Abysm (37 page)

So be it.

Miriam gave her bridge crew a reassuring smile, projecting confidence that she was not sending them to their graves. She thought about David, and her smile grew brighter at the image blossoming in her mind of him—

Nine nodes across three arrays of the Terrestrial Defense Grid fired their lasers. They converged into one massive beam, 3,600 kilotonnes of energy aimed at her.

The viewport was engulfed in blinding citron light, but the hull did not even vibrate. The lasers maintained sustained fire, even as their leading edges vanished prior to contact with their target.

‘The dimensional rift is successfully diverting the lasers’ energy, Admiral Solovy.’

“Yes, Thomas. It is.”

The
Stalwart II’s
sensors told her eighteen additional nodes added their firepower to the stream—likely the total number of nodes with a direct LOS to her ship. The filters struggled to keep up with the increased brightness engulfing the viewport, and she blinked away halos.

Abruptly all the luminescence vanished, and Earth’s profile again resolved in the distance.

Cheers broke out on the bridge, but she merely acknowledged the warmth in her chest.
That’s my girl.
Thank you, Alex.

Winslow had played the last, best card she had, and she had lost.

Miriam reopened the channel to EDTC. “Prime Minister, you may fire on me as much as you wish, but it is a waste of time and resources. You won’t be able to destroy me, or even so much as ding me. Or my ship. I’ll see you soon.”

Next she turned to her XO. “I’m activating the cloaking shield but maintaining its rift functionality as well. Navigation, divert S 32° 12.5°z E for seven megameters.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She burned up nearly all her power to maintain both functions until she was elsewhere enough for her ship to be safe without her. Then she deactivated the dimensional rift and redirected the extra power to the cloaking shield.

Finally, she paused to take note of the air around her. Breathed in, and absorbed the reality that all was quiet. No lasers chased her. No damage reports flashed on screens, nor did alarms peal through the ship.

Breathed out.

“Major Halmi, you have the bridge.”

SIYANE

S
PACE,
S
OL
S
YSTEM

Alex sat in the cockpit of the
Siyane
, her knees drawn up to her chest in the chair, her body frozen in terror as multiple orbital array lasers fired.

From her vantage, stealthed ten megameters back from the
Stalwart II
with the rest of the fleet, she couldn’t even detect a flare of light as they hit the rift. The lasers simply drew alarmingly close to the
Stalwart II
and no farther. The outline of the vessel remained undisturbed and undamaged.

An immense amount of power—then an insane amount more as additional nodes fired—rushed into a point seventy meters across and vanished like a waterfall disappearing over a cliff.

“Oh my god, it’s working. It is working, isn’t it, Valkyrie?”

‘It is indeed.’

Abruptly the lasers ceased firing, leaving the
Stalwart II
floating peacefully above Earth.

She laughed in delight, relieved beyond any capacity to measure. A pulse arrived from Caleb.

Good job, baby, not that I ever had a doubt.

I did. Thank you,
priyazn
. Keep her safe, will you?

It will be my honor.

He was already on the
Gambier
with Malcolm and his team. The ship would soon deliver them and Miriam to London. She was ridiculously proud of him for elbowing his way onto the infiltration team, if a little annoyed she didn’t have a role to play in the final gambit.

Valkyrie offered her a measure of reassurance. ‘Without you, there would be no final gambit.’

Because her mother would in all likelihood be dead. And they called
her
obstinate. “I know. Honestly, it’s fine. I like it up here…even if all I have to do to pass the time now is worry about the
both
of them.”

She gazed down at the massive profile of Earth spinning below her. Home, still and probably always. Not merely for her, but for some six billion humans.

Terrible humans with darkness rotting away their souls, like Pamela Winslow. Wonderful humans instead buoyed by joy and love, like countless family and friends. The people helping her mother now. Ethan before one of the terrible humans had robbed him of life.

Why must there always be such a struggle between the two, catching all those in the middle in their crossfire? Why were they here at this consequential moment yet again, when they had been here so many times before?

…Unless the point of humanity was to struggle. Unless the uniqueness of humanity was in its refusal to
stop
struggling. To fight, to doubt, to persevere, to never be content.

It was exhausting.

But she remembered the moment from Iona-Cead Ahearne’s memory, when Lakhes had described the Anadens as pursuing a vision of perfect, universal order. Was this where the Anadens had gone wrong?

Winslow’s madness wasn’t really about Artificials or Prevos. It was about control, and the exploitation of power through it. Millions of years in Amaranthe’s past, had someone akin to Pamela Winslow won the day and tipped the balance of society toward rigid order, then eventually toward totalitarian control?

Mesme had claimed not to know. But it felt true, if only because today such a fate was but a few wrong choices away for them as well.

‘Where do you think the lasers went?’

Alex frowned. “They went where we sent them—into extra-dimensional space.”

‘But what does that mean, spatially? Cosmically?
Where
did they go?’

Her attention drifted away from Earth out to the stars. The sun’s light obscured all but the brightest. “I suppose they fell into the abysm. The chasm which lies in the space between the physical dimensions.”

‘Why do you describe such a realm as an abysm?’

“Because if it doesn’t have real, tangible form—if it can’t be measured—then by definition it doesn’t have a terminus. There’s no bottom to the chasm.”

She smiled in a bit of contemplative amusement. “I’m sure the reality is the energy was either atomized and scattered or crushed out of existence. But I like to imagine the beams forever falling into the void.”

