by Wesley Chu
Grace rolled her eyes. “You really are married to my Time Laws.”
“And we’re bending quite a few, if not outright breaking them. I’m just saying. There’s a lot of questionable variables here. I’m jumping directly into a hot zone. What if someone sees me floating in space? What if someone in the station sees me using my bands and survives? What if—”
Grace raised a hand. “Hush.” Then she ticked her fingers down one at a time. “Four, three, two, one…”
The room turned yellow, and Levin became temporarily disoriented. When he came to, he was treated to a bright and eerie light show in absolute silence. Blossoms of explosions erupted from all sides, leaving behind broken and twisted hulks of metal. Streaks of yellow fire and white-hot beams sliced through the backdrop of black space. A battle was at full pitch, with hundreds of ships on each side buzzing around in an angry and chaotic melee. There were ships of all sizes, small fighters in formation strafing and dogfighting large, older, Hades-class flagships belching choruses of rockets and lasers. There was so much happening that it threatened to overwhelm his senses, and Levin found himself just staring perplexedly at the hauntingly beautiful scene.
“Focus, Auditor. Look for the Bastion.”
“I don’t see it. Did we miscalculate the jump point?”
“I had to jump you just to the fringe of its location. Work your way in carefully. This job will require a bit more finesse, none of that bumbling you’ve given me so far.”
The year was 2301, and this was one of the first of many massive battles waged between the Core Planets of Earth, Mars, and Venus against the newly rich and powerful Outer Rim colonies. Many historians considered this conflict the turning point of humanity’s decline. Their species had stopped exploring and pushing the boundaries of space and turned inward against itself. Levin considered it the nail in the coffin. The Gas Wars of 2377 were just the victors of the Core Conflicts fighting over the spoils.
Levin snapped out of the hypnosis and scanned the area. The battle spanned hundreds of thousands of kilometers, but it seemed the fighting was most intense in an area just below him. Black Core Planets ships battled gray Outer Rim ships like furious hornets around a large circular structure that looked a little too unwieldy for a ship and a bit too small for a space station.
“That must be it,” Levin said, launching himself toward it. He kept his body limp and relaxed, as if he were just another of the thousands of corpses jettisoned out into space. The odds of being seen amid this chaos were slim, but there was still a possibility. The last thing he needed to hear on the chatter was someone seeing a spaceman or an alien flying around without a ship. It took him thirty minutes to reach the station, which was longer than they had anticipated.
The OR Bastion forward outpost of the Kach Corporation was the Outer Rim fleet’s primary objective. Their mission was to escort the Bastion to the sun side of the Main Asteroid Belt—the consensus border between the two factions—into an orbital point synchronous with Mars and provide a base of operations for Outer Rim incursions.
The fighting became thicker and more frantic as Levin closed on the Bastion. While the technology the Core Conflicts used here was more primitive than in the present, the weapons were not very far behind. A direct blast by any of these ships would decimate Levin’s exo. He would need to be careful as he glided in. The antiship batteries of the Bastion were full-on painting the space around him as the Core Planets ships desperately tried to get close enough to land a boarding party. One of these ships would succeed in approximately fourteen minutes. He had to hurry.
Levin landed on the surface of the station. To his left, just a few meters away, a battery swiveled and spit angry beams out at the ships buzzing overhead. Levin had to get away. The gunner in the porthole might notice him, or even more problematic, the battery was probably a prime target for attacking ships. No sooner had he gotten two hundred meters away than an explosion erupted near the battery, shooting fire and debris out into space. It had missed the battery, which was still firing, but if Levin had been any closer, he could have been seriously injured.
He checked his levels: 46 percent. He had jumped farther from the Bastion than they had originally estimated. Space had a funny way with distances sometimes. Levin continued down the body of the station, using the map in his AI band, until he located the impact point that the boarding party would use a few minutes later. This was probably the safest insertion point. He found a portion nearby that was windowed, powered on his exo, and tore into it. As with most stations in this time, the windows were long and narrow. Breaking through the clear steel was easy enough, but it took extra levels to widen the opening enough for his body to fit. He was halfway in when the blast doors came down on top of him, which sucked out another 6 percent of his levels, keeping the doors from crushing him until he could squeeze inside. He rolled into the interior of the station and landed in a kneeling position next to a cabinet, hands and exo ready to engage. He was in a kitchen, which was perfect. No one was eating at a time like this.
Levin got to his feet and dusted himself off. “Grace, I’m in.”
It was surprising how little kitchens had changed over the centuries. To his left were several large sinks. Two rows of ovens were behind them, and there was a large island to his right. He gave a start when a young man lying on the ground just a few meters away picked himself off the ground. He must have fallen down and clung to something when the room decompressed. The two stared at each other.
“Listen, son,” Levin began. “I need you to stay in this room.”
The young man, wearing what looked like a cook’s uniform, looked barely more than eighteen. His eyes widened when he saw Levin and then he booked for the exit. He made it three steps before tripping over a coil. He scrambled back to his feet and ran to the other side of the room.
“You’re wasting time,” Grace’s voice popped into Levin’s head.
