Star Carrier (Lost Colonies Trilogy Book 3) (35 page)

-63-

We reached Earth several days later. We parked in orbit, but we didn’t dock with Araminta Station immediately.

A series of calls came to my implant from various officials. My parents were among them. Those were the hardest conversations of all.

“Father,” I said, pushing my lips into a vague smile. “It’s so good to see you again.

“Son, I’m glad you’re home—but I wish it was under better circumstances.”

“I agree,” I said. “The Stroj proved more difficult to defeat than we’d hoped.”

He stared at me for a moment with narrowed eyes. “You were there?”

“I was there indeed,” I said.

He let out a long sigh. “I’d hoped that detail wasn’t true. Damn it, boy! What were you thinking?”

“Excuse me, Father?”

“Listen, it’s time you grew up. Politically, I mean. You can’t keep a command in Star Guard without being at least aware of political threats to your position. You should have pulled out of the Stroj system the moment you saw our fleet was going to lose the engagement.”

I felt the red heat of anger rising up my neck, but I managed to control it. I wanted to release an outburst. My parents never thought of the civilian dead, the loss to the spacers’ families, or even the personal pride of any starship captain. They only thought of the details that reflected poorly on their reputations and careers. I didn’t think they were necessarily bad people, but they had a peculiar blindness when it came to the suffering of the common man.

“Father,” I said, “I wasn’t at liberty to flee the scene. Imagine how that might have looked if the news nets had gotten ahold of such a story.”

He shook his head. “Yes… I guess it was a no-win situation. But try not to get yourself into any more of those, okay? It will take the rest of this year and maybe the next to regain our reputations.”

“
Our
reputations?” I asked. “I thought we were talking about me?”

“Of course we are. But you’re part of a bigger whole, the Great House of Sparhawk. You can see that, can’t you? Everything you do out there reflects back upon
all
of us.”

“The same goes in reverse, Father,” I said quietly.

He looked at me sharply. “What’s that?”

“It’ll wait. We’ll talk when I get home.”

“Yes… well… all right. Make sure you alert us when you’re about to arrive. We’re planning a tour of southern Asia soon. I hope it doesn’t interfere.”

“I’ll let you know,” I said, and I cut the channel.

My parents… they would never change. It was clear they meant to dodge me again. This time, I was apparently too hot for them to even be seen on the same continent with me.

I took a moment to remind myself of the world they lived in. If they made a mistake—a big one—they might become unpersons themselves. I now believed they knew of that possibility, and that they’d known about it for a long time.

Oddly, this made me feel better about my past. Their secret worries helped explain their behavior throughout my life.

They were in a dangerous spot—all the high-level politicians on Earth lived in constant fear. Their secret rulers, the people behind the publicly visible Great Houses, had to be terrifying to families like mine.

My face took on a grim aspect as I began planning my next moves. This wasn’t going to be easy or clean. It was going to be unpleasant.

Historically speaking, entrenched powers rarely gave up easily. Not unless they had no recourse. They had to be beaten, driven out of their holes into the light, and stomped down like roaches.

That was what I had planned for the Council, but even so, I knew roaches weren’t easy to kill.

“Captain?” Yamada’s voice spoke into my implant.

“What is it?”

“You’ve got a priority call. Shall I patch it through once you get to your quarters?”

I hesitated then cleared my computer top. The images of troop formations and landing vectors vanished.

“Patch them through,” I said.

A figure appeared at my side. It was my Aunt, the Lady Grantholm.

“William,” she said, “listen to me very carefully. I need you to accept an emergency patch through your implant. There’s something wrong with your ship’s network.”

“How do you know this, Aunt Ellen?”

She stared at me flatly. “William… let’s not play games. No one is in the mood. Have you noticed you have two battleships tracking you? Flying ever closer to
Defiant
?”

I shrugged. “We’re all in Earth’s orbit. It’s positively cramped up here with such large vessels.”

“Again, more nonsense,” she said, “will you accept the update or not?”

This put me in a tight spot. My mind was racing. If I refused, I was as much as declaring my intentions now—too early.

“I’ll go you one better,” I said. “I’ll come down to visit the Council in person.”

“Why?”

“Come now,” I said. “It seems clear to me I’m on the verge of becoming an unperson. I’d like the chance to see the Chairman and his comrades face-to-face—to make a case for myself. Let me at least report directly to them. I wish to tell them what really happened out there in the Stroj system.”’

She looked at me sharply. “Are you saying you lied on your reports?”

