Rumors of Honor (System States Rebellion Book 2) (12 page)

Foster
looked skeptical. “If someone from Earth arrives, they might check and find out
that there is no company chartered on Earth.”

Murphy
laughed. “Then we set one up on Earth using the FED currency that SSU planets
collected when they issued their own currency. The entire enterprise can be
perfectly legit, except that the ships will go to us instead of the FEDs.”

Foster
rubbed her forehead and said, “That is such a crazy idea.”

“Which
is exactly why Oracle would never suggest it, and Majestic won’t think of it.”

After
a few seconds pause, she looked at him and said, “It is just crazy enough to
work. But what about Site X?”

“What
exactly is Site X? I mean, what physical form will that function take?” he
asked.

She
shrugged. “It’s essentially a bureaucracy, that will co-ordinate logistical,
economic, and military policy.”

“So
it’ll consist of people working in offices?”

“Yes.”

“And
if those offices happen to belong to a company that’s been chartered to build a
new shipyard…?” Her eyes grew wide.

“You
mean combine both Site X and the shipbuilding in one location?” She stared off
into infinite space. “The backup Capital of the SSU located on a FED planet,”
she said softly. “I’m not sure I can make that big of a leap. It’s just
too…bizarre.”

Murphy
nodded. “Exactly.”

They
spent the rest of the evening, what little was left of it, working on the
details of how to make it work. When they were all talked out, they undressed
and laid face down, side by side on the bed. By mutual and unspoken consent,
they knew they were too tired to have sex. Foster looked at Murphy’s face and
saw that his eyes were closed, but she could tell by his breathing that he was
still awake.

“There’s
one problem with the concepts we’ve been discussing.”

Without
opening his eyes, he said, “What’s that?”

“Setting
up an alternate capital and a dedicated shipbuilding complex are so obviously
to our advantage that there’s no way that Majestic won’t think of them and
recommend counter-strategies. If we try to hide the fact that we’re doing both,
Majestic will eventually wonder why we haven’t done it, and if it thinks long
enough about that, it might even go so far as to consider bizarre
alternatives.”

Without
any hesitation at all, Murphy said, “In that case we have to allow the FEDs to
find Site X and the shipbuilding complex.” He opened his eyes and saw her
stunned expression. “We’ll set up a dummy Site X and complex somewhere Majestic
is sure to tell the FEDs to look. They’ll find it and believe that they’ve
successfully countered our strategy.” He heard her sigh in relief.

“You
had me going there for a second!”

He
laughed. “Sorry. What can I do to make amends?”

“Well…I
haven’t had a foot massage in a long time.”

“One
foot massage coming up.”

The
next morning Foster arrived back at the Oracle Project offices and sat down in
front of the computer terminal that hooked directly into Oracle. Finding a
suitable FED planet for the combined Site X and shipbuilding complex needed to
be done carefully. She and her husband had come to the conclusion that asking
Oracle to widen the search for a suitable planet could seriously compromise the
security of the whole effort if the FEDs conquered Sparta and their computer
experts examined every request made to Oracle. Telling Oracle to include FED
planets in the search for possible Site X sites would be a dead giveaway. But
if Foster asked Oracle to evaluate FED planets/star systems as potential FED
shipbuilding backup sites in case Makassar was destroyed and had to be
abandoned, then she could get the information she wanted without giving away
the real reason. The results that Oracle had provided so far could be used to
select planets for the dummy Site X and the dummy shipbuilding complex.

The
hard part was getting approval from the Chancellor or at least Secretary Shaw
to allow access to billions of credits worth of the FED currency now in storage
in underground vaults, without revealing too much of the details. As Murphy had
pointed out, forcing information from a captured Chancellor would be much easier
for the FEDs than getting it from Oracle. The Chancellor and his ministers, and
even Admiral Janicot, were too high profile, and therefore it was too risky to
entrust them with the knowledge that Site X and the shipbuilding complex would
be built secretly in a star system that was still part of the Federation of
Planetary Systems. As far as the people at the top of the SSU were concerned,
they had to believe that the dummy locations were in fact the real locations.
As for the FED currency, she and Murphy had come up with a way to get their
hands on that too. She had to lie to CSO Janicot so that he could convince
Secretary Shaw. When her husband had first suggested it, she had felt a twinge
of conscience. She took her loyalty to the SSU seriously, and so far that had
also meant being a loyal subordinate of the CSO. Murphy had pointed out that
Janicot would be the first one to understand the need for absolute secrecy and
limiting information based on ‘a need to know’. Only in this case, Janicot
himself didn’t need to know. In the end, she agreed that lying to him was
easier than going to him and saying ‘I need billions of FED credits, but I
can’t tell you why, so don’t ask me’. If she were the CSO and a subordinate
came to her with the request worded that way, she’d be suspicious too.

By
late afternoon, she had the list of still-loyal-to-the-Federation planets that
were in star systems with abundant metal and fissionable resources. At the top
of the list was Midgard. It was perfect for their needs. An Earth-like planet
that was a little cooler and dryer than Earth, it was habitable but not as
comfortable as other colony planets. Population was just over a million. Its
star system wasn’t too far from Sparta or the other major SSU planets. Best of
all, Midgard had a large moon that had been surveyed and was known to contain
generous amounts of iron, nickel and other useful metals, including radioactive
elements. Midgard’s low population would welcome the investment of billions of
credits, even if most of that ended up on the moon, because the new company’s
employees and management would be spending a lot of time and money on Midgard.
The inhabitants didn’t have enough indigenous industry to provide all of the
equipment needed, but their tech base was sufficient to be able to maintain the
equipment once it was installed.

