by Nick Webb
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Near Earth
Aggy II
Cockpit
They were all hovering near the cockpit when the message flashed across the screen. There was nothing to do but hover. They were in very high orbit around Earth, nearly geosynchronous, and while they hadn’t been shot down yet, this wasn’t a comfortable place to be. Even the sight of the planet below had worn thin after a while.
Why were they here?
James was dead. Gabriella wouldn’t even look him in the eye ever since he announced they’d go to Earth as planned.
He doubted she’d ever forgive him.
“Well that’s interesting,” he murmured.
“What is it?” Gabriella asked quietly. She and Katya had been conferring in low voices—probably about the fact that their captain appeared to have taken leave of his senses in continuing to talk to Nhean. Their crew mate was dead. Her husband was dead. And, in their eyes, Ry was still on a suicide mission.
“He wants us to go to the surface,” Rychenkov said bluntly. “He wants me to stay on hand in case our Lapushka needs a way out, and go down to the surface to get her—oh, and you’ll like this part, she’s right under Telestine London. In old London itself.”
They stared at him mutely. Gabriella and Katya exchanged a worried look. This is it, the look said. This is how we die.
Rychenkov nodded at the copilot’s seat, and then at Gabriella. “I need you. It’s going to be tricky getting out of here without them noticing, but if we leave now—”
“We’re going down there?” Gabriella asked blankly.
Rychenkov stared at her. He struggled for reason, for something to say. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
“How many more, Ry?” she asked. “Do we all have to die too?”
“But … it’s her,” Ry said. He didn’t flinch when Gabriella, finally, looked over at him, in the eye. “Lapushka.”
She breathed deeply. He was worried that she’d break—she was still in shock over James’s death. They all were. She deserved to bury him and to run off and never have to deal with danger or heroics or … anything, ever again.
But they had to. Lapushka was in danger.
“Fine. You want to kill us all? Fine. Death’s coming for all of us anyway.” She entered in the coordinates, and started initiating the manual thruster burn.
She was right, of course. He was trying to be a hero. He’d had a taste of it already when he served as Lapushka’s and Pike’s distraction when they assaulted the Telestine fleet at Mercury. And again when they crashed down onto Earth’s surface a few weeks ago.
But heroism led to death, eventually.
“It’ll be worth it. It’ll all, eventually, be worth it,” he murmured.
Gabby scoffed. “Really? That’s all you can say about him? About my James?”
He looked over at her. “She’s more, Gabby. Our Lapushka. She’s … something else. Something about her. I don’t know what she’s got up her sleeve, but … yes. I don’t trust Nhean. Or Walker, or Pike. But I trust our Lapushka.” He gripped the navigation controls. “What she is, I don’t know. But she is certainly something else. And whatever, whoever she is,” he looked up at her again, “we can’t just leave her.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Earth
London
The London Library
She heard Nhean’s message, but didn’t listen to it. Not at first.
She was so close. Her head was a whirl of numbers, letters, Telestine and English jumbling until she could make neither head nor tail of it. Twelve … what was it about twelve? Four threes, three fours, two sixes, twelve ones—no, that last one was stupid. Or was it? Twenty-four halves. Forty-eight quarters. Twelve signs of the zodiac. X—I—I in roman numerals. One one zero zero in binary. C in hexadecimal. Twelve tribes of Israel. One twelfth of the Riemann Zeta Function at negative one. Twelve days of Christmas. Twelve Jacobian elliptic functions. Twelve hours in half a day. Atomic number of Magnesium. Magnesium! Is that important? No. Well, yes, but not for this. Twelve types of fermions—electrons, muons, quarks, neutrinos … what was she missing … tau particles? She always missed the tau particle. Twelve apostles. Was this leading anywhere? Dammit! Duodenom—the human large intestine, named after the latin word for twelve. That’s what this was—full of shit. Twelve function keys on those damn human keyboards. Twelve angry men. Twelfth Night. Twelve books of the Aeneid. Twelve tones of western music. Twelve rib pairs in a human ribcage. Thirteen in a Telestine ribcage—was that important? Twelve knights of the round table. Twelve was twelve was twelve.
But what was it about twelve? Why was it important to the Telestines? To Ka’sagra? To her death cult? She wanted to scream.
The other drones, peacefully unaware of the storm going on in her head, continued about their business without so much as a flicker of expression.
She began to pace, hugging her arms. Twelve. Stop thinking about it in isolation. What else had she seen in the schematics, what else had Ka’sagra been looking up? And why was she looking up stuff? Hadn’t she already done this back in the Telestine’s homes system? Hadn’t she already made a star go nova?
Unsuccessfully, she reminded herself. “Remember, Dawn, she failed last time. The Telestines had time to escape that nova. Possibly weeks. It’s what let their civilization survive. What the hell am I missing?”
She caught herself. He called her Dawn. Pike. She always liked Ry’s Lapushka better, but Dawn was growing on her.
She shook her head. Focus!
What had Ka’sagra been researching? The composition of various star systems. Military technology. Computer networking.
