“Callum, we’re going to be spending years together in the bridge simulacrum. I need to not get spooked every time.”
“We can add some texture. Like you say, we’ll have plenty of time to try out new designs.”
“And the smell?”
“What smell?”
“Exactly, there isn’t one. Or hadn’t you noticed?”
“I…No,” he admitted.
“Well, that’s one nerve impulse the interface hasn’t mastered.” She glanced down the ladder as Jessika followed Alik below. “I wonder if the Neána forgot to build a sense of smell into their metahuman bodies?”
“I doubt it. I remember Jessika being quite the wine connoisseur when we were working on security after the Cancer operation.”
Kandara’s eyebrows rose gleefully. “You two dated?”
“No! Strictly work social events. Two teams getting properly acquainted.”
“Okaaaay…”
“Hey—”
But she was gone, sliding down the ladder with a grace he could never match.
The lower deck housed the gym, the G8Turing medical bay, and the common washroom. Standing in the shower, Callum checked the umbilical sockets clustered around his navel, where the skin was still red and tender. He’d have to mention that to the medical team. The implants should have healed fully by now.
Like the others, he’d spent the last ten months in and out of the station’s clinic having extensive body modifications to prepare him for the mission. His stomach was new: a biologic organ grown in a Neána-style initiator, allowing him to digest a direct nutrient feed from the suspension-tank systems. Then his bones had all been reinforced with high-density fibers at the same time as his internal membranes had undergone gene therapy to strengthen them—all with the goal of making him more resilient to high acceleration forces. After an organ audit, the doctors had gone on to announce they were going to grow him new kidneys, a prostate, and a left eye, and would replace a meter of lower intestine—“just to be safe. You’re going to undergo some unique physiological stresses a long way from any medical help.”
Hearing that news was as depressing as the memory of all the time he’d spent convalescing after the first tranche of procedures. He’d always kept himself in good shape. But he did get some malicious satisfaction from knowing that Yuri had even more replacements scheduled—starting with his liver, which was only twenty years old anyway. The doctors kept on telling him to stop drinking, which Yuri kept on ignoring. And then there was poor old Alik, who’d had to give up his peripherals. “They won’t do well in the tank,” Jessika told him sternly. So he sulked off to DC for a week to some classified government clinic to have his even more classified spy gizmos extracted.
Kandara, to no one’s surprise, needed the least remedial work. However, like Alik, she had to have a small armory’s worth of weapon peripherals removed. “It’s like being naked on my high school prom dance floor,” she confessed at dinner after the technicians had finished taking them out.
Callum had nearly made a smartarse comment, but decided cowardice was the best option. Besides, Jessika had later confided that Kandara had some initiator-made peripherals put back in—and told him not to tell Alik.
Lankin came in as they were all getting dressed. The Connexion science director had been appointed as the Avenging Heretic’s mission controller, marrying the technological requirements with the mission objective. Callum was glad someone with that level of experience and ability was overseeing the flight. Although he was only in his fifties, Lankin was damn good at his job.
“You’re all needed at a full Council meeting,” Lankin told them.
“When?” Alik asked.
“As soon as you’re dressed.”
Callum exchanged a glance with Yuri. That Lankin had come in person to tell them was significant.
“Was something going critical before we left?” Kandara asked.
“If it was, I didn’t know,” Alik said gruffly.
* * *
—
There was no formal title, nothing in any legitimate record; they were just known as the Council. Officially they advised the Sol Senate security office, who implemented any policy or action. In reality, they’d been tasked with formulating the plan to strike back against the Olyix, no matter what the cost and how long it took.
The Kruse Station conference room was windowless, as if to emphasize its ultra-secure location somewhere in the Delta Pavonis system. A large table carved from dark-red rock took up the center, with a vase of white and orange chrysanthemums sitting on its polished surface.
Callum smelled the flowers as soon as he came in and glanced over at Kandara, who was laughing at something Alik said. Now that she’d mentioned the lack of a smell in the interface simulation, he knew he was doomed to notice it constantly.
Ainsley Zangari III was already sitting on one of the leather chairs, along with his sister, Danuta. It had been a while since Ainsley Zangari himself had attended a meeting of the Council. Kruse Station rumor had it that the founder of Connexion was undergoing a lot of therapy to help him cope with the fact that his decades-old paranoia about the Olyix had finally become real.
“How’s your grandfather?” Alik asked politely.
“He’s managing, thank you,” Ainsley III said.
Callum nodded sagely. Managing. No mention of recovering. He sat down at the table, greeting his aide, Eldlund, who was sitting next to Loi in the corner of the room.
“How did it go?” Eldlund asked keenly.
“I got to fly it,” Callum said modestly.
“Wow!”
“I’m not the greatest pilot, but the G8Turing handles the flight specifics. It’s more like giving directions.”
“And the cortical interface?”
“Good, but interpretation could be better. We just need time to get used to the system.”
Eldlund and Loi exchanged a glance.
“What?” Callum asked.
“Time has never been our ally,” Loi said.
