chapter 29
THE PERFECT ECOSYSTEM
Lucca had been very pleased at the rise in her popularity following the inciter attack upon the hospital in Hong Kong. As had
happened following the previous “inciter” attacks, citizens clamored for better protection and praised Lucca’s government for its
swift response. She smiled. The more she harmed them, the more they realized they needed her. It was the perfect ecosystem.
But the attack had not produced the actual result she’d been after. She’d meant it as a message, a punishment for Pavel. And he’d
ignored it. Surely her nephew had received the message: If you continue to defy me, I know how to hurt you. It did not occur to her
that he might be someplace where watching vid feeds wasn’t a part of his routine.
She had no further clues as to his whereabouts. She was no closer to locating and destroying his little band of would-be interstellar
travelers. Around the clock, her surveillance teams searched to discover anything that looked like a craft intended for launch beyond
the travel ban of three hundred kilometers above Earth. Parts and equipment suppliers for such a ship were put on alert and
monitored carefully.
How she wished she could send a massed military fleet to destroy the Martian hangers-on once and for all. That would foil Pavel
and his new friends. She closed her eyes and reminded herself why she could not pursue this course of action.
Because it would be too large an undertaking to keep secret.
Because it would be too costly an undertaking to keep secret.
Because destroying humans on Mars would be political suicide.
Because someone on Mars might reveal what they knew about improprieties in the Terran Re-body Program.
The expenditure was the real problem. The original Mars Colony had come with an unbelievable price tag. The costs year after year
had crippled her ability to run Earth the way it should have been run. She shuddered at the remembrance. And if the cost to
establish the forlorn colony had been great, the cost to send an armada of destruction would be unimaginable. It would set her tidy
little plans for Earth back by decades.
Of course, Mars had tellurium … but the cost of mining and returning it to Earth had not offset the cost of running the colony
previously. Nor would it now. No, best to stay the course with regard to Mars and Marsians. Pretend they don’t exist until, some
blessed day, they no longer did.
And that meant preventing anyone on Earth from reaching Mars. Perhaps Pavel would respond more favorably to a series of
unfortunate events than to a single one. Everyone had a breaking point. She just needed to find Pavel’s.
Lucca sighed. All she asked was to rule Earth well. That’s what her people needed—what they wanted—a firm ruler. So why did a
handful of people have to make her job so difficult?