No Direction Home (27 page)

‘Don't be, Kari.'
Jesus, here I am feeling sorry for myself, when I wasn't even there on Earth, not really… At least Anji and Emma got to keep their Vinter – her folks lost their daughter for ever. And now she's lost them… she's just as alone as I am, as we all are, but it's worse for her because nothing of what I remember is real, not to me. For her, it really happened… And do I tell her that the reason her parents had not sent any more messages was because they were dead, along with billions of others? Isn't it better for her to believe that they might have lived out their full lives rather than take that away from her?

He reached out and took her hands in his; she looked up at him with a startled expression that mirrored his own reaction, because he hadn't consciously intended to do that… ‘Kari… listen to me. This probably isn't going to help very much at the moment, but hopefully it will, in the future. All the while that you remember them, they're still alive, in a way. Nobody ever completely dies until the last person who can remember them dies as well. You've still got your memories – and they're mostly happy ones, right?'
And at least they're real…
‘So treasure them – I know it sounds corny, but they're still
your
memories – they're in your head and – I don't know… would you rather they weren't?'

She stared at him for several seconds, then nodded slowly. ‘No, I wouldn't.' She looked down and seemed to realise that their hands were still clasped together. She made no move to pull hers away and he had a sudden mental image of him pulling her close and kissing her in the knowledge that she would respond, knowing it beyond all doubt, somehow…
What the hell?

The moment passed and he squeezed her hands, gently, before releasing them. She seemed to take a deep breath, then she leaned forward and picked up her glass, holding it up to him as a toast. ‘Thanks, sir. I'll be OK, now.'

‘You sure?'

‘Yes, I'll be fine. Well, not fine, but… better than when you walked in. Thanks again for that.'

‘No problem.' They clinked glasses and drank, before he made a show of looking at his watch. ‘I'd better be going, I suppose.'

‘OK.' They both rose to their feet, but then Vinter heard the Persephone chime.

‘
Yes?' he subvocalised, seeing a faint smile on her face.

‘
I'll be there when you need me, sir – don't worry.
'

‘
Again – are you sure? You know what it's going to involve, especially now.'

A momentary pause, then she nodded slowly.
‘I'm sure, sir. I won't find it easy… but I won't let you down.'

Vinter stared at her for perhaps two seconds, then smiled. ‘I know you won't.'

‘
Thanks, sir. Proserpina.
'

She spoke aloud. ‘Thanks for dropping by, sir.'

‘Any time, Lieutenant.'

*****

Yet another bloody briefing in this sodding office…
Vinter had to stifle a yawn, because he'd only managed a couple of hours' sleep before the summons had come from Ferreira, saying simply that there had been ‘a significant development in the attack force'. And, even with his super-fit clone body, Vinter still needed his
bloody
sleep and he was fed up having it continually disturbed.

Mind you, I never have been a morning person, have I? Some mornings, Anji and Emma were almost walking around on tiptoe so as not to upset me… And I do
not
need to be remembering this just now, do I?
He looked around at the others, realising that they looked just as tired and irritable as he felt; next to him, Varaphan was using an old-style powder compact to apply lipstick, her short hair still tousled as if she had only just risen from her bed – which she probably had. But there was something else… Vinter had the odd sensation that there had been someone else in the bed with her and that her evident irritation was because they had been interrupted.

Now why am I so sure about this? Can I read minds as well now? Or am I picking up pheromones?

Actually, he realised suddenly, he very well might be; they'd boosted Sight and Hearing, after all, so why not Smell, the other sense that might give him some warning of an attack? And was that why he had been so certain that Kari would respond to him in her quarters, two nights before? And he'd
known
that Ilona would suggest sleeping with him that first night…

Bloody hell – instant feedback on whether somebody fancies you or not. Being super-human does have its perks after all…

Finally, here was Ferreira; nobody made even the slightest attempt to rise to their feet now. He nodded briefly at the others, then activated the wallscreen behind him.

‘The latest pictures from the EarthCorp starship,' said Ferreira without preamble, pressing a key on his comp to produce a slideshow of images of Stalker, mostly taken from the side allowing much more detailed study of its design. Unfortunately, there was little there that was unexpected, in that Stalker was, basically, the same as
Terra Nova
itself; hardly surprising, perhaps, in that there were only seven years between them in terms of completion, but somehow reinforcing the sense of not really making any progress in evaluating its threat. ‘Stalker is still decelerating and, unless anything changes in the meantime, will take up position at Point Alpha in two days' time.'

Point Alpha: when Stalker would assume a position of rest relative to
Terra Nova
at a distance of just over three hundred thousand kilometres.

