Crashland

by Sean Williams

  Xandra Nantakarn and the rest of the crashlanders were still stuck at the bottom of their cave. One of them had broken a leg in a fall and bled to death, while two others had been forcibly restrained after an argument had escalate into physical conflict.

  Tash was lying on her back and staring at the sky, exhausted. Both she and Ronnie had noticed her reappearance through the Air and were already writing messages that Clair was sure she didn’t want to read.

  “If you don’t post it now, Clair,” said Trevin, this time, “we’ll do it for you.”

  He was right. She had to.

  With a feeling of stepping off the cliff and into free fall, Clair posted the message to her profile.

  At first it was just one slab of text among many others, but it attracted attention instantly. Even as the firewalls remade the barriers around her, she saw people starting to notice. People were sharing. Her friends stopped messaging to read. Dupes were doing the same, she hoped.

  Then the shutters came down, the real world disappeared, and her lenses were restored to their former steel-gray appearance. She mentally returned to the crow’s nest and the view of the illuminated seastead below. There was an electrical storm on the western horizon. Her mouth felt dry.

  “Every booth on the seastead is offline, as you suggested,” said Trevin. “Nothing comes in or out until we put the plug back in. And I mean nothing. If the dupes can find a way in here via d-mat, I’ll eat Devin.”

  “I think I’m safe,” said Devin, “although I would be quite tasty. How are you PKs doing?”

  “Ready, here and around the world,” said Forest. “As soon as the dupes appear, the routes their patterns took through the Air will be traced.”

  “And the source erased,” said Drader. “All you’ve got to do,” he said to the twins, “is stop them from destroying the seastead first.”

  “We should get you armored up,” said Sargent to Clair.

  She nodded. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. If they did find the source, she would need to be on the ball. She didn’t want any cache erased until she was sure none of her friends were in there too. “How long do we have?”

  “Hours, most likely,” said Forest. “The dupes need to find a way to cross the distance here. We will probably get bored waiting.”

  That might have been a joke. It was hard to tell with his face.

  Trevin turned his head to the left, as though something had startled him out of the corner of his eye. An instant later Devin did the same thing, and Clair guessed that they were sharing something via their parapsychic twin thing.

  “We’ve detected a launch from the Atlantic,” Trevin said. “Suborbital, by the look of it: a Quicklaunch spacegun, like a big tube lying mostly underwater so there’s no exhaust or heat spike to give it away. We saw it anyway and we’re tracking the projectile now. Its trajectory looks . . . worrying.”

  “Already?” said Jesse, with alarm.

  “Definitely coming this way,” said Trevin. “Doesn’t have to have a payload to cause us trouble. A direct hit would be bad enough.”

  “ETA seventeen minutes,” said Devin. “It’s going to come in hot.”

  “We underestimated them,” said Clair. “Again.”

  “Get everyone in position,” said Forest.

  “Drag will make it hard to project its course,” said Trevin, but Sargent wasn’t letting Clair stick around to hear the rest. She pulled her by the arm out of the room and down the ramp to get suited up.

  [33]

  * * *

  JESSE SENT CLAIR a patch so she could track the projectile as more data became available. There wasn’t much to see, but she kept it up front on her lenses so she wouldn’t miss anything. In another window was the dupe-tracking interface that PK Drader had given her. Nothing appeared to be changing on that front. The multicolored dots were still everywhere.

  Sargent kept Clair up-to-date on other fronts as they hurried.

  “The dupes’ launch site is under attack. Hypersonic drones, with payloads. We can fab them faster than they can fab spaceguns, so it’s likely there’ll be just the one missile.”

  Clair wasn’t sure about anything to do with the dupes now. The speed with which they had responded was frightening.

  “Does this count as breaking the peace?” she asked. “Are you committed now?”

  “Depends what the missile does. If it’s a warning shot, as in Antarctica, no.”

  “But this time we’re not going to run.”

  “I guess it depends on what they do when we don’t, then.”

  Sargent hurried her into a medical suite and told her to strip. There wasn’t time to be embarrassed. Clair slipped out of the uniform and stood hugging herself until the fabber pinged. Sargent handed her a new undersuit and she slipped into it as the next cycle started. It was made of a stiffer material than the one she’d worn before, with metallic threads forming an extra weave across her torso and throat. There was a cowl that came up over her head, with an oval barely large enough for her face to poke through. She left that dangling down her back, thinking it was a mistake. She was expecting a suit similar to Jesse’s, with the hoodie they had had before. It didn’t seem possible to fit her hair into this one.

  What emerged from the fabber in several stages was heavy blue-and-white armor identical to Sargent’s, lacking only the insignia. Sargent helped her put each segment in place, making sure every joint and seal was correct. There was a lot of overlap, but her movement was almost entirely unimpeded. The armor as a whole was amazingly light for something that felt so comprehensively safe.

  A lens interface lit up as her chest plate went on, providing instant updates on her own respiration, heartbeat, temperature, blood sugar levels . . . Last to come out of the fabber were a helmet, a pistol, and a jagged knife.

  “Uh, I don’t think I’ll need that,” Clair said as the last was clipped firmly to her side.

