BLOGS

Our flyer lifted off after the pilot had performed the usual checklist procedures. Montgomery nestled back in his seat, interlacing his hands behind his head.

"I take it you like what you saw?" I said, inputting a few journal notes into my palm reader.

"All that ass-kicking hardware? You better believe I liked what I saw." Montgomery's face was lit like a child who couldn't wait to get into some mischief. Except the mischief this overgrown prebubescent anticipated involved plenty of unchildlike death, mayhem, and destruction. "I'm almost bold enough to believe that the U.S.N.F. can undertake this mission unilaterally."

At my dubiously upraised brow, Montgomery quickly added, "of course, I'm exaggerating. We're definitely going to need the rest of world on this one. The nations may not agree on lot of things, but the one thing we do have a consensus on: no human regime set up by long departed alien occupiers should be allowed to stand." My boss reached for his bottled water. He was a compulsive water drinker. "The collabs will think they were hit by the hand of God by the time we're done with them."

I had a bottle of orange juice at hand. I scooped it up from my armrest holder and held it in front of me. "Hear, hear."

We clicked bottles in a celebratory toast.

We arrived in New York City an hour later. The flyer was capable of getting us there in less than ten, but Montgomery told the pilot to slow it down so he could catch a nap. He wanted to be, as the old saying went, bright-eyed and bushy tailed for the meeting of world leaders at the UN headquarters. The flyer descended toward the landing zone. I peered out my window. One of the jets in our escort maintained an undiviating vigil on the flyer's flank. Coming into view below us was the UN building. Not the building that existed before the Opaks came. No, the original UN building had been leveled by a fusion bomb some 90 years into the Occupation. In fact, so complete was the destruction that nothing remained of the building but a radioactive mound . Earth historians celebrated that act as the first blow for freedom struck by the Worldwide Liberation Front. The WLF targeted the UN building because it housed the Earth Council, a human assembly created by the Opaks to be a world government. The attack revealed a horrendous security breach. The Opaks let their guard down, thinking that all humanity had accepted their rule. Even those humans still in opposition were not considered by the Opaks to pose a dangerous threat. That error in judgement led to the deaths of thousands of humans, including every member of the Earth Council. Ninety six Opaks also perished. The Opaks rebuilt the UN headquarters in record time, erecting a shell-shaped, amber-glazed splendor out of the ashes of its predessessor. They insulated the new building beneath a security blanket so stifling a mosquito couldn't have buzzed within five miles of the surrounding air space without getting zapped. By the Opak fatalities alone, the resistence had gotten extremely lucky. They would never be that lucky again. From that day until the withdrawal, not a single Opak died at the hands of a human. And it sure as hell wasn't from lack of trying. The Opaks' overwhelming weapons/armor advantage was simply too much and too lethal for a mostly ill armed, uncoordinated rabble of amatuers to contend with. So the WLF switched to soft targets: other humans. Preferably unarmed collabs. That was the unremarkable extent of the valiant human struggle against alien occupation.

Since I had done my job of evaluating the weapons churned out by Midwest Works, I thought my boss would have no further need of me. As a result I could return to being the bottom totem poller on his staff. Wrong.

Montgomery asked me to sit in on the UN meeting. That meant I would be mingling with the high brow advisors in his circle who were accustomed to being in the presence of higher brow foreign dignitaries. Even if Montgomery's request didn't sound like a cloaked order I couldn't possibly refuse.

I took my seat with aides and advisors from other nations. We were in an elevated row, overlooking the main conference space where a huge oval table, surrounded by black cushioned chairs rested. A pair of jumbo screens took up most of the flanking wall space. The remaining walls were covered with those geometric engravings so beloved by the Opaks. There was talk of removing the engravings. In fact plans had been afoot to renovate the interior, give it a more human look. But those plans had been scuttled and a bolder, more ambitious undertaking proposed: the construction of a new headquarters. But not yet. Not until a more important bit of business was taken care of.

The leaders of Earth's great power blocs entered the conference space, heading to their assigned seats. They were all there, representing the most formidables polities on the planet. Greater Russia, which spanned half of Europe and a great chunk of Asia. The Arabian Caliphate, which claimed to represent the world's Muslims, branched out from the Arabian pensinula, into North Africa and the Near East. The Republic of India, encompassed the sub-continent, Sri Lanka and parts of Indo-China. The Asia-Pacific Sphere was jointly led by China and Japan in a partnership that bore a harmonious face to the world, but broiled with tension underneath. The spirit of Pan-Africanism that arose in the wake of the Opak withdrawal should have unifed all of Africa. Instead the Sub-Saharan region was split three ways between the West African Alliance, the East African Cooperative, and the Central-South African Axis. Western and central Europe were united under the Second European Union. Bolivaria was the name bestowed upon the super state that covered the entirety of South America. And then there was the United States of North America.

Montgomery walked into the room, his stride, rangy and relaxed, his manner confident as always. My boss would have felt at ease in a room full of vipers. Which, when I thought about it, the analogy wasn't far removed from reality. Each of the world leaders had his or her own interests and agendas. And each one would have happily undermined the other, if could it have been done without provoking a war. Post-Occupation Earth brimmed with propaganda espousing world unity. But that was verbal cotton candy for impressionable children and pipe dream-addled adults.

