by Richard Fox
Ormond shook his head. “You’ve been out in the field way too long, Tolan. The galaxy is at peace. The King won’t turn the system upside down just because a few events don’t fit the normal mode. I’ll see him tonight, pass on what we’ve learned. He may want an audience to congratulate you for capturing Ja’war. I’ll encourage it, despite how the Genevan will react to your augmentations, so long as you keep the conspiracies down here.”
“I like being paranoid; keeps me alive,” Tolan said.
“I need more than that to convince the King,” Ormond said and left the room.
Chapter 6
Gage waited as Kamala led the four rescued Siam down the shuttle ramp and to a waiting team of Albion medical personnel. This landing pad of the Lopburi spaceport held field hospital quick emplacement tents and a constant in and out of medical ships ferrying injured Siam to ships in orbit.
“Master Chief, deliver the recovered property to Siam law enforcement, then return the men to their normal duties,” Gage said.
“Aye aye, but they’re from a cannon crew on the Orion. Colonel Horton’s already pulled down every sailor that’s not vital to keeping a ship in orbit. They’ll be back clearing debris or installing solar plants soon as their warm bodies are ready. Least we’ll stay busy this deployment—tends to keep the men out of trouble. Was a pleasure, Commodore,” the Chief said. He turned back to the other sailors and set them to unloading the crates recovered from the pirate landing site.
“Back to the ship, sir?” Bertram asked. “Showers. Food served with proper silverware. No carnivorous bears overhead.”
“The Admiral expects my report,” Gage said as he wiped ash off a forearm screen and grimaced as it synched with the local data network. E-mail alerts, missed calls, and texts scrolled up the screen. “Gone for eight hours…missed two days of work. Sartorius is in the command center.”
Gage locked his helmet to his lower back and went down the ramp, with Bertram following a few steps behind.
A gust of hot wind blew across the landing pad. The heavy scent of ozone from idling shuttle engines gave way to something else as the air settled. Death. A massive pile of debris at one edge of the pad, bulldozed aside by the Albion pathfinder teams and engineers to clear the spaceport for landers, still held the remains of Siam that died in the tsunami. Colonel Horton had directed his crews to focus on rescue operations for those still trapped in collapsed buildings or beneath the wave-born destruction, not the dead.
Gage didn’t fault the man for the decision. The smell was a small price to pay for saving lives. Gage veered into rows of open cargo containers, sidestepping robots moving from container to container as they amassed requisition orders for later delivery.
“Sir, where are you—watch my foot, you blasted thing—” Bertram kicked at and missed a robot as it zipped past him. “—going? The automation master will be most cross if he catches us in here futzing with his minions’ algorithms.”
Gage ducked into a cargo container that had been ignored by the robot swarm. Inside were small toys, children’s video projector cubes, and a box full of shrink-wrapped packages. He tossed a pair to Bertram, then stuffed one into a hip pouch.
“Hungry, sir?”
“Thinking ahead.” Gage hurried out of the container and toward a domed prefabricated building with many smaller tents attached to the outside.
“I used to think about opening a restaurant on Siam once my enlistment was up,” Bertram said. “Albion comfort food: Scotch eggs, Strammer Max, bacon cheeseburgers, fried just about anything. Proper beer, not the piss they drink. Give those rich well-born on safari a taste of home after a taking a turn in the bush or going after those puma things in the mountains. At a premium price, naturally.”
“‘Used to think?’”
“Whole planet’s been knocked down to the Stone Age. Wasn’t a single operating power plant when we arrived. What’s the estimate on the death toll? Fifty percent? Then there’s the nuclear winter that’s coming. The Siam might be better off if we relocated them all to Coventry or one of the other colonies.”
“I doubt they’ll ever leave. The local religion is a mix of Buddhism and Animism. Their family spirits are in the land…more so after this,” Gage said. “They’ll fight on. We can mitigate the atmosphere changes with particulate kites. There’s time to stop the worst of it. Not like Earth after Mount Edziza erupted and sent the whole planet into a new Ice Age.”
