Benefit Of The Doubt

Posted on Aug 12, 2016 @ 4:49pm by Captain Michael Turlogh Kane

Mission: Fortress: Earth

"BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT"

(Continued from "Communication Is Key")

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Location: USS Demeter, near-Earth orbit
Stardate: [2.16]0812.1245
Scene: Conference Room


For the first time since they had arrived at Earth, it felt to Michael Turlogh Kane that an end of sorts was in sight. The success of deploying James Barton to the planet's surface, coupled with the destruction of Paris, meant that the Siege of Earth was moving inexorably towards its endgame. All the pieces of a resolution were being manoeuvred into place, ready for a final clash.

That was the reason he was here, again, aboard the Demeter, waiting at the table along with the other members of the Federation's government-in-exile and their higher military officers - Marie-Claire Martine, Alexander Towers and Dexter Marxx. There had been only the most cursory of greetings as they took their seats - Paris was still foremost on everyone's mind.

The doors hissed open and President Sardak came in. The hood of the Vulcan's brown kolinahr robe was down, and his hands remained hidden inside its voluminous sleeves. As one, the others at the table got to their feet as the President took his place at their head.

Sardak didn't waste any time. He looked around at them all. "The destruction of Paris has changed the landscape of both the Federation and this conflict," he stated. "We have been dealt a grievous wound." He looked to Dexter Marxx. "Admiral, the fleet's analysis of the damage, if you please."

Marxx didn't mince words, although Kane could tell that what had happened was weighing heavily on him. "Five thousand square kilometres of the surface of the Earth, localised around Paris, has been completely irradiated with a variant of thaleron. Every living thing inside its area of effect has died. As bad as that is, the thaleron has also sundered the molecular bonds holding many of the city's older structures together. Many historical buildings are in serious danger of collapse." He paused to collect his thoughts before continuing. "The affected area includes the Place de Concorde, an area of the city that housed the Federation's government complex. The office of the President, the Council chamber, and the Assembly building and all its annexes, have all been irradiated."

Kane's heart was heavy just thinking about it. Paris had been standing for almost two-and-a-half millennia, ever since the ancient Romans had conquered the local Gallic Celtic tribes and built a permanent settlement on the banks of the River Seine. The loss in Human cultural history alone would be felt for a long time.

"Thank you," said the President. He turned to Martine. "Madam Secretary, you have been projecting the impact upon any future government."

Martine nodded. "To put it frankly, we're now a government without a capital. Although irradiated, Paris will still be accessible to science teams in special radiation suits, and I am informed that it is unlikely that any computer data has been affected. This means that the documentation of government is still intact, and it should be an easy matter for the fleet to create an uplink with our old databanks and transfer the information to wherever we need it. It is, obviously, out of the question that the machinery of government can reconvene in Paris for the foreseeable future."

That made sense, mused Kane. Although the buildings themselves were inaccessible, it would probably be possible to send specialist teams to the surface to reactivate dormant computer systems. It was unlikely that the data itself was corrupted, even if the memory banks themselves were irradiated, but the longer they were left in limbo, the more chance there was of data loss.

"In this time of crisis, the Demeter is the centre of the government," said Sardak. "Admiral Marxx, it is now imperative that Starfleet protect the Demeter until a new capital can be established - she is truly the last remnant of civilian authority in the Federation."

Marxx inclined his crimson head in obeyance of the order.

"Furthermore," continued Sardak, "we are now faced with considering the unthinkable. In order to break the Neo-Essentialist hold on Earth, we are forced to now include a planetary invasion as a possible means of resolving this impasse. The implications of a planetary invasion are obvious. The scale of the loss of Human life would be terrifying. Colonel Towers, you have been looking into this."

Kane had thought something like this would happen, and although he was interested in hearing what Towers had to say, the idea of it caused a pit of worry to open in his stomach. As soon as the fleet engaged the Aegis satellites to cover the Marine dropships, their thaleron energy would be unleashed onto the Earth's surface, potentially killing billions. Edgerton had put the satellites in geo-synchronous orbit above the most heavily-populated cities on the planet - as the President had indicated, the scale of the loss of life would be staggering.

Towers didn't rely on his memory. He activated a PADD and manipulated the table's holographic controls, bringing up a three-dimensional view of the floating Earth, the Aegis energy web, and the surrounding fleet of starships. Kane picked up the holographic Phoenix floating in the command group near representations of the Demeter and the Century. Hanging over each pole were the Monarch and the Imperial - the fleet's two command-and-control battleships with their destroyer squadron escorts. The other starships were spaced evenly out in the sky above the planet, matching the orbits of the Aegis satellites.

"There are several problems facing us in the event of surface landings," began Towers. As if on cue, the holographic picture started to play out - the orbiting starships began opening fire on the Aegis satellites, which responded in kind while flooding the Earth's surface with the sickly-green thaleron radiation. As the shooting continued, several dozen Marine dropships began their downward arcs from their motherships towards the planet's surface.

"The first is making it through the Aegis web," continued Towers. "Our dropships are not small enough to penetrate the gaps in the tachyon strands - therefore, we would immediately trigger a thaleron holocaust on the planet's surface. This, in turn, dictates where we must land. With Earth's major cities irradiated by the aforementioned holocaust, any Marine invasion must concentrate on securing secondary sources of command and control, such as planetary communications networks, power hubs, computer cores, and the like. Given the enemy's ability to melt into the populace, we would be extremely ill-advised to attempt to secure direct control over target cities - we would be spread much too thinly."

"The estimated numbers of Neo-Essentialist ground troops is believed to be almost zero, is that not so?" asked the President.

