“That ship was HERFed.” Dolph dropped our exhaust multiplier to zero with a heavy jolt. “There are Travellers around here somewhere.”
“There,” I said, pointing.
My gesture sketched a targeting box on the AR composite display. The box contained the damaged space station. Now that we were level with its altitude—and dropping lower in order to overhaul it—we could see what had been invisible from above.
Not one, not two, but three fat-assed Traveller ships clinging to the docking trusses on the bottom of the space station, sucking up water and other consumables from their kill.
The thermal inlays on their fuselages glittered in the sunlight from one side and the Corelight from the other, making them look like poisonous insects.
As we gradually overhauled the station, one of the ships undocked from the truss and fell away into the vacuum, firing its boosters to turn to face us. Its whip-like tail curved high over its back.
“Prep anti-HERF measures,” I snapped. It should have been my job, but Dolph had the same defensive controls on his side of the bridge. While he opened the chaff ports and retracted the antennas, I dropped rounds into the St. Clare’s railgun cradle.
“Shall I try talking to them?” Ijiuto said.
That was his job. That’s why we had been ordered to bring him. So that he could buy us time by falsely claiming that we were on the Travellers’ side. It was a good plan, I’ll give Smith that, if you were into warfare by means of deception and sowing confusion.
I wasn’t.
“Nah,” I said. “Got these new rounds I’ve been wanting to try out.” As I spoke, I was powering up the railgun. The lights blinked, dimmed, and the whine of the electrified rails seeped into my head. ”Firing.”
“The seekers?” Dolph said, as a second round rocketed out of the St. Clare’s grinning jaws.
“You got it.” I loosed a third round.
The AI-guided Fleet munitions screamed across the void. We were four hundred klicks from the space station and the Traveller ships. By space battle standards, that’s point blank range. The Traveller ships broke away from the station, maneuvering to put it between them and us. The seeker rounds curved to follow them. The explosions silhouetted the space station for a second, like a small moon partially eclipsing a sudden sun, and then it was blown to pieces by the force of multiple blasts. I had a sudden fear that there may have been someone alive in there, but given the hole in the station’s side, it wasn’t likely.
“Holed the AM containment on at least one of those mothers,” Dolph said.
“Yeah.” I watched the debris shell spread as we dived away from it. “That was … easy.”
“Took ‘em by surprise,” Ijiuto gloated. “Demon-worshipping cretins.”
“Problem is, you can’t take anyone by surprise in space,” I said. “They should have seen us coming a couple of AUs away.”
“Figure they did,” Dolph said. “But they thought we were someone else. Such as their reinforcements.”
“Hmm. That’s not good—” The radar alerted me to two, three, four missiles closing in on us from above and below. “Incoming!” I yelled. “Autonukes!”
“We got nukes too, don’t we?” Dolph said dryly.
“Right.” I dropped one of Smith’s nuclear rounds into the cradle. “But we’re too low.” We were nearly in the atmosphere of Mittel Trevoyvox, angling across a wide gray ocean. The autonukes following us had already begun to sprout fiery re-entry tails. “If I nuke them, it’ll airburst the whole hemisphere.”
“Whereas if they nuke us …”
“Point.” I powered up the railgun again. “On my mark, open the throttle and initiate the exhaust field.”
“Roger.”
“And mark.”
I dropped two nukes. Didn’t fire them off the rails: just dropped them.
Approximately 40 gees smacked us into our couches. I grayed out for an instant. When my vision came back on line, the fireballs from our nukes were still burning, sitting on the blue rim of the horizon like setting stars. Smaller nuclear explosions went off like firecrackers around them. The autonukes had closed in on where we had been a moment ago, and triggered my nukes … while we shot away at Mach 10.
It’s absolutely illegal to use a skip field generator in the atmosphere of a planet. I had never done it before. We whirled all the way around the planet, while Dolph, cursing a blue streak, leaned on the boosters to tamp down our velocity, and lightning cracked in our wake, due to electrical charges generated by the skip field jumping to air and water molecules. Atmospheric turbulence shook the ship like a tin can full of dried peas. At last we slowed down enough to sink into the troubled clouds.
