbits from above the ecliptic. “Okay, EastHem first. No changes in the last week, month, or decade. Forty percent of their fleet is in Earth orbit, thirty percent is in Jupiter orbit concentrated on Callisto, and about ten percent is in orbit around Earth’s moon. That leaves about twenty percent either in transit or in space dock undergoing maintenance.”

“No changes?” asked the admiral.

Jackson shook his head. “For all EastHem brags about the wonders of their Navy and how modern and powerful they are, they have just about zero interest in using them to do anything with. The only aggressive thing we can find them doing are the recon flights they make.”

EastHem had a burning desire to learn what the Martian Navy was up to. Their stealth ships weren’t up to Martian standards, and they knew it, so they couldn’t creep into Mars or Saturn orbit, both of which had been declared restricted areas for all Earthling navies. Instead, they had taken their latest stealth ships, the Raven series, and had converted a number of them to what they were calling Raven-Rs, a recon version. Raven-Rs had no offensive weaponry and limited defensive weapons, but they had every possible stealth enhancement. They were packed with sensors and cameras and intelligence specialists to operate them.

A typical recon flight would involve a Raven-R being launched from Earth or Jupiter orbit either above or below the ecliptic. They would travel in what could be months-long flights towards Mars or Saturn, and then change course, diving down or rising up through Mars or Saturn’s orbitals, powered down and under total emission control but with every passive sensor recording everything possible.

It worked, too. The Martian Navy would occasionally discover a recon flight. If it was before they had penetrated the restricted orbitals, they were warned off and a Martian task group would take position to intercept. More often than not, the recon flight was discovered after it had zipped through the system at high speed and headed for home. Martian Planetary Intelligence would learn about the recon flights when they downloaded their sensor take. The MPI and the Martian Navy had thoroughly penetrated the computer systems of both EastHem and WestHem. That was how the Martian Navy learned that EastHem had figured out the specifications on the Navy’s latest battlecruiser, the Harbaugh class. An EastHem ‘Kodak run’ had caught a Harbaugh being serviced at the Phobos dockyard, with another Harbaugh parked next to it under construction. WestHem’s intelligence agents discovered the Harbaugh specs by spying on EastHem.

“Anything new on them?” asked Berry.

That got another head shake. “We know they are sending out Raven-Rs, but the orders given are to simply proceed on their own, at a speed and course of their choosing. We can’t station anybody in the way; they’re too stealthy to pick up until they get close.” He grimaced and added, “We’re not happy about it, but there’s not much we can do about it. A Raptor would stay out of range and simply launch some stealth drones to penetrate the system. That’s what we do with Earth and Jupiter, and we do it all the time. EastHem doesn’t have that capability yet, or at least not to the extent we can. We can pot their drones out of the sky any fucking time we see them.” The Raptor class was the latest stealth ship in the Martian Navy and, like all MNS ships, was several generations beyond anything launched from Earth.

“Okay. What about WestHem? You know, our former masters and owners.” asked Bongwater.

“Not much different with them, either. They are deployed around Earth and Jupiter, with some in transit or undergoing maintenance. They have a small presence around Ceres, protecting their mining system.” The display showed highlighted regions of the Solar System. “They are talking tough, but we aren’t seeing any movement towards doing anything. Internally they are bragging that they have caught up and surpassed our technology from the last war.”

“Oh?” asked Berry.

Reed grinned. “They probably have passed our technology from 2155. Of course, it’s now 2234, so we’re better than 2155 as well. By a lot!” He shrugged and commented, “The latest from MPI is that WestHem is finally decommissioning their last Owl-class stealth ships. They’re being sent to the breakers. That will free up some manpower and money, but nothing that will affect the balance of power.”

“And our dispositions?” asked Bongwater. As Flag Admiral of the Martian Navy, she was almost positive of her ships’ positions, but you always wanted to check.

