He dreamed about him and McAdams back on Wonderland, but this time as colonists of the new world. Somehow, they already had a baby together, a girl. In his dream she was already walking and talking, playing outside in a fenced garden, teasing the plants to life. Next door Alexander saw a familiar face peer over the fence.
It was Catalina.
“You left me,” she said, her blue eyes sad and accusing.
He shook his head, his mouth agape. What was she doing there? “You moved on,” he explained.
“You told me to move on.” Catalina’s gaze slid away, and Alexander followed it to where McAdams was busy trying to make peace between their daughter and an angry red-leafed sapling. “You told me to move on so you could be with her,” Catalina said.
Alexander shook his head, feeling sick to his stomach. “No, that’s not true.”
“Yes, it is.” Catalina turned away, disappearing from sight.
An angry klaxon burst through the air and the sky flashed with a strange crimson light. Alexander’s head snapped up, and he saw missiles streaking through the sky, thousands of fighters buzzing and roaring, trying to intercept. The war had followed them to Wonderland.
“No!” he screamed, his gaze darting to McAdams and their baby girl once more. They were still playing with the plants, oblivious to the danger all around them. A flaming piece of debris fell screaming from the sky and engulfed them both in an angry flare of light.
Alexander’s eyes snapped open and the klaxons sounded suddenly louder and clearer than they had in his dream. Red lights flashed, shimmering off the wet, glistening sides of his G-tank. He felt his throat burning with the invading pressure of the tracheal tube. Doctor Crespin had checked him out after the last time and said it was a mild irritation—nothing to worry about.
Alexander fought through mental sludge to understand what was happening. The color-coded lights made a faster connection in his brain than the more ambiguous klaxons—someone sounded general quarters.
An electric jolt of adrenaline spurred him to action and he hurried to disconnect himself from life support.
Something had gone badly wrong.
Chapter 40
Catalina sat strapped into an acceleration couch on the floor of a large passenger cabin with row upon row of seats, though she wasn’t sure they could be called seats when everyone was lying down on the deck.
She lifted her head and studied the orderly row of shiny white helmets at her feet. It was unnerving to see so many people in the cabin with her, yet hear none of the noise. Their helmets were near-perfect insulators, making the cabin so quiet that Catalina could actually hear her heart beating.
Looking left, she saw baby Dorian, wearing a miniature version of the colonists’ standard-issue white pressure suits. He was strapped into a baby seat that looked a lot like a front-facing car seat to her. Catalina studied his face through the glass visor of his helmet. He was blowing spit bubbles as he stared up at the live holo recording from the ship’s bow cameras projected on the ceiling above them.
Looking away, she joined her son in admiring the view. She couldn’t blame him for drooling.
Earth appeared directly above them, curving away with vast, sparkling blue oceans and thick blankets of cloud. She couldn’t see even a single dot of land, just endless reams of ocean. Catalina imagined this was what Wonderland must look like—an earth-type planet with only one major landmass and one all-encompassing ocean.
It was exciting to finally be here. She’d spent the past week training at NAS Key West, where she’d learned how to negotiate a ship in zero-G using either handrails or micro maneuvering jets. They’d also taught her how to don a pressure suit and control the basic functions of both her suit and Dorian’s by giving mental commands. Then she’d learned how to use an acceleration couch and a G-tank.
But after barely a cursory introduction to all of that, she’d been whisked away to the Alliance’s new Anchor Station off the shore of Curacao and filed into the next available climber car headed for orbit. Then she and Dorian had spent the next two days in that climber car, riding up to Freedom Station at the top end of the elevator, followed by a further six hours waiting aboard the station to board their colony ship.
Theirs was the last ship to join a fleet of more than fifty waiting in geosynchronous orbit over Earth. She could see at least a dozen matching colony ships in the distance, all of them gleaming specks of silver against the black of space. From this distance they seemed tiny, but she knew better. She’d seen hers up close from Freedom Station’s viewports. The ships were massive, five hundred meter-long spears with detachable shuttles clinging to them like barnacles.
Catalina was amazed by how much the Alliance had managed to do in such a short time. The first space elevator had taken over a decade to build, but this one had gone up in a year. Granted they’d fished the old elevator ribbon out of the ocean, and Freedom Station was actually a decommissioned Alliance battleship rather than a brand-new station, but one year was not a lot of time to do anything, let alone carry a 100,000 kilometer-long elevator ribbon back into space, section by section. Then there was the matter of mass-producing spaceship components and sending them up the elevator to assemble the colony fleet.
No wonder there hadn’t been enough government aid for the war refugees.
Dorian began making noises like he was about to start crying. She had his comms set to the same channel as hers so she could use them like a baby monitor. “Num num!” he said, smacking his lips.