"Shall we begin?" Karim Abdullah, the dark turbaned, heavily bearded emir of the Arabian Caliphate announced to the gathering.

Head nods and verbal ascents drifted from around the table.

"I would like to start off by asking all of you if we are in readiness?" That question came from Yuri Petrovich, the President of Greater Russia. "Because my forces are prepared. My spaceborne divisions just completed a very successful lunar exercise."

"That is good," proclaimed Olu Alaba, Committee Chairman of the West African Alliance. The chairman's tone was more scathing, less complimentary. "I'm sure your spaceborne divisions are highly competant, but that will not matter very much if they are not in coordination with the rest of the forces slated to participate in this campaign."

"Russian soldiers will coordinate just fine," Petrovich replied testily. "They will not, however, be subsumed within someone else's command structure."

"This operation will be jointly commanded," said Wu Xienge. The Chinese leader, like Montgomery, was the spokesperson for a council equally divided between a Chinese and Japanese membership. "The blocs are well represented among our senior officers. In fact, even as we speak, they are discussing strategy."

The face of each speaker was displayed in ultra vivid relief on the huge jumbo screens.

"He's right," agreed Montgomery. "There's no need to worry about who's commanding what. We need to discuss a timetable."

"In five days, our new stratos fighters will be ready to go," reported Jomo Gacoki, Prime Minister of the East African Cooperative.

"We are still having some alignment issues with our bombardment arrays," Martin Heinrich, Assembly Speaker for the Second European Union said with a heavy frown creasing his long, deep socketed face.

"Let us not forget logistics," reminded Augustin Estavez, el presidente of Bolivaria. "For a seven to nine month journey across a vast gulf of space, we had better have enough rations to sustain a million troops."

"Well, I am sure that very important detail is in the hands of our military planners," Karim Abdullah said, his hands raised in a gesture that looked like reassurance. "And of course when our forces reach the Traitor's Planet, there will be plenty of plunder to be had."

The Traitor's Planet. No self respecting Earth person deigned to call the collab-settled world by its real name: Utopia.

Prime Minister Sarah Nkosi of the Central South African Axis, and the only woman among the leaders, spoke. "Will we have enough transports to accommodate the troops? I was looking over the latest force disposition report and I am not encouraged by the numbers. Twelve thousand Dove Class transports seems a bit short of the ideal projection."

"Two thousand more have just been released from the Polar Orbital Shipyard into service over the past three days, Madame Prime Minister," replied Montgomery. "All is well in that area. Now back to the timetable. I realize we all have some tweaking to do here and there as far as our personnel and equipment are concerned. But nothing so drastic as to cause a huge delay. So I propose that we move against the Traitor's Planet in three months. I believe our military planners will have no problem with that timeframe. It should provide them enough time to finalize their strategy without saddling them with undue pressure."

A thoughtful pause ensued. Y J Harigopol, President of the Republic of India was the first to break the brief silence. "Three months is reasonable given that we have been preparing thirty years for this event." The Indian looked around the table. "Am I right?"

Martin Heinrich raised a finger. "I am in agreement. Three months."

"Three months," Olu Alaba repeated with a nod.

The Russian president gave a smirk and a shrug. "I have no problem with that. As the esteemed President Harigopol alluded, the time is now to punish these vile traitors."

The remaining leaders verbalized their consensus.

Montgomery looked to President Petrovich. "With regard to your statement about punishing the traitors, I think that is a most fitting segue into the next issue I would like to bring up: the fate of the collabs after we have defeated them militarily."

"I see tremendous labor potential once we have pacified the population," Wu Xienge declared with what seemed to be a dreamy smile.

Prime Minister Gacoki's contrasting scowl was etched in obsidian. "I am not quite as quixotic on the matter as you are, Honorable Xienge. You see labor potential, I see a hostile population."

"My point exactly," Montgomery said. "The collabs will never submit to us as occupiers. They will forever remain intractably defiant. Centuries of alien conditioning have convinced the collabs that they are better than us. Even worse that conditioning has led them to deny their own humanity. Those of us here who fought them during the Liberation War know what I'm talking about."

Chairman Alaba and President Petrovich, both veterens of the War, uttered notes of agreement.

"Having said that, I offer another proposal. We should apply General Directive 24 to the Traitor's Planet."

"Exterminate the population?" Martin Heinrich asked by way of clarification.

"The entire population."

Heinrich cast down his gaze for a few seconds. Then he looked up. "Genocide is no light matter."

"Niether will the casualties our forces will suffer in the long term be a light matter if we don't address the immediate aftermath in a swift and final manner," Montgomery rejoined.

Montgomery's use of the word 'final' in the presence of a German while explaining the nessecity of genocide did not go unnoticed by my internal history buff.

"I do not like this," Karim Abdullah protested. "To kill off an entire people."

