City on a Sea, short story #5

Boarding Action

 

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.  Matthew 16:27

If he says, “Whatever,” I think I may kill him.

National Security Advisor Doug Andrews pondered this thought as he approached President McCauley’s virtual office. Wouldn’t that be a twist on American history, a president assassinated by a member of his staff! Andrews hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Truly, truly, he hoped it wouldn’t.

Andrews found the president as he always did on the rare cases they had an actual face-to-face meeting. McCauley stood in the middle of a bare room filled with 2-D and 3-D projections of data, movie clips, news programs, and live faces. The president manipulated the continual stream of information through hand motions and voice commands, collapsing one virtual screen, calling up another, multi-tasking to an extent that would overwhelm anyone but a super-genius.

The National Security Advisor took a step toward the president and waited. He saw the president had three faces in his live box: the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and his personal chief of staff. That meant they were ready to begin. The president minimized his current set of projections, loaded the Bethel package of data, and gave Andrews a glance. “Go ahead, Doug,” he said.

“Yes, Mr. President,” Andrews replied. “Our embargo against the Republic of Bethel has entered its tenth week. As you’ll note from the diagram of Pacific shipping patterns, Thelan cargo vessels have simply swapped routes with other carriers. For example, Bethel is now running most of the trade between China and Mexico, whereas the five companies previously handling such trade are now going between China and the U.S.

“Four loci of opposition grow in lobbying strength. American businesses do not like the higher shipping costs. Our military and police forces do not like being unable to buy weapons from Bethel. Environmentalists favor Bethel’s move toward solar power, and view the embargo as an attempt to preserve oil company profits. Christian organizations consider our actions to be a veiled attack against Christianity.”

McCauley’s chief of staff, a man personally opposed to the embargo, chimed in. “We need the votes of these groups if we’re going to get reelected.”

“The political ramifications are not strictly my concern,” Andrews replied. “What worries me is the growing threat to national security.”

“From a country with less than half a million people,” the chief of staff scoffed.

“We must look to the next generation,” Andrews said, baffled as always at the older generation’s inability to look ahead. “Bethel is no threat to us now, but for how much longer? If we allow them to build sunsats, we cede control of space to a potential future enemy. How helpful will air superiority be to us if our foe possesses space superiority?”

The president called up a large map of the Pacific. Red dots showed the location of Thelan ships. Blue dots revealed the position of U.S. naval forces. There was a lot more red than blue. Andrews seized on the image.

“We simply cannot allow space to look this way,” Andrews declared. “Sunsats will gather sunlight, convert it to microwaves, and beam these microwaves to earth. An environmentally friendly source of electricity, the Thelans say. But a sunsat’s ability to focus and redirect energy also makes it a potential weapons platform. Imagine a sunsat detonating the planes parked on an airfield, or frying the electronics in our spy satellites. Space is the new high ground. We simply cannot secede control of it to the enemy.”

“The Thelans aren’t our enemy,” the chief of staff objected.

Andrews wished he could smack the man. If only he were older than thirty, that he might get these men to take him seriously. Why couldn’t they see the threat Bethel posed? Why didn’t they get it? Thelan coins were starting to be used in West Coast cities. Some foreigners preferred immigration to Bethel over immigration to America. Bethel had captured the imagination of many as the new frontier for colonization and settlement. Didn’t these men understand the significance of these things? Couldn’t they see where history was headed? Bethel had to be stopped before it was too late.

“This is the critical moment,” Andrews explained, trying to control his frustration. “Bethel invested its start-up capital in building ships out of composites. That long-term investment resulted in Bethel operating at a net loss during its first thirty years of existence. But now that Thelan ships are starting to outlast the service life of normal steel cargo vessels, they are beginning to operate at a profit. This makes Bethel capable of engaging in its next significant investment. Sunsats are what they want to build, a course of action that must not be allowed. We must redirect their next round of investment into an area that does not increase Bethel’s military capabilities.”

Andrews lamented that the alternate course of action – America building her own sunsats – was not a realistic option. Crushed with the legacy costs of Social Security and servicing the national debt, long-term capital investment was something of which the United States was no longer capable. Andrews hated that this little insignificant country could do something that Americacould not. We should do more than simply eliminate Bethel’s sunsat program. We should force Bethel to operate with a budget deficit, borrow money, abandon using gold and silver currency. We should force them to create a welfare state. If America had to endure such budgetary constraints, the Thelans ought to be made to endure them, too.

Oh, how they offended! The Thelans who had been Americans were traitors, abandoning their responsibilities to their country. How dare they try to escape from paying on the debt? How dare they try to avoid paying Social Security taxes? Bethel’s 9% tax rate simply could not be allowed to survive. People who didn’t like paying half their income as taxes should have no option, no out. That was what really grieved Andrews: the existence of an alternative. Bethelwas like a lean, impudent start-up company devoid of pension costs. The government had to crush such competition lest the big, old companies go out of business. And America was the biggest, oldest company of them all.

