The Unincorporated Future (51 page)

“You have to save her!”

“Save who, Katy?” asked Sandra, the previous moment’s amusement wiped away by the obvious terror in Katy’s voice.

“Mama Bo!” screamed Katy, and then broke down into a mass of sobs.

Sandra held the crying girl to her bosom, rocking her back and forth. “Admiral Bl—, Mama Bo is fine, Katy-coo. I just talked to her an hour ago.”

“But she won’t be, Granny Sandy. She’s not coming back.”

Sandra stopped hugging the child and held her at arm’s length, studying her intently. “What do you mean, ‘She’s not coming back,’ child?”

“I know it! I just know it!”

“But how, Katy?”

“Because I’m not going with her.”

Sandra’s brow shot up. “She is not taking you?”

Katy shook her head vigorously.

“Hmm…,” mumbled Sandra, eyes narrowing ever so slightly. “But she took you to Mars.” It had been whispered almost as an afterthought.

“Hello-oh!” said Katy, enough of the six-year-old emerging to sound annoyed at the density of the adults around her. “And she didn’t promise. If she was coming back, she would
always
promise, and she didn’t. She didn’t, and she’s not coming back. She has to, she has to.” Katy crumpled once more into the President’s warm embrace. Sandra knew that J.D. would burn the Earth to its mantle for the child now weeping in her arms. The fact that J.D. had altered a well-known pattern gave the President pause.

Sandra pulled Katy into her once again and then held the child’s chin in her hand so they were looking eye to eye. “Little one, I am the President of the Outer Alliance. I am the one who first talked to the angels. You came to me because you think I can do something, and I can.” Sandra’s smile was wan but warm. “You can ask me for one thing, child, this one time and I wi—”

“She has to come back, she has to come back. Say she’ll come back,” pleaded Katy.

Sandra took the girl’s hand and put it on her own heart. “Katy, Mama Bo will come home.” When Sandra saw the tear-streaked face looking up at her, she decided then and there to add some more words of assurance with all the certainty she could muster, with a certainty that would get laws passed and rally whole peoples to win impossible victories.

“I promise,” she said, and then softly began to sing.

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,

Smiles awake you when you rise.

Sleep, pretty baby, do not cry,

And I will sing a lullaby

As Sandra sat rocking the child back and forth in her arms, humming gently into her ear, Katy, emotionally spent and physically exhausted, finally collapsed into a deep sleep. And Sandra started to change her plans. The fleet would soon be leaving and now she’d be going with it.

8 Hairsbreath

UHF battle fleet
High orbit of Mars

“Admiral, it’s confirmed,” said his sensor officer, the excitement barely contained. “The Alliance fleet is on the move.”

Trang’s smile exuded confidence. “Let me guess: They’re heading here.”

“It’s still too early to be sure, sir, but it would appear that way. They’re heading for Jupiter, and it’s the route they took the last time, Admiral.”

“Well, we’re not going to be here,” Trang said with dry humor. “Prepare the fleet to break orbit. If they want us, they can come and get us.”

“Sir,” asked the XO, “what destination should I give the fleet?”

“Tell ’em”—Trang’s smile brightened considerably—“tell ’em we’re going home.”

Alliance battle fleet
En route to Jupiter

“To the woman who kicked my ass today,” said J.D., holding up a glass toward her second-in-command amidst a wave of cheers heard throughout the
Otter
’s wardroom.

Suchitra bowed her head politely. “You’re being unduly harsh on yourself, sir. After all, I did have the bulk of the heavy ships.”

“But you did not fall for a single one of my ploys or let me prescribe your actions.
You
controlled the battle.” J.D. looked at Suchitra with obvious pride. “You even knew what I was going to do.”

Suchitra nodded, eyes brimming not only with the adulation but also with the knowledge that J.D. had been correct, Suchitra
had
known what her commanding officer was going to do.

“So,
nu
?” said J.D. borrowing one of Rabbi’s oft-used phrases. “How did it feel? What was it like knowing what your opponent was going to do, knowing down to your soul?” There was about the question the aura of release, a discarding of loneliness. J.D. had had the gift of battle prescience for so long that she’d almost given in to thinking that perhaps it truly
was
a blessing, that perhaps the moniker she’d been saddled with
was
deserved. She was now especially thrilled to find out it wasn’t, that it could be taught and that the Alliance could now go on without her.

“It felt,” said Suchitra, “like the universe was standing still, and for the first time I saw how it all worked.”

J.D. nodded, smiling empathetically. “Yes,” she whispered. “Just like that.”

“I’ve been in battles before and I’ve even outguessed my opponents, but it was never so clear, never like this. You’ve always felt that … it wasn’t learned?”

J.D. nodded.

“I guess you really were sent from the gods themselves.”

“If that’s the case,” answered J.D., now shaking her head, “then those gods must really like you as well.”

The compliment caused Suchitra to blush, but given the woman’s dark skin and the low light of the room, only J.D. could tell.

“Don’t get too confident, Admiral. I’m pretty sure the gods talk to Trang as well.”

Suchitra looked like she was going to argue, but stopped. “I think they do too. It’s only fitting that we must earn our freedom if we’re to be worthy of it.”

“No matter the price,” J.D. said, once again raising her glass.

Suchitra hesitated, knowing exactly what price the Blessed One was referring to and what part Suchitra herself had agreed to play in it. The young admiral raised her glass and answered her warlord. “No matter the price.”

