by Nick Webb
Delaney had known Walker long enough not to cede control immediately. He finished giving orders to the navigational team, who were the only ones still in motion, before he turned to look at Walker. I hope you have a good reason for all of this, his eyes said.
“Min is on the Santa Maria,” he said, voice tight. “He’s going to lead it around more slowly, flash some big guns so they stay focused on him. Hopefully we’ll be long gone before anyone notices us.”
The odds were good, Walker had to admit. In a battle between her and Tel’rabim, she would not have laid odds on either commander missing a switch like this. But in a fleet that had no competent commander on one side….
Maybe there was still time to launch an attack. Take advantage of their incompetence. Take those damn ships back.
She looked at the screen. The mutinied ships still lacked a formation. They hung prettily, arranged in a grid of sorts. It was meant to look impressive, but it wasn’t functional in battle.
There was still time to fight….
But … Earth. Dawn’s mission to the archives. Both she and Nhean were so insistent….
The ship creaked as it turned. It was much as it would have been on the sea, she decided. The Intrepid was old enough to strain with each acceleration, and the torque from the turns was akin to water lashing against its bow. Triton, and beyond, deep blue Neptune inched off the screen and the image of a distant, tiny sun replaced it. The distant pull of acceleration confirmed they’d begun the days’ long journey to Earth.
She turned her thoughts from that as resolutely as she always turned her thoughts from anything near to the idea of Earth. She did not want to think of oceans and solid ground beneath their feet. She wanted to think of something that might be their future, not their past.
Delaney nudged her, and Walker turned to regard the girl. Her palms were splayed against the command desk and she had her head tilted. She was listening, but to what, Walker didn’t know.
“You shouldn’t be on the bridge,” she said calmly. “Jack, if you would—”
“You want me here,” the girl objected. She didn’t look around. “The Seed broadcast got to some of your ships before you went dark. Not all of it, just the first packet. But it’s here. And I don’t think anyone else can fix it but me.”
She looked then, one piercing glance from eyes so black the pupils could hardly be seen, and then she went back to communing with the hunk of white metal in front of her. How she was managing to use it speak to human computers, Walker wasn’t sure, but evidently she could do so.
“Is she serious?” Delaney asked. He had, Walker knew, a low tolerance for anything he considered mumbo-jumbo. She had gone to the station alone instead of with Jack in tow, for the simple fact that he would have been impossible around any of the religious leaders. He didn’t even approve of the cross she wore.
Watching him watch the girl was almost funny.
“I think so,” Walker said. She considered. Letting the girl learn more about their computer systems wasn’t necessarily the best idea—but she’d been correct when she pointed out that no one else had the knowledge to rid the ship of the control programming. “Anyway, she can’t see anything and she can’t hear anything, given that we’re not running anything from here. I say let her try.”
She thought she saw a faint frown pass over the girl’s face at the lack of confidence, but the expression was quickly gone.
A sound behind them made her turn, and she looked over her shoulder to regard Pike’s tall, stoop-shouldered form paused in the doorway.
“I heard you’d landed,” he said awkwardly. His smile was slow, and it lit a fire in her stomach. “I’m glad you’re—”
He stopped at the look in her eyes.
She wanted to hit him. It was an entirely useless urge, but she wanted to throw her fists at him in fury. She wanted to feel the impact of her knuckles against his cheekbone. She could remember, in a burning moment of shame, telling Nhean that Pike had chosen her side.
He’d known. He’d sent Pike. They’d both been laughing at her this whole time.
He swallowed. “Laura—”
“Get … off … my … bridge,” Walker forced out. Then she turned her eyes back to the flickering display and waited until she heard the door slide shut.
There was a stony silence. Even the girl had come out of her trance. Everyone else was pretending to be so absorbed by the display that they hadn’t seen Pike come in. And then:
“What did he—” Delaney began.
“No,” Walker said simply. No, I can’t talk about this here. I can’t believe I trusted him. Foolish.
There was only one thing that mattered now, and that was coming up with a way to get into the Telestine archives, herself.
FTL. The schematics of generation ships, all helpfully calibrated to the Telestines’ very similar atmospheric requirements. Weaponry greater than any humans had devised.
When she was done at Earth, she would have the tools to destroy it and the Telestines alike. Then her people would be free, armed with technology beyond their wildest dreams and on their way to a new home. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of new homes amongst the stars. Humanity would never again be at risk of extinction, never again be dependent on one single, solitary location in the universe to sustain it.
Humanity would be safe. And free.
“No.”
The word was spoken so softly, at first Walker didn’t even realize who’d spoken it. When she realized it was the girl, her spine stiffened. “What happened?”
The girl looked up from the console. “The Seed. It’s … it’s been fully uploaded to several of your ships. And I don’t know if I can stop it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
Koh Rong
This was not his day. Nhean swore as the Koh Rong—and the shuttle in its belly—swerved and tumbled toward the Santa Maria. The helmswoman, Maria Hollywood, bless her, was throwing everything she had into avoiding the missiles flying every which way. Unfortunately, that meant the artificial gravity wasn’t working as well as it should.
