by M. D. Cooper
With the chancellor of the Anderson Collective.
She checked the NSAI’s flight plan. It was headed for a TSF medical facility in the heart of the city. Landing authorization had already been granted, which meant she would have a welcome party waiting on arrival.
Come on, Cara. Think. You can’t just dump him and run. You’ll be implicated in the attack.
Fine. Who can help?
Cara sent a communications request to the address Felix had provided. The request hung open for a minute as the shuttle settled into a horizontal flight path above the city. Other shuttles and drones shot past. There was no answer.
Where the hell was he?
From the couch behind her, Osla groaned, shifting in his harness.
“Hold on, Chancellor,” Cara said, monitoring the comms request. “I’m getting you help.”
A hammer hit the back of the shuttle, forcing the nose down. Cara jerked forward in her seat, forehead slamming the console as the shuttle rolled, the city careening in the windscreen.
“What was that?” she shouted.
“Collision in rear engine cowling,” the NSAI reported. “Hull integrity compromised. Attitude systems compromised. Instituting emergency landing procedures.”
“No, you don’t. If someone’s after us, they want us on the ground. Take us down below the roofline.”
The shuttle righted itself but continued to roll slightly, correcting continually. “Safety protocols initiated.”
The shuttle was going down. Deceleration pulled in the pit of her stomach.
“I said override,” Cara said.
“Administrative authority unauthorized.”
Cara grabbed the console and quickly sorted through the control menus. The system was a standard TSF variant with the manufacturer’s junk additions added in. She quickly navigated to the maintenance control menu and executed a hack on the electrical control system. The vulnerability had been present in the software build for years.
Nothing happened. The shuttle continued to drop and slow. A wide city street covered in drones swam into focus through the windscreen.
With no active scan, she had no idea who was following her. The fact that they hadn’t fired again indicated they were achieving their goal, which was interesting; they apparently wanted Osla alive.
Or they wanted a record of his death.
Cara tried another known vulnerability in the software to no response.
“Subversion attempts recorded,” the NSAI said.
“I’ll subvert you.”
In the background, the comms request to Felix closed, followed by the security handshake.
The shuttle leveled, slowing abruptly as it hit landing altitude. Drones scattered beneath it in the engine wash.
Felix laughed abruptly.
“Yes,” Cara said quickly. “Whatever.”
“Here’s the access code.”
Felix sent a security string, which Cara passed to the NSAI.
“Administrative control granted,” came the immediate response.
Cara grabbed the controls and pulled up, pointing the nose skyward as she initiated an emergency burn. Activating the holodisplay, she centered the holomap on the shuttle’s location as active scan picked up surrounding buildings and traffic. Two icons changed course abruptly, following Cara. She marked them as hostile.
Once she was off the surface, Cara set an altitude ceiling, pulled up her attitude thrusters, and slowed overall acceleration. This allowed her to cut between two close towers and drop back to near street-level.
The nearest pursuer fell back, while the second gained altitude. Cara recognized their flanking maneuver and shot forward, not allowing the second ship to get ahead of her. She avoided a collision with a slow-moving cargo transport and made a hard turn into an industrial zone.
She was out of the financial area. The buildings on either side were covered in a crust of manufacturing infrastructure. Pipework bridged the channel in front of her at random heights, forcing her to slow her groundspeed.
Cara glanced at the holodisplay, adjusting its scope to show a greater area. Felix was right. She needed to either run for the surface, or execute a turning maneuver.
The problem was that her two friends had both risen above the rooftops, tracking her on either side so they could respond to any big direction shifts. If they forced her into the open, they would most likely converge on her tail… or just fire any missiles they had been holding in reserve.
One of the locations was a hundred meters from being directly under the shuttle.
Cara braked hard and then cut the engines. The shuttle dropped, slower than on Earth, but enough to put her stomach in her throat, and when the ground alert squealed, Cara lit the attitude thrusters and hit the plascrete street.
The clinic sat directly in front of the shuttle. Like most locations in New Austin, it was designed to be reached from below or by skybridge. Street-level access was restricted to drones operating in vacuum.
Cara scraped the belly of the shuttle, turning it in time to find the wide doors of a drone airlock opening in the side of the clinic’s façade.
She punched the attitude thrusters, and the shuttle hopped forward in a long arc that brought it down inside the airlock, nose slamming the rear of a dome-shaped drone. The drone jumped forward as the shuttle scraped the deck and came to a halt.
The NSAI automatically connected with the airlock’s control system, and announced it was sealing the entry space.
In the holodisplay, the hostile icons flickered and danced. The building walls would disperse the active scan, but it seemed apparent they had ceased pursuit. She imagined their anger through the bobbing icons and smiled.
Throwing off her harness, Cara left the pilot’s seat and went to Osla. She checked his sluggish pulse and let out a sigh of relief as she found he was still alive.
Unfastening the unconscious chancellor from the jump couch, she lifted him over her shoulder and turned to hit the latch release.
The shuttle door opened on a squad of TSF soldiers with rifles drawn.
Muzzles quickly converged on Cara.
“Well, hello there,” she said, waving with her free hand.
CYRANO DRONE
STELLAR DATE: 3.21.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SolGov Assembly Tower, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
Senator Lance fixed Alma with a corrosive glare.
“If the committee chair feels as though Jovian interests trump those of Mars, then perha
ps there is little to be gained from Mars’s participation in SolGov. If it’s not a place where human nations can meet on equal ground, then what value does it have?”
A laugh nearly burst past Folsom’s lips at the Marsian’s statement. Despite the official charter, no one believed that SolGov was egalitarian in any way. The Terran Hegemony had dominated the multinational organization since its inception.