“I’m saying some things are too delicate to put into publicly transmitted documents.”

She frowned thoughtfully. “All right, I’ll ask the Chairman. You’ve been here before without causing a major incident… Yes, this might be just the thing we need to clear this matter up. To bring the Sparhawk name out of the gutter and back into the light!”

She smiled as she finished these words, but she didn’t look me in the eye.

The channel closed, and I stared at the walls.

I’d already been sentenced to unpersonhood. That much was clear. All that talk on her part about clearing the Sparhawk name… well, how better to do that than to remove the stain on my family’s honor entirely?

Heading to the command deck, I oversaw the preparations. All our old plans had to be tossed aside.

Durris object strongly. “You can’t just walk in there alone, Captain,” he said.

“That’s exactly what I must do. But first, we’ll stop off at Araminta Station as we’ve lost our shuttle. We must get a new one.”

“You’ve heard about the battleships? They’re stalking us as clear as day. We can’t defeat two—hell, we couldn’t take one of them in our current state.”

“Stop worrying, XO,” I said. “I’m the one who’s going into danger. You’ll be in command while I’m gone. If I don’t succeed, your orders are to unshield every implant on this ship and allow them to update you all. That way, none of you need suffer for my actions.”

He looked stubborn, but he was a Star Guard officer. He finally nodded and looked down. “You’re planning to surrender, aren’t you?” he asked. “To beg for our lives in return for yours.”

“Something like that… but first, we have preparations to make.”

I began outlining the nature of my new, altered plans, and he looked increasingly surprised the further I went into detail.

After we visited Araminta Station and picked up a new boat, the crews complained. “This isn’t a shuttle,” they said. “It’s a pinnace. It will barely fit in the hangar.”

“We’ll have to make do,” I said. “Rumbold, would you be so kind as to program my ship to land at these coordinates? I know you’re very familiar with the navigational software on these little ships.”

“Indeed I am, Captain,” he said, and he climbed aboard to do as I’d asked.

The pinnace was almost as long as the hangar itself, and it crowded the rest of us up against the walls.

Durris appeared soon afterward with Director Vogel. They had variants with them who were transporting large pods.

“The supplies you ordered, Captain,” Durris said, waving the variants toward the open hold of the pinnace.

“Very good, XO.”

Director Vogel approached me while I was going through a preflight checklist.

“Captain,” he said in a husky whisper. “You have to take me with you. Your plan won’t work otherwise.”

I glanced at him. “What plan?”

He coughed. “I’m not a fool. You’re obviously—”

“Director Vogel, I don’t want to seem rude, but I’m very busy right now.”

“Look Sparhawk. I won’t let this go. You
must
take me down!”

“Why?” I demanded, looking at him squarely and lowering the computer scroll I’d been tapping at.

“I know what you’re up to. It probably won’t work, but there’s no chance at all if I’m not there.”

I stared at him. “Are you threatening me?”

“If I have to. My life is on the line here, same as yours.”

After a few seconds of thinking it over, I nodded at last. “I promised to go down alone. You’ll have to hide in the hold with the cargo. If you’re discovered, I’ll toss you overboard myself.”

“Understood,” he said, and he scrambled up the ramp past working variants.

Soon, the navigational work was done by Rumbold, and the cargo was fully loaded. I stepped into the forward cabin and took my seat at the controls.

Durris gave me the green light, and I lifted off, exiting
Defiant’s
hangar. Within minutes, I left
Defiant
, the battleships, and Araminta Station all behind.

Their hulls were silvered by the rising sun. On a better day, I might have found the view perfectly entrancing.

-64-

When I landed the pinnace in a quiet clearing on a mountaintop, I was quickly encircled by agents.

These men were all of a familiar type. They had dog-faces, and not one of them shouted, smiled, or waved. They closed in from all directions with their weapons drawn.

I exited the pinnace and stepped among them, crunching leaves under my boots.

Three of them approached me as if I were an arch criminal. The flared ends of their PAG weapons were trained on my chest. One took my weapons and my shielding cloak, and the rest moved behind me.

“You’re under arrest, Captain Sparhawk,” said the duty captain.

I nodded disinterestedly. “Lead the way,” I said. “I’m a busy man.”

This seemed to strike them as amusing. For the first time, they all curled their lips up and chuckled—all of them, at once. The similarity of the action performed by so many in unison was disconcerting. But then, being in the presence of a clone-pack often disturbed normal folks.

