Starclash (Stealing the Sun Book 4)

by Ron Collins

  “It is our policy not to discuss possible actions so as to protect our brave fighting citizens.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Sidney, Australia

  Local Date: February 6, 2215

  Local Time: 2230

  Torrance Black sat under a cloudless nighttime sky on the balcony of his hotel suite, thinking about the events of the day and the news about the successful defense of Miranda Station. From this height, the lights of the coastline created an artificial rim ringing the pitch-black of the water. The lights of boats and ships moved with artificial grace out in the ocean’s currents, which seemed an appropriate metaphor for the past three days. They all seemed to be heading somewhere specific, and all seemed to move with a practiced smoothness, but Torrance knew that everything would be different if he was standing on the deck of any of those ships.

  Ambassador Reyes sat across the table.

  The breeze was warm and carried the scent of the water.

  Remnants of their room service dinner were littered across the table. Reyes gave a liberal pour of a third glass of wine. Torrance cracked what would be his last beer of the evening.

  He was dead tired.

  Reyes looked tired, too, the lines of his face creating shadowed crevasses in the angled lighting of the balcony. But while the ambassador appeared to be basking in the fatigue of achievement—which Torrance thought was probably fair seeing as Reyes had managed to get his extra manufacturing line approved in the chaos of the other votes—Torrance merely felt anxious.

  “I don’t think this is working,” Torrance said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

  Reyes sipped his wine and gave a smile that spoke of gentle satisfaction. “Tell me more.”

  “I don’t see how I’m helping.”

  “You’re helping by learning how things work—which is what a good engineer does, right? Learns how things work?”

  “Sure, but…” Torrance hesitated. Looked out into the darkness, and sipped his own drink. The beer was sharp and bit into the back of his throat as he swallowed. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re asking yourself what you can accomplish here, is that it?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re thinking that in the old days you had a problem and if you twisted the right screwdriver or flipped the right bit, that problem would go away.”

  “That’s a seriously simple way to look at it.”

  “Is it?”

  “Keeping a shipboard system running is a lot more complicated than turning a screwdriver and flipping a switch.”

  “Kind of like getting your way in a debate?”

  Torrance laughed, then drank again. He had been starving before they ate, and the sensation of being full was catching up to him. “What’s your point?”

  “At the end of the day, Torrance, working with people is not really much different from working with a piece of technology. And, in truth, it’s probably even more simple.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “People don’t have equations.”

  “Now that is actually what is not true. People are among the most predictable systems in the universe. You just have to study them awhile, and be okay with classifying them in ways that make sense.”

  Torrance rolled his eyes.

  “I’m serious.” He put his wineglass down. “I find that the people who have the most problems dealing with other people are the ones who are afraid to make judgments. They don’t want to think badly of another person, so they try to figure out why that person is behaving in ways they don’t understand.”

  “I don’t think the problem is that I’m not judgmental.”

  “Sure it is.”

  Torrance chuckled. “Tell that to my ex-wife.”

  “Universe Three is doing exactly what the United Government would do if the positions were reversed, for example,” Reyes continued. “And the UG is doing exactly what U3 would be doing. The methods and reactions are the same because we are all human beings.”

  “You’re saying war is inevitable. That we have to just sit back and watch it happen?”

  “Not inevitable, but likely. The history of humankind is really told in its wars, right?” Torrance grunted a reply, so Reyes went on. “In fact, I posit that you can tell a lot about how people work by studying the actual causes of war.”

  Torrance examined the ambassador.

  The man was relaxed now, comfortable for the first time since they had arrived.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “What are you really worried about?” Reyes said.

  “I don’t know if I can make a difference anymore.”

  Torrance stopped himself there. This was the first time he had said that. “The world is too big. Things move on their own, and there’s no way we can stop them.”

  Reyes picked up the plate that held the remaining crumbs of his dessert, used a fork to press out the last bit, then ate it. He put the plate down, then sat back.

  “Every war is changed by individuals, Torrance. Every decision is made by a person and executed by a person.”

  “You’re saying we can stop this?”

  “I’m saying you can make a difference. I’m saying that to make a difference in times of conflict a person has to make decisions—judgments, some of them unpleasant—and then you have to actually do something. I’m saying you can’t make a difference when you’re sitting on the sideline. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  Torrance shook his head.

  “I was hoping you would make a difference on Europa, actually,” Reyes said, his voice suddenly quite direct.

  “Europa?”

  “I think it would be useful to have a UG ambassador in the facility that is responsible for building Magellan.”

  “You want me to work with Magellan?”

  “It would be a good way to make a difference.”

  Torrance took a breath of the ocean air and rubbed his eyes. Yes, he was tired, and yes, it seemed like war was going to happen no matter what he did. But now that Magellan was on the build slate, yes, maybe there was some kind of hope.

