12. Peace and Debauchery

With Jack on her hip and an arm around Marissa Molly couldn’t spare a hand to squeeze Matt’s shoulder. She could see how tense he was without touching him.

The kitchen nook was festooned with equipment. Much of it attached to the house computer. Molly recognized most of it, even the special circuit board, cast into a plexiglass block to preserve it, with the old fashioned JTAG connector sticking out of the side. Matt had been so excited when he found the chip for that, marked with a P instead of an E.

“What is that?” she asked Marissa, nodding at the shaky blob on the screen, almost painfully bright at one end.

“That’s a view of a satellite from the roof telescope,” Matt answered, typing furiously.

Molly had never seen a satellite before, not that this one was much better than a blur. There had been thousands once, before the war, before she was born. Some European conglomerates still boasted that they were going to launch more but it didn’t seem likely. The last to try had failed and collapsed.

“How big is it?” Molly asked. It was difficult to get any idea of scale from the silvery blob.

“Huge. It’s a Chinese spy satellite, old, flying a very orbit and somewhere between a truck and a school bus in size.”

“Do you think anyone is monitoring it?” Marissa asked, checking the orbital trajectory numbers.

“We have to assume they are. We’ll have to be quick or they may blow it up.”

“They’ll have recoded and re-encrypted all the high level protocols.” Marissa was making notes on her tab, fingers waving in the air.

“They will. It’ll still talk 22 though. They always do.”

That was what the special circuit board was for Molly remembered. For encrypting the protocol 22 replies so that their hijack couldn’t be hijacked or traced. They were going to steal the satellite.

Dan was doing something with the power management, below decks, as Matt called the reactor rooms so the house was sealed. Even the windows either darkened or made reflective. Every detector and sensor in the place was as focussed as Matt himself.

“We’ll need to use Comsat 46,” Marissa said. “The next window will open in 49 seconds.”

Matt typed, Marissa read out numbers in rapid clipped tones, so unlike her. They were synchronizing the timing, although Molly wasn’t sure of what. Shaving off fractions of a second to get the two rapidly updating clocks on the screen close enough together. Dan was going to miss it. The clocks came together. Matt raised a finger. Marissa put out her arms for Jack. “Come little brother it’s time to dance.” Molly handed him over and Marissa held him up to face her and began to step about the kitchen, still reading out numbers. The computer was listening and range finding and frequency plots were pouring across the screen. Marissa was doing real time orbital mechanics in her head, Molly realised. No one could do three dimensional trigonometry in their head while dancing with a baby, except perhaps Marissa. More and more parameters locked in on the screen and light began to flicker in the plexi block.

“16.8425” Dan came in and Marissa placed Jack in his arms, “Apogee 87.8135 and a bit” A row of lights all went steady yellow.

“Well, mysterious Chinese, closed off, post communist autocracy or whatever you are. Your west coast eyes and ears are now mine.” Matt was clearly pleased.

“We’ve just stolen a Chinese spy satellite bigger than your truck.” Molly responded to Dan’s puzzlement.

“That was your first satellite hack wasn’t it little brother.”

Jack clung to daddy but his attention was still on Marissa. They considered one another brother and sister, age meaning nothing to a two year old, or seemingly to Marissa. When he was very young Marissa had nursed on Molly beside him and he had mimicked her technique and her facial expressions long before he could speak.

“What bands can it intercept?” Dan asked, bouncing Jack in his arms over to where Matt was trying well known hash keys on the remaining sub systems that were futilely resisting his hijack.

Matt pointed to a list that was slowly building down the screen. Dan whistled.

“Assuming any of the power relays can still switch and the navigation system doesn’t shutdown under the draw we might finally be able to find out what’s going on, on the ground.”

The war in California had been dragging on, longer than Matt had expected. It had been three weeks since Phil and Billy returned triumphant from Veronica’s board room coup. That had been nail biting when one of those who was supposed to support her had tried to back out at the last minute.

“V was so cool,” Phil said. “She just made a voice call, transferred it to his tab and then spoke over him as he tried to find out who was on the other end. ‘David, no one cares that you’re banging your secretary, probably not even your wife or your mistress.’ Then the voice on the other end of the phone just laughed and David went very pale and folded like the cheap suit he is.”

