The Orion Plague (22 page)

“Tran, you are so
arrogant
to decide
the fate of others this way.” Her smile was full of teeth. “It
excites me.”

He drew himself closer to her. “Then let us
share joy one more time.”

Captain Absen sat in the rearmost and
highest chair-couch of
Orion’s
Combat Control Center, rather
like the projectionist of an old-fashioned movie theater. He looked
over the shoulders of his officers and could see most of their
screens, which plastered the inside of the half-sphere with glowing
displays. Despite all efforts to the contrary, the crew had taken
to calling the CCC “the bridge” as if they were on an old-fashioned
oceangoing ship conning by eyeball – or perhaps the set of a TV
space show.

The ship’s Master Helmsman, an experienced
astronaut with implanted cyberware, sat in the center of the bridge
in a pit in the floor, surrounded by a permeable sphere of
displays. Sweat showed between the electrical contacts set into his
shaven skull. Absen knew that this specially trained and augmented
pilot and his five compatriots were the only people really able to
fly the ten-million-ton monster he commanded, and so he matched the
man sweat for sweat.

Once in space, others could maneuver
Orion
clumsily from the standard helm board if they had to.
Several of the bridge crew cross-trained in its use, a more complex
version of submarine controls, with massive computer augmentation.
But true effectiveness in combat, not to mention the all-important
launch, could only be done by these astronaut cyborg-pilots with
chips in their heads.

The launch countdown crossed six minutes,
grinding inexorably toward zero. Officers and technicians murmured
into their headsets, and Absen marveled at the complexity of the
thing he was about to fly.
Fly
, he thought
. I don’t fly;
I’m a sub driver, a bubblehead
. So were many of the men of his
crew, and most of the rest were naval personnel, with a smattering
of air services people. And those Marines. Yet who better to go
blasting off into space in a metal canister than people used to the
sight of metal bulkheads and decks for months at a time?

Captain Absen’s one function until T-zero was
to observe and, if necessary, decide to abort. If launch was go,
the automated sequence would begin the controlled series of nuclear
shaped charges that would provide the unimaginable motive power to
lift ten million tons of warship from Earth’s gravity well.

His eyes flicked from display to display,
seeing all in the green as the traditional final ten-count came
over the intercom.
Ten…Nine…Eight…
When the dispassionate
voice of Ground Control called “Ignition,” Absen relaxed the way he
had been trained to, and waited for the hammer blow of the first
explosion.

This first blast was literally four kilotons
of explosives – not one of the precious 4KT nuclear bombs, but four
thousand actual tons of C-8 blasting compound stacked beneath the
ship like bricks. This popped the warship off the ground like a
monster firecracker under a soup can – a rather heavy, full soup
can.
Orion
lifted some two hundred feet, obscured by fire
and smoke, before it started to slow, soon to fall.

As powerful as this explosion was, it still
represented a far gentler, safer way to give the ship its first
push than its primary propulsion system. When the first nuke went
off the sound changed from bongo to kettledrum, the sensation as if
a god standing beneath
Orion
struck the soles of her feet
with a sledgehammer. Each one after was an echo that failed to
fade.

Fifty miles away an old man stood with a
staff, staring at the new suns that climbed like a ladder of stars
into the night. His retinas burned out instantly by the sleeting
ultraviolet; nevertheless he turned his sightless face to follow
the heat of
Orion
as she rose. Laughing and capering he
shook his gnarled staff above his head until the first of the
shockwaves reached him, and so he rejoined the All.

As the roar of the metal god receded, Kalti
crawled out of the hole he had dug, to wave goodbye at the thing in
the sky. Once he found what was left of Maka, he grieved with
laughter above the smiling body of his mentor.

Alan “Skull” Denham awoke groggy, soon
vomiting a thin stream of bile. It splashed onto the floor and the
front of his cocoon. He watched it fade away as the base absorbed
it.
Complete recycling
, he thought distractedly, then:
What’s going on?

“Raphaela…you there?” He struggled but found
himself just as immobilized as yesterday.
Or whenever it was.
How long have I been out?
“Raphaela!” he yelled.

