Martian Balance
Copyright© 2025 by rlfj
Chapter 6: Opening Moves
Martian Planetary Intelligence Headquarters
New Pittsburgh, Mars
Tuesday, March 17, 2235
“Seriously. I don’t know why you arrested me. I was sent here months ago. I haven’t been in the WestHem Navy since December, when I was arrested and sent here. What are they saying I’ve done now?” Winslow was surprisingly calm, thought his interrogators. They didn’t realize that he had almost nothing left to live for. Everything he’d once had was gone - his wife, his children, his family. What the hell could Mars do to him now?
“Why did your Navy arrest you? We know why we’ve arrested you! What did you do to them?”
Harlow Winslow answered, “I pissed off Ares Alexander.”
The two MPI interrogators, Josh Alexander and Hannigan Hotsmoke, kept their faces still, but they both realized they might just have hit the bullseye. They were both very experienced investigators. Alexander, the designated ‘good cop’, said, “What did you do for Ares Alexander?”
Winslow shrugged. “I didn’t do anything for Ares Alexander. I simply pissed them off.”
Hotsmoke got in the man’s face again. “WHAT DID YOU FUCKING DO?”
Winslow answered, “I complained about the sale of ancient Owls to Ares Alexander.”
BINGO!
Alexander made a gesture to Hotsmoke to calm down; it was totally false since Hotsmoke’s behavior was scripted. “Explain. What Owls?”
With that, Winslow told them about his actions with the obsolete Owls. Why in the world did Mars care about a bunch of old ships that had been obsolete decades ago? “What’s the big deal about these Owls? They were old and useless, and we got rid of them. We do that all the time.”
“YOU DO NOT ASK US QUESTIONS! WE ASK YOU QUESTIONS!” responded Hotsmoke.
Winslow shut up. Whatever this asshole wanted, he was a real asshole.
Alexander handed over a stack of papers, copies of the paperwork Winslow had signed all those months ago on Gonzo Three. “Explain these!”
Winslow took several minutes, organizing the papers in the proper order, and then reviewed them. “Okay, first, in order to get rid of the Owls, we had to transfer them to the Inactive Reserve, then we had to decommission them.” He put the first two forms on the table. “Then we had to declare them as surplus war materiel and transfer the surplus to Ares Alexander.” Another two forms were laid out.
“THAT WAS YOU! YOUR GODDAMN SIGNATURE IS ON EVERYTHING!” screamed Hotsmoke.
Winslow was tired of the questioning. He looked at Alexander and said, “You want to call off your attack dog? I already know you’re going to kill me. Do you need to break my eardrums first?”
“Just answer my questions,” said Alexander. “What happened next?”
“The next form was the sale of the surplus materiel back to Ares Alexander. That was what got me in trouble. Ares Alexander demanded we pay them to take the ships back. I mean, the ships were going to be scrapped. We were giving them top quality steel and other stuff, as well as perfectly functioning fusion bottles. What the fuck were we paying them for? They should have been paying us!”
“And?”
“And the asshole from Ares Alexander called my boss, who called me and chewed my ass out and ordered me to sign the forms. We paid them five million bucks for each ship! They should have paid us!” answered Winslow.
Alexander and Hotsmoke looked at each other, and this time Hotsmoke kept his mouth shut. There was more paperwork, but nothing after the paperwork for the payments; Winslow was out of it. Still, maybe he knew something else. “So you don’t know about these payments?” He laid out some more paperwork.
Winslow picked up the new forms and reviewed them. It was obvious they were bank statements, which indicated the MPI had totally penetrated WestHem’s computer systems. “Impressive. You’ve got our banks penetrated?”
“Answer the question,” said Hotsmoke. It was the first question he had asked which wasn’t at the top of his lungs.
Winslow shrugged and answered, though he was looking at Alexander. He looked back at the paperwork and said, “If I am reading this right, then Ares Alexander paid a million to the guy who ordered me to sign the papers.”
“And?”
“And the guy from Ares Alexander pocketed another three million. Ares Alexander itself only got twenty-six million,” said Winslow.
“What about this?” Alexander passed over another form, the bank statement of Cosimo DeAngelo, where he was depositing six million.
