Empire of Light (3 page)

‘Oh fuck, I needed that,’ she moaned.

‘You’re welcome,’ Nathan muttered. He glanced towards the window, where he could see the underside of a sky glowing a dull red.

Karen slid back down beside him and lay there for a few moments, her head resting on his shoulder. He sensed something else was on her mind and, after a few minutes of silence, she pushed herself up on one elbow and stared down at him.

‘So who was she?’ she asked, regarding him with a serious intensity.

Nathan gazed at her blankly until he realized she meant Ilsa. ‘What makes you think I was looking for a she?’

‘Intuition.’ Karen’s expression softened a little and she smiled. ‘I’m not saying you have to
answer.
I’m just curious.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘You know, Nathan, it doesn’t take a genius to guess you’re hiding something.’ She rolled on to her back beside him and sighed. ‘I guess there’s never going to be a good time to tell you this.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘I’m being reassigned. They’re sending several new expeditions into the rest of the coreship, and I’ve been asked to join one. We might even try to penetrate the command core this time round. It’ll be a joint operation, undertaken with the surviving Skelites and Bandati in the other zones.’

‘What are you hoping to find? The coreship is dead.’ He’d seen external shots of the starship taken by the Legislate ships that arrived a few weeks after the Shoal had abandoned it. Almost all its drive-spines had been burned away as it escaped Night’s End. Early hopes of finding a way to pilot it back to Consortium territory had been quickly dashed, but contact had now been made with races in the other environments, including one or two previously unknown to mankind.

Karen frowned. ‘You understand what I’m saying, don’t you?’

Nathan smiled and stroked her hair for what he guessed would likely be the last time. ‘That we won’t be seeing each other any more, is that it?’

‘I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’

‘I think we both always knew a day like this was coming.’ He looked inside himself and realized he wasn’t lying. Life had been grim, desperately so for too long now, and their time together had helped keep him sane. ‘No more chasing after General Peralta, then,’ he added. ‘You must be relieved.’

She scowled. ‘Peralta’s a dead man. He’s never leaving Ascension alive. He must know it too, but he just keeps fighting.’

Nathan found himself wondering what she might think if she were to find out he had been in Peralta’s employ until a few months before. The warlord, faced with a stark choice between arrest and execution on the one hand and a slow, lingering death on the other, had demanded safe transportation off the coreship for himself and his inner circle, almost as soon as the first relief operations had arrived. The Consortium had other ideas, however, and Peralta had then made good on his threat to carry out attacks on refugees until he got exactly what he wanted.

Ilsa had been amongst the first to slip away from Peralta’s compound under cover of night, and ever since he had made his own escape a few months later, he had been searching for her so they could find a way out of Ascension together. He had hoped his volunteer work on the ambulances would improve their chances of being lifted out of the coreship, once he’d found her.

‘Unless he can find a way to mix in with the rest of the refugees and slip past you,’ Nathan suggested. He was careful to keep his voice casual.

‘They scan everyone who goes through,’ she replied, and yawned, pulling herself in closer to him. ‘With DNA profiling, biometrics, the works. Don’t you worry, there’s no way in hell anyone gets on to a ship without us knowing exactly who they are.’

‘That’s good to know,’ he muttered, staring up at the ceiling, and wondering if Nirav had yet checked his DNA profile against the Legislate’s security databases.

‘Hey Wake up.’

Nathan grumbled and shook his head, opening bleary eyes. He could tell it was dawn because the light outside the window was now marginally brighter than during the night. Karen was already sitting up, the thick grey blanket pulled up around her naked breasts.

Two men stood by the open door to the office, dressed the same as any other troopers except for the grey shoulder markings that identified them as internal security. They were armed with pulse-rifles.

‘Ma’am,’ one of them said to Karen, throwing her a salute but unable to hide the smirk on his face. ‘Sorry to wake you, but we’ve got orders.’

‘What goddamn orders?’ she snapped.

Nathan glanced down towards Karen’s pistol, still in its holster and half-hidden under her tangled clothes, and decided his chances of surviving a shoot-out were minimal in the extreme.

‘We’re here to take Mr Whitecloud into custody,’ said the trooper who’d spoken. ‘The orders came from Representative Munn. You’ll see they’re marked highest priority.’ He passed the credentials to her.