Ferreira continued, ‘We now have a detailed assessment of Stalker's weaponry available. Major Watanabe?'

The major nodded briefly, then replied, ‘We've counted half a dozen large rail guns and three missile launchers along Stalker's port side – the side nearest us – and drone surveillance indicate that they have a similar armament on the far side. We are assuming that they carry nuclear missiles, but can only speculate how many they are carrying.' He shrugged. ‘A single five megaton device would be sufficient to destroy us, but they are probably carrying more than that. In any case, if they decide to deploy them, there is little that we could do in terms of counter-measures – we have just two rail guns we can deploy. Put bluntly, if they decide to use all their firepower against us, we're history.'

‘So why haven't they?' asked Ferreira. ‘If our evaluation is correct, and they wish to capture
Terra Nova
intact, all of that firepower will be of little use to them, except to soften us up in advance of their assault. However, there is little we can do at this stage on that front, so the question is: what is our next move?' He turned to address the group as a whole. ‘We are still attempting to elicit a response to our signals, but without success. If we launch a shuttle assault, both Major Watanabe and Captain Sharma agree with Major Vinter that such a move would almost certainly result in the loss of the shuttles with no significant damage to Stalker. It seems that we have little alternative but to wait and see what their next move is to be. We have Stalker under constant observation and our weapons crews are at their stations.' He looked at each of them in turn. ‘Observations, anyone?'

Vinter gave it ten seconds to see if anyone else was going to say anything, then said, with more than a trace of impatience in his voice, ‘With all due respect, Colonel, unless anyone has come up with a blinding flash of inspiration overnight – and I'm pretty certain that if anyone had, they would have told you immediately – the situation hasn't changed at all since our last briefing, so what exactly was your “significant development”? Was there any real need to bring us all together here when we've all got better things to do?'
Bring us all together…

Pheromones. A surge of adrenalin from his left…

Dear God.

Watanabe was reaching down for something and Sharma was rising to his feet next to Vinter.

‘Major–' Ferreira began, but his voice was already slowing down as Vinter went into Augmented Mode, aware of everything that was happening around him,
so amazingly aware…

Watanabe straightening up, out of his chair, a knife in his left hand as he swivelled round towards Ferreira, the arm coming up high, ready to plunge the knife down into Ferreira, who was still talking, an expression of surprise only just beginning to register on his face as Sharma pulled his gun from his holster, shouting something… Vinter leaped to his feet, his chair clattering backwards, and slammed his left forearm back into Sharma's face as he scooped up the heavy water pitcher in the middle of the table with his right hand and hurled it at Watanabe, hitting him in the face, sending him reeling back.

Vinter drew his weapon, weighing up the situation: Sharma had staggered back under the force of Vinter's blow, but he had not dropped his gun, so Vinter shot him in the head, then swivelled around, saw that Watanabe still held the knife in a potential throwing position and shot him twice in the chest. Stepping back from the table, covering the others, but nobody else had moved:
No apparent threat.
Sharma and Watanabe were both falling backwards in grotesque slow motion, Sharma with a look of shocked incomprehension on his face, Watanabe's distorted in agony, both of them probably still alive… and then, suddenly, everything was back to normal and both men fell abruptly to the floor to lie motionless.

It had all taken little more than a second.

‘Fucking hell…' Ferreira breathed; it was the only time Vinter had ever really heard him swear. He stared up at Vinter, who was checking the magazine on his gun before returning it to its holster. ‘How… how did you do that? I never gave the order.'

It was then that the door burst open and four New Dawn troopers burst in; Vinter carefully laid his gun on the table and stepped away.
Be just my luck to get killed now…

‘About damned time, Lieutenant,' Ferreira said angrily. ‘It's all over now, no thanks to you. Check these two.' He gestured at the two bodies on the floor. ‘They're probably dead, but if they're not, I want to question them.'

‘Sir!'

Ferreira looked at the others, who all seemed frozen in their seats, although it was probably self-preservation that kept them there; the troopers would be on hair triggers by now and any slight movement might set them off… ‘Dismissed,' he said crisply. ‘Vinter – you're with me.'

He rose to his feet and headed towards the door, deliberately not looking at either dead man as he went; Vinter followed him out onto the bridge and into Ferreira's office.

‘Close the door, Vinter… Now, to repeat my question. I never gave the order for you to go into Augmented Mode, so how did you do it?'

‘If I'd had to wait for the order, Colonel, we'd all be dead by now. It's a defensive mode – an automatic response to a threat, which goes once the threat is dealt with. I wouldn't be much use as a super-warrior if I always had to wait for your order when under attack, would I?'

