The Unincorporated Woman

by Dani Kollin; Eytan Kollin

  “I’d like that,” he said between bites, “but I could accept only if you could send a basket to every spacer and marine in the fleet.”

  Zenobia’s lips formed into a perfect smile. “That would be difficult, sir. But there will always be an avocado waiting for you if you visit.”

  “As good a reason to visit as any, and probably better than the one I have come for.”

  Although Zenobia was sitting down, she snapped to attention, no longer a woman showing off her apartment to a man she admired but rather an admiral of the UHF with a job to do. “How can I be of assistance?”

  “What do you think of what Gupta is doing at Jupiter?”

  Trang was referring to the past week’s news about how Gupta’s fleet had been destroying everything in Jupiter’s outer orbits. The press from the UHF had been overwhelmingly positive, with the harshest general criticism that Trang could find being that it was a shame that the Alliance made the actions necessary.

  Zenobia’s response was swift and severe. “These are the bastards who started murdering unarmed crews on UHF ships after they’d surrendered.”

  “Allow me to correct you,” Trang said with an appraising voice. “One, we started this when we destroyed Alhambra.”

  “A mistake from an overzealous flotilla commander,” proffered Zenobia, repeating verbatim what had been the UHF media-saturated response.

  Trang lowered his eyes and kept them locked on his subordinate until she could no longer look at his face. “I’m glad you don’t believe Sobbelgé either,” he finally allowed. “But even if our Minister of Lies was telling the absolute truth, J.D. got the Alliance fleet to stop their murderous policy almost as soon as it started. Legless took a lot of supply ships during the six months after the Long Battle. How many crews did he execute?”

  “None … that we know of.”

  “Come off it, Zenobia. Knowing the truth and accepting it will ultimately inform your decisions and make you the leader I hope you’ll one day turn out to be.”

  Zenobia bowed her head in submission. “Of course, sir. Please continue.”

  “Would you like to know what makes this week’s action the worst?”

  “I’m afraid to answer that question, sir.”

  A faint smile twitched on Trang’s face. “Good. Now you’re at least being honest with yourself. I’ll tell you, Zenobia, what the worst thing about all this is. The Alliance has not murdered men, women, and children in their homes. But we have, Zenobia.”

  Zenobia’s bottom lip dropped as her eyes widened in confusion. “Sir, are … are you saying that we’re wrong?”

  Trang’s face now betrayed his irritation. “Of course we’re wrong!”

  Zenobia shifted uneasily in her seat as Trang collected himself.

  “Of course we’re wrong, Zenobia,” he repeated, only this time more softly. “The question is, what do we do about it?”

  “We can’t turn against the UHF.”

  “No, we bloody well can’t. The incorporated system is the last hope of every human being in the solar system. But now we have blood on our hands that will be generations in washing off.”

  “What can we do, then?”

  Trang sat motionless for a few seconds in intense concentration. “We must win this war as quickly as possible, and when it is won, must punish those responsible for causing this horror—” He paused. “—on both sides. This war is a crime against humanity, all humanity, and if the human race is to have a future, we will have to own up to that.”

  “I don’t see Sambianco allowing something like that.”

  “Who said anything about Sambianco, Zenobia? You forget, there will be elections after the war.”

  Executive offices, UHF Capitol, Burroughs, Mars

  “There will be elections after the war.”

  Trang’s voice came through loud and clear from Tricia Pakagopolis’s DijAssist. Hektor Sambianco listened to it with a surprising amount of regret. He’d liked the old boy.

  “No one else has heard this?” he asked.

  “No one even knows it exists. I placed the listening device in her quarters myself—as they were being built. It’s literally a part of her ship.”

  “It’s a shame there’s no visual.”

  “It would not be certain to escape detection, Mr. President. I’m sorry Trang proved to be traitor.”