The lights changed on the display, highlighting the Martian deployment. “Right now we have four task forces here in Mars orbit. They are our home defense force as well as our system reserve. We have three equivalent task forces in Saturn orbit; currently Saturn is almost equidistant from both Mars and Jupiter. A single heavy task force is in stealth mode in distant Jupiter orbit. A light task force is near Ceres. Finally we have a pair of Raptors in Earth orbit. Their primary purpose is intelligence, keeping an eye on EastHem and WestHem, sucking up info from their networks, and acting as a not-so-subtle deterrent. They know we’re there and they know they can’t do anything about it. They are backed up by a very heavy task force in full stealth mode on the backside of the Moon.”

The other officers nodded in understanding. The force dispositions were nothing new. Each task force was a self-contained fleet of ships capable of both defense and offense. They consisted of one or two Harbaugh-class battlecruisers, three or four Belting-class anti-stealth ships, four or five Raptor-class stealth ships, and one or two Gigantic-class tanker-freighters. No two task forces were identical, but as the pre-WestHem philosopher Emerson had once stated, ‘A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’

In the almost eighty Earth years since Mars defeated WestHem during the Third Revolutionary War, what WestHem called Operation Martian Vengeance, the Martian Navy had changed drastically. Initially, the bulk of the Martian Navy had consisted of WestHem Navy ships captured during the first few minutes of the Revolution by specially trained Martian Planetary Guard soldiers. During the first war, Operation Martian Hammer, four half-crewed and half-trained Martian Owls, stealth ships, had inflicted heavy losses on the WestHem invasion force. In the second war, Martian Justice, six Owls, now fully crewed and trained, had hammered the invading force. Finally, during the last war, Martian Vengeance, six Martian second generation Improved-Owls, three second generation Improved-Seattle anti-stealth ships, and Stacy Wilmer, the first Martian battlecruiser, had devastated the WestHem invasion fleet.

Most of those ships were now gone, obsolete and sent either to the Phobos shipyard for scrapping or to the Naval Museum at the Triad Naval Base. Since the end of the Revolutionary Wars, the Martian Navy had been in a constant race to build new generations of warships. They would never be as large as the Earthling navies, so their only chance of defending Mars was to be so much better they could defeat any potential Earthling force, even a combined WestHem and EastHem fleet.

Admiral Bongwater looked at her two captains and said, “Fuckin’ A! Sounds good. Let me know if anything changes.”

Chapter 2 - Disposition of Excess Materiel

Asset Disposition Office

Gonzo Three Shipyard, Earth Orbit

Monday, May 19, 2234

Lieutenant Commander Harlow Winslow sighed as he looked at the stack of papers on the table in front of him. Signing and filing paperwork was not what he had imagined the Navy would be like when he joined. He had been fascinated by space holovids as a child, with the mighty WestHem Navy defeating space pirates, battling aliens from other stars, and fighting Martian terrorists. His family was well-to-do and was able to get him an appointment to the WestHem Naval Academy in Departure City.

Along the way, he had met a beautiful young woman; she was only middle-class but educated well enough and was acceptable as a wife by both his family’s standards as well as the Navy’s. As far as Helen Conover was concerned, marrying a Navy officer with a wealthy family was a no-brainer. She wasn’t thrilled with the sex involved, since she secretly had a preference for girls, but that could put her in prison, so she fantasized about girls when she went to bed with Harlow. They had two children, and she didn’t mind staying on Earth when Harlow was deployed.

Things hadn’t worked out as expected for Harlow. There were no heroic battles defending WestHem from horrid enemies. Instead, the Navy had identified him as a paper-pusher, smart and useful, but not somebody to take into combat. He had been given extensive legal and business training and assigned to Weapons Acquisition. Along the way he had figured out his marriage was a sham, though he enjoyed the sexual release Helen provided when he was home.

