The War Council

The General was standing in front of a closed door. The featureless hallway had nothing but the dim light above her head. Nothing to distract herself with, not even a doorman to have pointless chit-chat. She took a deep breath and grumbled. Nothing else she could do but head inside.

The door opened automatically. A couple of soldiers saluted her as she entered the room.

“Welcome General, please take your seat and-“

“Well, well, if it isn´t the woman of the hour,” a lanky black-haired man interrupted the soldier, half standing up from his seat. “Glad you could make the time in your busy schedule to come to Earth and do your job.”

The General sat at the opulent oval table in front of her. Some other, less decorated, officers sat beside her. The snake-like Councilor was sitting on the other side.

At the left of the table was a professional middle-aged brunette woman, the elected Governor of Earth. The right side was occupied by a tall and imposing, if somewhat pale, blonde woman. Another Councilor. They were just missing one Councilor to have the whole trifecta. Where was that bald bastard?

Well, at least they didn´t invite the Head of the Senate to this meeting, it was already shaping up to be an even bigger circus than last time.

“Well, councilor, it is as you say, I´m not planeside very often, so you´ll excuse me if my time on this planet is in high demand. My job entails many things, and I have several important places to be, so let´s wrap this meeting quickly.”

“It´s not like our time is not important too, General,” the brunette said, clasping her hands atop the table. “We all made an effort to be here for this meeting. I myself flew straight from the capital.”

The General fought to stop her eyes from rolling. As if a cushy first-class flight was comparable to crossing the void in a cargo ship.

“Please, Governor, don´t put too much stock into her words. The good General is making herself to be busier than she is. A little bird told me she was visiting her old friend, Professor Katashi, who is clearly more important than the government of Earth.”

“I was checking on the progress of the Bio-weapon project that your government finally approved.” The General directed her attention at the brunette, Earth´s Governor, making a conscious effort to avoid the sleazy Councilors beside her. “I´m sure you´ll agree that such a delicate project requires direct oversight.”

“Ehem,” the blonde woman pulled out a tablet and put on small reading glasses. “If I could offer a correction, the General was visiting the LATE professor Katashi. The Bureau found the man dead this morning. His assassin was a bio-engineered freak that destroyed his lab and killed one of my agents.”

“Oh my god,” the Governor gasped. “The professor was murdered?!”

“Yes, but don´t worry. The General´s troops were already on the scene when backup arrived… doing my Bureau´s job securing the crime scene,” the woman said sardonically, removing her glasses.

“You can´t expect me to sit still as I find the Professor dead in his office. I took the initiative to try to apprehend the assailant and destroy the Professor’s illegal research that came to light as a result of this unfortunate incident.”

“I would expect you to do your duty as a loyal citizen and report the incident instead of taking matters into your own hands, General,” the blonde Councilor fired back.

“If I hadn´t acted, who knows what dangerous information or bioweapon could this terrorist have absconded with?” The volume on the table got louder, prompting the Governor to begin to massage her forehead. She already had an idea of where this show was going.

“Yes, and now who knows what dangerous weapons YOUR soldiers had access to," the lanky black-haired councilor chimed in. "There is a reason the Bureau has a monopoly -“

“If you want to accuse my troops, I would appreciate it if you do it openly ins-“

“Enough!” The Governor slapped the table, causing a few of her chestnut hairs to fall out of the bun she had carefully tied them into. “Regrettable as the Professor’s death is, we have more important matters to discuss.”

The lanky Councilor slithered back up on his chair, adjusting his tie. “Yes, you are right, of course. General. We have much to talk regarding your disappointing report. It will take a while, so if you wanted to get out early, you shouldn´t have been so late.”

“Well, Councilor, you´ll forgive me for taking the long route here, but I thought it prudent to give you time to read the report. It has a lot of big words, so I figured it would take some time for you to decipher it. Or did you have your nana dumb it down for you?”

“Yes, I was able to read your meandering report. Thank you very much for your concern. If only you directed such venom to our enemies instead of your superiors, maybe you wouldn´t be as busy.”

Superiors, now, huh? The General raised an eyebrow but was able to bite her tongue before escalating the verbal spat with that snake any further. Arguing was only going to make this drag longer, and the Governor was already looking like she had half a mind to fire them both on the spot.

