Exiles of Earth: Rebellion

by Richard Tongue

  “It’s over,” he said. “Disarm, right now. Pope, take them away. Storage One is closest. I want them under close guard until I work out what to do with them.” Looking around, he saw Khatri, and said, “Chief, you sure know how to make an entrance.”

  “Thank Spaceman Zhao and Doctor Thiou,” Khatri replied. “We’d have been dead if they hadn’t turned up at the last minute.”

  “My complements to you both,” Mitchell said. “Chief, check the bridge. I want a full systems update at once. Zhao, what’s the status of the rest of the ship?”

  “I don’t think there’s much fighting going on,” Zhao said. “Certainly not in any critical areas. At least half of the crew is sitting this out in their quarters.” He paused, frowned, then added, “I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you that I am a member of the Democratic Underground. I can give you the names of a dozen people that you will be able to trust, though I regret that doesn’t include Chief Nguyen and Professor Wagner. Yani…” He paused, then said, “Spaceman DeSilva believes that they are working for the Coalition. Last we saw, Wagner is on his way to Auxiliary Control. Yani went after him.”

  “Nguyen?”

  “Bastard left us to rot,” one of Fitzroy’s men said, spitting on the deck. “He’s the one who sent us up here, but when the shooting started, he ran for it.”

  “I think I can guess where he’s going,” Mitchell said. “Pope, leave one man to guard the prisoners, then head to Auxiliary Control. Schneider, show them the way.”

  “We’re on it,” Pope replied, rushing down the corridor, Schneider chasing after him.

  “Captain?” Khatri said. “The bridge is fully operational, sir. Some damage to a few of the monitors, but nothing that can’t be worked around. I’ve already got a repair crew on the way up.” He paused, looked around, then added, “I’d better head back down to Engineering, sir.” He turned, then added, “The shuttles are still heading out to the satellites, sir. They were scheduled to arrive about now.”

  “Manned?”

  “Robotic.”

  “Get them back home right now, Chief. We’re going to have to show the people on the surface a little good faith if we expect them to ever trust anything we tell them ever again.”

  “Agreed,” Khatri said. “Abbasov, Blair, with me.”

  Mitchell turned, walking into the bridge, pausing for a moment at the threshold. Bianchi was already inside, calling up the sensor systems, and Petrov was moving to the helm, grimacing at the spatters of blood on his chair. Watson clapped Mitchell on the shoulder, pushing him forward.

  “Come on, we don’t have any time to waste,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “It’s just…take Navigation, will you?”

  Frowning, she replied, “You realize I’ve never even seen this console before, right?”

  “Just monitor the sensors. Diaz can tell you what to do.” He glanced at tactical, and said, “Zhao, you’re a weapons technician, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Take the chair.”

  Looking at the controls, the man replied, “I know how to make the guns work, sir, but I’ve had no tactical or combat training, and…”

  “And as soon as Midshipman Diaz is able to use both of her hands, I’ll happily relieve you, but for the moment, get your butt in the seat and put a salvo in the tubes. Let me worry about the tactics. Just make the missiles fire when I give the word. Are we at battle stations?”

  “No, sir. Security Alert.”

  “Then take us to battle stations. Petrov, slow us down. We must be close to red-lining the engines.”

  “Right on the border,” the helmsman said. “We’ve gained a lot of altitude, but we’re still well under escape velocity.”

  “Bianchi, I need to speak to the surface. See if you can punch through to Romanova, or whoever happens to be President down there at the moment.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “And get me a full sensor sweep of local space, active scanners. We had some interceptors on the way. I need to know precisely where they are.”

  “Got them,” Wagner said. “Below us, climbing slowly, heading on an intercept course in about ten minutes.” She turned to Mitchell, and replied, “They’ve got swarm missiles. Nasty, designed to evade interception, breaking into a hundred smaller warheads.”

  “Point defense will struggle to stop that many incoming targets, sir. We’d almost certainly take damage.” Zhao turned to Watson, and asked, “Any other defense systems?”

