Abbott introduced Havoc.
“And this is John Havoc, Mr Darkwood's security representative.”
Tomas gave a knowing grunt, indicating he knew who Havoc was. Tomas struck Havoc as a lad with a high opinion of himself, one used to throwing his weight around. Charles looked more hesitant.
“The Neuworld Empire is providing vital resources for this mission,” Abbott said.
Fuel, Havoc assumed, which was presumably why Their Royal Highnesses were here at all – the Neuworld Empire being otherwise so small and inconsequential. It had only joined the Alliance in the past two years to avoid being swallowed by the People's Republic.
Stephanie smiled.
“Are you brothers?”
Charles turned and looked at Tomas. The question forced Tomas to wrench his gaze up from Stephanie's breasts and make eye contact. Tomas’s lip curled in derision.
“Charles isn’t my brother. I am a Jaeger-Fury, an elite bloodline. Charles is more of a... mongrel.”
Tomas's smile was as unpleasant as his words. He directed his comments at Stephanie as he warmed to the sound of his own voice.
“And I am a Blood Prince and the leader of our delegation.”
Havoc watched Stephanie with amusement as she greeted Tomas’s declarations with suitable approbation.
“Gosh.”
“And have recently been appointed Honorary Commander of the Blue Flag of the Regal Guard.”
“Goodness.”
“I have a great military career ahead of me.”
“I can well imagine.”
Tomas's poor eyes had grown tired from looking horizontally and were beginning to descend Stephanie's figure again.
“Would you like to...”
Stephanie caught and arrested Tomas's downward gaze.
“Yes?”
“...do something. Later.”
Silence greeted this spectacularly non-erudite invitation.
Stephanie raised her eyebrows, apparently considering this eloquent proposition.
“Do something. Hmm.”
Tomas's face turned scarlet. Back home, Prince Tomas Jaeger-Fury, son of the Emperor, would have girls fawning over him. This may be the first time Tomas had experienced the brutal reality of his self-perceived mastery in seduction.
“Would you like to join me for some fencing later?” Charles said.
The small group turned to Charles in surprise. Stephanie smiled delightedly.
“Why, yes, Charles, if we have time. I don't know much about it. Perhaps you can show me?”
Havoc thought Charles’s poor heart might leap out of his chest. Tomas's eyes burned. Havoc chuckled at Stephanie's casual evisceration of Tomas's ego. Charles nodded enthusiastically.
“I’d be delighted.”
Tomas’s face contorted.
“Charles is pathetic with a sword.”
“But perhaps he can keep his eye on the target,” Abbott observed dryly.
Tomas frowned as Abbott's meaning evaded him.
“Charles is some kind of
pacifist
. Aren't you, Charles?”
Charles replied quietly.
“I think violence should be a last resort.”
“Hah! You see?”
Abbott nodded his approval.
“Very wise.”
“Quite right,” Stephanie said.
Havoc was keeping out of this one.
Tomas looked confused. He glared at Charles, his brow bunched and thick.
“But you will never be a great soldier with that attitude. Charles is unproven. I have completed my trials.”
From bad to worse, Havoc thought. It was obvious to anyone who knew anything about the Neuworld Empire what Tomas meant. Tomas’s crass observation was greeted with silence, which Tomas mistook for admiration. He pointed at the scar on his face.
“I keep this to remind me.”
Stephanie looked concerned.
“You have a memory problem?”
Havoc forced himself to keep a straight face as Tomas frowned at Stephanie, unsure of whether he was being mocked. Stephanie’s expression was one of pure innocence. Abbott and Havoc gazed at each other, eyes twinkling, as Tomas rallied.
“No. No, I... I would bring you the head of any man that insults you.”
Stephanie's eyes widened.
“Who said chivalry was dead?” Abbott said.
Stephanie turned to Havoc.
“Do you have any advice for these young soldiers?”
Havoc’s demeanor turned serious.
“The first twelve years are the worst.”
Charles's and Tomas stared at him.
He smiled.
Stephanie laughed.
“Oh, John.”
Abbott chuckled.
“John, I wonder if we might have a private word with our Royal Highnesses?”
Havoc nodded.
“Of course. Stephanie, Ambassador, Your Royal Highnesses.”
Havoc bowed out and left them to it. Diplomats had a wonderful art of holding inane conversations in public while conducting private conversations by cast. In Havoc’s experience the private conversations were just as inane, but had the added frisson of being secret, so were a bit more fun.
Stone and Chaucer were reclining in chairs by a low table near the center of briefing area. Havoc wandered over to see how Stone was doing. People were gathering around them, so presumably the briefing would commence shortly. Stone looked up as he approached.
“How was the match?”
Havoc shook his head.
“Short skirts are my kryptonite.”
Stone nodded then did a double take. Havoc thought Stone looked, if anything, worse than before. He turned to Chaucer, who was gazing wistfully at Prince Charles.
“How is he?”
Chaucer snapped out of his reverie.
“Mmm? Well I thought we'd just give him another gram of vikaltrityne and see how that went.”
“And?”
Chaucer busily re-crossed his long legs which were bunched in front of the table.
“Unfortunately, the poor dear has got worse.”
Save me
, Stone's eyes said.
Chaucer sat back.
“Which is diagnostically beneficial, obviously.”
“Uh huh.”
Chaucer twisted uncomfortably, reworking the position of his legs.
“God, I’ve still got cramp from all that mincing before we left.”
“So what brings you out here, Chaucer?”
