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Description
It had once been a nice neighbourhood. A pleasant neighbourhood. A neighbourhood where children played on manicured lawns, families sat on porches and greeted people walking by. That was gone now. What few houses that remained upright were boarded up. No one looted. There were no squatters here. The once quant little neighbourhood had died in the shadows of the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. There was no accident. No meltdown nor release of toxic effluence drove the people from their homes, merely fear.  The plants made for fat targets of opportunity.

Charles Goodwin rolled his shoulders deeper into his jacket. It offered scant relief from the chill, late October wind. Leaves scattered before him across the cracked and broken sidewalk. With no maintenance from the county, the perpetual cycle of freeze and thaw had destroyed the concrete walkway. The street was only navigable by the most rugged of vehicles. Such vehicles never bothered to amble down these lanes.

Charles let himself into his ramshackle house. After closing the door securely behind him, the lights switched on bathing the foyer and parlour beyond in the warm yellow glow of ancient incandescent bulbs. He had carefully sealed and caulked each window to ensure that not one photon escaped to betray his presence to any passer-by. He didn't believe his paranoia was justified, but that didn't prevent him from assuring himself that he wouldn't be discovered.

"Come here girl," he called. A German shepherd, her muzzle grey and tongue lolling to one side padded out to greet him. "Got something for you." Reaching into his jacket pocket, he produced a greasy paper package. He unrolled it revealing a small, red, moist lump. "It's beef girl. Real beef. I got it just for you." She sniffed at the meat. It had the sickly sweet smell that comes just before meat goes bad. Perfect for doggies. She took it gently from his hand and got it down in a few quick gulps.

"That's my girl," he said ruffling the hair on the back of her neck.

"Music," he called to no one. At his command the house was filled with the gently soothing tones of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. "No. Something bombastic." The martial sounds of the 1812 Overture rolled over him.

From the outside, the house looked to be in that curious state of noble disrepair. It did not have the look of slovenly decay as many of the buildings in the city proper had, rather it had the worn yet solemn look of forgotten plantation homes along the Mississippi river after the War of Northern Aggression.

Inside was something completely different. As well as one could without making it obvious, the late 20th century house had been retrofitted with every modern convenience. As long as that convenience involved the gathering and manipulation of information. When he built the installation, Charles had considered using light emitting foam on the walls as that was a simple do-it-yourself application, ultimately he opted for the 'light bulbs' as they were readily available by the thousands in an abandoned warehouse not far away. Wallvues were another matter altogether and could not be installed without major renovation and drawing undue attention. Charles had to make due with antique plasma screens, refurbished and modified for high definition.

The entire house was powered by a cold fusion power cell camouflaged as a box of moth eaten clothes in the hall closet. Charles rarely gave a thought to the irony of the  once massive amounts of energy produced by the now dead power plant a mere three klicks away, replicated in every private home and public building throughout the system.

Every inch of available space not absolutely necessary for his own needs or the needs of his occasional visitors had been given over to screens displaying various maps, charts, graphs, security views and satellite downloads. If it was happening somewhere in the world, Charles knew about it. If he didn't, he would damn well find out why.

He removed his grubby jacket, part of his disguise. He noted the time on his watch, smoothed back his purposely unkempt hair, stood before the largest of the screens in the room and waited. After a moment, the satellite view of a suspected Japanese missile complex outside of Edo City dissolved and a man in the uniform of a colonel in the Confederation Army replaced it.

The insignia on his lapel marked him as military intelligence. He looked the part. Slight, thinning hair, narrow sharp nose upon which were perched functional spectacles in a time when problems with visual acuity were unheard of due to the beneficial and extremely infectious nature of nanite technology. The combat patch on his right shoulder was the only indicator of his humble beginnings in the infantry.

"Major, you look like a bucket of re-heated shit."

"Thank you, Sir. That's exactly the look I was going for. I hear it's big in Paris this year."

"Exigencies of war, I suppose. What do you have?" The colonel was a spit and polish man of the old watch. He did not approve of this "skulking around" as he called it, but he understood the need, particularly after a small bomb, set by an indigenous group of American traitors destroyed DC. Mere hours later a loosely connected group from the Ukraine managed to do the same to Moscow and Baikonur. In one grand gesture, the three great cities, the political and tactical heads of the great hydra of  the Confederation were guillotined.

