Embers of War

by Gareth L. Powell

  There are two groups. As its words appeared in my mind, the bear’s claws slid in and out of their sheaths. One group is armed. I know them from your thoughts. They are the mercenaries who attacked and murdered your companion.

  “And the others?”

  They are new to me.

  Desperate hope overcame fear. I took a pace toward the creature. “Do you know who they are?”

  I have not encountered them before. They are newly arrived. I am bringing them here at a far higher speed than I brought you.

  “Newly arrived?” I felt my heart trip like a hammer in the foundry of my chest. Were these my rescuers, responding to a distress call from the ’dam, or new antagonists to be avoided or fought?

  There are currently three ships in orbit, the bear said. There was a fourth, but it has been destroyed.

  “They’re fighting?”

  There has been a dispute. A paw raked the stone floor with a skittering sound that set my teeth on edge. The ship responsible for the attack on your liner has been destroyed.

  “And the others?” I hardly dared breathe. I wanted to grab fistfuls of fur and shake the beast. “Show me!”

  The animal snarled. For an instant, I thought it was going to swipe me with one of its paws. Then the dome shimmered overhead and stars appeared. I saw two Carnivores and a Scimitar. Targeting lasers flickered between them in the darkness.

  I hadn’t seen a Scimitar since fleeing the bridge of the Righteous Fury in the immediate aftermath of Pelapatarn, but I knew no two were alike. Battle damage, piecemeal replacements and sporadic upgrades lent each of the large ships a subtly different aspect. And, unless I was very much mistaken, the battlewagon sitting out there was my old flagship. It had undergone a refit and some of the external equipment had been upgraded, but I recognised the dorsal scanning array, which was an older model no longer used on ships of the line, and the scars that had been gouged into her port bow by the glancing impact of a suicidal Outward corvette. Seeing her again now, my pulse quickened further. I knew I had friends aboard that ship, officers and ratings who had willingly colluded in my disappearance, preferring to spirit me away into anonymity than have the ship’s good name sullied by a public war crimes trial.

  The vessels are engaged in a three-way confrontation. The creature beside me growled. And I detect further ships approaching from interstellar space.

  “Show me.”

  The view zoomed out until other stars swam into view, and new ships appeared, all on inbound approach vectors. Unfamiliar symbols appeared beside each of them, doubtlessly counting down distance or time until arrival in whatever notation this bear’s race used to indicate numbers. I rubbed my upper arms, trying to warm up. My breath came in cloudy wisps.

  “What did you expect?” I jerked my head at the rocky walls surrounding us. “This is a disputed system. At least half a dozen races claim it as part of their territory. And now a couple of ships have been destroyed? That’s going to attract attention.”

  The bear reared up. The fur on its belly looked soft, but the muscles beneath its skin were as hard as iron.

  We cannot tolerate violence.

  “I don’t see how you can stop it.” I moved my weight from one hip to the other. “You’ve been in my head. You’ve seen what we’re like. You dangle a bauble like this system in front of us and we’re going to fight over it.”

  No. The creature drew in on itself, muscles coiling like curls of steel hawser. We cannot have fighting here. Violence attracts the enemy.

  I gave a snort, as if disagreeing over strategy with one of my captains. Without realising it, my stance had dropped to parade rest: feet thirty centimetres apart, hands clasped behind my back.

  “It’s a bit late for that,” I said firmly. I indicated the approaching vessels. “As soon as that lot arrive, you’re going to have a full-scale shooting war on your hands.”

  The great shaggy head wagged from side to side.

  Unacceptable.

  I smiled, and pointed to the Righteous Fury. “Then why don’t you let me talk to them?”

  SIXTY-TWO

  SAL KONSTANZ

  I swore under my breath. Admiral Menderes was a pigheaded shit of a man, but he had us over a barrel and we were at his mercy. There was no way we could go up against a Scimitar. If he decided to attack us, he’d be in breach of the law, but that was assuming anyone ever found out. Besides, there wouldn’t be a thing we could do to stop him. Given the state the Trouble Dog was in, a single torpedo would be enough to finish us.