“I don’t know if this kid is supposed to live or not,” Levin thought back.
The young cook picked up a lasered butcher knife and held it up.
“Put that down,” Levin warned.
The young man charged.
Resigned, Levin snapped the coil and flicked him against the far wall. The cook slammed into a set of shelves and collapsed to the ground. He didn’t get up. Levin hoped he was fine, but then who knew what was supposed to happen? What if he was supposed to die and somehow now lived because of Levin’s actions? That was the worst kind of ripple. He ground his teeth; he should have refused this job. It felt wrong in every sense.
Levin threw on the paint mod of an Outer Rim soldier and ran into the hallways. Fortunately, the armory was in the next wing over, not far at all. The hallways were packed with soldiers and repair crews. The Bastion kept taking fire. Explosions shook the outpost, knocking people off their feet.
The chaos was advantageous to Levin. He continued unimpeded toward the next section, following the steady stream of soldiers running to and from the armory. He found it ten minutes later, just as the lights of the Bastion dipped for a brief moment. A voice rang across the station warning of a boarding party and ordering security teams to intercept.
Levin was able to slip past a group of scared guards stationed at the armory entrance, most likely cadets, and proceeded to the end of the hall. The first several doors were opened and empty while the next six were closed and locked. He did a quick pass and moved to the far corner.
“I’m at the ammunition dump,” he thought to Grace.
“Good, the priority is the clips and ammo, weapons secondary. Remember, only retrieve items from the back of the upsilon section. Anything outside of that will cause a ripple.”
According to the chron database reports Grace had siphoned from the off-planet feeds for this job, the Core Planets’ missile would strike the section directly on the opposite side of the wall sometime in the next ten minutes. The supplies in the rooms he was in would all be destroyed or blown out into space. This should m
ake it safe for him to salvage.
Levin got to work, opening his netherstore container and tossing in anything within reach. He was able to clear six shelves of ammunition within minutes and had moved on to the next room, where rifles and other handheld weapons were racked against the walls. He activated his coils and began to pluck them from their mounts. The station shook again, and he heard shouting from the hallway.
“I need to hide.”
“No time,” said Grace. “Knock them unconscious and finish up. You need to be out of here in less than two minutes.”
“Defensive positions, you slugs!” someone screamed. “Get those crates in place. Enemy incoming. We will hold this section from the Core Planets assholes at all costs. If one of those shit-breathing commie apes so much as steps foot into my beautiful armory, each of you sad sacks will be cleaning the floors with your tongues. Do you hear me, maggots?”
“Yes, sir!” a chorus of voices followed.
Levin hoped none of those grunts came to the back. He had cleared out three of the rooms and was almost done with the remaining room when he was knocked to all fours. His exo soaked up the majority of the hit, but his back still took some of the burn.
Levin rolled to his right, avoiding two more laser blasts. He shot out a coil and knocked the rifle out of a soldier’s hand. Before the guy could shout out an alarm, Levin wrapped a coil around his neck and pulled, lifting the guy off his feet and crashing him into the ground. Levin squeezed the coil until the man’s face turned red and he passed out.
“We’re cutting it close, auditor,” Grace said. “How much capacity do you have?”
A storm of footsteps was getting louder in the hallway.
Levin checked his readings. “Eighty-three percent.”
“That’s good enough. Pulling you out now.”
The world turned yellow just as half a dozen faces appeared from the hallway. One person raised his rifle and fired. Everything turned black, and Levin found himself floating peacefully in the calm of space. In the distance, among the small blinking specks of stars, he saw the light of the collie approach.
“Not the smoothest operation,” he said, “but I’d say it was our best work yet. I still think we’re cutting it—”
“We have a problem,” Grace barked into head. “I’m picking you up at high speed. Be ready.”
A few minutes later, the Frankenstein streaked by him with the hatch open. Levin had to shoot his exo to try to match velocities with the collie. It was rough going for a few seconds. Eventually, Grace slowed the Frankenstein just enough for Levin to wrap a coil around the opening and climb in.
“What’s going on?” he asked, as he closed the hatch.
Grace’s face looked grim. “That ChronoCom outpost just went on high alert. I’m tapped into their emergency channels. Seems there is a giant ripple shooting through the chronostream right now.”
Levin’s worst fears were realized. A wave of concern and numbness washed over him. He should have listened to his instincts. “What happened? I thought we had the jump scenarios covered so there wouldn’t be any.”
Grace held up a hand as she listened in on the channel. She cursed and berated herself. “Stupid woman, Priestly. It seems the boarding party had taken over the armory. Originally, when the upsilon section was hit, the munitions exploded, taking out a significant number of the Core Planets soldiers boarding the station. When you salvaged all those munitions…”
“… the explosion never happened,” finished Levin grimly. “How bad?”
Grace shook her head. “Enough that there were enough Core Planets soldiers remaining to successfully capture the Bastion. It was repurposed for the Core Planets fleet and used as a launching point to attack the Outer Rim planets.”
