Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  They’d have to sort out the prisoners when this was done. For now, Carmen tracked the activity, aiming and firing whenever she saw a leader, watching others die as Kosatka’s defenders hit them from every side and above.

  They didn’t break all at once. Carmen started seeing individuals and small groups who dropped to the ground and huddled there like small children hiding from monsters. Others dropped their weapons and stood still, arms raised in pleading.

  From those small beginnings it spread, like a chemical reaction that raced through a solution. One moment the enemy was still striving to cross Centrum, pushing against the defenders, and the next the invaders were milling about, all direction lost, no longer fighting. A large group that Carmen could see held out a few moments longer. Perhaps they were former professional soldiers from an Old Colony or part of Old Earth. Or maybe places like Apulu were already developing that sort of professional military. But, whoever they were and wherever they’d come from, they could tell when further resistance would mean nothing but certain death. They, too, dropped their weapons and raised their hands to surrender.

  Carmen watched Kosatka’s forces moving into Centrum, collecting weapons and herding the prisoners into groups that were forced to sit with their hands on their heads. “Loren? Is it done here?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, sounding as tired as she felt. “No fighting registering anywhere around Centrum. If anybody got away into surrounding buildings, they’re lying low, and we’ll have to dig them out when daylight comes.”

  “What about Drava?”

  “The same thing seems to be happening there. An attempt to withdraw toward Ani while we cut them to pieces. Getting Ani back is still going to be a struggle, but we hurt these scum bad, Carmen.”

  She held her position a while longer, streaming video to headquarters, but eventually Loren told Carmen that was no longer needed. Getting down off the Torch was unexpectedly difficult, her muscles having stiffened considerably during the time spent lying on the ledge.

  The last flares overhead were fading, being replaced in portions of Centrum by bright lighting as some of the public light poles were turned back on for the first time since the invaders had landed. Carmen walked slowly through lighted patches and back into darkened areas between them, her mind numb with weariness and spent emotion. But she jerked to awareness as she heard the low crack of an energy pulse weapon being fired. The fighting had stopped. Why the hell was someone firing a weapon?

  She headed in the direction of the sound, hearing the crack of a second discharge.

  Carmen finally spotted a group of Kosatka’s forces standing, weapons in hand. A large number of disarmed prisoners were sitting on the ground near them, under guard.

  A major was near the sitting prisoners. Two bodies sprawled not far from him. The major was in the act of pulling a third prisoner to his feet.

  Carmen broke into a run, bringing her rifle up. “Hey! Halt!”

  The major got the prisoner erect and stood back, leveling his pulse rifle toward the prisoner’s head.

  “Stop!” Carmen yelled, wondering why no one else was doing anything.

  The major’s finger was reaching for the trigger when Carmen rested the muzzle of her rifle against the side of his head. “I said stop.”

  “What?” Only the major’s eyes moved, giving Carmen a sidelong look whose icy emptiness chilled her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Carmen kept her rifle muzzle against his head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, sir?”

  “Cleaning house. Eradicating vermin. Go away,” the major said, his voice flat.

  “No,” Carmen said. “Lower your weapon.”

  “I’m ordering you to drop your weapon and get out of here. You’re threatening a superior officer and disobeying orders in a war zone. I could have you shot.”

  Carmen shook her head. “I don’t have to obey an illegal order or stand by and let you commit atrocities. Did I mention that I’m intelligence? This scope has been recording everything you’re saying and doing. It’s already been uploaded, Major. You can either turn yourself in or wait for someone to show up and arrest you.”

  The major hesitated, appearing uncertain.

  Some of the other soldiers nearby finally moved, a lieutenant reaching to gently pry the major’s weapon from his grasp.

  The major stared about him wordlessly, then abruptly sat down, his head buried in his hands.

  The lieutenant looked at Carmen, ashamed and confused. “We didn’t know what to do. He said . . . and . . .”

  “Lieutenant,” Carmen interrupted, “you all knew what you should do.”

  “But they—”

  “We’re not them.”

  The lieutenant nodded, avoiding her gaze.

  Carmen saw some officers running their way and stepped back. As an angry colonel took control of the situation, Carmen turned and walked off.

  So easy. So very easy to stand back, to do nothing. It frightened her to see how quickly some of Kosatka’s people had fallen into that.

  By the time she made it back to the Central Coordination Building another dawn was beginning to paint the sky and Carmen’s mind was a gray fog in which fatigue and shock swirled together. The building felt deserted as Carmen made her way to the basement, past the regions of darkness to the emergency medical station.

  The room was empty except for two pallets that each held a body, sheets pulled up over their faces.

  Trembling, Carmen raised each sheet enough to look on the face of the dead. Neither was Dominic. She staggered back into the hallway, shaking with relief but also confused and too tired to think.

  “Hey,” someone said. Carmen saw a couple of volunteers approaching. “Is there anybody in there?” the one who had already spoken added.

  “Just . . . two dead,” Carmen managed to answer.

