“Got it.” Her elegant face was slightly puffed in freefall, but she still managed a worried expression. “How likely is that?”
Nigel halted his steady drift by grabbing a carbon strut at the base of a high-mass manipulator. He was looking out at the Speedwell’s drive section, a mushroom hemisphere at the front of the starship with fluted edges that curved backward like a protective umbrella over the forward sphere sections. The outer skin was a smooth blue-green boronsteel, with a sheen that gave it the overall appearance of a beetle’s carapace.
Most of the platform’s robotic systems were folded back into the cylindrical gridwork that encased the vast starship. All of the prefabricated sections from Cressat had been locked into place; the few remaining areas of activity were involved with integrating the spheres to the ship’s power and environmental circuits.
“Only the Primes know,” he said. “But after our failure at Hell’s Gateway I don’t think it’ll be long before they respond.”
“They don’t know where this world is,” Otis said. “They don’t even know it exists; it isn’t on any database in the Commonwealth. Hell, when it comes down to it, Cressat would be tough to find. That gives us a breathing space.”
“I don’t want to evacuate,” Nigel said. “Using this fleet still remains the last option as far as I’m concerned. As of now, I’m prepared to use our weapon to defend the Commonwealth. That’s what I’m here to tell you.”
Otis gave him a tight smile. “Are we using the frigates to launch them?”
“Yes, son, you get to fly combat missions.”
“Thank Christ for that. I thought I was going to wind up sitting this out.”
“Don’t be so gung ho about this. I’m trying to avoid bloodshed.”
“Dad, you’re going to genocide them.”
Nigel closed his eyes. These days he often found himself wishing he believed in God, any god, just some omnipotent entity who’d listen sympathetically to the odd prayer. “I know.”
“The frigates aren’t even approaching readiness,” Giselle said. “And our weapon hasn’t been tested. We’ve only just completed component fabrication.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Nigel said, glad of a solid, practical problem to focus on. “We’re going to have to accelerate our schedule.”
“If you say so, but I don’t see how.”
“Show me what we’ve got so far.”
Frigate assembly bay one was a separate malmetal chamber affixed to the side of the main platform like a small black metal barnacle. Nigel drifted into it through a narrow interlink tube whose bands of electromuscle pulled him along with the ease of a ski lift. His first impression was that he’d emerged into the engine room of some colossal nineteenth-century steamship. It was hot and loud, a metallic clanking reverberating continually through air that was heavy with the smell of burning plastic. Big gantry arms swished across the few open spaces like ancient engine pistons. Smaller robotic manipulators rolled along their tracks, darting out with serpentine agility to peck at some chunk of compact machinery. Circular scarlet hologram signs were flashing everywhere Nigel looked, warning people away from the complex moving parts. At the center of the mechanical commotion the frigate Charybdis was a dark mass of densely packed components. Eventually, it would be a flattened ellipsoid, fifty meters long, encased by an active-stealth composite; but at this point the hull hadn’t been fitted.
“How near are we to completion?” Nigel asked.
“Several days,” Giselle said. “Flight readiness comes quite a while after that.”
“We can’t afford that kind of delay, not now,” Nigel said. He twisted his cuff off a fuseto patch, and drifted in for a closer look. “Where are we with the other three frigate assembly bays?”
“Not as advanced as this one. We haven’t even begun construction in them yet. We were waiting until the bugs are sorted out in number one. Once we’re up and running with all four we’ll be building a frigate every three days.”
Nigel gripped the base of a manipulator track next to one of the holographic circles, peering through the perpetual motion lattice of cybernetics. He could just see the smooth bulge of the crew cabin a third of the way down the naked frigate. Over twenty robotic systems were busy fitting additional elements or connecting up tubes and cables to the ribbed pressure module.
“Hey, you!” a man’s voice yelled. “Are you blind? Stay the hell back from the warning signs.” Mark Vernon slid through one of the scarlet circles five meters away from Nigel as if he were emerging from a pool of red fluid. “It’s goddamn dangerous in here; we haven’t got any of the usual safety cutoffs installed.”
“Ah,” Nigel said. “Thank you for telling me.”
At his side, Giselle was glowering at Mark.
Mark blinked, suddenly recognizing who he was shouting at. “Oh. Right. Er, hi, sir. Giselle.”
Nigel watched the man’s face redden, but there was no apology. He rather respected that; Mark was clearly the boss in this arena. Then his e-butler flipped up Mark’s file, complete with interesting cross-reference. Goddamn! Is there anything in this universe that doesn’t connect back to Mellanie?
“Mark Vernon,” Giselle said in a half growl. “Our assembly bay chief.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mark,” Nigel said.
“Yeah,” Mark said grumpily. “You really have to be careful in here, sir. I wasn’t joking.”
“I understand. So you’re the competent man around here?”
Mark tried to shrug, forgetting he was in freefall. He tightened his grip on an alulithium strut to stop his feet from swinging around. “It’s a hell of a challenge integrating everything in the bay. I enjoy it.”
“Then I apologize, because I’m about to make your life miserable.”
“Er, how?” Mark flicked his gaze to Giselle, who was looking equally perturbed.
