NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12 - Oslo
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
— Margaret Mead, anthropologist, recipient of the Planetary Citizen of the Year Award in 1978.
Karen Stevens adjusted her coat and kept walking, her boots echoing through the stone corridors of the UER's current operational seat. This month, the Senior Cabinet was meeting in Oslo, of all places. The weather in Oslo, for late September, was surprisingly nice. The city was pretty in a dramatic way, when you compared it to the other venues the UER had chosen to hold their senior cabinet meetings. She'd been to sessions in Cape Town, Seoul, Santiago, and once, Marrakesh in July.
Every month, a new city. A new round of logistics.
Each time she was granted a face-to-face with Marisol Vintar, it was in some different corner of the Earth. Ostensibly, it was intended to ensure "neutrality," a demonstration of equal representation for every member state. In reality, it was just another way to burn money on fuel, security, and hotel rooms while millions of people were still recovering in refugee camps or working on rebuilding their cities.
But Karen wasn't here for the meeting. Not that meeting anyway. She was here to meet a representative from the Orbital Resources Alliance, a French adventuring company that was requesting bids for an orbital manufacturing plant around Earth's orbit. They had secured a set of schematics from a portal in Callisto and were looking for a builder. Something about automated orbital assembly tech, flexible and expandable, just the kind of tools the Earth-Orbit construction race needed. There was a bidding war for that contract, and Karen fully intended to win it.
The ORA wanted to build in Earth Orbit, and since anything in cislunar orbit required UER approval, it also had to appear before the Orbital Construction Licensing Board, which was chaired by Marisol Vintar.
The elevator doors opened with a hiss.
"Fancy seeing you here," said a familiar voice.
Karen stepped inside. Marisol, clad in her usual grayscale elegance, was standing there, hands folded.
Karen smiled. "Nice to see you as well."
Marisol arched a brow. "Here for the orbitals approval board meeting?"
"Among other things," Karen said lightly. "You sure picked a nice venue this time."
"Oh, you know the President," Marisol replied. "No favoritism. Equal exposure. Rotate the pain evenly."
Karen smirked. "Sure."
Marisol chuckled, just barely. The elevator hummed as it climbed.
They stood in silence a moment, then Marisol said, "I spoke with the Council about the Triumph this morning."
Karen kept her tone even. "Of course you did."
"They've cleared the Belt?"
"Two days ago," Karen said. "On course for the Oort Cloud now. Everything is on schedule, and the FTL drive is stable."
Marisol gave a slight nod. "The eyes of the Republic are on them."
"I know."
"There was more talk about the Charter," Marisol said. "And what happens if your kids fail."
Karen didn't blink. "They won't."
She paused, then added, "The timing of the sabotage was… unfortunate."
"I'm handling it," Karen said tightly.
"The Council prefers transparency," Marisol said, arching a brow.
"They'll have clarity. Just not access."
Marisol studied her for a beat.
"They won't fail," Karen repeated.
"That's not what some of the Council believe." Marisol turned slightly toward her. "There are members in that room right now, maybe five, maybe more, who would like nothing more than to see the IFC folded into the UER's planetary authority. You've got one of the last independent companies still operating under System recognition. That makes you a threat."
Karen smiled without humor. "We were founded before the UER."
"And now the UER is here to stay," Marisol replied. "Whether you like it or not."
"Doesn't mean we have to become a division of it."
"No," Marisol said, "but if you fail this mission, that's exactly what happens. The clause in your Charter is clear. The Triumph Initiative doesn't deliver within two years, and your independence becomes… negotiable."
Karen turned, finally. Met her eyes. "You want the Genesis Platform."
"I don't," Marisol said flatly. "But the UER does. You know it. I know it. It's the most advanced orbital facility humanity has, our bridge to space, manufacturing shuttles, dropships, and mining spacecraft, and currently operating outside UER jurisdiction."
"Because we found it first. The System recognized our claim. And if the Triumph's team pulls this off, that recognition stays locked in."
Marisol's expression tightened. "That's a very big 'if,' Karen."
The elevator slowed.
"You're still confident?" Marisol asked.
Karen turned slightly, met her gaze. "Always."
