Embers of War

by Gareth L. Powell

  “Weak?” Clay almost spat the word. She jabbed the knife at the other woman and turned to me. “For fuck’s sake, Captain. Do you know how many people this woman has killed? And now she wants us to feed her? We should throw her in the reactor!”

  No.

  The word came from the bear creature, but seemed to appear in my head without travelling through the intervening air.

  There will be no more killing.

  For a heart-stopping moment, Alva looked too shocked to speak or move. Then the shock gave way to outrage. “Stay out of it,” she said, as the creature stepped between her and her target. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what she did.”

  I have scanned her, and I know everything she has done.

  “Then stand aside, fur bag, and let me kill her.”

  No. She believes what she did was right. You apparently believe it was wrong. To kill her without an examination of both arguments would be unjust.

  I had raised my weapon when the creature moved. Now, I forced myself to lower it. “The monster’s right,” I said. “She deserves a trial.”

  Alva turned on me. “Bullshit.”

  “No, I’m sorry.” I squared my shoulders and cleared my throat. “We’re taking her back to the House, and they can decide what to do with her there. The Archipelago War is over. If we kill her now, it’s murder, and it makes us no better than her.”

  Alva Clay glared at me. She seemed to be searching my face for something. Whatever it was, she didn’t find it. She let the knife fall to the deck and her knees began to buckle. I stepped forward but Childe was already there. He caught her under the arms and kept her from falling.

  “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s get you patched up properly.”

  He half led, half carried her out, and she didn’t resist.

  When they were gone, I found myself alone with Sudak and the alien.

  “All right,” I said to the woman. “Are you going to let us take you back for a trial?”

  The former captain raised her chin. “I don’t see what other choice I have.” For a moment, she kept the posture. Then her shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh. “My friend here won’t give me back to my own people, because it knows some of them have been protecting me. Menderes, for a start.” She looked away, suddenly unwilling to meet my eye. “And besides, I think it might be time for me to finally give myself up properly,” she said. “I’ve been running for too long. Too many people have been hurt. Adam…”

  “Adam?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. You can consider me your prisoner, Captain. Take me wherever you like, as long as it’s away from this godawful place.”

  “And your friend?” I inclined an eyebrow in the direction of the bear, which was snuffling quietly to itself. “He won’t object?”

  Sudak reached out and gave the creature a comradely pat.

  “He’s just a projection,” she said, “made of air molecules. As soon as he’s no longer needed, he will disintegrate back into his constituent atoms.”

  I eyed the thing warily, not convinced. “But until then, it’s solid?”

  “Pretty much.”

  I tightened my grip on the gun. I didn’t think it would have much effect on such a large beast—especially if it wasn’t anything more than an animated dummy—but just holding it made me feel better.

  “Okay,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “We can worry about prosecuting you for the last war when we’ve got past the one that’s just kicked off outside. Have you got any ideas how we’re going to get home in this state?”

  Sudak shook her head.

  The bear grumbled to itself.

  We can help you with that.

  “How?”

  Ask the Trouble Dog.

  I could feel my heart beating at the back of my throat. I raised my face to the riveted ceiling.

  “Ship?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “What’s the bear talking about?”

  For a moment, I stupidly thought she hadn’t heard me. Then the Trouble Dog spoke again.

  “I think you should get to the bridge, Captain.” Amusement filled her voice. “You are really going to want to see this.”

  SEVENTY

  SAL KONSTANZ

  When I arrived, slightly breathless, at the bridge, I saw the Trouble Dog’s avatar waiting for me on the main screen. She was dressed in silk and brandishing a sword like some kind of samurai.

  “What on earth are you wearing?” I asked.

  She looked down at herself with a smile, then back at me. Her expression was stern, but there was a playful glint in her eye.

  “Never mind that,” she said. “You need to give the order.”

  “What order?”

  “The order to stop this war.”

  I walked over to the captain’s chair and perched on the edge. “Why me?”

  The Trouble Dog cast out her free hand, to indicate the ranks of warships arrayed behind us.

  “Because these ships follow me, and I follow your orders.”

  “You do?”

  “Of course.”

  “I see…” I tapped my fingers against my chin.

  The Trouble Dog watched me for a moment, and then asked, “Do you really see?”

  I took a deep breath, opened my mouth to speak, but then changed my mind about what I was going to say. “No,” I finally admitted.

  She smiled. “Well, I’m sure we’ll figure it out. But right now, we’ve got more pressing concerns.”

  “The fighting?”

  “The other factions are arriving. Unless we nip this situation in the bud straight away, we’re going to have secondary conflicts breaking out all over.”

  “And all I have to do is tell you to stop the war?”

  “Yes.”

  I sat back in my chair and gripped the sides. “And you won’t kill everybody, or unleash some hideous alien super weapon while you’re doing it?”

  The Trouble Dog’s smile was the most genuine I had ever seen on her. “Not at all.”

  “Go on, then.” I exhaled, letting out all the pent-up fear and tension from the past week. “Do it. Stop the war before it starts.”

