by Richard Fox
“It might be too much for some governments. We could face nationalization of a significant amount of our assets.”
Another aide ran up to the edge of the sound bubble holding an Ubi in front of his face. He waved at the pair and tried to yell to them, his words lost to the resonance field.
“Must be important,” Martel said.
“Better be.” Ibarra shut off the field.
“Sir, multiple sources report that the Chinese fleet is mobilizing. What do we do?” he asked. Ibarra struggled to remember who this aide was…someone Martel poached from the CIA. He’d gone two years without being fired, something of a record.
“Send me the projections.” Ibarra turned and made his way back down the hallway. He swore this thing got longer every time he walked it. The elevator was a dozen yards away.
“But, sir, shouldn’t we warn our fleet? So much capital invested in our ships and the Union Navy is at risk,” his intelligence aide said, dogging his steps.
A transmitter in Ibarra’s cane signaled the elevator door to open. Ibarra stepped in and turned to face the aide, who almost stepped into the elevator with him. Ibarra stabbed the cane into the aide’s chest and shoved him with what little strength his old limbs could muster.
“No concern for the thousands of lives on those ships? Empty out your desk. See Martel for your debriefing,” Ibarra sneered. He lowered his cane and the doors shut. His final look at the flabbergasted aide, his jaw hanging slack, gave him a little laugh.
Ibarra waited for the biometric sensors in the elevator to read two thousand separate biometric markers on his person. Lasers scanned everything from his fingertips and iris patterns down to the cracks in his heels and the DNA he exhaled. Once the computer was satisfied with his identity, the graphene-reinforced steel plates beneath the elevator retracted to allow passage deep into the Earth. Only one other human being could get past the security screening, and she’d learn her destiny soon enough.
The elevator descended thirty-seven stories into the Earth before the doors opened with a ding to reveal a set of gleaming vault doors made of lead and lined with a silver fractal metal that he’d never bothered to name. Another bioscan and the vault doors swung inward.
The vault was a squat cylinder with a flat bottom and a rounded top. Lights embedded along the walls cast a uniform glow over bare concrete floors and walls. This was the first thing he’d built with his first billion, this vault and the officer tower above it.
In the middle of the room was a black plinth. Floating a foot above the plinth was the silver needle of light, the probe that called him decades ago.
“Hello, Marc. Things are progressing well,” the probe said.
“How well? The Chinese are moving faster than we’d anticipated. Tipping off Union intelligence about that crooked captain may have saved our entire plan,” Ibarra said. He shuffled forward and scooped up the probe, where it floated an inch above the palm of his hand as they spoke.
“The Chinese are a new variable. Success is now 28 percent, assuming the Lehi survives to phase two,” the probe said, its light pulsing along with its words.
“And if the Lehi is hit?”
“Zero, unless a population can be evacuated from the system. And the chance of that being approved is slightly higher than zero. With intervention and elimination of the Chinese variable, the projections rise to 37 percent. Shall I intervene?”
Ibarra tossed the probe into the air where it floated of its own accord. He leaned against the plinth and sank to the ground. He tapped the tip of his cane against the soles of his shoes as he contemplated their next move.
“Have we done everything we could, old friend?”
“My initial projections of humanity’s survival were much lower. We’ve used your species’ fractured nature as an impetus to drive innovation, which should mask my intervention if the Xaros show an interest in your history. The slip-coil drive is as far as I could take you before the enemy would detect my overt assistance,” the probe said.
“Heh, the slip coil. If only we had twice as many drives, twice as many ships in the fleet….”
“We could produce only so much stable quadrium for the drives within the constraints of manageable advancement. Anymore and the enemy would suspect outside assistance. Any outside—”
“Assistance and the probability of success is zero,” Ibarra said in time with the probe.
“I’ve told you this for decades, and still you refuse to accept it. Your species is either exceptionally stubborn or lacks higher cognitive functions,” the probe said as it floated toward Ibarra and stopped in front of his face. Its silver glow refracted off tears streaming down Ibarra’s cheeks.
“Your eyes are secreting.”
