Counterweight (27 page)

“The Human again?” Nid asked.

“No. This time it was me,” Graadt replied, grabbing an algae
bun filled with fish meat from Kaans. “Four magisters tried to get up on their
hind legs and give me a hard time, so I had to drop two of them.” He took a
huge bite.

“You killed them?” Nid asked without a hint of disapproval.

“Mff, no. They’re shtunned, more than ushual.” Graadt forced
the reply out past his half-chewed food. “Come to think of it, sho are we.”

Nid looked at him for a few seconds and then he nodded.
“He’s nearly done here.”

Graadt swallowed. “And when he’s done, he leaves.”

Kaans nodded with evident satisfaction. “Then there’s little
sense in risking our hides searching two million square cubits of space if he’s
going to be boarding that elevator soon.”

“Let’s get to the station.” Graadt took another bite. “We
can wait for him at the orbital end of the tether.”

Protest

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
al
was near the front of the crowd as it approached the station entrance. They
carried banners protesting both the price of water and the increased price of
the exit ride and the guards outside the station entrance looked only mildly
alarmed. They’d seen this kind of thing before.

Whenever public unrest was on the rise, the administration
usually responded by lowering the price of water, which benefitted the poor,
and raising the cost of the ride up to the orbital counterweight, which offset
the lost water revenue by taking money from the wealthier citizens.

The poor rarely expected to use the elevator, so they were
usually quite happy to see the rich having to pay more, doubling the effectiveness
of the revenue shift. The signs protesting the price increase didn’t make an
abundance of sense but Cal needed an excuse to bring the crowd to the entry
gates and it seemed to be working.

The guards by the doors were armed with maces. Republic
infantry weapons were based on linear acceleration and the incredibly high
velocity of the rounds made them too dangerous for law enforcement or crowd
control. As a result, blunt or edged weapons had been the norm for thousands of
years. On some company worlds, planets like Chaco Benthic that were far enough
away from Dactar to avoid official interference, weapons like those carried by
the magisters were somewhat more common. 

Still, such deadly weapons couldn’t be given to mere
security staff. There had to be at least the
impression
of a judicial
process if the company wanted to prevent outside intervention in their
management of the planet.  As it was, the Republic barely cared about
Chaco Benthic.

It and a hundred other back-water planets like it were
hardly worth the cost of administration to them.

The crowd was moving past the gate now. The leading ranks
were roughly ten meters past the last guard when Cal took a deep breath. “Now!”
he yelled, and the signs were dropped as the protesters began surging to the left.

Straight toward the open-mouthed guards.

Cal didn’t see exactly what had happened to them but the
large group, whose only real protesters were the handful who’d spontaneously
joined them en route, flowed quickly over them and into the station.

As planned, Group One broke off and headed for the
communications center. Group Two headed straight for the barrier between
arrivals and departures, using Cal’s throwing charges to blast their way
through both the barrier and the heavy door that sealed off the mechanical
room. Group Three took the boarding carousel, leaving the few real protesters
standing in a small, stunned group in the middle of the floor.

In the space of five minutes, the orbital tether station had
been seized and the only gates to the city were closed. Cal and his group were
effectively in control of all communication with the rest of the Republic.

“C’Al,” Bel wheezed the name, trying to catch his breath.
“One of the pods is already committed to launch. The only way to stop it is to
blow it, but I don’t know that we could do it without trapping us down here
permanently.”

“So let it go.”

Bel grinned. “You should come say goodbye, first.”

His curiosity Piqued; Cal followed him over to the boarding platform.
“Well, that simplifies things for us,” he declared cheerfully. “The only really
competent opposition we had in the city and they’re leaving?”

Inside the sealed pod, three Stoners were glaring at him
with impotent rage, shouting unheard insults as the carousel rotated them into
the launch position. Cal raised a hand, waggling his fingers goodbye with a
cocky grin on his face.

