Fear the Future (The Fear Saga Book 3) (56 page)

“Gross! So … gross!” they were all laughing now, hers a high-pitched wail as Friday released her and she wiped the spittle with her sleeve, adding a few Persian idioms that defied translation. Friday laughed too, a fuller, deeper base, echoing outward in the otherwise ghostly silence of his erstwhile hunting ground.

They sobered up, slowly, brought back to ground by Wednesday’s inability to hide his concern.

“We have to talk, Fri,” he said. “There is news from Mother. You need to hear it.”

Chapter 59: Stepping Into the Fray

Birgit and Rob stood upright for the first time in four years. They stood and they could not resist the urge to giggle, more than a little giddy at the alien sensation. Subliminally enforced exercises had slowed their muscles degradation in the years in zero gravity, but had not halted it, and Rob felt the strain as he bent his knees slightly, his muscles groaning under even this fraction of his returned weight.

“Well, this is certainly different,” said Birgit, a laugh laden with pleasant surprise escaping her lips. She was not surprised at the gravity, as such, not completely anyway. Her lengthy discussions with Minnie and Moira had predicted something like this. As the recent revelation had forced her to accelerate their work to access the IST core, the breaching of its outer housing had opened up a gravitational paradox. The pressure needed to contain the subspace singularity created, as a by-product, a localized gravitational field that now bled out into the IST’s central cavity.

Her surprise lay in the fact that the effect was so localized that even though Birgit and Rob were standing only a meter apart around their improvised hole, the shielding, they were at nearly forty-five degrees to each other, so that each looked to the other to be below them, and standing on the side of a wall.

It was a strange sight, to say the least. They grinned stupidly at each other, and Rob made to step around the hole, but only managed to lose his balance again, as they had several times so far, and trip backward so that he once again got to enjoy the unpleasant sensation of feeling like the world was pulling him into a ball, his head and his feet now in different gravitational orientations as he came to ground.

He landed, such as it was, on the core again, now upside-down relative to Birgit, and she was about to laugh at the sight of his upended derriere when the IST’s carapace groaned once more.

They both glanced outward, their amusement quickly banished.

“I don’t like the sound of that, at all,” said Birgit. The IST had been designed to withstand far greater pressures than this, despite its eventual home on a virtually gravity-less moon, but they had done much to undermine its once dense interior, and now Minnie’s estimates on that interior’s structural integrity were being put to the test.

“It’s fine,” said Rob, with feigned confidence. “I’m sure it’s just settling. Adjusting to this new weight.”

“Well, hopefully it is better at it than you are,” she said, grinning, and he raised his hand, shaking as he over-emphasized the strain of its weight and then, slowly, as if fighting valiantly, raised his middle finger at her.

She laughed, then slowly lowered herself to her hands and knees so she could stare into the opened central space once more.

He repositioned himself so he could look into the hole as well. The shielding upon which they now crouched was itself three meters across, and they had sacrificed a lot to get at this space, but the next stage would be exponentially more dangerous. They had wanted to wait to do this until a rescue mission could reasonably be dispatched should something go wrong, but the choice had just been taken from them. The endgame had arrived, and now they had to get ready to cut into the inner sanctum, breaching the actual subspace event horizon, so they could manipulate its isolated controls directly.

It was an incredibly complex machine, but between them, Minnie and Birgit felt confident they now understood it. But this machine had never been designed for direct control, certainly not by the enemies of its creators, and certainly not to do what Birgit planned to do with it. To jury-rig it, she needed to get at the core machinery itself, and if they thought this new gravity was fun, the forces that would be unleashed once they tapped into this immensely potent core would be something altogether more powerful.

What it would do to the superstructure, to the battered crew module grafted to its exterior, and to them, they did not exactly know.

It wouldn’t be fun, they could surmise that, at least, but Birgit’s arguments that Rob should return to the module for this final step had fallen on deaf ears. She would need to subsume herself into the machine once they managed to connect to it, and she would be all but unconscious, as she had been during the birth of New Moon One and then the first Skalm, Banu’s Skalm, during the last hours before their exile. While the IST reacted in whatever ways it was going to react, Rob intended to be here to do what he had to in order to protect her.

She looked at him, at her man, clad in his black suit but still so familiar to her. He nodded at her. She nodded back, running a final check of the mechanical and diagnostics tools they had managed to drag into this inner-sanctum, this heart of the machine.

