‘He has gone into cardiac arrest,’ Tye announced.
‘No, no, no! He can’t do that.’
‘Life signs are flatlining.’
Ollie looked pleadingly at Larson’s vacant face. ‘Where are the Paynors?’
‘Multiple organ failure. Support machines unable to sustain basic body functions.’
Larson stopped breathing.
‘You piece of shit,’ Ollie screamed, and hit him, fist slamming directly into that wretched pudgy face. Hit him again. A third time. Nothing. ‘You bastard! You stupid, stupid bastard! Why did you let yourself get like this? Why?’ Ollie sagged back, gazing in disbelief at the one chance he’d had to find Nikolaj, to save Gran and Bik. Two years. Two fucking years to find him. And he fucking DIES?
*
Ollie had no real awareness of walking downstairs and back out of the Icona building. It was only when the light and sound of London’s devil-sky engulfed him with a greater vehemence than usual that he started to notice the external world again. Buildings and docks were just smears of drab colour. Even the abrupt change of the data splashed across his tarsus lens didn’t really grab his attention. It was only Tye saying, ‘Eight targeting lasers have now acquired you,’ that jolted him alert again. His surroundings crunched into extreme focus.
Paramilitaries in black armour were crouched at the corners of nearby buildings. Overhead, three ugly urban counter-insurgency drones hovered just above the Icona’s roofline. Various barrels pointed down at him.
Ollie let out a wordless scream of hatred, clenched fists rising.
‘Ollie Heslop, you are under arrest,’ a voice boomed out. ‘Deactivate any peripherals and get down on to your knees. Put your hands behind your head and lock your fingers together.’
‘Fuck you!’ Ollie bellowed back. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. He couldn’t believe this was happening. He’d walked through the Icona’s entrance ready to get Nikolaj’s location, to start saving Gran and Bik. Now he had nothing, and Special Branch had found him. Bik and Gran were lost, doomed to be taken by the Olyix when London’s shield finally broke.
‘You will not be told again. Deactivate your peri—’
‘No!’ He took a step forwards, jabbing a finger at his black collar. ‘Scan that, you shits! Go on. Scan it. See that? See what it is? I’ll use it, I fucking swear I will! Just piss off and leave me alone.’ The tears were flowing faster now, and with them came miserable sobs making his chest judder. ‘Leave me alone,’ he wailed. ‘You’ve won. Do you understand? Whoop bloody whoop. What more do you want? You can’t send me to Zagreus, not any more. We’re all going to be cocooned anyway, so what’s the fucking point?’ He slumped back against the wall and slowly slid down it. His head bowed low so he didn’t have to see anything, and he carried on sobbing. When he had no tears left – when every thought was numb – he’d do it. The collar really was insurance. Packed with explosives, it would decapitate him instantly, and the blast would shatter his skull, pulping his brain. The Olyix wouldn’t be able to cocoon that.
It was the only victory he had left.
*
Twenty minutes later, he still hadn’t moved. The tears had stopped a while back. In his head, he was living in the past, replaying the memories of the time before. Of Bik larking about. Gran, always so stressed and tired as she struggled to bring up two boys, to get them to go to school, to stop them hanging with the wrong crowd. No. Not them. Me. I was the one who let her down. I should have stayed at university. I shouldn’t have got myself thrown out. I shouldn’t have gone back to the Legion.
It’s why I’ve finished up here. It’s why we’re all here. I was so dumb, I helped the Olyix. I did this to London, to the world.
The sound of approaching footsteps registered through the black grief. He took a breath and focused on the collar icon. The last thing he’d ever see. Here we go –
‘Ollie, darling.’
Un. Be. Fucking. Leavable! Ollie started to laugh hysterically. He was at absolute rock bottom, the worst state it was possible for a human to be in – but no, there was still a single way he could be brought lower. And who was the one and only person who could do that . . .? ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Ollie, please don’t do this.’
