by Nick Webb
Min stood up slowly, looking down at the body.
He wanted to say good work, but Callahan’s young, surprised, dead face silenced him. “Open a call to the Santa Maria. We need to tell them what happened.”
“Channel’s already open.” Min jerked his head. “I think they were broadcasting to Walker when we interrupted them.”
Larsen was at the command desk in two strides, snatching up the headset. “Larsen here.”
“Oh, thank God.” Walker’s voice was filled with relief. “You’re all right. They didn’t get your ship.”
Larsen felt something in his chest unlock. “You’re all right,” he said quietly.
“I’m fine. They didn’t even try to take the Santa Maria.” He could practically see her shaking her head. “Make sure everything is locked down and then get over here. We’ll need status reports, and then … we need a plan.” She hesitated. “You’re sure? You’re sure no shuttles left, no munitions were taken? The payload you’d just received from the Santa Maria, that’s still secure?”
“I….” Larsen called up the security feeds of the shuttle bays and the gunnery. “There’s no sign of anything out of place anywhere but the bridge—”
“You have to be sure about this, Larsen. The payload that just arrived on your ship yesterday. Is it secure?”
Bewildered, he switched one of the security camera viewscreens to look at the tiny cargo bay. Everything looked normal and undisturbed. “Looks fine down there, Admiral.”
She gave a little sigh of relief.
“We need to find out who did this,” Larsen said.
“That,” Walker said, “and to figure out why about half of my fleet is now headed to Neptune, of all the godforsaken places.”
Larsen’s shoulders slumped. “They got some ships?”
For a moment, she didn’t answer. Finally he heard, “Look out the window.”
He was afraid to. He didn’t want to see this, whatever it was, but he punched at the controls until the video feed started.
“Son of a….” Min murmured.
Larsen couldn’t find it in himself to say anything. He watched the glow of the ships’ engines. They were beautiful, those ships. When he came into battle with the formation around him, he felt they had a fighting chance against Tel’rabim.
And half of them, right now, were accelerating away from the fleet and into the black.
CHAPTER ONE
Ganymede, High Orbit
EFS Anchor
Between the creaks and pops of metal, the constant cooling and heating, and the tremors of footsteps, a ship could never be silent—but Walker realized now that without the hum of voices, a ship could seem preternaturally still, at least. Her own footsteps echoed far too loudly as she walked the halls, and she could hear every breath Larsen and Delaney took as they walked behind her.
Hammers and wrenches clanked about as crew members repaired the damage to the bridge, but otherwise, the crew of the Anchor said nothing, did nothing. Captain Morgan was in a body bag on the floor of the docking bay, along with his first officer and a new ensign.
Morgan shot on the bridge by mutineers, not three weeks after Essa had suffered the same fate at the hands of the drone, Parees.
And then there was the news that half the fleet had left. There was a limit to how quiet Walker could keep that information—all they had to do was look around to realize the ships were gone.
Half the fleet. Good God. And to Neptune, of all the god-forsaken places in the solar system. Just a bunch of wealthy colonists too good for the crowds on Mars or Perseverance Station or the snowball moons of Jupiter. Well, not wealthy wealthy. Not Venus wealthy. But apparently enough to arrange for the theft of almost twenty ships.
And it was quite literally the last thing she needed just now, when Tel’rabim’s fleet seemed to have doubled. He was hitting them all over. He’d hit Ceres a week ago. Now Ganymede, and poor Callisto Heights Station, God rest their souls. His targets didn’t really appear to be logical, other than to keep them on their toes and to inflict maximum carnage.
None of it made sense, beyond the fact that her crews were worn down, her ships were battered, and the last thing she could afford was to lose half of them.
She entered one of the gunneries and nodded to the crew members standing there. When they saluted, she saluted back, taking the time to make it a crisp gesture. In reality, there wasn’t much to see here, but she wanted the fleet to see her. She wanted them to know that they could come to her with information.
After a few greetings, she beckoned one of the crew aside, a man with greying hair and shocked black eyes.
“Are you all right?” she asked him quietly. She wouldn’t shame him in front of his crew mates.
“I was there when they shot the captain in the head,” he said, just as quietly. “I can’t stop seeing it. It just replays in my mind, over and over—” He flushed, ashamed at what he probably thought was weakness.
It wasn’t weakness. It was human.
“I still see Vesta in my dreams. I still see Essa’s murder as clear as day.” She didn’t like to admit these things, but he needed to know he wasn’t alone. “I remember how furious I was that we were being hunted like that, that we had to fight—and that I was afraid I would die there, that day. And when that drone, Parees, blew Essa’s head off, it made me realize something.”
He had turned his head away, but his eyes flew to her face.
“Moments like that break us,” Walker told him. “But if we stand together, we can’t fall. You joined up because you knew we needed you, and now we need you more than ever. We need you to bandage yourself up and get back in the game.” She nodded to Larsen. “You’re not alone in the things you saw. Captain Larsen lost one of the men he enlisted with. He saw his crew shot on the bridge.We’re all a bit broken right now—but our people can’t afford for that to slow us down.”
