Issue In Doubt

CHAPTER One

Supreme Military Headquarters, Bellevue, Sarpy County, Federal Zone, North American Union



Major General Joseph H. de Castro swept past the guards standing outside the entrance to the offices of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and marched through the cavernous, darkly paneled outer office directly to the desk of Colonel Nicholas Fox, which sat below the colors of all the military services of the NAU.

“Nick,” de Castro said, “I need to see the Chairman, right now. I don’t care who he’s meeting with.”

Fox leaned back in his chair and looked up at de Castro with mild curiosity. “Joe, you know I can’t let people just barge in on the Chairman.” He shook his head. “His schedule today is packed tighter than a constipated jarhead. Maybe if he stops by the Flag Club later on, you can get a minute or two with him. Can’t help you, Joe.” Fox then looked intently at his console, as though he had pressing business to attend to. His behavior was insubordinate, but in this office, acting in his official capacity as gatekeeper to the Chairman, he effectively outranked anybody with fewer than four stars, and de Castro had only two.

“If you knew what I have here,” de Castro tapped the right breast pocket of his uniform jacket, “you wouldn’t be wasting my time. I’d already be telling the Chairman what I’ve got.”

“So tell me what you’ve got. I’ll decide if it’s important enough to disrupt the Chairman’s schedule.”

De Castro glowered at Fox for a few seconds, then said, steely-voiced, “Have it your way, Nick. You can explain to the Chairman why I had to jump the chain.” He about-faced to march out, but Fox stopped him before he’d taken more than two steps.

“Wait a minute, Joe. What do you mean, ‘jump the chain’?”

De Castro half turned back. “I’m going fifty paces. This can’t wait.” Fifty paces was the distance from where he was to the offices of the Secretary of War.

“You wouldn’t!” Fox said, shocked.

“I will.”

Colonel Fox opened his mouth to say something more, but thought for a couple of seconds before he spoke. “Wait one,” he said, and tapped his desk comm, the direct line to the Chairman’s inner sanctum.

“Sir,” he said apologetically when the Chairman came on, “Major General de Castro is here. He says he has something that requires the Secretary’s immediate attention.” He paused to listen, answered, “No sir, he won’t tell me what it is.” Another pause to listen. “I’ll tell him, sir.” He looked at de Castro. “He’ll see you in a minute or so.”

De Castro faced the door leading deeper into the Chairman’s offices, and stood at ease, patiently waiting. A moment later, the door opened and de Castro snapped to attention. Fleet Admiral Ira Clinton Welborn, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ushered out a man de Castro recognized as Field Marshal Carl Ludwig, Welborn’s counterpart in the European Union’s military. Welborn was making placating noises, and assuring Ludwig that he would have dinner with him at the Flag Club that evening.

As soon as the EU’s military chief was gone, Welborn turned on de Castro and snarled. “This better be good. I’ve been getting close to a diplomatic breakthrough with that martinet, and you might have just bollixed it!”

“It is, sir,” de Castro said in a strong voice.

“Follow.” Welborn headed back to his inner sanctum. De Castro followed a pace behind and slightly to Welborn’s left. The two marched along a darkly wainscoted corridor with offices branching off to both sides, toward a wider space at the end, where a navy petty officer sat at a desk working on a comp. Two Marines in dress blues, a first lieutenant and a gunnery sergeant, both armed with holstered sidearms, stood at parade rest flanking the doorway to the inner sanctum. The two came to attention at Welborn’s approach. De Castro couldn’t help but notice that the gunnery sergeant had several more rows of ribbons on his chest than he himself did, and the lieutenant had nearly as many as the gunny. It was obvious that the Marines were from the combat arms.

“Siddown,” Welborn snapped as the petty officer began to stand. She did and returned to her work. “Close it,” he snarled at the Marines. The door to the inner sanctum closed silently behind de Castro when the two swept past.

Inside was an office only slightly less opulent than that of the Secretary of War himself. Its walls were covered with pictures of warships: paintings, engravings, lithographs, photographs, and holograms. Wooden ships: with rams and oars; with sails; with sails and cannon; iron clad with sails; iron clad with sails and steam engines. Steel ships: with guns in turrets, aircraft carriers with and without turrets and missiles. Space-going warships.

Welborn headed for his massive desk and dropped into the leather-upholstered executive chair behind it. “All right, de Castro, what do you have?” He didn’t offer a seat.

“This came in ten minutes ago, sir,” de Castro said as he fingered a crystal out of his right breast pocket. “By your leave, sir?” He made to insert the crystal in the comp to the side of the desk. Welborn grunted assent, and de Castro completed the action. In a second, a report appeared on the console. Welborn quickly read through it.

“Images?”

