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“You knew about this?”
“Why weren’t we informed? This is vital information!”
“What part of Need to Know don’t you understand?”
“We’re protecting you!”
Kendra allowed the arguments to rage for a few more moments before sending a command to Diana through her ‘plant.
Let’s get their attention.
As you say, Admiral.
“Pipe down!” Kendra’s amplified voice blasted through the conference room and silence fell abruptly.
“Take your seats,” she said at a more normal volume.
“Please,” she added, obviously an afterthought.
“Tamara, Kyra, we didn’t tell you because we haven’t been able to bring you up to speed yet on everything. This is all new to us, and we’ve had more than just ourselves to worry about for what, six weeks? Seven? You’re just going to have to forgive us when we forget things, because we don’t know what we don’t know.”
Kendra locked eyes with the two planetary leaders until she got agreement from both.
“Thank you. Now, let’s try this again. Cristina, bring us up to speed.”
Cristina Montana, a tall, strongly-built woman with a pair of anachronistic square-framed black glasses, stood. She was Director of OutLook and the de facto Director of Intelligence for the Federation, but anyone who mistook her for a chair-bound warrior would be sorely mistaken. She’d started as an agent who specialized in, as she put it, “hurting people and breaking things,” and she’d maintained her trim.
“According to our sources, Newling’s cabal now controls roughly 90% of the warrens in Artemis. Unfortunately, that only accounts for less than 30% of the population, so they’re not going to do anything by brute force. They’ve sent messages requesting our formal recognition and assistance, which we’ve deferred until after this meeting.”
“What are their chances if we don’t assist them?” asked Kendra.
“Ye can’t be serious!” burst out an older woman, jumping to her feet on the far side. “We spent a month there planning with them, pledging our support, and ye expect us to walk away?”
“Mikki, stand down. I’m asking questions, not making decisions. Stand. Down,” Kendra repeated when she remained standing. “That’s an order, Master Chief.”
“Aye-aye, Admiral,” she nearly snarled. “But if ye think we’re going to abandon them, we’re going to go a few rounds.”
“Any time, Chief,” Kendra replied, smiling. Master Chief Mikayla Stone was passionate, and death on two feet, but she was also one of the adopted ‘aunts’ to Cass and Ken’s daughters. She might be quick to anger, which led in part to her retirement from the SEALs, but she also would cool off quickly. Kendra felt safe in challenging her, at least in this setting.
“We have no intention of abandoning them,” she said now. “But we’re going to talk about it first. That’s part of working in a partnership.”
Looking around again, she said, “Let’s do this in an orderly way. Nicole, I want to hear from you first. Give us your best guess for next steps. Cristina, I’ll want your analysis. Kyran, I’ll need your evaluation of our ability to support them. Davie, you’re covering our military capabilities. Chief, I want your evaluation of their chances on the ground and of their personalities. Now they’ve kicked off I don’t want to replace a Stalin with a Qin Yang.”
Seeing nods around the group she finally turned to Kyra and Tamara, she said, “I’m going to want your opinions as well. You’ve worked with Artemis more recently than anyone else here. Fair enough? Moderator Kumlien?”
The head of the Asteroid Miner’s Guild nodded. “Quite fair. Thank you.”
“President Smith?”
The leader of the Titan Colony also nodded. “Equitable.”
“Good. Diana, record session. Official Federation business.”
“Recording, Admiral.”
“Nicole?”
The former Minister of War stood gracefully. “Admiral, before I begin, I’d like to suggest we bring Colin Dent and Jake Taylor in on this discussion.”
“I thought you might ask,” Kendra said. “Why?”
“Dent was the Minister of Intelligence for years and will bring a valuable perspective on this rebellion from the position of the authorities they’re trying to replace. Taylor replaced me as Minister and has the most current information on the capacities of the Artemis, Martian, and Union navies. And I trust them both.”
Her voice caught.
“I know Jake took a huge risk in bringing my family aboard the Averroes when they fled. He didn’t have to. It would have been far simpler to leave them behind, but he didn’t. He brought them – home – to me, safely.” She stopped and sniffed. Given the history her family had with MinSec, and the events of the past few days, it was certain they would have been picked up for ‘questioning’ again. The odds of them surviving would not have been good.
“Cris? Are they cleared?”
The intel specialist nodded her agreement.
“Their stories check out seven ways from Sunday. I had Stephanie interview them as well and they passed without a blip. I think Dent is itching for some revenge on the Primus; she ordered him to kill his cousin, Arthur, or else. He won’t talk about it, not in any detail, but he did say he chose to follow the order because he didn’t want Arthur to suffer.” Montana’s voice hardened. “Nicole’s right, I think. He’s a decent man who finally escaped a crappy system. I’m planning to bring him in-house and pick his brains.”
“Then we should have them here.”
“Admiral,” said a dark-complexioned woman. “I think we need to break this up for a while, maybe an hour, to get the various specialists together. Then we can just have a few short reports, rather than all the in-depth analysis. We need to move quickly on this if we’re going to support them, otherwise their morale will suffer and that will crush the revolution as surely as Artemis bombing the other warrens.”
“Davie, are they likely to do that? Wait, irrelevant at this point. Fine. Show of hands. Should we send a message to the rebels expressing our backing and telling them that the details are coming?”
Every hand went up.
“Good. Davie, organize them and we’ll regroup in ninety minutes. Kyra, Tamara, let’s go draft a note. You can help me with the language.”