"The Japs, Sir. I've been watching their missile launch complex outside of Edo. They are preparing to launch. There has been a large increase in tankers and personnel entering the base. Something big is going on."

"Jesus Herbert Christ. There is nothing left big enough to bomb. What are they going to do? Nuke Toadsuck, Arkansas?"

"I believe they have other plans. I can't be sure without eyes on the ground, but judging by the number of fuel trucks entering the facility and the size of the rocket components they failed to fully conceal, I would say this is a manned mission, Sir."

"So the bastards send up a couple of taikonauts. What's the worst they could do?"

"It's bigger than that, from my rough estimation, we're looking at a vehicle capable of carrying a crew of roughly platoon size."

"They're going after Dallas 4. What the hell good would that do? It's just a refining facility. Hell, it only has a maintenance crew of four since they got Baikonur. It doesn't make sense."

"No Sir, it doesn't. Why would they need so many men to take over one floating tin can? There is one thing of value though. The ore barge and tug are docked there."

The combined output of the asteroid mines had been meagre at the outset of hostilities, but it managed to produce enough iron, nickel and other raw materials to sustain the colonies and to drop a drip in Earth's dwindling bucket of resources. The attending ore tug, Cyrano, not needing the powerful but expensive chemical rockets necessary for Earth to orbit launch, sailed the depths of interstellar space with her vastly more economical fusion drive. Along with her sister tugs, the Cyrano had plied the lanes between Earth and Jupiter.

The colonel's face went white. "The vicious little bastards are taking the war to the colonies."

"Yes, Sir. That is my conclusion."

"Shit." The colonel ended the transmission.

Charles stared at the blank screen. The reality of what, until recently had been only a game of information analysis, had suddenly become very grim. Something brushed his leg. He looked down into brown, soulful eyes.

"Hey Maddie. Who's my doggie?"

Description
It had once been a nice neighbourhood. A pleasant neighbourhood. A neighbourhood where children played on manicured lawns, families sat on porches and greeted people walking by. That was gone now. What few houses that remained upright were boarded up. No one looted. There were no squatters here. The once quant little neighbourhood had died in the shadows of the cooling towers of a nuclear power plant. There was no accident. No meltdown nor release of toxic effluence drove the people from their homes, merely fear.  The plants made for fat targets of opportunity.

Charles Goodwin rolled his shoulders deeper into his jacket. It offered scant relief from the chill, late October wind. Leaves scattered before him across the cracked and broken sidewalk. With no maintenance from the county, the perpetual cycle of freeze and thaw had destroyed the concrete walkway. The street was only navigable by the most rugged of vehicles. Such vehicles never bothered to amble down these lanes.

Charles let himself into his ramshackle house. After closing the door securely behind him, the lights switched on bathing the foyer and parlour beyond in the warm yellow glow of ancient incandescent bulbs. He had carefully sealed and caulked each window to ensure that not one photon escaped to betray his presence to any passer-by. He didn't believe his paranoia was justified, but that didn't prevent him from assuring himself that he wouldn't be discovered.

"Come here girl," he called. A German shepherd, her muzzle grey and tongue lolling to one side padded out to greet him. "Got something for you." Reaching into his jacket pocket, he produced a greasy paper package. He unrolled it revealing a small, red, moist lump. "It's beef girl. Real beef. I got it just for you." She sniffed at the meat. It had the sickly sweet smell that comes just before meat goes bad. Perfect for doggies. She took it gently from his hand and got it down in a few quick gulps.

"That's my girl," he said ruffling the hair on the back of her neck.

"Music," he called to no one. At his command the house was filled with the gently soothing tones of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien. "No. Something bombastic." The martial sounds of the 1812 Overture rolled over him.

From the outside, the house looked to be in that curious state of noble disrepair. It did not have the look of slovenly decay as many of the buildings in the city proper had, rather it had the worn yet solemn look of forgotten plantation homes along the Mississippi river after the War of Northern Aggression.