Molly rather suspected she knew who the man laughing on the other end of the line had been. That mysterious benefactor who had lent Veronica 3.1 million credits to make the coup stick. The celebrations had gone on all weekend at their flat in Chareen and at the Baxter house here in the Hills. Phil had fucked everyone at least twice but amazingly V was sticking to her prohibition until the divorce went through. That hadn’t stopped Molly from going down on her in a bath of filth, or Geoff and Billy from fucking them while she did. It had been filth-fucking-tastic.

The house unlocked itself and the windows cleared now that Dan was up from below decks. The tension eased a little along with it. Dan and Matt searched for transmissions. Marissa hoisted Jack and danced with him some more. Without the mental arithmetic this time. Food, that was what they needed, food, Molly thought.

Dan, Molly, Jack, Marissa and Matt sat together in the Den. A loose circle of naked adults and one baby crawling about or being passed from one to another. Molly sorted out the food. It was just sandwiches and soft drinks and baby food for Jack. He ate some from Mommy’s spoon but soon waved and teetered in the direction of his ‘sister’ Marissa. He was content eating off the end of her little finger for a while.

Matt had his intelligence feeds building a real-time map model of what was happening in California. The laser projectors allowing them all to see it floating above the centre of the group.

Matt explained the war to date and how things had got to the current critical juncture.

“That,” Matt said pointing at the spinning picture of a severe looking man, “is general Brackerly. He’s leading the forces of the northern PGF. He’s the one we dislike the least and who we hope will win the day. As long as he then retires and doesn’t try to govern himself. He’s just but hard as nails. In Northern there is strong separation between the politicals and the military so once they put him in charge of the war, he was going to fight it his way and they aren’t going to interfere which means he can pretty much be trusted for now. In central the politicals and the military are more mixed up but this is admiral Dieven.” A gaunt portrait appeared. “He’s the best on the military side. I think he’s saw what Brackerly did up north and he’d like to replicate it if he had the balls.” “This however is Canye Minlar and her deputies.” A blonde woman with a sneer and two absolute thugs in ill fitting uniforms appeared. “They are the top of the pyramid of warlords that run Southern. They consider themselves more civilized because their is no separation of the military and political. They behave like politicians and wield the power of arms to get their way.”

Molly was torn between laughing and scolding as Jack latched on to Marissa’s right breast and tried to feed. He wasn’t supposed to be breast feeding except first thing in the morning and last thing at night now. Even that was scheduled to end soon.

“My little brother will soon learn that he gets nothing out of it.” Marissa said. She would continue to indulge him though, that was certain. It was doubtful she would ever turn down access to her body for someone she loved. It would never occur to her, or make sense to her to do so. Molly was mildly concerned about what would happen when Jack’s teeth came through but Dan was asking a question.

“What did Brackerly do up north that the Central guy would like to emulate?”

Molly took a bite of the sandwich Dan held, his arm around her shoulder, then leaned forward to share it, mouth to mouth with Marissa.

“You remember right back at the start, the arms scandal that kicked off the war. Well this is how it went. The three PGFs have been threatening to go to war for two decades but they never did. Some people thought this was stability and called it a good thing, including some politicals in all three regions who were constantly selling out their own people behind their backs. There was a so called ‘peace’ faction in each region, even Southern, which should really have been called a greed faction. They were the ones prepared to do dirty deals to enrich themselves and war was not in their interest so they could always find something they didn’t own to exchange for something they soon would, to prevent war. It sounds like it might even work and they justified it to themselves but it didn’t work. They only got richer when everyone was on the brink of war so everyone stayed on the brink of war, impoverishing the ordinary people and justifying the ever increasing authoritarian rule.”

Jack was distracted from the dry nipple by the sandwich exchange but then he saw uncle Matt who was clearly talking to him and wanted passing on again. Uncle Matt was good for playing at being an aeroplane and for climbing on. That lasted all of five minutes though while Marissa lay across Dan and Molly feeding both of them and joining in a messy three way share that left a blob of mayonnaise on her chest. Jack was still hungry though and he soon got passed back to Mommy for more spoons. Marissa lay in Dan’s lap his fingers stroking her smooth belly but he was focussed on Matt who was adjusting the map and filtering out useless data.

