Nemesis (67 page)

She squinted at the wall-padding and then pushed off hurriedly into the corridor.

Mark gazed after her, understanding dawning at last. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who’d left Britehaven with a burning desire to beat the Nems. Venetia had taken on a quest in the confines of her penitence box, just as he had. But she was only now able to start acting on it. He felt a hot tug of empathy. Tears stung the corners of his eyes. They all had scars now. The pain was only worth it if those scars were useful.

‘I’ll get them,’ he called at her retreating back. The sense of crusade came upon him again, as fresh as the moment he’d stumbled back out into the light. ‘Believe me. I’ll make it happen. For all of us. Even if it kills me.’

20.2: ASH

Ash was on duty when they reached New Panama. Mark had succumbed to exhaustion again after another nail-biting eighteen-hour shift. The trip had taken far less time than they’d expected – just five days - and over the last day the acceleration had become ferocious. Ash simply didn’t have time to think before dumping the envelope and no chance to practise. His heart hammered as his mind reached out for the control. He alerted Mark, gritted his teeth and dropped warp.

The result was completely anticlimactic. The shell of light popped and suddenly there they were – New Panama System dead ahead. For everyone nearby, their arrival wouldn’t seem as subtle.

Mark surged onto the bridge, bleary-eyed. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘We’re here already?’

‘Looks like it,’ said Ash.

Mark scooted up to his bunk and plugged in. ‘Did you send our arrival message?’

‘No. I thought you’d want to do that.’

He watched as Mark dropped their carefully worded warning onto a public channel and sent it winging its way towards the colony. They’d spent hours trimming the executive threat assessment, trying to make it as clear and persuasive as possible. Their message contained a very condensed history of the mission and as much intelligence as Zoe had been able to glean from the Nems’ data stores. Along with the anticipated timing of the attack on Earth, she’d also provided estimates for how much spare fuel a New Panama taskforce would have to bring with them to get the carrier to the home system in time.

Ash had done much of the planning work on the message, along with Venetia. However, the video statement had been delivered by Mark. Ash no longer minded playing second fiddle to his old friend. In fact, he preferred it. With the stakes as high as they were now, staying out of the limelight suited him fine. He’d advised, of course. Mark might be the public face of the mission but he was still hopeless with people. And they weren’t about to drag Sam out of his cabinet for a consultation. In fact, just thinking about Sam made Ash feel sick. Several times on the flight he’d thought about making the short trip to the med-bay to turn off Sam’s life support. Or waking Sam and crushing his neck. Or driving his thumbs through Sam’s eye sockets while the man screamed for mercy. Generally, though, Ash tried not to think about his old boss.

He held his nerve while they drifted for the next hour and a half. Eventually, six battle cruisers powered up to meet them. A message burst arrived showing a video feed of a powerfully built IPSO officer with a shaved head and piercing blue eyes. Ash recognised him.

‘This is Overcaptain Arwal Tak,’ the officer said. ‘We received your message. Provide further proof of your identity within sixty seconds or we will open fire.’ Tak glared into the camera. His eyes didn’t blink once, but Ash thought he saw fear behind that mask.

Mark frowned. ‘Prove it how?’ he said. ‘We already sent him Will’s override code. He’s seen my statement. What more does he want?’

‘Humanity,’ said Ash. ‘A reason not to be scared. We just rad-bombed the largest population centre in the Far Frontier, remember. With zero warning.’

‘He
should
be fucking scared,’ said Mark. ‘I’m scared.’

‘Let me do this,’ said Ash. ‘I’ve worked with Tak. I know him.’

He’d spent hours in meetings with Arwal during his work with Sam. Thinking back over those days made him feel dirty. Besides spending too much time in the gym and fancying himself as an Ira Baron lookalike, Arwal was a good man. He hadn’t been in the League, for starters.

Ash opened a video channel and donned his most approachable smile.

‘Overcaptain Tak, this is Subcaptain Ash Corrigan-Five of the IPS
Gulliver
. Nice to see you again, sir, and our deepest apologies for the damaging arrival. If you’ve reviewed our package, you’ll know that we’re assembling a fleet to defend the home system from imminent attack. Will you be able to help us with that?’

