Hidden Empire (53 page)
Estarra sneezed violently as the spores caught in her nose and throat. Unable to breathe, she sneezed again, the fit sending
spasms through her body. She slipped and tumbled off the smooth outer covering of the reef. Frantically, she scrambled with
her spiked boots, trying to gain purchase.
The spikes ripped gashes in the soft mushroom, and when she finally hit the support stake she had pounded in, it tore free
and she plunged through the roof. The soft tissue dumped more spores around her, and she dropped through fleshy walls down
into another unopened chamber of the fresh growth.
“Help!” she shouted, then sneezed again and tried to catch her breath. The air was close around her, but at least she wasn’t
falling anymore.
Wide-eyed, Celli scrambled to the gaping hole through which Estarra had broken. The little girl balanced carefully, leaning
forward to look at her older sister. Then, seeing that Estarra was not hurt, she began to giggle. “I said you were too big.”
Later, with an embarrassing crowd of her family and other spectators gathered to watch, it took several other children with
ropes and pulleys to haul Estarra out. Beneto stood on a high branch to direct the rescue, calm and self-assured. The girl
emerged, slick with smelly moisture from deep within the reef fungus. Her twisted braids had become tangled and loose, and
her cheeks and arms were covered with grime. But all in all, the only thing injured was Estarra’s pride.
When Beneto came to see her, Estarra was afraid he would be disappointed in how she had clumsily gotten herself into trouble
doing a foolish thing for him. Instead, he hugged her. “Thank you, Estarra. If your heart wasn’t so big, maybe you wouldn’t
have fallen through the roof of the city.”
No matter what anyone else might say, she knew that he understood what she had been trying to do. Emotions crowded in a lump
in her throat, but Estarra could only look at him with relief sparkling through her tears. After that, everything was all
right.
She held that moment close in her thoughts throughout the long, loud banquet and farewell celebrations. The memory did not
help to mitigate her sadness the following morning when she stood on the high treetops and watched Beneto’s shuttle depart,
taking him away to a distant world forever.
I
n the asteroid field between Mars and Jupiter, the EDF began the largest military construction project in human history. Space
scavengers corralled metal-rich asteroids, diverted their orbits, and brought resources together into chaotic three-dimensional
rubble piles.
Hundreds of thousands of sophisticated engineers moved out to the gigantic site, along with numerous shifts of workaday orbital
construction jockeys. A second wave came: support personnel, resources, temporary habitation canisters, food, water, fuel.
Construction never stopped for a moment.
The Terran Hanseatic League had authorized the funding and labor necessary to complete the mobilization project in the fastest
possible time. King Frederick had given speeches, warning his people that they would be required to make sacrifices for the
good of mankind. All of humanity must unite against the mysterious and destructive enemy.
Anger and fear ran rampant throughout the colonies. There seemed to be no pattern to the alien attacks. Two Roamer skymines,
four uninhabited moons, and a technical observation platform. Political leaders demanded that the EDF mount the greatest possible
resistance against the mysterious foe, regardless of cost.
Rlinda Kett, however, felt she was paying a higher price than most. Forlorn, she sat in a mobile administrative station outside
the dockyards where construction engineers and inventory specialists moved among the vessels being refitted to new military
purposes. Rlinda regarded the great steel whalebones of structural frameworks, new hulls being assembled, powerful engines
grafted to commandeered cargo vessels like her own poor ships. She felt sick inside just to watch the butchery. Her merchant
fleet would never be the same.
When a door hatch hissed open in the dim lounge, Rlinda did not turn from where she sat brooding. The last thing she wanted
was polite conversation with one of the people who had confiscated, with feigned apologies, three of her four remaining merchant
ships to convert them into fast reconnaissance vessels and material-supply craft.
The simple act—blithely ordered by King Frederick and signed by some bureaucrat who paid little attention to whatever paper
was thrust in front of him—had robbed Rlinda of her dreams, and most of her livelihood. The token payment from the EDF wouldn’t
be enough to buy rations for more than a year.
Instead of a bureaucrat or supply expert, though, the next sound she heard was the friendly voice of Branson Roberts, whose
Blind Faith
had been among the three commandeered ships. “The least they could do would be to offer us some strong drink.” He came forward,
and Rlinda shifted in her chair, giving him a wan smile. “A good dose of hard alcohol to help ease my heartache.”
Rlinda wrapped an arm around his waist, hugging him close. “You’re a good pilot, BeBob. Want a recommendation letter? You
can get a commission flying reconnaissance surveys. The EDF will give you a pension, and you can have all the military rations
you can eat.”
“All I can stomach, you mean,” he grumbled. “Not like your cooking, Rlinda.”
“You’re sweet,” she said.
He leaned over to make the hug closer, and she pecked him on the cheek. He had curly gray-black hair that had grown too long,
like a tiny thundercloud over his head. His cheeks had begun to sag a bit with age, giving him an endearing hangdog look,
especially with his big brown eyes. They’d had five good years as husband and wife, passionate years, but the two had learned
that they just couldn’t stand being together all the time.
“Glad to hear they let you keep the
Voracious Curiosity,”
BeBob said.
“A small enough consolation prize after losing the rest of my fleet.” Rlinda shrugged. “But I’ll take it, I suppose.”
