Nemesis

by Alex Lamb

  Ash had done much of the planning work on the message, along with Venetia. However, the video statement had been delivered by Mark. Ash no longer minded playing second fiddle to his old friend. In fact, he preferred it. With the stakes as high as they were now, staying out of the limelight suited him fine. He’d advised, of course. Mark might be the public face of the mission but he was still hopeless with people. And they weren’t about to drag Sam out of his cabinet for a consultation. In fact, just thinking about Sam made Ash feel sick. Several times on the flight he’d thought about making the short trip to the med-bay to turn off Sam’s life support. Or waking Sam and crushing his neck. Or driving his thumbs through Sam’s eye sockets while the man screamed for mercy. Generally, though, Ash tried not to think about his old boss.

  He held his nerve while they drifted for the next hour and a half. Eventually, six battle cruisers powered up to meet them. A message burst arrived showing a video feed of a powerfully built IPSO officer with a shaved head and piercing blue eyes. Ash recognised him.

  ‘This is Overcaptain Arwal Tak,’ the officer said. ‘We received your message. Provide further proof of your identity within sixty seconds or we will open fire.’ Tak glared into the camera. His eyes didn’t blink once, but Ash thought he saw fear behind that mask.

  Mark frowned. ‘Prove it how?’ he said. ‘We already sent him Will’s override code. He’s seen my statement. What more does he want?’

  ‘Humanity,’ said Ash. ‘A reason not to be scared. We just rad-bombed the largest population centre in the Far Frontier, remember. With zero warning.’

  ‘He should be fucking scared,’ said Mark. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Let me do this,’ said Ash. ‘I’ve worked with Tak. I know him.’

  He’d spent hours in meetings with Arwal during his work with Sam. Thinking back over those days made him feel dirty. Besides spending too much time in the gym and fancying himself as an Ira Baron lookalike, Arwal was a good man. He hadn’t been in the League, for starters.

  Ash opened a video channel and donned his most approachable smile.

  ‘Overcaptain Tak, this is Subcaptain Ash Corrigan-Five of the IPS Gulliver. Nice to see you again, sir, and our deepest apologies for the damaging arrival. If you’ve reviewed our package, you’ll know that we’re assembling a fleet to defend the home system from imminent attack. Will you be able to help us with that?’

  They waited for their reply to crawl across the space between the ships and for Tak’s response to crawl back. The silence stretched.

  ‘They’re not launching drones,’ said Mark. ‘That’s a start.’

  When Tak reappeared, he didn’t look any happier. If anything, his frown had deepened.

  ‘This is a very serious set of claims you’re making, Corrigan. Your manifest says the senior Fleet officer aboard is Sam Shah, yet that’s not who I’m looking at. I’d like to speak to him, please.’

  Ash tried to keep his smile straight. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s under sedation at the moment. Overcaptain Shah has engaged in treasonous acts that have endangered the survival of our species.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Tak snapped. ‘On whose assessment?’

  ‘Mine. The captain’s. In fact, every other member of this mission.’

  ‘Then can I speak to the civilian mission head?’ said Tak. ‘Yunus Chesterford?’

  ‘Yunus Chesterford is dead, sir. As are the two Spatials who came with us.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tak. From his expression, it was clear that he didn’t. ‘Your senior officers are disabled or dead. So how about a complete mission log from your data core so I know I’m not looking at the result of a mutiny?’

  ‘Once again, there’s a problem, sir,’ said Ash brightly. ‘This ship is running under a Vartian Institute diplomatic security lockout. We can’t get you that log without a dry-dock.’

  Arwal leaned towards his camera. ‘Listen, Gulliver,’ he growled. ‘You’re flying in a co-opted alien vessel last seen engaging in genocide at Tiwanaku. Your story is so wild there is no way I can get it past the Colonial government without a clearance check. And I’m not sure I buy it anyway. I’m starting to think I need a more thorough briefing package.’

  A message icon from the lounge appeared.

  ‘Let me talk to him,’ said Citra. ‘This is something I can actually do.’

