REPUBLIC SENATE COMPLEX, LUNA
POV: Amelia Waters, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Admiral)
Amelia looked up at the Senate committee dais as she began to read her briefing statement from her tablet.
“This May has been the most successful month in Red Zone counter-terrorism operations in decades. For the first time ever, Assault Carrier Squadron 1 has successfully captured the Ace of Hearts and the Ace of Diamonds, as well as six Face-level operatives. We have also taken out the Ace of Spades, at least seven Face-level operatives, and dozens of Resistance members responsible for planning and carrying out the Tharsis movie theater attack. We have crippled Resistance operations, gained unprecedented insight into their internal organization from recruitment to funding, and we are shutting them down. In the process, we have taken two Terran Marine WIAs, both who have returned to duty. We are on track to complete all the objectives of the anti-Resistance operation by the end of next month, and I recommend we begin drawing down forces in the Red Zone in preparation for extrasolar priorities. That is my report. Now I’ll take any questions you may have.”
Senator Blake Wald looked down at her. “That’s a uh— remarkably short report, Admiral, for what seemed like a busy month. But it’s good to hear. Give my compliments to your people for a job well done.”
Amelia tilted her head. “Thank you, Senator. I’ll let them know.”
“Mister Chairman—”
Blake looked to the speaker on his side, keeping as much annoyance out of his voice as possible. “Yes, Senator Eisson, you may question the admiral. Let’s try to keep this within the time limit this time.”
Senator Seimur Eisson looked down at Amelia expressionlessly. “Hello, Admiral Waters. It’s good to see you here again—”
“Likewise,” Amelia cut him off with a thin smile.
“Yes… good to see you out there taking the Resistance threat to the Republic seriously,” he continued. “I just have a few questions for you since your report was light on details. First, I have heard reports, from other high-level officers in the Navy, that the Ace of Clubs has been the real target the Navy should have been going after all along, and that’s the most dangerous part of the SRN, with their Ghost Fleet and all. And they say that’s going to be the most difficult part of the operation. How does that square up with your assessment?”
Amelia shook her head. “I disagree. Their so-called Ghost Fleet is likely collecting rust somewhere on Titan, and we’ve completed boarding and inspection operations on over 99% of all ships in the Red Zone. If we ever see the Ace of Clubs or her fleet try to take off and do anything, we can blow them out of orbit any time. In fact, if she were here, I would encourage her to take off right now so we can take a free shot at her. Nonetheless, against my recommendations, I believe Assault Carrier Squadron 2 has been turning over every rock they could in the Red Zone looking for her anyway.”
“So what you’re saying is… your squadron is refusing to cooperate with Admiral Reis on his objective?”
“Not at all. That’s not how the Navy operates. After observing the success of our integrated Marine units last month, we have participated in several joint operations with Squadron 2, including raids on several munition and unregistered fuel depots.”
“Yes, yes,” the Senator said dismissively. “I’ve seen your numbers on the so-called integrated Marine units. Your Terran casualties may be low, but I’ve also noticed that your alien Marine casualties match or even exceed the casualty rates from our last few historical operations in the Red Zone. So it’s nothing I would be bragging about here in front of the committee.”
Amelia gritted her teeth.
Like you care about them.
He continued, “In fact, there have been multiple reports of discipline issues among the alien troops. There appear to be credible fears of a breakdown in discipline in your units—”
She cut him off, “Would you like us to stop using them?”
“Excuse me?”
“I asked: would you like us to stop using the Malgeir Marines for our most dangerous missions?” Amelia repeated. “We could go back to using Republic Marines, but you’ll be the one having to explain to your voters why their children have to be deployed—”
“That was not what I was suggesting,” the Senator said carefully. “I am just observing that these alien units may have their drawbacks, Admiral.”
