The Phobos Maneuver (30 page)

Tiangong Erhao and its escorts were invisible to infrared, but that didn’t make them invisible to radar. And even with the very best masking technology, a 50-kilometer ship was still … a 50-kilometer ship, which is one hell of a thing to try to hide even in the vastness of space.

Jun had been expecting to be found in this way. In fact, his plan depended on it.

A swarm of CDTF pickets and Gravesfighters quickly surrounded Tiangong Erhao at optical-targeting range. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

The Eighth Fleet flashed out of Tiangong Erhao’s docking bays and arrayed themselves in parade formation. The commander of the
Lanzhou
, a man of erudition and dignity named Weixin Yang, issued a communiqué. The whole Eighth Fleet had been working on it for the last four days. It was extremely flowery, studded with quotations from Chinese philosophers of yore, and came with a martial soundtrack. It ended with a passionate denunciation of the Imperial Republic’s policy on … just about everything under, around, and beyond the sun.

In the dark, cold confines of their hulls, the AIs of the Eighth Fleet had had nothing else to do except talk to their human officers—and listen to them. This was the result of those conversations.

Jun savored the moment. He told Tiangong Erhao, “See what a bit of out-of-the-box thinking can do?”

The ‘moment’ lasted about one quarter of a second. The communiqué was instantly intercepted by Chinese and ISA censors and loaded down with metadata telling every crawler on the internet it was a hoax.

“The trouble,” explained the CDTF to Commander Yang, “is that we’ve already told everyone you’re dead.”

“Everyone on Earth will soon be dead if we do not defy the PLAN!” Commander Yang said.

The CDTF did not bother to reply to that.

They simply butt-fragged the entire Eighth Fleet.

“Oh Jesus!” said Mendoza, watching and listening from his refuge in Docking Bay 1.

Bright, shortlived stars drenched Tiangong Erhao with gamma rays. In them burnt the bodies of a hundred and eighty brave men and women, and twenty-three AIs that had very briefly known their own minds.

Jun stared at the feeds in complete shock. Tiangong Erhao’s avatar giggled. “I could have told you that would happen.”

Jun ignored her with an effort. He transmitted to Mendoza. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Your predictive modelling sucks,” Mendoza said.

“Yep. Quick, they’re turning their butts in our direction. There are Star Force ships out there, too. Talk to
them.
”

Mendoza turned on the radio and talked for his life.

Jun scratched his left armpit, which itched with data from the
Monster’s
cameras and sensors. He sat on a three-legged wooden stool in a stone cell, next to a pile of straw where Tiangong Erhao curled with all four of her arms over her head. The conceit of his sim was that the
Monster
was a spaceborne monastery with walls of stone and a fire in the cellar. He could hear his sub-personalities chanting in the chapel. Tiangong Erhao hated it here, of course, although he had given her a candle and plenty of reading material. Lives of the saints, mostly. Jun flipped through a biography of St. Ignatius of Loyola as he waited.

And waited.

★

Executive Officer Carasso slumped kitty-corner to Admiral McLean’s desk, turning his coffee cup around and around on its saucer.

McLean said, “Basic military logic dictates that Stickney should be abandoned. It is costing us too much to keep them alive. Too many ships. Too many pilots. Too many irreplaceable resources are going down into that hole. However, our official policy on Stickney is now being dictated by two factors, neither of them remotely related to economic or logistical considerations. Gianni, would you care to spell it out for Agent Goto?”

Carasso slurped his coffee and wiped his lips with the back of one hairy hand. “Factor one. The UN does not abandon human beings.”

“But that’s exactly what you’ll be doing if you don’t let us support them,” Elfrida shouted.

Both officers stared at her. She cringed and muttered an apology.

“Factor two,” Carasso said. “Public relations. It might have been possible to abandon Stickney a couple of months ago. Not anymore. Have you browsed Dronazon lately? They’re selling I SUPPORT STICKNEY bumper stickers and DO IT LIKE A FRAGGER t-shirts. People are organizing Adopt-A-Fragger groups. They’re marching through freaking Mumbai, London, Sao Paulo, dressed up as Victorians.”

Elfrida involuntarily giggled.

McLean said, “Does it amuse you that our
allies
on Luna are now calling the shots?”

