Mercury's Bane: Book One of the Earth Dawning Series

by Nick Webb

  “I hope they’re good ones.” He settled back in the shadows, cursing himself. “Is there a closer Rebellion base this way or something?”

  She hesitated, and he wondered, suddenly, if she was taking him to the Rebellion at all.

  “During the ... break-in—” he wasn’t quite sure what to call it “—there was a man guiding me through the labs. I don’t suppose you’d know who that was....”

  She frowned at him in a way that suggested he might be going crazy, and he had a memory of breaking down the door. He’d been alone then—of course she would think he was crazy.

  “Not ... with me.” He gestured to his head. “In my earpiece.” He began to regret not taking more care of it after ripping it out of his ear. Rash to lose tech just because it was malfunctioning. He knew better.

  She gave an eloquent shrug, as if to say that he should probably know his own coworkers.

  “He wasn’t part of the Rebellion. He said he was only talking to me, and he knew a lot about me. He knew more about the layout of the labs than the rest of them there, and he asked me to bring the Dawning to him instead of Lau—instead of the admiral.”

  This, at last, seemed to interest her. She sat up, eyes narrowed speculatively.

  “Any ideas who that might have been?”

  She pressed her lips together, deep in thought, and seemed to consider this. One hand motioned for him to keep talking.

  “I really don’t know any more. He promised me he had humanity’s best interests at heart, and that I wouldn’t be harmed if I came to him.”

  She tapped her own chest questioningly.

  “I don’t think he knows I took you. He was guiding me to the Dawning, and when I got into the room and you were the only thing there, he was confused. I lost contact with him.”

  She considered this.

  “Can you tell me anything about what we’re looking for? You don’t think it’s gone. Was it a program?”

  She bit her lip, shook her head—but in a way that suggested he was close.

  “So it wasn’t one of those cube things.”

  Another shake.

  “Just tell me something, anything. You know about it, right?”

  She hesitated. Again, she shook her head. Almost, the gesture seemed to say. But “no” still seemed to be more accurate than “yes.”

  “And you don’t know who the man is, either.” More a statement than a question, and he wasn’t surprised when she shook her head. “I guess I’d figured ....” Pike shook his head. “I have no idea how you would know who he was. I just thought maybe you might, since you didn’t seem to think much of the Rebellion.”

  Silence. She didn’t look at him.

  “Although I suppose we share that.”

  She looked over at him, expression unreadable under a sunburnt nose.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, though, if you know where the Dawning is, maybe it’s best we do take you—”

  Pike froze.

  The girl looked over at him questioningly.

  “There’s someone nearby.”

  She shook her head and moved her hand to indicate either a mouse, or a monstrously large spider. Pike shoved that unpleasant image out of his mind.

  “No, it’s ... stay here.” Very carefully, he eased himself against the edge of the rock and peered out.

  Directly down the barrel of a shotgun.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Earth

  Mountains Near Denver, North American Continent

  “Up. On your feet.”

  There were five of them, all men wearing faded plaid shirts and patched jeans with leather boots, and they all had shotguns. Their faces were weathered, the sort of weathering you couldn’t avoid in the mountains, and their fingers were rough from work. None of them looked the least bit friendly.

  They did, however, look unsettled by the girl. It was probably her eyes. She didn’t seem worried in the slightest, staring at each of them in turn as if she were taking a tally of qualities, and moving on to the next with a faint nod.

  “So who the hell are you?” The one who’d hauled Pike up held his gun easily, ready to point.

  “We’re with the Rebellion.” He judged that to be safe enough. These men didn’t look like Drones who’d lived in captivity, and they didn’t seem the sort to stare at the sky and dream of escaping off-planet, either. He figured they’d be sympathetic to the Rebellion.

  He was wrong.

  “So, you’re the reason there’s a crashed ship and fuggers swarming all over our ass.” The man looked deeply unimpressed with this state of affairs.

  The girl nodded. Pike gave her a look that said she wasn’t helping, and she shrugged. It’s true, her eyes said.

  The man was looking between them, eyes flicking back and forth.

  “Blake’ll want to talk to you, then.”

  “Who’s Blake?”

  “None of your damned business.” The man jerked his gun south along the range. “Get walking.”

  “All right.” Pike limped his way around the outcropping. “But I’d like to point out that we didn’t know anyone was here.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s how you don’t get your camp blown up by the Telestines, isn’t it?”

  It was hard to argue with that. Pike set off and the girl followed, slipping the straps of the emergency pack over her shoulders again. Now that she’d taken the time to assess each member of the group, she didn’t seem particularly interested in any of them.

  “So how’d you crash the ship?” one of them finally asked, about half an hour later. Pike was glad for the distraction. They’d been walking in silence, with the occasional stumble and oath. The men had stopped pointing their guns at the captives, but they weren’t tolerating a slow pace, and his leg was killing him.

  The girl looked over in interest, as if she’d been wondering the same thing.

  “Not on purpose,” Pike admitted grudgingly. “We were shooting at the feathers and one of them crashed into it.”

  “Feathers?”