“You guys are nuts!” Ijiuto yelled, with an uncharacteristic spontaneous grin.
“Your taxes at work,” I said. “Dolph, take us down.”
The St. Clare burst through the clouds over New Abilene-Qitalhaut, into thickly falling snow. Although it was broad day, I could not see a damn thing on the ground. The only way we found the spaceport was because nothing else in the city was lit up. We had just EMPed the whole hemisphere. I figured the New Abilene-Qitalhaut grid was hosed. But the spaceport had backup generators. Its lights burned through the snow.
We were coming in on a low-angled ballistic trajectory, instead of the usual burn straight down from orbit. Dolph practically turned the ship at a right angle, stopping her dead above the spaceport before opening up the auxiliaries for a final vertical descent that felt more like a fall.
The impact of landing rattled my teeth in my head. I stayed glued to the radar, assessing what opposition we would face on the ground.
None, was the answer.
There was not a single human ship left at the spaceport. Only the steel witch’s hats of three Ek ships loomed dimly through the snow on the other side of the river.
47
I exited the ship cautiously with Robbie, both of us bundled up in Fleet polar gear: white and beige camouflage parkas, snowpants, and self-heating boots that kept our feet toasty. We carried the rifles we had been given. These were legit special ops assault rifles, known as Butterflies. Their smart stocks could spread like wings to conform to your shoulder, or form self-tripods. Again, I caught myself thinking that Irene would have loved all this new kit.
Robbie fingered his Butterfly uneasily as gunfire spattered through the Stone Age silence outside the spaceport. EMPs don’t damage good old-fashioned guns. “Who’s shooting at who, Cap’n?”
“Christ knows,” I said. “It doesn’t sound too close, anyway.” I glanced in the direction of the perimeter, and was comforted to see the familiar white band of snow apparently suspended in mid-air. The force field perimeter was still up. Hurrah for diesel generators.
The Ur-Ek named Isir Olthamo came to meet us, flanked by Guardians in powered body armor. Guardians are Ek soldiers. They are rarely seen on the ground. I was duly intimidated. If those guys wanted to hurt us, they wouldn’t even need to use their weapons. They could just pick us up and twist us in half. Fortunately, they accepted our credentials as representatives of the Fleet.
Olthamo led us into the passenger terminal, which was spottily lit by emergency lamps. We drank clear soup at the food court. The soup tasted like Eks smell, but at least it was hot. The Guardians lounged around heckling the few remaining human employees. Olthamo explained that xe had summoned the Guardians to clean up the Hurtworlds Authority.
“Burden was a scoundrel. After he left, I uncovered his connection with the Travellers. I then summoned the Guardians to reinforce our orbital defenses, so that he could not return.”
“Good thinking,” I said. “So how’d your space station end up with a hole in it?”
“Unfortunately, our reinforcements were insufficient.”
“I see. Well, those particular Travellers won’t be troubling you anymore. Sorry about the airbursts.”
Olthamo fluttered a middle hand—think nothing of it. It wasn’t xis planet. “We are i
n your debt. It has been most nervewracking to be bottled up at the bottom of this gravity well, knowing that those felons command the heights. We are expecting further reinforcements, but not for another three standard days. Where—if the question is not indelicate—is the rest of your unit?”
“As of now, it’s just us,” I said. “There’s more Fleet ships on the way, but I couldn’t tell you when they’ll get here.”
“Aha.” Olthamo looked dissatisfied, as well he might. “Then who is up there now?”
“No one.”
“In that case, our position is still tenuous.” The roar of a ship launch shook the building. When we could hear each other speak again, Olthamo yelled, “That was one of the Guardian ships you saw outside. The EMP, of course, did not affect their systems. They are thoroughly rad-hardened. They will secure the planet’s orbital space against any further incursions.”
I made approving noises, but I wasn’t entirely reassured. The ironic fact is that Ek ships are rather easily outclassed in orbital combat. They have enormous long-range firepower, but lack maneuverability. It was proved in the human-Ek war that our pilots can fly rings around them. “So who’s shooting? We heard gunfire outside the spaceport.”
