Jupiter's Sword

by Webb, Nick

  Walker swore under her breath. “You think that’s how Thorne found out?” She stopped, swallowed. “Or was this all Tel’rabim? Hell! Was there even a weapons program there to start with?”

  “There was something.” Nhean stared at the printouts. “But … it’s a good question. Who benefits from this? It seems, inarguably, to be Tel’rabim, doesn’t it? Now he gets to be the martyr again, playing up our betrayal to the other Telestines.”

  “We need to figure out what that explosive is. Something that strong, with that much destructive potential, is something we need to know how to harness.”

  Again he appraised her, his gaze frighteningly observant. “The radiation is making cleanup as useless as it is impossible. That means research, too, and you know we don’t have the time to reverse engineer a bomb, start up new mining operations, and then start building weapons. Whatever we find—” He broke off. “Not important. Also, there’s something you should know.”

  Walker raised her eyebrows.

  “The message should arrive by conventional broadcast in a few hours.” Nhean laced his hands behind his back and looked down at the floor. She could see it pained him to admit to the breadth of his capabilities. “And however it may seem at first, it … isn’t good news.”

  Walker looked over to meet Delaney’s eyes. “Tell us. Or—who should be in the room?”

  Nhean hesitated. “You two.”

  Something that felt very much like fear settled in her stomach. Nevertheless, she spoke crisply. “Please wait in the officer’s lounge. I assume I need not warn you about sharing this latest information.”

  There were fierce nods from her officers. They had learned long ago that sharing information got them killed. More than that, however, they knew no one could afford a panic.

  Walker watched them go. Her hands were white-knuckled around the back of the chair as she looked back at Nhean. “All right, tell me.”

  “There was a vote of no confidence in the Secretary General,” Nhean said flatly.

  Walker felt a smile spread over her face before she could stop herself. She remembered his warning, and yet…. “Well, the Old Man had that coming.”

  “Maybe.” Nhean’s voice was tight. “But from how quickly it happened, someone was primed for it.”

  Her smile died. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we got word of the explosion … what, sixteen hours ago? We’ve just started getting actual reporters on the scene, and we’re on Ganymede. Well they didn’t even wait for that. They would have seen the broadcast and the news of the explosion—watched it through a telescope, and they voted within an hour of that.”

  Walked looked away, considering. “They might just have been waiting for an excuse.”

  Nhean’s brows shot up. “That, I hadn’t considered. That’s a possibility. But it doesn’t fix what happened next.”

  Oh, no. “What happened next?”

  “They talked about who might replace him, and….” Nhean looked away.

  “Out with it,” Delaney barked.

  “I don’t know how he was there, or who put his name forward,” Nhean prevaricated. “I will find out, but right now….”

  Walker’s fingers were aching. “Yes?”

  “Essa.”

  Her spine stiffened. “General Declan Essa?”

  “The same. Though no longer General, I believe. Though he still calls himself Jupiter’s Sword.” Nhean’s voice was soft as he named the former leader of the Rebellion, the man Walker had as good as exiled when she wrested control of the fleet from him. They’d built it together from the ground up, but both of them knew there could ever only be one leader. And she won. She had to—he was too … impulsive. Reckless. The nickname he had adopted for himself was fitting: he slashed and cut through both people and plans without pause, without thinking about longterm consequences. “They haven’t voted on it yet, but he seems popular. He’s released a statement—on its way now—and apparently, he’s calling for open war. He’s calling on you to bring the fleet to Mars.”

  Delaney whistled. “Shit’s about to get real.”

  Walker eyed the expanding black bands on Jupiter’s colorful clouds. “Shit’s been real for a while now, I’m afraid.” She flipped the monitor off and her jaw clenched. When she looked up, her smile was grim. “And he’s not Secretary General yet.”

  Chapter Three

  Ganymede

  Perseverance Station

  EFS Intrepid

  Med Bay

  It was well over two hours later that Pike stumbled back into the wing of the station that had been set aside for the Rebellion, and from there, into the docked Intrepid. Some sort of urgent message was blaring over the loudspeakers, but he was having trouble making it out, and in any case, no one seemed to be running or screaming.

  They all seemed resigned to their fate, at least.

  He nodded at the two guards by the med bay, and pushed the door open.

  He stopped in his tracks. The lone bed in this ward was not even rumpled. A cabinet stood ajar, a single change of clothes missing from the top of a stack. As Pike swayed, staring at the bed with a frown, the words of the announcement at last became clear.

  Workers in Docking Bay H, please report to Dock Control for questions about the whereabouts of shuttlecraft Toledo.

  That was when he saw the scrap of paper lying on the sheets. Pike walked to the bed to pick it up, clumsy fingers dropping it once. Had she actually written a note? He’d tried to get her to write, but it was like coaxing a tiny toddler to speak. She just couldn’t seem to transfer the words in her mind to words on a page. Or even, most of the time, to her mouth. The only halting words he’d ever heard come from her mouth was on the Aggy as she put a bullet into Charlie’s head. You … were … not … the only person who lost someone.

