Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1)

by Parker, Gavin E

  Lund waited until the tour had ended before she tried to snag Lucero. She had let others ask the obvious or unnecessary questions as they had been shown round the ship. Some seemed keen to demonstrate that they were intimate with excruciatingly fine details about the ship’s construction or operation while others just abhorred silence and felt compelled to come up with something when asked the inevitable ‘Any questions?’

  Lund had kept quiet and refamiliarised herself with the ship. It was the same as Otus, with very minor differences, and Lund felt a childish excitement that she knew the ship without ever having been there before. She knew it too from the countless schematics and production documents she had studied from her time on Otus and which she had recently cribbed through again. Lund felt a sense of ownership that she grudgingly conceded to Lucero despite knowing, deep down, that Ephialtes, and what was to be the new and improved Ephialtes, was hers.

  As the tour broke up back at the refectory Lucero made a quick exit, heading back toward the bridge. Lund had to duck and weave through the lingering crowd and then semi-sprint down a corridor to catch up with her. “Commodore Lucero!” she called after her. Lucero glanced over her shoulder, reluctantly slowing to a halt as Lund caught up. “Commodore, can I have a minute?” Lund said, panting slightly.

  “Of course,” said Lucero. “I’m on my way to the bridge, can we walk and talk?”

  “Of course,” said Lund, but Lucero had not even waited for the reply. She was striding briskly off and Lund had to make a little skip to keep pace. “I’m Askel Lund, I’m the chief engineer on this project.” She held her hand out and Lucero shook it perfunctorily.

  “I know who you are, Dr Lund. How can I help?”

  Lund struggled to make eye contact with Lucero who, with her straight back, was semi-marching and making little effort to keep the conversation cordial.

  “I was hoping,” said Askel, “that we would be able to work together on this project, me from the civilian end and you from the military. I realise that it must be difficult for you, having so many civilians on a commissioned vessel, but it could be equally difficult for us. Usually we’d be doing work like this before we handed the vessel over, so we won’t be used to having your people -”

  “In the way?”

  “No. I was going to say ‘around’.”

  “But you think we’ll be in your way, that’s right, isn’t it?

  “Commodore Lucero, I understand your security concerns, and I understand you have your ways of doing things that we may not appreciate, but I just want this to run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.”

  They reached the bridge.

  “You do, do you?” said Lucero. “That’s good, I think that’s what we all want. The sooner we get this done the sooner you can go home and we can get on our way.”

  Lucero stepped into the bridge. Lund wasn’t sure about the protocol; did she have to be invited? She stepped in anyway and hurried behind Lucero. “I was hoping we could get together, me and a few of my senior people and you and a few of yours, so we could get some of this sorted out.”

  Lucero paused before turning, perhaps sensing that Lund was not sure if she belonged on the bridge. Through an is-it-or-isn’t-it-fake smile she said, “I think that’s a great idea, Dr Lund. I’ll have one of my people book one of the operations rooms and I’ll let you know a time.”

  Lund faltered a second.

  “You misunderstand me, Commodore Lucero.” The bridge seemed unnaturally quiet. “I meant in the bar, now.”

  A definitely-not-fake grin spread across Lucero’s face. She stepped forward to Lund, hand outstretched. “I like you, Lund. You seem like my kind of gal.” She took Lund’s hand and shook it firmly. “Did I shake your hand already?” she asked.

  “Yes. Twice, actually,” Lund replied.

  Askel had put some credit behind the bar and Lucero and her senior officers had taken full advantage. The Helios personnel were more restrained but lubricated enough to form the beginnings of working friendships with some of the senior Ephialtes officers. There was still a lingering suspicion emanating from them - that would take weeks to subside - but they seemed a little more human and appeared, on the surface at least, to accept that the stowaways had a job of work to do, and that they had to help them get on with it. Lund lightened up a little, too. She had been intensely focused for the last few days and though she knew she would need that intensity in the coming months she was smart enough to realise that even she couldn’t retain that level of focus and concentration indefinitely. It was important that she relax now and then.

  Toward the end of the session, when most of the Helios people had drifted off, Lund found herself talking with Lucero. Lucero had started out as a drone pilot but had been offered officer training in light of her outstanding record. She’d found herself in some Indonesian backwater when the war had broken out, overseeing a drone base. The base eventually became as near as you could to get to being on the front line by the time the war ended, and had come under direct attack from manned ships and aircraft. Lucero lost people in the most ferocious attack, and would have received a citation for bravery under fire had her superior officer, three thousand miles away, not shot it down on the grounds that she should never have let the attack proceed as far as it did to necessitate such damn-fool heroics.

  She lucked into the position on Ephialtes. Experienced senior commanders were thin on the ground and such a fearsome machine of war demanded a commanding officer who had field experience. She had been second choice but the first choice had become involved in some sort of incident that remained obscure. One minute he was going to be commodore of a flagship spacecraft, the next he resigned his commission and was bundled quietly out the back door. So be it. Lucero was only too happy to step up and take his place.

