Just to make it worse, she had arrived along with a bunch of other new colonists, many of whom were also looking for work. And there was a lot of talk about two more ships on the way to the planet that might be bringing even more competition for Mele’s job search. There was something odd about those ships, a strange lack of information from the government about exactly what they were and where they had come from, but no one on the street seemed worried about them.
Mele was studying the online want ads, morosely trying to decide whether farmwork or construction would take her, when the blare of a news alert sounded through the brand-new coffee shop where she had been nursing a single espresso for the last hour.
What the news alert lacked in detail it made up for in drama. “Blatant and unprovoked aggression!” the announcer declared, looking outraged. “The two ships that entered our star system two weeks ago have been identified as having come from Scatha. While pretending to be conducting innocent trade, they reached orbit and began sending down people and material to establish another colony on our world.” A map appeared, zooming in on a location thousands of kilometers away from the city where Mele was. She couldn’t help nodding in understanding for why Scatha, whoever that was, had chosen that location. It was far enough from the existing city where she was to make any reaction difficult, and by its placement would block expansion by the original colony onto the continent the invaders had occupied. The site made sense tactically and strategically, regardless of whatever its other virtues were.
“We have it from reliable sources,” the announcer continued, “that our own warship, the Squall, intercepted the ships from Scatha over a week ago but did nothing for reasons known only to the governing council. Our sources indicate the commander of the Squall requested permission to stop the freighters but was denied and told to merely escort them to our world! Even now, with an invasion under way, Squall has been told to do nothing.”
Further outrage was interrupted by an official announcement that was accompanied by a dramatic musical intro. A woman seated in a large but mostly empty office spoke calmly enough but with an edge to her voice that she couldn’t quite hide. “This is Council President Chisholm, speaking on behalf of the council. We are as shocked as anyone by the wanton disregard of law and personal liberty displayed by the rulers of Scatha in attempting to establish their own colony on a world granted solely to us in a star system granted solely to us. We do not intend to let this provocation go unanswered, or our own freedoms be limited by the actions of another star system. But the severity of this threat, coming so soon after we have established our first city on this world, is such that the council wishes to have as much input from our citizens as possible before deciding on a course of action.
“There will be an emergency meeting of the citizens and council of Glenlyon at 1400 local time this afternoon. The meeting will be physically held in the new amphitheater on the south side of the city. All citizens are invited to attend, either in person or by virtual means. We will discuss what is known of Scatha’s actions and our own options to deal with a blatant invasion of our world.”
Mele took a sip of espresso that had grown cold, thinking that perhaps she might find another job opportunity opening up soon. There just might be some call for her skills after all.
She decided to attend the meeting in person.
• • •
The amphitheater was one of those construction projects that would once have been the work of thousands or hundreds of people for years. Automated machinery built light years away, using an architectural design originally developed on Old Earth, had dug away part of a hill on the southern side of the city, compressing and fusing the excavated dirt and rocks into the rising rows of seating. Most of the data-support network hadn’t been built and installed yet, though, so the amphitheater still depended on ancient fallbacks like a speaker system and drones to home in on anyone who wanted to contribute to the discussion. Mele, dredging up memories of high school history, thought the public meetings in ancient places like Greece and China and New York must have been like this, with people having to physically walk to microphones to be heard.
Virtual 3D software and equipment was also either still missing or not yet calibrated, and that stuff still tended to have a lot of bugs in it, meaning that those attending the meeting from other locations had to be content with their presence being marked by a couple of large display screens that presented shifting tiled images. The technology felt a little medieval, but it worked.
Mele, not being tied to a job, had snagged a place not too far from the platform where the council would be seated for the meeting. Her military service having given her plenty of experience in waiting, she dozed lightly while the many other seats in the amphitheater were filled by later arrivals.
As 1400 approached, Mele yawned and came fully awake, listening to the talk around her. People were worried and angry, arguing among themselves about what to do about Scatha’s latest aggression. Or rather, as was usually the case, arguing about what someone else should do about it. Many expressed anger at Squall’s lack of action, but opinion seemed split on whether to blame Squall or the government for that.
Twenty minutes after 1400, the council finally filed out onto the platform to a mix of applause and jeers from the audience. Once that was finally quieted, the council president stepped forward and repeated the same information that Mele had heard presented on the newscast a few hours earlier.
“They’re still landing materials and equipment,” Chisholm finished. “All the signs are that they are establishing their own colony on part of this planet.”
A babble of shouts rang out.
“They can’t do that!”
“They are doing it.”
“What do we do?”
“Call the . . . Notify . . . Who do we tell about this?”
“Why didn’t our ship stop them?” someone bellowed. “Aren’t we paying to keep operating that ship?”
“Let’s hear from our ship!” came from numerous throats.
