The Tau Ceti Agenda

October 31, 2388 AD

Tau Ceti Planet Four, Moon Alpha (aka Ares)

New Tharsis Peninsula

Saturday, 5:36 AM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

Saturday, 1:36 AM, Madira Valley Standard Time

Elle Ahmi stood at one of the tall arched windows at the penthouse of the capitol building, looking to the north across Madira Valley at the spaceport several tens of kilometers away. The dome at the vertex of the Separatist leader's home allowed for three hundred and sixty degrees of view through the transparent armored walls. The giant arched windows sat side by side, completely around the office. The lack of opaque materials of the office would frighten sufferers of agoraphobia beyond their wits. But Elle was paying little attention to it, since her DTM links were buzzing at full bandwidth with battle-plan simulations, planetwide logistics data, food-distribution issues, and a million other things that the Separatist general-turned-leader had to deal with.

The room was reminiscent of the Oval Office in the White House on Earth in that it was a room with a circular floor plan, and it was the room the leader of the nation called his or her office. Where it differed was that Elle actually lived in the room. Her four-poster bed made of Martian oak sat near the east window, so she could watch the Jovian rise several times a day and Tau Ceti rise in the mornings. She also could look out in any direction and see across several states of the Separatist Nation. So maybe it really wasn't like the Oval Office at all—Elle thought of it as better.

The Ares Capitol Building was atop the highest peak of the capitol city of New Tharsis. The peak was an eons-dormant volcano at the center of a broad peninsula that had stretched as high as six kilometers above the Tharsis Sea. To the south, the mountain base stretched all the way to the ocean and then again several kilometers below sea level. That side of the mountain had kilometers of black sandy beaches covered with ancient lava stones. Even before Ares had become the new Separatist Nation, the Earth colonists had chosen the area as an ideal resort location. That side of the mountain was as much like Mauna Kea in Hawaii as any volcano mankind had discovered. At the shore were condominiums and resorts that spread across the beaches. The south-side beaches were the most relaxed culture in the entire nation, and clothing—along with most morals—was definitely optional.

To the north, the mountain stretched down into a plush green valley that wound its way to the northern side of the peninsula and to the ocean. The mountain was covered with tall vegetation and large trees resembling the hybrid Martian oak trees of the Sol System and some that resembled the giant conifers of the western parts of North America on Earth. As the valley twisted toward the ocean, the giant trees stopped, and there flourished canopy trees that resembled those in Costa Rica and Belize. The New Tharsis Peninsula environment encompassed everything from extremely high mountains to tropical rain forests, all within the confines of one Virginia-size peninsula. The area had been a haven for planetary ecologists and biologists when it had first been discovered over a century before.

The northern face Madira Valley was named for one of the greatest and most widely loved presidents in U.S. history, Sienna Madira. Elle always got a smile from that as only a handful of humans alive knew the truth about Sienna Madira. Madira had indeed led the American forces to squash the Martian secession movements and forced them into the Reservation. She had indeed led the Sol System firmly and passionately and fostered a great era for the American people. She had been a great president.

But Sienna Madira hadn't died when the Separatist terrorist cell managed to shoot down Air Force One while on a routine campaign tour of Kuiper Station, as most of humanity thought. Instead, it had been an inside job from the beginning that had been planned for years, even before Madira's unprecedented third term in office. It had taken a system-wide grassroots effort, but enough congressional support was drummed up to overturn the Twenty-Second Amendment of the United States Constitution that had limited presidential terms to two. With the advent of the rejuvenation procedures and medications, people pretty much could live forever or until they were hit by a truck or shot through the head by an HVAR or had a Separatist hauler crash on them. The oldest human to date had been recorded as over three centuries old. This new technology, and the fact that Madira was so loved by the public, made spreading the seed to amend the Constitution easy. There were no longer any term limits for the office of president.

The system was shocked and filled with sorrow when only a year into her third term, President Sienna Madira was killed. Following, there were candlelight vigils for months, and the flag flew at half-mast for nearly a year.

