“Sure.”
“Damnit, I should have seen this. I screwed up completely. If Adam makes his blockade run now, they’ll come out into the biggest concentration of Starflyer firepower on the planet. And we can’t even warn him.”
“You’ll find a way.”
“Don’t say that, don’t just wish that everything will be all right. The Starflyer just secured the only route onto the planet.”
“Johansson will see we’ve dropped out of communication; he’ll know the Starflyer is on its way back.”
“There’s a difference between knowing and being able to do anything about it.” He glanced back at the sturdy stone and concrete edifice of Market Wall. “We might have to attack the Starflyer ourselves when it comes through.”
“But … the planet’s revenge,” she said it in almost reverential tones.
“The planet will be revenged if the Starflyer dies. I need to get our heavy-duty weapons ready. Just in case.”
Like most senior Dynasty members, Campbell Sheldon kept a private residence on Earth. His was on an artificial island, Nitachie, that had been built in the Seychelles several hundred years ago when the natural archipelago was threatened by rising sea levels. The greenhouse effect never did achieve the worst-case scenarios that the more evangelical environmentalists claimed it would. Some of the smallest islands were swamped by exceptional high tides, but the relocation of the population to protected land never happened. Once the worst industrial polluters moved offplanet to the Big15, and the UFN Environment’s Commissioners introduced their onslaught of regulations, the climate began its turnaround toward the benign nineteenth-century ideal that was the goal to which the EcoGreen campaigners had dedicated themselves. The worst damage to the Seychelles in ecological terms was the coral bleaching, which had killed off thousands of reefs. Even that was being countered as new polyp was planted, allowing the magnificent coral to expand again.
From her private hypersonic, Justine could just see the odd glimmer of light that indicated an island. The rest of the sea was pitch-black, there was no moon to shine off the water, and precious little starlight.
They began to decelerate hard, the nose pitching up as the delta-wing plane began its long curve toward the ocean twenty kilometers below. Justine accessed the sensors in the needle nose as they descended. Nitachie was just visible against the dark water, a warm patch against the cooler sea. The island was square, five kilometers to a side; with long breakwaters extending out from the steep concrete walls, where white sand was building into deep curving beaches. Several lights twinkled around the solitary house, set above the northern side. As they swept in close she could see the glowing blue-green patch of a big oval swimming pool.
Red and green strobes were flashing on the landing pad, a metal grid standing a couple of hundred meters offshore. The small hypersonic settled with only the slightest bump.
Two of Justine’s Senate Security bodyguards walked down the air stairs. Only when they gave the all clear did she and Paula step outside. It was warm, even for the middle of the night. Justine breathed in the clean salt air, feeling quite invigorated after the cabin’s air-conditioned purity.
Campbell Sheldon was standing at the side of the pad, flanked by his own security staff, dressed in a white and gold toweling robe. He yawned, trying to cover his mouth with his hand. “Good to see you,” he said, and gave Justine a small kiss on the cheek. “You okay? I accessed the reports from New York before I turned in.”
“I’m fine.” She was amused to see he had threadbare slippers on his feet.
“Sure.” Campbell was giving Paula a curious look. “Investigator. Always a pleasure.”
“Mr. Sheldon.”
“Do you mind if we go back into the hut?” Campbell asked. “I’m not even on Seychelles time yet.”
“That would be nice,” Justine said.
There were a couple of small carts parked on the edge of the landing platform. They drove the small party back along the causeway and up to the house. Architecturally, Campbell’s beach hut was all curving arches and glass bubbles. Even though the larger outside arches appeared to be open, they framed pressure curtains; a subtle air-conditioning cooled the interior, extracting the worst of the humidity. He led them into a big living room full of casual chairs. Justine sank down into soft white leather cushions, and nodded dismissal to the bodyguard team. Campbell’s own security team withdrew. An e-shield came on around the room.
