The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (206 page)

“Everyone, we have a breach. One person, maybe more. Time frame, up to seven minutes. That’s enough to exit. Renne, harden that perimeter.”

Renne had fumed at being given the perimeter duty. After all that the Paris office had been through lately she wanted to get into an armor suit and kick some serious ass. But the duty wasn’t just putting up barricades and liaising with the local police. Everyone brought down from the clinic had to be examined and confirmed. A lot of them would be criminals of some kind, it was that sort of clinic, which meant there was a good probability they would be weapons wetwired. Paula kept emphasizing how the perimeter was to be maintained. It was good to be working with the boss again. Renne just wished she were on the sharp edge of the operation. She couldn’t decide if she’d been given the perimeter duty because of Paula’s earlier suspicions. That she’d ever been on the suspect list in the first place had shocked her. But that was the boss for you, logical to the last. Renne was still reeling from hearing about Tarlo’s treachery. They’d known each other for nearly fifteen years.

The holding chambers they’d set up in the subbasement were starting to fill up with the Saffron Clinic people. All the fighting was over. There was no more debris falling onto the plaza, though water was still dribbling down the face of the Greenford Tower from the gaping windows.

Renne walked around the edge of the police barricades, looking up into the dark sky. The clinic’s floors were easy to see; without their glass the shattered windows gleamed a harsh amber against the rest of the tower’s black bulk—the only illumination above ten meters in the whole city.

Police officers and patrolbots stood guard along the barricades, keeping the curious citizens well back. She was pleased to see how vigilant they were being despite the news about the starships.

“Nobody down here, Boss,” she told Paula. “Do you want the police teams to start sweeping the lower floors?”

“Not yet. Hoshe is locking down every floor. We’re going to have to seal up the entire tower and scan everyone as they emerge.”

“Long night.”

“Looks that way.”

“Have you heard the starships are back? The attack was a failure.”

“That’s not good.”

“So was the Starflyer part of that?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Admiral Kime.”

“You know the Admiral?”

“Yes.”

Renne knew she shouldn’t be surprised. But if the boss knew Kime, how come Columbia had fired her? Or had he? Was it a setup to make the traitor relax his guard? With the boss, anything was possible. She never let go of a suspect.

Renne turned to go back into the Greenford Tower where Hoshe had set up the operation’s command post. Somebody moving away from the crowd outside the barricades caught her eye. She frowned. A girl with a mane of blond hair stepped off the pavement and crossed over Allwyn Street. It wasn’t the hair that made Renne peer after her, it was the walk. The girl almost strutted, holding her head high, hardly bothering to check that traffic had stopped for her. That kind of arrogance belonged to a Dynasty brat, or a Grand Family trustafarian. The kind of integral arrogance Isabella Halgarth possessed in abundance.

Renne swung her legs over the barricade and pushed through the line of spectators. The girl was walking away down the other side of the street. She was the right height. Her clothes were expensively casual, a red sweater and short amethyst wrap skirt with slim metal clips, long black boots.

“I might need some backup here.”

“What have you got?” Hoshe asked.

“I’m not sure. I think I’ve just seen Isabella Halgarth.”

“Where?”

“Allwyn Street, near the Lanvia Avenue turn.”

“Hold please, I’m accessing the civic sensors.”

Renne kept an eye on traffic, and hurried out into the road. Horns tooted furiously at her as cars braked. A cyclist screamed obscenities as he wobbled past. “She’s getting into a taxi.” The girl vanished in a blue and green vehicle, and the door shut.

“Number?” Hoshe demanded.

“I can’t see, damnit. The logo is an orange trumpet, it’s on the doors.” She flagged down a taxi. “She’s heading west.” The maroon Ables Puma drew up beside her. “Just drive west,” she told the drive array.

“All right, I’m filtering traffic control arrays for a match,” Hoshe said. “Murray cabs have that trumpet logo.”

“Renne, you need backup,” Paula said. “Don’t go near her. She’s extremely dangerous.”

“I won’t.” She switched on her force field skeleton suit. “Just observing.”

“Okay, I’ve got a police team in their car,” Hoshe said. “Leaving the Green-field garage now.”

Renne was pressed up against the taxi’s front windshield, retinal inserts searching through the traffic ahead for the blue and green Ables. Her OCtattoos reported a sophisticated scan washing across her, immediately pinpointing the source. She turned quickly to see Isabella Halgarth standing on the pavement, looking straight at her. The girl’s right arm was raised, pointing at the taxi.

“Oh, shit.” Renne closed her eyes.

The maser struck the taxi’s power cells, which exploded with enough fury to lift the disintegrating car three meters off the ground. Renne’s force field was overwhelmed in the first second. But it did provide enough protection that when the paramedics started to pick up the sections of her body that had been flung over a wide radius they found her memorycell was intact. After re-life procedure, Renne would be able to remember her death.