Now he looked across the table at Jonathan Harrison. Harison was the Senior Sales Director of Ares Alexander in Gonzo Three, one of the four WestHem Navy shipyards Ares Alexander used. Gonzo Three specialized in smaller vessels, mostly Rattler stealth and Province-class anti-stealth ships. Gonzo One and Two both handled the much bigger Manhattan-class dreadnoughts; Gonzo Four built a variety of naval freighters, transports, and tankers.

What bothered Winslow now was the stack of paperwork that Senior Sales Director Harrison was rushing him through. Harrison was thirty years older than Winslow and was treating the officer as a child. “Just sign the damn papers! I have more important work than this,” Harrison said.

“That’s very nice. This is the important work I need to do,” replied Winslow. He was trying to be polite, but it was difficult. Harrison was one of the important muckety-mucks at Ares Alexander and he had already implied that if Winslow didn’t do as he was told, he’d be an ensign in the Havana recruiting base shortly. Still, from the time he entered the Academy it had been stressed that an officer had to pay attention to every possible detail, and that his signature was the equivalent of giving his word that what he was signing was legal and true. He was experienced enough to know that the WestHem Navy didn’t always work like that, but he still had some trace of responsibility that hadn’t been destroyed.

There were six stacks of paperwork on the desk in front of Winslow, all identical, and his job was to review each stack, page by page and sign each page. He was on the first stack, the transfer of WHSS Eagle from the Navy back to the builder, Ares Alexander. There had been a form transferring Eagle from the active Navy to the inactive reserve, a form transferring her from the inactive reserve to the decommissioning fleet, another form decommissioning Eagle, a form declaring her surplus war materiel, and a form to transfer the war materiel to Ares Alexander. Winslow read each form and reviewed it before signing it.

Then he picked up the last form and began reading. “Excuse me, but what is this? You expect the Navy to pay you for these ships?” Winslow asked. There was a bill from Ares Alexander to the WestHem Navy for $5,000,000.00, five million WestHem dollars, for transport and scrapping. For all six ships that would be a cumulative bill for thirty million!

“Of course. Each of these ships needs to be transported to their final destination to be dismantled and recycled.”

“What transport? They’re already docked at Gonzo Three. You’re going to dismantle them right where they sit!”

Harrison ignored the comment. “Just sign the papers. Don’t meddle with things above your pay grade.”

“There’s no transport, you’re getting six ships-worth of high-quality steel and alloy, and six old but fully functioning fusion reactors! We should be charging you five million, not the other way around!” protested Winslow.

Harrison sighed and took out his personal comm device. He pressed a button and started talking a few seconds later. “You need to get your boy under control and have him sign the papers…he’s complaining about the cost…now…no, right now…do it!” He clicked off the comm and sat back.

Winslow was on the verge of protesting when the comm on his desk beeped. He picked it up and said, “Lieutenant Commander Winslow.”

“Winslow, sign the damn papers and keep your mouth shut!” It was Commodore Admiral Morton, and he didn’t sound happy.

“Commodore, have you seen this stuff? They expect us to…”

“Shut up, Winslow. You’re not being paid to think. You’re being paid to sign the damn papers!”

“Commodore…”

“Do it and then report to me immediately.” The comm clicked off.

Winslow set the comm back in its holder. He picked up his pen and signed the final form. He glanced at Harrison, who had a big smile. “Now, do the other five.” Winslow quickly worked through the rest of the paperwork. Harrison tucked it all into his briefcase and stood up. Out of the thirty million, one million would go to Morton and Harrison would pocket three million. The balance of twenty-six million would go to Ares Alexander. “Enjoy the ghetto. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get to pick the one you end up in.”

***

Ares Alexander Orbital Headquarters

Departure City, Earth Orbit

Wednesday, May 21, 2234

Once the six ships became the property of Ares Alexander, Cosimo DeAngelo, a Senior Executive Vice President of Ares Alexander, became responsible for their disposition. It would have been quick and simple to simply click the checkbox for ‘Dismantle/Recycle’ but he had something different in mind. He was personally going to earn six million from the transaction. That left twenty million for Ares Alexander to take the old Owls back. Surely there was more money that could be had from them.