  “Two dead.” The volunteers went in, crouching to get identity readings and enter the location of the bodies on their pads. “We’re going to make sure they’re picked up,” the first told Carmen as they left the room. “Was one of them someone . . . ?”

  “No,” Carmen said. “Do you know where they went? Were taken? The wounded in here?”

  “They should have been evacuated to hospitals in the city. Those are all up and working again on backup power.”

  “Thank you.” Carmen leaned back against the hard, cold wall behind her, unable to stay on her feet.

  “Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

  “I just . . . have to rest.” Carmen let her back slide down the wall until her bottom hit the floor. She had a vague sense of dropping to her side, her rifle cradled in her arms, before exhaustion overtook her and she finally slept.

  * * *

  • • •

  Lochan had long since learned that for the most part the freighter Oarai Miho, like most freighters, confined the sounds and vibrations it generated to those of the life support systems. The gentle whisper of the fans circulating air, the soft gurgle of pumps moving liquids here and there, the low hum of a small robotic cleaner passing as it vacuumed up the dust that somehow appeared as if spontaneously generating out of the air. At odd and irregular intervals there’d be louder noises, scrapings and bangs and rattles, often accompanied by the distant echo of obscenities and curses as the crew worked on some piece of equipment.

  But on rare occasions a series of mild jolts would mark the firing of thrusters pitching the ship around to face in a different direction, followed by a deeper, heavier vibration that rolled through the ship as the main propulsion fired to accelerate or slow down the Oarai Miho.

  Lochan lay in his bunk, trying to figure out why that was happening now. If his memory was right, they were still a ways from the next jump point. And in any event, the freighter had been on a vector directly for that jump point, curving across the outer edges of T
antalus Star System from the point they’d arrived at from Kosatka and ending at the jump point for Eire. The Oarai Miho shouldn’t have to maneuver at all before jumping out again.

  He rolled up to a sitting position and tried activating the desk display. Since the lifeboat incident it sometimes wouldn’t come on, obviously blocked on orders from the captain. Other times it did activate, perhaps reflecting a system reset that required someone in the crew to notice that Lochan’s display was once again active and selectively shut it off again.

  This was one of the lucky times. The display came to life, Lochan bringing up the image of the freighter and its path through space.

  Everything looked the same. Why was the main propulsion lit off?

  Had he felt thrusters firing before that? Had that been what woke him up? But in the image this freighter still seemed to be aligned with the same vector it had been using since arrival.

  Lochan scratched his head, puzzled. Maybe if he asked for the projected course, he’d see some indication of why this ship’s main propulsion was lit off.

  The line extending outward from the Oarai Miho, indicating both her path through space and by its length her velocity, still pointed along the same curve. But the length was steadily shortening.

  The freighter was braking velocity. Why? There wasn’t anything around to explain that. Aside from the pieces of the former pirate ship that were still tumbling off into empty space, the only other human objects the display showed were this ship, and far off, back along the same vector, the freighter Bruce Monroe. The Bruce Monroe’s path exactly matched that of the Oarai Miho because the most efficient vector between the two jump points was the most efficient vector. Every ship followed the same one, and every maneuvering system would set the same vector with only tiny variations.

  Lochan sat on his cabin’s bench/bunk, staring perplexedly at the display as the freighter’s main propulsion kept rumbling and the line marking the ship’s velocity got shorter and shorter.

  Eventually, it hit zero.

  The main drive kept going, and the line began growing again.

  In the opposite direction. The same vector, but reversed.

  They were heading back toward the jump point for Kosatka.

  And then, Lochan suspected, if this ship couldn’t turn him and Freya over to the invasion fleet, it would jump for Hesta and deliver the two of them to Scatha there.

  CHAPTER 15

  Lochan leaned back, thinking. Had the captain decided on her own to return to Kosatka? That seemed unlikely given her earlier tirades about having to keep to schedule. More likely the captain had received new orders, perhaps from that agent Freya had warned about. There didn’t appear to be any other plausible explanation for a freighter to break from its scheduled runs and head back to a place where a war was being fought.

  From what he’d last seen, the invaders very likely controlled space around Kosatka. Even if the defenders had somehow triumphed, would they still have the means to intercept an “innocent” freighter passing through Kosatka on its way to Hesta? One way or another, Lochan figured that he and Freya were once more looking at trips to Scatha or Apulu whether they liked it or not.

  He hadn’t thought that he was that important. And certainly so far he hadn’t had much success in getting help for Kosatka. But maybe Scatha, Apulu, and Turan knew something that Lochan didn’t. Maybe their own information from other star systems was that aid for Kosatka was finally likely to come. Or maybe the empire builders were worried that their invasion of Kosatka might provoke a response if someone like Lochan was free to gather support.

  Or, perhaps, this wasn’t about him so much as it was about Freya Morgan. Kosatka was already fighting for its life and freedom. But Catalan, as far as Lochan knew, was as yet untouched by direct aggression. Making sure that Catalan remained isolated and weak might be a priority for Scatha, one well worth extra efforts to keep Freya from reaching Eire and other star systems.