They waited for their reply to crawl across the space between the ships and for Tak’s response to crawl back. The silence stretched.

‘They’re not launching drones,’ said Mark. ‘That’s a start.’

When Tak reappeared, he didn’t look any happier. If anything, his frown had deepened.

‘This is a very serious set of claims you’re making, Corrigan. Your manifest says the senior Fleet officer aboard is Sam Shah, yet that’s not who I’m looking at. I’d like to speak to him, please.’

Ash tried to keep his smile straight. ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible, sir,’ he said. ‘He’s under sedation at the moment. Overcaptain Shah has engaged in treasonous acts that have endangered the survival of our species.’

‘Is that so?’ Tak snapped. ‘On whose assessment?’

‘Mine. The captain’s. In fact, every other member of this mission.’

‘Then can I speak to the civilian mission head?’ said Tak. ‘Yunus Chesterford?’

‘Yunus Chesterford is dead, sir. As are the two Spatials who came with us.’

‘I see,’ said Tak. From his expression, it was clear that he didn’t. ‘Your senior officers are disabled or dead. So how about a complete mission log from your data core so I know I’m not looking at the result of a mutiny?’

‘Once again, there’s a problem, sir,’ said Ash brightly. ‘This ship is running under a Vartian Institute diplomatic security lockout. We can’t get you that log without a dry-dock.’

Arwal leaned towards his camera. ‘Listen,
Gulliver
,’ he growled. ‘You’re flying in a co-opted alien vessel last seen engaging in genocide at Tiwanaku. Your story is so wild there is no way I can get it past the Colonial government without a clearance check. And I’m not sure I buy it anyway. I’m starting to think I need a more thorough briefing package.’

A message icon from the lounge appeared.

‘Let me talk to him,’ said Citra. ‘This is something I can actually do.’

In the privacy of the helm-metaphor, Ash shot Mark an incredulous look.

‘I posted the comms-stream to the lounge,’ said Mark. ‘I thought the others would want to see.’

‘Do you trust her?’ said Ash.

Since the discovery of her betrayal of the human race, Citra Chesterford had been as quiet as a ghost. She’d attended every discussion in the lounge without offering a single opinion. She’d barely eaten and her health had deteriorated correspondingly.

‘Do you?’ said Mark.

‘Yes,’ said Ash nervously. ‘I think so.’

Maybe she wanted a chance to prove she could help.

Mark nodded. ‘We’re not convincing Tak, in any case,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep a handle on Citra’s link and cut it if she says something crazy.’

Ash passed control of the channel to Citra’s couch. She adjusted her hair and flicked the channel open.

‘Overcaptain Tak, my name is Citra Chesterford. I assume you recognise me?’

‘Professor Chesterford!’ said Tak. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then please take our data package absolutely at face value. There is no subtext here. My husband is dead, a fact I’m still struggling to accept. Sam Shah betrayed us and the entire human race. Furthermore, we have witnessed the advance of an enemy so implacable and dangerous that I cannot sleep at night for thinking about it. The two acting Fleet officers on this ship, Mark Ruiz and Ash Corrigan, have shown exceptional courage under extremely difficult circumstances. I can personally vouch for their actions. Please, assemble your ships as fast as you can. If we delay, there may not be a home system to rescue.’

‘I’m following up with another information package just in case,’ said Mark. ‘This time it’s the gory details rather than the edited highlights.’

They waited on tenterhooks for the next message from Tak to arrive. It took an hour.

When Tak reappeared, he wore an awkward half-smile.

‘Okay,
Gulliver
,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve got yourself an armada. Rendezvous at these coordinates in three hours. Let’s hope you’re right about this.’

‘Thank you,’ Ash told Citra after they’d signed off.

She shrugged. ‘This has been a sickening journey for me,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost everything, including my self-respect. I’ve hated feeling so useless. Maybe when all this is done, I won’t be. I understand the role you’ve played in all this, Captain Corrigan. I know you sided with the League and that you betrayed Earth. But none of that matters any more. You’ll be receiving the full backing of the Chesterford Foundation in any legal action that follows our return. Presuming we’re lucky enough to still have courts to visit.’

Ash wasn’t sure what to say. He certainly hadn’t expected kindness from Citra. Something started sliding around inside him – something heavy.