Callum was going to ask his aide what he’d heard when Emilja Jurich and Adjutant-General Johnstone came in together. They sat down without ceremony. Last to arrive was Soćko, accompanied by Captain Tral, who as always was wearing hir gray uniform.
“Let’s get started,” Emilja said. “Soćko?”
“There is a squadron of dangerous ships flying down the wormhole to the Sol system,” the human Neána said. “I sensed it in the Salvation of Life onemind three hours ago, as soon as a transport ship arrived from the enclave with the information. The onemind seems very confident.”
“You mean these new ships are going to be more dangerous than the Deliverance ships?” Alik said. “Are they the Resolution ships you’re always warning us about?”
“No. These are not Resolution ships.”
“So what sort of ships are we talking about?” Ainsley III asked.
“A new type. I don’t have a classification for them, as the Neána have not been aware of them before, but I did see their purpose in the onemind’s thoughts. They’re carrying some kind of gravitonic generator. I’m not sure how it works, but presumably it’s a variant on the gravitonic drive. However, the intent was very clear in the onemind’s thoughts: The enclave had provided them specifically to wreck the city generators.”
“How can a gravity drive wreck the generators?” Danuta asked.
“If they can focus the gravity, make a coherent beam of it, which is what I think they’re doing, they’ll pull the shield generator away from the ground. Literally rip it free and suck it up into the air.”
“Hellfire, how sure are you?” Emilja asked.
Soćko gave her a regretful shrug. “I can’t give you percentages. Reading the onemind’s thought streams is like standing in a waterfall and trying to make out individual drop
lets. If I put my hand out to catch one, it disturbs the flow and they’ll know I’m there. But there are some droplets—the important ones, the ones it keeps focusing on—that repeat constantly. It has been reviewing the information and capabilities ever since the transport ship arrived. I think the Olyix must have made them specifically to end the siege.”
“How long until they arrive?” Johnstone asked.
“Ten days.”
“Fuck,” Callum grunted.
“What the hell do we do now?” Ainsley III demanded.
“Bring S-Day forward,” Johnstone said. “Nothing else we can do.”
Emilja gave him a startled look. “Are we ready for Strikeback?”
“No. It’s scheduled for six months’ time: June of next year. But we still won’t be ready then—or not ready in a sense that I can guarantee success. Right now we have built up sufficient attack ships and Calmissiles to hit the Salvation of Life hard enough to force it back down the wormhole. What we don’t have yet is the ability to hit the current crop of city siege ships as well.”
“Do we need to?” Ainsley III asked.
“It’s part of the plan,” Yuri said reasonably.
“Not really,” Danuta countered. “It’s a hugely desirable part of the plan, sure, but the core is to get you inside the Olyix enclave. Everything else is secondary to that objective.”
“Our Trojan mission, and the exodus habitats,” Yuri said. “Both parts have to work for the plan to have any meaning. And frankly, we’re just the cherry on the cake.”
“What will happen with the cities if we do force the Salvation to retreat sometime in the next week?” Kandara queried. “There must be a contingency plan.”
“Not a plan specifically,” Johnstone said. “More a calculation. If we do hit the Salvation of Life hard enough—and in the right way—we’re hopeful the Deliverance ships on Earth will launch and try to get into the wormhole before the Olyix close it behind them. For any that are left, we use every warship we have to chase them all the way to hell. Any that don’t leave…Well, that means they’re an easy target.”
“You’ll let nukes off in Earth’s atmosphere? Seriously?”
“What’s left of Earth’s atmosphere, sure, if that’s what it takes to end their attack. They’ve ruined our world. Even if we started to re-terraform it tomorrow, it would take millennia to recover just to the stage where we could start to regenerate the biosphere. And probably longer than that for the polar ice cap to re-form. As for glaciers, that’s for our great-great-great-grandchildren.”
“I don’t think the five of us can really concern ourselves with Earth anymore,” Yuri said. “What happens to Earth and the exodus habitats after we leave is what happens. We just need to concentrate on getting our part right.”
“That’s brutal,” Callum protested.
“Eighty-three cities have fallen since the siege started, thanks to screwups, crap maintenance, and sabotage,” Yuri replied. “That’s practically one a week. Our life is brutal now, and it’s never going to get better—not for us. You need to face that.”
“Yeah, fuck you, too, pal. We only get one shot at this, so it has to be right. No, it has to be perfection. You were on that test flight. We were mediocre at best.”
“But it worked,” Kandara said. “We flew. First time out! The equipment works, we worked. So the rest of us aren’t as good as Jessika when it comes to piloting, but we sure as hell function as a team. And precision piloting isn’t half as critical as the rest of the mission coming together.”
“Okay,” Emilja said. “Do any of the five of you have a substantial doubt that you can get into the Salvation of Life if we initiate Strikeback?”
If he was being honest with himself, Callum had to admit his doubts were all down to nerves. There were so many interlocking factors, every one of which had to play out perfectly, and the stakes were insane. But…“Yeah, I think we can do it.” He looked around at Loi and Eldlund. “What about you two? Your role is pretty damn essential.”
“Find us an Olyix transport ship in the right place, and we’ll be fine,” Loi said.
“General?” Ainsley III asked.
