by Nick Webb
But if anything could break reliably, it was the human genome.
And still … a broken tool could perhaps be repaired, where building another up from nothing would likely not be possible given his current time constraints. In the end, creating the Dawning had been more art than science, a fact that still made him uncomfortable.
“I did not say return her to you.” For the first time, he heard true amusement in Nhean’s voice. He would pay for that, eventually. The insolence. “I said I was sending her back to Earth. She should look at the archives. You designed her to interfere remotely with technology—whatever Ka’sagra is planning, she is an integral part of our response to it. And, of course, you two could work together to find her as well.”
Tel’rabim took a moment to compose himself.
The most infuriating thing, he decided, was how close to useful humans were. They were very nearly the perfect tool for any job.
And they willfully chose not to be perfect. It was maddening.
He could only hope they were as much of a trial to Ka’sagra as they were to him. You two could work together. One did not work with a socket wrench or an engine, one used such tools.
That was how the Dawning had been broken, he decided. All of the careful work he had done to create a perfect computer, one that could learn the patterns and weaknesses of his enemy’s defense networks, and Nhean had managed to convince the thing that it was a person. That it had volition.That it could choose what to do with its talents.
He had broken it once, and he could do so again. But he could not say that of course. He forced himself to say the things the human wanted to hear:
“I will apprise it—her—of our progress so far.”
“I would wait on that.” Nhean continued down the path of predictable rebellion. “She has met Ka’sagra. She thinks critically. Let her search for what she thinks would be most useful.”
***
There was a pause.
“I see,” Tel’rabim said finally.
“So you agree?” Nhean asked. At his side, the girl was staring at him with wary eyes, and he did not look directly at her. He would reassure her in a moment that he had no intentions of letting her be captured.
“Why would I not agree?” Tel’rabim asked smoothly.
Nhean looked heavenward and prayed for patience. He knew Tel’rabim had no intention of giving the girl back—but he knew that to say as much would threaten his chance to peer into the archives. He searched for a reason that would be acceptable. “Given her recent role on the human side of our encounters, I can imagine she might be considered a war criminal to your people.”
The entire concept seemed to amuse Tel’rabim. There was a sound that came across like laughter.
“And you think I would do violence against her.”
“A reasonable question, I think, when one proposes sending a human to Earth.”
“Ah, but she is not human.” Tel’rabim sounded satisfied. “You would not be sending her if she were. She is the only one of her kind.” There was a pause. “And I am the only one who understands what that is. Trust me, I have no intentions of killing or hurting her just to indulge in some notion of petty revenge.”
Nhean looked into the middle of nowhere and said nothing for a long moment. He did not look at the comm unit, or at the girl, or at the monitors that held the usual stream of information, until he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. The girl had curled herself into a ball and was staring at the far wall, her face expressionless. She refused to look at him.
He bit back a sigh. Tel’rabim, he reminded himself, had accumulated power over all these years because of his ability to turn on a dime and seize the advantage. Like now: a few moments ago, Tel’rabim had been calling the girl “it.” Now, he was halfway between a master politician, whispering in an underling’s ear, and a mad scientist.
Did he know the girl was listening? Was he trying to lure her back … or break her down?
“I see,” was all Nhean said. “I will send you the information, then, so your defense networks know to let the ship pass.”
He ended the call immediately and looked at the girl.
She stared back at him silently, arms crossed.
“Their entire technology catalogue,” Nhean said quietly. “You would have access to every item they have ever built.”
She said nothing. It was a long moment until she turned her head to look at him.
What was it, specifically, that was bothering her? “You wanted to become what you were made to be,” Nhean reminded her. “Instead, I suggest you become even more than that.”
She flinched slightly, but made no response to that. “How will you protect me from him?”
“We—” he stressed the word slightly “—will work to determine his capabilities and provide you with an escape route, to be used at any time.” He held her gaze. “I am more interested in having you alive than I am in pushing the limits of your abilities. However … the odds of any of us living are greatly increased if you can put those abilities to work against Ka’sagra. If she succeeds, then I’m afraid it’s the end. For all of us.”
There was an uncomfortably long pause, and the girl looked away first. She nodded.
It looked very much, Nhean thought, like a nod of defeat.
“You know we need to do this,” he told her. “You know that Ka’sagra will move soon. Whatever she’s still looking for, whatever reason she has for not launching her attack yet, we have to assume our luck will not hold for long.”
“And you know we can’t rely on Tel’rabim,” she shot back. “Perhaps we shouldn’t waste our time there. Perhaps we should be searching for her ourselves.”
“I know.” Nhean sank his chin onto one fist and considered. That fact had been uncomfortably clear for weeks. “I know. We need to move on our own, and soon. But I also have been searching, as I know you have. And we haven’t found anything. We need an ally, we need someone else to help us in this, and unfortunately, I don’t think either the Funders Circle or Admiral Walker are going to listen to me right about now. ”
***
Tel’rabim sat back in his chair and considered.
