The Tau Ceti Agenda

November 1, 2388 AD

Washington, D.C.

Sunday, 1:35 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

The NSA, the DNI, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and the sec def are here, sir. Abigail roused Alexander from his power nap. The president had fallen asleep in his desk chair, and Abigail hadn't had the nerve to wake him up before.

What? Oh, you should have woken me earlier, Abigail.

Yes, Mr. President.

Send them in.

Alexander wiped his eyes with a tissue and then rubbed at them with his thumb and forefinger. He was still having a rough time overcoming his previous day. The constant badgering from the RNC chairwoman to fight back at the impeachment nonsense was also grating on his last nerve. He would get to it in good time. There was still well more than a day before the polls opened. He would think of something before then. Really, he would. In the meantime, he had the cleanup from the Seppy attack to deal with and the daily grind of running a country.

"Frank, Mike, Sylvia, Juan, y'all come in, come in. Have a seat." Moore tried to sound relaxed and eager to see them. After all, he hadn't been fully briefed on the situation in the Oort Cloud yet.

"Mr. President." General Sylvia Patourno smiled and shook his hand. "I can honestly say that I've never been happier to see you alive and well, sir."

"Thanks, Sylvia. Now let's hear about our operation out in the Oort, shall we?"

"Well, sir, I'll brief you and Juan will jump in here whenever." She nodded to the secretary of defense.

"Of course I will. You know me." He smiled as he interrupted.

"Sir, it was pretty grim for a while. In fact, it was so grim that we thought we were going to lose both the Madira and the Blair. Each of the supercarriers took heavy damage and suffered major crew losses. The attrition of our mecha and ground forces was bad. Of the thousand pilots deployed during the operation, only about four hundred survived. The top flight units of each supercarrier lost senior experienced officers." The general paused briefly to gauge the president's response, but Moore held quiet and expressionless.

"Yes, sir. Things didn't go as planned at all," the sec def added. "It appears that the Seppies had two large mass driver guns in the area that intel had missed. There was also an unexpected teleport into the battle that consisted of a fully loaded hauler and several other smaller ships, including the one that teleported to our space to kamikaze the Moon."

"The two Ares-T pilots that came through with it were part of the Sienna Madira's flight wing," the national security advisor, Frank Duckett, added. "In fact, one of them was the CAG for the supercarrier. He gives a pretty dark description of the battle, Mr. President. He's a very well-spoken young man. You might consider him as a spotlight hero in your next national address, sir." Frank grinned slyly and nodded with a raised eyebrow. Alexander caught the NSA's hint. It sounded like a good idea.

"You said two pilots?"

"Yes, Mr. President. His wingman, a young woman, stayed with him the entire time. Both of them attacked the battle cruiser themselves to try and stop it from making it to Luna City."

"Two fighters against a battle cruiser? Now, that is damned heroic." Moore was missing something in this story. "Wait a minute, how did these two know that the battle cruiser was going to Luna City?"

"That is another really interesting part, sir," the sec def said, then turned to the chief spy of the country. "DNI?"

"Uh, yes sir," the director of national intelligence, Michael Lewis joined in. "Operation Bachelor Party was started actually during President Alberts' term, though I can't say he paid much attention to it. I've briefed you on it before."

"Yes, so?"

Abigail?

Yes, sir. Operation Bachelor Party was set about to place an operative inside the Separatist community. The operative was put into position by a navy Ares pilot on the morning before the Martian Exodus. She was last heard from later that day with a warning that the Separatists were leaving to Tau Ceti.

Right, I remember that.

Who was the pilot?

A Lieutenant Commander Jack Boland, callsign DeathRay of the Sienna Madira squadron Gods of War. Records show that he is now Commander Boland.

Okay.

"It turns out that," the DNI continued, "when the battle cruiser teleported into the middle of the attack the agent contacted the CAG because he was the same pilot that had dropped her into the Reservation on Mars years earlier."

"You're shitting me now, right?" Moore looked back and forth at the faces of his senior defense and intelligence staff. They were serious as far as he could tell.

"No sir, it was a lucky coincidence," the NSA added.

"Well, how about that. These two get a medal. No, wait. We blew the hell out of that battle cruiser. I was there," Moore said. "Where is this CIA agent now?"

"The last communication she had with the pilots was that she was trapped on the ship, and they believe she was killed when the ship was destroyed, sir."

"Damn. She deserved better," Moore replied.

"I agree, sir." The DNI nodded.

"All right, all right. It went bad at first. So, then what?" Moore leaned back in his chair and propped his chin on his fist.

"Marines, sir. Armored E-suit Marines," Marine General Patourno said proudly. "A small recon team known as Roberts' Robots fought their way into the facility, found a teleporter, teleported themselves to the big gun on the moon planetoid, and took it."

"Ooh-fuckin'-rah," Moore said as he sat up straight.

"Semper fi, sir. Then our boys figured out how to use the big gun against the Seppy bastards and blasted the hell out of them."

