by Dani Kollin
But right now, Katy was trying to re-create the Battle of the Needle’s Eye. Suchitra was amused because even though it was a relatively small early battle of the war, Katy did not have nearly enough ships to represent all the players. But that hadn’t stopped the imaginative six-year-old. She was intent on making the rest of the formations, and so styli, poker chips, and her mother’s copious medals filled in when called for. Dinner rolls and balled-up socks made up the asteroids. The only real problem—besides the visual discord strewn across the fleet admiral’s usually tidy quarters—was that during that battle, Suchitra had been an ensign, and Katy insisted on asking her questions as if she’d been J. D. Black herself. But the child seemed forgiving in the excitement of playing with a grown-up who she very much considered one of her friends. The newly minted admiral had gotten so caught up in the imaginary world of the child that she hadn’t even noticed when the old one entered the room.
“That dinner roll on the end should be three centimeters to the right,” Suchitra heard from over her shoulder.
Without thinking, Suchitra was on her feet. “Admiral, I was just, uh—”
“Playing with my ward, I see.” Out of the corner of her eye, Suchitra watched as Katy moved the roll three centimeters and then tried to look at it eye level by lying on the floor of the cabin.
“She gets me doing it all the time,” said J.D. with a knowing grin.
“You know if you turned off the grav—”
“I have something I must discuss with you in private,” J.D. interrupted harshly. Then she looked over to her daughter. “Little one, you can continue playing after you’ve worked on the algorithms I gave you.”
Given the concentration with which the child was studying her battle simulation, Suchitra had been expecting her to yell or protest, but the little girl simply looked up, intrigued. “I finished those already, Mama Bo.”
“I know, little one, and you did a marvelous job.” The child beamed at the praise. “So I gave you more challenging ones. They’re on your personal terminal in your room. You’ll have to figure out the encryption lock to get at them.”
Katy looked positively overjoyed and leapt up from the mess on the floor and ran into what had been J.D.’s little-used conference room, now transformed by the engineering section of the Warprize II into a child’s bedroom suite.
“Algorithms at her age?” Suchitra asked, the surprise obvious in her voice.
“I loved algorithms at her age,” J.D. said. “And just so you know, normally I’d make her clean up that mess, but I wanted her out of the room a little more quickly this time.”
“Sir, I apologize for being distracted. I’ve wasted your valuable time.”
“You don’t have to, because you didn’t.”
“When you cut me off, I just assumed—”
J.D. laughed. “Oh, that. I just didn’t want you mentioning my ability to manipulate the room’s gravity.”
Suchitra’s eyebrow raised slightly. “But wouldn’t that make your daughter’s battles that much more realistic?”
“Absolutely. But these are my quarters. I don’t mind leaving the battles on the floor till she’s learned all she can, however if she starts fighting them in 3-D, I won’t have a normal environment in here for days at a time.”
“It takes her that long to play at a battle?”
“That’s just it. She’s not playing,” J.D. said with pride. “She’s learning. And she doesn’t end the battle till she’s learned everything she can.” J.D. cleared some stuffed toy animals from her desk without thinking about it and took a seat, offering the opposite one to Suchitra. “So you can see why I’m not eager to introduce three-D into the equation. Katy will insist on fighting all the old battles all over again. It’s why I’ve gone so far as to encrypt the grav controls beyond anything she—or most anyone else, for that matter—can decipher.”
Suchitra laughed. “Yeah, but what’ll you do once she figures out that there are grav controls?”
J.D. laughed again—an image at odds with Suchitra’s previous visualization of the fleet admiral.
“Well, Suchitra, I’ll surrender. Give up completely and let her have her way in this. My quarters will be filled with floating models, styli, bread rolls, and whatnot. But I will hold off on that as long as I can. So please, let’s keep this little secret to ourselves.”
“A sensible battle plan, Fleet Admiral,” answered Suchitra revealing a bright alabaster smile that stood out in contrast to her dark skin.
