The Enceladus Crisis

by Michael J. Martinez

  Weatherby fervently hoped he and his ship would not add to that catalogue of misfortune, and he felt he had at least a handful of cards he might play. He simply needed a playing partner, and at long last, there was one to be had.

  It had been six long hours since they skirted past Titan, said to be the Xan’s true homeworld, now a blasted hulk of a sphere shrouded in poisonous fumes. At the time, most of Weatherby’s wardroom seemed discomfited by the captain’s refusal to beat to quarters, feeling that if the Xan opted to take umbrage, they might at least have a chance of escape.

  Weatherby actually laughed at this. These young men came into the service at a time when the Xan seemed to be simply another nation, and Saturn just another port of call, albeit one of striking rarity. Weatherby knew better. They would enter Xan space peaceably, with no weapons armed, and no men ready to do battle. If the Xan took offense, their preparedness, or lack thereof, would not make the slightest difference anyway.

  “They know we’re here, have no doubt, Philip,” Weatherby said, with a slight smile in Anne’s direction, one she returned in kind. “We can only hope that the French haven’t poisoned their attitudes toward us.”

  “And if they have?” Barnes asked as he joined his captain. Of all the officers aboard, he was the most surprisingly sanguine about the perils of visiting Saturn uninvited. In the weeks since their battle in the Rocky Main, the ship’s acting first lieutenant seemed reaffirmed in his belief in his captain. And now, it seemed, he was not questioning Weatherby, but rather posing the question solely to allow the captain to answer it.

  “We yet have a friend or two among Saturn’s rings,” Weatherby said. “And I feel confident that they shall not fire upon us so long as our guns remain stowed.”

  Anne nodded toward the fo’c’sle. “It seems your Dr. Hawkins is quite enamored of all this. His glass is practically stuck to his eye. He’s been taking notes for hours. And,” she noted conspiratorially, “he seems to have actually gained some color upon his face.”

  Weatherby turned forward to see Hawkins practically leaning over the railing of the fo’c’sle, straining to catch a glimpse of the oncoming Xan ship, pausing only to take notes within a small book in front of him. Weatherby had a similar journal once, and the memory, combined with Anne’s proximity, made him feel young once again. “I should hope he keeps a weather eye on that book of his, lest it end up somewhere unexpected,” he said.

  Anne laughed at this, as Weatherby had hoped. “Francis told me all about your journal,” she said. “Amazing that they could read it upon the other side. He was, however, reticent about its contents.”

  “Oh, you know how these things are,” Weatherby said casually. “The incoherent ramblings of a second lieutenant: lost, lovelorn, too young and too timid for his rank.”

  “Well, he’s aged well enough at least,” Anne said. “The timidity may have lessened as well, at least somewhat.”

  Weatherby smiled most fondly at this, and silence passed between them for a moment until he noticed Barnes shifting his weight next to him, looking most uncomfortable and anxious. Reddening under his collar, Weatherby turned his attentions back to the matter at hand. “So, my lady, have you had truck with the Xan since that time?”

  Anne seemed unfazed by the change of direction in discourse, and indeed seemed amused by it, as she always did. They had already discussed this in private, but she grasped quickly that Weatherby’s query was for those around them. “Francis served as the first ambassador to Saturn from the Holy Roman Empire for two years, starting in 1786. I accompanied him, as did Philip, who was but two at the time.”

  The boy looked down and shuffled his feet, seemingly embarrassed by his mother’s mention of him. He was, Weatherby thought, such a perfect reflection of his age. Curious, intelligent and proud, yet so easily whipsawed by the merest word from anyone.

  “And what can you tell us of our destination, my lady?” Barnes asked. A few of the junior officers and midshipmen on the quarterdeck began to lean toward them somewhat.

  “We shall likely dock at the moon we call Mimas, which serves as their main port facility,” she said. “There is a most curious lake there, quite circular with a cone-shaped island in the middle. They say it was created by some rocky impact ages ago. But the port itself is likely nothing outside your experience, beyond the self-moving carts, of course.”

