General Ellis glanced at President Tomlinson, who nodded.
"Engage target," he said. "All weapons authorized."
"Yes, sir."
What appeared to be a cloud of bats descended swiftly on the flying figure below.
"Swarm released," said the pilot.
The bats, which on closer inspection President Tomlinson thought more resembled the swifts that populated her Washington residence's backyard in spring. They swirled in around Jamie, suddenly parting as three or four of them exploded within feet of her. They weren't small explosions. The sound was muffled but their blast radiuses were dozens of times larger than her body. For a second it as if she was flying in the center of a massive fireworks display. Her body rolled through the air, arms and legs akimbo, and Tomlinson just had time to think: Yes, we have her! – before Jamie rallied, and the swarm was expanding away from her as though on an invisible growing sphere.
"Launching SHETKO."
The pilot no longer sounded quite so calm. The missile flared away. And stopped. The perspective changed in a blur as the pilot backed off at breakneck speed. A few seconds later they saw what he was running from: the missile was on his tail, steadily gaining.
A sharp intake of breath preceded the abrupt loss of video. A grey, fuzziness filled the central screen.
"ASP Striker One appears to be offline," Jacob Kushner announced in a flat voice.
President Tomlinson resisted the wildfire of fear that was racing through her. There would be time to be scared shitless later, she told herself. Now was the time for action, or she could lose everything. She exchanged a look with Molly, whose eyes were wide and terrified.
"Bill," she addressed General Akron, "instruct our main fleet commanders to target Ms. Shepherd."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Do we know her current flight path?"
General Akron consulted his laptop. "She's on a line for Washington D.C. Traveling about 6,000 MPH. ETA, ten minutes."
"I'm ordering all four starships to coordinate laser and particle beam strikes on Ms. Shepherd. Commencing immediately."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"I also want them to select the least populated areas for possible aerial Proteus strikes along her line of flight."
General Akron raised his eyes to meet hers. Suddenly every eye was on her. A stillness pervaded the room.
"We have someone inbound who has the capability of destroying the nation's capital," said President Tomlinson. "Someone who could compromise if not destroy our military capabilities if left unchecked, not to mention doom this entire planet. Those consequences become more probable with every second we waste talking, General. You have your orders."
General Akron turned to his aides with a heavy nod. The clicks of keyboards and mice echoed in the room.
"Those orders have been conveyed to the ship's commanders, Madame President."
"Very well. Thank you."
Several seconds ticked by. General Akron's frown deepened as he regarded his computer screen. President Tomlinson and the others watched the room's central screen, which showed the four starships as balls of light, seen from a nearby satellite.
"President Tomlinson," he said, "the commanders of the Peacemaker, Cheyenne, and the JFK have declined to obey this order. Captain Bascombe of the Ardent has opened fire with particle and laser weapons."
"Relieve the other three of their command," snapped President Tomlinson. "Place their seconds or whoever is willing to obey orders in command."
"Messaging them on their private coms," said General Akron. "Ma'am, this could take some time. The transfer of command may not become effective before Mrs. Shepherd reaches the D.C. area, especially if conflict among the crew occurs, which seems likely."
"Can we bypass that process?"
"We could bypass the entire crew," Jacob Kushner stated. "Utilize the AI override. PAT would have complete control."
"Is that true, General Akron?"
"Yes, Madame President." The General's voice was freighted with reluctance. "PAT has the capability of taking control of all ships' systems."
"Make that happen. We're running out of time, Bill."
"I'm accessing override code." General Akron's typing sounded like small blows to the computer keyboard. "Entering code." A moment passed. "PAT has accepted override and awaits orders. You can speak to her directly through the transceivers in this room."
"Good. Pat, conduct coordinated strikes with beam weapons for maximum effect against Ms. Shepherd."
"Yes, Madam President."
"And calculate MAME strikes where and when civilian casualties are minimized. Keep us informed at all points."
