The Pattern Ship by Tobias Roote

Author:Tobias Roote [Roote, Tobias]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: science fiction, Adventure, space opera
Amazon: B00HGFP8W2
Goodreads: 21485337
Publisher: Roote Publishing Ltd
Published: 2013-12-22T07:00:00+00:00

- 17 -

President Garner and Jake Jefferson stood nervously together as the National Security Council convened around them. None of the attendees knew what was to be discussed. The meeting had been called by the President, after lengthy arguments with Jefferson. They agreed that it needed ratification from the Council before the matter went any further.

Unusually, it was the President that intended to disseminate knowledge to the NSC, rather than the usual piecemeal contributions from each member, combining to mock-up a strategy for the President to consider. For this reason, there was considerable excitement in the room.

When the meeting came to order and the President had sat down, he looked around the room at the twenty-two people he relied on to help him run the country, and wondered what they were all going to think of him after the next thirty minutes.

“Ladies and Gentleman,” the President began.

“I have called this meeting today to ask you all to consider the likely position of the United States if, in a short period of time, weeks at most, the objective of war and aggression were defeated by such a great leap in technology, that it would result in violent oppression, by any opponent, being impossible to achieve.”

The room was quiet as he paused for breath, everyone silently digesting his words. He had their complete attention.

He looked at individual faces as he spoke, he knew most of these people and they trusted him. He knew he had to handle them carefully, even gently and so their body language might serve to warn him of any detrimental responses to his explanation.

“If the objective of a terrorist is to strike fear of death into the hearts of people and thereby gain power over them, and this threat is removed ; would the terrorist still hold power, if the fear of injury or death no longer existed ?

“If international peace is held back because it is carried on the back of fear of the big stick of global warfare ; if this no longer holds threat over other nations, then might real peace prevail ?

“If an individual on our streets could walk in total safety, at any time of day or night, in any part of our cities without fear of attack, then will we have achieved a new world order ?”

“I know,” he said, “That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ in there, but what I am talking about is going to happen, and very soon.” The President paused.

He took a calculated sip of water and used the moment to look carefully at the people around him. Of course, they had no idea what he was talking about yet, with the exception of Jefferson, who was sitting beside him, looking relaxed, but was watching the other twenty-one people carefully looking for reactions he knew might pose a problem for them.

The President resumed his speech.

“A few months ago, I was secretly approached by someone who offered me such an opportunity. They were not talking to me about military theory, philosophy, peace politics or social engineering.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.