Without lowering my head, I marched toward the mansion in the distance. They encircled me and marched with me. A dozen weapons were trained upon my back at any given moment, but I pretended that it didn’t make my skin crawl.

We marched as a group to the mansion. The walls had peeling paint in places, and I wondered about that. Could it be the oldsters inside never stepped out into the light? Surely, if they’d done so, they would have ordered the place to be restored and better maintained.

As I descended the marble steps, I began to second-guess myself. Perhaps they didn’t
want
this place to look clean and fresh. Maybe they thought it better hid their stronghold in this overgrown forest if the place looked all but abandoned.

At the door, I was greeted by the doorman. I’d met him before, and he nodded in recognition. The fact I was being marched onto the premises under heavy guard didn’t seem to surprise him in the least.

“Ah, Captain Sparhawk,” he said. “Back from the stars again? You’ve lived such an accomplished life for such a young man.”

Lived? As in the past tense?
I thought this to myself, but I didn’t make a point of it.

“Thank you, Bertelsmann,” I said, knowing this to be the oldster’s name. “If you would show me to the Chairman…”

He blinked then nodded again. “Of course. This way.”

We began the long trip down an endless stairway. I’d traveled this route before. I couldn’t help but notice that we’d skipped the stairway and used the elevator previously. Could that be significant? Or did it mean nothing at all?

Steeling myself, I walked as if I didn’t have a care in the world. The stairs echoed and rang with many boots as the dog-men followed me into the depths.

We passed the vault doors, then the many landings. By the time we reached the bottom, Bertelsmann seemed slightly winded.

“Best you take the elevator on the way back up,” I suggested.

“Yes…” he said. “I used to take these two at a time when I was in a hurry. Funny how time gets away from you… This way, Captain.”

He ushered me to the large oaken doors where I’d once stood with my Aunt Ellen. Beyond were the council chambers.

“The Chairman isn’t meeting me personally?” I asked.

“Farewell, sir,” he said. Then he bowed and left.

I stood alone in the half-darkness with a dozen guardians. They curled their lips at me when my eyes strayed to look at them, so I admired the scrolling woodwork instead.

At last, the doors swung open silently. I stepped into the dim interior. Two of the guardians followed me, one of whom was carrying my belongings.

The Council was in session. I stood on a dais, as I had two years earlier, like an accused man standing in a docket.

“There he is at last,” said one of the shadowy figures. She was as thin as a rail and her voice quavered slightly when she spoke. “Fancy him keeping us waiting.”

“Good day, Councilmembers,” I said, bowing from the waist. “I’m Captain Sparhawk.”

“We know who you are, Sparhawk,” jeered one hairless specimen with an artificial eye. “We aren’t daft yet—at least, not all of us.”

This elicited both twitters and grumbling from the crowd.

The noises ceased as another figure entered the room. It was the Chairman, I could tell by his hunched shape. He stepped down to the front of the gallery and took his seat in a high-back chair of creaking leather.

“Sparhawk…” he said. His tone indicated he wanted to spit. “You grace us with your presence at last.”

“I’ve returned because my mission has been completed,” I said. “If you wish to hear my report—”

“That will not be necessary,” he said in irritation. “We’ve seen it, days ago. It was, on the whole, entirely unsatisfactory.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,” I said politely.

“Not only did you manage to lose Earth’s fleet,” he said, reading from a computer scroll of unusual length, “but you are also guilty of criminal violation in regard to regular updates.”

“I was unaware of any law regarding required updates, Chairman.”

He shook his head and huffed. “You were ordered by your Star Guard superiors to comply,” he said.

“Again,” I said, “as a Star Guard enforcement officer, I’ve never been made aware of any statute—”

The Chairman leaned forward in sudden anger. “Are you actually arguing with me, Sparhawk? Here, in my own chambers? The seat of all Earthly political power? From this chair, sir, I’ve ruled Earth for a century and a half!”

“The law is the law,” I said to him, unbending. “You, Mr. Chairman, are doing these things outside the law. I’m afraid I’m going to have to arrest you.”

There was a stunned silence. Then, laughter broke out. This went on for some time, and it ended in a bout of coughing for many of them.

“I’ll consider myself forewarned,” the Chairman said, rubbing tears of mirth from his eyes. “Now, the question is, what are we going to do with you?”

“We have no choice,” said a new voice. I recognized her as Dr. Ariel Peis, the surgeon who’d worked on me when I’d last visited this place. “We have to sentence him to hard labor,” she said in a heartless tone.