  In the privacy of the helm-metaphor, Ash shot Mark an incredulous look.

  ‘I posted the comms-stream to the lounge,’ said Mark. ‘I thought the others would want to see.’

  ‘Do you trust her?’ said Ash.

  Since the discovery of her betrayal of the human race, Citra Chesterford had been as quiet as a ghost. She’d attended every discussion in the lounge without offering a single opinion. She’d barely eaten and her health had deteriorated correspondingly.

  ‘Do you?’ said Mark.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ash nervously. ‘I think so.’

  Maybe she wanted a chance to prove she could help.

  Mark nodded. ‘We’re not convincing Tak, in any case,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep a handle on Citra’s link and cut it if she says something crazy.’

  Ash passed control of the channel to Citra’s couch. She adjusted her hair and flicked the channel open.

  ‘Overcaptain Tak, my name is Citra Chesterford. I assume you recognise me?’

  ‘Professor Chesterford!’ said Tak. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Then please take our data package absolutely at face value. There is no subtext here. My husband is dead, a fact I’m still struggling to accept. Sam Shah betrayed us and the entire human race. Furthermore, we have witnessed the advance of an enemy so implacable and dangerous that I cannot sleep at night for thinking about it. The two acting Fleet officers on this ship, Mark Ruiz and Ash Corrigan, have shown exceptional courage under extremely difficult circumstances. I can personally vouch for their actions. Please, assemble your ships as fast as you can. If we delay, there may not be a home system to rescue.’

  ‘I’m following up with another information package just in case,’ said Mark. ‘This time it’s the gory details rather than the edited highlights.’

  They waited on tenterhooks for the next message from Tak to arrive. It took an hour.

  When Tak reappeared, he wore an awkward half-smile.

  ‘Okay, Gulliver,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve got yourself an armada. Rendezvous at these coordinates in three hours. Let’s hope you’re right about this.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ash told Citra after they’d signed off.

  She shrugged. ‘This has been a sickening journey for me,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost everything, including my self-respect. I’ve hated feeling so useless. Maybe when all this is done, I won’t be. I understand the role you’ve played in all this, Captain Corrigan. I know you sided with the League and that you betrayed Earth. But none of that matters any more. You’ll be receiving the full backing of the Chesterford Foundation in any legal action that follows our return. Presuming we’re lucky enough to still have courts to visit.’

  Ash wasn’t sure what to say. He certainly hadn’t expected kindness from Citra. Something started sliding around inside him – something heavy.

  ‘You were foolish to follow Sam Shah,’ she said. Her voice cracked under the weight of emotion. Ash watched her eyes start to tear up and felt his own doing the same. ‘But no more foolish than I’ve been. It would be hypocritical of me not to support you. If I have anything to do with what follows, you’ll be treated like a hero.’

  Ash blinked while emotion sloshed around inside him like a nauseating tide. A hero. That was the last thing he felt like. Fool, perhaps, or victim, or weakling, or traitor. Not hero.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said flatly. His eyes stung. Self-disgust he’d been holding at bay for days threatened to crowd up and smother him.

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nbsp; ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Citra. ‘Now, we have a civilisation to save, I believe.’

  ‘That we do,’ said Ash stiffly. ‘Handing helm control to you, Mark.’

  Ash winked out from the helm-arena as fast as he could. In the virtualised privacy of his home node, he curled into a tight ball and cried like a child.

  20.3: RIVER

  River Chu lay in the captain’s couch of the IPS Griffin. He yawned and thought about all the ways he hated being on home system watch. First, there was the boredom of the duty itself. He’d been stuck in the Kuiper belt for five weeks now doing absolutely nothing. Worse than that, though, was the way IPSO law forbade him from chasing down the legally dubious flights he saw entering and leaving the system almost every day. Such flights were deemed ‘private leisure trips’ and thus only qualified for random SAP-mediated inspections. Those sect barons took a hell of a lot of interstellar trips, apparently.