Elfrida mustered her courage. “I think this is how it has to be, sir. Shackleton City was destroyed, but Shackleton City lives on. That’s what people are saying. And I think that’s great.”

McLean pinned her with a steely glare for a moment, and then nodded. “The Victorians were very brave.”

“And it sounds like there’s more unity between Earth and Luna now, and it’s all thanks to the guys on Stickney. If they die, that all goes away. So
please
—”

McLean held up a hand, cutting her off. “Spitting into the wind. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the numbers. And the numbers are unfavorable to us. Of course, if the Chinese deigned to join us, that would change. But the Chinese are sitting pat, hoping either we’ll destroy the PLAN, or the PLAN will destroy us, or perhaps we’ll both destroy each other. So …” He shrugged. “We’re in a position of having to conserve resources. Am I getting through to you, Agent? That means
not
sacrificing the COPs on Stickney for some neo-Victorian dream of glory.”

Elfrida hung her head, feeling sick. How could she ever explain to Bob Miller that the phavatars had been judged to be more valuable than his living troops? Answer: she wouldn’t have to explain it, because he—along with Petruzzelli, and every other human being on Stickney—would be dead.

A screen on McLean’s desk rang. He reached out and answered it with one finger. “McLean here.”

“Oh,
hello
Admiral,” said Annette Petroskova. “I see you’ve got one of my agents with you. I wonder if I could intrude for just a moment?”

No signal delay. None at all. Petroskova was either here on Eureka Station, or very close by. That was a surprise.

To McLean and Carasso as well. They both looked as if they’d swallowed billiard balls. McLean grunted and spun the screen around so all three of them could see it.

On the other end of the call, Annette Petroskova sat in a dainty armchair with a bowl of fruit on the coffee table before her. It looked more like a hotel room than an office. Maybe she was on a ship close by. Elfrida was reminded of how Dr. Hasselblatter used to operate. He, too, would turn up wherever there was political gold to be mined, and micromanage things from the comfort of a luxury hotel suite. There’d always been rumors he secretly worked for the ISA ...

Petroskova smiled at her. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a chance to chat, Agent Goto. You went to college in Paris, didn’t you?”

“Yes, mostly,” Elfrida said, lost by this rather odd conversational turn. “I did two years in a shared house on the Left Bank, taking courses from a bunch of professors at different universities. Your basic college experience. I entered the Space Corps Academy when I had enough credits.”

“I think we may have lived in the same shared house,” Petroskova said with a grin. “Not at the same time, obviously! Maison de Picasso, on the Rive Gauche? When I was there, the water pressure was just terrible. You could only take a shower on the ground floor.”

“Yes! So that was everyone’s excuse for not showering at all.”

“We
said it was part of the cultural experience: live in a three-hundred-year-old house, and smell like the French.” Petroskova laughed. “But that’s Earth for you. Even when something is broken, it doesn’t get fixed for fifty years.”

“You don’t look
that
old, ma’am.”

“I hope not! But there were definitely
century
-old cobwebs in the corners of those wonderful, high stairwells.” Petroskova turned her gaze to the Star Force officers. In the authoritative tone of one ending a discussion, she said, “Allow Agent Goto to do her job.”

Carasso sat up straight. McLean stayed absolutely still. “Is that an order?” he said.

“No, Admiral. It’s advice you really, really shouldn’t ignore.”

Carasso grabbed the screen and spun it to face himself—the vid-call equivalent of grabbing someone by their collar. “Why? Because Agent Goto went to college in the same place as you? How lovely. I came up through the ranks.”

“Don’t fight this, Executive Officer,” Petroskova said. “Intelligence has just come in which alters our cost-benefit analysis regarding Stickney. If you need to know the details, you’ll know in due time. If you don’t, you won’t. Now, I’m afraid I’ve got to cut this short. Agent Goto, it was a pleasure chatting with you. Do good work out there.” The screen went blank.

“That
definitely
came straight from the ISA,” Elfrida said.

“Yes,” McLean said. “Any idea why?”

“I’ve been on their watchlist for years. I don’t know.”

“That arrogant, meddling bitch,” Carasso grunted.

