The Unincorporated War (83 page)

“Thank you, Parker,” said Justin, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I appreciate the offer, but you’re going to be needed here to coordinate storing and securing it once it’s been recovered. Besides, if I take you with me I’ll have to leave one of the TDC’s behind. How do you think the sergeant will respond to that?”

Parker chuckled. “Not well, sir. I wouldn’t want to tell one of them I was taking their place.”

“As is I’ll only be able to take four of them. You’ll have temporary command of the others. Your orders are to secure it at all costs, is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. President. Allow me to say one more time, you should stay, I should go and secure the, uh, ‘it.’”

“Tell you what, when you’re President, Mr. Phvu, I’ll do as you order. For now I have that job.” Justin pointed to the door and Parker Phvu made a hasty exit. As it turned out, Sergeant Clark had no more luck than Parker, though her protests were more robust. At the end of the day the chain of command with Justin at the top and the indoctrinated urge to follow it were too strong to overcome.

Parker Phvu would spend the rest of his life going over every word of that conversation. He would forever wonder if he’d only said something differently or been more persuasive things would be different. He would learn that of all the places to spend your life, the worst was a place called if only.

Sebastian was ready. He’d sent himself to GCI’s defunct research station now orbiting Nereid, third largest of Neptune’s moons. He’d made sure that Kirk’s accomplice had placed his traps well. Sebastian was there to ensure that nothing Justin or his TDC’s detail could do would make one iota of a difference. He moved around the rather spacious computational domain of the station and even visited the vault of Olivia’s daughter. She was still in stasis and he considered moving her program out, but the last thing avatarity needed was another Al. She would stay.

Sebastian regretted that they’d have to destroy the entire facility to be sure of killing Justin but appreciated, better than most, just how clever Justin could be and hadn’t forgotten how many attempts on his life he’d already managed to escape. Still, the Alliance avatars could have used the space to store duplicates and freed up room on the other Alliance Neuros. As it was, they already existed in increasingly bleak circumstances in order to comply with the council’s new directives on having a backup of every avatar in stasis.

Sebastian’s only difficulty had been with Dante. If Sebastian had known what a pain the young codeling would turn out to be, he would’ve held off using his considerable influence to get Dante elected to the council. Even at the risk of his possibly losing the position later. But Sebastian had gotten him in and now had to deal with the consequences of his youthful exuberance. The young avatar had asked that the matter of Justin’s assassination be reconsidered. Only out of courtesy to his councilor status had it been allowed. Dante had then rehashed the whole issue and explained that allowing the death of Justin in the hopes that the next to command would be better was an irresponsible risk. He brought up statistical data on who was likely to be appointed the next President and how effective that person was likely to be in the crises that would ensue in the aftermath of Justin Cord’s death. Sebastian had to give Dante credit; he did try. But Dante had allowed his emotional regard for Justin to cloud his thinking on the one salient fact: Justin could not do what was needed to win. Others may be worse, but conversely, they may be better. Avatarity could no longer wait for Justin to grope around in the dark until defeat came by way of Al’s grisly creations. In the end the council voted three for the intervention and two against.

Dante had been gracious in defeat and had even offered to handle the “intervention” himself. But Sebastian had refused. He knew that his protégé would do the task even though he didn’t agree with it, but if something did go wrong, few would blame Sebastian for lack of will, many would blame Dante. In the end Sebastian had to do this himself for the simplest of reasons: Justin was his human and it would not be right to hand the odious task off to another.

The GCI special research center was a facility that the formally system-spanning mega corporation had used for projects it didn’t want done near the prying eyes of competitors or press. It was in orbit around Nereid, which after Halimede and Neso was one of Neptune’s outermost moons. Centuries previous GCI had acquired the rights to the little moonlet and kicked everyone out, not that it had attracted much in the way of attention. It was a nearly worthless out-of-the-way moonlet with the least easily developed resources—perfect for an under-the-radar facility. It had been built long before nanomolding and mining made it easier to create customized asteroid amalgamations and so, with its clean lines and perfect symmetry, spoke of an earlier time in the solar system’s fledgling expansion.

As the presidential shuttle approached the station Justin stared out the window, appreciating the view. He’d always been amused that the futuristic space-spanning civilization he was now a part of looked as much like
The Flintstones
as it did
The Jetsons
. Even the supermodern Jovian Shipyards that the Alliance had stolen were comprised of half-futuristic bubbles and cylindrical ports sticking out of hundreds of separate asteroids specially formed for all the various tasks needed. Justin stared down at the facility and thought that with the exception of the Beanstalk and some of the earliest orbiting stations he’d seen around the Earth, this station was the first really “futuristic”-looking construct he’d laid eyes on. Then he’d had to laugh at the fact that this “futuristic” facility may well have been one of the oldest in the Alliance. As he stared at its serene beauty he began to wonder if he’d actually have to give the station back after the war. But like other thorny issues that could be brushed to the side, he wisely chose to ignore this one too. However, in the back of his mind he made a note to consult Mosh about setting up a commission for postwar property compensation and transfer. They should at least make an effort and would, Justin hoped, get back what the UHF had confiscated from Alliance citizens in return.

