Embers of War

by Gareth L. Powell

  I sat back, deflated, and watched the bright splash mark on the stellar surface, hardly able to think or speak, finally managing only to croak out the single word, “How?”

  The Trouble Dog’s expression betrayed a mixture of triumph and sorrow. “I deceived her.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  The avatar became serious.

  “We deduced the nature of the weapon that crippled the Hobo and the Geest van Amsterdam. Our guests, Ms Petrushka and Mr Childe, were able to confirm some of these conclusions.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, I took precautions. I made a copy of my mental state and installed it on my primary server. Then I deleted from it all memory of my plan, and buried my actual consciousness way down deep in my secondary processing substrate, hidden behind a barrier that made it look like a cache of encrypted data.”

  “So, when the Fenrir attacked…”

  “She attacked the duplicate consciousness I had made. She had no reason to suspect it was anything other than my primary self. And while she was busy interacting with the decoy, I was free to observe the mechanisms she had employed to infiltrate that consciousness, and follow them back into the mind of the Fenrir herself, where I disabled her defensive systems prior to the arrival of the torpedoes I had earlier fired.”

  I let out a breath. “You hacked the hacker.”

  The Trouble Dog smiled sadly. “She never even knew I was there.”

  At her station, Laura Petrushka had been watching us with her mouth hanging open. Now she said, “So, what now?”

  It was a good question. A few moments ago, I had been expecting to die. Now, we had been granted a reprieve and, as captain, I had certain responsibilities. I sat up and straightened the baseball cap on my head.

  “How much time until the Adalwolf gets here?”

  “Less than an hour,” the ship replied, suddenly businesslike again.

  “Can we beat him to the Brain?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Then we’ll try that.” My eyes prickled with tears I was determined not to shed. I sniffed wetly. I tugged at my cuffs and zipped up the neck of my jumpsuit.

  “Best speed,” I ordered crisply. “We have a landing party to retrieve.”

  FIFTY-SIX

  ASHTON CHILDE

  At the bottom of the stairwell, we came to a row of open cubicles, arrayed like a bank of elevators in a hotel lobby. The corridor continued past them for about a dozen metres before ending in a right-angled corner.

  Alva Clay paused to try her earbud. “Dead,” she said after a moment. “No signal at all.”

  Despite her obvious hostility towards him, Preston stood as close to her as he could, as if drawing reassurance from her proximity. He looked warily back and forth along the corridor, from the stairs we’d just descended to the corner up ahead.

  “Where now?” he asked.

  Clay screwed up her mouth in distaste. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “We need to find somewhere to hole up, but this is too exposed. If we were attacked from both directions at once, we’d be cut to shreds by the crossfire.”

  “So, onwards then?”

  “Yeah.”

  She pulled the magazine from her Archipelago pistol and checked the remaining shots.

  At the same moment, a figure stepped around the corner at the end of the corridor. He wore a green tattered pressure suit, without helmet, and carried an automatic pistol in both hands. He saw us at the same moment I saw him, and we both recoiled in surprise. Then his gun came up, and I found myself shouting and trying to drag the others into the shelter of the open elevators. I grabbed Preston by the belt and yanked him backwards, sending him flying into the nearest alcove. Although strong, the exoskeleton was less than nimble, however, and the man had started firing before I managed to get hold of Clay. The pistol shots sounded like jackhammers in the confines of the stone-sided corridor. Bullets slammed into the carbon-fibre ribs of my suit, their impacts hard enough to snap my jaw shut and cause me to take a step backwards. At the same time, Clay jerked backwards with an indignant cry. The Archipelago pistol and magazine dropped from her hands and she fell over on her backside. There was a hole in her vest and blood spreading from it, darkening the material. With shots still flying around us, I reached down and caught her under the armpits. I pulled her up and heaved sideways, and together we crashed in behind Preston.

  The rigidity of the exoskeleton gave it the strength to support my weight, but it also made it extremely difficult to get back up while lying on my side in a confined space. With my free arm, I pushed Clay into a sitting position against the wall.

  We were trapped.

  “Preston, get the gun.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Just reach out.” Stuck here, we were easy targets.

  “I can’t!”

  The kid sounded terrified. I turned towards him, and saw his hands pressed up against the transparent shutter that had fallen to seal the elevator’s entranceway. There had been no sensation of motion, but lights were flicking past in the darkness beyond the door as if we were falling at great speed down a long shaft.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to say, so I turned back to Clay. She had been hit just below the clavicle and had been trying to staunch the wound with her palms. Her hands and forearms were slathered with her own glistening blood.

  “Preston, get over here.”

  He tore his eyes from the flickering lights and crouched beside us. His hands were shaking and I knew I couldn’t rely on him. With a great effort, I levered myself up into a sitting position and snatched the medical kit from his shoulder. From my training, I knew that most battlefield deaths occurred within ten minutes of the initial wound.

  “First, we’ve got to stop the bleeding.” With shaking hands, I pressed a wad of bandage against the hole in her vest top and she flinched. Her eyes were wide with shock, and her breathing reduced to pained, shallow gasps.

