Nemesis (70 page)

‘We will bomb Tiwanaku,’ said Ira. ‘And your home planet is already lost to you. Will Monet saw to that. You have failed.’

‘You cannot stop us,’ said the Yunus-thing. Its eyes shifted from side to side in a weird parody of impatience.

‘Yes, we can. Your raid on Carter failed. Your raid here failed. You will do nothing but fail.’

‘You cannot stop us,’ the Yunus-thing insisted. ‘One by one, your worlds will become ours. You will be forced to reckon with us as a new race. Then your people will come to us voluntarily and be reborn in God’s grace.’

‘No, they won’t. And you can cut out that God shit.’

‘We will offer them eternal life!’

‘No,’ said Ira. ‘You will offer them death dressed up. I knew Yunus once. You are not him. Yunus is
dead
.’

‘I am
more
than Yunus ever was. Join me, Ira. Though you may shun me, I remember you and love you. Don’t make this difficult for all of us. Accept the Lord.’

Ira turned to Ann and Mark, his eyes full of smouldering rage. ‘So there we have it. Any final observations? Any questions?’

‘He sounds very confident,’ said Mark. ‘Except when you goad him about Snakepit. That’s not good.’

‘He’s been reduced to a piece of machinery,’ said Ira. ‘What should we expect?’

Mark shrugged. ‘Not that. On our way back here, Venetia Sharp analysed one of the brains the Nems used to pilot their carrier. The sense I got was that the modifications they gave it were a lot more subtle than this. So if they’re showing us a moron now, I’m worried that might be because they don’t want us to figure out how smart they’ve really become.’

‘I agree,’ said Ann. ‘Their strategy for the attack clinches it. Their development has exceeded all our expectations, even the edge-cases the League modelled. And the Snakepit microbes have welded themselves in deep. But for the stripes, Yunus could be a normal person. How long before we can’t tell?’

‘Then we don’t have any time to waste,’ said Ira. ‘We’re done here, I think. You need to saddle up and take the pain to Tiwanaku. This entire problem must be closed down before any more lives are lost. You’ll be leaving immediately and taking the New Panama fleet you brought with you as your strike force. They could use a lift back to the Far Frontier anyway. We’ll supplement their firepower with a constellation of Home Fleet ships we’ve picked out. Then, assuming that’s successful, there’ll be a long and very thorough clean-up operation which will include a trip to the Snakepit system to rescue Will, if we can. If we can’t, I’m ordering you to use a boser on that planet and melt it into glass. Do you understand?’

Ann nodded. The prospect of obliterating Will’s surreal refuge filled her with a sense of despair. She kept it bottled. She knew it made sense.

‘Any further questions?’ said Ira.

‘None,’ said Ann.

‘Good. Ludik, you’ll be heading up this fleet. You are hereby promoted to Overcaptain, effective immediately. You’re carrying Will’s ghost with you, so you’ll be filling the role he would have had.’

Ann blinked in shock. ‘Yes, sir. Despite my involvement with the League?’

‘Yep,’ said Ira. ‘You dropped those dumb fucks when it counted. Good for you. And you have to live with a very annoying superman in your head. I’d call that punishment enough. Mark, you’ll be running transport. From this point forward, you and Doctor Tamar are a team, answerable directly to me. The
Gulliver
is yours, if you want it, or any other ship you need.’

‘The
Gulliver
works fine,’ said Mark. ‘Presuming you can fix the security lockdown and give it some basic armaments.’

‘Consider it done,’ said Ira. ‘And put Venetia Sharp on the next shuttle headed my way,’ he added. ‘If she has input on this monstrosity, I want to hear it. Now both of you get the hell out of here. I want this problem closed down while we still can.’

21.3: MARK

Two weeks passed in breathless flight. At the end of their desperate race back to Tiwanaku, Mark sat in his preferred couch in the
Gulliver
’s lounge and held Zoe’s hand while they counted down the last moments of their approach. On the other side of him sat Ash, officially reinstated as his subcaptain.

There was now a fat-contact hook-up installed in Mark’s chair, and with the security protocols adjusted he had full control over the ship’s interior. The
Gulliver
had been reconfigured as a guide-ship for their co-opted Nem carrier and armed to the teeth while they made the flight out from Sol under vacuum-drive. Now their target system lay dead ahead. Their new crew of battle analysts and tacticians sat tense and silent, awaiting the moment.