Elle, of course, knew the truth of the matter was that Madira and several of her aides had transformed themselves into a movement to change the government of the Sol System in a manner that, in their minds, would be more natural and beneficial for mankind. Madira and her close followers had long begun to fear that America had become a stagnant welfare state that was being ruled by majority vote. Her inner circle had come to the conclusion that a truly successful nation could not be run by majority, as the majority was not necessarily the smartest group for making tough decisions. Of course, Madira and her followers hadn't bothered to ask the general populace their opinions before making the decision to set events into motion that would change humanity's history forever if they were successful.

To the knowledge of the general public, Air Force One had gone down somewhere in the Kuiper Belt. There were no survivors, and only traces of the spacecraft were found. Madira had her body rejuvenated to that of a woman in her early twenties and let her hair grow long and jet black, which was typical of Martian women and of her heritage. The gray hair and wrinkles gone, Madira was no longer the elder stateswoman. She had become Elle Ahmi, a persona that took credit for the assassination of the greatest president since Lincoln,

Roosevelt, or Reagan. This gave Ahmi immediate credibility as a terrorist organization leader.

After several more years of struggle and terrorist actions, Elle's organization grew and absorbed other cells and factions, making her the undisputed leading terrorist within the Sol System. Ahmi was at the top of every Most Wanted list that the Americans had. Although her name was known throughout the system, she had been extremely cunning in keeping her true appearance and identity unknown. Her body and face had been rejuved; therefore, Ahmi was a young woman who was only videotaped or seen wearing a red, white, and blue ski mask. Only a select few had ever been allowed to see her face. Her true identity being unknown to the general public made it easier for her to operate and to move from location to location without being spotted. It also helped that Elle had been a software engineer most of her life as Madira, and she had spent years preparing and stealing new classified technologies for her movement.

She used her technical savvy to enable productivity within the Separatists that rivaled the economic machine of the United States. She used her carisma to become the catalyst of the Separatist movement, which had taken the Martian Reservation and the Separatist Laborers Guild by emotional storm. After several labor disputes, strikes, walkouts, and some very bloody and devastating battles with the U.S. military, she had risen to the top of the Separatist Reservation and become what could only be described as the supreme ruler of, as she called them, the "Free People."

Even now that she was free from the Sol System and effectively the leader of the Tau Ceti System, she maintained her secret identity. There would always be spies and assassins. And she still had plans to complete. Elle didn't want to rule just the Tau Ceti System. Besides, she doubted that America would let one of its colonies fall to the Separatists' rule for long. So rather than wait for the military might of the Sol System to come to her, she planned on taking the fight back across the stars to Earth—and soon. Everything was going according to plans that she had made and followed for decades and decades. There were plans in motion even at the present, on Ares and on Earth.

Elle turned from the windows and sauntered across the cavernous circular penthouse—her bare feet that squeaked against the hardwood flooring echoed in the mostly empty room with each step. Straightening her blouse and unsnapping one of the fasteners at the top, she sat down at her Queen Anne style desk, not sure whether she should keep on working or take a break. For a brief moment, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the chair. The DTM information came into her mind fast and furious and continuous even though she made an attempt to relax.

Copernicus?

Ma'am?

Shut off the mindlink for a moment, will you?

Yes, ma'am. The DTM virtual sphere went blank in her mind.

Elle sat quietly and tried to relax her shoulders and her thoughts, but even without the DTM pouring images into her brain at high bandwidth, her mind still raced with anxiety and what-ifs. But exhaustion was slowly taking its toll on her, and after a couple of minutes, she nearly dozed off. Her head slumped forward and startled her awake.

She opened her dark eyes wide and blinked a few times, then rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. Elle exhaled between her lips, making a soft motorboat sound. She gazed out the window across the valley at her dominion, at the results of her decades of planning and action, and took the brief moment to smile triumphantly. Once she had taken in all she could from that viewpoint, she ordered her AIC to increase the magnification of the northern portrait window. The scene zoomed all the way to the northern coastline of the New Tharsis Peninsula, which was sixty kilometers or more away. Separatist haulers, frigates, battle cruisers, and mecha were coming and going like a flurry of insects in a very busy colony—like a colony preparing for a full-scale war.

The colony at Ares had already consisted of nearly seven million people before the Separatist Exodus from the Sol System. More than thirty million had teleported from Sol's Oort Cloud to Tau Ceti nearly five years prior. Since that time, the population of the Tau Ceti System had grown to approximately fifty million. All who were old enough were working hard on the war machine.