  “Take it,” Sargent insisted. “Better to have it and not need it than the alternative.”

  Clair couldn’t imagine any circumstance under which she might willingly stick a sharp object inside another person, but she took it anyway. Two weeks ago she couldn’t have imagined shooting at someone either.

  “Looks like it’s coming down about a mile from here,” Jesse bumped her as she made her way back up to the crow’s nest, feeling like someone in fancy dress. Her hair, with Sargent’s help, had been smoothed back into the cowl. She felt naked without it in her peripheral vision, despite everything she was wearing.

  A mile seemed a long distance, but she supposed that in terms of a missile launched a quarter of the world away, it wasn’t really.

  “We’ll be able to see it?” she asked.

  “Depending on the weather, probably.”

  Clair and Sargent returned in the middle of a conversation about deploying PK attack drones in advance of the missile’s arrival. PK Drader was elsewhere, checking up on the disposition of the peacekeeper observers.

  “We will provide you with drones,” Forest was saying, “on the condition they are not used to initiate conflict.”

  “Okay, so send us the patterns,” Devin said, “and we’ll fab them. There’s enough time before touchdown to get them in the air.”

  “Give me control of the drones,” said Jesse. “I can pilot them if someone else does any shooting.”

  “We’ll hitch you up with a gunner, no problem,” said Trevin before Clair could volunteer.

  Data exchanged hands. Ports opened on the seastead’s upper reaches. Energy swirled within the ports, and drones began to emerge in a steady stream. It seemed like magic until Clair realized what the ports actually were: they were weaponized fabbers, like the d-mat gun Devin had jerry-rigged on Ons Island. Fabbing drones en masse was probably the most peaceful of their intended uses.

  Jesse backed up and closed his eyes. His fingers danced. Clair still had the drone interface she had used in Crystal City, and on opening it she could see him taking command of
the flock of drones and sweeping them off to the likely impact site.

  A timer was counting down. One minute to go.

  “We’re seeing no increased activity in the Air,” said Sargent. “No spikes in data flow indicating a surge of duping.”

  “So it hasn’t started yet,” said Clair.

  “Let’s be ready for anything,” said Devin.

  “We have an orbital asset changing attitude,” said Trevin. “Powersat. Beam coming our way.”

  Clair looked around the glass bubble at the night outside. “Should we move somewhere less exposed?”

  “No need,” Trevin said.

  The view outside the crow’s nest went black as the glass turned to mirror. An instant later, an identical view took its place, projected onto the interior of the bubble. Clair saw a new beam of hazy light stabbing toward them from the south, sweeping the ocean like a searchlight.

  Seconds later, a fiery, red line flashed across the view. Steam rose up from the eastern horizon. The missile had struck the ocean.

  “No sign of a chemical or nuclear explosion,” said Trevin.

  Clair hadn’t even considered the latter. In the normal world, making dangerously radioactive elements in a d-mat booth was utterly forbidden. She waited for movement as the shockwave struck, or even a sound, but there was nothing.

  The powersat beam adjusted its trajectory slightly and began burning away the steam.

  “I see something in there,” said Jesse, shifting everyone’s attention to the drone interface. His flying eyes had been widely scattered by the arrival of the missile, but several had penetrated deep into the steam and were sending back data unimpeded. It was very hard to tell what was going on in there. Occasionally a drone would hit the fringe of the powersat beam and fizz out in a wash of static.

  “Where?” said Clair.

  “Here.” He wrapped a frame around one corner of a view from one of the drones, the image caught in midswoop. “It’s a structure of some kind.”

  If she squinted she could see something black sticking out of the choppy water below the drone. Slowly more images arrived, giving her a sense of what it might be. It resembled a giant raft from which three tall, angled chimney stacks protruded.

  “Doesn’t look like a ship,” said Jesse.

  “They’re mad if they think we’re going to let them sail right up to us,” Trevin said.

  “No communications?” asked Clair. “No public response to my post?”

  “Only this,” said Forest.

  The powersat beam hit the ship or whatever it was and locked on. At the touch of the energetic beam the construct came to vigorous life, sucking energy and turning it into new shapes, new mass, new functions. The chimneys extended, and flared slightly at the open end.

  Devin said, “Does anyone else think they look like . . .”

  “Cannons, yes,” said Trevin. “Built to fire big shells.”

  “For taking out a big boat?” said Sargent. “I guess that makes sense.”

  “We’ll increase our armor on that side, just in case, and pull our head in.”

  Clair could already feel a grinding vibration through her feet as the seastead fabbed new layers of protection. That was added to a sinking sensation as the crow’s nest retreated into the body of the vessel.

  “We could totally take it out right now, before anything happens,” said Devin with an eager look in his eye.

  “Yes, and that would make you the aggressor,” said Forest.

  “Even pacifists must dream of casting the first stone sometimes. . . .”

  [34]

  * * *

  “WE’RE GETTING SOME serious activity now,” said Sargent, eyes dancing across data Clair couldn’t see. “Something’s building out there. Literally.”

  With a flash of yellow light, the middle cannon fired, unleashing a sphere that arced across the ocean in a flat parabola toward the seastead.