  The man’s face loomed out of the screen like a cliff face carved from boiled ham. “I am waiting, Captain.”

  I shook my head. “I told you, I don’t know who this Ona Sudak person is.”

  “She was a passenger on the Geest van Amsterdam, the ship you came here to assist.”

  “And thanks to your Carnivores, I haven’t been able to get near it.”

  For a second, the admiral’s bluster seemed to falter. “They were unaware she was aboard.”

  “When they shot it down?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if they had been aware, would they have spared the ship?” Hundreds of people had died in that wreck. I could feel my anger bubbling just beneath the surface, and made an effort to hold it in check.

  Admiral Menderes narrowed his eyes. “That’s hardly your concern.”

  “I disagree.”

  “How unfortunate for you.” He made a steeple of his sausage-like fingers, the tips touching his double chin. “Now, I will ask a third and final time: have you or your landing party found any trace of the individual known as Ona Sudak?”

  I shook my head.

  The admiral’s scowl intensified. “Or my son?”

  “He’s down on the surface.” I knew that much, at least. “And he was alive the last time we had any contact with his party. Back before the Fenrir bombed our shuttle.” I sat forward in my chair, wanting to scream at this asshole but keeping my voice as tight and professional as possible under the circumstances.

  “Now,” I said, “can I please remind you that you are illegally detaining a Reclamation Vessel, and we will be filing a report the moment you stop blocking our hypervoid transmissions?”

  “Report what you like, Captain. All I’m interested in is finding my son.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t hold back the sarcasm. “Because from what Preston’s told me, you’re hardly a candidate for father of the year.”

  He looked at me as if I was something he’d trodden in. “I beg your pardon?”

  I’d hit a tender spot and we both knew it. I should have stopped there, but I was too angry. “As soon as he failed to live up to your standards, you dumped him with us,” I said. “You washed your hands of him.”

  “Really?” The man sat back, away from the camera. His eyes hardened, and his voice became low and vicious as he said, “And what would you know of it, Captain? When I realised the boy wasn’t suited to life in the Fleet, I enrolled him with the House to toughen him up. I gave him the chance to lead a good life, a useful life. And maybe one day, to captain a ship of his own.” By the time he’d finished speaking, his top lip had peeled so far back I could see the gums above his teeth.

  “Now,” he growled, “I don’t care who you are or who you represent. You sit there and stay quiet until I say otherwise.” He took a long breath, reining in his rage and packing it down beneath layers of icy calm. “And if you try to manoeuvre, I’ll blow you out of the sky.”

  The screen went dead. I tipped my face to the ceiling and let fly a stream of profanity that would have stopped Alva Clay in her tracks. When the verbal cascade had run dry, I noticed Laura staring at me. I jerked my thumb at the black mirror of the blank screen.

  “I’m sorry, he’s just…” I didn’t need to complete the sentence.

  “Yes.” A smile broke through the lines of fatigue on her face. “He certainly is.”

  I slumped back in my chair and exhaled. “I wish I’d put Preston
ashore when I had the chance.”

  She laughed. “Would that have helped the situation, do you think?”

  “No, but it would have given me a little satisfaction.” I tapped my fingers against my chin. “Do you think you could reason with him?” I asked.

  Laura stopped smiling. “No.” She brushed imaginary dust from the surface of her console. “And you’re probably better off not mentioning me at all. If he finds out who I am, it’ll give him all the excuse he needs to board this ship.”

  “He wouldn’t dare.”

  “To capture an agent of Outward Intelligence?” She raised her eyebrows. “You bet your life he would.”

  I sat back and squeezed my fist in the palm of my other hand. “There must be something we can do to get away from him. Do you know of any weaknesses the Scimitar has that we can exploit?”

