“What sort would you like? I can meet you with—”
“No, tell Souther to do it,” she said. “He’ll think it’s funny.”
The conference room was the single most secure chamber in the solar system, but it didn’t wear that on its sleeve. It was small enough for six people to sit comfortably. Red curtains on the walls to hide the air recyclers and the heaters. The table was wide, dark, and set just a little low to give a few centimeters more room for the holographic display. Not that anyone ever used holographic displays. Showy, but not functional. The Martian military attaché wasn’t here to be wowed by graphic design, and Avasarala liked him for that.
The man himself—Rhodes Chen—sat on one side of the table with his secretary and assistant to either hand. Souther was already there too when she arrived, leaning back in his chair and laughing with Rhodes. A small tin plate waited at her chair—white bread and cucumbers. When Chen saw her, he stood, and all the others with him. She waved him back down.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I wanted to be sure our allies on Mars were entirely up-to-date on the situation with the Free Navy.”
“Prime Minister Richards sends her regrets,” Chen said, taking his seat. “Things are still unsettled back at home, and she didn’t feel comfortable being physically absent from the government building.”
“I understand,” Avasarala said. “And your wife? Michaela? Is she feeling better?”
Chen blinked. “Why … yes. Yes, she’s doing much better. Thank you.”
Avasarala turned to Souther. “Admiral Chen’s wife went to the cooperative school with my daughter Ashanti when they were girls,” she said. Not that Chen remembered that, or had even known. In fairness, the girls hadn’t been particularly close, but you played the angles the universe gave you. She picked up her sandwich, took a bite, and put it back down to give Chen a moment to hide his discomfort.
“I’m going to have to ask your staff to leave,” Avasarala said.
“They can be trusted,” Chen said, nodding as if he’d agreed.
“Not by me, they can’t,” Avasarala said. “We won’t hurt them. But they can’t stay.”
Chen sighed. His secretary and assistant politely gathered up their things, nodded to Souther and Avasarala, and left. Souther lowered his head, waiting for the system to report whether either had left anything behind. It would be sad to come this far and have a bug in the room. A moment later he shook his head.
“Now then,” she said. “Shall we get down to business?”
Chen didn’t object, and Souther pulled up a schematic of the solar system in its present state. The sun and the ring gate as the major axis, and the planets and moons, stations and asteroids, scattered as the laws of orbital mechanics had placed them. As with any tactical map on that scale, the proportionality had suffered a little in favor of visibility. In truth, all of humanity’s children lived on scattered stones smaller than dust on the face of the ocean. They hid the fact with graphics and highlighted lists of ship names and vectors. Had the map matched the territory, there would have been nothing to see. Even the Earth with her suffering billions would have been less than a pixel.
But the Free Navy showed there in yellow. The consolidated fleet in red. Michio Pa’s breakaway ships and their new OPA let’s-call-them-allies in gold. It was rough and ugly. Souther pulled up a pointer, and drew the room’s attention to the ring gate at the system’s edge.
“Our target is Medina Station,” he said in his oddly high-pitched, musical voice. “There are several reasons for that, but critically, it’s the choke point for passage through to the colony systems, including Laconia, where former Martian naval officer Winston Duarte appears to have set up shop. Whoever has possession of Medina and its defenses controls the ring gates and traffic through them. It will reopen trade and colonization ships for us, and cut Inaros’ supply lines from his ally.”
Chen leaned forward, his elbows on the table, eyes glittering with the reflection of the display. He hadn’t reacted at all to Duarte’s name. Good poker face, and he’d expected to hear it. Richards wasn’t trying to deny the Martian Navy’s role in this clusterfuck. That was good. She took another bite of the sandwich and wished she’d thought to bring some pistachios. She didn’t have much appetite right after lifting weights, but when it returned, she was ravenous.
“Inaros’ method of operation up to now has relied on strategic retreat,” Souther continued. “Stripping and abandoning territory rather than trying to hold it and leaving the support of the people left behind to the consolidated fleet. It has served him well in that we have been reluctant
to overextend our defensive force, and the Free Navy has been able to carry out raids and attacks of opportunity on both Earth and Martian forces and dissenting factions on their own side.”
“The pirates,” Chen said.
“The pirates,” Avasarala agreed. No need to beat around that particular bush.
“We believe that strategy will fail with Medina,” Souther said. “Its importance is too great to abandon. And if we’re wrong and the Free Navy does abandon it … Well, then we have all the advantages we were hoping for and he looks like a joke.”
“He won’t abandon it,” Avasarala said.
“What about the rail guns?” Chen asked. An interesting move, showing that Mars already knew about the defensive artillery. She wasn’t quite certain what letting her know they knew that was meant to achieve. Souther glanced at her. She nodded. No reason to pretend ignorance.
“Our best intelligence on that comes from the defectors from the Free Navy. Captain Pa of the Connaught was one of Inaros’ inner circle. Our understanding is that the rail guns set up on the alien station are Medina’s first line of defense. The station proper also had PDCs and a supply of torpedoes left by Duarte, but the rail guns are set to defend and destroy any unauthorized ships that pass through the ring gates.”
“That seems like a problem,” Chen said. “Your thoughts on how to overcome that?”
“We’re going to send a shitload of ships through the ring gates,” Avasarala said as Souther shifted from tactical to an image of the Giambattista. It wasn’t a pretty ship: large, boxy, and awkward.
“This is a converted water hauler crewed by the Ostman-Jasinzki faction of the Outer Planets Alliance,” Souther said. “It has been loaded with slightly under four thousand small craft. Breaching pods, small transports, prospecting skiffs. A devil’s brew. We’re calling it our Surinam toad, but the ship’s registered as the Giambattista.”
“That thing has four thousand reactors in it?” Chen said.