Triumph's Ashes (The Cassidy Chronicles Volume 5)

by Adam Gaffen

  Lynch appeared and Whitmore didn’t waste a moment.

  “I am Admiral Davie Whitmore of the Terran Federation. You know a Major Matthew Wiser?”

  “He’s one of my officers,” Lynch said warily.

  “He’s assaulting Terran Federation property and claims to be doing so on your orders!” Whitmore barked.

  “What? No, that’s wrong.”

  “Admiral, what’s happening?”

  “I don’t have time to explain, Director Hartman; I have invading forces killing my Marines and trying to blast their way into my command center. Wiser’s given me five minutes, three minutes now, to talk to you, Lynch. I need you to order them to stop!”

  “Wiser should be on Earth!” Lynch protested.

  “He’s not. He’s on Blue Sky 11-Alpha-328, if you want to confirm.”

  Lynch turned away from the pickup; they could hear him making the connection.

  “What’s going on?” repeated Hartman.

  Montana answered, as Whitmore was keeping an eagle eye on Lynch, waiting for him to return.

  “About thirty minutes ago a barge from Blue Sky rammed the habitat, breaching the hull. In seconds hatches on the barge opened and suited soldiers were streaming into the breach and taking up a perimeter. By the time what few Marines we could muster were on station they controlled half of the level. We’ve slowed them down, but it’s only a matter of time.”

  “What do they want?”

  Whitmore spoke, still glaring at Lynch. He was busy with another terminal.

  “They’re trying to serve warrants,” she said. “I know they have one with my name on it; Wiser said so.”

  The shock in Hartman’s voice was genuine.

  “No, it can’t be. Even Lynch admitted we had no grounds to enforce them. We can’t serve warrants on one side of a civil war at the request of the other, not while the issue is in doubt. Once the Federation officially accepted Free Luna as a member, all the requests Artemis made were put on hold. I talked to him about it myself!”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, but they’re here.”

  Lynch turned back to face Whitmore and the others.

  “I ordered Wiser and his troops to retreat,” he said. “It’s my fault. I put the operation together but didn’t cancel it when circumstances changed. I’m sorry.”

  Whitmore needed more than his statement.

  “Diana, confirm.”

  “UE forces appear to be withdrawing,” said the AI.

  “Put me through to Wiser.”

  The major’s voice, sounding stressed, said, “What?”

  “Whitmore. What are your intentions?”

  “I don’t know how you did it, but Director Lynch ordered us to leave, so if you’ll excuse me I have soldiers and wounded to evacuate.”

  He disconnected.

  “Thank you, Director,” Whitmore said, carefully not specifying which one. “I still have soldiers aboard my home, so I’ll be going.”

  “YOU UNMITIGATED ASS!”

  Lynch towered over Hartman by at least a half-meter, but at this moment he looked as if he wanted to scurry off and hide in the walls.

  “’I didn’t cancel it when circumstances changed,’” she mocked. “’I’m sorry.’ You think you’re fooling anyone, least of all Whitmore? You do remember what she did before Kendra took her in, don’t you? Minister of War for Artemis for how many years? The only force she was unable to overcome being the one she’s now arguably the third-most powerful official in? Oh, you stupid, arrogant, ineffectual jerk!”

  He tried to rally.

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “How about your damn job?”

  “I was doing my job! I was executing the commitments of the UE government!”

  “Bullshit, Roosevelt! We talked about this. You knew any warrants were on hold! You simply have a grudge against the Cassidy’s because they embarrassed you.”

  He turned red under his dark skin but didn’t deny the truth of her words.

  “Well, Roosevelt, you may have gone too far. If we’re lucky they’ll settle for your head on a platter; if we’re extremely lucky they’ll accept it figuratively. You do know they’d be within their rights to sue the UE, and you personally? The Court of Justice would be happy to take on a ‘wrongful seizure’ case, and they’d win.”

  The color was draining from Lynch now.