She scanned the papers for a moment before looking back up. ‘Ty Whitecloud?’ she asked, looking utterly confused. ‘Who the hell is Ty Whitecloud?’

‘He is, ma’am,’ the trooper replied, nodding towards the man who had been calling himself Nathan Driscoll.

Karen turned to stare at him like she’d never set eyes on him before.

Chapter Three

PRIORITY MESSAGE Code ALPHA security rating 15 Compiled by OFFICE OF SECURITY § OCEAN’S DEEP/DATE:2544:6:6 via Hubert Tach-Net Array. Authorized by WILLIS, OLIVARRI, OUSPENSKY.

REPORT SUMMARY FROM:

Navigators GILLIES, SATIE, YUSEF, MAZZINI, YOSHI Direct observations of artificially induced novae to date: 15

Sightings of Emissary fleets: 13 Estimated Threat Level at time of report: 7 (0-10)

Notes: Navigators GILLIES and YUSEF report contact with Emissaries at 0.91+0.78 kiloparsecs 2544: 6:2+2544:5:29

Location of Navigator SATIE unknown following last report: filed under MISSING.

SUMMARY ANALYSIS: Dispersal of Emissary fleets in region designated ‘Long War’ suggest likely contact with colonies in maximum 1.577x10
7
seconds

RECOMMENDATIONS: 1:CITATION for Navigator SATIE. 2:Raise Threat Level to 8(0-10). PRIORITY MESSAGE ENDS

OFFICE OF SECURITY

The blow was unexpected, a hard jab that caught Lucas Corso on the side of his ribcage and half-spun him around. He staggered slightly before regaining his balance and quickly dropped into the correct defensive posture, ready for the next assault.

‘You’re dead already,’ Breisch snapped, flexing the fingers of his free hand. The other held a short sword, its blade slightly curved and razor-sharp. ‘Attack, not defence.’

Corso scented his own blood, mixed with sweat, where Breisch had slashed him across the chest. He kept his breathing under control and snapped out with his feet and arms in a series of coordinated lunges, pushing his opponent back across the training suite.

Corso yelled with each lunge, barking his anger as Breisch dodged and dipped and spun out of reach. He sucked in air, legs slightly bent at the knees, almost a dancer’s posture.

Breisch was right: if this had been the real thing, he’d be dead by now. He was slipping badly, and the reasons were all too obvious.

A priority alert then appeared in the form of a softly glowing lozenge of light projected from a ceiling-mounted mechanism. Breisch saw it and immediately relaxed into a non-combat posture, legs straight, hands clasped behind his back. His skin was slick with sweat, so at least Corso knew he hadn’t made it too easy for his teacher.

‘That was a bad slip you made,’ Breisch told him calmly. ‘We’re going to have to work on your response times. It’s a weakness that any half-decent fighter could exploit, Senator.’

‘I appreciate that, Mr Breisch,’ Corso replied, picking up his shirt and using it to wipe the sweat from his neck and face. Breisch was one of the best deadly-combat trainers in the Freehold, and it had taken a lot of money to persuade him to leave Redstone and become his personal trainer.

‘The gravity here on Eugenia may also be an issue,’ Breisch added. ‘We may have to work on more strategies for coping with different strengths of gravity, particularly if you keep moving around as much as you have been.’

‘Noted,’ Corso replied. ‘We’ll pick up from here tomorrow morning.’

Breisch nodded and left the room. Corso stepped through to a shower room and washed the blood and sweat away, then used some coagulant to stop the bleeding before applying a strip of bandage to the wound.

‘Report,’ he said to the air, once the water had shut off.

There was a soft chime in his right ear, and a female voice with rounded tones began to speak. ‘Nisha here, Senator Corso. There’s been another sabotage attempt. A robot cargo transport deviated and made straight for Eugenia. The good news is that we caught it long before it got anywhere near us.’

‘You’re certain it was sabotage? Not just a systems failure?’

‘The platform’s brain had been very expertly hacked, Senator. There’s no doubt it was deliberate.’

Corso groaned silently, and started to towel himself dry. Another crisis to deal with. ‘Anything else?’

‘An urgent request from Ted Lamoureaux, who wants a meeting with you straight away. Something for your ears only, he said.’