For that, he considered an offer he’d had from an acquaintance. They had met at a conference that Ares Alexander had hosted in Denver several years ago. Xavier Demopoulis represented a company called Alternative Solutions, which ostensibly offered ‘Innovative Methods for Disposal and Recycling of Potentially Contaminated Military and Naval Hardware’. He said his company had outlets for disposal of old ships and offered a significant payment to Ares Alexander for any ships offered. Of course, a finder’s fee would be paid to DeAngelo for his assistance.

Deangelo smiled and made a comm call to Demopoulis. “Xavier, it’s Cosimo. I’ve been thinking about those Owls I mentioned. Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

Fifteen minutes later DeAngelo was smiling even more. Alternative Solutions would pay Ares Alexander ten million dollars for the six Owls, bringing Ares Alexander’s take to thirty million for the six ancient ships. Demopoulis would pay DeAngelo another two million for his assistance.

***

Decommissioning Dockyard

Gonzo Three Shipyard, Earth Orbit

Thursday, May 29, 2234

“So, just how bad are these wrecks?” asked Xavier Demopoulis. He was standing in a corridor aboard Gonzo Three, looking out a window at one of the Owls he had bought a few days ago. The other five were nearby, but not where he could see them. The Owl looked normal, but that meant nothing. It wasn’t like they were going to get rusty or dusty in the vacuum of Earth orbit.

The man he was talking to was Joseph Smith, a former Owl commanding officer who had recently retired from the WestHem Navy. Now he was acting as a consultant for Alternative Solutions. They were paying him a princely retainer to build workable ships from the scrapyard. His job was to determine how many of the Owls could be resurrected. The word around the officers’ club, which Smith still visited on a regular basis, was that three of the Owls were nothing but hangar queens, useful only as a source of replacement parts for other, still viable, Owls. The other three could probably be rebuilt as good as new. How good that would be was questionable. The Owl stealth ships dated back to the Revolutionary Wars, almost a century ago, and were hopelessly out of date for modern naval combat.

Smith shrugged and smiled at his boss. “So-so. Three of them are nothing but hangar queens. Half their electronics have been yanked out, along with a couple of engines and a fusion bottle. The other three are all viable, though at different levels. Eagle is in good shape and could probably fly now if you refueled her and recharged life support. Orca needs a lot of work, but she’s salvageable. Somewhere in the middle is Wolverine.”

“But we can do it? We can get three fully functional Owls from them?”

That got another shrug. What the hell did this guy want with three obsolete ships? “Yes. Give me six months and a decent crew and I can make it happen,” said Smith.

“Good. How much?” asked Demopoulis.

“Probably three million. It depends on what we find when we start taking the covers off. Can I ask you a question?”

Demopoulis smiled and said, “You want to know what I am planning to use them for.”

“Yes.”

“The Navy is considering using them for war games.”

That was so much bullshit, thought Smith. The WestHem Navy had much better choices for wargame opponents than a bunch of century-old ships. “What about weaponry?” That would cost more than the old ships!

“That’s already under consideration. WestHem may be providing it for us. At a minimum, though, each ship still has her lasers. Let’s just get them working and we can find some missiles from the Navy.”

“Yes, sir.”

Demopoulis smiled as he left the scrapyard and headed towards the shuttle port. If Smith had given him a correct diagnosis, then he had paid twelve million dollars for three working Owls. Adding another three million for the repairs and refitting of the ships and it made fifteen million total, or five million apiece. Now he needed to sell them for more than that. Where and who he would sell them to, he wasn’t quite sure yet. He had a few ideas, though. Six months from now he could sell them for twice what he had paid.

***

Decommissioning Dockyard

Gonzo Three Shipyard, Earth Orbit

Thursday, September 25, 2234

“When do you think they’ll be ready for delivery?” asked Alexander Santiago. Santiago was the President of Executive Decisions Group, the company that was buying the decommissioned Owls. He was looking at a computer-generated breakdown of the work being done on the three ships.