  A harsh, electronic siren blatted once. The chat opened wider, indicating that the RADICAL twins now were talking to more than just those in the crow’s nest. A rustle of distant voices made Clair feel like she was standing in a crowd.

  “Here it comes!” called Trevin. “Can’t tell if that cannonball is hot or not.”

  Clair stood closer to Jesse. Both of them put their helmets on, just in case, but left the visors open. Everyone’s attention was on the data as it streamed in from the outside. Every sensor on the seastead followed the sphere closely, measuring it in every possible way. It was four yards across and dark gray, and it cast soft reflections in radar.

  “Could be explosive,” said Devin. “Could contain acid to corrode the hull. Could be anything. Can we fire now?”

  Forest nodded, and Clair let out a sigh of relief.

  Defensive fire from the seastead raked the dark surface of the sphere, but it kept on coming, absorbing the impacts like pebbles thrown down a well.

  “Brace yourselves,” said Devin.

  Clair had just enough time to take Jesse’s gloved hand before the missile hit. There was no movement through the hull, and no explosion, either. Drone cameras zoomed in on the impact site to see what had happened.

  The missile had splatted flat against the hull without exploding or breaking open. Instead, it rebounded into a squat hemisphere, like a giant raindrop on a giant wall.

  “Is that it?” asked Jesse.

  “We’re picking up vibrations,” said Trevin.

  “Drilling?” said Forest.

  “We’ll get crews down there to seal off the area, just in case.”

  “Data is spiking,” said Sargent. “We are seeking the source of the dupes.”

  Finally, thought Clair.

  “Two more of those things on the way,” said Devin.

  She glanced at the second and third spheres, already well across the gap between the structure in the water and the seastead.

  “Can we take out the cannons now?” asked Devin.

  “As a precaution,” said Forest, “I do think that would be sensible.”

  “Jesse, are you on it?”

  He nodded and let go of Clair’s hand. The view through the drones shifted. Weapons systems activated at someone else’s command as he sent half of his flock into vertical dives, aiming for different sections of the construct.

  Before the cannon emplacement could respond, it was in flames, blown apart by detonating drones.

  “We’ve got another one,” said Trevin, indicating a patch of sea much closer than the one Jesse had just set on fire. A second construct had appeared, this one with seven chimneys. They were already firing, sending a series of black balls arcing to all points of the seastead, which responded with a cloud of drones thick enough to blot out the stars.

  War, Clair thought. There was no mistaking this situation for posturing or bluster. It was happening, and it was happening in earnest.

  A third construct appeared while Jesse took out the second. Underwater microphones picked up the sounds of heavy industry all around the seastead.

  “Torpedoes away,” said Devin. The sea became a foam of spray and bright bubbles bursting from below. Now Clair could feel the seastead move, a slow sway from left to right as though the Earth was shifting uncomfortably beneath them.

  “What have you got?” Clair asked Sargent.

  “Still no source, but information flows are higher than ever.”

  Outside, on the hull, the first bubble had swollen to double its initial size. An external crew was approaching from three sides, while on the inside of the seastead Trevin reported that there was no sign of anything cutting through the hull. There were now seventeen such bubbles scattered across the seastead.

  “This is weird,” said Devin. “Why aren’t they doing anything?”

  “Maybe they tricked us into firing first,” Clair asked, tugging off her helmet. It was making her feel claustrophobic. “Could that be what this is about?”

  “Wouldn’t hold up in the Court,” said Sargent. “This is an attack, even
if it doesn’t seem to be actually harming us in any way.”

  “It’s given us zits,” said Trevin. “I don’t like it. We’re going to section off those areas and send them to the bottom of the ocean.”

  External fabbers began unfurling huge sheets of curved metal designed to enclose the still-growing spheres, while crews supervised the carving of the thick hull around them. Within moments the now grotesquely swollen first sphere was half-covered in metal restraints. When it was completely contained, it would be cut free and allowed to fall into the water.

  Jesse’s drones circled the seastead. Schools of sleek torpedoes were finding fewer targets in the swollen seas. It felt like the crisis was over, or soon would be, once the mysterious spheres were gone.

  Clair didn’t understand it. What had she missed? Why would the dupes go to so much trouble if the spheres didn’t actually do anything?

  “Feels like a stunt,” said Trevin.

  “Maybe it was a distraction,” Clair said.

  “Either way, a complete waste of our time.” He sounded annoyed, as though it was a personal slight.

  The deck kicked sharply beneath her. She caught Jesse as he stumbled into her, his senses swept up in his augs. The rustle of voices in her ears became a roar.

  “That came from inside,” said Trevin, looking alarmed.

  “An explosion?” asked Devin.

  “More than one. Hang on. Here.”

  Maps of the seastead flickered across Clair’s lenses. Two bright-red patches flared in a lower section of the starboard bow, showing the sites of the explosions. Damage reports flooded in.

  “How did they get inside?” she asked.

  “They can’t have,” said Devin. “The booths have no power. There’s no possible way—”

  The seastead kicked again. More red patches flared.

  “This can’t be happening,” said Devin.