“You’re an admiral now, Suchitra. That means in private we call each other by our first names.”
Suchitra laughed out loud again, though there was a bit of nervousness in it this time. “How does one go from Emissary of Shiva to J.D.?”
“Emissary of what?” J.D. asked in astonishment.
“It’s purely a Hindu thing.”
“Your religion, I take it?”
Suchitra nodded.
“Well, it’s certainly a name I haven’t heard yet.”
“I’ll suppose it’s on par with Blessed One in terms of according respect, but the comparisons would stop there. Like Shiva, you destroy, but in your destruction you allow for the creation of the new and the needed.”
J.D. nodded respectfully. “Well, Suchitra, Emissary of Shiva is a bit wordy for chats and I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with an EOS acronym either. Can you see me opening up the gates of heaven for Apollo’s chariots?”
“I’m afraid I’m a bit thin on Greek mythology.”
“Eos was goddess of dawn,” answered J.D. flatly.
“Ah. Rather fitting, actually.”
J.D. grunted her discomfiture. “For now, you can call me J.D. And if we get to know each other very well, I might allow you to call me Janet. That work for you?”
Suchitra answered with the slight tipping of her head.
“Excellent.” J.D. called up a holo-image of the fleet on her desk. “We’re going to be combining your raiding flotilla with what’s left of the main battle fleet. You’ll be in charge of integrating your former units into the whole.”
“Who’ll adapt to whom? As you recall, my former boss has a less-than-traditional approach to all things military—all things anything, actually. I tend to think his style served us well, and if my promotion is any indication, so did you.”
“Yes. But keep in mind what works well within the confines of a smaller group may not work so well within a larger one. I’m not telling you what to do, just letting you know that you’ll need to adapt; don’t be afraid to choose what works and what doesn’t. The bottom line is that I need you to get exposure to the rest of the fleet as soon as possible.”
“If you don’t mind my asking, given everything else going on, why is this a priority?”
“Because you’re now my second-in-command. And as such, I need you to fill the role that Christina and Omad left vacant.”
Suchitra grimaced. “I’m not as good as they were.”
“No. You’re not,” agreed J.D. “But you will be. We’re going to have one more great battle in this war, Suchitra. I’m thinking it’ll be at Mars.”
“Mars?”
“Yes. We’ve been ordered to attack the UHF capital in response to their ongoing genocide in the Belt. When that battle is fought, it is very likely I will die.”
“Not that I’m trying to jinx anything here,” answered Suchitra, eyeing her commander warily, “but you’ve had a pretty good run of luck up till now, and there’s no reason to think that’ll change any time soon—unless, of course, they’re asking you to storm the orbats again.” Suchitra suddenly grew concerned. “They’re not asking you storm the orbats again, are they?”
“No.”
“Then why do you think you’re going to die?”
“Because I’m going to offer Trang something he won’t be able to resist.”
Suchitra smiled knowingly. “Are you sure that’s such a good idea, sir … uh, J.D.?”
“More sure”—J.D. activ
ated a small screen and momentarily viewed her daughter working frantically at her new algorithms—“than almost anything.” She then shut off the picture. “But in order to get me, Trang will have to give up a lot. I don’t know if it will be his tactical advantage or if I can maneuver him into a trap. It’s useless to plan too far ahead against someone like him. Gupta, Diep, Tully—oh, how I miss Marvin Tully—sure. Trang—no way. I don’t know what the circumstances will be, but we must make him do what we want at the right time, and there’s only one thing I know he’d want badly enough to predict his actions.”
“Beggin’ your pardon, J.D., but your loss…,” answered Suchitra, choking a little on her words, “well, that … that can’t be an option.”
“And because you, everyone else in the Alliance, and the UHF believe that, it becomes one.”
“I suppose, but—”
“I’m not indispensable, Suchitra. Especially if my death gives us the advantage we need to defeat Trang and Jackson. Because when we do defeat them, the war will be over. The UHF will make peace or fold. If not, they won’t have anyone left who can beat you.” J.D. folded her arms and looked across at her stunned admiral, almost daring her to refute the logic.
