Solovy would suffer commensurate to her crimes. And soon, for Pamela’s spies also reported Solovy’s fleet approached Earth even now. Doubtless the woman thought Pamela’s authority weakened, as if an Assembly investigation and a few press harpies were anything more than flies throwing themselves against the window pane.
Solovy’s ships would be destroyed and their admiral with them. The defecting military commanders would run home in shame and genuflect before her, swearing allegiance and begging to be allowed to keep their positions. Pamela would have her military once more. She would use it to crush the IDCC, starting with Romane, for killing her son.
Yes.
Her transport alighted on the rooftop landing pad of the Assembly, a prerogative reserved for visiting heads of state and a rare few individuals who, for one reason or another, did not need to be seen traipsing across the grounds. It was enclosed by not only a protective force field but also a visual one, preventing the press from discerning what prominent person had arrived.
She enjoyed an unobstructed view of the surroundings, however, and the sight of thousands of protesters clogging the streets below greeted her as she disembarked.
Were the people rallying to her son’s cause? Standing up and demanding the government respond to Romane’s flagrant misdeeds?
Strobes projected holo placards high into the air above the protestors.
Freedom For All Minds
Prevos Are People Too
You Can’t Stop The Signal
Break Free Of Your Shackles
This was unacceptable. Where were the authorities? If there were Prevos in the crowd, they needed to be arrested forthwith.
The masses were so fickle, so easily swayed and marshaled. Jude—anger frothed in her chest at the thought of him and the fate he had suffered, but she must not show it publically. Her grief must be her own, for now.
He should never have relied as heavily as he did on crowds to press his agenda. But she did not need them to press hers. Let them protest.
She spun away from the scene and strode to the rooftop entrance. The sooner this ludicrous ‘hearing’ was concluded, the better.
The Official Summons had been offensive in its demands. She was complying only because her attorney general counseled her she was legally required to do so, but she didn’t care to explain the delicate, complex justifications for the Scythia incident, particularly since it had failed. She was mourning!
If she announced Jude’s death, Gagnon would delay the hearing. Etiquette demanded it.
No…she needed to save the revelation for the moment it could most work to her benefit. So she continued downstairs.
She was traversing the main hall to the Assembly Chamber, security and aides in tow, when her Chief of Staff called a halt to the procession. “Prime Minister, Admiral Grigg is reporting the detection of a warship by short-range perimeter alert sensors. He believes it’s Admiral Solovy’s vessel.”
Oh, thank god. She nodded understanding. “We need to move to the Situation Room immediately. Luis, transfer Admiral Grigg to a dedicated holo there and reach Defense Minister Mori as well.”
36
EAS STALWART II
Space, Sol System
* * *
Miriam stood on the bridge of the Stalwart II, her stance formal and her chin raised. The bulk of her fleet was aligned behind her, but at a distance and heavily cloaked. They would fight if a fight were required, but she was gambling on it not being necessary, and for now hers was the sole visible ship. She waited for the dance to begin.
It didn’t take long.
Earth Terrestrial Defense Command: “Unidentified vessel, you are ordered to depart Sol space. Failure to do so will result in defensive measures being deployed against you.”
“This vessel is not unidentified, Command. Check EASC records. This is the EAS Stalwart II, naval command-class vessel, serial number designation EAAF-CC1X741A, captained by myself, Admiral Miriam Draner Solovy. I am not an enemy, nor is my ship.”
ETDC: “EASC records have been compromised, and your vessel’s serial number designation cannot be confirmed. You therefore must be considered an enemy vessel and a threat to Earth and its citizens. Retreat or be destroyed.”
She recognized the voice; this was Grigg talking, though she highly doubted he was making the decisions. He might not even be choosing the words. “Firing unprovoked on an Earth Alliance admiral is against the entirety of the Code of Military Justice and all regulations. Accuse me of the worst crimes you can conjure. File reams of charges against me. But you cannot legally shoot me down.”
Miriam wondered if Winslow knew the interchange was being broadcast on every military channel and every news feed not completely beholden to the Prime Minister. Someone should probably tell her.
ETDC: “Your incursion into Earth space is a provocation. Unless you retreat, you will be considered a clear and present danger and, no matter your rank, you will be neutralized.”
“Command, I’ve been repeatedly informed that I’m required to return to Earth to face charges of horrible crimes. I’m here, ready to do so.”
ETDC: “Retreat to twenty-five megameters distance from Earth and permit your ship to be boarded so you can be taken into custody.”
Miriam smirked, though only those on the bridge who happened to be glancing her way caught it. “I prefer to surrender on my own terms, Prime Minister.”
The pause was long. She imagined there was much hand-waving and stammering going on. Having been present when a few charades were exposed, she knew what it looked like. She waited.
ETDC: “Your ship possesses unknown weaponry. We cannot allow it to approach Earth. Who knows what damage it and your fleet could inflict upon innocent civilians.”
The voice had of course changed, but so had the tone. Winslow was having difficulty keeping her cool.
“What fleet, Prime Minister? There’s only me. And I have devoted my life—my husband gave his life—to protect Earth, its citizens and all citizens of the Earth Alliance. If there is one thing in this life I will not do, it is harm the innocent people of this planet.”