He was hungry. She didn’t have to wonder why. They hadn’t eaten or drunk real food for days. Instead, they were fed and hydrated with an intravenous nutrient solution, but that didn’t immediately stop their stomachs from feeling achingly empty and burning with hunger. Mission trainers had warned them that first-time space travelers would go through some initial discomfort during the switch from solid to liquid food. Personally, Caty found the self-inserting relief tubes that snaked up from their seats to be much more uncomfortable than the IV, but Dorian was probably pleased with his perpetually dry diaper.
Catalina counted the silvery specks of distant starships to pass the time while waiting for the captain of the ship to announce that they were leaving orbit. She found there were twenty specks, and her brow furrowed. She could have sworn there’d only been twelve a moment ago. Maybe the fleet was repositioning itself, more of it coming into view. That had to be it, Caty thought, nodding to herself.
Catalina watched a pinprick of fire ignite and engulf one of those specks. She frowned, squinting at the sight. The ship’s thrusters, she decided. This was it. They were moving out!
Then the fire faded, and gone was the silver speck.
Catalina blinked. Was she seeing things? It had to be some mistake, a trick of the light. Then another ship erupted in an orange ball of flame, and promptly winked out of existence. Catalina’s heart pounded.
She tried switching to the crew’s comm channel so she could get some information, and her helmet was instantly flooded with a confusing babble of voices, dozens of passengers all asking the same questions at once.
The sound cut off abruptly, and a stern male voice interrupted, “Please remain calm and remain in your seats. Hostilities have erupted between Alliance and Confederate forces, but our point defenses should be more than sufficient to shoot down any missiles that come our way.”
A flurry of questions, pleas, and demands erupted in the wake of that statement, but no further explanations followed. Catalina had the feeling that the crew had more important things to do right now than mollify the colonists.
Another flare of light punctuated that thought and underlined the seriousness of the situation. They were in a colony ship in the middle of a war zone, and they weren’t equipped for war. Catalina turned to look at Dorian, he was still smacking his lips, chewing on air, blissfully oblivious.
Turning back to the view, Catalina’s eyes drifted out of focus. Blood roared in her veins, adrenaline sparking through her
body, urging her to to something, but there was literally no course of action she could take. It wasn’t as though she could pilot the ship to safety or bail out with a parachute. The passenger cabins were all aboard the ship’s detachable shuttles, so technically they could abandon ship if their shuttle pilot deemed it necessary.
She saw a glittering cloud of debris emerge from the starfield, heading straight for them. One by one, each twinkling speck erupted in brief burst of flame and then vanished. A shadow fell over them, and their view of Earth was blotted out by a dark, bristling gray beast—an Alliance battleship. Catalina watched, wide-eyed as it flew by, missiles streaking from its bow in a steady stream.
That glittering cloud of debris grew nearer and nearer until it came into sharper focus, and she saw it for what it really was—a wave of enemy missiles. Missiles went on exploding, intercepted by unseen means. She remembered reading somewhere that lasers were invisible in space, and she decided that the battleship must be shooting the missiles down.
Catalina stared at the underside of that giant ship, trying to identify individual gun emplacements. Then the surviving missiles streaked in. A dazzling burst of light blinded her, and she winced away from the sudden glare. Dorian started crying, and then the deck lurched and the ship shuddered. Suddenly zero-G was gone and they were being pressed hard against the backs of their couches. Catalina gritted her teeth and grimaced, fighting the urge to scream. Dorian did scream. Worried for him, she managed to turn her head despite the impossible weight of it. She saw Dorian’s face scrunched up in terror, his eyes streaming with tears, and she struggled to speak over their shared comms channel, telling him that everything was going to all right.
Turning back to the view, she saw that they were headed straight up to Earth. Lights flickered inside the passenger cabin, dimming to a soothing blue glow, and then the speakers inside Caty’s helmet crackled with a new voice.
“This is your shuttle captain speaking. We lost the colony ship and four shuttles. Ours is damaged, but not too badly. I’m taking us down for an emergency water landing. Please familiarize yourselves with the nearest exits and the life vests under your seats, and remain seated and strapped in at all times. Thank you.”
Catalina’s eyes widened. Her heart pounded erratically in her chest. We lost the colony ship. We’re in a damaged shuttle, heading back to Earth for an emergency water landing.
Earth grew larger and closer with every second. The view she’d thought to be so breathtaking before was now terrifying. She imagined the gleaming ocean swallowing her and Dorian whole, dragging them down into its black and briny depths. Caty shook her head to clear the image away, reminding herself that the shuttles came equipped for water landings.
The heavy hand of acceleration didn’t let up, nor did Dorian’s cries. He was terrified. She couldn’t blame him. She was terrified, too. Catalina tried to reach under her seat for her life vest, but her arms were pinned to her couch and too heavy to move. Biting back tears, she cursed her stupidity. What had she been thinking? They never should have left Earth. Wonderland had seemed like an easy out from all of their problems, but she should have known better.
