Messiah

by S. Andrew Swann

  Mallory turned to Toni Valentine, the de facto captain of the Daedalus and asked, “Any problems getting here?”

  Toni shook her head. “None. Though they seem to have a large refugee problem here. I can see why they refused us docking rights when we first showed up. Downstairs is a mess.”

  Mallory had seen that mess himself on arrival. The first floor of the hotel had been a casino and ballroom. Some time after landings stopped on Bakunin, they had stripped the floor clean and set up hundreds of cots. Now the lobby level was home to about seven hundred people.

  “What exactly is the plan here?” Karl asked.

  “We’re trying to negotiate a unified defense. A common command to fight Adam.”

  “You think you can manage that?” Karl asked. “I think you have better chances against Adam.”

  The Caliphate man behind him said, “Once they know what we fight, they will join together. They have no choice.”

  God willing, Mallory thought.

  Four hours later, Mallory stood in front of the bathroom mirror to get ready for the first meeting with representatives from the other fleets. He barely recognized the man staring back at him. In the stark light his hair looked more white than gray, and every crease in his face seemed deeper. Staring into his own eyes, he saw something stark and frightening—looking into the eyes of a prophet or a madman.

  Or a man on the third day of an adrenaline high...

  He cut himself twice shaving with a shaking hand, but the wounds barely bled. Even without the stubble, the face looking back at him was not one he expected the other representatives to listen to.

  I’ve done what I can.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Father Mallory?” Toni’s voice.

  “Yes?”

  “We just received word from the Daedalus. We have a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “Stefan.”

  Stefan? He remembered Stefan railing at him when he first tried to build a consensus to fight this thing. “Even if everything you say about this Adam is accurate, which I have a hard time swallowing, what the fuck does it have to do with us?”

  He opened the door and asked, “What about Stefan?”

  “He’s gone missing.”

  Mallory looked over at the boy’s father. The man looked sunken, his face blank as if he wasn’t quite hearing their conversation. “What happened?”

  “He escorted the bays with Shane and Abbas to a hospital in the Beta habitat, he never returned, and the Wisconsin folks don’t know where he is.”

  Karl spoke up, “Did you say they took the medbays?”

  “Yes. I didn’t even know they were mobile.”

  Karl shook his head and sank into one of the seats.

  “Mr. Stavros ...” Mallory trailed off. Instinct made him reach out, and he almost formed words of reassurance, that his son would be found. But before any words of comfort reached his lips, the more secular part of his mind realized that Karl was not disturbed for his son’s safety.

  Under his breath, Karl said, “Bastard.”

  Toni turned to face Karl and asked, “What is it?”

  Karl chuckled and shook his head. “I outsmarted myself, my young pirate.”

  “What?”

  “Me and my son were never quite as helpless as we made ourselves out to be. There are many things on board the Daedalus that don’t appear in the logs or the control systems.”

  “Like what?” Mallory asked.

  “Weapons, for one thing,” Karl said.

  “What? You had a cache of weapons on board and you didn’t . . .” Toni trailed off as if she couldn’t think of an adequate way to finish the sentence.

  “We could have taken the ship back. But after arriving on Bakunin, our interests seemed to mostly parallel yours. Killing you and your sister might have gained us control of the ship, but we would have end up undermanned and less defensible.”

  Toni placed a hand on her face and muttered, “Shit.”

  The man from the Caliphate stepped up and grabbed Karl’s shoulder. “You joined this battle, and you did not release these weapons?”

  Karl laughed weakly, “You plan to fight Adam with laser carbines and slugthrowers? I would have handed them over if there had been a point.” He looked up at Mallory. “But my sin is being old and paranoid. Though, apparently not paranoid enough.”

  “Why did you ask about the medbays?” Mallory asked.

  “An ancient smuggling tool,” Karl said. “Misdirection. Throw a critically wounded crewman on top, scream for aid, and not many people will examine too deeply what is beneath.”