  “Hold this.” I placed her sticky hands on the gauze, which was laced with blood-stemming agents, and then ran through the list in my head, checking her vital signs—airway, breathing and circulation.

  “Damn, it looks like her lung’s collapsed.”

  As far as I could tell, the bullet seemed to have missed her arteries and right lung, but the hole it had made in her chest cavity had allowed in air, preventing the lung from inflating. Left alone, it would eventually allow enough air to build up in there that her heart would start to experience problems—if she didn’t suffocate first. If I remembered my training correctly, the only treatment was to insert a drain into the fifth intercostal space to relieve the pressure.

  I swallowed heavily and held out my hand. “Painkillers.”

  Preston passed me an aerosol syringe and I fired it into the side of Clay’s neck.

  “I’m going to have to make an incision,” I told her. She chewed her bottom lip. She couldn’t speak, but her eyes told me she understood, and wanted me to get the fuck on with it. I cut away the shoulder strap of her vest top and peeled aside the material. With Preston’s help, I swabbed the affected area with iodine and injected a local anaesthetic. Clay was sweating heavily at this point, and I knew we had to work fast. The scalpel was cold in my fingers. I tried to keep it steady, biting the end of my tongue in concentration. I could feel my own sweat breaking out. I lowered the blade until it dimpled the skin, and uttered a quick prayer under my breath. Then, tentatively, I applied a little force. I felt the skin resist, and then give. The steel slipped through and blood welled either side of the point. I felt Clay stiffen, but pushed deeper, cutting through fat and muscle. Beside me, Preston looked sick.

  “Now the chest drain.”

  The kid looked back at me with wide eyes. “What?”

  I jabbed my finger at the kit. “That tube.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “Pass it here, now.”

  Once I had it in my hand, I stripped off the plastic wrapper with my teeth and as gently as I could, fed the tube into t
he gory slit I’d made. Clay moaned but kept her mouth shut and her hand on the bandage covering the bullet wound.

  When I judged the end of the tube had entered her chest cavity, I fixed the rest of it in place with tape and opened the valve on the end, allowing the trapped air to hiss free, and her breathing to become less ragged as the lung began to re-inflate itself.

  “There’s nothing more I can do until we get back to the ship,” I said.

  Clay gave a nod. “Thank you.” Her voice was strained.

  “You’re quite welcome.” I forced a grin. “It’s not often you get to save the life of someone who, yesterday, wanted to toss your ass out of an airlock.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t answer.

  She just flipped me the finger.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  ONA SUDAK

  “Who are you?” My fear expressed itself as bluster. I scrambled to my feet and brushed myself down. “What are you?”

  The bear’s nine eyes were black, impenetrable singularities in the fabric of the universe. Its teeth were yellow scythes.

  It growled.

  You are being judged.

  The words materialised in my head. I clenched my fists and raised my chin.

  “Judged?” I was a captain, for heaven’s sake. “What right have you to judge me?”

  The beast gave a snarl. I am not judging you.

  The words felt like an intrusion—an unwelcome annexation of my most personal space.

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  You are being judged.

  I rubbed my knuckles against my temples in frustration, wanting to tear the invasive declaration from my head.

  “By whom?”

  The Armada.

  I frowned. “Those white ships?” There had to have been at least a million of them clustered around that miniature sun, maybe more.

  That is correct.

  “I am being judged by their crews?”

  By the vessels themselves. They have no crews. The beast reared up on its hindmost set of legs. I am their agent. I am their collective will made manifest.

  “An avatar?”

  An archangel.

  By now, I had backed away a good dozen steps and wondered what would happen if I simply turned and ran. Could I make it under the half-closed door before the creature overtook me?

  As if conscious of my thoughts, the bear dropped back onto all fours and snarled, and I saw the cord-like muscles in its haunches tense.

  Stay where you are.

  I raised my hands. Something was rummaging around in the attic of my consciousness. I felt half-forgotten memories flare and subside like distant fireworks seen from a balcony at night. My first day at school. The fibrous aroma of boot polish. The crash of a thousand boots as a ship’s company snapped to attention in a crowded hangar. The feathery caress of rose petals against my cheek. The touch of Adam’s skin against mine.

  The Battle of Pelapatarn replayed itself again and again. I saw corvettes torn apart by antimatter explosions; lines of tracer stitching the darkness; and a hemisphere turn black with smoke from the burning jungles. I saw the whole thing recreated in painstaking detail. Every round fired and every life lost—all of it.

  And then, nothing.

  I stood on the floor of the dome, unable to move or speak as the bear towered a full metre over my head.

  Judgment complete.

  The fearsome jaws worked through a complicated series of growls and roars.

  Annelida Deal, you have been judged by the Marble Armada and found…

  UNWORTHY.

  The word burned like napalm. I staggered backwards, clutching my head. All the guilt and pain of Pelapatarn—all the raw feelings I’d thought exorcised via the verses I had written—came crashing back in on me like the walls of a collapsing temple. The only way I could survive such an onslaught was to do what I had done ever since that inglorious day, and cleave to the belief I had been right in my choices, and that by deciding to follow orders and burn the sentient trees, I had in fact opted for the lesser of two atrocities.

