The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (258 page)

“Is this it?” he asked in amazement.

“Sure is.” Mark had levered himself into the left-hand couch, and smiled knowingly at him. “You claustrophobic?”

“We’re about to find out.” Ozzie slid into the central couch. The arrays in front of his nose were covered in symbols he didn’t recognize, but they were powered up. He found an i-spot and pressed his hand against it. “Can you interface?” he asked the SIsubroutine.

“Yes.”

“Do it fast.”

“Working.”

“Hey,” he asked Mark. “Is the nova bomb on board?”

Mark seemed a little easier that Ozzie knew about such things. “Yeah. We’re still waiting for the
Scylla
’s bomb to be delivered. They promised it in another three hours. Not sure we’ll have the systems integration sorted by then, but we should be able to launch tomorrow.”

“So how many quantumbusters have we got?” Ozzie made it sound like a schoolkid asking questions; next it’d be
how fast does it go, mister?

“All ten loaded,” Mark said.

“Man, that is a shitload of firepower.” Ozzie felt indecently happy; the Great Frigate Heist was on-line and powering up smoothly. He could probably let rumors about this one slip out into the unisphere.

“You’re telling me.” Mark peered at one of the portal displays. “Uh—” He glanced over at Ozzie’s hand on the i-spot.

“I have command of all primary functions,” the SIsubroutine said.

A plethora of frigate command icons rose up into Ozzie’s virtual vision. Compressed instruction text orbited each one like a gas-giant ring. Just reading all the introductions would have taken a couple of hours. He assumed he’d be able to do most of the piloting himself.
After all, how difficult could it be?
It looked like he was going to be more dependent on the SIsubroutine than he liked; despite everything that’d happened he still wasn’t sure he trusted it.

“Hey, what are you loading in?” Mark asked in growing alarm.

“Ozzie!” Giselle called. “We’ve got—ohshit.”

Ozzie’s inserts picked up the warning from the security team. “Close the airlock, and get us out of here,” he told the SIsubroutine. His virtual hand took a broad swipe at all the command icons, sweeping them away like clutter off a desk. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mark putting his hand out toward an i-spot. “Stop it,” he barked. “I’ve got the kind of weapons wetwiring that can slaughter a small army. Killing you from this range is easier than breathing. Sit back and do nothing, and I’ll let you live.”

“Don’t kill me!” Mark wailed. His hand drew back as if the i-spot was wired up to a thousand volts. “Christ, man, I’ve got a family, kids.”

“Shut up.”

The airlock hatch contracted. Ozzie just heard a loud unpleasant
snap
from outside before it shut completely. He searched around for a button on his couch that would activate the restraint webbing. That was far too simple for this ship. He gave up. “Strap me in,” he told the SIsubroutine.

“Confirmed.”

“And give me some visuals from outside. I wanna see what’s going down.”

The couch’s plyplastic cushioning flowed over his shoulders and hips, securing him tight. Five grids in his virtual vision display came on, and he pulled the pictures out. A whole squad of armored figures was zipping out into the docking bay. Then Mellanie drifted in front of a camera. Half of her left side had been torn away; long tatters of gore hung from exposed, shattered ribs. Her face swung into view, staring directly into the lens. For some reason she possessed a Zen-like serenity, then her lips twitched and arterial blood foamed out of her mouth.

“Mellanie!” a horrified Mark cried. “Oh, God, what have you done to her? Look at her, you fucking monster.”

Ozzie didn’t have the courage to tell him to shut up again.

“Umbilicals disconnected,” the SIsubroutine said. “Engaging secondary drive units.”

The walls of the docking bay slipped past. Brief glimpse of the
Scylla,
embraced by the cool gray metal of maintenance platforms. Technicians turning clumsily to stare as they flew past. Then there was the purple sparkle of the pressure curtain over the hull followed by the infinite black of space. The planet formed a huge steel-gray crescent cutting across the stars. One of the spaceflowers was almost directly below them, a perfect half circle of rumpled amethyst that suddenly vanished as it crossed into the penumbra.

“Have we got enough power to make it to Dyson Alpha?” Ozzie asked the SIsubroutine.

“Yes.”

He debated whether to ask the obvious. Decided to go for it. “And get back?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, plot a course and take us there.”

“Working.”

“Are you going to kill me now?” Mark was looking at him with the kind of wild eyes that belonged to a dying animal.

