by Dani Kollin
“Miss Snow,” said J.D., “so very nice of you to drop in.”
“Think nothing of it.”
“Might I ask how long you’ve been monitoring our command sphere communications and, more specifically, how you managed to break into my personal circuit?” J.D. sounded perfectly calm, but the look she shot her crew as she said it made most of those around her shrink under her withering stare.
“If I refuse to answer, will torture be involved?” cracked Amanda’s much-too-cheery voice.
“Not if you enjoy it, Amanda, no.”
“In that case, as the OA’s highest placed spy—presumably—it’s possible I learned a thing or two about tapping undetected into a communications grid. If it makes you feel any better, I’m using the training your people provided me with.”
“And presumably,” retorted J.D., “since ‘my people’ forgot to let us in on it, you’ll be gracious enough to show our techs exactly how you did it.”
“I swear,” broke in Marilynn, “I don’t know anything about it.”
“With proper clearance, of course,” added Amanda.
“Amanda, you’re on my ship now. I’m all the clearance you need.”
“Well, as long as you put it that way. Sure.”
“Good. Now, tell us about this signal of yours and why I should ignore the advice of my intelligence officer, who has yet to steer me wrong, and listen to you, a readily admitted master of duplicity.”
“Because if I’m right, the source you’re getting that message from may have intel worth having.”
“Worth risking fleet personnel for?”
“In my opinion, yes. However, I’m not suggesting you send anyone from fleet personnel.”
“Really,” piped in Marilynn, “and who would you send?”
“Me,” answered Amanda.
J.D. laughed out loud. “Well, I must admit, Amanda, your entertainment value alone may be worth our having to put up with your—” J.D. paused, searching for just the right word. “—‘eccentric’ nature.”
“Is that a no, Admiral?”
“Of course it’s a no, Amanda. You’re far too important to Secretary McKenzie for me to risk sending back to the planet you apparently barely escaped from. I should probably be court-martialed for not keeping you confined to your quarters. But the truth is, you’re a damned good babysitter.”
“Katy is a doll.”
“And up until now, you seemed pretty harmless.”
“I assure you, I am.”
J.D. gave a one-sided grin.
“If that’s who I think it is,” continued Amanda, “then I’m the one responsible for her plight.”
“Be that as it may—”
“—And we both owe her sister.”
J.D. looked down at the private communiqué Amanda sent immediately after speaking. When she saw the image displayed on her screen, J.D.’s demeanor suddenly changed.
“All right, Amanda, I’ll at least send a team of assault miners to investigate. If she checks out, they’ll bring her in.”
“I need to be there, Admiral.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t risk it.”
Another piece of information soon zipped across J.D.’s screen.
“Shit. I swear by Allah, Amanda—”
“Admiral?” asked Marilynn.
J.D. forwarded the message to Marilynn.
“We need her down here, Admiral.”
“Yeah,” agreed J.D. “Marilynn, it’ll be you and a contingent of AMs.”
“On it.”
“Amanda, you will go with them as an observer, only to provide information. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
Suburb of Burroughs
Mars
Amanda leaned up against the shuttle. There was now a contingent of assault miners standing guard around her. Ironic, she thought, given that only a few days before, some of those very same miners had been pointing their guns at her. She watched the last rays of weak light filter through the ever-thickening cloud bank and smiled sadly. It was probably the last sunset Mars would see for decades.
An assault miner farther out from the shuttle waved her arm to get Amanda’s attention. She recognized the gesture immediately: unknown party approaching. Amanda took out her DijAssist.
“What’ve you got?” she asked.
“Single target, female; scanners indicate she’s unarmed.”
“Is she carrying the ident chip?”
“Affirmative.”
Amanda breathed a sigh of relief.
“Let’s not shoot her first thing if we can avoid it, shall we?”
“No promises, ma’am,” answered the soldier. “You know how we gun-toting jarheads like to shoot things.”