“Another couple of months for all three. One month for Eagle, another month after that for Orca and Wolverine. They needed more work,” said Xavier Demopoulis.

“How much work?”

“Total rebuild on Orca. Eagle simply needed some electronics repaired. Wolverine mostly had structural damage, which we fixed almost immediately. All three have had their fusion bottles updated and repaired, as well as Life Support being brought up to speed. We’ll be able to finish them by Thanksgiving.”

Santiago nodded. “We’ll pay for each one when we take delivery.”

“And after that? How long before they can be moved out of the dockyard?”

“We’ll have crews by the time they are necessary.”

Demopoulis pushed, “Next day? Next week? Next month?”

Santiago wasn’t answering. “By the time they are necessary.”

“Very well. I’ll comm you as they are finished. We can meet, you can transfer the funds, and board your crew.”

“Thank you.”

Demopoulis ushered Santiago out of his office. He had already been paid ten million dollars as a deposit on the ships, with another ten million each when taken possession of. That would mean a twenty-five-million-dollar profit for a fifteen-million-dollar six-month investment. It was just too bad Alternative Solutions wasn’t listed on the Denver Stock Exchange. The company consisted of Xavier Demopoulis and his comm unit’s contact list. He did deals for odd military and naval hardware, buying from corrupt Marine and Navy contacts and then reselling it on the black market. He would create a new company for every deal and then fold it after closing the deal.

He really didn’t want to know what Santiago was going to do with three rebuilt Owls. It couldn’t be good.

***

Decommissioning Dockyard

Gonzo Three Shipyard, Earth Orbit

Wednesday, October 29, 2234

It hadn’t been easy for Alexander Santiago to find a crew for Eagle, now renamed Ship 1. The ex-Owl was not getting a name. In fact, there were no names or records anywhere. Once Ship 1 left the shipyard she was going dark; there would be no evidence she even existed. Her crew would report to Executive Decisions Group and Santiago only. When she needed to return to Earth orbit for more fuel, she would dock at a private shipyard to offload her cargo.

The charter of Executive Decisions Group, Incorporated, a WestHem corporation based in Sao Paolo, Brazil Province, simply stated a plan to conduct interplanetary trade. With whom was left open. What they were going to trade was left open. How, when, and where were left open.

When Santiago signed off on the final purchase of Eagle, he had been accompanied by a small man in a one-piece khaki-colored ship’s uniform. That was the regular work uniform for WestHem Navy enlisted, only there were no name or rank patches on the uniform. He hadn’t been introduced to Xavier Demopoulis. Santiago tapped an icon on his tablet computer, and Demopoulis noted the bank account on his tablet increased by that same sum. He smiled and nodded and handed over a thumb drive; Santiago handed the drive to the man in the uniform, who nodded and left without saying anything.

Demopoulis said, “Thank you, Mister Santiago. Wolverine will be ready the last week of November and Orca will be ready the first week of December.”

“And thank you, Mister Demopoulis. I’ll be ready.”

“And you have officers and crews ready for them too?”

Santiago didn’t answer directly, “I’ll be ready.”

Demopoulis nodded and left. He didn’t know what Santiago was up to and really didn’t want to know. It was time for him to head back down to WestHem. There was a Marine officer with a cache of obsolete mortars and ammunition that he needed to talk to.

***

Bridge

Ship 1, Earth Orbit

Wednesday, October 29, 2234

“Let’s take her out of the shipyard,” said the small man in the khaki ship’s uniform. He was speaking to another man, dressed similarly.

“Yes, sir. Our destination?”

“It’s plotted in the system. You just need to figure out the best approach, maximum stealth. We don’t need anybody to see us coming. Anybody.”

“Roger that!”

