Starcorp 1: Escape from Sol

“George,” Prime Minister Eckhart spoke up as he looked to his right. “How is our recruitment program going?”

Eckhart chose to start the meeting with a report on their Aerospace Force rebuilding program.

“Prime Minister, our aerospace force recruitment program is way ahead of schedule,” Defense Minister Wilkinson reported without hesitation. “The pace of the training is accelerating. We have no shortage of personnel. In another four months, our number of trained fighter crews will exceed the quantity of space-fighters we’ve been promised.”

“We will have five-hundred space-fighters by then,” the Minister of Industry, Aaron Panetti, reported an instant behind.

“And just how is our space fighter fleet production coming along?” Eckhart questioned with a glance to his left.

Seated to the left of Eckhart was George Wilkinson, his Minister of Defense. Next to him was Aaron Panetti his Minister of Industry and Phillip Brison, his Minister of Finance, in that order. The chair to Eckhart’s immediate right was empty. On the other side of that chair was Peter Carr, Eckhart’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, followed by Ronald Kaplan, his Minister of Public Works and John Lynch, his Minister of Agriculture. The seven of them were seated behind four-fold up banquet tables positioned end on end. The tables were situated on a three-foot-high stage. Eckhart’s aid, Gregory Taylor was seated alone and at the right rear of the stage. The auditorium had five-hundred seats in it. Nearly all the seats in the first four rows were occupied by the leader of a United Front Pact member state.

“Production is on schedule,” Panetti reported blandly. “We have two more plants going online within the month and an additional five will be in operation by the end of the year.”

“And how are our trading partners doing?” Eckhart questioned Carr behind his answer.

Peter Carr, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, reacted to the question with the ease of someone content with the answer he was about to deliver.

“Our partners are working to meet their commitments to us. There are a few states that are struggling to produce the parts and supplies that we need, but it’s nothing serious. As a whole, I calculate that we’re off the pace by five to six months.”

“The Sao Francisco Republic is doing more than struggling,” Ramon Perez blared in forcefully from three rows back in the auditorium. “The loss of food aid from the Starcorps is expanding our famine problem to a scale we haven’t seen in more than fifty years.”

“New South Wales is hurting as well,” Prime Minister Seth Jacobson insisted an instant behind. “We should accept the Mars offer.”

The Mars offer was a plan to transfer ownership of the planet to Earth at the end of ten years from the date the offer is accepted. The Alberta Alliance, and several other United Front Pact states were not prepared to accept the codicil in the agreement that all claims to the starcorps by Earth be dropped. Because the United Front Pact states were required to act as one in their dealings with the starcorps, the offer was declined.

“That is not an option,” Eckhart insisted with vehemence. “The United Front Pact members will not be doing business with the Starcorps until they agree to our reparation demands.”

“Eckhart, this makes no sense,” the President of Appalachia; Trent Chrisfield, disputed. “The people are starting to riot in the streets.”

“The Mars offer was more than generous,” the Prime Minister of Leinster; Leslie Butler, supported. “We could’ve been taken charge of our destiny. Earth would have been a decade away from being self-reliant.”

“You’re quarreling over scraps when we can have it all,” Eckhart fired back.

“Where are you going with this, Eckhart?” Chrisfield questioned with authority.

“The Starcorps are the property of the people of Earth,” the Prime Minister of Cascadia; James Repasky asserted. “Once we’ve developed our space forces we can take whatever we want.”

“I thought the creation of space forces was just saber-rattling,” the President of the Chihli Republic; Shin Lin questioned from the front row.

“The Spacers need to believe that we mean business,” Eckhart explained in a conciliatory tone.

“No one is taking anything,” Renaud Duval, the President of Languedoc, injected. “The spacers are not prepared to die rather than re-incorporate with Earth.”

Karl Wegener, the Chancellor of Niedersachsen, took exception to this presumption and promptly challenged it.

“But what if they are prepared to fight? Do we go to war with them?”

“If we get into a fight with the starcorps they just might demolish the Mars Agro Project,” Shin Lin supported.

“And if that does happen we will all be out of a job,” Chrisfield stated flatly.

The Mars Agro Project was there to service Earth, for the most part. The population of the Starcorps was small enough to subsist on their agricultural starships. All the heads of states of Earth, at one time or another, entertained the thought that the starcorps might destroy the Martian agro habitats in response to a declaration of war from them.

