I just wished to comment that this has been a most fascinating AAR to read so far. I have a long way to go still, but it’s cetrainly a most interesting narrative.
Thank you everyone. I know it's been a long (long) time but unfortunately I've had to graduate/find a job the last six months. The AAR is not dead and there should be an update soon. (Although God forbid it turn into the monstrous behemoth Crown Atomic has become
)
In the meantime, here's a fiction piece to tide you over.
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Interlude: Proportionality
New York City, USNA - 2225
The Secretary-General’s official residence occupied the three topmost penthouse floors of 15 Carlisle Street, an elegant neo-deco starscraper on the bottom edge of Manhattan. It overlooked the Statue of Liberty and the venerable Freedom Tower, the dark bulk of the flood wall holding back the harbor and the glowing sprawl of New Jersey beyond. In of the large apartment’s bedrooms, Secretary-General Koo Heung-min straightened his son’s covers, and reached for the book on the bedside table.
“Where were we?” he asked.
Joshua Koo, nine years old, all dark eyes and lashes, looked up at his father.
“At the Leaky Cauldron,” he said.
“That’s right,” the Secretary-General replied, turning to the relevant page. He cleared his throat.
“Harry, who couldn’t believe his ears, opened his mouth to speak, couldn’t think of anything to say, and closed it again. ‘Ah, you’re worrying about the reaction of your aunt and uncle?’ said Fudge. ‘Well, I won’t deny they are extremely angry, Harry, but they are prepared to take you back next summer as long as you stay at Hogwarts for the -”
A gentle knock at the door interrupted the reading. Koo paused, sighed, and closed the book.
“Dadddd...” Joshua complained.
Koo smoothed his son’s dark hair. “Sorry, eolin-i.” He kissed his forehead. “Next time.”
He reached for the light switch, and put the book down on the bedside table, setting it to narrate. He stood and went to the door.
“I love you.”
Joshua sighed, and rolled over, gathering his Wormhole Explorer Team duvet around him like a shell.
Koo watched the rise and fall of his son’s breath for a second before he opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. Maxim waited outside.
“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Secretary.”
Koo waved him off. “What is it?”
“The object in Tannerman 224. Scans have confirmed it’s uqo’praknarian. You're needed in Jerusalem."
Koo nodded grimly. “Okay,” he said.
They walked down the corridor together. Whereas Elizabeth Kennedy’s tastes has always tended to classical, understated Americana, the Koos favored a darker, more contemporary pallet, accentuated by subtle Asian influences. They reached the elevator.
“Any word on my wife?” the Sec-Gen asked as the car descended.
“Speech went well, I heard. She should be boarding the Moscow-Tokyo vac train about now.”
“See if we can schedule a call before I go to bed,” Koo requested.
“Yes, sir.”
Maxim thought he had the look of a man with his mind elsewhere. They’d gotten used to each other slowly: Maxim suspected Koo initially kept him around as a favor to his predecessor, whereas Koo’s military bearing and directness was a change of pace for him after Elizabeth’s calm, diplomatic demeanor. Over time, however, both men had come to appreciate each other. It was a good working relationship, if not quite a friendship.
Maxim cleared his throat. “Everything alright?” he asked.
The Secretary-General glanced at him, the light momentarily catching the scars he'd taken as a young peackeeper during the Mauritanian campaign.
“Huh? Sorry. I was just thinking about Lodeweges Intrepid.” A Dutch research platform in the Expansion Sphere raided by slavers two weeks ago. 48 killed, 73 missing. The Secretary-General continued. “There were six children aboard. The Peacekeepers recovered fragmentary remains of one. God only knows what’s happening to the others.”
Maxim kept his silence. It made the skin crawl, true enough. “It’s hard to think about,” he said, as the elevator started to slow.
Koo grimaced but didn’t say anything.
The elevator stopped. The doors opened, revealing the white room beyond. Both men entered, picking up VR halos from the shelf beside the door, and sat down at the table. Maxim slipped his on, and suddenly he was in the Combat Operations Bunker seven miles below Peacekeeper Command in Jerusalem.
Admiral Ramalepe and other members of the Military Staff Committee were already waiting.
“Let’s get right to it,” the Secretary-General said, cutting through any introductions. “Admiral, what’s the update?”
Ramalepe nodded her tightly-braided head. With a wave of her hand, a glowing tactical situation hologram appeared in the center of the circular table, three UN destroyers highlighted in blue and the uqo asteroid base ringed in red.
“The Hammarskjöld has now been reinforced by the Mandela and the Sugihara, Mr. Secretary. They are holding positions 1,500 meters from the surface of the object. Our deep scans have now confirmed it is uqo’praknarian in origin. From the recognizable surface technology, we assess it’s some kind of remote port or anchorage for their slaver vessels.”
“Crewed?” Koo asked.