  “The medbays?” Toni asked.

  “They have enough hidden storage, shielded from easy scanning, to hide a small arsenal.”

  The Caliphate man shook Karl. “What is your son planning to do?”

  Mallory took the man’s shoulders and pulled him away from Karl as Karl said, “I honestly don’t know.”

  Above the Alpha habitat, the mirrors tilted away from Kropotkin, plunging the habitat into night. Stefan stood at the base of one of the main service elevators wearing the navy-blue jumpsuit of Wisconsin security. The suit’s original owner and the driver of Stefan’s flatbed transport were safely beyond revival, the bodies locked in one of the medbays.

  The medbays and weapons waited for him, stored in a facility closet servicing one of the redundant power systems of the Wisconsin, a place that should be free of any prying eyes unless the power systems suffered a major failure.

  Stefan unshouldered his laser carbine, bequeathed to him by his uniform’s late owner. The driver had been right; security forces were largely absent from this habitat—but the place was awash with refugees. Even the parking area around the elevator was crowded with people sleeping on the ground, and sitting in small groups.

  A few people shouted questions at him, as if he was in charge. He ignored them and walked from the elevator.

  The people they let roam free weren’t of interest. These were the people that weren’t a threat.

  According to the last few statements of his uniform’s prior owner, the refugees who were of concern to Wisconsin security were in a secured warehouse building a few hundred meters from this elevator. Those were the people Stefan wanted.

  He walked off in that direction as the reflected stars came out above him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Trials

  “Shared interests do not imply shared priorities.”

  —The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

  “I am prepared to fight in any way the ruling class may make it necessary . . .”

  —EUGENE V. DEBS

  (1855-1926)

  Date: 2526.8.5 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725

  Hurry up and wait, Kugara thought as she watched Kropotkin rise above Wilson. They had been groundside for six days, and they hadn’t even made it past the first city.

  Not that she wanted to fault Parvi for trying to do right by the civilians, but the universe was falling apart around them, and every minute they sat on their hands was a minute closer to hearing Adam’s ultimatum, a minute closer to the sky boiling, a minute closer to Bakunin following Salmagundi and Khamsin . . .

  She looked up at the lightening sky and wondered if Adam had set foot on Dakota yet. It had been part of the wormhole network, one of the “core” planets orbiting Tau Ceti along with Haven, the capital planet of the Fifteen Worlds.

  She was beginning to understand some of Nickolai’s fatalism.

  We’re all doomed, she thought. Now, it’s just a matter of sorting out the details.

  She looked down. She stood on the upper level of a plain concrete structure that had once served as a garage. It rose about twelve stories above an outflung neighborhood that had mostly burned to the ground. It made her feel exposed, standing on top of a massive block in the middle of several square kilometers of rubble, even with the white flags telling any hostiles that it was a POW camp.

  Kugara wondered, since the PSDC was at t
he point of openly trying to conquer the planet, if they’d advanced past any niceties like not targeting their own people.

  At least their party wasn’t technically POWs. They weren’t locked behind impromptu steel cages like the two-dozen mercenaries occupying the first two levels. The Wilson militia had boarded them in the upper levels, and were pretty generous with their facilities: cots, hot water, a couple of decent meals, and a change of clothes for everyone except Nickolai, who didn’t need any and would be impossible to fit if he did.

  They were free to roam about, though doing so without an escort was problematic, since beyond a fifty-meter perimeter, the wreckage surrounding them was peppered with land mines and autonomous hunter-killer drones waiting for the wrong person to cross their path.

  So, despite being “guests,” they were as trapped as the prisoners here.

  “At least the civilians are safe,” she whispered. Safe as anyone else on the planet.

  “Kugara?”

  She turned around and saw Nickolai standing on the roof behind her. The dawn light carved bloody highlights on his golden fur, revealing nearly every muscle in his torso.