Of course, when SolGov had been formed, Earth was still the center of humanity’s power. Over the intervening centuries, Marsian strength had increased to the point where it’s economic and military power rivaled Terra’s.
But the fact that every major committee was headed by a Terran spoke volumes.
“You’re trying to ask for Terran aid in enforcing Marsian tariffs inside of Jovian space!” Senator Percy of High Terra exclaimed. “I seem to recall you not wanting any increase in policing traffic between Eros and Cruithne.”
“That was different. We were adhering to existing treaties.”
“And the backchannel aid you’re sending the Andersonians on Luna?” Harrin joined in.
Lance snorted. “Last I checked, there’s no proof of that. Just Folsom’s accusations.”
He waved a hand in Folsom’s direction, and the senator raised his own. “I didn’t level any. And Hera would aid in Mars in this, but with Jupiter ten AU distant, it’s not feasible for us to do so.”
Senator Lance didn’t respond, but Gerald, the other Marsian representative, spoke up. “We must have some sort of commitment from SolGov to ensure that tariffs are still enforced for trade in disputed regions of the Jovian trojans.”
“Notice the name?” Senator Welsh from Ganymede asked with a smirk. “Jovian trojans. You control most of the asteroid belt, why do you need to intrude into our space? Everyone knows it’s because you want to take Ceres for yourselves.”
“Take Ceres?” Lance exclaimed. “We’re worried the Psion AIs there are going to take us! We’re fighting for our lives, and the Jovian Combine is working with Terra behind our backs to erode what strength we have.”
Folsom drew in a slow breath, preparing for the standard argument to ensue—one he did his best to stay out of. He needed to show support for Mars, but right now, that would make him a target. If his endeavors on Luna bore fruit, then he could use that to show the Terrans that Hera was with them, and then show support for Mars without eroding his position with the dominant power.
Just have to wait a little longer…
Senators Lance and Gerald looked at one another, and it was clear they were having a protracted discussion over the Link. It stretched past a few seconds, and then beyond a minute. At the two-minute mark, Alma spoke up.
“If the Marsian senators have nothing to add, we’ll be moving on to other topics.”
“Oh, we have nothing more to add,” Lance said as he rose, Gerald reaching his feet moments later. “I’ve just spoken with our delegation head, and after meeting similar roadblocks in other committees, Mars is suspending its active participation in SolGov.”
“You’re what?” Senator Alma exclaimed. “Mars is pulling out?”
“Suspending,” Lance repeated the word as though Alma was an idiot. “Pursuant to Article 12, Paragraph 3, any member of SolGov can declare themselves to be unable to participate due to hardships and suspend representation until such a time as the hardship has passed.”
“You’re still bound by the accords.” Alma had regained her composure, rising as well to stare down the two Marsian senators. “Mars can’t do as it wishes just because you’ve suspended participation.”
“Of course,” Senator Gerald said as he and Lance began to walk from the room. “We’ll be sure to relate that to our government.”
The other members of the committee sat in stunned silence, each checking with colleagues to learn that every Marsian senator had just made similar declarations.
For all intents and purposes, Mars was out of SolGov.
“I’m declaring a recess while we assess,” Senator Alma said a moment later. “I’ll inform you as to when we’ll reconvene.”
“If ever,” Senator Harrin let out a coarse laugh, earning him a cool look from Alma.
“It’s just posturing,” she said. “They want to make their voices heard before the talks formally recognizing the Scattered Disk as a Solar nation.”
Gerald shook his head slowly. “The only way the Disk is going to become a nation is if it falls under Jovian control.”
The sentiment was well known, but not well liked. Now that the Jovians fully controlled all of the outer planets, no one in Sol was eager for them to claim the Kuiper belt as well, let alone make a move for the rest of the Disk.
While Folsom didn’t approve of their actions, he agreed with the Marsians in principle. How the rest of SolGov could ignore the threat Psion posed and instead focus on posturing was beyond him. It was bordering on pathological.
He exchanged a few probing words of commentary with the other senators as they rose from the table and began to file out of the room.
Folsom tapped his chin, wondering who was behind a move like that. It could be anyone at this point, including Osla himself. As evidenced by Stars the Hard Way, the man was not above a bit of theatre to manipulate the masses.
Folsom nodded absently as he stared out the lift’s window.
The senator considered that possibility. Disrupting Luna was one thing, but taking it was something else entirely.
Folsom closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath.
The senator closed the connection without waiting for the agent to respond. He needed time to think and work out the right people to bring on board. Mars leaving SolGov would throw uncertainty into the mix everywhere. Some powers would hold steady, waiting for it to blow over, while others would look to forge new alliances to bolster stability.
Those were the senators he needed to speak with, ones that could be counted on to vote as a bloc for the right interests at the right time.
So long as the current holding pattern with Psion didn’t dissolve into outright war.
An encrypted inbound Link connection reached Folsom, and for a moment, he thought it was one of his agents. That was dispelled when
Xander’s unmistakable tenor entered his mind.
Folsom replied.
Xander’s tone seemed to indicate that such a move should have been obvious, but given that no member nation had ever enacted that particular portion of Article 12 before, he didn’t see how it should have been readily apparent.
Of course, it was Xander’s way to pretend he knew everything before it happened. It was a common enough occurrence that the senator tended to doubt such statements.
The lift stopped at the thousandth floor, and Folsom walked out into the corridor that led to the maglev. More people than usual were milling about, all speaking in low tones about the Marsians’ actions. Protected by a deep scowl, Folsom threaded the groups, moving toward the maglev platform and a train to his own offices.
Xander laughed.
Folsom pursed his lips, knowing that there was only one thing more urgent to Xander.
