by M. D. Cooper
This type of careful investigation reinforced Lyssa’s hatred of the stealth approach. She was used to exerting power over her world, and creeping among the foundations of the expanse made her feel like some kind of insect. She was Weapon Born, a warrior, bred to operate combat systems that could destroy planets. Silent study made her brain hurt.
The alternative to this process of careful testing and investigation was to throw herself at the walls of the prison, an act of desperation that would certainly please Camaris. Lyssa imagined the AI recording every second of her flailing.
The thought that she was constantly observed kept Lyssa walking forward steadily, swinging her arms, an explorer with a steady pace, though she didn’t know her destination. She kept her gaze fixed on the endless horizon.
CULLING THE HERD
STELLAR DATE: 08.20.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SolGov Assembly Tower, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“One of your friends from Uranus is compromised, too,” Folsom’s agent said in somber tones.
The senator shook his head. “I’d worried about that. Gordon?”
“Yes,” the agent nodded. “I have confirmed communications between him and a known Camaris shard.”
Folsom ran a hand along his chin. “That’ll make things tricky with Uranus—though it may be interesting to see which way the AIs push.”
“That a risk you’re willing to take?”
“No,” the senator shook his head. “Just wishing we had that sort of leisure. Maybe we can turn Gordon into a double agent.”
The young man across the table laughed. “Because you don’t have enough to juggle? I looked at the updates regarding Cara. She’s going to have to fight the Marsians to get her brother back. You know that, right?”
Folsom nodded. “I do, and that will be interesting as well. If it was anyone else, I’d doubt their ability, but she has a lot of highly competent people surrounding her. Honestly, it’s us I’m more concerned for. We have four senators fully in the tank for Humanity First—”
“Which means Camaris,” the agent interrupted.
“Yes,” Folsom nodded. “And several of the Jovian senators showed clear ties—though with their delegation gone, it’s hard to say.”
“I hate to think of what that means. For all we know, Camaris could fully control the JC.”
“I hope not.” The senator wondered if it was too early for a drink. “If she has the reins there, then we’re in for a fight before long.”
“And then there are the Terran and Marsian senators that show clear ties to Psion,” the agent added. “What do we do about them?”
“Nothing,” Folsom said, spreading his hands. “We don’t have the resources to go head-to-head with those senators right now. We must first neutralize Ceres.”
“Which means we’re waiting on Cara.”
“Mmmhmmm.” The senator steepled his fingers. “And with Cara taking on Mars to get her brother back….”
The agent shook his head. “What a mess.”
“Chaos,” Folsom said. “And out of chaos comes opportunity."
LEAVING HOME
STELLAR DATE: 08.20.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Lowspin Docks
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The Lowspin Docks were a hive of activity. It looked to Cara like at least four more mid-sized shuttles had been crammed into repair bays, with barely enough room between them for drones to crawl over their hulls. Workers dragged power cabling over the decking, consulted repair schematics, and argued over bins of parts, all against a backdrop of crackling welders and throbbing calibration sensors.
Cara had returned looking for Fran, knowing she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. There had been too many times in her life when people important to her hadn’t received their proper farewells; she was changing that.
Cara found Fran standing in the middle of her office with her hands on her hips, arguing with someone on her Link. She seemed to choose to speak out loud for emphasis, and Cara heard cursing from where she waited in the outside corridor.
“I don’t care if you need to replicate the part, Sirin,” Fran said sharply. “You move my order to the top of your queue and get me the coupler. You’re holding up my entire line with this bullshit. I put this order in last week. Your incompetence is costing me millions every day.”
Fran noticed Cara and gave her a nod, holding up a finger for a minute more.
“Let’s put it this way,” Fran said. “Do you like working on Cruithne? Because if you cross me, you’re going to find yourself gulping like a fish in an open airlock. You understand me? You’re holding up people a lot bigger than you and me, Sirin. Don’t play games with this. And if you try to mention cash one more time, I’m done. You’ll be done.”
While Fran’s voice sounded like she wanted to punch a wall, she gave Cara a grin.
“I didn’t know you could be so mean,” Cara said once Fran was free. “What did that guy ever do to you?”