‘First things first.’ Anger flowed like heat through his thoughts; there had to be some way to make people understand he wouldn’t tolerate these constant acts of terrorism. ‘We need to be seen to be reacting to this strongly and positively. Do we have any idea at all who’s responsible for the sabotage?’

‘Nothing clear as yet, but we’ve got analysts taking the transport’s brain apart right now.’

Sometimes he wondered just whose bright idea it had been to give him this much responsibility, and then he reminded himself, for the millionth time, that he had volunteered for the job. Previous investigations of attempts to either kill him or hurt the colony in Ocean’s Deep had a nasty habit of running into dead ends. Would-be executioners and saboteurs either proved to be mercenaries with no knowledge of who’d hired them, or simply turned up dead by the time the Consortium’s own intelligence services tracked them down.

‘Who’s our most likely suspect?’ he asked. ‘I’m talking governments here, Nisha. Who would you say wants rid of me the most of all this week?’

‘I would guess. . . the Midgarth security services are near the top. There are rumours they’ve been soliciting secret talks with both Morgan’s World and Bohr. In addition, they’ve been openly vetoing our request to take part in the next round of crisis talks. Also, some of their more recent candidates for navigator training turned out to have connections deep within their respective intelligence communities. We rejected them, naturally.’

‘We’ve been sitting around while other people take potshots at us for far too long. Where’s Willis right now?’ Corso asked, referring to his security head back at Ocean’s Deep.

‘Probably asleep, Senator. I reckon Leo Olivarri would be on active watch-duty about now.’ Olivarri was Willis’s deputy.

Corso grunted and checked the bandage in a mirror, to make sure it wasn’t going to slip. His arms and chest were marked with a fine criss-crossing of scars, like memories of pain and death carved into his flesh.

He started to get dressed, pulling on an anti-ballistic vest made from compacted layers of genetically enhanced spider-silk, then a formal dress shirt on top. A carefully concealed holstered pistol was next, followed by a slim blade tucked down the back of one boot. He kept himself armed at all times these days, and had recently spent a lot of time in the company of men like Breisch, learning how to properly use the various weapons he carried.

In the two years since Dakota had left, his chest had broadened and any excess fat had drained from his face, lending him a much more angular appearance. His fingers had grown calloused from months of weapons and hand-to-hand combat training. There was a long, dark burn mark on the inside of his left arm, invisible beneath his shirt – testament to a challenge he had taken part in less than a year before.

‘All right, Nisha, this is what we’re going to do,’ he said, pulling on his jacket. ‘Tell Leo to wake Willis up. I want them to locate and round up every Midgarth representative to the Fleet he can find at Ocean’s Deep, and have them hauled in. They can call it protective custody, but make sure that, one way or another, at least some of them are formally arrested and charged on suspicion of espionage.’

‘I’m not aware that we have sufficient leads to warrant any such arrests, Senator.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Do it anyway. If they don’t like it, they can catch the next ship going home.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And if we can’t find any leads, keep them locked up, anyway. Let’s see if
we
can stir up some shit for a change.’

‘They won’t be happy, sir.’

Understatement of the century,
thought Corso, but said, ‘Fuck them. I also want all of their representatives’ assets, financial and otherwise, frozen pending an immediate investigation. Have the office put together a general press release after the fact, nothing too specific. But I want it worded in such a way that it’s clear we intend to take a stand. Even if Midgarth isn’t involved, maybe some of the others will think twice if they think their heads might wind up on the block as well.’

‘Yes, Senator.’

The chime sounded again, indicating that the link had been broken.

Corso took a deep breath, and pulled a small vial out of his jacket pocket. He shook a couple of pills out of it and swallowed them dry. How many hours a night of sleep was he getting these days? Four, maybe five?

The medication helped, but he knew he was overdoing it.

Corso exited the gym and met the half-dozen heavily armed men and women that comprised his personal security detail in the building’s lobby. From there it was a short walk across an open plaza to the domed building that housed Eugenia’s government offices. His guards surrounded him, their weapons discreetly tucked into pockets or within easy reach inside jackets. Tiny security devices whirred in the air around them like mechanical insects, scanning for anything that might be missed by ordinary human eyes.