  “Their carts move by themselves?” one of the midshipmen gasped.

  Anne turned and smiled at the boy, who was no older than Philip. “They do. There is a driver, as our carts, but there is a series of buttons and levers which control the direction and speed of the cart. They are powered by engines, not pulled by animals.”

  The boy blinked at her as if she had just spoken in Chinese. Barnes gave him a whack on the shoulder and sent him back to his post. “And from there?” Barnes asked.

  “We will be directed to the Earth quarter of Mimas, along the edge of the lake,” Anne replied. “That is where all men must dwell when they are around Saturn. From the ambassadors’ quarters to the hostels for sailors, you will be confined to this quarter and this quarter only. The gates of the quarter are heavily guarded, and those who would seek to explore outside it are rendered unconscious at the gates themselves, and returned to their quarters with no memory of how they arrived.”

  “So how did your husband conduct his business if he couldn’t leave?” Hawkins asked. He had joined the group a few moments prior from his perch on the fo’c’sle.

  “The Xan came to us,” she said simply. “If we required their attention, we would pass a message to one of the guards at the gate, and they would come to visit us within a day or so. They would also hold events and entertainments for us on a regular basis, including musical performances. I remember those most fondly.”

  Weatherby nodded at this; he remembered the Xan voices as being beautifully harmonic, as if two voices were speaking at once, with one voice conveying factual words with simple melodies, and the other singing emotional harmonic undertones to the first. A musical performance given by the Xan would be something indeed.

  “Two more vessels sighted!” came a cry from the tops. “Same as the first. Two points to larboard and dead ahead.”

  Once again, the officers aboard raced toward the rails to take a look at the newcomers, both of which were closing in upon the Fortitude with amazing speed. Weatherby glanced at Anne, who now looked somewhat worried. “One would have been enough,” she said. “Three is . . .”

  “A problem,” Weatherby said. He turned to Barnes. “I want the men to assume their battle stations. We will not beat to quarters, there are to be no marines sent to the tops, and we will not run out the guns until I give the order. No one is to run, to shout, to hasten in any way. Given that, I want us ready to run out and fire as soon as possible. Go.”

  Barnes turned and immediately waved over the officers still upon the quarterdeck, and they scattered a few moments later, walking with an odd mix of alacrity and forced casualness. Weatherby would have laughed at the sight if there weren’t three Xan vessels of unknown capacity bearing down upon him.

  Two minutes later, there were men walking all over the ship. The marines had taken stations along the railings of the ship on either side, their guns casually slung over their shoulders. They might have been far more effective from the tops, but two score armed men climbing the rigging would be far too noticeable. Weatherby could feel the vibration of wheeled guns moving about under him, and hoped that this would not be detected by the Xan and their strange, wondrous alchemical engines.

  The Xan, meanwhile, had closed to within no more than three hundred yards. They also positioned themselves at difficult angles to the Fortitude’s guns, making it impossible for Weatherby’s ship to get off a meaningful shot without tacking first. Given the Xan ships’ speed—they easily closed several miles in but a few minutes—it was unlikely those shots would ever be fired.

  “Attention, HMS Daedalus,” came a melodious voice that se
emed to emanate from nowhere yet permeated the Void around them, filling the air and their ears with a fusillade of sound with angry, martial harmonics, as if a German opera company had suddenly declared war. “You will stop your preparations to fire at once.”

  “Damn!” Barnes hissed. “How could they tell? Sir, shall I . . . ?”

  The first lieutenant was truly taken aback to see his captain smiling. “Do as they say,” Weatherby said. “And reassure the men. We are quite safe here.”

  Once again confused, though more trusting this time, Barnes quickly hurried off to pass the word, leaving Weatherby smiling at Anne, who smiled back in turn. “This isn’t the Daedalus,” she said simply.

  “Which means they know I’m aboard, and possibly you as well, and they are likely well-disposed toward us,” Weatherby said. The captain took up the ship’s speaking horn and directed it at the nearest Xan ship. It seemed a futile gesture, but Weatherby knew they would hear, somehow. “Our most sincere apologies to our most gracious hosts,” he shouted. “We are HMS Fortitude, and we seek an audience with the British ambassador to discuss matters of a most urgent nature.”