“Slaying a demon.”
Havoc nodded. Lots of people volunteered for LR missions to escape something. Stone was on the run from his wife. Chaucer's demon – who knew? Depression? An ex? Financial crisis? Havoc looked over at Stone again. Stone's eyes were pools of despair.
“Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye on him,” Chaucer said.
Havoc stood up.
“Great. Either of you want a drink?”
Chaucer turned to Stone.
“I'm fine. How about you, love?”
Stone glumly shook his head.
Don't leave me
, Stone's eyes said. Havoc glanced between them. What kind of bravo foxtrot could leave Stone here? Certainly not him. He sat back down.
“Me neither.”
Stone perked up a little and nodded over to Violette Hwan, the shy systems programmer.
> She was a boat person. Can you believe that?
Havoc raised his eyebrows in response to Stone's private cast. He looked over at the small oriental girl.
After the Quant Span conflict, the Gathering of the Truly Faithful had annexed most of the Petula system and instituted their draconian rules there. The Petulan people had been liberal, democratic and tolerant. Everything, in other words, that the Gathering weren't. The Gathering's attitude to women and girls was that they were chattels and the source of society's ills if not strictly controlled. Running off with another man's wife was, amongst other things, charged with 'Trespass to Chattels' in the Gathering, a tort of interference with property.
The culture shock of becoming part of the Gathering was too much for many of the people of Petula. Smuggling routes had sprung up all over the system, funneling people to the Arvidian peninsula. From there, they would take the appallingly risky journey across the Trepaulan fields to reach the Alliance colony of Cuurvolt. It was akin to floating your family across an ocean in a dinghy. The survival rate had been horrifying to contemplate.
Some of the more immoral criminal enterprises ran 'loopers'; ships that flew up into orbit, switched off their oxygen and asphyxiated everyone, dumped the bodies and then returned empty for the next load of desperate victims. Those who were more fortunate would be strapped into racks, sedated and cooled. Most never woke up. Unreliable power, overcrowding, poor navigation systems; everything that you could conceive of and a lot you couldn't went wrong. There were frequent issues with generator capacity to sustain the re-breathers during the journey. There usually wasn't enough capacity for everyone. Some of the ships cut open by the Alliance patrol vessels were blood baths where barbaric conflicts had resulted in survival of the fittest. In most cases though, silent tombs filled with racks of corpses drifted into Cuurvolt. They estimated fifty million had set off from the far side. Less than a million people had made it over alive.
Violette Hwan had been to hell and back.
18.
Inside the carrier's body, the Eaton Mess completed.
The last sliver of octanitrocubane trickled into place, coalescing like a drop of wax solidifying on a death warrant.
Unbeknownst to the carrier, they transmitted a subtle variation in their biosense information to shipnet, to let their controller know the biobomb was ready.
All that was needed now was the signal. The shockwave would propagate outward at over ten thousand meters per second. The devastating blast would be followed by explosive depressurization, ejecting anything left into the cold vacuum of space.
Nothing was going to survive that.
19.
Havoc waited with the crew as the ship team filed in to deliver the briefing. A deep voice boomed across the room.
“Good day, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Brennen and I am your Mission Lead.”
Brennen strolled to the front of the briefing area. He was a tall, broad shouldered man with close-shaven hair. He had a good humored face and a steady evaluative gaze that he swept over his audience.
“Welcome to the most important mission of your life, bar none. We're setting out to make contact with an alien civilization. We have no idea what we'll find, other than a strong belief that we'll find something.”
There was a collective murmur from the crew. They might have heard whispers but Brennen's statement made it real. It was, Havoc reflected, a breathtaking prospect. Humanity's second ever Contact and the first initiated by humanity itself – if it had been, he cautioned himself.
Brennen gestured to the figure that stood against the wall nearby.
“This is Mr Whittenhorn, your XO.”
Havoc assessed the pasty-faced weasel standing in full dress uniform and placed Whittenhorn firmly at the opposite end of the spectrum to Brennen. Whittenhorn looked as green as plant shoots in spring. A political appointee, Havoc concluded. It was common for someone with friends in high places, particularly those apparently destined for greatness, to get an auxiliary leadership position on what were referred to as 'prestige missions'. The appointee did nothing and then got to boast about it for their entire political career. Come to think of it, Havoc thought he could recall a Senator Whittenhorn, presumably related.
An almighty clang came from behind. Everyone turned as Fournier’s voice floated out from beneath the counter.
“We're ok, everyone, it's fine.”
Fournier reappeared with a container of coffee beans that he shook into a contraption of his own design; a device that appeared to have more in common with a steam powered musical instrument than a coffee maker.
Brennen looked at Fournier inquisitively while Whittenhorn glared at him. Brennen reminded Havoc of an old sheepdog, wise in the ways of the world. You don't waste energy chasing young lambs; you save your authority for when it's needed. Whittenhorn, on the other hand, was champing at the bit. He looked like he would tie himself in knots trying to keep the sheep in continuously perfect formation.
Brennen smiled.
“Will you be joining us, Mr Fournier?”
A delicious coffee aroma wafted across the room.
“Yes, nearly there. Just a couple of minutes.”
Brennen gave a dignified nod.
“Fourteen months ago, we detected a signature at the limit of reachable space. It indicated a type of energy that was only theoretical and a heavily disputed one at that. Weavrian energy, first proposed by the father of Evelyn Weaver,” – Brennen nodded toward Weaver, who sat at the front – “who joins us on this mission.”