Humanity couldn’t run from itself.
Chapter 41
Alexander dropped into his acceleration couch and strapped in. Relief tubes snaked out, but he didn’t even blink at the intrusion.
“Hayes, Vasquez, report! What’s going on out there?” Alexander demanded, even as he summoned a tactical map from his control station.
Vasquez was first to reach her control station. “Our fleet is on our way out of the wormhole, headed back to Earth. The Confederates appear to be following us out, but they’re a lot further in than we are.”
Alexander frowned. He already knew from the date and time on his comm band that they’d been awakened from the G-tanks early.
“What about the enemy fleet? Did they open fire? Did we?”
“Our missiles are still locked and loaded in the launch tubes,” Cardinal reported.
“I’ve got nothing on our scopes,” Vasquez added. “The Confederacy is still holding fire.”
“Then what's the general quarters alarm about?”
“Looks like it was sounded automatically by the ship’s threat detection system,” Hayes said from the comms.
“So where’s the threat?” Alexander asked, feeling exasperated.
“What the… Captain, more than half of the Confederate fleet is missing!” Vasquez reported.
“What? Check the sensor logs. I want to know what took them out.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Incoming message from Admiral Wilson,” Hayes announced.
“On screen,” Alexander replied.
Wilson didn’t look well. His cheeks were pale and gaunt, his eyes wide and feverish. “Admiral, I was just about to contact you,” Alexander said. “It looks like the fleet encountered some type of emergency and the autopilots turned us around.”
“Don’t repeat to me what I already know. Listen up, Captain. I’m dealing with the Confederate Admiral right now. He’s beyond reason, and accusing us of tricking his fleet into a suicide mission.”
Alexander shook his head. “A suicide mission?”
“Confederate ships were ripped apart by tidal forces inside the wormhole. They were lucky to escape with the few ships that they did. The only reason we escaped unscathed is because we were trailing far behind them.” Alexander blinked. So that’s what happened. Admiral Wilson went on, “They think we knew that the wormhole was no longer traversable and we tricked them into going through first.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. We just returned from a successful trip through the wormhole. If something’s changed since then, we were equally unaware of it.”
“Tell that to Admiral Zhang.”
“What do you need us to do?”
“I’m handing the negotiations to Carter. Maybe he can talk some sense into those ant-brained communists. Failing that, we’re going to press the advantage that nature’s just given us, and blow them all straight to hell.”
Alexander nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m transferring you now, keep me posted.”
“I’ll do my best to avoid another war, Admiral,” Carter replied.
Admiral Wilson disappeared, and Admiral Zhang took his place. Alexander was taken aback at the enemy admiral’s appearance. His nose was streaming with blood behind his helmet, and his face was blistered and red with a profusion of broken blood vessels.
“Admiral Zhang,” Carter began. “It’s a pleasure to—”
“Do not speak,” Zhang rasped. “You will listen. I am told I do not have long to live, so I do not have time for lies. My fleet was all but destroyed by the wormhole. We were not even a third of the way to the center when this happened.”
Carter shook his head. “The wormhole must have collapsed since we last traveled through it, but I can assure you we had no knowledge of the danger.”
“Lies!” Zhang coughed up a bit of bloody spittle that stuck to the inside of his helmet and blurred their view of his face. “You knew. That is why you allowed us to go first. That is also why you stopped accelerating long before you reached cruising speed. Otherwise, why not remain at your negotiated range of one light second? When our fleet began to be ripped apart, yours was more than five million kilometers away. That is over fifteen light seconds. We are only now beginning to catch up to you.”
Alexander blinked, confused by what he was hearing. He switched to a private comms channel with Lieutenant Davorian and ordered him to double check those facts. If true, it would go a long way toward proving what Admiral Zhang was saying.
Beside him, Carter shook his head and sighed. “Admiral, we negotiated one light second as a minimum range, not a maximum. We needed to wait for our colony fleet to catch up to us.”
“You think we are fools.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Yes, you did, but perhaps you were equally unaware of your
government’s treachery. I encourage you to contact Earth. When you do, you will learn that your colony fleet is armed, and firing on what few ships we have left in orbit. Perhaps you will not believe me, but we did not fire the first shots. We were ambushed. There is a reason your colony fleet did not launch with ours. They were just another part of the ruse. Congratulations. I believe the writing is on the wall, but you will not kill this old fox without a fight.”
The connection ended abruptly, and Zhang’s face disappeared. It took Alexander several seconds to recover, but Carter was much faster on the uptake.
“Contact Admiral Wilson! We’re about to come under fire.”
Alexander worked some moisture into his mouth so he could speak. “Hold on. They’re still a long way off,” Alexander replied, studying the tactical map and the range between the two fleets. “Let’s not be in a rush to start another war.
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