He glanced up. Lolo was standing ten metres in front of him, wearing a scarlet summer dress with big white polka dots that glimmered an unwholesome lilac under the devil-sky. Despite that, sie looked amazing. Beautiful face so full of sorrow and worry and love.
‘I’m pregnant, Ollie.’
Ollie’s entire body shut down. Not a muscle moved – certainly not his lungs, probably not even his heart.
I must have triggered the necklace. More than once. And this is what hell is – the same world, but progressively worse each time you die.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lolo said. ‘I should have told you. I’ve wanted to tell you. But there’s never been a right time, has there? Please, this is Kohei Yamada. Listen to him. None of this is as bad as you think, Ollie. Really, it’s not.’
A man was standing next to hir, face stiff from anti-ageing treatments, wearing a windbreaker with a Connexion logo. Ollie drew down a punishing breath.
‘Hello, Ollie,’ Kohei said. ‘We want Nikolaj, too. And we know where she is. Interested?’
Interstellar Space
Year 5 AA
Six hours before the Morgan departed, Yirella sat on the edge of her bed, looking straight ahead at the cabin’s inactive texture wall. Once again, the file played in her optik. She’d viewed it at least once a day since she’d recorded it, and still she felt a mild pang of guilt.
I had no choice. I hope they understand.
‘You cannot keep on consulting people and putting off decisions until some mythical consensus deal appears,’ the recording of her said. ‘That’s not true leadership, and its lack is what we have been guilty of for thousands of years. Sometimes you just have to make the choice – because if you’re in the position to make that choice, you have the right to make it. Our circumstance means we have no choice but to do this, to create you. This civilization we are starting has a similarity with my generation. Like you, we were born unasked. We had no choice over the course of our lives because of the circumstances we found ourselves in. But unlike us, you will have freedom of choice. That is the most precious gift I can provide you. By the act of being born alone and empowered in this unique place, you have been granted freedom. You may choose to help a struggle that is now ten thousand years old . . . or not. That ability is the one thing that cannot be taken from you. When you exercise it, obviously I hope you choose to join me. But if not, I wish you well on your journey to whatever goal you have found for yourselves.’
The recording ended. The same soft sigh as always escaped her lips. Too late to worry now. She never did quite understand why regret burned her this way every time she played the recording. I did the right thing. Although it would be history that made that judgement. That’s if there’s anyone left to review human history.
Maybe it wasn’t guilt that caused all the angst but appreciation of the responsibility she’d undertaken, the arrogance. The scale of what she’d done was so momentous, and only one other person shared it – which didn’t lift any of the responsibility off her shoulders.
The cabin door opened, and Dellian came in, trailed by a remote loaded with all their possessions – a couple of cases that carried everything they’d accumulated. It didn’t seem much for two lives. People long back in history had acquired whole houses full of material memories.
But the way he smiled at the sight of her made the universe a better place. Not even an Olyix superweapon could kill his love, and that was worth more than any treasure. ‘Hello, you,’ she said.
He gave the blank walls a befuddled look. ‘Doesn’t the texture work? Saint’s sake! The Morgan’s refit took three months. They must have checked stuff like this.’
She got up and gave him a hug. ‘Calm down. I was waiting
for you, that’s all.’
‘Oh. Thanks. So what have you got?’
She told her databud to switch the environment on. The walls turned to bare metal bulkheads, with thick oblong windows riveted into place. They looked out from a giant space station of spires and discs that hung high above the nightside of a planet whose continents were single cities. Their glittering lights shone as though all the stars in the sky had descended to populate the ground, while above it all, hundreds of planets shared the same orbit around the sun in a stippled ring, each of them shining with the rich sapphires, whites, and jades of an Earthlike world. Weird and wondrous spaceships cruised gracefully around the station, departing and arriving in constant streams.
‘That is quite something,’ Dellian admitted.
‘It could be ours,’ she said wistfully. ‘The way we live, what we build. After FinalStrike.’
