by Max Carver
“According to who?”
“I am here to protect you against Simon Zorn and his forces.”
“Who programmed you?”
“I cannot provide that data.”
“Okay.” Ellison thought quickly, watching the destroyers approach. “My suit has a jet pack. If you won't help, Minerva, I'll just fly over there myself, and you can go ahead and take Kartokov and my family down to the surface.”
“Flying to the space station with only your suit is not advisable,” Minerva said. “There is a high probability you will be targeted by one of the Carthaginian destroyers. The suit lacks any armor, and its speed cannot match even the slowest missile.”
“Then you'd better drop me off at the defense station for my own safety,” Ellison said. Minerva gave no immediate response, so he reached for the controls and added: “Prepping jet pack now.”
“Wait,” Minerva said. “I will convey you to the defense station. Please return to the interior of the shuttle.”
“That's better.” Ellison gestured at Cadia and Kartokov, and then at the shuttle hatch behind them. “After you.”
He waited for the two of them to climb through the wrecked airlock, then the inner airlock door into the destroyed passenger lounge, which had now been depressurized, the couches wrecked from the firefight.
Then Ellison closed the airlock door and stayed outside.
“Ellison? Why did you not enter the shuttle?” Minerva's voice asked inside his helmet.
“Yeah, Ellison, what are you doing?” Cadia asked, her tone a little playful despite the dangers they faced. “Get in here, Ellison.”
“Sorry,” Ellison said. “Minerva said her core directive was keeping me alive. I can't risk her tricking me into the shuttle, then taking me down to the surface against my will.”
“It's no trick!” Minerva pleaded. “Just climb inside. I cannot travel to the defense station at the shuttle's highest possible speed unless—”
“Go as fast as you can. I can handle it.” Ellison grabbed on to a handhold, next to the smart grappling hook that still held his tether in place.
“Reg, this is insane,” Cadia's voice came back. “What do you think you're going to do? The defense station isn't ready, and even if it were, there's nobody to operate it.”
“Minerva and I will operate it,” Ellison said.
“You're putting your life into the hands of an AI?” Cadia asked. “One we just met? This could still be a trap.”
“I am not working with the Simons,” Minerva replied. “I can assure you.”
“Sorry, Minerva,” Cadia asked. “But we have no way of knowing that.”
“I should come with you,” Kartokov's voice broke in.
“You should be in a hospital for the next six months,” Ellison said. “But there's no time for that. Get down to Tower Island and put everyone and everything on high alert. Expect attacks from the Hammers right away.”
“Reg, you can't go fight those destroyers by yourself,” Cadia said.
“Just take care of Djalu and Jiemba.” Ellison tightened his grip on the handhold as the shuttle accelerated toward the defense station. “I'll be fine.”
“You don't know that.” She frowned behind her faceplate.
“I'll do my best, then.” Ellison resisted the temptation to go in and see his boys. Maybe it was his last chance to look upon their faces. He couldn't risk Minerva locking him inside the shuttle for his own good, though.
So instead he clung to the outside of the shuttle, feeling like a whale rider from Earth mythology, crossing the sea on an immense beast. The half-finished station waited ahead like a broken, half-submerged island.
Ellison hadn't spent much time in space. He'd learned to navigate the seas of Galapagos using the stars, though he'd rarely needed to actually do so because they had orbital satellites. That particular navigation skill predated his days in the navy; his father, the quiet, stern old fisherman, had taught him.
The stars were home to other human worlds, hundreds of them, but that had always been a distant, almost theoretical reality. His day-to-day life had been smaller than all that, focused on the task at hand, a life of work and war and trying to survive the treacherous ocean full of storms and enemies.
Now it seemed to him that space was like the colossal ocean of Galapagos, each world like an island, unreachable except by a long and dangerous crossing. It could take weeks of travel to cross the light-years between inhabited worlds, and the space between was fraught with its own dangers, most of them from the simple vastness and emptiness of the vacuum.
“Cadia,” he said as the unfinished station drew near. Was it his imagination, or was one of the Carthaginian destroyers beginning to angle this way?
“What, Reg? Are you coming inside?”
“I wish. Tell the kids I love them.”
“You can tell them when you get home,” she said. “We'll be back in the Dreamtime tomorrow.”
He smiled. Before they were married, she'd given him a tall slab of a book on ancient aboriginal culture and art; the book itself was a work of art, printed on thick, specially preserved paper that would last thousands of years. There was a space for generations of owners to inscribe their names as the book was passed down.
From looking at the book, they'd adopted “Dreamtime” as their word for their time together—when he was home on leave, whenever they were alone and could walk in the dense patch of jungle that filled the old, hollowed-out volcano cone near the center of their home, Kawau Island. It felt like the most isolated place in the universe, where the two of them could be away from everyone and do as they pleased.
Then the kids had been born.
Ellison had never really wanted to be a fisherman, but he'd grown up doing it and was good at it. He'd left the navy soon after the last big war ended and the Coalition was formed. He'd wanted to stay home with Cadia and create their own family in that hopeful new world, the world of peace. He'd wanted to build a life that was all Dreamtime.