“Who’s this guy?” asked Winslow. He tapped the paperwork with Jonathan Harrison’s name on them. “This guy signed for the Owls I disposed of. Who’s this DeAngelo guy? You can’t expect me to plead guilty when I don’t even know what I’ve done!”
Alexander and Hotsmoke looked at each other. Nothing that Winslow had told them indicated he was at all involved in piracy. So why had he been sent to Hell? That was what the average WestHem citizen thought Mars was.
“So why were you sent here?” asked Hotsmoke.
Winslow shrugged. “Because I pissed off Harrison.” He tapped the papers with Harrison’s name again. “He was bitching about how much time I was taking. He really got pissed when I didn’t kiss his ass and asked my boss what was going on. I guess I know now why my boss was on Harrison’s side.” He tapped the deposit payment to Commodore Morton. “Maybe Harrison was missing a business lunch and an afternoon with his mistress. I don’t know and beating me won’t get you a better answer.”
“And?”
“And Harrison is an asshole! First he had Morton transfer me to Miami, then Butte, and then Kansas, and along the way he had me demoted twice. Then he had me arrested and sent here.” Winslow didn’t tell the interrogators about Harrison screwing his wife. It was bad enough when it happened, but he sure didn’t need to talk about it. Besides, by that time they were divorced. It hurt, but it was months ago.
“Ever see these guys?” Alexander passed over two pages with pictures on them. One was of Cosimo DeAngelo of Ares Alexander and the other was Xavier Demopoulis of Alternative Solutions.
“No. Never saw them. Who are they?”
Alexander ignored the question. “What about this guy?”
Winslow looked at the picture and shook his head. It was Alexander Santiago of Executive Decisions Group. “Nope. Who’s he? I promise you, if I had met these guys, I’d tell you. They got me sent to another fucking planet and now I’m going to be killed here! Why wouldn’t I tell you? So what do you really want to know?”
“So much, so very much. For now though, let’s talk about pirate ships. We know about the Owls. What other ships were Ares Alexander looking at?” asked Alexander.
“I don’t know, not exactly. Nobody said anything formal about future ships, and I got sent to Miami not too long afterwards. However, I did hear that Harrison, the asshole who was involved for Ares Alexander, was interested in Modified Seattles. How interested I don’t know, but he asked me how many were still in the inactive reserves.”
“Modified Seattles?” asked Alexander. Winslow just nodded.
“Don’t leave,” said Hotsmoke, laughing at the comment. Winslow rolled his eyes but didn’t answer. The two interrogators left the room and walked down the hall. The interrogation room was soundproofed, but you didn’t take chances.
“What’s a modified Seattle?”
“No idea. Think the Navy might know?” commented Hotsmoke. Alexander just rolled his eyes. The Navy probably had the complete specs on the ships.
“Do you believe this shit?” asked Alexander.
Hotsmoke shrugged. “No reason not to believe him. This guy’s just a mid-level paper-pusher, a fucking bookworm! They told him to sign some forms and when he quibbled, he got shitcanned.”
“I can guarantee, legal wise, that if this guy testified I could get convictions of the admiral, and the guys from Ares Alexander, Alternative Solutions, and Executive Decisions Group!” Before Josh Alexander joined Planetary Intelligence he had been a prosecutor in New Pittsburgh.
“And I’ll be sunning myself on the peak of Olympus Mons,” laughed Hotsmoke.
His partner shrugged. “I’m just saying ... this guy’s real fucking crime was doing what he was told, selling off surplus junk, which is not illegal. We’ve got nothing on him and plenty on these other assholes.”
“So?” Hannigan Hotsmoke had almost identical experience and time on the job as his partner.
“So we keep him on ice until this sorts itself out. We make a report...”
“Today!” interjected Hotsmoke.
Alexander nodded, “ ... and let some other people figure it out. From what I’ve heard, there are people above our pay grade who are super-pissed and getting ready to go to war!”
“Fuckin’ A!” He looked back down the hall. “If this poor bastard is right, we squeeze him for everything and do right by him. He thinks we’re going to kill him. How do they do that on Earth, anyway?”
“Whichever way gets InfoGroup the best ratings. They’ve thrown children off buildings, for Laura’s sake!”
“Shit!”
