Neptune's War

by Nick Webb

  “This is a time of turmoil,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t disagree.”

  “The admiral honors … nothing. You know she would sacrifice anything and everything for victory, and you know that when sacrifices begin to be deemed acceptable, there is a tipping point at which victory is no longer worth having. Someday, she would have sacrificed so much that the only thing left would be her fleet. Humanity would be ashes, and the deaths of the Telestines would not bring them back.”

  He’s lying, she wanted to spit at Nhean. Perhaps Celestine was lying even to himself, but he was lying. There was no possible way to believe that what the Funders had done was any sort of solution to the problems at hand. Pretty words and pretty sentiments didn’t make the mutiny instigated by the Funders any less horrifying, even if they believed their own lies.

  Perhaps it was more horrifying. Childish, self-serving lies were dangerous in the hands of people who had so many resources at their disposal.

  To her relief, Nhean did not seem taken in. He did not miss a beat. “And what do you propose, then, Your Holiness?” He lifted one finger to interject as the pope opened his mouth. “I do not necessarily disagree, but what changes would you make? What would you have done at Vesta?”

  “The Exile Fleet did not need to wait for an attack,” Dorian cut in. “And they will not, when we control them.”

  He faltered slightly under Nhean’s sudden, interested look.

  “Oh?” Nhean asked.

  Celestine gave a sigh, and the girl knew that Dorian’s move had not been calculated, but instead had been a misstep. This had been the piece he was looking for permission to say earlier.

  “The ships of the Venus Sovereign Fleet were once under your control, even though she commanded them. You had your backdoor into their executive control software.” the pope observed. “What changed?”

  Nhean considered the question. Then his face cleared. “She cut off my access from the systems.”

  “Precisely.” Celestine smiled. “Thus, what must be done to bring the fleet under our control is to regain both access and control over these ships. I believe you’re familiar with … The Seed?”

  His virus. Or rather, the one he’d contracted Schroeder to develop at one of his companies. “Of course. I helped Schroeder build it.”

  “And now we have it.”

  A cold pit developed in Nhean’s stomach. That they had The Seed meant that … Schroeder was indeed dead. And the men before him had killed him, or arranged his death. And stolen The Seed—a meticulously built computer virus that they’d originally designed to infiltrate Tel’rabim’s ships.

  “But it was designed to be used on Telestine networks,” he protested. Indeed, he’d spent years sifting through Telestine computer code, helping find the building blocks that Schroeder’s company would use to design it. Half of the main code kernel was Telestine based, and even he had only an inkling of how that part worked.

  Celestine nodded toward the black, where ships both new and old floated in formation. “We’ve altered it. Do you not think that the admiral will come to take her ships back? When she does, she will find them under our control, and we will have fine-tuned a version of The Seed that will take back the rest. We will have the entire Exile Fleet in very short order, Mr. Tang. And then we shall go about protecting humanity.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit

  New Vatican Station

  Holy Spirits Tavern

  He spent a lot of time drunk these days. Pyotr Rychenkov rolled his glass of whiskey along its base and stared at the back of the bar with bloodshot eyes.

  It was a nice bar. Shiny mirrors, elegant bottles of liquor. He didn’t belong in a place like this.

  Since when did humanity waste its time in exile with making pretty liquor bottles, anyway?

  Gabriela echoed his thoughts back to him. “Just think. A year ago we were making our own poison moonshine in the Aggy’s cargo hold. Now we’re drinking like kings.”

  James, her husband and Ry’s engine-whisperer, nodded and raised his own glass. “To Nhean and all his friends with money to burn.” He winced as his arm reached the peak of its arc—he was still recovering from his extensive injuries he’d sustained during the crash of the Aggy II on Earth, just weeks ago. Luckily, he was as fixable as the ship.

  Mostly. He still had thirteen broken bones and a, quote, minor case of internal bleeding, according to the Nettie doctor who’d Nhean paid to patch him up. Even after Ry had made the grave mistake of calling him a Toonie instead of Nettie—the preferred nickname for a proper Neptunian.

  He finished his whiskey in a gulp and shook his head when the bartender nodded to the glass. He needed to not drink anymore just now. After all, they might need to leave at any time. Wasn’t that what Nhean had said?

  If we need to leave suddenly, we may not be able to use my ship. I would appreciate having the Aggy II available.

  As if Rychenkov could say no. The Aggy II was Nhean’s gift to start with—with the understanding that he might, at times, require Rychenkov’s crew to prioritize his missions. He promised to pay well, but golden chains were still chains.

  And the whiskey was making him melodramatic. Rychenkov laid some money down and pushed himself away from the bar. Time to go dunk his head in cold water and stop staring sadly at walls.

  “Where you going, boss?” said James.

  “Not here.”

  There was nowhere better to be than here. He was a smuggler, and this station was full of rich people, one of whom was currently paying him good money to sit on his ass and do nothing. There wasn’t any need, for once, to measure pay against danger and fuel. It was a dream contract.

