The military is still rebuilding. You need boots on the ground. Now.” He sat down at the table, resting his head in his hands. “Perhaps we should revisit the draft.”
Alexander stared coldly. “This is a nightmare, Jerry. Let’s not make it worse.”
“All wars go to ground eventually, Alec. I’m just being pragmatic. It won’t be popular…”
“That’s an understatement,” Arthur said. “It’s political suicide. We’d all be out of the job at the next election, and that’s assuming one of the Pillars doesn’t try to impeach.”
The chief of staff tapped his lower lip, his eyes locked on the various monitors. “We need something to show the public. A new project that can demonstrate a decisive step toward combating these new threats.”
“We don’t even know what these new threats are,” Alexander said.
“Nonetheless, we need something.” Jerry pushed the CROWN file closer to the high chancellor. He locked eyes with his old friend. “It doesn’t have to fix the problem, just buy us time to find a better solution.”
Alexander put his head in his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to look up. “Fine.”
Arthur’s phone rang and he stepped out of the room. He could be heard in the hall shouting for a moment. Before anyone could speak, he popped his head back in. “Sir, New Eden has one hundred thousand soldiers stationed on the surrounding moons that can be deployable in the next forty-eight hours. The Black Adders have a battalion that’s just finishing their deployment to Kronos.”
The high chancellor blinked to clear his eyes. He felt the room still spinning. Burton had been raised to believe in the system—that doing the right thing would lead to the right end. He sneered at the thought. That ideology hadn’t prevented his father’s murder. He downed the rest of his drink.
“Tell them to activate every unit in the system. When those soldiers are finished training, I want them ready to deploy.”
Arthur frowned. “Shouldn’t we pull them all in now, sir? Why the delay?”
“Because they’re green,” Jerry said. “Most of them haven’t seen a day of real combat. Pulling them out of training now will only shake them up more. Better to let them finish.”
Alexander nodded. “Jerry, get me another drink. I have a feeling it’ll come in handy.” He looked around for his chief of staff, but Jerry was already gone.
Hilton Hotel, Vienna
Earth
Markov read over his proposal for the umpteenth time. He’d worded it perfectly, using layman’s terms so that it would be understood. How had they not seen what he was building? This wasn’t just about winning some silly fight with rebels. This was about the next fight. This was about the very future of humanity.
How shortsighted these politicians can be.
He sipped from his glass of ice water. The liquid tasted grainy; expected, given the amount of additives he’d thrown in. Markov couldn’t stand clear water. It felt wasteful. He hoped to one day cure the need for water altogether, but he hadn’t found the time to devote to that side project.
CROWN. It always came back to that one failed experiment. Successes are quickly forgotten, but one public failure will follow you for the rest of your life.
His phone rang, and he planned to ignore it. But on the second ring there he was, standing next to the half desk with the small, clear rectangle in his hand. The image on screen was just a silhouette, so the call was from a secure line. That piqued Markov’s curiosity.
“Hello?”
“Dr. Ivanovich.”
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