“Your sacrifice is appreciated, dear.”
“Long as you put in a good word with the admiral.”
Amanda laughed.
A moment later, a lone individual could be seen walking up the road—though in the dying twilight, it was hard to make out exactly who it was. It could be Nadine, thought Amanda. Same height and weight, but this person looked somehow different. As the figure approached the assault marine, Amanda checked her DijAssist again and then knew for certain what she’d initially suspected. It was, in fact, Nadine Harper. But a Nadine whom Amanda would need to be reacquainted with, as the one she’d known was gone. Amanda nodded an all clear signal to the assault miner, who then let the woman pass. Nadine strode right up to Amanda and, without saying a word, handed her back her ident chip.
“There are five of us back there,” said Nadine, glancing over her shoulder, “but only one is conscious, if you can call it that. Every one of ’em’s an Alliance POW.”
“Are they wounded?” demanded the closest assault miner.
Nadine looked at the soldier like she’d just told a really bad joke. “You can call it that, I suppose. They’re all I could save of Angela Wong’s ‘guests.’”
The assault miner started to call in a full report to her sergeant. Nadine once again stared back down the road.
“Nadine,” demanded Amanda, “you must tell me, what happened to Angela?”
“What?” answered Nadine, turning her attention once again to the woman who’d saved her life, twice now.
“Angela Wong, Nadine. Where is she?”
Nadine nodded and smiled cruelly. She then slowly reached around her neck and unhooked a necklace that, in the dimming light of the last Martian day, seemed to be made of a string of badly formed pearls. It was only when Amanda looked closely at what Nadine was proudly holding up that she arrived at a frightening realization: They weren’t pearls after all—they were teeth.
* * *
Upon further questioning from Marilynn Nitelowsen, and with Amanda’s help, Nadine was able to direct the Outer Alliance contingent right to the door of Angela Wong’s chamber of horrors. There they found prisoners, torture chambers, labs, and all manner of other physical evidence testifying to the crimes committed in the name of preserving the incorporated system. The computers’ systems were still running, and much to the amazement of Marilynn’s intelligence staff, she somehow managed to disable the programs that should have destroyed all the incriminating data. With Marilynn’s curiously effective prowess on the machines, the OA intelligence corps were able to procure a list of every experiment ever done concerning a secret protocol known as shadow auditing. The records, noted Marilynn with both repugnance and joy, had been meticulous. Almost as if they were being prepared for a doctoral dissertation. She ordered all evidence carefully packed in the most evidentiary manner possible and then promptly sent the lot of it off to the flagship. All except one case file. Though there was no God she particularly believed in, Marilynn felt if there was one, he’d understand her motives. And so of the thousands of names carefully documented, along with the often painful and grotesque descriptions of their individual deaths, the name of one Patricia Sampson, sister of Brother Sampson, fleet chaplain to J. D. Black and inspiration to bi
llions, ceased forever to exist from the rolls of the tortured.
* * *
As far as fleet intelligence was concerned, and by extension the government they represented, Nadine Harper had paid her debt to the Alliance in full. But Amanda knew, just by watching the way Nadine stared forlornly out the viewport as they left the dying planet for the relative safety of the Warprize II, Nadine’s debt would last in perpetuity.
