The crewmember reached awkwardly around Oppai to the terminal behind him. “Message encoded and ready for transmission,” he said.
“Go,” the Governor said immediately. “Make note of the time. I'm sure they're smart enough to delay their response, but you never know. Maybe they'll be stupid enough to give away their distance.”
It was almost two hours before they started receiving a response. Ralla had sat on the floor leaning against one of the several disused terminals and was nearly asleep. It was several more minutes before they had enough of the message buffered to start it. A pulse of excitement and surprise bolted through her as she heard Thom’s voice.
“Population, this is Commander Thom Vargas of the Universalis.” Commander? Ralla thought. “We are happy to hear that Councilwoman Gattley is alive, and would like to arrange for her release. We would like to assure you that the Fountain project is real. Data on said project will follow this transmission. We would be very interested in the prospect of peace, though final terms will have to be negotiated in person. We await your response.”
Lines of data slowly started to fill the screen closest to the transceiver.
“Peace indeed,” Oppai said.
Ralla uneasily got to her feet, not sure what to make of Oppai’s expression as he looked over the incoming data. After a few moments, the Governor placed on a headset and keyed the recorder.
“Universalis, this is Governor Oppai of the great ship Population. No terms of peace will be discussed. Any attempt to rescue Miss Gattley will result in her immediate execution. Any attack on this vessel will result in her immediate execution. We will continue our campaign of reclaiming our domes and facilities. We will not allow your doomsday weapon to be built. We will find out where you are building it, and after we destroy it we will destroy you.” Oppai made eye contact with Ralla. “Crewman, send when encoded.”
“Yes, sir.” There was pride in the man’s voice.
Ralla sunk back down to the floor in horror. Her own emotions had clouded her judgment. In her desire to make peace, she had completely misread Oppai. Again. Of course he wouldn’t negotiate. There was nothing to negotiate. He stood to lose everything, to gain nothing. Such was the shock, she barely noticed being dragged back to her cell.
“No way. The deal’s off,” Thom said as definitively as he could. They had just listened to the return message in the Council Chambers. Larr and Jills sat silently, watching him. Larr had just instructed him to be ready to leave with his fleet within the next 24 hours.
“Commander Vargas,” Larr said in his usual chilling tone. “There is no deal. You are an Officer in our fleet and will do as you’re instructed. We require you to use the ships at our disposal to distract the Pop while we ready the Fountain.”
“And the moment I do, they kill Ralla.”
“I don’t see how Councilwoman Gattley is any of your concern.”
“Don’t see... are you insane? He just said he’ll kill her if we attack. I’ll be attacking. How is that not exactly my concern?”
“There’s a bigger issue here, Thom,” Jills broke in, motioning for Larr to remain silent. “I understand you have a friendship with Miss Gattley. I understand that you feel responsible for her current situation.”
“I am responsible.”
“But the fact is, there’s a larger matter to address.”
“Yeah, yeah, your Fountain.”
“Not my Fountain, our Fountain. Every person on this ship and on the Pop’s Fountain. This is about the future, Thom, and if Ralla were here, she would agree. We can’t let her life get in the way of the survival of our entire species.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m not saying you are.”
“No, you are. What you have to understand is that I’ve left her behind twice, and now you want me to kill her. How can I live with that? How do you expect me to live with that?”
“Command is hard choices, Mr. Vargas,” Larr said flatly.
“I agree,” Thom said, standing abruptly and leaving the room.
Maybe it was habit, or some deep repressed desire, but Thom walked in nearly a direct line to the bar. The hand painted sign “The Landing” seemed oddly inviting, homey. It seemed like it had been ages since he had been here last, but it was all the same. His friends were at the bar, well into their third round judging by the empty glasses. If they were upset he hadn’t talked to any of them in weeks, none showed it. Their welcome was warm and genuine.
After a few pats on the back, the time apart seemed forgotten. He settled down on a stool, watching the bartender slowly fill up a tall glass with foamy amber liquid. His friends jokingly pulled at his uniform, its fit and condition a sharp contrast to their own. The sound of the alcohol filling the glass was all he could hear. Around him his mates jostled each other in response to some story or joke he hadn’t heard. The other patrons in the bar did their usual best to ignore his little gang. The foam crested the top of the glass ever so slightly, and a finger sized portion started a long slow descent down the side of the glass. The light from the overheads caught the bubbles inside, making the beverage appear to glow.
Sliding back from his reverie, he saw that the glasses of his friends were all full, and they were looking to toast his return. He took the glass in his hand, the liquid inside chilling it. He caught a whiff from the constantly bursting tiny bubbles of foam.
“We heard you captured an enemy sub with a bunch of refugees on it,” Olly said with only a slight slur of his words.
“Did you kill any of them while you were over there? I heard they killed a bunch of people in our domes,” Yully said, looking for confirmation. He had gained some weight, mostly muscle on his small frame.
“Are you back for a while?” Hett asked, his beard now reduced to a mere line along his jaw. The questions seemed to come at once, or maybe hours apart.