ETDC: “And yet you have endangered them by encouraging the proliferation of Prevo monstrosities.”
Miriam kept her own composure, but inwardly she seethed. Winslow was the true monster, and if they followed her path they would all become the same. “Prevos saved the residents of Earth and every other world. They are heroes, and they are also people—people who should not be treated as criminals without ever committing a crime. They deserve to be judged by the same standards the rest of us are.”
ETDC: “Their very existence is criminal.”
Not exactly the thoughtful, dignified position a head of state ought to adopt. “Only because you have made it so. But I do not accept this, nor should anyone, because it is unconstitutional, immoral and inhumane. We as a species cannot justify our way into adopting such beliefs and still call ourselves civilized.”
ETDC: “Don’t distract from the fact you are pointing lethal weaponry at Earth. Everything else is just words.”
“And you’re very good with words, aren’t you, Prime Minister? You’ve used them to subvert the rule of law, due process and innumerable basic Constitutional and human rights. It’s my responsibility to uphold those rights, and I’ve returned to do exactly this.
“I will not fire on any person, vessel or structure which does not first fire in an offensive manner. On this you have my promise. But I will be landing on the soil of Earth today.”
ETDC: “I cannot permit you to threaten the safety of our citizens. You represent a clear and present danger to the Earth and the Earth Alliance. You have ten seconds to retreat.”
So be it.
Miriam gave her bridge crew a reassuring smile, projecting confidence that she was not sending them to their graves. She thought about David, and her smile grew brighter at the image blossoming in her mind of him—
Nine nodes across three arrays of the Terrestria
l Defense Grid fired their lasers. They converged into one massive beam, 3,600 kilotonnes of energy aimed at her.
The viewport was engulfed in blinding citron light, but the hull did not even vibrate. The lasers maintained sustained fire, even as their leading edges vanished prior to contact with their target.
‘The dimensional rift is successfully diverting the lasers’ energy, Admiral Solovy.’
“Yes, Thomas. It is.”
The Stalwart II’s sensors told her eighteen additional nodes added their firepower to the stream—likely the total number of nodes with a direct LOS to her ship. The filters struggled to keep up with the increased brightness engulfing the viewport, and she blinked away halos.
Abruptly all the luminescence vanished, and Earth’s profile again resolved in the distance.
Cheers broke out on the bridge, but she merely acknowledged the warmth in her chest. That’s my girl. Thank you, Alex.
Winslow had played the last, best card she had, and she had lost.
Miriam reopened the channel to EDTC. “Prime Minister, you may fire on me as much as you wish, but it is a waste of time and resources. You won’t be able to destroy me, or even so much as ding me. Or my ship. I’ll see you soon.”
Next she turned to her XO. “I’m activating the cloaking shield but maintaining its rift functionality as well. Navigation, divert S 32° 12.5°z E for seven megameters.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
She burned up nearly all her power to maintain both functions until she was elsewhere enough for her ship to be safe without her. Then she deactivated the dimensional rift and redirected the extra power to the cloaking shield.
Finally, she paused to take note of the air around her. Breathed in, and absorbed the reality that all was quiet. No lasers chased her. No damage reports flashed on screens, nor did alarms peal through the ship.
Breathed out.
“Major Halmi, you have the bridge.”
SIYANE
Space, Sol System
Alex sat in the cockpit of the Siyane, her knees drawn up to her chest in the chair, her body frozen in terror as multiple orbital array lasers fired.
From her vantage, stealthed ten megameters back from the Stalwart II with the rest of the fleet, she couldn’t even detect a flare of light as they hit the rift. The lasers simply drew alarmingly close to the Stalwart II and no farther. The outline of the vessel remained undisturbed and undamaged.
An immense amount of power—then an insane amount more as additional nodes fired—rushed into a point seventy meters across and vanished like a waterfall disappearing over a cliff.
“Oh my god, it’s working. It is working, isn’t it, Valkyrie?”
‘It is indeed.’
Abruptly the lasers ceased firing, leaving the Stalwart II floating peacefully above Earth.
She laughed in delight, relieved beyond any capacity to measure. A pulse arrived from Caleb.
Good job, baby, not that I ever had a doubt.
I did. Thank you, priyazn. Keep her safe, will you?
It will be my honor.
He was already on the Gambier with Malcolm and his team. The ship would soon deliver them and Miriam to London. She was ridiculously proud of him for elbowing his way onto the infiltration team, if a little annoyed she didn’t have a role to play in the final gambit.
Valkyrie offered her a measure of reassurance. ‘Without you, there would be no final gambit.’
Because her mother would in all likelihood be dead. And they called her obstinate. “I know. Honestly, it’s fine. I like it up here…even if all I have to do to pass the time now is worry about the both of them.”
She gazed down at the massive profile of Earth spinning below her. Home, still and probably always. Not merely for her, but for some six billion humans.
Terrible humans with darkness rotting away their souls, like Pamela Winslow. Wonderful humans instead buoyed by joy and love, like countless family and friends. The people helping her mother now. Ethan before one of the terrible humans had robbed him of life.
