Chapter 7: Planning

Senior Conference Room C
Triad Naval Base, Mars Orbit
Wednesday, July 12, 2147

“Admiral, are you sure you want to do this? Ballbuster has become the best stealth ship in the fleet under the skipper!” Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto asked.

Admiral Matthew Belting smiled at Sugiyoto. Belting himself was a combat veteran. The first and only Greenie commander of a WestHem ship, his record was one for the history books. As Executive Officer of a WestHem Owl, and later its Commander when his Captain died in combat, he had killed six ships in the Jupiter War. Later, however, his ship had been hammered into scrap metal and the survivors were captured by EastHem, and Belting was made the scapegoat for the loss.

Steve Sugiyoto was the Executive Officer of MSS Ballbuster, the Owl that had destroyed two Panamas and a Seattle as they transited to Mars during Martian Hammer. That was the best record of the four Owls which had engaged in combat against the convoy. After the war, Ballbuster had performed an extended patrol in Earth orbit, reporting on both WestHem and EastHem naval movements and logistics. She had returned roughly a month ago. Now she was ready to go out again. He laughed as he replied, “Why do you think I am doing this, Lieutenant Commander? It’s because she’s the best ship in the fleet!”

“Steve, you are going to do just fine. The only reason I could make Ballbuster the best in the fleet is because I had you as my exec. It’s your turn now, and I know you’ll do great,” added Commander Brett Ingram, captain of the Ballbuster.

At the time of the Revolution, WHSS Mermaid was based at Triad Naval Base and Ingram was a detection specialist, a petty officer, and Sugiyoto was a cook’s assistant. Following the capture of the Mermaid by the MPG, both men had been offered promotions to officer’s rank and the chance to protect Mars from invasion. After the war Mermaid was renamed Ballbuster during the formal ceremony inducting her into the new Martian Navy.

Belting finished by saying, “It’s a done deal, Lieutenant Commander. Are you telling me you are not capable of commanding the Ballbuster? If so, speak up. If you are capable, congratulations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that brings up Lieutenant Hacker. That’s MPG rank, not Navy rank. He’s the CO of your technical detachment. You’re taking him and his bunch back to Earth orbit,” said Belting. The four men were all wearing Martian military and naval uniforms, not that that was saying much. Red shorts, white t-shirts with their ranks embroidered on their left breast, and white canvas shoes was all that the climate-controlled conditions of Mars required. “Lieutenant, please explain.”

Willis Hacker nodded. He had served in the lines at New Pittsburgh before being promoted and returned to his original job in computer technology at what had once been the Martian headquarters of MicroZon-AmaSoft, now the software coding office of the MPG and MN. “I’m not sure if you know how WestHem did computer coding for the Navy. It was subcontracted out, of course, and the corporation that had almost all those contracts was MicroZon-AmaSoft. That work was done partially on Mars and partially on Earth, but copies of all the software were stored in both locations. The stupid Greenies were allowed to work on bits and pieces, of course, but we were too stupid to actually understand what it did.” As he said that, he smiled, as did the others.

Ingram looked at Hacker and asked, “Can I assume that the stupid Greenies weren’t actually all that stupid and have been able figure out all those pesky little zeroes and ones?”

Belting laughed. “Just like you and Steve figured out all those weird buttons on the Ballbuster.”

Hacker nodded. “Commander, we have been working on what amounts to a back door into WestHem communications.” When the naval officers didn’t immediately show understanding of the term, he added, “A back door is a secret login and password system that allows a system administrator to access a system. It’s usually necessary when some user who doesn’t know what he’s doing breaks the system. In this case, when the WestHem Navy at Triad broke things, they would have the Eden branch of MicroZon-AmaSoft fix it. Theoretically the Earthling managers were the ones who diagnosed and fixed the problem, but the actual work was done by the Greenie technicians.”

Belting explained further. “Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto, when you reach Earth orbit, you will maneuver Ballbuster into a position that will allow Lieutenant Hacker and his team to access WestHem satellite communications. If everything works perfectly, they will be able to insert a virus into the WestHem system that will allow a back door to be transmitted throughout the system. If everything goes to shit, you and everybody on the Ballbuster will not be coming back to the comforts of home.”

Sugiyoto shrugged. “We do that all the time anyway, Admiral.” He turned to Hacker. “I assume the locked containers loaded on Ballbuster and the five people accompanying them are how we are going to put those back doors in.”