“We must take more aggressive action,” Andrews declared. “Once we force the issue and Bethel caves, we can end the embargo.”

“The Thelans have always been a staunch U.S.ally,” the president objected, but the National Security Advisor could tell that he had won the argument, at least for today.

“An ally that is forgetting its place,” Andrews concluded. “Space belongs to us. We must retain possession of the high ground.”

***

The Fast Attack Airfoil U.S.S. Norfolk fired a warning shot across R.B.T. Capitol’s bow on the evening of March 27, 2043. Capitol cut her speed from flank to steerage, but took no other action.

Major John Samson, the marine tasked with boarding and occupying the Thelan ship, watched a live feed from within Norfolk’s combat information center. Capitol’s decision to cut engines surprised him. He said as much to Sergeant Martinez, who stood observing the threat boards from beside his commanding officer.

“I’d have forced one hit,” Samson explained. “Capitol displaces 42,000 tons empty. She’s fully loaded with containers, protected by a composite hull. She can absorb an HE round with little risk.”

“Why risk it at all?”Martinez asked. “They’ve their families on board.”

“That’s why I’d take the chance. They’re certain to be filming. You have to assume everything is going to get  posted on YouTube. It wouldn’t look good if we fired on an unarmed ship. That’s what I’d be after if I were them: make us look bad on TV.”

“Going down without a fight?” the sergeant pondered.

Samson considered this possibility. He recalled the Thelan troops who had fought alongside him in the alleyways of Damascus. Their application of force had been controlled and non-lethal, yet ruthless and agonizing for all that. Some of those veterans were likely waiting in the Capitol’s passageways even now, daring Samson and his men to engage the Thelans in their natural environment.

“Not a chance,” Samson replied.

***

Major Samson and his forty marines scaled the Capitol’s port side at 2200 hours. Given that cargo trailers occupied every square meter of deck space, the boarders made no effort to stop at the gunwale. Instead they kept going until they came out on top of the containers. These created a large “deck” of their own on which Samson set up his command post. He sent a squad of ten men aft to occupy the bridge.

Samson found himself disappointed by the lack of opposition. He was here to pick a fight. If only the Capitol’s detachment of commandos would usher forth and engage! Likely they were hiding deep within the vessel, waiting, perhaps even beckoning. Would the marines content themselves with camping? Or would they be so foolish as to venture into Capitol’s depths?

The marines’ Missionand Rules of Engagement were clear: using passive methods only, Samson and his men were to capture R.B.T. Capitol and bring her to dock at Pearl Harbor. No Thelan fatalities were to be inflicted under any circumstances, even if the opposition resorted to live ammunition. Not that they would, of course. Thelans led the world in the art of non-lethal warfare. Likely Capitol did not even stock bullets, or the rifles needed to fire them.

That didn’t mean the opposition was unarmed. The Americans carried the very latest in area-denial weaponry – ironically enough, all manufactured in Bethel. Certainly the Thelans wielded the same class of guns. And the Thelans had developed their own martial art, informally known as corridor. A fighting style designed for a ship’s cramped interior spaces. Samson had seen corridor at work inDamascus, did not cherish the prospect of losing a knee or an elbow in the next few hours. Granted, such an encounter would not kill him. But a shattered joint would be career-ending. He had no desire to ride a desk at 29 Palms.

Thelans had trained Samson and his men in the art of non-lethal close-quarters combat. It was why the marines had been chosen over a Seal team to carry out this boarding action. Samson intended to prove that, despite having receiving instruction from the Thelans, the marines were still the better fighters.

The expected news arrived: instruments on the bridge were non-responsive. If the Americans wanted to take control of the ship, they would have to seize either the engine room or the battle bridge. Since the marines had no idea where the battle bridge might be, that made their next objective simple.

Major Samson had observed a depressing truth in his years of military planning: if he could think of something, that meant the enemy could think of it, too. Or to put it more crudely, he was not able to outsmart his enemy. His advantages were all obvious ones: numbers, better equipment and training, superior motives for fighting. But not superior minds. For example, his unit had brought canisters of tear gas in the hope that the fumes might be fed into the Thelan ship’s ventilation system. A great idea if it worked, as it would force the vessel’s occupants to abandon the interior without a fight.

But if Samson could think of it, so could the enemy. Presumably the Thelans were ready to receive a chemical warfare attack. Gas masks were one possible avenue of preparation, although with small children on board hardly the most practical. Shelters cut off from primary shipboard ventilation were more likely.