After a prolonged pause, Birgit shrugged.

“I guess we should get started then,” she said.

“I guess so,” he said, and he hefted a fat laser into place and began cutting.

- - -

Þalía:
‘we see it too. we see it all too clearly, guowei.’

Guowei:
‘of course, Þalía, of course you do. here, look at this, [traj./decel. option ‘j5’]. while this course brings you closer, it will also force them to choose between objectives. as long as you maintain a random cycling during [phase pts. 1.4-2.1], they will still be out of effective targeting range. they will not be able to engage properly without sacrificing closing velocity.’

Closing velocity. Those words had become anathema to Þalía. Her small squadron had built up enough even in the eleven hours of their acceleration to intercept the raft of Yallan vessels that they were now heading headlong into the arms of a horde of Skalm so large it made her shudder just to look at it.

But there they were, she thought, as she forced herself to look at them again, her sensors filling her mind with data-rich vision as she studied the wall of craft.

Þalía:
‘all true, guowei. all true. it is a good plan, thank you.’

But, she knew, it was a flawed plan as well. They were only five Skalms. A small number, perhaps, but still, as the overwhelming superiority of the enemy became clear, every part of the defense fleet started to count, and Guowei’s plan, while it might save them from this fight, would also preclude them from rejoining the real battle to come. The battle for Earth, now only thirty-six hours away.

Five ships. Five choices. She removed Guowei from the conversation and reached out to her pilots. She could not, she knew, order them to do what she was now almost certain she was going to do.

Þalía at Squadron:
‘squadron
.
we know what is out there. we know what they intend to do, both to us and to everything we have been trained to protect. we find ourselves faced with a choice. we can run. commander guowei, in all his galling brilliance, has come up with a way for us to live to fight another day.’

She paused then went on.

Þalía at Squadron:
‘but, the truth is, there is only going to be one more day. and if we run we will not be part of the fight that happens on
that
day. we will be left to slowly bring ourselves to a halt and then, about a week from now, if his calculations are right, we will get to return to whatever is left of earth.’

There was no immediate response from her team. She knew all her pilots well. She knew they could see the wall of Skalms in front of them as well as she, the great bluff whose face they were now fighting hard to flee across as it descended on their home with nothing but murder on its mind. They had only minutes now. The closing was coming at terrible speed, the wall visibly growing in their spectrum-wide vision at an alarming rate.

It was humbling. The sensation of invincibility they had once felt as they were infused into the Skalm’s form had vanished as their ships were dwarfed by the breathtaking scope of the enemy’s might.

But now a message did appear, not from her squadron, but from Guowei. She was about to push it aside when she saw in its subject the simple note, ‘read this before you decide to martyr yourself …’

Damn it, chuckled Þalía, why did he have to be so smart, that little, snotty upstart …

But she did read it. And as her pilots began to tell her, one by one, that they were with her, no matter what she decided to do, she smiled inside her herself, an ambient peace coming over her.

Þalía at Squadron:
‘squadron, we have new orders. with me.’

As the closing came on, they did draw hard away, speeding toward the outside of the dispersed bulk of the invading horde. The enemy fire began to come as Guowei had predicted, not as a witnessed set of triggered launches, but as an act already responded to, a twitch in their trajectories as they entered the far reaches of the Armada’s weapons range that sent them each into a set of randomized spins.

Where the approaching Mobiliei fleet had once hidden, the small squadron now became ethereal in their own way, a set of darting points, impossible to pin down, spinning in a randomized, lightning-fast dance to avoid the light-speed particle beams of their enemy.

Here, as the light-minutes between them became light-seconds, they were already somewhere else by the time the lances reached them, flying by the ships and out into eternity, the first interstellar tremors of the coming war echoing out across the cosmos.

The squadron’s movements became more frantic as they approached, as the seconds became tighter, and the range drew near. They were still fleeing toward the outskirts of the fleet, for all the world as if they intended to escape.

General Toranssen at Commander Guowei:
‘¿will they make it?’

Commander Guowei at General Toranssen:
‘they could … but if i know them, they will not.’

The closing was now almost upon them, and as the general went to demand an explanation from the young strategist, the small squadron turned suddenly, not on the fleet as a whole, the suicide mission Þalía had indeed been contemplating, but on a suicide mission of another kind, with a more worthwhile dividend from their blood investment.