  River had joined the League because he couldn’t stand watching what was being done to interstellar peace. A single short tour at the Far Frontier had convinced him that the Fleet was totally hamstrung by the law. The sects were making fools of them. Yet because of optimistic promises Will Monet had made a generation ago, River was just supposed to lie there and watch it happen. It made his blood boil, but it paled in comparison to the one feature of this watch tour that he hated the most. And that was the anticipation.

  He knew that any day now, the Nemesis machines would arrive. They’d appear in a burst of light and begin their assault on Earth with a swarm of half-sentient drones. And as soon as they neared their first target, River was supposed to leap to the rescue.

  He’d been extensively briefed on which tactics would be most effective and how to interact with his crew when the time came. They, of course, had no idea what was up. For them, this long stretch of watch duty was a kind of perverse punishment that they bore with poor grace. Everyone aboard wished they were back at the Frontier doing some good, regardless of the frustrations the work brought. If all went according to plan, River would suddenly rally them with some surprisingly insightful leadership and help save civilisation at the eleventh hour. Great.

  The prospect of being fêted as a hero didn’t appeal much to River. If it had, perhaps the waiting wouldn’t have been as bad. But a fight was still a fight, even if you were battling half-witted alien machines. There would be losses, without doubt. The drones, he’d been assured, would not be pulling their punches. Their efforts, while simplistic and mechanical, would be entirely in earnest.

  River was watching the latest dreary traffic report from Triton domestic space when the radiation burst hit. Their resting buffers crashed as if a shuttle had dropped on them.

  ‘We have a radiation spike!’ said Ara.

  River’s heart pounded. It was happening at last.

  ‘Damage report,’ he said. ‘How are our sensors?’

  ‘Ninety-five per cent intact,’ said Ara. ‘Thank Gal they were offline.’

  Of course, his main sensor bank had been conveniently retracted for inspection, as it had been every other week since home system duty had started.

  ‘Give me visual,’ said River. ‘Target the burst origin.’

  As his team slewed the telescopes for a closer look, a confusing picture emerged. Instead of the thick spread of winking lights he’d expected, he saw a weird cluster of signals. In the middle hung what looked like a trio of nestships – nothing else was that large. Around them lay a relatively sparse distribution of the kind of drones he’d been told to expect, although far fewer than the League strategists had projected.

  River frowned. Could it be that someone else was using the same carrier system as the Nemesis machines? In which case, who? And why were they bringing nestships?

  ‘Ara, sweep the comms-bands,’ he said. ‘Who are we looking at?’

  A message arrived on one of the primary public channels, hugely boosted and incredibly clear. It carried a video feed of Yunus Chesterford. Except he looked way better than he ever had in his public lectures. He was younger, and buff. He wore a weird skintight uniform and his flesh bore a weird, stripy orange tan.

  ‘People of the home system, I have some incredible news!’ said Yunus. ‘As a few of you know, I have been away on a secret mission to investigate a possible first-contact event. I am glad to say that it has resulted in the most wonderful success.’

  A barrage of supporting appendices and data files came with the message. They started unfolding all over River’s displays.

  ‘We have found life in the universe,’ said Yunus, ‘and it is Truist. It comes in the form of a benign symbiont. It is a gift from God and it has been searching the galaxy for mankind. We are now ready to receive that gift and be granted its incredible bounty.’

  Yunus spread his hands as if to embrace the world.

  ‘The symbiont offers increased lifespan to all, not only rich Colonials. It offers new technology for spaceflight and terraforming. And, most importantly, it offers peace, harmony and plenty for all mankind.’ He smiled beatifically. ‘There will be rewarding jobs for everyone, my friends, new homes offworld and new lives. Astonishing though it sounds, our age of need and worry is at an end.’

  River stared at the message in outright shock. He knew that Yunus had been part of the mission to Tiwanaku, but what the hell was he playing at now?

  ‘Sir,’ said Carol. ‘What is this?’

  As he got over his astonishment, River noticed the way the ships were tearing sunwards and splitting their formation. They didn’t look all that friendly.