“They’re garbled, sir. The cryptographer who decoded the message and the watch officer who delivered it from her to me are attempting to clean them up now.”

“Is anybody helping them?”

“Only if they’re disobeying my orders. I instructed them to keep this between themselves, and to discuss it with nobody but me.”

“Good. Instruct your security personnel to quarantine them as soon as they’re done. And I want the images zipped to me the instant they’re intelligible, no matter where I am. Right now, you and I are going to see the Secretary.”

De Castro called in the orders to isolate the cryptographer and the watch officer as he followed the Chairman out of the office. He didn’t even glance at Colonel Fox as he passed through the outer office. Four minutes later, the two were face to face with Richmond P. Hobson, the Secretary of War himself, one of the three most important and powerful people in the entire North American Union.

Hobson seated them in a conversational group of chairs around a small table, and made small talk while a Navy steward poured coffee. De Castro, who had never before been in this office, glanced around. Portraits were hung above dark blond wainscoting that looked like it might be real oak. De Castro recognized enough of the faces in the paintings to know that they were previous NAU Secretaries of War, and the Secretaries of Defense of the old United States, the Canadian Ministers of Defence, and the Mexican Ministers of Defense going back to the beginning of the twentieth century free-trade agreement among the three countries—the precursor of the North American Union.

Hobson took a sip of coffee as the steward exited, then asked, “Well, Ira, what does J2 have that’s so important that you have to bring its director to me on such short notice?”

“Show him,” Welborn said.

“Yes sir.” De Castro looked around for a comp. Hobson pressed a button on the side of his chair and one arose from the side of the coffee table. “Thank you, sir.” De Castro inserted the crystal. He angled the display so the Secretary could read the report without leaning to the side.

After a moment, Hobson sat back. “How firm is this?”

“We haven’t had time to verify, sir,” de Castro said. “This only came in about fifteen minutes ago.”

“What about images?”

Welborn told him that the garbled images were being worked on, but he expected to have something shortly. De Castro nodded agreement.

“We have to tell the President instantly,” Hobson said. “And get State in on it.” He pressed another button on the side of his chair, and a Navy lieutenant commander appeared inside the door.

“Tom,” Hobson addressed him, “kindly contact your counterparts at the President’s office and SecState, and inform them that I request a meeting at the earliest possible moment. Emphasize that it’s of the gravest importance.”

“Aye aye, sir.” The lieutenant commander about-faced and exited.

“Tom Irving,” Hobson told Welborn and de Castro, “good man.” He looked directly at Welborn. “When his tour with me is over, he deserves to have three full stripes, and be given a command.”

Welborn nodded. “Sir, with a recommendation like that, I think a promotion and command assignment will be expedited.”

“Do you think we should send a reconnaissance mission to Troy?” Hobson asked Welborn, getting back to the topic at hand.

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“I hoped you’d say that. Who do you recommend?”

“Marine Force Recon.”

“Oh?” Hobson cocked his head. “Not SEALs or Rangers?”

“No, sir. Force Recon. While both SEALs and Rangers are adept at intelligence gathering, they spend as much time training in commando strikes. Force Recon spends almost all of its time and energy ‘snooping and pooping,’ as they call it, gathering intelligence. They fight only in extremis, and believe their mission has failed if they have to fight. I don’t want anybody fighting until we know who—or what—we’re up against.”

“Very good. How soon can Force Recon deploy a sufficient number of teams?”

“Within three days after an operation order is drawn up, sir. Possibly sooner. Probably sooner.”

“Very good. Get started on the op order as soon as you can. I’ll authorize deploying the Marines as soon as the President gives his permission.”

“Aye aye, sir,” the Chairman said.

De Castro jerked; his comm had vibrated. He looked at it. “Excuse me, sirs, I think I should take this.”

Hobson gestured for him to rise and take the call. De Castro stepped away a few feet before answering his comm. He listened for a moment, said something, listened again, gave an order, broke the connection, and resumed his seat.

“Sirs, three more drones from Troy have been brought in. They all have the same message as the one you’ve seen. One of them had a few usable images. They are being sent to all three of us.”

“Good!” Hobson rubbed his hands briskly and looked at the comp. In seconds, it signaled incoming traffic from J2. “I’ll put them up on the big screen.” He pressed another button on his chair, and a two-by-three-meter display screen rose on the wall behind the grouping where they sat. After a few touches on his comp controls, a slide show began on the display.

The three men watched in stunned silence as little more than half a dozen images, some stills and some vids, rotated through. None of the pictures were fully in focus, and some had scrambled—or completely missing—portions. But they all showed the attackers, and the slaughter they wrought.

The third time through, Hobson cleared his throat and said softly, “We always suspected they were still out there.” He pressed the button that summoned his aide.

“Tom, have you heard back from the President or State yet?” he asked.

