by Alex Oliver
They had no eyes - no visual sensors at all, just touch and taste and magnetic resonance imaging, and Bryant found himself wishing he could see the criminals' faces as he directed the drones to knock them over and then lie on top of them. The distant gunfire he heard through the hatch door was the nearest he got to experiencing it for himself, and then there was quiet, except for someone crying in the control chamber and someone outside the hatch door yelling "Get it off, get it off me!" in the hysterical voice of someone who is terrified of bugs.
The red dots lay where they had been felled, lifesigns strong, but immobile. Bryant had taken the complex, but he still didn't want to open the door and actually walk out into it. If he could stay like this for ever - the inner heart of a hundred layers of machine - he'd be a hell of a lot more comfortable.
But he didn't have to go out, did he?
All that alien interfacing having taken its toll, he made himself a large meal and swallowed it as fast as he could. He told himself he was looking forward to talking with Aurora. To telling her that he'd rescued her, that he was a hero after all. He didn't quite know why he felt so sick and nervous at the thought. "Computer?"
"Sir."
"Establish communication with the citadel."
"With the Governor, sir?" Charity sounded eager, as though it wanted to be sure its rightful owner wasn't angry with it, and he knew that was anthropomorphization but he found it touching anyway.
"I don't know what kind of condition he's in," he told it, finding his tone hushed as though he was talking to a grieving friend. "The commanding officer over there will be Captain Campos of the Froward. It's her I want to speak to."
He didn't really. He wanted to have spoken to her. To know that he was forgiven, and then...
His own concerns came crashing back from where they had mysteriously flown to. And also he wanted to know that her promise held. He could probably still get out of here on his own, now, but he really didn't want to have to. Her blessing – her goodwill – he wanted it.
The view screen flicked to life, showed her in the grand reception chamber of the governor's mansion, with her long hair combed out and plaited and the plait shoved down the back of her collar so that almost all of her hair was covered by the bandana. A masculine version of the veil.
A swell of amused relief and fondness went over him at the sight, though she wasn't smiling. "Aurora," he said, still scared she was going to verbally gut him, but feeling like he'd never been closer to home. "Hi. It's me."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kicked in the teeth
"I'll go after the first strike," Aurora said, looking out at the calm night sky, where the ring's faint reflection made a dim brown crescent through the sparse stars. It seemed a paltry sort of sky under which to die, but she guessed you didn't get to choose that kind of thing. “If we're still alive by then, there will be a point to it.”
"Then we should get below," Atallah plucked at her sleeve. The doctor's eyes were calm and sharp, as though Aurora's immobility was a symptom she recognized. Aurora thought It won't make a difference but couldn't bring herself to say it. She breathed in and then out, letting go. After all, there were worse ways of dying. At least it would be quick, and clean, and pretty damn spectacular.
"I'm sorry," she started, "that I hadn't had a chance to get to know any of you. You've all..." She was going to say "made me proud," but something was happening above the volcano, and it was not what she expected. A bright golden red star had appeared directly above it and appeared to be falling - no, not falling, accelerating towards it.
The light grew larger, and she could see a shape inside it - a vessel of some kind, with the deltawing shape of the governor's launch and flames around its glowing bow. Her heart stopped her throat as it plunged out of the atmosphere and straight into the mountain's crater. Her hands cramped with clenching and her teeth ached as she ground them, tense, waiting for the explosion.
Was that Bryant? What kind of a stupid, magnificent move was that for a man who was naturally such a weasel? Had he lost his mind? Had he... Had he killed himself to save them?
That didn't seem at all like the man she thought she knew.
But then coming back at all didn't seem like the treacherous, self-centerd scumbag she thought she knew.
"What the hell was that?" She cast a startled glance at Atallah, found her with her hands over her mouth, wide eyed and clearly no better informed than she was herself.