“I need a functional frigate in the Wessex system within the next thirty hours.”
Mark gave him a wild smile. “No way. I’m sorry. It’s just not possible.” A hand waved limply toward the exposed shape of the Charybdis. “This is the first one we’ve attempted to build, and we’re encountering a problem every ten minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re superb ships. And once me and the team finalize the assembly sequence then we can fast-track as many as you want, but we’re not there yet. Not by a long way.”
Nigel smiled back uncompromisingly. “Disconnect this assembly bay from the platform. Attach it to one of the completed lifeboat starships, and continue working on the Charybdis while you’re flown to Wessex.”
“Huh?” Even without gravity, Mark’s jaw dropped open in astonishment.
“Is there any technical reason why that cannot be done? Any at all?”
“Er, well, I hadn’t really thought about it. Suppose not. No.”
“Good. I want it attached and ready to leave in one hour. Take whoever you need with you, but get the Charybdis flight-ready.”
“You want me to go with it?”
“You’re the expert.”
“Umm. Right. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Er, can I ask why you want a frigate at Wessex?”
“Because I’m sure that star is going to be right up at the top of the Primes’ list of targets when they invade.”
“Uh huh. I see.”
“Don’t be modest, Mark; you did a terrific job helping people back in Randtown. I’m proud you’re one of my descendents. I know you won’t let us down.” Nigel signaled to Giselle and Otis, then pushed off from the manipulator track and headed back for the interlink tube. “We’ll move the weapons section onto the lifeboat as well. I’d like to meet the project scientists now. Which lifeboat will be easiest?”
“The Searcher has done two test flights already,” Otis said. “Shakedown’s almost complete. It should be the most reliable.”
“The Searcher it is, then.”
Mark clung to the slim strut as he watched Nigel Sheldon slide away down the interlink tube. Sweat was oozi
ng out of every pore on his body and clinging to the skin to produce a horribly cold, sticky film of moisture. “Top of the invasion list,” Mark whispered forlornly. He glanced back at the incomplete frigate. “Oh, hell, not again.”
It was four in the morning Illuminatus time when Paula finally left for the CST station. Everyone in the Greenford Tower had been evaluated by the medical forensic team. Several criminals undergoing wetwiring had been hauled off by the local police. The city hospitals were dealing with casualties from both Greenford and Treetops. A civil engineering team was inspecting the remnants of the Saffron Clinic for structural damage. Forensics was removing all the surviving arrays ready to perform a complete data extraction.
Paula removed her armor suit in the control center, handing it over to the support team who were packing everything away. She put on a force field skeleton suit, then dressed in a long, plain gray skirt and thick white cotton crew-neck top. Her brown leather belt with its embedded silver chain looked decorative; it had even come from her own wardrobe, but Senate Security technical services had reworked it.
“You okay?” Hoshe asked.
“This didn’t quite happen how I was expecting,” she admitted. Her e-butler was running integration checks on the belt and force field skeleton. “Hopefully it’s not over yet. Are we ready for the journey back?”
“Teams are in position, equipment all set up”—he glanced down at the four black cases containing their cage equipment—“and activated.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
They went out into the subbasement garage where the holding areas had been set up. A single pen of wire mesh was left, with twenty guardbots surrounding it, weapons out of their recesses. Two local police officers stood on either side of the gate. There was only one person left inside.
Mellanie waited in the middle of the pen, still in her nurse’s uniform, arms folded huffily across her chest, an incensed expression welded into place.
Paula told the police to open the gate. Mellanie remained resolutely in place.
“I thought we could talk on the way back,” Paula said. Somehow she didn’t have any scruples about setting the girl up. Mellanie, she guessed, had involved herself in a great deal of illicit activity to get into the Saffron Clinic.
“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here?”
“To the second, actually. Why?”
Mellanie glared at her.
“If you prefer, you can stay here,” Hoshe said generously. “The police will process you in due course. They are quite busy after tonight.”
Mellanie let out a dangerous growl. “I can’t access the unisphere.”
“We have blocker systems active down here,” Hoshe said. “They’re quite effective, aren’t they?”
Mellanie switched her stare to Paula. “Where?”
“Where what?” Paula asked.
“You said we’d talk on the way back. Back where?”
“Earth. We have tickets for the next express. First class.”
“Fine. Whatever.” Mellanie stomped out through the open gate. “Where’s the car?”
Hoshe gestured politely to the ramp. “Outside.”
Mellanie flounced in disgust at their incompetence. She headed for the ramp with long impatient strides. Paula and Hoshe exchanged a bemused glance behind her back, and set off after her. Hoshe’s four black cases trundled along behind him.
The ramp came out directly on the street beyond the Greenford Tower’s plaza. Mellanie paused in confusion at the scene outside. Paula and Hoshe stood on either side of her. The remaining reporters flocked toward the nearest section of the barricades, and started shouting questions.
Paula’s virtual vision showed her several heavily encrypted messages arriving in Mellanie’s address port as they emerged from the blocking field. The girl sent two.