  Hektor laughed. “Tricia, you amaze me. All that intelligence and all the resources of the UHF, and you still don’t understand the people you most need to watch.” Hektor saw by her confusion that she perceived his comment as an insult. “Forgive me, I don’t mean to be rude. Trang is not a traitor. In this he’s being absolutely true to himself. That’s what makes him so dangerous.”

  “Please don’t tell me you’re going to let him get away with that.”

  Now it was Hektor’s turn to look insulted. “That overgrown recruiting poster on steroids would lose everything we’ve fought to achieve, and just after we’ll have won the war. If he was President, he’d undo all the work we’ve accomplished to create a perpetual incorporated system. And he would win, thanks to all the billions of people who’ll now have majority as a result of the war.” Hektor sighed. “No, I am afraid our glorious grand admiral is going to have a successful assassination by the Alliance. Vengeance for Fleet Order 8645.”

  Tricia’s catlike eyes brightened with anticipation. “I can’t help but feel we should suffer the grievous loss of Admiral Jackson as well. It’s obvious she loves Trang and may try to continue his misguided dreams without him.”

  “Agreed,” said Hektor as casually as if he were pulling lint off a jacket. “Admiral Gupta seems to have a much better understanding of the realities of the situation. Once he’s destroyed Jupiter and crushed the refugee convoys, the war will be effectively won. Trang can live until then.”

  “As you wish, Mr. President,” bowed Tricia, already ruminating on how best to bring about the deaths of two out of three of the UHF’s greatest heroes.

  Somewhere in the asteroid belt, AWS Spartacus

  Marilynn walked to Omad’s quarters confused by the summons. She’d yet to be invited there, as Omad had chosen to keep their association formal. Which meant mostly meeting her in the two places on his ship that served alcohol. But now he’d insisted on meeting her at once. When she entered, Omad was reading a message on paper, meaning that the information on that paper had been scrubbed from all data systems. The only copy left would be the piece of paper currently being held in Omad’s hand.

  “That can’t be good,” impugned Marilynn.

  Omad gave her a tight, grim smile. “We’ve been ordered to do the impossible.”

  “Is that all? What’s the nature of the impossible this time?”

  “The UHF has been murdering our people,” seethed Omad with barely contained fury. “It makes what happened at Alhambra seem like a rock thrown through a window.”

  “But we’re nowhere near Jupiter,” countered Marilynn, “and even if we were, what could we do?”

  “Oh no, it’s nothing like that. We’re going to make them realize that there’s a price for their evil.” Omad set an unflinching gaze on Marilynn. “I haven’t asked you about your new intelligence-gathering skills, Commodore. It’s not that I don’t care; it’s simply that I have far too many other things to care about.” He held up his hand to quell any protest. “I don’t want to know specifics, but what I need to know is, can you do the seemingly impossible?”

  “How impossible?” she asked carefully, afraid of the answer.

  “Can you screw with their scanners for a period of twenty minutes?”

  Marilynn’s mind reeled at the difficulty his request would pose, but given what she and her NITES were trained to do in Neuro space—especially if Al infested—she was finally forced to answer. “Maybe.”

  Omad’s grim mien finally loosened a bit. “Now that I can work with. Put on your best suit and dust off your dancing shoes, Commodore. The tunnel rat’s going home.”


  20 Called to Accounts

  Cliff House

  Sandra was walking on a cobblestone path recently painted over by an amalgam of fine metals. This enabled the nanites that coursed through her, as well as every other Cerean’s, body to keep her attached to the ground. Metallic bonders, paints, and anything that could add a metallic veneer to formerly unmetallic surfaces were in great demand and short supply in the Alliance capital. Much had quite literally come undone in the days since the planetoid began its odd journey. Moreso, since they had slowed the rotation of the asteroid. Many a potted plant had joined the detritus of loose objects slowly drifting back toward the thrust of acceleration. But at least the vast lakes and pools had been sent back to the ice shell from which they came in order to power the ionized thrusts that had Ceres accelerating at almost 0.01 g.