“Well, whatever your reports are saying, I can assure you that my Malgeir Marines are highly effective in their missions due to their high level of adaptation during re-training, as well as some unexpectedly handy capabilities they bring to our forces,” Amelia countered. “And I’ll note for the record that the Malgeir leadership have been much more amenable to our requests for assistance so far than we have of their requests—”
“There is no need to push our political agendas about the alien war here, Admiral,” Senator Eisson shook his head. “Now—”
“Please, Senator. I’m hearing very worrying things from the Malgeir side,” Amelia said, almost pleading. “Unexplained absences of ship formations, radio traffic intercepts… They are on the brink of something big.”
“Something big? I think I’ve heard that before. Care to be more specific?”
“We have no concrete evidence,” Amelia admitted. “Because we have very few assets keeping an eye on their movement right now. That should be concerning by itself. But the disaster at Sconcans—”
“—your disaster—”
“Whatever you want to call it, Senator. I’m concerned the Znosians have learned of some of our capabilities in the capture of the Cliunc and may deploy more unexpected countermeasures when they launch their next offensive against the Pup— Malgeir Federation.”
“You may be concerned about that, Admiral…” Senator Eisson said, “when the anti-Resistance operation is complete. And then we can have a re-assessment of your war with the Znosians. Of course, the… considerable contributions of your aliens to our Red Zone operation will be… fully taken into account when determining the future level of our assistance to them. I’ll even admit I may have originally… underestimated their ability. Perhaps. Slightly. But right now, we can’t divert our attention from the Red Zone, especially since — as you claim — we are so close to total victory.”
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TRNS CRETE, SATURN (0.8 LS)
POV: Carla Bauernschmidt, Terran Republic Navy (Rank: Captain)
“But I thought you said we didn’t need to worry about the Ace of Clubs,” Carla said, almost whining. “These munition depot raids with Squadron 2 are hazardous. We’re losing more and more Pupper Marines every day, including getting a few taken prisoner in the ones on Titan — up to a dozen now, I think. Somehow, our casualty rates are increasing as the campaign continues, and that’s never happened in the Red Zone before.”
“You’re right: we shouldn’t have to worry about the Ace of Clubs and their pitiful ships. We’ve cut their logistics. The smart thing to do here is to just wait for them to run out of supplies and their operations, the actual Navy part of the Resistance Navy, will just rust away. But the people on Luna with the expensive haircuts want to see results. They want guarantees. They want to see terrorists in handcuffs and body bags. They want to see their ships captured or blown up. And they want it all now.”
“So… we just throw Puppers at their lower-level targets until we find something? Throw darts at a map until we hit something? Hope we get lucky? I heard we shot past two thousand Malgeir KIA total last night. Squadron 2 has them stepping up the raids all over—”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A frustrated Amelia looked into the screen at Carla. “Look… we’ve just got to try our best. How are your people taking it?”
“From what I hear, morale in the Marine units is still quite high,” Carla admitted. “But that’s just because they’re taking fewer casualties with us than when they were doing their own missions against the Buns—”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “Of course they were. But no matter how their former idiot commanders used them, we will not be considering them disposable meat to be thrown at a grinder, not on my watch.”
Carla nodded in agreement. “Do you have any more intel to get us closer to the Ace of Clubs?”
Amelia shook her head. “The SRN is fundamentally two separate levels: support and operations. The recruitment and funding people know squat about the armed operations. They just take the money and fresh blood, and they funnel them into the armed cells.”
“We can’t just… I don’t know… follow the credits?”
“We can and have been, but to limited success. These people are hide-and-seek professionals. This is what they do. It doesn’t help that the Ace of Diamonds isn’t cooperating with the bean counters. We’re still trying to shop around for a local court that’ll allow us to neurally interrogate her, but no luck with the lawyers so far. Looks like the courts were serious about not setting a precedent. I’m trying my best on my end, but we really need to wrap this operation up. And the extrasolar situation is— it’s happening, Carla. We’re watching the ocean recede in real time… right before a tsunami. I can feel it. I can feel it in my guts.”