  A few moments later, the reply came back, with the belligerence replaced by a certain warmth of tone. The words, however, were not as welcoming. “Prepare to be boarded.”

  Weatherby and Anne exchanged a look; neither had expected this. Indeed, they would likely be the first people to see a Xan enter or exit one of their vessels. And there was no record of any Xan stepping aboard an Earth vessel—not even the ambassadors sent to Earth, for no one knew how they traveled there. Weatherby raised his horn again. “We shall be most delighted to receive guests,” he ventured.

  The next ten minutes saw the Fortitude’s officers prepare an honor guard along the gangplank—an unarmed one, which made the whole affair even more unusual. Combined with the sight of a large, silvery-white, metallic egg drifting to the very side of the ship and hovering there in the Void, the whole thing seemed almost comical. “I guess the egg came first,” one of the mids whispered to the bosun, causing both to chuckle softly as they waited for whatever would emerge from the Ovoid.

  The outline of a portal—one at least ten feet high—soon appeared along the smooth wall of the Xan ship, and Weatherby ordered the gangplank extended to it. The outlined portion of the hull then recessed into the egg, then slowly rose, revealing a solitary figure inside, dwarfed by the doorway.

  Weatherby gaped. “I will be damned,” he whispered.

  Slowly, a man—a human being, to be precise—emerged from the Xan ship and began slowly walking across the gangplank as the hatch behind him closed. He wore the finery of a nobleman and the star of a Knight of the Garter, which looked most incongruous given the situation. His hair was grey, and he walked with the halting, lurching gait of the older gentleman whose heart and body remained strong, even if the knees were a little weak.

  “Permission to come aboard, Captain Weatherby?” the man said.

  Weatherby’s grin could not have been wider; his best card had already been played on his behalf, it seemed. “Most assuredly granted.”

  As the bosun whistled him aboard, the English Ambassador to Saturn, Baron James Morrow, former Admiral of the Royal Navy and commander of a number of its ships—including the late Daedalus—gave his former lieutenant a bear hug. “I cannot tell you how relieved I am that it’s you here, Tom!” he said, his hands on his protégé’s shoulders. “I would’ve had a much harder time convincing anyone else of this madness!”

  Weatherby looked at him quizzically for a moment. “There’s much more to this, isn’t there.”

  “Quite so, Tom, quite so,” the ambassador said. Then he caught the sight of Anne St. Germain out of the corner of his eye, and it was Morrow’s turn to be utterly surprised. “You?”

  Anne smiled and walked over to give Morrow a hug of her own. “It is most wonderful to see you, sir,” she said.

  “Yes, quite,” Morrow replied, giving the girl a hug in return, then quickly disentangling himself. “I must ask, however, your purpose here.”

  “Because of my husband,” she said, her voice growing concerned.

  “Because of your husband,” Morrow replied simply.

  “I know not what he has done, or what he aims to do, but from all that we have learned, I must . . . question his path and his choice of friends,” Anne said, struggling for the words. “We have never troubled ourselves in the conflicts of nations, and I would be most aggrieved if he had started now.”

  Morrow studied her a moment, then nodded and turned back to Weatherby. “And you . . . oh, Hell, I’m not going to even ask you to vouch for her,” he said with a grandfatherly wink; in that moment, Weatherby was reminded of Franklin himself. “Come, then. We have much to discuss. Weatherby, make sail and follow these ships in.”

  Weatherby smiled and crossed his arms over his chest. “Excuse me, ambassador?”

  Morrow shook his head with a rueful grin. “I suggest, Captain, that we set a course to follow our escorts. We won’t be going to Mimas.”

  CHAPTER 11

  June 19, 2134

  Not very subtle, are you, Maria?” Harry quipped. He leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly, which made Diaz want to reach out and choke him. It also worried her that the presence of four government operatives didn’t seem to faze him a bit.