They walked to the lockdown station at the end of the hall, where they told the guards to take their prisoner to a holding cell. It was looking more and more like their guest was going to be just that, a guest. Then they went to look for their boss.
Martian Planetary Intelligence Building
New Pittsburgh, Mars
Tuesday, March 17, 2235
It took the two investigators the rest of the day to confirm Harlow Winslow’s information. He had been able to confirm what they were already suspecting; Ares Alexander had diversified into the piracy business. There were several other leads that they followed up on. If they didn’t already have the information buried in their computer files, the MPI teams on Hypnotits and Cockblocker were ordered to dig into WestHem’s databases and send back the information.
That evening they reported directly to Jacques Duvall, the Director of Martian Planetary Intelligence. Interplanetary piracy, as crazy as it sounded, had become the most important intelligence issue in decades, and was the highest priority for the MPI. A Planetary Warrant signed by a Planetary Judge gave them carte blanche to ask questions. Ten minutes after they began explaining what they learned he paused them. He hit a button on his computer and said, “I want the entire PSG here right away. If they can’t attend, I want them on a high security connection. Comm me when we can get them together. Thank you.” He turned back to his investigators and said, “You might as well stick around until we get the Planetary Security Group dialed in. You’d have to repeat it all anyway.”
Hotsmoke shrugged as Alexander said, “Yeah.”
“What’d you do with this Winslow character?”
“We’ve got him on ice.”
Hotsmoke added, “He’s harmless. He hasn’t done anything other than sign some papers that would have been signed anyway. Still, we don’t want him wandering loose until this whole shitshow gets settled.”
Alexander smiled and said, “A Planetary Warrant trumps habeas corpus, not that he knows anything about either.” The concept of habeas corpus, the idea that the state needed to prove why they had arrested somebody, had been discarded over two centuries before in WestHem; the FLEB just grabbed people, jailing or killing them as they wished.
“Once this is over, we’ll have to explain what is happening,” replied Duvall.
It was late in the day, but the New Pittsburgh residents were able to be rounded up. Governor Bonghit and Lieutenant-Governor Hummingbird were still in their offices on the 166th floor of the Capital Building, and Leader Biebersley and Senator Drunkenbitch, the leaders of the Martian Congress, were still in their offices on the 137th floor. General Martin Carruthers of the Martian Planetary Guard was in the MPG Building next to MPI’s, so he just walked over. The Planetary Security Adviser had his offices in the MPI building already. Only Admiral Bongwater needed to attend virtually.
Once everyone was seated, the Governor started things by saying, “Jacques, you called us together. I assume that means you know more.”
Duvall nodded. “Basically. We’ll probably be investigating this for fucking years, but we are actionable. I have our analysts on tap in case we need to hear from them.” Around him people were nodding in understanding. “The bottom line is that Ares Alexander is getting into the piracy business. It seems they aren’t making enough money by selling overpriced junk to the Marines and the Navy. Now they want to make money by stealing our ships. They’ll probably try with EastHem as well, and blame us, but that might be for the future, and we don’t care about EastHem in any case”
There was a quiet murmur around the room. They had already learned that piracy was probable, but this sounded a lot more definite.
“How goddamn definite is this?” asked the Governor. “I had to speak to the planet Friday night about the loss of the Saturn Voyager, though I said we were still investigating. The investigation is fucking over?”
“For all intents and purposes. Let me explain.” With that, he explained how Ares Alexander had diverted the last six Owls to the Gonzo Three shipyard, where three had been cannibalized to provide parts to the others. Those three had then been sent out to see what they could find and steal. “One managed to get lost and tried to take on a fucking EastHem Rattler, which handed them their ass, blowing them out of the Solar System. Another managed to find the Fart Bomb, which was unarmed and alone. The details aren’t completely clear, but they did manage to capture it and take it back to Gonzo Three, where they offloaded a hundred million metric tons of hydrogen and then scrapped the ship for the metal. That was considered very successful; stolen goods are never sold at a loss. No word on the crew, but they were probably killed when they were boarded.”
