The War for Europa ONE The Beginning The huge dome of Olympus gleamed like a crystal in the Martian sunrise. The sky's pale pink reflection gave it the tinge of rose quartz. Beneath the dome lay Olympus, Mars' largest city and its seat of colonial government. Situated at the heart of the city--its streets all leading toward it like the spokes of a wheel--the capital building rose in high gothic spires to meet the apex of the dome. In that fashion, it served a dual purpose as both physical and methaphoric structural support. Even at this early hour, the Martian senate council was in meeting, at a highly irregular and important special session. Council Speaker Gerard banged the session to order. He waited patiently while the rumble of murmurings gradually died down. He gave a few extra moments to be sure he had everyone's full attention, then he spoke "Gentlemen, I apologize for summoning you here at this early hour. However, the time has finally come that we must make a decision. No longer can we give our fellow colonists of Europa further generosity in the matter of our mutual survival. Do we wish to continue the charade of dealing with them as an equal, or do we make them acknowledge our obviously superior colonization skills and annex Europa as part of our whole? "Not that anyone present is not aware of our points of contention, but for formality I shall read off an itemization of our grievences. "First: the colony of Europa has time and again skirted the direct question of whether they consider themselves an autonomous government, or an affiliate of Earth's off-world colonial territories. The wish the best of both worlds: to be free of a ruling body which they must answer two, but at the same time to take advantages of the economical and physical resources we Earth colonies can provide them. The don't wish to do their own work, gentlemen; they wish to stand on the shoulders of giants until they have amassed the strength to stand on their own. Do we wish to help them become a power which can challenge our own autonomy, a goal which they obviously have in mind? "Second: it is common knowledge that Europa holds beneath its icy crust the largest supply of water outside of Earth in the solar system. There is more than enough to terraform Mars and still provide for future colonies as remote as Pluto and beyond. That dream remains unseen primarily because of a lack of water. Yet the Europa colony insists on parceling out its water in miniscule rations. We generously trade them minerals, food, even used spacecraft, yet in return they give us barely enough water to survive. Their hoarding of a resource imperative to every colony's existence is inexcusable, and is not acting within the paradigm of an Earth colony affiliate. "Third: the entire colony of Europa is comprised of Gens, people who have had their DNA run through an error-correction scheme in an attempt to achieve genetic perfection. Not only does this harken back to the deplorable acts of Hitler's Third Reich, but their practice and their race have been declared illegal by law on Earth. By supporting Europa we are supporting a people in vaiolation of the very government we are supposed to abide by. Europa cannot possibly pretend to be a member of body it is in contempt with. "Fourth: new developments have occured overnight which have caused me to call you here this morning." Gerard paused while a wave of voices swept over the room, which is exactly the reaction he wanted. For effect, he allowed the cacophany to crechendo and begin to taper off. Gerard had risen to Council Speaker largely due to his talent for manipulating and stirring emotions. Before allowing the conversations to die off completely, Gerard switched on the giant wall screen behind him, which displayed a poor-resolution color photo, obviously taken through a long-range lens. It initially appeared to show nothing more than several irregular black shapes against a blue-and red-tinged background, broken by diagonal lines of signal interference. At its appearance, the volume of vioces rose once more, and this time Gerard cut them off with repeated pounding of his gavel. It was an action carefully timed to enhance the illusion of the photo's importance, while cutting off the audience at their emotional peak. Like interrrupting a person during sex, it left them craving more. Gerard glanced over at one uniformed individual who sat near the side exit. He did not sit with anyone else, and he had intently watched the audience more than he had the presentation. Unlike with the rest of the group, Gerard could not read the man's emotions. The room's attention returned to the speaker, and he gestured to the spy photo. "This came to us last night from our Phobos surveyance and intellegence telescope. The reds and blues are from the false- color enhancement necessary to bring out this detail. The large diagonal lines you see are fissures in the Europan surface ice- -cracks--caused by ice drift that fill with liquid water from below which refreezes almost instantly. The darker shapes are not natural features. Those are, in fact, small cargo craft which we ourselves traded to the Europans. What concerns us are modifications which the colonists appear to be making to the craft. I know it's hard to see at this resolution--for which I apologize--but we believe these shapes at the sides here to be weaponry." The speaker had to pound for order for almost two minutes before he could continue. "Our greatest fear may have been realized. Europa may be using the very spacecraft we gave them to mount a war against us. It is for these reasons that I have asked you here today to vote on a resolution to request the Governor to declare that a state of hostilities exists between Mars and Europa." After the meeting, Gerard ducked the other senators and the gaggle of reporters outside and made his way though the maze of back corridors to his private elevator. This took him to his apartment in the upper levels of the tower, an area where only the richest and most powerful could afford to live. He stepped off the elevator into his living room, where the uniformed man was already waiting. "General," Gerard acknowledged. "I saw you slip out before the session ended. Helped yourself to my liquor cabinet, I see." "I apologize for taking the liberty," General Asgaard said while handing Gerard a glass of scotch, "but I wanted to be able to toast your victory." "Our victory, you mean. Winning the vote was hardly an effort. Just a few buzzwords and pauses placed at the right moments. You supplied the all-important material. Say, what's *really* in that spy photo?" The general laughed as he sank into the suede sofa. "I haven't a clue. Those really are the cargo ships we traded them, but as for what they've done with them..." He shrugged and tossed up a hand. "Those could be crop sprayers for all I know. The photo is so poor that you can see anything your imagination wants to see. What's important is that the senators saw what you suggested they see, and they believed it." "Okay. Now you've got your vote of resolution. Can you convince the governor to act on it? He's so liberal I think he would loan out our dome if the Europans asked him to." "Not a problem. I'm one of his chief advisors. If he doesn't agree with the resolution, I'll simply remind him that he has no choice, politically." Gerard considered. "Ah, yes. Considering his history of vetoes against the senate, if they don't recall him on this one I'm sure the President will. He's barely avoided either a contempt or a no-confidence vote for months now. I believe we have left him without an escape clause." He touched the button that caused the wall to transluce and become an immense picture window. The great city of Olympus sprawled far beneath them, Janus River a glittering blue ribbon winding toward the dome. "Just imagine, Calvus, life without the dome! Our children will watch the sky turn from pink to blue. They will breathe unscrubbed air and walk in the wilds without life support. We will refill the oceans and stock them with fish, and stock the air with birds. Olympus's boundaries will disappear, and the canals of Mars will finally be a reality." Although he could not see it, several kilometers beyond the dome, huge digging machines, rivaling some of the city's larger buildings, were carving out a great canal to link Olympus with its nearest metropolis, Genoa. One-hundred meters wide, twenty meters deep, and forty kilometers long, the canal when completed would be visible by telescope from Earth. It would also hold more water than currently existed on the entire planet. "But," Gerard continued, "there can be no terraform without water. Unimaginable amounts of water. The process will require all of our resources and more. Once the air is breathable and the domes are gone, more people will come, consuming more resources. We will need to build more cities, and roads to connect them; cultivate more farmland to feed them. Once we begin this project in earnest, it will become neverending. We will need a constant flow of materials not available on this planet, especially water. Europa must be more than our partner. It must be ours." Asgaard downed the rest of his drink in one swallow. "It will be. You continue to work the senate; I'll deal with the big guns." He smiled viciously. "So to speak."