“Come on, Thom, what’s next?”
The drink was almost to his lips, his eyes focused on the foam. Then he looked past the foam across the top of the glass at his friends. Wide-eyed and a little drunk, they were waiting for some response from him. It hadn’t even occurred to them he hadn’t said a word since he sat down.
And all at once, like a dream, he saw where he was. On a bar stool. In the bar. Below the Basket. On the Uni. In the ocean. On the world. In his mind he saw the world. The solid blue sphere hung in the black of space. Then, slowly, like in the graphic he had seen, the water started to peel away. As if the land below was tearing through, ripping the azure surface skin. The brown grew larger and larger. Soon entire continents marred the pristine blue surface with their turbid, waste-like, jagged forms. But then these too changed. The tawny scars of land succumbing to a new color. Green color. Randomly at first, then spreading and swarming recklessly, swaths of green reaching out with their tendrils of life over every continent.
His friends had gone silent and were looking at him quizzically. The glass poised so close to his lips, the smell of it in his nose. Then it started to move, gradually lowering back down to the bar. A bit of the foam spilling over the side and down over his thumb.
Thom stood, handing over enough credits to the bartender for a night of rounds for his slack-jawed friends. Thom started for the door.
“Thom?” Olly asked, all joviality gone. “Are you all right? Where are you going?”
“To kill her.”
IV
The bridge of the Reappropriation had changed since last he saw it. New equipment had replaced the inferior Pop-installed devices. There were other terminals squeezed into the corners for better monitoring of the other ships in the fleet. Six officers crowded the bridge, and over 150 elsewhere throughout manned weapons, engines, and any number of other vital systems.
Two squads of marines led by Soli and Lo had ready rooms near fast-fill locks on either side of the ship. Nearby were two sleek new short-range shuttles embedded in the hull. The exterior bristled with upgraded guns. Two dozen torpedo ports, their flat ex
terior doors masking the destruction held within, lined every side of the ship. In the stern, a small bay above the propellers held six mini-subs waiting for action. Docking clamps released, the Reap floated above the darkened, silt-covered Universalis.
Thom couldn’t see them, but saw on the monitors at the rear of the bridge the four corvette-class attack subs, six converted transports now highly armed torpedo boats, and a dozen mini-sub fighters all forming up with the Reap as it readied for its official maiden voyage. Every ship knew its assignment, every person on every ship knew the mission. All knew the risks. Thom had trained many of the pilots now spread out in the sea around him. Others came highly recommended. The first leg of their patrol was three straight days south. It would be a long haul for those in the minis, even with regular breaks docked aboard one of the larger subs. He motioned towards his comm officer.
“This is Commander Vargas. Our boards are green and we are ready to go.” He clicked the mic to mute for a moment. His impulse was to tell them what he was feeling. To let them share in his fear, his dread, his knowledge. But it didn’t seem right. They were all feeling that already—they didn’t need that from him. He turned the mic back on. “The importance of our mission, of our success, cannot be understated. No less than the lives of everyone on board the ship below us, and countless more in far away domes, are relying on us. But you know that. Let me tell you what I know. Our enemy is underequipped, under trained, and spread thin. But that doesn’t mean they won’t fight. We will be successful because of you. I know how hard you have trained, and I know how outstanding each of you is at the job you are doing. If I wasn’t so sure, trust that you wouldn’t be here to do it. We will approach each conflict with caution, but deliver with precision and might. We will hit them hard, and then retreat. My goal is to return to the Universalis with every one of you. That, above all, is our goal. We must do widespread damage, but our damage per location can be minor. We are the greatest fighting force ever assembled in this sea. History will write of us as heroes and warriors. Right now, we are just people. Let’s do our job, then celebrate with our feet on land, arms to the sky, backs to the sea.”
There was silence as he clicked off the mic. Then off in the distance, down the corridors, then on the bridge itself: applause. He closed his eyes and cringed as he thought of Ralla, and how proud she’d be of him at that moment.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her. Then to the pilot, “Take us out, ensign.”
For what must have been the first week, Ralla barely left the cot. She was so ashamed of what she had done, she couldn’t bring herself to eat or even move. Sometime during the second week, there were brief flashes of realization that she had to do what she had done. That anyone would have jumped at the chance to bring peace. But these flashes were just that, and within moments the depression would settle back in, knowing what she had cost her people.
At least she thought it was her second week in this cell. That was just a hazy guess, though. Every surface she tried to mark to indicate days had been too hard to mar. Eventually she tore the sheets, but they had changed them twice since she had been there. If the constant darkness at first had hampered her perception of time, the constant light now completely destroyed it. But two weeks felt right somehow.
The guards rotated often. To her surprise, one of the guards had slid a book into her cell. It was old, bound, and seemed to be real paper. The cover crackled when she opened it. It must have been a family heirloom. While she would have rather just slept, this was clearly important to someone, and she treated it with the respect it deserved. She finished it quickly. It was a fairly mediocre story about time travelling adventurers causing havoc during famous moments in history. Not something she would have normally read, but it did take her mind off things.