  She shook her head. “Not at this range. Even if you pushed the engines to their theoretical maximum, his torpedoes would catch you before you were going fast enough for a hypervoid jump.”

  “So, we’re stuck?”

  “Unless you can think of anything?” She looked hopeful.

  I gave a frustrated sigh. “I was a medical frigate’s commander. Battle tactics were never a big part of my role.”

  To tell the truth, I felt a little punch drunk. Up until today, I’d managed to avoid front line combat. I’d only participated in a handful of defensive actions against minor craft. And now here I was, commanding a ship that had already downed one military vessel and was currently squaring up to two more. I had joined the House of Reclamation to get away from the aftermath of the last war, only to find myself now sitting at the flashpoint of the next. On my shoulders, I could feel the weight of a thousand unwritten histories. Floating here in the sights of the Conglomeration Navy, with the representatives of several other navies bearing down on us from the hypervoid, I knew with almost unbearable clarity that my next actions—if poorly chosen—had the potential to trigger an interspecies conflict that would make the horrors of the Archipelago War seem like a bar brawl in comparison.

  And yet I knew I had to do something. The Carnivores had been keen to silence all the witnesses on the liner, and I had little doubt we’d share the same fate. I ground my knuckles into the cradle of my other hand. I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which he’d allow us to report what had transpired here. As soon as he’d ascertained we were telling the truth about the whereabouts of Sudak and his son, we’d be done for.

  The Trouble Dog’s avatar reappeared onscreen. “I’m receiving a transmission from the Brain,” she informed me.

  “From our team?”

  “No, it’s a general broadcast from somebody who identifies themselves as Ona Sudak, a Conglomeration citizen.”

  “Put it on the monitor.”

  “Aye aye.”

  The screen cleared to reveal a middle-aged woman with closely cropped white hair. She was wearing a survival suit. Her cheeks looked hollow and her eyes were ringed with exhaustion.

  “—so far unharmed,” she was saying.

  “The Righteous Fury’s responding,” the Trouble Dog said.

  “Can we listen in?”

  “Sure.”

  There was a sharp hiss of static, and then I heard Menderes saying, “All I can do is apologise, ma’am. The Fenrir had no idea you were aboard the vessel. As soon as I heard, I came here with all speed. I couldn’t risk a transmission, so I am glad I am not too late.”

  “Thank you, Jacob.” Sudak’s face registered sadness and relief. I could only begin to guess what she’d endured in the week since her liner crashed. The thing that surprised me most, however, was the way Menderes seemed to be acting with uncharacteristic deference. I glanced questioningly at Laura but she frowned back, equally puzzled.

  Who was this woman?

  I watched her wipe the back of her hand across her forehead, leaving a dirty smudge. “I’m sending you my coordinates,” she said. “Come and get me.”

  “I’ll have a team with you as soon as we can prep the shuttle,” Menderes said. “Is my son with you?”

  Sudak looked puzzled.

  “Preston?” She shook her head. “No, I haven’t seen him. But there are others here in the tunnels. He could be with them.”

  SIXTY-THREE

  ONA SUDAK

  Enough!

  The bear towered over me.

  You are simply pleading for your own deliverance.

  I looked up at it, annoyed by the interruption. “Those are my shipmates up there on the big ship. If I can get on board, perhaps I can convince them to back off.”

  The creature’s snout lowered to within centimetres of my face. Its jaws were wide enough to accommodate my entire head. Its breath smelled like a butcher’s shop on a hot afternoon.

  You have no interest in preventing conflict. You simply wish to escape.

  “Can you blame me?”

  Given your history, no.

  It shambled back a couple of steps and looked quizzically at the ships displayed on the dome overhead. But you claim some humans are less warlike than you?

  I shrugged. “Yes.”

  Doubtful.

