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

by Nick Webb

  Mercury, New Jakarta City

  Fighter Bay, New Jakarta Shipyard

  Tocks gave a low whistle as she ran her hand over the wing of one of the new fighter jets. She crouched to stare at the underbelly and rapped her fingers against the metal. She raised her eyebrows at McAllister. “You ever seen something like this? These are slick.”

  He shrugged. If he were being honest, his missed his junky fighter left behind on the Intrepid. She might be a bucket of bolts, liable to die on him at any moment, but the truth was that he’d gotten used to the feel of her. He knew how to cut one engine to spin on a dime—well, as close to that as you could come when you were going that fast—he knew her quirks and how she warmed up. These new Mercury fighters were slick—Tocks was right—but they didn’t have much soul.

  “What’s the matter?” She stood up, frowning.

  “It’s nothing. We should get going. The sooner we’re in the air, the better.” The carriers were still warming up around them, each tethered by tenuous umbilicals to the shipyards at the top of the rolling city of New Jakarta, but everyone knew that as soon as they lifted off, it was going to be go time.

  “Theo….” She bit her lip, and glanced over her shoulder at Princess, who was examining his own fighter across the cramped bay of New Jakarta’s shipyard. “Look, you don’t have to talk to me about this. I know you’re not really a talker.”

  “You ever meet a fighter pilot who was?”

  She laughed at that. “We’re all talkers, just not about things that matter.”

  He cracked a genuine smile at that and leaned against the bird, crossing his arms. She was right.

  “That reminds me, I’ll tell you this joke I heard—later, though, after all this.” She waved her hand at the sky. “Gotta have something to look forward to, or our lives are going to be entirely without meaning once the Telestines are all little smears.” She cocked her head, considering. “What color do they bleed?”

  “Tocks….”

  “Right. Right.” She sobered, sighed. “Look, you were closest to Fisheye.”

  “Don’t—I can’t—”

  “I’m just saying, let’s all fly like that crazy bastard today, okay?”

  He blinked. He was not going to embarrass himself, here, on this strange flight deck. In his mind, to distract himself from Fisheye’s memory, he did some quick calculations of the burn required to get into Mercury orbit with less than one-third g pulling them down.

  “I can’t think of a better way to honor him,” she added.

  “Huh?”

  “Fisheye.” She waved her hand in front of his face. “You in there? You need to be on point today. I said fly like Fisheye, not drink like him.” She changed her voice to the dead man’s accent. “Hey. Che boludo!”

  McAllister gave a laugh. “Right. So you think we should all be crazy as shit, huh?”

  “No one could do crazy like he could,” she said, almost philosophically. “But we can try. And if we pull it off, man—the Telestines aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em.”

  He froze. There, across the bay, was a familiar shape. “Uh … right.” He clapped Tocks on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

  She cast a look over her shoulder, seeing his target, and grinned. “Don’t be too long.”

  He wasn’t even listening anymore. He strode to the edge of the bay, shiny new flight suit boots thudding heavily on the metal, and he saw her look him up and down appreciatively.

  “I wasn’t sold on the uniform, but if you like it….” His grin died, and his voice trailed off. This wasn’t the time for jokes. “How’d you know I was down here?”

  “Where else would you be? New Jakarta doesn’t have any pubs. Dry city, you know.” King sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “And knowing you, if you’re not at the bar, you’re at work.”

  He nodded. There was the habitual distance between them, the protocol they followed rigidly, and all of a sudden, he realized how meaningless it was. He pulled her into his arms and felt hers come around him, holding tight.

  “Promise me something.” She had buried her face in the front of his uniform.

  “Sure. Anything.”

  She picked her head up to look into his eyes. “Come back.”

  He tried to smile, and couldn’t.

  “I mean it,” she said fiercely.

  “You know I can’t promise that.”