  “What are you doing up here?” he asked.

  “I came up for the view,” she said. “I feel cramped down there.” She felt a strong sense of deja vú as she asked, “Why are you up here?”

  “Same reason.”

  The memory came, as if it was from an aeon ago, the two of them huddled together in the Eclipse’s observation port, staring at the stars. “We’re still alone, aren’t we?”

  He walked up next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “No, we aren’t.”

  She sighed and leaned up against him. His fur was warm in the chill morning air. For a few moments she just listened to him breathe.

  They faced east, toward the sunrise, and over the horizon, the Diderot Mountains. “Do you think,” she asked, “that there is something to be found out there?”

  “Some salvation left by the Dolbrians?” He shook his head and emitted a small inhuman snarl. “Reason tells me that this is a hopeless errand.”

  She nodded. They were on the mother of all wild goose chases, whose only redeeming feature was the fact that it wasn’t any more futile than attacking Adam. At least she got to choose how she faced the end, and who she faced it with.

  That sounds like something Nickolai would say, she thought. He was becoming a bad influence on her.

  In his chest, she heard a grumble that sounded like a tentative, “But.”

  She looked up at his face, still staring at the eastern horizon. “But what?” she asked.

  “I have lived through much stranger things.”

  Nickolai, am I hearing hope in your voice? Maybe she was a bad influence on him. She looked at his feline profile, and his expression was distant and regal, compounded by the solid black of his eyes, which gave a depth to his expression, as if he stared over the horizon, or through centuries. If his people made statues of their saints, he would be an excellent model.

  His brows creased, and his hand tightened on her shoulder.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “The PSDC,” he whispered.

  “They’ve been flying sorties since we got here.”

  A minimal shake of his head. “Not a lone attack craft. I see thirty aircraft incoming. Half are troop transports.”

  “Oh, shit.” Those numbers meant an all-out push to the sea. Some other city must have fallen, freeing the resources to go after Wilson. So much for getting the civilians to safety. “I don’t hear the alarms.”

  “Give them a moment. They just cleared the horizon.”

  Somewhere, in the city in front of them, a siren began blaring. Then another, and another, until the resonance of multiple high-pitched klaxons made her teeth ache and left an empty spot in her chest.

  “Fifty now,” Nickolai said.

  Parvi was not happy with Kugara’s news, or the implications.

  “Even if I agree with you,” Parvi had to nearly shout at her over the still blaring sirens. “What about the civilians?” Her voice echoed slightly off the concrete walls around them. The word civilian, by now, didn’t include Brody, Dörner, and Flynn, who stood by Kugara and Parvi dressed in the surplused khaki jumpsuits that their Wilson hosts had given them.

  “We have to trust that the PSDC won’t arbitrarily target a POW facility,” Kugara argued, unsure if she thought she was in the right, or just could no longer bear standing still in the midst of chaos.

  “Trust?” Parvi said.

  “Which is exactly what we’re doing if we sit tight here,” Kugara said.

  Parvi shook her head.

  “She has a point,” Brody said, massaging the cast on his arm. “We came down here for a reason.”

  “I know that,” Parvi snapped. “But we can’t just walk out of here through a minefield—where the hell is Nickolai?”

  Parvi looked around the empty floor where they had been housed, as if Nickolai might have been hiding in a corner somewhere. Not that there was anyplace to hide, it was just one large ferrocrete floor dotted with cots and temporary folding chairs and tables. Even the impromptu toilet facilities were only private by dint of a flimsy screen.

  Silence fell across the room, and Parvi narrowed her eyes at Kugara. “Where is he?”

  “He’s getting us a guide.”

  “What?” Parvi glared at her. Kugara’s—and Nickolai’s— actions were insubordinate if not outright mutinous, but she didn’t want to directly challenge Parvi’s nominal command of their mission. It was hard enough to convince Nickolai that in this instance it would be better to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

  “We knew we were running out of time,” she told Parvi, “and that without a guide we’d be trapped here. Nickolai had to act before the Wilson militia evacuated themselves.”