Marisol studied her for a moment. "You had options. More seasoned crews. Veterans. Ex-military. Hell, we offered tenured scientists for this mission."
"And yet," Karen said, "none of them found the FTL drive."
"They are kids, Karen, the youngest one is barely twenty. What's his name, Luca?" she said instead. "Barely trained. Openly reckless. Completely inappropriate. Hormonal. Arrogant. Barely cohesive. Not exactly the poster children for humanity's first interstellar contact. I've read their psych profiles."
Karen shrugged. "They found the FTL drive. They built the Triumph of Darron with their own credits. So yes, I sent the kids. They've earned it."
"That's not a virtue. That's impulse."
"Maybe. Or maybe the System doesn't care about ranks and checklists. Maybe it rewards action."
Marisol studied her. "You're betting a lot on a hunch."
"No," Karen said. "I'm betting on them. Luca. Joey. Ryan. Zoe. Emily. Danny. Chris. They're not perfect. But they're mine. I know them. I trust them."
"And when they're out there alone?" Marisol asked. "When the mission goes sideways, when they realize just how far from Earth they really are, what then?"
Karen's voice was quiet. "Then they'll do what they've always done. Adapt. Survive. Succeed."
"They're not the ones I would've sent," Marisol said. "And I still think you're an idiot."
Karen smiled faintly. "I get that a lot."
Marisol folded her arms. "The clause still holds, Karen. Two years. If they don't deliver..."
A beat of silence. Somewhere down the corridor, the meeting room doors swung open. An aide glanced at them, then disappeared back inside.
"The IFC will report to the UER," Karen said softly. "Genesis Platform, my subsidiaries, everything."
Marisol nodded once.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Karen's voice didn't waver. "They'll make me proud."
Marisol shook her head, exasperated. "You're gambling one of the last independent companies on a bunch of kids."
"Maybe. Or maybe I'm gambling on them."
The aide approached: "Director Vintar, the Council is ready for you."
"If they pull this off," she said, "you're going to owe them. And you're going to owe me."
Marisol gave a short nod. "If they pull this off… I'll be the first to admit it." She turned and walked into the chamber.
The double doors shut behind Marisol Vintar with a soft click. The Stortinget was a wide room, tiered, with a central table like a hub surrounded by delegates, advisors, and screens displaying real-time data across the room.
The President of the UER, James Anderson, sat at the head of the table, utterly exhausted.
"Director Vintar," he greeted. "Thank you for joining us."
Marisol dipped her head. "Apologies for the delay. Spoke briefly with Director Stevens."
A few murmurs. One or two eye rolls. The IFC was never far from people's nerves.
"Let's proceed," Anderson said. "Director Barkov."
A silver-haired man with a heavy build tapped his laptop. The main display behind him flashed, then shifted to a bleak map, Russia, Ukraine, California, riddled with radiation symbols and yellow perimeter markers.
"Cleanup operations in the Bay Area, Zaporizhzhya, and St. Petersburg are stalled," Barkov said, his Russian accent sharp but weary. "We've secured outer containment zones, but actual remediation efforts are impossible at current portal activity levels."
He zoomed in on the map; small portal symbols showed over irradiated zones.
"Overflow events continue to destabilize local geography. We don't have enough portal teams willing or capable of entering and weakening those anchors. Too dangerous. We've lost six squads in the last two weeks."
Someone muttered under their breath. Barkov ignored it.
"We're critically short on leaded armor, filtration suits, and mobile reactor suppression units. Priority shipment requests have been filed. Again."
The weight of that hung in the air. No one responded to the radiation crisis. It wasn't news. It was just exhaustion
"Director Okonjo," Anderson said.
A tall woman in ceremonial Nigerian attire rose from her seat, the soft rustle of fabric the only sound in the chamber.
"We've completed the political consolidation of Nigeria, Sudan, Persia, and South Africa under UER banners," Okonjo said, her voice measured, carrying easily through the room. "Guyana and Pakistan voted to join last week. Administrative harmonization is underway. It will require a phased rollback of national laws over the next few years, as usual."
Anderson steepled his fingers. "Any resistance?"