“So then someone in Northern discovered a nasty way to really hurt Southern. They found out that Southern was short of small calliber ammunition. Not surprising the way they like to throw it around and wear it like jewellery.” They had all seen the gun belts full of 716 on Minlar and her thugs. “They also found out another obscure piece of information. That Southern has almost no working radiation detectors and they don’t use detector tags as standard. Someone put these things together and realised that they could intercept the supply chain for Southern’s hand gun ammo. Contaminate the lead with a nice reliable radio isotope that wouldn’t kill anyone quickly but in six months time would as good as guarantee cancer in anyone continuously exposed and they could cripple Southern without firing a shot.”

“What a horrible thing to do.” Dan said. “I thought Northern were supposed to be the least bad PGF.”

“Horrible, wrong, illegal under the old laws of war. A terrible plot.” Matt agreed. “When Brackerly found out, being a strict man of justice as he is, you can imagine his reaction. This was going to drag him into war. A war he had little chance of winning as Southern and Central would unite against him and he’d be the one guilty of using a mass scale, dirty, nuclear poison.”

“What did he do?” Molly asked, putting Jack down on the floor where he made a beeline for the gap between Matt and Marissa. A gap Marissa closed with her usual speed and grace. In a moment she had her head in Matt’s lap and Jack cuddled and laughing in her arms.

“He gave his own politicals an ultimatum. Go ahead with their plan but he’d resign and tell all. They would lose the inevitable war and be destroyed. Or put him in charge of the inevitable war and let him deal with the contaminated ammunition problem.”

“So it was Brackerly who ordered the bombing of the Gordeki factory. That must have been where they were making the radioactive bullets. Makes sense of the rotating slave labour gangs. A little bit of exposure for a lot of unimportant people. Little chance of getting caught or them all dropping dead.”

“Exactly.” Matt said. He made a further adjustment to the model and a large orange area split into four smaller and brighter blobs. They were probability indicators.

“What are you predicting darling?” Marissa asked looking up, placing Jack gently down beside her.

“Where Brackerly is.” Matt answered.

“You don’t know what he’s planning then?” Dan asked.

“No. He doesn’t trust me. Shouldn’t trust me certainly and while I know what he’s trying to do I don’t know if he can pull it off.”

That was an amazing admission from Matt that he was as involved as that. Molly thought he must be very confident that this was the end, one way or another, to let that much slip.

“I see now.” Dan nodded. “We put the cameras in that plant. Cameras that were way more capable than the owner required. Cameras that with a software change could see the secondaries from alpha radiation. Just the sort of short range, long term, stuff you’d need to poison people from metal carried close to the body. You were planning this even then.”

“We were planning this ten years ago my friend when we were living in old Mexico and helping smuggle people across from Baha.”

Dan just nodded but Molly was shocked. Matt never revealed his schemes or talked about their years on the run. Jack had almost crawled back to her but he was too sleepy to come further. She leaned forward and scooped him up.

“So Brackerly had the factory bombed which Southern saw as an attack although it actually saved them from a potential genocide.” Dan went on.

“Yes. Then he used the power the Northern politicos had given him in a way they didn’t expect. He knew that the ‘peace’ faction would sell him out to Central. Not to Southern directly, that would be too obvious but they’d cut a deal with Central. He waited, he let them start. Then he had them rounded up and shot. All within the law of course. They’d handed him the power to do it when they agreed to his ultimatum.”

Probably in such a hurry to sign it that they didn’t read it, Molly thought.

“He managed to keep it from Central though and they were left hanging, expecting a deal that never came. Then of course Southern stabbed them in the back. Predictable as clockwork Fuehrer Minlar, at least I hope so. You know what happened after that. A furious hot war between Central and Southern that neither could win outright. Defence having a bit of an upper hand Central should have been able to beat Southern back to a stalemate but they had to keep some forces pointed north. Dieven wanted a truce with Northern but the ‘peace’ faction in his own government wouldn’t allow it. Brackerly had had their ‘friends’ in the north shot. They hated and feared him so they made Dieven fight with a hand tied behind his back. He’d done OK but he was going to loose. Then two months ago Brackerly invaded. A well planned, tightly executed, downright close to bloodless seizure of three hundred square miles. The ‘peace’ faction in Central, lost face, lost control and started fleeing to the mountains.”

