The Tau Ceti Agenda

'Don't give me that scapegoat religious nonsense. Do you truly think that knowing your soul will burn in Hell forever is justification enough for you to do whatever you want in this life? It's okay, I'll be punished for it in the afterlife,' he said mockingly. 'I have a son and three grandchildren and seven great-grandchilderen living in Luna City. You didn't think to warn me of your plan, so how are we in this together?'

'I was sparing you the heartache, because you couldn't have warned them if you knew.'

'Bullshit. I could have managed it some way or the other. Even still, that doesn't justify it or make you, us, immune from murder on such a massive scale.'

'We have all made sacrifices, Scotty.'

'You know as well as I do that this plan has required us to live in Hell on Mars and at Kuiper Station and at Triton and even at times on Earth. That was our sacrifice, our Hell, Sienna. There is no need in making it Hell for innocent bystanders. For millions of innocent bystanders.' Scotty leaned forward and slapped his palms on the table. 'It has been Hell enough to live with the hundreds and thousands, tens of thousands of lives we have taken for the long-term betterment of mankind. There wasn't a point in letting that many people die just to sway this election, which I still argue is only a minor part of our plan anyway. I did this for you, Sienna. So if you have to take another life to protect your little Hell, then do it.'

'Scotty . . .'

'Sienna, I love you. I did this for you.'

'I love you too, Scotty.' Elle pulled the trigger. The round entered between his eyes just above the bridge of his nose, splattering the back of Scotty's head across the south wall of her apartment, leaving red and gray matter drooling down the transparent wall. Scotty's gaze never left her as he crumpled sideways to the floor.

Elle sat the pistol on the table and then continued to sob softly into the palms of her hands. Scotty had lied to her and repudiated her plan once now and that meant he would do it again. It had to be done.

Chapter 25

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