Duvall continued, “The third Owl was sent out after Saturn Voyager. We aren’t sure why they wanted a passenger ship, but they totally fucked it up. It looks like they shot up the Bridge, which would have allowed them to capture it and control it from the Auxiliary Bridge in Engineering, but they also shot the hell out of Engineering and Life Support. She was essentially dead at that point, and they abandoned her and went back to Earth. The latest word is that they’ll be welcomed back at Gonzo Three. Gonzo Three is being reconfigured as a standalone base for piracy. Our analysts report that Ares Alexander thinks this was all a great deal, and they are now examining the WestHem fleet and reserves to find other ships that could be converted to pirates.”
“Oh, shit!” murmured Jenny Drunkenbitch. She looked at Admiral Bongwater and asked, “What is our current status regarding piracy?”
Henny Bongwater said, “The Martian Navy takes a dim view on piracy, not that we’ve ever had any up to now. Right now, and probably for the foreseeable future, no freighter, tanker, or passenger ship is going anywhere without an escort, and a strong escort at that.” She paused for a second and said, “There has been piracy on Earth’s oceans for almost four thousand years, and the techniques to fight pirates are well developed. Escorts can be provided, which we are doing. Naval forces can be stationed in areas where piracy is rampant; that isn’t all that useful, considering how the planets are moving around in their orbits. Finally, you can attack the pirate bases. Since that would be Gonzo Three in Earth orbit, I’m not at all fucking sure how we’d do that without starting World War IV.”
“Are these escorts capable of protecting our ships?” asked Justin Biebersley.
“Quick answer, absolutely. We are sending out both a Raptor stealth ship and a Belting anti-stealth ship. Either ship is capable of handling anything short of a WestHem or EastHem task force, and they could probably fuck them up as well. More likely, the Belting would order our unarmed ships out of the area and cover their retreat, while the Raptor took down the pirates. We’ve never really practiced this sort of thing, because we’ve never considered piracy a real fucking thing and not a holovid show, but I damn well guarantee our captains are busy practicing now!”
“I ordered you to build more escorts when we talked last,” said the Governor. “How long will that take?”
“I need at least a couple of dozen Raptors and Beltings, and that’s going to take at least three years. Until then, we’ll simply make do. I repeat, no unarmed ship is going out without an escort,” answered Bongwater.
“What about our people on Earth?” asked Colin Hamstring, the Planetary Security Adviser. He mostly stayed quiet, listening and then talking to the Governor privately. “We don’t have many there, but WestHem’s history is to kill them on sight.”
Admiral Bongwater smiled. “That is already taken care of. We ran Operation Fast Fuck yesterday. We put assets in place years ago, just in case. We shut down the Kansas Support Facility and pulled all their asses out on a stolen lunar shuttle. They had some assistance from our Raptor orbital assets, and they escaped to an EastHem lunar shipping dock, where they rendezvoused with one of our interplanetary shuttles. They are now returning to Mars with a very heavy escort.” The Admiral’s image turned to face the Governor. “The potential hostages are safe, and nobody but fucking nobody is going to take our ships. We have issued a war warning to the entire fleet. What now?”
Bonghit ducked the question for a moment. “I am going to need to answer that by tomorrow morning. By now, WestHem Intelligence has seen MarsGroup’s news reports and my speech from last week. My next speech will be to tell Mars that pirates are attacking us. Once I do that, WestHem and Ares Alexander will know we know. Henny, what targets can you kill in response to this?”
“Jimmy, the Martian Navy is the most advanced navy in the Solar System. We have the ability to attack any and every goddamn military target WestHem has. EastHem, too, for that matter. That being said, we attack something in Earth orbit, like Gonzo Three, we are probably going to trash the entire orbital system. The same with our THOR system. We can drop THORs on Earth, but as soon as they see your broadcast, anybody important will be gone. Most of Ares Alexander’s assets are in Earth orbit, and not on the ground.”
“What assets do they have on Earth? Anything?” Governor Bonghit pressed.
“The CEO of Ares Alexander has homes in Aspen, Honolulu, Cabo San Lucas, and Martha’s Vineyard. Their corporate headquarter is a giant complex outside of Chicago.”
“Then those will be your initial targets. Hit the asshole CEO’s homes immediately. Maybe he’s somewhere else, but maybe he thinks we won’t do it. Tomorrow morning I will speak to Mars again. At that time I will announce that we are taking action. I want to call this Operation Martian Balance. Fucking WestHem has been naming things for the last century. It’s our turn now. We will balance their shit, big time! I will announce we will hammer their headquarters at that time; you can hit it after I finish my speech. Maybe the employees will escape from their headquarters, but I really don’t care. What else do they have we can nail? I want to punish WestHem for putting up with this shit, not just Ares Alexander.”