Chisholm gestured and one of the display screens shifted to show a man who Mele could see was seated aboard some sort of military ship. “This is Acting Lieutenant Robert Geary,” Chisholm said.
Geary looked out across the amphitheater. “I am on the Squall. We are maintaining orbit over the site being occupied by Scatha. We—”
“WHY AREN’T YOU DOING ANYTHING?”
Once the commotion subsided, Geary spoke in a flat voice. “I am following orders from the council. If you have questions regarding those orders, you need to speak to them. I cannot act contrary to what the council orders me to do, and my orders are to watch and not open fire.”
Mele grinned as Geary tossed the problem right back to the council, where it belonged. Most of the council did an impressive job of looking at other council members as if expecting them to handle it.
“Did the council ask for your advice?” “What did you tell them?” other members of the audience demanded.
Robert Geary paused before answering. “The council did ask for my advice. I gave it. I cannot disclose that advice without their permission.”
A rumble of outrage rolled through the amphitheater.
One member of the council finally stood up. “For those who do not know me, I am Council Member Leigh Camagan. Lieutenant Geary told the council that he could not engage the shuttles from Scatha without running a serious risk of causing the death of civilians, including children. The council could not agree to take such action. Do any of you object to that? Scatha wanted us to attack ships and shuttles full of unarmed men, women, and children, so that we would be seen as aggressors. We will need assistance against Scatha. But if we were perceived as having attacked what Scatha would claim to be a peaceful mission, we would not be able to gain the help we need.”
“Help from where?” the question came. “Who else is going to help us?”
> “Earth!” hundreds of shouts responded. “Old Earth!”
“Earth will do nothing!” other shouts came in reply. “We’re on our own!”
Mele saw police moving through the amphitheater, quieting the competing cries so that one person could pose a question to the council. “Who are we going to tell? Who will do anything about this?”
“We have to assume,” Leigh Camagan said, her voice ringing through the amphitheater, “that we are the only ones who will act. We will seek help from neighboring star systems, and, yes, from Old Earth. But there are no guarantees aid will come.”
“We shouldn’t just react without thinking,” another questioner insisted. “We need to do this in a lawful way. We need to give Old Earth a chance to deal with this.”
Council President Chisholm finally spoke again. “It would take at least six months for a message from us to reach Earth and a reply to be received. That’s if we use a fast ship, which we would have to hire, and Old Earth acts immediately, and there is no reason to think it will. Some of you came directly from there. What do you think? Will Old Earth send forces to help us?”
The silence that followed answered the question better than any words could have.
A man on the stage stood up. “I am Council Member Kim. We cannot afford to wait while Scatha continues to expand a settlement on the surface of a planet that belongs in its entirety to Glenlyon!”
“We can’t attack a colony just because it’s not our colony!” another council member protested.
This time the babble of argument erupted among both the council on the stage and the audience in the amphitheater.
The storm of debate was broken off by Lieutenant Geary, his voice booming out of the primitive loudspeakers. “We’re seeing something different coming off the latest shuttles. About four hundred people who are clearly civilians have already landed, along with plenty of civil construction equipment. But these latest shuttle loads are not the same. We’re still analyzing them.”
His image was replaced by relayed orbital video. Mele watched the ranks of men and women exiting the shuttles, saw how they moved and interacted, and knew what they were before Lieutenant Geary said anything else. She also recognized the types of containers they were bringing out. Just as military personnel usually wore uniforms, there was a certain uniformity to the containers they employed as well.
“They’re military,” she called out. “Ground forces, most likely.”
A few heads turned her way, staring at Mele, but most remained fixed on the images from orbit.
“How many are there?” Council President Chisholm asked of nobody in particular.
“It looks like about a hundred,” Lieutenant Geary reported.
“One hundred soldiers mixed in with families!” Council Member Kim said with disgust. “Using their own civilians, their own children, as human shields!”
Council Member Leigh Camagan cut off the babble of talk that followed. “We can now be clear on one point. This is not simply an illegal colonization effort by Scatha. This is an actual invasion.”
“Scatha will claim those soldiers are there for self-defense!” another member of the council protested.
Most people shifted their gaze to the stage and the once-again-arguing members of the council, everyone appearing stunned by what had happened. Mele kept her eyes on the orbital video and saw something she thought she recognized. “Hey, Lieutenant!” she called, hoping he was still listening to the audience as well as the council. “That thing coming out from a shuttle now. That’s a heavy, isn’t it?”
Lieutenant Geary’s response came a moment later. “Yes. The ship’s database identifies it as a major component for an antiorbital particle beam. When they get that set up, they’ll be in a position to threaten any ship orbiting over or near them.”
The sound from the crowd in the amphitheater more resembled a gasp of despair than a cry of anger.
“Is our ship in danger?” Council Member Odom demanded.