Reckoning it a waste of time, Samson nevertheless commanded his men to fire tear gas into the Capitol’s air conditioning ducts. This effort ended up failing, although not in the way the major had expected. His men searched the exterior of the vessel for over an hour, but could not find any air intake ducts into which to introduce the gas. The search proved all the more frustrating given the certainty that there had to be intakes somewhere. The failure reminded Samson just how little he knew about the Capitol’s layout and design.

If only time were not a factor in accomplishing the mission! As Samson saw it, the ultimate key to success was avoiding entering the belly of the beast. Why not just camp on the vessel’s surface and wait out the occupants? They couldn’t stay hidden forever. Better yet, find a way to disable the rudder and tow the Capitol toPearl Harbor. Who cared if it took a month?

The politicians in Washington cared. Bethel was to be brought to heel, and brought to heel quickly. Businesses were screaming for restoration of their normal Pacific trade routes. Samson and his marines would make an example of the Capitol, reminding the Thelans that their silly little “country” existed only at the discretion of the United States. Bethel would abandon its sunsat ambitions and recommence the cheap, timely, diesel shipment of goods to American ports.

The major had other options before committing to a standard action against the engine room. He could try to hack into the Capitol’s computer network (but from where?), set off an EMP burst to disable the Capitol’s electrical systems (and risk his own electronic devices), or deploy his two combat robots in a search for the crew (and isolate these precious machines far from friendly support). There was nothing for it but to trust in his traditional set of advantages (numbers, better equipment and training, superior motives for fighting) and engage in the expected frontal assault.

“Squad two hold the CP, squad four hold the bridge,” Samson finally ordered over the com-net. “Squads one and three with me. Move out.” Sergeant Martinez organized the twenty men, had them cover themselves with basic hazmat suits and gasmasks, and led first squad down a stairwell. Samson went next, followed by third squad. He felt his men’s eagerness, their pent-up violence. It was time to go get some.

The marines had selected a moderate armor load of twenty pounds, enough to provide sub-sonic impact protection while still allowing significant freedom of movement. Samson and seven other men carried the standard Thelan Active Denial Device, a “rifle” equipped with taser, microwave emitter, and shotgun loaded with either bean-bag or rock salt rounds. Four men carried goo-guns, weapons that fired packets of super-sticky polymer. The rest of the assault team wielded random but potentially useful equipment: flash-bang grenades, “slip-n-slides,” an EMP charge, a combat robot plus control equipment, hacking computers, torches with fuel tanks, and a wheeled cart weighed down with bottles of water and goo-gone.

Upon heading down the stairs, Samson immediately noticed the rubber-like coating on the steps and railings, then the floor and walls of the first passageway. The material gave a firm purchase to his boots, yet also provided significant cushioning. The major was accustomed to the hard-metal reality of normal ships, enough that the soft surfaces distracted him. It made him feel like he was invading a home rather than seizing a ship. He didn’t like it.

Internal lighting had been turned off, at least in this corridor, which gave the marines cause to continue using their night-vision gear. A marine ahead of Samson paused to note a small lens in the ceiling, likely a video camera. Should they destroy the surveillance equipment?

Being observed by the enemy carried inherent disadvantages, but Samson hoped to take over the video monitoring system at some point and use it against the Thelans. Thus he hesitated to damage it. Besides, watching the marines approach would fill their opponents with a certain measure of dread, an emotion that might come in handy at the critical moment. Samson ordered that the cameras be left alone.

The hazmat suits, gasmasks, and heavy equipment slowed their forward progress, but now that they had committed to making a push for the engine room, Samson was in no hurry. He imagined Thelan commandos leaping from every passageway, and though he had brought only half of his strength, twenty men was probably still too many for such a restricted space. Even if he outnumbered the prospective defenders, the narrow corridors eliminated that advantage as most of his men would be unable to bring weapons to bear on an attacker.

Ceiling lights blazed on. Several men grunted in momentary surprise, for it took the computers in their night-vision a moment to adjust to the increase in ambient light. Two seconds later and the lights went off. Two more seconds and the lights came back on. This cycle began repeating itself in a most exasperating fashion, for their night-vision always took a fraction of a second to adjust to the change in lighting.

“Shoot out the lights?” Martinezasked.

Samson shook his head. “This is a big ship,” he explained. “No sense wasting ammo just to avoid a headache.”

The marines pressed on, the lights continuing to turn on and off at two-second intervals. A nuisance, certainly, but nothing like a flash-bang. Now a smart enemy would throw a flash-bang or two, timing detonation for just when the lights went out…

Three grenades exploded, filling the corridor with enough light and sound to stun an unprotected man. But Samson and his men were not unprotected. Their electronic ear-plugs were designed for just this sort of situation, allowing in regular conversation but blocking all sound above a dangerous decibel range. And although the night-vision gear had to adjust quickly, it did keep out most of the flash through its secondary filters.