  I felt myself bristle. I had made a life in the military, and played a key role in a number of police actions and border disputes before the war. Everything I’d done, every shot I’d fired and every life I’d taken, had been in defence of the men, women and children of the Conglomeration. I had patrolled and threatened and fought so they could enjoy lives of peaceful security, so they could meet and fall in love, get jobs and raise offspring without having to worry about the dangers of the wider universe.

  “What about the others?” I demanded.

  Which others?

  “You said there were other groups here, in the structure.”

  One of those groups is armed.

  “So, forget them. What about the other group? Are they survivors like me?”

  I do not know.

  “Can you scan them?”

  I will try.

  “And how about the ships in orbit?”

  They are warships.

  “Not all of them. Look.” I pointed to one of the Carnivores. “Look at that symbol on its hull. It isn’t a warship any more. It’s something different now.”

  Different?

  “Can you scan it?”

  I can only make contact with organic minds.

  “The ships have minds grown from cultured stem cells.”

  The creature let out a snort that may have been surprise, amusement or disgust, I couldn’t tell which.

  In that case, it may be possible. I…

  It paused for a moment, seemingly distracted. It tipped its head to one side, and then rose on its hind legs, stretching its face towards the projection for a better look.

  That symbol.

  “The yellow star?”

  I know it.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s a ship from the House of Reclamation.”

  No, the symbol is older. It belongs to the Communal Grouping of Individual Hearths into One, Dedicated to the Preservation and Recovery of Stricken Itinerants.

  The name sparked a memory dredged up from a summer’s afternoon at high school, thirty years previously. It came bundled with the smell of sun-bleached concrete, the feel of a hot and uncomfortable blazer, and the frustration of time spent hunched over a screen when I would rather have been outside, running and playing in the dust and hot grass.

  “The Hearthers?” I struggled to recall the content of that long-ago lesson. “They all disappeared a few thousand years ago, didn’t they?”

  The bear looked down at me in a manner I imagined to be almost sorrowful.

  No, it said. They are not vanished. They are not gone.

  It dropped onto all fours and dipped its muzzle.

  They are us.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  NOD

  Pulled out broken air filter and replaced.

  Pulled myself through duct with four faces, draggin
g tools with fifth and sixth.

  Imagined crawling through branches and knots of World Tree. Smell of Druff on wind. Damaged branches to fix. Parasites to harvest. Old leaves to prune. New growth to feed and nurture.

  Felt sick for home. Then moved on.

  Battle damage critical in places.

  Hound of Difficulty like large wounded creature. Not showing pain or weakness to the world, but dying inside unless fixed.

  Came to end of duct and dropped into corridor.

  List of jobs as long as all six arms.

  Always more to fix.

  Always more.

  And sleep far away. No sleep for hours. Not with so much fixing left to do.

  Missed nest.

  Good nest.

  Set off walking along corridor when felt something.

  A change in the air.

  Something electrical.

  A cloud passing in front of the sun.

  And a familiar voice.

  An old, old voice.

  It spoke in my head, like the voice of an old friend.

  Like the voice of the World Tree.

  The voice of god.

  And it said,

  Hello, Nod.

  I said, “Hello, world creature.”

  World creature asked about ship. Told it Hound of Difficulty a quarrelsome, cantankerous piece of garbage.

  Told it ship honourable, despite everything.

  Told it that ship care for Nod.

  Told it Nod also care for ship, although wouldn’t admit it aloud.

  Told it Nod trust ship. Nod trust Captain Konstanz.

  Nod like humans. Humans broken and stupid but funny. Humans trustable.

  And world creature thought and thought about this.

  Then it said,

  Good.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  TROUBLE DOG

  The tower was old, the stones mossy. From the summit, I could see the forest canopy stretching away to the horizon, rising and dipping in the wind like the swell of a rough green ocean. I felt like a lighthouse keeper. The breeze hitting the side of the tower brought with it the sticky smells of pine needles and fresh sap. It ruffled my hair and tugged at the hem of my trench coat. Birds and insects hopped and skittered among the branches. The cries and hoots of unseen animals echoed up from the forest floor.