She climbed to her feet, and the two looked out at the flurry of activity. Cutters and welders fetched components extruded
by self-contained smelters. Military engineers scrabbled over the outer surfaces of the seized commercial spacecraft. Rlinda’s
heart went out as she thought of the years of investment and hard work those vessels meant to the traders who had been forced
to surrender them.
“Maybe I’ll sign up for one of the mapping missions to other gas giants,” BeBob muttered. “I hear General Lanyan is calling
for fast pilots to go look for those aliens. Maybe they’ll give me back the
Blind Faith.”
“Write your own ticket,” Rlinda said. “You know I’ll sign it.”
In comfortable silence with each other’s company, Rlinda and BeBob remained together in the dim lounge. They stared into the
darkness of space, where sunlight reflected from the metal hulls and the shiny surfaces of strip-mined asteroids. Against
the black-velvet universe, the bright beacons of stars shone behind dazzling Jupiter.
Finally, Rlinda stirred. “Time to get back to my one remaining ship. You’re right. I’m lucky to still have it… and for now,
at least, the galley is fully stocked.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Would you be amenable to letting me fix you a nice
dinner? I’ve got a few interesting Theron ingredients left, and a special new recipe I’ve been wanting to try.”
BeBob looked at her and practically glowed. He bent his arm behind his back, comically twisting it. “Ouch, okay, okay! I’m
convinced.” Then he continued more seriously, “Yes, Rlinda, I’d like that very much. It could be one of the last fancy meals
I’ll have in a while.”
Rlinda stood next to him, staring out at the stars. “You and me both,” she said. “I see plenty of tough times ahead.”
T
hough Roamer commercial ships provided vital ekti and other resources for the Terran Hanseatic League, the EDF treated the
“space gypsies” with distaste. Tasia figured the Eddies needed to have some sort of scapegoat until they got into a real fight
with the enemy aliens. So she put up with it. She herself meant to save her energy for the right opponent.
When she’d volunteered for the space military, Tasia had been prepared for lousy treatment. She didn’t let childish insults
bother her and usually made a witty rejoinder that surprised Patrick Fitzpatrick (especially when he didn’t understand her
comment and had to pretend that he did). After his injury in the decompression exercise, she had hoped Fitzpatrick might be
sent home to a desk job. Inventorying spampax, maybe. He hadn’t been. She foiled the criticism of her fellow recruits with
superior performance in all training exercises. The kleebs could make all the snotty comments they wanted, but they knew she
could outshoot and outfly any one of them.
Still, anytime a piece of equipment unexpectedly broke down or messages were inexplicably garbled, wary eyes turned toward
her as if she were some sort of hidden saboteur. Tasia couldn’t understand why Roamers would be suspect, since they had lost
more than anyone else to the new enemy. But the other Eddies did not look at their suspicions rationally.
What do you expect from kleebs?
By now her father and Jess must know where she had gone. Sometimes she allowed herself a wry smile, imagining how Bram Tamblyn
would have railed and ranted at what his daughter had done. He would have shouted at the frozen ice ceiling and bewilderedly
asked what he had done wrong as a parent. Jess could have given him a long litany of his parental shortcomings … but he wouldn’t.
Instead, Bram would end up riding Jess harder than ever, adding responsibilities and pressures, criticizing his every task,
and unwittingly losing his only remaining child.
She lifted her chin with determination. One day, after she’d become a vital key to defeating the sinister aliens, her father
might actually be proud of her. Tasia would not hold her breath, though.
She was on duty in the base communications center, a domed room atop the cracked canyons of Labyrinthus Noctis, during an
off-hours shift that had nothing to do with the day/night cycle of Mars. All Eddies ran on standard Earth military time, regardless
of what planet or ship they served on.
A Roamer supply vessel had stopped at the EDF base on Earth’s moon to drop off much-needed tanks of ekti for military use.
Upon departure from the Moon, the cargo ship had sent a loud scrambled signal at a very low frequency, far below the range
of normal communication bands. When moonbase EDF personnel demanded an explanation, the Roamer captain answered with chagrin
that he’d experienced a malfunction of his pulse transmitter, that he’d merely sent a test signal in a low-frequency band
that would not interfere with normal EDF communications. Tasia hid her smile, not believing the excuse for a second. Even
the Eddies didn’t seem to be convinced.
Then the Roamer vessel had streaked away from the Moon. But rather than heading up and out of Sol system, the cargo ship looped
in a broad parabola that intersected the orbit of Mars. The red planet was a third of the way clockwise around the Sun.
In the communications center, Tasia spotted the oncoming craft and hesitated. The Roamer ship displayed extraordinary speed
as it approached the military compound on Mars. The vessel almost certainly had doctored serial numbers and a false identification
beacon. Even without knowing the captain’s clan, she still didn’t want to get him in trouble… but if Tasia didn’t sound the
alarm fast enough, then more suspicion would be cast upon
her
. She punched the alert signal.
“Roamer captain, identify yourself. You have no authorized approach vector.” He did not answer, and Tasia signaled again,
more urgently this time. “You are not allowed to land. All supplies must be delivered to the Moon base. Mars is off-limits
to unauthorized personnel.”
Especially Roamers
.
“I do not intend to land,” the captain finally answered, and she thought she recognized his voice.
Jess?
That was impossible.