“The voters will be screaming for our heads on a platter if that happens.” Wegener declared loudly.

“Eckhart, this is only going to get worse as time goes on,” the Prime Minister of Western Australia; Alan Herzfeld annunciated soberly. “We have to negotiate a deal with the starcorps that they will accept.”

“The starcorps won’t destroy the Mars Agro Habitats,” Eckhart stated dismissively.

“Why not?” Chrisfield asked sternly.

Eckhart panned the room to give all the heads of state a brief wary look before responding.

“The starcorps are preparing for war.”

This report was a surprise to the leaders of the various States that Eckhart was facing. They all began to look at each other with expressions of confusions. Several seconds later Chrisfield asked the question that they all were thinking.

“How do you know that?”

After a pause to consider the question Eckhart answered it.

“We have intelligence that starcorp RG01 has assembled a starship size spaceship in Saturn space. We also know that this spaceship is affixed with heavy armaments.”

“You know this,” Chrisfield stated with a questioning inflection.

“Our intelligence is coming from several assets,” Eckhart reinforced in a confident tone. “We also know that the Spacers have been making extensive upgrades to all of their starships and star-factories across the entire starcorp community.”

Eckhart paused again to note the expressions on the faces of all before him. At the end of this, he made a stern and direct statement.

“The starcorps are building a war machine.”

“You can’t be sure of that. These upgrades could be benign,” the President of New California; Paul Quillin, retorted with a hint of desperation in his voice.

“The spaceship being constructed around Saturn is not benign,” Minister Wilkinson countered as quick as he could. “There is too much secrecy around this starship—Its designation is unknown, the reason behind its construction is unknown. We don’t even know who is supplying the parts. Our assets have not been able to find a single piece of documentation concerning this ship. But we know that it’s there. It’s nearly common knowledge throughout the Spacer community.”

“Then why are we just now learning about it?” Shin Lin questioned with a furrowed brow.

“We did know. Up until now it was just another starcorp doing what starcorps do. No one, not even the Spacers, imagined that they were out there preparing for war,” Eckhart answered back decisively. “And that’s exactly why they’re doing it in Saturn space.”

“You think that they’re going to attack us?” Herzfeld questioned with a look of surprise.

“This project has been going on for the past four years now,” Eckhart explained calmly. “This is a big expenditure. They’re not building this ship just to look at it.”

“This is insane,” Chrisfield challenged. “If the starcorps wanted to attack us they could have done it a long time ago.”

“They should have done it a long time ago,” Eckhart corrected with ferocity. “That was their mistake.”

“And what does that mean?” Shin Lin queried with a start.

“It means they missed their chance and we need to take advantage of that,” Eckhart returned forcefully.

“Wait a minute,” Butler spoke up with an inflection of dread. “This is just another reason why we should be negotiating with the starcorps.”

“No,” Eckhart roared back. “Their war machine will be no match for our combined space forces. We have the advantage. This is our chance.”

The phrase combined space forces gave everyone reason to pause. Up until this moment, no one had spoken of combining forces. Chrisfield was the first to speak up behind Eckhart’s assertion.

“What are you planning, Eckhart?”

Eckhart gave a moment’s thought to the appropriate answer to this question. At the end of this time, he turned his attention to his personal assistant seated behind and to his right. He gave him a three-word command, “bring him in.” He then turned forward to face the auditorium full of state leaders. A uniformed Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force Officer entered the auditorium through a stage door a few seconds later.

General Walter Gruenberg stood six-foot-one-inch in height and had an authoritarian bearing. He was erect in his stance and he held his chin high. This gave him the appearance of looking down at everyone. To many it suggested that he was arrogant and in this they were not entirely wrong. General Gruenberg’s demeanor was the result of a near lifelong preoccupation with perfecting the façade of confidence.

Gruenberg believed that confidence was an essential ingredient for anyone in his chosen profession. He had spent the whole of his adult life either in training for or serving as an officer in the Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force. His father and grandfather served as Aerospace Force Officers before him, but he was the first to achieve the rank of Commander of the Alberta Alliance Space Force. This was a minor achievement by comparison to the rivalry and competition that existed during his grandfather’s time.