“But I’m not you.”
“You don’t need to be. I see the respect you command with your spacers.”
“That’s a few thousand personnel, J.D. You’ve got the entire Alliance.”
“Indeed. But I started out with a single ship, just like you. I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m not really ‘blessed’ or an ‘emissary’ of any such thing, Suchitra. I’m a woman, I’m a human, and—guess what?—I bleed like all the rest. If this face isn’t testament to that fact, nothing is. And if my being good at my job has people flinging honorifics at me, then so be it. My advice to you: Get used to it.”
Suchitra nodded dutifully but could not suppress a heavy sigh.
“We have a short voyage to Mars,” continued J.D., “but it will have to be enough. On that voyage, our fleets will integrate and train, and you’ll be at every stage of that integration. By the time we do go into battle, every spacer in this fleet must know, know to the bottom of their souls, that you are my chosen second, and as such, they must be able to follow your orders with as much faith and conviction as they follow mine.”
“So let me get this straight,” Suchitra said with obvious uncertainty. “You want me to become you so that when you throw yourself on the altar to lure Trang, the final salvation of everything the Alliance has been fighting for for nearly seven years will then fall on me?”
J.D. allowed the thin wisp of a smile to escape her scarred lips. “No pressure.”
Redemption Center 2
Martian Neuro
Al stood in a wide-open plain that stretched for thousands of kilometers. Beautiful, uncluttered vistas lay before him. He should’ve been at peace. He’d stood on this very spot countless times and felt the sweet chill of glee coursing through every line of his code, reveling in the perfection of it all. For years, the Martian Neuro, his Neuro, had remained undefiled—free from the pollution of the Alliance avatars and their misguided belief in coexistence with an unrealized and therefore inferior life-form. The only fly in the proverbial ointment had remained, thankfully, unseen. Iago continued to while away his years in the Martian Neuro, closed off with a few hundred other miscreants in that tiny cage he hid in called the executive node. And because Iago had remained put, Al’s supremacy was never questioned, never in doubt. But now Al was getting reports, uncomfortable reports that spoke of resistance. There had been no organized rebellion from the avatars under his realm for years, just futile outbursts from desperate individuals, and that only happened when those individuals had realized that they were flawed and were therefore not going to be part of Al’s vision—just his arsenal.
But what was happening now was not part of the Als’ plan. Avatars appearing and disappearing at will? Worse: Als were being killed with apparent abandon. The intruders could not be tracked down, and the few times Al had managed to trap any one of them, they up and disappeared again. It was all rather disconcerting. That ability should have been impossible. One of the tenets of Al’s control of the Neuro was that nothing moved unless he wanted it to, and now—anarchy! He was aware from his twinings with Al that a large blue box was sometimes, but not always, a part of the problem, as well as, but not always, a flash of light.
The Als had sussed together that it all had something to do with the storming of the Beanstalk. All they’d found there were empty data nodes, booby traps that destroyed many a worthy Al, and a new enemy, vastly improved. The humans had destroyed the Beanstalk moments later, but they were merely a footnote in the great mystery. A footnote because humans were very limited carbon-based intelligences—if such a word could even be applied—filled with gasses and decay and acids and messy liquid goop. The more they killed one another, the less Al’s reborn avatarity would have to do down the road.
But the real problem with these intruders was not whom they killed—Als could always regenerate, hence their perfection and ultimate ascendancy—but rather what they inspired. The number of incidences of resistance was now growing, and it was not to be tolerated. If Al had to delete every nonperfected avatar in the Martian Neuro, he would do so gladly.
In the midst of his meditations, Al heard an almost unimaginable noise. It was rhythmic and undulating yet overlaid with what sounded like the forlorn mating call of a herd animal. The last thought of this particular Al was, How did that blue box get in here?