‘Dropping warp in ten, nine, eight …’ said Mark. The envelope popped. ‘Warp dropped. Deployment Alpha is clear to go.’

‘Deploying,’ said Ann over the fleet channel.

Sensor drones and battleships raced outwards to form a defensive sphere around the carrier. They held position with the
Ariel Two
up front, ready for anything.

‘System survey underway,’ said Ann, the tension clear in her voice. ‘Sorting for primary targets.’

In his sensorium, Mark watched the data pour back and held his breath. At first glance, the system looked surprisingly quiet.

‘In-system traffic levels: zero,’ said the primary assessment SAP. ‘Industrial activity level: zero. Drone count: zero. No out-system target sites located.’

‘Don’t assume anything,’ Ann said quickly. ‘Stay vigilant. Scan for stealth shields. I want a deep-sweep for tau-charger emissions.’

Over the tense, grinding minutes that followed, they didn’t find a single ship. Tiwanaku was empty. The system before them made graveyards look busy.

‘There may not be anyone here now, but I’m detecting extensive signs of recent activity,’ said one of the analysts. He slid them a window with his findings. ‘The Fecund remains in this system have been heavily depleted. About eighty per cent of the mass logged at last survey appears to be missing. And the colony planet’s surface has been scoured clean. Not just picked clean. Actually
scoured
.’

He showed them a digital deep-view composition of the planet’s surface which was covered with huge, linear scrape marks, some of them a kilometre deep. A light haze of industrial particulates filled the atmosphere.

‘It’s been mined out,’ said Ash in awe. ‘All of it.’

‘They’re gone,’ said Zoe.

Mark stared. Something about this scared him more than any of the horror scenarios he’d dreamed up on the flight out from Earth.

‘Where are they, then?’ he said. ‘They can’t be back at Snakepit – the planet won’t take them. Did they all head for Carter?’

Zoe covered her mouth with both her hands. ‘Oh no.’

A hideous possibility started to dawn on Mark.

‘Where has a large human population and no remaining Fleet presence to speak of?’ she said. ‘What’s the perfect strategic point to capture?’

Mark’s throat went dry. ‘New Panama,’ he said. He felt as if he’d been dropped off a cliff. His insides twisted. ‘What have we done?’ He grabbed the comm. ‘Recommending immediate withdrawal,’ he shouted. ‘Updated target: New Panama System.’

A grim hush fell over the task force’s channels while that sank in.

‘Agreed,’ said Ann, her voice strained. ‘Alert to all ships. We’re leaving.’

As the carrier’s fronds accelerated back to full speed, Zoe’s eyes filled with tears.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We didn’t do this. This has to be wrong.’

Mark held her tight. ‘Let’s go and make sure,’ he said.

21.4: ANN

Ann was already wired into every sensor suite in the
Ariel Two
when they dropped warp at the edge of the New Panama System. Again, initial scans suggested the place was quiet. She experienced a surge of hope. Maybe they’d got it wrong. Maybe the Nems had all decamped to Carter.

But during the minutes that followed their arrival, the true picture became clear. The normal comms traffic that usually filled the system had vanished. In its place was an ominous mechanistic chatter – a uniform spread of compact signals that Ann knew well. It was the one the Nemesis machines used during their reflection phase swarm.

An involuntary cry of despair broke loose from her throat. She aimed her telescopes at the colony world and peered deep. Everything on the surface looked miraculously intact but a cloud of drones as thick as fog surrounded the planet itself.

Her shadow spoke for her. [
They took it already.
]

Ann stared at her former home and struggled to breathe. While she blinked and fought for control, Mark Ruiz signalled her from the
Gulliver
. Ping icons from each of her captains started arriving in her sensorium.

In that moment, Ann wanted to curl up and grieve. Instead, she opened a meeting channel, surrounding herself with video feeds.

‘What next?’ said Tak.

Pain leaked out of his gaze like blood from a wound. The man was getting ready to burn his own home. His family had been down there. Ann wondered what they were now.

‘Are we going for a direct strike, as discussed?’ he said.

