“It’s gotta be low and over the rim of the crater,” she said. “Watch the horizon above the dishes. That’s the vector the pods are coming from.”
“Govcom on the line for you,” her communications officer yelled as another rattling boom shook the whole building.
Jesika slapped her hand down on the comlink icon. “This is Landing Operations Center at Promontorium Heraclides Point. We’re under attack out here.”
“Say again LOC. Are you saying someone is attacking you?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded detached and disbelieving.
“Yah, they’re bombing the shit out of us,” she said as another blast shook the room.
“Who?”
“We can’t tell, but there are landing pods dropping all over the pads out here. They’ve breached the access tunnel and…” another explosion cut her off. The deck plating rolled like a wave and tossed her out of her seat.
“LOC, are you declaring an emergency?”
“Frag me, you dim diode,” she roared. “Someone’s beating the hell out of us.”
“Power is down to the lasers,” Makenzie yelled. “We’re defenseless.”
“Hang on LOC, we just put out an alert.”
“Hang on to what?” she growled, crawling under her console as another explosion dropped chunks of the overhead lighting grid down all around her.
“Orders are to hold them off,” reinforcements are in the tube. ETA six minutes.
“Are you out of your frakking mind?” Another explosion erupted somewhere behind her, this one so much louder that it shook the rest of the thought from her mind. The ringing in her ears ratcheted down to silence, and the repeated popping sound of her eardrums told her the air was escaping into space.
Hangar Deck: Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
As soon as the engines shut off and the Katana had settled onto the deck, Chancellor Roja and Admiral Nakamiru stepped through the wall and into the hangar. Jeph and Anju followed them and stood to the side.
Seva and Cori stood behind Jeph to provide protection if necessary while the chancellor and admiral brought a full squad of armed guards. They hung back and tried to look more formal than intimidating, but Jeph noticed their escorts all carried stunners and riot rifles.
Jeph had asked her why she was worried, and she’d deferred to what she called the admiral’s policy of prudent preparation.
The egress tunnel from the Katana extended down and swung open and Tana Drake and her wife appeared in the doorway. He recognized them from the com, and from the images that had been on every newswave since they got married. They’d both been celebrities of substantial magnitude before the new government labeled them outlaws.
“Holy shit what a cool airlock,” Saf said in a voice loud enough to carry across the distance. Jeph struggled with his desire to laugh as she landed in the middle of what might have been a formal moment like a cannon ball. She angled toward him, leaving Tana to do the formal side of things. “The wall is a projection?”
“Actually no, it’s a selectively permeable matter structure,” Jeph said.
“So I guess that means you were right with the Odysseus call,” she said, glancing at Anju and blinking. “Obviously, you are Arika Sokat. You really look like your mother.”
“I do?” Anju asked.
“Well younger, but the resemblance is striking,” she said.
“Arika?” Jeph raised an eyebrow as he glanced at the doctor.
Anju nodded. “The name I was born with, but you know that story.” She looked down at the floor.
“Nisreen told me to give you a big hug, and to tell you she was proud of you,” Saf said, leaping forward and hugging her.
“Wait, a second. Nisreen Sokat is your mother?” Seva said, stepping forward and injecting herself into the conversation.
“You’re an alpha aren’t you?” Saf said, looking up at her and grinning. “This just keeps getting better.”
“Yes, Nisreen Sokat is my mother,” Anju said. “But what’s an alpha?”
Jeph looked back and forth between the three of them and tried to track the conversation, but it was spinning faster with every new statement.
“I am,” Seva admitted. “But it’s down low, so hush.”
“It scans good,” Saf said. “You smell like one. I’m a gen-three crèche baby.”
“A real live plusser?” Seva asked.
Anju just shrugged when Jeph looked at her.
He realized that the formal side of the conversation was over and the admiral and chancellors were staring at them.
“I am sorry Chancellor Drake, I don’t know what they’re all talking about, but I am sure they do,” he said, blinking several times before he nodded in what was almost a bow. “Welcome to Gateway.
“It’s alright, Saffia has that effect on conversations,” she said, winking as she stepped up and offered her hand.
“Arika Sokat, you really do look like your mom,” Tana said, also shaking her hand.
“They call me Anju,” the doctor said.
“I assume you have a good MedBay here?” she asked. “We have a patient that still needs some medical care.”
“We have a level-five surgical diagnostic and full synthesis capability,” she said.
“Good, the gravity here is a little over the safe limit for my patient and I don’t want to keep him in a PSE if I can avoid it,” Tana said.
“The gravity is surprising,” Saf said.
Jeph nodded and winked.
“Who’s your patient?” Roja asked.
“Edison have you got him suited up, and can you two come out?” Tana said, tapping into her comlink and turning to face the ship.
“We’re on our way,” he said.
“Edison Wentworth?” Roja asked.
“Yah, but he’s not the big surprise I have for you,” she said.
“He’s not?” Two men appeared at the hatch and Chancellor Roja gasped.
“Is that Chancellor Ariqat?” Jeph whispered.
Saf nodded. “He thinks he’s all that and a slice of yeastcake, because he knows something about the ghost fleet. Turns out, he’s more useless than a wilted penis.”