My eyes did an involuntary roll. The emir's concern was certainly not raised out of any semblance of compassion. Utopia's population was sixty million at last estimate. Depending on what zone of the planet the Caliphate planned to seize or negotiate for in the aftermath, something on the order of three to five million potential converts to the True Faith awaited. I could almost see the emir's brain chugging like the gears of an antique mechanism to tally that figure. The faith the Caliphate would have imposed on part of Utopia would not have been the conventional Islam, but a harsh puritanical strain. Religious terror transported beyond the Solar Sytem. Any subjected populace might as well have been dead at that point.

"Emir." Montgomery addressed Karim Abdullah in a tone I knew all too well. It was low and urgent with a drop of that folksy appeal that tuned out the rest of the world while drawing his listener into his confidence.

"I realize that you believe the collabs can be rehabilitated. Unfortunately, they're too far gone to be brought back into the fold of humanity. The Opaks have tainted them, corrupted their minds. They're nothing more than Godless, soulless, reflections of their departed alien masters. They will fight and die to the last to preserve this heresy they have morphed into. It's better to remove them as a worry now, than have to deal with a full blown insurgency in the future, one that will be costly in lives and materiel."

"I could care less the fate of the collabs in the aftermath," el presidente Estevez interjected. "As long as Bolivaria gets its share of the Traitor Planet's mineral wealth." He threw up a dismissive hand. "Let us do with those maggots what we will and be done with it."

A flurry of agreement wafted from the other leaders.

Abdullah planted his elbows on the table, his thick brow knitted. "So be it. In the spirit of cooperation the Caliphate will acede to your proposal, Mr. Secretary. I suppose it will be for the best."

Later that evening, the world leaders and an assortment of delegates, staff, and guests, whom I could not place, but were very likely spies, assembled in the UN banquet wing for a post-meeting get together. The wing was an impressive columned room. The gold fluted trim and accented grayish marble walls and floor lent the hall a Greco-Roman flavor at odds with the usual Opak decor elsewhere in the building. I walked around with a thin stemmed glass of champagne, weaving through knots of people. I smiled cordially at other guests, shook a hand or two in passing, but refrained from intermingling...

"Excuse me, Miss."

...Until now.

I turned to face a rotund man about my height, wearing an olive green miltary uniform, bedecked with medals and ribbons. Behind him stood a much taller man, bald, broad shouldered and quite appealing. His goatee was flawlessly trimmed and he wore a well fitting civilian suit.

"You are on Secretary Chandliss' staff?" The short fat man inquired.

I pulled my attention away from the fat man's companion to the fat man himself and forced another cordial smile. "I am. I'm one of his aides, Nola Monroe." I extended a hand and the fat man took it. But instead of shaking it he held it like a slab of bacon in his meaty paw.

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Monroe," I am General John Tunde, senior advisor to Chairman Olu Alaba.

The general made no effort to introduce me to his tall goateed companion. An indication that the man must have been a bottom totem-poller like me.

"So what is it that you assist the secretary with?" Tunde asked me with a broad smile that brought to my mind a piranha about to participate in a feeding frenzy.

I gently disengaged my hand. "Mostly matters of a technological nature."

Tunde's brow raised. "Ah, that is very good. Secretary Chandliss is a brilliant man, so of course the people he would have around him would not be slouches. And you, Miss Monroe, are evidently not a slouch."

I cocked my head. "Evidently." I was trying to formulate an escape plan. "General, it was nice to make your acqai..."

"Miss Monroe, we could use smart people like you in the West African Alliance."

"I...I beg your pardon?"

The general went on. "Chairman Alaba is calling out to all diasporic Africans to return home and contribute their talents to building a stronger Africa. The motherland could use your talents. And the compensation package, of course, would be generous."

I grinned at the general's pitch. "I appreciate the offer, sir, but...well, I can't."

Tunde's smile lessened. "Pity. Well, I would ask you think on it. President Alaba is a firm proponent of African unity. Should you change your mind, there will be a place for you in his administration."

I pretended to be touched. "Thank you, General Tunde." I brushed past the general, concealing my disdain. I knew all about Chairman Alaba's brand of unity. It entailed the unity of Africans under the banner of his political party and no other. Anyone who did not subscribe to that unity frequently found themselves at the wrong end of a firing squad. The state of post-Occupation Earth was elevating my cynicism into overdrive.

I spotted Montgomery conversing with a trio of dignitaries.

He excused himself from the gathering and approached me. "Another admirer?"

I scrunched my face in distaste. "You could say that, sir."

Montgomery chuckled. "I noticed these types of functions don't exactly fit you. So, I'd like to invite you to a genuine affair that'll be leagues less pretentious than this hoity toity circus."

"Really? Where?"

"My house. I'm inviting you to have dinner with my family. I decided to stop at home for a few days before returning to Washington. And because I know you're anxious to get back to your real job after gallivanting with me, I've arranged for a flyer to pick you up for transport to the capitol after dessert."

I was thrown for a few seconds. It's not everyday one gets a dinner invite from a member of the Cabinet. "Since you already know I won't turn down your invitation, I guess I'll be accepting."