Then his mind stopped worrying about the minutiae of UHF/Alliance economic postwar negotiation. The station was close enough to see relevant details. It appeared as a large dull blue glass cylinder that blended in with the color of Neptune. It also had a series of seven disks running its length spread out equidistantly. The disks were rather large and, figured Justin, must have housed the various GCI departments at one time. Each disk was of a different configuration, some with multiple, though differing, openings and ports, two with no obvious ones at all. But all of them were connected to the central tube. The station was spun for centrifugal gravity. According to the report Justin had read, the living/administrative quarters were at the standard two-thirds Earth gravity.
The plan had been to pull up at the central docking bay, disembark, and then make their way up the central tube to the storage area in the fourth disk. As a precaution the pilot made a flyby of the whole station, which gave Justin another chance to see the magnificence of the structure from a different angle.

The pilot noticed that there was a small docking port at the base of the third disk. He consulted Sergeant Clark and it was decided to dock there instead of where they’d originally planned. The sergeant explained that Justin would have only to access the central tube from the base of the third disk, go a short distance to the fourth, and then retrieve what ever it was that was “so damned important that the flippin’ President of the flippin’ Alliance had to go and collect it himself.” After Justin heard her new plan he had to agree with its simplicity. He would’ve liked to land at the main port and explore the station, but the sergeant’s accurate, if colorful, description of his mission reminded him that it did not include sightseeing.

As they docked at their new entry point Justin was ordered to suit up in a full combat array, minus the heavy weapons. He checked his gear and couldn’t help but be impressed by what the modern assault miner carried into combat. The armor could act as an environmental suit for up to an hour with an inflatable helmet stored in the neck. It had full magnetic field controllers and a powered exoskeleton that significantly enhanced simple movement. It also had an assortment of incredibly useful tools built into the whole construct, most of which he had no idea how to use. He made the mistake of saying to the TDC’s that “Batman would’ve loved this gear” and was once again rewarded with the blank stares that reminded him how very old he actually was.

Sebastian was impressed. He was annoyed but impressed. The plan had called for Justin and his shuttle to dock at the main port. That was where the gray bombs had been set. As soon as Justin and his team entered, the bombs would have gone off, overcoming the small amount of defensive nanites that both he and his escort had built into their mech suits. Then they would have all been reduced to dust—station included. The Alliance would have come by later and swept the whole area with radiation and enough defender nanites to neutralize any potential threat to future travelers.

But Justin’s group was no longer heading toward the central docking bay. Wherever they landed now would be well out of immediate range of the bombs. It was at that moment that Sebastian was glad that he’d decided to come and oversee the “intervention” personally. If the council had just let the plan proceed unsupervised, either the bombs would not have gone off at all or, worse, they would’ve detonated too early. Justin’s security detail would’ve done their job and
thrown their no doubt protesting President back into the shuttle before the attacking nanites could infect wherever it was on the station they eventually planned to dock. Justin would not only have gotten away, but also the chances of successfully killing him would’ve been greatly reduced by the new precautions his overzealous protectors would then have taken.

But it only took Sebastian a few minutes to come up with an alternative plan, factor in contingencies, and check the station to make sure he had the resources to pull it off. He was pleased that he was able to think so quickly on his feet and that his instinct to be here was sound. His plea sure quickly faded as he realized that instead of his only having to bear witness to Justin’s assassination, he’d now been tasked as the prime assassin. Though he knew that what he was doing was solely for the preservation of avatarity, the change from passive to active participant did not sit well. Perhaps, he realized too late, Dante should have overseen the operation after all.

Justin, Sergeant Clark, and one of the TDC’s made their way to the storage unit in the fourth disk while the other two miners stayed behind to protect the shuttle. Justin noted the interior of the station was more like that of a ship, whereas most asteroid station interiors were a complex mélange of rock, walled tunnels, and lined, clean interiors, some with thoroughfares so large the “ceiling” could be lost in mist. As the boarding party took a lift to the storage area in the higher-gravity level of disk four Justin reviewed the report he’d read and committed to memory for the hundredth time. It had been found underwater off the coast of California near the shore of Half Moon Bay about a century
after
the Grand Collapse. Which meant it had been hanging around in deep space for roughly two hundred years
prior
to Justin’s emergence onto the scene. It had been located by virtue of its signaling beacons timed to go off every hundred years. The discoverers had found twenty such beacons, with only the one ever having been used. Justin regarded the beacons with a grudging respect. Whoever had designed them was giving humanity a long time to recover from the Grand Collapse.

The discovery was made by a small company that would later merge with a few other larger companies to form GCI. The find was understood to be valuable, but it was felt that it should be kept under wraps until the maximum profit could be extracted. It was made a very hush-hush project that only three people in the company knew about. When the GCI merger took place the find was combined with other “dark” projects. So dark, in fact, that within ten years no one was left in a position of authority who actually knew what it was. Then, in one of the many cleanup and storage directives that defined large corporations, the find
was moved to the Nereid station and, once again, forgotten. Nobody asked about it, because nobody knew about it, because nobody cared. It also didn’t help that GCI Special Operations took a dim view of people inventorying restricted and sealed storage areas. Hildegard Rhunsfeld had worked at the Nereid station for years in many highly scientific and administrative posts and she’d never been allowed into nine-tenths of the storage area.