“This is it, Jimmy. Decades of manipulation, choosing which countries succeed and which fall into chaos, the wars…all those people we let die on Mars. All this work and I won’t get to see the end of it.” He wiped the tears off his face.
“You are…Moses. Judeo-Christian figure.”
“The Jews knew Moses was in charge and where he was taking them. He also didn’t work with a frigging floating needle.”
The probe’s light went discordant for a moment, which it did the few times Ibarra had ever managed to annoy it.
“I am a sentient intelligence filled with the combined knowledge of countless civilizations sent across the void to help you hairless apes avoid extinction. I am not a needle. Also, given our first encounter, comparing you to Moses—and his burning bush—is apt.”
Ibarra swatted at Jimmy with the tip of his cane. It passed through the probe as if nothing was there.
“What do we do about the Chinese? A low-grade engine malfunction or should a few of their torpedoes cook off in their tubes?” Ibarra asked.
The probe didn’t answer.
“Jimmy?”
“There’s a mass shadow approaching the heliopause. The Xaros. They’re here.”
Ibarra grabbed the plinth and pulled himself to his feet. His heart quivered and his mouth went dry.
“How long until they can detect the fleet?”
The probe was silent, its light crackling as the entirety of its computing power came to bear.
“At least thirty-seven hours, best case. Twelve hours, worst case,” it said.
“Activate the drives now. We can’t afford to take any chances,” Ibarra said as he shuffled toward the elevator.
“Done. The slip coils will fire in eight hours. What about the Chinese? I can sabotage a bulk of their fleet but I can’t stop the wing of bombers in the Chinese Trojan horse. There’s an escort carrier, the Breitenfeld, within their engagement envelope,” the probe said.
“Don’t do anything. The risk is too high that the enemy might find your fingerprints in their systems,” Ibarra said. How many thousands of men and women on the Breitenfeld have I just consigned to death? Ibarra ran his thumb over the worn nub of his cane’s handle, wrestling with the choice to let the carrier fend for itself when he could save it with a word.
“I suppose I must remind you who is on that ship, mustn’t I?” the probe said with a chiding tone. “Stacey is on the Breitenfeld. You know how integral she is to our mission.”
Ibarra went pale as the implications hit him.
“I thought she was on the Tarawa.”
“No.”
“But—”
“Still no. I can tip the odds in their favor without an unacceptable risk of compromise. Also, loss of the Breitenfeld has a significant impact on the next phase of the operation.”
“Fine. Do it. Protect her at all costs,” Ibarra said. The elevator door opened as he neared.
“Done. My estimation of the enemy’s arrival was off by six point four three days. I must be slipping in my old age. Marc, a moment,” the probe said, the needle of light morphing into a halo the size of Ibarra’s head. “Will you imprint now? There’s nothing more you can do.”
Ibarra shook his head as the elevator doors began to clo
se.
“I built this house of cards. I’ll watch it fall down.”
****
The Breitenfeld’s mess hall was cramped with almost a hundred Marines and naval ratings packed together for their assigned meal time. Space was a premium in the space navy, and every cubic meter that could be cut from crew comfort—in favor of weapons, armor and machinery that powered the warship—was.
Standish placed his tray into a food processor and a covered plate wet with condensation and drink pouch rolled onto his tray. He sneered at the plate and picked it up, almost losing his lunch when a sailor jostled his tray.
“Hey! You mind?” Standish said to the sailor’s back as he walked off without so much as a raised hand in apology.
Standish navigated the mess hall, dodging more people seemingly determined to ruin his meal. A low rumble of clicking silverware and grumbled conversations surrounded him. Each service man and woman on the Breitenfeld had a set window of time to get their meal and eat it, Automated cooks kept food ready, and the mess hall had patrons almost every hour of the day.
Standish squeezed between rows of seated diners and set his tray down next to the rest of his squad. He sat between Franklin and the bulk of a sailor, his thin frame gave him just enough wiggle room to get his arms over his meal.