“Sir,” Irving said, “they’re coordinating a time, and will let us know instantly.”

Hobson stood, Welborn and de Castro jumped to their feet as well.

“Instantly isn’t fast enough. Get my car, and tell the President’s office and State that we’re on our way to the Prairie Palace.”

“Aren’t you meeting with Marshal Ludwig today?” Hobson asked Welborn as the three headed for the Secretary’s vehicle.

“Yes, sir. I broke off my meeting with him to bring this to you. I’m having dinner with him at the Flag Club later.”

“Whatever you do, unless the President orders otherwise, don’t let him know about this until I tell you to.”

“Ludwig’s sharp, sir. He’ll know there’s something important I’m not telling him.” Welborn flexed his shoulders. “But I’m sharp, too. I’ll manage to avoid offending him.”



The Prairie Palace, Omaha, Douglas County, Federal Zone, NAU



When the United States of America, Canada, and Mexico merged into the NAU, none of the three would accept either of the other’s national capital for the capital of the new Union. They settled on Omaha, Nebraska because it was situated roughly in the middle of the continent. Moreover, Omaha was cold enough in the winter to satisfy Canadians’ yen for the Great White North, and hot enough in the summer for the Mexicans to fondly remember the deserts of Sonora and Chihuahua—or so it was said. As for the USA, Omaha was a major part of the Great American Heartland, being an established city of the second tier. It and Douglas County were fully adequate for a capital city. Sarpy County, directly to the south, was the home of Offutt Air Force Base, one-time headquarters of the Strategic Air Command, an ideal location for the new Supreme Military Headquarters. And Pottawatomie County, Iowa, directly across the Missouri River from Omaha, provided more than ample space for the buildings needed to house what was sure to be a massive central bureaucracy. Some in Nebraska strenuously objected to losing Douglas and Sarpy, and Iowa to losing Pottawatomie to the new Federal Zone. They were reminded of the benefits previously enjoyed by the parts of Maryland and Virginia adjacent to the District of Columbia—not to mention the additional taxes garnered by those states from the increased population of government workers who lived in adjacent counties—and graciously agreed to losing those population centers.

Competitions were held to design the new Union’s legislative capitol and the presidential residence and office. Nobody other than the bureaucrats who selected it was happy with the monumental faux sod-house design of the president’s residence and office, christened “The Prairie Palace,” although nearly everybody outside government came to agree that it was appropriate that the legislative Capitol was erected on what had once been the stock yards for the South Omaha slaughter houses.

It was to the Prairie Palace, located on the site of what had once been Central High School, that Secretary Hobson, Chairman Welborn, and Deputy Director de Castro went to see the President of the NAU.



The Round Office, The Prairie Palace



Albert Leopold Mills, tall and lean, in his late fifties, was a distinguished, mild-mannered gentleman. Until he got behind closed doors.

“What the f*ck is the meaning of this!” he demanded as soon as the door to the Round Office closed behind his visitors from military headquarters. “I have more important things to do than sit around in a circle jerk with you. I should have all of your resignations on my desk within the hour!”

“Sir, if you don’t agree that what’s on this,” Hobson held up a crystal, “is worth disrupting your schedule, you’ll have my resignation as soon as I can scribble it out.”

“We’ll see about that.” Mills snatched the crystal from Hobson’s fingers. He popped it into his comp and scanned the text report. Then reread it more slowly. “Who did it?”

“Sir, we don’t know for certain who they are, but there are images,” Hobson said.

“Show me.”

Hobson nodded to de Castro, who stepped to the President’s desk and took control of the console to show the images.

“They aren’t all of the best quality, sir,” de Castro said as he activated the first image. It was an eleven-second vid, bouncy as though the person shooting it was trembling and had forgotten to stabilize the view. It showed armed—creatures—racing along a street. Heavily muscled legs ending in taloned feet propelled them faster than a human could run, even a human augmented with military armor. They were bent at the hips, their torsos held parallel to the ground. Sinuous necks triple the length of a human’s held their heads up, and whipped them side to side. The faces jutted forward, with long jaws that seemed to be filled with sharp, conical teeth. Arms little more than half the length of their legs held weapons that could have been some kind of rifle. A crest of feathery structures ran from the tops of their faces all the way down their spines, where fans of long, feathery structures jutted backward providing a counterbalance to the forward thrusting torsos. Their knees bent backward, like birds’. They appeared to be naked except for straps and pouches arrayed around their bodies. Packs of smaller creatures that might have been juveniles of their kind sped among them.

Mills was expressionless looking at the vid to the end. “Next.”

De Castro activated the second image. This one was a grainy still shot, showing one of the creatures rising up slightly from horizontal to put its rifle-like weapon to its shoulder.