The assembly platform brought back memories of the
Second Chance
being constructed above Anshun. To Nigel that whole period seemed like centuries ago now, a time when life was a great deal quieter and more leisurely. Giselle Swinsol and Nigel’s own son, Otis, were leading him through the platform’s gridwork maze inside a huge cylinder of malmetal, where the
Speedwell
was under construction. The Dynasty’s colony ship was much bigger than the
Second Chance,
a lengthy cluster of spherical hull sections arranged along a central spine. So far, Nigel had authorized eleven of the vast ships, with initial component acquisition consent for another four. In theory, just one ship could carry enough equipment and genetic material to establish a successful high-technology human society from scratch. But Nigel had wanted to begin with more than the basics, and his Dynasty was the largest in the Commonwealth. A fleet would make absolutely sure any new human civilization they founded would succeed. Now, though, he wasn’t sure if that second batch would ever be built. Like everyone else, he’d expected the navy warships to have some success against Hell’s Gateway. The moment when the navy detector network saw the Prime wormholes come back to the Lost23 had come as a savage surprise to him. He really hadn’t been prepared for a defeat of that magnitude.

“We’ve commissioned four now,” Otis was saying. “The
Aeolus
and the
Saumarez
should be ready for their preliminary trials in the next ten days.”

“Don’t quote me, but we might not have ten days,” Nigel said. “Giselle, I want you to review our emergency protocols for evacuating as much of the Dynasty as possible onto the lifeboats during an invasion. Coordinate with Campbell. We’ll need to establish hardened wormhole connections to our parties. The exploratory division wormholes will be our principal method, but we’ll need backup procedures ready.”

“Got it.” Her elegant face was slightly puffed in freefall, but she still managed a worried expression. “How likely is that?”

Nigel halted his steady drift by grabbing a carbon strut at the base of a high-mass manipulator. He was looking out at the
Speedwell
’s drive section, a mushroom hemisphere at the front of the starship with fluted edges that curved backward like a protective umbrella over the forward sphere sections. The outer skin was a smooth blue-green boronsteel, with a sheen that gave it the overall appearance of a beetle’s carapace.

Most of the platform’s robotic systems were folded back into the cylindrical gridwork that encased the vast starship. All of the prefabricated sections from Cressat had been locked into place; the few remaining areas of activity were involved with integrating the spheres to the ship’s power and environmental circuits.

“Only the Primes know,” he said. “But after our failure at Hell’s Gateway I don’t think it’ll be long before they respond.”

“They don’t know where this world is,” Otis said. “They don’t even know it exists; it isn’t on any database in the Commonwealth. Hell, when it comes down to it, Cressat would be tough to find. That gives us a breathing space.”

“I don’t want to evacuate,” Nigel said. “Using this fleet still remains the last option as far as I’m concerned. As of now, I’m prepared to use our weapon to defend the Commonwealth. That’s what I’m here to tell you.”

Otis gave him a tight smile. “Are we using the frigates to launch them?”

“Yes, son, you get to fly combat missions.”

“Thank Christ for that. I thought I was going to wind up sitting this out.”

“Don’t be so gung ho about this. I’m trying to avoid bloodshed.”

“Dad, you’re going to genocide them.”

Nigel closed his eyes. These days he often found himself wishing he believed in God, any god, just some omnipotent entity who’d listen sympathetically to the odd prayer. “I know.”

“The frigates aren’t even approaching readiness,” Giselle said. “And our weapon hasn’t been tested. We’ve only just completed component fabrication.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Nigel said, glad of a solid, practical problem to focus on. “We’re going to have to accelerate our schedule.”

“If you say so, but I don’t see how.”

“Show me what we’ve got so far.”

Frigate assembly bay one was a separate malmetal chamber affixed to the side of the main platform like a small black metal barnacle. Nigel drifted into it through a narrow interlink tube whose bands of electromuscle pulled him along with the ease of a ski lift. His first impression was that he’d emerged into the engine room of some colossal nineteenth-century steamship. It was hot and loud, a metallic clanking reverberating continually through air that was heavy with the smell of burning plastic. Big gantry arms swished across the few open spaces like ancient engine pistons. Smaller robotic manipulators rolled along their tracks, darting out with serpentine agility to peck at some chunk of compact machinery. Circular scarlet hologram signs were flashing everywhere Nigel looked, warning people away from the complex moving parts. At the center of the mechanical commotion the frigate
Charybdis
was a dark mass of densely packed components. Eventually, it would be a flattened ellipsoid, fifty meters long, encased by an active-stealth composite; but at this point the hull hadn’t been fitted.

“How near are we to completion?” Nigel asked.

“Several days,” Giselle said. “Flight readiness comes quite a while after that.”

“We can’t afford that kind of delay, not now,” Nigel said. He twisted his cuff off a fuseto patch, and drifted in for a closer look. “Where are we with the other three frigate assembly bays?”

“Not as advanced as this one. We haven’t even begun construction in them yet. We were waiting until the bugs are sorted out in number one. Once we’re up and running with all four we’ll be building a frigate every three days.”

Nigel gripped the base of a manipulator track next to one of the holographic circles, peering through the perpetual motion lattice of cybernetics. He could just see the smooth bulge of the crew cabin a third of the way down the naked frigate. Over twenty robotic systems were busy fitting additional elements or connecting up tubes and cables to the ribbed pressure module.