“We’re detecting energy signatures and heat readings consistent with habitation and activity,” Admiral Higashiguchi replied. “We can’t isolate specific signatures, but one of our commercial stations of equivalent size usually carries 300-400 personnel.”
Koo studied the slowly rotating hologram of the uqo base. “And who’s in command on the scene?”
“Captain Dávila aboard the Hammarskjöld, sir.”
“Can they join us?”
Ramalepe nodded. A moment later, they were joined at the table by the spectral presence of Captain Dávila, a thick-necked man with close-cropped dark hair.
“Captain has the uqo station show any aggression toward you?”
“Negative, sir,” Dávila replied across the lightyears. “We don’t read anything recognizable as a weapon on the surface, and we’d detect any launches of support craft.”
Koo looked to the admirals. “Could they have communicated for reinforcements?”
“We’re blocking their communications,” Admiral Mitchell said, “But we don’t fully understand how their hyperdrive works, or its communication applications. There’s a good chance they were able to send a distress signal.”
Maxim interrupted, trying to keep a focus on the key issues. “And is this a military station, or a pirate station?”
“We don’t know,” Ramele said.
Mitchell snorted. “With the uqos, I see little evidence there’s any difference.”
Koo tapped his virtual hand on the virtual table thoughtfully. “Could there be humans aboard?”
“It’s a possibility given the recent slave raids,” Admiral Aguebor said.
“What about extraction? Taking the base?”
The Admirals looked a little seasick about that.
“Well?” Koo asked. He looked to Dávila. “What’s your assessment, Captain?”
“I would recommend against it, sir,” Dávila replied plainly. “The natural surface of the asteroid is extremely irregular, sir, and there are pockets of frozen volatile gas. My marines could try, sir, but we’d have to assault through the uqos’ own space doors. If their defense protocols are anything like ours, they’re bound to be fortified.”
Admiral Mitchell summed it up. “Peacekeeper casualties would be high, Mr. Secretary-General, with no guarantee of success. We’ve no way to confirm there even are humans aboard.”
The ‘room’ fell silent. Koo considered what had been said. Eventually he turned to Ramele. “What is the MSC’s recommendation?”
Ramele waved her hand, and several of the visible technological structures on the surface of the asteroid were highlighted. “Our analysis suggests these are the uqos’ environmental systems. Our tactical algorithms indicate missile strikes on these structures would cripple the base and force its evacuation within 48-72 hours.”
Koo frowned. “But it wouldn’t be permanent. They could come back, and restore the base?”
“Yes, sir,” Ramele conceded. “But we could step up our patrols of the system, get early warning when they do.”
“And then what?”
“Sir?”
“And then what?”
“We could strike it again,” Admiral Mitchell suggested.
“And after that? Again? How many times before they get the message?” Koo demanded.
“It would be a proportional response,” Aguebor replied.
“We don’t even know if they understand the concept of proportionality.”
The Military Staff Committee were silent. Koo looked around them.
“Well? Do we?”
“With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, we have no way of predicting how the uqos would react to a more aggressive action,” Admiral Aguebor said.
“But we can all too easily predict what will happen if we don’t respond...more attacks. More slaver losses.”
“We may have to accept a certain degree of loss,” Aguebor said.
Koo slapped his hand on the table. “That’s easy to say from a bunker, Admiral. It’s not your family you’re asking me to make expendable.”
She shook her head. “No, sir. It’s not.”
“I was elected because I made a promise. That any attack on Earth will be met with maximum force. I don’t know how these...how the aliens think. But they clearly think that they can attack us with impunity, no matter how much we step up our anti-piracy actions.”
“Mr. Secretary, we don’t know what they think,” Higashiguchi cautioned.
“Every living thing on every planet we’ve found responds to pain,” Mitchell countered.
Koo turned to Ramele. “How do we destroy it?”
She brought up a new tactical simulation. “Our Hammarskjöld-class vessels each carry two 15kt nuclear torpedoes as a weapon of last resort. Strikes here, and here, would crack the asteroid into fragments and vent the interior atmosphere. Uqo losses would likely be total.”
Koo stared at the repeating hologram, its cartoon colors reflected in his eyes. For a long moment, the room was silent. Maxim realized he was holding his breath. Eventually, Koo turned back to the Admiral.
“What would you do?” he asked her.
Ramele watched the simulation once. She was precise like that. “It’s an escalation, sir. But it’s an escalation on Earth’s terms.”
“This could be an act of war, Mr. Secretary,” Aguebor said. “And any human prisoners aboard the station will be killed.”
The other members of the MSC kept their silence.
Koo watched the simulation one more time; the torpedoes streaking out, the blossom of nuclear fire, and the asteroid dissolving into a shattered constellation of rock.
Finally, he exhaled.
“Captain Dávila?”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary?”
“Nuke it.”
