The Unincorporated Future Read Online Free PDF Page A

more fleet intelligence, which he quickly passed on to his subordinate.
    “Three fleets?” she asked, confusion evident in her voice. Zenobia was referring to the fact that UHF observatories and satellites had detected two more fleets of roughly three hundred ships leaving Jupiter’s orbit an hour apart from one another and going significantly slower than the first. Fleet intelligence had directions for the unidentified blobs as well. The first appeared to be going to Saturn while the other two were going directly to Ceres and Mars respectively.
    “What on Earth are they up to?” asked Zenobia.
    “Three-card monte.”
    Zenobia looked at Trang vacantly.
    “The object is to find the one truth among three potential falsehoods. You put a small pea, a seed about the size of an intermarked ball bearing, in one of three half walnut shells. A walnut is a—”
    “Admiral, for the love of Damsah, I know what a walnut shell and a pea look like.”
    “You never know with the current generation,” he chided gently. “Very well, you hide the pea under one of three shells and move the shells rapidly. When the shells stop moving, you have to guess where the pea is really hiding.”
    “Until we get a clear vid of those fleets, we won’t know where the threat is.”
    “I’m afraid, Zenobia, that even if we get three-dimensional images of a field of ice, we cannot fully trust them. The same goes for vids of a fleet of angry Alliance warships. How could we really tell which is fake and which is real? The Alliance has fooled us before.”
    “Easy sir,” Zenobia said brightly, “it will be the one that is blowing the crap out of something.”
    Trang laughed at that simple answer. “Yes, it will be the one blowing the crap out of something. I think we need a screen of light frigates around Ceres. If a gnat farts within ten million clicks of this place, I want to know about it.”
     
New Executive Headquarters (NEHQ)
Ceres
Hour 19
     
    The Cabinet members were all in a black mood as the news was being delivered.
    “We have a day and a half, maybe two at most, until the orbats are gone,” said Sinclair.
    Kirk was looking a little more jumpy and a little less confident. “Has anyone made plans to evacuate the government?”
    “Unless your plans call for being destroyed or captured.”
    Kirk looked at Sinclair inquisitively.
    “Trang has an effective screen out to ten million clicks,” finished Sinclair.
    “Kenji informs me that he has … an idea,” said Sandra.
    “He always has an idea, Madam President,” said Mosh. “Question is, is it one we can use?”
    Kenji stood up from the guest area as half the Cabinet turned their heads to listen.
    “Uh,” he began rather inauspiciously, “it occurred to me that—that there may be a way to weaponize the Via Cereana to our advantage.” He called up a host of technical details, which floated above the conference table completely ignored by the Cabinet members.
    “It won’t be simple, but Hildegard and I think it can be done.”
    “What can be done, Kenji?” asked Sandra.
    “What you suggested, Madam President,” he answered, completely forgetting that Sandra had not wanted to be associated with the idea. “The old Via Cereana weapons system was designed to fire one way and to use huge projectiles. But if we can alter the programming, we’ll be able to fire out of both ends of the Via. We’ll of course need to—”
    “Do it,” said Kirk Olmstead and Joshua Sinclair in one voice.
    Kenji looked a little uncertain until Hildegard and Sandra both nodded. Then his look changed to one of avarice as he realized that he’d just become the most powerful man in Ceres, at least until he succeeded or they all died. Without another word, he left the Cabinet room, practically at a run.
    “Fellow secretaries,” said Mosh, “as much as I’d like to believe that J.D. will arrive in the nick of time to save us or that Kenji’s genius will once more allow him to jury-rig