Jupiter's Sword

by Webb, Nick

  There was a silence.

  “I had not considered that,” Nhean murmured. A sigh made its way down the line. “At least send a few ships. You have time to intercept them.”

  “That in itself is suspicious,” Walker murmured. Her eyes narrowed. “Save Mars, or wait?”

  A pounding at the door jolted them to awareness. “Admiral!”

  Walker strode to the door to pull it open. “What is it?”

  “Larsen says—to come to the bridge. No alarms yet, but….” The officer gulped air. “fleet. Telestine fleet. Inbound for Vesta.”

  “Goddammit. Tell him I’ll be right there.” Walker turned her head sharply as she swung the door closed. “Now do you believe me? This is the feint, and the blow. So which is which? Which do we save?”

  It wasn’t even a question, it was pure despair cloaked in fury.

  “Both,” Nhean said finally. “Give me the girl, send her and Pike to the Koh Rong, and we can take down the ships at Mars. We’ll go now. You meet Tel’rabim at Vesta. Match forces, not underlying populations.”

  Walker’s shoulders slumped, and a moment later she nodded. “Yes,” she added, when she remembered that Nhean could not see her.

  “I’ll send a shuttle from the Koh Rong. And I will be coming as well. I have something to discuss with you before we leave.”

  That, for some reason, seemed to snap Walker back to her usual self. “You’d best make it quick. We’ll be out of here within the hour.” She strode to the table to retrieve the comm button and nodded to him curtly. “Pike—get the girl.”

  Pike hesitated, fists clenched.

  “Tell her what is happening,” Walker told him. Her eyes were clear. “Tell her the truth. See what she does. You can’t shield her from this, Pike. Promise me you will at least give her the choice.”

  He hated her completely in that moment. And yet….

  He ducked his head. He could not bring himself to say anything, but he nodded, at least. And then he left without looking back, without saying goodbye.

  He would remember that later.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Mars

  Carina Station

  VFS Santa Maria

  The lift shuddered to a stop and Nhean stepped out as Walker ran past with an urgent gesture for him to follow her.

  “Wait!” he called after her.

  “There is no waiting.” Though she slowed, and turned. “Unless he’s not actually going to Vesta. I need you to get to Mars. The girl needs to get there now.”

  “I know, but … one thing first.” He gestured for her to keep walking, and fell into step beside her. “I know this is … an inconvenient time, and I wouldn’t ask unless it was urgent. My crew member, Parees. His situation is deteriorating. You mentioned a psychiatrist on one of the ships, I believe?”

  “The Anchor.” She shook her head as they forged through a knot of personnel. “He’s … just a doctor, we don’t have that kind of staff, but the crew speaks well of him for that sort of thing.” Walker felt some of the tension go out of her. “It’s Morgan’s ship. Trying to make a transfer now would be tricky, if not outright impossible.”

  “I think we need to.” Nhean fell silent as they made their way through a a crowd directly under the speakers. “I sent him on another mission after Vesta, and I do not believe I should have done so. I think at Vesta, he began to lose his sense of purpose.”

  “Do I need to know this right now?” She was speeding up.

  “No, but he does need to be transferred. I would give him more time, but I’m afraid he’ll do harm to himself.”

  “Send him on your shuttle, and be prepared to accelerate as soon as it’s docked on the Anchor. We’ll sort out getting it back when this is all over. And if he doesn’t make it, he’s going to have to cope. One life is not worth the fleet, you hear me?” She tapped her comm unit. “Larsen, tell the Anchor to expect a shuttle from the Koh Rong, and they’re to accelerate as soon as it’s on board. They have ten minutes to get it secured or they are to leave without it.”

  “Thank you.” Nhean dipped his head to the comm unit on his wrist. “Take Parees to the Anchor. Walker will radio for them to be expecting Parees. He should be admitted by Dr. ….” He paused, looking to Walker.

