Owner 03 - Jupiter War

by Neal Asher

  The decoded memory came through now. Saul experienced Main’s sudden panic upon hearing that Var had walked into the fone shop, his scramble for the disabler he’d stolen, the impact of Var’s kick followed by a similar impact from a stun truncheon . . . then nothing thereafter.

  In a way it was his own fault, he realized. Having yet to decide how to deal with the human population aboard his ship, he did not know how much freedom to allow them, how large a degree of self-governance, or how much information to provide for them. He had not detailed to Var his plan for dealing with the chipped rebels because he felt it to be only his concern. He also had no wish to explain, to someone whose breadth of understanding was so limited, the subtle manipulation he was using and how he was certain it would work. In her turn, Var had felt the need to act decisively, ruthlessly and competitively. He should have foreseen that. Now, in an instant, he made some crucial decisions. The human population aboard would govern and police itself, and he himself would only intervene when his own or the ship’s security was threatened. They would work to pay for their accommodation, the necessities of their existence, the very air they breathed; and, since the system currently developing here was a wealthy one, they could earn much more. Saul now issued a decree to that effect, to be displayed on every screen, fone or personal item of computing. That was how it would be from now until . . . later.

  Through certain cams, Saul noted the production of the main components of the cryogenic pods. When he finally left the solar system, the population here would go into hibernation and then . . . what? In truth he had no need of any of them. They were basically an encumbrance.

  ‘I have no intention of judging you,’ he told his sister. ‘Let us hope that you’ve sufficiently covered your tracks for no one to find out, though, for I will not stand in the way of any judgement by your peers.’

  She just gazed at the cam, and Saul studied her for a while longer, reading her face down to its very pores, but feeling a mental distance between them rapidly growing. Shortly it seemed as if he was peering down a microscope at some interesting but thoroughly predictable specimen, until external events abruptly dragged his attention elsewhere.

  The Vision was on the move.

  12

  Square Pegs, Round Holes

  The Committee, and also its forebears, had always been much in love with the idea of ‘social engineering’. This starts with the contention that the world would be a better place if, to cite some examples, people ate and drank only what was good for them, exercised regularly, avoided mind-altering substances, worked diligently for the good of all, produced only two children, put their correctly sorted trash out on time and listened with worshipful interest to the wisdom of their betters. Next on the agenda is persuasion, usually along with the manipulation of ‘facts’, which works, but only to a limited extent because people are contrary creatures whose resentment increases almost proportionally. Finally the punishments for incorrect behaviour arrive because, in the end, the ideologues want the people to fit their idea of a perfect society, where an airy concept such as happiness can only arise from correct political thought. Serene Galahad’s approach was of course much more direct: if human beings don’t fit the ‘perfect society’, then they must be altered on the genetic level to correct their faults. She was also a much more honest version of the ‘social engineer’, what with her hatred of humanity unconcealed.

  Earth

  ‘Bartholomew reports that he’s moving the Vision to minimum safe distance away from Saul’s ship,’ said Elkin, as they rounded a corner in the corridor and headed towards Calder’s apartment. ‘And Calder reports that the tug is bringing the Scourge into Earth orbit and that a shuttle has just left it.’

  It all seemed too much all at once – just too many balls to keep in the air. She palmed the lock to Calder’s apartment, turning to watch as some of her security team deployed in the corridor, then she stepped inside.

  ‘So tell me again about what Vaughan reported,’ she snapped.

  ‘Our undercover operatives here were listed as unsafe personnel, and either moved to the far end of the station or off station altogether,’ said Elkin flatly. ‘This could have simply been an administration error, but it also seems that Vaughan and his team are finding themselves hindered by the Inspectorate personnel aboard.’

  ‘Hindered in what ways?’ Serene asked as she sat down at Calder’s desk and opened up her palmtop, expanded its screen and adjusted the keyboard projection to a suitable surface.

  ‘Mostly bureaucratic foot-dragging, restrictions on system access, and by allocating quarters for Vaughan and his men in . . . inconvenient parts of the station.’

  ‘I always considered the number of Inspectorate personnel present here too high,’ remarked Serene. ‘And now I’m feeling uncomfortable with that – just as I am uncomfortable with Calder’s attitude.’

  Her annoyance at finding so many Inspectorate personnel still in evidence here had turned to alarm, for she experienced some intimation of sinister motives behind their presence. She shook her head and initiated a search of the station’s system through her palmtop and, while it was running, turned on the main desk screen and called up an exterior cam view. The search continued while she watched the main drive of the tug firing as it brought the Scourge in towards Earth, which in this current view lay over to the right of the screen. The shuttle was visible, but slowly moving out of shot.

  ‘So it never occurred to Calder that a reduction in political oversight here might result in increased productivity?’ she enquired.

  Something in her tone immediately had Sack stepping forwards with his reptilian hands clenching and unclenching. Elkin glanced at him and stepped away from Serene, keeping her hands firmly behind her back and her expression bland. Of course, it wasn’t really in Elkin’s remit to look at staffing levels, and it might not be Calder’s fault that so many Inspectorate personnel were still here, since reorganizing the structures he inherited was not entirely down to him. Serene knew that her anger stemmed from her not having immediately investigated this anomaly herself.