“Martian Balance? I like it!” said Bongwater. Then she shrugged and added, “They don’t have much else. Their next major fleet concentration is Ganymede. After that is Ceres.”
“Can we take down Ceres?”
“Fifteen minutes after they get the order, Ceres will vanish,” said Bongwater. “Just say when.” Ceres Metals wasn’t involved in the piracy, but their output fed directly to Ares Alexander.
“And if I mention it tomorrow morning, will they be able to escape from Ceres?”
Bongwater shook her head. “They can try. If I send the order as soon as the speech is over, they’ll still be loading any ships docked. No way will they be able to escape in that time frame.”
The Governor looked around the room. “Anybody here have a problem with this?”
Justin Biebersley looked over at his Senate counterpart and turned back to the Governor. “I want to fucking know why we aren’t taking down this pirate base they’ve built! This whole scheme is monstrous! Why are we leaving this base alone? Why are we letting them keep their pirate ships? The MPI says they are looking to build more pirate ships. We need to do something about this! Jimmy, you don’t let a cancer just keep growing! You kill it!”
Senator Drunkenbitch said, “Justin’s right. Whatever the Navy does, it has to include this fucking base!”
Bonghit looked at the image of the Martian Navy’s Flag Admiral. “Henny?”
“Let me look into this. I don’t want to just blow it out of the orbitals with a pod’s-worth of nukes. That would mess with EastHem as well. I need to talk to Joe Wetback. Give me a few hours.”
“Make that happen, Henny. I want that base taken down!”
General Carruthers asked, “What about the MPG? What are we doing?”
“You are going to issue a full callup of the damn reserves immediately following the speech. Prepare for it now. Maybe it’s nothing but training and practice, but it will be a powerful sign to our people that we are taking this shit seriously.”
“Agreed.”
Bonghit looked around again. “Anybody else? No? Waldevar, I want you and Jacques to stick around. I need to write a speech, and I need some help. Justin, Jenny, contact MarsGroup when you leave here. Let them know I will be giving a major speech tomorrow from Congress Hall, and I want as many Senators and Legislators in place as possible, every damn one of them. They can probably get here in time if they leave home now, even from Dow or Proctor.”
The two legislators shrugged. “Make your speech at 1100. That would help fill the hall,” said Biebersley.
“Better than 0900,” agreed Drunkenbitch.
“Understood. Okay, people, thank you. Let’s make it happen. Henny, Marty, you have your orders. By the way, what happened with that fellow from WestHem who ended up on Mars? What happened with him?”
“We have him on ice, Jimmy. We’ll talk to you about him later,” answered Duvall.
“Thank you.” Bonghit received everyone’s acknowledgement. He wondered how Laura Whiting and Homer Tesla had felt when they went to war. They won, at least. What if he fucked it up? Would he meet their standard? With help from the others, he wrote the speech he would have to give in the morning.
He needed to stop worrying. Eventually it was time to go home and see if Karen was interested in fooling around. She usually was, but if there was one thing he had learned from almost forty years of marriage, it was that he had no idea what women wanted. They were completely mysterious to him.
Triad Naval Museum
Triad Naval Base, Mars Orbit
Tuesday, March 17, 2235
Henny Bongwater left her office in the Naval Base and began walking, lost in thought. She was trailed by a pair of MEF bodyguards, but they had seen her in this mood before. She walked along the main concourse of the Naval Base two kilometers before she looked around. She was at the entrance of the Naval Museum. It was a location she frequently wandered through.
The Naval Museum was near the Naval Academy. Cadets were expected to visit the Museum regularly. Not even a century old, future naval officers were expected to know the kind of behavior they were to match. Part of the museum were the docks where a variety of ships were retired. Ballbuster was there, one of the first-generation Owls captured from WestHem, and then rebuilt as an Improved Owl Mod Two, instrumental in repelling the second and third invasions. There was Shitkicker, the Improved-Seattle that had captured Gustavus Adolphus, an EastHem Henry sent to destroy the new Martian colony in Saturn orbit; it was captured and the crew sent back to Earth, keeping Mars from starting a war with EastHem.
