April 5: A Depth of Understanding (32 page)

Jefferson Moses Singh, Citizen of Home, Peer of Central's Sovereign 4/17/2087

To the People's Republic of China, Beijing, Earth: Through broadcast and news releases.

The People's Republic has crossed the L1 limit the Nation of Home set for armed Earth ships and engaged in war with the Sovereign of Central, using nuclear weapons. It unquestionably intended to act against Home in a like manner, but its fleet was destroyed, except one vessel that has surrendered, voluntarily decommissioned and stopped it's aggression.

In addition to bombing Central on the moon, an assassination attempt with injury was made upon my person at Home. This is the second attack on a peer of Central. Attempts have been made to enslave my step-mother Dr. Singh Nam-Kah, steal her intellectual property and the ship Eddie's Rascal.

We reject and ignore any attempt to transfer responsibility for China's actions to the United Nations, but we will make war on them as a willing ally. No member of that international body is safe from our retribution if they support this action and host our enemy.

We do not seek to transform the nature or form of government in China, only how it deals with outside entities; including my family, Central and Home.

The actions of Home and their allies to defend Home and Central does not sufficiently address the debt of China's crimes against Central or their attempted assassinations and thefts.

Unless The People's Republic of China publically repudiates it's actions, agrees to restrict its armed vessels inside the L1 radius and agrees to end its use of armed terror agents and assassins inside Home or Central within forty eight hours, I will prosecute the state of war which exists until harsher terms of surrender, namely unconditional surrender, are forced upon it.

I have made a personal promise not to destroy the cultural and historic treasures of China preserved in Beijing. You can thank the kindness of others for that restraint. I limit myself in no other way. All foreigners are warned to vacate China for their own safety. I encourage China's friends and allies to speak to them and dissuade them from this foolish course.

Jefferson M. Singh

"Do you really expect any reply?" Jon asked.

"Not at all. They are far too arrogant. Still, there are forms and history."

"So what are you going to do on your deadline? Drop a dozen weapons on them and devastate them as a nation? You'll make us a stink to the whole planet."

"I'm going to drop
one
weapon on an almost unpopulated area. It will demonstrate their vulnerability. If they ignore that I'll follow it with another in two more days."

"That's much more moderate than I hoped for."

* * *

Lindsey's site on the Home network had been offering sketches and larger drawings for a week. Her brother Eric helped her set it up. You could access it from the wider net if you knew how, but she was content to offer her art on Home for now. All the complications of import rules and possible Earth tariffs were not something she wanted to deal with right now.

April had received notice of its creation, being in Lindsey's address book. She'd even added it to her subscriptions which she didn't do with many sites or people. She'd already looked once when new work was posted, but she was firmly resolved to not buy anything for awhile. After all, she'd blown a bundle on the one already and bought the tapas in Tonga.

A notice of new postings was in her messages and she went to look. The new drawing was stunning, but much too emotional for her. It was drawn from an unusual perspective. All the people faced each other, so it was impossible to show all the faces. Lindsey had elected to do it from behind the Chinese assassin Sam Bia had just killed. It made sense and it showed what a fantastic artist Lindsey was to be able to imagine a scene from a completely different perspective than where she observed it. But it evoked feelings too strong for April to want it on her bulkhead.

The assassin was leaning back, right foot turned to the right a little toward Gunny, knees just barely bent and the head flung back harder from Sam's shot, but Lindsey decided to stop at that instant before there was an exit wound and that saved the picture from being gruesomely macabre.

April remembered the cloud of red mist behind the man. That would have ruined it to be looking through that. At least in the center part of the drawing. The man's arm was already up in recoil and his hand was opening up, the pistol floating, soon to fall as he did. It would end up close enough to his outstretched hand to worry Gunny as he approached. Gunny was to the right of the assassin's back, pistol recovering from recoil, a tiny mark showing his ruined shirt.

Sam was to the left with the pistol not yet climbing in recoil. The white flash around the muzzle obscuring the details of his pistol. She was flying through the air, head tucked, shoulder against the back of Jeff's legs, taking him down in a hard tackle. He was arched from the impact, arms thrown back and knees bent, so that both of them were actually out of contact with the deck. His pad was flying through the air, knocked out of his hand. She didn't remember that. Her one foot trailed further than the other so it was hidden behind the gunman. Damn...had she really hit him that hard? Well, better than being shot.

It was beautifully done, but it made her all quivery to be made to recall the reality. Definitely not something she wanted to walk past a dozen times a day, no.

* * *

The emergency Security Council meeting was not very well attended. Part of that being because it had to be held in secret for fear they would be nuked from orbit. A further reason  being that no few of the support personnel who made everything run smoothly from behind the scenes had died in the bombardment of the Geneva campus. There was no televising the sessions for fear they could be located from the feed or venue. That certainly hadn't been a concern of previous sessions. China was laying out an argument for immediate further action against Home. It had gone well past any reasoned outline of proposed action and deep into emotional name calling and invective.

The Council Chambers which lent the proper dignity to their meeting were a blackened pit. The campus in Geneva which had a suitable room was also gone and even the old Norwegian room that had sat unused for some years at the old offices in New York was rubble now. Not blasted out of existence like the others, but reduced to pieces like a chopped salad by the strange weapon Home had not used since their war with North America.