  “Ah … can’t remember right now, they’ll figure it out. Now go!”

  He nodded and hurried away as Walker broke into a run, heading for the bridge. She was pleased to see that there was no inefficiency. New crews or not, everyone here moved with a purpose, and etiquette made the process smooth. There was no hesitation as officers and enlisted split off to their posts. Gunnery chiefs with their perpetually stained fingertips were given first priority over everyone but Walker as they made their way toward the batteries on the middle decks. She passed a crowd of network techs she had hired and clapped a few of them on the back.

  The bridge was an oasis of calm. Delaney nodded to Walker and slid out of her way.

  “All right.” Walker pulled up a map of Vesta and tapped a button. An image of their fleet appeared in a honeycomb pattern, but surprisingly far out from the surface. She saw Delaney’s surprise and gave a terse shake of her head. “This is just a projection—a guess based on his prior formations. We’re probably not going to beat him there. What we need is a formation that will catch his attention, batter holes through his, and force him to turn away from Vesta and face us. The combat will be extraordinarily close. We’re going to start firing while we’re still decelerating—they need to be convinced we’re actually on the offense in this one.”

  “If you come through close, it will be nearly impossible to dodge that beam on their capital ship,” Delaney warned. He pressed himself against the desk as an officer hurried past behind him. The din of the room was oddly comforting. Acceleration began as a slight compression in his bones.

  “I know.” Walker shook her head. “But if he’s determined to take Vesta out, we have almost no way to stop him other than getting through there as fast as possible.”

  “You could center firepower not on making holes, but on the stem of each carrier.” Delaney waited for her to bring up a diagram and pointed to the place where the upside-down teardrop began to narrow into a long, curved points. “If you cut off that part of each ship, you cut off its ability to use that beam.” He shrugged. “Well, we can hope. No saying what that bastard’s come up with.”

  “No, it’s a good thought.” Walker considered. “My first plan was to make ourselves enough of a nuisance that they would have to face us, but based on the explosives they used on Io and Tokyo, he only needs enough time for one bomb.”

  There was a silence, and Delaney let out his breath. “So the question is—”

  “No.” They needed Vesta. They needed that weapons program. She wasn’t going to let him ask whether it was possible to save the settlement.

  “Yes.” His voice was adamant. “Can we make it? Is it worth engaging, or do we go—if we do—with the sole purpose of taking their fleet out while they’re occupied?”

  “What other option do we have than to save them?” Walker hissed at him. “It’s one thing to pick targets and let the rest fall, but we can only stand back and say, ‘we can’t do it, he got the jump on us’ so many times before there’s nothing left. Sooner or later, we have to stand and fight. Every victory we win is impossible. Percentage wise? This isn’t noticeably more impossible than usual.”

  She straightened her shoulders.

  “Nhean can handle Mars. And we must save Vesta.”

  ***

  Many decks away, Nhean was smiling as he stepped onto his shuttle. The comm unit in his ear carried very clear audio of the conversation from the bridge, and he was glad he was listening. In the past days and weeks, he’d forgotten this passion in Walker. She was devoted to humanity, beyond almost anyone he knew. She cared deeply, desperately. Here was a woman who would use every tool and tactic at her disposal until there was no hope of either retreat or victory, and then she would de
vote everything she had to making the victory hurt for the Telestines. If humanity was to end here, Walker would go out trying to ensure that the Telestines ended as well.

  Something caught in Nhean’s mind, but the thought was gone the next moment.

  “There’s only ever the best option,” he said quietly. He’d heard her say the same any number of times in their early acquaintance.

  A moment later, sparking a chill in him, her voice filtered across the comms: “There’s only ever the best option. So which is it now?”

  ***

  “Ma’am?” Larsen’s voice cut across everything. “We have a message from Tel’rabim. A video, not live.”

  The bridge went unusually quiet.

  Walker looked at no one but Larsen. “Have it projected on the table, sound to our earpieces.”