Twelve, twelve, twelve. What the hell did twelve have to do with anything? She had the sense that it was a spiritual number of some sort for the Telestines, just like humans, but surely it was only so interesting to them unless there was also some practical reason to like it.
Bombs. She pressed her fingers into her temples, hard. Everything went back to those damn iridium isotope bombs. The computer networking. The chemical composition of the sun. The blasted number twelve.
She crossed her arms and stared at the computer screen where a series of images was cycling: four threes, first in concentric circles, then on a sphere, then on a diagram that made her head hurt—some depiction of a fourth dimension.
Then three fours. Then six twos.
Twelve bombs.
Dodecahedron. Geometry. Holy shit.
Her head jerked up. There had been twelve iridium bombs.
What she was staring at, prettily illustrated by some long-dead Telestine mathematician, was the geometric arrangement in which Ka’sagra was going to plunge those bombs into the sun. Something about this geometry would make the blast more powerful … she did a quick mental calculation of the superposition of twelve perfectly placed blast fronts … yes. Much, much more powerful than Ka’sagra’s original attempt on the Telestine sun. It wouldn’t slowly burst out to consume the solar system over months and years. It wouldn’t gradually strip away life on the surface of the Earth and the other worlds and settlements.
It would happen in a flash. Earth would be gone in minutes. Mars and Jupiter and Saturn within hours.
There would be no chance of escape. None.
She thudded into the chair so quickly, so imprecisely, that she nearly fell right off the other side. Nhean needed to—
She swallowed hard as she read the message.
Nhean was captured. He was gone.
The only ones who remained, who could stop this, were Walker and her ships. Could they be trusted?
Stopping Ka’sagra is all that matters, the screen read.
He was right. The girl didn’t stop to think of words, only pressed her way up into the atmosphere and beyond, letting her mind expand. This distance, she could now cross easily in her mind. Where was Rychenkov?
In his ship. Scared. Making calculations.
She dropped the thoughts into his h
ead without any grace at all: the bomb schematics, the arrangement of points on a sphere, the need to get Walker. His fear became a rush of panic. Humans hated this mind connection, she always forgot that, but there wasn’t time for words.
I’m here. It’s me. She let the sentiment fill his mind as well as hers.
He was torn. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. His feelings of guilt and shame and desperation all competed with each other in a contorted mess. It was … sad.
It was dangerous.
She whispered her thoughts to a room of unhearing drones, willing them to reach Rychenkov: We need you. I need you. Lapushka needs you.
And I will protect you.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Near Earth
Koh Rong
Bridge
To his great surprise, they didn’t shoot him immediately. He’d dived for cover as soon as they came onto the bridge, but they wrestled him out from under a desk and marched him away.
He hadn’t expected that, but he could work with it. This was his ship, after all, and he’d been preparing for this day for some time. He listened for Hollywood and the other crewmembers, ready to create a distraction if he needed to, and mapped out the ship in his head. Which way were they taking him? His plan depended on that.
About three corridors away, he saw an opportunity and made a run for it. Ahead, he saw an automated doorway. Perfect. The doorways were programmed to open by raising a panel and then shut automatically. Nhean bashed himself sideways to hit the controls and then instantly hit the floor. Hands grabbed for him, but he was already scrambling away and under the half-raised door panel, which had only raised about halfway at this point. It slammed shut behind him as soon as it sensed his passage. He heard the howl of someone who’d gotten their fingers smashed and gave a grim smile.
There really wasn’t anything to lose, in his opinion. It wasn’t as if the Funders were going to let him survive this. His lack of immediate execution was, if anything, a bad sign—their punishment would be more severe and far more public, he suspected. There would probably be a long list of charges read, or something similarly melodramatic, and Celestine would make grave pronouncements about souls and eternal good.
And if there was anything Nhean hated, it was political theater. So he ran. He immediately slipped on some coolant or blood or some reddish fluid that had smeared on the floor. He hit his head hard on the floor. Wincing, he tried to put that out of his mind and run. He could hear the door opening behind him, and the shout as they saw him turn the corner.
He managed to lose them after two turns by sliding into a hidden doorway and slamming it shut when they rounded the corner in pursuit. There was a hidden catch that they might spend hours trying to find, and he hoped they did—it was keyed to his palm print.
Freedom. He needed to make sure the schematics were off the computers, and then get the hell out of here. Where he was going to go, he wasn’t quite sure. He suspected it was easier said than done to hijack the ship that was trying to kidnap you.
Still, he had nothing to lose by trying, and everything to lose by going along with their plan.
He crept along the hidden corridor, listened carefully at the door at the other end, and then slipped out and made for the back server room.
This was a risk. The room could be depressurized from the outside if they knew how to work the controls and it wasn’t out of the question that they would simply suffocate him as soon as they learned where he was. He needed to wipe the computers before they got any further, however. Giving them bombs like the ones he’d seen, better guns, better ships—those were the kinds of toys that could do lethal damage to their own kind, in the wrong hands.