By
the time she was ready to talk to the CSO, she had the broad outlines of the
plan figured out. A freighter would be sent there with the setup team and a
cargo hold full of FED currency. They would tell the Midgardians that they
represented investors from Earth and wanted to charter a mining and
shipbuilding company on Midgard. Once the company was set up, the passengers
would travel to Earth where they would pretend to be Midgardian businessmen
looking for investors for the proposed shipyard complex. Shares would be ‘sold’
to several hundred wealthy investors who didn’t really exist except on the
company’s books, and the funds would be deposited in company bank accounts.
Thereafter the Midgardian company would order and pay for the necessary
equipment to begin building the complex on Midgard’s moon, and the company
would also lease or buy office space on Midgard for its employees and for the
people who would set up the Site X administrative systems and functions.
Earth-based shipping companies would be hired to transport the equipment to
Midgard, and its moon and local technicians would be hired to help build and
operate the complex. It was a large project that would take over a year to
produce any tangible results, but that would be true regardless of where the
shipyard complex was set up. She took some comfort from the knowledge that the
Midgard complex would only be about five months behind Makassar in terms of
delivering completed ships.

When
she walked into Janicot’s office, she had her story straight. Janicot greeted
her warmly and gestured for her to sit opposite his desk.

“I
can tell from your expression, Captain, that you’re not bringing me bad news.
You seem more relaxed than usual.”

“Yes,
Admiral. I actually have good news. Oracle has finished its search for
locations for Site X and for the shipyard complex.” She handed him a data
tablet which he read.

“I’m
not familiar with these locations. Tell me more about them.”

“Certainly.
The shipbuilding location is in a star system that’s quite close to Hekla.
There’s a planet there that’s barely habitable, which is why it hasn’t been
colonized yet, but one of the system’s gas giants has a moon that was surveyed
when the planet was under consideration for a colony. That moon is loaded with
metals. The Site X location is a star system that’s deep inside SSU territory
and has an asteroid belt with an asteroid that is large enough to be considered
a small planet in its own right. It has plenty of water in the form of ice. The
actual administrative complex where the personnel will work and live will be
constructed underground.”

Janicot
nodded. “I see. I’ll need a complete report from Oracle to take to Secretary
Sorensen, Captain.”

“I’ll
have that report ready for you within 24 hours, Admiral. There is another
matter that Oracle is now recommending as well.”

“Something
new?” asked Janicot. Foster nodded. “Let’s hear it,” he said.

“As
you know, Admiral, most of the Federation currency on SSU member planets has
been collected and replaced with the new Union currency. Here on Sparta we have
approximately 233 billion Federation credits sitting in our vaults. Oracle is
suggesting that we put some of that money to work on the Core FED planets to
sway public opinion in our favor. Oracle has calculated that hiring public
relations firms to disseminate press releases and Op Ed pieces in the media
will influence enough voters to support some kind of negotiated peace that the
odds of such an outcome will increase by 11%.”

Janicot
frowned. “Eleven percent doesn’t seem like a big difference.”

“It’s
not a huge difference. I agree, Sir, but on the other hand, that FED currency
isn’t doing us any good sitting in our vaults.”

“Would
we be able to get our people and the currency to those Core planets?”

“Yes,
Admiral. We’ll have to be careful how we do it, and we’ll have to go through
other, less developed FED planets first, but it can be done. Oracle has figured
out what we have to do to make it work.”

“Okay,
I suppose we should pursue anything that can help the cause, even marginally.
How much currency will be required for this undertaking, Captain?”

Foster
hesitated then said, “Ah, Oracle is recommending 10%, Admiral.”

Janicot
was clearly shocked. “Ten percent? That’s over 23 BILLION credits. That’s one
hell of a lot of Op Ed pieces, Captain.”

Foster
played her trump card. She knew she wasn’t a good enough actor to avoid giving
away the fact that she was hiding something, so she allowed her natural
reactions to take over.

“Well,
ah…I admit that I was holding something back because not telling you would give
you deniability in case there were political repercussions down the road,
Admiral. Most of that 10% will be earmarked for bribes and campaign
contributions to candidates who are more sympathetic to our cause. Please keep
in mind that we’re talking about a long term project taking place on a dozen
planets.”

“Hm.
I can see why you might think that I’d be better off not knowing about this,
Captain, but let me reassure you that I want to know, and I’m prepared to
accept the consequences of having that knowledge.”

“Yes,
Sir.”

He
thought for a few seconds. “What about the risk that the whole thing will
generate anger towards us if the public finds out we’re bribing elected
officials?”

“Oracle
has calculated that if we can keep this secret, the net benefit outweighs the
downside risk if the secret gets out, Sir.”

“Well
if Oracle says it’s so, then who am I to question its calculations. Okay,
Captain, am I correct in thinking that you’d rather not put all this in
writing?”