Jupiter's Sword

by Webb, Nick

  “Then we find another way,” Essa said gruffly. “There’s always a better way.”

  “D’you have one now?” God help her, but she wanted him to. She had never wanted so badly to be wrong. She wanted Essa to tell her that he had a way to defy the odds, save everyone.

  No matter that the odds were stacked against them, that the Telestines would be the ones to destroy humans lives—no matter that she had to sacrifice some of them to save the rest, she knew she would live the remainder of her life with a guilt that nothing could wash away.

  But Essa did not speak.

  Her heart sank, and she bowed her head. Of course, he didn’t have another plan. There was no other plan.

  “So we protect what we can,” Essa said at last, harshly. “That is your proposal, yes? Limit what attacks we will respond to.”

  “Yes.” There was nothing more to say. “A list has been drawn up. I will send it to you when I rejoin the fleet.”

  “Ah, yes. When you rejoin the fleet.” He pretended to recall that, as if he had not called her on the Koh Rong. “And where did you flit off to, Admiral?”

  She hesitated before replying. Her urge was to tell him nothing—for she knew full well that she had built her case against him, so many years ago, with incidents just like this. Where was he when you needed him? What are his priorities?

  And yet, she had never expected him to agree that some settlements must be sacrificed. If she answered his question honestly, not cagily, perhaps it would serve as an olive branch of sorts. It would be better for everyone if they truly were allies for the coming fight, after all—not just pretending.

  “Vesta,” she said finally. “Trying to forge an alliance with the Daughters of Ascension. They could put pressure on Tel'rabim within Telestine society.”

  Essa’s brows rose. She knew this wasn’t his normal way of thinking. He preferred to attack a problem from the front, directly, strength of arms against strength of arms.

  “And you think that could work?” he asked finally.

  “I think that we aren’t all dead right now.” She raised her eyebrows right back. “And I think the smart thing to do would have been for them to kill us outright. Now, after so much time, it could be easy for them to realize that there’s no good way for this to continue. But it could also be easy to persuade them to do nothing—to keep things the way they are. Ka'sagra—the head priestess of the Daughters of Ascension—has consolidated the aid groups. By the sheer size of the operation she’s running, she must have some clout. If she would only speak on our behalf….”

  “On behalf of the fleet trying to take back Earth?” The derision in his voice was unmistakable.

  She didn’t rise to that. “You know what I mean. They wouldn’t be able to offer us food and supplies unless there was support for it in Telestine society. There are clearly those who think genocide is wrong. Thankfully for us. Though….” Her voice trailed off.

  “Though what?” His heavy brows had drawn together.

  The memory came in a flash. New Beginnings station, mugs of tepid coffee on a rickety table. The station was always, always too hot, Walker’s hair escaping its bun in wild curls and even Essa’s thick grey hair curling a little in the heat. The first refuge of the Exile Fleet had been in a constant state of breakdown, the air stale, the pipes leaking, the airlocks rusted in place. It was a death trap, but it was there that Walker had found, for the first time, a group of people who might fight with her. It was there, for the first time, that she had tasted something other than despair.

  And it had been Essa who sat late over dinner with her as she argued passionately for them to turn from defense to offense. He’d argued against her, helping her hone her tactics. It had been two years before that difference in belief turned sour.

  “Walker.” His voice called her back.

  “Something’s coming,” she said quietly.

  “What?” He was alert at once.

  “I don’t know, I don’t … it’s not that we have intelligence. It’s just something wrong in the pattern. We’re in a lull and there’s no reason for it. Tel'rabim hit our shipyards at Mercury, and what’s really happened since then?”

  “Io. Mars. Ceres.” Essa sounded impatient. “And that ridiculous feint attack on Mercury that Larsen keeps making reports about.”

  “Distractions,” she shot back. “We won them far too easily. They’re a set-up.”

  “For what, Walker?”

  “I don’t know!” She looked away. Her jaw clenched. “But it’s something. I know that.”

  And he started to laugh.

  “The one thing I didn’t miss in my exile on Vesta was you. You, and your theories.” Finally, his smile was poisonous. “You always thought you were so clever. But you’re no genius, Walker. The thing they were setting up already happened a few hours ago. A terrorist took out Denver with a bomb. So here’s a question: what’s Tel’rabim going to do with that attack? Do you think you can figure it out, when you didn’t even have the first idea of what was coming?”

  A red light flashed on her console. An urgent message from Dr. Sargent.

  Found something. Call me immediately.

  Essa continued. “Well, Admiral? Have I stunned you into silence? It’s a bloody miracle, ladies and g—”

  “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Secretary General, something has come up that requires my immediate attention. I’ll see you soon.”

  She cut the line before he had a chance to scoff or protest, and immediately initiated a connection with Sargent. She checked the distance. Good—a time lag of only a few seconds. FTL comm wouldn’t be needed.

  His face appeared on her screen. “Are you sitting down?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Saturn system

  Titan

  Bollard Station

  Bollard Station in orbit of Titan was a miserable place. On approach, it gleamed dully with distant sunlight, more a blot against the barred and ringed planet behind it than anything. It looked like a toy, a child’s plaything abandoned far out into space—a reminder that humans were never made to be out here. The idea that such a place could sustain life was pure folly.