He nodded jerkily. “I understand, ma’am.”
She glanced at his name-tag, then back into his eyes. Fiercely. “Lieutenant Pierce. We need you,” Walker said again. She took the time to meet his eyes, surprised by just how much she meant those words. But she knew that one of the most motivating things for a human being to feel was to be needed. To feel like a hero.
“Yes, ma’am.” He was no less pale, but he was standing slightly taller now.
She nodded to him, and then around to the rest of the crew as she headed out.
She wanted them all to see her. She wanted anyone who still sympathized with the mutineers to know that she was still here. She was in control. They hadn’t won, and they wouldn’t. She had left it to McAllister to spread the word, quietly, that Larsen had killed three people trying to take the Arianna King.
They would know, God help her, that their actions had consequences. This wasn’t a game.
This was war. And in war, traitors get a bullet to the head or an all-expense-paid trip through the airlock.
Preferably both.
In the hallway, she stopped to consider. Where to next? Did she make a speech? She was trying to tackle a mutiny with a few words here and there, but was that the best way to do it?
“It’s not so bad,” Larsen said encouragingly.
She looked over her should at him as Delaney snorted.
“Not so bad?” the older man asked contemptuously.
“I just meant,” Larsen said carefully, “that the ships weren’t turned on one another, and the damage here is not as severe as it could have been. The situation is grave, but we have a great deal to work with.”
It was clearly an attempt to make her feel better, but it was also a good point. Walker managed a smile.
“A good reminder,” she said softly. She rubbed at her forehead. “I trust you’re both thinking about what steps to take next? We’ll need every idea we can get about who might have done this, and why, and how to fix it—quickly.”
“And we will fix it,” Delaney rumbled. “Bastards don’t know what they’re play
ing at.”
“We don’t know that.” Walker heard the irritation in her tone, and checked herself. “We should assume we know nothing and they know everything,” she added. “And go from there.”
“But we will fix it,” Larsen said. He shot a look at Delaney. “The commander is right. We will fix it.”
“We’d better hope so,” Walker said grimly. “Because if we don’t figure this shit out, it’s not just that we’re sitting ducks—it’s that we’ll kill each other before the Telestines even have a chance.” There was an awkward silence and she looked away with a sigh. “I’m sorry. That … wasn’t helpful.”
“Laura,” Delaney said, after an awkward moment.
Where he was going with that, she didn’t want to find out. She was worried, at this point, that she was going to break into an angry tirade if she didn’t get herself somewhere alone.
“I’m fine.” The words were too emphatic.
Delaney shut up. He knew her well enough for that, at least.
“We all need to gather information,” Walker continued, when she was sure her voice was steady. “Go. Learn what you can. Remember that pilots hear everything and their deck crews hear more than everything. Figure out who’s loyal and get them with their ear to the ground. Start with McAllister. Start with the pilots. They always seem to know everything that’s going on in the background.”
“I will.” Delaney nodded. “I’ll head back now.” He hesitated. “Call me if you need me. And … carry your sidearm.”
“Always do,” she told him quietly. She managed a bit of a smile. “I’m fine, Jack. I really am.”
“I know.” But his face was troubled as he turned to hurry away, back toward the aft docking bay where his shuttle waited.
Larsen, to her surprise, lingered. When she raised her eyebrows, he shrugged.
“No fighter pilots on my ship. Min has it locked down as well as I could. Is there anywhere else I’d be more useful?”
“Right.” She set off again, toward the bridge, and moved to let him fall into step beside her. “I forgot how small your crew is. On the plus side, whoever did this must be kicking themselves that they didn’t get a scout ship like that.” She grinned, and Larsen looked surprised. “Good work,” she added.
Lord knew, they all needed a bit of encouragement just now. She let her hand drift to the cross she wore around her neck, a gesture she did not often let herself make in the company of others.
He noticed, but said nothing, and in his silence, she felt she could say almost anything.
“I don’t understand,” she said finally. “Why Neptune? Nothing there but a few upscale colonies on Triton and Nereid and a few stations. No more than a few hundred thousand people there. No strategic significance. Why? Why … any of this? They sent a message saying they needed protection from Tel’rabim, but….”
“But?” Larsen asked curiously.
“But how does that make them different from anyone else?” She smiled bitterly. “Every colony needs protection. Every moon. Every station. There’s no reason to expect Tel’rabim would target them over anyone else. They were just rich people who wanted me to favor them, and I don’t do that. And yet, how they would have managed this, I have no idea.” She caught sighed of Larsen’s look: distant, as if he were trying to remember something. “What is it?”
He hesitated. “The officer on my ship, Callahan,” he said quietly. “I questioned him before … before I pulled the trigger. He said you didn’t care about anyone.” He gave her a quick glance. “I know that isn’t true,” he assured her.