Building was all he'd done for several years: building a bigger boat, a bigger house, and eventually expanding to a fleet of three sizable commercial boats.
The world had reached a shaky peace, with four of the five nations joining in the Coalition, plus many of the tiny, ultra-independent ones. The Hammers seemed to have been driven back to the icy stronghold of the Polar Archipelago, full of treacherous water.
Many Coalition politicians had wanted to treat the Hammers like a minor nuisance, a threat to be contained and managed.
Ellison had seen it differently. His island was among the northernmost of the Scatterlands, and he heard too many firsthand accounts of raids on fishing boats and small merchant ships. Nothing was being done by the Coalition navy, because the Coalition was officially at peace with the Polar Archipelago, and there wasn't much political will to move back to a state of open war.
The Hammers had been politically savvy enough to raid only the smallest operations of outlying islands, ignoring the freighters and fleets owned by the big companies. As long as the pirates focused on the small fry, the plankton and krill, the big governments remained unwilling to help.
“I should go back to the navy,” Ellison had told Cadia one night, years ago, as they lay awake in bed, basking in the warm salt air from the beach outside. “They made Micky Perrault an admiral, if you can believe that. He'll give me a ship, and I can go after those pirates.”
“You and one ship?” Cadia had asked sleepily, her eyelids low, an amused smile on her lips. “Against the whole Iron Hammer fleet? They don't stand a chance.”
“I'm serious. Someone has to take them on. The politicians—”
“You keep talking about this,” she said. “You don't need to go begging Micky Perrault for one boat. You need to go be his boss.”
“Right. And how will I do that?”
“I told you yesterday. Ambassador Wallace is retiring next year. They're going to announce it soon.”
“And you know this fro
m your cousin who lives on Tower Island?” The large but formerly underdeveloped island had grown into one of the planet's busiest cities overnight, after it had been selected as the meeting place for the Coalition's chief body, the House of Ambassadors.
“Of course,” Cadia had said. “She works in campaign media. Everybody in that world talks. Anyway, that's what you should do.”
“Work in campaign media? Do you know me?”
She laughed. “Run for office.”
“I'm a fisherman.”
“And a war hero,” she said, and it had been his turn to laugh. She'd rolled over to face him. “I'm saying, the campaign soundbites, the branding, they write themselves.”
“That's not something you'd say. That sounds like your cousin talking.”
“And she's right. You could do it. You have... well, gravitas.”
“You mean I've got a few gray hairs in my beard.”
“It's a good look on you. I'm serious. It's an open seat and there's no clear candidate. You're a veteran, you're a business owner, a fisherman... everyone in these islands can relate to you. You're a native. And if you really want to go after the Iron Hammers, don't try for one ship. Go where the decisions are made. Go where you can send the whole navy after them.”
“You're crazy.”
“That's what they told me when I married you,” she'd said. “So that's what you can do if you want to change things. And if not, you can stay here, in the Dreamtime... ” She'd slid up to a sitting position against the headboard, letting the cotton sheet drift down to her hips. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. She'd taken a deep breath and sighed. “With me. Forever. And say no more about it.”
Now, standing on the Carthaginian shuttle, he prepared to let go of her, of his family, for the last time. He had no illusions that he could win this fight. He hoped he could distract the destroyers while the shuttle with his family, as well as the other civilian shuttles, made it down to Earth.
“Good-bye,” he said.
Then he let go. The jets on his back would carry him the rest of the way to the station.
He headed for the closest end of the incomplete ring. The interior was a construction site, full of bare girders and round braces, little more than scaffolding inside a vast hollow shell. It was meant to be staffed with dozens of technicians, gunners, and other crew, ready to wage war on any threats to Galapagos. And, if he was being completely honest, to rain down some real destruction on the frosty white Polar Archipelago below, at the cap of his home planet, where the temperatures were often far below freezing and land invasions had proved difficult.
Ellison put on a little speed and crossed the gulf from shuttle to station. He slowed as he reached the station, landing carefully on a sidewalk-width beam.
Ahead, he saw the construction equipment working near the gunports, removing plastic-sheet wrapping from plasma artillery guns and cases of industrial-sized plasma cells to charge them. The yellow constructors handled the weapons clumsily with their enormous crane-sized hands; one crunched an artillery gun's steel support structure like it was paper.
“Do those constructors know what they're doing?” Ellison asked.
“They have been provided with the correct assembly software,” Minerva replied. “But they were not physically designed for such work. They are learning.”
“Okay. Uh, keep learning, guys.”
“Affirmative,” dozens of automated voices echoed over his helmet speakers, making him wince.
“Were those the constructors talking?” Ellison asked.
“Affirmative,” the dozens of voices echoed again.
“Great. Minerva, have you warmed up the Ghost fighters?”
“We have no pilots here,” she replied.
“I flew a Salthawk seaplane about a dozen times in the war. Not that I had a license for it. Or training.”
“Piloting a starfighter is quite different.”
