by TS Hottle
Suicide opened her mouth when a thunderclap sounded outside. It was a sunny day with clear indigo skies. She jumped up as Suri dropped her tea mug.
"That was one of the rail guns."
Retroact: 420 IE
Dasarius Interstellar Regional Office, Shandug, Tian
Cui Ya badgered her daughter into wearing a skirt, heels, and hose to the meeting. This was the most powerful man in the Compact, and possibly the oldest Homo sapiens alive at the moment. They said Tol Germanicus had watched the Twin Towers in New York fall as a boy. Not on a newsfeed. He actually saw the buildings collapse from outside his window.
The legend never really resonated with Yun until now. It happened on Earth, in a country that became a trading bloc after the World Wars, and in a time that made little sense to those native to humans' newer homes. What did the fall of two skyscrapers five centuries before have to do with the lives of children raised on Mars? Or Jefivah? Or Tian?
So, Yun bought a matching skirt and blazer, dug out a blouse Akrad used to like, and borrowed a pair of shoes and hose from her mother. When she dressed, she showed her mother and said, "How do you walk in these?"
Cui Ya cried when she saw her daughter. "You look so beautiful. You're going to be running Dasarius before long."
Yun doubted that. The CEO's position passed from father to son, with the current CEO the daughter of the last one. And Tol Germanicus had founded the company three centuries before, after his business partner invented projection drive. If anyone was a kingmaker, it was Germanicus. He already had a royal line to place on the Compact's only real throne.
The greenish black glass tower resembled an Apollo launch vehicle from Earth's early space exploration. Only this building stood sixteen hundred meters with clouds occasionally obscuring its spire. She approached it with butterflies in her stomach.
Unlike Naval facilities, where the building scanned one upon entrance and determined a person's access with no guard intervention. Yun found herself at a reception desk in the tower's large and gaudy lobby.
"May I help you?" The woman behind the desk was a perky Asiatic woman in her early twenties. With no signs of rejuvenation, Yun guessed she either was an intern or fresh out of college.
"Lieutenant Commander Cui Yun, retired," she said, "here to see Tol Germanicus. I have an appointment."
The girl's eyes lit up. "You're her! You're Suicide!"
Yun felt a sheepish smile form on her lips. "I… er… Yeah, that's my old call sign. These days, I go by Ms. Cui. Or Yun."
The receptionist reached over with a wand and tapped Yun's left wrist. "That pass is good all day. Take the high-bank lift to the five hundred thirtieth floor. Mr. Germanicus is waiting for you."
Yun could not get away fast enough. She hoped no one else recognized her. She did not regret her career or mind being called Suicide these days. The autograph hounds and hand-shakers, however, could overwhelm her. Once inside the lift, she breathed a sigh of relief.
The lift pulled half a G as it rose through the bowels of the giant building. It opened up into a wide room that took up the entire floor, with the elevator banks as the core. The room had no furniture save for a large wooden desk near the windows facing out over Shandug. Even from the lift, she could see the city sprawl below toward the Mongolia Mountains in the distance.
Behind the desk sat a euro man, his hair steel gray, but his face unlined with none of the markers of rejuvenation. It made him look old and young at the same time. Yun strode toward the desk. When she came within five meters of it, the man said, "That's close enough." He held up his hands. "Sorry. I'm a germophobe. Five hundred years, long enough for us to become an interstellar civilization, and I still can't get over that irrational fear." He rose. "Commander Cui?"
Yun bowed her head respectfully. "I am Cui Yun."
Germanicus studied her impassively. He could have been admiring her for less noble purposes or just sizing up the newcomer. Or both. Or neither. He was five hundred years old. His motivations would be inscrutable. "The famous Suicide. I've heard so much about you."
Yun had the distinct impression the man could recite reams of medical knowledge about her just by looking at the nanite swarm in her bloodstream. She felt very small before this man, one whom heads of worlds groveled before. "Heard a lot about you, too."
"Most of it true." He gave her a crooked smile. "Even the bad stuff. Tell me, Commander, have you ever been to Aphrodite?"