“Are we docking, sir?” Her voice was level over the comms.
When this was over, he was giving her a hell of a raise. He probably wasn’t going to mention the part where he’d purposefully drawn the fire of the Funders Circle fleet, though.
“Not yet, Ms. Hollywood,” he instructed. “Head towards the ship as if you’re making for the docking bays on the other side, and then—” He managed to make it out the door of the shuttle, and immediately regretted his choice when the pilot swerved again and he tumbled sideways across the floor. Suppressing an oath, he stood up using the side wall of the shuttle bay for support, and courteously held out a hand for the shuttle pilot, who had been thrown from the craft with him.
“Sir?”
“I’m all right, thank you. We’re heading back to Earth, so as soon as you’re out of sight of the bulk of the fleet, get us out of here.”
There was a pause. “What if they see us?” she asked reasonably. There was a faint hitch in her voice, the distracted tone of someone trying to do too many things at once. From the sounds of it, piloting was her first priority. That was good. “How closely are they paying attention to us?”
There was a faint reproach in Hollywood’s tone. She seemed to realize that they were the focus of undue attention, and before he could answer, she sighed.
“And there goes our escort.”
“What?”
“We had some of Walker’s fighters protecting us,” she explained. “But they’re leaving now.”
Which meant that Walker, at least, was safe. For a moment, Nhean struggled with his conscience. Had sending the girl with Walker been the best plan? Had saving Walker even been a good idea?
Done was done, and the best he could do now was take advantage of the cover her return would provide. With any luck, they could slide into Earth’s orbit unnoticed, and from there, the girl could potential
ly get him into the Telestine archives as well…
Maybe then he’d be able to figure out why the hell Ka’sagra hadn’t used her bombs yet.
There were a lot of “ifs” in this plan, however. Plenty of time to think about that later.
“Right. Get out of here first, and we’ll focus on getting back to Earth second. Swing around Nereid and act like we’re docking at New Hokkaido. Then punch it for Earth. We need, now more than ever, to get Dawn into those archives. Figure out how to terminate The Seed. But more importantly, how to terminate those damn iridium bombs.”
He had to get to the bridge. Nhean glanced over at his shuttle pilot, who had grabbed onto a handhold on the shuttle bay wall. As much as he wanted to do the same, instead Nhean turned and inched his way out of the shuttle bay and down the elegantly curving hallways of his ship.
Hollywood was good. By the time he reached the bridge, they were almost entirely clear of the battle and the gravity had stabilized. She nodded to him when he took his seat, and he nodded back at her.
“Are we clear of surveillance?”
Her eyes flickered over several screens before answering. “Yes, sir. They’re focusing fire on the Santa Maria’s shuttle bays.” Her lips twitched slightly. “So I hope you don’t decide you actually want to dock.”
“No.” Nhean allowed himself to share her small smile.
Far, far too aware of the fact that he had never looked properly into Parees’s past, he had made a point of speaking with the helmswoman whenever the opportunity presented itself. To his surprise, he found her not only competent—he’d known that much when he hired her, at least—but also possessed of a startlingly good sense of humor. Though bemused by his interest in her life, she’d shared her story of growing up on Saturn’s moon Mimas—she had a wicked Ringer accent—and then on smugglers’ ships, training to fly alongside her father and older siblings.
Their discussions were now one of the high points of his day, and Nhean had begun to sense her amusement without her having to say anything aloud. He let himself take in the moment before turning his attention back to the battle.
“So they’re still focusing on the Santa Maria, then?”
“It’s taking heavy fire.” She gave him a regretful look. “The hull is holding well, though, and its fighters are intercepting a good amount of the missiles.” Again that small smile. “It’s going out of its way to flash its tail feathers at everyone, and so far, they’re still taking the bait.”
Min was on that ship. Nhean clenched his fingers and watched. If push came to shove, Walker was more of an asset to humanity, but Min was a good commander. He deserved better than to be a doomed distraction for the admiral’s getaway.
It wasn’t supposed to go this way. He’d assumed Walker had shown up at Neptune to take her fleet back by force, and knowing her, she’d had a meticulous plan to do it.
But the theft of The Seed had changed all that. She had to run. She had no other choice, or else everything was lost.
Hopefully, he would make it out of this alive. As Nhean watched, the ship swept itself broadside, a tempting target despite its own full-firing batteries, and began making its way along the middle of the battle itself, providing cover to the other ships as it went. It was an astonishingly brazen move, all the more so given that—if one looked closely—its batteries were firing anywhere but the Funders Circle ships.
“And the Intrepid?” He didn’t look away from the scene unfolding before him.
“Almost away, sir.” Hollywood considered the battle. “I don’t think the mutineers were prepared for this. They may not even have picked a commander yet. Right now, everyone on their side is just going for the target they think is the highest priority. They don’t seem to be communicating with one another.” She looked over at him. “I think we’re good to run out to Nereid, if you want.”
“Get us behind the Santa Maria first—even if it doesn’t look like they’re communicating with one another, let’s not tempt fate.”