  Her search now revealed staff rosters and complements, and it was easy enough for her to locate those listed under ‘oversight’. She ran an overlay from the new command structures on Earth, and began finding those who were surplus to requirements. Even as she did this, she noted something else: just how many of these personnel were listed as ‘Inspectorate/disciplinary’.

  ‘They have adjustment cells here?’ she enquired, then began checking for herself. They did have adjustment cells – currently occupied by fifty-eight personnel. She felt her anger grow upon seeing such waste and inefficiency, and spun her chair round. Elkin was now thoroughly preoccupied with her fones and by whatever her aides were drawing her attention to on their note screens. Serene deliberately forced calm on herself and waited. She had employed Elkin because of the speed with which the woman could collate data, come to conclusions, and make reports and assessments. After a minute or so, Elkin’s preoccupation with information cleared, but this left her looking concerned and slightly puzzled.

  ‘Ma’am,’ she cleared her throat, ‘it seems a faction of the Inspectorate entrenched itself here even during your rule, and were in place before Calder arrived. His official response, when this matter was raised by the advisers you supplied to him, was that you wanted immediate results and he could not give you them if he was to spend time conducting a purge. However, data indicate that they were retained on his orders, and their section chiefs vetted by him personally.’

  ‘Your assessment of that?’ Serene asked.

  ‘I suspect he might have been building a power base, ma’am.’ Elkin paused to glance at something else one of her aides was showing her, then continued, ‘Calder’s subsequent response to a query from his advisers was that they cause fewer problems this way than would removing them from their posts and returning them to Earth.’

  ‘I would hardly call keeping fifty-eight personnel in adjustment cells a
lesser problem,’ Serene noted tightly.

  ‘Apparently,’ Elkin continued, ‘just to get the one thousand one hundred and forty surplus Inspectorate personnel back to the surface, with their belongings, would take at least five space-plane runs – journeys, he asserted, that could not be afforded.’

  ‘One thousand one hundred and forty surplus personnel,’ Serene echoed flatly. ‘Who is this chief Inspectorate political officer?’

  ‘There is none, ma’am,’ Elkin replied. ‘They take their orders directly from Calder.’

  So, Calder did not want these personnel returned to Earth, and it seemed there was some agreement there. This probably meant they did not think they would do so well under the new regime. She swung back to her palmtop and began doing some checking, searching the local system for data on the personnel concerned and then, upon realizing that very little data was available there, she linked to her data banks down on Earth, loading the list of the Inspectorate staff based here to specialized security searches. Within a few minutes things started being flagged for her attention. She began studying everything thus flagged, while simultaneously relaying this new data to Elkin and her aides.

  All the Inspectorate personnel involved came from the environs of Outback spaceport, and were those Messina had originally sent there to prepare the way for him. It all made perfect sense now, and she began to develop some real worries on checking further. The section chiefs had liaised closely with her own security teams prior to her arrival; also an inquiry to databases on Earth revealed that they had all managed to avoid being fitted with strangulation collars, though how was unclear.

  ‘How many of my security personnel do we have here?’ she asked as she went on to checking readergun protocols aboard the station. It seemed that she did have primacy, so could reactivate and take over the guns in a moment. However, since there had been a lot of construction and reconstruction here, and readerguns had not been considered essential to her purposes, there were huge areas left without coverage – including the large accommodation area where these Inspectorate personnel were housed.

  ‘Approximately five hundred,’ Elkin replied, now herself looking slightly sick.

  ‘So we are outnumbered two to one by Inspectorate personnel who were loyal to Messina, and who now seem to have made some sort of a deal with Calder.’

  Elkin nodded dumbly.

  ‘You and Vaughan missed this,’ Serene observed. ‘You missed precisely the kind of situation you were supposed to be looking for.’

  It could be that she was being overly paranoid, but that was better than being dead. It seemed likely that the Inspectorate personnel had chosen this place as a refuge, but it might also be because, under Messina, they had seen the main power base shifting off-world, and had decided that it probably wouldn’t be any different under Serene. Quite probably, there were those among them with ambitions, perhaps trying to build themselves a little empire out here, and in Calder they had found someone of similar mind. However, they had all run afoul of Serene’s decision to keep cutting political oversight, even after the large chunk Alan Saul took out of it, and they had also run afoul of her decision to pay a visit. The question now was how they would react.

  ‘I can only apologize,’ said Elkin, shooting a nervous glance at Sack.

  Serene gave a dismissive wave of her hand. This was too serious a situation for her to start killing off essential personnel right now. Maybe later Elkin could pay the price for her lapse.

  Serene selected the list of Inspectorate personnel and ran it through another program that gave her a list of their implant codes, which she then fed into the Scour activation program. She could kill all of them this way but, if she did, it would become obvious that the Scour was far too specific.

  ‘You’ve been feeding this through to Tactical?’

