by Webb, Nick
Indeed, the bulk of the Telestine forces—three carriers, and two smaller ships—was trying to pull up and turn. The detachment of destroyers she had sent after them were almost in range of the first fleeing ship, accelerating even as their guns came online. One of them winked out of existence and she flinched, but the others continued onward without pause. Where once they might have broken off, they would never do so now. Tel’rabim had raised the stakes, and humanity was answering.
Had he anticipated this when he sent that taunting broadcast from Io? Surely he had known humanity would answer, but had he known they would answer like this? She swallowed and looked away from the battle for the fleeing ships, watching as the destroyers behind her began to fire on the carrier that made for the colony. It began to list to one side, port side engines gone, and then she watched it go dead, tumbling.
“Ion cannons online, burn as much of it as you can—that thin atmosphere won’t take care of much, and we can’t risk it hitting the main colony. McAllister, what’s the word?”
His voice scratched over the comm. “Taking down their destroyers, ma’am. They got some lively guns, but we got some lively ships. Shrapnel, look out, bogey at your six. Borracho, help him out!”
“Shrapnel?”
“Sorry, ma’am. Shrapnel’s a callsign. All under control here. Looks like the other two carriers are about to go down in flames, stand by.”
There was no time even to get a view screen up before the ships began to wink out, and for a moment, Walker felt envious of McAllister and his fighters. They could see everything as it happened—what was that like? They could see the Telestine ships falling over themselves to try to escape. They could watch their victory unfold.
Someday, she would like to see a battle that way.
But today was not that day and, as she had known it would, the comm channel lit up. Sanderson tapped his ear to indicate he was turning on her headset.
She took a deep breath. “Walker.”
“You will meet us on the surface.” Essa didn’t bother with etiquette or pleasantries. “I expect a good explanation for your questionable choices.”
The line cut, and Walker’s hands clenched. She took a moment before looking up to meet Sanderson’s eyes. He was worried; she was not.
If Essa wanted a fight … that was what he was going to get.
Chapter Sixteen
Asteroid Belt
Vesta Station
“Finally here.”
“Finally.” Pike smiled as the hatchway of the Aggy II came down and the familiar corridors of Vesta came into sight. He waved to the miners waiting beyond, and gestured for the crew to begin unloading the crates of food.
The miners did not complain about helping. There were civilians, cargo haulers liked to say, and then there were civilians—those who inhabited the far-flung mining stations were quite a different breed from the ones who crowded the residential stations. Down-to-earth, foul-mouthed, and endlessly practical, the miners of the outer stations had only contempt for those who didn’t do their part to keep humanity alive.
Seeing them offering drinks of water and unasked-for help seemed to confuse the new crew.
“Are they always this friendly?” Katya asked suspiciously.
Pike only smiled and nodded. She would learn in time, if she stayed. The miners’ alliance with the cargo haulers was unspoken, unknown to most, and perhaps unlikely. The miners had a healthy respect for the cargo haulers, seeing trade as one of the three pillars of humanity’s Exodus; the other two, of course, were food and fuel, the latter of which the miners provided.
It had been an easy choice for Rychenkov and Pike, picking a mining outpost for their first run out of the gates. Any cargo hauler worth his salt had a dozen contacts on Vesta, and having heard that the asteroid was awaiting a shipment of food, Rychenkov had offered to bring it. Good place to get back into the game, he’d said. Get a contract that doesn’t come with strings attached.
That last had been said with a tiny head jerk in the direction of Parees. Rychenkov had made his dissatisfaction with their guest clear, but Pike could not bring himself to care too much. Rychenkov’s base state was grumpiness, and Pike had come to suspect that the man was happiest when he was grumbling about something. Parees was an inconvenience, but not a large one, all told. The ship was well-stocked, and big enough for more crew than they had, and Parees himself had decided to stay on Vesta. Why—what he could do on either Carina Station or Vesta—no one knew. He didn’t seem to be in the habit of sharing secrets.
At least he worked. Without prompting or complaint, he’d joined in unloading the cargo, and was handing crates off to Deshawn and Gabriela while Katya haggled with a merchant on the side of the docking bay, waving a broken piece of equipment under his nose.
“I’d missed this place.” Pike leaned back against the edge of the Aggy II’s port and watched the crates being loaded onto a makeshift cart, which was really just a pallet on rickety, reclaimed wheels. Even here—especially here—no one used fuel without a good reason.
“Really?” Rychenkov looked over in genuine interest. “An Earther like you?” He’d made a show of not asking Pike about his childhood before this, but something in his tone said he’d long been curious.
Pike shrugged. Vesta was no place humanity would have called home unless it was forced to do so. Still, he liked it. Situated in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, it was in an ideal location for both trade with the colonies and mining on the nearby asteroids—“nearby” being a relative term—for the fuel to supply the cargo haulers. Vesta was a large asteroid, with a familiar round shape. The colony had been built over time in what Pike found to be an endearing patchwork, stations built around stations in order to accommodate the growing population of miners.