  “We could also arrange to have Lieutenant Harthing brought there to complete her convalescence.”

  Torrance smiled.

  “What would I have to do?”

  Reyes smiled, and sipped his wine. “Well, probably move to Europa for starters.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Atropos, Eta Cassiopeia System

  Local Date: Conejo 14, 9

  Local Time: 1515

  Deidra sat in the navigation control room with several other planners, specifically including her mentor, Katriana Martinez. She was trying to remain calm, trying to be collected and confident, as she had seen her father be in these situations—situations where there was nothing left for her to do. It was harder from the inside than it appeared on the outside.

  Her anxiety was the reason she came here. This room felt comfortable to her, more comfortable than any other place except the woods and lakebed, really. She had been involved in most aspects of U3’s management systems since she was quite young, but she had always felt that her official start came in navigation.

  As with every return jump, Icarus came onto the grid as a tiny electronic blip, followed by the projector converting it to a green symbol that hovered in low orbit around the map of the planet that served as the mission’s overall status report. Everyone in the control room saw it, including Deidra and including Katriana Martinez. This was the standard return point, a reference that Katriana had developed when she realized that a standard receiving location would force a systematic planning process—Deidra appreciated that about Katriana. She liked things to be standard.

  What wasn’t standard, though, was the timing of Icarus’s arrival. It was a full hour ahead of schedule, a timing that spoke volumes.

  The voice of Captain Keyes came over the spe
aker. “Operation Miranda Three was shut down two minutes in,” he said. “Full details to follow.”

  When the comm officer reported the rest of the news, faces grew past dark and onto morbid.

  The mission was a disaster.

  Though she could still jump, Icarus was damaged.

  Thirty-five Z-pad skimmers were gone.

  Deidra’s first reaction was to bite down a need to scream. Her heart raced, and a chill emanated from her chest to travel down her arms and legs.

  “We need to contact Vice Director Anderson,” Katriana said after absorbing what this meant. “As well as the others who have lost people.”

  A communications worker started to get a link to Anderson’s system.

  “No,” Katriana said, stopping him.

  She put her hand on Deidra’s shoulder. “A parent shouldn’t be alone when he hears of the loss of his child.”

  The hurt that still flavored Katriana’s expression hit Deidra like a wave of stale water on top of the anger that was boiling inside her. Katriana understood loss.

  They locked gazes for what seemed a half a beat too long, but with a power that gave Deidra a moment to breathe.

  Deidra nodded. “I’ll go tell him.”

  As she stood, the projection image flickered, and a red blip appeared in orbit above Atropos City.

  “Foreign presence detected,” the operator called.

  Deidra whirled to take in the image, then glanced at Katriana, who frowned and shook her head in uncertainty. Additional images appeared to separate from the central red blotch.

  “Skimmers,” Katriana finally said.

  “It’s Orion,” Deidra replied. A chill of dread came over her. If this wasn’t such a dire situation, she would be impressed at the audacity of the response. How unlike the UG to be so nimble. “Call a warning. Battle stations. Tell Keyes to launch any interceptors he’s got.”

  “The UG,” Katriana said.

  “The bastards followed us. They knew we were coming. They hit us, then they followed us back.”

  * * *

  The first explosion came less than a minute later.

  Deidra grabbed a guard’s laser rifle, and ran out to the street.

  A plant that made basic machinery went up in flames as a skimmer flashed by overhead. A second and third craft made passes at the central road that ran through the city. A marketplace was blazing, billowing clouds of black smoke rising into the afternoon sky. The air was full of UG skimmers, flying nearly unabated, dropping ordinance and laser fire down in wide swaths. The ground shook from explosions around the city. In moments, smoke rose from several places across the horizon.

  She aimed at a skimmer and pressed off a shot that missed.

  A scream came to her voice then, a long, drawn-out wail that got covered up by explosions and the whine of skimmer engines. She wanted to slice the laser through the sky, but this was a small weapon designed for close combat—its projectile was a concentrated pulse rather than a slicing beam. She shot again, and again, targeting craft that moved too fast to hit.

  She ran to the middle of a street crossing, firing into the air, hoping her laser fire was a beacon.

  It worked.

  A UG skimmer turned on its run, and approached her head-on.

  She raised the laser to her shoulder, took direct aim at the onrushing profile, and squeezed off a shot.

  Just as the skimmer opened fire on her.

  She rolled away.

  An explosion loud enough to rattle her skull came from behind her, around her, under her, through her. The ground welled up in cracked chunks that flew through the air. A wave of heat seemed to scour her skin.

  Then everything went silent.

  Deidra raised herself up, digging out of dirt and debris, fighting the pain in her elbow and the way her arm dangled at an awkward angle when she could finally stand. She looked for the rifle, but it was gone, tossed somewhere in the blast. The ground around her smoldered, and the crumbled remains of the skimmer she had shot from the sky lay scattered on a path that started nearby and seemed to go on forever.