‘No…' Ferreira agreed shakily. ‘No, I suppose not… But Watanabe and Sharma? I can hardly believe it. I've known them for years and I'd never have…' He broke off, shaking his head. ‘But then it wasn't them doing it, was it? Not really.'

‘No, it wasn't. They had no say in the matter.'
Any more than I did with those UN troopers…

‘No…' Ferreira said again, distantly. He stared across the room for several seconds, then said, ‘But this wasn't random, was it? They didn't both just
happen
to run amok simultaneously in the middle of a Command Team Briefing, did they?'

‘No, they didn't. It was planned, as far as it could be, to take out the New Dawn Command Team.'

‘What, with
you
there? They must know your capabilities, surely?'

Vinter shrugged. ‘It was planned before we even left Earth, remember. Maybe whoever set it up didn't know about me, or didn't think I'd be part of the Team, or hoped I wouldn't be. And they were still guaranteed a result, anyway – the loss of your weaponry and strategy specialists.'

‘Indeed,' Ferreira agreed heavily. ‘And they
will
be missed – they were both excellent officers.' He seemed to hesitate, then said, ‘And I have to thank you, Major, for saving all our lives. You performed admirably.'

Taking refuge in routine, in the kind of phrases he must have used countless times in reports…

But sincere, all the same.

Ferreira held out his hand; Vinter took it, clasping it firmly, as much to hide his own thoughts as much as anything else.

Because, a few minutes ago, he had been presented with a glorious opportunity for New Dawn's Command Team to be removed in one fell swoop; all he needed to have done would have been to do nothing, just let Watanabe and Sharma kill the others, who would have been their prime targets, then kill the two of them once they had done that. New Dawn's fighting capacity would have been seriously weakened, and thus a significant step towards UNSEC resuming control would have been achieved, if nothing else – but he had not done it.

Why not?

Because the Augmented Mode had kicked in of its own volition; as he had said, it
had
to be a defensive mode, programmed to activate at the first sign of a threat – and then disappear once the threat had gone. The point was that he had no control over it, no
bloody
choice in the matter – any more than Sharma or Watanabe.

So if he
couldn't
control it, not completely – was Kari right to trust him?

Was anyone?

The alarm brought Vinter instantly awake from sleep and the first thought that crossed his mind was that this was, almost certainly, The Day. The Day the waiting was over, when EarthCorp would attack and attempt to capture
Terra Nova.
The Day that would decide things, one way or another, with almost certainly fatal results for the losing side.

Quite possibly, The Day he died…

And that's quite enough of that,
he admonished himself, as he headed towards the bathroom.

But the thought was not so easily dismissed. He might be one of the two most formidable warriors Mankind had ever seen, but the problem was that the other one was on the other side and, once in Augmented Mode, would be doing his damnedest to kill him. The chances were that only one of them would still be alive in twelve hours' time – and quite possibly neither, because if either of them ended up too close to an explosion or got in the way of a laser, a bullet or a rail gun blast, their augmentations would be of no use to them at all; they were not invulnerable. They'd be just as dead as a mere mortal…

And that was the problem. Realistically, the chances that he himself might be killed during the next few hours had not been an issue until now, but now that it was a real possibility, he was being forced to confront his fears. And they
were
fears, he had to admit that. OK, so they were the same ones that all soldiers had when going into battle, especially for the first time, but he was annoyed with himself that they seemed to be playing on his mind to this extent – he didn't need the distraction.

And why not? What makes you think that you're any different to anyone else? Are you starting to believe all this superhuman crap?

Fair point, actually… Part of him
did
think that he ought to be above such fears – after all, he had taken out those six UN troopers in a matter of seconds, so what was he worrying about? Except that this was definitely a memory he could do without… Those poor sods had never stood a chance.

And maybe it's my turn now…

And if it was, what then? It was quite possible that another Vinter clone would eventually be grown at some point in the future, once the technology had been developed, even if, at the moment, there was not exactly an encouraging success rate in the process. Despite this, however, it was not just possible, but likely that they would try again, given the augmentation they would be able to build into the clone;
there's always a demand for superhuman warriors, isn't there…
But which set of memories would the next Vinter have? The ones New Dawn imprinted – the Livvy set – or the (presumed) original, with Anji? Obviously, that would depend on who won today, but neither version would have any memories of the time that had passed since he had awoken in the Med Section. In other words, there would be nothing left of him, this Vinter who had only been alive for sixteen weeks… But the next clone would think of himself as being Vinter, might never be aware that there had ever been
any
other Vinters, especially if they suppressed the message from Vinter Prime.