“He’s holding up my shop. There isn’t much worse in my book. If I’m waiting on parts, that means we’re all sitting around with our thumbs up our asses. You can only inventory the parts bins so many times.”
“They look busy out there.”
Fran nodded at the windows. “We’re busier than we’ve ever been. Honestly, staying here slows me down. If I had my own station, I could service a hundred ships at once.”
“You would leave Cruithne?” Cara asked, surprised by the idea.
Fran shrugged. “I’ve been here a long time. Sometimes I think it might be time to do something else.”
Cara had never heard Fran mention leaving Cruithne; granted, they hadn’t talked much in the last twenty years. As with all of her old friends, she had realized that while her memories of them had remained static, they had all changed in subtle and dramatic ways. Ngoba ran the equivalent of a country. Fugia was the spymaster of Sol. Petral hadn’t changed much that Cara recognized. Fran looked the same on the surface, but there were deep changes in the woman.
Cara wished she had more time to stay and learn the extent of those changes. Out of all the people in her life, Fran had demonstrated a quiet, firm strength that manifested itself as competence. She was the engineer who got the job done, regardless of her own feelings.
Fran and her dad had been together such a short time, it was strange to Cara that their relationship was the example that came to mind when she thought of such things.
“I came by to say thank you for everything you did for me and the ship,” Cara said, “but it just occurred to me… Do you want to come with me?”
“Oh, I can’t leave. Not now. We’ve got too much work to do.”
Cara motioned at the subordinates hurrying around the office. “Can’t they take care of it? Do they really need you here to yell at vendors for them?”
Fran smiled, mostly to herself. Her green eyes flashed. “The last time I left was with your dad.”
“That was certainly a rash decision, wasn’t it?”
“I’m not the kind of person who makes decisions like that. I don’t regret it, but things did turn out differently than I expected. And since. This place does practically run itself. Ngoba says he needs me, but he doesn’t.”
“Then come with me. I don’t know if I trust Rondo with the engines, anyway. What if he breaks something?”
“He’s a hacker, not a mechanic,” Fran agreed. “I’ve heard he’s a really good hacker, but I’m going to need to see that for myself.”
“Amplified Solution is a great ship. You made it that way.”
“Yes, I did.” Fran laughed. “Okay, I’ll go. If you’d asked me an hour ago, I wouldn’t have. But I’m ready to get out of here for a while, Cara. And I would like to see Tim. If he’s in the condition Ngoba and Rondo said he will be, then I think you’re going to need help bringing him back around. That’s a lot for the two of you.”
&nbs
p; Cara felt a surge of joy she hadn’t expected, and a bit of weight lifted off her shoulders. “How much time do you need?”
“Not long. Give me today to get things in order. There’s also some cargo that I meant to send over today, anyway. I’ll bring it myself tomorrow.”
“What sort of cargo?”
“Guns and ammo, mostly. Now I’m going to need tools, repair parts, probably a replicator.”
“We don’t want to miss the launch window.”
That earned her a chuckle. “Maybe I’ll just increase your thrust capacity?”
“I like the sound of that,” Cara said.
“Are you sure about this?” Fran asked abruptly. “For a long time, I worried that having me around would remind you of your dad. Even when you were little.”
Cara spread her arms and pulled Fran into a hug. Had she herself somehow become more dependable than the woman she had thought of as a rock?
No. It was all right for Fran to be vulnerable. Everyone had to be, sometimes, or they’d break.
“I am absolutely sure,” Cara said. “Between the two of us, we might get Rondo to cut off that beard.”
Fran laughed. “I’m not making any promises on that.”
LISTENING SKILLS
STELLAR DATE: 08.20.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Amplified Solution
REGION: Cruithne Station, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Standing in the entrance to the Amplified Solution’s command deck, Rondo looked between the comms, nav, secondary ops, and tactical stations. Each console had the same black holosystem waiting to display its particular data. He tried to imagine four competent crewmembers sitting at each station, focused on their particular expertise during some life or death action like a firefight.
I’m a hacker. I’m a bear, and this is space monkey territory. Could this be bear territory?
Adama growled from his lounging spot across Rondo’s shoulders, probably sensing his anxiety.
Not space monkey, Rondo imagined his cat-friend saying. Space cat, foolish human.