“Nobody’s going to kill you,” Ozzie said. He hurriedly told the SIsubroutine to block all access to the onboard arrays apart from his own. Mark was the lead assembly technician; who knew what he’d embedded in the frigate’s systems.

“You will,” Mark said fearfully. “Your type always does.”

“Now wait up one goddamn minute here. I’m not any kind of
type.
”

“You just hijacked a Dynasty frigate.”

“I don’t have a lot of choice here, man.”

“You’re going to kill me, you bastard.”

“I’m not, I can’t.” Ozzie waved his arms around for emphasis, wincing as he slapped the back of his hand against the arrays. “I’m not wetwired for anything but a few bioneural chips. I swear, man; you’re perfectly safe. So just chill out.”

The silence stretched out dangerously.

“What?” Mark demanded.

“I, er, really needed the frigate; I probably exaggerated what I’d do. Heat of the moment, dude. I was desperate.”

“You piece of shit.”

“What can I say, I’m sorry.”

Mark glared at him, and folded his arms across his chest. It wasn’t an easy position to maintain in zero gee, but he managed it. “Will you be telling Mellanie you’re sorry?”

“We are going FTL,” the SIsubroutine announced.

Ozzie braced himself. There’d probably be a rush of acceleration, space twisting around him, stars blueshifting before they collided into a burst of light ahead and stretched out to envelop the hull. “She’ll get re-lifed,” he mumbled, trying to ignore the spike of shame.

“Well, that makes it all right then.” Mark deliberately and defiantly slapped a hand on an i-spot.

“What’s happening?” Ozzie asked the SIsubroutine.

“Please define context.”

“Why haven’t we gone FTL?”

“We have. We are currently traveling at thirteen point five light-years per hour.”

“Holy shit.” A huge smile split Ozzie’s face. “Really?” If he was designing the ship he’d build in a little flicker of the cabin lights, a deep throbbing sound, just something to emphasize the tremendous forces at work within the drive.

“Confirmed.”

“Wow.”

“You’ve blocked me out of the arrays,” Mark said.

“Sure have. Hey, do you know how fast we’re traveling? Thirteen light-years per hour. Jeez, that’s like just three days to Dyson Alpha. Man, me and Nige should have tried to build something like this back at the start, and to hell with wormholes. This is like totally
money,
straight and neat.”

“A straight quick trip to our death, more like.”

“Oh, lighten up, man, you’re about to make history in this ship.”

“You mean like the
Titanic
?”

“Nigel Sheldon is calling you,” the SIsubroutine said.

Ozzie twitched inside his protective webbing. A huge rush of guilt overtook his relief at pulling off the hijack. Then alarm kicked in. “How is he doing that?”

“The frigate uses a method of communications called a transdimensional channel. It is a subfunction of the main drive.”

“Man, I am like really going to have to read the instruction book. He can’t track us with that, can he?”

“The TD channel can be made directional in order to facilitate tracking.”

“Christ! Make sure it’s not doing that right now.”

“Confirmed.”

“Okay. Cool. Put Nigel on.”

“Turn around, Ozzie.” Nigel’s eerily calm voice filled the cabin. “Bring the frigate back, please.”

Mark smiled in satisfaction and gave Ozzie a challenging look.

“Can’t do that, man,” Ozzie said. “And you know it. I worked out a way to reactivate the barrier. I’m going to use a quantumbuster against the Starflyer gadget that’s messing with the generator’s quantum state.”

“There is a Trojan program in the TD signal,” the SIsubroutine reported. “I believe they are trying to take command of the ship by remote.”

“Can you counter it?”

“I believe so. It is not a type I have in my catalogue.”

“Any problem, cut the link immediately.”

“Ozzie,” Nigel said, “we need the
Charybdis
to eliminate the Prime threat. Bring her back. Now.”

“Course set. Anchor’s up. Sails to the wind. Sorry, Nige, man, I’m committed.”

“Ozzie, we have other frigates. They will be flown by people who understand how to use them properly. I will assign them to hunt you down and kill you. After that, I will make sure you are never re-lifed. I can do this, and you know it.”

“You know what, Nige: if you succeed in that, then genocide MorningLightMountain, I don’t think I’d want to live in the kind of galaxy left over afterward.”

“Mark,” Nigel said, “I’m sorry for what’s about to happen, but we cannot allow Ozzie to hand over the
Charybdis
to MorningLightMountain. You have my personal word you will be re-lifed immediately. I will also ensure that Liz, Barry, and Sandy will be taken care of in the meantime.”