“Makes you miss field rations, doesn’t it? Just grab a plate and sit down under a tree and not know if the guy next to you skipped his last shower,” Standish said.
The sailor to Standish’s left gave him a sidelong look and shrugged his shoulders.
“Hot chow three times a day?” Vincenti asked. “Better than wondering how long you can last on whatever pogey bait you’ve got stuffed in your ruck.” The Italian Marine twirled his fork in a plate of pasta and took a bite.
“Let’s see what I got,” Standish pulled the plastic top off his meal and sighed at the meal: a rib eye steak with roasted potatoes and asparagus.
“Man, this crap again,” he said.
“What, you got the jackpot. I got damn rice and lentils again, I swear the ship’s computer thinks I’m a vegan,” Walsh said.
Standish pushed his plate at the medic and took the bowl of legumes and grains in trade.
“Thought you’d like steak,” Torni said.
“I do,” Standish said. “I love steak. Marinated steak, grilled steak, tri-tips, BBQ, all that. But ‘steak’ is the word. Not the reconstituted vegetable paste that the ship tries to pass off as steak. I want the real thing, made from cow.”
“No one can tell the difference between the paste steaks and the real thing. The texture and taste are identical.” Walsh cut off a hunk of steak and put in his mouth, content as he savored the bite.
“Yeah, but when I eat the ship’s ‘meat’ I know it’s a lie. Call me a purist,” Standish shoved lentils around his bowl, his appetite gone.
The double doors to the mess hall opened, and a pair of soldiers in green jumpsuits entered, their uniforms stood out in the sea of black and tan uniforms of the sailors and Marines. That one of the soldiers was in a wheel chair, pushed along by the other, brought the din of the mess hall down a few octaves as many did their best not to notice the strange arrival.
A soldier, a rail thin man with a mess of unruly black hair, pushed the wheel chair bound soldier up to a small table against the bulkhead. The soldier in the wheel chair, a woman with gentle features and skin the color of desert sand, looked over the mess hall.
“Holy…is that them?” Standish asked. “Is that the Iron Hearts? I didn’t know they could leave the suits.”
“That’s two out of three, Bodel is the man, Kallen the woman,” Vincenti said. Vincenti and Kallen locked eyed and traded a nod.
“And don’t call it a suit, it’s armor. They get a little mad when you call it a suit and they use those big metal hands…” Vincenti reached toward Standish with a pair of fingers and closed them with a squish sound.
“They wouldn’t do that,” Standish said.
“I’ve seen it happen,” Vincenti said “to a Chinese soldier.”
“No way,” Standish crossed his arms over his chest.
“There we were—no kidding—deep in some East Timor jungle holed up in an abandoned hotel with the rest of the battalion,” Vincenti said. “The Chinese had us pinned down for days, and we were down to a couple of bullets and foul language to defend ourselves. They brought up twenty—”
“It was five.” Walsh said.
“Maybe five tanks, old ones from the Second Pacific War but with new active protection systems. We had nothing that could hurt them. Acera’s on the IR screaming for help, and of course we’ve got no air support. Then he hears ‘Stand by’ on the net.
“You ever see an armor lance, all three suits, fight? Ten feet tall, moving with all the grace of a dancer, faster than you or I could. The armor, the Iron Hearts sitting over there, show up and tear the Chinese apart,” Vincenti bite his lips for a second before continuing. “One of them, I think it was Bodel, he rip the turret off the Chinese tank. Grab the Chinese inside and—” Vincenti slammed his hand against the table, causing Standish to nearly jump out of his seat. “My nonna, she had chickens. One night a wolf gets in the coop…next morning the whole thing’s covered in blood. It was like that when the Iron Hearts came to save us. I have bad dreams, right? Same as every combat vet. But the dreams that wake me up are the ones with them in it.” Vincenti nodded his head at the two soldiers.
Bodel had returned with two plates of food, and was spoon feeding Kallen.
“Why doesn’t she use an exo-suit to eat and walk around?” Standish asked. “And what happened to her? I didn’t think you could be in the military…like that.”