  He could almost hear her words: I’m not going to give this bastard a chance to throw off my crew.

  Walker hooked a headset over her ear as the message flickered up. Tel’rabim’s face was flat, displeased. It seemed he was finding leadership less pleasant than he’d expected, though it was hard to take any joy in that thought right now.

  “I request a meeting with the leaders of the Exile Fleet.” The Telestine spoke slowly, in English rather than in Telestine. “I ask you not to interfere in the operation at Vesta. It is in your interests as well as mine to stand aside. To be frank, your fleet cannot continue to match mine, and I will destroy you if you stand in my way. I will send word as soon as my operation there is complete. Hold your position for now.”

  The message flickered out and Walker looked up to see a frown on Delaney’s face.

  “What the hell,” she asked, “was that?” She found she was running the pads of her thumbs over her nails, over and over again. Think, think.

  “Easiest explanation: he doesn’t want to take the chance of losses at Vesta, after which he will kill all of us at the meeting.” Delaney kept his voice low. “Most likely explanation, too.”

  “Are you actually suggesting that preserving our fleet is worth enough to let him destroy Vesta?”

  Delaney folded his arms over his barrel chest and considered. “If he’s willing to go all in, maybe. He can’t match you tactically. He puts his stock in one capital ship, every time. But say he’s learned….”

  “Why would he telegraph that to us?”

  “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “Why would it be to our benefit to lose Vesta?” he asked quietly, almost to himself.

  “No, it’s to our benefit not to lose the fleet, that’s what he said.”

  “There are always different meanings with him.” It was clear from Delaney’s tone what he thought of that. “He could mean that not only would our fleet sustain heavy losses, it is also not to our benefit to interfere. And before you ask me why that would be, I don’t have an answer—but ask yourself what the benefit would be to him of keeping our fleet intact, because if we follow his advice, that’s what will happen.”

  She frowned at him.

  “If he’s sure that he can defeat us over multiple engagements….” Delaney shrugged. “Why not let us come in hot? We lose ships faster than our Mercury shipyards can produce them. He should want to engage us as often as possible.”

  “You’re taking what he says at face value,” Walker said flatly. “You’re assuming any of it is the truth. This is someone who has lied to us for the bulk of the time we have known him. He pretended to be our friend—to be aligned with Ka'sagra and the aid workers. He may simply know that by telling us not to interfere, he’ll spur us to do just that.”

  “Possibly,” Delaney agreed. “But it’s worth wondering, isn’t it?”

  “No!” She pounded one fist on the desk softly, a tight gesture so as not to draw the attention of the rest of the crew. He had never been one to think like this, and it infuriated her now. Tel’rabim was in their heads. She leaned in. “You want to know why he sent this? The same reason I didn’t let the crew see it. He sent it to throw us off. It is always what he does. He knows that humanity is best controlled psychologically, because that is always what has kept us from defeating them: the belief of our own helplessness. If we had begun this rebellion at the start of the Exodus, if we had made a concerted effort to develop technology, resist, convert ships, we would be free of them by now. Instead, we listened when they told us they had such good technology that we could never match it. We sank into despair. No more. Larsen, send a message to Ka'sagra on Vesta to warn her. If he’s hoping to kill his political rivals, let’s at least give them a fighting chance.”

  Delaney’s brows rose. “Admiral Walker warning Telestines to get out? Now I’ve seen everything.”

  “No, you haven’t, and the day’s not over yet.” She nodded to the desk, and then opened a channel to Nhean. “Are you there? One more thing … try not to destroy the ships, if at all possible. We have a limited supply of nukes. Bombs like the one they used at Io could be useful to us.”

  There was a pause, but a moment later, Nhean’s voice filtered back. “I will try. Good hunting.”

  “Good hunting.” She cut the call.

  Chapter Fifty

  Mars

  Carina Station

  Koh Rong

  Data Center

  “Exile Fleet, this is Admiral Walker.”