  Parees might, at any other time, have welcomed it. To avoid being tracked, Nhean had booked him passage on a cargo freighter. It was fully loaded on the trip out, leaving him with about enough space to stand up in and little else, and by the end of the journey, he was about ready to claw his skin off from sheer boredom.

  But he regretted his relative freedom the moment he stepped off the ship. The place stank of chemicals and death. He would have taken a dozen cramped journeys like the one that brought him here, just to avoid it.

  He helped them unload the crates—it seemed he was always doing that these days—and made his way into the processing station. What the purpose of the inspection was, he could not say. He would think they could hardly afford to be picky. The station barely scraped by, making a living by refining chemicals on the planet, and so the people who came here were those with little other options—and their children, hungry and feral-eyed. Aside from drones, Ringers—the denizens of Saturn’s stations—were the most widely mocked across the human diaspora. Uncultured, reclusive, and with a dialect that was nearly impenetrable to outsiders, they seemed to embrace the stereotype.

  “Purpose of your visit?” the woman behind the desk asked, as if this were some sort of vacation. A twisting scar on the right side of her face forced her expression into a perpetual look of suspicion. Parees could see a few isolated scars separated from the rest. Acid burn, most likely. The refineries were notoriously dangerous.

  Parees took a moment to pick the meaning out of the slurred mess of syllables. “Came to find a job in the refineries.”

  The woman gave a snort. “You’re gonna work in that? And where’s your gear?”

  “I didn’t know I needed gear.”

  “Everyone needs gear. It look to you like we have some big warehouse full of coveralls for you to pick?” She shook
her head. “Go home, Rocker.”

  Parees scrambled for something to say. “I don’t have money for the trip back.”

  “Not my problem.” She shoved his ID papers back at him. “Get lost, kid, the refineries would kill you.”

  Just because you were too stupid to survive there doesn’t mean I would be. But he bit the words back.

  “Look, please—just let me talk to the rep from the Daughters of Ascension. They might have the money for me to get passage back, right?” He didn’t need to feign fear. He had the money for the trip back, of course, but the idea of what would happen to him if he didn’t was truly scary. That was how you became a slave, locked on one cargo ship for the rest of your life, working off a debt of a few credits, starving by slow inches. Parees leaned forward, his eyes wide and desperate. “Please,” he repeated.

  She tried to stay strong, but she broke easily. She knew as well as he did that sending him back was a death sentence, and if someone was motivated to come to Saturn, well … it was clear that they were desperate. “Fine.” Her voice was rough. “But I’m taking you to talk to them, and no wandering into the refineries. You think what they’ll do to you on the cargo ships is bad? Try falling into a vat of acid when there’s no doctor to help you. I spent five weeks begging them to kill me.”

  Parees swallowed hard. “I won’t go to the refineries.” It was an easy promise to make.

  “Eh, maybe you got some sense after all.” She lifted a shoulder. “But you ain’t got gear, unless you can get the Daughters to buy you some. Maybe they will. Come on.” She pushed herself up heavily and limped to the doorway. A buzz of the keycard and she waved Parees through. “Why’d you come here, anyway?” Her voice was curious. “I don’t see a record for you. Who comes out to live with the Ringers unless they got the law on ‘em?”

  “Long story,” Parees murmured.

  “Aren’t they all? You might as well tell me. Come on, tell Old Marisa. I won’t tell anyone else.” Her eyes gleamed.

  “My dad’s crazy,” Parees said shortly. “Well … my mom’s husband.” He’d come up with any number of stories in his pacing aboard the cargo ship. It didn’t really matter which he used.

  Marisa gave a snort. “Ain’t it always the way? How’d he find out?”

  “Ah….” Parees hadn’t thought of this part. “I looked kinda like him, so he didn’t think anything of it. I look a lot more like the guy she made it with, though—and one day we saw him. Couldn’t be more obvious.”

  “And it was just you he wanted gone, huh?” Marisa gave him a look that had a surprising amount of genuine pity. “Kept your mom, threw out the bastard?”

  “I said crazy. My mom’s dead.”

  Marisa shut up.

  Finally.

  The Daughters of Ascension occupied a whole wing of the station, albeit a small one. Marisa knocked, and, when there was no answer, used her keycard to get the door open. She looked around the tiny antechamber with a sigh.

  “Must’ve been another accident at the refineries. They go to read last rites. Read ‘em to me, too. Didn’t make me feel better.” She glanced around the room with contempt, though the look faded when she saw crates of food stacked in the corner. “You stay here, right? I won’t let the ship leave without you, but don’t make me sorry I let you in, huh?” She paused in the doorway, biting her lip. “And … I’m sorry about your mom.”

  She was gone a second later, while Parees stared after her with his brow furrowed. Of all the things he’d expected here, kindness wasn’t one of them.

  He paced while he waited. The floor was carpeted; Telestine missionaries always made their waiting rooms and chapels as comfortable as possible. Metal walls were shrouded with hangings depicting—Parees could only assume—different deities, gears and pipes were usually hung with ribbons, and there were low, pillowed seats to use. The air seemed warmer here, scented with something elusive.