37

EARTH

L
ONDON
E
ARTH
A
LLIANCE
A
SSEMBLY

“
I
MPOSSIBLE.
F
IRE AGAIN.”

“Prime Minister, there’s no point. The Defense Grid’s lasers were ineffective.”

“Did they miss? Your targeting must have been faulty. Recalibrate and fire
again
.”

“Ma’am, the targeting was correct.” Grigg hurriedly pulled up the recordings from the visual sensors. “See, the lasers reached Admiral Solovy’s vessel. It repelled or absorbed them. I can’t explain it, but it has to be what happened.”

From his holo, Mori gaped at the images in typically inept shock. “How?”

Pamela Winslow refused to accept such an outcome. She had the ultimate weaponry at her fingertips, and it was not feasible that she had somehow
lost
in spite of this. “Doing so might have depleted the ship’s shields. Fire again.”

“I…” Grigg entered several commands on his screen “…I’m afraid the ship is gone. We’re no longer detecting it on any scans.”

Pamela’s eyes widened in growing indignation. “This is unacceptable. Her possession of unknown technology proves she’s in league with the IDCC and the Prevos. Order Vice-Admiral Jirkar at NA Headquarters to secure EASC to guard against any attempt by her to retake it.”

Her Chief of Staff frowned. “I’ll queue him up, but the only person here who can order him to take such action is you, Prime Minister.”

“Fine. Reach him on a comm and I will—” The door opened without warning, and Speaker Gagnon and Armed Forces Committee Chairman Anderson barged in. When she’d served in the Assembly, the Situation Room had been
secure
.

She squared her shoulders on them. “What is the meaning of this? We’re in the middle of a crisis—”

“Prime Minister, did you just fire the Terrestrial Defense Grid weapons?”

“How would you know?”

“Ma’am, there are redundancies in the system which alert designated personnel of any such action. Also, the entire confrontation was broadcast on multiple news feeds.”

Pamela’s jaw clenched in anger. But she had been playing this game a very long time. Though it was more challenging than usual to do so, she buried the disruptive emotions and projected a calm, collected demeanor. “I did so to counter a clear and present threat to the security of the entire planet.”

Gagnon stared at her incredulously. “As members of the Select Military Advisory Council, we have a right to be informed and consulted on these matters. If such a serious threat exists, you should have notified us of it.”

She notched her chin upward. “There was no time.”

“I missed most of the show on account of dealing with multiple security warnings. You didn’t shoot down Admiral Solovy’s command ship, did you?”

She had never cared for Chairman Anderson. He retained too much of the swagger from his former military career. She increased the firmness of her tone. “Her ship is wielding some form of unknown countermeasure. It is doubtless Prevo technology, if not alien in origin. Minister Mori, we need to put all military and government installations on Level IV alert.”

Anderson leaned over the table, perilously close to getting in her face. “You can’t fire our defensive weapons on an Earth Alliance admiral.”

“Well if the Ethics Council would get on with defrocking her, she wouldn’t
be
an admiral. The fact remains she poses a threat—”

“Ma’am, as a retired admiral who served on several Ethics Council tribunals, allow me to reiterate and clarify: you cannot fire Earth’s defensive weapons on an Earth Alliance admiral unless they first take explicit offensive action against Earth or its assets. Now did she do that?”

“She suggested—”

“Did she
shoot at us
?”

Luis stood and placed a hand on Anderson’s shoulder. “Chairman, you’ll take care to not interrupt your prime minister. Not only is it rude, it’s against proper rules of decorum.”

Anderson straightened up and crossed his arms over his burly chest. “I’m not sure ‘decorum’ is our primary concern at this moment.
Prime Minister
, please answer the question.”

Pamela decided then she would see the end of the man by the time the year was out. “She has not yet fired any weapons. However, she indicated she planned to breach Earth space, and there’s no question she has hostile intent.”

“Isn’t there? And why in seven hells aren’t there any other military officers in this room besides Grigg? Did it not occur to you that you ought to include military leadership in the decision-making process when handling this sort of crisis? Mr. Speaker, given the pertinent nature of this matter, I formally request an inquiry into it be added to the hearing on the events which occurred at Scythia.”

I can’t exactly include the military leadership when it has defected to Solovy!
“I hardly think now is the time to be focused on oversight hearings.”

“Says a former Oversight Committee chairman.”

Perhaps she wouldn’t wait until the year was out.

Gagnon gazed at her more calmly now, yet in his always judgmental manner. “Are we currently tracking Admiral Solovy’s vessel or any other vessels?”

Mori shook his head meekly. “We don’t have any information on her or her fleet’s location at this time.”

“So she may have simply left.”

“Why would she do such a thing?”

“Being fired upon by the Terrestrial Defense Grid would cause most people to reconsider their tactics.” Gagnon nodded. “Route all defensive alerts upstairs. We’ll adjourn later if it becomes necessary, but as we are no longer tracking any potentially hostile vessels, for now it’s time we reconvened in the Chamber. We have a hearing to hold. Also, Prime Minister, you should know we’ve elected to open it to the press.”

A dark, unsettling sensation rose in her chest. “These are highly classified matters. I cannot answer your questions if the press is recording the proceedings.”

“The Scythia events are a matter of public record. So too should be the explanation for them. Please be in the Chamber in ten minutes, ma’am.”