“Uh, no, Tan Sri Dr. Chen. That was before my time.”
“Just Dr. Chen is fine. You have an impressive operation here, Director Singh. Your commander is quite the young Alexander.”
Ken looked flustered at the praise. I almost laughed aloud. “He is indispensable to me, Dr. Chen. Please don’t try to steal him.”
“I wouldn’t dare. I want to see what he accomplishes with your forces in ten years’ time. And you, my dear, are a community builder extraordinaire. What you have done is equivalent to founding a country.”
It was Ken’s turn to enjoy my discomfort. I muttered a brief, ineloquent thanks, which made Dr. Chen add, “More the rough pioneer than the seasoned diplomat, but it’s early days. Very early days. You’ve left one very important post vacant. He’s running your military and you’re building a nation, but there’s no one in charge of your corporate empire.” She raised an apologetic hand to the Chair of the Consolidated Mining Group. “No offense to your colleague, but I am talking about more than mining. Fortunately, I am prepared to offer myself for the position.”
Dr. Chen was right. I was rough around the edges, more comfortable with swearing than small talk, and I could feel myself getting ready to tell this rich bitch what she could do with her cloying politeness and unbelievable arrogance. But before Ken could jump in to stop me, even before the Chair could give me a pleading glance, Russo’s index kicked me in the brain, dropped a stack of data, and basically informed me just how capable and sought-after Tan Sri Dr. Diana Chen was and how much of an idiot I would be if I turned her down, far less insulted her.
I closed my gaping mouth, got to my feet, and extended my hand. “Dr. Chen, I can honestly say it would be an honor.”
One of the best meetings happened after I’d had a stressful day with wall-to-wall problems that everyone expected me to fix in minutes without swearing at anyone. I was so tired that I was napping in my office to gather up the strength to go home to bed. Ken woke me with a message that a new arrival to Ceres wanted to meet me. I was ready to unload the words I’d suppressed earlier, but then I read the words “and JP sends her regards.”
I got up and quickly pulled my untidy hair back in a ponytail. I was still half-asleep, and for some reason when I opened the door, I was sure JP was going to be standing on the other side . . .
. . . and it wasn’t her. It was someone else.
“Jasen?” I shook my head and mentally kicked myself. “Sorry. Sorry, that was . . . uh . . . which one are you?”
He didn’t look offended. He waited until I finished babbling, then calmly shook hands. “I’m Sikander. Sorry I took so long. It’s been an interesting journey.”
His hand was rich with nano-ink tattoos. I stopped shaking it and started staring at it—intricate coiling designs in gray, blue, and gold, highly functional art.
“Um . . . I have been screened. Thoroughly,” he said uncertainly. Now he looked offended.
“Yeah, right, of course. Sorry. Very nice designs.” I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms. “You . . . don’t look exactly like Jasen.”
“He was the LA guy; he had a lot of work done. Nose and . . . um . . . other things. Should I come back later? I have a datachip for you, but I can leave it with you. Here.” He set it gingerly on my desk. “Take your time with it. Goodbye.”
He backed away and left at speed, almost bumping into Ken, who had just entered the office.
Ken raised his eyebrows. “Short meeting?”
I glared at him. “There’s a reason I have naptime. How long is he staying for?”
“His clearance says six weeks, then back to Earth. New Delhi, in fact.”
I yawned. “Good. We’ll have time to prepare some confidential dispatches to send with him. He’s the perfect walking hub for our intra-System communications. JP is a gem.”
It never really stopped being weird, but it worked. Every two months or so, depending on how much was happening, JP would put together a massive file of the best data from the Ships and Russo’s networks and send it with a Russo clone. Moscow, Lagos, Rome, Mexico City, Delhi, and São Paolo—those were the origins of the six living clones, but after years of working with the Ships, they’d traveled all over and grown comfortable with the semi-nomadic life.
The clone would hang around for a bit, then go back to Earth with written and eyewitness reports. I learned to deal with it. None of them were Jasen, but then again, none of them matched the creepiness of their progenitor. Ken once innocently suggested that I should occasionally hook up to a sleep-nutrition stabilizer, to make sure I didn’t get whacked out by all my duties plus my constant processing of information. Man, that fight was epic. He only forgave me after I showed him images of Russo’s new mobile support system and calmly explained the slippery-slope seduction of the purely internal world. The resemblance to the tanks used by civilian Arvani was a natural coincidence of basic design, but it still got his attention, and he never disturbed my naptime again.
+ + + +
“How’s the terrain?” I shouted over the noise and vibration in my helmet.
“Challenging, but my God, what a view!” Ken sounded blissed out. Four months out of the CPF and he was flourishing. The young Alexander finally had room to stretch his wings, and it was glorious to see.
He’d brought me out to start the workday by test-driving Dr. Chen’s newest invention, the qamutrike: a single-occupant trike/tank/hopper designed to skim ice, crawl up rock, and jet from surface to orbital station or ship to ship. I was the first-timer going slowly, and Ken was the maverick pushing the envelope. If I squinted, I could see his trike high on an icy crest, poised to look Earthward.
“Yeah,” I said. “I bet it’s beautiful. We should get back. Devlin and the others will be here soon.”
“You go ahead. I’ll be in within the hour.”
I left him to his mediations and returned to base. It doesn’t matter how much you trust the dedication of your guards, the rigor of your security procedures, and your own ability to kick butt—when you open the door to your quarters and hear a strange snore in the dark, you will freak the hell out. I quickly got ahold of myself, looked carefully in the infrared, then laughed and brought all the lights on full force.
