The Night's Dawn Trilogy (236 page)

Al let her lead him along the corridor and into an observation lounge. Emmet Mordden, Patricia Mangano, and Mickey Pileggi
were waiting in front of the window wall. All of them smiled proudly, an emotion reflected in their thought currents. Al played
along with the game as Jez tugged him over to the window.

“We captured this mother on one of the asteroids a couple of weeks back,” Mickey said. “Well, its captain was possessed, actually.
Then we had to persuade the soul to transfer down the affinity link. Jezzibella said you’d like it.”

“What is this shit, Mickey?”

“It’s our present to you, Al baby,” Jezzibella said. “Your flagship.” She smiled eagerly, and gestured at the window.

Al walked over and looked out. Buck Rogers’s very own rocketship was sitting on the rock shelf below him. It was a beautiful
scarlet torpedo with yellow fins sprouting from the sides, and a cluster of copper rocket engine tubes at the rear.

“That’s for me?” he asked in wonder.

•  •  •

The rocketship’s interior was fully in keeping with its external appearance, the pinnacle of 1930s engineering and decor.
Al felt more at home than any time since he had emerged from the beyond. This was his furniture, his styling. A little chunk
of his home era.

“Thank you,” he said to Jezzibella.

She kissed him on the tip of his nose, and they linked arms.

“It’s a blackhawk,” she explained. “The possessing soul is called Cameron Leung; so you be nice to him, Al. I said you’d find
him a human body when the universe calms down a little.”

“Sure.”

An iron spiral stair led up to the promenade deck. Al and Jezzibella settled back on a plump couch of green leather where
they could see out of the long curving windows and along the rocket’s nose cone. He put his fedora down on a cane table at
the side of the couch and draped an arm around her shoulders. Prince of the city again, full-time.

“Can you hear me, Cameron?” Jezzibella inquired.

“Yes,” came the reply from a silver tannoy grille set in the wall.

“We’d like to see the fleet before it leaves. Take us over please.”

Al winced, grabbing hold of the couch’s flared arms. More fucking spaceflight! But there was none of the rush of acceleration
he’d braced himself for. All that happened was the view changed. One minute the spherical silver-white grid of Monterey’s
spaceport was rotating slowly in front of them, the next it was sliding to one side and racing past overhead.

“Hey, I can’t feel nothing,” Al whooped. “No acceleration, none of that free-fall crap. Hot damn, now this is the way to travel.”

“Yes.” Jezzibella clicked her fingers smartly, and a small boy hurried forwards. He was dressed in a white high-collar steward’s
uniform, and his hair had been parted in the centre and slicked back with cream. “A bottle of Norfolk Tears, I think,” she
told him. “This is definitely celebration time. I think we might make a toast, too. Make sure you chill the glasses.”

“Yes, miss,” he piped.

Al frowned after him. “Kinda young to be doing that, ain’t he?”

“It’s Webster Pryor,” she said sotto voce. “Sweet boy.”

“Kingsley’s son?”

“Yes. Thought it best we keep him close to hand the whole time. Just in case.”

“I see. Sure.”

“You’re right about the ship, Al. Bitek is the only way to travel. My media company was always too miserly to let me have
one for touring. Blackhawks make the best warships, too.”

“Yeah? So how many have we got?”

“Three, counting this one. And we only got those because their captains were coldfooted when we snatched the asteroids.”

“Pity.”

“Yes. But we’re hoping to get luckier this time.”

Al grinned out of the window as the luscious crescent of New California swung into view, and settled back to enjoy the ride.

•  •  •

Cameron Leung accelerated away from Monterey at two gees, curving down towards the planet a hundred and ten thousand kilometres
below. Far ahead of the blackhawk’s sharp emerald aerospike, the Organization’s fleet was sliding along its five-thousand-kilometre
orbit, a chain of starships spaced a precise two kilometres apart. Sunlight bounced and sparkled off foil-coated machinery
as they emerged from the penumbra; a silver necklace slowly threading itself around the entire planet.

It had taken two days for all of them to fly down from their assembly points at the orbiting asteroids, jockeying into their
jump formation under the direction of Emmet Mordden and Luigi Balsmao. The
Salvatore
was the lead vessel, an ex-New California navy battle cruiser, and now Luigi Balsmao’s command ship.