Mark sniffed. He wiped away the moisture clotting his eyes. “I understand, sir. Tell Otis to shoot straight.”

“Thank you, Mark. Once again, I’m proud you are family.”

Ozzie groaned in dismay and gave Mark a sullen glance. “Since when did you turn into a bonehead hero?”

“Fuck you,” Mark spat.

“Nige, you know damn well I am not turning this frigate over to MorningLightMountain,” Ozzie said angrily. “I’m going to stop you and it from killing each other.”

“You’ve stolen the only two items of technology that can guarantee the human race survives the war, Ozzie. This isn’t dicking around, this isn’t playing the wacky smartass to my corporate stiff.
You are attempting to kill humanity.
Do you understand that?”

“I’m going to save you,” Ozzie barked back at him. “Trust me, Nige, you always used to. Please.”

“Come back.”

“No. You come with me.” Ozzie hated how petulant he sounded. “Switch the TD channel off,” he told the SIsubroutine.

“Confirmed.”

Ozzie took a couple of minutes out just staring at the systems displays in front of him, allowing his temper to cool. He didn’t like to admit to himself just how rattled he’d been by Nigel’s threats. In the end he released the plyplastic bands from his arms, just keeping his legs loosely restrained, and drew a breath. “Hey, er, Mark, Nigel doesn’t actually have a fleet of these frigates, does he? I mean, they’re all still being built, right?”

“Honestly? He has the
Scylla,
and three more which have just completed assembly. None of them have been flight tested, but they passed their systems integration trials. Otis flew
Charybdis
against Hell’s Gateway with a damn sight less preparation than that.”

“Great. Thanks for that, man. I officially appoint you chief morale officer.” Ozzie could see this was going to be a flight with minimal conversation. “Where’s the food? I need a decent meal.”

Mark’s smile was the kind used by evil emperors at their victory celebrations. “What food? We left before the stores were brought on board.”

Highway One was the first major civil engineering project to be attempted on Far Away, and the last on such a grand scale. At the time construction began Armstrong City was little more than a camp of mobile homes and prefab buildings squatting in a giant mud lake around the newly constructed gateway. There had been talk about moving the gateway directly to the recently discovered
Marie Celeste,
but as they had on Half Way the Commonwealth Council demanded a safe separation distance. In any case, during those early years they were still hoping that other alien artifacts would be discovered, equal or greater than the crashed arkship. The gateway stayed where it was above the shores of the North Sea, and the Council shipped in a pair of massive micropile-powered JCB roadbuilders.

They took twenty-seven months to chew their way southeast over the equator, extruding a wide ribbon of enzyme-bonded concrete onto the flat strip they’d cut through the sandy flare-sterilized soil. Seven main rivers were bridged, and three broad flood plain valleys traversed with long switchbacks on either side.

As well as leading to the starship, Highway One was originally intended as the major access route to the southern hemisphere. As it curved back west around the Dessault Mountains to the
Marie Celeste
’s valley, another road branched off to head eastward for the shore of the Oak Sea. After that, the intention was to carry on south until it eventually reached the Deep Sea. By then the JCBs were in need of heavy-duty maintenance, which couldn’t be done in the field. The rough stony terrain and constant lack of spare parts had taken their toll on the massive machines. Once they left the
Marie Celeste
behind they never made it to the Deep Sea. The Black Desert proved too inhospitable; its fierce heat and constant sandwinds abrading too many already degraded components. With more than five hundred kilometers of desert left to traverse the team finally turned around and drove back along the length of their creation. The JCBs were refurbished as best Far Away’s embryonic engineering industry could manage and spent the next few years laying smaller roads across the Aldrin Plains and Iril Steppes where the farmlands were taking hold before they finally decayed beyond economic repair. No more were ever imported.

A road that began in the capital and stretched thousands of kilometers away across the planet until it ended abruptly in the middle of a desert was always going to be a romantic road. People drove along it because it was there, especially the younger generations of Far Away natives who would take off on bikes and spend months moving along from community to community. As with all roads through virgin territory, it was the starting point for pioneers setting up their farmsteads. Villages sprang up along its sides, especially along the first thousand kilometers outside Armstrong City where the temperate climate was suited to farming. Each small settlement evolved into a junction for the empty land beyond as the revitalization team gradually expanded the area that could be successfully planted. Farmers set out to the east and west, bringing their own vegetation to a gritty soil now ripening with bacteria. The Barsoomians traveled along Highway One until the equator when they turned eastward to establish themselves around the northern shores of the Oak Sea and the remoter regions of the Great Iril Steppes. According to some their domain even extended out to the westernmost shore of the Hondu Ocean.