  ‘Just as was true in the days of the High Church,’ said Yunus, ‘those who join with God first will benefit most. There is absolutely no time to waste. Our arrival is at hand. Prepare to receive your Lord! Let those of the greatest faith be the first among the flock to receive the Lord’s gift!’

  River shook off his stunned disbelief and picked a target.

  ‘We’re converging with that ship,’ he said. ‘Lay in an intercept course.’

  He sent them a vector for the closest nestship. His tactical SAP gave a higher than ninety per cent probability that it was headed for Mars.

  ‘Grease the rails!’ he ordered. ‘Warping in five.’

  River hit the drive and warp pressed him into his couch. As he flew, he sent a warning to the alien vessel.

  ‘Unidentified vessels, this is the IPS Griffin. You are to cease your advance until it has been approved by IPSO Fleet Command. I repeat, you will cease your advance otherwise we will be forced to fire.’

  At this distance, it would be over ninety minutes before his message reached the mysterious nestships, but it was clear that these visitors didn’t intend to slow. If anything, they were speeding up – burning a prodigious amount of antimatter in an attempt to penetrate deep in-system without losing too much velocity. And all the while, Yunus’s sermon kept coming.

  ‘No hesitation is necessary!’ he said. ‘No attempt should be made to impede God’s gift. As in the days of the true prophet Sanchez, attempts to obstruct holy destiny will be considered acts of sin.’

  Around the time River’s warning was due to hit the closest nestship, about a quarter of the drones flying escort with it shifted course to bear down on him. He watched them come and deployed defensive munitions as late as he dared, giving his enemy as little warning as he could. The drones intercepted at full speed and exploded in bursts of sizzling plasma.

  In an instant, the Griffin tore through the overlapping sheets of fire. The nestship didn’t appear to care about his approach. It pressed onwards, its warp field surging.

  ‘Ara, give me a full tactical map,’ said River. ‘Deep diagnostics on all ship profiles.’

  He filtered it using the Rumfoord League’s overlay code and was relieved to see League ships converging on the enemy from everywhere the arrival flash had so far reached. Like him, the ot
her captains with foreknowledge of the attack had decided to pull out all the stops immediately and get on with rebuffing the assault. It made sense. Letting a few drones near Earth might have been permissible. Letting a nestship get close was suicide.

  ‘The invaders have changed course,’ said Ara, throwing him a window. ‘They’re staying above the ecliptic.’ No doubt they planned to angle down on the in-system worlds while avoiding major traffic and defences. ‘Defences posted at Jupiter’s L3 are moving to intervene,’ she added.

  The orbit of Jupiter marked the notional boundary between in-system and out-system space. Beyond Jupiter, the gaps between planets were huge. Space was relatively clean and respectable sub-light velocities could still be achieved. Within the arc of Jupiter’s motion, planets and populations tended to be clustered dangerously close together. Ships could do little more than crawl. And a single starship-scale screw-up got people killed in large numbers. There was a reason the Fleet kept most of its action out at Triton.

  ‘There’s no way we’re letting those fuckers any deeper than five AU,’ River snarled.

  He knew the rest of Earth’s guardian fleet would share that sentiment. As they watched, the Jupiter-band’s prodigious defences snapped into action. Ponderous sub-light suntap barges fired giga-scaled g-rays in a scanning pattern, creating moving fans of instant death entire light-minutes wide. The nestships veered to avoid the onslaught, dropping speed as they approached.

  ‘Looks like the invaders are realigning for a joint push,’ said Ara.

  ‘Then we’ve got them,’ said River.

  Like wolves seizing on wounded buffalo, Fleet ships from all over the system took the opportunity to attack. They surrounded the Nem ships and poured on munitions. Battle was well and truly joined.

  The nestships’ drone cloud thinned rapidly but they made up for it with g-ray batteries. By the time the Griffin caught up with the action, the fight had become an energy battle glowing like the mother of all Christmases and wreathed in scarves of tortured plasma. Admiralty strategic data bursts started popping up on River’s display as Fleet High Command struggled to instil order into the mob of ships.