  Sandra had taken to daily walks in the park before the acceleration and so had insisted on continuing the tradition, stilted as the walks were, given the less-than-natural movement in a noncentrifugal environment. As it had before, it gave the people a chance to see and even talk with her, though her contingent of combat vets tended to discourage most personal contact. What Sandra understood that Sergeant Holke didn’t was that her power was based not on the title she’d been surreptitiously given to placate the political class but on the fact that the people liked her and that she liked them right back. That the thousands of little connections she would make meant far more than the title that had been foisted on her. It was a technique that Sandra had used in every corporation she’d ever worked for, including Robocorp, the last company Justin Cord owned before Sandra built the suspension unit that had launched Justin Cord into the future and changed the course of human history.

  What had initially started out as a method by which to build her power in the Outer Alliance soon became a true desire to reassure the people who’d grown to love her and what she’d come to represent. But of all the outings, events, and seemingly minor public dalliances Sandra had taken part in during her over eight months of life, the past two weeks had by far been the most difficult. How could she keep a positive public face, given the destruction visited on her people by Gupta’s recent massacres and the Alliance’s impotent nonresponse? How could she answer the oft-repeated questions as to the whereabouts of the Blessed One, J. D. Black, and J.D.’s apparent abandonment of the very people she’d rescued time and time again? Sandra couldn’t, and even worse, she knew that—plan be damned—if J.D. did not appear soon, there would not be an Alliance to save. It would be destroyed by its own recriminations and accusations.

  Six and half million kilometers from Ceres, UHFS Liddel

  “Admiral Trang,” said the sensor officer in a muted but uneasy voice.

  Trang immediately picked up on the added urgency. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “The ice blocks are powering up.”

  Trang smiled. The ice blocks had been J.D.’s original decoy, slowly replacing her fleet over the course of weeks. By the time the UHF got wind of what was happening, the Alliance fleet had effectively vanished. “So you never went anywhere at all,” murmured Trang. The next moment brought the call he’d been expecting. He allowed the connection.

  “Well, she’s finally coming out to play, Zenobia.”

  “Why now, sir?”

  “I imagine the political pressure got too great. Gupta has just about finished destroying the outer orbit settlements of Jupiter and is about to destroy the vital industrial asteroids and communication centers. They have to do something, even if it’s to battle us in the empty spaces between the orbits of Mars and Saturn.”

  “Her fleet is nearly as big as ours, and as much as I hate to admit it, her spacers are more experienced.”

  “Worried about fighting the lioness in front of her lair, Zenobia?”

  “Fuck yeah—” She paused. “—sir. Shit, I keep on doing that.”

  “I would rather you curse and see clearly, as you are now, than remain pure of speech and blind. And I am overjoyed you’re worried. In fact, I’m worried enough not to fight her.”

  “Really?” Zenobia couldn’t hide the shock in her voice. “You could take her, sir. You can end the war right here.”

  Trang could tell that although Zenobia had doubts about her own ability, she clearly had none about his. “I’d like to think that I can too, but I’m not going to risk a battle I don’t have to fight. We’ll give space and more space and even more space. I’ll let J.D. push our asses back to the orbats of Mars if that’s what it takes. In the meantime, let’s send Gupta a message that he is to destroy the Jovian Shipyards and whatever other targets of importance. And that he must quickly refuel at that glorious helium sink of a planet and get his fleet over here as fast as possible.”

  “He won’t be able to destroy the refugee convoys fleeing to Saturn,” Zenobia said. Though the statement was said as fact, Trang understood the subtext—more lives would not be lost needlessly.

  “If he joins us now, we’ll outnumber J.D.’s fleet two to one. That is of primary importance.”

  “So we wait?”

  Trang watched the sensor officer’s array from his holodisplay. More of the blocks of ice were coming online.

  “We wait.”

  Upper orbit of Jupiter, UHFS Redemption

  Gupta read Trang’s message with a look of unheralded triumph. He now knew how the rest of the war was going to proceed.