“Make a variant out of a member of House Sparhawk?” the Chairman asked. “That seems extreme. He can become an unperson. We have plenty of room in storage. A few of them died just last month, freeing up their cells.”

“Chairman,” said another voice I recognized. I felt my heart sink to hear it. “I know I’m a biased member of this body,” my Aunt Ellen said, “but I don’t think we need to remove him from society permanently by any method. We can simply remove the hack on his implant and update him.”

My eyes slid over the audience until I found her. She was in the back row. Perhaps she was of very low rank, barely old enough and powerful enough to sit on the Council.

“That would be most irregular,” the Chairman said. “Where’s the punishment in that?”

“Think, fellows,” my aunt pleaded. “He isn’t a dissident of the usual stripe. He’s not remembered that way. The public has no idea he’s engaged in subversive thinking. He can be corrected, with a specially crafted update. After that, he can go back to his duties or be reduced in rank.”

“Never!” the Chairman sputtered. “He just told me he was going to arrest me. Imagine that! I won’t have it, I tell you. He’s going to the dungeons, and that’s my final word on the topic. Let’s take a vote just for fun.”

The group began to sound off as their names were called. Most voted for the dungeons, but a few insisted on expunging me in other ways.

The whole thing was going too quickly, so I became nervous. I’d miscalculated. I’d assumed this group of dusty fossils would take an hour or so to complete their deliberations, but they were moving much faster than that.

“Mr. Chairman,” I said, “I have a further statement to make.”

“Quiet!” he boomed back. “Quiet him!”

One of the guardians bashed me in the face. My lip split, and my blood ran from it.

They continued voting. My own aunt voted to imprison me and erase me from public memory. I felt a pang at that betrayal even if she had tried to help me.

“Mr. Chairman, I wish to confess to a further crime!” I shouted.

The blows rained down on me after that. Both of the dog-faced guardians bashed me in the head, and then one switched on his power-truncheon and struck the back of my legs. I fell to my knees, stunned.

“Hold!” the Chairman called. “Hold on, get him on his feet again.”

They dragged me up.

“What’s this about a confession?” he asked. “A confession to what?”

“My report was a false one,” I said. “I was under no obligation to report the truth of events out among the stars to you. This organization isn’t part of the legitimate government of Earth.”

“Who cares about your reasons?” the Chairman demanded. “What about your report was false?”

He stood up and began climbing down from the galleries. I noted several others moving in the crowd. Most were edging closer to the railing, wanting to hear and see what would happen next. I doubted any of them saw much in the way of excitement down here.

I also noted that my aunt had taken this opportunity to slip away. There must have been a backdoor somewhere, and she’d made good use of it.

Could it be she suspected what I was about to say? Maybe she was worried she’d be blamed somehow.

“Chairman,” I said, “may I speak?”

“Yes, damn you! Speak! What lies have you told?”

“The fleet was not destroyed by the Stroj.”

A murmur swept the crowd.

“What?” the oldster demanded. “Are you saying our fleet is still out there, still intact?”

“No. They were all destroyed. But the Stroj didn’t do it.”

I looked up at him then, and my eyes met his. “I personally destroyed the variants and the ships they commandeered. Their genocidal actions against our colonies required decisive intervention. They had to be put down, sir.”

The Chairman’s jaw sagged. “Are you mad?” he demanded. “Demented?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then why would you tell me such unwelcome news?”

I was about to answer when I paused. At last, I heard something outside that I’d been waiting for. Something that I’d been straining to hear since I’d first entered this dusty place.

It was the sound of strife. The distant clamor of battle.

“I pride myself on telling the truth, Chairman,” I told him. “Now, you know the facts.”

“Well, this does change things,” he said, fuming. “I’m going to have to move for a dismissal of the previous sentence and the voting. Who moves for hard labor as a variant instead?”

“I do!” shouted a chorus of angry voices.

“Very well, moved and seconded. Let us begin to vote—”

He began counting votes again, but before he’d gotten through the first row, he turned to look at the doors behind me in concern.

“What
is
that racket?”

“There’s something wrong, Chairman,” said one of the guardians at my side. “Some kind of armed assault is going on at the vault doors.”

“Madness,” he said, looking at me. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it, Sparhawk? You’ve brought down your mutinous crew. But you’ve made a grave error. They can’t win through. Nothing can penetrate this vault. Why do you think we live in this godforsaken hole? Because it’s
safe
, that’s why. Not even a thermonuclear device can crack it open.”

I stared at him, and I wondered if it could be true.