But now, the entire planet felt like another Vicksburg massacre writ large. Not a higher purpose in sight. Human beings may have brought this on themselves, but nobody deserved what was happening down there.
Enough, he told himself. He had to trust Elise. She’d sent him to find out about the Havens and he would deliver news that would make her head spin.
After that, he and Elise could start over again. It would be like it was in the early days of their relationship, back in India, when they’d had so many long, meandering conversations about nothing at all and everything that mattered. Most of all, they’d be together again, for good. That’s what really mattered.
“She’ll meet you here,” Donald said once they’d entered the observation lounge. “Might be a few minutes.” His broad back disappeared through the door and Remy thought he heard the lock engage as the door closed. He crossed to the door and scanned his badge. The door remained locked.
A flutter of unease swept through him. Remy thought about pounding on the door and making a scene, but what would that accomplish? His security access had probably been deactivated while he was off-station. An admin mistake he’d get corrected as soon as he met with Elise.
It’s fine. It’ll all be fine . She just has to listen .
Through the clutter of orbital traffic, Earth hung in front of him, suspended among the stars. How many times had he stood in this exact spot with Elise by his side? He could almost feel her hand in his .
Egypt passed into view, and he spied the Nile River’s winding brown stain. He tried to discern in the clouds the difference between normal weather patterns and whatever the Neos were doing but failed. It all looked the same to him. He began to pace as he waited.
The planet below passed into darkness. He could see the devastation now. Whole swathes of the globe were blots of solid black where small cities used to be. If people were still there, they’d been reduced to using more primitive forms of light with their infrastructure gone. The remaining cities seemed more intensely lit, as if the population had been concentrated into certain areas. Oddly, the remaining population centers appeared to be concentrated in latitudinal bands, resulting in stripes of brightness in the dark.
The sun appeared on the horizon and still Remy waited. Another dusk-to-dawn cycle was complete before the door opened again.
At last, Elise strode in, her lean frame clad in the same black uniform Donald had worn. Remy met her halfway across the room—his motions frantic and anxious, hers more reserved, resulting in a clumsy tangling of limbs that more resembled a wrestling match than the joyful embrace he’d imagined in his head.
“I missed you,” he said into her ear.
“I missed you too,” she whispered back. Their foreheads touched.
Elise’s lips were what he remembered from the earliest days of their romance, and hope flared in Remy.
We will have that again .
She gave his hand a squeeze, then led him with loose fingers to the bank of windows. “You found out about the Havens?” she asked.
Now that she was here and listening, part of Remy wanted to delay telling her the secret he’d learned. He wanted to draw out the anticipation of her reaction.
“Well?” she asked.
“The Havens are being sealed now,” he said.
A look of frustration flickered across Elise’s face. “We can see that much, Remy,” she chided him. She toyed with the cryptobracelet on her wrist, and Remy’s thoughts flashed to the raid on the Moon facility, where he’d seen her kill two men in cold blood.
“They’re ships, Elise. Not survival silos. The Havens are ships meant for long-term space travel. They have a drive in them that’s faster than anything ever built.”
A light of revelation appeared in her eyes. “Cassandra was right. With that tech we can take over the entire solar system.” Elise took his face in both hands. “You’re sure?”
“Absolutely,” Remy said.
Elise paced in front of the window. “We need to move quickly, Remy. We need to take one of those ships and get that drive for Cassandra. You need to go back. Get onboard, stall for time while we mount an attack.”
“No.” The words came out before he even thought about them. “I can’t. I won’t.”
Elise pressed against him. He could smell her scent and his mind flashed to simpler times.
“But, Remy,” she said. “This is our chance. With this tech Cassandra has everything she needs to—”
“To what?” he interrupted. He saw their reflection in the darkened window. She reached for his hand and he softened his voice. “I came back for you . Not to finish some stupid spy mission. I came back to save you.”
Elise’s laugh mocked his gentle tone. She turned away. “Save me? From what?”
