The second wave of the attack on Dannelon was now only two days away. The Tantalus defensive shield had been considerably weakened by the first wave. More weapons would get through. The destruction was likely to be devastating. Aliyendah had enlisted the aid of the Outer Planets Organization to help reinforce Tantalus. Some progress had been made but it was too little, too late. Aliyendah had been furious with his advisors at having underestimated Earth’s strength, and at having overestimated the efficacy of Tantalus. Heads had rolled. Military advisors had been executed. These actions further weakened Dannelon’s military posture.
Aliyendah could only hope that his secret weapon would save the day. For many years, Dannelon had been manufacturing and stockpiling antimatter at a secret base on a minor moon of Uranus. An OPO scientist had secretly discovered an efficient manufacturing technique ten years ago. As soon as the technique had been proven, Aliyendah had had the scientist killed to protect the secret. The facility was designated a national security asset and had been kept under the highest seal of security. Five years ago, when tensions had started mounting, Dannelon had started weaponizing the antimatter. These weapons had been the source of Aliyendah’s confidence and had lead directly to his adventurism at the mining habs. Earth had no capability to reciprocate. President Shikh had nuclear weapons, but could not wield them due to strong international sanctions against their use. Shikh had committed pretty much his entire stockpile of conventional weapons capable of reaching Dannelon in the two waves of attacks. At least that was what his advisors had told him. At the time, he still had confidence in what his advisors told him. Were they wrong about this as well?
At the time the first wave from Whitehead had been detected, Aliyendah had launched his counter-attack. He too had launched thousands of delivery vehicles. His delivery vehicles were as smart as Shikh’s had been. They should be. He had bought them from the same place – the weapons factories of Mars. As it stood now, the Martians were the only ones who stood to profit by the conflict. One advantage Aliyendah had was that Earth’s defensive shield was not as advanced as Tantalus. His weapons should be able to inflict proportionately more damage. The second advantage was that his fleet was closer to striking than Shikh’s second wave.
Aliyendah relaxed in the sumptuous quarters of his yacht, orbiting Triton at a lag behind the orbit of Dannelon. The yacht had all the latest stealth mods, making it invisible to the approaching attackers. Even if Dannelon didn’t survive the encounter with the second wave, Aliyendah himself would live to fight another day. Ah, but there was no sense in being morose about the situation. He had yet to see what effect his own fleet would have. Let the chips fall where they may, and he would react accordingly. He had backup plans and escape plans. All lay in readiness. All he had to do was to wait and to observe.
He didn’t have to wait for long. The next day, he was at his tactical console, watching the attack as it progressed. He could have monitored events over his halo, but he preferred the console because it could feed him information at a faster rate. Of course, there was a 4 hour light speed lag between the events on Earth and what he was observing on the console. The events he observed had already occurred. There was nothing he could do about that. The brains of the attack vehicles would make their own decisions. No command he could issue could reach Earth in time to affect the outcome.
He watched as his fleet made contact with the Earth’s defensive shield. The shield was good, but not as good as Tantalus had been. The first wave of attackers was a sacrificial thrust, aimed at destroying as many defenders as possible, and exhausting their weapons. Their success was stunning. General Obius had been right, the Earth’s defenses were weak. Aliyendah almost regretted having had the good General shot. Ah well, he had served his purpose. The fleet broke through the shield with a substantial force remaining. This would be a turkey shoot. He relished the thought of seeing the Earth’s cities incinerated. He reckoned that the remaining force was enough to deal a stunning blow.
His fleet encircled the Earth. The command vehicle had decided upon several attack thrusts on six major cities. There was still a sizeable number of vehicles held in reserve. Aliyendah cursed the robotic attack leader. He wanted an all out attack. He wanted to burn Earth, to burn Shikh. But this brainless chickenshit robot was opting for the easy way out. General Obius had been responsible for programming the attack. He had reached out from his grave and thwarted all of Aliyendah’s carefully laid plans. Aliyendah decided he would have Obius’ wife and children strangled. He was furious. He broke radio silence and hastily issued an order on a tight beam to the attack commander. It was fruitless, he knew, since the commander would not receive the order for another four hours. It was also taking a chance, since the transmission would render his craft visible for the split second it took to transmit. It was a chance worth taking, Aliyendah surmised. There was a very small probability that anyone would intercept the transmission, much less be able to triangulate back to his position.
This was the first of Aliyendah’s mistakes. As it turned out, there were craft in the vicinity, equal in stealth to the president’s yacht. These craft did indeed intercept his transmission. They were able to obtain a bearing to the yacht. While not able to determine his position exactly, there were able to infer his position by guessing his orbital track. A couple of these craft were dispatched to deal with the contact. They would require several hours to reach the position of the yacht.
The second of Aliyendah’s mistakes was in trusting General Obius at all. Obius, while he was still among the living, had guessed some of Aliyendah’s plans. The general had therefore arranged that the attack force not respond to Aliyendah’s command codes. They would respond only to the orders of the General himself, and only he knew the command codes. Now that the General had been dispatched, the robots were on their own. They had only the orders which Obius had issued when he was alive. The robots could respond within a fairly broad tactical range, but their strategic response was fixed. That strategy was a conservative one. The attack would use a relatively small force to take out only a few cities, leaving the bulk of the force in reserve.
Aliyendah was aware of
none of
this, except the general outline of the attack strategy.