He was practical enough to know that he was getting nowhere. There was something here that Ka’sagra had used on their own sun. The secret of her process was hidden within this place. Why else would she have destroyed the two backup archives at Denver and Tokyo?
Oh, she had concealed her purpose very well. He had hardly guessed that the bombings were not human-engineered. But once he knew … then, he had understood at once what she was doing.
Nhean’s theory, terrifying as it was, simply gave shape to his fear. Ka’sagra was doing something, something with old technology, something she didn’t want him to know about. What was it? What was her secret?
It was a secret he should need no one’s help to find. He bared his teeth slightly and cast an annoyed glance towards his team, who were still combing through the files. Records of the research they had already done, meticulously kept, now covered several computer screens. The light glittered off the ornamental columns, hinting at the servers concealed within.
He shouldn’t need to do this. He should be able to go to the military and demand their compliance, ask them what sort of weaponry could be used for such a purpose. He should be able to trust both their discretion and their loyalty.
He could trust neither. He had earned their hatred in his coup. He was using far too many of his own troops now to protect London, when the military should be helping him with that in the first place.
What he had thought would be a simple matter—wiping out humanity, restoring Telestine life to its proper ways—had instead dragged on, plagued with costly warfare and attacks on Earth itself. Sympathy for Ka’sagra was surging. Calls for Tel’rabim’s resignation were growing louder.
He had believed that if he could take his rightful place in the government and free his people from this sad, costly experiment in “mercy” wi
th one stroke, he would have had their loyalty as long as he lived.
He still believed that. Unfortunately, he had not been able to give them that.
He had been so sure that he picked his time well….
One long-fingered hand clenched and he rose to sweep along the line of his team members, staring over their shoulders into the results of their research. He did not particularly want to allow a traitor, an unpredictable and rebellious tool, into his archives. On the other hand, his people were getting nowhere, and he knew it. At every turn, there were blocks in the servers, access denied to military technologies.
The Dawning had been built for this. The sooner he had it back and under his control, the sooner he could show his species the life they were meant to live. They would not defy him then. He believed that completely.
“Continue your work.” He looked at each of them in turn and swept to the door. “I have preparations to make. The Dawning will soon be returned to us.”
Let Nhean think he still controlled this situation. When the Dawning was nearby, Tel’rabim would have all he needed to recapture it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Near Triton
EFS Santa Maria
Ready Room
The room was silent save for the sound of papers rustling together and being laid down on the metal desks.
The plan was ready. Risky, but doable.
The stolen ships’ mutineers probably had not had enough time to get their chains of command and tactical plans in order. Walker and her small fleet would take advantage of that. She’d go aboard New Vatican Station as invited, presumably to negotiate for the surrendering of the mutineers. And while she negotiated, her fleet would drift amongst the rebels in a show of trust. With so many ships in amongst each other so close, few would notice the several dozen boarding shuttles launching and force docking with the mutineers’ ships, and within ten minutes the marines would have every single vessel back in her hands. All before the Funders even knew what was happening.
Assuming the plan went one hundred percent without a hitch. She chided herself. No plan survives contact with the enemy.
Walker took the moment to herself without guilt or regret. Moments in her cabin might easily be disturbed by an emergency on a ship; on something as large as a carrier, there was always an emergency. She did not have meals to herself, and her face was recognized now—she had no anonymity in the hallways, either.
Moments of quiet, in meetings like this, were the only moments she had to herself at all.
And she needed a moment of quiet, away from the whirl of thoughts that kept tumbling over in her head with no conclusions.
She refocused her eyes on the latest dossier—that of Pope Celestine—and reread it from start to finish. There wasn’t much. The man had done well to conceal his past. If anyone remembered him before he’d become a priest, they hadn’t come forward.
She laid the piece of paper down with a sigh to look at the next.
A hand came to rest on her shoulder.
“I don’t think we’re going to find anything new,” Delaney rumbled. “And I have a deck crew to manage.”
“Well, we’ve got a plan, but we’ve also got to think through and prepare for every eventuality. And I want to know my enemy before I engage him.” She smiled despite herself. He was correct, she was absolutely retreading ground that had been well and thoroughly trod at this point, given that they’d been traveling towards Neptune’s moon Triton for five days, and Vatican Station in orbit above.
They were nearly there.
She was also aware, however, that he was offering her an old disagreement as bait to give her mind a rest, and her mouth twitched as she took it. “And I don’t see why the captain of one of my carriers needs to oversee repairs.”
“Damned young fools don’t know what they’re doing,” Delaney said shortly. It was always his response. The argument felt comfortable. Like a well-fitted glove.
She waited to see how he would dress it up this time.
“Give them a new ship, and suddenly they think there’s no need to be careful, no need to know it. Well, let me tell you, the new ships are a damned sight more unpredictable than the old ones.”