She shook her head. "Made a point of avoiding it as a civilian pilot. My Naval service took place mostly on or above Goshen."
The crooked smile widened. "You were impressive on Goshen. Would you like to do the same on Aphrodite?"
Was he trying to push her back into the Navy? "I'm retired from the service, sir."
"I know," said Germanicus. "I have a job for you."
16
Suicide entered Founders' Hall trailing Suri Mongano. The older woman seemed oblivious to the dirt on her blouse and skirt, though she washed her hands before leaving the cottage. No one stopped them on the way in, and several uniformed security types saluted Suri as she passed. The ancient young woman wore a stern expression and marched toward the center of the building on a mission.
A pair of double doors parted for them, admitting them to a ramp. Two levels down, they entered a wide control room not too dissimilar from a starship's CNC. This one, however, would have dwarfed one on a carrier. Or even the Bova.
A tall man who had allowed his hair to go silver turned. "Suri, is there some reason a Compact warship would be target locking every town on the planet?"
"Yes, Thaddeus," she said with none of the warmth she showed Suicide earlier. "His name is Gene Klament, and he's got his hooks into the Compact government now."
"Well, that explains this." He put his hands on a video on a tabletop display and tossed it to the wall.
Jez Salamacis appeared, her face as cold and severe as ever. "This is Jez Salamacis, Chief of Staff for President Leitman…"
"Acting President," Suicide corrected. That earned a faint smile from Suri.
"Thule is in violation of the Compact by illegally seceding and harboring two fugitives," Salamacis continued. "The President will not enforce the secession ban if the government of Thule hands over the fugitives Jayne Best and Cui Yun, both wanted on charges of treason."
"Is that recorded," Suicide asked, "or is she talking to hear herself talk?"
The man named Thaddeus smirked. "Both, I'd say."
"She's a clone," said Suicide. "The original Jez Salamacis disintegrated in a bathroom on the Gelt Throneworld during the last Sovereign's coronation."
Suri grabbed her arm and turned her. "Are you certain of this?"
"I destroyed another clone she had in reserve on Walton."
"Where they had that lab? Where they were trying to carve Jayne into tissue samples?"
"The same. You should see the plants they engineered."
"I can imagine." Suri turned back to Thaddeus. "What's been our response?"
Thaddeus spread his hands. "You probably heard the stealth missile go off. That was a warning shot, same as we fired when the Bova arrived."
"And theirs?"
He gestured to the video of Salamacis, her repeating warning still playing.
Suri rolled her eyes. "Gene, I hope she's as entertaining as she is full of herself." To Thaddeus, she said, "Fire another one?"
"They might see it as an act of war. Or rebellion."
"Whatever's most convenient for the current regime." Suicide thought she would never refer to the highest authority in the Compact as a "regime." The Compact had administrations. That was how democracies and federations worked. Even Bonaparte, which clung to seven royal houses from Earth, referred to each chancellor's time in office as that or as their "government."
"I'd fire another one," said Suri. "Closer to their position than the warning shot. Maybe a stealth device. Let them know Thule is a sovereign world despite what this acting President thi
nks." She turned to Suicide. "How did he get elected president?"
"Remember ibn-Aziz?" said Suicide.
"Yes."
"Got appointed provisional president when the Compact was revised. Elected almost unanimously by the core worlds that signed the revision. Promptly took ill with some mysterious virus."
Suri locked eyes with Thaddeus. "That's got Gene's fingerprints all over it."
Suicide did a double take. "Who?"
"Someday, I will explain it to you." She looked back at Thaddeus. "Well?"
"Stealth round away."
Salamacis's message, which now had become background noise, disappeared, replaced by a tactical display of Thule, its orbital facilities and moons, and the two ships from Sapiens space now in orbit. A red dot, almost a speck, made an arc rising over Thule's surface toward a block of text reading "CNV Anna Khirovsky." The dot, Suicide knew, came from an encrypted transponder on a low frequency, something the Khirovsky would not notice. Unless Naval sensor technology had made a quantum leap in counter-stealth technology, they would not see the projectile until it came within fifty kilometers, far too late for evasive maneuvers in a direct strike.