  It didn’t make him feel a hell of a lot better though. After all, when you sat on your ass for long enough, drinking whiskey the whole time, you started to wonder what you’d really accomplished. You started to wonder if, given the fact that one total psychopath was bent on the destruction of humanity, and another total psychopath was in charge of the human fleet, you had done enough with your time in this life. You started to wonder if you’d be happy dying tomorrow when Walker took out Earth.

  Pike probably didn’t remember telling him that. He’d been outrageously, almost indescribably, drunk. He’d been beyond tears. He’d slurred the words while Rychenkov tried earnestly to understand him, and then just as earnestly tried to believe that they were wrong.

  They weren’t. Pike had disappeared back to the human fleet the next day, a matter Nhean refused to talk about, and the news since then had been full of stories about Tel’rabim’s targets.

  No one knew how he was choosing them. No one knew where he would hit next. Hell, for all Rychenkov knew, it could be here.

  He managed to stand up from the bar and make his way halfway across the room before that last bit of whisky caught up with him. Rychenkov started to sway slightly to the left, reached out for a chair, and gracelessly sat himself down sideways, leaning against the table.

  The problem, he thought morosely, was that when you’d spent your life being too sensible to play the revolutionary, you got to the point where you stared down your own death and you worried that you’d accomplished nothing. You spent so long not putting your head up, only to die when the hammer fell on everyone, anyway. You died filled with regret.

  That wasn’t how he wanted to die.

  His comm device beeped. He looked down at it.

  Mr Rychenkov, please standby. Your services are about to be required. —Nhean.

  “Who is it?” whispered Gabriela in his ear. He nearly jumped—she’d snuck up on him from nowhere, it seemed.

  “No one.”

  “Is it Nhean?” She asked, accusatorially.

  “Gabby, look—”

  “No. You tell that fucker that I’m not risking my husband’s life for his little crusade. Not again. Not for you, not for Pike. Not for anyone. Got it? We run goods. We get paid. Easy, simple. No heroics. Got it?” She punch
ed his shoulder for emphasis. Except … she punched a lot harder than she should have if it were only a joke.

  He nodded, numbly, and she stalked away out of the bar. He glanced over at James, who was still finishing his drink.

  “Women,” James said. “Gotta love ‘em.”

  “Yeah. And if not, they beat the shit out of you?” He rubbed his shoulder.

  “Something like that.” James finally tipped back the last two fingers of whiskey—where the hell were the Netties getting whiskey?—and stood up, painfully, to follow Ry out. “Look. Give Gabby a little break. I nearly died on her. And in case you haven’t seen, she kinda likes me.”

  “You’re her husband,” said Ry.

  “I mean, in spite of that.” He grinned. “Look, maybe … maybe we can take it easy for a bit? Just to calm her nerves?”

  Ry nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll … talk to Nhean. See if we can’t work something out.”

  James eyed him suspiciously. “And if you can’t? What if he makes you an offer you can’t refuse?”

  “Then,” Ry opened the door to the bar, “he’ll find out what it means to cross a Ringer. Us folks from Saturn don’t like to get pushed around.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit

  New Vatican Station

  “So we have your assurance? You’ll reach out to her upper leadership team and figure out who can best take her place?” Celestine asked for the third time. “Take her place, under our direction, of course.”

  Their small group was making its way through one of the newer ships, the Veyrier. Their footsteps did not clang quite as loudly as they would have on the warped gratings of the older fleet, and the new hallways and conference rooms of the cruiser shone clean.

  Someone, Nhean suspected, was sucking up in the hopes of a command post.

  That was the least of his worries right now, however. “You have my assurance.” He allowed himself to look halfway between understanding and wounded as he spoke.

  “Celestine.” Parley Worthlin, the Mormon prophet, gave a beatific smile. “Mr. Tang had already chosen to break with the admiral before learning of our plan.”

  Nhean inclined his head slightly. “I understand your caution. In these times, it is … difficult to pick the correct path. However, President Worthlin is correct. I had already deemed Laura Walker a danger. I was considering the correct move to take.”

  Never mind that his tentative plan had been similar to their own. He had been planning to meet privately with Delaney and ask the man’s help in quietly taking over the fleet. No fuss, no panic. Walker would become quietly indisposed and, with any luck, would have a change of heart when confronted by Pike and Delaney about her ghoulish plan for Earth.

  If not, she would be confined.

  But Nhean’s plan had involved relying on other qualified commanders, and in truth, he doubted very much that any of the Funders Circle had considered the tactical expertise necessary to command the fleet. Even Nhean would never have tried to do so himself, and it was clear that the mutiny had been carried out by some of the least competent members of the brass.

  They had the ships, but the fleet had lost captains it could not afford to lose—captains who had commanded ships in battle. Ships were valuable, but command experience was gold.

  And Nhean was not even sure the Circle had a plan at all, beyond their self-serving desire to have the ships protecting them.

  “It would, however, be only natural to develop a camaraderie with the woman. Before we remove her, of course,” Celestine pressed. “That way she won’t suspect our plan to replace her. She probably suspects we’ve summoned her here to attempt to take the rest of her fleet by force. Let’s disarm her first. Play at friends. After all, we’re all one big happy human family.”

  It took Nhean a moment to recall the flow of the conversation.