“The old ones,” Walker said, returning to her dossier, “were a bucket of loose panels and bolts, and you know it. And sit down. If you can’t trust your deck crew to know the ships better than you do, you have a management problem.”
“I was repairing ships before most of them were born.” But he sat.
“A fact you repeat often, old man,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. A familiar jibe. He grinned back. He’d given her a brief break from the dossier, and now that she returned to it, something caught her attention. “Majority vote of the second meeting of the conclave led to Celestine’s election. Second meeting.” She looked up to Larsen. “Captain, you’re Catholic. What does a papal election usually look like?”
“Well,” began Larsen, “the Cardinals all gather in the conclave and they basically vote. They vote as many times as they need to until someone gets a two-thirds majority. It used to happen in the Sistine Chapel. Since that doesn’t exist anymore, and, well, for other more obvious reasons, they now do it in the papal estates on Venus.”
“But this says he was elected in the second meeting of the conclave. I thought there was only one. I thought they lock themselves in and don’t come out until they’ve decided.”
He nodded. “True.” He leaned back in his chair, lost in thought. “If I remember right—I was young at the time—I think there was an issue about certain cardinals getting stuck on Titan during the conclave, so they started without them, and then when the first conclave couldn’t come to a decision, they disbanded until the remaining cardinals could arrive to cast the deciding votes.”
She stroked her chin. “Interesting.” A datapad sat on the desk nearby, and she grabbed it, entering a query into the database. Moments later, the results came in. “The first conclave had sixty-four cardinals in attendance. The second conclave, weeks later, had sixty-five in attendance after the missing cardinals showed up, and … aha!”
“What?” said Larsen. Delaney, Pike, and Min all leaned in expectantly.
“There were three cardinals missing in the first conclave. And when they arrived for the second, the attendance only increased by one. Which means….” She tapped through several more screens of data. “There it is. Two cardinals died in between the conclaves.”
“Of what? Were they old? Caught by Telestines?” Delaney leaned in further.
“It only says, accidental circumstances. They were both actually quite young when they died. Thirty, and thirty-seven. And the second conclave voted him in nearly unanimously, according to some second-hand reports.” She looked up. “Do you know what this means?”
Larsen nodded. “Don’t cross Pope Celestine?”
She nodded. “It means he’s a ruthless, slippery bastard.”
Silence fell over the conference room.
She leaned back in her chair. “What if … what if we just blew everything out of the sky?”
The room went dead quiet. Larsen was gaping at her, Min put down his papers carefully, and Pike swallowed hard.
“Why would you do that?” Pike asked her. “Might as well turn around and leave if you don’t want them back.”
“They’re dangerous,” Larsen argued. Whatever his initial reservations about her suggestion, his hatred of Pike was more than enough to override it. He gave the man a supercilious look. “They mutinied. The question to ask is, why should the admiral go talk to them at all? Especially given Celestine’s … history.”
“On that point we’re agreed.” Pike’s pulse was beating faster at his throat, but his voice didn’t rise.
Larsen leaned in closer to Pike, his eyes on fire. “And you seriously think just turning around and offering our backs up for their knives is a good plan? We’d have wasted days in transit for nothing.”
“Better that than risk an e
ngagement,” Pike said heatedly. “Carry out the negotiations at our leisure, send messages back and forth as we deal with … Tel’rabim—he’s the bigger issue. Given his new FTL capabilities and how he destroyed Io and Vesta….” He gave her a knowing look. His meaning was clear: he knew about Ka’sagra’s mysterious and catastrophic iridium isotope bombs, and she agreed with his implied meaning—it was madness to let that threat fester. “Then we’ll have the intel to put pressure on them, rather than being pressured into this now. Right now we have more pressing matters to attend to.”
“I should think that losing half our fleet—” Larsen began.
He broke off when Walker held up a hand.
“We’re not turning tail and running.”
Pike’s blue eyes fixed on Walker’s. “You’ve always pulled a victory out in the end, Laura, but you’ve always gone in with a plan. I didn’t think to question whether we would have one by the time we got there, but we’re almost there, and we don’t. Not a good one, at least. Not one where lot’s of people don’t die.”
Walker looked down at the table. You’ve always pulled a victory out in the end. “I had a plan at Vesta,” she said tightly. “That wasn’t a victory. Not at all.”
“You don’t know that yet—Vesta laid bare our enemy’s plans, at least. That’s something,” Pike countered. “I crash-landed on Earth in the middle of a battle that didn’t really go to plan—and we got the Dawning.”
“Which you gave away to that peddler of secrets,” Larsen snapped.
“Enough.” Walker gave him a cold look, and was surprised to see him flush with something that looked like shame as much as anger. “You’re not helping.” She sighed and tipped her head back at the ceiling, then looked between Min, Pike, and Delaney. “But Larsen is right—turning around now is just asking for an attack.”