Rondo laughed to himself. He scratched his beard, then reached up to give Adama’s ears the same treatment.
“I know,” he murmured. “I know. The thing is, I feel equally ill-equipped to do any of these jobs. I guess I’d be best at the comms console, but that isn’t what we need. The captain needs someone to keep the engines humming, set a course that won’t run us into an asteroid, and be ready to fight off any pirates who think we’re a fat plum all alone in the dark. I’m none of those things. But I’m what we’ve got.”
Movement near the holotank surprised Rondo, as he realized that Crash the parrot was perched on the edge of the black circle. The parrot shook out his wings and stretched his neck.
Rondo’s jaw fell open.
Rondo blinked. He didn’t know how to absorb this information. His mind immediately leapt to every embarrassing act he had committed when alone with Adama.
Crash clacked his beak, a sound Ngoba had explained was akin to laughter.
Now Rondo felt offended.
Crash clacked laughter.
Rondo scowled.
Crash tilted his head.
Rondo pulled Adama off his shoulders and held the cat in front of him. Adama’s black arms stuck out straight, and his long body dangled, tail whipping back and forth. He didn’t growl though, only blinked slowly.
Rondo squinted, studying the cat.
Leaning forward, Rondo tried to direct his thoughts across his Link toward the cat. He secretly wished it would work and laughed softly at his own foolishness. It didn’t surprise him that where a connection was typically an automatic function, he received only the white noise of his own restless thoughts.
he said.
Pulling the cat in for a hug, Rondo scratched his back and then released him to the deck.
Cara’s focus switched to the bird.
Crash flapped his wings.
Rondo shook his head.
Cara groaned and closed the connection.
CHANGE OF PLANS
STELLAR DATE: 08.20.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSF CenComm, Matria Station
REGION: Terra L1, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
General Yarnes strode down a corridor on the upper levels of CenComm, barely aware of his surroundings as he reviewed the latest intel from around Sol.
Everything was moving.
Normally, between three and five million ships, to say nothing of drones, were moving within Neptune’s orbit. That number was currently approaching ten million. Everything from military craft to supply ships shoring up defense points, to people moving away from what they feared would be the front.
The great rings, High Terra, Mars 1, and the Cho, were bristling with ships, with more coming from all corners.
Others were boosting past OuterSol, heading for the Disk. Some might have been on outsystem vectors, arcing through the black toward Proxima Centauri, Epsilon Eridani, or other colo
ny systems.
Not that bad yet, Yarnes thought.
Even so, he couldn’t help but wonder if people leaving Sol didn’t have the right idea. The lines were being drawn, and the battles—when they came—would spread like fire across the system.
Yarnes’ primary concern was currently Venus. The planet was in a state of flux, and highly vulnerable to attack. In centuries past, the cloud-sheathed world had boasted dozens of floating cities, drifting above the maelstrom below—but now those were gone, as was the majority of the dense atmosphere.
The planet’s surface was still largely uninhabitable. Volcanoes spread across the land, spewing magma onto the surface, the result of the crust-fracturing that had taken place several decades ago to create a reliable carbon cycle.
That was all background information that Yarnes knew quite well; what it meant was that only a few hundred thousand humans lived on the world’s surface, and those were hardy folk, living in well-protected facilities as they managed the equipment that would one day turn the world into a paradise to rival Earth.
The majority of the populace was in space, living in a large array of low-orbit habitats, supporting the efforts below as well as working on projects such as their fusion suns.
While the pair of pseudo stars the Venusians were creating were amazing feats of engineering—required, to deal with the planet’s slow rotation and its one-hundred-and-twenty-day ‘night’—to Yarnes’ mind, they were little more than large, poorly defended targets.
They were also the focus of his current mission.
The security council had flagged Venus as a high-risk target for both the Jovians and Psion. Not from a direct strike from either, but rather a strike through proxies. Yarnes feared the increased pirate activity in InnerSol. Ships with questionable registries were everywhere, and with Earth and Mars in near opposition, heavy traffic flowed past Venus.
Pushing the stellar traffic reports aside, the general pulled up readiness reports for his fleet. It was the largest task force ever placed under his command, over five hundred combat vessels, with nearly two hundred support craft in escort.
