The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (143 page)

Wilson began to wish he’d simply walked on by that morning when Justine asked him for a moment. But he knew it wasn’t something he could ignore; the red planet had a resonance he could never ignore.
What the hell did the Guardians want with Mars?

As he pulled out the most recent files from the investigation, it was clear that navy intelligence didn’t have a clue. And just as Myo had indicated, they were winding down that aspect of the case.

“My e-butler’s flagged an interesting report,” he said casually. “What were the Guardians doing on Mars?”

Rafael’s focus returned to the real world. “We don’t know. The Guardians’ courier was killed, and whatever data he was carrying has disappeared. Between you and me, I believe it wound up at Senate Security. Senator Burnelli’s interest in this case is less than professional.”

“Really? I’ll see if I can have a word with Gore about that. He owes me a few favors from way back.”

“I’d appreciate that. Sometimes, I’m not sure we’re all working for the same side. The damn Grand Families can’t stop looking for a financial angle on everything.”

“No problem. But I’d like you to keep navy intelligence working on Mars. I have an understandable interest about the place.”

Rafael gave a disinterested grin. “Sure.”

Wilson and Anna’s apartment in Babuyan Atoll was in a building resembling a small pyramid of dove-gray bubbles. It was close to the edge of the vast crystal dome, which gave them a clear view out into space at night when the internal illumination dimmed. When the High Angel was in conjunction, the wan light from Icalanise’s gigantic cloudscape was enough to cast pale shadows across the walls and floors. That was frequently complemented by the waxing and waning moonlight from the gas giant’s major satellites.

Wilson would often spend an evening on the oval terrace outside the living room, sitting in a recliner with a glass of wine in one hand, watching the stark alien planets gliding overhead. Even then he would immerse himself in files and priority office work that his e-butler and virtual vision provided. The night when he got back from the War Cabinet meeting was different. He simply couldn’t push Mars out of his thoughts.

“I expected you to be happier,” Anna said as she came out onto the terrace. For once she’d taken the time to change out of her uniform after they got home. She’d put on a small yellow bikini and long semitransparent yellow robe. Her dark skin made the fabric appear bright in the infall of light from various moons. Silver and bronze OCtattoos all across her body came to life in long slow undulations, emphasizing the play of muscle below her skin.

The effect was erotic enough to divert Wilson’s thoughts from Mars. He whistled admiringly as she perched on the edge of the recliner. “I haven’t seen you like that for quite a while.”

“I know. We seem to be neglecting some fairly basic human requirements lately; it’s all Mr. and Ms. No-Fun Military Executive these days.”

“Just how basic were those requirements you had in mind?”

Her finger stroked the side of his face. “I had my staff draw up a list. They’ll get in touch with your people and start negotiations.”

“Anytime soon?” He slipped his arm around her waist and told his e-butler to get her a glass of the wine.

She settled back into the embrace and stared up through the roof of the dome. “Is that the new assembly platform?”

Wilson followed where she was looking to see a silver fleck amid the stars. “Uh … yeah, I think so. You know, space is going to get pretty cluttered out there over the next few months.”

“If we have months.”

His hold around her tightened. “They’re not invincible. Don’t ever let yourself think that. We’ve seen their home star; we know they have finite resources to throw at us.”

“They might be finite, Wilson, but they’ve got a damn sight more than we have.”

A maidbot rolled up carrying a glass of chilled wine. He took it from the electromuscle tentacle and handed it to Anna. “If they could have invaded every Commonwealth planet at once, they would have done it. They can’t. They have to try and digest us one chunk at a time. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be frightened of them, but if that first attack showed us anything, it’s that they have limits. The effort they made establishing themselves on the Lost23 gives us a breathing space. We’ll make those fancy new ships work; we’ll gather an army of people wetwired with the scariest weapons technology we can think of and kick the Lost23 out from under their quadruple feet. And after that, we’ll use the Seattle Project to put the fear of God into them. It’ll be us deciding if they get to live or not. Those sons of bitches will curse the day their barrier wall ever came down.”

“Wow. You really believe we can do this, don’t you?”

“I have to. I’m not going to let the human race become nothing more than an old legend in this part of the galaxy.”

“You can depend on me.” She kissed him lightly.

“I know.” He touched his glass to hers. “A toast. To a successful campaign, and politicians who didn’t actually spend the whole cabinet meeting trying to score points off each other.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

Wilson savored the wine, then glanced up at the Base One hardware floating close to the High Angel. “I’ve seen the ideas the physicists and designers have. They’re goddamn impressive.”

“Let’s hope the media shows stop criticizing everything we try and do.”

“They will. Baron and the others are just in shock like everyone else. Once they sober up and see what the alternative is, they’ll throw their weight behind us. I’ve seen it happen before.”

She rubbed his hair fondly. “So old. I guess that’s what makes me trust you so much. You have so much life experience. I don’t think there’s any situation you couldn’t handle.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’ve got surprising vulnerabilities. I can’t believe how much Mars is bugging me. Justine really pressed the right buttons there.”

“What do you think the Guardians have been doing there all that time?”

“I’ve been sitting here thinking about it for an hour, and I just cannot figure it out. That’s why I asked Rafael to keep his teams on it. But given the dumbass politics involved, I don’t suppose much will be done.”

“How about I become the buffer on this one for you? I’ve got the authority to press for action in navy intelligence, while you stay outside the low-level office bickering.”

Wilson stretched his neck up to kiss her. “That would be just about perfect.”

“I do what I can.” The OCtattoos on her torso began to pick up speed, reflecting the light of the shining moons in slim lines of glinting steel.