“No,” Lieutenant Geary replied. “It will take them a while, at least a few weeks, to get it properly set up and emplaced. It’ll also require their surface power plant to be functioning to provide the energy necessary for it. Once it’s operational, it will only be able to engage targets in certain orbits. But . . . yes, if we kept this ship orbiting over Scatha’s base, it would be endangered by that weapon. So would any other space traffic within the firing arc of that weapon.”
“That means no satellite will be able stay up there,” Leigh Camagan said. “We won’t be able to use orbital surveillance to keep track of what they are doing at their invasion site.”
“We can’t just call it an invasion site,” Council Member Odom complained. “There are families among them. We’ve seen children!”
“Human shields,” Kim repeated. “To keep us from simply bombarding that site out of existence from orbit.”
“You can’t be seriously suggesting that as an option!”
“Exactly what do you think Scatha would do?” Kim demanded. “Lieutenant Geary! That ship you’re on, that we captured from Scatha, has orbital bombardment capability, doesn’t it?”
“No,” Lieutenant Geary replied. “These cutters weren’t designed for that sort of mission.”
Mele saw Council Member Kim pause, frowning, before speaking again. “But the other warships Scatha has? Two destroyers? They have that capability?”
“Yes. Danielle Martel says she heard discussions about using the threat of orbital bombardment to force us to cough up the money that Scatha was demanding if we refused to give in to the threats from the cutter.”
“How much can Martel be trusted?” another council member grumbled. “She was one of them! A mercenary for Scatha!”
“She’s former Earth Fleet,” Lieutenant Geary argued. “Like others of us out here, she came down looking for a new start and was recruited by Scatha, using false assurances and promises. Danielle Martel has been screened, and all indications are that she is being honest and straightforward with us.”
“Screenings are not foolproof,” Council Member Odom objected. “Why didn’t this Martel warn us that Scatha was planning something like this?”
Mele recognized the type of look on Lieutenant Geary’s face and wondered if he would go there.
He did.
“With all due respect, sir,” Lieutenant Geary said, “Danielle Martel did warn us that Scatha would not simply accept our defeat of their first attempt to coerce us. She warned that Scatha would make other attempts, and those warnings were conveyed to the council.”
He had every right to point that out, Mele knew. But she also knew that superiors rarely accepted being reminded that they had failed to listen to timely warnings of looming problems. That lieutenant would probably pay a future price for his candor. But not until the government here didn’t need him anymore.
Council Member Kim broke the resulting silence. “And those warnings were not taken seriously enough!” he cried, earning himself a glare not only from Odom but from several other members of the council. “We should have done something to prepare for this!”
Leigh Camagan interrupted what looked like the beginning of more major public bickering among the members of the council. “What we should have done, what we could have done, no longer matters. What we have to decide is what we should do now. Our options are limited because we lack resources to deal with an invasion. The capture of the Squall, which I will remind the council was the result of Lieutenant Geary’s actions, gives us a limited defensive ability in space but cannot counter the problem we face on the surface of this planet.”
“What about the police?” someone called from the crowd.
“Our police force is twenty officers strong, armed with nonlethal shockers. The entire force would have trouble handling five hundred uncooperative civilians. Sending them against one hundred soldiers
would be suicide.”
“We could ask for volunteers,” Council Member Kim suggested. “Form a militia, get some military weaponry of our own constructed—”
“That’ll take time,” another council member said. “If you’re talking about the latest military-grade weaponry, the designs are complex, and we’d have to get some of the necessary materials by mining since we didn’t stock everything needed for such weapons.”
“What about slug throwers?”
“Those would be easier, but, I understand, not as effective as modern weapons.”
“Weapons and volunteers alone are not enough,” Council President Chisholm said. “We need leadership and training. Lieutenant Geary, if you took on that job, how long do you think it would take to produce the sort of force we would need?”
Lieutenant Geary, looking startled, shook his head. “I couldn’t take on that job. I don’t know how ground forces do things. I could organize a military force, but I wouldn’t know what training they needed, or their tactics, or how to plan their operations. You need someone with ground forces experience. Or a Marine. Who was that who first recognized the soldiers that Scatha landed?”
“Here she is!” the people around Mele called, pointing at her.
Mele stood up, wondering what her big mouth had gotten her into this time. “Yeah. That was me.”
“Do you know anything about ground forces?” Chisholm asked. “Any experience at that sort of thing?”
“Yes,” Mele said. “I’m a former Marine with Franklin’s fleet.”
She heard “Marine” being repeated all around. Those surrounding Mele stared at her as if she were an alien creature who had suddenly appeared among them.
“Who are you?” Council Member Odom demanded.
“I’m a recent arrival here. Mele Darcy.”
“Why did you come to Glenlyon?”
Mele shrugged. “The same reason as most people here, I guess. Looking for a restart.”
“Why did you leave the Marines at Franklin? Did you commit a crime?” Odom pressed her.