  She wrapped her fingers in his uniform and pulled him down for a kiss. “Don’t give up,” she said quietly, her mouth close to his. “You’re the best pilot I’ve ever seen. I mean that. You’ve got more smarts than all of them. Don’t go on some crusade for Fisheye.”

  “I do that, he’ll give me an earful in hell for the rest of eternity.” McAllister smiled and cupped her face in one hand. “I’m not going to go on some crusade, and I’m not going to give up. But you know I’m gonna go take a few of those fuggers out.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled up at him. “I know.”

  “You come back too.”

  She smiled. “I’ll try.”

  A klaxon went off, too-loud and right above them, and they both jumped.

  “I think that’s for me,” he said, wryly.

  “You think?” She was laughing. “I knew it must mean something.” She kissed him again, fiercely. “Up to the bridge for me. Good hunting, Mr. McAllister.”

  He gave a salute and watched her disappear into the ship, and then he turned and jogged over to their fighters.

  “All right.” He leaned in to the tiny contingent, glancing up at Tocks, Princess, and the other pilots he’d brought with him from the Intrepid. “Let’s get these beauties in the loading tubes before all hell breaks loose.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Near Mercury

  Nhean Tang Shuttle

  “No.”

  “Pike—”

  “Absolutely not.” Pike’s fingers clenched. “No. I refuse.”

  “It isn’t yours to refuse.” Nhean’s voice was as sharp as he had ever heard it. “We need to deploy this virus or we will have no chance at all of stopping Tel’rabim’s fleet. Every ship we have is dedicated to holding him off long enough to get us onto the flagship. That plan is already in motion—the entire Rebellion is there and committed—all three fleets. Exile, Mercury, and … mine. If you refuse to do this, they die.”

  “Deploy it remotely!”

  “We can’t deploy it remotely. She needs to be in direct physical contact, and deliver it in person.” There were white lines around Nhean’s mouth.

  They had been over this three times during the course of the journey, each at increasing volume. The tiny confines of Nhean’s shuttle were as gorgeously appointed as his estates on Venus, and the plush carpeting and filigreed accents were only making Pike’s mood blacker.

  “Try harder,” he said now. His fingers twisted on the arm of the couch, and he hoped in some petty part of his mind that his nails would scratch the leather—where the hell did he get real leather?

  “If we could, this would be different. If we could do that, we would have been able to spare the entire Rebellion fleet. We can’t.”

  “But....” Pike tilted his head back. “I don’t like it.”

  “You have my word that she will not be harmed by this.” Nhean’s voice was soft.

  Pike looked over at the girl. She nodded at him gravely.

  “You’re running a virus made to kill Tel’rabim’s machinery ... through someone built with parts of his machinery in her.” Pike repeated the words, as he had three times before. Why did neither of them seem to understand how dangerous this was? “Why are you not worried about this?”

  “Because....” Nhean stopped to pick his words carefully. “Because this is what I do,” he said finally.

  “So you’re telling me there’s no risk at all?”

  “Not at all. We will likely face some opposition within the flagship, yes. You will be coming under fire. Are you not worried about that?”

  Pik
e caught the deflection. “So there is danger.”

  “I’m saying there’s danger to all of us from the aliens on that ship. I’m saying this mission is dangerous.” Nhean had the look of a man only barely controlling his temper. “And I am saying that there is no other way to accomplish this, and we have to work with what we have. Doing this in the middle of a battle isn’t ideal, I will grant you, but I would sell myself into hell for this chance.” He gave a sharp laugh. “I guess I am.”

  That didn’t make Pike feel any better at all.

  “Pike.” Nhean’s voice was uncompromising. “You care deeply for Walker, do you not?”

  Pike felt his cheeks grow warm. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “I notice you haven’t protested her involvement in this plan,” Nhean said simply. “Walker is just as vulnerable to the risks as the girl is, arguably more so.”

  “That’s different.”