“The Olyix transport ships are always on the move. But we can track them. If one is on course for a suitable position, we’ll know.”
“Any possibilities coming up?”
“Yes. Unfortunately. Two of the Salt Lake City shield generators are losing efficiency; it looks like minor component burnout. They all have multiple redundancy built in, of course, but the tolerances are getting close to redline levels.”
“Surely that’s a simple replacement issue?” Danuta said.
“Maybe. But the fact that two generators are glitching at the same time is suspicious. We have replacement generators scheduled, but we’re also worried about Paris and London.”
“More sabotage?”
“Yes,” Soćko said. “Nikolaj’s team has infiltrated a shield generator compound in London; they launched creeperdrones, which have chewed their way into the generator auxiliary systems. In Paris, Edouard’s people have almost penetrated the perimeter to the power supply portal from New Washington. So we can expect a concentration of transport ships outside those three cities over the next few days.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Danuta protested. “If we know about the sabotage teams, we need to exterminate them. And I still can’t believe anyone is dumb or desperate enough to work for an Olyix agent.”
“This is the problem we’ve faced right from the start,” Alik said. “We can’t let the Olyix know we’re plugged into the Salvation of Life’s onemind. And if we start taking out their operatives on Earth, they’ll realize quickly enough.”
“Yeah, yeah, but people helping them? That’s fucking disgusting.”
“Most of the sabotage is carried out by drones and synth creatures,” Yuri said. “The dark market suppliers don’t realize what their products are being used for.”
“I still think we should take them out. We know all of them by now, don’t we? So what if the onemind realizes?”
“It might affect our Trojan flight,” Jessika said. “We need to be able to fool the onemind about the identity of the Avenging Heretic. We cannot risk it discovering that we can perceive its thoughtstream, and—by implication—deceive it.”
“But we can’t let more cities fall! Damnit, Berlin was bad. Nobody expected that. The people trapped under those shields need some good news.”
“We’re looking for other angles to come at the Olyix agents,” Alik said. “If there’s another way, we’ll find it.”
“The Strikeback will be the greatest news possible,” Emilja said.
“For a while,” Ainsley III observed. “It’ll take a few years to dawn on the population that they’re never going to leave. All we’re doing, supplying them with food and power, is keeping them alive for the Olyix to cocoon.”
“If we can destroy the Olyix enclave before they return to Earth…” Danuta trailed off. “Sorry. It’s just…losing is too big to accept.”
“Short-term loss,” Yuri said. “Long-term gain. A cold equation, but ultimately everyone that the Olyix cocoon will return home.”
“I sincerely hope so,” Emilja said. “General, how long will it take you to launch Strikeback?”
“Three days to prepare; then it all depends on the position of Olyix transport ships.”
“It only takes one to be in the right place,” Eldlund said. “We’ll find it.”
“And the five of you?” Ainsley III said, in an unusually sober voice. “This is not a mission you can be asked or ordered to perform. Are you still willing to undertake it?”
“Fucking A,” Kandara said.
“The greatest spy mission in the history of the universe.” Alik chuckled. “Try to stop me.”
“Exhortation, organization
, and reprisals,” Yuri said. “I will enjoy implementing that last.”
Callum exaggerated a sigh. “Someone with a brain has to keep an eye on this lot.”
Everyone turned to stare at Jessika.
“It will be an honor to fly with you,” she said, then grinned at Kandara. “Who knows? It might finally qualify me as human.”
INTERSTELLAR SPACE
YEAR 2 AA (AFTER ARRIVAL)
It took the massive fabrication station seven months to extrude the Sisaket habitat: a hollow cylinder thirty-five kilometers long, and eight in diameter, with a sunlight spindle stretched along the axis. When it was powered up, the spindle’s radiance matched the spectrum of a G-class star, shining across an interior of sculpted hills and meandering valleys that idealized the rolling countryside of central Europe. Streams ran the length of the cylinder, slowly thickening as they wound between lakes of varying sizes, fed from twice-weekly night rains. Once germinated, the fledgling biosphere progressed fruitfully, greening the sandy soil and giving the atmosphere the warmth and humidity of late spring.
Dellian breathed it in as he stepped out of the portal just a couple of kilometers from the endcap. “Is this temperature correct?”
“Yes.” Yirella chuckled. “You’re just spoiled from living in tropical climates all the time.”
He shivered and made a show of zipping up his jacket as he surveyed the view. They’d emerged near the top of a small grassy hill, crowned by a cluster of elegant houses. The newness of the habitat’s biosphere was striking. There wasn’t a single plant taller than a meter high, as if someone had given the green landscape a buzzcut. Different shades of green mottled the ground as far as he could see. Saplings of proto-forest on the slopes fashioned dark green wave lines undulating down into the emerald grasslands of the valley floors. Two kilometers away, the blank, near-vertical endcap rose upward like a cliff at the end of the universe.
They walked along the track to Alexandre’s house: a building cut into the hill, with a broad shingle roof and walls that were mostly big windows separated by solid sections of wood plank. A long balcony ran across the front, giving a direct view of the domineering endcap.
The Saints of Salvation Page 5
