MMEF was sent to Mars expressly to counter such a move on the UN’s part.”
“It seems they didn’t do the job they were sent to do, then,” the DCI suggested.
“It looks that way, sir. But I’d rather wait and hear what Major Garroway has to say about it. The Marines were probably not on full alert, and they were operating in a situation where their precise responsibilities and operational parameters were not clear. They were there in the hope that their mere presence would discourage any hostile activity by the UN military forces stationed there. And there is always the danger of mischance in war. You can’t prepare for every—”
“I repeat,” Matloff interrupted, “we are not at war! My people are negotiating with the UN right this moment at Geneva, trying to prevent this kind of mass insanity!”
“What have we heard officially from Mars?” Harrel wanted to know. “Last I heard there was some sort of communications problem.”
“Since Sunday morning,” Kinsley said, “there’s been nothing from either Mars Prime or Cydonia Prime but a COMMUNICATIONS DIFFICULTIES, PLEASE STAND BY message. This sort of thing happens sometimes, nothing unusual about it, but it does tend to corroborate Garroway’s message. If UN forces took over our facilities on Mars, they might drop a commo blackout for a time, while they get things organized. Maybe they’re preparing some sort of cover story.”
“Or preparing a parallel operation of some sort here on Earth,” Severin suggested.
“But why?” Matloff said. “Why would the United Nations want to do such a thing? Their people are on Mars purely as observers—”
“Including those fifty Foreign Legion troops?” Severin said, interrupting the SECSTATE. “It sounds to me like they’ve started doing a damned sight more than observing.”
“I must insist,” Matloff said, a bit stiffly, “that the peace process here be allowed to continue, that it be given a chance. We have the opportunity here to guarantee a lasting peace with the rest of the world!”
“For a moment there, John,” Harrel said, “I thought you were going to tell us that we were guaranteeing peace in our time.”
“I do not find that funny,” Matloff replied. “Perhaps you are not aware of just how serious our position is, vis-à-vis the United Nations. Their trade embargo against us has all but crippled our economy. Our only allies are Russia and Great Britain, and both of them are even worse off economically just now than we are. We are a nation of some five hundred million people, gentlemen, against a world of nearly eight billion. We cannot play games here. If we are to preserve any shred of our sovereignty as an independent nation, we must cooperate completely. We must work and we must compromise in order to establish a firm basis of mutual trust with the other nations of the world. If we fail, if we allow ourselves to be goaded into an ill-considered war, we cannot hope to survive.”
“I thought you said that there was no proof the United Nations was acting in a hostile manner,” Severin said.
“They have acted in a completely reasonable fashion so far. If these rogue Marines on Mars drag us into a war, however, I don’t see how we can hope to survive as a nation. Do you all remember what happened to Brazil?”
Brazil had been the first of the world’s nations to feel the full brunt of the United Nations after the new UN charter had been adopted. Accused of continuing to cut down vast tracts of fast-dwindling rain forest in direct violation of several world treaties, Brazil had been invaded by UN forces in September of 2026. The rain forest, what was left of it, had been declared a “special world protectorate” and was now administered by a UN bureau operating out of Brasilia, in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Rio.
The US had formally severed its long-unraveling ties with the UN in 2020 and was not involved in the takeover. Polls taken at the time had suggested that a large majority of Americans had disapproved of and mistrusted the UN’s high-handed—some said dictatorial—approach to curbing various global problems. Many though, in particular the Internationalists, were more concerned with the fact that something had to be done about global warming and the biosphere die-off, even if that something violated national sovereignty.
“The president is concerned,” Harrel said quietly, “with the demands the UN is making of us. Geneva has ordered us to hold a plebiscite within our Southwestern states on the Aztlan question, a plebiscite which, if held, might well result in the loss of a major portion of the American Southwest. They have threatened us over our space stations in orbit and our bases on Mars. They’ve threatened us over the whole question of technology gleaned from the Mars excavations. The president compromised on that one to the extent of allowing UN observers to travel to Mars. Their ‘observers’ turned out to be a few legitimate scientists and fifty armed men, a deliberate challenge to our control of the Martian excavations and our own facilities on the planet.
“Now, how long are we supposed to keep giving in and compromising and backpedaling before we find ourselves with our proverbial backs against the proverbial wall? I can tell you right now, Mr. Secretary, that the president is not going to yield on the Aztlan thing. He has already promised to share any alien technology that we find on Mars, and I can’t see what further concessions he could make there, either. And if it’s true that those UN thugs have just moved in and taken over our bases on Mars, lock, stock, and barrel, well, I can’t see any room there for compromise either, can you?”
“Well then, perhaps it’s time we started looking a little harder for compromise,” Matloff said, “for some means of surmounting the difficulties that have separated us from the member states of the United Nations for so long. We need a unified world, gentlemen, for the survival of mankind, and I, for one, will not stand still for loose-cannon opportunists who are risking everything we have built!”
“Mr. Secretary, there’s really very little we can do about Major Garroway at the moment,” Admiral Gray pointed out. “He’s something like a hundred million miles away, right now, and we don’t even have a secure communications link with the man.”
“I think we should concentrate our efforts on what we should be doing on this end,” Severin said. “Garroway’s actions could significantly impact the situation here.”
Warhurst looked sharply at Severin. The SECDEF might be the next step up the ladder from the Joint Chiefs, but he was not himself a military man. He was a civilian, a politician who’d started off with one of the big defense contractors, a man whose lobbying efforts and financial contributions had been rewarded by a succession of cabinet posts. It was, Warhurst mused, the way Washington worked, but it left him uneasy to think that the lives of people, his people, depended on decisions made by men who cared more about covering their asses than they did about the lives of men and women farther down the chain of command.
“General?” Harrel said, turning to him. “Just what are the chances of Garroway and his people getting our facilities on Mars back?”
Warhurst spread his hands. “I wish I could answer that, sir, but I can’t. The message seems to indicate that Colonel Lloyd is wounded or otherwise incapacitated, and we can’t know how many more Marines might have been killed or wounded at this point. We don’t know Garroway’s logistical situation—food, water, ammo…though chances are they have either no weapons at all or damned few. And, more to the point, perhaps, we don’t know what he’s up against. If the UN troops are split between Cydonia and Candor, he might, might have a chance of taking down one group before the other is alerted, but it seems like a damned slender chance to me. His best shot may be to grab something the UN needs at Candor and hold it hostage.”
“What?”