“I get it, Amelia. I get it. What about extraordinary measures? These militant depot raids— what about non-lethal combat robots? Can we get them unbanned for specific circumstances?”
Amelia shook her head. “If we’d tried that at the beginning, we might have time. But by the time we get them approved by the lawyers and the courts, the campaign would be over anyway.”
Carla looked thoughtful for a second. “There was a suggestion by one of my bridge officers the other day, one of the Puppers—”
“Which one?”
“Uintrei.”
Amelia nodded. “Oh, I remember that one. She does the social media videos right? Seemed bright when I talked to her. What did she say?”
“It wasn’t so much a suggestion as it was a question. She asked, why don’t we just pay these terrorists off? Granted, that’s a very Malgeir way of thinking about this all—”
“We already tried. We’ve got those bounties for surrendering. And then there’s the ones for information, right?” Amelia looked thoughtful for a moment. “Hm… maybe it’s worth re-emphasizing now in our psy-op campaign. Their people aren’t getting paid now. Maybe some of them will start to see the writing on the wall.”
“No harm in trying, is there?”
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SELENE STATION, SATURN (0.5 LS)
POV: Richaud Laurent, Terran (Civilian)
Liliane looked up from her tablet at her husband, Richaud, in dismay. “The Resistance missed another payment, dear.”
“What? We can’t be dealing with that right now! We’ve got bills to pay! The pressurized storage unit they’re using — every week they don’t pay us, we’re bleeding thousands of credits!” Richaud looked at her in panic.
Liliane wrapped her arms around his waist. “Calm down, calm down. We can get through this. I’m sure they’re just having trouble getting the credits out to us. The Reps are locking everything down tight now. And they need the liquidity for now. But once our fighters take out enough of them, the Reps will have to go home — they’ll get the payments out to everyone next week, I’m sure.”
Richaud shushed her lightly. “Shhhh… honey, keep your voice down. I hear the Reps are listening to all of us through walls now.”
“But if they knew what we were doing, they would have come visit us months ago.”
“Did you see that raid video with the alien wolf Marines? The monsters just tore into that guy and started eating his guts—”
Liliane poked her husband in the ribs playfully. “You have to stop watching those fake videos your cousin shares on his account. Everyone knows that the so-called aliens are a Rep fabrication.”
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Richaud ran back to the residential unit in a panic. “Liliane, Liliane! I just got a call from the bank!”
Liliane waited for him to catch his breath. She handed him a cup of ice water, which he gratefully took and sipped from. “What did they say?”
“The bank says their computers calculate we are heading for insolvency rapidly, and unless we can file a business improvement plan with them by next month, they’re going to start increasing our interest!”
Liliane wrinkled her nose distastefully. “It’s that time of the year again? We just tell them we’ll raise the weekly rates on our storage units by a few credits, and they’ll get off our backs again.”
“That’s what I said! But them, the guy politely asked me why we aren’t renting out our largest unit when— when market demand for that class of units is sky high. I think they know…”
“You’re being paranoid, Richaud. If they knew, it’d be one of the jackboots knocking on our doors, not the bank,” Liliane assured him patiently.
“Everyone knows that the banks are controlled by the Reps, honey. They’ve got their ultra-Terran intelligence programs looking for patterns and evidence in all our accounts!”
Liliane rolled her eyes. “Oh, what did I tell you about those videos, Richaud?”
“It’s true! There’s one of them former Bank of Titan managers! He says he met a contractor that put special rooms in the back of the banks: that’s where they hide the servers and they’ve got these alien brains in vats that do the math. I’ll send you the link…”
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When Richaud returned home, Liliane was crying on the edge of the bed.
He hung up his suit and shuffled quietly next to her awkwardly. When she didn’t react, he slowly put his arms around her. “Honey, what’s going on?”
“They got Quentin. The Reps— they got to him,” she got out between sobs.
“Your ex-boyfriend?” Richaud asked, trying to sound at least somewhat sympathetic. “I mean, that’s outrageous! They can’t just go around killing random people for contraband smuggling!”
