56

Dominique Wiewall

July 10, 2045. Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Everyone stood as President Carmine Wood breezed into the war room, flanked by his brother, the former president Wood, and his wife and chief advisor, the former actress Nora Messina.

Dominique still couldn’t believe she’d been flown to Colorado Springs to join strategic command. As far as she knew, no one else on General Willis’s invasion team even held federal positions any longer. Maybe as the chief engineer of the defenders she was considered irreplaceable.

She felt a certain sick satisfaction that Willis would end his days as the modern face of incompetence and failure, but she wasn’t proud for feeling it. There was nothing good about any of this.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen, ladies,” the president said in his nasally voice. He was getting old; there was a noticeable bend at the top of his spine. He’d seemed so much younger seven years ago, when he’d been elected not through his own accomplishments but because of his wildly popular brother, who was credited with helping to turn the Luyten War around when all seemed lost.

“We’re losing,” the president said with no preamble. He allowed a moment of silence to stretch, to emphasize his words. “But you already knew that.”

Yes, Dominique knew that. The defenders held most of the world’s major port cities. They held the Panama and Suez Canals. They held Gibraltar and Morocco, so they controlled the Mediterranean Sea. They had superior weapons, maintained air and sea superiority, and held all of the defender production facilities. They didn’t sleep; they just kept coming, day and night, wearing down humanity’s superior numbers.

Something else had become clear, at least to Dominique: They carried boundless rage toward their creators for designing them so carelessly. Deep down they knew they were fucked-up, that there was something missing at their core. In a very real sense, Dominique was responsible for that rage.

When she’d been charged with creating them, her focus had been 100 percent results oriented. It had never occurred to her to give any thought to the quality of the defenders’ lives. She’d designed their hands to shoot and climb, not paint; she’d designed them to be tough and angry, not content.

She’d designed killers.

“During the Luyten War, when things looked their worst, we took decisive action,” the president was saying. “I believe it’s time for decisive action again.” Dominique had missed some of what he’d said. She needed to stay on task.

An aide activated a map of the world. There were yellow circles set over about a dozen major world cities, all of them currently under defender occupation.

“Based on our current intelligence, it will be a matter of months, if not weeks, before the defenders are able to erect cloaks over the territory they hold and install their spectroscopic nuclear detection technology. Once that happens, our military options become extremely limited.”

Dominique leaned forward in her chair, examining the cities with the yellow circles over them. New York, Los Angeles, London, Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul, Moscow, Mumbai, São Paulo, Mexico City. The Alliance couldn’t possibly be planning what she thought they were planning.

“All told, the Alliance has seventeen cruise missile submarines on the open waters, doing their best to evade defender naval patrols.” President Wood II rested his hand on a table and took a deep, sighing breath, as if he didn’t want to say what he needed to say. Surely everyone in the room knew what he was going to say. “We’re going to target the defenders’ centers of gravity with nuclear strikes while we still can.”

No one stated the obvious. There were still millions of people living in those cities under defender occupation. Bombing them meant bombing human civilians.

“The defenders will not be expecting this,” the president said.

No, they wouldn’t. Neither would the people living there. Dominique listened carefully as Peter Smythe, Wood’s secretary of defense, filled in the details. The strikes would kill an estimated 20 percent of the defenders’ forces and a quarter of their weapons capability. It would cripple their communications for a short time, during which Alliance ground forces would launch an all-or-nothing assault on their remaining assets.

A woman Dominique didn’t know raised her hand. “I’m assuming Premier Santos made this call?”

“The premier is against this action,” Wood said. “We’re acting in concert with China, Russia, India, and half a dozen other countries.”

There was stunned silence. The Alliance had split? This was worse than Dominique thought.

“Ms. Wiewall,” the president said. Dominique raised her head. “How will the surviving defenders react to this action?” he asked.

“I can’t answer that question,” Dominique said.

“I’m sorry?”

Dominique shrugged. “I’m not a military strategist. Their reaction will be whatever gives them the best chance of defeating us. Your military people will have to advise you on what that would be.”