After all this time, I still don’t know why Admiral Black allowed me to take and then distribute that picture: the so-called last of the great four. She’d just ordered the destruction of an entire planet’s ecosystem. And with that one order would cause almost as much human death and misery as was caused in the Sino-Indian war during the Grand Collapse. When she gave that order, she had to believe that she was going to be responsible for the greatest amount of human suffering in the war—would that she had been right. I see the moment I snapped that shot as clearly as the memory of my daughter’s first steps. J.D. is looking at the image of Mars as the first of three massive strikes are launched. I was with her when she was given the order and witnessed the struggle she went through at the moment she received it. Though I knew her to be torn, when it came time to launch those initial attacks, she did so unequivocally, and she did not flinch or, even for a second, look away. She just stood there, hands clasped firmly behind her back, staring purposefully at what to that moment had been the culmination of her amazing, improbable life. She was neither proud nor happy. I do not understand those who think they can see those emotions in the small part of her face revealed by the photograph. If I had to make a guess—and with J. D. Black’s thoughts, that’s all anyone can do: guess—I’d say she felt disappointment. But whether it was disappointment in herself, the Outer Alliance, the UHF, Mars, Fate, or the Allah she believes in, I could not say. What I can say is that she let me send that image without delay or censor. This part I have never told anyone, but now that she is gone, I suppose it won’t hurt. She asked—and it was a request, not a command—if she could name it anonymously. It was J. D. Black herself who ended up calling it by the name it has been known by all these years: “Shiva.”
—from the introduction to Four Images of the War, for Them and for Us, by Michael and Litha Veritas
J. D. Black found it hard to believe there were still humans living beneath the roiling mass of angry dark clouds occasionally flecked by the lambent glow of the lightning strikes below. The surface was rife with all manner of massive storms, including hurricanes, tornadoes, seismic shifts, floods, and acid rain.
“The grave is still the best shelter against the storms of destiny,” she said to no one in particular.
“Did you say something, Admiral?” asked Fatima.
“Yes, child,” answered J.D., turning around, unaware that she was within listening distance of her assistant. “An old German quote by a very wise man.”
Fatima sidled up to J.D. and looked out the viewport. “The will of Allah is terrible to behold.”
“Don’t blame this on Allah. We made these choices; we must bear the weight of them. Presumably, you’re not here to instruct me on Allah’s will.”
“No, Admiral. The leaders of the fleet wait at your convenience in the conference room.”
J.D. nodded and bade Fatima to lead the way.
They arrived in short order, and Suchitra, noticing J.D. at the entrance, called the rest of the commodores to order. J.D. took much satisfaction with the even greater reverence the other commodores now seemed to have accorded the new admiral. Finally, thought J.D. with macabre delight, I’m expendable. Which means the trap can be set for Trang and the fleet can survive without me.
“Have a seat,” J.D. began. “Admiral, how did the hunt go?”
“We destroyed one hundred ninety-nine enemy ships of all classes, Fleet Admiral. Captured escape pods, had thrusters disabled and Alliance transponders attached. They aren’t going anywhere, and we know where they are.”
“Useful,” mused J.D. “Anything else?”
“We almost had two hundred,” beamed the normally laconic Park, “but there wasn’t enough time.”
“Never is,” answered J.D. “Okay, here’s the update from my end. The destruction of Mars as a viable human habitat is effectively complete. They can breathe on the planet for the next couple of months at least, but it’s not recommended. The mean temperature should be right about the freezing point of water and possibly lower in the next month. Frankly, that—we are just guessing on. No one’s ever purposely destabilized an entire planet’s ecosystem before. We’ve left the t.o.p. system relatively intact and have not destroyed any major centers of civilization, though the environmental damage has made living near the coasts chancy.”
“Many of the Martian cities are on coastlines,” observed Commodore Paladin.
“Not for much longer,” said J.D. “I don’t think they’ll be flooded, but they will be empty very soon, one way or another—too much instability.”
The commodores nodded solemnly. While there’d been a certain amount of pride in their recent victories over the orbats and the successful hunting down of the fleeing UHF fleet, those had been purely professional wins—whether their opponents were green or not. But there was no real joy in what had transpired while most of them were away. They all knew it had to be done but were mostly glad they hadn’t been called upon to do it. Sensing the turn in mood, J.D. decided spring the good news. “We found where the UHF was keeping our prisoners—at least the ones on Mars. I’m quite pleased to report that we’ll soon be bringing 197,463 of our comrades home.”
A round of cheers poured forth from the small group, and when they finally settled down, J.D. continued.