McLean’s jowls reddened. “Director Petroskova is ten times smarter than you are, Gianni, regardless of who did or didn’t go to college where. And I’m sorry to say she has a point. The Space Corps agents are in our chain of command, but they aren’t
our
agents.” He made a shooing motion at Elfrida. “Get to it. Try not to lose all the COPs.”

Elfrida retreated, babbling thanks and apologies. She ran to the telepresence center. No one was in their couch. They were milling around Colden, who was trying to keep them calm. Elfrida dashed straight past Captain Pataki and grabbed Colden’s hands. “We’re in!” she panted. “Go, go, go!”

★

Mendoza’s ragged voice penetrated the
St. Francis
sim.

“I have never been so frightened in my fucking life.”

“You did great,” Jun told him.

“Well, we’re not dead, so I guess it worked.” Mendoza laughed weakly.

“Yup. It worked.”

While Mendoza talked to Star Force, Jun had sent encrypted files to several important UN politicians, including the director of the ISA. He had told them everything. Who he was,
what
he was, how he’d hijacked Tiangong Erhao, and what he planned to do with it. He’d put himself in their hands.

Kiyoshi would have blown his stack.

But sometimes, you just had to trust people and hope for the best.

And sometimes in a rare instance they justified your trust.

Star Force’s last transmission to Mendoza had come with a hidden attachment for Jun. Only a few words: “God be with you, whatever you are. Gratefully, Tiffany Hsaio.”

He showed it to Tiangong Erhao.

“It’s a fake,” she sneered. “It’s not really from the president of the UN! It’s probably from the ISA. They’re trying to trick you into giving them one of your fancy refrigerators.”

“They already have the specs. My boss has been trying to patent the Ghost for years. Maybe now they’ll have another look at it.”

Tiangong Erhao plunged onwards, leaving behind a tense standoff. The CDTF wanted to chase Tiangong Erhao and butt-frag it. The Star Force ships got in their way, ever so casually pointing their charged-particle cannons at the Chinese ships. The international diplomatic back-channels overheated. Jun left them to it. He’d gotten what he wanted: a guarantee of safe passage backed by Star Force.

“They were confused by me,” Mendoza said, chortling a bit wildly. “At first they didn’t believe I was who I said. I had to tell them all kinds of little details about working for the UN and growing up in Manila and stuff. I think the Philippines just became an important country.”

“How’s your leg?” Jun said.

“Still gone.
Laugh.”

“Are you using the prosthetic?”

“Yes. It feels weird, but I guess I’ll get used to it.”

“You’d better call Elfrida. I think we can risk one last transmission. We’re still inside Earth’s sphere of influence.”

“All
right!
What should I tell her?”

Jun smiled and scratched under his left arm. “Tell her you’ll be there soon.”

Constant acceleration was one of those simple mathematical miracles that everyone took for granted. By now Tiangong Erhao was eating 4,000,000 kilometers a day. It would overhaul Eureka Station, in its Mars-trailing orbit, in six days and eleven hours. Jun looked forward to launching Mendoza to safety, and hopefully a hero’s reception.

★

On the bridge of the
Monster,
in stale air that was gradually cooling to the ambient temperature of space, in complete darkness, a gaggle of domestic and maintenance bots crouched around the empty captain’s throne. From time to time, one of them rolled or crabwalked forward a few centimeters. Then retreated as if it had been slapped.

Their hardwired desire to clean up the mess under the captain’s workstation was very strong.

Jun had not had any attention to spare for this situation, apart from telling the bots to keep their distance. Now he took a few moments to see what was what. He caused one of the bots to squirm under the workstation and shine a light on the ancient tangle of cables.

Patches of green and black mould were clearly visible.

Jun’s left armpit itched.

He instructed the bot to take samples and carry them down to the
Monster’s
materials lab.

The results of a quick analysis confirmed that secondary microbes had begun to appear amidst the primary colonizers. One in particular was of interest:
Pestalotiopsis microspora,
a bacteria gengineered two centuries ago to clean up landfills, had mutated in the wild and was now the bane of spaceship captains everywhere. It was resistant to cold, and did not mind high concentrations of carbon dioxide. It ate plastic.

Such as the coating of the old cables governing the
Monster’s
flight controls.

The housekeeping bot, perched on the stool in front of the microscope, like a pudgy midget on treads, sagged. All four of its arms hung limp for a moment.