  “You like this ship?” said Lund.

  Lucero nodded. “You built us a fine vessel.”

  “We tried to.”

  “It’s certainly impressive. I’m proud to serve here.”

  “How do you feel about Mars?”

  Lucero thought. “I’m a service gal, Lund. I go where they send me. Milwaukee, Timbuktu, it’s all the same to me.”

  “Mars is a little different, though, right?”

  “It is? It’s a sightseeing trip, it’s not a mission. We go there, look scary, come back. I’ve had my war, Askel. This is all gravy to me.”

  “You got family?”

  “Some, scattered around. Got a husband down there, somewhere,” she gestured toward the Earth, just visible through one of the high-res virtual windows in the social area. Lund laughed.

  “How about you?”

  “I’ve got family,” said Lund.

  “Got a fella?” said Lucero, warming to the subject.

  “No,” said Lund. “There was someone a while back, but, you know. Work, the war . . .”

  “Where is he now?” said Lucero, the slightest slur in her voice.

  “I’m not sure,” said Lund. “Last I heard he’d gone back to Mars.”

  “Shit the bed!” Lucero exclaimed. “We’re heading out that way. Give me his address and we’ll drop a tactical nuke on his head.”

  Lund laughed. “It’s not like that, we just . . . I don’t know. People change, I guess.”

  Lucero lifted her glass. “Well, if we’re not going to kill him let’s at least drink to the son of a bitch.”

  Lund clinked her glass against Lucero’s. “To Bobby,” she said.

  “Bobby!” Lucero spluttered. “What kind of stupid-assed name is that!?” She reflected a little. “To Bobby,” she said, in mock seriousness, and downed the drink.

  When Lund got back to her quarters she was feeling a little woozy. She should have remembered from her time with the Commander Program, and when she was working on Otus, that it was foolish to try to match the military drink for drink. She would have been embarrassed to admit it but she had wanted to keep up with Lucero in order to impress her, or at least to give her the idea
that she wasn’t like the other white bread civilians she was going to have to be putting up with.

  Askel crashed onto her bed and lay on her back. She looked up at the ceiling, checking for room spin, relieved to find there was none. She felt like she should sleep, but when she closed her eyes sleep would not come. Her mind was swimming with thoughts of past, present and future. A lot had happened in the last few years and a lot was happening very fast right now. Staying busy and focused had helped her to keep everything in perspective, but right now she was anything but focused. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about what she needed to do to get the project up and running and on track; about whether Lucero and her people were going to be a problem; about her personal life - or lack of it - but she kept coming back to Bobby.

  She hadn’t thought about him much in the last few months but tonight with the drinking and with Lucero probing her about it he had been on her mind a lot. She guessed too that she was probably feeling lonely. She hadn’t really thought, until tonight, about the fact that Bobby was on Mars, where the Aloadae were headed. Lucero was joking about the nuke, but what if it came to that? Oh, that’s just ridiculous, she told herself. Of course it won’t come to that. Like Lucero had said, the mission was going to be more or less a pleasure cruise.

  “But what if . . .”

  The argument went round and round in her head, ‘but what if . . .’, followed by ‘that’s ridiculous’, back to ‘what if’, and round and round again.

  She thought about the first time she met Bobby. They were exciting times. She was young, on her first big assignment and Bobby and the other commander candidates were young and full of life and excitement too. The war built a feeling of comradeship and purpose amongst them, and they played as hard as they worked.

  She was attracted to Bobby immediately. He was cocky and sure of himself like the others but there seemed to be a bit more depth to him. At times he seemed uncertain and he was more open than most about the limits to his abilities in the command drones. He still boasted, but his boasts were realistic compared to the others. He was sensitive to Lund, too. Where the others would rip the piss out of her when she screwed up, he would go easy, sensing her discomfort and offering reassurance. She knew he had taken risks to do that. The pack mentality of the commanders could easily have been turned on him, but he trod the line carefully, remaining one of the boys but supporting Askel when she needed it.

  He could be cruel, too. They had had great times when they first got together, but sometimes he could be indifferent to Askel’s emotional needs. He could seem cold and uncaring, but at other times he was a rock for Askel to lean on.

  The long distance relationship had worked - just - for a while but when Bobby announced he was going back to Mars things fell apart. Askel could see that Bobby had not made any allowance for her in his plans. He said he had to go back because his dad was dying, with no mention about what that meant to their relationship. She knew he had hated his father, and his father had hated him, so it made no sense to her that he would leave her for a minimum of two years unless he thought the relationship was through. Maybe, she thought, something had happened to him in the war. In his book he had made the fighting seem like an exciting adventure, but she wondered if what he had gone through had had a profound but unseen effect on him. Whatever it was, he was going and it seemed like Askel didn’t figure in his plans. He never even said goodbye.

  As she lay on the bed Lund suddenly felt morose and sad. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as she relived the moment Bobby told her he was going home. She wished he was there with her now, though she didn’t know whether she would slap him in the face or hug him until he couldn’t breathe.