Why must there always be such a struggle between the two, catching all those in the middle in their crossfire? Why were they here at this consequential moment yet again, when they had been here so many times before?
…Unless the point of humanity was to struggle. Unless the uniqueness of humanity was in its refusal to stop struggling. To fight, to doubt, to persevere, to never be content.
It was exhausting.
But she remembered the moment from Iona-Cead Ahearne’s memory, when Lakhes had described the Anadens as pursuing a vision of perfect, universal order. Was this where the Anadens had gone wrong?
Winslow’s madness wasn’t really about Artificials or Prevos. It was about control, and the exploitation of power through it. Millions of years in Amaranthe’s past, had someone akin to Pamela Winslow won the day and tipped the balance of society toward rigid order, then eventually toward totalitarian control?
Mesme had claimed not to know. But it felt true, if only because today such a fate was but a few wrong choices away for them as well.
‘Where do you think the lasers went?’
Alex frowned. “They went where we sent them—into extra-dimensional space.”
‘But what does that mean, spatially? Cosmically? Where did they go?’
Her attention drifted away from Earth out to the stars. The sun’s light obscured all but the brightest. “I suppose they fell into the abysm. The chasm which lies in the space between the physical dimensions.”
‘Why do you describe such a realm as an abysm?’
“Because if it doesn’t have real, tangible form—if it can’t be measured—then by definition it doesn’t have a terminus. There’s no bottom to the chasm.”
She smiled in a bit of contemplative amusement. “I’m sure the reality is the energy was either atomized and scattered or crushed out of existence. But I like to imagine the beams forever falling into the void.”
37
EARTH
London
Earth Alliance Assembly
* * *
“Impossible. Fire again.”
“Prime Minister, there’s no point. The Defense Grid’s lasers were ineffective.”
“Did they miss? Your targeting must have been faulty. Recalibrate and fire again.”
“Ma’am, the targeting was correct.” Grigg hurriedly pulled up the recordings from the visual sensors. “See, the lasers reached Admiral Solovy’s vessel. It repelled or absorbed them. I can’t explain it, but it has to be what happened.”
From his holo, Mori gaped at the images in typically inept shock. “How?”
Pamela Winslow refused to accept such an outcome. She had the ultimate weaponry at her fingertips, and it was not feasible that she had somehow lost in spite of this. “Doing so might have depleted the ship’s shields. Fire again.”
“I…” Grigg entered several commands on his screen “…I’m afraid the ship is gone. We’re no longer detecting it on any scans.”
Pamela’s eyes widened in growing indignation. “This is unacceptable. Her possession of unknown technology proves she’s in league with the IDCC and the Prevos. Order Vice-Admiral Jirkar at NA Headquarters to secure EASC to guard against any attempt by her to retake it.”
Her Chief of Staff frowned. “I’ll queue him up, but the only person here who can order him to take such action is you, Prime Minister.”
“Fine. Reach him on a comm and I will—” The door opened without warning, and Speaker Gagnon and Armed Forces Committee Chairman Anderson barged in. When she’d served in the Assembly, the Situation Room had been secure.
She squared her shoulders on them. “What is the meaning of this? We’re in the middle of a crisis—”
“Prime Minister, did you just fire the Terrestrial Defense Grid weapons?”
“How would you know?”
“Ma’am, there are redundancies in the system which alert designated personnel of any such action. Also, the entire c
onfrontation was broadcast on multiple news feeds.”
Pamela’s jaw clenched in anger. But she had been playing this game a very long time. Though it was more challenging than usual to do so, she buried the disruptive emotions and projected a calm, collected demeanor. “I did so to counter a clear and present threat to the security of the entire planet.”
Gagnon stared at her incredulously. “As members of the Select Military Advisory Council, we have a right to be informed and consulted on these matters. If such a serious threat exists, you should have notified us of it.”
She notched her chin upward. “There was no time.”
“I missed most of the show on account of dealing with multiple security warnings. You didn’t shoot down Admiral Solovy’s command ship, did you?”
She had never cared for Chairman Anderson. He retained too much of the swagger from his former military career. She increased the firmness of her tone. “Her ship is wielding some form of unknown countermeasure. It is doubtless Prevo technology, if not alien in origin. Minister Mori, we need to put all military and government installations on Level IV alert.”
Anderson leaned over the table, perilously close to getting in her face. “You can’t fire our defensive weapons on an Earth Alliance admiral.”
“Well if the Ethics Council would get on with defrocking her, she wouldn’t be an admiral. The fact remains she poses a threat—”
“Ma’am, as a retired admiral who served on several Ethics Council tribunals, allow me to reiterate and clarify: you cannot fire Earth’s defensive weapons on an Earth Alliance admiral unless they first take explicit offensive action against Earth or its assets. Now did she do that?”
“She suggested—”
“Did she shoot at us?”
Luis stood and placed a hand on Anderson’s shoulder. “Chairman, you’ll take care to not interrupt your prime minister. Not only is it rude, it’s against proper rules of decorum.”
Anderson straightened up and crossed his arms over his burly chest. “I’m not sure ‘decorum’ is our primary concern at this moment. Prime Minister, please answer the question.”
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