Molly got Jack tucked into his portable cot and curled back up tighter with the others. Her arms around Matt and Dan now and all their legs folded together. It was loving and warm and comfortable. She felt safe enough and loved enough to maybe even handle all this war, betrayal and disaster. She could also play footsie with Marissa. Trying to speak tap with her toes which was almost impossible despite Marissa’s insistence that it was exactly the same as with your fingers.

“Why did Brackerly invade now after staying out of it for so long?” Dan asked, between kisses and nibbles to Molly’s right ear.

“He could see that Dieven was losing and had to force him to talk.” Matt pointed to a green marker near the centre of the map model. “They are supposed to be meeting there about now and everyone knows Dieven will surrender to Brackerly rather than capitulate to Fuehrer Minlar which is certain death.”

“They aren’t there though are they?” Molly asked, stroking his back, “or your yellow blobs hunting for Brackerly would be there too.”

“That’s right my love,” he said and some kissing followed. Dan and Marissa were content to watch and gently caress for now.

“Dieven isn’t there either. He’s already surrendered to Brackerly and is being shipped north for trial. He may even end up a free man.”

“That all means then that we’re expecting another predictable back stab from Southern I guess.” Dan put in.

Matt nodded. “Yes.”

“Which means we’re hoping that Brackerly is in the south eastern of the yellow areas where he can ambush them.”

“Right again.” Matt said, “with the entirety of the Northern invasion force and almost all Dieven’s remaining forces that he surrendered, now under Brackerly’s command.”

“You would make a good general it seems,” Marissa said and planted a big kiss on Dan’s cheek. “I would never take such a risk, putting all my eggs in one basket, gambling on the route that Minlar’s forces will use.” Somehow this exchange broke into a tickle fight between Dan and Marissa which ended in Matt’s lap and was quickly quieted down to avoid waking Jack. Marissa lay with her head in Matt’s lap and Dan in Molly’s, which was all crossed over anyway as they kissed and made up and Molly and Matt stroked them and kissed one another. For the longest time there were only the squelchy sounds of kissing and sighs of pleasure until Matt tapped on Marissa’s left tit. She looked up and one of his yellow blobs had vanished. The probability of success had gone up considerably.

“He’s gambling that she’ll send her people straight through the middle. Try to get to Benson by the shortest route and win in one stroke.”

“He’s not just gambling that she’ll do that. He’s gambling that she’ll come herself and not leave anyone behind who might stab her in the back.”

“The whole Southern hierarchy?” Dan asked.

“In one night.”

Matt’s excitement was palpable. As obvious as the erection their cuddling had managed to raise. Molly rolled back into his lap and got comfortable where she could lick his beautiful cock as it lay across her face. Her other hand relinquished it’s hold on Dan’s member gladly to Marissa’s hot mouth. They were slow and gentle and in no hurry.

“It’s still an hour till dark on the west coast,” Matt said, rolling a nipple between his fingers and looking down lovingly at her. “Nothing will happen till then.” Molly painted her lips with his pre-cum and pouted. “So you think you can hold out for a whole hour without coming.” He chuckled. “If you weren’t going slow I’d have painted your face already.”

“I want you too but...”

“But what, you gorgeous, crazy, amazing slut?”

It was unlike Matt to be so free with his compliments.

“What I really want is to spend all day tomorrow making love to you, soaked in your piss and cum, smeared with food and mud, without a thought or care beyond having you inside me, hot and wet and hard. I want to meet your eyes when your coming inside me triggers my orgasm. I want you to feed me juices from my own leaking hole and I want to taste them in your mouth.”

“Is that all?” He smiled. “No.” Molly said, all seriousness, “but it’s all I can find words for and I know that we can’t.” She pouted again, made fuck me eyes and licked the underside of his cock like an ice lolly.