This great conduit of humanity helped expand the new vegetation across an elongated stretch of the ruined planet far quicker than the revitalization teams could with their fleet of blimpbots. From space, life’s progress could be seen as a verdant stain that spread out eagerly from the road, covering the barren ground with fields and forests. Eventually, the planet began to revert to an overall green tinge that had been missing ever since the flare saturated it with radiation. Even amid that patina the road’s borders were still a prominent slash of bright emerald.

Beyond that first main stretch of population reaching out from Armstrong City the travelers scattered their own biological detritus. Some were deliberate, like the hundred-sixty-kilometer length straddling the equator where an ancient hermitlike émigré from Earth called Rob Lacy devoted thirty years to hand-planting giant GMredwoods on either side of the concrete, turning it into a mighty greenway. There was the infamous Jidule Valley where somebody with a bad sense of humor had illicitly reprogrammed the revitalization project’s agribots to plant silk oaks in the pattern of a copulating couple five kilometers across, a forest whose shape could be seen in its entirety from the top of the valley. And the Doyle swamp, famous the Commonwealth over for its profusion of Jupiter cat trap plants, an example of early Barsoomian handiwork, plants modified from Venus flytraps until they were big enough to capture small rodents. It became something of a ritual for anyone riding down the wide concrete lanes to bring seeds of their favorite plant with them, to be scattered at random, producing a weird mishmash of vegetation that was now among the most established on the planet.

Stig had traveled along Highway One enough times to be familiar with most of its diverse sections. A couple of hours after they’d left rendezvous point four, the Guardians’ vehicles reached the first built-up section. The countryside directly outside Armstrong City was predominantly fields and sweeping grasslands split up into estates owned by some of the richest people on the planet. Beyond the estates the land rose into the Devpile hills that were the province of sheep and goat farmers. It was only after Highway One swept down out of the hills on the other side and crossed the Clowine River that the buildings started to bunch up close around it. The houses and commercial blocks were only three or four deep, but this particular urban segment ran for over eighty kilometers. Along its entire length, slender composite arches curved high over the four lanes of ancient enzyme-bonded concrete, alive with lights and commercial signs. There were more garish fluorescent signs along the edge of the road, enticing drivers to stop off and buy everything from farm supplies to motel rooms to dental work. In places the building fronts actually bordered the cracked concrete road. Vans and pickups trundled along between all the side streets and turnoffs; they’d even seen a couple of people riding horses.

“Another one,” Stig remarked as he slowed the armored car a fraction. Up ahead, a car had been smashed off the road to embed itself in the front of a clothing store. Long scorch marks up the wall showed where it had caught fire. Two police cars were parked beside it, their hazard strobes flashing red and amber. A big recovery truck was hitched up to the wreck, ready to pull it free.

Stig steered around the police cars, one hand resting close to the armored car’s weapons control panel. Even though they were local police, he still didn’t quite trust them. The burned-out car had its side buckled in, the type of impact that a Land Rover Cruiser would leave.

“It’s in a hurry,” Bradley remarked from the forward passenger bench. “We’ve frightened it, as much as anything like that can feel fright.”

One of the police officers was gesturing angrily at Stig as he sped past at a hundred thirty kilometers an hour. The rest of the Guardians’ vehicles followed him, keeping close.

“It rammed emergency vehicles, even knocked over injured people when it was getting out of the city,” Stig told him. “A slow car in the way isn’t going to get any consideration.”

“Are the police trying to do anything?” Bradley asked Keely.

“Plenty of people are complaining,” she said. “The road net is full of them. But the local highway cops don’t want to get involved. They know the Cruisers are all Institute vehicles.”

“Good,” Bradley said. “They’d be slaughtered out of hand if they tried to stop them.”

“Anything from Ledro’s group?” Stig asked. Ledro was leading a demolitions team to take out the bridge over the river Taran, six hundred kilometers farther south.

“He says ten minutes,” Keely reported.