His throat tightened at that thought. As one of the major fuel centers, it was likely to be hit by the Telestine fleet before too long.
Rychenkov didn’t need to be told what was worrying Pike. The man leaned closer to speak quietly. “Word is, they’ve been preparing. They’re scattering, more and more. There’s not as many here anymore.”
He was right. Normally, the hallways were bustling with activity, but this time, there were only a few off-shift miners to help them, and the usual hum of activity was muted.
“At least they have somewhere to go,” Pike murmured. It would be a long time before the Telestines found all of them—the Telestines didn’t seem to understand humanity’s desire to spread out—but then, in the long run, the miners would run out of supplies. Had they been stockpiling?
He realized he’d lost Rychenkov’s attention. The man’s pale blue eyes were focused on the end of the docking bay, where Parees was earnestly bargaining with one of the miners. Rychenkov, for his part, looked grimly amused. “This oughtta be good.”
But as they watched, Parees and the other man shook hands, and the man gestured into the corridors that led to Vesta’s heart. He was clearly giving directions, and seemed eager to have Parees follow them.
Parees stopped to look back before he set off. If he was surprised to see Pike and Rychenkov watching him, he gave no sign of it. He nodded to Rychenkov, and more deeply to Pike, and then he set off without another glance.
“Huh,” Rychenkov said, and Pike thought that about summed it up. “Any chance the boy was a miner in a past life?”
“I suppose.” Pike shook his head. “Nhean never mentioned where he came from. I assumed he was born on Venus, but….” But if he was born on a mining colony, he might well have found it worth bowing and scraping to Nhean in order to stay out of a near-zero-g mine for the rest of his life. It wasn’t out of the question. Pike turned the thought over and over in his head as the miner approached them.
“Joshua Avramson,” he introduced himself. He shook hands with both of them. “I tell you, this shipment is more than welcome. We’ve been running uncomfortably low.”
“Sounds like you haven’t had much lately,” Rychenkov said neut
rally.
“Fishing for another contract?” Avramson laughed. “You don’t need to ask—anything you’ve got, we’ll take. We’ve been out of orbital alignment for long enough that we’d be looking for help even without the troubles, and with them … well, I’ve tried to find contracts and I can’t. If you come back with food, I won’t ask where it came from.” He pressed the credit chip into Rychenkov’s hand. “We’ve got money enough set aside for times like these,” he said meaningfully.
Rychenkov only nodded. “I’ll find you what I can.” It was a promise, Pike knew him well enough for that. Rychenkov might pretend to be a conscienceless bastard, but his personal code wouldn’t allow for leaving miners to starve. The Russian frowned, then nodded his head at the rest of the station. “So why take on another mouth, then?” He nodded in the direction Parees had left.
“Oh, the new one?” Avramson tossed a glance over his shoulder and smiled. “We’ve got a fuel extraction drill we can’t get to work. He says he can do something with it. Says he knew our old mechanic, guy by the name of Thorne. Sam Thorne.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mars
Elysium Planitia City
United Nations Headquarters
Council Chamber
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Delaney’s voice was quiet. He stood tall and unbowed in his dress uniform, but Walker did not think she had ever seen him so worried. He had faced death with more equanimity than this.
She tried to choose her words, but in the end there was only one thing to say: “The Exile Fleet is not commanded by the United Nations.”
“They control the flow of food.”
“And we have the ships to take it if we need.” The words came out before she thought them through, and the sentiment shocked even her. “I will not let him set humanity against itself.”
Delaney hesitated. She could see what it cost him to think of this—of politics—after the battle he had witnessed. He had taken it upon himself to clean up after the fight. He always did things like that. It was just part of his personality to finish the job—he had started out as an engineer in his youth, and he still felt an enormous amount of personal responsibility to get things right, whatever the situation. But there was no mistaking the shock and horror still lingering in his gaze. They had not had time yet for a proper report; all she knew was that ships were gone—the Juno and the Carolina at least. At last he warned quietly, simply: “Then it may be you that bends.”
She wished he hadn’t said that, but there was no more time. The door ahead of them swung upon, and they walked into the corridor that led to the UN council chambers.
Everything on Mars was made, if not for luxury, at least to distinguish itself from the dark metal of the space stations. A truly ostentatious number of windows showed the pale sky above, and the floors, the walls, the limited stretches of ceiling, were all white. It had a surprisingly dizzying effect—there was no way to place oneself within the space. Essa might not have been Secretary General long enough to have planned the effect himself, but he’d probably be looking forward to seeing her thrown off balance.
There was really no way to be ready for this—and that meant Walker would go into this the way she went into everything, with her head down and without looking at the odds of success. She’d survived an awful lot of things she shouldn’t have, and she doubted Essa would pull out a gun and shoot her.
She had to admit it was a possibility, though. He made a good show of being too large for any room, the lone soldier from the old westerns, ready to shoot first and ask questions later, but he had a surprising, quiet streak of both patience and practicality, and she had the sense to fear that more. When the crowds were gone, when no one was looking, that quietness manifested with startling viciousness. “Ugly” did not begin to describe the fight that had led to her control of the fleet. She swallowed hard, and admitted to herself that she was afraid.