“Yeah. No water to hit. And no mangrove trees.” He shook off the memory of crash-landing a boosted seaplane many years ago. “Anyway, plenty of room to dodge, if we do see some mangroves out there. Right? So get those fighters ready, all weapons online.”
“Both fighters? But there is only one of you.”
“Good chance I'll crash that first one right out of the gate. So make sure the ejects are working fine, too.”
Ellison made his way toward the fighter bays. The incomplete command center was on the way, so he stopped there and activated the screens and projectors. They displayed the misty blue-white marble of Galapagos below, the deep and volatile ocean deceptively serene from this distance.
Another screen showed the destroyers, closer than ever. They hadn't opened fire yet.
They have the capacity to destroy cities on the surface of Galapagos, Minerva had said.
He looked again at the blue planet below, speckled with tiny green dots. A war with Carthage would make the wars among the Galapagos nations, the Island Wars, look like boys with bottles and rocks. The people of Galapagos could be reduced to rats living among rubble; he'd heard the horror stories about Earth. Everyone had. It was why Carthage always got its way.
Was there truly no hope for an acceptable peace? Something that would protect his family and the people of his world?
“Minerva,” he said. “Hail the nearest Carthaginian destroyer.”
“But we will give away our position,” she replied.
“We just traveled here in plain sight of them, on a shuttle we stole from them. I'm pretty sure they know we're here. Where's my family?”
“On their way to re-entry, along with the general exodus. They're not clear yet. The sky is full of easy victims if those destroyers open fire.”
“Are our guns up?”
“Soon.”
“Are the fighters ready?”
“Soon. And be aware: one of the Carthaginian destroyers has engaged its starboard launchers.” The destroyer emerged from one of the screens in a three-dimensional rendering.
“Where are those launchers pointing?”
“At the evacuating civilian craft.”
“That's not good.”
“The destroyer has answered your hail,” Minerva said.
One screen showed Simon Zorn, undamaged, against a neutral gray background. It had to be an avatar rather than a video feed, because the real Simon was last seen badly charred and missing most of his face.
“Hello, Minister-General,” Simon said. “I'm glad to see you're alive and well. And your family, too. How did you manage to hack our shuttle?”
“It was easy,” Ellison replied. “I just needed two paperclips and some bubble gum.”
“How amusing.”
“I can't help but notice you've brought two destroyers into our space,” Ellison said. “Should I assume they're just here to pick you up and carry you back home?”
“That would not be a safe assumption, Minister-General Ellison.”
“Then why are they are here?”
“We are simply establishing that your system is now a part of Carthaginian protected space, under our agreement with General Gorron Prazca, Premier of Galapagos.”
“You mean Premier of the Polar Archipelago.”
“Carthage now recognizes his right to rule your entire planet,” Simon said.
“You betrayed me. You betrayed all the people on Galapagos who just want to live in peace, who just want—”
“Peace is an illusion, Minister-General. A dream of fools. All life competes. Competition breeds invention and adaptation. Failure to compete is suicide.”
“Are those the guiding principles of the Carthaginian empire?”
“They are simple observations of biological reality. They apply on all levels of existence, including the superorganisms of your species, your tribes and nations and so on.”
Ellison glanced at the screen showing the exodus of shuttles. They'd shrunken to a distant cloud of dots, headed for re-entry. It was impossible to tell his family's shuttle from the
rest.
“So your destroyers are only here to make a statement,” Ellison said.
“The people of your world may have certain extreme notions about independence, but they will bend to the yoke in time. All people do. We have taken world after world, Mr. Ellison. There is nothing special about yours. Your people are simply wild animals in need of taming. In need of discipline.”
The destroyer released half a dozen missiles. Each one raced toward the blue sphere of Galapagos below.
Each missile sought out one of the tiny retreating shuttles and dove into it. Six explosions, six craft full of civilians destroyed.
Ellison froze. He looked over at Minerva on the other screen. “Was that... ?” He didn't dare finish the question and ask whether his family's shuttle was among the six destroyed.
“That is a statement,” Simon said. “Well? You've shot me in the face, you've ejected me from an airlock, and you have provided me the most vile hotel room I've yet encountered.”
“That was literally the ambassador's suite.” Ellison said it automatically, his mind reeling. How many had Simon just casually killed?
Simon laughed. “Well? I've attacked your civilian craft. Aren't you going to ask whether your family was among the fallen? Will that shape your response? Are you a leader of your people first, or a husband and father? What level of priority drives you—biology or duty?”
Ellison didn't say anything. He was watching the Galapagos defense station's gunports come online. Six were ready so far, staggered along the station's outer rim, ready to fire. Six more to go. There would have been twenty-four in all, but the station was only half-built.
Worse, all the gunports were on the wrong side of the half-built station, pointing away from the destroyers. There was no way the station could rotate fast enough to point the guns at the destroyers; it wasn't even meant to rotate at all yet.
“That was an act of open war,” Ellison said.
“Oh, goodness. Not war.” Simon gave him a slight smile. “Whatever shall we do?”
Ellison gestured at the screen, and Simon disappeared. “Cut all communications,” Ellison said.