Tridelta police still had Allwyn Street sealed off for six blocks around the skyscraper. All the ambulances had departed, leaving the fire department crews and bots to clear up the aftermath of the explosion. The eight cars closest to Renne’s taxi were burnt-out wrecks, shunted across the road to smash into the buildings; a further twenty vehicles were buckled and broken. A big crane was lifting them onto waiting trailers. Civic cleaning bots were washing the blood off the pavement. There had been a lot of people in the open-air bars nearby. GPbots were moving along the facades, sweeping up the piles of broken glass.
“Oh, God,” Mellanie mumbled. She stared at the devastation, then twisted around to look back at the Greenford Tower.
“I told you it was an unsafe environment,” Paula said.
A big police van pulled up beside them. The door slid open, and they climbed in. The cases rolled into the luggage compartment.
“I remember Randtown,” Mellanie said in a quiet voice as the van drove off. “I hoped I’d forgotten, but that just made it all come back. It was awful.”
Paula decided the girl was genuinely upset. “Death on this scale is never easy.”
Hoshe was looking out of the window, his face expressionless.
“Did your people get hurt?” Mellanie asked.
“Some of them, yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“They knew the risks, just like you did. They’ll all be re-lifed.”
“If there’s anything left to be re-lifed into.”
“We’ll make sure there is.”
The police van got them to the CST station in plenty of time before the express was due to depart. A cool breeze blew through the cavernous structure, coming straight off the Logrosan, which ran along the side of the smallest marshaling yard Paula had seen in the Commonwealth. Illuminatus didn’t export any bulk products, it only manufactured small high-technology items. The marshaling yard was set up primarily for receiving food imports; without any arable land on the planet, every meal had to be brought in on the goods trains. She wondered what would happen if the Primes struck here. Or worse, on Piura, the Big15 world to which it was connected. If Illuminatus was cut off from the Commonwealth, it would go bad very quickly for the population of the trapped city.
When she looked along the platform, the other waiting passengers scrupulously avoided eye contact. The station wasn’t exactly busy, but there were more people than usual for this time in the morning. Several families stood huddled together, complete with drowsy children. After the news of the starships, they’d obviously been thinking hard about the consequences of a Prime attack.
Mellanie rubbed at her arms; the cool air was raising goose bumps. “I feel stupid in this,” she muttered. Her nurse’s uniform had short sleeves.
“Here.” Hoshe took off his sweater and held it out to her.
She flashed him a grateful smile. “Thank you.” It was baggy on her, but she stopped shivering.
The express slid silently into the station along its maglev track. They boarded the first-class carriage, where they had a reserved compartment.
“Which Earth station are we going to?” Mellanie asked.
“London,” Hoshe said.
“I thought you were based in Paris.”
Paula gave her an enigmatic smile. “It depends.” She told her e-butler to open one of the pouches in her belt. A Bratation spindlefly dropped out and began to scuttle up the wall. Its gossamer thread extruded behind it as Paula walked along the carriage’s narrow corridor, maintaining the secure connection. The compartment contained thick leather couches on either side of a walnut-veneered table. Mellanie flopped down into one with a hefty sigh, curling her legs up and pulling the sweater down over her knees. She had her face up close to the window, like a child peering into a shop display. Paula and Hoshe sat opposite her. The black cases arranged themselves on either side of the door.
After a couple of minutes, the express eased out of the station and began to pick up speed as it headed for the gateway.
“What happened to the lawyers?” Mellanie asked.
“Bodyloss,” Paula told her. “Our medical forensic teams will try to recov
er their memorycells, but given the damage level it doesn’t look good.” She checked the image she was getting from the spindlefly, which showed her a black and white fish-eye-lens view of the corridor from the ceiling. Her skin tingled as they passed through the pressure curtain. A warm salmon-pink light shone in through the compartment’s window, and the express accelerated hard across Piura’s massive station yard.
“They were the one lead I had back to the Cox,” Mellanie said.
“Yes, me, too.”
Mellanie looked surprised. “You did believe me!”
“I do now. We uncovered a Starflyer agent in my old Paris office. He’d been manipulating information for quite some time. The Cox case was one of them.”
“Did you catch him?”
“No,” Paula said. It was a heavy admission, but she’d talked to Alic Hogan before the paramedics put him under. Treetops had been worse than the Greenford Tower.
“So we still don’t have any proof that the Starflyer exists,” Mellanie said.
“The case against it is building.” Paula’s virtual vision flashed a small square of text. The management routines in the carriage arrays were shutting down all their communications functions. The spindlefly showed her the door that led through to the next first-class carriage being opened. She exchanged a glance with Hoshe, who nodded subtly.
“But not conclusive,” Mellanie said sullenly. “That’s what you’re going to say.”
“No. And we’re running out of time.”
“How do you figure that?”
“The war is not going well for the Commonwealth. Our starships were defeated at Hell’s Gateway.” A girl was walking along the carriage’s corridor toward their compartment. Paula’s heart began to speed up. A tactical grid flipped up into her virtual vision; she prepped several icons for immediate activation.
“Yeah. I guess the rich will be taking off in their lifeboats pretty soon.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 174