“This is not being productive.” The Governor said. “General I am troubled by the erratic arrival of shipments from the outer colonies. The factories need their raw material or else there´ll be a shortage of key goods and our people will grow …uneasy.”

The General grumbled. Her soldiers can survive on rations and recycled water, but sure, society will collapse if the price of their new phones gets 10% more expensive than last year.

“We are to understand that these setbacks are due to, err, security breaches in our colonies?” The Governor said, pulling up the report. “I thought we hadn´t found any other space-faring life to contest our might? Your troops should be able to handle a few alien animals.”

“Hmm-yes, please explain how the mighty fleet is unable to handle…” the sleazy Councilor lifted the paper to read directly. “…a couple of stray space cats.”

“You dubbed the Ilya IV aliens space-cats to the media, Councilor, not us. It´s not our fault that you ignored our warnings that they are quite adept at eating faces.”

“That´s irrelevant unless they are also adept at building guns and ships.”

“While they don´t have spaceships, they are remarkably smart. But to the point, my troops wouldn´t have any trouble keeping the colonists safe if I was able to assign any significant military resources to the task. ”

“Not this excuse again-“

“It´s not an excuse. You can´t expect the Fleet to spearhead our expansion, safeguard our colonies from alien threats, and quell the unrest on the asteroids all with a force barely big enough to occupy this very city!”

“General, we talked about this, and the Senate agreed to allow the Military to increase their production of-“

“And as I said before, our problem is not material but personnel. I just mothballed a whole battalion of battleships because there aren´t enough specialists to crew them! To fix the problem we need more-”

“Conscription is out of the question.” The Governor dismissed the idea entirely with a hand wave. “I would be voted out of office the very day I dare suggest it.”

“Well, you will either face conscription or inflation when prices go up due to the lack of out-of-world shipments. Pick your poison, Governor.”

“There must be a way to deal with the problem without either! That´s why we approved the development of the bio-weapon to kill those cats for good!”

“And now the Professor developing said weapon is six feet under. I trust you know the pains of military procurement. It will take a while before bio-weapons production can start anew. It´s a medium-term solution at best.”

“I can´t say I approve of more gene engineering,” the blonde woman said. “The Bureau only provisionally allowed bio-weapons development in this particular instance because the General was too incompetent to cull a herd of cats. But it is too dangerous to allow the Military to have a cocktail of poisons at their disposal for every alien weed and animal.”

“Then why not just burn the aliens from orbit? I was working so well before-”

“We do that when we can, but as I said, the fleet is stretched thin. Besides, that´s not a catch-all solution. In some colonies, the alien vegetation IS the good, and burning it would only make it worthless. In others, the ecological balance is so fragile that bombing the planet would render it inhabitable.”

“I say we are ignoring quite the easy solution to this predicament,” the sleazy Councilor perked his head upward like a snake preparing to strike. “Let the Bureau handle colony security. We have the manpower, the means, and the experience handling all sorts of freaks.”

“Funny how the Bureau always has the personnel to spare…”

The blonde councilor leaned forward, her face beaming with pride. “What can I say? We give good benefits, we form a tightly knitted family, and we have top-of-the-line gear. The Bureau has so many applicants, we have battalions of people just waiting for their chance to join.”

“Precisely. Governor, this is the obvious solution. It´s time to expand the Bureau´s authority off-world. Let the military keep to their ships they like so much while we make sure our colonies are safe from the aliens and the insidious plots from within.”

“Please, your over-glorified sanitary inspectors can barely handle a few smugglers on Earth, much less an actual alien threat. You need the sword of the military to keep everything under check, not your little, err, toy knife.”

“Scalpel. That´s the word you are looking for, General. And a properly used scalpel is more devastating than a sword.”

“Let´s not change the subjects. The Bureau is distrusted even on Earth. The Senate will never allow it to expand its reach just like that,” the Governor said, butting her head forward to interrupt the line of sight between the bellicose parties.

“Then what do you propose we do? We´ve been talking in circles, like the last meeting.”

The exasperated Governor stood up. “I concur. General. I suggest you spend the rest of your days on Earth thinking on how to solve this security crisis because if I´m voted out of office, my replacement will not have this much patience. If you think of such a solution, we´ll be happy to call for another meeting.”