A standard WestHem Owl normally carried a crew of roughly a hundred officers and sailors but could be crewed at lower levels. During Martian Hammer, the Martians crewed their captured Owls at half strength, not because they wanted to but because they simply didn’t have any choice. After the Revolution, the Martians simply didn’t have enough trained, or even semi-trained, officers and sailors. They only had a few hundred people, but it was enough to partially crew four Owls, and were sent out against over fifty WestHem ships, killing eight for a loss of one Owl. Six fully trained and manned Owls killed thirty ships during Martian Justice.

Ship 1 was crewed at half strength. There weren’t a lot of honorably discharged Owl-trained officers and sailors available. As far as Executive Decisions Group was concerned, honorable wasn’t the most important factor in their hiring decisions. The main requirement was following orders, no matter what, and some degree of training. What they didn’t know ahead of time, they would learn by the time they got to their target.

***

Kansas Freight Shuttle Port

Kansas City, WestHem

Monday, November 3, 2234

In the six months since Harlow Winslow had argued about signing the forms to release the six dilapidated Owls back to Ares Alexander, his life had gone to shit. First, came a massive chewing out by Commodore Admiral Morton, which hadn’t been helped when Winslow had protested that Ares Alexander was supposed to pay the Navy and not the other way around. Granted, he knew nothing about the Admiral’s graft, but it hadn’t helped. He was immediately sent down to the Miami Recruit Depot where he was informed there were no quarters suitable for his family. He could live in the Bachelor Officer Quarters while his wife and children looked for suitable housing off base, but southern Florida was nothing but a black and brown ghetto and very dangerous; the nearest safe neighborhood was Tampa. His wife had elected to move to her parents’ home to Albany in Northeast North America and took their sons with her. Helen knew her husband had massively fucked up somehow, though she didn’t know the details. She contacted an attorney about a divorce.

A month after reporting for duty in Miami, Winslow was given an Officer’s Fitness Report that specified he wasn’t qualified to lead a team of dockworkers sweeping out a warehouse. He was demoted from Lieutenant Commander to Lieutenant and transferred from Miami to the Butte Military Detention Center as a supervisor of prisoners. That occurred on the same day he received the divorce papers from his wife..

A month later, he was demoted to Ensign and transferred to the Kansas Freight Shuttle Port. Kansas was where the shuttles to the Martian food freighters took off and landed. Following Martian Vengeance, Mars had agreed to provide WestHem with half their surplus food supply, which was the same deal they had with EastHem. This was considered a great military victory by the media, as an act of appeasement by the Martian terrorists, and an act of mercy by the Marine victors. This was thought extremely laughable by the Martians, since Martian Vengeance had been a catastrophic loss for WestHem. They lost over ninety percent of their invading combat fleet, and fifteen percent of their transport and support fleet. That might have seemed like the fleet had died to give their troop transports a chance, but it had been a very poor bargain. Within minutes of the Marine troop shuttles landing, all the shuttles were destroyed, along with well over ninety percent of the Marines who had landed.

Kansas was where WestHem wanted the food shuttles to land. It was big and flat, and the massive Kansas City slums were easily bulldozed aside for the new shuttle port. Food could be unloaded and freight for Mars could be loaded. The InfoGroup and NewsSys reporters glossed over the fact that there was no freight for Mars. Martian credits could not be exchanged for WestHem dollars or EastHem pounds and never could. Martian trade with Earth was done solely on the barter system. No money was ever involved. It was in the Martian Constitution.

There was one thing that both EastHem and WestHem did send to Mars - ‘colonists’. A polite fiction agreed to by all sides was that anybody coming from Earth to Mars was a voluntary colonist when they really were political prisoners. If you complained too much about almost anything, Scotland Yard in EastHem and WestHem’s Federal Law Enforcement Bureau, FLEB, would arrest you. In WestHem, a quick trial without any lawyers would put you in the Kansas City Federal Holding Facility awaiting the next shipment to Mars. EastHem was allowed to ship a thousand prisoners a month; WestHem five hundred. It didn’t matter whether you were innocent or guilty or not even the person they wanted grabbed, once you were thrown in the holding pen, you were going to Mars. What Mars did with you was their problem because you were never coming home again. InfoGroup and NewsSys would frequently run reports on the human rights abuses Earthlings suffered at the hands of the Martian terrorists, how people were tortured and killed in barbaric rituals and games.