  “And you are?” she retorted, doing her best to be casual as she slid into the chair across from him. “Seriously, what’s up with the mastermind thing? Did we reach the boss level in the hologame?”

  Harry looked puzzled at this. “Maria, what the hell are you talking about? You’re the ones coming in under false pretenses.”

  Before she could reply, Greene tapped her arm briefly, showing her a datapad; their sensors and communications were entirely blocked, with an exceedingly complex quantum encryption password needed to operate anything in the room. “Mr. Yu, you do realize that the circumstances that brought us here, and the complete electronics blackout you’ve imposed, are major question marks.”

  “Dr. Greene. I’ve missed you on HV. Loved your holoshow,” Harry said. “What circumstances are these?”

  Greene looked to Maria briefly, who nodded that he should go on. “An unusual degree of Cherenkov radiation was detected from this site,” he said. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what that might imply.”

  Harry nodded, his smile dwindling. “I was on Mars. I know what that means. There were only a few of us left on base when everything went down.”

  “So what’cha doing now, Harry?” Diaz said. “Trying to break through and say hi to the guys on the other side?”

  “Using a fusion power plant?” Harry retorted. “If that were the case, there’d be a couple hundred portals to alternate dimensions all over the world. We’d be crawling with English Navy guys. Or sentient kittens. Whatever.”

  Diaz smirked. She almost missed sparring with Harry. It reminded her of a much simpler time, when all she had to manage was a tiny, backwater mining op on Mars. “Here’s the thing, Harry. Your new conglom is listed as one of the backers of the Tienlong,” she said.

  Harry poured himself a cup of coffee from a thermos on the conference table, offering some to his guests with a look; there were no takers. “Yeah, Total-Suez is backing the Chinese on this one. You here to tell me JSC would’ve been better? We lost the bid to ExEn.”

  “Tienlong wasn’t supposed to go to Saturn,” Greene said. “They were registered as a Jovian survey.”

  Harry shrugged. “You ever work with the PRC, Doctor? They change the deal-terms all the time. If they didn’t have a massive space op and serious cash, they’d be impossible to work with. We were only told after launch. Totally worth it though.”

  “Dammit, Harry, they nearly damn well ran Armstrong right into Saturn,” Diaz growled, leaning in toward him. “Jain’s on that flight. Durand, too.”

  “Due respect for your kids there, Maria, but that’s not my problem,” Harry said, meeting her
gaze steadily. “We got our corporate specialist on board, and he’s gonna survey and claim whatever he feels is appropriate, wherever the Chinese take him. You got a problem with the way Tienlong is behaving, you take it up with Beijing.”

  “There’s also the matter of Teotihuacan,” Coogan added.

  Harry turned to glare at the young man. “Teo-ti-what? Who are you, anyway?”

  “Some of your conglom’s gear was found at an Aztec ruin outside Mexico City, Harry,” Diaz said. “It was channeling ambient Cherenkov radiation.”

  “Why would someone do that?” Harry asked. His face was the picture of annoyed innocence.

  “Maybe to distract us, maybe to reach out to the folks on the other side.”

  Shaking his head, Harry stood up and began to pace the room. He always had a nervous energy to him, enough to make it tough to tell when he was being evasive or when he was just being himself. “So because it’s my conglom’s gear, you think I’m behind it. Same with the Chinese ship, because I can freakin’ control Beijing’s space ops from my office here.”

  Diaz shrugged, but inwardly groaned. Laid out like that, it did seem somewhat circumstantial. “Harry, you know what happened on Mars. We have to be sure there are defenses in place before we try to replicate it.”

  “Don’t have to convince me, Maria. That was scary shit,” Harry said, softening for a moment. “But right now, all I got are four people who, I assume, aren’t with the IAEA. Which means you’ve fried the Corporate Protection Act seven ways to Sunday. So what do we do about it?”

  “You convince me that you’re clean on all this, and help me figure out why your gear is out there at a site like Teotihuacan,” Diaz said firmly. “You do that, I’m officially off your case.”