Emergency Presidential Command Post
Toronto
United States of North America
0016 hours, EST
Koenig thoughtclicked an in-head icon and emerged inside his own body, gasping for air, stretched out on a recliner in his own office in Toronto. Marcus Whitney, his chief of staff and senior aide, was leaning over him with a worried look on his face. “Mr. President?”
“I’m okay, Marcus.”
“Your vitals took a real jump just now.”
“Nothing like the vitals on Lieutenant Widner.”
As an admiral in command of a carrier battlegroup twenty years before, Koenig had had a lot of trouble giving the orders that sent young men and women to their deaths.
It wasn’t any easier now.
“I’m going back in,” Koenig said. “Link me in with … let’s see …” He ran through a mental list of the Marines in Alfa Platoon, the ones still on their feet. “Staff Sergeant Gerald Swayze.” He was Widner’s senior NCO, and would be commanding the platoon now.
“Sir,” Whitney said, “it’s not like you can affect the outcome of the fight …” He sounded worried. “Damn it, you’re flirting with VRSD.”
The acronym was pronounced “ver-sid,” and stood for virtual reality stress disorder. What it really stood for was a whole spectrum of neurological injuries, addictions, and pathologies, including—most important—perceptual neural shock, or PNS. Though not common, some had suffered heart attacks, strokes, or slipped into comas when they “died,” even though their physical bodies were perfectly safe and healthy.
Koenig knew there was a risk, but he’d been in combat before, and experience tended to reduce the psychological impact of even the most traumatic experiences. Too, there were electronic safeguards designed to cut him from the circuit if monitors showed that his body back in the Emergency Presidential Command Post was reacting too strongly.
“I don’t think so,” Koenig told Whitney. He raised his voice slightly. “Health monitor? What say you?”
“Your heart rate peaked at one twenty-six,” the voice of the medical AI in the presidential complex told them. “Respiration peaked at thirty-five. Both are well within tolerable limits.”
“See, Marcus? I’m fine.”
“I still don’t like it, Mr. President. You could just let your intelligence people brief you after the fact, like a normal president.”
“Well, damn. Where’s the fun in that? I don’t think that—”
He stopped in mid-sentence. An alert was coming through from the suite of artificial intelligences overseeing the entire battle. It was data relayed from the star carrier America or, more specifically, from one of her squadrons. Eight Confed fighters had just boosted at high velocity from central Turkey and launched an attack on four of America’s fighters in low Earth orbit. The AI running the intelligence side of the operation was tagging the attackers as Korosi rebels.
Interesting. There was no way eight Todtadler fighters could seriously challenge three USNA strike fighter squadrons for space superiority, especially if they had to claw their way up out of Earth’s gravity well. Even if they got through the orbiting fighters, there were three USNA destroyers and four frigates farther out, providing in-depth support. Earth was bottled up tight right now against any attempt to break away.
What the hell were they trying to accomplish?
“Take them out,” Koenig ordered. “And keep me informed.”
A new icon had appeared within Koenig’s in-head a moment before, labeled with Staff Sergeant Swayze’s name. He thoughtclicked it … and opened his eyes, once again, in the shrieking, noisy hell of combat.
29 June, 2425
Emergency Presidential Command Post
Toronto
United States of North America
0018 hours, EST
Koenig was back in that fire-swept passageway, the scene overlaid by flickering numbers giving ranges, angles, and power levels, and by a bright red targeting reticule slaved to Swayze’s laser rifle, centered on whatever the rifle happened to be pointed at. At the far end of the passageway, laser and plasma gunfire snapped and hissed from the makeshift barricades.
“Grossmann! Nobunaga!” Swayze was yelling. “Get that pig in action! Flame those bastards!”
Koenig recognized the term. The Marines had a PG-80 as a platoon heavy weapon—a semiportable plasma gun—nicknamed the “pig” and designed to burn through most armor.
Swayze was using his laser rifle, trying to force enemy troops back from the ambush barricade at the far end of the passageway. Two armored shapes moved up beside him, manhandling the bulky weapon’s tripod into place. One of the Marines was hit, his faceplate vaporized by a plasma bolt, so Swayze shoved Grossmann’s body aside and took up a position next to the gunner, snapping up the heavy fire shield and dragging back the charge lever. He slapped Nobunaga’s shoulder, signaling readiness to fire.
“Hit ’em!”
Blue-white fire exploded through the dark passageway, charring stone walls already black with age. The barricade at the end of the hall exploded, hurling chunks of molten debris as armored figures scattered … or collapsed and lay still.
The pig fired again, blasting a hole in the steel door beyond, and then Swayze was up and running down the stone corridor, firing from the hip, waving his men on. “Let’s go, Marines! Ooh-rah!”
“Ooh-rah!” The ancient Marine war cry rang out in answer from a dozen throats, raw sound and fury, meaningless except to announce that the USNA Marines were charging.
And the enemy troops began throwing down their weapons and raising their arms in surrender.
Koenig watched as two more Marines—Jamison and Arkwright—pushed past Swayze as he stopped to hand the prisoners over to another Marine. He then followed the pair, over the half-molten ruin of the barricade and through the gaping hole in the steel door. Swayze shouldered his way into the stone chamber beyond, arriving just behind the other two Marines, who’d come to a dead stop. A soldier in shifting black-and-gray nanoflage armor stood with his back to the far wall, clutching a tiny woman in civilian utilities in front of him like a shield.
Through Swayze’s helmet camera, Koenig recognized the woman. Ilse Roettgen, former Senate president for the Earth Confederation, struggled in the armored man’s one-arm grip, her arms zip-stripped behind her back. In his free hand, the man clutched a deadly little 5mm needler, which he kept pressed against the side of her throat.
“Stop!” the man yelled, his amplified voice booming off the stone walls. “If you value her life, stop now!”
Koenig recognized that voice instantly. It was General Korosi … the Butcher of Columbus.
Swayze ran a voice print ID through his suit’s AI, a process that took only a second or so, and came to the same conclusion. “Put the weapon down, General,” he said, his voice level, reasonable, and as cold as ice. “If you kill her, I promise you that you will die, right here, right now.”
“So … I should surrender, so you can put me on trial for war crimes?” Korosi laughed, an ugly sound. His English carried a thick Hungarian