Cal’s levity was forced. Their chances of seizing the
orbital counterweight had been relatively good assuming they only had company
security to face. With the three Stoners up there, it was unlikely the rebels
would make it out of the pod alive and that was only if the Stoners didn’t
sabotage the elevator itself.

He knew they didn’t need him alive. The Stoners would likely
just throw an explosive intp the pod when it arrived at the station and collect
enough parts to prove they’d killed him.

His exit strategy was in a shambles.

“C’Al,” Belfric wheezed. He coughed wetly.

Cal turned. Bel’s chin was covered with frothy red foam. He
was staring down in shock at a metal spike protruding from his chest. “You
could hurt someone with that…” he mumbled. His knees gave out and he slumped to
the floor, revealing a guard.

The Dactari was struggling to free the spike of his mace
from Bel’s form but flesh has a way of gripping a blade. Cal pulled out a
plasma bow and activated it, leaping over his wounded friend as the bow
unfolded and began generating an arc. He swung at the guard’s neck, severing
the head and cauterizing the veins in one sweep.

The bow deactivated as he dropped it and he turned back to
find Bel lying on his side, the spike still through his chest. To remove it,
here on the station floor, would only ensure his quick death.

Cal knelt, putting a hand under his friend’s head. “Bel?”

The eyes opened. “Motherless clone got me good, didn’t he?”

“Don’t try to talk…”

“
Don’t try to talk,
he says,” Bel coughed up more
froth. “I’m finished, my friend. I can feel my lungs filling with blood, so let
me… talk while I still… can.” He held up his left hand and Cal seized it with
his right.

“Kimric… will accept losing me, if it meant something.” He
squeezed Cal’s hand. “Make… sure my granddaughter’s life is better… for this
sacrifice...”

His hand began to tremble. “One… day…”

Cal took a deep breath and felt something change in his
soul. He was so damned sick of hearing that countersign. Fifteen decades of
Someday
soon
was more than enough for one lifetime. He gave Bel’s hand a hard
squeeze. “Today,” he said fiercely. “Today!”

He was done with the standard program. No more stirring up
the poor, only to leave them to their fate while he moved on to the next world.
This was a fight he’d see out to the end.

“Today,” a Krorian standing on the loading platform
repeated.

Cal looked up at the man and saw the resolve there. This was
going to happen. “Today!” he shouted, looking around him at the grim
faces.  

“Today,” Bel wheezed, and then his hand went slack.

Cal looked down, releasing Bel’s hand and easing his head
down to the ramp. He closed his friend’s eyes and shut his own.

“Today,” the murmur began circulating around the station,
growing in strength as the insurgents realized that the long-awaited day had
come upon them so suddenly. It began building in volume.

Cal wished he didn’t care but it was far too late for that.
Bel had been a good friend, possibly the only one he’d really had in the last
fifteen decades, and Cal had been lying to him the whole time.

He’d lied to people like Bel on seven other worlds and it
got harder each time but this was more than simple progression – he’d come to
care about Bel, Kim and their extended family. There was no walking away from
this. He knew he’d have to talk to Kim. He’d have to face her reaction upon
learning her husband had died helping an Alliance agent.

“C’Al?” An urgent voice broke in on his thoughts.

He looked up at the young maintenance supervisor who’d
reported to Bel. “What is it, Korlaith?”

“It’s the company execs, or what passes for the execs now…”
He shook his head. “You’d better come…”

Planet 3428

“
T
here’s
the
Barden
,” the sensor coordinator announced, a sharp shadow appearing
on her face for a brief moment. She looked back to where Freya and Rick stood.
“All nine accounted for.”

They stood even though the Hussar class or, as the Midgaard
called it, Snekkja class was Earth-built. Midgaard captains never sat on the
bridge of any ship larger than a scout and, as the two species had melded into
one, the Hussar Mark III’s had begun to ship out with no captain’s chair. 

