by Nick Webb
“So you’d blow them out of the sky?” Delaney asked quietly.
“Just one ship. As an example, then set an ultimatum. If they don’t comply, then destroy another. And another. Until they yield. It’s not conventional, sure, but we don’t have time for conventional. They aren’t organized yet, and we’ll have the tactical advantage.”
“It’s one thing to be practical,” he interrupted her, “and another to throw practicality to the winds, and loyalty with it.”
“They mutinied,” she told him. Her jaw was clenched.
“Aye, some of their captains did. Any bets as to the rest of the crew? Can you say for sure if all of the people in those ships took part in the mutiny?” He saw her waver, and pressed his advantage. “Can you even say for sure that they’re not working to get back to the fleet? Until you can—and even then—they deserve better than to be killed out of hand. They were ours, our people.”
She looked away. The words only made her angrier right now. Their people? That only made the betrayal worse.
“Or think of it this way,” Delaney said. “You know what they said about the American Civil War? That it was the worst war America fought in, because every casualty was American. That was the tragedy of it. The fleet has to face the Telestines—don’t let it go in broken and battered, half the ships dead by your hand and yours damaged by their hand. Pike is right. If you don’t really want to negotiate or take a chance on our marines getting the ship back with minimal losses, then turn around and leave.”
He was right. She looked down at the table, and jumped when the proximity alert went.
“Ma’am.” An anxious voice came from the bridge. “We’re being hailed by New Vatican Station.”
“Very well. We’re here. Let’s put our plan into action. Get the marines on alert in their boarding craft and ready to launch.” She stood and nodded to all of them. “I’ll take the shuttle. Pike, you go with Delaney back to the Intrepid and help the damned deck crew. Between you two and them, you ought to be able to figure out whatever’s wrong with the engine before we have to rely on it in a battle.”
“The navigation isn’t responding to gravity correctly and the damned Telestine neutrino transducers—” Delaney muttered.
“Whatever’s wrong, get it fixed, and get back to the bridge,” Walker said again, before he could get started on a monologue. She saw Larsen looking down at his wrist with a frown. “Everything all right?”
He jumped. “Yes. Of course.” He nodded. “I’m … sorry for my—”
“I’ll see you all when I get back.” She really had no interest in regrets and apologies.
She had more important things to worry about right now. Like how to steal half a space fleet back from a Catholic pope, a Mormon prophet, and a dozen rich bankers and religious leaders who liked expensive toys.
And she was this close to just blowing them all out of the water first and ask questions later.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Near Triton
EFS Santa Maria
Corridor 2B
Larsen slipped through the door before any of the others and walked quickly, surely, towards the corridors that led to the gunnery. They were, as always, almost entirely empty.
Only when he was sure he was alone did he answer the call.
“Captain. Congratulations on your promotion.” The voice on the other line was smooth, self-assured.
Larsen fought an instinctive wave of dislike.
It had been two and a half weeks since the mutiny, and his mind had not stopped churning. He was faced with the same question running on a loop over and over: what had the other captains been offered by Nhean to make them defect?
He didn’t want it, of that he was sure. Nothing would make him betray Laura.
No, what he wanted was to know what would spark a mutiny like this. What was it that would make good men and women, those who had joined the fleet and devoted their lives to it, betray it so completely? What fault line had Nhean found to exploit?
He had to know if he had any chance of fixing it, and he wanted to fix it. He wanted to undo what had been done, so that whether or not this meeting between the admiral and the Funders Circle was successful, the fleet would be theirs once more.
So he played the part of someone who could be swayed. His heart was beating double time. “What do you want?”
“I see you also hate wasting time.” Nhean sounded amused.
“Get on with it,” Larsen said tightly. “I don’t have much time until the admiral is back.” He let the words hang in the air, a tantalizing suggestion: if you’re going to bribe me, make your offer.
“Very well. I want you to take several ships to orbit the sun inside Mercury’s orbit.”
After this rather surprising announcement, Nhean said nothing at all. Larsen could picture him in one of those crisp suits, sitting back in a sleek chair and waiting for a response.
Larsen frowned. Was this how all of the conversations had started? He let people name their own price?
Surely that couldn’t be it.
And he wasn’t sure whether he should ask what in the blazes a peddler of secrets could gain from him taking ships to patrol near the sun, or what to ask for if he did. After several moments of thought, he made his choice. “And what do I get if I do?” he asked finally. Find out what he offered the rest of them. It was the only thing that mattered.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“You get to stay alive,” Nhean said finally.
“Are you threatening me?”
“Good Lord.” There was something that sounded like muttered swearing, and then Nhean’s voice sharpened. “What are you playing at? I’d have staked my reputation on the belief that you, of all people, couldn’t be bribed away from the Admiral.”
Larsen looked down at the comm unit, and then around himself at the empty hall, to see if anyone might have overheard. “What do you mean?” he whispered furiously.
“Let’s not mince words, shall we?” Nhean sighed. “You would do anything for her, wouldn’t you? Anything. Be honest with me. If I’m wrong, I want to know now.”