“The UHF has been kind enough to put all the Alliance prisoners into suspension capsules that are easily transportable. We’ve let the authorities at the storage facility know, in no uncertain terms, what the results of not delivering those prisoners to us in fully functioning units would be.” Her lips turned upward into a knowing grin. “They’re proving most cooperative.”
Commodore Cortez’s face betrayed her feelings before the words even left her mouth. “Still can’t trust the bastards.”
“And we won’t,” answered J.D. “Our intelligence service is checking the storage site and the Martian Neuro for any threats, but no unit will be allowed onto a ship until it’s first inspected and opened. We must assume a gray bomb threat at the very least. But with fleet personnel working at full capacity, we should have our comrades transported off the surface, examined, and in our holds within the next two days. We’ll then leave the orbit of Mars one week after we entered it.”
“Next objective?” asked Park.
“That, Commodore,” answered J.D., folding her arms together, “is up to Grand Admiral Trang.”
UHFS Liddel
En route to Saturn
Trang reviewed the footage coming from Mars and felt lost in helpless rage. He should have been there. The magnetized asteroids would have given J.D. an advantage, but he would have had one as well: a two-to-one advantage in ships. He could have won, or at the very least gotten a draw. But the government’s insistence on destroying Saturn at all costs had ended up costing them all.
Trang was left with no choice. As he was closer to Saturn than to Mars—and even farther from Earth/Luna—all he could do was proceed to the sixth planet from the sun and, per the mission parameters, destroy the Saturnian subsystem. It was now a war of total brutality and one he wasn’t sure he could win—one, in fact, he wasn’t sure he’d want to win. The Outer Alliance was based as far out as Eris. If they were willing to lose all the gas giants just to get to Earth/Luna, they’d still be left with plenty to work with. And as Trang knew so very well, they were resilient sons of bitches. They’d turn wherever it was they were living or whatever it was they were living in into a viable economy in the span of a few short years. And with a viable economy comes a treasury, and with a treasury comes a navy. And then it starts all over again.
Not so with the UHF. Admiral Black had nailed that one in her speech to the Martians before deciding to summarily wipe them off the face of the map. The flag Trang was sworn to protect was planted on three locatable, very exposed, and clearly vulnerable planets. Really, only one now, given that Mars had been taken out and the Moon, while a force to be reckoned with, was not a planet and had nowhere near the industrial capacity of Earth. Trang was no longer sure who would collapse first. All his vaunted “numbers” advantage had proved was that he could send more greenhorns into the maw of death than his adversaries. But the thing he saw most, as his fleet sped toward another rendezvous with death, was that the war he feared most—the war that could destroy humanity—was coming to fruition.
The mood of his command sphere—indeed, his whole fleet—was funerary, and he’d done nothing to ameliorate that. He’d sat for hours in stoic silence, offering neither words of consolation nor encouragement for the upcoming battle. What battle? he thought dourly. The Saturnians are defenseless, and so we bravely charge in.
“Admiral.”
Trang looked up slowly. His comm officer was staring at him.
“Admiral.”
“Yes?”
“We’ve, um … intercepted Alliance fleet communications to Ceres.” Confusion had managed to perfuse every part of his voice.
“I didn’t think we were in position to intercept LCPs,” said Trang, using the nickname for laser communication pulses.
“We’re not.”
Trang nodded, intrigued. “Well, far be it from me to audit a gift dividend. Send whatever it is you managed to intercept on to intelligence and see if they can crack it.”
“That’s just it, Admiral. It’s not in code. Not in laser pulse.”
“Then what are they in?”
“Radio, sir.”
“Radio?”
“And they’re not encrypted either.”
The comm officer had his full attention now. Trang motioned for the messages to be sent to his display, where he read them at once. His left eyebrow lifted slightly. The command crew knew that usually meant a change of plans. The buzzing commenced immediately.