The Stepford Wives
... wasn't that the film from the late TwentyCee where androids were used to replace human wives? Where the main female character had said something about the replacement looking, talking and behaving like her, but she wouldn't
be
her? Was that the situation he was in now?

Sixteen weeks… is that all the time I'll ever have?

It was only when he realised that he had gone through almost all of his usual routine – shave, shower, then breakfast in a bathrobe – and was now fastening his tunic with unusual precision in the mirror that he realised just how preoccupied he had been.

Just fear of dying, that's all… perfectly normal. Just made a bit more complicated when you're a clone. Which isn't perfectly normal, really…

OK… let's do this.

The insistent chime in his ear cut through his brooding reverie; for a moment, he thought it was Kari, but it was the usual military comms alert. ‘Vinter,' he said.

‘Ferreira here. Get to the bridge as soon as possible.'

‘What's happened?'
Ten to one Stalker
has launched shuttles...

‘They've launched three shuttles. They're coming towards us at maximum thrust.'

Told you…
‘On my way.'

He checked himself once more in the mirror, then strode briskly over to the door, telling himself that this was just another morning, the same as all the others he had experienced over the last sixteen weeks, no big deal… and then found himself standing in the open doorway, looking back into his quarters.

Wondering if this was the last time he would ever be here.

*****

Ferreira and what was left of the Command Team – Yung-Sien, Varaphan and Teymourian – were already on the bridge when he arrived; they all seemed to be in their best uniforms, wearing full medal ribbons, the lot… Kari was there as well, wearing combat fatigues, the same as he was; they exchanged brief nods before he turned his attention to the large display screen in the centre of the bridge. At the moment, it showed an overall plot of the situation, with a large green rectangle in the bottom centre of the screen depicting
Terra Nova
, a similar one –
in red, of course
– for Stalker, and three yellow dots in an arrowhead formation heading directly between them.

Ferreira turned to Vinter. ‘Any observations, Major?'

‘What speed are they doing?'

Teymourian answered. ‘They accelerated at three gees for five minutes, then at two gees for another ten, before shutting off the engines.'

‘So we're talking about four hours and thirty-odd minutes transit time?'

Teymourian looked startled, presumably at how rapidly Vinter had made his calculations, before he checked his comp and nodded. ‘Four hours thirty-six minutes.'

‘OK… Do we have any decent images of the shuttles?'

Ferreira nodded and touched a key on his comp pad. ‘We managed to get both side and head on views of them.' A series of still images appeared on the main screen.

‘Great… armed to the bloody teeth,' Vinter observed. ‘Two rail guns in the bow, two more amidships.'

‘Exactly,' Ferreira agreed. ‘Anything else?'

‘Big enough to be carrying up to four hundred and fifty troops between them,' Yung-Sien interjected.

‘They could be,' Vinter acknowledged. ‘However, as I said, I doubt if their original mission parameters included boarding us, so there'd be no need for a large Marine detachment on board. Hell, if they originally intended to nuke us they wouldn't need to take
any
Marines or troops for that, would they? Just enough military personnel to fly the ship and launch the missiles.'

‘But if you're wrong?' Ferreira persisted.

Vinter sighed, wondering how many more times he would have to say this. ‘As I've said already, Colonel, we'll be well and truly fucked. We won't be able to stop them. We never have been.'

Ferreira nodded slowly; clearly, he had been clinging to the hope that Stalker might not have had three shuttles available, but he hadn't really been thinking it through, because Stalker was primarily a colony starship, not a war vessel, despite its armament, and so would need shuttles with planetary capability at PlanetFall, the same as
Terra Nova
. ‘And you're still certain that there's nothing we can do at this point?'

‘Yes, I am,' Vinter replied, making no attempt to conceal his impatience. ‘Look, Colonel, can we talk in private?' Seeing Ferreira's glare, he went on, ‘Look, there isn't anything you can usefully do here at the moment – they're still four hours away, for God's sake – so can we talk about this?'

Ferreira hesitated, then nodded reluctantly. ‘Very well.'

They went through into Ferreira's office, but neither man sat down. ‘Well?' demanded Ferreira.

‘Look, there's no point in asking me if I've thought of anything, because if I had, I would have told you by now – or do you think I'm deliberately holding out on you?'

‘The thought had crossed my mind, yes.'