“Okay,” Campbell said, rubbing at his dark blond hair. “You have my full and complete attention. You get shot at by the most lethal assassin in existence, and the first thing you do is come and see me. Why?”
“I came in person to emphasize how important this is to us. We need to know where the Sheldons stand on certain points, and I don’t have time for the usual Senate Hall talking-in-bullshit routine. I’m only a senator by default.”
“A damn good one, I’d say. I access our Dynasty’s political office bulletin.”
“Thanks.”
“So ask away. I’ll answer whatever I can, and if I can’t I’ll tell you. We know each other well enough for that.”
“Very well.” Justine leaned forward slightly. “There’s going to be a vote in the Security Oversight Committee, engineered by Valetta, to dismiss Paula from Senate Security. I need to know which way the Sheldons will vote.”
Campbell gave her a strange look. It was clear the request wasn’t what he was expecting. He glanced at Paula, then back to Justine. “You came here for this?”
“It’s the strategy behind it which is crucial,” Justine said. “And, Campbell, the answer must come from Nigel himself, I don’t want some aide in Jessica’s office to trot out a standard response.”
Campbell gazed at Paula, clearly confused. “I don’t get this. Does the Senator know about Merioneth?”
“No,” Paula said.
Justine turned to the Investigator. She knew she’d just lost a considerable amount of momentum. “What’s Merioneth?” she asked in annoyance. Her e-butler flipped a file up into her virtual vision that told her Merioneth was an Independent world, which had left the Commonwealth over a century ago.
“An old case,” Paula said.
“For which our Dynasty was, and remains, deeply indebted to the Investigator,” Campbell said.
“That’s the problem,” Paula said. “And why I’m here to back up the Senator. I do need to know your current policy toward me.”
Campbell remained silent for a moment, his eyes studying data in his virtual vision. “This is connected with Illuminatus, not the assassination attempt. Right? One of your old team was some kind of infiltrator.”
“Tarlo, yes. But this is connected with the assassination, too, and your Dynasty’s political strategy. The question about my future is the key to that.”
“This is why I chose the development side of CST, not politics,” Campbell said. “The intrigue and backstabbings that you people …” He shuddered.
“Can you get us the answer?” Justine inquired.
“You want me to ask Nigel personally if the Dynasty is trying to fire Paula?”
“Yes please.”
“Right,” he said briskly. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you get. Hang on a moment.” He closed his eyes and sank back in the thick cushions of his own chair.
Justine turned to Paula. “Merioneth?”
“Long story from a long time ago. I took a holiday from the Directorate to finish up a case on the planet after it went Independent.”
“After?” Justine couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” Not for the first time, Justine considered how totally boring her own life was compared to that of the Investigator. Until recently.
Campbell’s eyes opened. There was a bad boy smirk on his face. “Well, that’s me out of favor for a week. I interrupted Nigel while he was, er, busy.”
“What did he say?” Justine asked; it came out un
characteristically needy. She was trying to keep calm, though she saw her hands were trembling.
“The Sheldon Dynasty has every confidence in Investigator Myo, and will be happy for her to carry on her job with Senate Security unhindered. The Senator for Augusta will make that very clear to the Halgarths. We will oppose any removal proposal.”
Justine let out a long breath, almost a sob. Her eyes were watering. She knew it was hormones, and didn’t care that Campbell was seeing her like this. But the relief was incredible. She’d been too frightened to consider what would have happened if Nigel had been in league with the Starflyer.
“Jesus,” Campbell said as he stared at Justine. “What the hell is going on here?” He rose from his seat and took her hand. She sniffed, wiping away some tears.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a bit of a mess right now.”
“This isn’t the gorgeous Justine I remember,” he said softly. “Perhaps you should stay and get some rest, recover from your ordeal. I can’t think of a more relaxing place than Nitachie. There is a spare bed. There’s also my bed.”
She smiled weakly at his playfulness.
“We need to see Nigel Sheldon,” Paula said. “Could you please schedule a meeting with him for myself and the Senator?”