While the projectile was two hundred kilometers out, a second red dot appeared, originating from the Khirovsky. So, the Compact had made in-roads in counter-stealth technology. When a red speck from one of Thule's orbital facilities appeared and matched course with the Khirovsky's shot, Suicide knew that the isolated world had not been idle, either. Within moments, the two specks met and disappeared.
"Target destroyed," a technician called out. "Fire another?"
Thaddeus shook his head. "Raise the Anna Khirovsky."
Within moments, Jez Salamacis reappeared on the wall, this time live. "Governor Wadesk."
"Premier Wadesk," Thaddeus corrected. "We have reorganized since leaving the Compact."
Salamacis made a face like she smelled something rotten. "Firing on a ship of the line of the Compact Navy is a criminal…"
"You violate our sovereignty." Thaddeus put his hands on his hips. "We withdrew our delegates, and the wormhole collapsed. As I'm sure you realized on your way here that this planet is largely inaccessible to the rest of the galaxy. Effectively, we have seceded." He gave her a tight little smile.
"The Compact only recognizes one legal means of secession. Declining to sign a revision."
"That negates your previous message. Jayne Best is the wife of the governor of Amargosa, and Commander Cui is a Citizen of same. Amargosa is now part of the Metisian Republic, possibly still amicably disputed by Hanar."
"We recognized and respect Metis's decision to secede," said Salamacis. "But we do not recognize yours. Please send Madam Best and Commander Cui to the Khirovsky, and we will be on our way. You have one hour." She vanished, replaced by the graphic of Thule and its surroundings.
"Well," said Thaddeus, "this is awkward."
"Can you defend against them?" asked Suicide.
"We can. In fact, we can bring them down."
She watched the tactical display. The Khirovsky and the Bova were nowhere near each other. "Can stealth projectiles carry a human payload? I mean, is there enough room for minimal life support and a few weapons?"
Thaddeus looked at Suicide like she had just asked where Santa had set up shop on Thule and if he still used reindeer. Then a smile slowly formed. "Very minimal life support. Why?"
"I think I have a way onto the Khirovsky."
"That is absolutely insane!" The man standing at the lip of the missile launcher looked almost as young as JT. Suicide guessed he might have been old enough to have been a Marine when the Corps used torpedoes to do what she was about to do. "Do you know how many Gs that will pull?"
"Five," she said. "If you ratchet back the velocity. A human can stand ten long enough to get into orbit if they are healthy."
"Premier," the technician said, "we can't be seriously considering this. The missile will fall back and burn up."
Thaddeus put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I don't need the missile to hit. I just need the nosecone to get there."
"You are proposing we fire a human into orbit on a rocket." He pointed at Suicide. "No offense, Commander, but you're not like us. You rejuve every five years, and your body doesn't have the resiliency ours does. There is no way she'll survive."
"Yeah," said Suicide. "Pity Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong for returning to Earth as nothing more than bloody pulps. If they only had rejuvenation in 1969."
"She's got a point, you know," said Thaddeus. "If we send her back to the Bova, they'll shoot down the shuttle. We don't have fighter escorts, and the Bova will never get theirs to the surface before the Khirovsky starts firing kinetics."
"They wouldn't," said the technician.
Thaddeus looked up at the sky. "That's not just the Compact up there. If it were, the captain would be speaking to us, and we wouldn't be having this conversation." He held out a hand in Suicide's direction. "And the commander here wouldn't dress up like an orbital skydiver."
The technician blew out his breath. "We hated this when we did it ship-to-ship, you know. One reason I moved here."
"You sure you want to do this, Commander?" Thaddeus asked Suicide.
She studied the missile, then the modified nosecone approaching on the transport. "I'll have maneuverability once up there?"