Inside was something completely different. As well as one could without making it obvious, the late 20th century house had been retrofitted with every modern convenience. As long as that convenience involved the gathering and manipulation of information. When he built the installation, Charles had considered using light emitting foam on the walls as that was a simple do-it-yourself application, ultimately he opted for the 'light bulbs' as they were readily available by the thousands in an abandoned warehouse not far away. Wallvues were another matter altogether and could not be installed without major renovation and drawing undue attention. Charles had to make due with antique plasma screens, refurbished and modified for high definition.

The entire house was powered by a cold fusion power cell camouflaged as a box of moth eaten clothes in the hall closet. Charles rarely gave a thought to the irony of the  once massive amounts of energy produced by the now dead power plant a mere three klicks away, replicated in every private home and public building throughout the system.

Every inch of available space not absolutely necessary for his own needs or the needs of his occasional visitors had been given over to screens displaying various maps, charts, graphs, security views and satellite downloads. If it was happening somewhere in the world, Charles knew about it. If he didn't, he would damn well find out why.

He removed his grubby jacket, part of his disguise. He noted the time on his watch, smoothed back his purposely unkempt hair, stood before the largest of the screens in the room and waited. After a moment, the satellite view of a suspected Japanese missile complex outside of Edo City dissolved and a man in the uniform of a colonel in the Confederation Army replaced it.

The insignia on his lapel marked him as military intelligence. He looked the part. Slight, thinning hair, narrow sharp nose upon which were perched functional spectacles in a time when problems with visual acuity were unheard of due to the beneficial and extremely infectious nature of nanite technology. The combat patch on his right shoulder was the only indicator of his humble beginnings in the infantry.

"Major, you look like a bucket of re-heated shit."

"Thank you, Sir. That's exactly the look I was going for. I hear it's big in Paris this year."

"Exigencies of war, I suppose. What do you have?" The colonel was a spit and polish man of the old watch. He did not approve of this "skulking around" as he called it, but he understood the need, particularly after a small bomb, set by an indigenous group of American traitors destroyed DC. Mere hours later a loosely connected group from the Ukraine managed to do the same to Moscow and Baikonur. In one grand gesture, the three great cities, the political and tactical heads of the great hydra of  the Confederation were guillotined.

"The Japs, Sir. I've been watching their missile launch complex outside of Edo. They are preparing to launch. There has been a large increase in tankers and personnel entering the base. Something big is going on."

"Jesus Herbert Christ. There is nothing left big enough to bomb. What are they going to do? Nuke Toadsuck, Arkansas?"

"I believe they have other plans. I can't be sure without eyes on the ground, but judging by the number of fuel trucks entering the facility and the size of the rocket components they failed to fully conceal, I would say this is a manned mission, Sir."

"So the bastards send up a couple of taikonauts. What's the worst they could do?"

"It's bigger than that, from my rough estimation, we're looking at a vehicle capable of carrying a crew of roughly platoon size."

"They're going after Dallas 4. What the hell good would that do? It's just a refining facility. Hell, it only has a maintenance crew of four since they got Baikonur. It doesn't make sense."

"No Sir, it doesn't. Why would they need so many men to take over one floating tin can? There is one thing of value though. The ore barge and tug are docked there."

The combined output of the asteroid mines had been meagre at the outset of hostilities, but it managed to produce enough iron, nickel and other raw materials to sustain the colonies and to drop a drip in Earth's dwindling bucket of resources. The attending ore tug, Cyrano, not needing the powerful but expensive chemical rockets necessary for Earth to orbit launch, sailed the depths of interstellar space with her vastly more economical fusion drive. Along with her sister tugs, the Cyrano had plied the lanes between Earth and Jupiter.

The colonel's face went white. "The vicious little bastards are taking the war to the colonies."

"Yes, Sir. That is my conclusion."

"Shit." The colonel ended the transmission.

Charles stared at the blank screen. The reality of what, until recently had been only a game of information analysis, had suddenly become very grim. Something brushed his leg. He looked down into brown, soulful eyes.

"Hey Maddie. Who's my doggie?"