Still no sound of an explosion, and the glow over the caldera had dimmed as if the incandescent craft had cooled, and the machine under it gone dormant. Aurora turned and sped down the steps, toggling the comms while she ran.
"Crouch?"
"Ma’am?"
“What just happened? Was that the governor's Dash?"
"Um..." Someone was shouting on a channel in the background. She heard Crouch flicking through screens, and the rolling trundle of a wheeled chair being pushed between stations. "Yes. I think it must have been. It's been flown into the bore of the launcher and wedged there, and it looks like the weapon's been taken off line."
"Is it..." Whole, she wanted to ask. Did he bring it down whole? Or did he kill himself doing it? He wouldn't have, though, would he? Wouldn't have endangered himself. He'd have figured out a way of buying them time that didn't involve risk to his own skin.
"I can't really tell what's going on over there," Crouch sounded apologetic. "Everyone's yelling at once. But the launch has been aborted, which means the whole sequence will have to be reset and the blockage cleared before they can fire at us again."
Again Aurora paused on the stairs. This was getting to be a habit. "So we have a window to fly over there and secure the place. I want Mboge and Citlali to meet me at the swoop pad asap. Atallah? You and Ademola take charge of the siege while I'm gone."
A ping from the com interrupted her, she toggled it on again. "Ma’am?"
"Headquarters has answered our request for assistance. Where will you take the call?"
HQ calling? They always liked you to show your face to them, and that was a potential disaster right now, with Aurora looking like a particularly rugged man. Even if she disabled the viewer, her voice gave her away at once.
Well, the blocked launcher could wait five minutes while she found out how long it would take for their relief to get here. If there was a force stationed in the Fuxi system it could be as little as two days. How things turned! She'd been surrendered to death only moments ago, and now there was no end to the good news. She loped back down the stairs for real this time, down the corridor between staterooms the back stairs to ground level.
"Tell Mboge to get to the governor's audience chamber. Let's look like we're officially in control. He's going to take it for me, as I'm a little... unconventional right now."
Crouch laughed. "Is that what they're calling it these days?" And it occurred to Aurora sharply that this was the first time anyone had mentioned her change, and maybe that was remarkable.
"You never did say what happened," Atallah smiled at her, jogging effortlessly at her side as they swung past the formal dining room from which O'Kane had pilfered all the plates.
"I..." she wasn't sure how to explain this without also reminding them that Bryant had broken out of containment, that she'd come to the planet with him. Without getting into the whole subject of whether he was alive or dead, a defamed innocent or an escaped criminal. She wasn't entirely sure herself on that point. "I had an accident with some nanobots. I'm on the lookout for someone to turn me back. This..." wasn't my choice seemed ungrateful somehow, however true it was. "Has turned out pretty handy, but I'm hoping it won't be permanent."
"Is it ... weird?" Atallah gave her a fascinated, skeptical look, woman to woman, and she had to laugh, skidding into the main reception room just as Mboge came jogging through the further door.
"So weird," she rolled her eyes. "And gross. Don't tell any of the men I said so."
Atallah grinned. After examining the set
up of the room, she positioned herself behind the view screen, where she should not be picked up by HQ's cameras. Mboge nodded at Aurora and at her gesture settled himself in the governor's chair. Aurora stood by the door, where she could observe the conversation with the shadow of a velvet curtain cast across her face - the only part of her that was still vaguely recognizable to anyone who might know her.
Mboge smoothed a hand down his braids and twitched the creases of his trousers straight. At some point during the siege he must have located a clothes brush, because there wasn't a speck of dust on his uniform, and his brass buttons gleamed. When he was satisfied, he raised the com to his mouth. "Morwen? Connect us up please."
The viewscreen expanded, and then half of the room seemed to slip into light and cloud. This sector's HQ was on top of a needle sky-hook in the ex-Source planet of Hector. However dull the dusty, file filled room and the sallow man who sat behind a scuffed desk there, the panoramic windows showed a floor of clouds in every direction, with a greenish sun turning their soft hollows into strewn emeralds.