“What? I’m awake! I’m up!” Devlin jumped up from my couch, blinking and flailing like an overexcited struthiform.
I threw my jacket at him, then my helmet. “Oww!” he yelled as the helmet bounced off his elbow.
“You scared me shitless!” I yelled back.
He laughed. “I scared the Ghostslayer herself? Whoa, gotta add that to my resume.”
“What are you doing here so early?”
“Sleeping,” he answered innocently. “I don’t get much sleep these days.”
I looked him over. For all his complaining, he didn’t look all that haggard. In fact, he looked good and grown up. He’d nearly finished his journey from hunger strikes and struggling adolescence to the full strength of a seasoned adult soldier. “They’ve been feeding you well, at least.”
He sat down on the couch again, leaned forward, and got serious. “Accordance spy probes have been set up on some of Jupiter’s moons, and your help with that has been very much appreciated. We’re finally going to be able to look at what the Conglomeration is up to. Would you like to come and see for yourself ?”
I grinned. “I can clear my schedule for that.”
+ + + +
We sent a message to Ken to meet us at the main dock. I had an embarrassingly happy reunion moment with Shriek and Wei, and then they all showed off their ship to me: a stealth-equipped, boosted jumpship with all kinds of interesting capabilities. It looked like it could hold a company, but today it was just us and the pilot and a payload of surveillance and cloaking tech. I wanted to steal the plans for Dr. Chen to commission something similar for us, but I realized it would be better to just ask her in case it was a model her former colleagues were making in one of their many subsidiary companies.
&nb
sp; Just as the pilot was pointing out the individual, heat-shielded lifepods recessed into the ship’s hull, Ken came through the dockside airlock and parked his qamutrike nearby. He took off his helmet and walked toward us with the relaxed strut of someone who has started the day well and intends that to continue. “Devlin, Shriek, Wei! Good to see you!”
“Isn’t that Ken Awojobi, who murdered that Arvani commander on Titan and deserted at the battle of Callisto?” the unnamed pilot whispered excitedly.
Everyone turned to stare at her.
Devlin spoke slowly, as if to a child. “He’s a close friend, a trusted colleague, and our guest for this mission.”
“But, Captain Hart, you cannot mean that we should—”
“Are you questioning the word of a highly decorated officer and honored citizen of the Accordance?” Wei said sternly.
“Ken Awojobi? Can’t find that name in the CPF personnel records,” I said with the utter confidence of truth.
“So be quiet, you boldfaced tentacle-licker,” Shriek added.
We all snickered at that while the poor young struthiform pilot flattened her feathers and tried to make herself look smaller.
Ken reached us as we were still smirking. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing important. Want to go hunting?” Devlin asked instead.
His face lit up. “Where, Jupiter? Sun-B?”
“Or, as we rebels sometimes call it, Sun-Ra,” I added.
Devlin gave him a huge grin and a nod.
Ken let out a whoop. “Hell yeah! Let’s see what the bastards are up to!”
+ + + +
Stealth limited our speed, but at last we reached the Hildas asteroids and began to connect to the probes. It took a little more time for us to establish secure communication to the surveillance network and to use that communication to find and pinpoint areas of interest.
The data came tumbling in. There had been a lot of changes. I felt my heart beat faster, as if it was warning me in advance that I should run.
Wei stopped poring over the data and began to keen in terror. The pilot glanced at him with scared eyes, but she kept silent.
“What does that mean?” I asked sharply, choosing anger instead of panic. “What’s going on?”
“I think it means that Wei also recognizes the infrastructure,” Shriek said. His voice sounded as if it were coming from a great distance, and his face was too calm. “The Conglomeration have built genetic refactoring pits and breeding hives. The signature is unmistakable.”
“You mean we didn’t win?” Devlin said. “They got what they wanted?”
“They didn’t get Earth,” Ken said harshly.
“Earth was never the target! It was a diversion. The target was the troops on the ships, the miners and engineers and everyone that got swept up when we ran from Jupiter. We failed!” Devlin’s voice didn’t rise above a whisper, but the anguish in his tone hit harder than a shout.
I said nothing. I scanned the readings, absorbing the data and learning as fast as I could. Wei continued his soft cries, distracting me, until I put out a hand and absently began to stroke his arm and smooth the bristling pinions over his clenched wing hand. “Wei. What does this variable mean? Can we calculate pit volumes from this distance, Wei? We’ve got a lot of work to do, and I need you to teach me. How many probes are out there? Should we launch more, to improve the data?”
“Amira,” Ken said softly.
“It’s okay, Ken. I’m okay. We can beat them. We’ve got to work a little harder, a little longer, but we’ve got a fleet. We’ve got an empire! We can win this!”
I felt the warmth and weight of Devlin’s hand on my shoulder. “We can,” he said, his voice stronger and steady. “We’ve done it before with less. We’ll win.”
Shriek blinked and nodded, looking at us clear-eyed and hopeful. “Yes. This is true. I have been with you from the start and I am still alive. I believe you can.”
Our ragged, traumatized little family reassured each other with a word, with a touch, with the comfort of facts, with the sunward view of our still-standing domain. But we did not forget where we were. It was dangerous to linger.
Ken spoke to the pilot. “We’ve seen enough. Take us back.”
“Yes, Commander,” she answered. “Setting course for Ceres.”
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. + Text copyright © 2017 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. + Cover illustration copyright © 2017 by Steve Stone + All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Saga Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 + SAGA PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. + For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. + The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. + CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress. + ISBN 978-1-4814-3042-5 (eBook)
Jupiter Rising Page 23