"Hot damn, that's what I wanted to hear! Now, those marines definetly get medals and promotions." Moore stood excitedly. "And now?"

"The facility is ours, Mr. President," the sec def said.

"Goddamn. That is great news, Juan. General, that is out-fucking- standing!" Moore stood up and shook their hands, congratulating them.

"Yes, sir."

"Uh, sir," the sec def interrupted Alexander's jubilation. "They have a lot of wounded and damage that they have to deal with out there, and at best, the U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson is still a week away. Recall, it's a three-month trip at max hyperspace. We need more presence there also in case the Seppies try to pop through the teleporter."

"Yes, yes, of course, Juan. Send three supercarriers loaded to the gills out there and bring our troops that fought this one home. And every damned one of them gets a promotion, you hear me? And I want medals splashed around liberally."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"And send a damned QMT-4 team out there to set us up a teleporter between Earth and there."

"Yes, sir," the sec def said, and then had a blank stare on his face for a brief moment as if he was talking with his AIC.

"Has anybody figured out how the Separatists managed to teleport a battle cruiser from that facility in the Oort Cloud all the way to the Moon?" Moore sat back down.

"No, sir," the NSA replied.

"We have teams working on it, Mr. President," General Patourno added.

"Tell them to work harder. Give them more money or whatever else they need. I'm still president for at least two more months no matter what happens Tuesday. We need to learn as much about that technology as we possibly can and as quickly as we can."

"Yes, sir."

"You two get with Abigail." He pointed to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the sec def. "I want to get some of this in a speech for an address to the nation sometime tomorrow. I'm going to declassify the existence of this threat now that we took it from the Separatists. And I want to meet these two pilots. And those AEMs when they get back."

Moore had the beginnings of a plan for winning the election, and this was a major part of it. "In fact, I want those two pilots with me when I give the speech."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"Okay, Frank, Mike, I'm sure you two want to talk about yesterday in Orlando. So talk."

"We found a teleport pad in the bowels of one of the Disney engineering centers," Director Lewis said. "It was a closed-down section of the park that hadn't been used in years. Somehow, the Separatists built that thing right under our noses. DHS and the FBI are still working out how they managed that. We dismantled it and sent it out to NRL to be studied and retrofitted for other use. I hear it looks like a copy of the QMT-4 from the Tyler. That brings us to the leak, sir."

"Leak? You mean you think there really is a leak out of the White House?" Moore asked. "Come on. That has to be just a ploy by the DNC. Although, it is interesting that the article in that magazine had a drawing that looks like it was lifted right out of one of our Top Secret documents. But look, the Seppies have managed a technology that we haven't by teleporting this battle cruiser the way they did. Maybe they didn't need a leak. Or maybe there was a leak, who the hell knows?"

"Yes, sir. Too much of a coincidence perhaps, perhaps not, but we are looking into it. Right now I would say that nobody has any more information on it than I do," the DNI replied.

"Well, then. Mike, let's keep it that way."

"Yes, sir."

"But there has to be a leak somewhere. Any idea where it really is? I mean, the Separatists don't have the resources to build all this and to generate the QMT-4s and a facility like that out in the Oort. Could they have done that without having stolen some knowledge of this concept? If they didn't get it from us, then where did they get it?"

"We don't know."

"I need something here people, anything. Work with me on this. We need to find the leak if it is real or to find out who their smart guys are and stop them, steal them, or whatever else is necessary." The public now believed there was a leak, somewhere. Congress had pointed its collective legislative finger at Moore and blamed him. They would be demanding to know where the security leak was now that yesterday's events had transpired, and today's call from Amaka Chi for impeachment was fuel to the fire. He had to give the public a spy before the polls opened on Tuesday.

"Senate Majority Leader Hardin Madira, Dem from Wyoming, is here with us tonight to give his take on the impeachment of President Alexander Moore." Gail Fehrer looked evenly into the camera, showing her unbiased news anchor face. "Senator Madira, as you may or may not recall, is also the great-grandnephew of the one hundred and eleventh president, Sienna Madira. Senator?"

"Thanks for having me, Gail." Senator Madira smiled for the camera, trying to look as comfortable and congenial as possible. "This is a dire time for our country. We see that the unchecked executive order spending of the Moore administration has led us to further terrorist attacks from the Separatist Union and has driven the wedge even deeper between the Sol System and the Tau Ceti colony. To my knowledge, all contact with the colony on Ares has been lost now since the president took office."

"Now, hold on a minute, Senator," Gail interrupted him. "Doesn't the record show that the Separatist Laborers Guild had strong ties to that colony, and isn't it likely that that is where the Exodus took them? So isn't it safe to assume that the Ares colony was just another extension of the Separatist terrorist organization?"

"I'm not completely certain where you're getting this information, Gail, but it is mostly speculation. It is just as likely that this administration has alienated them with the tariffs required to fund this little military buildup of Moore's. And now we see that not only has the White House been spending left and right basically unchecked, but now there are these security leaks of highly classified military technologies."