“Yes, sir.” She glanced at another screen to her side. “Sir, the Stockholm and the Andromache have stopped accelerating. Along with three smaller missile frigates.”
The Seed.
Dammit.
“Status of their main drives? Did they just turn them off, or are they damaged?”
She shook her head. “Hard to tell. But I’m reading all sorts of system-wide malfunctions aboard both ships. Reading a flurry of intra-ship comm traffic—looks like they’re trying to hold off the effects of The Seed. Manual overrides and computer bypass procedures and all that, but….” She was shaking her head.
Celestine’s words came back to him. Either they come over to our side willingly, or … they go … nowhere.
He gripped his armrests in quiet acceptance.
“Keep me apprised. In the meantime, Ms. Hollywood, I’m going to record a message,” Nhean told her. “To Earth, to Tel’rabim. I need it encrypted and sent as quickly as possible.” He would not normally ask this of her until they were well clear of the battle, but the two of them had an understanding: he made extraordinary demands only when necessary.
She only nodded.
Nhean paused to collect his thoughts, and then began recording.
“The Dawning is aboard the Intrepid,” he told Tel’rabim. “This was not the original plan, but has been made necessary. I am sending specifications for identification. It is imperative you allow the ship to land undamaged. Do not interfere with her access to the archive. Or all is lost, and Ka’sagra … wins.”
He wavered. What else was there to say? Further explanations would be useless, and while he would prefer to tell Tel’rabim which ships in pursuit were friendly and which were not, he had no desire to give the Telestines the ability to distinguish between human ships of the same class.
In any case, Tel’rabim might well decide that it would be best to take the Dawning and kill the rest.
Nhean ended the message and nodded to the pilot. “Send it.”
Now they could only wait. The girl might be valuable to Tel’rabim, valuable enough to preserve.
But would Tel’rabim believe that she was more valuable than Walker was dangerous? That, he could not say.
“Oh God. The Stockholm,” said Hollywood. They both looked up to the viewscreen. The giant carrier, one of the jewels of the Exile Fleet, was convulsing with explosions.
Dozens of explosions.
Internal explosions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Triton, Geosynchronous Orbit
EFS Intrepid
Bridge
“There it goes, ma’am,” Delaney said, helplessly. They were all watching the viewscreen unable to … do anything. Only watch as somehow, those bastards on the Funders Circle destroyed one of their precious carriers.
Their precious people.
“Still no word from Captain Harrison?” she said.
Delaney shook his head. “Their comms went down a few minutes ago. Now their engines are caught in a feedback loop. Shouldn’t be long now bef—”
He didn’t have time to finish his sentence. The Stockholm, with blue grey Triton hanging behind it and blue Neptune serving as a giant backdrop, exploded.
And the Andromache was still falling further behind. Would it suffer the same fate? And the three missile frigates? They were small, but every last ship was vital.
“Ma’am.” One of the communications officers was studying the screens intently. “I believe the Arianna King is trying to dock with us.”
“In the middle of acceleration?” Delaney asked, spinning around.
“It has drawn alongside our ship, its starboard lights are flashing, and it has opened a docking corridor, sir.” The young man flushed under Delaney’s gaze, but did not back down. He looked back to Walker. “What would you like to do?”
What would she like to do?
Feed Larsen to the wolves, for one. He was no doubt coming to bow and scrape and apologize for what he’d done, and she would rather l
et him suffer.
On the other hand, she needed know exactly what the hell was going on.
“Let them dock,” Walker instructed. “I’ll go meet them at the docking port.”
“You stay here,” Delaney said immediately. “That port’s not secure at the best of times, and this is a fool’s errand. I’ll go, and tell Larsen to shove his head up—”
“He wouldn’t come without reason,” Walker said. “And I have some questions for the captain. You have the bridge.”
She left without waiting to see what Delaney would say. Her footsteps carried her quickly up the stairs and along the corridors to her destination, past a great deal of airlock doors—the first humans in space had been perhaps excessively careful about anything that involved opening a ship to the outside. The docking ports were entirely cut off from the main air supply of the ship, and the ground creaked in protest as she stepped inside.
She really should wait for Larsen to come to her somewhere safer, but she didn’t want anyone else to see this.
It seemed that the clangs and hisses of the two ships locking together would last forever. A mechanical whine announced, at long last, that the payload capsule was sliding through the vacuum of the docking tunnel, and Walker clasped her hands behind her back to watch it approach.
The news of Pike’s betrayal had hit her hard, but Larsen’s had twisted the knife. Either one of them, she told herself, she could have coped with. But both? Both of them, listening to Nhean, plotting against her? And to what end?
She hadn’t seen it coming, that was the worst part. She hadn’t had any idea.
Larsen’s face was ashen as he stepped out. “Admiral—”
“No.” She didn’t want to hear his apologies. “Facts only.” That was the only way she was getting through this.
He swallowed hard. “What happened on the station?”
“Not relevant.” Was he wondering if Nhean was alive? Was he wondering how much Nhean had said? “All of it, Commander.” She didn’t want to say his name. “Tell me all of it.”