For the most part, the fifty million Separatist citizens were free to do whatever they wanted as long as it did not interfere with the overall plans that Ahmi had laid out for them. The society was almost completely capitalist and very open although it was predominately run by networks of businesswomen.

From the beginning, Elle had singled out strong women that she could trust and put them in charge of upper echelon terrorist cells. The main goal of those cells was to usurp as much power from the legitimate Reservation businesses as they could. After several decades, there were no businesses within the Martian Reservation that weren't controlled by the Separatist movement. The women managed to maintain their power positions by following Elle's example and by putting other women they trusted in cells as their lieutenants or as leaders of cells adjacent or beneath them. Sometimes men were put in those positions, but most of the women tended to "be like Elle."

After some time, it became clear that the business leaders of the Separatists were women, and a matriarchal culture of multiple wife families arose as the norm around the business society. Men were still equal, but there were just more women who had made it to the top and managed to stay there.

Purposefully, again from the beginning, Elle had placed men in charge of the actual "boots on the ground" terrorist cells. The outcome of that approach had been to generate a military arm that was led mostly by men. Elle had come to believe from her personal experience with men that it was easier to manipulate them into hostile and dangerous action than it was women. Machismo and bravado were emotions that she could readily manipulate. Men were better at war, and women were better at business, she thought. It was her personal preference, whether there was actual truth to her beliefs or not. Her being the head terrorist-in-charge was enough to make the belief embedded in the culture for good.

As the Separatist Laborers Guild grew and became an extremely powerful economic engine, fiscal classes began to emerge. Effectively, within the Separatist society, there was an upper class of businesswomen and an upper class of warrior men. There were likewise many others in classes from poor to wealthy. The culture mimicked the cellular leadership structure from top to bottom. It was common in most families that the dominant wife led the household and ran it with the help of several other wives, while the men were in some form or other connected to military matters. There were, of course, men in business and women in the military, but the average was the other way around.

Copernicus, normal zoom on all windows, please, she told her AIC.

Yes, ma'am.

The window decreased to normal zoom. The sky was filled with stars, and the limb of the gaseous, giant planet that Ares orbited was beginning to peek over the horizon, bringing a faint violet hue to the night sky that Elle had grown to love. The view from the Capitol Building was nothing less than breathtaking.

Make the dome transparent, Copernicus. And you can turn the DTM desktop back on.

Yes, ma'am. Ah, Sol is rising just above the horizon now. Her AIC switched the polarity of the electromagnetic field on the armor, changing the ceiling of the dome from opaque to clear. Sol was just rising above the Jovian's rings in the constellation Boötes. The star of her birth world, Mars, was nearly twelve light-years away and appeared as a bright, second-magnitude star in the constellation. It was a wonderful view of the heavens but was mostly lost on Elle, as most of her attention reverted back to the datastreams coming in through the direct-to-mind link, describing the macroscopic details of the Separatist Nation.

Ma'am?

Yes?

Scotty would like to see you now if you are available. Your calendar is free for the next few hours. You have a sleep cycle scheduled.

Send him in.

Yes, ma'am. He is bug-free as best we can tell. When Copernicus assured Elle that someone was bug-free, the odds were high that that was indeed the case. Elle had seen to it decades earlier that Copernicus was the smartest AI she could find, and her penthouse had all the latest scanners known to humanity.

Elle sat back in her desk chair and looked at a picture frame sitting next to her redwood pen and pencil set. The frame held a picture in it that Scotty had given her at the end of the Exodus day. Elle examined the picture fondly and picked it up with both hands while tracing the outline of the picture with her thumbs. It was in a nice Mars cherry tree wood frame and covered with an anti-glare pane of glass. The photograph it held was of the newly elected Democratic President Sienna Madira with the freshly congressionally approved Supreme Court Chief Justice Scotty P. Mueller. The chief justice had just sworn in the new president, and they were shaking hands. There was handwriting on the picture that amused Elle to no end. She laughed at it as the memory of autographing the photo flooded her mind. It was a quote that she had often used in her term as president—one that she had stolen from a centuries-past president, Ronald Reagan:

"The best minds are not in government; if they were, business would hire them away. Thanks, Sienna Madira, President of the United States of America."