Two million kilometres away, hanging over New California’s south pole, the voidhawk
Galega
had observed the fleet gathering. The swarm of stealthed spy globes it showered around the planet had monitored the starships
manoeuvring into their designated slot in the chain, intercepting their command communications. Given the two-degree inclination
of the fleet’s orbital track,
Galega
and its captain, Aralia, had calculated the theoretical number of jump coordinates. Fifty-two stars were possible targets.

The Yosemite Consensus had dispatched voidhawks to warn the relevant governments, all of whom had been extremely alarmed by
the scale of the potential threat. Other than that there was little the Edenists could do. Attack was not a viable option.
The Organization fleet was under the shield of New California’s SD network, and its own offensive potential was equally formidable.
If it was to be broken up, then it would have to be intercepted by a fleet of at least equal size. But even if the Confederation
Navy did assemble a task force large enough, the admirals were then faced with the problem of where to deploy it: a fifty-two
to one chance of getting the right system.

Galega
watched Capone’s scarlet and lemon blackhawk race down from Monterey to hold station fifty kilometres away from the
Salvatore
. A spy globe fell between the two. The intelligence-gathering staff in the voidhawk’s crew toroid heard Capone say: “How’s
it going, Luigi?”

“Okay, boss. The formation’s holding true. They’ll all hit the jump coordinate.”

“Goddamn, Luigi, you should see what you guys look like from here. It’s a powerhouse of a sight. I tell you, I wouldn’t want
to wake up in the morning and find you in my sky. Those jerkhead krauts are gonna crap themselves.”

“Count on it, Al.”

“Okay, Luigi, take it away, it’s all yours. You and Patricia and Dwight take care now, you hear? And Jez says good luck. Go
get ’em.”

“Thank the little lady for us, boss. And don’t worry none, we’ll deliver for you. Expect some real good news a week from now.”

The
Salvatore
’s heat dump panels and sensor clusters began to retract down into their jump recesses, taking a long while to do so. Several
times they seemed to stick or judder. The second ship in the formation began to configure itself for a jump, then the third.

For another minute nothing happened, then the
Salvatore
vanished inside its event horizon.

Aralia and
Galega
were instinctively aware of its spatial location, and with that the jump coordinate alignment could have only one solution.
It’s Arnstadt,
Aralia told the Yosemite Consensus.
They’re heading for Arnstadt.

Thank you, Aralia,
Consensus replied.
We will dispatch a voidhawk to alert the Arnstadt government. It will take the Organization fleet at least two days to reach
the system. The local navy forces will have some time to prepare.

Enough?

Possibly. It depends on the Organization’s actual goal.

When Aralia reviewed the images from the spy globes, another twelve ships had already followed the
Salvatore
. A further seven hundred and forty were gliding inexorably toward the Arnstadt jump coordinate.

•  •  •

“No, Gerald,” Jansen Kovak said. The tone was one which parents reserved for particularly troublesome children. His hand tightened
around Gerald’s upper arm.

He and another supervisory nurse had walked Gerald to the sanatorium’s lounge where he was supposed to eat his lunch. Once
they reached the door, Gerald had glanced furtively down the corridor, muscles tensing beneath his baggy sweatshirt.

Kovak was familiar with the signs. Gerald could drop into a frenzy at the slightest provocation these days; anything from
an innocuous phrase to the sight of a long corridor which he assumed led directly to the outside world. When it happened,
he’d lash out at his supervisors and anyone else who happened to be in the way, before making yet another run for it. The
concept of codelocked doors seemed utterly beyond him.

The corner of Gerald’s lip spasmed at the stern warning, and he allowed himself to be led into the lounge. The first thing
he did was glance at the bar to see if the holoscreen was on. It had been removed altogether (much to the annoyance of other
inmates). Dr Dobbs wasn’t going to risk triggering another incident of that magnitude.

Privately, Jansen Kovak considered that they were wasting their time in trying to rehabilitate Skibbow. The man had obviously
tipped right over the edge and was now free-falling into his own personal inferno. He should be shipped off to a long-term
care institution for treatment and maybe some selective memory erasure. But Dr Dobbs insisted the psychosis could be treated
here; and Gerald was technically an ESA internee, which brought its own complications. It was a bad duty.