“Siam’s lucky they’ve got neighbors like us. What did Earth have? Couple colonies on Mars full of skinny ingrates that could barely grow enough food to feed themselves—not billions starving on the home world.”
“If it weren’t for the Mars colonies keeping the fire of civilization and technology alive, you and I would probably be hunting caribou on the Dakota ice shelf with spears,” Gage said.
“Let a man have his grumbles, sir. Costs nothing to poke fun at those Martian degenerates in their iron caves.”
Gage entered the central tent and stopped beneath a mechanical arm tipped with nozzles and camera diodes. A technician behind a glass wall gave his dirty uniform a once-over, then shrugged. The arm emitted a harmless laser line the width of a pencil and scanned him from head to toe. A spritz of antiseptic fog hissed over his hands and the bottom of his feet.
“Cholera and typhoid cases popped up around the east refugee camps,” the tech said. “Do use proper sanitation facilities and wash your hands regularly.” A green light blinked over a doorway.
Inside the main room, work areas were divided into neat wedges around a raised platform. Printed signs hung from the back of each wedge, marking the area for medical, construction, sanitation, mortuary, and other segments of the Albion relief effort. On the platform, Gage found Admiral Sartorius, Colonel Horton, and several Siam civilians and naval officers.
He traded greetings as he made his way up the stairs. Bertram stayed back, chatting with the steward of the Concordia’s captain.
Admiral Sartorius stood straight-backed with his hands clasped behind him, his neatly cropped beard and receding hairline of ivory-white hair almost gleaming beneath the light of the tall holo tank on the platform. He made no reaction to Horton’s next words.
“My team of engineers finally found the fault with the geo-thermal power lines along the Sepon River; they’re demolished,” said Colonel Horton, who looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Aftershocks from the seismic event of the asteroid’s landing pulverized the transfer stations at nodes alpha through epsilon. We’re looking at a complete rebuild before we can get power from the plant to the outlying cities. Time frame is months, and that’s after we get proper excavators from Albion.”
“So much for the quick fix,” Sartorius said. “What about the orbital solar collectors?”
“Computer models give the collectors sixty hours of functionality before micro-strikes disable them,” a naval officer said. “Even then, with all the particulates in the atmosphere, we’d lose half the redirected energy to dispersion.”
“Then we’ll rely on ground solar arrays until a fusion plant arrives with the next convoy from Albion.” Sartorius’ eyes glanced at Gage. The Admiral gave him a slight nod.
“Shipboard foundries can produce…ninety ground arrays a day,” Colonel Horton said. “Which means they aren’t making water purifiers or prefab housing units.”
“The housing units can wait,” said a Siam woman with wire-rimmed glasses and salt-and pepper hair. “Monsoon season is weeks away, and with the disturbance to the atmosphere, it might not happen at all. We need the power stations for water treatment and sanitation.”
President Hu had inherited her post after the last President—and the nineteen officials in line of succession ahead of her—had died in the tsunami. Two weeks ago, she was the vice minister for fisheries; now she was in charge of the entire planet. For everything she’d been through, Gage was impressed she’d held up so well.
“How long until the tent cities in the Sepon valley are rea
dy?” Sartorius asked.
“Ten thousand beds will be ready tomorrow morning,” Horton said. “Thirty thousand in the next forty-eight hours; that’s assuming the drones keep to the schedule. The crap in the atmosphere is causing malfunctions more often than we’re used to.”
“There are several hundred thousand people sleeping in what remains of this city or beneath open skies, Colonel. We need to get them someplace more manageable. The ships are on minimal manning as it is. If more sailors can make a difference, we can reduce to prize crews and transfer them down here to work.”
“We scared away three pirate ships when we arrived,” said Captain Norris of the Concordia. “There have been several slip translations detected since then, more vultures circling. If they realize we’re down to skeleton crews, they might get bold.”