  “Planetary scale, orbital missiles with kinetic warheads designed for orbital denial,” she replied. “Captain, if they think you’re about to launch a strike, they’ll simply try and ram. Those are good pilots, damned good, and they just saw precisely how we managed to sneak past the defenses. I doubt you’d be able to stop them all.”

  “In short, the only way we can guarantee survival is to turn and run,” Mitchell said.

  “I have the surface, sir. President McGuire and Acting President Brock,” Bianchi said. She turned to Mitchell, and replied, “I couldn’t work out who was in charge, so I thought it best to split the difference.”

  “Put them on,” he said, and the two faces appeared on the screen, McGuire obviously in a hospital bed, Brock in a command center, Romanova standing at her shoulder. Both began to speak, but Mitchell raised his hand to silence them.

  “Before you say anything, I should tell you that there has been a change of command on this ship. Captain Ikande is dead, and so is Lieutenant Fitzroy. I am in command of this ship now, and I’m offering an immediate cessation of hostilities. The defense network will remain dormant until we can work out how to proceed, and I am willing to meet with you both in neutral territory to come to a new understanding.” Glancing at Thiou, he added, “One that will not involve the conquest of your planet by the Commonwealth. I hated the idea from the start, and it is totally impractical now in any case.”

  “I demand your immediate surrender,” Brock said.

  “That isn’t going to happen, Colonel. I still command the most powerful warship in this system, and you have one of my people hostage. Furthermore, the Coalition fleet will come, and you’re going to need help to stop them. I’m willing to provide you with that help. Mr. President, what is your opinion?”

  “We don’t have any reason to trust you, Lieutenant. Or should I say Captain?”

  “Call me whatever you want, sir.”

  A thin smile came to his face, and he said, “I’d be willing to meet with you. We need to work something out, certainly. Colonel Brock, as you can see, I am able to resume my duties, and I order you to place your forces on active alert status, but to not engage Endurance without my order.”

  “It’s a trick,” Brock replied. “It has to be a trick.” Gesturing at Watson, she added, “She’s probably sold us out! She gave them one of her rockets, punched her way past our defense perimeter…”

  “And given the circumstances, Colonel, that’s probably just as well.”

  “Captain,” Bianchi said. “I’ve got Chief Khatri for you, top priority.”

  Tapping a control, Mitchell said, “What’s the story, Chief?”

  “We’ve got a problem, sir. I’m locked out of the controls for the robot shuttles. They’re arming the warheads now, and there’s nothing I can do here to stop them.”

  “Where…”

  “Auxiliary Control. I’ve got a team on the way right now, but they can’t possibly get there in time.”

  “DeSilva,” Zhao said. “She’s heading their now. It must be Wagner.”

  “Captain,” Brock said, “If those warheads arm, I will use all the force at my disposal to bring your ship down, and to hell with Presidential orders!”

  “Don’t worry about that,” McGuire replied. “You’ll have the orders you want.”

  “Mr. President, I will do everything in my power…”

  “I just hope that’s enough,” McGuire interrupted. “You have five minutes, Captain. After tha
t, I will do what I must to guarantee the safety of my people. Atlantis out.”

  Turning to Zhao, Mitchell asked, “Can she stop them?”

  “I hope so,” the technician replied. “If anyone can, she will. You can bet your life on that.”

  “Just as well,” Watson said. “That’s precisely what we’re doing.”

  Chapter 37

  DeSilva raced along the corridor, the smell of battle filling her lungs, smoky cordite and copper blood, burn marks on the walls as silent testament to the firefights that had raged throughout this part of the ship bare moments ago. Sirens wailed, the ship called to action stations, and normally she would have been racing to her station at damage control. This time, she had more important things to do. Auxiliary Control was close, just a few meters away, and so far, nobody had tried to stop her.

  She turned the last corner, and instantly saw why. The room was a shattered mess, every console destroyed, every holodisplay wrecked. Two bodies lay on the floor, one of them struggling to breathe, the other obviously dead. She knelt behind the wounded man, and her eyes widened as she recognized him. Nguyen.