‘Well, if I am, I'm hardly likely to start letting it all out now, am I? But do you really think I want EarthCorp to win? How would that benefit the UN personnel on board? The fact is, I'm not keeping anything back – there literally
isn't
anything we can do at this distance. You know as well as I do that firing the rail guns at them isn't going to work – they're adopting a random zig-zag pattern, so anything they can't blast with their lasers isn't going to hit anyway. The only way you might hit anything is if you fire continuously from now on and hope for the law of averages to come out in your favour. Only we haven't got enough projectiles stockpiled to do that – we need to keep them back until they're closer in and we have a better chance of hitting the target. Sending out the shuttles to take them on will simply mean our shuttles get destroyed, because they've got military spec firepower and we haven't.' He shook his head in exasperation. ‘You know all this, Colonel, so why bother even asking me? The only thing we can do is wait – and that's what soldiers have had to do since some stupid bastard invented war.'

Slowly, Ferreira nodded. ‘You're right, of course. It's just that, whenever soldiers have had to wait in circumstances such as these, getting them to do
something
helps boost morale.'

‘I know that – I'm your military genius, remember? It's just that it's never good for morale if that
something
ends up with a lot of them dead, with nothing achieved.' He looked away and slowly let out his breath. ‘OK, Colonel, this is what I suggest we do. Fire off a rail gun at them every few minutes in a random pattern, just to keep them on their toes. Nobody likes being shot at when they can't shoot back, even if they know they're not going to be hit – but that's about all we can do.'

Ferreira gave him a long, considering stare, then nodded heavily. ‘Very well. I'll issue the orders.'

*****

‘They're not slowing at the optimum rate,' said Yung-Sien, almost conversationally.

Vinter glanced up at one of the readout screens above the main display, and nodded; the three shuttles were using their forward thrusters to reduce speed, but they were still coming in too fast to match velocities with
Terra Nova
. They were coming straight at
Terra Nova
, looming ever larger in the digitised image. They had executed a deceleration turnover twenty minutes earlier but had then flipped over a second time so that they were now once again head on. All that could be seen of them now were the iceshields, but the image resolution was sufficiently detailed now for pockmarks and slashes on the shields' surfaces to be visible, the effects of impacts from cosmic debris that had been too minute to be worth targeting by the automatic lasers. Even so, there was a constant flickering from each shuttle's laser batteries as they homed in on larger targets and flashes of light as these were destroyed.

‘Any thoughts, Major?' Ferreira asked.

Vinter nodded. ‘Either they want to get into close range as quickly as possible and they'll slow down more once they've done that or they're going for an impact assault.'

Ferreira nodded in turn. ‘You still think they're going for the Primary Target?'

Oh, for God's sake, talk plain English, will you? It's the Shuttle Bay, why call it anything else?
‘I don't think they have any choice.'

Ferreira picked up a comms set and spoke into it, dragging Vinter out of his reverie. ‘Are all units in position? Report.' He nodded as each Unit CO responded, then put down the set. ‘Range?' he asked.

One of the officers seated at the consoles in front of the main screen replied, ‘Coming within optimum range in ten minutes, sir.'

Vinter could almost see the temptation on Ferreira's face to give the Open Fire order, but he resisted. The old adage, taken from the naval days of sail – make sure that the first broadside is well aimed. Until then, wait…

As fighting men have done ever since the dawn of history… The warriors manning the walls of Troy must have felt like this as they watched the Greek galleys – the ‘thousand ships' – heaving over the horizon. Nothing they could do to prevent it – they just had to wait.

The worst part…

Suddenly, the alarm sounded, a high-pitched oscillating shriek that set everyone's teeth on edge. A moment later, a voice came through over the ship's speakers; they could hear gunfire in the background.

‘Sleeper attack Four Epsilon. Four – correction five – down… Sleeper neutralised.'

A second voice came on:
‘Fire in Two Gamma. Emergency Team on the way.'

And a third:
‘Software crash in Environmental Network. Switching to backup system.'

A fourth:
‘Explosion in Six Delta. Extensive casualties – Full Med Team required immediately.'

Ferreira turned to Yung-Sien. ‘It's starting.'

‘So it would seem, sir.'

Vinter inclined his head briefly, acknowledging their calm voices. It was either genuine
sang-froid
, or simply an act, but it was damn good leadership either way.

Ferreira turned to Kari. ‘Take over, please, Lieutenant.'

Kari nodded, took a seat at the vacant console in front of her and picked up its comms set, clipping a Bluetooth over her ear. ‘Route all sleeper alerts through this channel immediately.' The ship's speakers went silent; from now on, Kari would be in charge of sleeper counter-measures.

Vinter's attention went back to the screen, knowing with a cold certainty what was about to happen – and he was right. From all three shuttles came a ripple of flashes from their laser projectors and rail guns.