Redemption Protocol (Contact) (6 page)

Gutless politicians turned toward him in surprise. One of his first acts would be to sweep aside this ‘assembly’, whose chief purpose was to kowtow to the Tyurin capital whilst bickering amongst themselves about how to allocate their dribble of discretionary spending. His hatred burned at the thought of it.

The media section, previously almost asleep, sprang to life. Across the planet, across the system, soon across the entire Republic, his glorious ascent was brought to his people's attention.

Retired Field Marshall Whitehead was speaking from the higher platform about some pathetic domestic nonsense as Forge arrived at the central podium and squared up to the assembly. He knew that having the respected Whitehead defer to him would only bolster his credibility. He eyed the Field Marshall over his shoulder as the assembly fell silent. It wouldn’t be long before Whitehead and the other collaborators were swept aside. He smiled magnanimously.

“Please give way, Field Marshall.”

Whitehead looked down at him, taking in Forge’s uniform and the men around him. In a moment that denied fate, unbelievably,
inconceivably
, Whitehead shook his head.

“No.”

Forge’s thoughts raced as the media covered the situation live. He couldn’t shoot Whitehead – that would doom his populist insurrection before it started. His guards should hustle Whitehead away. He was sure that the imbeciles already would have, if Whitehead had been anyone other than the most venerated war hero of the Karver Republic.

Before Forge could have Whitehead's microphone silenced, the old Field Marshall, standing above him and
looking down on him
, addressed the assembly.

“I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war. The absolute pacifist is a bad citizen. Times come when force must be used to uphold justice, right and ideals.”

Forge blinked in astonishment. Whitehead was making the case.
For peace
. The house watched Whitehead, transfixed by the old warhorse the way they should have been transfixed by
him
.

"War is an ugly thing but it is not the ugliest of things. The wretch who has nothing for which he will fight, nothing which is more important to him than his own personal safety, is much worse. He has no chance of being free unless he is made so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Forge couldn’t believe it. His mind was a swirling tempest. His military units wouldn’t act until he began his speech. He was losing the initiative. Whitehead stood tall.

“So I would ask you now to stand and clap, and be counted amongst those willing to fight for peace, and against General Forge.”

Whitehead gave a solitary hand clap. Its echo sallied forth, lonely and lost, into the giant chamber. Forge lifted his chin and glared out, defying anyone else to challenge him.

Whitehead clapped again. Forge stood resolute, imposing his will on the rabble before him. Everything hung in the balance.

Whitehead clapped for a third time. The assembly sat mute. The flicker of a disdainful smile appeared at the corner of Forge’s mouth. He cast to the head of his honor guard.

> Take him away.

Someone clapped.

Forge watched with disbelief as one of the gutless politicians stood. He froze as the moment of his impending demise stretched timelessly before him.

Three more politicians stood. The clap became a spatter, then a stamp, then a broadside. Forge’s support crumbled then, as Edwin Karver sensed the mood and joined the peaceful protest, it plummeted. Forge felt the dagger of failure plunge into his gut. Karver had turned against him. It was a disaster.

The power of each clap shook the chamber to its foundations. Forge could feel the force of the assembly’s collective rejection through his boots. He was trapped. He didn't have any choice. Utterly humiliated, he
walked out
.

Each salvo of claps whipped at his senses as he marched past the politicians and the media. He couldn’t reconcile himself to what was happening. Karver didn't even acknowledge him as he stormed past.

The media pressed around him as he climbed into the back of his vehicle. He was driven away with his coup in tatters. He rubbed his temples as he tried to excoriate reality.

Success had been within his grasp but he’d been let down. Karver’s betrayal was not the honorable sacrifice of men on the battlefield, it was craven cowardice and Forge despised him for it. His resentment spiraled like a tornado in formation. Of course, he had a contingency plan. An escape route. He would cover his tracks.

Soon, it would happen. Soon.

~    ~    ~

Forge moved through the forest three hours later, his augmented eyes penetrating the darkness. The outline of the shuttle came into view. It was time. Time for him to lift off. Time for him to reward the efforts of the craven scum who'd betrayed him. Everyone thought he was hiding back in the city because that's what he’d told them. The loyal soldier who was impersonating him thought he would simply surrender, in time, after Forge had escaped. But Forge couldn’t afford to be pursued through the system – he needed better cover than that. His impersonator's end would be far more glorious. He thought it was best to create all the disruption before they were airborne. He sent the signal as he entered the shuttle. Amazing what a little radio signal could do – like a butterfly’s wings triggering a hurricane.

On the horizon, the skyline erupted.

A huge mushroom cloud dominated the landscape as the shuttle lifted off. He wasn’t sorry. They deserved it. His people deserved it for not being strong enough. Democratic scum.

He would plan and return. He had friends in the Orion Republics’ Confederation. His ORC friends understood the value of strength. In time, he would slip back into the Alliance and the Tyurin Republic. The transformation of his bodily appearance was already scheduled for when he reached orbit. He triggered the coding that would inhibit his characteristic gestures and expressions.

He was a ghost, already translucent, fading from view.

His success was inevitable. He wouldn't rely on politicians this time. He would come from a position of overwhelming strength. He knew an opportunity would appear sooner or later.