Aurora didn't know the admiral behind the desk. His uniform read Lehmann, and he was a small, frail-looking elderly man, whose skull-cap seemed to be pressing his face toward the floor. He returned Mboge's punctilious salute with a more worn version of his own.
"You are not Captain Campos."
"No, sir." Mboge put both hands down on the arm rests of the throne and did not turn his head in Aurora's direction, though he looked like it was a struggle. "She is..." his natural honesty warred with the instructions he had been given to tell the Admiral that Aurora was otherwise occupied, and compromised on "Indisposed. I am Lt. Felix Mboge, her second in command. She asked me to take the call. We're very glad to hear from you sir.
“The situation is this: The criminals here have taken over the colony and begun using a weapon they found to attack passing ships. They shot the Froward down when we came close enough. We have managed to take possession of the colony's citadel and to temporarily disable the weapon, but we're outnumbered a hundred to one, the governor and his staff have been maltreated and are very weak, we're in a siege position and we would welcome backup. How soon can you come to relieve us and re-establish order?"
Admiral Lehmann lifted his dark eyes to look at someone off screen, and fidgeted with his stylus, making a note in the corner of his writing area. Aurora's hopes plummeted right then, even before he began to speak. The words came after her certainty and only held it down.
"Mr. Mboge," the admiral stroked his fingertips down the shell of his ear as if he was petting a dog. "Your request for assistance has been discussed. The threat level of the colony is minimal, and the impacts of its secession are unimportant to our long term plans. As a result, I regret to tell you that we have determined that it would not be cost effective to mount a relief expedition."
Cost effective?
It was worse than she'd thought. Worse than she could easily comprehend. She'd known it would be bad since she saw the look in his eye, but this didn't make sense. She'd thought he was going to say that they couldn't spare a force at present from the Horsehead front, that a rescue might take months. But not that they weren't even going to bother to try.
Lehmann swallowed and his gaze skittered off screen again. "We will of course send the appropriate condolences and compensation to your families, who will be told that you died as heroes and martyrs of the faith."
"No." Mboge half rose from his seat. "That is unacceptable. We have children on board. Midshipman Iverson is twelve years old, and in perfect health. You can't just--"
"On the contrary," Lehmann's voice grew brassy with anger. "You sacrificed your lives for the Lord the moment you signed up. This service is not required to explain itself to you."
"It's not your order, though, is it?" Aurora was angry enough and despairing enough to step out of the shadow and let herself be seen. "I can see you hate this. Who authorized it? Who was it who thought leaving us here to die would solve all their problems?"
Lehmann didn't recognize her, that was clear enough from his uncomfortable smile, but he reached out and angled the transmitter, so the man standing behind his view screen could be seen.
The floor fell out from beneath Aurora as a wash of cold so profound she thought she'd dived into liquid oxygen punched the breath out of her. The man's clear blue eyes and refined, patrician handsomeness made her arms ache with emptiness and her bent back fingers throb.
She thought she wouldn't live through the shock, but she did. Her daughter's father, Admiral Keene, carefully sweeping his inconvenient misdemeanors under the rug.
"I'm sorry," Lehmann adjusted his screens again and looked out on the vibrant summer sky. "But the decision has been made. there's nothing more to say. Good bye."
He leaned forward and cut the connection, leaving Aurora with a dark pillar in her vision where Keene had stood, and the knowledge that no help was coming. Worse than that was the knowledge that they had been abandoned because of her. Keene had seen a chance to wipe his personal history clean and he had taken it. Banks and Citlali, Atallah and Crouch, Mboge and Ademola and all her other people, they were being thrown away, because of her.
The knowledge was so heavy she literally could not stand up under it. She staggered to one of the audience chairs, her boots obscenely loud in the stunned silence. Sinking down there, doubled over, she hid her eyes behind her hands.