Levin was stunned. He sat down and held his head in his hands. In the true history, the OR Bastion was the launching point of every major offensive onto Mars for the first thirty years of the Core Conflicts. The station became synonymous with Outer Rim aggression, and there was no symbol more hated by the Martians. Over a thousand Martians had tried to suicide bomb the outpost over the years, none succeeding until one Esperanza Girard finally destroyed the outpost in 2331. By then, the outcome had become moot. Mars still celebrated Esperanza Day every year as a planetary holiday.
“What have I done?”
“The ripple may not fully reach the present,” Grace said. “Luckily, the Core Conflicts will override the majority of the changes in the chronostream. ChronoCom is already enacting contingency jumps to tweak the time line and mitigate the damage.”
“What have I done?” he moaned again. “I knew this jump was a problem.”
“I will take full responsibility for this…”
“I don’t care who is responsible. This is our fault! We just changed the time line!”
“I erred, and it happens,” Grace snapped, standing her ground. “I’m only able to intercept read access from the chron database up-links to the outer colonies. I can analyze the scenarios, not run simulations. It’s impossible to predict all contingencies, even for someone as brilliant as me. I’m still human, damn it.”
Levin began to tear his bands off his wrists and slam them onto the table one by one. He hadn’t felt so disgusted with himself since his early chronman days. “This is why the agency exists, so half-ass amateur bullshit like what we just did doesn’t happen. Extrapolating one-way reads from the chron database without having it simulated is a surefire way of having more terrible screwups like this happen again.”
“I’ll be more conservative next time,” Grace said coolly. “We’ll keep it to smaller, easier jobs.”
“Next time?” Levin opened his mouth and then realized nothing he said would matter. Grace was set on her course, as were James, Elise, Titus, and all the rest of the Elfreth. They were going to make these jumps with or without him. Somehow. He picked up the nearest object he could find—Grace’s cup of tea—and threw it against the wall of the collie, shattering it.
Something Director Young over at ChronoCom once said echoed in his head. If a corporation was abyss-bent on jumping, they were going to find a way to do it. The only thing the agency could do was take ownership of it and try to mitigate the damage. In this case, Grace and James were going to make these jumps no matter what. The only thing he could do was try to minimize the harm.
“From now on,” he growled, “I’m not jumping unless I decide it’s safe. Understood?”
Without waiting for an answer, he stormed off to the back of the hold. He sat down on the bunk and clutched his head, feeling trapped and morally conflicted. For the first time in many years, the thought of poking a giant in the eye crossed his mind.
TWENTY-NINE
REPRIMANDED
James stayed busy the next week, helping the kitchen staff during the day and taking shifts on the barricade at night. The work was fine for the most part and both Franwil and Elise seem heartened that he had found something to do.
It bothered him that they somehow thought this was the best use of his time. He was a highly-trained operative skilled in many different fields. He had no peer as a scout or a soldier in the All Galaxy, with the possible exception of Levin, and few here outside of Grace, Titus, and Elise were better-educated. Hell, even with his weak technical background, by chronman standards, he was one of the most proficient engineers in the building. But here he was, moving boxes, breaking down crates, loading supplies, and then watching the barricades with a bunch of half-trained guardians.
These chores felt beneath him, as a former chronman and as an elder of the tribe. It was strange to him that he actually cared about his title. It bothered him more that neither Elise nor Franwil had more important jobs requiring his attention. Instead, both stopped by a couple of times during the day and seemed to approve of his working dutifully. Elise gave him a peck on the cheek and told him she was so happy he was back, and that was that. He was left to labor in the stockroom with the rest of the commoners while she went off
to plan the future of the Elfreth.
At the very least, the hard labor helped keep his mind off alcohol, or the lack of it. As each day passed, though, his hands shook and his skin itched more and more. It was slowly driving him mad. By the end of the fourth day, he had made up his mind to take the flyguards to do a maintenance check on the vehicles once the crew had time. The crew and their work on the vehicles was the one responsibility that was still wholly under his control.
For now, James had to stand by and watch helplessly as Elise gave away their stores to more and more refugees fleeing from what everyone called terribly advanced alien invaders. The refugees who had made it this far south didn’t know who these foreigners were, but James had a suspicion of the worst. He had pitched the idea to Elise to let him go north and scout, but it was a request she flatly denied.
James had just dropped off several crates of rations on the thirty-fourth floor and was returning to the storeroom to retrieve more. “Black abyss,” he muttered, staring at the dwindling stacks of containers. When he had first returned from space, their reserves had threatened to overflow the room. Now, it was more empty than full.
The morning lines started before sunrise as crowds of Mist Isle tribes gathered, almost docilely, for their small share of food and medicine. Sometimes, they would offer something in return, but most of the time, it was complete charity. Elise just handed their food and medicine out as if the Elfreth had an endless supply.
He wasn’t the only one unhappy. Eriao had thrown a fit when he found out what she was doing and had made such a ruckus, James had had to pull him aside to calm him down. Eventually, Eriao backed down, but he kept his displeasure on his face every time he watched the refugees.
The war chief of the Elfreth was a good man, but was in a little over his head. The previous chief had died during the attack at the Farming Towers, and Eriao was one of the few surviving senior guardians. A small part of James thought he should have been made the war chief, but he understood why Elise felt the need to promote from within.