He came up behind her, touching his fingers to the Neo tattoo on her slender nape. “You’ve changed—they’ve changed you. But I have a way for us to be together again. There’s a woman on the Haven who’s figured out how to set you free from this. We can be together again … like it used to be at the beginning.”
Elise spun around, sweeping his hand away. “Like in the beginning? Like when I was an invalid, a little girl who needed to be carried? Is that who you want me to be, someone you can take care of?” Her face clenched in anger.
“No, of course not.” Remy had to take a step back from the intensity of her emotion. But Elise wasn’t entirely wrong. He did want to take care of her, he did want her to need him.
“Why are you here?” she said again. The menace in her voice unnerved Remy.
“It’s an implant, Elise, not a tattoo. This whole Cassandra thing is mind control—”
He stopped when Elise started laughing.
“What?” he said.
Elise moved closer, put her hand on his cheek. “God, I did love you, you know that? You were good for me back then. If it hadn’t been for you, I probably wouldn’t be here today. That’s the truth.” She slapped him gently on the cheek. “But that was a long time ago, Remy, and you have not kept up with me. In fact, you’re an idiot.”
Remy felt his face flush with heat.
“Sorry,” Elise continued, her voice not unkind. The station’s orbit entered another nighttime cycle. “That’s not fair, I know. You mean well.” She motioned the planet below. “But this is bigger than the both of us, bigger than humanity. This is the dawn of a new age, Remy. We’re called the New Earth Order for a reason: to create a new Earth. We’re reshaping a planet to meet the needs of a new age of man.”
“For Cassandra, you mean,” Remy said. “This is some sick power grab.”
To his surprise, Elise laughed again, harder this time. “Cassandra? Cassandra is a tool like the rest of us. Like you, like me. Hell, Remy, Cassandra’s not even real! She’s a machine, an AI programmed to carry out a mission of taking control of the planet and remaking it into a more efficient growing operation.”
“I—I don’t understand. An AI?”
Elise’s beautiful face twisted into a smirk. “No, you don’t. I’m afraid you’re not part of the long-term business plan, Remy.”
From deep inside Remy’s guts, anger flared. Rage, pain. This was not Elise talking, this was that thing inside of her. He gripped her wrists.
“No, Elise, that’s not true—”
A Klaxon sounded. “Intruder alert. The station is under attack.”
Outside in space, a boxy shape that looked like a mining dropship sped past the window. A low-pitched hum like the buzzing of a million bees sounded in his ears.
Elise pitched forward into his arms, unconscious.
Chapter 21
William Graves • USS Dauntless
Graves fidgeted in the command chair, his eyes glued to the viewscreen’s tactical display.
“All MOABs report ready, sir,” Ibekwe said, his voice tight.
“Very well.” Graves’s fingers dug into the armrest of his chair. “Stand by to deploy the Disruptor.”
The suitcase he
’d carried from Haven 6 was plugged into the comms suite. Ibekwe eyed the setup with disdain. Broadcasting their position would make the command ship an instant target for the space station.
“Launch the attack,” Graves ordered.
Somewhere out there, the main engines of the six MOABs were coming to life. The big ships were on course to do a drive-by on the Neo station, deploying the dropships at their closest point of approach. The dropships, using the momentum from the MOAB launch and their own thrusters, would maneuver to connect with the station at predesignated points. Once attached, the combat engineers would spring into action, overriding the airlock or simply cutting into the hull to give the marines access.
A simple plan. The simpler the better. Graves imagined his small force as an army of bees overwhelming a much larger opponent.
“MOABs are on the move, sir.”
“Acknowledged,” Graves said, his mouth dry. “Deploy the Disruptor.”
A burst of buzzing static went out over all frequencies. It lasted for a full ten seconds.
On the tactical display, Graves could make out the tracks of the MOABs converging as they began their approach run. Now was the critical time. They were coming into range of the station’s point defenses, a killing zone for which the converted mining vessels had no defenses other than their thick hulls. Graves imagined the personnel packed into them being pressed back into their seats as their carriers accelerated to the attack.