“No! You doofus!” Liliane pushed him away lightly. “He— he— he collaborated. Gave up his contacts to the Reps. They’ve got jackboots outside his residential unit now, guarding him from retribution.”
“That’s horrible!” he said, thinking hard how best to redeem himself for his wife. “How could he?! I hope the Resistance gets to him… to teach him a lesson — a small lesson — just to teach him some shame!”
That was apparently the right thing to say, or at least not the totally wrong thing. She let him wrap his arms around her again and laid her cheek on his shoulder.
Liliane sniffed. “How much do you think they paid him for it?”
It was a trap and he knew it. “I don’t know, honey. What do you think?”
She thought for a bit. “Must be a lot. Quentin would never give up his friends for pocket change.”
Richaud nodded in agreement. “Must have been a lot.”
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Liliane looked up at Richaud from the kitchen table from between her palms. “I can’t reach our contact. I even used the emergency number we’re not supposed to use normally.”
“You called the number?!” he gasped. “But what if they got to them and trace—”
“I took precautions. Used one of those encrypted rerouting services online,” she assured him.
They were both silent for a few minutes.
“What if— what if they did get caught?” Liliane asked when she got the courage. “And the credits aren’t coming anymore. We can’t just keep their stuff in there, wasting valuable pressurized storage space.”
Richaud thought for a few moments. “Maybe we can dump their unit. I’ll rent a powered exosuit, take their stuff to the airlock tonight—”
“Don’t be silly,” she chided him, shaking her head. “The station exterior sensors will see, and they’ve got loads of cameras at the airlock now. And they’ll match you to the exosuit rental!”
“What if we anonymously report a break in? And when they question us, we just tell them someone else put the stuff there. It’s not ours!”
Liliane shook her head again. “They’ll never believe us. And once they take a deeper look at our finances…”
“Then what do we do? I don’t want to get eaten by alien Marines!”
She shot him an exasperated look, sighing, “What if we call the Rep hotline? They say there’s a reward in it for us if we give up and— and—”
“And collaborate?!” he asked. “Like Quentin— I mean… like the people down at Juno Terminal?”
“It’s not collaborating,” she corrected him. “It’s— it’s surrendering. There’s a difference. See? We’re not doing it for the reward. We just don’t want to be part of the stupid war anymore. But we’ll take their credits… as— as compensation.”
“What if someone from the Resistance gets to us?”
She shook her head. “They’re all going into hiding now. They must have bigger fish to fry than one of their small storage units.”
“Okay, honey. I know you’ll do what’s best for us.”
“I’ll call the hotline tonight…”
Richaud rubbed her shoulders for a few minutes as she relaxed now that the big decision had been made. He frowned suddenly, “What do you think the Resistance put in our storage unit anyway?”
She shrugged her shoulders, leaning comfortably into his chest. “Who knows? I never asked. Not supposed to.”
“I think it’s vats of combat drugs. Some of the Resistance operatives, they take these serums which give them precognition pills that lets them see into the future and— okay, okay, I’ll stop.”
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META
The remaining few undiscovered members of the Resistance cell they were working for were surveilled and raided a week later.
No one was killed, but an operative whose arm was crushed by power armor in the raid later successfully sued the Republic for the cost of her new advanced prosthetics, and the all-Saturnian jury awarded her an additional sixty million credits for emotional distress. On appeal, they settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
With their surrender/bounty money — which turned out to be less than they initially thought — Liliane and Richaud Laurent expanded their warehousing business and retired early to a suburban homestead on Mars. The couple decided not to have biological children, instead adopting two Malgeir orphans of war.
They were mostly left alone, except for an incident in which Richaud was informally questioned by Republic Revenue Service agents for allegations around an ice cream machine syrup smuggling ring, later discovered to be based out of the Malgeir Embassy on Luna. Subsequently, the incident was covered up and all alleged participants were released without official charges.