Chapter 6:

2138 – Six Months After The 'Short War'

"So, what are the revised estimates?" President Owen Malcolms asked, familiarity having long bled away anything except the last lingering remnants of the constant horror that was his everyday existence since assuming the office after the death of Johannes Lombard, his predecessor.

"We're looking at bringing the eastern seaboard back to-" His Secretary of Energy, Howard Debuair paused, looking back at one of the displays. "-sixty percent electrification over the course of the next year. Mostly what remains of the DC-New York Megalopolis' power grid hooked into what's left of the Atlanta-Piedmont grid, but a few places in Florida will be coming back online independently."

The President sighed, something he'd been doing a great deal lately. "I've been hearing that we're switching back over to fossil fuels for a lot of things. There's no hope of getting the fusion plants back up and running?"

Howard shook his head. "Unfortunately not, sir. A large amount of the specialist knowledge and know-how is just difficult, if not impossible, to source. We're salvaging solar panels from contaminated cities, but they're just not enough. While most of the mines in Appalachia are played out, there's still a few that were closed or never properly exploited after renewables properly came online."

Owen nodded despondently. "I suppose it beats more people freezing to death in a nuclear winter, even if the cold hasn't been as bad as it could be." He turned to his Secretary of Agriculture, Angela Shield. "Speaking of the cold, how are our crops looking?"

Angela shook her head. "Keeping in mind that communication is still spotty at best in some regions, we've had... quite a lot of setbacks. Even taking into account the neo-agrarian movement of the past decades, the skill base just doesn't exist to return to more primitive types of farming that can be performed without modern infrastructure. We've tried to get as many people subsistence farming as possible, but..."

Connor Sheldon cleared her throat, drawing the President's attention to his Secretary of Defense. Kelly Sheldon, the older man's sister, sat beside him to serve as Homeland Security head in a feat of nepotism that would have had virtually every media outlet screaming for Owen's head in better times. Pragmatically, she was the best he could get at the moment given the untimely demise of her predecessor and a full half of his original cabinet members.

"The food riots are going to continue and people are going to keep starving," Connor stated bluntly, looking deeply unhappy at his admission for whatever it mattered. "We've got the national guard in surviving population centers like Pittsburg, Charlotte, El Paso, Vicksburg, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Kansas City supervising distribution of rations, but we're seeing armed raids on what's left of stockpiles of anything edible."

His sister nodded. "It's going to get worse before it gets better. Most of the agencies we could call up to deal with these problems have suffered mass desertions to look for family members or are down to skeleton crews given their larger offices were in major cities."

Owens sighed again, placing the report he'd been reading into a stack with others of its kind before looking at the newest cabinet position. Department of Stellar Infrastructure, headed by Valentino Mercator, a young man who'd been the senior administrative assistant to the now-deceased former head of NASA and had the mixed luck of surviving his superiors and coworkers by being tasked with delivering a briefing to Owens when the attack started.

"Any hope of drawing talent back from Armstrong or Eos Chasma? We need all hands on deck right now." Owens asked, tempering his speech so that he didn't spook the mostly-untested twenty-five year old.

"Ah, yes sir... I've, ah... I've been working with the people I can find recently on retasking the geosynchronous satellites that survived in high orbit to work as communication systems between ourselves and the colonies, but..." He frowned and massaged his forehead. "It seems as if they've already been co-opted by a third party."

Owen sat up straighter in his seat, as did a few scattered intelligence personnel. "What do you mean? A foreign state? Or these Last Dogs bastards? Someone else?"

The young man shook his head. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. Judging from the traffic, it seems like someone on Luna has been doing it, probably since day one. We've tried wresting control back, but they've very thoroughly overwritten all of the systems. Considering the disparate operating systems, encryption keys, and everything else, whoever did this would have to have an amazing staff working for them."

One of the military men off to the side cleared their throat, rising from their seat.

"Colonel... Holmes," Owens nodded. "You have something to add?"

"Yes sir," Rodney answered, his posture stiff as he stood and folded his arms behind him. "It's almost certainly Ezekiel Lopez."

Valentino jerked slightly, turning to look at the other man. "Ah, Colonel... I really don't think one man can... I mean, this would take an immense degree of specialized knowledge and skills in nearly-defunct programming languages. Some of these satellites are running on code from thirty years ago, at least."

"It's Lopez," Colonel Holmes stated firmly, looking the other man in the eye before turning back to the President. "Even as odd and young as he is, sir, he's a genius. He could reprogram a toaster to give telemetry readings on pulsars if he wanted to."

The President nodded, leaning back. "I've been briefed on him before. So he's subverting the remaining satellite infrastructure, then. To what end?"

Rodney paused, grimacing. "It's... hard to say, honestly. Ezekiel isn't usually given to sudden moves like this. All told, he's a very structured individual, very predictable. In the current situation, though..."

"Stress and trauma can do strange things to people," Owens stated, before he turned back to Valentino. "I know that a lot of the communication infrastructure has been damaged, but see if you can't find something to get in touch with Armstrong City and Eos Chasma directly."