Still, his men were momentarily blinded. It was an ideal time for commandos to attack in force using their unique martial art, cripple several and withdraw. Yet no such attack came. Where are they? Samson demanded silently. Why don’t they show themselves?

Samson’s eyes cleared. “Where did they come from?” he demanded, meaning the grenades.

Several men discovered blackened depressions on the ceiling. The major examined them. Had the weapons been dropped from above? It looked more like the grenades had been lodged in the ceiling, just waiting for Samson and his men to walk under them. He pondered the walls, the floor, the ceiling above them. Grenades could be lodged anywhere.

He realized that if the Thelans had been using lethal weaponry, half his team would be dead. But then if the Americans had been shooting to kill, they simply would have stuck eight torpedoes in the Capitol, and that, as they say, would have been that. Both sides were holding back, trying to avoid fatalities. It reminded Samson of Martinez’ question when they had first gotten their orders: “What have the Thelans ever done to us?”

What had the Thelans ever done to them? They were a loyal U.S. ally, providing troops, intelligence, and logistical sealift support. They sold their best weapons to the American Marine Corp and provided training in their use. They guarded the West Coast from terrorist attack by ruthlessly inspecting every scrap of cargo that entered America’s Pacific ports. And here Bethel was, in the face of monstrous U.S. ingratitude, restraining the impulse to repel an attack on its capitol ship with anything more than non-lethal force. What has Bethel ever done to us?

Pointless line of inquiry. He had been given a job to do, and orders were orders.

“Blow out the cameras,” Major Samson commanded his men, deciding they had to exercise their impulse to shoot something. “The lights, too, while you’re at it.” He dispatched four men back to the command post to obtain extra salt shells for their shotguns, ordered his squad still on the Capitol’s bridge to destroy any video cameras and search the ceiling and other surfaces for embedded grenades. Samson reckoned tearing up the rubberized coating would be a torturous process. At least it would keep them busy.

They descended another stairwell and noticed a significant increase in air temperature. Moving aft through a corridor, the heat became oppressive, then ridiculous. Samson held his gloved hand up to vent, felt hot air blasting into the passageway. Then a locked watertight door stopped their forward progress. The major set his welding team to work on the door and considered his options.

Such heat could not be endured for very long, especially given the hazmat suits. Samson’s gasmask already felt like it contained a quart of sweat. The Thelans no doubt wanted them to strip out of their suits, which would open them up to goo attack. But if was too hot for the marines to wear their hazmat gear, then it was too hot for the Thelans. Unless they had temperature-controlled suits? Cooled suits would be bulky and heavy, though. Thelan commandos prided themselves on being light infantry, able to move quickly and agilely through the corridors of their ships.

“Redeploy back to the previous deck,” Samson ordered. “Set the robot to finish the welding job.” He hated retreating for any reason, especially when no contact had been made with the enemy. I will not be worn down, he swore to himself. It would take more than a few flash-bangs and an overheated corridor to keep him from fulfilling his mission.

Samson made it to the cooler passageway, removed his mask and drank two bottles of water. “Have the robot pause on the door,” he commanded the machine’s operators. “Let’s cut some metal sections from one of the containers and have the robot weld them over the vents down there.”

“That’ll take hours,” Martinez noted.

“Best get started, then,” the major replied.

By 0320 hours the heat-blasting vents had all been welded shut, the water-tight door had been breached, and Samson’s marines were ready to pierce deeper into the ship. His team returned to the hot corridor, finding it significantly cooler though still stifling. They rushed through the opened door into the next passage, used their shotguns to take out the video camera and the lights, and pressed on.

The sprinklers activated. For a moment Samson wondered if the marines had somehow started a fire. Then he realized the sprinklers weren’t spraying water. A strong-smelling chemical of some sort was being dispersed by the fire suppression system. The chemical reacted with the rubberized coating on the floor and walls, turning the rubber into goo. The marines came to a sudden, sticky halt.

Goo-guns fired blobs of hyper-stick polymer that caused limbs to adhere to anything they touched. A person hit with such goo quickly became immobilized as his legs stuck together or his arms adhered to the side of his body. The hazmat suits were worn primarily to protect from a goo-gun attack: the suit could simply be removed. Bottles of goo-gone were brought along to clean off weapons and valued equipment from any goo that happened to hit them.