Hacker nodded. “They’re civilians who, like me, were part of MicroZon-AmaSoft. They’re coders and technicians. Once we can connect to a satellite, the theory is that they’ll be the ones to figure out if there’s a problem and fix it. If it works, you bring us back here, to those comforts of home.”

“So, we’re a taxi service this trip.”

Belting and Ingram nodded. “Well within the capabilities of an Owl. You’ve also got some new crewmembers and some newly promoted petty officers and line officers. You’ve done this before, Steve. You know how to do it,” said Ingram.

“We can do it.”

Admiral Belting stood, prompting the others to stand as well. “Excellent. Let’s make it official.” He led the way out of the conference room, picking up his aide as he left the room. They went to the tram that took them to where Ballbuster was docked. An armed MPG guard was stationed at the dock. They went through the docking tube into the ship.

When ships were docked at Triad Naval Base, they were connected to the base’s power, plumbing, and artificial gravity grid. Owls had their own grav plates, but when they were used during flight operations, the system made the Owls visible to gravity and electromagnetic radiation sensors. When docked, it was considerably easier to load, unload, refuel, and perform maintenance while under gravity. They would lose gravity when they undocked and lost their umbilicals.

Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto led them into the dining facility. The mess suite wasn’t large enough for the entire crew to eat at the same time, so the mess ran in shifts. The Lieutenant Commander asked Lieutenant Haley Suckface, the Tactical Officer and third in command, to get the rest of the ship online and watching. Suckface had been a raw recruit on Swordfish during Operation Interdiction, the anti-convoy phase of the war, had done well, and had been rapidly promoted after the war. She was vermin, like many of the crew.

The lieutenant flipped a few switches and said, “You’re live, Sugi.”

“This is Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto. Our guest today is Admiral Belting, head of the Martian Navy. I am sure you’ve heard of him. Admiral?”

“Thank you. Officers and crew of the Ballbuster, thank you for this chance to speak. Attention to orders.” That sounded suspiciously formal to the crew, and most of them straightened their posture, even though the Martian Navy didn’t have a lot of formality. Belting took some papers out of his pocket and unfolded them.

TO: MSS BALLBUSTER, COMMANDER BRETT INGRAM

FROM: MARTIAN NAVAL COMMAND (NAVCOM), ADMIRAL MATTHEW BELTING

YOU ARE RELIEVED OF COMMAND, MSS BALLBUSTER, AND PROMOTED TO THE RANK OF CAPTAIN, MARTIAN NAVY. PROCEED FORTHWITH TO TRIAD NAVAL BASE FOR FURTHER ASSIGNMENT.

END MESSAGE

A second paper was unfolded.

TO: MSS BALLBUSTER, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER STEVEN SUGIYOTO

FROM: MARTIAN NAVAL COMMAND (NAVCOM), ADMIRAL MATTHEW BELTING

YOU ARE PROMOTED TO RANK OF COMMANDER, MARTIAN NAVY, AND ASSIGNED THE POSITION OF CAPTAIN, MSS BALLBUSTER.

END MESSAGE

There were some stunned faces in the group, but mostly pleased expressions. It’s one thing to have a commander relieved for cause, but quite another when the commander is promoted. Most of the assembled crew congratulated both men loudly, and similar loud appreciation could be heard in the attached hallways.

Belting shook the hands of both men. “Is your gear packed, Brett?”

“I did that before the meeting, Admiral. If the Skipper can free up some help, he can move me out of his cabin and move in himself,” Ingram replied.

“Sugi?” said Belting.

“Suckface, front and center,” he ordered.

“Yes, sir. Congratulations, sir, to both you and Captain Ingram.”

“Thank you, Haley,” said Ingram.

“Haley, congratulations. You’re my exec. Do it right and maybe you can make lieutenant commander. The first part of doing it right will involve throwing the old captain off the ship with all his gear and moving me into my exalted new residence. Don’t screw it up, either, or you’re back on the Swordfish cleaning compartments.”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir. The Swordfish is now known as the MSS Middle Finger. Just thought I should make sure you knew before I get sent to the wrong ship.”

“Smartass!”

