by Nick Webb
Once again, he’d underestimated her. Nhean gave a breathless shrug to acknowledge that he had no other ideas. He could feel his muscles dragging by now, past the stage of burning and starting into outright disobedience.
He had to stop.
“Just a … moment.”
“They’re going to get into the shuttle bay,” the girl said sharply in his ear. “Don’t stop!”
How she could tell, he didn’t know. He felt a prickle on the back of his neck. “How close are they?”
“Too close. You’ve really pissed them off, and I, for one, don’t want to be on the receiving end.”
“Shit.” Nhean started jogging again. Just one more step, then the next step. He began to pick up speed, and Walker matched him. “It’s really annoying that you can do that. I know I’m older than you, but still.” Annoyance distracted him from his pain, though, and that was good.
“Evacuation drills,” she explained. “Perks of having the oldest, ricketiest space station.”
He managed to nod.
“You have people coming into the hallway behind you,” the girl informed him.
A second later, a crash corroborated her statement.
“Goddammit.” Walker swore in a tone that suggested she rarely used that particular word as she grabbed Nhean’s elbow to drag him along at her side. “All right, listen up.”
A shot zinged overhead and they both put on a burst of speed.
“What?” Nhean managed. He could hear his name being shouted behind them, along with several other indistinct things that he was fairly certain were death threats.
“I am not going to die with you,” she told him bluntly. “You fall behind, I’m going to keep running. Are we clear?”
He had no idea if she’d meant that to spur him on or not, but if she had, it worked wonderfully. Nhean managed a nod and pulled both arms up in front of him as he ran, so he could start sending a message.
His fingers danced over the buttons of his device’s holographic heads-up display. He could see the shuttle bay in the distance now. They were closing on it, hopefully faster than their pursuers were closing on them—but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t spare the attention to look.
“What are you doing?” Walker demanded. “Did I not just tell you—” She ducked uselessly as another shot went overhead and grimaced.
“It’s important, I promise.” It was the transmission he’d been composing to Pike when he saw the guards. He didn’t dare speak the words aloud right now, for fear their pursuers would hear them. He was just trying not to think about how many advantages he was throwing away right now.
He couldn’t keep thinking that way. He wasn’t alone in his estate on Venus anymore. This wasn’t him against Walker anymore.
“Nhean!” The yell behind him was full of threat.
He pressed send and dropped his arms to start running with a purpose. He had nothing to say to any of those behind him.
“Listen,” he told Walker bluntly. “Send orders to your fleet and then tell them to turn off any scanning capabilities, any digital broadcast capabilities—anything that can network into your computer systems. They’re trying to reopen the control network I had in place, and infiltrate it with a version of The Seed virus I used on Tel’rabim’s ships at Mercury—and they claim they have a way to make it work on your older ships, too.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“They wanted you close to steal the other half of the fleet.” He interrupted her. “Transmit your orders to your fleet from the shuttle and then go dark. I mean it. I’ll do what I can to disrupt it.”
They both jumped as the girl appeared in the doorway ahead of them, and split to run around her when she didn’t move. She quickly grabbed the manual lever on the top of the door.
They stumbled and sprawled from their last burst of speed as they heard the slam of metal on stone. The door was closed behind them and it shuddered as their pursuers started pounding on it with the butts of their guns.
“What’s your plan?” she demanded to Nhean as they ran for the two shuttles: his, warmed up and next to Walker’s.
God bless that girl and her instincts.
“Go with Walker,” he said bluntly.
“What?” They spoke in perfect unison. Walker actually stopped, and the girl, caught up in their enforced alliance, grabbed her to pull her back into motion.
“I will be damned if the Funders figure out what you are and get you in a lab somewhere.” He didn’t have time to sugarcoat it, and he saw the girl go white with fear. He gestured towards the door now opening up on Walker’s shuttle. “So go with Walker,” he told the girl. He looked back at the admiral. “And you, get her to Earth. You’ll be allowed, I’ll make sure of it.”
“Earth?” Walker’s face was lined with outraged. “Of all the places to go right about now—”
“We don’t have time for me to explain here, she’ll explain in transit.” He cast a look over his shoulder. “Get her to the Telestine archives over London. Go now.”
He saw something shift in her eyes. “Archives,” she said quietly. She tossed a look over her shoulder, but didn’t step into the shuttle, not yet. Her hand came down on his arm. “What’s in the archives? And why should I trust that you aren’t just trying to get my ship shot down?”
He grasped at anything. “Dawn can find something there that will help us deactivate The Seed.” It was true enough. Half of it was Telestine code anyway—perhaps she’d find something that would let them turn it off with a simply terminate command.
Walker wasn’t buying it. Her defiant look was clear.
With a sigh, Nhean threw away his last advantage. He pushed her in the door of her shuttle and met her eyes as his finger hovered over the button. “Pike will know what to do,” he explained.
She gasped as he slammed his hand down on the door’s close button, a sheet of metal descending between his face and her eyes, which were widening in horror and betrayal.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
New Vatican Station
Aggy II
Cockpit
“I need you.” Nhean’s voice burst through Rychenkov’s earpiece, far too loudly. “Your ship is spun up, yes?”