  “Their planes. The ones with the metal that looks like—”

  “Ah, yeah, those ones.” The man nodded. “Better than the black ones.”

  “What are the different kinds?” It was not inspiring that this man seemed to know more than the Rebellion.

  “There’s the ones you call feathers. Not nice. They shoot things, but they generally don’t care ‘less you get real obvious-like. They spend a lot of time shooting rocks and trees and shit.” The man shrugged, as if to suggest that no one could understand the Telestines and no one should try. “They go with that type of ship, the pretty one, and you know you’re having a quiet day. Th’other type of ship, now, with the bays and the fighters and all—those ones are dead black, and they fly silent.”

  “I don’t remember those.”

  The man frowned at him, but didn’t ask any of the questions he clearly had. “They’re new. Stop here.”

  “What? Why?” Pike looked around himself at the barren slope. “Your camp is here? You can’t possibly be that good at camouflage.”

  “It’s not here.” The man jerked his head as the youngest member of the group—or least weathered, at any rate—set off into the trees at the base of the hill. “We’re not gonna show you where it is, we’re not stupid.”

  “What d’you think I’m going to do, call the Telestines on you?”

  “Given that that’s the only thing we’ve ever seen you do, yeah.” The man sat on a nearby rock. “It’ll be a while, you might as well sit.”

  Pike was only too happy to take that suggestion. “Don’t suppose you have any water.”

  The man hesitated, but pulled out a water skin and handed it over. “Make sure she gets some, too.” He waited until Pike had leaned over to hand the skin to the girl, then beckoned him close. “What’s her deal? She don’t talk?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t have anything to say to you,” Pike suggested. He handed the water skin back and smiled sunnily. He was u
nder no particular obligation to be polite, he figured.

  It was, indeed, a while until the runner came back. The man with him—Blake, they had said—was weathered, clean-shaven, with eyes as piercing a black as the girl’s. His hair had gone entirely white, and the sun had weathered his skin to a deep brown. He stopped a few paces away and studied them.

  “So who the blazes are you?” he said finally.

  It was odd, but Pike had relaxed for the first time in years. People on the stations didn’t talk like this. Blunt speech seemed to be a thing for cargo haulers and Earthers, and even cargo haulers were circumspect about any number of things. Maybe the sun brought it out in people, he thought.

  “We’re the only survivors of that thing.” He jerked his head at the distant wreck and warned himself not to get too comfortable. These people would just have killed them if they were seriously worried, but there was only so much he could say.

  “They had you in the labs?” Blake’s bright eyes sharpened. “You got tracking chips or something?”

  Pike’s head whipped around to stare at the girl, horrified. She shook her head, and he raised an eyebrow. She shook her head again, more emphatically this time.

  “Apparently not.”

  “She’s from the labs, then. What about you?”

  “I’m with the Rebellion.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the girl watching him. Her face was still and her eyes were disappointed.

  He knew what she wanted him to say.

  “All right, I’m not actually with the Rebellion.”

  The mean’s fingers tightened around their guns.

  “I’m here because I knew someone there and they thought I’d be a good fit for this. But I know the mountains. I was born north of here, but the camp was destroyed about twenty years ago now. Swore I wouldn’t get involved in the Rebellion, but....” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Here I am.”

  “Why?” This man wasn’t impressed by maybes.

  Pike looked up and met the girl’s eyes again. Tell the truth. He could almost hear the words.

  “I don’t know. I came back because I wanted to see Earth. Told myself I understood how things were, the Rebellion wasn’t strong enough to beat the Telestines. Told myself there was no point in trying to change it yet. Came here because they could get me home. See the mountains again. Trees. You know ... air.”

  The men nodded at that.

  “But....” Pike swallowed. “We’re looking for a weapon.” He knew his voice had changed, and he could see their wariness. “It exists, I swear it does. It’s called the Dawning, and it can bring down their entire defense grid. I didn’t think we could do it. It was supposed to be on that ship and she and I got out while it crashed, but she knows where it is and ... well.”

  “Well, what?” The man was still staring at him.

  Everyone was staring at him, and it occurred to him now that perhaps one of the reasons he liked cargo hauling was that there generally wasn’t anyone looking at him. No one to harangue him. He hunched his shoulders.

  “Look. I don’t know if this is going to work. Odds? It won’t. What we’ve got, it’s nothing compared to their tech, I know that. But she says she knows where this thing is, and if it works, we actually have a shot at taking Earth back.” He tried to keep the words back, his father’s words, but they pushed their way out anyway: “We’re all gonna die one way or another, right? They’re gonna kill us. Some people die on the stations, some on the Snowballs when vacuum seals break, and some people die here when they hit the camps. Maybe I’ll take a few out on the way—and maybe I’ll take ‘em all. Probably not, but ... now that I’m back, I think I’d rather try than live out my days wondering.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Well, you didn’t bullshit me.” Blake was staring up at the sky. He looked back to Pike. “So thanks for that, boy.”

  “Boy? Really?”

  The man closed his eyes and sighed. “You were born on Earth and you don’t know to shut up when your elders are talking?”

  Pike shut up.