"That still hasn't been proven yet," Gail replied, not quite completely disgusted with the DNC carreer politician.

"Well, Gail, what we really are uncovering, thanks to the great work done by Congresswoman Amaka Chi and her staff and the tripartisan investigation into the Tau Ceti hiatus and the Martian Exodus, is that President Moore must have known about these security breaches that led to the terrorist attacks on Saturday. To develop the capabilities that the Separatists exhibited Saturday they must have had serious help from within our top research organizations. All of which were funded on executive orders." Senator Madira made a sour face and shook his head to display his disgust.

"So, what is your opinion on what should be done, Senator?" Fehrer asked.

"We're doing it. Moore's regime should be brought to an end, and he should be brought forward as a criminal to the state. The investigation will go forward whether he wins the election or not. I feel as strongly about this as I have about any issue in my thirty years of public service."

President Moore sat quietly, looking out the window of the Oval Office. He had enjoyed meeting the two Navy mecha pilots. The three of them chatted about mecha and discussed the situation in the Oort Cloud at length. It had been a good diversion from the political nightmare surrounding him like a black fog. The fog kept him from seeing through to who was behind all of the false nonsense that could cost him the election.

Although there was a political fog surrounding him, there hadn't been a clearer day in the city in weeks. He watched bluebirds play on the lawn outside the White House as he thought about his situation. The view had pretty much been kept the same for centuries. There were actually laws in place that kept architecture to heights below the peak of the Washington Monument, and there were other regulations that maintained the Capitol City's aging charm intact. The Capitol Mall had been protected by legislation for centuries now, and the Memorials Act of 2117 had made certain that America's historical monuments of the Beltway were maintained in pristine form.

It's a great city, Alexander thought.

Yes, sir, it is, Abigail added.

But his mind was elsewhere. What was happening to him? The election was only a day away and according to the polls was slipping out of his grasp. He had come this far and had taken major steps to prepare the country for what he feared were tough times ahead, but to lose the election before it happened based on bogus charges the way DNC would have it, he couldn't allow. Alexander was certain that this entire security leak mess was a setup. He knew what Top Secret programs he had interest in and which ones he had dealt in detail with. He had paid close attention to the quantum membrane teleportation technology because he feared how it might be used in the near future. The QMT-4 used in the wrong way could be devasting to a system's defenses.

There was no doubt in his mind that he was being set up, but by whom? Sure, there had been donations from the Separatists PACs and corporations, and it was a damned proven fact that all three candidates had received similar donations. The rigors and expense of campaigns required that a serious candidate accept pretty much any donation he got. Moore knew that he had been no different than any other candidate in that regard. Receiving campaign funds from Seppy sympathizers wasn't illegal, and it was nonsensical and circumstantial evidence that would go nowhere. But if they could falsely tie that in with the leaked classified documents it might be enough to impeach him. No, what was really enough to impeach him was the fact that the House and Senate were a large majority Dem and Indy, and they wanted the White House back. That, the politics, truly was the end of the story there. But Alexander knew that he had not leaked those documents or ordered them leaked. It just didn't make sense to him. Hell, if he were going to do something like hand over the system to Elle Ahmi and her fanatical Separatists, there seemed to be better ways than just leaking documents to the press. No, he was being setup— framed—and he was going to, by God, put a stop to it.

Who has the most to gain?

Follow the money, sir. Who funded Amaka Chi's campaigns? Digging there might be a good place to start.

Congresswoman Amaka Chi sure was getting a lot of face time with the public now that she had come out with the smoking gun against Moore. She had gained the most as far as he could surmise.

Could it be that simple? the president thought. Is this just a bunch of smoke and mirrors to create a windfall of publicity for a practically unknown congresswoman? The president considered the possibility as he stared out the window at the south lawn. It had only been luck as far as he could tell that Chi had gotten onto the Tau Ceti Commission. In fact, she was the most junior member of the commission, yet she somehow managed to end up as the spokeswoman. Maybe, she was sent to call me out because of the very fact that she is the junior member and has nothing to lose. If things turned bad for her attack, the DNC could just shrug it off as an attack by a junior member that didn't know better. Hmmm.

Occam's razor might lead one to think that, Mr. President. But, it also might lead to election posturing. The money trail should help make this clearer. Are Mrs. Chi's strings being pulled by anybody else?

Get to work on that, Abigail. Moore scratched his chin, unsure of what exactly to do next. He needed to take action. But what action?

He would get to the bottom of the situation. After all, he was still the president of the United States of America, and he had called in some favors. An investigation into the complete membership of the Tau Ceti Commission was being conducted—an investigation that nobody in the public knew about—and soon he would have some answers.

Mr. President, Captain Adam "HeeHaw" Elliot and Lieutenant Delilah "Jawbone" Strong are here for your five o'clock. They are the two Marine mecha pilots from Orlando, sir.

Right, send them in, Abigail.