Ibekwe twisted in his chair. “Sir, sensors are showing increased activity on the station. It looks like they’ve got some sort of automated early warning system.” His screen flashed at him. “Rail gun emplacements are opening up. The MOABs are under attack.”
“Go to external camera on MOAB 1,” Graves said.
The Neo station loomed large on the viewscreen. The image vibrated, the sympathetic shaking of MOAB 1’s camera as it initiated a hard burn. Tiny specks of light streaked past the camera like yellowjackets in space.
“All units report heavy fire from point defense rail guns,” the comms officer reported.
There was a mushroom of color on the screen, quickly extinguished by the vacuum of space .
“MOAB 2 is down, sir,” Ibekwe reported. Another burst of color. “MOAB 4 down.”
Two MOABs gone in the first thirty seconds. Graves tried to keep his stomach stable. “What’s the status of the Haven launch?”
“Haven 2 feed onscreen, sir.”
The view shifted to an overhead of the Mojave Desert. Graves saw the familiar shape of the bluish-white dome and the security perimeter around the structure. If not for the brown landscape surrounding the dome, it could have been his own Haven 6. Even here, in the furnace heat of the desert, people camped outside the structure, hoping for a place inside.
The dome trembled, and a hundred yards inside the security perimeter, the ground crumbled away. The tiny dots surrounding the dome—people, his conscience reminded him—fled the sight. Inch by inch, Haven 2 pushed slowly out of the hole in the ground.
“Sir, you need to see this,” Ibekwe said. He switched the viewscreen to the Dauntless ’s external camera and replayed the last few seconds. Graves watched a bolt of energy lance out from the top of the Neo station and slice through a point in space. A puff of fire flared and was gone.
“That was MOAB 1,” Ibekwe said.
Graves clenched his jaw. “Can that weapon hit a Haven in orbit?”
“Very probably,” Ibekwe said.
“How many MOABs left?”
“Three,” Ibekwe said. “MOAB 5 just deployed her dropships. ”
Graves came to a decision. “Get us as close to those dropships as possible. We’ll cover them going in.”
Ibekwe hesitated. He knew what that order meant. “Aye, sir.”
Graves’s head smacked back into the headrest as the Dauntless executed a hard burn, angling straight toward the source of the enemy fire. “Commence firing rail guns as soon as we’re in range,” Graves said.
Ten seconds later, he felt a steady, rapid thrum beneath his feet.
“Targeting the energy weapon,” Ibekwe said, his voice like ice.
“Onscreen.”
The rail gun projectiles streamed out from the Dauntless , their tracers painting a path to the enemy station.
“Fire-control radar is tracking us, Commander.” The young man at the secondary weapons station was full of adrenaline, and his voice piped out of its register.
“Steady, Franklin,” Ibekwe said. “Launch countermeasures on my mark. Helm, begin evasive maneuvers, pattern omega, on my mark.” He hunched over his console. “Mark!”
The ship slewed hard starboard, pinning Graves against an armrest. A bolt of energy saturated the screen’s filters like a sun exploding. The view cleared, and the Dauntless corrected her course, angling once again for the enemy station.
Ibekwe twisted in his chair. “My guess is they’re using a capacitive source for that weapon, sir. Looks like they need at least ten seconds to recharge after each firing.”
Graves nodded, still reining in his heart rate after they’d nearly been incinerated. As long as he lived, he would never make fun of the navy again .
“The dropships are taking fire from those point-defense cannons, sir!” the young weapons officer called.
“Let’s do what we can to protect them, Commander,” Graves said.
“On it, sir,” Ibekwe said. “Helm, put us between the dropships and that cannon.”
The ship made another hard turn, vectoring toward the nearest dropship. The shoulders of the young woman at the helm were racked with tension as she aimed the vessel straight at the projectiles. The Dauntless stuttered as the incoming rounds found their mark. Graves half expected to see a hole rip through their hull at any second followed by him being sucked into space.