The Governor left the room, soon followed by the blonde councilor. “I guess we´ll soon learn if your job is that hard, General,” the black-haired councilor said, combing his greasy hair with his fingers as he left the room. Before the door closed, he gave the General one last sarcastic salute.

The remaining officers looked at each other. The General let out a heavy sigh and sank deeper into her chair.

“Now wh-“

“Not yet.” The General waved his hand. One of the soldiers lowered the high-tech goggles on his helmet and looked around the room.

“All clear, general.”

The General clasped her hands as she looked around the room. Besides the two guard soldiers and herself, there was a somewhat stout Colonel, a tall Mayor, and a scruffy Captain in the room.

“Now, what were you saying, Colonel?”

“What´s the plan now, General? Do we have any way to get more recruits?”

“Maybe we can try to do more recruitment drives?” the Captain said with a shrug.

“I think that well is dried and truly empty by now. We already have all the patriots this planet has to offer and most people who want adventures or a new start just become colonists to avoid dealing with the drill sergeant yelling their socks off.”

"I never thought I said this, but maybe things on Earth are a bit too good," the Colonel grumbled. "Back in my day, you could join the military to have a steady paycheck, but no one really needs that anymore."

“Maybe we should try to go old-school? You know? Loud music, scantly clad women, that kind of recruitment drive,” the mayor said, half-sarcastically.

"What, you think showing the General in a bikini will bring up more recruits?"

"Hah! If anything, anyone who sees my sad puppies will run off-planet immediately," the General and her officers chuckled drily, the two guard soldiers remained unsure if it was proper for them to join as well.

"So, if we can´t get new troops, do we have any way to free up personnel for the colonies?”

The General leaned forward, a dark look on her tired eyes. “Yes. I have one idea. Pull out the troops from the asteroids and put them on the frontier proper. We are done playing nanny for the miners.”

The scruffy Captain cleared his throat, taking a step towards his CO. “But… General, how are we going to deal with the rioters then?”

“Blockade the damn rocks. It should only take one patrol ship at most per five asteroids.”

“General, they depend on their off-world shipments for food and water. If we cut them off-“

“They´ll change their tune when their bellies start rumbling. You´ll see.”

The officers went silent for a moment. The Colonel pulled out a cigar and sat on the table. “ Damn shame it has come to this, but I don´t think that will free up enough troops. Do we have a silver bullet? Cause if not, I feel those Bureau jackals will make their play real soon.”

“We could make our own play, show everyone who has the guns around here.”

“No, Mayor. We don´t have enough support for a coup. Nor the manpower… yet.”

“Yet? I assume you have something in mind, Ma´am?”

The General pressed some buttons under the table, and a hologram of Kensu appeared in the middle of the room. “I do have one card left to play. We have to find him.”

“Why is he so important, Ma´am? I guess the augmented soldier formula could make our spec-ops a bit more efficient, but I fail to see…”

“He is not so important as the AI he stole. Did you see the footage? How it killed Corporal Ken? It can circumvent the Laws!”

“And why is that so valuable?”

“Didn´t you hear? We have a whole battalion of ships in storage because we don´t have the crew to operate them. If we find a way to replicate whatever the professor did to that AI, we suddenly don´t need as many specialists to crew them, or to control our drones. Hell, we can even make a whole damn robot army if we wanted to.”

“But, ma´am, are you comfortable giving that much power to an AI?”

“Why not? I trust AI with the life support on the ship that brought me here, and navigation as well. The only thing we don´t let them do is aim and pull the trigger.”

“The Professor´s AI seems loyal as well, for what it´s worth,” the Captain chimed in. “At least to Ken´s murderer.”

“I don´t know, ma´am. I feel this may be a step too far.”

“Look, I know you are uneasy, but this is the best idea we have short of shanghaiing people off the street.”

“But, what if the word got out and the Bureau or the Senate caught wind of our robotic fleet?”

“By then, the results would be speaking for themselves. Do they want prosperity? The bounty of the stars? That´s the price to pay.”

“And if they do have a problem with it?”

“Well, I think the Mayor had the right idea…”