*   *   *

Sandra O’Toole was in the
New Alliance One
but not quite on it. She was enjoying herself in the ship’s rather impressive Neuro net with an avatar she now thought of as a friend. It didn’t hurt that as her body was resting in her quarters, watched over and protected by the ever-vigilant Sergeant Holke, her mind was on a tropical beach, drinking Bahama Mamas with Gwendolyn.

“So you’re on this ship because a little girl asked you to?”

“Not quite,” corrected Sandra. “I’m on this ship because a little girl showed me something I hadn’t quite seen before.”

“Really?” Gwendolyn seemed surprised. Then laughed as she reflected on how Dante, an impossibly young forty-one years of age and never having been twined with a human, had upended all of avatarity’s preconceived notions—especially those of his mentor, Sebastian—in his quest to bring the two races together. “Actually,” she said, sipping happily at the drink, “it makes perfect sense.”

“You know, Gwenny,” using the nickname she had taken to calling her one true friend amongst the avatars, “we think we’re so damned smart, but every now and then, we’re reminded of how little we actually know. So yes, I’m on this ship because of the prescience of a little girl who was wise enough to let me know that I needed to be.”

“You were always good at listening to children, Sandra—yours and ours.”

“Gwenny, there’s no such thing as your children or our children; they’re just children. And like all children, their minds are wonderfully uncluttered.”

“Which is why you’re here. But why
are
you here?”

“To keep a friend from doing something really stupid.”

“Hopefully not something that might lose us the war,” asked Gwendolyn with growing concern.

“Worse,” answered Sandra drowsily, “something that could help us win it.”

Executive mansion
Lake Geneva
Earth

Hektor Sambianco waited alone by the shore of the lake. As alone as Gretchen Arbieter would allow. He was fairly certain that his conversation would be private, which was the best a person in his position could hope for. As he looked over the lake at the ruins of the former capital of the UHF, he let out an irritable grunt. His bitter mood was at least momentarily subdued by the appearance of an approaching figure.

“Hello, Sam.”

“Mr. President.” Trang threw a brief but correct salute. “Mr. President, I’m afraid I owe you an apology.”

“Really?” answered Hektor. “Well, this should be interesting.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t take your warning concerning the avatars seriously and delayed implementing them. That little dereliction of duty ended up costing me ships and men and has left the fleet weakened before an unrelenting enemy who’s as ruthless and heartless as any in the history of the human race.”

“Admiral,” answered Hektor with a one-sided grin, “given my rather poor track record in the military department, I’m not ashamed to say you were justified. In fact, there’s reason to suggest that we may not even have been in this mess if I’d listened to you sooner.”

“I don’t think so, Mr. President. It seems pretty obvious the OA had been waiting for just the right opportunity to unleash the Avatar Plague. I’m only glad it wasn’t worse. And let’s face it, as bad as it was, it could’ve been
a lot
worse.”

“On that we can agree. So why don’t we make this deal? I won’t bring up the Avatar Plague if you don’t bring up the Third Battle of the Martian Gates. And to sweeten the deal, what say you fight your battles however you want and I’ll just shut the hell up.”

Trang smiled amiably and bowed. “This stiff-necked martinet gratefully agrees, Mr. President.”

Deal done, they passed the minutes looking out over the poisoned water of Lake Geneva. “I’m sorry to hear about your wife, Sam,” Hektor said. “She was a good woman. Not what you would call a political animal, but kind and to the point. By Damsah’s left nut, I really liked her for that.”

“Thank you for saying that, sir. I know she would’ve appreciated hearing it.” Trang looked down and his face suddenly grew hard. “What really gets me is that my wife dies, and her Damsah-forsaken father goes untouched. Ten billion people are murdered in a week, and that SOB doesn’t get a hair on his head touched.”

Hektor’s lips twisted up. “I can still have him killed, Sam. Tricia’s just itching to kill
someone
. Hell, she might even do that one herself.”

Trang remained eerily silent.

Damsah,
thought Hektor, truly awed,
bastard’s actually thinking about it!

After a brief respite, Trang shook his head and sighed. “It’s tempting, Mr. President. More tempting than you can possibly know, but if there is an afterlife, well … I’d never hear the end of it.”

“Don’t suppose you would,” confirmed Hektor, and then continued gazing out at the river. A moment later, a thought occurred to him. “You know, I could always have his government contracts examined instead.”

Trang laughed. “I think the crooked son of a bitch might prefer to be killed!”

“Always leave something for the future,” advised Hektor. After a moment, he turned to his battle admiral. “She’s coming here, isn’t she?”

“Yes, Mr. President. The Merciless One’s coming home.”

“You know, she used to be my greatest ally. When she was head of legal for GCI, we were unstoppable.”

“Oh, she’s stoppable, Mr. President.”

“You really think so, Sam?” asked Hektor, his voice unable to hide the doubt.

“I
will
win, Mr. President. Our back’s against the wall and we’re fighting for our very lives. If we lose, I’m convinced she’ll destroy us utterly.”

“You believe that.”

“Absolutely, Mr. President.”

“If you don’t mind my asking,
why
do you believe that?”

“Because when I win, it’s exactly what I’m going to do to them. Destroy their Damsah-forsaken worlds, settlement by bloody settlement. For the survival of us all and for the ten billion they murdered, they
all
must die.”

As Trang’s brooding figure looked out over the waters, Hektor allowed a half smile. It might not be necessary to have this man killed after all.