He watched as the attack forces rained down
destruction on six of Earth’s cities, including the Earth Federation
capitol in
Aliyendah went to bed. He set his alarm to wake him up in four hours. It was a good day. Tomorrow would be a great day, when the second wave from Earth arrived at Dannelon, and his orders arrived at his fleet. Earth would be neutralized. Tantalus would not hold, and Dannelon would be destroyed, but he himself would survive. A shame. If only Tantalus had lived up to his advisors’ expectations. He had his hideout ready, at the secret lab orbiting Uranus. He would pick up the pieces and rebuild his empire in the Outer Planets Organization. With Earth out of the way, there would be no-one to stop him. Mars was good at building weapons, but not militarily sophisticated. The habitats were fiercely independent, and united action against him was out of the question. Not the outcome he had wanted, but second best. His good fortune came of good planning, of devising contingency plans, of not taking anyone’s word about situations beyond the ken of human understanding, such as the effectiveness of Tantalus. The destruction of Dannelon was the price he paid for the elimination of Earth as an adversary. A good deal at the price. This was his ultimate advantage. Dannelon could be destroyed, but his true power base, the Outer Planets Organization, was dispersed among three planets and it would survive. Earth, on the other hand, had all its power concentrated, and his strike would take it out in one blow. Yes, tomorrow would be a great day. He took a four hour sleeping pill and drifted off into dreamless sleep.
Two hours after he woke up, he came to realize that his orders had gone unheeded. The situation remained the same. Six cities destroyed, and the remainder of his force staying in orbit. This was not the killing blow he had envisioned. It was a disaster for him. Earth remained a viable opponent. In two hours, the second wave would destroy Dannelon. His carefully laid plans were falling apart. He got ready to activate his escape plan. He would be able to escape with his own hide intact, but his dreams of being King of the Solar System were all but gone.
An aide burst into his quarters without knocking. “Sire, I think there is something you should know.”
“Go and write yourself in for six demerits, Dimitri, and reassign yourself to the galley”, Aliyendah burst out. “You will remain there until you learn how to comport yourself in my presence.”
“But Sire, there is news from Earth. Good news. See for yourself”, he said, pointing to the console.
“This had better be good news. I had better be ecstatic”, Aliyendah replied irritably as he turned the console to the news feed. He had to read the tag line twice to make sure he had it right. The Earth Federation had voted to censure Shikh for his participation in this war. Shikh had been shorn of most of his powers, with a Federation committee to take his place. Aliyendah could not believe his good fortune. Perhaps he could save something for himself yet.
“There is also a communication for you from Earth”, said the hapless aide. “It is perhaps more good news.”
Aliyendah closed the newsfeed and opened his In-Box. He scrolled to the memo from the Earth Federation and decrypted it using his private key. He read silently.
To the Honorable Rumar Aliyendah,
President of the
From The Emergency Committee of the Earth Federation
23.02.2107.07:22Z
Rumar,
It appears that we have reached an impasse. Our weapons are poised to strike Dannelon, and your weapons are threatening further destruction on Earth. The Emergency Committee has removed the traitor Shikh from power, and the Committee now acts with the full authority of the Earth Federation. There has been enough carnage. Dannelon suffered a horrendous blow, as has Earth. There is no need for further bloodshed.
The Committee therefore proposes a cease-fire. Our weapons will arrive at Dannelon at 23.02.2107.12:35Z but will not attack. We propose that you likewise command your weapons not to attack. We have programmed our weapons, as I’m sure you have as well, to guard posture as long as we maintain contact with them. If they do not receive communications from Earth, they are programmed to attack for maximum destruction. It appears that you have done the same with your weapons.
We are thus at a stalemate. No gain can be made by any parties from further aggravation of the situation. The Committee feels that the best course of action from this point forward is diplomacy. We understand that you have Anne Wilder in your custody, and we authorize her to act on the behalf of the Committee. Please provide her with secure communications to us as a gesture of goodwill.
We await your earliest reply,
General Aurelio Amstad
Chairman
The Emergency Committee of the Earth Federation
Aliyendah sighed with relief. His mind was reeling with possibilities, with plans, with schemes. As in any great endeavor, things had not gone according to plan. But it was not a complete disaster after all. He could stand to gain quite a bit. He turned to the aide.
“You will draft an immediate acceptance. Make it short and sweet. We accept the proposal for a cease fire, and will presently communicate our demands. No, strike “demands”, make it “proposals”. Bring me that whore, Wilder.”
The aide, looking relieved, turned and left. Aliyendah sat back to think. He had not programmed his weapons with a dead-man switch, but it really was immaterial. As long as the Committee thought he had, that was all that mattered. General Obius had apparently been more forward thinking than he had given him credit for. Aliyendah started composing in his mind a list of demands that Wilder would forward to Earth. He filed this list using his halo and sorted it in order of importance. The first level of categorization would be those demands he had to have, and those he could use as bargaining chips.
The door chime sounded. Aliyendah ignored it at first, thinking that they were bringing Wilder and wanting to keep her waiting. But the door opened without his acknowledgement, and his aide stood in the doorway with a look of fear on his face.
“Are you suicidal, Dimitri? Did I acknowledge your request for entry? Where the hell is Wilder?”
“I beg your pardon, Sire, but a new situation has arisen. There are troopships nearby, and they have demanded our surrender. I’m not sure how they found us…”
Aliyendah knew how they had found him. His order to the attack force had been intercepted. Somehow, they had managed to triangulate his position. This new situation muddled things considerably. If they took him into custody, he would lose his bargaining position. His weapons would remain quiescent, and Earth would soon realize that he had no control over them. Earth could unleash their weapons without fear of reprisal. Aliyendah thought desperately over how to overcome this latest development.
“Have you sent the reply yet?”
“No Sire, it is in your in-box awaiting your signature.”
“Good. We will draft a new reply. Now listen carefully, you must get this exactly right…”