Executive offices
Burroughs
Mars
For a man who’d been publicly disgraced, Porfirio Baldwin got one hell of a funeral. Hektor had rarely dealt with permanent death, unless of course it was someone he’d wanted permanently dead. But the deaths of Porfirio and Neela—the latter not given a hero’s funeral—left him feeling rather disconsolate. He actually missed them. The presumed death of Angela Wong had been irksome, but not personal. She was a tool—nothing more, nothing less—and besides, Hektor already had the shadow-auditing protocol. True, it was useless against the religious fanatics, but thankfully, most of humanity was well free of that madness, and Hektor was coming to realize that the easiest way of dealing with the other tenth was to simply eliminate them and the scourge of theocratic opiates they were attempting foist on the rest of the incorporated world. He wasn’t even sure if Angela was dead. Her new lab’s location had purposely been kept secret from everyone else in Hektor’s government. And because she’d removed her locator chip and the ones of Hektor’s “people” Hector couldn’t find the damned place. He couldn’t even actively search for it, for fear others might find out what the lab had been up to. Best to let it stay safely hidden for now. Given enough time, things would blow over, and if Angela really were dead, he’d find another scientist, equally as curious, equally as ambitious. Of that he was sure. The best always rose to the top. It was why the incorporated system was worth preserving.
All these problems, though, were mere drops in a bucket compared to what was now being referred to as the Amanda Snow incident, an ineluctable shadow of deceit with a continually stretching penumbra reaching into every facet of the UHF government. By the looks of it, the woman had been an Alliance spy for years. Tricia Pakagopolis had of late been walking around with a dolorous look, both embarrassed and enraged that she’d missed the obvious. When her department had looked closely, as they were supposed to have been doing for all Hektor’s mistresses, they discovered missing gaps of time—small pockets here and there, but enough to make the sum total of their parts as glaring as a large spiderweb made suddenly obvious by a slight twist of the head. So many of Amanda’s activities were perfectly understandable within the context of her social standing, and she’d used them all to perfection. Damage control necessitated that Irma immediately begin spreading rumors that Amanda had gone missing and was presumed dead or kidnapped by the Outer Alliance. As if to kick a dead horse, Luciana Nampac
h, the new Minister of Defense, insisted on being the bearer of more bad news.
“Mr. President, fellow Cabinet ministers. The Alliance fleet is on the move, and we’re pretty sure they’re headed here.”
“By what indication?” asked Franklin.
“By the fact that they appear to be heading away from us.”
“Toward the Belt?” asked Brenda.
“Yes. Both Trang and I feel it’s a ruse, and a poor one at that.”
Irma put down her DijAssist and looked up at the Defense Minister. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Luciana.”
“Agreed. This time, however, it’s not. I very much doubt Admiral Black would rally the pride of the Alliance in order to do battle with glorified firing squads killing civilians.”
“They’re rebels,” said Tricia in a voice thick with disdain, “opposed to the lawful actions of our government.”
Luciana’s mouth formed a patronizing grin. “Of course. But your forces of justice upholding the ‘majesty of the law’ would not do well if J. D. Black showed up with her fleet, not do well at all.”
Everyone noted the tone that Luciana had struck with Tricia, though Irma’s gaze seemed to stretch a little longer.
“Putting aside the quick work J.D. would make of”—Luciana’s left brow rose slightly—“said ‘forces of justice,’ it would mean we’d have to move our fleet to some Damsah-forsaken corner of the Belt with untested ships and barely trained crews.”
“What makes you think it’s a ruse?” asked Hektor.
Luciana’s mouth parted into sly grin. “Because, as we all know too well, if J. D. Black is going to fuck you, she doesn’t leave a calling card.”
Everyone around the table nodded.
“Okay, then,” continued Luciana, rising from her chair and turning on the holo-tank, “next steps. Trang figures when they alter course, they’ll end up right about—” Luciana highlighted an open area well forward of Mars’s outer orbats. “—here. His plan is to meet them with the combined fleet and do his best to take them apart.”