Þalía:
‘squadron, set spins and open fire, go!’

They were her last words as the five Skalms turned and cannonballed back into the sparser flanks of the Mobiliei force, loosing themselves at the cliff face with abandon.

The glancing was pure. The purest she had ever felt. She did not have time in the millisecond moment to see what her fellow pilots were and were not doing. She saw only targets, themselves dervishing now as they sought to dodge her violent flame in the close heat of battle.

There, she felt the briefest elation as her talons opened one up, finding it and gouging at it. They were here now, among them, only hundreds of miles apart, less than a blink in this light-speed battle. On some level, she felt as first one, then another of her sister-ships were exploded by the overwhelming return fire, but she fought on. She was faster than them, not by much, but enough to make them pay.

As the battle neared the end of its first true second, she was already past them by two thousand miles, alone at last in the cold night, but still screaming a hot hail of fire to the backs of her enemy. Now their fusion blaze came to her in earnest as the wall rotated to face her as one, this sector of the Mobiliei fleet turning their fire not only toward her, but around her, in a crisscrossed mesh that filled space to either side of her until she had nowhere to run and they opened her to the void and obliterated her.

As the light from the battle reached Earth, Guowei saw it as a swirling epoch of light dancing outward from the point of collision and then back inward suddenly, as the Mobiliei Armada’s wrath returned in answer to the squadron’s attack. It was fleeting, it was beautiful, and then it was over, and the Armada came on regardless, the small hole
Þalía had cut in their flank closing as they turned their attention back to their real foe.

Chapter 60: Final Solution

“It was madness!” said Quavoce, with a sternness that Banu rarely saw.

“It was not madness, Father,” replied Banu, gently. “It was the opposite of madness. It was the only reasonable response to an unreasonable situation.”

“The squadron could have survived, Banu,” said Jack, though without as much as verve as the distraught Agent to his side.

“How many?” said another voice. It was Wednesday God, off to one side and quiet up until now.

“How many what?” said Jack, wondering why he was even having this conversation with these … children. But he knew why. The military and political bodies of earth had done what they could. The fleet was readying. The time for strategy was over, the role of the generals was starting to give over to the time of the warriors.

Now he owed Quavoce his support in this final argument with his daughter.

They all looked at the orphan pilot known as Suyoil as he expanded on his question, saying, “How many did Þalía’s squadron kill, in return for their five losses?”

“As best we can tell, only four of the enemy were destroyed,” said Quavoce, with a finality and coldness he quickly regretted.

“And how many,” said Wednesday now, “would they have been able to destroy if they had chosen to save themselves instead?”

Quavoce stared at him, fighting a very real desire to hit the boy. Not for being right, but for supporting his daughter’s insane scheme, well, that
and
being right. But they could be as right as they wanted to be, they could get tattoos saying so on their foreheads for all he cared, but he would not let them do this. No way, no how.

“What you suggest, Banu, is … it is not … it’s not …” Quavoce looked for the right word, but none that his systems suggested conveyed his point.

Madeline, also silent up until now, stepped in, “It’s not necessary, Banu.”

Banu looked at her and smiled with an understanding far beyond her years. “No, Madeline, of course it isn’t. But then, all of this, all of this fighting, none of it is
necessary
, is it?”

Madeline’s forehead furrowed as she stared at the girl. But Quavoce was in real turmoil. Of course it was not necessary. Of course this was all completely absurd, and cruel, and pointless, just like any war, but here he was, and here were
his
people,
his
own very self, coming to kill this girl he had come to love.

And now here she was, asking to go out and face them, along with, apparently, a good number of the orphaned pilots, now housed in a donated resort in a very real paradise, an island called Jeju, a beautiful home which few of them really knew what to do with.

Banu turned to her father once more. They were standing in a white place, a part of Minnie’s mind where these few people had come to meet, at Banu’s and Wednesday’s request. Quavoce had asked Madeline and Jack to help him try and stop them, while Banu and Wednesday had invited three impartial but interested observers to listen in, just in case their opinions were called for.

One of those observers spoke up now, in the form of a Phase Eight like the one who had once played with a younger Banu, but a Banu who had already gotten blood on her hands, even then.

“If I may, Quavoce, this request of Banu’s, it poses greater questions we should consider,” Minnie said.