Elle sat the photo back on her desk at the southwest window, which was slightly open. Scotty casually strolled toward her with a blank stare on his face. Elle was pretty certain from the look that he was reading something DTM. She didn't interrupt but instead watched him as he stood in thought for a few more seconds.

"General, thanks for seeing me," Scotty said as the stare melted to a smile. The two had known each other for decades. They had died together and had also been resurrected together. They had planned the Exodus and the movements of historical events in at least three star systems together, and there was more to come. Much more to come.

"We're alone, Scotty," she said. "Well, other than Socks over there." Elle nodded to the kitty at the foot of her bed.

"Meow," the artificial intelligence kitty replied.

"Aww, Socks. Now come here, kitty," Elle called to her AIK. The artificial cat jumped up from its comfy bed and ran across the hardwood floor with a pitter-pat of tabby feet and then nuzzled up to Elle's shins and purred. Unless the AIK was analyzed with quantum- membrane technology sensors or it was torn apart and examined, it was indiscernible from a real orange tabby cat. Elle picked up the AIK and gently stroked the robotic pet's fur. It continued to purr softly, which soothed Elle's nerves. She relaxed in her desk chair and continued to scratch behind the cat's ears.

"Oh, well then, if we are alone, it is good to see you, Madam President," Scotty said earnestly.

"Oh, knock that shit off will you, Scotty?" Elle said with a dismissing wave of her hand. "What can I do for you at such a late hour?"

What time is it anyway, Copernicus?

1:36 AM, ma'am.

"Well, Elle, I've been running some more simulations of the election, and I think today could be too early to make the assassination attempt. It won't impact the large group of voters at Luna City anyway, and that is where this election is going to be lost or won. The values we used for the GROWTH-star and the WAR-sub-t coefficients seem to be low when you consider the economic fuel that Moore has created in his military buildup. And the DURATION-sub-t and the a7 coefficients just seem to me to be pulled out of thin goddamned air. If you ask me—"

"Scotty." Ahmi held up her hand to stop the former chief justice. Scotty paused midsentence. "Listen, Copernicus and I have hashed through the dynamic models of the general elections and economics and behavior of the Sol System over and over, and every simulation we have run curve-fits to those values. Granted, Luna City could prove to be a problem in this election, but we'll just have to overcome that with the press. You've been in on the sims from the beginning. You know good and damned well that we've even used the weather- control data, sunspot activity, and literally more than a million other factors in this model. It is probably the most complicated scientific model of human culture ever generated. If we weren't using it to overthrow a government or two, we'd probably get a Nobel Prize for it. Granted, there are a lot of moving parts, but the model is good. So don't go getting cold feet on me now."

"I realize all the work we've put into the model, Elle, but it still almost seems like magic rather than mathematics." Scotty rubbed the one o'clock shadow growing on his chin and then threw his hands up. "I'm not going to get you to change your mind on this, am I? Something could happen at the last minute on Tuesday morning that could shift the election. Whether we want that damned bullheaded Mississippi redneck marine in office or the Ivy League brat, we might not be able to alter the outcome of the election if we impact events too early or too late."

"Sorry, the plan is already in place, and it is too late to stop it. And we sure as hell don't need to go monkeying around with things at the last minute without having simmed the outcome. Now, is that all you had on your mind?" Elle leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on her desk. Her skirt slid to knee level, revealing her athletic legs and the fact that she wasn't wearing hose—they were curled up on the floor next to her boots and had been there for hours. Elle stretched her arms wide over her long black ponytail with a yawn. "It's getting late."

"I'm not certain what else to say about it then. I guess you have been right, pretty much, for about fifty years now. Or you've been really goddamned lucky," Scotty joked. "You know, you should try to take a break, Elle. You look tired."

"I've been tired for about forty years, Scotty. Knowing that I'm gonna burn in Hell for all eternity will do that to a person." She added the last comment as an old joke the two of them had shared for years. When they first had the plan of developing a Separatist organization, Scotty had warned her of the potential carnage that could result. Ahmi—President Madira at the time—had assured her chief justice that burning in Hell to create a truly functional world for all people was worth it. Scotty had commented to her that she almost sounded nuts. President Madira laughed and again explained that that would be another good reason for burning.