  It was a crude picture—looked as if a child had drawn it. A stick figure girl, with a ship near a planet that looked remarkably like Jupiter, and an arrow pointing towards another planet or moon. And below it, the same planet or moon again, with the girl and a ship and an arrow pointing back towards Jupiter. And then a heart.

  The message was crude, but clear: I’m leaving, but I’ll be back. I promise.

  Chapter Four

  Ganymede

  Perseverance Station

  Command Center

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing….” Commander Scott Larsen threw a stack of printouts down on the desk and tipped his head back, eyes closed. “Nothing,” he added. He waved his hands, eyes still closed. He slumped back in his chair. “No one saw the shuttle go, no alarms sounded, nothing on the surveillance. Wherever that shuttlecraft went, it’s gone now.”

  “All right, let’s generate a list of potential targets and draw up a search plan—“

  Larsen shook his head, clearly defeated. The scope of such a search was outside their capacity at the moment, and Walker knew it. She was asking anyway.

  Larsen looked like he’d rather be anywhere than at this table.

  “Admiral—” he began, clearing his throat.

  Voices sounded in the hallway, and Walker looked over with a frown as one of the guards stuck his head around the door.

  “Ma’am, Mr. Pike is here to see you.”

  “Let me in,” Pike’s slurred voice said, annoyed.

  “Let him in.” Walker gestured to him to open the door.

  The guard looked pained. “Ma’am, he’s—”

  “I’m drunk,” Pike called. “He’s very offended by it.”

  Walker and Larsen exchanged a look, and she considered for a moment.

  “It’s important,” Pike called.

  “Better let him in,” Larsen advised. He started studying the printouts again. “Before he starts yelling.”

  “And if he gets argumentative?”

  “Hit him with a chair.”

  “Every day I thank my lucky stars that I have your sage advice to guide me through this.” Walker beckoned at the guard, and winced as Pike walk
ed in. She could smell the alcohol from halfway across the room.

  “I know.” Pike rubbed at his face. “But I thought you should know—about the shuttle, that is.” He swayed slightly and braced himself on the wall.

  Walker felt a stab of misgiving. “What about the shuttle?”

  Pike paused. When he spoke, he looked miserable. “She took it.”

  “Who’s—” Walker broke off. “No. Oh, no. You’re not serious about this. Pike, tell me you’re not serious.”

  “I’m serious.” He looked vaguely horrified.

  “And how did that happen?” She knew her voice was like poison. “Walk me through it, Pike.”

  He paused. “Why’re you angry at me?”

  “As I recall, you were the one who persuaded me that it wouldn’t do any harm to let her out of the Intrepid’s med bay.” She noticed Larsen hunching his shoulders, desperately trying to pretend he wasn’t there. “That went well.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it did.” Pike leaned forward. “Funny how she didn’t escape from the bar, though, isn’t it? Funny how she went back to the Intrepid and into the med bay—your guards are still there, by the way, knocked out and stuffed into a storage closet—and disappeared from in there, huh?”

  Walker stopped dead. “What? How the hell did she get out?”

  “That’s the first thing you say? Not, oh, ‘sorry’?” He gave her a look. “As I recall, you were the one who wanted to keep her in that med bay, working as slave labor, followed by guards.” He spat her own words back at her. “That went well.”

  “Larsen.” Her voice was even. “You’re dismissed.”

  The man didn’t even stop to salute. He was gone like a shot, closing the door behind him, and Walker faced Pike down with fury beating in her blood.

  “And why are you angry at me?” she asked quietly.

  “Did you ever stop to wonder why she left?” Pike stepped closer. His voice was quiet now. She could still see the faint sway in his movements, but there was no cloud behind his eyes. “You think it might have something to do with sacrificing herself for us and coming out of a coma to find herself a prisoner?”

  “What the hell was I supposed to do?” Walker spread her hands. “She’s said, what, ten words in the entire time you’ve known her? She was raised in the Telestine labs, she’s part Telestine, she was made to be a weapon in Tel’rabim’s war. For all I know, she’s supposed to lead a drone uprising!”

  There was a sudden silence. Pike’s face had gone slack with horror, and Walker was opening her mouth to press the point when she felt the anger drain out of her.

  “Good Lord, Pike, what the hell was I supposed to do?” She whispered the question again helplessly. “I am doing the best I can, I trusted her in that fight, but it’s just not that simple anymore. She’s part Telestine. She….” She cast a look at the bio on the table. “What if she’s like Thorne?”

  “Thorne?”

  Of course. No one knew yet but the officers. She almost didn’t want to tell him. She folded her arms and hunched her shoulders. “The drone who blew up Io.”

  “That was a drone?”

  “Yeah.”

  Pike looked away, lost. “Why would he do that? After finally escaping, after seeing what they do to people? Why wouldn’t he be on our side?”

  “He’s a drone. I don’t think … he knew what he was doing.” Walker shrugged. “That’s what Nhean says, anyway. He managed to extract some of the security footage from the last station and from—look, it’s not important. Nhean thinks it was a latent command, embedded somewhere in there, in his head. Waiting for the right time.” She hesitated. “The drone probably didn’t even know it was there.”

  She had meant to reassure him, but he flared up. “So that’s what you think of her, then? You think she has something embedded in there?”

