Christopher Nuttall - A Learning Experience

“We have a search warrant,” Dorsey insisted. “And you attacked us!”

“Technically speaking, this is an embassy, which you attacked,” Steve said. Did it really count as an embassy if the host country didn’t know about it? But it didn’t matter. If nothing else, the mere suggestion that it was an embassy would cause no end of panic in the corridors of power. Storming a foreign embassy was pretty much an act of war. “However, we are prepared to forgive your trespass in exchange for a few minor considerations.”

Cyril Dorsey started to splutter again, his words tumbling over themselves so fast that Steve couldn’t even begin to follow them. Instead, he waited for the man to shut up and then continued.

“You will go back to your superiors and inform them that this ranch is an embassy of another power,” he said. “Furthermore, you will tell them that we expect a meeting with the President one week from today, at a location of his choosing. He may bring one companion to the meeting, if he wishes. Until then, this ranch is to remain isolated. If any federal elements are sighted within ten miles of the ranch, they will be fired on without further warning.”

“Now, look here, you son of a bitch,” Dorsey snapped. “You can’t make threats like that!”

“Oh, those poor bastards,” Steve said, looking over at the troopers. “What did they do to deserve having a fool like you in command?”

He looked back at Dorsey, dropping his facade of politeness. “Let me be clear on this, you fucking idiot,” he snapped. “You are massively outgunned and you and your men are at my mercy. And, as you proposed to raid, with live ammunition, a ranch that holds my wife, children and relatives, I am not feeling very damn merciful! You could have knocked on the damn door and asked about the vets!”

Resisting the temptation to shake the man, he instead leaned closer until their faces were almost touching. “You will go back to Washington and deliver the message I gave you,” he snapped. “And then you will resign, retire from federal work and go live somewhere else, somewhere where your stupidity won’t risk lives. Or I will fucking hunt you down and kill you!”

The man cringed back. Steve was unsurprised — and unimpressed. He’d met too many paper-pushers who had no real awareness of the world surrounding them. Washington produced the idiots by the bucket load, then put them in charge of making government policy actually work. They never seemed to realise that they could push people too far and that, one day, their house of cards would crumble into dust. Or that their mistakes could cost lives.

“There’s one thing I want you to see,” Steve said, very quietly. “Turn around.”

Dorsey obeyed. Steve smiled, then activated the interface and sent a single very specific command. For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen… and then a beam of red light struck down from high overhead, burning a hole into the ground. Dorsey let out a strangled cry as the ground shook, almost toppling over in horror, just before the beam snapped back out of existence, leaving a glowing crater. It was far worse, Steve knew, than the smaller weapon he’d used to make his earlier point. And it would be visible on every observation satellite in position to see it. Maybe Washington wouldn’t believe Dorsey’s tale, but they’d believe the satellites.

“Strip,” Steve ordered. He raised his voice, addressing the rest of the assault team. “All of you. Strip.”

He waited until the team was naked, then pointed towards the road leading down to the nearest town. Naked as they were, it was quite possible that the team would be arrested for indecent exposure. By the time they managed to convince the local police of who they were — or make a phone call to Washington — they would have undergone one hell of a lot of humiliation. Steve felt a moment of grim satisfaction — he hated the regular humiliations at the hands of government bureaucracy — then turned his attention back to Dorsey. Somewhat to his surprise, the man had remained on his feet.

“Remember the message,” Steve said. He reached into his pocket and produced a business card. “You can call me on that number, when you’re ready to let me know where you want to meet. Anywhere will do.”

He paused, significantly. “And remember what I said about any federal forces near the ranch. Go.”

The men fled. Steve took a look at the helicopters, then silently marked them for disassembly and conversion into something Heinlein Colony could use. If nothing else, now the secret was out, they could order whatever they wanted openly. But recruitment was going to be far harder in future. The government would try to slip a few of its own agents into the system.

“You could have handled it better,” Kevin said, though the communicator. The intelligence agent sounded doubtful. In his world, there was no such thing as a dead enemy. “They’re going to be pissed .”

“It had to be done,” Steve said, shortly. There was no way he would have passed up on the chance to humiliate the bureaucrats. “Washington is like a bull. Sometimes you have to hit the bastard in the nose just to make it pay attention.”

“Yeah,” Kevin said. “And how many idiots who try that get gored by an angry bull?”

Washington DC, USA

“Let me see if I have this straight,” the President said. “We have a high-tech militia in Montana that has declared itself a foreign power and has the technology to back it up?”

Jürgen swallowed as the President’s gaze moved over and fixed on him. He’d never been to the White House before, certainly not as a participant in a very high-level meeting. His boss wouldn’t have gone to the White House under normal circumstances. That would have been the responsibility of the DHS Director and his subordinates, not low-level analysts.

“That appears to be the only explanation that fits the facts, Mr. President,” he said.

The President nodded, very slowly, then moved his gaze to Dorsey. “There are times when I wish,” he said, “that I could just order someone hung. Might I ask what you were thinking when you encouraged DHS to launch a million-dollar raid on very scant evidence?”

Dorsey looked, if anything, even worse than Jürgen felt. “I… I believed that we had a serious problem that needed to be resolved,” he said. “I…”

“And now we have a far more serious problem,” the President said, cutting him off. “General?”

Lieutenant General Alvin Houseman, Director of the USAF Foreign Technology Division, frowned. “We picked up the blast on satellites all over the area,” he said. “Our analysts worked the data and believe it was an immensely powerful directed energy weapon, fired from somewhere in low orbit. We don’t have a clue what actually fired the weapon.”

“A high-tech militia,” the President said, softly. “What sort of militia could put an orbital weapons platform into orbit without being noticed?”

Jürgen winced, inwardly. Getting something up into orbit without being noticed was pretty much impossible. American satellites monitored every inch of the planet, watching for the tell-tale heat signature that marked a rocket launch. No rogue state could hope to put something in orbit without it being detected and marked for destruction if necessary. And yet, there was no disputing the physical evidence. Somehow, Steve Stuart and his men had put an orbital weapons platform in position to fire on American soil.

“I don’t know, Mr. President,” the General confessed. “The weapons system is years ahead of our best work, literally.”

The same, Jürgen knew, could be said about the dongles… and whatever they’d deployed to bring down the helicopters. And the weapons they’d used. Technology that was out of this world… the thought caught at his mind, holding him still. What if the technology was literally out of this world? What if it was alien technology? But he knew that he would be committed to a mental hospital if he said that out loud.