“Hey, you!” a man’s voice yelled. “Are you blind? Stay the hell back from the warning signs.” Mark Vernon slid through one of the scarlet circles five meters away from Nigel as if he were emerging from a pool of red fluid. “It’s goddamn dangerous in here; we haven’t got any of the usual safety cutoffs installed.”

“Ah,” Nigel said. “Thank you for telling me.”

At his side, Giselle was glowering at Mark.

Mark blinked, suddenly recognizing who he was shouting at. “Oh. Right. Er, hi, sir. Giselle.”

Nigel watched the man’s face redden, but there was no apology. He rather respected that; Mark was clearly the boss in this arena. Then his e-butler flipped up Mark’s file, complete with interesting cross-reference.
Goddamn! Is there anything in this universe that doesn’t connect back to Mellanie?

“Mark Vernon,” Giselle said in a half growl. “Our assembly bay chief.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mark,” Nigel said.

“Yeah,” Mark said grumpily. “You really have to be careful in here, sir. I wasn’t joking.”

“I understand. So you’re the competent man around here?”

Mark tried to shrug, forgetting he was in freefall. He tightened his grip on an alulithium strut to stop his feet from swinging around. “It’s a hell of a challenge integrating everything in the bay. I enjoy it.”

“Then I apologize, because I’m about to make your life miserable.”

“Er, how?” Mark flicked his gaze to Giselle, who was looking equally perturbed.

“I need a functional frigate in the Wessex system within the next thirty hours.”

Mark gave him a wild smile. “No way. I’m sorry. It’s just not possible.” A hand waved limply toward the exposed shape of the
Charybdis.
“This is the first one we’ve attempted to build, and we’re encountering a problem every ten minutes. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure they’re superb ships. And once me and the team finalize the assembly sequence then we can fast-track as many as you want, but we’re not there yet. Not by a long way.”

Nigel smiled back uncompromisingly. “Disconnect this assembly bay from the platform. Attach it to one of the completed lifeboat starships, and continue working on the
Charybdis
while you’re flown to Wessex.”

“Huh?” Even without gravity, Mark’s jaw dropped open in astonishment.

“Is there any technical reason why that cannot be done? Any at all?”

“Er, well, I hadn’t really thought about it. Suppose not. No.”

“Good. I want it attached and ready to leave in one hour. Take whoever you need with you, but get the
Charybdis
flight-ready.”

“You want
me
to go with it?”

“You’re the expert.”

“Umm. Right. Yeah. Sure. Okay. Er, can I ask why you want a frigate at Wessex?”

“Because I’m sure that star is going to be right up at the top of the Primes’ list of targets when they invade.”

“Uh huh. I see.”

“Don’t be modest, Mark; you did a terrific job helping people back in Randtown. I’m proud you’re one of my descendents. I know you won’t let us down.” Nigel signaled to Giselle and Otis, then pushed off from the manipulator track and headed back for the interlink tube. “We’ll move the weapons section onto the lifeboat as well. I’d like to meet the project scientists now. Which lifeboat will be easiest?”

“The
Searcher
has done two test flights already,” Otis said. “Shakedown’s almost complete. It should be the most reliable.”

“The
Searcher
it is, then.”

Mark clung to the slim strut as he watched Nigel Sheldon slide away down the interlink tube. Sweat was oozing out of every pore on his body and clinging to the skin to produce a horribly cold, sticky film of moisture. “Top of the invasion list,” Mark whispered forlornly. He glanced back at the incomplete frigate. “Oh, hell, not again.”

It was four in the morning Illuminatus time when Paula finally left for the CST station. Everyone in the Greenford Tower had been evaluated by the medical forensic team. Several criminals undergoing wetwiring had been hauled off by the local police. The city hospitals were dealing with casualties from both Greenford and Treetops. A civil engineering team was inspecting the remnants of the Saffron Clinic for structural damage. Forensics was removing all the surviving arrays ready to perform a complete data extraction.

Paula removed her armor suit in the control center, handing it over to the support team who were packing everything away. She put on a force field skeleton suit, then dressed in a long, plain gray skirt and thick white cotton crew-neck top. Her brown leather belt with its embedded silver chain looked decorative; it had even come from her own wardrobe, but Senate Security technical services had reworked it.

“You okay?” Hoshe asked.

“This didn’t quite happen how I was expecting,” she admitted. Her e-butler was running integration checks on the belt and force field skeleton. “Hopefully it’s not over yet. Are we ready for the journey back?”

“Teams are in position, equipment all set up”—he glanced down at the four black cases containing their cage equipment—“and activated.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

They went out into the subbasement garage where the holding areas had been set up. A single pen of wire mesh was left, with twenty guardbots surrounding it, weapons out of their recesses. Two local police officers stood on either side of the gate. There was only one person left inside.

Mellanie waited in the middle of the pen, still in her nurse’s uniform, arms folded huffily across her chest, an incensed expression welded into place.

Paula told the police to open the gate. Mellanie remained resolutely in place.

“I thought we could talk on the way back,” Paula said. Somehow she didn’t have any scruples about setting the girl up. Mellanie, she guessed, had involved herself in a great deal of illicit activity to get into the Saffron Clinic.

“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting here?”