  “Yani?” he asked, every breath an effort. “Is that you?”

  “What happened here?” she asked.

  “Wagner. Told me we were freeing the ship. We were aiming loyalists at each other, causing confusion. He wanted Auxiliary Control, wanted to take command.”

  “He’s working for the Coalition. Just like you.”

  He shook his head, blood tricking from his mouth, and said, “No! Working for the Underground! He’s the traitor.”

  “Conspiracy to commit treason still holds a life sentence. Tell me where he is.”

  “Headed into the lower levels, the sensor decks, the shielded regions. Stabbed me in the back, the bastard.” A series of violent coughs wracked his body, and he continued, “Satellite Two is armed. He did it. Set it to open fire on First Landing when it reaches the correct orbital position. Five minutes. You’ve got to stop him.” He reached up, grabbing her shoulder, and repeated, “You’ve got to stop him!”

  Nodding, she pulled his hand free, walked out into the corridor to a communications panel, and said, “DeSilva to Mitchell.”

  “Mitchell here. Spaceman…”

  “Wagner’s trashed Auxiliary Control. He’s armed the missiles on Satellite Two, and it’s set to fire in about five minutes. I can’t deactivate the systems from here, not with the damage he’s inflicted. I need a medical and engineering team down here on the double.”

  “Sensors are out,” Mitchell said.

  Another voice cut in, “Zhao here. You’ll need to find a communications node and send the deactivation sequence. We can give you command access from the bridge, but the coding needs to be done manually. There’s only one functional node anywhere near you, four decks below your location, just above the sensor decks.”

  “I can make it,” she said, turning to the nearest shaft.

  “Spaceman, we can’t get to the satellite in time. We’re burning as hard as we can, but we can’t get within weapons range before those missiles launch. We’ve got help on the way, but I doubt they’ll reach you in time. This all comes down to you. Good luck. Out.”

  “Great,” she replied, looking down at Nguyen, now mercifully unconscious. “One nice mess to clean up, you bastard.” She pulled the hatch cover clear, swinging onto the ladder and crawling down the shaft as fast as she could, weaving from side to side to avoid clusters of cables dangling from the wall. Her shoulder brushed against one, and a shower of sparks raced into the air, her arm numb, stiff, her uniform blackened. Those cables were running on overload. A trap. She looked down, spotting a web of cables spread out across the shaft, blocking progress. If she’d run into them, she’d be dead.

  She snatched a toolkit from the wall, then tossed it down the shaft, letting go of the ladder with her hands. Her boots were non-conductive, and the storm of lightning that crackled through the passage as the metal toolkit made contact was testament to the wisdom of that uniform policy. The lights flickered out, and she was in blackness, the local power grid burned out. She climbed down once more, tentatively touching the cables with her toe before sliding past them, continuing her descent.

  She’d spent more time crawling around these tunnels than almost any other member of the crew, during her solitary exile on the voyage to Atlantis. She knew them better than anyone else, and knew the shortcuts she could take, the ones not on the blueprints, incorporated into the ship through one refit or another over the years. Ducking down a side chute, she half-crawled, half-slid down to the lower levels, her hand brushing against the wall and recoiling from the cold, vacuum seeping into the space between the hulls.

  Finally, she dropped to the bottom of the shaft, falling to her hands and knees as she continued to crawl, making her way along the tunnel as fast as she could. The stink of ozone was in the air, an electrical fire somewhere in the distance, the sound of the warning klaxons ringing in her ears. Distant voices spoke, unintelligible and distorted, orders being issued from the bridge. None of that mattered now. She had one job to do. Reach the communications hub in time to stop the slaughter.

  She could hardly comprehend the destruction that might soon fall upon the planet below if she failed. A complete salvo of warheads would destroy First Landing and everything for a hundred miles around, taking out some of the richest terraformed land on the planet. It could easily undo the work of generations, and there was a good chance that the colony would never recover. Which, of course, was exactly what the Coalition wanted. A struggling planet, destroyed by their mutual enemies, so desperate for whatever aid they could get that they’d agree to anything they were offered. No matter what the effect on their long-term survival.