Stacy Wilmer was there, the first new construction battlecruiser of the Martian Navy, an entirely new design that had been amazingly effective during the third invasion. Ever since, battlecruisers had been the most powerful weapon in the Martian arsenal. There were other ships as well, newer models, many created by the brilliant designer James Rutter. Bongwater had met him at her academy graduation.
She went into the museum proper, to walk through the Hall of Heroes. So many of the first generation had been WestHem enlisted, kept below their level of ability by WestHem racism. There were exhibits on Matthew Belting, the first Martian flag admiral, a former WestHem lieutenant commander who had taken command after his captain had been killed during the Jupiter War. He had killed six EastHem ships before his command was shot to pieces, only to be court-martialed by WestHem for losing his ship. The others, like Steve Sugiyoto, Blackie Sparks, and Whitey Sucksall had done so well they had ships named after them. Hell, almost every captain from the Revolutionary Wars had ships named after them! There were exhibits on all of them.
And what had she done, Henny Bongwater asked herself. Nobody was going to name anything after a flag admiral who had lost two ships and thirty-one-hundred people to pirates! No, she had failed. She went back to her office and wrote out a letter of resignation. She would submit it after she killed the WestHem assholes who had done this to her planet.
Bridge
MSS Cockblocker, Earth Orbit
Tuesday, March 17, 2235
“The coordinates are locked in?” asked Commander Harley Quinn. Like everybody else on Cockblocker, she was in her biosuit; Cockblocker was at General Quarters.
“Locked in, Skipper. Launch in two minutes.” Lieutnenant Jamie Watercloset replied. It was the third time he had asked, and she had answered, but she wasn’t going to complain. This was only the third time THORs had been used in combat, and the first two ended Martian Vengeance and the Revolutionary Wars. THOR stood for Tactical Homing Orbital Response and was nothing more than a big and heavy titanium rod the size of a telephone pole. Dropped from orbit, it hit with the power of a small nuclear weapon and had terminal guidance good for within two meters of the target. If he was nervous, she was twice as nervous. A THOR launch package had twelve THOR warheads. She had the timer on the main screen. “Just say the word and I’ll automate the whole fucking attack.”
Quinn laughed. He knew he was a good captain and Cockblocker was a good ship. Still, Cockblocker was named after one of the original Martian Navy warships, legendary in her performance in the Revolutionary Wars. If they failed, he might just as well jump out of the airlock and save Admiral Bongwater the trouble. “Do it. It will keep us from worrying.”
Watercloset’s fingers moved on her console. “Locked, loaded, and programmed, boss.”
The Bridge crew watched the timer count down to 0000, after which they felt an almost imperceptible vibration as a hatch opened on the outside of the ship and a THOR launch package was ejected. The launch package immediately fired a chemical retrorocket, slowing the attack system and dropping it lower in orbit while Cockblocker moved on, separating rapidly. As soon as the launch package was at the proper altitude, the retrorocket shut down and detached. If any WestHem or EastHem surveillance satellite had noted the hot but short-lived heat signature, it was now gone and separated from Cockblocker. Then the THOR launch package separated into individual THOR warheads, each orienting to a specific target. The package was aimed at the four homes of Ares Alexander’s Chief Executive Officer, three warheads apiece. They were timed to hit simultaneously. Each warhead had a separate rocket engine, small but powerful, and a terminal guidance package capable of extreme accuracy.
Quinn, Watercloset, and the rest of the Bridge team watched the main screen, now split into four smaller screens. At 2215 Kansas time, the center of each screen lit up with white-hot clouds of debris. Cockblocker had lived up to her namesake’s reputation.
Bridge
MSS Hymenator II, 50,000 Kilometers Beyond Lunar Orbit
Tuesday, March 17, 2235
“Do you believe this shit?” asked Commodore Joe Wetback, commanding Heavy Task Force Luna.
“I just pass this shit along, Boss. I’m not crazy enough to make it up,” replied Lieutenant Commander Jeri Cumstain, his communications officer.
“Crazy is right! This is fucking nuts!” Wetback rubbed his eyes. “I want the MEF commander in here now!”