"Yes, Ma'am. Beam strikes are underway." A pause. "Target has altered course. Is now ascending...on approach vector for the JFK."
"Are the beams having any effect? Was she struck?"
"Struck multiple times, Ma'am. She's now effectively evading them. No sign of injury."
"Can you detonate a MAME in her path safely before she reaches the ships?"
"Yes, Ma'am, if launched within the next two seconds."
"Launch."
"Yes, Madame President."
They all observed the blue-white ignition and exhaust of a MAME missile racing away from one of the cruiser class ships.
"Detonation in twelve seconds," Pat announced. Two seconds passed. "Target has departed from probable kill radius."
"Initiate Space Compression Drive 1," rasped General Akron. "Get those ships out of there."
"President Tomlinson?" Pat asked.
"Do it. And follow General Akron's orders unless I countermand them."
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Disarm the missiles," said Akron.
"Missiles disarmed. Ships' compression drives activated. Entering subluminal space in 1 second."
"Come on," General Akron rumbled, his hands forming fists on the table. "Get the hell out of there."
Though President Tomlinson's hands were calmly folded, her insides were forming fists. She guessed Bill was imagining trillions of dollars of hardware – as well as their biggest military ace in the hole – vanishing in a telekinetic firestorm. An excellent call, she had to hand it to him. While the ships might survive, her vision of a quick, decisive victory was going up in smoke. If they couldn't defeat her with killer robots, explosive "swarms," and antimatter weapons, what else did they have?
Calm down, old girl. Our evil geniuses will think up something.
Viewed from the satellite, they watched the starship lights expand in a blur and then wink out of sight.
"They're gone," General Akron breathed out. "Thank God."
"Good," said the President, sharing in his relieved exhalation. "Where is Ms. Shepherd?"
General Akron frowned, peering at his computer. Several of his aides were frowning with him.
"Is it possible she was sucked into the gravity bubble?" one of them asked.
"That's..." Akron looked around for help.
"Quite possible," said Kushner.
"If that happened," said President Tomlinson, toying with a spark of optimism, "what would happen to her?"
Kushner smiled slowly. "That's an excellent question, Madame President."
CAPTAIN ZANE Cameron was not happy. It was a double whammy: his worst dystopian dream of a rogue AI seizing control of his ship paired with his nightmare of facing a physically superior opponent he desperately did not want to harm. The classic malevolent AI willfully taking over a ship was snickered at in enlightened circles within the USSC and its intellectual subsidiaries, but they'd overlooked the possibility that an AI could be commanded to take over, in effect becoming an evil henchman even if someone else was pushing its buttons.
"Well, this sucks," Mallory muttered.
"Pat," Cameron spoke up, "how long is our jump scheduled for?"
"It has no scheduled end, Captain Cameron."
"How far are we from Earth?"
"556,000 kilometers, sir."
A tap-tap on the p
ort window drew their attention to a familiar ghostly female figure swathed in charred fragments of clothing eerily lit from behind by the glare of space-compressed starlight. Patches of what appeared to be soot covered her face and arms. For one long second, Cameron considered the possibility that the tension of this insane day had finally taken its toll on him. Then he heard Lieutenant David Mallory whistle.
"And they say lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place."
Keira raised a hand in greeting. Cameron gave her a small wave. Jamie tapped again – this time not so gently. Cameron nodded and held up a hand signaling patience.
"Pat, what effect will leaving subluminal space have on Mrs. Shepherd, positioned where she is?"
"There will be some compressive force, but less so than when we entered subspace."
"Not that we have any choice anyway. Take us out of subluminal drive, Pat."
"I'm sorry, Captain, but I was ordered by General Akron to place all ships into subluminal drive without instructions about when to end it."
Cameron couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But you can't communicate with General Akron or the President or anyone on Earth in subluminal space, right?"
"That's true."
"So did General Akron intend for us to fly in subspace forever?"
"That would be illogical, sir."