"And deceleration," said the technician. "But remember, you have to do your deceleration burn in close, possibly in range of their defense cannons. That's why we reloaded the chaff cannisters."
The Khirovsky was a capital ship of the Compact Navy. Chaff would blind her as much as it blinded the ship. "Just get me onto the hull. I know how to hack the airlocks."
"You hope," said Thaddeus. "The Khirovsky's a new boat. They may have upgraded."
"The Bova has similar specs. Some things remain constant across ship designs. And all Navy vessels have emergency entry protocols. The ship will think I'm a maintenance worker trapped outside or with an air leak."
"You've got ten minutes before we get this swapped out," said the technician. "And Premier, I don't really care for this idea."
"Well," said Thaddeus, "when it's your turn to run this planet, you can come up with a different plan."
"Hopefully, by then, we'll have reopened the Pass."
Suicide wondered what he meant by that.
The environmental suit had no protection. It did not even have the normal safeguards of an engineer's suit. Shepard and Gagarin had better protection going up in their tin cans. Gagarin even had a parachute. The O2 came from a portable unit strapped to her front. Unfortunately, that was not Suicide's air supply. That merely pressurized the suit. To complete this stunning ensemble, they gave her a diver's tank and a bubble helmet.
"Best we could do," said Thaddeus, "on such short notice. We don't get a lot of visitors anymore. Besides, I worked on an even more primitive getup working on the first hypergates."
That made Thaddeus at least three hundred years old.
"Pre-grav plate rules apply," he said as she climbed into the nosecone of the missile. "Squeeze your legs during deceleration. Watch out for your chaff. Signal the Bova if you can't get inside."
The O2 tank used a mouthpiece that went partially into Suicide's mouth. She gave a thumbs up in lieu of saying anything.
"Lie on your stomach." He guided her into the coffin-sized space in the nosecone. "The interior will function as a heads-up display, but you'll be blind once you blow the hatch. Use the mags on the boots and the two mag grapplers in the cone. They'll get you along the hull of the ship."
She nodded. She wanted to ask if the Khirovsky had surface drones, the type that could crawl along the skin of the ship and do repairs too dangerous for those in EVA suits. Or fend off idiots like her in glorified scuba gear.
"Ready?" asked Thaddeus.
She gave the thumbs up sign. Thaddeus sealed the nosecone. The missile turned upright. For the next twenty-three minutes, she would envy the first spac
e walkers, whose biggest problems were overinflated pressure suits or getting their tethers tangled. She did what she always did in stressful situations.
She meditated.
The calm lasted until the moment the engines fired.
The missile body fell away twenty minutes later. Her display told her she would overtake the Khirovsky in two. The trip had taken its toll. Her knees hurt from pulling five Gs. Anymore, and she would have had to sit down for the trip. Outside, the skin of the nosecone fell away. Only then did she realize what had happened. The Khirovsky could track the missile and the nosecone shroud. In orbit, with the skin of the nosecone gone, the Compact ship would have to track a radar-dark object that likely would not show up until Suicide released her chaff and fired her thrusters.
At one minute to contact, she pulled a primitive lever that released the cannisters. Two shot off the sides of the capsule and exploded nearby. Clouds of silver metal, probably aluminum or graphite, blossomed out. They would make catching the hull of the ship difficult, but they also blinded the Khirovsky's point cannons as she approached. She'd take the trade-off. Two more cannisters opened with audible pops that sounded through the skin of the capsule. Her graphic of the ship's hull began to fuzz. Still, she twitched the thrusters, really compressed gas cartridges, to bring the capsule even. At thirty seconds, she triggered the inner shroud to jettison.
She keenly felt the vacuum of space, like some oppressive force upon her. She had exposed herself to vacuum once before, but she had planned that knowing her bulkheads would slam shut in seconds. This was different. The chaff swarming around her could open her pressure suit at any moment. While she'd been in vacuum since the missile cleared the upper atmosphere, being out in the void made her aware her suit had expanded like a balloon. It only took a piece of dust going too fast in the other direction to pop her suit and suffocate her.