  * * *

  Once, years ago, I saw some slow-motion footage of flower seeds bursting from a pod and scattering themselves to the wind. When the Marble Armada erupted from the surface of the Brain, it was like that—except these “seeds” came out like missiles.

  The ships in orbit were outnumbered and quickly surrendered—all save Admiral Menderes on the Righteous Fury, who started targeting the Hearther ships as they converged on his position.

  “I advise you to stand down,” I said to him over an open channel. “This system’s now under my protection, and no further violence will be tolerated.”

  He looked at me across the link. His eyes were bloodshot and each iris had a faint yellow corona, like a ring of discoloured cream in the milk of his eyeball.

  “Hand over my son,” he demanded.

  I gave a small shake of my head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “You can’t hold him prisoner.”

  “I am not. This is his choice.”

  “I don’t believe you!” He thumped the arm of his command chair, but I refused to flinch. Instead, I gave an unconcerned shrug. “Believe what you like, it won’t change the fact Preston’s one of us now.”

  The admiral’s cheeks flushed purple. He knew he’d failed his mission and lost his son. All he had left was his bluster. “This is all your fault.” He shook a meaty fist at the camera. “If you hadn’t come blundering in—”

  I cut him off mid-sentence. “If your Carnivore hadn’t shot down the Hobo and the ’dam, tried to scare us off, and then tried to kill us,” I said, “I wouldn’t have needed to!”

  A vein throbbed in his neck. “Damn you!” With visible effort, he forced himself to stop shouting. He sat back and his voice dropped to little more than a hoarse whisper. “Damn you to hell
, you Outwarder filth.”

  He mashed the keypad in front of him, and an alarm rang on my bridge.

  “The Fury’s launching torpedoes,” the Trouble Dog said.

  I made eye contact with the admiral and shook my head. “Please, don’t,” I said. “Don’t do this. You can’t win.”

  He glared at me like a vengeful bull. For a couple of seconds I watched him struggle to put his hatred and defiance into words. Then he let forth an incoherent growl, told me to “get fucked”, and cut the connection.

  “Eight torpedoes in the air,” the Dog said. “Four aimed at us.”

  “Can the white ships stop them?”

  The screen lit with a series of explosions as, one after the other, the warheads blossomed in a string of incandescent bursts.

  “They already have.”

  “And the Fury?”

  “She sustained blast damage.”

  “Can you raise the admiral?”

  “He isn’t answering hails.” The alarm sounded again. “But he has launched another eight torpedoes.”

  “Really?” I was tired of this now. I rubbed my eyes with the thumb and forefinger of my left hand. The stupid, stubborn old bastard was going to fight to the last. Rather than admit defeat, he was going for martyrdom. He wanted to die with his boots on, trying to achieve his mission against all the odds—a Conglomeration hero. “Can we stop him?”

  “Only by destroying his craft.” The Trouble Dog’s voice was calm and professional-sounding. Tactical analysis was one of her specialties. “Based on an analysis of his war record, I believe he’ll keep fighting until there’s nothing left of his ship.”

  “And then?”

  “I expect that rather than surrender, he would prefer to detonate the Scimitar’s power plant in the hope of damaging us.”

  “What about his crew—can’t they stop him?”

  “If they tried it, he’d probably detonate the ship before they could remove him from his command position.”

  I felt a flush of irritation. The builders of the Marble Armada had shaped the planets of this system into three-dimensional ornaments, and somehow Menderes still thought he could somehow oppose their ships. I’d tried to talk sense into the man, but if he insisted on this course of action then, as a captain in the House of Reclamation, there was only one thing I could do—and that was to resolve the situation with minimal loss of life. I could ask the Marble Armada to blow the Scimitar to dust, but that would mean murdering his crew, at least some of whom were likely only obeying the chain of command. Instead, I fired up the defence cannons. Then I spoke to the Trouble Dog.

  “Based on your knowledge of the Scimitar’s schematics, and the footage from the messages we’ve received, do you think you could pinpoint the admiral’s position with enough accuracy to put a single cannon shell through his big, fat, stupid head?”

  The avatar looked regretful. “The bridge would be too well shielded to pierce with a single cannon round. I would have to somehow tear open the outer hull before I could penetrate the armour surrounding the bridge.”

  I tapped my fist against my armrest. “And is there any way of doing that without killing half the crew?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Then what about the white ships?” I couldn’t believe a civilisation with the ability and wherewithal to assemble a fleet of such size and sophistication couldn’t find a way to drill a hole in a few metres of armour plate. “Can’t they help?”

  “I will ask them.” Her image froze. A second later, she was back and animate again.

  “The Marble Armada will not tolerate violence in this vicinity,” she said. “They are worried it will attract… something. They weren’t too clear on exactly what, but they would prefer to end the fighting now, as quickly and painlessly as possible. To that end, they have offered the use of a beam weapon capable of piercing the outer hull. I have supplied them with schematics, and we expect to be able to drill a hole five centimetres in diameter, right through to the skin of the bridge.”

  “Without killing anybody else?”

  “With minimal risk.”