The
Ormurin
was relatively new and she’d been a
handsome wedding gift from Erin Shelby, who still refused to upgrade from her
beloved Mark I
.
Though there was no way to retrofit the multi-axis,
tandem-lensed pitch drives of the Mark III, she still insisted on keeping the
Pandora
.

“Very well.” Freya turned to the signals officer. “Signal
the
Barden
and the
Karv;
advise them we’ll pitch down to the
objective on my mark. Helm, stand by.”

“Standing by for pitch, aye.”

The command structure for the young couple was working out
well enough so far. Freya had experience in running a ship and it was a role
that Rick knew he wasn’t ready for. He understood his value, though, and stood
by his wife, scanning the near future for complications.

When they landed, his contribution would take on a new
dimension.

“Both report ready for maneuvering.” The signals officer
dragged two icons up to the common screens. “Both channels open.”

Freya looked over at Rick. They were in geosynchronous orbit
directly above the
Canal
. From where they currently sat, it was a very
short pitch to their destination. The three Hussars could make position in six
seconds – well within Rick’s forecast.

He nodded.

 “Standard count,” She announced. “
Frír, tveir, ein
,
mark.”

They took a half step back as the three Mark III’s put the
full force of their tandem drives into action.

Even after fifteen decades of engineering, advances in
gravity compensator design still lagged behind those of the pitch drives. The
acceleration not only pushed them back but also reduced their weight as the
ships dropped at brutal speed. Rick didn’t necessarily
disagree
with the
idea of the captain standing but falling over and knocking yourself out could
be a bad thing in combat.

Their appearance would be an effective piece of showmanship,
assuming the nav shields didn’t glitch. If they did, the superheated plasma
resulting from their high-speed atmospheric entry would tear them to pieces.

Rick’s ability to see a safe arrival made that risk trivial.

“Don’t lock your knees,” Freya whispered.

Rick flexed just in time for the deceleration and nearly
landed on his back from the unexpected force. Nobody seemed to notice, though,
and he brought up a view of the
Canal.
The thatched shelters over the
dorsal hatches had been knocked flat by the arriving ships. Their incredibly
fast approach had been conducted through conventional space and the three ships
had hammered brutally at the atmosphere.

Luckily, the tropical storm would have kept most of the inhabitants
off the top surface of the
Canal
. Still, the vegetable plots out front
would almost certainly need to be replanted.

The sonic booms would have been incredibly loud, even deep
inside the old ship’s hull. Every resident of the
Canal
would be wondering
what was happening.

Rick stepped over to the signals station and examined the
status. “We’re tied in,” he announced. “Our algorithm’s linked us into the
Guadalcanal’
s
shipwide system.” He gave the signals officer a nod. “We’ve knocked on the
door, time to say
hello
.”

The officer opened the link. “Alliance vessel
Guadalcanal
,
this is Alliance squadron flagship
Ormurin
. Your transponder is offline.
Authenticate – Delta, Delta, Foxtrot, fife, six, niner – over.”

The message was sent to the old carrier’s shipwide system,
so every resident would know they’d been found by the Alliance.  It was
time to challenge accepted wisdom.

Their ancestors had fled, believing the Alliance was doomed
by the plague. They’d portrayed their decision as an attempt to preserve
Humanity and, yet, here was an Alliance squadron hovering above them demanding
authentication.

Right now, Rick had advised his wife, a member of the
Fletcher family would be scrambling to search the old code files, trying to
find the proper response to the sequence sent by the
Ormurin
. Sam, if he
wasn’t already on the bridge, would be rushing there now to show his people he
was still in charge. Barry would also race to the bridge, anxious to ensure
none of his staff opened fire on the Alliance vessels.

“Give ‘em another nudge,” Rick told the signals officer.
“Try to sound a little more ominous this time.”

“
Guadalcanal, Guadalcanal
, I say again – this is
Alliance squadron flagship
Ormurin
. Authenticate – Delta, Delta,
Foxtrot, fife, six, niner – over.” He grinned up at Rick. “Good thinking, this.
Make ‘em scramble like a kid caught at mischief.”