  “How?” Nhean gestured at the girl. “It’s now obvious that she could have easily killed you after you rescued her. She could have taken a shuttle and left from Venus and never gone to the lunar base.”

  Pike swallowed hard.

  “She’s here because she wants to be,” Nhean said. He looked over at the girl. “Is that correct?”

  She nodded.

  Nhean looked back at Pike.

  “It’s a risk,” Pike said again, miserably.

  The girl reached out to him. Her fingers were warm on his arm. The same fingers that had squeezed the trigger to kill Charlie. The same hands she’d used to take out a squad of Telestine soldiers—he wished they’d caught that one on camera. She smiled.

  “You think you’ll be okay?” Pike asked her.

  She shrugged, but nodded easily. Her meaning was clear: no, but what other choice is there?

  “Fine.” Pike covered his face with his other hand, a futile attempt at shielding someone, anyone, from the reality of their situation. He lowered the hand and raised his head, nodding at Nhean. “Fine. What’s the rest of the plan?”

  Nhean shook his head, apparently pleased to be finished with that. A holograph appeared over the exquisite coffee table: a ship at once sleek and imposing. It was almost a teardrop, designed to fly with the heavy orb at the top and the directional jets down the point. In space, there was no need for ships to be aerodynamic.

  A green dot flashed near the top.

  “This is—if their structures hold true—one of the weak points in the system.” Nhean pointed at it. “A hull breach will be easier there than anywhere else. Theoretically.”

  “If it’s not?”

  “Then we hope Walker is a miracle worker. But don’t worry. My intel on this is solid.” Nhean lifted a single eyebrow and waited for an argument.

  Pike only nodded. There were no good options, as Walker had predicted. Make the best choice, and keep moving, echoed Walker’s voice in his mind.

  “Once we get in, the control chamber will be very close. We were able to acquire some scans of the fleet as they went past Venus. All of them have a bridge with a window, near the top of the ship.”

  Pike raised an eyebrow. “A window? Really? That’s risky in a military ship.”

  Nhean jerked his head toward the windows on their own ship and gave a shrug. “Their technology is better than ours.”

  “Still.” Something occurred to him. “Couldn’t we just breach the bridge?”

  “Ah.” Nhean looked almost pleased to be able to share this knowledge. “We have reason to believe the bridge will be unoccupied—that Tel’rabim is controlling the battle remotely. On Earth, through an FTL link. Also, I believe her contact with the interface needs to be directly with her skin for it to work, yes?”

  The girl nodded.

  “I will be able to locate the bridge once we’re inside the ship, and you will need to hold the door while she and I deploy the virus. That virus should spread quite quickly, and will disable—though not destroy—the accompanying fleet. If we’re very lucky, the effect will spread to the rest of the Telestine fleet at Earth and then through the rest of the solar system.”

  “Could we put a self-destruct in?” Pike pictured jammed cannons, air venting.

  “We could if we had time, but that’s one thing we don’t have. Now, I’ve instructed Walker not to attack the flagship at all costs, but we should work as quickly as we can. These right here are cannons, and they will be devastating to any human ships they encounter.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I had some windows into the Telestine production, and was able to ascertain small details from the ship we acquired. Their technology is, in many ways, an extension of the Telestines, themselves. I’m still only beginning to understand it.”

  “So their ships can be remotely guided?”

  “I think that’s part of it. Many of the ships are crewed, so I can only assume that’s a superior setup.” Nhean gave a rueful smile. “That, or—like us—they’re unwilling to sign over all of their control to a machine, even one they built themselves. Perhaps they have some of the same reservations regarding AI that we do. Either way, there are Telestines on board those ships, but Tel’rabim is guiding the battle from Earth—that much I know.”

  Pike stared silently at the ship before him. He would have to leave the girl with Nhean. The fact that he would be mere yards away with a gun did little to help. He knew how easily a situation could change—a stray missile, a crashing ship. There was no safety, and the thought that he would also die with her in either of those scenarios was no comfort.