  “That’s better.” The man looked around himself again. “Here’s the deal. I don’t like the Rebellion. They start a lot of shit they can’t finish, if you want my opinion.” He gave a laugh. “Hell, you’re getting my opinion whether you want it or not. But. I like you.” His eyes narrowed. “Maybe not. I like her, though. She doesn’t lie.”

  “She doesn’t talk,” Pike pointed out.

  “You do, and she got you to tell the truth, didn’t she?” Blake didn’t wait for an answer. “Any case, you didn’t lie. Probably won’t work, you’ll probably die. But you’re willing to put your life on the line, and the truth is, I’d like my grandkids to grow up without these fuggers around. So I’m going to help you out.”

  Pike felt his eyebrows shoot up.

  “Don’t make a big deal out of it—it won’t be much,” the man advised him. “Food. Shelter. Oh, and I may, just may, have a stolen Telestine shuttle laying around. Fancy Telestine tech and everything. We can’t use it—never figured out how. So we stowed it for a rainy day. I figure your girl there might be able to … do something to it? Consider it yours.”

  “A shuttle?” Pike couldn’t keep the amazement out of his voice.

  Blake had the stoic look of a father on christmas morning. “Come on. Let’s get you some food before you head out.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  1 million kilometers sunward of L1 Lagrange point, Earth

  Outside the EFS Intrepid

  “Accelerate! Go, go—don’t ease off, push it!” Tocks’s voice echoed down the comm lines. “Come on, newbie, you fly like my grannie!”

  “He’s doing pretty well. Maybe someone should get your grandma a fighter of her own.” Princess sounded like he was grinning as he guided his craft in a smooth arc next to the newbie’s shaky efforts. He and Tocks were flanking, giving the newbie the experience of flying point in a formation.

  McAllister hung below, watching through the windshield as the makeshift formation came through. Tocks and Princess deposited the newbie in a loose group of fighters and waved the next in.

  There was no substitute for experience. They had training programs, of course, a VR headset and a mockup of the cockpits that got new recruits ready for the multitude of switches and thrusters and roll maneuvers. You couldn’t get the g-forces in a simulation, though, and you couldn’t recreate the feel of being very, very small in an enormous universe.

  They weren’t going to get experience with atmosphere this way, of course, but it was the best McAllister could do for them right now. The more familiar they were compensating for the g’s and learning which button was where without looking, the better they’d be in the pulling roil of Earth’s atmosphere.

  “McAllister!”

  He looked up and swore. The next newbie in line had been doing fine until he tried to pull up—and went down instead. Now he was hurtling toward McAllister’s fighter, wobbling as he tried to adjust.

  “Hold course, newbie.” He gunned his engines, pulling to starboard to avoid.

  “I’ve got it,” the newbie called back. He tried to adjust and swerved right toward McAllister’s escape vector.

  “I said hold course!” The yell came from deep in his chest. He yanked the controls up and shot out of the way by scant meters. He pulled the fighter around, cold with fury now. “I want you dead in the water, newbie. What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Theo.” Princess’s voice was quiet.

  “No. He’s good enough to be in a plane, he can explain himself. So? Huh, newbie?”

  The newbie held his fighter stable. His voice was barely audible. “I was going to pull up, but the controls aren’t quite like the simulation.”

  “You ran a training maneuver out here earlier, right?”

  “Right. I just … I didn’t think. I’m sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry,” McAllister said, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, “is not good enough. So
rry is going to get your ass killed. You and your wing mates, you hear me, pilot?”

  “I just panicked when I brought the plane the wrong way, and—”

  “You can’t panic! You don’t get to panic. Panic is a luxury we don’t have out here. You want to panic, you stay on the colonies with the rest of the civilians, because we don’t need you here. You hear me? You panic, and you’re out. Done.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Get back to the ship.” McAllister’s voice was hoarse. “Everyone. We’re done for the day.”

  No one protested that they hadn’t all gotten to go yet; after McAllister’s outburst, he knew no one particularly wanted to go anymore. The team launched into motion silently and he watched them go. Tocks began to talk them into the approach, voice even. If she disapproved of what he’d done, he knew she’d never say it on an open channel.

  Princess, though, hung back. He watched with McAllister as the newbie slid into place at the back of the group. The wings were still wobbling a bit.

  “How you doing?” Of course. Princess on a private channel.

  “Don’t.”

  “He’s not Fisheye, dude. He was never gonna be Fisheye.”

  McAllister could feel himself shaking. “I said, don’t—”

  Princess interrupted. “You remember that bar out at Neptune? Horvath Station?”

  McAllister looked over at that. The further out you got in the system, the worse the drinks got—and the more people drank. When the sun had dwindled to a vague spot of light in the black and all you could see out a single window was unending darkness, the stations turned into an enclave for the half-alive. The people worked because there was nothing else to do. They hauled themselves through zero-g with grey, papery skin. They ate protein rations that had expired a long time ago.

  But man, could they drink—a fact the team had discovered on one of their longest-ranging patrols aboard the Pele, back when she was still disguised as a cargo hauler.