Fenrir: Chapter 23

[seawasp]

Things were moving along...

 

Chapter 23: Two Decisions

Time to Launch: 525 days

"Rog," the President said, "Tell me you have good news."

"I'm not about to start lying now, Jeanne," Roger Stone answered, not even bothering to hide the grim expression on his face.

"This was so not what I was looking forward to this morning," President Sacco said. "Should we be having a larger briefing?"

"Yes," Stone answered after a pause. "But we'll have to think carefully about who with."

Jeanne Sacco took a deep breath, then a sip of coffee. "All right, Roger, hit me with it. Which countries are involved? Us? China? Who?"

"It's worse than that. Or better, in some ways, but still bad." Stone put several files in front of her. "These have the details, but I put everyone I trusted on it; this is the NSA report, this is CIA, this is Secret Service. I also asked some other sources, friends I've picked up in my time here.

"Jeanne, as far as I can tell, none of the nations – no major ones, anyway – have been doing anything to sabotage the progress of Carpathia. That's not saying some haven't thought about it, and in fact the NSA found one think-tank report from the DOD – Army, if it matters – on the potential advantages of slowing Carpathia's progress to ensure it's not complete in time to save any of the Fens. But there's no evidence anyone actually put these plans in motion."

The President looked at Roger, puzzled. "But are you saying the failure in manufacture of the main supports, and the later ones in the hab unit bearing supports and in the guidance modules were accidents?"

Roger shook his head. "No one thinks this is coincidence. Yes, accidents are going to happen in making an unprecedented design like this, but nothing so… systematic." He put another folder down. "I just received this from Director Bronson."

"What does Dr. Bronson want today?"

"She wants permission and resources – people and money – to make her own group of troubleshooters to check systems as needed."

Jeanne managed a smile at that. "I suppose that means she trusts us, at least."

"She has to trust someone, and you and I could have sabotaged the project quite effectively in different ways," Roger agreed. "I think it's a good idea, and if there's one person on the project I trust unreservedly, it's her."

"Her and Dr. Dobyns, I think. Probably Peter Flint, as well, since he could have simply passed the flawed elements."

She saw Roger wince at that; if Carpathia had attempted to fly with what could have been a majority of flawed support members, it would have likely disintegrated within a few minutes of launch.

Then Roger shook his head. "I would personally agree," he admitted, "but to be honest that doesn't eliminate him. Some of this sabotage is… too direct. I think we're meant to find most if not all of it, and probably our unseen adversaries really don't intend to carry out wholesale slaughter – which is what would happen if Carpathia failed with everyone aboard. They just want to make it expensive, too expensive and time-consuming for us to ever succeed."

The thought was both staggering and infuriating. The largest project ever taken on by humanity, and some unknown group wanted to just keep throwing wrenches in the works until it stumbled to a halt. "Do you think they'll stop if it becomes clear they can't keep us from finishing?"

Stone considered for a few minutes, then shook his head. "No. A movement that can achieve what we've seen probably is willing to take any steps necessary. They might regret it, but I think we would be foolish to believe they would not go to the wall on this."

Jesus H. Particular Christ, as my father used to say. On a purely personal level this offended her. On a practical political level, it threatened her – the failure of Carpathia would undoubtedly mean the failure of her administration, no matter what excuses she might be able to give.

But on an international level – no, an interstellar level – it was quite simply intolerable. This was not a once-in-a-lifetime event, it was once-in-the-species'-existence event. If they couldn't rescue Fenrir, or at least some of the people and knowledge onboard, humanity would likely never know any more about the visitors that had expended an entire civilization's worth of energy just to visit. It would be the most tragic lost opportunity in Earth's history.

"Roger," she said, hearing the anger in her voice and, after a second, deciding not to hide it. "Roger, I want these people. I want what they're doing stopped, and I want to know who they are, how many there are, and why they're doing it. Give Stephanie whatever she wants, but I also want to put together our own investigation team."

"You know, we will need a big team to have a chance to track them down, if they've gotten this far," Roger pointed out. "And the bigger the group, the more chance there is for these people to get someone on the inside."

Jeanne closed her eyes, then nodded. "I know. But we can't ignore this, and we can't just make a halfhearted attempt at stopping it. Obviously, try to keep it to people we really have reason to believe want Carpathia to succeed, but yes, they're bound to get someone in the team if we spread the net far enough. They have to be watching us – you and me in particular, I suspect – for our reaction."

"Understood," Roger said. "I'll go over our options and have an outline of how to proceed on your desk by end of day."

Jeanne nodded. "Thank you, Roger." She took a huge breath, let it out. "You know the other problem, of course."

"Other… oh, yes." Stone grimaced as though he had suddenly found himself chewing lemon peels. "There's not a chance in hell there aren't agents already on the Carpathia team."

"Not just the team," Jeanne said bleakly. "On the crew."

Stone nodded.

After a pause, she sighed, then drained her coffee. "Anything else before I go to the main morning brief?"

"Just this," he said, putting a final folder in front of her. "Everyone else needed has already put down their approval. It just needs your signature."

Jeanne opened the folder and read the executive summary, then closed it and looked up at Roger with a wry chuckle. "So I'm the one to pull the trigger, after almost forty years."

"Not much choice, if we're going to ever launch Carpathia."

"No. No, there isn't." She looked down at the simple page with a line for a signature and another for the date, then reached out for a pen.

"Congratulations, Dr. Bronson," she said as she finished the signature with a flourish. "You get to conduct the United States' first nuclear detonations in this century."

 



Madame President, I'm sure Steph will have a blast.