They had been refused the use of legislative chambers in three nations and ended up meeting in the board room of a grubby commercial corporation. They were used to a vast cavern of a hall and much pomp, but were in no position to complain. The table sat twenty six and would be a marvel of luxury to most people, with a glass wall looking out over Brussels from the thirty fourth floor. At least the blasted site of their former headquarters was on the other side of the building, not mocking them outside their windows. Only the presiding Russian President of the council had arrived in a limo with escort and his indiscretion was not appreciated by the others who had hurried into the building from normal sedans and under an awning that shielded them from a no longer friendly sky. He was too attached to the courtly ritual for his own good.

The representative from North America sat across from one from China and didn't look happy at all. China had no more ships capable of trans-lunar work and any resolution to act against home would fall on the USNA to enforce. They had avoided sending a ship to be slaughtered with China's in this last misadventure. This time a vote to enforce would require them to use their veto to kill it. It would look bad, but their rep was prepared to do so if need be.

The delegate from Switzerland was present and he stood and asked to be recognized. Normal procedure was for only non-members who were asked to lend troops to enforcement actions to speak in this council, but nothing was normal now and the Russian recognized him.

"You may be aware my country has a history of neutrality," he started and looked around. "We joined the United Nations quite late in the last century by referendum and by a rather slim margin. We did so for the express purpose of being able to join in the various humanitarian activities of this body. There have been several attempts by various factions in Switzerland to remove us since then, when the humanitarian activities seemed to be less than desirable for our nation to be associated with them. Too many have lost their stated noble purpose and descended into thuggery and looting."

"There is again a referendum being held demanding we remove ourselves.
This
time with such overwhelming support that my government feels the need to get ahead of the people's demands, or be counted very badly in obstructionist opposition to the will of the voters."

"Just as the predecessor League of Nations passed from existence when it was shown to be powerless to stop its most powerful members from descending into the First Atomic War, we perceive this present body to be powerless to prevent it's more powerful members from engaging in an interplanetary war of potentially equal or worse folly." He looked pointedly down the table at the representative from China.

"We therefore serve notice we sever our relationship with this body, in anticipation of a pubic mandate to do so. The sooner we leave, the cleaner our hands will be and the less chance we will be counted an enemy of the powers you foolishly seek to antagonize. We have suffered damage and causalities in Geneva for offering hospitality to the UN. We suffered those losses for actions we did not take or approve. If the same sort of arms used against Jiuquan were used against the United Nations campus the entire canton of Geneva would be gone."

"It is our expectation we are the first, but this organization is fatally wounded by the overreach of the principal founders. You fail to see a historic shift in the reach and powers of mankind. If you should decide to punish us for refusing to be a party to your criminal acts we have not thrown away our defenses. We were never of a mind to think the nature of the world had changed. Further, we will appeal to Home for protection if we are harmed for refusing to join a war of aggression against her..."

He was interrupted by the representative from China, shouting that they were cowards and slamming something, his personal pad it appeared, on the table tap in front of him until it burst with fragments skidding across the marred table toward the others.

That seemed to make him aware what a spectacle he was making and he went silent. The representative from Switzerland just gathered his documents in his folder and walked out. After a long silence the member from Argentina stood and asked for an adjournment to consult with his government. That was welcome and passed on a voice vote by acclaim instead of a roll call. The members practically ran from the room.

The representative from North America was a State Department veteran, without any long association with the Patriot Party, picked for a desire to have some appearance of inclusiveness and professionalism in their consolidation of power. That choice was aided by a general attitude that the UN was no longer of any immediate importance except for public relations and to exercise their veto to keep other states from acting against their allies.

He hurried down to the street level with his single aide and waited while the Russian President of the Council was stuffed in his limo with an escort vehicle front and back. His plain Ford sedan was waiting to pull up behind. When his aide opened his door he looked down the street at the departing Russian. The escort vehicles were running strobe lights but no sirens. There was a bright moving star in the mid-day blue sky to the west and he almost jumped in the car. "Get in, move!" he yelled at the aide, but the man froze, mouth hanging open in alarm.

"Make a U-turn and go the other way as fast as you can!" he yelled at the driver. "Our lives depend on it!" he added, but the car was already in motion. The door jerked out of the aide's hand, slammed shut not from his hand but from the sudden acceleration.

"Is it a bomb?" the driver asked, after weaving through some traffic, not slowing down a bit. He ran the first traffic circle they came to cutting across three lanes, bumped two cars and left a tangle of vehicles stopped every which way behind them.

"I saw the blaze of a reentry vehicle in the western sky. You better hope to hell it isn't a nuke, because we'll never get far enough away to matter if it is."

"How long?" the man asked.

"Three, maybe four minutes at...  ...

...
most
...

The last impact came with a bit of a flash. The car danced around a little as the ground wave went under them, but the driver deftly played the wheel and kept it on the road. The air wave was there with hardly any delay and sent a shower of glittering glass falling off the buildings down both sides of the street. The traffic signs bent away from it the direction they were going and there was a flurry of leaves stripped off the trees along the boulevard that fell slower than the glass. Other drivers didn't do so well, running across sidewalks into building fronts or parked cars, a few impacting planters and other urban fixtures like lamp posts. The ones who didn't wreck just stopped in the middle of the road, not necessarily in their lane or straight. His driver went around them, going up on the sidewalk one place to get around a bus.

"Keep going, but I think you can slow down now. I expect the first couple strikes we heard were on that vain Russian, the closer one being at the Newman-Rand corporation where we were meeting."

"You want me to try to circle back around to the north, to the airport?"

"I doubt the airport will be open soon. Just keep headed south east. Hell, I don't care if we go all the way to Luxemburg. I'm not sure how welcome we'll be in Belgium for awhile."

"I guess Home is still pissed," his driver said.