“Return fire, Mr. Franklin,” Ibekwe said, voice steady. “Target those cannons.”
Graves felt the deck under his feet pulse again as the Dauntless returned fire. The bright burst attesting to their gunner’s accuracy made him smile.
“Take us back to the dropships, Commander,” Graves said. The ship slewed again and accelerated.
The squarish outline of one of the remaining MOABs filled the viewscreen. The sight reminded Graves just how desperate their attack was.
Using modified mining equipment to take on an armed space station. The emotional side of his brain wanted to beat the snot out of every UN negotiator who had decided it was a good idea to regulate space-based weapons. The rational part of his brain was thankful for the skill of Ibekwe and his crew.
Enemy fire sprayed across the length of the MOAB hull, and its engine flared and faded. Debris trailed from the ship as it hurtled past the station .
“Looks like we’ve got at least one dropship going for a hard seal, sir,” Ibekwe said. “I’m putting up the external feed from that unit.”
The camera switched to show the greenish tint of the Neo station’s hull. The dropship’s thrusters fired as it approached a maintenance airlock and executed an emergency seal procedure.
Ibekwe spun in his chair. “They made it, sir. It’s up to them now—”
“Commander, we’ve got company,” Franklin reported. He replaced the dropship’s feed with the Dauntless ’s own long-range camera. It showed a square of blinking lights around an opening bay door at the bottom of the station. Long black cylinders began to exit. Once they cleared the station, their engines burned hot. “Looks like … armed drones? I thought they were illegal, sir.”
Ibekwe bent over his console. “Confirmed, General. Drones.”
“How many?” Graves demanded.
“A dozen,” Franklin said. “MOAB 6 has deployed her dropships and is withdrawing. We’ve got five more shuttles aiming for the station.”
All twelve of the enemy drones had begun maneuvering to intercept the attacking shuttles. The station’s point defenses had ceased fire to avoid hitting the Neo drones.
“Can you get me on th
at dropship that’s already docked, Commander?” Graves asked.
“You want to board it, sir?” He left his concerns unspoken.
Graves scowled. “How much time do we have until the Havens are in range of that laser?” he called to Franklin.
“Thirty minutes, sir.” His voice still had not settled into a normal register .
Graves’s gaze swiveled back to Ibekwe. “I’m not doing anything here that you can’t handle, Commander. Maybe I can be useful over there.”
Ibekwe nodded. “Helm, bring us about and position us over the dropship for a touch-and-go.”
• • •
Ming Qinlao • High Earth Orbit
MoSCOW snapped Ming awake when the Roadrunner reached the preset distance from their target.
“I was just about to wake you,” Lander said. MoSCOW reported the statement as a lie.
“He’s afraid of you.”
The voice inside her head was different since she’d slept. Less distant, more like her own thoughts.
She ignored him as she pawed through the supply bin for more fuel, squeezing three more gel packs into her mouth without bothering to taste them.
Ming caught a glimpse of herself in the darkened window. Her hair was plastered to her forehead in a sheen of fever sweat. Her complexion had a grayish hue, and her face was gaunt, ghostlike. MoSCOW’s needle teeth had turned the skin around the eyepatch red and angry. She wiped a crust of dried blood from her nostrils.
He should be afraid. The sight scared even her.
“How long before we get there?” she asked Lander in a raw voice. Before she’d finished the question, MoSCOW answered.
“Three minutes. ”
“’Bout three minutes or so,” Lander replied, his eyes on the panel. “I’ll flip us in another thirty seconds.”
Ming let the gel settle in her stomach, trying not to fidget. Half a minute was like an eternity to MoSCOW. Enough time to consume an entire library or plot a course to Mars.
Cassandra's War: A Sci-Fi Corporate Technothriller (The SynCorp Saga Book 2) Page 19