  “Pike—”

  “That’s what you think, isn’t it? So say it.”

  “Yes!” She pushed herself away from the wall to pace. She glared at him. “Okay, yes. I think it’s pretty damned likely, actually.”

  “She hasn’t done anything but help us!”

  “Neither had Sam Thorne! He was flying aid missions, he was repairing outposts, he was saving lives! Pike, do you not get this? It doesn’t matter what she wants to do, it doesn’t matter what kind of person she is, it doesn’t matter if she’s stood up to him before. I don’t think Tel’rabim saw Mercury coming. I don’t think he understands humans all that well. But the more he learns, the better he’s going to be at using his tools, and I don’t think he’s stupid enough to build something like her without putting a failsafe in!”

  “Then why hasn’t he activated it yet?”

  “Pike….” She shook her head. “What do you think just happened? Why do you think she just left?”

  His head dropped into his hands.

  She waited, forcing herself to say nothing.

  “She said she’d come back,” he said finally.

  “She spoke to you?”

  He threw her a furious glance. “She left a note.” He shrugged. “With pictures.”

  “Let me see it.” She held her hand out. When he didn’t move, she sighed. “What do you want from me? Do you want to be the one to go look for her?” Delaney was going to give her hell for this. “Look, I can do that if you want.” Total hell. “I can get you some intel, a ship—you can go find her yourself.” Seriously, Delaney was going to kill her. “If you think she’ll listen to you, if you can honestly tell me that you think she’ll come back with you—” He picked his head up, her voice broke at the look in his eyes. “What?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” His voice was deathly soft. “I never wanted her to be yours.”

  “She’s not … mine.” Walker shook her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I never wanted you to control her. I never should have given Nhean time alone with her, he’s the reason she did what she did on the Telestine flagship!”

  “Pike….” She shook her head. She could not keep having this argument with him. “She did nothing you wouldn’t have done in her place. She did what any of us would do.”

  “Because you filled her head with—delusions of grandeur.” He broke off. “No more. She’s done enough for you. You can win the rest of this war on your own.”

  “Not if she turns against us!” The words were ripped from her. She saw the look in his eyes and she still couldn’t stop. “Pike, she doesn’t want to hurt you. If I could have an army filled with the woman she wants to be, I would. In a heartbeat. She’s smart. She’s fierce. She wants to be human. She’s just….”

  “Not?” His voice was ugly. “Forget it. I’m not helping you find her.”

  “Pike—”

  “You don’t understand! None of you understand!” His hand jerked, and one of the cheap metal chairs went skidding across the room to slam against the wall. “All you see is the fucking rebellion! That’s all my father saw, too, and it got my family killed! Then you dragged me back in, and you went and sacrificed her. When are you going to learn that there’s more to this?”

  “Pike, calm down. This isn’t about the girl. You know that. It’s about your sister. It’s about how you lost Christina.” Walker hoped he’d listen, hoped he’d hear her mute appeal to the childhood secrets they’d shared, and the way those secrets drove them still. The number of people she could count on was already shrinking, dammit.

  It didn’t work.

  “How dare you.” Pike shook his head. “I’m out. I hope you never find her.” He wrenched the door open.

  “Pike!”

  “Oh, and by the way.” He paused at the door, looking over his shoulder. “She saw some drones in the bar. So you’d probably better look into that.”

  The door slammed behind him.

  She clenched her hands, breathing deeply. It took a long moment to steady herself. She walked to the door slowly and opened it, smiling her usual confident smile.

  “Is everything all right, ma�
�am?” The guard looked as if he didn’t know quite what to say.

  “Everything’s fine, thank you.” She could see Larsen leaning against the wall outside the door. Apparently he had wanted to get out of there, but then had second thoughts. Good. She could use him.

  Walker waved him back in. “The situation has changed. We may want to look at Mercury.”

  “What?” Larsen frowned at her.

  “Not everything of theirs was destroyed. The Telestines. That’s classified, by the way. In any case, Pike says the girl took the shuttle. Hell if I know what she’s up to, but Mercury is where you’d find our tech and their tech—Lord only knows if we got everything ground down fine enough. If Tel’rabim has … activated her somehow, she might head there to retrieve his lost ships. And if this is some sentimental thing, Mercury would work for that, too.”

  “If it’s sentimental, maybe it’s Earth.”

  “That could be, too. I’ll alert the patrol routes near there. But in the meantime, go to Mercury, set up surveillance—”

  Larsen nodded, cutting her off with a quick salute. “I’m on it.”

  “Dismissed.”

  He hurried out the door, and for the second time in as many minutes, the guard looked at her with questioning eyes. “Still all right, ma’am?”

  Walker nodded. “If you would get Mr. Tang, please? I need to speak to him. Immediately.”

  Chapter Five

  Ganymede

  Perseverance Station

  Docking Bay 81

  “Mr. Pike.” Parees, Nhean’s ever-present assistant, trailed after Pike as he strode through the humid air of the atrium and slammed his way into one of the hangar bays. Pike nodded at Rychenkov, who was sitting casually on a fuel pod while using two overturned dinged-up cargo bins as a makeshift desk.