Jeph wasn’t sure how to process her comment, so lacking a better option he laughed. It wasn’t possible to hang on to a formal demeanor around the chancellor’s wife. “I thought he was missing?” He said as he turned back to watch the man wobble his way across the deck.
“We found him,” she snorted. “Oh lucky us.”
Underhive Cross Connect: New Hope City: Luna:
The squad stood firm, pinned down by enemy fire.
“Riot guns aren’t cutting it,” Sergeant Richards called across the com. His units were scattered behind what shelter they could find in the concourse. He had six people under him and their training was for police action, not to face down bullets.
Who in their right mind brought projectiles to a fight inside a bubble?
He had his back against a plascrete planter and was trying to figure out how they could hold their position. His brain rattled every time another round exploded the edge of the low wall above his head.
“We’re going to die unless we fall back,” Wilson said.
“Orders are to stay put and wait for reinforcements,” he said, leaning toward her and yelling to be heard. She shared his shelter and when he looked at her face, he knew she was ready to run.
“This is insane,” she said. “We can’t do it.”
“I’ve still got three stun grenades,” Mitchell said.
“I’ve got two.” Carrels added.
“They’re wearing armored EPS and EVA shells,” Richards said. “Not enough punch.”
“All we have to do is get them to slow down enough we can pull back to a better position,” Mitchell said. “Get some breathing space and maybe we can—”
A rumbling growl cut him off and the thunder of rifle fire died down.
“What the frag is that?” Wilson hissed into the near silence.
/> He recognized it. “It’s a fucking boring machine,” he said. The growl got louder as the deck under him shook. Then it jackhammered violently as the grinder teeth bit into the opposite side of the plascrete wall they hid behind. Grabbing Wilson, he flung her bodily away as the planter exploded and sent him bouncing across the floor on a wave of scattering debris.
“Pull back,” he screamed as he tumbled forward. A single bullet caught at the edge of his body armor and he pirouetted sideways. A second one and his left leg shot forward and twisted out from under him. He crumpled to the floor and skidded to a stop against the edge of the main deck.
Rolling onto his back, he grabbed his leg and jammed his fist down into the open hole just above where his kneecap had been. Biting down on the roaring pain he shook his head and blinked his eyes several times. In the distance he saw Wilson and Mitchell spin and throw grenades.
Before the first one flashed, he watched Wilson throw her body toward him in a diving leap. “Don’t…” he groaned, realizing it was already too late as her body spun once in mid air and landed in the open with a heavy rolling thump. Three sharp twitches and the bullets moved on to their next target.
A timeless moment later, the gunfire ended, and no one was moving. All that was left in his universe was the trembling of the deck below him.
He looked down at his leg and the crimson puddle spreading over the fused regolith blocks of the concourse and realized that it didn’t matter anymore. He’d be dead before help could come.
Sub -27: Underhive: New Hope City: Luna:
It was a rough neighborhood, but word had spread and panic gave the sharp edges an added layer of meanness. This far down into the pit of Underhive there was almost nowhere to go, and it translated into a feeling of desperation in those who lived here. This is where people disappeared when they wanted to stay invisible.
Once, a long time ago, Paulson had friends here. People who weren’t the usual disenfranchised. Smart ones who chose to live in the Hive because here they were royalty. Emperors of their own piece of the swamp, and smart enough not to eat each other, even if everyone around them reveled in that kind of social cannibalism.
When he’d arrived in the cesspool of humanity with his hands out, it had taken almost no time for one of these mini-monarchs to realize his value and take him in. He was a unifier, and the one that held Lassiter could control the entirety of the swamp. Sharks and alligators alike would join forces under the leadership of the Steward.
“There’s a stink storm up top. Some big ugly swinging to chew shit,” his guardian angel said as she came through the door and tossed him a meal kit and a worn-out coverall. The name she used was Demonica Ree, but he knew she had once been someone else. A real person.
“A riot?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at the stench of the clothes. They smelled like she’d taken them off of a dead body.
“Is meaner,” she said, grinning as his sensibilities failed and he shrugged his way into the outfit. “Real poppers shooting hard slugs.”
“You think they’re coming for me?” he asked.
“Is nojo? Why they be after you with the inquisition?” She looked him over like she was guessing his weight in papercred. “You got a goody-bag on you?”
“Nah, I just got people in the ivory tower that don’t like me,” he said, realizing it might be risky to tell them who was on his short list of enemies. Everybody had a price and no matter what potential he had for consolidating power he was always less important than liquid assets.
“You sure pa? You look to be sweaty rough to me,” she said, grinning and pinching his arm like she was picking out a slab of cheap protein cake.
He nodded. “It’s just a stink storm. No skin off my ass.” He tore open the meal kit and gasped. It smelled at least as bad as his new outfit.
She snorted and then grinned, accepting his dismissal as a fact. “Might be smartlike moving you deeper into the hole, yah? Don’t wanna be fighting too hard to keep you in my pouch.”
“I thought you could keep me safest of all the sharks,” he said. “Maybe word on the deck’s foobed, and you aren’t all that?” he was playing a risky hand and the flash in her eyes told him he was close to a line he didn’t want to cross.