The third image was another vid, seventeen seconds long this time. It had been garbled along the way, and parts of the image were so badly pixilated they couldn’t be made out. But it showed enough to make clear what was happening. Packs of the smaller creatures were leaping onto people, shredding them with their talons, ripping into them with their toothy jaws.

Two more stills showed one of the creatures biting chunks out of a downed woman.

A thirty-three-second vid, taken from behind defensive works from which the human soldiers of the battalion assigned to Troy’s defense were fighting, showed the creatures and their packs of small companions assaulting the position. They ran zigging and zagging randomly, almost too fast for the eye to follow. Some of the creatures were hit, and tumbled to the ground, presumably dead or severely wounded. But those hits were by chance; the creatures moved too fast to be hit by aimed fire. The last few seconds of the vid showed the creatures and their packs bounding over the defensive works to land among the soldiers and begin ripping them apart.

“That’s enough,” Mills said softly; he could see that there was another image or two that hadn’t been run. He took a moment to compose himself, then said to Hobson, “You were right to bring this to my attention immediately. It was worth disrupting my schedule.” He tapped his inter-office comm. “Where’s State?” he barked into it.

“She’s entering the building now, sir,” came the reply.

“Well, get her tail in here instantly!”

Mills turned to Welborn. “What’s our first step?”

“Sir, I’ve already given orders to draw up an operation order for a Force Recon platoon to head for Troy and get usable intelligence on the situation.”

“How soon will it be ready?”

“By morning.”

“And how soon after that can the Marines go?”

“As soon as you give authorization, sir.”

“You’ve got it. I want to know what’s happened out there.”

There was a discrete knock and the door of the Round Office eased open.

“About time you got here, Walker,” Mills snapped.

Mary E. Walker, NAU Secretary of State, stopped flat-footed and glared at the President. “Sir, I was in the middle of delicate negotiations with the EU Foreign Minister when I received Richmond’s message. He failed to say what was so grave about the matter. I couldn’t walk out without an explanation. As it is, when I told him about your summons, he gave the distinct impression that by the time I get back, he might be on his way back to Luxembourg.”

“Then good riddance! We just got word of something much more important than the feelings of an overly sensitive Euro. Take a look.” He angled his comp’s display toward her and activated the image of the vid showing the assault on the defense battalion.

“What?” the Secretary of State gasped when the vid had run its course. “Where?” She looked distinctly green.

“Troy,” Hobson said softly. “This came in. . .” He looked at de Castro.

“About forty-five minutes ago, ma’am,” the J2 director said.

“Is it them?” she asked. “The ruins?”

The President looked at the other men for an answer to the question he’d wondered himself.

Welborn replied, “We have no way of knowing. But, yeah, I imagine so. Or if not whoever it was that destroyed those other civilizations, then somebody maybe just as bad.” In its spread through space, humanity had discovered ruins left by seventeen non-human civilizations. One of them was on the level of the pyramid builders of ancient Earth, while most of them had technologically developed far enough to be on the threshold of interstellar travel—one actually seemed to have achieved it.

“They had no word? No ultimatum? No warning?” Walker asked.

“Not that we know of, ma’am,” de Castro said when the President looked at him. “We have a text message saying they were under attack by an unknown enemy, and a few images. You just saw one of them; it isn’t necessarily the worst.”

“We need to alert everybody,” Walker said. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I’ll notify Minister Neahr right now.” She turned away, reaching for her comm.

“You’ll do no such thing!” Mills snapped.

“Sir?” She spun back to him, shocked by both his tone and the words.

“Until we know exactly what’s happening on Troy, this is strictly need-to-know—and Zachariah C. Neahr doesn’t need to know.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Mills cut her off. “I’d rather present all the worlds that humanity is on with a fait accompli than unnecessarily cause a panic. Your job in this, Madam Secretary, is to keep the rest of the world in the dark about NAU’s upcoming offworld troop movements.”

“You’re going to send our soldiers into, into that?” she asked, appalled.

Mills curled his lip at her. “As you would know if you hadn’t been so tardy getting here, we’re sending Force Recon to gather intelligence. Then we’ll send a counter-invasion force in to clear out those. . .those creatures.” He turned to Hobson and Welborn. “I want you to stand up a counter-invasion force, and ready Navy shipping to get them there once we know what we’re up against.”

“Right away, sir,” Hobson said.

“Aye aye, sir.” Welborn grinned. What was the point of having a Navy that traveled the stars, and command of one of the largest and most powerful militaries in all of human history if he never got to give the orders to attack an entire world?

“I’ll notify Congress once the counter-invasion force is on its way,” Mills said. “Now get everything moving.”

De Castro didn’t say anything, but he wondered how the President was going to justify taking military action without an Act of Congress authorizing it, or without even consulting with the Congressional leadership.