Elle raised her left eyebrow to her old friend in an invitingly flirtatious way. "But we're all gonna burn for something. Besides, I'm thinking about taking a break, though I could think of better things to do than sleep."

"Why, Madam President, whatever would you have in mind?" Scotty closed the distance to her slowly, yet deliberately, and took Elle's hand, helping her to her feet. Elle stepped towrd him as Scotty wrapped his arms around her. Lost in the moment, a flurry of action between them and toward the bedroom side of the penthouse ensued. Scotty slid his hand down the small of Elle's back to her firm buttocks and then grasped them solidly as he kissed her. In return, Elle tightened the muscles there with a slight quiver of her thighs and pulled Scotty tightly into her lips. After exploring his mouth vigorously with her tongue, she pushed him back with both hands, planting them on his chest—her fingertips massaging into his pectoral muscles. She then slid them down his stomach to his waist, fingering at his waistband. Elle continued to push him backward until they both nearly tripped as they stepped on the AIK's tail.

"Meeoow!" Socks wailed as he made like a rocket across the room to hide underneath the desk.

"Oh, shit, sorry kitty," Elle managed to say, muffled between kisses and fumbling with Scotty's belt buckle. She backed him up against the Martian oak bed and pushed him backward onto it while at the same time untying her ponytail. Scotty rose up and pulled the fasteners loose on her blouse and then slid it over her milky white Martian shoulders to the floor. The leader of the Separatist Army and Nation stood topless in front of her most trusted male companion and eyed him like a tiger about to devour its prey. The two of them had decided years before that they were going to get lonely at the top unless they added some extracurricular activities to their friendship. Sex had turned out to be the best one they could think of.

With a swish of her head, left-to-right, her long black hair fell softly over her naked shoulders, hanging just over her firm breasts, her erect nipples peeking out between strands of her glistening hair. Scotty grasped both breastly gently but firmly in his hands and eyed her hungrily.

Dim the lights, Copernicus, she thought. Her AIC dimmed the room lights and left the windows and dome transparent. He didn't reply, as he surely would regret interrupting unless he had to. Yeah, that's good.

Elle grabbed Scotty's dress shirt and ripped it apart and then pushed him backward again. He lost his balance and plunged down onto the bed. This time she crawled on top of him, fondling his chest and biting at his neck and torso. She paused and looked into his eyes and then bit his lower lip, tugging it just hard enough to stimulate and not leave a mark. Her tongue again searched into his mouth eagerly, as eagerly as a teenager kissing for the first time. Scotty's tongue returned the exploration genuinely. Their most recent rejuves had left both of them with very early twenty-something bodies, and they definitely reacted that way sexually—a well documented side effect of the rejuve process.

Elle shivered with chill bumps and writhed ecstatically to the feel of Scotty's hand squeezing her left breast. She leaned her head back, shaking the hair out of his way, and again he grasped her firmly with both hands, a hand to each breast. Her enthusiasm only increased, like pouring pure rum on a red hot flame, as Scotty tugged eagerly at her aroused nipples. She raised and jostled her hair over her face again before she slithered off the bed and back to his belt. The zipper and snaps went easily aside and she knelt to the floor in order to slide his trousers and underwear off, dragging her long, free hair across his naked crotch and legs, teasing him with the tickling sensation.

Somehow in the passionate throes, Scotty had already managed to kick off his shoes and was toeing at his socks frantically. Elle helped him finish removing them with a gentle caress of his toes and then a slight nibble at his left foot. She eased upward, kissing and nibbling at his legs, with her hands exploring his body as she rose. She kneaded his thigh muscles as she kissed his calf, and then she kissed his thighs.

Elle grasped Scotty's penis gently at first between her right thumb and forefinger and fondled it carefully before her. Then she firmly and more aggressively gripped it with her entire hand, while unzipping her skirt the rest of the way with her left hand. All gentleness finally thrown aside, she took him into her mouth with the same unwavering concentration that she would any task or battle plan. Goose bumps rushed in a wave over her skin as her skirt hit the floor. With a rhythmic motion, Elle worked over Scotty for a few moments longer. The motion of each of her down strokes was emphasized with his blissful moans. The pale violet hues of the gas planet filled the room, casting strange flickering shadows of their undulating motion across the hardwood floor. The strangeness of the lighting and shadows added a sharp edge to the mood and titillated their visual sense.