And, after thirty five years, he would take back his true name.

Claudius Forge was dead. He would revert to his real name.

Tyburn. Jack Tyburn.

Resurrection

 6. 

Havoc screamed as he writhed in pain. More pain? Wasn't he dead? A pleasant surprise, if only someone would unplug him from the mains.

He floated in darkness, a droplet distilled in a pool of light.

“Ah, John, good to see you again.”

He glanced sideways. He vaguely recognized the face smiling down at him.

“Our friends were delighted to hear you’d dropped in. No time to do everything, I'm afraid. But I think you'll be pleased.”

Havoc stared with bulging eyes.
Both
eyes. A voice spoke in the background.

“Is this part a fit or a regrow?”

The face leaned down toward him.

“Some of this will have to grow in. Anyway, John, must go; didn't want you to pass through without saying hello.”

The man patted him, somewhere.

“Put him back out.”

 7. 

Space is silent. Any aural ambience is provided by your own breathing. The view, however, more than compensates.

The chosen location was an empty region of virtually flat space in the Telson Nebula. It was flat in the sense that there was no mass nearby to tug at the fabric of spacetime and pull it out of shape. Instead it bubbled gently with quantum foam. The chosen location had some special characteristics that went beyond the mere absence of baryonic matter, but those properties were entirely beyond human ken.

The Telson nebula drifted through the Shield arm of the Orion deep field at a leisurely four hundred kilometers per second. It looked, to human eyes, like a medieval painting of hell. Glowing clouds of hydrogen provided layer upon layer of red. It was a fluid kaleidoscope of smeared blood, spilled wine, stolen rubies and raging fire that created dark and sinister shapes in the negative spaces between the clouds. Stars provided random points of brilliance, like diamonds scattered on the canvas.

An infinitesimal point appeared at the chosen location, increasing in luminosity and building in energy. The point built to a blinding brilliance then exploded outward. Bolts of fierce energy struck out like magnesium arcs in all directions, repeatedly bifurcating as they desperately sought some mass to grab hold of in the instant of their existence.

And then the ship was there, blinking into existence, traveling at great speed and already detaching from its Main Drive as its journey began – six months of continuous deceleration to the binary star system Vela-721.

The Main Drive decelerated much faster than the ship it had stewarded through hyperspace and launched on its way. Inside the Main Drive its red hand, Cents, completed the dispatch and decelerate process. Afterward, he would settle in to wait the six years for the return of the Alliance Vessel
Intrepid
.

It would never return.

Cents, more than human but not privy to the future, diligently attended to his work.

 8. 

On board the AV
Intrepid
, the precious cargo of twenty six crew dreamed on, drifting through the icy caverns of cryofrozen sleep. Around the ship, dim lights illuminated empty corridors.

The ship was state of the art and of the eponymous spindle design. Sheltering behind the umbrella of the bow was a stack of six discs, each two hundred meters across and thirty meters deep. The discs were skewered on a long central spindle that provided the spine of the vessel. The main drive system was situated over a kilometer behind the discs, although auxiliary drives adorned the ship like baubles on a tree.

The bow was a squat cone, slightly larger in circumference than the discs behind it, that comprised the
Intrepid’s
primary shields and a phased array called the Hel. The Hel was the
Intrepid's
primary sensor and weapon system. If the crew had to fight the ship they would orient it so the bow faced toward the main threat and thus shielded the rest of the vessel. They couldn't shield everything, of course, it would mean shipping too much mass.

The front two discs were primarily for crew habitation, both living and working, and each comprised a chain of twelve habitation modules, or 'habs', linked in a circle to form the outer edge of the disc. The habs could be individually rotated to face against the direction of thrust or the entire disc could be spun like a wheel to simulate gravity as required. For the moment, the habs were rotated so that their floors were oriented toward their destination, against the ship's continuous deceleration, ready for when the crew would be roused in six months time.

The ship decelerated through space with its security utterly compromised. The crew slumbered on, blissfully unaware of the spies, saboteurs and separatists amongst their number.

On arrival, the
Intrepid
was designed to be self-sufficient for at least seven years.

It wouldn't last three days.

 9. 

In Havoc's world there was nothing. Then out of nothing there was a pianissimo tremolo of violins, a spacious horn, a mellow flute and a gentle trill on a cymbal.

His first thought: this cannot possibly be what death is like. His subconscious knew what was coming next and his conscious was fast catching up. The strings grew a little louder and more imposing, but he could still sense their restraint. The flutes played point-counterpoint with the strings, enjoying their mutual seduction as they teased and weaved together. Unmistakably an der schönen blauen Donau op. 314. On the Beautiful Blue Danube. The prelude built to a crescendo of release and then, with exquisite grace, the waltz commenced its three four rhythm. Havoc saw sylph-like ballerinas twirling around a ballroom in floaty, multi-layered dresses. He wasn’t dreaming – he actually saw them.

Someone was taking the piss.

Everyone could choose what they woke up to, unless, of course, their unconscious body was sent somewhere without their knowledge or consent. In which case someone chose for you. The blue Danube was the ultimate cliché but Havoc still enjoyed it. Touché.