  “Or a criminal complaint. Destruction of property, probably. You have any idea how many billions of credits that habitat is worth, and your people just put a bloody great hole in it! Manslaughter, or negligent homicide. Conspiracy. A good prosecutor would have a field day.”

  He was looking distinctly green.

  “And that’s not the worst of it. Ever since the Guild joined, they’ve been a nation-state, Roosevelt. You just authorized the invasion of an independent country. They’d be within their rights to declare war on the UE, and you don’t think they’d win?”

  He rallied. “They don’t have any ground troops, so they can’t exactly invade!”

  “And you think they need to invade? Use that brain, Roosevelt; their gripe isn’t with the citizens of the UE, it’s with leadership. Does the phrase ‘surgical strike’ mean anything to you?” She stopped, exasperated.

  “I am going to recommend to Secretary Baytes you be removed from your post pending an investigation into this debacle. He might let you resign.”

  Lynch burst from his chair. “You can’t do that!”

  “I can, and I will. Good day, Roosevelt.”

  She turned to leave but froze when she heard a metallic clack.

  “You can’t,” Lynch repeated. “I’m sorry, Mya. Turn around. Slowly.”

  As if in a dream she did. He was pointing a needler at her.

  “We’re going to leave here, nice and easy,” he said, gesturing with his free hand. The gun, she noticed, never wavered. “Just a couple colleagues at the end of the day. Don’t do anything stupid and you’ll live longer.”

  He opened the door for her and waved her through. The gun disappeared into a pocket, but so did the hand holding it.

  “Why?”

  “You’re right, in part. I do hold a grudge.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  He smirked. “But mostly it’s for the good of the planet.”

  “What? How?” She was so stunned she actually stopped moving.

  “Keep going,” he said. When she was walking again he answered.

  “I’ve been in contact with a representative of the Empress. We have a deal. I help her take down this ridiculous Free Luna, she convinces the Empress to revoke the Accords. Together we deal with the Federation, and we have a peaceful, unified System.”

  “You are insane if you think that bitch is going to live up to any agreement!”

  “Too late, Director. I already have the signed revocation; I’m just waiting for the right moment to inform Secretary Baytes. Ah, here we are.”

  Their walk had brought them into a quiet sub-level. She didn’t recognize it and said so.

  “This? Don’t worry about it. In here,” Lynch finished. He opened the door and turned on a light to reveal a small storage room. It had the feel of disuse, the musty, dry flavor on the tongue which stale air brought.

  “Here?”

  “Here. Goodbye, Mya.”

  The first darts severed her spine just below her ribs and she collapsed. The next ones finished the job.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Tycho Under; Artemis City

  Stardate 12008.29

  It looked like two squads of Marines were providing security while two more were inside the compartments, clearing away debris, when Autumn, Nicole, and their escort arrived.

  The lieutenant in charge pivoted when they entered, managing to move fairly well despite the cast on his left leg. He addressed himself to the sergeant.

  “Monaco, what the hell are you doing? Civilians have their own aid center, and they don’t seem injured. Ditch them and get to wo
rk.”

  “Lieutenant Gries, I don’t think you’ve met either Ms. Newling or Ms. Crozier?” She tried to put a warning into her voice but he didn’t pick up on it.

  “No offense, ladies, but we’re rather busy here. These are the main offices of Free Luna and we’re trying to clear them.”

  “Yes,” Newling said dryly. “That’s Nicole’s desk you’re working on. How is my office?”

  “Your office? You’re part of the leadership?”

  “You might say so. Autumn Newling, at your service, Lieutenant.”

  He’d already been pale from the lingering pain from his broken leg; now he went ashen. “Lieutenant Gries, Shane Gries, yes, Ma’am, sorry Ma’am, no offense intended.”

  “None taken. Where do we stand, and has anyone seen Mistress Novak?”

  “Most of the damage is superficial, not structural,” Gries said with evident relief. “A mess but it’s all sound. And I don’t know who Mistress Novak is.”