A whole floor covered with goo – this was something for which the marines were wholly unprepared. There was simply too much of the stuff, more than a whole platoon of goo-guns could fire. Samson paused for a moment to admire the Thelan chemical engineers, who had obviously used a goo-precursor as the building block for the rubber that coated the vessel’s interior surfaces. Mixed with his admiration, however, was a growing frustration at his enemy’s choice of tactics. His men were here to engage Thelans, not activate booby traps. He could sense the team starting to gear down, lose focus. They had to find some live targets!

The sprinklers turned off. Samson tried to move his feet, being careful not to fall over and ruin his weapon in the inch of hyper-stick now coating the floor. There was so much goo that some movement was actually still possible, though probably not for much longer. He ordered his men to retreat once again.

This proved difficult, but not impossible. When the first man made it back to the water-tight door, he stepped through onto a floor which had not been sprayed, and promptly got stuck for real. He stripped out of his hazmat suit. Each marine followed the same procedure. There was no way to bring their heavy equipment with them, though. Their cart, welding tanks, and robot remained stuck to the floor in the goo-covered segment of passage.

“I’m sensing a pattern here,” Samson commented.

“Every corridor seems to possess its own method of resistance, sir,” Martinez offered.

“Why not do it all together?” the major asked. “Hit us with the goo, and the flash-bangs, and the heat all at once.”

“Finite resources, sir,” the sergeant suggested. “My guess is they don’t have that chemical loaded  in all the sprinklers, just a few of them. Same with the grenades. They could probably heat any passage, though.”

Samson imagined the sprinklers turning on again, now that they were out of their hazmat suits. They would lose their boots for sure. Yet no spray came.

“We need to build steps,” Samson declared. “Like stepping stones in a creek.”

They headed back topside, all the way to the command post, and had a helicopter land with the necessary supplies. The helo also brought extra hazmat suits and additional bottles of goo-gone. Their second robot got to work building Samson’s “stepping stones.”

The twenty-one men returned to the sticky corridor after dawn, tired but resolved to press on. Samson took consolation in the fact that his unit had as yet suffered no casualties. But he didn’t appreciate the chewing out he had received over their lack of progress. In sixteen hours, he and his men had made it down two stairwells and three sections of corridor. The powers that be were not pleased. All the marines had to do was take over a simple cargo ship and redirect it to Pearl Harbor. How hard could that be?

The stepping stones were made of metal, two inches tall with a flat surface topping crude blades that would hold each step in place like spikes. Samson had his men place the steps in every passageway, not just the one that had turned to goo. It was slow going, especially at first. The team eventually developed a system in which every man took two steps in one hand. The whole team would then surge forward into a new section of corridor, pierce the floor with their steps, and then stand on them to make sure they were securely driven into the rubber.

The assault team used goo-gone to free the robot, which could walk on the steps. They built a system of skis for the carts that enabled the marines to slide the welding tanks, bottles of goo-gone, and boxes of extra hazmat suits from step to step. This proved to be an incredible pain, since the men pulling the carts had to restrict themselves to standing on the stepping stones. But they kept moving forward.

Samson expected more watertight doors to be locked against them. It was why he insisted on keeping the acetylene with them. Yet the welding torches remained unneeded. The team descended another stairwell quickly, got their first set of stepping stones placed in this new corridor. The sprinklers turned on.

The major looked down to make sure his feet weren’t in contact with the rubber, then suddenly slipped. The rubber softened his fall, though he still found it jarring. His gun squirted out of his hands and slid across the floor, bouncing off another marine who had also fallen. Samson glanced around, saw his whole team on the floor. He caught the familiar smell of slip n’ slide.

This chemical reduced friction to a minimum, making it difficult to keep one’s balance or hold on to an object. Samson was glad they had shot out the closest video camera. The Thelans should have used the slip n’ slide before the marines had gotten their steps in place, for these could be grabbed with both hands and used to pull oneself around on the floor.

The marines began sliding themselves and their equipment toward the next water-tight door. Once again Samson marveled at his unit’s relative helplessness, the ease with which they could be counterattacked. All twenty-one men were seated or lying down, skittering haphazardly across the floor, unable even to hold their weapons much less discharge them. Thelan commandos with a few tasers or dart guns could appear at the doorway and incapacitate the lot of them. It’s what Samson would have done, and if he could imagine doing it, so could the enemy. Yet no attack came.

It took hours to strip off their hazmat suits, wash their weapons, and get new suits on. By 1130 hours the marines were ready to move forward. Samson was hungry, and beginning to feel annoyed. The Thelans would never get him to turn back. They must know that. Why didn’t they commit to battle, then? Why nothing but these juvenile efforts at slowing the marines down? Samson understood afresh the wisdom of not permitting the marines to carry lethal weapons. In their fatigue and exasperation, they might start using them.

Samson considered switching off squads, allow these men to get some sleep. He decided against it. These were the marines who had put up with the heat and the goo and the slip n’ slide. These should be the men to win through to the engine room.