His arm tightened around her so his head was pressed into her chest. ‘We’ll get there. You’ll see.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You ready?’
‘Sure.’
He broke away to stare up at her – a gaze that was unnervingly intense. ‘We can still stay here, with the habitats. It’ll be a good life.’
‘For us. What about our descendants if the FinalStrike doesn’t work?’
‘Like Loneve says, they’ll develop new weapons here, something that can defeat the Olyix. Besides, I thought you wanted that: a society that’s broken the exodus cycle.’
‘I certainly do. But I’ve invested too much in this FinalStrike mission now, and you’d hate it here. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.’
‘I guess we know each other pretty well.’
She bent down and kissed the top of his head. ‘I guess we do.’
*
It was nothing like the time the Morgan had departed from Juloss. Then, they had gathered to celebrate the other Strike ships departing, with everyone making their own way out across the galaxy. It had been a ceremony of hope and anticipation, their commitment to the goal unbreakable. This time there were barely a hundred people in the starship’s main auditorium, out of the thousand who were on board. More than seven hundred were already in suspension chambers to hibernate throughout the twelve-year voyage to the neutron star. Even then, they’d be arriving fifty years after the seedships, which were travelling at an even higher relativistic velocity.
‘Where’s everyone else?’ Dellian asked. He was wearing his squad leader dress uniform for the occasion, which put him in a minority.
‘Busy,’ Yirella replied. ‘There are a lot of new systems to monitor.’
Dellian was sceptical about that; monitoring systems was what gentens were for. He glanced up at the screen at the back of the auditorium’s stage, which showed space directly outside the Morgan. Thirty newly completed FinalStrike warships were holding station in a loosely spherical formation five hundred kilometres in diameter. They were all modelled on the original Morgan design – seven grid spheres stacked in a line, wrapped with thermo-dump spikes. But there had been changes. The rear section now contained the drive developed for the Actaeon project – five ribbed ovoids glowing an eerie aquamarine – while the fifth deck housed nucleonic weapons developed by Wim’s team: long slivers of solidified light that pulsed in the rhythm of a human heartbeat. Beyond the fleet were the three habitats, their shells visible only as shadows against the ridge of stars that cut across the profound darkness of deep space.
‘You okay?’ Yirella asked.
‘Sure.’
People were starting to sit down. He gestured at a row of seats near the stage. ‘We’re so small, aren’t we?’ he said. It felt like a confession.
‘Did you speak to Ainsley before he left with the seedships?’
‘Not much. Why?’
‘We used to talk about how little impact life actually has on the universe.’
‘I don’t think I’m up to that level of philosophy.’
She put her arm through his, then waved at Alexandre, who’d just come in. ‘Don’t be so self-deprecating.’
‘Do you miss him?’
‘Yes. Because we’re a little less safe without him. But it made sense for him to go on ahead with the seedships. He can protect them until they propagate a neutron star civilization that can build its own defences.’
‘Right.’ Again he felt a mild unease. Despite all the advisory council meetings and debates and committees producing strategies for discussion, FinalStrike was still Yirella’s concept. It was logical, smart, and had the best chance of success. And yet . . . Maybe I am paranoid. At some fundamental level, he knew Yirella wouldn’t betray them. So maybe the doubts were a relic of the Olyix neurovirus?
I hope so.
Which was about the craziest thought he’d ever had.
Alexandre joined them, sitting next to Yirella; then the rest of the squad arrived and spread out along the row.
‘You’ve got about a minute left before they shut the portals back to Sisaket,’ Dellian told their old mentor with a grin.
‘Not a chance,’ Alexandre said. ‘Look what happened last time I let you go off by yourselves.’
‘You shouldn’t use us as an excuse to leave the habitats behind,’ Yirella said. ‘We’re going to confront the Olyix directly. The odds of success are unknown.’
Dellian gave her an exasperated frown. ‘Saints! This is all your idea.’
‘I know. But you have to be following the plan for the right reasons.’
