Up Against It - M. J. Locke [21]
“Three, and worst of all.” She called up her waveface and pinged them. Her research spread out before them. “Within the past ten months, two dozen of Ogilvie & Sons’ ships have made an unscheduled trip to Marspace. A sort of mobster’s mecca. What you are looking at right now is a series of satellite photos of one of those stops.”
Val leaned forward, and whistled—a sharp note. “Those look like military-issue shuttles they’re loading. Equipped with armored plating and missiles,” he elaborated, at Benavidez’s look. “And—”
“And those are military troops, to all appearances, boarding the ships. Yes. I’ve checked seven of the other twenty-three so far, during their Martian docking period, and satellite photos show the same thing.” Jane flipped through the images. Benavidez and the others stared, slackjawed.
“According to my analysis,” she said, “if the pattern holds for all twenty-four, they’ve amassed between seven and eight thousand mercenaries. Each of the carrier ships is docked within a week or two’s travel from here.” She froze on a picture of the troops boarding one of the ships. The shot was blurred, but from the shadow angles, it was clearly mid-afternoon, and the helmeted heads and rifles were easy to distinguish.
The whites of Thomas’s eyes gleamed. Emily looked sick; Val grim. Benavidez’s face could have been carved in granite.
“The Ogilvies have amassed a private army,” Jane finished. “It’s clear that they are going to do to us what they did to Vesta, Mr. Prime Minister. They are going to use this disaster to force you to abdicate in all but name. You—all of us—will become their puppets. And if we resist, they’ll send in the troops to ‘restore order.’ Maybe they plan to send them in regardless.”
A tense silence settled over them.
“A week away?”
“That’s correct,” Jane said. “Seven to ten days.”
“When are they likely to launch?”
Val pondered this. “Most likely they’ll launch to arrive with the ice. They’ll probably say that they are there to help distribute supplies and help shorthanded security staff.”
Benavidez turned to Val. “How many personnel do we have trained? Who would be qualified to fight if called?”
Val ran through his lists. “If we include the Zekeston, Portsmouth, and Pikesville police forces, perhaps as many as a thousand experienced fighters. We could muster five times that, but they’d be inexperienced, and going up against military-grade weaponry with hammers and lengths of pipe.” He rubbed his mouth. “Sir, it’d be a slaughter.”
Benavidez looked at Jane. “Suggestions?”
“Stall for time. They have us in a bad place. But we have strengths that Vesta didn’t, besides our advance knowledge of their military capacity.”
“Like?”
“Well, ‘Stroiders,’ for one. They can’t afford to come into the open and be revealed as the thugs they are. They’ll have to be more underhanded than they were in Vesta. It makes it harder for them.”
“Why?” Emily asked. “Why do this to us? They already have Vesta.”
“Basic astropolitics,” Benavidez said. “We are the only major unaffiliated shipping locus between the outer planets and the inner system. Eros is tied up by two or three major mining corporations, Vesta is locked into Ogilvie & Sons and the Downside majors, who can afford to pay their exorbitant fees. The co-ops and independents can only ship through us. The Ogilvies want to shut them out. Weaken them.”
“Right,” Jane said. “And there is more to it than that. Major construction is planned in Earth and Venus orbit. They want a seat at that table. But in order to do so, they not only need to trounce their shipping competitors—they have to do it sneakily, otherwise Downsider sentiment will turn against them.” Jane turned to the prime minister. “Here is what I propose. Give me till Friday. By then, if they are guilty of this sabotage—and I