“Like?” Quavoce said, though he did not much care, his eyes were fixed on the young girl, no, young woman, in front of him.

“Well, like whether you actually have the right to deny her request?” said Minnie, matter-of-factly.

Minnie meant no harm by her statement, but the look on his face as he turned to her would have made a lion back away.

“What Minnie means, I am sure,” said Jack, quickly, “is that after all that Banu has done for us, surely we owe her … well, we owe more than I can really count, to be honest. But maybe, most of all, we owe her the right to make her own decisions now, as we most definitely owe Wednesday and his friends.”

Quavoce stood, allowing every inch of his resolve to show on his dark-set face. “What we owe Banu is irrelevant. She is a child, a beautiful, brilliant, wonderful child, no doubt, but a child nonetheless, and the only thing that I owe her that matters now is my protection.”

He looked around the group one last time, and then said with equal parts finality and fury, “My daughter
will … not
…
fight
.”

Banu reached up to him. She was tall now, tall enough to reach his face and touch it. She brought his angry eyes back to her, and they softened instantly as they connected with hers.

“Father,” she said, a tear in her eye, “you have saved me many times, in more ways than you can know. But … don’t you see that you cannot save me from this?”

“Banu, your offer is very brave,” said Madeline, trying to help Quavoce, “there is no doubt about that, but we have enough pilots, more than enough, to pilot our Skalms.”

“Not like her, and not like them,” said one more voice, the last in the room. Guowei, watching detachedly as the majority of his mind worked on battle simulations with Minnie and Mynd, stepped forward now.

He walked up to Wednesday God and extended his hand. “A pleasure to meet you in person, Suyoil.”

“Commander,” replied Wednesday, nodding and taking the noticeably older boy’s hand.

Now Guowei locked eyes with Quavoce and said, “It is a truth of piloting a craft like the Skalm that no one on earth who has ever had the privilege of doing it has ever been able to fully give it up.”

He spoke with the bearing of the commanding officer, a role he had studied for years to take on. “Not even Wednesday here, with all his profound perceptivity when it comes to the harsher realities behind the simulations, has been able to go long without returning to them.

“I have had the pleasure of working with each and every one of the orphaned pilots over the last three years. Some have fallen by the wayside, many have never surpassed what my own peers have been able to achieve at the helm of the Skalm. But there are those whose younger minds could handle it, who thrived in the moment, like Suyoil, and by lucky happenstance, young Banu here.” He smiled at the Iranian girl still standing by her father.

Now he turned to face the man in question, summoning his will to face the palpable purpose on the famous warrior’s face, and said to him, “Lord Mantil, I have listened to what you have had to say. Now I ask that you listen to me. That the orphan pilots represent the very best of humanity, I do not doubt.

“The truth, I am afraid to say, is that we do not have much hope, Lord Mantil. Some hope rests with the ambitious plans of Dr. Hauptman. Some hope lies still with you and Agent John Hunt, that is for sure. But make no mistake, when Wednesday asked me whether I could use the skills of the orphan pilots in my fleet, it opened up whole new avenues in our planning.”

Quavoce was faltering, visibly shaking as his emotions overflowed into the space, and he stood, looking for all the world like a lost child himself. This was too much, and he seemed to be trying to say something but could not. Banu could not stand to see the pain on his face much longer, and so said, softly now, close to his ear, “Father, dearest Father, would you not risk your life to save me?”

The expression of his machine emotion was a welling of tears brimming in his eyes, as she then said, “Allow me to do the same, Father. Please.”

The words nearly broke him, and he buckled and sank to his knees, Banu’s arms going around him as he fell. Seeing him reduced, as they surely knew they would be in his place, the gathered group began to depart.

The decision was made, they could all see that. Best to let Banu and her father find peace with it on their own. But as Quavoce’s arms reached up to wrap around his daughter, trying one last time to hold her safe from this terrible nightmare, he was also initiating another process inside his mind. A final step.

As their options dwindled and the swarm neared, he knew it was nearly time for he and John to join humanity in a final roll of the dice. While pilots were lifting into place, elevators carrying their encapsulated minds aloft to waiting Skalms, while a StratoJet descended on Jeju Island and Banu’s and Wednesday’s unconscious forms were carried into surgery, Quavoce reached out to his lone compatriot, John Hunt, and told him he was ready.

The time was almost upon them.