"Nor did he order you to remain in subspace for any particular time."
"That's true, sir."
"And while he did override my authority, that does not mean that I have no authority in his absence, does it?"
"That's logically true."
"So take out us of subluminal drive, Pat."
"Yes, sir."
There was no sense of deceleration. The glare in the port window faded to starlit darkness. Jamie still hovered there, a hard scowl on her pretty face. Cameron pointed to the hatch door. He assumed she'd remember where it was.
"Keira, would you meet her," he said. "And get her a new suit, of course."
"Of course, Captain. Perhaps something in black this time to match the sooty patches on her face?"
"Let's hope she has a sense of humor about us trying to kill her."
When Keira returned with their unexpected guest, Jamie's face was a rigid mask of despair and scarcely contained anger.
"Jamie," Cameron greeted her.
"Keira told me you refused to fire on me. That your AI was in control of the ships, under President Tomlinson's orders."
"That's right."
Jamie looked from him to his crew, her grim expression suggesting gratitude wasn't uppermost in her mind. "You can't override it?"
"Normally we could shut her down," said Cameron. "We have a code for that. But Mission Control has a code that overrides our override." He shrugged and offered a lame smile.
"I could destroy it."
Cameron had the uneasy impression she might not wait for his okay. Chief Engineer Dan Mueller spoke up.
"Pat's programs are integrated into the ship itself – its intelligence originating and interconnecting in multiple hubs. We could probably root it out eventually, but it wouldn't be easy. Especially with Pat's defense protocols."
"I think I've seen that movie." Jamie spoke without a shred of humor. "And I'm not feeling very good about robots since one just murdered my daughter."
"We were deeply sorry to hear about your daughter," said Keira. "I can't even begin to imagine how you must feel right now."
"What I feel..." Jamie bunched her shoulders as if holding herself in. "I feel that I am going to destroy the people who murdered her, including that sociopath you call your President."
Cameron felt the low, menacing murmur of her words cut into him. These weren't idle words. This woman was more than capable of wreaking havoc if not Biblical wrath upon his government. The awkward part being his government. Their President. The same President they'd all taken an oath to obey. The President who'd been elected to represent and lead the United States. It was one thing to condemn government leaders or even call for their removal from office, but quite another to call for their execution. In his opinion, President Tomlinson had crossed over a line – probably several lines – but threatening her with execution introduced some serious cognitive dissonance in his head. And judging from the appalled and apprehensive expressions of his crewmates, he guessed they might be feeling similarly.
"I'm sorry for your loss, too," said Cameron, struggling to layer over the tension in his voice with sympathy, "but we have to think this through. A lot of people besides President Tomlinson were involved in making that decision."
"I want to thank you for choosing not to follow her orders." Jamie turned from him to the others. "I want to thank you all. But something's gone very wrong here. You've got a government that treats its people as disposable – a President who thinks nothing of killing a child or anyone else who gets in her way."
"In all fairness, she was targeting you, not your child." Cameron raised his hands to ward off her glare. A glare he knew could incinerate him in an instant if she lost control of her violent emotions. "I'm not excusing her. Everyone here – and I'm sure this applies to most of the crew on the other ships as well – believes we should not be capitulating to alien ultimatums."
"Yeah," said Mallory. "Especially ultimatums we don't even fucking know are real."
"Are their threats real, Jamie?" Keira asked. "In your best judgment."
"All I know for sure is that they sentence certain civilizations to death. I also know they use deception. What Amelrina said to me...I think she was telling the truth. But that's not much more than a guess."
"We kicked their asses once, working with you," said Mallory. "Nothing says we can't do it again."
"Except last time we had access to the interior of the ship," Chief Engineer Mueller stated, "along with its location. We also had the advantage of surprise. This time, should we somehow locate it, we'd have to attack it head-on – all its defenses and weapons in full operating mode. I wonder how that would work."