  “Yes,” he said impatiently. “It would be, and I did attempt it. And I grew to like her. Does that shock you? I like a great many people that I would not put in command of the fleet. Myself, for example.”

  President Worthlin chuckled at this, and even Celestine cracked a smile.

  “The thing you need not fear,” Nhean said seriously, “is that I would mistake camaraderie, as you called it, for a reason not to remove the admiral from command. She is unfit. All of us know it now.”

  Even if they didn’t know why. They simply thought she was reckless. He knew, now, she was far, far more than reckless.

  She was cold.

  She was willing to make the hard—no, the unthinkable—choices that would save them all. And it made him shudder.

  President Worthlin was clearly convinced. A man with a quick mind, generally slow to speak, he was unsettlingly intelligent—while simultaneously believing the best of everyone. It was a bizarre streak of naiveté in an otherwise politically savvy man. Nhean was fairly sure that Worthlin had insisted that the plan be to depose Walker instead of going for a more violent and expedient solution.

  He was grateful for that.

  His earpiece buzzed slightly.

  “I’m close to the bridge.”

  Nhean relaxed slightly. As if acquiescing to the Circle’s request, he had sent the girl away—with express instructions to make her way onto one of the ships and get a foothold into the code the Circle was modifying.

  He was not always sure how she managed to move so easily without being seen, and he had the strange idea that even she might not know. Her control over technology was too unpredictable, and her instincts were too ingrained for them to be consciously or methodically applied.

  However she did it, they needed that talent now. Nhean was an accomplished information broker, but it took no special skill to see that he would be excluded from key decisions in this process. Celestine, at least, did not trust him.

  “Have you picked a commander for the fleet?” Nhean asked now.

  “Who would you recommend?” Celestine returned smoothly.

  The man had no intentions of taking his advice, Nhean knew that much.

  “I haven’t seen who’s here,” he pointed out. “I figured you would have had someone in mind.”

  “And we are eager to hear your views.” Celestine’s smile did not waver. He led their small group to the bridge, but stayed well clear of the screens where the coders were at work. “If you could choose anyone in the Exile Fleet….”

  Nhean considered this. What to say? Who to put on their radar? Who to use to impress upon them the necessity of expertise? Delaney, however qualified, would never merit more than a wholesale refusal on their part.

  “Larsen or Min,” he said finally. “Both have participated in several battles while on the bridge of a carrier. Both are smart enough to know that they need a competent command structure beneath them, and wise enough to take advice, but willing to make decisions on their own.”

  “We are given to understand that Larsen killed several of our operatives during the attempted mutiny,” Celestine said flatly. “The Arianna King remains under Walker’s command. He is loyal to her.”

  “In the man’s defense, you didn’t make a very good pitch,” Nhean observed. He kept his voice mild. “You merely asked for my opinion, and I gave it. Command of a three-dimensional battle is no small feat, especially when in orbit around a planet. You’ll want someone with the charisma to rally captains to sacrifice themselves, if necessary. You’ll want someone who understands the limitations and abilities of each ship. And, perhaps especially in the upper echelons of the brass….” He let his words hang suggestively until he felt his audience’s interest. “There will always be divisions to exploit when the stakes are this high.”

  Celestine was struck by that thought. “You think if we had waited….” He shook his head. “There was no time. She would not protect us.”

  “I think if you had spent more time on intelligence gathering, perhaps, you might have the entire fleet here right now. Of course, I could have helped you with that, al
though I understand your reasons for not asking me.” Nhean lifted a shoulder. “What’s done is done. Of those we have, I would be glad to offer any information I have to help you make a decision.”

  “Indeed,” Celestine said quietly.

  “I’ve got it.” The words were sudden, breathless. “There’s a monitor in the system and I have the full code of the version of The Seed they’re working with now. I’m coming back.”

  Nhean felt his heart leap, and quelled his smile.

  Now to alter it. Neuter it.

  If they could. Half of it was Telestine code. With Schroeder possibly dead, and with no access to his company’s designers, they’d have to figure it out from scratch.

  “There is much for you all to discuss,” he said gracefully. “Understand that I am not … offended … by your caution. I will let you all come to a decision on which of my talents you wish to employ. I only hope that I will be allowed to help. Remember, I have fought for humanity for many years. I have as much invested in our survival as anyone.”

  He started to leave, but Celestine continued talking, looking out the window at a grouping of more stolen Exile Fleet vessels. “And Mr. Tang, if we’re unsuccessful here today, know that I have a stopgap. I will not let her leave here with all the ships she’s bringing with her.” He turned to face him. “And I have the means to do so. Either they come over to our side willingly, or … they go … nowhere.”

  His meaning was clear.

  The Seed would be used first for subversion of command and the … appropriation of ships.

  And if that failed, The Seed would be used for destruction.

  He stifled a shudder, sketched a slight bow and left.

  How many of them would not survive the day, he wondered. And all the while, Ka’sagra was still out there, somewhere, possibly with a bomb or bombs that could destroy the sun. Somehow. Time wasn’t just running out for him, it was running out for all of them, humans and Telestines alike.