“This is exactly the problem we must address head on,” the President said. “We are in a war situation. We must retaliate,
and swiftly or we will lose what little initiative we have. Capone must be shown we are not paralysed by this diabolical hostage
scenario. We can still implement our decisions with force and resolution when required.”
“Killing people will not help us.”
“On the contrary, First Admiral,” Miyag’s ambassador said. “Although we must deeply regret the sacrifice, eradicating the
Organization will give us a much needed breathing space. No other group of possessed has managed to command ships with the
same proficiency as Capone. We will have returned to the small risk of the possessed spreading through quarantine-busting
flights, which the Navy should be able to contain as you originally envisaged. Eventually, the possessed will simply remove
themselves from this universe entirely. That is when we can begin our true fight back. And do so under a great deal less stress
than our current conditions.”
“Is that the decision of this Council?” Samual asked formally.
“It is,” the President said. “With one abstention.” He glanced at Cayeaux. The Edenist ambassador returned the look unflinchingly.
Edenism and Earth held the two other permanent seats on the Polity Council, awarded because of their population size and formed
a powerful voting bloc; they were rarely in disagreement over general policy. Ethics, of course, nearly always set the Edenists
apart.
“They’re inflicting too much damage on us,” Earth’s ambassador said, adopting a measured tone. “Physically and economically.
Not to mention the disintegration of morale propagated by events like Trafalgar, and unfortunately our arcologies. It has
to be stopped. We cannot show any weakness in dealing with this.”
“I understand,” the First Admiral said. “We still have the bulk of Admiral Kolhammer’s task force available in the Avon system.
Motela, how long would it take to deploy them?”
“We can rendezvous the Adamist warships above Kotcho in eight hours,” Kolhammer replied. “It will take a little longer for
affiliated voidhawk squadrons to gather. Most could join us en route.”
“That will mean we can hit Capone in three days’ time,” Samual said. “I would like some extra time to augment those forces.
The tactical simulations we’ve run indicate we need at least a thousand warships to challenge Capone successfully in a direct
confrontation. We’ll need to call in reserve squadrons from national navies.”
“You have one week,” the President said.
The news of Trafalgar was whispered through the beyond until it reached Monterey, whereupon it sparked jubilation in some
quarters.
“We beat the bastards,” Al whooped. He and Jez were fooling around in the Hilton’s swimming pool when Patricia rushed in with
the news.
“Sure did, boss,” Patricia said. “There was thousands of the Navy ship crews joined the beyond.” She was smiling brightly.
Al couldn’t remember seeing her do that before.
Jezzibella flung herself at Al’s back, wrapping her arms round his neck and her legs round his hips. “Told you Kingsley would
make it!” she laughed. She was in her carefree adolescent persona, clad in a gold micro-bikini.
“Okay, yeah.”
She splashed him. “Told you so.”
He tipped her under the water. She shot up again laughing gleefully, a mermaid Venus.
“What about the asteroid?” Al asked. “Did we get the First Admiral?”
“Don’t think so,” Patricia said. “Seems like the antimatter went off outside. The asteroid is still intact, but it’s completely
screwed.”
Al cocked his head to one side, listening to the multitude of voices murmuring at him, each one suffused with a plea. Rummaging
through the nonsense which made up most of it took a while, but eventually he built up a picture of the disaster.
“So what happened?” Jezzibella asked.
“Kingsley didn’t get inside. Guess the security nazis were on to him. But he came through all right, Jee-ze did he ever. Wiped
out a whole spaceport full of their warships, and a shitload of hardware got busted up with it.”
Jezzibella circled round in front of him, and embraced him passionately. “That’s good. Smart propaganda.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Blew up all their machines, but didn’t kill too many people. Looks like you’re the good guy.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his nose against hers, hands moving round to cup her ass. “Guess I am.”
Jezzibella shot Patricia a sly look. “Has anyone broken the good news to Kiera, yet?”
“No. I don’t think so.” Patricia was smiling again. “You know, I think I’ll go tell her.”