  The sky was marred by ugly fire, but it was empty of skimmers.

  The UG had hit, then collected their craft and gotten out of the region before they could lose much.

  She gritted her teeth against the anger that welled in her chest.

  “Deidra!”

  She turned to see Katriana Martinez rushing through the rubble.

  “Thank God, you’re alive,” Katriana said as she drew near. “But, your arm!”

  When Katriana said it, Deidra’s arm began to throb. She groaned with the pain.

  “I was so stupid!” Deidra said, panting through the pain and blinking back tears that came from so much more. She fell to her knees and screamed.

  Katriana came to her side. “We’ve got to get that arm set.”

  “This is who they are,” Deidra spat. “I’ve known that. Give the UG any form of superiority, and they will always move to crush resistance. I should have known this. I should have…they killed Ellyn Parker, they killed our people across the Solar System at any chance they had. They had attacked us in our first days. They killed my father, and now they’ve killed Matt Anderson and who knows how many more?”

  Katriana put her arm around Deidra’s shoulder to pull her closer. The warmth of her body felt good.

  “They will pay for this,” Katriana said. “Right?”

  Deidra nodded, tasting sweat and dirt at the corners of her mouth.

  “Yes,” she said. “They will pay for this.”

  CHAPTER 32

  Chicago, Illinois

  Local Date: February 13, 2215

  Local Time: 0845

  “Are you available?”

  The message hung at the corner of Willim Pinot’s desk. It was from Sela Matz. Even if it hadn’t come with her label attached, he would have known it was from her due to the direct nature of its wording. Other people would have added more: Are you available to talk? or Are you available for a coffee? Or they would have taken a more indirect approach like Do you have any time today?

  But Sela Matz, as marvelously detailed as her operations could be, had never been indirect about these kinds of things.

  “Yes,” he replied.

  There was no reply. Not that there needed to be.

  Pinot cleared his projection system of his notes and the brief he had been working through. He had fifteen agents working for him now, and each filed several reports a day on subjects that ranged from the actions of known Universe Three sympathizers, to projections on the effects of Operation Yo-yo, the retaliation raid on Atropos City.

  Then he sat back, considering the situation.

  The lack of response meant Matz was coming to his office, which was a detail that mattered. There were several reasons his boss could be choosing to come to him rather than call him to her, specifically including the idea that she preferred their conversation to be free of any possible leaks that could occur if it were held in her own office. Then, of course, one would have to weigh these risks against possible leaks coming from his own office—of which he was sure there were some. One of the things he liked most about the spook game was that intelligence work was mostly about the anti-game, managing disinformation.

  You work your ass off to shut down leaks, but when you find one the first question is not about shutting it down, but instead whether you can use the source to feed the enemy information that diverted them from your real purposes.

  And then, could you use them to create even more intricate operations.

  To Willim Pinot, his job was a form of art. The webs could be beautiful in their entanglements.

  Ten minutes later, Sela Matz arrived at his office.

  “Good morning,” she said as she sat down.

  She was wearing a sharp outfit, a pressed, simple blouse of dark green over a pair of professionally creased beige pants. She wore no jewelry, but her comm button was in one ear. Her hair was, as always, in perfect
place despite her walk over.

  “Good morning,” Pinot replied. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “The supreme president has given me her appreciation for the work that went into planning Yo-yo.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “When I told her it was mostly your work, she asked me to pass them on to you personally.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Along with her request that you consider taking my position.”

  Pinot smiled, as he assumed he was supposed to.

  “I assume you’re aware that she has asked me to take a more direct advisory role in her administration.”

  “It was among possibilities I had understood,” Pinot said.

  “I gave her your name as my replacement.”

  “I’m honored.”

  Matz sat still in the chair. Her expression seemed to condense into a single focus, and she edged forward as Pinot watched her.

  “Cut the bullshit, Willim,” she said. “That kind of act is great for everyone else, but we both know you want the job and we both know that you’ve had your fingers on what was happening with me. I would have recommended you anyway, but saving Miranda and hitting back with Yo-yo was the key that unlocked the door as far as Laney was concerned.”

  “I like working with you, Sela. Thank you.”

  Matz’s relaxation was just enough to be noticeable. “Here’s the deal, Willim. I want us to always be straight. No bullshit from this point on. You take this office, you’re in charge. You take it and we rely on each other.”

  “You’ll give me a feed on Mubadid’s action?”

  “And anything else on the cabinet that seems to make sense.”

  “And I give you ops info.”

  “And intel on activists who gather too much power or make too much noise—preferably before they get to be a real problem.”

  “Of course,” Pinot said. “The government that runs best is the government that greases the skids.”

  “Exactly,” Matz replied. “Together, we can be the grease.”