“Always.” He kept it running all the time, despite the absolutely absurd fuel cost. Nhean’s orders and, of course, Nhean’s money for the fuel. Rychenkov had anticipated questions from the merchants and the port authority, but apparently there were so many absurdly rich people on New Vatican Station that no one gave it a second thought.
He thought he’d be glad to leave. Of course, that was before half the fleet had shown up—mutinied, people whispered—and then the other half had shown up to cut off the escape routes.
Flying through this mess seemed like a terrible idea.
“This situation is about to melt down,” Nhean said, confirming Rychenkov’s suspicions. “I need you to get out, and get to Earth.”
“Get to—” This was going from bad to worse. Rychenkov took the stairs up to the cockpit two at a time. He needed to begin the undocking process. Extensive bribes had bought him a quick exit, and he was going to cash in every favor right about now. He sighed. “Do you need any cargo brought out?”
“Maybe. I’ll let you know more details later. I have already transmitted the series of pings I will use if I need to open communications. In the meantime, accept no transmissions. You’re on a ship I had built, and that means you’re vulnerable to a certain set of programs people are going to be broadcasting in short order.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Irrelevant. We don’t have time.” Nhean sounded distracted, as if he were also beginning to withdraw from the station. “I have no idea what I’ll need you for, but Earth is where everything will be happening.”
That sounded somewhat less than comforting, but Rychenkov knew better than to argue. In any case, he could run now and decide whether or not he wanted to be suicidal la
ter. He’d have a while to figure it out in transit.
He just had to make one offer first—an offer that had come immediately to his mind when he saw the remnants of the Exile Fleet arrive.
“I’ll see you there,” he said, and cut the transmission.
“Where are we going?” James asked curiously. He settled down in the copilot’s chair with a worried frown. He shifted slightly to favor his bad leg. It had improved with access to the medical facilities—and the Nettie doc—on this station, but Rychenkov was no fool. He knew James compensated for the chronic pain by simply being silent. For the thousandth time, Rychenkov mentally cursed out every being, Telestine, human, and anything in between. He was sick of them all sometimes.
That wasn’t going to help.
“Earth, apparently.” Rychenkov sighed.
“We’re flying through that?” James pointed at the two fleets, and Rychenkov saw that they were starting to move into formation. Shit.
“Yeah, and we may need to make one stop.” The crew was going to like this even less, but Rychenkov was not leaving anyone behind. He pulled up a comm channel and tapped his fingers while he waited for an answer.
“No. No, we’re not. Don’t even think about it,” said Gabriela. Dammit, he thought she was still below helping Katya and Deshawn track down that final pesky coolant leak. “We’re not going to Earth.”
Ry had been fiddling with the emergency comm-line, and it finally buzzed, interrupting her.
“Yes?” Pike’s voice was abrupt. Rychenkov could hear klaxons in the background. “This isn’t a good time—”
“It’s Ry. What ship are you on?”
“The Intrepid. Why?”
“Because, if you want me to….” Rychenkov sighed and said goodbye to the practical man he had once been. “I will get you out of this clusterfuck before it melts down. I just talked to Tang.”
James groaned.
Rychenkov put the comm unit on mute for a moment. “We are not leaving him here if he wants out. He wouldn’t leave any of us.”
“He would want us to get out,” James pointed out. “And anyway, he doesn’t want to get out. He’s … what’s the polite word for ‘whipped’?”
“Yes. I know.” Rychenkov craned his head to look at the heavy bulk of the Santa Maria. “And he probably won’t come with us. But I have to offer.”
Pike had, until recently, been on the Santa Maria instead of the Intrepid—or so Nhean claimed. Heading back into the lion’s den to try to change Walker’s mind seemed like a fool’s errand. The problem was, Rychenkov had been too ashamed of the fact that he was doing nothing to try to talk Pike out of his mistake. At the time, trying to figure out the “right thing” to do hadn’t been so clear-cut. If Pike thought he could face Walker without murdering her, more power to him.
That didn’t mean Rychenkov was willing to leave him behind here.
When Pike finally answered, his voice was quiet. “You … talked to Nhean? Is she dead?”
He sounded lost, like he was between relief and despair.
Rychenkov hesitated. “I—I don’t know.” He wished he did. “I don’t think so. Nhean didn’t say.”
Pike sighed, a short burst of air clipped at the edges. “I can’t leave. Not without her.”
“Listen up.” Rychenkov shifted to his captain voice and cracked it like a whip. “You told me why you went there, all right?” He spoke over Pike’s strangled denial. “I’m not up for talking about it. I called because this is about to go sideways in a big way. So decide quickly—but I know what I would tell my friend to do, and that’s come with us.”
There was a silence. Even James did not protest.
Another pause.
“I can’t,” Pike said finally.