  “And then you’ll be able to send a round down that hole?” I couldn’t help but sound doubtful. “It’s so small…”

  The Trouble Dog brushed aside my concern. “I have a million ships triangulating for me.” She raised her sword. “All you have to do is give me the go-ahead.”

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. I had no desire to kill Menderes, and yet, it was the only way to save his crew and prevent further loss of life.

  And, it would be a salutary lesson to the other ships currently watching proceedings.

  This man was responsible for sheltering a war criminal. He was responsible for the destruction of the Hobo and the Geest van Amsterdam, and the deaths of all the men, women and children on board those vessels. And he was partly responsible for the death of George Walker.

  I ground my teeth.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice hoarse. “Fire.”

  On the screen, the Trouble Dog’s avatar lowered her eyes and gave a single, respectful nod. An instant later, pencil-thin beams of blue light flashed from the nearest marble ships, their focus converging on a single spot on the Scimitar’s curving flank. Where they met, the metal flared white.

  I heard the defence cannon fire once. The clank of it echoed through the hull like the toll of a great bell.

  And the deed was done.

  The shot had passed through the aperture.

  Moments later, the Righteous Fury signalled her surrender.

  And I was left in my chair, crushed by the realisation I had just killed a man.

  SEVENTY-ONE

  ASHTON CHILDE

  The next morning, I stood in the Trouble Dog’s shuttle bay, still encased in my exoskeleton, ready to say goodbye to Laura Petrushka. She stood before me, wobbling unsteadily on a pair of crutches.

  “I guess this is goodbye, then,” she said.

  She was leaving to rendezvous with the Outward vessel that had entered the system shortly after the outbreak of hostilities. It would take her home to report everything she’d done and seen here, so her government could start preparing its case for the prosecution of Annelida Deal.

  And, so they could start preparing for the arrival of white ships around their planets.

  The Marble Armada wasn’t content to simply enforce the peace in its own neighbourhood. In order to prevent another war, it had announced it would be stationing ships all across human space—a few to each system, to ensure conflicts were dealt with in a timely fashion, before they could escalate into anything more widespread. To what end, I neither knew nor cared. I had seen my share of violence, and it hadn’t provided the thrill I’d once imagined it might. A period of enforced peace sounded good to me, even if it was a peace derived from, and maintained by, the threat of an overwhelming alien force.

  Saving Clay, though—that had been an achievement. After months of running guns in order to perpetuate a savage little war, I had finally done something worthwhile for another human being. Instead of providing implements of death, I had saved a life, and it filled me with more pride than anything I had done since arresting the corrupt cops on my old precinct. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to devote the remainder of my time—assuming the surgeons on Camrose could pry me from this skeletal contraption—to helping those in real need.

  In short, I had become a convert, and the newest recruit to the House of Reclamation.

  Laura gave me a quizzical look. “What’s so funny?”

  I hadn’t realised I’d been smiling. I blinked at her. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking that it’s strange how things work out.”

  Resting her elbows on her crutches, she took my hand in hers. Her thumb brushed my knuckle. “Your government wants you dead.”

  I tried to look unconcerned. “At least that means we’re no longer on different sides.”

  She gave me a disapproving look. “Just take care of yourself,” she said.r />
  “I’ll do my best.”

  “And maybe I’ll see you again sometime?”

  I covered her hand with my own. “I’d like that.”

  I helped her up the ramp, into the shuttle’s passenger compartment, and settled her into one of the scuffed and threadbare chairs. I stashed her crutches in the overhead compartment, and then crouched in the aisle beside her. “You’ll know how to find me,” I said.

  She gave a nod. “I’ll contact the House.”

  “I’m sure they’ll get a message to me, wherever I am.”

  We clasped hands again.

  “Seriously,” I reassured her, “don’t worry. Nobody’s going to kill me while I’m under the protection of the House. Especially not now they’ve got a million new ships on their side.”

  Her smile was brave. “I hope so.”

  She gave my fingers a final squeeze, then let go and placed her hands in her lap. “You’d better go,” she said.

  I got to my feet and gave her a final wink. Then I turned and left.

  As I clumped back down the ramp in my exoskeleton, back into the now familiar sounds and smells of the Trouble Dog’s interior, I experienced something I can only describe as the exact opposite of homesickness. This wasn’t where I was from or where I had expected to end up, but it was exactly where I now felt I belonged. And from where I stood, there on the deck plates of that repurposed heavy cruiser, the future looked about a billion times brighter than I had ever thought it might.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  TROUBLE DOG

  When they scanned me, the ships of the Marble Armada read my soul.

  They scanned me and saw the horrors I had committed, and the lengths to which I had gone in order to make amends. They knew the efforts I would be prepared to make in order to prevent anything like Pelapatarn from ever happening again. Thanks to my bedtime stories for the captain, they also learned the history of the House of Reclamation, and understood how Sofia Nikitas had drawn her inspiration from their example. In their eyes, this made the House the natural heir and beneficiary of their resources, and an organisation they felt they could trust to put those resources to good use.