“Oh, that is just the locals,” Olthamo said. “An unrelated matter. Justin Kventuras—the Sixer king, yes?—has divorced his queen. This so-called queen was an Ek. An Ur-Ek. A pity. Anyway, their marriage had sealed the peace pact between the Eks and the Sixers. With its dissolution, the peace pact has also dissolved. There they go again,” he added, as another faint crackle of gunfire punctuated the rumble of the generators.
“Divorced?” I said, confused.
“Divorced, left, dumped …” Another twirl of xis blue, beringed middle hands—how should I know, and why should I care?
“OK. Ha, ha. OK.” I pressed my thumbnails to my lower lip. “So which of them got the MTEV headquarters?” And the tanks, I was thinking. And the genetic engineering lab.
“Neither of them. The Travellers bombed the MTEV building from orbit. Didn’t you see?”
“No! … It’s snowing ….”
“An outrageous infringement of the Hurtworlds Accords.”
“Was Justin—the Sixer king—killed?”
“Oh, no. Both parties had already retired from the area, as it was under disputation, owing to the divorce. Kventuras has his new headquarters at the nuclear power plant, on the east bank of the river—”
“Jesus, I hope they flooded the core in time to stop it from melting down,” I said, suddenly realizing that our EMP may have damaged Justin’s fragile nuclear power plant.
Olthamo shrugged. “We Ekschelatans are not seriously affected by gamma rays.”
Justin was at the power plant. If Pippa was alive, she would be with him. I tried to remember how far it was from here. Maybe ten klicks, on the other side of the river.
“And Queen Morshti?” I said.
“Oh, xe’s around here somewhere,” Olthamo said, startling me. “Xe begged for sanctuary, and I agreed. Although it is technically illegal to allow a felon into the spaceport, xe had important battlefield intelligence, which xe refused to reveal unless we let xim in.”
“Battlefield intelligence?” I had not got the impression that Olthamo gave a good goddamn about the hostilities between the local Eks and the Sixers. Why would xe care about their troop dispositions? “Have they got artillery that might endanger the spaceport?”
“You could certainly say that. The guns on that ship are the equivalent of state-of-the-art field artillery.”
“Ship guns? Whose ship?”
“The Travellers, of course,” Olthamo said with a touch of impatience. “One of their ships landed on the ground, outside the spaceport, in contravention of landing regulations. According to Morshti, it is being used as a siege engine against Kventuras’s stronghold.”
Good God. I stood up so fast that the Guardians around us twitched. Robbie hastily rose, too, spilling his untouched soup.
“I would seek to disable the ship,” Olthamo continued, “but it is awkwardly close to that power plant.”
“Thought you lot were immune to gamma rays.”
“Yes, but one would not want to be responsible for ruining the city placed under one’s care.”
“Bit late to worry about that. Anyway, the Fleet thanks you for your consideration for human life. Where can I find Morshti?”
*
The Guardians tracked xim down for me. Xe had been lurking in the service area of the passenger terminal with a few faithful Ek followers. Xe had traded xis royal garb for camouflage, but retained xis mithrik-fur cape, now tatty and snow-stained.
“I remember you,” xe said. If looks could kill I would have been a smoking hole in the ground.
“Morshti,” I said, “can you take us to the power plant? The future of the Cluster might depend on it.” I’d normally try to be a bit more subtle, but I was feeling nauseated again. Maybe it was the Ek soup.
48
Morshti didn’t care about the future of the Cluster, anyway. Xe only cared about the injustice that had been done to xim.
Xe had a tank parked outside the spaceport. I had considered taking off in the St. Clare and shooting the Traveller ship from the air, but there was just too much risk of either hitting the power plant, or hitting the Traveller ship’s containment, triggering an antimatter explosion, and killing everyone in the city. A ground-based strategy seemed like the better option. Olthamo gave us fuel for the tank, and some ammunition. The Ur-Ek was happy for us to tackle the Travellers. It gave xim an excuse not to. Xe really was a bit of a dick.