  Now what? What could he and Freya possibly do to get out of this mess? Lochan knew he wasn’t anyone’s idea of an action hero. Freya, on the other hand, clearly had some skills not usually found in trade negotiators. But they were stuck on this ship, in a star system without any permanent human presence. How could the two of them take control of this ship and maintain that control long enough to get to Eire?

  There wasn’t anything else that could change the course of the Oarai Miho. And there wasn’t any way left to escape with the lifeboat having been blown to pieces.

  Where would they escape to? The only other possible refuge was the Bruce Monroe, quite a few million kilometers away behind them.

  Though that would change, Lochan realized as he stared morosely at his desk display. Instead of the distances between the two ships remaining fairly steady as both headed for the jump point for Eire, the two ships would now be getting steadily closer as the other ship kept heading for Eire and this one headed back for Kosatka.

  Down the same vector, in opposite directions.

  They wouldn’t collide, of course. Lochan was no expert on ship maneuvers, but he knew that ships in space always kept some distance between them for safety. The Oarai Miho would ensure that its trajectory was a little off that of the Bruce Monroe. As little as the Oarai Miho could manage, of course, because any deviation from the most economical path between jump points would cost at least a little extra time and money. Also, of course, “little” in space would be at least a few hundred kilometers.

  Too bad he and Freya couldn’t jump ship and . . .

  Could they?

  Lochan frowned at his display, remembering a story that Carmen had told him that she’d been told by Mele Darcy about something that guy Rob Geary had done.

  The Oarai Miho’s main propulsion cut off. The freighter was now settled on its vector back. Lochan did a quick check, hoping no one in the crew would notice what he was checking or guess why.

  The Oarai Miho was projected to pass the Bruce Monroe, the closest the two ships would get, at a distance of two hundred kilometers, plus or minus fifty kilometers.

  Not exactly walking distance.

  But momentum and a long enough lead and jumping off in the right direction might add up to make it all feasible.

  Maybe not all that smart, but feasible. And what other alternatives existed? This idea might work. Or he might know just enough to think up this plan and not know nearly enough to realize that it was impossible. If he was wrong, it’d mean a lonely death.

  Freya Morgan might have more practical knowledge to judge the merits of the plan, but how could he talk to her about this? They were confined to their cabins, and Lochan wasn’t foolish enough to think there was anyone else he could trust to pass notes between them. His choices came down to waiting for her to contact him, hoping she’d come up with something, or plan on his own and go find her when the time was right, regardless of risks.

  Waiting for someone else to fix things usually meant nothing got fixed. Lochan had learned that the hard way before leaving Franklin.

  His pad held some programs that could handle the calculations, ensuring that no one on the ship would spot them. He loaded in the data he had on the paths of the Oarai Miho and the Bruce Monroe, finishing just before his desk display went dead again.

  He thought about two hundred kilometers of empty space. About the infinite cold and infinite nothing he would have to dare to try this.

  Lochan stared at his hands where they rested on the small desk, remembering his frustration at having to leave Kosatka to its fate as the invaders approached. Remembered wishing that he could do something more, could fight like Carmen could. That wasn’t him. It never had been. Where someone like Carmen would instantly act or react, making the moves necessary to save their own life, Lochan knew that he’d hesitate and think and try to figure out the best thing to do. “You shouldn’t feel badly about that,” Carmen had insisted more tha
n once. “There are things that call for acting without thinking, but there are also things where people need to think, then act. Too many of them act without thinking even then. We need people like you who think.”

  He certainly had time to think now. But he had a suspicion that deep down inside he’d already made up his mind. The problem would be figuring out how to do it if Freya wasn’t in a position to help.

  But, as Carmen always said, he was pretty good at figuring out what to do if given the time.

  * * *

  • • •

  Carmen had woken up in the afternoon, feeling as if her entire body was one big bruise. But her mind was clear enough to recall the conversation early that morning so she started walking to the nearest hospital in search of Domi.

  Once there, she felt dirty and unkempt in the sterile corridors of the hospital, her fatigues and her body reeking of too many days without any opportunity to get clean, her hands and face still marked with dirt and smoke, her rifle a deadly contrast to the lifesaving devices around her.

  But there were other soldiers in the hospital, some providing security in case stray enemy soldiers showed up, some visiting injured comrades, and some delivering new wounded. And far too many who’d already been wounded and received treatment.

  “Captain Dominic Desjani,” she asked the information desk, dreading what reply she might receive.

  “Identification,” the desk bot asked in reply.

  Feeling her heart lift at what seemed like a positive response, Carmen tapped her lower arm with the ID chip emplaced in it against the bot sensor.

  “Volunteer Officer Carmen Ochoa,” the bot commented. “Registered next of kin. Access authorized. Floor five, section four, bay nine.”

  Domi was here. He was alive.

  “Thanks,” Carmen said. People still did that with bots, saying thanks to something that didn’t even register the courtesy. She wasn’t sure why they did that. But it didn’t hurt.

  She rode a crowded elevator up alongside a pair of worn-out doctors who seemed to be having trouble staying awake. “Can I get you guys anything?” Carmen asked. “Coffee?”