“The same happened in Somalia in 1993. The same in Ceylon in ’02. The same in Israel, in ’06. In Taiwan.
“It’s now a full century since Vietnam, and we are still doing the same—we, the men and women in this assembly, still despicably sacrificing our young on the altars of expediency, of political maneuvering and ‘sending messages,’ of wars fought with no clear goals, no certain outcome, and no long-term gain.
“My distinguished colleague from New York spoke at length yesterday about the need for peace. As it happens, I agree with him. As a soldier, I am the first to speak for peace, because no one can hate war more than the person who must fight in it.
“But where I part company from the senator from New York is the idea that our young men and women, those whom we have already sent across this Solar System to serve on the barren, ice-locked seas of a world more alien than any of us here can possibly imagine—that these young people are expendable. That we can shrug our shoulders, say it was a mistake, and leave them to their fate because to do otherwise would be inconvenient, would upset the delicate process of peace negotiations with Beijing, would send the wrong message to the People’s Republic…”
She was pouring scorn into the phrases, as Abe dredged them up from his recording of Senator Kellerman’s Senate speech yesterday. She could feel the uncomfortable shifting of the senators listening to her, an icy reserve as cold in its way as the surface of Europa. They didn’t like having their noses rubbed in it, but Carmen Fuentes had never backed down from a fight, and she wasn’t about to begin doing so now.
“My distinguished colleague has spoken of a peace initiative, of extending the olive branch to our counterparts in Beijing. All of that is well and good. But I remind this body that at this moment, a handful of our young people, the future of this nation—perhaps future members of this Senate—are fighting on Europa. Two hundred forty-eight have died so far, forty of them on the moon, their blood staining that cold blue ice. And I must stand here as their representative, asking if their blood has been shed in vain.
“I’ll tell you, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate. As a Marine, I still hold one promise sacred above all others: that I will never, under any circumstances, abandon a fellow Marine.
“I will not abandon my brothers and sisters, who stand now, at our orders, on the icy shores of the Europan sea.”
As she spoke, a green light winked on in her eye, a quick pulse that flickered eight or ten times, then vanished. And Senator Carmen Fuentes laughed, startling several of the senators nearest her, who were reading e-books or working on their PADs.
“In fact, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, I must tell you now that all we can do is support our people out there. It is history that will judge us here. But it is that brave handful of Marines on Europa who will determine the character of this, what we are pleased to call our civilization, for the next one hundred years.”
A green light, relayed by Abe on receipt of Colonel Garroway’s message.
The U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson was now accelerating out of Earth orbit—on a “training mission.”
And there was nothing that Kellerman or any of his political allies or the Greens or the Globalists or any of the rest could do about it now.
Then the only question was whether Major Warhurst and his people could hold out long enough for the relief expedition to get there.
EIGHTEEN
25 OCTOBER 2067
Radio Shack, U.S.S.
Thomas Jefferson
Under acceleration, outbound
from Earth
0625 hours Zulu
The steady, rattling vibration of the Tommy J’s A-M drives buzzed Kaitlin’s shipboard deck shoes through the steel grating. It was nearly time for the next exchange.
“Here we go, Colonel,” LCDR John Reynolds said. “Incoming!”
The three of them were gathered in Jefferson’s communications suite, a narrow, claustrophobic compartment much roomier in zero gravity than when they were under acceleration. Kaitlin looked at Captain Steve Marshal, who was leaning against the doorway combing, watching her with a wry grin. “You’re on, Colonel,” he said.
Static blasted from the speaker, mingled with the squeal of hydrogen plasma at starcore temperatures.
“Jefferson, this is Colorado Springs Space Control!” a voice said, faint but reasonably clear despite the hiss of Jefferson’s own exhaust cloud. “I said that the Senate has voted to prohibit any relief expedition to Europa!”
This was the third time that Earth had repeated the message. Each time before, Kaitlin had told them that Jefferson was not receiving, that she could not understand.
Of course, with each transmission compressed and repeated three times, the ship’s AI had little trouble merging the transmissions and extracting intelligible words from the hash of white noise. Even the static was much less than it should have been, the hiss bleached out by the AI’s byte-juggling ministrations.