More USNA stuff. This is oddly engrossing for me.
Mary G. Martin
(Maria Garcia Martinez)
(2058-2145)
Senator for Cardenas, 2085-2101
Vice President, USNA 2101-2102
President, USNA 2102-2113
Maria Garcia Martinez was the eldest child of a prominent Veracruz family. She was raised in a political atmosphere where all the doors were opened for her, no matter who was actually the mayor or governor at the time. She was a serious child, and even more serious adult, dividing her time between her studies and the family business (machine politics). She won her first election to the municipal council before she had even graduated from university, and somehow managed to juggle both before graduating with a political science degree in 2080.
In 2085 she was given the position of first Senator for the new Extended State of Cárdenas (essentially, the city of Veracruz, plus some of the surrounding suburbs) by the state legislature. They were looking for someone trustworthy who would keep an eye on things and not cause trouble; despite her youth (an absurdly young twenty-seven), Maria fit the bill.
To be fair, Maria performed both her assigned tasks flawlessly in her sixteen years in the Senate. She did anglicize her name almost immediately, but that was a common choice of hispanic politicians at the time. “Mary Martin” never tried to look or sound anglo, but she quickly became known as a horse trader and deal-maker when it came to what little business the USNA Senate was allowed to do. Mary made friends easily, but never the wrong friends. She was also just as adept at owing favors to people as she was having favors owed, too. Many people in Washington had a vested interest in seeing her ascend at a reasonable rate.
That was probably what got Senator Martin the Vice Presidential nod in 2100. The Lewis regime liked to swap out a new Vice Presidential nominee every four years, on the principle that allowing some discreet nest-feathering on a strict time schedule would keep more factions sweet, and it was finally the hispanics’ turn to get someone at the feeding trough. Besides, the Old Man was dying. Better to put a Vice President from the weakest power base in place there. Once Lewis finally died, Mary could serve as a caretaker President until a real replacement could be picked. And if she tried to make her own play, well, that would be unfortunate for her and her faction.
The Anti-Coup
The events of the evening of April 3rd, 2102, remain stubbornly mysterious. What is known is that General Lillian Early (Commandant, People’s Liberty Corps) had a meeting with Sam Sweetwater (Director, Department of Coexistence) had a late-night meeting with each other in a Bethesda government office, and it ended in a shootout that neither survived. Neither did most of their respective inner staffers and security details; two survivors (one from each side) were eventually tracked down, months later, and each independently insisted the meeting had been initiated by the other faction. Both survivors were also adamant that the whole thing had been a setup from the start, and that their own side had simply defended themselves when the other side started shooting.
Regardless, this meant that when President Lewis died the next morning of a sudden stroke, the two factions considered most likely to make a play for the Oval Office were, to quote one gleeful Jefferson political writer, “two flopping chickens looking for their heads.” It turned out that neither the PLC nor the Department even knew that their respective leaders were missing, let alone that they were cooling corpses in an office that had been shut down for ‘fumigating’ that week. It would take a week for anybody to finally track the missing officials down, and even then it was because the stink was finally making it out to the street.
Not that it mattered. President Martin (who took the oath of office as ‘Maria Garcia Martinez’) had wasted no time in ordering the Army and Federal Security Bureau to place both entire organizations under immediate lockdown and detention. No excuses, no negotiations, no delays: the PLC and Coexisters could either surrender, or die.
Most chose ‘surrender.’ The ones who did not were disorganized, and ill-prepared for an actual shooting match. The two organizations had apparently spent far more time on abusing prisoners and transportees than on maintaining their weapons and readiness, because the resisters invariably put an embarrassingly bad defense. More than one firefight abruptly ended when the defenders had their smart weapons fail; and even when they shot back, they rarely hit anything that they aimed at. Cleaning out the last holdouts happened a bare week after the start of the campaign, and that was because of sheer physical distance.
