Chapter 1: Corporate Decisions

Personal Residence, InfoGroup CEO

Aspen, West America, WestHem

Thursday, June 11, 2150

William Featherstone looked at his guests calmly. It was unusual to have a business meeting in his primary residence, but not unheard of. He had ordered the house designed with such possibilities in mind. The house was only five thousand square meters, but he wasn’t married and had no children. Built in a mountain lodge style, with features such as a private library with a dome-shaped roof and oculus, an estate-wide server system, a twenty-meter swimming pool with an underwater music system, a two-hundred-fifty square meter gym, and a hundred square meter dining room. For business purposes he had a personal office and several conference rooms. The complex was staffed with over a hundred servants and professionals, including some exquisitely beautiful women who provided a very personal and professional service.

His vacation homes in Maui, Whistler, and Miami were only half the size of his primary residence. One had to make concessions, after all.

As the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of InfoGroup, the largest Internet provider in WestHem, the Democratic Alliance of the Western Hemisphere, Featherstone was the wealthiest individual in WestHem, and the most powerful. WestHem had been formed almost a century and a half ago to counter the Asiatic Alliance when it attacked both the United States and Russia. World War III had led to the creation of both WestHem and EastHem, the Democratic Republic of the Eastern Hemisphere, formed from the advanced economies and defense capabilities of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. The Asiatics had been defeated after a catastrophic war in which approximately ten percent of the planet’s population had died. Since then, the two alliances had settled into an uneasy cold war occasionally heating up through proxy nations.

Featherstone’s guests were the elite of WestHem, the most powerful corporate titans of the Western Hemisphere. Rexford Washington was the President and CEO of AgriCorp, the monopoly that provided food to half the planet. Carlton Bonaventure ran Jovian Gases, the larger of the two corporations that mined hydrogen from Jupiter and sent tankers to Earth. The military suppliers were represented by Holland Conover, CEO of Alexander Industries, and James Wellington, CEO of Ares Incorporated. Alexander made most of WestHem’s military armaments, and Ares was the largest shipbuilder for the Alliance. WestHem finance was represented by John Johnson, Chairman of the Board of Wells Fargo Santander, the largest bank in WestHem. The final guest was Sherrilyn Smith, the President of the Denver Exchange, the premier stock exchange of WestHem. While she didn’t run a company, per se, she acted as a referee between the massive egos of the group.

The personal worth of the members of the group was roughly $250 billion dollars each, and that was in the new dollars created after World War Three, which were worth ten dollars of pre-War dollars. There were two notable exceptions. Smith was only worth $75 billion but was considered by all a fair arbiter. Featherstone was currently worth $500 billion, which irked him to no end. Prior to the Martian Revolution he had been the Solar System’s first trillionaire, but his personal net worth was half what it had been.

“So, gentlemen, what are we to do about the latest military fiasco?” Featherstone asked.

Nobody wanted to speak first. For one thing, nobody wanted to admit they didn’t have a clue about what to do. The last Martian invasion had been a disaster of Biblical proportions.

In 2146, the Martian colony had revolted from WestHem rule. For over a century Mars had been considered the red-haired stepchild of the Western Hemisphere, or worse. Generally treated as little more than slaves, the final straw for the Martians was when WestHem and EastHem had gone to war over hydrogen mining around Jupiter in 2131. While the final battles had been fought in Jupiter orbit, EastHem had attacked WestHem’s Martian colony. Nobody had bothered to ask the Martians what they thought about being targeted by EastHem lasers. Fifteen years later Mars revolted.

WestHem was stunned by the actions of the Martian vermin, the name given them by their owners. A surprise attack by the Martian Planetary Guard, the local militia created to augment the WestHem Marines, captured the WestHem Marine garrison and the Navy ships based at Triad Naval Base orbiting Mars. The WestHem Navy and Marines were immediately ordered to Mars in an operation called Martian Hammer. Martian Hammer turned out to be a failure. The Martians managed to field a handful of captured WestHem Navy stealth ships, destroying a significant portion of the invasion fleet. Once the Marines landed, they discovered that the Martian Planetary Guard were not the half-baked soldier wannabes they expected. While hard pressed, the MPG destroyed the invasion and sent them packing.

Unwilling to accept the defeat of Martian Hammer, a second invasion was ordered. In 2150, Operation Martian Justice was launched, a massively reinforced version of Martian Hammer. Unfortunately for the WestHem Navy and Marines, the Martian Navy and the Martian Planetary Guard had not rested on their laurels during the interwar period. The Martian Navy savaged the WestHem Navy, killing more Marines during the convoy phase than had died in the entire first invasion. The MPG then killed or captured almost as many Marines as the Navy killed.

Now it was time to decide what needed to be done next. The idea of letting the Martian revolutionaries maintain control of Mars was something that couldn’t be conceived of. WestHem corporations owned 99% of the assets on Mars, and effectively owned that percentage of the population. When the Martians revolted, those corporations suffered an unimaginable loss of both their revenues and their assets. The current situation could not be allowed to stand.