‘You were foolish to follow Sam Shah,’ she said. Her voice cracked under the weight of emotion. Ash watched her eyes start to tear up and felt his own doing the same. ‘But no more foolish than I’ve been. It would be hypocritical of me not to support you. If I have anything to do with what follows, you’ll be treated like a hero.’

Ash blinked while emotion sloshed around inside him like a nauseating tide. A hero. That was the last thing he felt like. Fool, perhaps, or victim, or weakling, or traitor. Not hero.

‘Thank you,’ he said flatly. His eyes stung. Self-disgust he’d been holding at bay for days threatened to crowd up and smother him.

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Citra. ‘Now, we have a civilisation to save, I believe.’

‘That we do,’ said Ash stiffly. ‘Handing helm control to you, Mark.’

Ash winked out from the helm-arena as fast as he could. In the virtualised privacy of his home node, he curled into a tight ball and cried like a child.

20.3: RIVER

River Chu lay in the captain’s couch of the IPS
Griffin
. He yawned and thought about all the ways he hated being on home system watch. First, there was the boredom of the duty itself. He’d been stuck in the Kuiper belt for five weeks now doing absolutely nothing. Worse than that, though, was the way IPSO law forbade him from chasing down the legally dubious flights he saw entering and leaving the system almost every day. Such flights were deemed ‘private leisure trips’ and thus only qualified for random SAP-mediated inspections. Those sect barons took a hell of a lot of interstellar trips, apparently.

River had joined the League because he couldn’t stand watching what was being done to interstellar peace. A single short tour at the Far Frontier had convinced him that the Fleet was totally hamstrung by the law. The sects were making fools of them. Yet because of optimistic promises Will Monet had made a generation ago, River was just supposed to lie there and watch it happen. It made his blood boil, but it paled in comparison to the one feature of this watch tour that he hated the most. And that was the anticipation.

He knew that any day now, the Nemesis machines would arrive. They’d appear in a burst of light and begin their assault on Earth with a swarm of half-sentient drones. And as soon as they neared their first target, River was supposed to leap to the rescue.

He’d been extensively briefed on which tactics would be most effective and how to interact with his crew when the time came. They, of course, had no idea what was up. For them, this long stretch of watch duty was a kind of perverse punishment that they bore with poor grace. Everyone aboard wished they were back at the Frontier doing some good, regardless of the frustrations the work brought. If all went according to plan, River would suddenly rally them with some surprisingly insightful leadership and help save civilisation at the eleventh hour. Great.

The prospect of being fêted as a hero didn’t appeal much to River. If it had, perhaps the waiting wouldn’t have been as bad. But a fight was still a fight, even if you were battling half-witted alien machines. There would be losses, without doubt. The drones, he’d been assured, would not be pulling their punches. Their efforts, while simplistic and mechanical, would be entirely in earnest.

River was watching the latest dreary traffic report from Triton domestic space when the radiation burst hit. Their resting buffers crashed as if a shuttle had dropped on them.

‘We have a radiation spike!’ said Ara.

River’s heart pounded. It was happening at last.

‘Damage report,’ he said. ‘How are our sensors?’

‘Ninety-five per cent intact,’ said Ara. ‘Thank Gal they were offline.’

Of course, his main sensor bank had been conveniently retracted for inspection, as it had been every other week since home system duty had started.

‘Give me visual,’ said River. ‘Target the burst origin.’

As his team slewed the telescopes for a closer look, a confusing picture emerged. Instead of the thick spread of winking lights he’d expected, he saw a weird cluster of signals. In the middle hung what looked like a trio of nestships – nothing else was that large. Around them lay a relatively sparse distribution of the kind of drones he’d been told to expect, although far fewer than the League strategists had projected.

River frowned. Could it be that someone else was using the same carrier system as the Nemesis machines? In which case, who? And why were they bringing nestships?

‘Ara, sweep the comms-bands,’ he said. ‘Who are we looking at?’

A message arrived on one of the primary public channels, hugely boosted and incredibly clear. It carried a video feed of Yunus Chesterford. Except he looked way better than he ever had in his public lectures. He was younger, and buff. He wore a weird skintight uniform and his flesh bore a weird, stripy orange tan.