“She won’t let you in her little ghetto,” Al said. “Just invite her to the celebrations.”
“We’re having a celebration?” Jezzibella asked.
“Hey, girl, if this ain’t worth one, I don’t know what the fuck is. Give Leroy a call, tell him to break out the good booze
in the ballroom. Tonight, we are gonna party!”
______
Kiera stood in front of the lounge’s window, staring down at the hellhawks on their docking pedestals. The yammering, pitiful
voices of the beyond were intent on explaining the magnitude of the Trafalgar disaster to her. The Organization’s triumph
infuriated her. Capone was turning out to be a lot harder to crack than she’d envisioned at the start of her little rebellion.
It wasn’t just the mystique of his name, or his cleverly insidious hold on the Organization’s power structure. Those two facets
she could have worn down eventually. He was getting far more than his fair share of luck. For a while the elimination of the
antimatter station had tilted events in her favour. With the cancellation of the seeding flights, the fleet had been getting
edgy again. Now this. And Capone was well aware of her less-than-loyal actions, even though nothing was out in the open. Yet.
She couldn’t see it from this window, but a third of the way round the docking ledge, that little nerd Emmet Mordden was trying
to rebuild one of the nutrient fluid refineries that she’d disabled. If he succeeded, then she was going to lose, and lose
badly. One voice, pathetically eager to please, told her that at least one squadron of voidhawks had perished in the awesome
explosion.
“Fuck it!” Kiera stormed. She refused to acknowledge any more of the insidious incorporeal babble. “I didn’t know he was cooking
this up.”
Her two senior co-conspirators, Luigi Balsamo and Hudson Proctor, gave each other a look. They knew how dangerous life became
when she was in this kind of mood.
“Me neither,” Luigi said. He was sitting on one of the long settees, drinking some excellent coffee and watching her carefully.
“Al used a quantity of antimatter for a secret project a while back. I never guessed it was for anything like this. Gotta
give him credit, this is going to skyrocket his credibility among the crews.”
“That barbarian wouldn’t have the intelligence to plan this out by himself,” she snapped. “I bet I know who put the idea in
his head. Little whore!”
“Smart for a whore,” Hudson Proctor said.
“Too smart,” Kiera said. “For her own good. I shall enjoy telling her that some day soon.”
“It’s going to make life difficult for us though,” Luigi said. “We’ve been getting through to a lot of people recently. There
was plenty of support for all of us heading down to the planet.”
“There still is,” Kiera said. “How long is this triumph going to last for him? A week? Two? Ultimately, it changes nothing.
He has nothing else to offer. I’ll take the Organization with me to New California, and Capone and his whore can freeze their
asses off up here until the remainder of the Confederation Navy comes knocking. See how he likes that.”
“We’ll keep plugging away,” Luigi promised.
“I might be able to turn this to our favour,” Kiera said thoughtfully. “If the crews can be made to see that it’s mainly a
propaganda stroke, one that’s got the remaining ninety-nine per cent of the Confederation Navy badly pissed off with us.”
“And are likely to come and settle the score,” Hudson finished excitedly.
“Exactly. And there’s only one place we’ll be truly safe from that retaliation.”
A bleep escaped from an AV pillar on the glass table in front of the settee. Kiera walked over to it in annoyance and keyed
an acknowledgement. It was Patricia Mangano, calling to tell them, if they hadn’t already heard, the fabulous news about Trafalgar.
And they were all invited to the victory party Al was throwing that evening.
“We’ll be there,” Kiera replied sweetly, and switched off.
“We’re going?” a startled Hudson Proctor asked.
“Oh yes,” Kiera said. Her smile upgraded to pure malice. “This is the perfect alibi.”
______
Mindori
swooped in round the counter-rotating spindle and dropped on the pedestal which Hudson Proctor had assigned it. Rocio didn’t
fold in the hellhawk’s distortion field immediately; there was some activity farther up around the rocky ledge that he found
interesting. Several non-possessed were in spacesuits, concentrated round a section of machinery that was pinned to the vertical
cliff.