She checked the window for Mark Ruiz. The poor boy looked ruined by guilt. His eyes had a hollow desperation in them that she couldn’t bear to see.

‘First,’ said Ann, ‘we all need to remember that this situation isn’t anyone’s fault. We needed to rescue the home system and no one foresaw this simply because we didn’t have time to work it out. Tak, your choice to fly with Mark was the correct one.’

‘They had this in mind all along,’ said Mark flatly. ‘That’s why they only raided the home system instead of trying to take it. As soon as they got smart enough, they knew this place would make a better target. That’s why they were so confident. And it didn’t even occur to us.’

‘That’s almost certainly true,’ said Ann. ‘We were snookered. But it doesn’t change what we need to do next. Overcaptain Tak, prepare your team for a precision strike.’

[
We have incoming message traffic,
] said Ann’s shadow.

[
That’s too fast,
] said Ann. The Nems must have seeded the out-system with sensor drones. [
They knew we’d come. Show us.
]

The face of Yunus Chesterford appeared. Ann stared at it without understanding. Hadn’t they already captured Yunus? In which case, who – or what – was this? Had the recording been made before the attack?

‘If you can see this, then we have detected the presence of an IPSO Fleet assault. There are several important things you should know. First, be aware that New Panama has converted to the Photurian Utopia. We are a peaceful and autonomous world that does not recognise the authority of IPSO.

‘Second, by the time you hear me, defensive machinery will have been activated all across this system. Any attempt to attack Photurian territory will result in immediate retaliation. During the example visit made to your home system, you will have noticed how easy it is for us to hurt you. That will happen again, and next time you will suffer. Stealthed weapons bearing antimatter bombs and bosers have been situated within striking distance of Earth. Attack us and those weapons will be activated immediately. We will destroy Earth, Mars and your remaining population centres. Leave us in peace and you will be allowed to live.’

Ann’s throat closed up as she watched. Given what they’d already seen, it was entirely plausible that the Photurians could strike at Earth again. What was she supposed to do? She addressed her captains.

‘I don’t like this,’ she told them, ‘but we have to assume that some part of this is bluster. Even with careful planning, the Nems can’t have done all that they claim. And we can’t afford to let them live. They’re like a virus.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘I take that back. They’re worse than a virus. They’re the end of everything. Leave them alive and we make a food-source out of the human race. We will never be safe again. I am initiating our attack. If you wish to register your dissent, do so now.’

Not a single captain spoke up.

‘Very well then. Go to attack pattern
Baron’s Fist
.’

The ships manoeuvred into a conical spearhead configuration with the
Ariel Two
taking point. As a single weapon, they warped towards the occupied colony.

Almost immediately Photurian drones started dropping stealth all around them, popping into visibility in a wave that propagated out with the
Ariel Two
’s light cone. Ann’s tactical display became a blizzard of warning icons. The local space around them was measled with death.

Just ten light-minutes deep into New Panama’s local space, Ann called her force to a halt. She lay in her crash couch and watched wordlessly as thousands upon thousands of warp-enabled munitions lit up. Not a single one of them fired or moved. The task force’s preliminary scans had missed
all
of them. The Photurian message was far more eloquent than it would have been if they’d started shooting.

This was the curse of the
Chiyome
. The League should have guessed that as soon as they repurposed the Nems’ own engine design as a stealth shield, there’d been a chance that the machines would notice and use it against them.

Or more likely, she realised with horror, the
Chiyome
had made it back here before the attack. The Nems had copied the design after killing her crew. Ann’s hands flew to her mouth. She’d sent the crew of the
Chiyome
here. She’d sent Kuril. That last favour she’d asked, the one she’d meant to be an honour, had actually killed him.

[
They’ve won,
] said her shadow. [
Earth’s still too vulnerable. We have no choice but to retreat
.]

[
They could still be bluffing,
] Ann said hopelessly.

[
Yes, but why would they bother? The Photurians have nothing to lose. They’re a brand-new species, born out of conflict. They either establish themselves here or die.
]

[
We can’t—
] said Ann.

[
Ann,
] said her shadow softly, [
I know I’m not all here, but even what’s left of me can see the truth of this. These machines were
designed
for retaliation. It’s what they do. It’s the one trait they’ve exhibited very reliably. And now we know why. It forces everyone to take them seriously.
]