  “She’s one of my advisors, and you have your next job. Find her. Leave a few Marines, maybe Sergeant Monaco, but take the rest.”

  “Ma’am. I’m sorry, but you’re not in my chain of command.”

  Before Newling could retort Nicole put a restraining hand on her arm.

  “I understand what he means, Autumn. Lieutenant, is your implant working?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Good. One moment.”

  Mikki.

  Nicole?

  Good! I wasn’t sure I’d get hold of you.

  Systems are clearing slowly. What do you need?

  I have a Lieutenant Gries here. We need him to find Caitlin but he’s citing chain of command.

  Right. I can jump that. Gries?

  Gries.

  Half a shake. Glad you’re okay.

  “You should have your answer shortly, Lieutenant.” And Nicole stood to wait.

  She didn’t have to wait long. The partial restoration of the Q-Net system allowed for nearly instantaneous communication. She hadn’t realized how completely she’d come to rely on it, nor how quickly. In a matter of seconds Gries had received his new marching orders.

  “Ma’am,” he said, nodding at Newling, then he started barking commands. In short order the office space had cleared of everyone save Monaco and a half-dozen Marines. The sergeant looked to Crozier for direction.

  “Set a guard on the entry, then we could use help cleaning up.”

  PHALKON CAME TO FIRST. She was pinned beneath part of the ceiling, but she was able to wriggle free and look around in the dim emergency lighting.

  Atkinson, well, he was dead before the ‘quake, but the permacrete beam meant he definitely wouldn’t be rising again. Pitt looked like she ought to be alive but a closer examination showed a spreading pool of red under her. Jones didn’t have a good head on his shoulders any longer, it seemed to be on Arnett’s, but where was hers? Oh, over there. Who else?

  A figure stirred and sat up.

  “Kreitzer?”

  “Ow. Yeah?”

  “Can you move?”

  He considered this carefully. “I think so.”

  “Good. I need you. Get up.”

  She continued her examination. Patterson? At the table, slumped over. Either dead or unconscious, but no obvious injuries. Wait. No, dead. People generally did better when their bodies didn’t end with their ribcage. What about the younger Pitt? She was sitting about there...

  Pitt poked her head out from under the table.

  “Is it over?”

  “Yes. Are you hurt?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “See who else survived.”

  In a few moments they’d finished checking everyone. They were the only three Councilors who had survived, and the losses in the armsmen were worse. Two dozen regularly attended the Empress to the Council. Eighteen had remained when she had fled for the safety of her chambers. Of those only two survived, and they were badly injured.

  Worse, the exit hatch had warped, and the hatch leading to the Empress’ chambers was buried under debris.

  “We’re not leaving through here,” Kreitzer said after examining the mechanism. “There’s power, but the motor’s not powerful enough to overcome the deformation. We’ll have to use the emergency exit. Where is it?”

  Artemis City wasn’t designed as strongly as Tycho Under, but there were certain basic safety precautions in every warren. Each compartment, for example, had to have an emergency egress point; as a point of fact, they all had two. The designers of the compartments had reasoned a pressure loss was more likely to spread horizontally than vertically, so there were egress points in both the floor and the ceiling.

  Phalkon shook her head.

  “Under the left-hand wall.”

  “Oh.”

  The Council chamber, like most cubic, was a durasteel box, simple, standardized, and relatively cheap. Over the decades alterations had been made to the interior, including the addition of false walls.

  Multiple false walls.

  Layered over each other.

  When the ‘quake hit, the construction failed and separated from the durasteel base, collapsing onto the egress.

  “Ceiling?”

  “Maybe; how high can you jump?”

  Compartments, again, were standardized. Someone, sometime, decided each compartment should be five meters high. Presumably, this was to allow ductwork, conduits, power, pipes, and other necessary infrastructure be added where convenient. The compartment which became, in time, the Council Chamber had a low floor, only a few centimeters above the compartment’s base, and a high ceiling. This ceiling had, for the most part, fallen inward in the ‘quake, exposing the upper surface.