Jonathan Harrison of Ares Alexander had a long memory and a cruel streak that caused him to be feared, which delighted him to no end. He had demanded Harlow Winslow be demoted and transferred twice. He had arranged for Helen Winslow to visit him in Denver, where he informed her of what was happening to her husband and ordered she get undressed if she didn’t want to lose her job and be sent with her children to a ghetto; she immediately got undressed and spent several days as his sex slave before he tired of her and sent her home. His final revenge on Ensign Winslow was to have the FLEB grab him from his clerk’s office at the shuttle port and put him in the holding pen; the only personal effects he was allowed to carry were a pair of his wife’s used panties, crusty and discolored. He’d be on Mars by the end of the year.

That should teach the little bastard!

Chapter 3 - Pirates

The textbook definition of piracy was robbery or violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship. On Earth, piracy had occurred for thousands of years. The first recorded instances were when the ‘Sea Peoples’, a generic group of Bronze Age tribes, attacked Aegean and Mediterranean ships in the 14th Century BC. Ever since, as long as people were shipping goods by ship, other people with ships were trying to take it away from them.

The ’Golden Age of Piracy’ was roughly an eighty-year period from the mid-17^th Century through the early-18^th Century. It was highly romanticized at the time, with books and magazine articles glossing over the nasty parts and taking the side of the pirates fighting for freedom against tyrannical kings. Some of the glamor subsided in the 19^th Century, but when movies were invented in the 20^th Century, pirate movies became a staple.

Piracy tended to happen in areas where there were geographic features that made pirate attacks easy, such as straits and island archipelagos, where pirates could hide and then swoop in on a target before hiding again following an attack. Just as important, however, was a need for weak local governments that couldn’t protect their waters or provide basic services to the people committing the piracy. In the Caribbean there was a significant period when three different warring European nations - France, Spain, and England - had ports and colonies throughout the area. The same happened near the Horn of Africa, and throughout the Indonesian and Philippine Archipelagos, plagued with weak or fractured governments and large numbers of high value cargos travelling through.

Probably the most underreported aspect of piracy was that it required more than pirates and pirate ships, and target ships. A third requirement was a place to sell the cargos the pirates stole. They needed merchants to buy their stolen goods and corrupt local politicians to allow them free rein for a cut of the take. Even in the 23^rd Century, piracy occurred in the Caribbean and Pacific archipelagos, especially in areas where WestHem and EastHem butted up against each other. Piracy was a business, and after almost four millennia, it was still around on Earth.

The one place that didn’t have pirates was outer space, despite the huge number of stories written about space pirates. Ever since the early 20^th Century, when space travel was first considered possible, pirate stories were written, movies were made, and television shows were produced. By the 23^rd Century they were very popular in both WestHem and EastHem. In WestHem the pirates were either Martians or rogue EastHem sailors or both; in East Hem it was Martians or WestHem naval vessels or both.

The biggest problem was that traveling on Earth’s seas was not the same as interplanetary travel. You couldn’t just change course, you couldn’t breathe, eat, or drink vacuum, and you couldn’t just sail into a convenient port. Nobody was going to go sailing around, hoping to see sails on the horizon. Orbital mechanics ruled, and there was an extremely limited number of ports.

What Executive Decisions Group was trying to do was introduce piracy to the Solar System. If they got lucky, maybe they could make some money!