Progress continued, but slowly. Shooting cameras and lights, placing stepping stones, pulling the carts on their skis. Samson wasn’t expecting it when he and his men suddenly emerged into the engine room.

They spread out quickly to plant stepping stones, realized that the floor in this space was not coated with rubber. They shifted to searching for a computer terminal into which they could hack and take over control of the ship’s power plant.

There came the sudden distinctive hum of a deuterium fluoride laser. Sergeant Martinez was blasted onto his back and momentarily dazed. DF lasers were considered non-lethal weapons because they didn’t pierce the objects they hit. Instead, upon contact with a target they induced a plasma explosion. Such a detonation had blown Martinez off his feet and shredded his hazmat suit. Otherwise, however, he seemed unharmed.

The laser hummed again. Another man was struck down. Everyone searched for the source, discovered a laser mount in the ceiling. They commenced shooting at the energy weapon with their shotguns, trying to disable its emitter, but the rock salt they fired wasn’t hard enough to knock it out.

Marine after marine got hit by the laser. Samson ordered his men to pull back into the corridor. Then he radioed his squad at the command post to send three men with the PEP gun, a hand-held deuterium fluoride laser. This could be used to take out the enemy gun mount.

Samson took stock of their situation while waiting for the PEP to arrive. One concussion, one broken wrist, maybe another man who had cracked his back. Every marine on his team had been hit exactly one time by the enemy laser. That couldn’t be a coincidence. “Everyone get new hazmat suits on!” he demanded. But it was too late.

Compartments in the ceiling disgorged three hornet’s nests, which fell to the floor and burst open. The insects were on them in an instant, stinging again and again through their shredded suits. Samson alone wore intact hazmat gear, but several stings succeeded in piercing through to his arms and legs. “Fall back!” Samson ordered, grabbing the man with the injured back and helping him down the corridor.

The hornets pursued them. The PEP arrived as the marines made it to the top of the last stairwell they had descended. “Light ‘em up,” Samson urged the man carrying the PEP. The marine set the weapon to wide dispersal and fired. The air in front of him turned to plasma and exploded, creating a shock wave that stunned all the insects before him.

The man moved forward and fired the PEP again, knocking down more insects. He kept this up, firing and advancing, firing and advancing, others following behind and stepping on every hornet they found twitching on the floor. Within twenty minutes they had made it back to the corridor containing the nests themselves. They sent the robot forward to crush these with its feet.

Samson considered whether or not his unit was still combat effective. Everyone had taken at least thirty hornet stings, but the gasmasks had protected their faces, so no one’s eyes or tongues were swollen. He decided to send his three wounded men back to the command post, escorted by the three men who had been stung most severely. This left him with seventeen marines as he considered entering the engine room and reengaging the enemy laser.

Surprise would have been helpful, Samson mused to himself. The United States had made no secret of its plans to capture a Thelan ship. Samson could not imagine every vessel in Bethel going through such extensive preparations to repel boarders. The Thelans must have guessed that America would attack the Capitol. The chemicals in the sprinklers, the expensive laser mount, the hornets – all of  it spoke to days if not weeks of careful preparation. Which simply begged the question: where were the Thelan commandos? There had to be some on board. Why didn’t they counterattack?

Samson’s men engaged and destroyed the enemy laser, permitting their return to the engine room. Much to their disappointment, they found every computer terminal dead, the hardwires cut. They had taken the engine room for nothing.

Now Samson was getting angry. He had counted on the engine room being the key. Its uselessness meant they would have to search the entire ship for the battle bridge. Given how slowly they were moving through the passageways, such a search would take days. Samson had no choice. He gave the order.

The next eighty hours consisted of tedious agony as they triggered trap after trap. There were more chemical attacks from the sprinklers, more flash-bang grenades and super-heated passageways. There were nets and false floors and an auto-dart with tranquilizers. By the time the entire ship had been searched, Samson and his men were all fuming, exhausted, and in considerable pain. Still no sight of any Thelans on board. Samson was beginning to wonder if there were any people. Wouldn’t that be the final irony: spending days trying to take control of an unmanned ship.

Yet satellite footage from a week ago showed the Capitol putting to sea with a full crew. The vessel’s inhabitants had to be somewhere. “Where are they?” Samson demanded, not for the first time. He studied pictures and diagrams of the ship, had his men sweep it again and again, a process that could happen much faster now that all of the booby-traps had been sprung.

If I can think of it, so can they. But this rule worked the other way, too. What had the Thelans thought of? Where were they hiding? The answer, when it came to Samson, was so obvious as to be embarrassing. There was one space onboard that he and his men had not searched: the containers.