“What say we forget our staff, and just do our own negotiations here and now?”

Anna started giggling as he shifted around in the recliner so that both arms could reach around her.

Nigel Sheldon’s memory trigger was fast and completely unexpected. It snapped a scene around him like a high-rez TSI access, putting him back in front of the TV news in his adolescence, where every large-scale disaster was followed up by politicians on a “reassurance visit” to the hospitals or tent-city aid stations. After the 2048 meteor strike tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico, students on campus had printed out cards like the ones carried by volunteer organ donors, but saying:
IN THE EVENT OF EMERGENCY KEEP THE PRESIDENT AWAY FROM ME
.

Watching Elaine Doi and her entourage working her way along the queue outside the temporary medical station, Nigel wondered how many of these refugees would appreciate having that card on them right now. There wasn’t much in the way of smiles and gratitude down there, only grim resignation and an undercurrent of anger. As yet it wasn’t directed at her.

His retinal inserts zoomed back out, giving him a broad aspect of the Wessex planetary station. Like all the CST stations on Big15 worlds, the one at Narrabri sprawled over several hundred square kilometers, incorporating marshaling yards, management centers, engineering sectors, cargo warehouses, a small town of office blocks, and passenger terminals. In the aftermath of the Prime invasion it had become the clearing house for every refugee from the Lost23—all forty million of them. The CST passenger train management RI had pulled out every piece of rolling stock on the Commonwealth register to cope, from vintage carriages to the modern maglev expresses; even the steam engine that ran on the Huxley’s Haven line had been used a couple of times. The evacuation had been a truly heroic endeavor, relentless and grueling for everyone involved from the managers who suddenly found themselves coping with a catastrophe they’d never envisaged let alone trained for, to station staff helping entire planetary populations flood through their domain while nuclear weapons exploded overhead and their homes were blasted back into the stone age. Somehow, it had worked. Nigel had never been prouder of his people.

At the start, when the rail network was in true chaos, people had been swarming through the gateways on foot from the Lost23; but after a few hours, CST had reestablished the primary rail links, and begun running evacuation trains. They’d off-loaded refugees throughout phase one and two space on a rota basis, with trains abandoning their confused and frightened cargo at stations for the local government to cope with. Nobody asked permission to dump people from wildly different ethnic groups and cultures and religions onto unprepared worlds frightened for their own future. CST simply did it based on practicality.

From the Narrabri CST station manager’s office Nigel could see a mass of people milling around outside the huge buildings of the engineering sector. Repairs and maintenance on Wessex were currently impossible, with crude dormitories and makeshift kitchens filling every square meter of floor space. Even with all the temporary facilities rushed in, sanitation down there wasn’t great. But at least the big engineering sheds gave them a roof over their heads at night. Tens of thousands more camped out in the terminal buildings, eating their way through every fast-food franchise stall on the planet. More squatted in empty warehouses. Best estimates from CST staff and Wessex government officials on the ground put the number remaining in the station at two million. Social workers brought in from fifty planets, and local volunteers from Narrabri, were coping with children separated from their parents. Over thirty percent were newly orphaned, and deep in shock. There were acts of kindness and quiet heroism occurring amid the throng that would never be known, for all the intrusive media coverage of the terrible human aftermath of the invasion.

“I haven’t seen anything like this since the early twenty-first century,” Nigel said.

“Yeah, I remember Africa and Asia back then,” Alan Hutchinson said.

“This isn’t quite the same.”

Nigel cast an inquisitive glance at the third Dynasty leader in the office. Heather Antonia Halgarth gazed down impassively at the weary refugees without making any comment.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Nigel said. “It shouldn’t take more than a couple of days to move these people out.”

“Where to?” Alan asked. “My senators are starting to hear complaints. Some worlds think they’re being given too many refugees to cope with.”

“Tough,” Nigel snapped. “We can’t dump them on phase three worlds, there’s no infrastructure. Phase one and two will have to cope, physically and financially.”

“But not Earth,” Heather murmured.

Nigel gave her an uneasy smile. She was nearing the time she underwent rejuvenation, a biological age of mid-fifties. It made her an imposingly grand woman, with reddish hair starting to lighten, and a few wrinkles appearing on her cheeks. At this time in her preferred sequence, he always likened her to some high priestess: silent, wise, knowing, and totally uncompromising.

“No,” he said. “Not Earth. They’ll get a few token trainloads, but I can really do without the Grandees bitching about undesirables bringing down the tone of the neighborhood. My unisphere address would be blocked for a year with messages. They can pay for accommodation instead; I made that quite clear to Crispin.”

“Good man, Crispin,” Heather said.

“He’ll need to be,” Alan said. “Sorting this mess out will cost trillions; and it’ll take a decade if not longer. Screw it, this is nearly fifteen percent of my market those alien bastards have wiped out.”

“We might all be facing a hundred percent market loss sooner than we would like,” Heather said in a voice loaded with contempt. “I have yet to be convinced that our new navy is capable of engaging the Prime threat effectively. What I’ve seen so far doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence. Losing twenty-three planets in a day is simply unacceptable.”

“We agreed to back the formation of a navy,” Nigel said pointedly. “I don’t know what else we could have done.”

“Yeah,” Alan grunted. “It’s not exactly underfunded.”

“Relative to a species extinction crusade, which is what this is, I think we could have made more effort.”

Nigel nodded to the knot of people around Doi. “Politically difficult.”

“Which is why we dump them every five years,” Heather said. “We make the decisions, us humble three and the other Dynasties. Doi will do as she’s told, as will the Senate.”