Dolph stayed with the St. Clare. He didn’t want to, but with MF gone, someone had to stay behind who knew how to fly the ship. “If we don’t come back,” I said, “just run.” We were watering up. H2O glugged into the St. Clare’s tanks. Pumps clattered. Dolph and I stood in the snow between the giant, Ek-operated water tankers. “Save Lucy. That’s all I ask of you.”
“You left out one part,” Dolph said. “Bomb this motherfucker to oblivion. Then run.” He pointed to the graveyard, where Artie rested in peace beneath the snow. “He got a lousy plastic cross for his memorial. You’ll get a nuclear dawn.”
“You wouldn’t.”
He winked. “That’s to make sure you come back.”
“Douche.”
We hugged. He was shivering, despite his Fleet parka. He saluted us with his rifle as we jogged to the gate in the perimeter.
The Ek tank waited outside. Martin, Robbie, Ijiuto, and I piled in along with Morshti and two of xis followers. The interior of the tank felt spacious—to us. All the same, being stuck in a tin can with three Eks is a fairly good approximation of purgatory. I breathed through my mouth, and popped another of Martin’s anti-nausea tablets as we rumbled out into the streets.
“We shall kill the Travellers,” Morshti said. “Then I shall kill the little human bitch. Mine again will be Justin, and everything.”
“No messing with Pippa. She’s ours,” I said.
“Will you take her away?”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“That is acceptable, I suppose, so long as I never have to see her repulsive human face again.”
“But what exactly happened?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I needed a distraction from my stomach. I was hanging onto the edge of the top hatch, standing between Morshti, in the driver’s seat, and the Ek who would act as loader for the tank’s railgun. Martin stood beside me. Robbie and Ijiuto crouched behind us.
“You I blame,” Morshti said. “Brought her here, you did.”
Ijiuto said, “Are we talking about my cousin?”
“Your cousin? By the Law, I detest her.”
“Oh, I do, too,” Ijiuto said. “What’s she done?”
“Fucked my husband, of course,” Morshti said. “‘Oh, Morshti, I’m so grateful to you for letting me stay—’” Xe mimicked a high-pitched human voice. “So humble. Such pretty manners. An
d all the time, behind my back, shamelessly seducing him, she was!”
Martin made a stifled noise and turned away. I punched him lightly, warning him to be quiet before the Eks could notice that he was cracking up. It was no laughing matter. Frankly, I had a hard time picturing it myself. Justin … and Pippa?! But as Morshti proved, stranger relationships had bloomed on Mittel Trevoyvox before now.
Robbie blurted, “So you and the king, you were, y’know, having, uh, living as husband and wife? Doing it?”
Of course he fixated on that.
Morshti shrugged with xis top shoulders. “Over a fling, I would not cast him aside. Where he sticks his male member, I care nothing. But he loves her, and wants to marry her, and therefore he can no longer be married to me. That is what he said.” Morshti craned over the binocular scope which gave xim a view of the street ahead. “He shall pay, and she shall pay,” xe crooned. “It is the Law.”
The tank turned a corner. One of the other Eks popped xis head and shoulders up through the hatch and fired the turret gun. Casings rattled to the floor.
“Where are we?” I said. It made me nervous not to be able to see out.
“About to cross the river,” Morshti said. A moment later the tank’s treads clanked on the bridge.
We drove on for another fifteen minutes. Twice, we heard booms over the loud whine of the tank’s engine. At last Morshti stopped the tank. “Humans out. With me.”
The four of us and Morshti scrambled up through the hatch. We had stopped in a typical New Abilene-Qitalhaut canyon: human buildings on top of mithrik warrens, interspersed with gardens planted on old bomb sites. The other two Eks stayed in the tank. As we retreated into an alley, the tank’s main gun cranked up to a higher elevation and began to fire.
It sounded like the whole city was falling. Shoddy old buildings in the tank’s line of fire crumbled. Rubble and dust spurted into the snow, while we ran, following Morshti. “Shooting at the Traveller ship, we are,” Morshti yelled.
The Traveller ship had been nowhere in sight. The tank may well have been shooting at it … straight through all the houses in the way. Lovely. What kind of ammunition had Olthamo given them? Ek munitions are all standardized; I wouldn’t be surprised if those were explosive shells intended for a ship’s railgun.
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