  “I see . . .”

  “That was our next step,” Kugara asked. “Right, Captain?”

  The glance Parvi gave to Flynn and the scientists was subtle, but Kugara noticed. She didn’t know what had happened to their commander, but this Parvi was a different woman than the mercenary hard-ass that had hired her and Nickolai. Something like doubt had crept in and dulled her command. Ever since it became apparent they had landed in the midst of a shooting war, Kugara had watched Parvi become more and more tentative.

  In a situation like this, that was frightening.

  Fortunately, even though they both knew Kugara had overstepped her authority, Parvi decided to accept Kugara’s belated acknowledgment of her command. “Don’t take such decisions upon yourself in the future.” She turned to the other three and said, “We’re going to have to move, stay with us—”

  She was interrupted by someone shouting, “Get your hands off me, you furry freak.”

  Everyone turned to see Nickolai pushing one of the Wilson militia guards ahead of him. He carried the man’s weapon, and the caseless shotgun looked like a toy in his hands. He held the gun butt-first toward Kugara and said to the man, “You’re going to lead us out of here.”

  “Are you crazy, don’t you hear the sirens? The PSDC will start strafing in a couple of minutes.”

  “It isn’t an air raid,” Kugara said. “It’s a full-scale invasion.”

  “What?”

  “The PSDC is going to take this city,” Nickolai said. “We want to leave before that happens.”

  “You don’t need to point that at me,” the militia guard told her as they walked single file toward the bombed-out perimeter.

  “Just concentrate on where we’re going,” Kugara told him.

  “Uh-huh.” He looked up at the sky. Motion was now visible past the Wilson skyline, small specks of aircraft visible in the gaps between buildings. The sirens had stopped, leaving a disturbing stillness to the air. The edge of the safe perimeter was marked by a spray of glowing orange paint that traced a line across dirt and rubble alike.

  Their guide stood on the safe side of the line and said,
“You’d all be safer back in the building. The PSDC shouldn’t attack it, we’re keeping—”

  “We know,” Kugara said.

  “If they do take the city—”

  He was interrupted by the sound of roaring aircraft that shot by above them so low that Kugara could have counted rivets. The fighters banked around the skyline, headed toward the PSDC invaders. When the echoes died down enough for him to be heard, he continued, “If they take the city, that building will be the safest place in town.”

  “Look, we have other concerns than the PSDC. Or our safety, for that matter. Start moving.”

  He studied the rubble ahead of them, and after taking a few deep breaths, took a couple of steps over the orange warning line. He called back, “The safe corridor is only a few meters wide, so stay close behind me.” He pointed to a burned-out shell of a building about a hundred meters away. “We’re headed there.”

  She followed him, with Parvi behind her, followed by Flynn, Dörner, Brody, and Nickolai bringing up the rear. Their guide led them through a series of ninety-degree turns past piles of twisted metal and broken ferrocrete. The whole area smelled of a fire not long dead, something still smoldering and toxic.

  More aircraft rocketed past above them, and as the wind shifted, they started hearing pops and rumbles from the east. The noises were muffled by distance, but clearly the engagement had begun. There was a whole city between them and the battle, but Kugara was afraid it wouldn’t be enough.

  It only took a few moments before that fear was realized.

  A painful whine cut though the air above them, and she heard Nickolai yell, “Incoming!”

  Kugara dived for the ground, tackling their guide under her. She glanced up and saw a twisting contrail tipped with a spiraling out-of-control missile. It seemed headed straight for her. She shoved her face into the small of their guide’s back and covered her head with her arms as an explosion ripped the air. The sound was like a spike though her skull and she felt the impact in the thrum of the ground beneath her. A burning wind scorched the hair on her neck, and dirt and gravel peppered her back, burning where it touched exposed skin.