  “Communications.”

  “Sir.”

  “Prepare a general fleetwide broadcast.” Gupta then stood and composed his thoughts.

  “Sir, every ship in the fleet reports, ‘ready to receive.’”

  Gupta acknowledged the comm officer and straightened his shoulders. “Grand Admiral Trang,” he began, “has just sent me a Fleet Intelligence report stating that J. D. Black and the Alliance fleet have been successfully located near Ceres.” Gupta paused, allowing for what he knew would be a palpable fleetwide sigh of relief. “We’ve been ordered to eliminate the last targets of importance, refuel, and rejoin the rest of the fleet, where together we will wipe J. D. Black off the face of the solar system and end this Damsah-forsaken war once and for all!”

  The command sphere broke out into an immediate round of applause, which Gupta, with a forgiving yet stern look, quickly tamped.

  “We’ve been forced to do”—his face struggled to maintain its soldier-like rigidity—“difficult things … that in the end, every person in the solar system will recognize as having been the only possible and just outcome of this war. We’ve carried that terrible burden so that future generations will not have to, and we’ve done so with honor.” A few more seconds hung on his words as he finished with his triumphant message. “For humanity united!” Gupta’s smile was wide and heartfelt as, with great satisfaction, he heard his words repeated by first his and then every other crew in his fleet.

  * * *

  Over the next few hours, Gupta issued new fleet orders. There were fewer than one hundred targets left in the outer orbits, and they were easy pickings, being spread too far apart to hinder in any way the movement of his fleet, and too poorly defended to offer any real resistance.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the images of personal shuttles being flown against his fleet in kamikaze attacks. He’d prayed that they were on autopilot, but the erratic nature of their flight patterns and the organic residue that was picked up again and again told a different tale—that of a desperate people who’d thrown their lives away by the tens of thousands to protect their homes and loved ones.

  But closing his eyes in the command sphere could not block out the recurring vision that had kept him lying awake at night. It was always the same: Gupta was in an asteroid with his family, and they were praying to one of the old cult gods. Praying that they would not be found. Everyone was staying absolutely silent, and power levels were so low that his family was slowly freezing to death. The lights were so few that shadows were everywhere, and every nook was filled with a waitin
g dread. And always in the end, the hiding did no good. Gupta’s family would be discovered, ripped from each other’s desperate embrace, torn apart by decompression, suffocated by the cold breath of space and then finally buried forever by Jupiter’s unforgiving magnetosphere. Gupta would wake in a cold sweat with the same thought every time—a desperate wish that he’d named his ship anything other than Redemption.

  The nightmares were so bad, Gupta ended up taking a drug that made it impossible for him to remember any of his dreams—a drug the ship’s chief medical officer was very familiar with and, Gupta learned, had been prescribed often. The warning from the pharmaceutical company said it should not be taken for more than two weeks without seeking proper mental therapy. But the chief medical officer laughed at that. Apparently some of the officer’s spacers and marines had been taking it for years with no serious side effects. Gupta wondered just how deep the damage would be when the war was over and all was said and done. But he took the pills anyway.

  * * *

  Gupta did not have time for a general conference of all his commodores. Instead he looked over the situation and gave his orders. The upper orbits were clear, and the high-value targets were orbiting so close to Jupiter, they were almost touching the outer atmosphere. That made attacking them tricky but not impossible.

  The Jovians had massed their highly valuable asteroids in two areas—one before and one after the Jovian Shipyards in the direction of Jupiter’s rotation. Above the whole conglomeration was a vast field of large frozen helium rectangles. The orbats were located all around the Jovian Shipyards. Gupta was now in a hurry to join Trang. So he would mass his fleet in front of the high-value targets going in the direction of the Jupiter rotation and simply follow the planet, using his fleet-tethered firepower to destroy the first cluster of asteroids—he’d long since disregarded them as environments filled with innocent civilians.