“Your point is taken, Captain. Draw up completion timelines for each manpower course of action and present it to me after mess,” Sartorius said.
“Of course.” Norris clacked his heels together.
“I’ll leave you to your duties.” The Admiral walked down the steps and Gage fell in beside him. A pair of armed Marines, Bertram, and Jeneck, the Admiral’s steward, followed.
“Commodore, glad to see you back in one muddy piece,” the Admiral said as he walked down the gap between wedges to a doorway along the outer wall. Sailors rose to their feet and snapped to attention as he passed. “Successful trip?”
“Four civilians rescued. Wyverns are here, likely leftovers from our initial arrival. They were in a shuttle that could have broken orbit. Must not have a friendly ship anchored to one of the outer planets or anywhere else in the system, else they would have left a long time ago given the amount of stolen goods we recovered,” Gage said.
“Good assessment.” Sartorius nodded. “Think you’ll hear the call to adventure again while you’re down here?” The Admiral looked at Gage with a slight smile.
“There was no one else available to help when Mr. Kamala came over the emergency frequency,” Gage said. “I doubt we’ll have such an incident again. My apologies for leaving your side.”
Sartorius chuckled as they exited out the opposite side of the main chamber. A two-story wall of chain-linked fence ran around the spaceport’s perimeter. Siam lined up along the wall, waiting for the daily handout of emergency ration packs from an open cargo container with a many-armed robot in the middle. The robot snatched up the bright yellow plastic packs from drone truck beds, each containing dried food, water purification tablets, and foil blankets that could be used to weatherproof damaged houses or to keep warm.
The robot passed packets through holes in the fence, giving one to each person in line and clicking a picture to ensure only one ration went out per capita per day, and kept up a regular pace.
Armed Marines stood nearby, their presence more to dissuade anyone from attacking the robot and food stores than crowd control.
The Siam formed an orderly line, obeying shouted instructions from men and women with torn bits of cloth around their foreheads. After a few difficult days, the Siam realized that the Albion were here to stay and that they’d brought enough food for the survivors. Knowing that they had a meal each day coupled with their slowly improving quality of life had done wonders to restore public order. How the line monitors in headbands came to be, or who they even worked for, was a mystery Gage didn’t care to solve. Albion didn’t need to address every issue on the planet; they just needed the dying to stop.
The Admiral’s clean clothes and chest full of medals earned stares from the Siam, but any that asked questions of him were quickly shouted down by those in headbands. Sartorius stopped by the fence and smiled at a little girl clutching her mother’s skirt. He tapped a pocket, then looked at Gage.
Gage opened the packet he’d taken from the cargo container and handed the Admiral a wrapped hard candy. Sartorius pressed it through the fence and the girl snatched it away. Gage passed candy to the Admiral as he went down the line, smiling at children and giving them treats.
Gage’s data slate beeped with more e-mails and text messages.
“Sir, status reports from Executive Officer Kelly. She says—”
“Anything important?” Sartorius passed two pieces each to a pair of children with no parents around them.
“Not particularly,” Gage said.
“My officers are all capable and well trained. Let me know if anything is bleeding, on fire, or about to enter either of those conditions. Otherwise, keep quiet and let me finish this important duty,” Sartorius said.
“Aye aye.” Gage held a hand out to Bertram and his steward handed over a fresh bag of candy.
****
Admiral Sartorius and President Hu walked toward a waiting naval shuttle; Gage and the Siam’s assistants followed several yards behind as the two spoke.
“I’ll dispatch a courier back to Albion within hours,” Sartorius said. “If you need to update the logistics request, send it to Commodore Gage. We can expect the next convoy in five or six days, slip stream dependent.”
“Your generosity and empathy speak well of your world,” Hu said. “While we will have the worst damage under control soon, the climate effects from the mine’s explosion will plague us for generations.”