“D’you think for a moment that she won’t figure out why—”
“I have to try!” The words were a shout that made Rychenkov wince. There was a pause. “I have to try,” Pike said again. His tone was measured this time. “I know you don’t think much of revolutionaries, and I get it. I appreciate that you’re trying to get me out of here, Pyotr. I do. But any debt you thought you owed me….” He paused. “It’s the end of the world, man. Get out, and live a good life while you can. I’m not sure we can fix what’s going wrong anymore. You might as well enjoy life while it’s still here. No more heroics.”
He cut the line and Rychenkov stared at the comm unit. He was only dimly aware of James guiding them out of their berth as he began to skirt the edges of the two fleets. He could hear the sound of the tone they were broadcasting: they were a civilian ship, they were not involved in hostilities.
No more heroics. For some reason, Pike’s acceptance hit him harder than Gabby’s censure had. Without any anger at all, Pike had accepted that Rychenkov was not the type of man to put his life on the line any longer. In Pike’s own way, telling Rychenkov to get out was the best way to repay his friendship: don’t worry about guilt, live your life as I know you want to.
Rychenkov’s hands lay curled beside the controls. He saw a flash out of the corner of his eye, the first shots fired between the two fleets. It was starting, and he was running.
But in the corner of his other eye, he saw James rub his leg with a wince.
No. He wasn’t running.
He was protecting. And sometimes, to protect those who depended on you, you ran.
Big difference.
His thoughts turned, surprisingly, to the girl. To his Lapushka.
Nhean had mentioned a cargo. Something … something about the way he said it made him suspicious, and turned his thoughts to her.
He entered in coordinates, and before James or Gabby could protest, he interjected, “Yes, we’re getting out of here. We’re running. But that doesn’t mean we can’t stand by and watch.” He looked up at Gabby, who was shaking her head. “Just in case.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
New Vatican Station
Shuttle
“Pike will know what to do.”
It was clear how much those words had cost Nhean. The girl watched as the door slammed shut and Walker stared disbelievingly at the sheet of metal. The admiral didn’t seem to remember how to move.
The shuttle pilot, thankfully, had no such compunctions. The tiny craft shuddered into motion at once, sending both the girl and the admiral stumbling sideways, and Walker turned her head to meet the girl’s eyes.
She could not bear to meet them. She had never wanted to feel sympathy for this woman. The girl turned her head, too sharply, and pushed her way into the copilot’s chair.
“What are you doing?” Walker’s voice was like ice.
“Opening you a secure channel.” She did not look back. “And keeping that signal out of this ship.” She stabbed at a few of the buttons and looked over to meet the pilot’s wary gaze. “Why don’t you focus on flying? In a few seconds, you’re about to—”
Something shot past the shuttle as they rounded the corner of the space station.
“Holy shit,” the pilot breathed.
Walker made a strangled noise.
The girl looked up and forced herself not to react. She had expected this, of course.
She just didn’t particularly like staring down half the fleet, arrayed for their first battle as mutineers. For one thing, she couldn’t distract the human fleet as easily as she could distract the Telestine fleets. There, it had been a matter of feeding the correct signal to the flagship to make herself invisible. Here … well, human ships didn’t network the same way. Their helmsmen and officers couldn’t be persuaded not to notice certain things as easily as their Telestine counterparts.
“Fly,” she snapped at the pilot.
To his credit, he obeyed at once. His hands lurched into motion before his face caught up, and the shuttle banked smoothly out of the way of another missile. He straightened up in his chair and closed his fingers more surely around the controls, and the shuttle began to weave in tight arcs
.
Good. That was one thing taken care of. The girl looked to Walker next. “I’ve opened you a channel. If there are any orders you need to give before we….” Her voice trailed off under the admiral’s furious stare. Before we go to Earth. “We must go to Earth,” she said quietly. “The key to stopping Ka’sagra is in those archives. I need access to them, and Tel’rabim can be persuaded to give me access. We need to go to Earth.”
The shuttle swerved and the admiral gripped her chair to stay upright. “And Pike knew this.”
“We don’t have time for that!” Good God, they were in a shuttle, in the middle of a battle. They had no cover, they had no armor. She thrust the comm unit at the admiral. “The Funders are deploying The Seed. Your assault shuttles are all lost. Your carriers soon to follow. I’m … keeping it at bay for now, but you only have seconds before they get around my defenses. Give your orders. Now.”
Walker snatched the comm unit away savagely. “What a pity Pike isn’t here to give them for me.”
The girl looked away. She should be angry. Against the backdrop of everything else, Pike’s lies were small, a petty thing for the admiral to focus on.
Instead, she felt pity. She felt the woman’s hurt. She sat quietly as the admiral composed her thoughts and drew breath to speak.
“Exile Fleet, this is Admiral Walker.” No one could mistake her voice for pleased. “Immediately after the broadcast of these orders, turn off any and all receiving capabilities. There is possibly a … virus … being broadcast to take control of our ships. Authorization code omega five zero one. I’m heading to the Santa Maria with the Dawning. As soon as we’re onboard, every ship that is capable needs to get the hell out. Regroup at … Earth.”
She felt Walker’s eyes on her. “This archive had better be worth it, “ the woman said. “What’s in there? Something important enough for me to ask them to do this?” There was a strange, intent look in her eyes.