And he was pretty sure by this point that the council of the Funders Circle was definitely the wrong hands. He couldn’t tell whether they had any plan at this point, or whether it was simply spite that kept them going.
If there was a plan … he didn’t think much of it. So like hell was he going to give them a bomb that could take out a planet.
He started the first wipe and heard the distant sound of voices and footsteps—headed unerringly in his direction.
Damn.
Nhean slipped to the far corner of the room, one hidden by a server stack but otherwise offering the quickest shot out into the corridor beyond. If they all came in, he might be able to dart outside and lock them in with the servers. With any luck, they’d shoot a few. That would take care of the files quite nicely.
Things almost went to plan. As he skidded out of the server room, Nhean met the gaze of a single, surprised solder. The man was very young and very inexperienced with his weapon. He fumbled to bring it up, and Nhean—lacking any better options—tackled him.
He managed to struggle to his feet and get the door locked before the soldier yanked him back down again, hard enough to slam his head against the floor panels. The man was on him the next moment. It didn’t seem to occur to him to pull out his sidearm and just shoot Nhean in the head. Instead, he continued the fight as Nhean had begun it, and as the grappling and twisting and thrashing continued, Nhean managed to get the sidearm.
The gunshot was almost unnaturally loud in the small space. Nhean stared down at the body in something like shock. He saw his arm extend, and then his fingers stretched out and closed the young, surprised eyes.
Pounding from the locked door brought him back to his senses. He dropped the sidearm and ran. There was blood on his hand, and he hastily tried rubbing it off on his pants. Why, he couldn’t say. Which meant he was probably in shock.
Some action hero I make. Here he was, having escaped his captors twice, and all he wanted to do was throw up. The man had looked so surprised in the instant before he died. He’d seen the gun.
He’d been so young.
Nhean came around a corner, skidded to a stop as he saw more armored figures, and headed back the way he came.
He found himself stumbling as he ran. He managed to duck under the reaching arms of someone who came out of a side corridor ahead of him and plunged onwards. He was running on fumes by this point. He knew where he was in the ship, and they didn’t, but what should have been an advantage just pressed home the futility of his situation.
It was a small ship, and there were only so many places to run and hide.
Still, he led them on a desperate chase for the better part of fifteen minutes.
He tripped over something. He glanced down, and immediately started to retch.
He’d tripped over the helmswoman. Maria Hollywood.
Dead.
She was lying in a pool of her own blood. They had taken her gun—but they hadn’t paused to cover her, or move her body aside.
Nhean took one agonized moment to stare at her face. It was oddly peaceful now, in death, but then again, she’d always been quite calm. A good woman. One who might have become a friend.
One who certainly hadn’t deserved to die like this. Far from her home on Mimas. Ringers had somewhat more elaborate death rituals than the rest of humanity, if he remembered right.
She died alone, apparently. What would her final words, her final thoughts have been? Fizzledips? Or is impending death enough to extract a real curse from a Ringer? Dammit? Holy shit? Did she have family he should notify?
But there was no time. He had to escape. He had to get whatever information Dawn had found into the right hands. He ran, but this time, he ran without purpose, and through tears.
By the time they finally got him, he was so tired he half-fell onto the floor. He allowed them to drag them onto the deck of the ship that had docked, and was promptly clubbed over the head with something that made the world go black.
He woke slowly. His head hurt, and they hadn't cleaned the wound. He turned his skull with a wince and debated whether or not to open his eyes.
“You’re awake,” a voice said quietly.
And he knew that voice. His eyes flew open.
“Parees?”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Near Earth
Aggy II
Cockpit
Lapushka needs you.
And I will protect you.
How she was in his head, he didn’t know—what he did know was that she was there, and she was alive. She needed him. She needed him to go to London to get Pike and Walker. Why? She wouldn’t say. And it wrenched his gut that he was risking the lives of his crew to rescue that awful woman who was trying to destroy humanity’s home in a horrific attempt to permanently destroy their enemies.
But … it was Lapushka asking. He had to save her.
She was still his crew. And he was not going to run away. Not when a member of his crew needed him.
“Set a course for London.”
Gabby looked at him skeptically. She was tired, he could tell. Tired of arguing. “And what about the Telestine patrols?”
“She’ll get us through. I know it.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
He smiled. “Then at least we had a good ride.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Near Earth
EFS Pius
Brig
The hand at the back of his neck let go and Nhean came up out of the icy cold water gasping for air. The hand grabbed his collar to pull him close and he struggled to make sense of the sounds and sights in the blur that resulted from his oxygen-deprived senses.
“I am going to ask one more time,” a voice said. “Where is the rest of the Exile Fleet?”
The voice was coming from the wrong place. The person attached to the hand was next to him, but the voice came from behind him and a ways back. It was vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place it just now.
It had been a long few hours.
“Where is—”
“I don’t know.” Nhean’s lips were chattering, and it was hard to draw enough air for the words. His body wanted to hoard every ounce of oxygen it had.