“Every time.” Her hand clenched. “Every damned time,” she repeated. “Would people really prefer that I play the bleeding heart and let the fleet be drawn wherever there was a hint of a threat—when Tel’rabim truly is hitting other targets, no less? Would they really prefer I fall for every feint—”
“They’re scared,” he interrupted her. He swallowed. “Ma’am,” he added. He stood back to let her go down a narrow staircase first. “People everywhere, on every colony, every moon, are scared shitless,” he repeated, as he followed her toward the bridge. “Or rather, hopeless. People think there’s nothing they can do to make a difference. Knowing that they might have to be the ones who get sacrificed … it can’t be pleasant.”
“They could get off their asses and join the fleet,” she said over her shoulder reflexively. She caught herself, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, that was….”
“Accurate,” he said drily.
She laughed.
“They could join, you’re right. The reason we all joined was because we didn’t like being sitting ducks.” He lifted his shoulders. “If they don’t like it, they could always do the same.”
Their footsteps slowed as they approached the bridge, and she reflected that out here, with only her closest officers for company, everything seemed simple. Here, people understood that some battles must be lost for a greater victory.
But not even all of her captains understood that much.
She was just trying to screw up her courage to go in the door when a familiar, tall figure ducked out of it.
“It’s all fixed in there,” Pike told her, by way of explanation.
At her side, Larsen went still. “Mr. Pike. When did you return to the fleet?”
Larsen’s tone was cold, almost bitter, but Pike didn’t rise to the bait. “A few days ago.”
Walker bit back a sigh. It was hard for the others to understand that Pike, though he would not join the fleet, was still committed to the cause. More so, after he had gone off protecting that girl. Twice.
Still, he had sacrificed more for the cause than most others, and right now, especially, she was glad to have him here. She smiled at him, and nodded to Larsen.
“Dismissed. I’ll call a strategy meeting soon. Let me know if you learn anything.”
“Likewise.” He nodded to her and left without a word to Pike.
They both watched him go, and then Walker looked up into Pike’s warm blue eyes. He shrugged, seemingly not in the least put out by Larsen’s manner.
“So what happened?” he asked quietly.
“I can’t … there’s not much I can say yet.” She shrugged. “We don’t know much, for one thing. For another … well, you’re not Fleet.”
Emotions chased each other across his face, each so quick that she had no chance to determine what they were. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he asked her. “By now, I’d think I might count as Fleet.”
“Are you going to join up?” She tilted her head, surprised. “Commander? Captain? General? You name it. I have some pull these days what with the power vacuum at the UN. Acting Secretary Jones basically rubber stamps anything I say. And pulling multiple missions on Earth gets you some automatic promotions, you know.”
Again the rush of emotions, and again he forced his face to stillness. “If it would make people feel better about me being here.”
“It … might.” She wasn’t sure. “It might, I guess.”
“Laura.” He spoke her name as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. “There are bullet holes in the bridge. What happened?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Come back with me to the Santa Maria. We can talk there.” She opened them again and looked down the empty hallway both ways. “If we talk here, there’s no telling who will hear us.”
CHAPTER TWO
Venus
Constantine City
Applied Organics Research Laboratory
Julianne Mora, Vice President of the Cargo Guild, had been called a firebrand on more than one occasion. A larger-than-life presence at meetings of the Funders Circle, calling out jeers and profanities, even as the straight-laced sober religious leaders solemnly tut-tutted her language and said grave, important things in somber voices.
She chuckled. Firebrand. Larger-than-life. What was larger than life was this fern frond. She reached out to touch it in wonder.
“You see what the elevated CO2 concentration
does to them? Elephantine growth. Venus’s atmosphere is ninety-six percent carbon dioxide, and CO2 is one of the building blocks of photosynthesis,” said Schroeder, the rich, sniveling oligarch she’d come to detest, as he was one of Nhean’s closest friends and confidants. “The other being sunlight. And there again, Venus has just about every other location in the solar system beat.” He indicated upward. His voice had come loud and clear through the speaker in her light-weight helmet, and so did the rustle of the fabric of his environmental suit. Not vacuum grade, but just enough to keep the CO2 at bay and the precious oxygen in.
Mostly. Mora was sure her’s had a leak. Was he trying to kill her? Figures.
They were at the top of Constantine City, one of the largest cities floating fifty-two kilometers above Venus’s hellish surface. Intense, wildly-hot sunlight filtered through the billowing sulfur clouds overhead, bathing the garden in heat and life-giving light.
So ironic. Just kilometers below them, the same plants would be crushed by the ungodly pressure and vaporized by the inferno.
Schroeder kept rambling, and her man, James Dorian, kept nodding, feigning intense interest. Good. She’d paid him, and trained him, well.
“The ferns are a prime example of what I was telling the Funders Circle. In these conditions, they’re able to grow nearly nine times faster, and five times larger than specimens on Earth. Amazing, isn’t it?”
Indeed. The ferns stretched out before her and above her, in a massive forest of green. She’d seen pictures of ferns on Earth. The tallest barely reached one’s waist. These towered over her, nearly hitting the plastic shielding overhead that protected them from the occasional sprinkles of acid rain.
“Come. Come see the tomato plants.” He waved them over to another section of the garden where some moderately large green trees had taken root in the organic planting mix they called soil. Except, they weren’t trees.