  And she had only a handful of minutes to prevent that from happening.

  The communications hub was at the far end of the passage, the inspection hatch already open. She rushed forward, entering the access code, the display flooding with text as she hastily worked through the network, opening a link to the distant satellite. Her hands danced across the controls, a smile crossing her face, before she saw something in her peripheral vision, ducking just in time to avoid the bullet hurtling through the air, hammering into the panel above her. She rolled back into cover, hiding behind a heavy pipe, peering into the gloom.

  “That’s as far as you get,” Wagner replied. “I’m not going to let you stop me now.”

  “You’ll kill millions of people,” she yelled. “You think I’m not willing to trade my life for theirs?”

  “On the contrary, I’m convinced that you will, but it really doesn’t matter. I’m not going to give you that chance. If you move out of cover, I’ll kill you before you can work that control, and we’ve only got to stay here for the next sixty seconds before the first rocket fires.”

  “You think you’ll live through this?” she asked. “If I don’t find a way to kill you, the reinforcements will, and the Atlanteans will make certain that Endurance is destroyed.”

  “Of course,” he said. “That was the whole point of this. The Commonwealth is discredited, Atlantis is removed as a power, and the Coalition wins the war. As for myself, I didn’t really expect to survive this mission. That’s not important. All that matters is the unity of humanity against the greater threats we face. The very survival of the human race is at stake.”

  “Are you insane?” she asked. “You’re about to kill a substantial fraction of humanity, and destroy the most habitable planet we’ve ever found in the process!”

  “Humanity is not capable of survival on such a world. We proved that on Earth. Humanity can only survive where there is regimentation and order, imposed by an iron will to maintain it. The Commonwealth is ridden with corruption, its leaders spending more time intriguing against each other than worrying about the future. Only the Coalition offers hope that we might survive into the next century. Only they can provide the leadership we need.”

  “At the cost of sacrif
icing what it means to actually be human,” she retorted. “You’d lock all mankind into a perpetual hell.”

  “And give them a future.” He paused, and added, “Not that we truly need to discuss it now.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” she replied.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ve condemned me to die, no matter what I do next.”

  With a soft chuckle, he replied, “I thought we’d settled that. It doesn’t matter whether or not you are willing to die. At this stage, that’s irrelevant. Only that I’m in a position to kill you if you attempt to reach the terminal, and that you cannot shoot me without leaving cover.”

  “True,” she said. “However, we’re hugging the outer hull. You’ve left me only one option, and I intend to take it.” She raised her pistol, targeted the weakest spot on the hull she could find, and fired, one round after another hammering into the same point, each time getting closer and closer to the cold vacuum beyond. Shots rang out from Wagner, the traitor desperately attempting to bring her down, panicking now as he saw his hopes and dreams torn asunder. She had one round left. The hull was weak. It had to be enough.

  It was.

  The final bullet hammered into the hull, the already weakened armor unable to take any more, and with a loud crack, the metal ruptured, a dreadful wail heralding the atmosphere leaking away into space, an ever-strengthening wind that tugged out all before it. DeSilva had been able to prepare for this, brace herself to withstand the tug, but the inexperienced Wagner had not, and he drifted out of cover as she slid a second clip into her pistol, able to take a perfect shot. She fired, the bullet slamming into his chest, and his body slid towards the rupture, the traitor clutching at his chest, the blood spilling out into his clothes, sealing the hole.

  All around, bulkheads slammed into position, locking her into the area. The pressure was low, low enough that her vision was blurred, her senses scrambled. Wagner’s corpse was an effective patch, but it would take time for the life support systems to restore normal atmospheric pressure. Time that they just didn’t have. She crawled forward, taking deep breaths that yielded too little oxygen, gray forming at the periphery of her vision, a warning sign of imminent unconsciousness.