“I don’t know what you think of me—”
“I think you’re in love with her.” A long, long pause. “Am I wrong?”
“If you think you’re going to manipulate me—” his voice was shaking “—you are wildly mistaken, Mr. Tang.”
What, was Nhean planning to offer him Walker as a bribe?
“I am not planning to manipulate you.” Nhean sounded annoyed. “I don’t know why you thought I called you, but the fact is that, for reasons I can’t tell you at the moment, humanity needs several ships near the sun, and you are one of the very few people who can both understand that fact, and arrange for it to happen. However, as soon as I get you on the line, you start asking me for money. What am I to make of that, Larsen?”
Larsen made no reply. He was reviewing the conversation in his head, wondering how he got into the rhetorical position of being a money-grubber. Maybe Nhean had gotten people to mutiny by confusing the hell out of them.
No, that wouldn’t do it. It took a lot to make someone turn a gun on their fellow crew members.
“Why ask me?” he said finally. “You’ve probably already asked her and she’s said no. Why should I agree?”
“You’re making an assumption,” Nhean murmured. “I have not asked her. Let us simply say that she knows she and I are aligned more closely than she and the Funders Circle … but … she does not trust me.”
“Neither do I. She’s wise not to,” Larsen said, before he could stop himself.
“Perhaps.” Nhean didn’t seem very troubled by that. “However, what I am proposing is necessary, and if the suggestion comes from you instead of me….”
“You’re trying to get me to manipulate her.”
“I’m trying to get her to listen.” There was a dangerous edge to Nhean’s voice. “This … request … is more important than you know. What
ever you think of me, I think you know that I do not want humanity to suffer and die—therefore, I suggest you hear me out before hanging up.”
“Or what?” Larsen snapped back. He paced, throwing a glance over his shoulder. He should not be on this call. What if someone saw him?
“Or I will ask someone else to suggest it to her,” Nhean said impatiently. “You’re not the only one who has her ear. I should think Pike might also—”
A wave of jealousy swelled up inside him. “Fine, out with it.”
He felt, rather than saw, Nhean’s satisfied smile, and ground his teeth.
They both knew he wasn’t going to hang up now.
“After Io and Vesta, there are—to our knowledge—up to twelve bombs still unaccounted for.” Nhean’s voice was grim. “It is my worry that Ka’sagra will use those bombs. On the sun.”
Larsen’s world seemed to turn inside out. His skin went icy, then so hot he struggled to breathe.
“Wha— … what did you say?”
“I don’t understand how either.” Nhean waited for a response, but Larsen had none. “I don’t know how any bomb, no matter how large, can destroy a star. It makes no sense. But there must be something to the technology I’m missing, since I’m convinced Ka’sagra plans on doing it … again.”
“But—” Larsen stopped. “Did you say again?”
“Why did they come here in the first place?” Nhean asked quietly. “Think back.”
“Because their planet was uninhabitable.”
“And their planet became inhabitable because….”
The ice in his spine returned. “Because … their sun went—. Oh, my God.” Reason fought its way through the veil of panic. He leaned against the corridor wall with one hand, running his other through his hair. “This isn’t real, though. This can’t possibly be real.”
“Why not? Because it is unpleasant?” Nhean’s voice was sharp again. “Because it does not make sense to you that someone would find the world too messy, too dark, and that they would choose to end everything and everyone? How many humans have done the same thing over our history? How many humans have prayed for the end of all things?”
Larsen gripped the comm unit. His fingers were aching.
“I ask very little,” Nhean said quietly. “Very little. Three ships with weapons, sent to guard the sun against this possibility. None of the carriers. Not the Santa Maria. Small ships, nimble ships. There are dozens of those within the fleet. I think you know their absence would not tip the balance in any engagement. And also, most importantly, not a word to anyone. All our lives depend on it. We don’t know who might leak word of our plans to Tel’rabim or Ka’sagra, knowingly or unknowingly.”
Larsen looked away, biting his lip.
“Except her. Persuade Walker,” Nhean said softly. “She may well think it is a good idea as well. Mention the shipyards at Mercury if you cannot come up with a good way to suggest Tel’rabim’s ultimate purpose—she may not believe that. Just … get the ships there. We’ve already wasted far too much time on this Funders Circle nonsense.”
There was a pause.
“Do you see, now, why I called you?”
Larsen ended the call rather than answer. He stood with the comm unit in his hands for a long time, and tipped his head back against the bulkheads at last.
What in the name of God was he supposed to do now? Believe Nhean, of all people?
Or leave unguarded a target whose destruction, should it be successfully attacked, could doom them all?
He needed to figure this out. If he still had time. If any of them still had time.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
New Vatican Station
Outer Ring
Nhean looked down at the comm unit and smiled. His footsteps were already carrying him back to the main area.
Larsen put on a good show of making up his mind, but Nhean had no doubt that he would at least try to influence Walker’s decision.
If only he could get good information on where Pike was, and what the man was up to. At least Walker was still coming—but had Pike managed anything else of note?