“Good.” Stig shifted his grip on the steering wheel, easing the armored car away from the central lane barrier. After the joy of discovering Adam had made it through, he was wound up again. The idea of having Bradley Johansson himself sitting next to him during the chase was simply not something he’d allowed for. This was the climax of a plan the man had begun a hundred thirty years ago. Stig could barely organize three days ahead. He couldn’t rid himself of the notion that every ancestor he had would be looking down from the dreaming heavens this night. It wasn’t the kind of responsibility he handled easily.

“You did the right thing,” Bradley said softly.

“Sir?”

“Sending in the fuel air bomb, detonating it inside the city. I know it must have been a hard choice.”

“There was so much damage,” Stig confessed. “More than I thought.”

“Millions have died on the Commonwealth worlds over the last weeks, and millions more during the first invasion. The navy has developed weapons which are strong enough to damage a star; the radiation emission alone can wipe out the biosphere of an H-congruous planet a hundred million kilometers away. The unisphere is alive with rumors that Nigel Sheldon has something even more powerful than that; something which destroyed Hell’s Gateway where the navy’s finest failed completely. Judged against that scale, a single fuel air bomb that generated a few hundred casualties is insignificant. Yet at the same time you accomplished so much.”

“I don’t see it that way. I walked through the ruins; there were so many people with shattered lives. Dreaming heavens, I could smell burnt flesh.”

“You stalled the Starflyer on the other side of the gateway. That was crucial.
Vital.
Without that interruption to its plans, I would be dying on a world three hundred light-years away, it would already be closer to its starship, and the planet would be unable to extract its revenge. Look at the whole picture, Stig, focusing on individual actions is only going to cause you doubt and worry. Your thoughts should embrace a collective strategy. The Guardians of Selfhood are back on target again, in no small part thanks to you.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Ask the Paris team or Cat’s Claws if you doubt me. We were the ones who had almost given up hope until you wrecked its plans. You allowed us to get so close, Stig, I could actually feel it again, all that arrogance and malice spilling out into the ether. If we’d had a few minutes longer we could have exterminated it there and then. As it is, we forced it back onto our schedule. So don’t ever allow your resolve to desert you.”

“Thank you, sir.” Stig focused hard on the road, a tight smile curling his lips up. The ancient concrete surface was cracked and worn here, covered with an intricate lacework of black tar where bots and laborers had filled in the holes. The armored car’s wheels
thrummed
over the ridges as it raced under the bright arches; they were spaced so close together now they’d transformed Highway One into a psychedelic tunnel.

“Contact with Adam,” Keely reported. “He’s asking for you, sir. Heavy interference, we’ve got a badly behaved ionosphere tonight.”

“Let’s hear it,” Bradley said.

Static wailed through the low interior of the armored car. “Bradley?” Adam called.

“I’m here, Adam.”

“I’ve got a problem.”

“How bad?”

“The worst. Your signal is breaking …”

“What. Is. Your. Problem?”

“Found four crates that were sabotaged. We lost a Volvo as well.”

Something like a small electric charge fired down Stig’s spine. Adam’s trouble could mean only one thing. Stig automatically checked his wing mirror. The truck carrying the big Raiel alien was five vehicles back, while the armored car carrying Cat’s Claws and the Paris team was the second in line. He started working out which of his people would have the easiest shot.

“Are you sure?” Bradley asked. The signal whistled sharply. “Are you sure?” Bradley repeated urgently.

“Definite. It was done on the Carbon Goose … Only opportunity.”

“Is there enough equipment intact to complete the planet’s revenge?”

“Yeah. If we get there. Paula and I convinced it … one of the navy people with us. Has to be … it out, no other … Any information about them from your people … work it out. Paula seriously ill … medical kit should cope … can’t help me much.”

“Dreaming heavens,” Bradley muttered quietly. “I never expected it to get this close to us. Not now.”

“We can’t go back and help them,” Stig said. “We don’t have time.” He thumped the wheel with one hand.

“Adam is asking for information,” Bradley said. “We’ll give him as much as we can.”

“What if there’s more than one of them? What if there’s a Starflyer agent with us as well?”

“That’s not good,” Olwen said from the back of the armored car. “These machines are well protected. We’d have to put them in front of our heavy-caliber weapons. Then there’s their suits to break.”

“They’d have to take care of their own,” Stig said. “Any kind of firefight at that level would destroy the rest of our vehicles.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Bradley said. “For the Starflyer to plant one agent among us would require considerable effort. The people who joined us at Narrabri station were essentially thrown together by accident. For the Starflyer to infiltrate two agents among us under these circumstances is beyond possibility.”