Colonel Julian Gruenberg served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Third World War. He commanded a wing of the service. Rising to this position during the height of Canada’s air might was not a small accomplishment. The number of officers competing for advancement was far greater at that time than any time since then. He had to prove himself to be a greater asset than a thousand other peer officers that he was competing with. This he did in spectacular fashion. Among most of his fellow officers, he was believed to be on track for the position of Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force. His career came to an end with his death during the Third World War.

Walter Gruenberg and his father, Henry Gruenberg, began and advanced their Aerospace Force careers in the century after the Third World War. During this time, the service was minuscule by comparison to its prewar dimension. Admission into the Aerospace Force was nearly a given for the sons and daughters of aerospace servicemen. Nepotism was in widespread use in the post Third World War. Castes that were defined by profession developed in this new reality. This was especially true in the military, law enforcement, medical, political and legal professions. Walter Gruenberg was a beneficiary of this occurrence. His position in the Aerospace Force was facilitated by his familiarity with many people in the institution. His extreme proficiency as an officer made it easy for him to move up in rank within the slowly crumbling Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force.

For the whole of Walter Gruenberg’s adult life, until recently, the task of the Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force was to maintain what few air and space crafts they still had in service and to patrol the airspace above their territory. Anything beyond this was impractical for an industrially crippled, massively overpopulated and impoverished state. In the past, Gruenberg had no expectation of ever commanding a robust Aerospace Force. This outlook changed nearly a year earlier, the day that Eckhart called on him to manage a massive Aerospace Force buildup. Gruenberg leaped into the task with enthusiasm.

During the previous two decades, before this Aerospace Force buildup, Gruenberg had been bored with his life. His career as an Aerospace Force Officer was little more than a job. He tended to the business of managing the institution that employed him and remained thankful for the work. It was the order to train and assemble a fully functional aerospace force that brought excitement into his life. Not since his first few years as an aerospace force officer had Gruenberg been so eager to be about the business he was trained for. He gave no thought to the possibility that he might be called on to command its deployment. He was fully aware of the intended target of his growing Aerospace Force and he had no reluctance about using it to that end.

Gruenberg had no hatred towards the Spacers. He had no opinion about them one way or the other. The argument between the Earth States and the starcorps meant nothing to him. He had no wounds or emotional scars to brood over. In his mind, the state of the world was an after effect of the war and he saw no one to blame for this. He perceived the conflict between the Earth States and the starcorps as a political issue. As an Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force Officer, he thought it out of place for him to be assessing the merits of his political leaders’ dispute with the starcorps. He was prepared to carry out the orders of his superiors and he was looking forward to the opportunity of participating in a military conflict.

“General, have a seat,” Eckhart instructed with a nod towards the empty seat to his right.

Gruenberg walked over to the chair and sat in it with exaggerated decorum.

“Gentlemen and ladies, this is General Walter Gruenberg, Commander of the Alberta Alliance Aerospace Force and, as of today, the Supreme Commander of the United Front Expeditionary Space Force.”

The last half of Eckhart’s introduction took nearly all by surprise. A hush suddenly filled the room. The term United Front Expeditionary Force had not been used before. The leaders of the other states were hearing this for the first time. They were not making plans to take part in a unified space force. Up until this moment, most believed the goal was to intimidate the starcorps. None of them anticipated that the starcorps would attempt to oppose them militarily. And all of them expected the Alberta Alliance to be the sole aggressor if any act of force were to take place.

“This is madness, Eckhart,” Chrisfield spoke up with an inflection of incredulity. “We cannot go to war with the starcorps. We need them. The Earth needs the starcorps intact.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” General Gruenberg spoke up without hesitation. “The starcorps will surrender before any real fighting happens.”

“And you know this how?” Chrisfield questioned back.

“They have no choice. The starcorps do not have the numbers to oppose an armada on the scale that our combined states can assemble. Even if they could build a comparable fighter force, they don’t have the personnel to man a space fleet one-twentieth of our size.”

“And what about that starship with the heavy weapons that they are building out there?” The Prime Minister of Kanto; Moto Sadao, called out from the fifth row.

“That is their biggest mistake,” Gruenberg lectured cavalierly. “A basestar is going to be vulnerable to a fighter attack. A spaceship of that size is going to need a large fighter screen. But the fact remains, they don’t have the numbers to repel an attack from our combined forces. If anything, a basestar works to our advantage.”

“And how did you come to that conclusion?” Shin Lin questioned.