Okonjo gave a small, professional shrug. "Minimal at the governmental level. Most of the new leadership class wants stability, security, and access to UER trade and resource networks."
She tapped her laptop, and the regional map behind her zoomed in, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East shaded in tentative UER blue.
"But beneath that," she continued, "there are growing fractures. Particularly in Persia." The map shifted again, highlighting the new borders of what had once been Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, now unified.
"The old guard is largely gone. In their place: younger leaders empowered by the System, they're pragmatic and willing to integrate."
"But resistance remains, significant resistance. Extremist groups loyal to the old order, religious hardliners, nationalist militias, System-denialist factions, the usual, those are active across the former Iranian plateau."
A few murmurs rose from the table, uneasy.
"They refuse UER governance. They refuse System regulations. They're fragmented but dangerous. Armed with energy weapons, they have access to portals across the region, and a deep ideological rejection of Earth's new political reality."
Anderson nodded. "Thank you, Director."
"And Ethiopia?"
That came from a hard-eyed French delegate, Director Dubois.
Director Okonjo's tone shifted, growing heavier. "Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Gabon remain under active suppression. Their local governments are adamant about maintaining independence, and they have the support of several independent African adventuring companies, with direct access to their own System stores."
She paused, letting the weight of it settle.
"Separatist ideology is thriving. Fed by grief, religious nationalism, and a deep resentment of UER intervention."
Another beat of silence. Data screens flickered overhead, cycling through casualty counts and failed diplomatic overtures.
"Director Tashi," Anderson said. "Portal overflow?"
A weathered Tibetan man stood, the deep lines in his face more eloquent than any speech.
"The Amazon Basin is unstable. Again," Tashi said, voice flat. "We've lost twelve squads in the last three weeks. Portal level caps prevent us from sending in our veteran teams, and as Earth-side portals max out at level 32, they only permit entrants up to level 36. Most of the teams operating at those levels are simply inexperienced."
He tapped his laptop, and an Earth overlay appeared, flaring red along the Amazon, the Himalayas, and scattered points across Siberia and Central Africa.
"The same problem applies to the Himalayas. Portal storms are worsening, and terrain deformation is visible from orbit. Remote zones are rapidly becoming unmanageable."
Tashi sighed.
"Any team that reaches level 32 is incentivized to leave Earth, to hitch a ride to the Moon, to Mars, to anywhere they can keep leveling. No one stays behind to delve Earth's capped portals. Which means Earth-side portals are increasingly left unchallenged... until they overflow."
He paused, tapping twice to bring up a secondary map, this one with Territory Control Tower coverage zones shaded in blue.
"We could stabilize some of the regions by upgrading the Control Towers. But if we level them high enough to suppress portal spawning entirely, we eliminate the remaining opportunities for low-level teams to train and level up. It's a closed loop."
He let the last words hang there like a sentence.
"We're trapped between stagnation and overflow. And the gap between our stabilization forces and the System's escalation is growing. "
Around the table, even the more optimistic Directors said nothing.
Eyes turned toward Director Eshaan Mehra, Director of Internal Security head.
"We're tracking sixty-two separatist groups, half a dozen nationalist movements, and two major System cults. One of them's calling themselves the 'New Martyrs of Carthage.'"
A long pause.
"Are they armed?"
"Better than we are, in some places."
Anderson closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. "Economic stabilization?"
"Better in the north," said Director Juno Sakamoto of Development. "We've secured supply chains across Asia, North America, and Western Europe. Civilian manufacturing is back online. Private corporations have resumed production across key sectors, materials, electronics, transit. Food remains our biggest gap."
She tapped her laptop, and a new map flickered into view, supply routes spiderwebbing across continents, dotted with red and yellow bottlenecks.
"System Stores cover basic rations, but prices are tenfold compared to domestic production. It's a stopgap. One we can't afford for much longer."
She hesitated.
"Infrastructure rebuilds are progressing, but Africa remains fractured. Latin America's under severe strain. Universal income programs help, but there's not enough energy, not enough housing, not enough logistics."
Anderson steepled his fingers. "And research?"
Director Almeida of Science and Manufacturing stood, tapping his laptop. The screens behind him flickered to show a spread of technical diagrams, energy weapons, fusion drives, portal studies.