"Pretty scary to someone who's chickenshit," Mallory drawled. "We're always shivering in our boots about these aliens. Ooooo, they have such advanced technology! It would be like the Neanderthals against the Marines. Let's grovel before them or they'll turn us into atomic goo! Well, I got this theory: what if they're mostly a bunch of sissies hiding behind their computers and super high-tech knickknacks? These people Jamie described sure sound like pussies to me. They're all urbane and civilized. But I'm not civilized. What if things get down and dirty? What if it isn't Neanderthals against Marines, but Stone Age dudes against soft Dilbert fucks sitting in cubicles? What if they don't know shit about fighting?"
The crewmembers stared at him along with Jamie, but she thought their expressions indicated disbelieving wonder, perhaps with a dash of pity, as though what he said was both deranged and sadly predictable. To Jamie, his words – everyone's words – grated on her. Her interests were narrowed to a singular, lightless point: someone or something had to pay. She had to stay focused on that point or all the pain that surrounded it would come crashing in and crush her.
"That was quite a speech, David," said Mueller. "Listening to it, I can almost see why the aliens might want to exterminate us before we achieve anything close to their technological level."
Keira shared a bleak smile with Cameron while the Exobiologist, Koharu Akiyama, and Navigator Andrea Wilkins shook their heads. Cameron turned to Jamie, hoping he could find a way to reach whatever slim thread of rationality remained in her at this moment.
"President Tomlinson is one bad apple among many," he said. "As painful as it may be to hear, Jamie, there are much bigger issues than our personal lives at play here. The survival of our species is at stake. If you go to war with the United States Government now, our chances of fighting the aliens are next to zero. Our only chance to defeat them is to pool our resources and all work together."
"Jamie, if you attempt to kill the President," said Keira, "you will probably hav
e to kill countless others to get to her. I don't think you want innocent people to suffer, even as much you're hurting right now."
Jamie wanted not to listen to either of them. She wanted desperately to hold onto her rage and her clear purpose. But as much as she wanted that, she couldn't completely resist the siren's call of reason. She could probably find Tomlinson and kill her, but that might not be easy. She was probably hunkered down in some hideaway miles underground. Even if she did kill her, someone else would just rise up in her place. The harsh truth was that Tomlinson had not wanted to kill Kylee, as Captain Cameron had pointed out. They were only trying to kill her, and considering the stakes, who could really blame them? It was unbearably agonizing to face the fact that her fury had no reasonable place to go.
Why didn't I just stay in that underground room and let the nuke consume me? If I had, Kylee would be alive right now. And what about Dennis –
Jamie realized in horror that she hadn't even thought of calling him, of warning him. Not that he would be capable of doing anything if she had told him. Going to war with Tomlinson would put his and her father's heads on the chopping block. Somehow, she had to think about them, remember that Kylee wasn't the only one here she cared about.
"Maybe the best thing to do is just fly into the sun," she murmured.
"Maybe that's just what the Elementals want you to do," said Mallory. "Maybe you're the one thing standing between them and us. The one thing keeping them from flying in and blowing us away."
Mueller made a grudging sound. "I hate to say it, but that's not entirely lacking in logic. Quite an irony, if the government had succeeded in killing you, Mrs. Shepherd."
"But there's no way of knowing," Jamie groaned. "And right now I'm not sure I care much, either way."
Keira closed the distance between them with three urgent strides and wrapped her up in a hug. Cameron's stomach flip-flopped. A dangerous move, he thought. One wrong squeeze from Jamie and Keira would be history. But Jamie appeared to sag in his medical officer's arms. Jamie began to sob. Cameron and Mallory turned away.
This was going to get very, very awkward fast, Cameron thought. First, he and two of the ship commanders faced court-martial. Second, they faced a choice of loyalty to their own people or the one person who just might be their only chance of survival. Or, third, letting Jamie live might bring down the wrath of the aliens. There was a lot of strange shit to sort out, and the political parts of it weren't exactly in his skill-set.
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