Sartorius stopped and looked toward the setting sun. Spectacular bands of red and orange painted the sky, rising far higher than the sunsets Gage remembered from Albion. A flurry of meteors zipped across the sky.
“Terra-forming engineers could stave off the worst of it,” the Admiral said, “but such efforts are costly. Very costly.”
Hu swallowed hard and said nothing.
“Time to return to the Orion,” Sartorius said, continuing on to the waiting shuttle. He put one foot on the ramp, then turned back to Hu. “Do send on anything else you may need. Farewell, Madame President.”
“And you, Admiral.” Hu pressed her palms together over her chest and bowed slightly.
Gage followed his commanding officer but stopped when Hu tugged on his arm.
“Ma’am?” Gage whipped out a stylus from his sleeve and put the tip to a data slate, ready to record.
Hu took his hand with the stylus still held between his fingers and pressed his knuckles to her forehead.
“Kamala told me what you did for us. You are a good man.” She let his hand go and walked off before Gage could reply.
He hurried up the ramp and found the Admiral already strapped into his plush leather seat embroidered with his name and a flag with the 11th Fleet’s colors. Gage sat across from the Admiral and readied for the flight back into orbit as the rest of the Admiral’s travelling entourage filed into seats in the back of the cargo bay.
“Tell me, Thomas, how long until President Hu formally requests protectorate status?” Sartorius asked.
“I’m sorry…a protectorate? Siam has been fiercely independent since it was first founded. Neutral through all the wars, fending off the larger pirate gangs. That it would all change now…”
“Siam was neutral because they were never worth fighting over.” Sartorius took a glass of ice water from a steward’s tray. “The only core-world slip connection they have is with Albion. Any of the other powers that had eyes on this place would have to go through us. This world is pretty, and that’s about all.”
“So we’re here for more than just humanitarian reasons…”
“We would’ve come to stop the suffering no matter what; that’s King Randolph for you. But the cost and effort to stop a full-blown nuclear winter…we’re looking at a significant commitment. Very significant.”
The ramp closed with a snap and cool, dry air flooded around them. Sighs of relief went up from the seats behind Gage and the Admiral.
“Siam sits on the edge of wild space,” Gage said. “They’ve nexus with a dozen other systems, most under pirate control. There have been rumors that the last few presidents allowed transit for marauder squadrons into the core worlds, but they were just rumors.”
“Rumors? Hardly.” Sartorius drained his cup as the shuttle’s engines kicked on. “President Lin—rest his soul—paid tribute to Harlequins, Totenkopf, and Triad bosses to keep them off his planet and let them come and go as they pleased. The raids on Tribeca and Cannes were both traced back through here. Every disaster is also an opportunity. Now we have a chance to cut off a compliant avenue of attack for the pirates.”
“Why didn’t we do anything before now?” Gage asked.
“You’re a smart man. You tell me.”
Gage pressed his lips into a thin line as he considered his response. “The Second Reach War started when the Reich took over a half-terra-formed world the Biafra Empire claimed. Ten years of war between the core worlds and billions dead later, we have the Accords. Well, we almost have the Accords. The terrorist attack at the ratification convention kept everything in limbo.”
“The Accords are in effect in practice, if not law,” Sartorius said. “Claiming sovereignty over new worlds is now a very bureaucratic process—which might explain why new colonies are few and far between these days.”
“We couldn’t put any real pressure on Siam to stop the pirates because we had no leverage,” Gage said. “A little tourism, minor trade; nothing compared to what they had with wild space. If we send over a fleet to stop the pirates from using this place as a launching point for rough slip transit to the core…the other powers would step in.”
“Exactly. The Accords are unwieldy, slow and a mess of fat bureaucrats doing little more than forwarding e-mails around to each other, but they keep everyone honest. A unilateral move by Albion would give the Reich—or some other state that’s itching to flex their military muscles—an excuse to fight. It’s been too long since we’ve had a proper war. Too many in power have forgotten what it’s like to see ships burning in space…cities bombarded from orbit.”