“They have to synch with their armor, they use anything else that interacts with their nervous system and their synch isn’t as strong,” Walsh said. “Armor selection is tough, ninety-five percent wash out rate for volunteers. Kallen can synch with the armor, that got a lot of waivers signed.”
“Where’s the third?”
“Elias? Don’t ask about him,” Vincenti stood up and put a hand on Standish’s shoulder “there are rumors.” He policed up his tray and left.
“What kind of rumors?”
“You want to go over and ask them?” Walsh asked.
“No. Hell no,” Standish said.
“Eat your reconstituted bean paste and just be happy they’re on our side,” Walsh said.
Standish watched the two armor soldiers as he ate. He looked down to open up his desert, when he glanced back at the Iron Hearts, Kallen was staring right at him.
She winked.
****
For all the expertise the Ibarra Corporation boasted in space flight, construction engineering and advanced robotics, they sure had a lot to learn about public affairs, Admiral Garrett decided. He’d been sitting with a long line of Colonial executives and dignitaries on a rickety stage for the last half hour, waiting for his chance to get away from the civilians.
The last batch of colonists had finally arrived on the St. Augustine, a six-mile-long passenger ship that rotated habitation modules around the ship’s axis to produce gravity. Ibarra’s people were getting the colonists “camera ready,” reminding them of the approved talking points and reminding the family members of the amazing opportunity they had to take part in the Saturn colonization—what was a few weeks in cramped quarters compared to that?
The truly rich colonists were on the sleek pleasure liners—private cabins, robot concierge, artificial gravity and no labor—that made trips to Mars and Venus. The wealthy would wait for their upscale homes to be built on the moons around Saturn, all part of the package.
As soon as the civilians exited their shuttle, they’d add to Garrett’s growing list of problems. This ship held ten thousand Ibarra Corporation employees and their families, all of whom had unique and urgent problems that only Admiral Garrett could solve.
Garrett wasn’t used to complaints when he toured ships. His time on naval vesse
ls was spent conducting inspections, attending meetings, and making decisions. Not listening to a woman complain that she couldn’t bring her ferrets with her on the trip to Saturn when the employee manual clearly allowed for pets under a certain wright.
He glanced at his Ubi for the hundredth time. Still no urgent call for him to leave the festivities. He had a press briefing on the America in an hour, but no way to get away before then.
An air lock opened, and two lines of people shuffled into the cargo bay and crowded around the stage as if they were at a concert and not in front of the fleet’s admiral.
Garrett looked over the colonists. Most were men and women in the deep-blue Ibarra Corp work overalls, employees destined to assemble the space station, hydroponic farms and the rest of the infrastructure that would make human settlement possible. There were plenty of children in the crowd, many up on their fathers’ shoulders so they could glimpse the luminaries responsible for their care during their exodus from Earth.
A little girl with unruly blond hair and green eyes waved a grubby hand at him. Garrett, his face a mask of stone, waved back.
The CEO of the colony mission blathered on and on about the corporate vision for what Marc Ibarra expected from them, all of which sounded like he’d cribbed his speech from motivational posters from the walls in Euskal Tower.
Garrett saw himself as a leader, one proven by combat and trained to win wars. He wasn’t meant to nursemaid a bunch of civilians from one end of the solar system to the other. He never understood why Ibarra had insisted he command this mission, but when the president of the Atlantic Union “strongly encourages” you to take an assignment, there wasn’t much of a decision to make.
He leaned forward and looked hard at the civilians, their faces full of wonder and trepidation. He’d been in the navy for so long, sometimes he forgot about the people he’d sworn to defend.
****
Navigating the gnarl of asteroids between the Breitenfeld and Ceres was a routine matter—if Ensign Stacey Faben could use the navigation computers. Under analog conditions, she had to rely on the scopes mounted on the Breitenfeld’s hull and a bricked Ubi for calculations. By the turn of the century, schoolchildren carried more computing power in their cell phones than NASA used for initial moon landings. The Ubi at her fingertips was more than adequate for the task at hand, even if it wasn’t linked to the rest of the ship’s systems.