She kept the book hidden when guards opened her door to leave food. After several days (weeks? hours?) one guard—a middle-aged woman with long braided hair and a particularly mean grimace—came in with food and took the sheets off the bed. She tossed them outside, then flipped the thin mattress cushion over. Ralla had hidden the book under her clothes. The guard seemed to have figured this out as she came over and brusquely grabbed at her. Book found, she stormed out of the cell. But as the door shut, there was a brief moment of eye contact where the guard looked down at the book in her hand, then at Ralla, and flashed a kind smile. Another book appeared under her food tray a few days later, this time an illustrated short novel. A different guard picked that up a few days later, a nervous young man with short hair.
To fill time, Ralla remembered a trick her father had told her about from when he was in the war. After a particularly bad battle, his sub had become damaged and crashed into the seabed. Trapped in the cockpit with no power and few rations, he could do nothing but watch the battle unfold and hope for rescue. It took three days. To stave off boredom, the elder Gattley had imagined himself walking through the ship. Every hallway, every cabin he had seen. From the textures of the walls to the conditions of the carpet, he walked around and around in his mind.
Ralla started doing the same the best she could. She pictured herself on the floor of the Yard, her favorite place on the ship. The thick soft grass cradling her like a living bed of green. The picosun providing the light of midday. Beside her lay Thom, and suddenly it was no longer a thought exercise but a memory. They had been walking after a great meal of words and vegetables. She had just said something that had made him mad. They laid in silence for minutes before he spoke.
“I don’t know why you think I’m some kind of leader. That’s not me. That’s you.”
His compliment caught her off guard, and it took her a moment to respond.
“I’m flattered, but I’m not much of a leader either. My dad is, for sure, but I’m just stepping into his shoes. When the time comes for a real election, we’ll see what the District thinks.”
“Well, I’d vote for you.”
“Then maybe we’ll just have to move you forward so you can be in my District.”
They laughed lightly and awkwardly, both reading into her statement more than she had said. After the silence that followed, he said something even sweeter.
“Seriously, I trust your instincts. I’ve seen what you can pull together in the past few months. You’re a natural at this. I wish I had half the brains you do.”
She reached over and gave his arm a squeeze.
The grayish decayed cell slid back in around her, and like that, she got over herself. Had her father been there, or Proctor Jills, it’d be a tough case to say they wouldn’t have done the same thing she had. Oppai was a charmer and a fantastic liar. Maybe they would have seen through his ruse, but probably not.
In her mind she thanked Thom for being his usual supporting self, even if he was a hemi away.
With renewed vigor, Ralla rolled out of bed and stood in the middle of her cell and began a new daily routine. First she exercised. Then she meditated on possible scenarios. She was still biding her time. But now it was with a purpose.
Running silent didn’t mean they had to actually remain silent on board the ships, but often they did. Normal procedure was to cruise quietly along the edge of a thermal layer. The Reap towed an arrow-shaped sensor device that sank below or floated above the layer, relaying data to the techs on board. If an enemy craft was detected by it or one of the minisubs at the edges of the fleet, the information was relayed by laser to all the other ships. Instructions were given to stop, descend, or rise depending on how close the ship was, and where. But so far they had gone undetected.
Their first target was a mining dome the Pop had set up recently. It had been discovered by accident by a scouting ship looking for new mining locations for the Uni. It was tiny dome, without much room for personnel. A convoy of transports arrived every week, and departed within 12 hours. If their timing was right, the Reap and the fleet should arrive just before the convoy arrived.
The stealthy minis, not much larger than their single pilot occupants, duc
ked below the layer to have a peek. They reappeared above the layer a few minutes later to report the convoy was already docked, and seemed to be making preparations to leave.
Thom looked around the bridge at his crew. They waited for his instructions. As he knew they would, his thoughts went to Ralla. Knowing she would want him to do what he was about to do gave no comfort. He apologized to her again in his head.
“All craft, report status,” he said. The comm officer relayed the message. In the close quarters of the bridge, he could hear each craft in the fleet respond through the officer’s headphones.
“All craft report green boards and are ready for combat.”
“Fleet to Combat One. Begin descent and attack on my orders.”
Around him his crew busied themselves at their consoles, relaying orders and modifying aspects of the ship. After a few moments, he received a nod from his second in command.
“Go,” Thom barked.
He felt the Reap lurch as water was taken into its ballast tanks. Out the viewscreen, the few craft of the fleet he could see in the dim light started to descend. The small fighter craft, with their smaller ballast tanks, were pivoting vertical to gather speed as they launched the first wave.
The Reap passed the invisible thermal layer and suddenly the sensor screens lit up with the activity and noise from the dome below. There were a few patrol craft lazily making their rounds within sight of the dome. The convoy—really just a series of transport subs linked together—had just set off. The clear dome lit up the surrounding seafloor with an amber glare.
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