Capitol was a cargo ship, after all, its deck crammed with containers being shipped from China to Mexico. Samson had been so certain that the Thelans would be waiting deep within the ship, an assumption that had only been reinforced by the many booby-traps that had slowed their progress through the interior.

Samson’s men figured out how to operate the crane and began lifting containers one at a time to a position next to the command post. The container would be opened and searched, then lowered onto the ocean surface and allowed to drift away. This process continued for over a day, until a group of just five containers remained, a collection that had been joined together such that the crane was unable to lift them off the deck.

Samson and the thirty-three men he still had at his disposal surrounded the containers and prepared to open them. This had to be it: the Thelan battle bridge, panic room, bomb shelter. Samson ordered his men to crack one of the containers open, then proceeded to lead his men inside.

What had looked like five trailers from the outside composed but a single large room within. There Samson found what he was looking for: live computer terminals from which the ship was  being controlled and, just as importantly, about one hundred and fifty Thelans.

The major searched the crowd, found ten Thelan commandos who had lowered their weapons and placed them on the floor. Samson thought he understood. They weren’t going to risk a fight in a room packed with women and children. Samson and his men kept their guns aimed at the enemy soldiers, moved to place them in handcuffs.

A man stepped forward from the crowd, and Samson immediately recognized Sean Billings. It took all his self-control to avoid tasering Bethel’s former president, given the six days of pain and frustration he had experienced aboard the Capitol. At least it was all about to end.

“I congratulate you on your perseverance,” Billings said. “You force us to use the ‘nuclear option,’ something I had hoped to avoid during this particular crisis. Take them prisoner.”

Samson saw the Thelan commandos bend over to pick up their weapons. “Fire!” Samson ordered.

Nothing happened. The major himself tried to taser Sean Billings, but his weapon refused to work. He shifted to shotgun, but by then it was too late. A deuterium fluoride laser knocked him on his back.

Samson, though stunned, had managed to hold onto his weapon. In his dazed state he turned his gun over and read the engraving on the bottom of the handle. “Made In Bethel,” it said.

***

“Have you watched the movie?” President McCauley asked his National Security Advisor. The president did not waste the time it took Andrews to answer, but spent it reading a projection listing agricultural futures prices. A bushel of corn was up for the fifth straight week. That would help his performance in Iowa.

“I watched the 15-minute one,” Andrews replied.

McCauley expanded a screen containing the 2-hour version. “You should have watched the whole thing,” the president rebuked. “It’s a devastating piece of propaganda.”

The president advanced to the clip he was looking for. It showed Sean Billings standing in a crowded room with a boy who looked to be about twelve years old. They were watching a series of screens that showed the American marines advancing through the Capitol.

“Why don’t our soldiers attack?” the boy asked.

“Those men are not our enemies,” Billings explained. “If we attack them, they will be severely injured. Their careers as combat troops will be over. We must protect them and their futures from the folly of their leaders. It’s not their fault that they have received stupid orders.”

President McCauley turned to face Doug Andrews. “How does that make us look?” he demanded. “How does it make them look? And there’s more of it. They’ve got segments of Billings and his grandson spliced in throughout the whole video. It makes the viewer empathize with the Thelans. By the end even I was rooting for the helpless women and children waiting for our marines to hunt them down. It’s a PR disaster.”

“Mr. President…” Andrews said.

“Listen to this section,” McCauley continued.

“Why are they attacking us?” the boy in the video asked.

“America has to keep the oil companies happy, Matthew. The oil companies don’t want us building sunsats.”

“There’s more to it than that,” a woman beside them explained, a woman the screen identified as Rebecca Billings, Sean Billings’ sister and chief of staff. “Some of them feel threatened by us.”

“But why?” the boy pressed. “What have we ever done to them?”

“Imagine a girl who is the most popular student in school,” Rebecca explained. “A new girl shows up and begins to gain a following. The first girl feels threatened by the new girl. She doesn’t want to lose her most-popular status. She tries to destroy the new girl.”

“So they’re children,” the boy concluded.

Sean Billings and his sister exchanged glances.

“I suppose you could say that,” Rebecca allowed. “They are acting immature.”

McCauley froze the video and interjected, “There’s no way we can let this video get posted. And don’t even try to tell me that people wouldn’t watch it. The 2-hour version is more exciting than any Hollywood movie I’ve seen in the last three months. It’s positively entertaining.”

“We can try again, Mr. President,” Andrews recommended. “Now that we know the Thelans can deactivate the weapons they’ve sold us, we can rearm our boarding parties, seize another ship, and hold it in exchange for our men.”