2138 – Six Months After The 'Short War'

GS: It can't be tolerated. Armstrong Station and Eos Chasma must be neutralized.

BM: We had our shot at them. No one felt it was necessary to station operatives aboard given how sure we were that Luna could be removed from the playing field. Over my objections, might I add.

BC: Yes, yes, we all know how vindicated you feel, Mel. What we need now are ideas, though. We've bought ourselves time, but with the attack on Armstrong failing we need to figure out a way to at least curb their expansion, if not remove them from the board entirely.

ACD: At this stage there isn't much we could do. I've called off the attacks on the remaining spaceports locally, but nothing's lifting off until we have some way to ensure it won't be torn apart by debris.

OES: You're all thinking too directly. The time for that sort of thing has passed. My contacts in the government are pointing towards an effort by the Americans to renew communications with the colonies. Once they get that up and running we can start recruiting.

GS: This had better not turn out to be another mess like the Chinese-Russian War turned into. That was your predecessor's plan, if I recall correctly.

BM: German, enough. We're above petty nationalistic rivalries here. The organization is more important than such things.

GS: Very well, then. I'll support moving forward with English's plan. In the meantime, what do we do about Earth-side technological build-up?

KS: The release of the biologicals went as planned. My branch is expecting at least a sixty-percent decline in population, even after you take into account the fallout and initial casualties. We still have plenty of samples to release in other regions.

BC: I motion to table that idea until we know we can destroy Mars and Luna. Humanity as it is can still be useful in creating weapons to destroy itself. Once we truly have no need for technology, we can redress the population issue.

ACD: I second that motion. This entire affair is pointless if humanity makes it to the stars anyway. Personally, I move to prioritize the removal of Lopez when we can manage operatives on Armstrong.

HS: Agreed. Lopez is a blight upon the future we envision for humanity.

KS: Ximalaya, we had thought you were gone from this world, brother. How fares your pack?

HS: My apologies, things have been hectic. As the remnants of China burns, Tibet rebuilds itself to honor its ancient past. I have needed to dedicate much of my time to ensure a return to the proper ways. This generation will be the Last Dogs of our country. No longer kept in luxurious cages by the rulers of men, our children will be the First Wolves.

2139 – One Year After The 'Short War'

Owen shook his head as he read over the full incident report they'd finally managed to piece together, a good third of which was due to a single individual. His eyes flicking up towards the officer in uniform before him, he stated absently. "He's certainly well-informed for such a young man."

Rodney Holmes grimaced. "I can't help but feel I should be apologizing for all of this, sir."

"His actions aren't your own, Colonel." The President paused and closed the digital document in front of him. Where top-secret reports like this had always been restricted to 'dead tree format' before, now the simple shortage of paper was pushing everyone to go fully digital. "I suppose we should just be grateful that he's throwing us a bone. Disclosing the full blueprints of those reactors he built and dumbing them down... he'll be saving a lot of lives if we can get those built."

Rodney shook his head, still incredibly displeased. "The fact that he had the utter gall to try and bargain with us-"

Owens held up a hand. "You're just at the stage where you're learning how important politics are, Colonel Holmes. A billionaire wunderkind seeing an opportunity like this and taking it is something we should have all expected." The man paused for a moment. "On a more pragmatic note, he's entirely correct that Armstrong and Eos Chasma have moved to resource self-sufficiency and we don't have the kind of political or martial will to enforce the previous agreements. Granting independence to a people who overwhelmingly vote in favor of it can even be said to be expected of the UNAS and its principles of self-determination."

"It still rankles, sir." Rodney admitted.

The President waved a hand, dismissing the topic. "That aside, I wanted to know your take on what our budding statesman plans to do next. What's his end-game?"

The Colonel paused, frowning with thoughtful unhappiness. "The only thing I know for certain is that Ezekiel has a plan. He's a methodical little-" He shook his head. "Excuse me, I mean... he enjoys making different variations of plans, accounting for all of the variables, mapping out the future."

"Well, that's something I suppose." Owens nodded. "Then again, it isn't as though we can do much to move against him right now. Only Australia and New Zealand have any sort of lift capacity to speak of, and they're hamstrung by Kessler Syndrome just as we are. In the meantime, I don't think it's all that important if a kid genius wants to nation-build in space. We're on the backfoot now, but that boy's in for a rude awakening if he thinks there won't be long-term repercussions for holding us over a barrel like this."

Rodney nodded, visibly more pleased at the notion of some form of comeuppance against the grating child he'd been forced to mentor.

Even if said child was now the Minister of Science and Technology for the newly-founded 'Stellar Council.'

...

If you like what I do, please consider supporting My . Chapters 36-40 of Industrious up on & Subscribe Star right now, There's also FOUR new chapters of The New Ron out as well! Oh, and don't forget the first second and third chapters of my New SAO story "Where Your God Is" and two chapters for Winning Peace!

If you'd prefer Subscribe Star for whatever reason, I recently made an account there, too! SUBSCRIBE STAR