  She tried to shake the feelings of sadness. ‘It’s just the drink,’ she told herself, and even though she knew it was the drink, she also knew it wasn’t just the drink.

  She tried to think about the happier times with Bobby, but that just made it worse.

  Askel woke with a throbbing head and an aching stomach. As bad as she felt, she felt in some way purged, as though some voodoo ritual had been performed on her and the bad juju had been cast out. She knew there was work ahead and that was where all her energies had to be focused from now on. She showered quickly and made her way to the refectory. While she rushed her breakfast she tapped her comdev, requesting the presence of her senior team members on the hangar deck within the next fifteen minutes. She had taken a pill for the headache but it wasn’t having much effect. She downed her orange juice and headed for the hangar deck.

  She waited for around five minutes and made some small talk with the few who had turned up in time. She couldn’t bear tardiness, so as soon as the allotted time came around she began.

  “This is a big project for Helios. We are against the clock. The client has specifically asked for this work to be carried out at the utmost haste. We have told the client we can deliver on that; I think we can.”

  A couple of latecomers rounded the corner and Askel fixed them with laser-beam eyes.

  “In order to deliver this project on time we have to work fast, we have to work smart and we have to work honestly. If you’re going to miss targets I need to know. If you don’t think something is going to work, I need to know. This has to be a no bullshit operation. You are all being well compensated for this work so I expect you to work long hours and not complain about it. We have to trust each other and we have to trust our hosts. They may do things differently to us but we are their guests and we need their cooperation, so let’s not rub anyone up the wrong way.”

  Another group of stragglers arrived. Lund looked at them. “Helios, above all else,” she said, “is an engineering company. As engineers we demand precision. When I say the meeting starts at 08:15 I expect you to be there at 08:15.” She fixed a stare at one of the latecomers. “What do you expect?”

  The woman froze, unsure of how to respond. “I was in bed, Dr Lund,” she offered hopefully.

  “I gave you fifteen minutes’ notice,” said Lund. “Don’t be late again.” She turned back to the group.

  “I’ve sent you all detailed work schedules. If you can see any problems bring them to me immediately. Let your teams know what’s expected of them. Propulsion and Logistics stay behind. The rest of you get to work.”

  C H A P T E R 1 2

  Plebiscite

  On 19 April 2241 by Earth’s Gregorian calendar the hundred thousandth human being to have taken breath on Mars was born. St. Joseph’s welcomed the little girl not long after midnight. Her mother was a software engineer at Venkdt. Her father worked there in one of the warehouses.

  Charles Venkdt had had an app custom built for his comdev with a data feed from St. Joseph’s. The app had a special dispensation to access sound, even after 10:00 at night when Venkdt usually preferred not to be disturbed. Shortly before 00:40 Martian time he was woken by from a deep and dreamless sleep. He grabbed the comdev from his bedside table and looked at it. At first he was too dozy to think about what he saw. As he reached for his glasses his head cleared enough that he remembered the app could disturb his sleep. He excitedly anticipated what he was going to see once he had his glasses on. He read the message twice and half chuckled, half grunted to himself. He thought about phoning Christina, but realised she would not thank him for it at that time of night.

  He lay back down on the bed. He could feel history starting to move, like a freight train pulling out from a station - slowly, deliberately and unstoppable.

  No one knew it yet but tomorrow he would kick a pebble from the mountain top that would spin and grow as it tumbled down the mountainside, eventually gaining enough material and speed and momentum that the roar from its sheer weight and heft would be heard clear across the solar system.

  That was for tomorrow. He’d had the speech planned out for months, years in rough outline maybe, all he had to do tomorrow was deliver it. He rolled over in his bed and thought about it. Like a kid the night before Christmas, he had trouble gett
ing back to sleep.

  Christina had not been long out of the shower when she took the call from her father.

  “I’m making my speech later today,” he said.

  Lost in the day-today of getting ready for work Christina didn’t follow him. “What speech?” she said.

  “I’m going to announce the plebiscite, live on my stream, later today.”

  “Okay. What does that mean?”

  “Well, it means there might be some media interest, or some other fallout. It might pass without comment for all I know. But I’m very excited and I wanted to share it with you.”

  Christina stopped. “You know I don’t think this is a good idea, don’t you? I guess I hope it goes well if it’s what you want.”

  “It’ll be at four this afternoon, on my stream. I’ll try to get Marsnet to restream it too.”

  “That’s great, Dad. Have a great day.”

  “I will, sugar.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Venkdt trawled through his comdev to bring up the speech. He made some minor alterations then tried to get through to Marsnet.

  Venkdt arrived at his office early. He could feel great moment in the day and he wanted to relish every minute of it. He had been at his desk for an hour or so, though it didn’t feel half that long, when his PA appeared at the door.

  “I thought I could hear you in here,” she said.

  Venkdt didn’t look up from his terminal. “I have a busy day. Thought I’d get in early.”

  “This came,” the PA said, striding toward his desk and placing an envelope upon it. “Is there anything you need?”