“They’ve given us a military target,” Gruenberg responded casually. “The starships, the star-factories, these are valuable assets crammed with civilian personnel. Damaging or destroying these spaceships I suppose would be out of the question. But military spaceships are fair game. They’ve given us a way of demonstrating our power without damaging the property that we’re trying to acquire.”

The room full of government leaders took in this information and considered it in silence for several seconds. At the end of this time, Chrisfield posed a question with no strength of conviction behind it.

“What about the upgrades that are being done to the civilian starships?”

General Gruenberg had no studied opinion on this and he betrayed that with a hesitation to speak. Defense Minister Wilkinson, however, did not have this problem. He began his reply almost immediately.

“We don’t believe this work has anything to do with a weapon system. The technology behind the new thrusters they are installing in all their spaceships is common knowledge. We have incorporated this new design in our own space planes. There is nothing in the other upgrades that looks like a component for a weapon system. It would be almost impossible to conceal those types of upgrades to a civilian ship.”

“If they’re not militarizing the starships, then what are they doing?” Shin Lin questioned with insistence.

“The engineers think that the structural modifications that they are doing are because of the new engines and zero gravity generators,” Wilkinson reported with a shrug. “They believe that they’re just trying to make their starships faster.”

“How does that factor into your plan to destroy this starcorp warship, General Gruenberg?” Shin Lin asked out of curiosity.

“I’m intrigued, but I’m not worried,” Gruenberg returned with a hint of arrogance. “Their civilian starships are irrelevant. As for this basestar that they are building, they will need a great deal of speed to survive an engagement with the combined forces of the United Front Pact. But not even that would give them the advantage they will need to prevail in a fight.”

“So why build it? Why are they going to all of the trouble of constructing a basestar?” Chrisfield challenged to no one in particular.

“I suspect they believe we lack the resolve for a space battle,” Gruenberg returned in a calm voice. “And they could be right.”

Gruenberg paused for a moment to give weight to his last remark. At the end of this time, he continued with his supposition.

“The starcorps have no way of knowing how many aerospace fighters we have. My guess is that they’re not counting on Earth to project a strong military presence in space, at least not in the foreseeable future.”

Except for Eckhart, everyone within the room went quiet so that they could consider this last point.

“If we do not fully commit to the use of force, then the starcorps will win,” Eckhart roared into silence after a moment of hesitation. “The famine crisis will grow. Hunger riots will become more frequent. We will be forced to give in to their terms. This is what they want.”

“And what do you want, Eckhart?” Chrisfield questioned with an inflection of suspicion.

Eckhart took a second to study Chrisfield before verbalizing his answer in straightforward speech.

“I want a public pledge from each of you to support, with men and machines, any military campaign, sanctioned by the United Front Pact members, against the starcorps.”

“And how do we go about sanctioning a military campaign?” Shin Lin asked with a soft voice.

“That will be decided by a majority vote,” Eckhart assured without hesitation.

Most of the heads of states in the room let out silent exhales of relief after hearing this. Nearly all were not prepared to leave that decision to Eckhart. Six of them decided at that moment to never vote for military action against the starcorps. Most of the others thought it unlikely that they ever would vote to go to war with the starcorps. It seemed like an unnecessary adventure for all that were not militantly hostile towards the starcorps.

“And why are we doing this?” Chrisfield questioned after a moment of pondering.

Getting the disjointed forces of the United Front Pact aligned behind a single command structure was what Eckhart wanted most from this meeting. He knew that all but one or two of the heads of state in the auditorium would refuse to be a part of an expeditionary force that was solely under his authority to deploy. This was his only reason for putting the majority vote in play from the start. He was desperate for a commanding role, but he could see no way to avoid a majority rule configuration. He had made the decision to agree to this position a week earlier and he was happy to see that it was having the effect that he wanted. All of the faces before him looked to be agreeable with this arrangement.

“The starcorps need to see us as a unified force,” Eckhart responded. “They need to know that we’re serious.”

The heads of state in the auditorium could not find a flaw in this thinking, and they felt obliged to sign on because of this. None of them wanted to go back to their constituents and try to explain why they did not pledge the state’s forces to this effort. At this time in Earth’s history, it was politically unhealthy not to be visibly hostile towards the starcorps. After a moment of pondering the heads of state began agreeing to Eckhart’s proposal, one by one, without a single dissent.