The doors of the council chamber opened, and she had to hide a snort of laughter. The setup of the UN chambers was completely ridiculous. She had never met Solokov herself in person when he was Secretary General, and so she had never seen this place. When it was full, the councilors would sit behind the horseshoe curve of the white desk placed a few feet above the white floor, with more and more tiers of white leading up in steps to the Secretary General’s desk.
A desk it might be, but it looked more like a throne. Any reasonable person, Walker thought, would be too embarrassed to sit at that chair, and Delaney’s stunned expression said that he thought the same. Essa, however, sat in it as though it were his divine right, leaning slightly on one elbow.
She inclined her head to him. It was more deferential a gesture than she would have preferred, but she didn’t trust her voice if she spoke—she might easily start laughing. Did he honestly think he could intimidate her by making her look up? After Mercury, that was nothing.
“Admiral.” He pitched his voice to carry throughout the room, warm and genial, and he pushed himself up to come down the steps with a smile, adjusting his cuffs.
Her small smile died. Over the years, her memory of their fight for control had made her think of him as cold and calculating, as vicious as the fight had been. But he had never been like that—or, at least, he had never behaved like that. Essa was a man who smiled. He was your father, your grandfather, dispensing hard-won wisdom with a smile that never wavered. He collected followers with ease.
It was the smile that made all of this so jarring. Everything in you wanted to like Essa.
“I am glad you could come see me privately,” he said, as he drew closer. There seemed to be regret in his voice.
There was a pause, in which she did not look at Delaney.
“Oh?” she said finally.
“Yes, there’s … no need for this to be public.” He let his breath out as he looked down at the floor.
If you did not know Essa, you might think that he was genuinely uncomfortable with the possibility of a confrontation. It had taken her many long years to understand that his outward manner was not an indication of true kindness—and no matter how much she told herself that she knew who he truly was, she always doubted it. He seemed so nice. So fair.
He looked up at her now with a sad smile. “Please understand that I have nothing but admiration for your service in the Exile Fleet.”
Bullshit. Her lips tightened. She kept her voice as level as she could. “But you’d like me to go away now?”
“No, no.” He looked genuinely shocked. “Of course not. You are capable in command, you understand the fleet and the ships, and I am given to understand that many are loyal to you. If you were to leave the fleet, it would be … a loss.” Did she hear the faintest touch of sarcasm in his voice, or was she imagining it? “Please understand that my present concerns do not mean I wish you gone.” He echoed her words back at her incredulously, as if she had brought a tank to a fistfight.
So much for trying to speak plainly. She linked her hands behind her back and waited, brows raised. If he wanted to play it this way, she would simply wait for him to say what he wanted to say. She was not going to play along.
Even in this, he managed to make her look the fool. He tilted his head, waiting for her to speak, and shook his head in consternation when she said nothing.
“I am giving you command of the Cairo,” he suggested.
“The….” She struggled to speak. One of the new additions from Mercury—a fine ship, to be certain, but a scout ship. A tiny frigate made to fade into the background, barely equipped with weapons at all.
And instead of commanding the fleet, she would have a ship that was designed to take her away from it.
“I want to keep your expertise within the fleet,” Essa said earnestly. “It is important to do that.”
“Bullshit.” She spat the word at him. “If you wanted my expertise, you would want me in command, not off scouting.”
“Your knowledge is unsurpassed.” Essa spoke calmly, as if l
ecturing a two-year-old who was having a tantrum. “It is simply your tactics that worry me. That is why I have taken this action.”
“What action?” Now she stared him down. The blood was beating in her ears. “You do not command the Exile Fleet any longer. The UN does not command it.”
“Ah, yes.” Again the flash of regret in his eyes—false, surely, but so very convincing. “The UN has … assumed control of the Exile Fleet.”
“You can’t do that.” She cast a look at Delaney, and back to Essa again. “An organization can’t unilaterally decide it commands another organization. That’s not how it works.”
“The Exile Fleet serves humanity, does it not?” Essa allowed his brow to furrow slightly at her. “As does the UN. For too long, humanity has been served by two organizations, military and political, with different aims. But I have been elected because humanity no longer wants that. It is plain that we are now in alignment with the goal of retaking Earth. There is no longer any reason for the Exile Fleet and the United Nations to be separate. Working in concert, we will be more powerful.”
“You think you represent everyone with that goal?” Walker gave a bark of laughter. “Because I have news for you. Solokoff was in power for so long because there are a lot of people who still think we should knuckle under.”
Essa did not seem at all troubled by this fact. “Their numbers dwindle, and you and I both know that defeating the Telestines is our only true path to survival. In the end, even for those who do not support us, we are doing the only thing we can.”
Had he orchestrated this? Had he led her into the verbal trap of pointing out the opposition so that he could paint her as being on his side? You and I both know….
She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Be that as it may, the Exile Fleet is not under your command.”