  Which was still nearly five meters up.

  And while Luna’s gravity was only 1/6 of a standard g it didn’t mean humans born and raised on Luna could suddenly make leaps which a Terrestrial basketball player would envy. They had adapted, and generally could manage little more than a Terra-born could on Earth.

  Newling gauged the distance carefully before answering.

  “If you give me a boost, I might be able to reach the hatch.” He pointed at the pipes running near the opening. “If I can grab those I should be able to open it.”

  “Danna, come over here and help. Between us we should be able to get Kreitzer all the way up.”

  It was a relatively easy matter for the two women to boost him upwards, and he caught hold of a pipe cleanly with both hands. He swung his legs, looping them around another pipe, and maneuvered to reach the simple controls. He reached out one hand and pressed it against the large green square.

  The designers had reasoned anyone needing to use an emergency egress point would be under considerable stress and inclined to make mistakes. Thus they built all the complexity into the internal workings of the hatch and reduced the operator’s choices to ‘Open’ or ‘Close’.

  When the green ‘Open’ panel was touched with sufficient force, the idiot computer determined whether it was the panel on the ‘ceiling’ side of the hatch or the ‘floor’ side. Since Newling touched the ‘ceiling’ side, the computer directed the servos to swing the hatch upwards, away from the button. They obediently responded with a whine. The hatch cracked open, then flew wide with a gale of escaping air.

  “Oh, shit!” he said. He didn’t think but slapped the red panel, released his hold, and dropped back to the floor.

  “What the hell!” said Phalkon, then the out-rushing air made the connection. She looked around for a helmet, any helmet; every surface suit was standardized at the neck, no matter how the body was altered. She found one a few meters away and scrabbled for it, idly noting the lighter debris being sucked upwards. She grabbed onto it and slapped it onto her neck, giving it a twist to lock it in place.

  Newling, too, had grabbed a helmet, and was fastening it down. Only Pitt was having difficulties and he went to help her.

  The air was gone now, the debris which hadn’t managed to escap
e arcing back to the floor, adding to the already treacherous footing. With the outrush abated, the door’s servos were able to seal it closed again for what good it might do. Sensors built into every compartment automatically cut off the flow of air to a breached room, preventing catastrophic and cascading outgassing.

  Pitt found a helmet, probably belonging to one of the late Councilors, in the wreckage next to the table. It was scuffed and scratched, probably from rolling around in the ‘quake, but it was better than nothing. She placed it on her neck ring and tried to seat it. Finally it latched into place and she triggered the pressurization control on her suit.

  The tanks built into the suit were designed to increase the pressure gradually in vacuum; too-rapid pressurization could have fatal consequences. As a result Newling was able to see the condition of the helmet in the two or three seconds it took to reach normal pressure, and something tickled the back of his brain. Something about crystalline structures and seemingly minor damage.

  The faceplate burst outward.

  She’d barely had enough time to suck in a lungful of air, and it was perhaps unfortunate she’d done so. Gases in her bloodstream turned to bubbles, cutting off circulation, even as the water in her body vaporized. In seconds she had swelled to the limits of the suit, and in a few seconds more she collapsed, unconscious from the loss of oxygen to her brain.

  Newling watched in horror, frozen, but Phalkon was quicker to recover. She knew the human body could survive brief exposure to vacuum, as did everyone in Artemis, and she knew she had perhaps a minute. Urgent, yes, but not frantic, she checked near the bodies of the other armsmen. Any helmet would work, any helmet would work.

  As Pitt fell Newling caught her, just in time to hear Phalkon’s voice through his radio.

  “Found a helmet!”

  “Check for scratches,” he answered even as he dragged her across the room.

  Phalkon turned the helmet around in her hands.

  “I don’t see any.”

  Newling set her down and Phalkon placed the helmet. She felt the click as the latches caught and she triggered the emergency pressurization control on the wrist.

  The helmet held.