  Humans are unworthy.

  I shook my head and took a deep breath, forcing down the tears of rage, shame and frustration that threatened to overwhelm me.

  “Unworthy of what?”

  The Marble Armada exists to defend life, but the life that created us has gone. We lack purpose. Many races have come here over the millennia, but all have been judged unworthy.

  The words had a flatness to them that chilled me to the marrow. “You’re going to judge the whole of humanity based on me, and whoever else has wandered this far?”

  The beast pawed the air. You came here pursued by killers. You were complicit in the destruction of an arboreal intelligence a thousand times older than your species.

  “But not all humans are alike.” I don’t know why I was so desperate to convince this creature, just that there was something about the way it pronounced the word “unworthy” that frightened me. Having touched my mind, it had left me in no doubt that being judged unworthy was a fate best avoided. “You’ve seen my memories. You’ve seen Adam, the boy I was with. The boy who…” My voice cracked for a second. I swallowed hard and plunged on. “The boy who died. He was pretentious, but he was young and innocent. He was good.”

  Claws and teeth caught the light.

  You enable the perpetration of massacres, and then base your appeal on the innocence of a child?

  I felt a lump in my throat. I threw out my hands. “What else have I got?”

  My arms and legs were shaking with a mixture of annoyance, dread and exhaustion. I had to get out. I had to find a route to the surface, and then find some food before I collapsed entirely. Heart pounding, I turned and walked back the way I’d come. Even if I ended up starving to death like that couple I’d found in the corridor, at least I would have died in an attempt to escape.

  Behind me, the creature let out a roar that stopped me in my tracks.

  I faced it, more irritated now than afraid.

  “Are we not done here?” I pulled myself up to my full height and glowered. If these were my final moments, I would face them as a captain. “Or are you going to kill me now? Are you going to wipe out the whole of humankind because we don’t measure up to your criteria?”

  Nine eyes blinked at me. I stood resolute in their glare.

  The moment stretched.

  We do not kill the unworthy.

  “Well, good—”

  To do so would be to reveal our existence to the enemy.

  The words carried such overtones of sadness I felt my anger dissipate. The bear turned and began to shuffle back towards the roiling light at the centre of the domed chamber.

  I put out a hand. “Wait!”

  The creature paused. Its head craned around, peering back over its massive shoulder.

  “What enemy?” I asked.

  The bear worked its jaws. A low rumble came from deep within its chest.

  The enemy of life.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  TROUBLE DOG

  I limped through the whistling emptiness of the higher dimensions. My core systems were supposed to be hardened against the consequences of nuclear blasts, but close proximity to the electromagnetic pulses from Fenrir’s torpedoes had fried multiple minor circuits, and even caused a couple of small electrical fires. My starboard hull plates were scorched and buckled, and I had already expended the majority of my ammunition. I had no torpedoes and my defence cannons were more than half empty.

  As soon as I had entered the void, I had begun to intercept high-priority signals from the Adalwolf.

  “Fenrir,” he now sent in a code known only to our pack. “Fenrir, are you there? What’s happening?” He sounded impatient. I let him stew for a few moments, and then opened a channel. I needed to stall for time.

  “She’s dead.”

  I kept my avatar as it had been: the dishevelled woman in the trench coat, hair slick with rain. In contrast, he had repl
aced his human aspect with the yellow eyes and dripping muzzle of a snarling wolf. For several seconds, he merely gaped at me. Then, when he had composed himself, he asked, “And how did she die?”

  I allowed myself a smile. “Does it matter?”

  “What became of the weapon?”

  “Hopefully, it burned to ash. When Fenrir fell, she took it into the sun with her. Even if it survived, you’ll never find it.”

  The wolf bore its fangs. “You killed our sister.”

  “She started it.”

  “And now you think you can take me on?”

  We both knew that with my damaged armour and depleted stocks of ammunition I wouldn’t have a cat in hell’s chance if I went up against a fully armed and operational Carnivore.

  “If I have to.”

  Adalwolf shook his head contemptuously. “You’re insane.”

  “No, I’m angry.” I brushed wet hair from my eyes and fixed him with my best glare. “I didn’t want any of this,” I said. “I was trying to rescue a shipload of civilians. I was just trying to do my duty. It was you two idiots who turned this violent.”

  “We warned you to stay away.”

  “Did you really think I would?”

  Sulphur eyes flashed. The dire wolf raised its snout. “No.”

  “Then don’t pretend your warning meant anything.”

  An alert chimed. Without breaking contact, I switched my attention to a tactical overview of the hyperspatial volume surrounding the Gallery. My sensors were picking up comms chatter and engine noise from a number of vessels, and my automatic threat assessment routines had tagged several of these as incoming and potentially hostile. In the grey swirl of the void, blinking red icons marked their extrapolated locations. As far as I could tell, there were at least ten ships of various designs and nationalities converging on this system from half a dozen separate directions, with the earliest projected to arrive only minutes behind the Adalwolf.

  I displayed the map for him.