  ‘I have, ma’am.’ Elkin gestured to one of her blank-faced aides. ‘First assessment is that even if Calder’s retention of these people was not originally done with hostile intent, it will be now. He will know that he has been found out and, due to the consequences of that, Tactical puts a high probability on him making some sort of attack on you. However, he will not move against you until after the Command and Fist have departed under Alcubierre drive.’

  Serene said nothing for a moment as she considered that, and realized she had been stupid. Of course her personnel weren’t outnumbered. She nodded as if this was nothing new to her. ‘Because of the troops aboard the Fist, obviously.’

  ‘Still supposing the likelihood of some sort of attack on you, Tactical advises against making the obvious move of ordering the Fist to dock again and using its troops to negate that potential threat. If the Fist was to return to the station, it seems highly likely that Calder would then realize something is wrong, and act accordingly. His most likely response is to fire the station’s railguns at the Fist, and either disable or destroy it.’

  Elkin looked even sicker now – scared to complete her tactical assessment. Serene held up a hand to silence her, then called up a station schematic and noted that the new dock Calder had suggested Clay Ruger’s shuttle should arrive at was without a readergun network, and was quite some distance from both the escape drop-ship and the space-plane docks. She also checked timings and noted that Ruger would be arriving after the Fist and the Command were scheduled to depart.

  . . . the likelihood of some sort of attack on you . . .

  Calder possessed his own private army, her undercover operatives here had been removed, Calder’s Inspectorate staff had been hindering her own security staff when, if Calder had wanted to avoid discovery, it would have been better for him to have ordered them to keep their heads down. Now it seemed that Calder had directed Ruger – and consequently herself – to an inter-station shuttle dock without a readergun network. Calder was moving against her, of that she was now certain.

  ‘So what’s the best Tactical can give me?’ she finally asked.

  Elkin swallowed drily before commencing. ‘You can send your security teams against the Inspectorate complement here, which will give you time to get to the drop shuttle and thus get away from the station. But at the same time you must also order Bartholomew to fire on the station to disable its railguns and control infrastructure, otherwise Calder will be able to hit you on the way down. This gives you an approximate sixty per cent chance of escaping alive, though there is an above eighty per cent chance of both the Fist and the Command being disabled.’

  Not good enough. Serene coldly contemplated the data available to her. It seemed likely that Calder had planned some sort of attack upon her in this new space dock, once Ruger arrived. She must turn this situation to her own advantage.

  ‘Vaughan has the usual complement of hardware, I take it?’ she enquired.

  ‘Enough for a small war,’ Elkin replied, ‘but the Inspectorate personnel aboard will have access to the same sort of hardware.’

  ‘I don’t know why I bother with Tactical,’ remarked Serene contemptuously. ‘We take them in the space dock.’ She paused reflectively. ‘My security team is kept ready for all circumstances, including vacuum combat. Besides, they will be equipped with VC suits, while I note that, though armoured, the Inspectorate personnel here still wear ordinary uniforms.’

  Elkin nodded doubtfully.

  ‘I take it some of Vaughan’s people are already present in the new dock, to oversee the arrangements for Clay Ruger’s arrival.’

  Elkin blinked, rubbed a finger at a menu control located at her temple, and at length replied, ‘Yes, Vaughan has assembled a team there, but station Inspectorate personnel are making all the arrangements.’

  Viewing the big desk screen, Serene noted that the tug was no longer firing its main engine, and Earth loomed large behind it and the attached Scourge. Meanwhile, the shuttle was out of view. Despite her suggestion that the Fist and the Command should use the Scourge for target practice, Calder had urged that it be dismantled instead. Yes, a lot of it would be highly radioactive – and
therefore only good for scrap – but most of the engines were still fine, including the main one, and the plutonium and uranium from the nuclear arsenal could also be salvaged. Serene studied it for a while longer, but could see no ulterior motive from Calder for recommending salvage. He had obviously still been playing the part of a loyal citizen, while making his own arrangements elsewhere.

  Rather than use her palmtop, she summoned up to this same screen a number of internal cam views of the station itself, and quickly located the shuttle dock Ruger would be heading for. The view inside showed a great hall with airlocks running down one side, and two levels of station monorail lines running down the middle. Swarming about the area were armed Inspectorate personnel, as well as numbers of Serene’s own security staff.

  ‘How many?’ she asked.

  ‘Two hundred of ours, six hundred of Calder’s people,’ Elkin offered instantly.

  Serene continued staring at the screen. She had hoped for an easy option here. She had hoped that the Inspectorate personnel would be wearing their usual uniforms. It would then have been simplicity itself for Vaughan to plant a charge on one of the space doors, and then allow vacuum decompression to deal with her problem. Foolish hope that, because Calder was not so stupid as to allow his people into anywhere as vulnerable as a space dock without the requisite gear. She could now only distinguish his people from her own by the older design of VC suit they wore.

  ‘Tell Vaughan to get himself and all his team here at once.’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Just do as you’re told.’

  All her options were running out. If she took Tactical’s advice, she could lose everything: she could lose Alan Saul, she could lose the Gene Bank data – whether acquired from Saul or Ruger – and she could lose her own life.