  The hangings kept catching at the corners of his vision. No missionaries came to the floating estates above Venus—aid workers only went where aid was needed—and so it had been years since he had seen these. He did not want to look, and yet they drew him in. Even though his feet dragged, he found himself looking over the rows of them as they fluttered in the breeze from the air filters.

  The hangings were mirrored along the axis of the room. He started to the right of the door, and saw an arrow, streaking up through the air. Or—wait, that was a stylized Telestine figure. She wore a pointed headdress. Her head was tipped back and arms outstretched upward to a shimmering globe above her, bright and shining and warm.

  The ascension. Parees stared at it for a long time before he shivered and moved on.

  The next hanging was more complicated. Castles and ships, perhaps. A whole floating city, thriving. This would be their home system, but something about the composition seemed dark and twisted. The figure from the first hanging, her headdress marking her as different from the other Telestines in the image, watched from one corner. Parees frowned and moved on.

  The third hanging appeared to be a meeting of some kind. Now there were many who wore the headdress, and they gathered in concentric circles, looking toward heaven. They were swaying, each circle leaning slightly to one side. He could almost see their yearning for the ascension. Of all the hangings, this should be the happiest—the ascension of the whole congregation. And yet, of course, the story was not over. The ascension had not been granted to these priestesses.

  The next hanging was almost shocking in its familiarity. Humans and Telestines, after all, were not so different in their physiology. Still, it was strange to see the stylized image of two cupped hands held out. A cylinder lay there, tapered at the ends. A gift? Their holy books? On this point, Parees could not be sure.

  A sun blazed in the fifth hanging. Its rays shone down, echoing the light of the first image. Parees stared at it for a long time and moved on to the sixth: the explosion of the sun. He flinched away from heat that was long gone. The sun was stripping away the very matter of the Telestine home planet, chunks of rock flying away. It would be easy for them to hide this away, and yet they did not shy away from it. The Daughters of Ascension had found purpose in their own exodus, it seemed.

  Darkness. The seventh panel was only darkness. A simple black tapestry.

  And then, in the eighth, a fleet, traveling amongst the stars, and at long last, Telestine and human meeting. They were happy in this picture, the Telestine in the headdress giving goods to the human, who smiled. No reference to humanity’s forced expulsion from Earth, however—like all religions, the Daughters clearly preferred white-washing their people’s history.

  Parees looked at the hangings. His heart was twisting.

  Quickly, before the priestesses could return and stop him, he took out a small camera and took pictures of each hanging. He sent them to Nhean, lingering over what to write, and sending them, at last, with no words.

  Then he sat, and waited for the priestesses to return.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Earth

  North America

  Northwest of Denver

  “Toss me that tarp.” Pike held out his hand, and banged it on the hull in frustration when Katya didn’t seem to hear him. She was staring off at the golden light from sunrise passing over the ridge, lips parted in wonder. Even the still-dissipating mushroom cloud could not hold her attention against the vista. It would be very touching, Pike thought acidly, if they had not just crashed their ship and were stranded in enemy territory. “Katya. Katya.”

  She jerked back to look at him guiltily, her bright hair catching in the light as she turned. She jumped as she threw the weighted end of the tarp toward Pike and held her end while he jerked his tight. She stared fixedly at her hands, as if she had to physically restrain herself from looking around.

  “Go help the captain with the stern,” Pike told her shortly. “I’ll get more scrub brush.”

  He left before she could answer, savoring the burn in his le
gs and his lungs while he headed up the slope in long strides.

  He turned, a few feet up, to look at the ship. The landing had been hard, but not so hard that they did more damage beyond the hull breach. Defense satellite, Rychenkov had said, staring at the impact mark. Grudgingly, he’d patted his hand on the hull. She’s well built. Most ships don’t survive that kind of impact.

  It was clear he was in no mood to talk about how he knew that.

  The morning sun sent shadows slanting over the edge of the valley. The captain had followed Pike’s instructions to land in the tiny dip between two foothills, and the crew were now hurrying to and fro, camouflaging the hull to protect it from the ever-present Telestine patrols. It had been a few hours since they had seen any, and Pike was on edge. A gap this big was unusual. Were they cloaked somehow? Did they have different surveillance?

  Or … had they finally killed off all the humans who once called these mountains home, conveniently ending their need to patrol along this lonely stretch? While the others had been gasping and smiling, laughing in delight at the blue of the sky, Pike could take no joy in it all. He had been unable to think of anything but burned bodies and bombed out buildings.

  Of his sister Christina’s charred corpse.

  He shook his head clear and focused his thoughts.

  The darkness of his thoughts was entirely lost on the crew. Rychenkov was as inscrutable as ever, and the girl was lost in her own world, as pensive as Pike was and as disinclined to talk about it. Katya and Deshawn had spent their time staring up at the sky, running up the short incline to see the horizon, and losing their breath easily in the thin mountain air. They gawped openly at a distant storm until Pike snapped at them that they weren’t going to want to do their work with everything soaked in rain. They complied then, but they kept sneaking glances. Rain was something entirely outside their lived experience.