***

Bridge

Ship 1 (ex-Eagle)

Thursday, January 15, 2235

Alex Rodriguez sat in the captain’s chair on the Bridge of Ship 1 looking over the navigation and sensor screens. He had a wry smile whenever he sat there, since it had never been an option when he was Lieutenant Rodriguez of the WestHem Navy. For a non-Caucasian, lieutenant was about the highest rank ever obtained, and before he was forcibly retired, his career had peaked as a navigator on a Rattler. His retirement had come about when funds earmarked for his captain’s pocket were ‘misappropriated’ and found their way into Rodriguez’ bank account; the captain was a scion of a wealthy WestHem family so his financial peccadillos couldn’t be brought up at Rodriguez’ trial. Instead, Rodriguez had been kicked out ‘for the good of the service’.

The rest of the crew was of the same general moral character. They totaled forty-eight, and included murderers, rapists, thieves, drunks, and drug addicts. All had served in the WestHem Navy at some point before being found unsuitable for the august character of that body. The chief engineer had been convicted of raping a series of low-level enlisted women; the assistant engineer had been convicted of raping an enlisted man. Several of the officers and enlisted had been released from the Butte Military Detention Facility in order to fill critical slots in the ship’s crew.

There had been a forty-ninth crew member, but he had been such an uncontrollable mad dog that Rodriguez had to shoot him in the crew mess, when he attacked a cook who had served him cold coffee. The cook was still recovering from a broken arm, and Rodriguez now wore a pistol constantly.

Alexander Santiago of Executive Decisions Group had sent Rodriguez and Ship 1 on a path towards Mars. Santiago was tied in with WestHem Intelligence and had what was considered a viable strategy for making money. They would intercept Martian freighters and transports travelling between Mars and Saturn, capture them, and then bring them back to Earth orbit for disposal.

The target for Ship 1 was MSS Fart Locker, a gigantic globular tanker that travelled back and forth between Saturn and Mars. She would be loaded with hydrogen at the Rhea gas mine near Whiting City, the huge center of the Saturn colony. Then she would head into the inner system, to dock at Triad City and disgorge her cargo. After a few days for her crew to commit a few sins planet-side, she would return empty to Saturn for more hydrogen.

One hundred million metric tons of hydrogen would make for a tasty payday when the captured Fart Locker showed up at Gonzo Three. Hydrogen was hydrogen and didn’t have a label on it, and the ship could easily be dismantled for the steel. All it took was one good capture and it would be a successful program.

“Skipper, I have a contact.”

Rodriguez looked over at his tactical officer, Johann Schmidt, a native of Michigan, Central North American Province, who had been caught collecting kiddie porn. “What is it?”

“Right now it’s just a fuzzy glimmer, but I am getting what looks like the signature of a tanker venting heat.” He clicked an icon and threw an image onto the main screen, which was duplicated on Rodriguez’ screen.

“Where we are expecting it?”

“Close. It’s off a touch, but not by much.”

Rodriguez said, “Okay, let’s close on it. Let’s time it so that we hit it at 0700 tomorrow. We can give the crew time to sleep and have some breakfast first.” With only half a crew, they needed to attack and capture the tanker when everybody was awake and alert. At night, they ran a skeleton crew.

“Roger that, Alex.”

Rodriguez grimaced at the informality. He had already learned that discipline was lacking on a pirate ship.

***

Bridge

EHSS Jackdaw

Thursday, January 15, 2235

“Skipper, I have a contact.”

Commander Heinrich Goering looked across the Bridge at his tactical officer, Lieutenant Reneé Doucerain, who punched the button to put her tac screen on the main screen. Goering looked at the screen, where a fuzzy blob was centered, with a red question mark next to it. “What is it and what the hell is it doing out here?” Jackdaw was a Raven-class stealth ship, EastHem’s latest design, and currently travelling from Jupiter to Earth. The flight path took them near Mars, but they weren’t going anywhere near the restricted orbital zone.

“Working on it, skipper.”

There was a degree of informality in the conversation, but no disrespect. The crew and officers had been together for over a year and had gelled into a nicely professional group. While no EastHem ship had been in combat since the Jupiter War, they were well trained and routinely practiced everything from a commerce raid to a full fleet action.