Campbell’s expression was close to indignation at the Investigator’s lack of tact. Justine’s grin broadened. “I’m afraid the Investigator’s right, we do need to see Nigel. It’s very urgent.”
“Very well,” he said with remarkable dignity. “I’ll call him again and—” He broke off, his eyes widening in surprise at the priority data sliding down his virtual vision.
Justine was seeing the same thing. An ultra-secure alert from the navy was flashing up details about hundreds of new alien wormholes opening in Commonwealth star systems.
“Mark!”
“Huh?” Mark snapped his eyes open. He hadn’t been sleeping on the job. No. Just quietly resting while the engineeringbot ran its new program cycle. He blinked some focus into his eyes, and concentrated on the junction between the force field generator and its secondary phase alignment module. The bot’s instrument arms had withdrawn after establishing a seal. “Yeah, looks good. Run the power test.”
“Okay, activating main circuitry now,” Thame said. He was the Charybdis technical officer, another Sheldon, a ninth-generation grandson of Nigel. It had always been difficult for Mark to work out the hierarchy the Sheldons employed. Basically, the lower the number in your connection the more important you were. Or thought you were. Though Mark had to admit, everyone involved in the lifeboat project was certainly competent. It was that little nuance of superiority they had whenever they said their name that irritated him.
A row of red LEDs set into the module’s casing came on, flashing in sequence before steadying to a permanent glow. Corresponding schematics slid across Mark’s virtual vision, complete with green icons. “Okay, we have functionality,” he said. A yawn made him pause for a moment, then he confirmed the engineeringbot’s new sequence, the fifth they’d tried, as valid to the assembly bay’s RI.
Despite every misgiving, transplanting the frigate assembly bay to the Searcher had worked. Locked up inside the mechanical labyrinth, working constantly, he hadn’t even been aware of the flight. Now they were holding station in the Wessex system’s cometary belt, waiting for Mark and his team to complete the Charybdis. None of them had slept for the last twenty-four hours, and most of them had worked their full shift before that.
The engineeringbot slid away from the generator. Mark let himself drift back behind it, watching out for girders and struts. He knew he was starting to make mistakes; his bruised face was only one reminder, result of a simple collision with a gantry junction that should never have happened. Wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t so exhausted. “What’s next?”
“Thermal coupling to the backup quantum fold initiator, portside.”
“On my way.” Mark didn’t have a clue what the initiator was, nor what it did. Frankly he didn’t care. He just concentrated on plugging the damn components into their power and support services. A schematic appeared in his virtual vision, showing him the initiator’s location. He started to crawl over the hull. Two-thirds of the active-stealth covering was now in place around the frigate. Even in its powered-down state it was eerily black, a pool of darkness rather than a surface that was simply nonreflective. The gaps waiting to be filled allowed access to systems that weren’t yet operational and needed human supervision. Bots and manipulator arms were clustered over them, along with technicians from Mark’s team. The Charybdis crew—Otis, Thame, and Luke—had taken up permanent residence in the frigate’s cabin to run diagnostics from there.
As he hauled himself along he passed the weapons scientists. He couldn’t help glancing at them, eleven ordinary-looking people in padded freefall overalls and helmets, floating around the missile. There had been quiet rumors about what the frigates would be armed with back at the assembly platform and down on Gaczyna. Superweapons capable of protecting the fleet from any threat. Mark hadn’t paid a lot of attention, even with Liz hungry for gossip each evening. Since the Searcher left, his team had talked of little else. Every time one of them had drifted by him on their way to another job they’d shared a few words; to his surprise, Mark had even joined in with the speculation, passing on what he’d heard in turn.