  He knew what it was to wake in the night, years later, with the cold knowledge that someone you loved had seen their death coming for them, and that at the end, they’d been alone and frightened, and that you’d been powerless to help them.

  You’d been powerless to help them because someone else had lied to you. And you believed them.

  He wasn’t sure he could survive that again.

  “Pike?” Nhean’s voice was soft. “Any questions?”

  “No.” Pike cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes. “Any uppers you have would be good, though. I think the first course Rychenkov gave me is running out.”

  “Parees will have some in the cockpit.”

  “Thank you. I’ll....” Pike looked at both of them.

  The girl smiled reassuringly.

  “I’ll go get some of that.” Pike cleared his throat and left.

  Outside the room, however, he leaned against the wall and let his eyes drift closed.

  And after all the years, he could still smell the smoke wafting on the air from their fields. He could hear the screams on the wind.

  He forced himself to breathe. One, two, three—deep breaths. Then he pushed himself up from the wall and made for the cockpit as Parees’s voice came over the comms:

  “Final approach. We will arrive in twenty-three minutes.”

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Near Mercury

  Nhean Tang Shuttle

  “Are you sure you want to see this?” Nhean looked over at Pike calmly.

  “Yes.” Pike forced himself to stand the same way Nhean did, hands linked behind his back, eyes fixed on the battle unfolding below.

  The fleets had joined together, and it was chaos. Pike, for all that he could hold his own in any bar room brawl, could make neither head nor tail of the formations hurtling themselves at one another.

  It was difficult, he realized, to have the first idea of the scale of a fleet battle until you saw one. The fleets were within range of one another’s guns, and yet so distant from one another that from Nhean’s shuttle, high above, one could hardly make out the tiny specks of the fighters, except when they caught the sunlight and the reflection from Mercury’s surface or when the flashes of firing and impact sparked briefly against the vacuum of space.

  The scale of the battle twisted again once he saw the capital ship hanging in the center of the battle. It was unlike anything Pike had ever dreamed. It wa
s as large as a space station and larger, an upside down teardrop with elegant spurs he knew were weapons of some sort. Still, Pike was Earth-born, and he knew that large ships, like large animals, lumbered slowly.

  This was space. Nothing was normal here: the giant inverted-tear-drop ship glided into formation with the rest of the fleet without a trace of delay. It was Tel’rabim’s flagship, though he was not courageous enough to be here himself.

  Pike’s mouth twisted.

  “From here,” Nhean murmured, “one can almost understand the way the Telestines see the world.”

  “How is that?” He was glad for the distraction from his anger.

  “Chaos.” Nhean’s eyes tracked a ship tumbling end over end and his jaw tightened as it shattered against the hull of one of the Telestine carriers. “They see the world as chaos, and sentient life as that which brings of order—and it is that order they used to find us and appropriate our world, and that they use to hunt us still.”

  Pike looked away. He did not want to think the way the Telestines thought.

  And yet—that was how he hunted, seeking out the signs of nibbled leaves and the patterns in the paths between the trees, the tiny, ordered spaces of nests and burrows.

  Behind his back, his hands clenched.

  “Sir, I’ve made contact with the Intrepid. Commander Delaney has ordered the rearguard to hold fire until we reach the flagship.”

  “Commander Delaney?” Pike looked sharply at Nhean. “The Intrepid is Walker’s ship—I mean, the admiral.”

  “The admiral is commanding my fleet.” Nhean’s voice was impressively dry.

  “Your fleet?”

  “My fleet.” Nhean nodded to ships nearly as sleek as the Telestine carriers, and yet utterly different—unmistakably human. Behind them hung yet another fleet, built not for beauty but for crude effectiveness. “I’m given to understand that Commander King now has control of the new Mercury Fleet.”

  “Do you know their battle plan?” Pike’s eyes locked on Nhean’s ships. Six clustered in the center as two swung wide to flank the battle.