Belting shook hands all around before departing. “Your official orders will be arriving momentarily, Captain Sugiyoto. Congratulations and good luck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Westinghouse Towers
New Pittsburgh, Mars
Wednesday, July 12, 2147

Walker Stevens got off the elevator and looked around for directions. The Westinghouse Towers were nice residential apartment towers, older buildings, only seventy floors, but well maintained. How a new immigrant family could afford a place like this was beyond him. He turned to his date and smiled. “Nice digs.”

“You can’t figure it out, can you?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Tasty Brown was employed at Whiting Memorial Hospital in the cleaning crew. A year ago, she had been vermin, an unemployed ghetto dweller like her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The Revolution had changed all that. Now she had a job cleaning at the hospital and going to school part-time. She could read and write at a third-grade level but the incentive of getting a better job, a real job for real money, was a very effective motivator for her studies.

As part of Stevens’ espionage tradecraft, he needed to make contacts with a wide selection of people. You never knew what a contact might help with, and in a location as wildly different from WestHem as Mars, as many contacts as possible was important. He already had a reputation among the EastHem immigrants as a solid guy, someone who stood up for his fellows, who walked the walk and talked the talk. Granted, none of them could remember him from before they met in the Birmingham jail, but he must have been involved in the struggle for justice, otherwise why would he have been arrested?

Stevens had years of experience turning contacts into assets but for the life of him, nothing was working. On the first day of training as an intelligence agent every trainee learns the acronym MICE. Money, Ideology, Compromise, and Ego - those were the Holy Grails of intelligence. Getting the right hook converted the most dedicated patriot into a rat in a matter of moments, but he had gotten nowhere so far. It was unlike any espionage operation he had ever been involved in.

Money? He had access to millions in dollars or pounds, but it made no difference since they didn’t use either on Mars. Ideology? Every single Martian he had met was violently anti-WestHem, but their EastHem sympathies were limited to acceptance of the barter trade of food for hydrogen. Nobody wanted anything to do with either. The only possible crack in the system was the trade union, where one of the leaders was jockeying for power against the Martian government. Compromise meant that you had discovered something that a person didn’t want known, mostly legal or moral. The Martians had a moral and legal code that seemed to ask what WestHem would do and then accepted the reverse. Forget about finding out that somebody was illegally downloading a song or a vid when the Martian government was downloading every byte of intellectual property it could find. As for the other major area of potential compromise, while huge areas of WestHem sexual behavior were illegal, it didn’t seem as if anything sexual on Mars was illegal. Even Ego wasn’t a productive area for flipping a subject. The standard technique was to agree that the poor oppressed contact was actually smarter than his boss. In this case, it was true! They kicked WestHem ass convincingly and routinely talked about doing it again in the future.

He turned to Tasty and smiled. From what he could tell, she was predominately of Hispanic origin, though with the typical ghetto mix of almost anything else. She was medium height, with an hourglass figure, huge tits, a slim enough waist, and an ass that was plush and cushiony. She was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, the standard Martian outfit. She looked good in it, too, especially since she had skipped the sports bra; she had a wonderfully enticing jiggle as she walked.

“So, explain it to me.”

“The Westinghouse Towers were filled with a lot of WestHem corporate types. After the Revolution and before the war, we loaded them into the last couple of passenger liners and shipped them back to Earth. They were sent packing with the clothes on their backs, and they were damn lucky to get that much.”

“I’m following you,” Stevens said.

“So, what happens to a perfectly nice apartment tower filled with nice furniture? Under the new Martian system, let’s rent them out to people with the skills to get a job that can pay for it. That means it is not restricted to Earthlings, but to a shitload of Greenies, vermin even, as long as they have a job that can pay the rent.”

“Like my friends.”

“You said she’s a nurse?”

“Licensed, trained, experienced at a fancy hospital in London.”

“There you go. We have a shortage of doctors and nurses on this planet. They get a lot of credits, enough to pay for a place here. What’s he do?” Tasty asked.

Walker Stevens grinned. “He’s an EastHem banker. He’s as useful as tits on a bull!”

“Maybe she likes it on top.” She hip-checked him with a laugh and they went in search of the apartment.

They found the apartment and Stevens touched the buzzer button A few seconds later, Mary’s voice came from the speaker. “Walker! You’re right on time! Come on in!” There was a click and the door slid to the side. Mary was standing inside smiling and holding a pair of drinks. “Hi, I’m Mary Winston. Here, have a drink.” She gave each of her guests a drink and led them back inside. “Paulie, I need another drink!”