The assembly bay didn’t have a mechanism for loading missiles into the frigate. That was supposed to happen in another facility. So the scientists were having to improvise. The missile was strapped to a medium-mass manipulator arm, which was inching it slowly down into the magazine chamber. It looked ordinary enough, a smooth, steel-silver cylinder five meters long, with a thick central bulge. The extremely nervous respect that the scientists treated it with made the hairs along his spine creep. He no longer believed the rumors of mere planetsmashers and warped-quark bullets; whatever they’d built was insanely lethal. You only had to see their faces to know that.
That warhead was going to make genocide possible. Back on Elan when they were running from the aliens he would have happily pressed the button. Now he wasn’t so sure. It was the kind of thing that people like him never, ever, got involved with.
He arrived at the open section of hull his schematic indicated, from which an access interstice led deep inside the guts of the frigate. The initiator sat halfway along the narrow gap, a golden sphere with peculiar green triangles jutting up from it. There was a nest of unconnected thermal conductor filaments wrapped around it, with their manufacturer tags still attached. “Okay,” he told Thame. “I’m here. What have the bots tried so far?”
Oscar’s starship, the Dublin, was orbiting a thousand kilometers above the Finnish world Hanko when the alert came through. It had been a miserable duty so far, five people spending ten days crammed into a single circular cabin. In theory the cabin wasn’t too bad; it was a good eight meters wide, with three meters between the flat bulkheads. Then you took out the partitioned-off sleeping section, and the laughably titled bathroom facility, and the remaining available volume was considerably reduced. In zero gee such a space was a little less cramped, but that was a relative thing. The five flight couches—bulky padded shelves that had plyplastic secured i-pads, built-in human waste management tubes, and fluid food dispensers—were lined up along the rear bulkhead. Once you’d strapped yourself in, while trying not to jam knees and elbows into the person next to you, the couch slid back neatly into the operations segment. Oscar likened it to lying on the tongue of a dinosaur as it pulled you into its mouth.
Once in place inside the operations section, there was a half-meter space between your nose and the matte-black curving control console with its high-rez display portals that filled the gap with projections of the tactical display and ship-status schematics. Oscar’s first officer, Lieutenant Commander Hywel, claimed that coffins were a lot less claustrophobic, although admittedly not as colorful.
Hywel on Oscar’s left, where he mon
itored the sensor feeds, left the other three couches for Teague, the engineering officer; Dervla, who had recently qualified as their FTL drive technician; and Reuben, who had been seconded from the Seattle Project in charge of weapons.
Dervla was in the sleep section, and Hywel was eating his meal of microwaved stroganoff goo out in the main cabin as red icons flashed up in Oscar’s virtual vision. Detector stations down on Hanko and in high orbit had detected seventy-two wormholes opening, forming a loose sphere at three AUs distance from the star.
An adrenaline surge quickly banished Oscar’s lethargy and mild depression. “What the hell are they doing out there?” he demanded. Data from their secure link to Base One through Hanko’s unisphere showed that several Commonwealth worlds were now under a similar pattern of invasion. “Dervla, Hywel, get in here now.”
“Ships coming through,” Teague said. “God, they’re fast. The wormholes aren’t switching location like last time.”
“Right.” Oscar watched the graphics unfolding around him, then concentrated on one wormhole. The Prime ships were coming through nose to tail. Ten in the first minute. It was a quantity duplicated at each of the other seventy-one openings.
“Ships identified as space combat type three,” Teague said. “They’re accelerating at eight gees, broad dispersal pattern. Damnit, we’re never going to intercept those wormholes with our Douvoir missiles.”
“Clever,” Oscar muttered. He watched the graphic showing him Douvoir missiles leaping out of Hanko’s ten orbital defense stations, neon-green lines streaking straight out from the planet, aligned on the Prime wormholes. It was going to take them a good eight minutes to reach their targets. “They’ll just switch locations before impact. Damnit!” His virtual hands were racing over icons and speed-control activators, synchronizing with Reuben as they brought the Dublin up to combat readiness. “What’s the planet status?”
“City force fields powering up,” Teague said. “Combat aerobots launching. We have command of orbital defense stations.”
The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle Page 178