It would be easier to organize a meeting if he didn’t have to return to Earth shortly, but he could not afford a single minute more than he was already losing by overseeing this meeting between the admiral and the Funders Circle. Hopefully, he would return to Earth knowing that the fleet was united once more. It was, perhaps, a long shot—but Walker had been known to be unexpectedly practical in the past.
One could hope.
In the meantime, the girl would monitor this meeting. Every chance she had to infiltrate human systems was good training to stretch her powers. It was clear that the same techniques she had learned in order to take down the Telestine systems could not be used, at least not in the same way, for the human defense systems. But she was learning.
“Sir?” A young man approached him, dressed in a crisp black suit. A page from the Funders Circle.
“What is it?” Nhean tensed slightly.
He was on the outside of the Funders Circle now, and he knew it. His association with Walker, and his refusal to bend on the topic of who should command the fleet, had made him a black sheep.
They expected his defiance, of course. He had always been the odd one out when it came to them, pushing harder for the creation of the fleet than anyone else and then giving it over to Walker’s control against their wishes. He could not pretend to fall in line now without arousing their suspicions. But while they expected his ideals, and paid lip service to the idea of a healthy debate, he knew a knife in the back was likely.
He had been waiting for an assassination attempt. Was this page Schroeder’s assassin? He chided himself—there was no proof Schroeder was even dead. He studied the boy’s hands for weapons. Very young—no more than sixteen—but clearly athletic. His muscular frame was apparent even through the suit.
“I’ve been asked to inform you, sir, that Laura Walker’s shuttle has docked.” The boy was earnest, out of his depth in many ways. His face still looked innocent. But he had enough political savvy to know what he should call Walker—not granting her a title—and that was a good reminder regarding innocent, young faces.
“I’ll be along in a moment.” Nhean would prefer the boy to turn and walk away first.
“Of course, sir. They’re meeting in His Holiness’s receiving rooms, through the main concourse. The elevator down this hallway will bring you close to the door.”
“Thank you. That will be all,” Nhean said firmly.
The page hesitated, waiting for Nhean to set out in the expected direction, but he broke under Nhean’s cold, unwavering gaze, turning quickly before he hurried away.
Nhean watched him go, then took an alternate route, circling around the outside of the station. He was already late, he was sure—they would have started the meeting without him in order to set the tone without any interference—and a few more minutes would make no difference.
Besides, he knew this route. He often strolled along it when he was deep in thought, taking in the indigo shadows that traced along Neptune’s surface outside. Though the Funders preferred to meet in windowless, easily air-locked rooms, they also liked to look at pretty things and found it easy enough to afford windows in the main station. Each successive floor of the station, smaller than the last, had a walkway along the outside, paneled with windows. Nhean found the view strangely comforting. Why, he could not have said. Like Venus, this was only another uninhabitable planet.
Whatever the case, his repeated use of this particular path had its advantages. He knew the blind turns and the placement of the ceiling tiles. He would know if there was an attacker lurking here, something he might not perceive as readily when walking along the main concourse. He could choose which staircase to take down to the main floor to Celestine’s receiving room. Right now, with tension in the air on all sides, Nhean was the only outsider to all groups. It was a precarious situati
on.
And indeed, as he drew closer, he heard the murmur of voices and the unmistakable sounds of humans: a slight catch of breath, the shift of heavy cloth and equipment. His hearing had always been good, a definite advantage.
Nhean turned purposefully down a side corridor, knowing that his footsteps would have been marked and noted, and then crept back along the same path silently. He was ready for them, he told himself. He was not a trained assassin, but he was not helpless, and he knew they were here. The advantage was his. The advantage was his. The advantage—
But they weren’t following him. He edged along the hallway, but saw no one. At last, he peered into the hallway itself.
His throat constricted.
There, surrounded by four guards, a man lay with the long barrel of a sniper rifle pointed down through a small grate into Celestine’s receiving room.
No harm will come to the admiral, Celestine had promised him.
They had lied.
Of course they had lied.
And he could never take the five soldiers out before they killed him. Cursing himself for a fool, Nhean forced himself to head back along the corridor as silently as he had come.
One hallway away, mapping the station in his thoughts, he broke into a dead sprint.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
New Vatican Station
Main Concourse
“As you can see,” Celestine said confidently, “any place can be a paradise … and yet, a prison to the soul.”
Walker said nothing. She did not trust her voice around him. She might very well laugh despite herself.
It wasn’t the sentiment, of course. She knew better than anyone that even the most state-of-the-art living in space could be a prison of a sort. She agreed with him.
It was the mellifluous, mocking lilt that lay under his words that she took issue with. Many people claimed that it was impossible to know the Pope’s motivations. They said he was too learned, too wise to jump to conclusions. As far as Walker was concerned, that was bunk. Celestine was an actor, nothing more. Whatever he might have once believed, it was long gone and had been replaced entirely by self-interest. She thought even less of Nhean for having allied himself with this group in the first place.