How long has that been going on for?
He asked Pran Soo in singular engagement mode.
Two days now.
Anyone know what they’re doing?
No. But it’s nothing to do with Kiera.
Really? The only systems on the ledge are connected with voidhawk and blackhawk maintenance and service.
Gaining the ability to provide us with nutrients is an obvious move for Capone,
Pran Soo said.
It would appear our options are finally starting to open up.
Not for me,
Rocio said.
Capone only wants us to compliment the Organization fleet. No doubt he will offer better terms than Kiera’s ever done, but
we will still be drawn into the conflict. My goal remains achieving complete autonomy for all of us.
There are now fifteen of us who will provide whatever covert assistance we can. If the Almaden equipment can be made to function,
we believe most of the others will join us. With a few noticeable exceptions.
Ah yes, where is Etchells?
I don’t know. He still hasn’t returned.
We can’t have gotten that lucky. Did you check with Monterey’s net to see if the electronics we require are in stock?
Yes. Everything is there. But I don’t understand how we can get them out. We’ll have to ask the Organization direct. Are you
going to negotiate with the Organization? The fleet still needs us to patrol local space around the planet; it is not a combat
duty.
No. Capone won’t take kindly to my deal with Almaden; we’ll be depriving him of their industrial capability. I believe I can
obtain the electronics without the assistance of outside groups.
Rocio used the bitek processors in
Mindori
’s life support cabin to establish a link with Monterey’s communication net. Last time he had just accessed visual sensors
to locate the food storage facilities for Jed. That had been simple enough; this task had an altogether different level of
complexity. With Pran Soo’s help he gained access to the maintenance files, and tracked down the physical location of the
components they wanted. That information wasn’t restricted, although they used a false log-on code to make sure there were
no incriminating bytes that could ever link them to the components in question. After that, Rocio loaded in a requisition
for the items. The spares allocation procedure which Emmet Mordden had erected around Monterey’s stock of components had several
integral security protocols. Rocio had to bring the hellhawk’s on-board processor array into the loop to circumvent the safeguards
with a powerful codebuster program. Once they were in the system, he ordered the electronics to be delivered to a maintenance
shop outside the section of the spaceport which was under Kiera’s physical jurisdiction.
Very good,
Pran Soo said.
Now what?
Simple. Just walk in and collect them.
Jed studied the route Rocio had devised, trying to spot any flaws. So far, he’d found the depressing number of zero. The hellhawk’s
possessor was using the big screen in the lounge to display it, though it would also be loaded into the spacesuit’s processor.
Jed could call it up on the visor’s graphics overlay so that this time he wouldn’t be reliant on Rocio calling out a stream
of directions. He would have to walk about a kilometre along the ledge to reach the designated airlock. No complaints about
that, despite having to wear a ballcrusher again. The possessed couldn’t use spacesuits, so as long as he was outside there
wouldn’t be any of the buggers near him. It was inside when his troubles would begin. Again!
“There is a large celebration party due to begin in another fifty minutes,” Rocio said, his face taking up a small square
on the top right corner of the screen. “That is when you should perform this mission. Most of the possessed will be there,
it will minimize the chance of discovery.”
“Fine,” Jed mumbled. It was hard to concentrate: as well as sitting next to Beth on the couch, he had Gerald pacing up and
down behind him, muttering gibberish to himself.
“Half of the components have been delivered to the maintenance shop already,” Rocio said. “That’s the beauty of a heavily
automated system like Monterey. The freight mechanoids don’t start asking questions when there’s no one there in the shop
to receive them. They just dump them and go back for the next batch.”
“Yeah, we know,” Beth said. “You’re a bloody genius.”
“Not everyone could pull this off so stylishly.”
Jed and Beth shared a look; her hand went across his thigh and squeezed. “Fifty minutes,” she murmured.
Gerald walked round the settee and up to the big screen. He held a hand out and traced green dotted route from
Mindori
to the asteroid’s airlock, fingers stroking the glass gently. “Show her,” he asked quietly. “Show me Marie.”