A long silence. From outside, came the percussive sound of something being hammered repeatedly on the compound doors, and the zap of stun rifles. Then silence again.
Atallah came to sit beside her, folding her long hands on her lap rather than daring to touch. "Ma'am? What do we do?"
"This is my fault," Aurora admitted, unable to think past that. She felt so sick with despair and guilt she thought she might physically throw up. "Because I am an embarrassment to them. But they could have... they shouldn't have sacrificed you too. I'm sorry."
One of Atallah's hands escaped its controlling grasp and crept out to squeeze Aurora's knee. "I..."she began, hesitant at first and then picking up speed. Her gaze looking away from Aurora, fixed on the far corner of the floor. "My father was cruel, to myself and to my younger brothers and sisters. I told the police. I had him arrested. I brought shame to my name and my whole family."
Mboge leaned down to wipe a scuff off his shoe. "I was delegated to transport senator Tarr on his victory tour around the inner systems,” he said slowly. “I found out that he had been interfering with the midshipmen and I told the press. They tried to claim that I was the criminal, but they could find no evidence against me, so I was sent to this petty little penal transport to keep me out of the way. If your disgrace had not been so public, I would have carried on thinking I was the only one of whom this was true, but..."
"Crouch had a lover," Atallah interrupted, as if startled into speech. "Or there were rumors of it. Another woman. No one could prove anything, but..."
Mboge laughed suddenly, bitter and nervous, but bright, as though he was adding pieces together to make a picture he could not believe he had never seen before. "Ademola refused to execute his prisoners because they were bound. It is not just you, Captain, who is an embarrassment to them. You, me, the doctor, Crouch. I wonder how many more. Citlali – she's good at what she does but no one wants to admit a tiny little girl like that could be a formidable marine. So they bury her here. All of us who were too honest, or too good, or who made a single mistake after a lifetime of heroism. We're... inconvenient.”
He laughed again, like a bearing of teeth. “They want to bury us all. We cannot let them. We must not let them. Captain, tell us what to do."
Aurora had always been successful. Her family, mother and father, elder brothers and little sister, had loved her and and that had seemed normal. It had seemed normal to have people around you who liked and valued you. Normal for life to be a series of challenges to be overcome one after another, each one leading on to something bigger.
She'
d trusted Keene because she'd never had cause to distrust anyone before. But he had knocked the foundations out from under her once and now he'd just done it again.
That there were people who got thrown away had never occurred to her. She'd thought that was the whole point of God's kingdom - the whole point of fighting to bring people into the Abode of the Book, the Kingdom of Peace. So that they would be brought under the control of a government that took its sacred duty to care for them seriously.
But Bryant had been falsely arrested, Atallah and Mboge cast out for trying to bring justice, she and Crouch shown no mercy at all. It wasn't...
How was she supposed to go on from this? Her whole life, she'd believed in these people, in their goodwill and their wisdom, and they had made it clear that she was nothing to them. The fingers of her left hand ached where they had been broken in a firefight on New Atlantis, and the dog tag on which she had had engraved the initials of all her dead friends slid further down her chest as she bowed her head lower.
What was there left to fight for?
"Aurora," said Lina gently. "Your crew needs you to get up. Please get up."
Maybe that would be enough. She uncurled, pulling the necklace out from the collar of her shirt and rubbing a thumb over the tiny letters. They were too small to be seen by the naked eye - engraved under microscope - but they made a faint bittersweet roughness under her fingertips, almost filling one side. None of them would want her to give up either, though that was easy for them to say, well out of it as they were.
She tucked it back and rubbed a hand over her face. "Okay.” It took an obscene amount of effort to drive her thoughts out of their standstill, but she applied it. “Okay, let me think. So, no relief. But the option of getting out on the governor's launch is back on the table, so I need to--"
Her com link chimed. She stood up to answer it, trying to work some vigor into her blood by pacing. "Go ahead."