The lounge fell silent when the three of them came in. Not that there were many people using it; four or five inmates and
a dozen staff. Gerald responded to the attention with a frightened stare, checking faces. He frowned in puzzlement as one
woman with Oriental features and vivid copper hair gave him a sympathetic half smile.

Jansen quickly steered him over to a settee halfway between the window and the bar and sat him down. “What would you like
to eat, Gerald?”

“Um… I’ll have the same as you.”

“I’ll get you a salad,” Kovak said, and turned to go over to the bar. Which was his first mistake.

Something smashed into the middle of his back, knocking him forwards completely off balance. He went crashing painfully onto
the ground. Auto-balance and unarmed combat programs went primary, interfacing to roll him smoothly to one side. He regained
his feet in a fluid motion.

Gerald and the other nurse were locked together, each trying to throw the other to the ground. Jansen selected an option from
the neural nanonics menu. His feet took a pace and a half forwards, and his weight shifted. One arm came around in a fast
arc. The blow caught Gerald on his shoulder, which toppled him sideways. Before he could compensate, the back of his legs
came into contact with Jansen’s outstretched leg. He tripped, the weight of the other supervisory nurse quickening his fall.

Gerald yelled in pain as he landed on his elbow, only to be smothered below the bulk of the other nurse. When he raised his
head the lounge door was five metres away. So close!

“Let me go,” he begged. “She’s my daughter. I have to save her.”

“Shut up you prize pillock,” Jansen grunted.

“Now that’s not nice.”

Jansen spun around to see the redheaded woman standing behind him. “Er… I. Yes.” Shame was making his face became uncomfortably
warm. It also seemed to be enervating his neural nanonics display. “I’m sorry, it was unprofessional. He’s just so annoying.”

“You should try being married to him for twenty years.”

Jansen’s face registered polite incomprehension. The woman wasn’t an inmate. She was wearing a smart blue dress, civilian
clothing. But he didn’t remember her on the staff.

She smiled briskly, grabbed hold of the front of his tunic, and threw him six metres clean through the air. Jansen’s scream
was more of shock than of pain. Until he hit the ground. That impact was pure agony, and his neural nanonics had shut down,
allowing every volt of pain to flow cleanly through his nerves.

The other nurse who was still wrapped around Gerald managed to get out one dull grunt of surprise before the woman hit him.
Her fist shattered his jaw, sending a spurt of blood splashing across Gerald’s hair.

By that time one of the other sanatorium staff in the lounge had enough presence of mind to datavise an alarm code at the
room’s net processor. Sirens started wailing. A grid of metal bars started to slide up out of the floor, sealing off the open
balcony doors.

Three burly nurses were closing on the red-haired woman as Gerald blinked up at her in amazement. She winked at him and raised
an arm high, finger pointing to the ceiling. A bracelet of white fire ignited around her wrist.

“Shit,”
the leader of the three nurses yelped. He nearly pitched over as he tried desperately to reverse his headlong rush.

“It’s a fucking possessed.”

“Back! Get back!”

“Where the hell did she come from?”

“Go for it, babe,” one of the inmates roared jubilantly.

A rosette of white fire exploded from her hand, dissolving into a hundred tiny spheres almost as soon as it appeared. They
smashed into the ceiling and walls and furniture. Sparks cascaded down as small plumes of black smoke squirted out. Flames
began to take hold. Fire alarms added their clamour to the initial alert. Then the lights went out and the alarms were silenced.

“Come on, Gerald,” the woman said. She pulled him to his feet.

“No,” he squeaked in terror. “You’re one of them. Let me go, please. I can’t be one of you again. I can’t take that again.
Please, my daughter.”

“Shut up, and get a move on. We’re going to find Marie.”

Gerald gaped at her. “What do you know of her?”

“That she needs you, very badly. Now come on!”

“You know?” he snivelled. “How can you know?”

“Come on.” She tugged at him as she started towards the lounge door. It was as if the grapple arm of a heavy-load cargo mechanoid
had attached itself to him.