The taste of him in her mouth and the feel of his strong hands running through her hair and down her back fueled her desire for Scotty to the boiling point. Elle looked up and caught his eye and kissed her way up his stomach, stopping to bite his right nipple. Scotty flinched slightly at the bite but didn't protest. His flinch triggered Elle to bite him again and again in soft, slow, nibbles across his chest and up the side of his neck. She bit into him and lingered there, feeling his pulse rush through his carotid artery with her tongue before she continued up to his mouth. Elle tugged with his lower lip between her teeth and then playfully kissed him.

Finally, she wriggled like a cat on top of him and pushed him into her. Elle exhaled with each rhythmic thrust and rocked her hips forward then back. Her body and his bounced against the mattress of the old bed, producing a faint squeaking of the Martian oak posts against the floor. Then and there, that moment, the few rare moments like that that Elle and Scotty had managed over the past few decades, those moments were the most real to each of them and the moments where they felt truly alive. The two would-be, most-wanted terrorists in the known galaxy forgot all about plans to destroy America and revolutions and wars for a fleeting, frolicking moment. They weren't in love, but it was the closest thing either of them could manage under the circumstances.

Elle moaned softly as her breathing quickened and her back tensed. The faint squeaking of the bedposts against the floor grew louder and faster, and the strange lighting from the Jovian, now nearly half-risen, caused their motion to be overemphasized from shadows dancing hysterically across the room. She could sense that Scotty was getting close to climax as well.

"That's it, Scotty," she sighed. And then she sighed again as her toes curled into the comforter of her bed and she gripped Scotty harder and bit down on his left earlobe.

Ma'am, I've got an urgent alert from the spaceport at Madira Valley Beach, her AIC interrupted just as Scotty let go. His body shook, and he exhaled forcefully three times. With each exhale, he dug his fingernails down Elle's back, leaving light pink scratches in her pale epidermis. Then he relaxed his neck muscles and let his head fall back onto the bed, followed by a final grunt of ecstasy. Elle's DTM virtual sphere kicked alive with alerts and other distracting data.

"Unhh," she moaned and shivered a final time, and then as if someone had thrown a switch, immediately snapped out of the mood and into Elle Ahmi, Separatist Leader mode. It was as if someone had screamed "Incoming!" and she had jerked to scrambling for cover and her weapon. Nobody'd better be fucking with my plans!

"Elle . . ."

"Goddamnit!" she cursed, startling Scotty out of the moment and completely destroying the mood for each of them. There was work to be done, but Elle didn't have to like it. Turn the damn lights on. Fuck.

"What the . . . Elle?" Scotty looked at her, bewildered and squinting from the light in his eyes.

"What kind of alert?" she said verbally.

There has been a security incident, and several soldiers and guards have been killed, the AIC reported.

What do you mean security incident?

Vital information to the battle plans has been downloaded: some background information on you, the Oort Cloud facility, and knowledge of the QMT-4 prototype, the AIC replied.

"Shit!" As if the encounter had never happened, Elle was in General Ahmi mode and was standing at her bedside, pulling her uniform out of a drawer near her bed and getting dressed. "Who, and how, Copernicus? Go speakers for Scotty."

"Yes, ma'am," the AIC's voice filled the room. "There may be more data that she copied, but nobody is certain of that yet. Also, there is no identification on her, but it appears to be a young red-haired woman of average build. My guess is that her physical appearance is under disguise if this is a professional attempt. Somehow the security cameras were overridden, and there is no image of her available. She managed to infiltrate a battle cruiser and hack into the secure network. All of this does suggest a pro. CIA perhaps?"

"Too early to guess. Damn. All right, find her. Alive! We need to know what she knows." Elle looked at Scotty, who was still lying naked and spent on her bed with a tired and very angry expression. Her sleep cycle would have to wait. "It's always something.

"We have to go, Scotty," Elle said as she stormed to the edge of the penthouse toward the door and donned the forever-present red, white, and blue ski mask. She pulled her long black hair into a ponytail through the hole in the back of the mask and slapped the door open, never bothering to look back at her lover. "Copernicus, have my Lorda troop lifter ready. Come on, Scotty."