After several seconds she exploded into laughter. “I like you, Pa. You got steel eggs. Maybe we should have babies, nojo?”
“Holy shit, no!” he gasped.
Her eyes sparked again, but she smiled. “Ya, you be dustpile bigtime. You’d stroke out trying to service me, Pa. Is nogo.”
She stood up and nodded toward the door. “I can square you a rathole deep enough to sleep through the pissoff. Was a service room down next to the deep-rock at the bottom of the hive. Clean airbreathers used it for some big do-up, but no skins been there in months. You be safe.”
“Clean airbreathers?”
“Ya, some badass prettypuss. More’n me even,” she said, her eyes telling him she was serious. “Lived topside somewhere, but worked down here. Nobody ever sniffed their scam, seeing they were meaner’n they were quiet.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Governor’s Office: Gateway Colony: L-4 Prime:
“I am concerned that you have someone not familiar with the political mechanisms of the chancellery involved in the meeting,” Ariqat said, staring at Jeph. “There is much I could discuss that is, how should I say this delicately …”
“Above my air supply?” Jeph offered. Saf had warned him that Ariqat was a legend in his own mind, so he wasn’t offended. Nor was he inclined to give up his position at the table. Especially since, it was in his office.
“The governor stays,” Nakamiru said.
“As you wish, but I don’t want to waste my time answering questions that might be necessary to educate him in the nuances of political reality,” he said.
“Nu ahn cata-che,” Dutch said and Jeph laughed. He is beneath a child.
Chancellor Roja looked at Jeph and winked, revealing that she might have been studying the language enough to understand the joke.
“What did he say?” Ariqat asked, looking insulted.
“He said the political reality here is far less important than the situational reality,” the admiral said. “It is a point you should consider, before you insult your host again.”
“Very well, I apologize to the governor,” Ariqat said, nodding in Jeph’s direction. “Shall we begin?”
“Tana has told us about their journey to get here, let’s hear yours,” Roja said.
“It began when I was pursuing the infiltration of my Cartel by an operative of FleetCartel,” he said.
“She wasn’t mine,” Katryna said.
“I do believe that now, but the evidence I had was more than circumstantial. The woman—”
“Zora Murphy,” Edison said.
“Yes. This woman discovered irregularities in our joint special operations project,” he said. “You call it the Ghost Fleet. This project has been going on for almost forty years and I only learned of it after my installation as chancellor of SourceCartel.”
“Forty years?” Nakamiru leaned toward Roja and lowered his voice. “Our estimates were all based on this being no more than a twenty year effort.”
“How many ships are in the Ghost Fleet?” she asked.
“Thirteen hundred and sixty give or take,” he said. “There were several in the pipeline before the incident with the Murphy woman. I do not know if they completed those.”
The chancellor turned white and dropped her forehead down into her palm. “Why were you kidnapped?”
“After this woman discovered the supply chain system that fed the fleet, Derek Tomlinson and I were of the opinion that it would be best to suspend new acquisitions until we could develop a different methodology. Paulson Lassiter argued that it was essential to press on. Because he and I were the ones in possession of command authorization codes for the ships and crews, with me removed from the equation that left Lassiter with operational command and Derek with
nothing other than a place in repairing and maintaining bases of operations for the fleet.”
“You’re saying that Lassiter kidnapped you so he could take control of the ghost fleet?” the admiral said. “Why did he keep you alive?”
“I do not know for sure, but I assume it was so he could use me as a landing zone for public blame,” he said. “Paulson Lassiter is a master political opportunist, and he never leaves himself without an escape trajectory. I believe that was my role if the ghost fleet were to be exposed.”
“Where were these ships based?” Nakamiru asked.
“At the Centaur Thereus. We kept almost all the fleet there, but there were several locations all over the system where we pushed through the repairs and upgrades. Those were the only part of the operations that Tomlinson oversaw and it was why he was little threat to Lassiter.”
“Did I understand you to say you have command authority over this fleet?” Roja said.
“I did,” he said, his face showing that he was unsure of his position, for the first time. “We set up a system where the command authorizations for anything above routine operations were all manually coded into the vessel by the commander.”
“They also used this type of system to keep nuclear missiles from being accidentally launched before the last war,” Nakamiru said.
Ariqat nodded. “Paulson and I each possess a single code that we deliver verbally to the vessel commander. The code has to match the one on a lock down order sheet in his safe. Once the commander confirms that authorization, then the combined codes are entered into the ship’s computer to bring it to battle status. It can only be done at the command console.”
“And you can use this code to get the fleet to stand down?” the admiral asked.
“At any point prior to engagement,” he said. “This is dependent upon Lassiter not changing the codes since deployment. However I should add that we made the process to change codes difficult, to prevent either of us taking over the fleet without the other’s consent.”
“Then how is Odysseus in command of the fleet we encountered?” Tana asked.
“I doubt that it is,” Ariqat said. “I am less concerned with your alleged computer issues than I am with the real threat of being attacked by my own fleet,” he said, dismissing her concerns with a wave of his hand.
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