‘Hey, you two, stop fighting,’ an amused Janc said. ‘Captain’s here.’
Kenelm strode onto the stage. Dellian was pleased to see sie was wearing hir uniform, too. He found familiarity and tradition reassuring at this point, even though he wasn’t half as confident as he had been when the Morgan had left Juloss. The fight was so much bigger than they’d realized back then. More desperate, too.
Loneve’s face appeared on the screen, blocking out half of the FinalStrike fleet.
‘I would’ve liked to use my old departure speech,’ Kenelm said, ‘but we all know it is no longer applicable. This time, as we venture forth, we are facing a threat greater than we could have imagined. The Vayan lure may not have had the result we expected, but we have emerged stronger and more knowledgeable. And more – we saved a quarter of a million humans from enslavement, which is an achievement we can take enormous pride in. Now those lives we liberated will go on in safety out here amid the stars, free to choose their own destiny.’
Dellian felt Yirella stiffen at Kenelm’s words.
‘It is unlikely we will ever see each other again,’ the Captain continued, facing Loneve’s image, ‘but I would suggest that our descendants will meet your descendants back on a reclaimed Earth.’
‘A prophecy we will strive to fulfil,’ Loneve said formally. ‘On behalf of all of us who have chosen this life, I thank you for your service and wish you the best of luck.’
‘Gonna need a hell of a lot more than luck to win this,’ Falar muttered. Tilliana jabbed him with an elbow.
Kenelm gave Longeve’s image a dignified bow. ‘This is a bittersweet parting. We advance once more to confront the ancient enemy. The Saints are no longer with us, but their spirit infuses every one of us. The FinalStrike mission will honour their memory with the same selfless determination they showed us. Know this, Saints: We will not let you down.’
‘We will not let you down,’ Dellian promised solemnly. Or we’ll die trying.
Kenelm gestured, and everyone stood. ‘We depart not in sorrow, but with hope,’ sie said.
Dellian’s optik display showed him all the portal connections with the habitats shut down. The Morgan’s drive powered up, and they started to accelerate. Around them, the rest of the thirty-strong fleet was moving, spreading wide as they left the three habitats behind, assuming the broad circular formation that they would maintain for the next hundred and thirty-seven lightyears.
He watched the screen in silence as the dim habitats began to shrink away
behind them. Then three expansion portals grew rapidly, their slender blue rims glowing in welcome as the habitats slid into them. Before long, even that sight faded from view. That’s it; we’re committed now. He turned and kissed Yirella. ‘Whatever happens, I’m glad we’ll face it together.’
She gave him an uncertain grin. ‘Thank you.’
Dellian faced the squad. ‘Okay, one last training session tomorrow, then it’s straight into the suspension chambers. I seriously do not want to spend twelve years stuck on this ship staring at you guys.’
London
11th December 2206
The holding cell was all concrete – walls, floor and ceiling. Its door was metal, and half a metre thick, blast proof.
Ollie still hadn’t taken his insurance collar off. He sat on the carbon-frame cot, next to Lolo. They didn’t hold hands. Didn’t talk. Both of them staring ahead.
Finally, Ollie couldn’t stand it any more. ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’ he screamed.
Lolo started crying.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ Ollie tentatively put an arm around hir.
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
‘Why, though?’ Ollie asked, genuinely perplexed. ‘This is a shit time to be alive, and getting worse. I was probably about to die squaring up to Nikolaj. The London shield will fall just like Berlin. How could you get pregnant?’
‘It just sort of happened. My gender cycle is off. I think it was the stress. It was an accident. But it’s a beautiful accident, Ollie. We’re going to have a baby!’
‘The kid . . . We’re not going to get out of this, you know that, right? It’s going to be the shortest, most miserable life ever. My kid . . .’
‘Ollie, where there’s life, there’s hope. Always.’
‘You are so fucking stupid.’
The Saints of Salvation [British Ed.] Page 10