"Yes, sir," replied Towers. "Before Edgerton began jamming the civilian radio bands, we were getting strong indications of confusion across the planet. No-one seems sure who is administrating their home city, for example. It looks more and more likely that the Neo-Essentialists themselves are locked into this state of confusion as their leadership retreats into seclusion. We consider it likely that, by locating and destroying Admiral Edgerton's command bunker, we will force the surrender, or at least the collapse, of Neo-Essentialist resistance on Earth."

"Thanks to Selyara, we have purged the Neo-Essentialist rot from the ranks of Starfleet," said Marxx, "but the same cannot be said of their civilian operatives. Informers, agents, general supporters of Edgerton's regime - we have no way of knowing how many of them there are."

Sardak looked thoughtful. "We must assume that the majority of Humans support us. We must give them, as they say, the benefit of the doubt."

Marxx nodded. "Yes, Mister President, and I have no doubt that the majority do. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing how sizeable that majority is."

Kane leaned forward. "It's vast," he said simply. "I cannot believe that the Neo-Essentialists have the general support of Humanity."

"I agree," said Martine.

"For Humanity's sake, I hope you are both correct," said the President. "Finally, has there been any development in our scientific efforts to breach the Aegis shield?"

"The Phoenix's scientific and engineering team believes they are close to a breakthrough," said Kane. "We're in the process of uninstalling the Century's cloaking device and reconfiguring it for use aboard one of our Runabouts. In theory, it will phase-cloak and cross the Aegis web without triggering the release of the thaleron."

"We believe we are also close to pin-pointing the location of Edgerton's command bunker," said Marxx. "That will be the shuttle's target. Our ground intelligence will hopefully provide us with that location in the coming hours."

There was general silence as all of them processed the information, each to their own. Kane looked around and saw resolution on the faces of Martine, Towers and Marxx - the face of the President, of course, was inscrutable.

"You will inform this Council when all is ready," said Sardak to Marxx. Then, looking around the table, he dismissed them. "Good luck to us all."

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Location: USS Phoenix, shortly afterward
Scene: Captain's Ready Room


Kane had beamed back to the Phoenix and gone straight to work. It didn't seem fair to sit idly by while Jake and Varn and the others were working on the phase cloak, so he busied himself with departmental reports and authorising various requests from around the ship.

Still, his eyes drifted upward every few minutes to look out of the viewport. Thanks to its static position in space, the Phoenix was in a position to see the Earth's rotation, and once a day, every day, Europe rolled by. Kane could see both Ireland and France, now garishly marked by what they were already calling the Great Black Spot, coming into view. It was a sight that nowadays gave him pause, for all the wrong reasons.

He put down the PADD, got up and walked to the viewport. The distinctive shape of Ireland was easily recognisable - the cragged western shoreline was today not marred by heavy cloud - and for a moment Kane felt a pang of longing for Thomond. Then he thought of how it lay in rubble, its embers long since smouldered down cold. The Phoenix was his home now, her crew his family.

The door chimed. There's always someone waiting to break the reverie, he thought. "Come," he grated without turning around.

It was Kassandra Thytos. He could see her ghost in the viewport in front of him, the rainbow lights of her sensor nets blinking in the reflected dark. She came to the front of the desk, stayed standing.

"Y'all're lookin' at that there planet again?" she drawled. "Ah can't see it none mahself, we're too high in orbit an' such."

"Yes, Major," said Kane. "Home." In more ways than one, he thought to himself. Ireland might have been his home, but Earth was the homeworld of all Humans, no matter their colour or creed.

"Ain't never bin ta where yore frum," said Kass, somewhat awkwardly. "Nice part o' the world, huh?"

"So they say."

"Y'all have those bagpipes an' whiskies an' such."

"We do."

"And them there Alpine mountains. Ah hear they're real purty."

Kane frowned and rounded on her. "What?"

Kass raised an eyebrow. "Y'all don't have Alpine mountains?"

"I'm not sure where you think Ireland is," said Kane, jerking a thumb at the viewport. "It's that small island off Europe's western coast."

Kass looked confused. "You rope?"

Kane's jaw dropped. "Major, do you know anything about Earth's geography?"

Kass got defensive. Kane wondered if he was imagining it, but there seemed to be more red lights flashing than usual. "Hell no, Ah don't. Ah'm frum Sherman's Planet, not sum hoity-toity core world."

Kane was flabbergasted. "Yes, but - "

"Ain't no buts 'bout it, Cap'n. Earth ain't nothin' to me but a rock in space. Y'all tell me it's tha homeworld o' Humanity, Ah say great. Mah home is a shithole quintotriticale farm a million miles frum anywhere. Ah don' need ta know much 'bout Earth 'cept where Ah gotta be on it."

Kane picked up a second PADD on the table. "Then you'll be interested in this."

Kass activated the device and read it. As her eyes travelled downward, her mouth opened into an O, then her jaw flopped open. She looked back up at Kane with her milk-white eyes. "Y'all are serious? Edgerton's command bunker?"

Kane nodded. "Once Selyara gets its location to us, we're sending a strike team through the Aegis shield to take it out. The shuttle will be phase-cloaked so it doesn't trip the thaleron."

"You mean," said Kass slowly, "we's gonna git ta grease that sumbitch Edgerton?"

Kane put his hands behind his back and assumed a military air. "No doubt our superiors would like him tried in a court of law, but I can't see him surrendering peacefully, can you?"

"No, sir, Ah cannot."

"Than prep your team, Major. Be ready to deploy on a moment's notice."

Kass seemed happier than she had been in years as she turned to go. "Yes sir!"

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NRPG: Putting more pieces in place...


Jerome McKee
the Soul of Captain Michael Turlogh Kane
Commanding Officer
USS PHOENIX


"He speaks an infinite deal of nothing!"
- Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice", Act 1, Scene 1.117

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