Eugenia had started life as an asteroid and, like so many of the larger bodies scattered throughout the Sol system following first contact with the Shoal, had been transformed by using the Shoal’s own technology. A gravity engine had been buried at the asteroid’s core, while shaped fields completely surrounding it retained a pressurized atmosphere and protected it from radiation. Fusion torches – suspended from poles that pushed through the shaped fields like pins through soap bubbles – shone heat and light down on the tiny world.

It was the first boosted world Corso had ever found himself on, and he couldn’t say for sure if he was enjoying the experience. His stomach lurched every time he caught sight of the impossibly close horizon.

For all that, Eugenia was one of the largest of the Main Belt boosted worlds, and a little over two hundred kilometres in diameter. It had started out larger, but its original rough, potato-like shape had been less than ideal, so it had been blasted and sculpted into something more approximating a sphere. It had even been allowed to retain Petit-Prince, one of its two small moons. An iron sculpture of Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince stood near the centre of the plaza, gazing up at a point where his namesake would pass overhead every five days.

But before very long, the asteroid and its moons were going to become eternally separated. The Little Prince was going to have to make his own way through space.

Yugo Stankovic, one of Corso’s aides, was waiting for him in the foyer of the government building.

‘All right, Yugo, Nisha already gave me an outline of what’s happened. Is there anything else I should know?’ Corso asked, as Stankovic matched pace with him. The security detail made their way elsewhere while Corso and his aide headed for a bank of elevators.

‘What she told you, she got from me. We managed to disable the cargo platform remotely without any further incident, but it was pretty close.’

‘How bad could it have been?’

‘It could have wiped us out. The Consortium’s own intelligence services are working hard at stopping any word of this getting out to the media, and Eugenia’s prime minister took the chair of an emergency session about five minutes ago.’ Stankovic smiled and shrugged. ‘We’re not invited, of course.’

An elevator arrived and they stepped inside. ‘Who’s in charge of figuring out who’s responsible?’

‘Lieutenant Nazarro of our own Authority security is working on it with the local security heads in a separate meeting,’ Stankovic replied. ‘I should have an initial report from him within the hour.’

Corso flexed his hands, and found himself wishing for a more tangible enemy. All the careful manoeuvring of the last few years was coming to nothing. Whoever was responsible for these acts of sabotage was doing a good job of remaining eternally elusive, leaving him with the near-certainty that the only ones capable of covering their tracks so thoroughly were precisely those governments that coveted the Peacekeeper Authority’s power the most. As far as most of them were concerned, he was the one thing standing between them and the stars.

The elevator doors hissed open and they stepped into a suite of offices. Ted Lamoureaux was already there, sprawled on a couch.

‘Ted,’ said Corso, stepping forward and shaking Lamoureaux’s hand, after the other man stood up to greet him. ‘Good to see you. We’ll talk through here.’

The starship navigator was a slight, pale-featured man in his thirties, with a perpetually worried look. He was also – in common with Dakota Merrick and every other Magi-enabled navigator within the Consortium – a machine-head, his skull filled with consciousness-altering technology that made him uniquely suited to interfacing with the starships that Dakota had summoned to Ocean’s Deep.

Lamoureaux followed them into an office with a wide picture window. Hundreds of newly installed drive-spines – spaced equidistant from each other all around Eugenia’s surface – were visible beyond the window. They were a recent addition, an essential part of the asteroid’s slow transformation into a full-fledged starship. Each spine was hundreds of metres tall and gracefully curving, giving Eugenia the appearance from a distance of some enormous space-going bacterium coated in metallic cilia.

Corso dropped on to a couch. ‘Whatever it is you wanted to talk to me about is going to have to wait a few minutes. I need to know why Eugenia’s new FTL drive still hasn’t arrived.’

‘It’s all in my report.’

‘Yeah, I know. Just humour me, Ted.’

Lamoureaux shrugged and slipped a ring from the finger of one hand, then dropped it on to the active plate of an imager unit set up near the window. He touched the machine’s controls, and an image of an airless dwarf planet appeared above the plate, slowly rotating. A Maker cache had been found there little more than a year before, at Iota Horologii – the Tierra system, as it was more commonly known. Other images appeared, cut-away schematics showing the cache’s layout, a kilometres-deep shaft drilled deep into the planet’s crust, with thousands of needle-like passageways extending out from the shaft.

One of these passageways, Corso knew, contained a machine called a drive-forge, a template-driven fabricator that could manufacture new superluminal engines for faster-than-light travel.