"Progressing," Almeida said. "Slowly, but steadily."
He shifted slightly, voice professional but tired.
"The System just handed us advancements we were moving toward already. Energy weapons, fusion, quantum stabilization, we had prototypes and theories. Now we have templates to accelerate development."
He flicked to a second chart, showing researcher levels by field.
"But the real bottleneck," Almeida continued, "is human. Scientific advancement now ties directly into personal System progression. A scientist who achieves a major breakthrough, no matter how small, levels up."
Dry chuckles rippled around the table.
"Most scientists stop combat leveling at level sixteen, enough to unlock their professional class, gain System intuition, and stabilize. Very few push further. Combat levelling is... unpopular."
He paused, letting that sink in.
"The higher the level, the faster the breakthroughs. A level 50 researcher solves problems at a pace no pre-System team could match. But breakthroughs, not papers or grants, drive that growth. Prototypes. Proofs. Radical experimentation, often at the expense of traditional peer review."
Anderson leaned back, unreadable. "And the FTL tech?" he asked.
Almeida tapped again, and a blueprint showed in the screen, the still-unfinished deconstruction of the drive.
"We've confirmed one key function: a reality stabilization shield. It prevents quantum tunneling degradation during FTL transition, preserving a localized envelope of standard spacetime while the ship moves faster than light."
He let that sink in.
Almeida allowed himself a small, fleeting smile. "In simpler terms: the drive doesn't brute-force FTL travel. It creates a pocket of reality that moves with the ship, anchoring it while the surrounding universe flows."
"And full replication?" Director Dubois asked from across the table.
"Full replication is still years out. But understanding the stabilization mechanism puts us firmly on the right track."
Almeida shut off the display.
"That concludes the research update."
Anderson nodded once. "Finally, some progress worth fighting for."
Eyes turned to Marisol now.
"Director Vintar," Anderson said. "Space operations. Give us an update."
Marisol stood. Her voice was calm and clear.
"Alpha Centauri mission is on schedule. The Triumph of Darron has cleared the asteroid belt and begun trajectory toward the Oort Cloud passage. Arrival at Proxima Centauri expected in five weeks."
"And Earth-side operations?"
"We've completed current procurement goals," Marisol said. "Orbital industry is fully supporting outpost logistics. No colonization efforts are underway, only station maintenance, research installations, and transportation infrastructure."
She tapped her pad once, and a logistics map of orbital assets lit up behind her.
"We've ordered a fleet of shuttlecraft and dropships from our business partners. The Genesis Platform leads production. Contract fulfillment is on schedule. All assets are prioritized for intra-Solar System transport and Earth-based logistical support."
"You still trust that platform?" asked Director Dubois, his tone clipped.
"It's the most productive facility we have," Marisol said coolly. "It's delivering results."
"And Stevens?" Dubois pressed.
"She's loyal to the mission," Marisol said carefully. "Even if her judgment is... unconventional."
"Her 'judgment' sent seven children to another star," muttered Director Mehra.
"They're the only crew with a working FTL drive," Marisol said, sharper now. "They funded their own vessel. Cracked the system's tech before we did. We can debate their maturity when they're back."
She paused, letting the room sit with the thought. "They could have gone to Alpha Centauri without us," she continued. "At least they accepted the Mission Charter. Their success is our success when they return."
"If they return," someone said.
"They will."
President Anderson tapped the table gently. "We'll revisit Alpha Centauri once the first transmission comes through. For now, we still have a planet to hold together."
He turned to Marisol. "Before we move on: The Genesis Shipyard. Is it secure?"
A few heads turned at once. Some clearly hadn't heard.
Marisol's voice was measured. "There was an incident and it's been contained."
"Sabotage," muttered Director Mehra. "We've heard rumors."
"Investigations are ongoing," Marisol said, firm now. "The platform is stable. Production has resumed."
"And Director Stevens?"
"Fully cooperative," Marisol said coolly. "Her internal teams are conducting the review."
Anderson studied her for a long beat, then nodded. "Very well. Continue."
The meeting pressed on, and the work of unifying a broken Earth continued.