“And then this video gets posted on YouTube,” McCauley said, exasperated at his aide’s lack of understanding. Why couldn’t Andrews get it? Entertainment value was everything. The Thelan video would get thirty million hits in its first week. He couldn’t have his administration labeled immature by a twelve-year-old.

“So we make our own video,” Andrews suggested.

“And the viewer empathizes with whom? With the marines trying to attack the defenseless civilians? That’s the real problem. There’s no cause of war, no reason for the viewer to hate the Thelans and want them defeated. They’re just a bunch of families on a cargo ship, minding their own business.”

“Then we need to activate our own propaganda machine, rouse our people against them.”

“Why?” the president pressed. “Iowa is in two months. How is stirring up a conflict with the Thelans going to help me get reelected?”

“It’s about the future,” Andrews said.

“You need to focus on the present,” McCauley explained, “or soon we’ll both be out of a job. I’m instructing the Secretary of Defense to accept the Thelans’ offer. We end the embargo and allow them to build their sunsats. In exchange they hand over the 34 captured marines and refuse to post this video. Then we pray a bootleg copy doesn’t make it online until after the election.”

“But that doesn’t give us anything!” Andrews protested. “We’ll never get another chance like this to halt Bethel’s expansion.”

McCauley swept away all Bethel-related projections. He replaced them with the latest polling data from Iowa and New Hampshire.

“Mr. President,” Andrews said, “don’t you care that Bethel will acquire the means to attack the U.S. mainland?”

“Whatever,” McCauley replied.

Epilogue

Sean Billings gathered his family in the Capitol’s galley. It made for a cramped farewell: his seven children and their spouses, together with thirty-one grandchildren. His sister Rebecca also came, along with his best friend Jonathan Cheung. Not Patricia, though. The radiation from too much spaceflight had finally carried her to her reward two years previously. But that frowning providence did make possible this self-imposed exile. And Patricia had showed him the way.

“Back in 2008,” Sean explained to his household, “was when I heard the word ‘whatever’ spoken one too many times. I realized the word captured the attitude of a whole generation, what I came to call the ‘Whatever Generation.’ I realized also that a time would come when the Whatever Generation held the reigns of power in the United States.

“What was the distinctive feature of the Whatever Generation? That word reflects a worldview, a way of viewing the affairs of life as inherently meaningless. All that mattered to the Whatever Generation was entertainment. As long as their ear buds kept the hip-hop pumping, they simply did not care what happened around them. Nations were rising and falling? People were becoming post-literate? The debt maintained its inexorable climb? Whatever.

“That’s when I realized that 2012 was the perfect year to found Bethel. I looked into the future and saw a time when Bethel would be large enough to make America feel threatened, yet too small to defend itself. What would protect Bethel at that critical moment? The word ‘whatever.’ Whoever America’s leaders would be, they would be members of the Whatever Generation. Bethel could get away with existing, with growing, with becoming powerful, because at the end of the day America’s leaders simply wouldn’t care about Bethel. They wouldn’t care about Bethel because they wouldn’t care about anything.”

Sean scanned his listeners, fixed his attention upon his grandson Matthew. “This next part is harder to understand,” he said. “I realized something else way back at the beginning. I studied other great works, other founders. I discovered that men like me usually go off track when they get older. They get ornery, and divisive, and power-hungry. They destroy the very ministry or business or project they spent their lives building. And I wondered how I would keep from doing the same thing. It was your mother’s time at sea that showed me what I had to do.”

“Don’t leave, Grandpa,” Matthew implored.

“I have to,” Sean explained. “Now that America has backed down, I am the greatest remaining threat to Bethel’s survival. I cannot bear the thought of ruining you. I must retire from public life. I must get out of the way.”

“You can retire and still remain aboard a Thelan ship,” his son Jonathan, Matthew’s father, interjected.

“My sailboat is a Thelan ship,” Sean replied. “It’s not like I’m dying or anything. I’ll still email and talk on the phone. You kids can come spend time with me. But only family and friends,” he emphasized. “No officials. No reporters. I must cease to be a public figure. And in order for that to happen, I need to go to sea.”

Many of his family were crying freely now. “Don’t weep,” Sean urged them. “It is for your good that I go away. You must learn to step up and lead. That’s something you’ll never really do so long as I am here.

“Right now the word ‘whatever’ will protect you from America. My departure will protect you from me. But this season of peace won’t last forever. A new generation has already arisen in America, a generation that loathes its parents’ use of ‘whatever.’ They will seek to destroy you when their time comes. So build sunsats. Build a navy. Develop water technologies so advanced that no one can hope to defeat you.

“Adult members of our society spend a day and a night on the open sea every year. In my leaving there is a sense in which I am really the one staying home, while you are the ones going to sea for the first time. That is what I am making you do. I am making you to do without your father. I am making you grow up.”