  The girl did not look at the comm unit. Her eyes were on the flickering projection on the wall: a small child, with the absolute stillness of death. Burns. Bruises. It was a death mercifully forgotten, and a life cruelly wiped away.

  Somewhere nearby, the engines of the Koh Rong blazed to life and the ship shuddered as it began acceleration.

  What was my name?

  Her head bowed briefly, eyes squeezed together.

  Walker’s voice continued. “Since humanity was forced into Exodus, all of us have known that this cannot continue. Living chained to a planet that is no longer ours, scrabbling each day merely to survive and often not achieving that, relying upon the fading goodwill of an invading species, has weakened us. We have known, every one of us, that we must escape this hell or die.”

  Behind her closed eyelids, the girl saw blue skies and rocks bathed in sunlight. Mice skittered beneath the scrub brush and birds wheeled overhead. This tiny room had only the breeze of the air purifiers, no live winds to tear at her hair and carry her soul along with them up into the skies.

  I was born on a table, in a lab. I am only the shadow of that girl. I carry their imprint in my blood.

  She could remember a voice, so long gone as to echo beyond recognition, telling her that to choose no path was to let the world shape you. Whether you moved forward or back, diverged from the beaten path or held it, you must choose—or you would be swallowed without a trace.

  “For years, we knew that the Telestine promises of peace were nothing more than words—and today, they have shown that. They want us to stand back and allow them to take Vesta. They tell us that we cannot match them in technology, and so we should sit back and watch as they cut us down, one station at a time.”

  “I do not believe that humanity ends here. I do not believe they outmatch us so much as they would have us think. I believe that we can cost them dearly, and I mean to try. So today, let them know that when they come for us, we will make them pay. Let them know that we will steal their victory and leave them with nothing but ashes. If there is one thing we have always known how to do, it is fight. Walker out.”

  In the darkness, the girl’s eyes opened. She looked up at the video feed, seeing the body she now lived in laid down next to the body it had been based on. Was she in any way the same girl she had been, the girl that had died in a Telestine raid, the girl whose genome had been used to make her? She would never know. She could see only the face. Perhaps there was a bit of difference around the cheekbones. The hands, maybe, longer fingered like a Telestine’s. If she cut herself open, how would her organs look?

  How had they changed her? What more had they intende
d her to be?

  Behind her, a door hissed. Pike; she could smell him. He stopped when he saw the video.

  She turned to look over her shoulder and saw his face turned away.

  “Are you ready?” he asked her quietly. “Have you heard what they want you to do with Mars?”

  She nodded. She had failed on Earth, and she did not intend to fail again. She had been made to be a weapon—if she truly embraced that, surely this time would be different.

  She had to believe that.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Near Vesta

  VFS Santa Maria

  Bridge

  The problem with space, Walker reflected, was that it was so much vaster than any distance found on Earth. There was a fundamental strangeness about engaging over hundreds of thousands of kilometers, and there was always a jarring moment at the start of a battle when she remembered just how large the battlefield shown in the holograph truly was.

  There was also the unfortunate fact that the time it took to reach a battlefield allowed far too much space for resolve to falter and doubts to creep in. New shifts arrived at their battle stations and the others would go back to lie in their bunks and stare at the ceiling sleeplessly. Walker spent hours in her rooms, building tactical readouts and receiving reports from the tech crews. So little broke on the new ships that she had very few things to occupy her time. She paced. She considered the maps. She conferred with McAllister. She considered calling Nhean, or Pike, and decided against it.

  The final approach alert was a relief. She took one last look at herself in the mirror, straightened her jacket, and stepped out into the main passageways. She bent her head to her wrist to speak carefully into the comm unit.

  “Larsen, any read on their formation?” Is Vesta still there?

  His reply came back at once. “Ships are still coming in. No way to know how they’ll be set up when it’s all said and done.”