The door to the chamber irised open and a
naked goddess walked in. His mind was foggy and he had to do a
double-take before he realized it was really her. He cursed her
inwardly for using such a blatant weapon of mass distraction
against him but determined to follow his own self-declared
resolution to remain emotionally distant.

“Your birthday?” he asked lightly.

She looked down at herself and started,
reaching for the blanket on the sleeping platform. “Sorry. I’ve had
no need for clothing these past months.”

“How long has it been?”

She compressed her lips, gazing at Skull
reproachfully until he understood.

She isn’t showing. Not pregnant anymore.
She looks like a Victoria’s Secret model.
“So…nine months? Is
it…is he…”

“Our son is fine. The base is taking care of
him. He’s a clever little thing.” She continued to watch him for
signs of…what?

Skull relaxed inside his immobilizing cocoon,
suppressing his frustration. “So what now?”

“I’m going to let you out. I just want you to
realize that I am not the same woman you knew nine months ago.”

He realized it was true. There was something
else about her, something more self-possessed, more confident, more
certain. He found it very attractive. He wondered whether it was
her confusion and former weakness, and his own similar traits, that
had made him so…reactive. “I believe you. And I’m not the same
man.”

“I’m not foolish enough to believe you have
suddenly grown up while in stasis. That you’ve suddenly become more
reasonable.”

“No, but
you
have. And I have no doubt
you have prepared for this moment for that whole time, and you came
in naked deliberately, and you wouldn’t have woken me up if you
intended to just put me to sleep again. So please, would you
release me so I can see him?” Skull had no idea why, but at that
moment he felt it was the most important thing in the world to see
their child. He wanted to remain stoic but he couldn’t help
himself; his eyes pleaded with her.

“You’re right. I’m going to let you out. And
you’re right, I am prepared. If only you’d been willing to be
friends instead of enemies.”

“I’m not your enemy. I never was. I just
didn’t want to be your
lover
on your terms.” He made the
word sound like an epithet. “Look,” he said, “we’re both unusual
people in a very unusual situation. Can we make peace here, settle
things, let bygones be bygones and all that?”

“You broke my trust, Alan.”

“Did I really? Or did I just fail to meet
your fantasy expectations? Instead of insisting I be what you want
me to be, can’t you just accept me for who I am?”

“Who are you then?” she asked defiantly.

“A man who will
never
hurt his own
child. Nor will I ever harm you again. Come on, Raphaela. Forgive
me. I’m not asking to kiss and make up. Just forgive me and trust
me to be who I am, and stop fooling yourself about who that
is.”

She stood up, wrapping the blanket around
herself and tucking it in. “I’ll think about it,” she said as she
walked out.

“Power is addictive, isn’t it!” he yelled
after her.

The iris stayed shut for a moment, then
opened again as she stepped back through. “What did you say?”

“You heard me. We’re both used to having a
lot of power. It’s addictive. When I thought I had you in my
control I…took liberties. Now how about you?” He didn’t go so far
as to make a direct accusation.

She came closer to listen.

“There’s an old saying, Raphaela. ‘We become
what we hate.’ The boy grows up to be an abusive alcoholic like his
dad, the neglected junkie’s girl grows up to stick needles in her
arm and turn tricks for her next high. I’m sorry for treating you
badly. I haven’t had a woman in my life since…since I lost someone
very special to me. I replaced all that energy with killing. I
can’t instantly exchange twenty years of dealing death to become
what you want me to be. If Ilona can’t understand that, ask
Raphael. Ask what he knows about his observations of humanity. Ask
him what he would do.”

After a long moment she whispered, “I will.”
She walked out again.

His consciousness remained. With nothing else
to do, he thought about what she had said. Eventually he slept.

The shaking lashed through
Orion
in
waves, one slamming shudder per second. Captain Absen was very
happy with his deep, gel-infused chair-couch.

On the way up the crew felt as if they were
repeatedly starting to fall, as each pulse fooled their inner ears
into thinking they were being caught and flung back upward, only to
slow and drop again. They’d been warned about it. The engineers had
dubbed it “pogoing,” and the crew was thankful when it finally
ended.

After eight hundred seconds and nearly eight
hundred nuclear explosions, the city-sized ship reached bare escape
velocity, heading slowly out into the solar system. It was lined up
on the Plague probes’ reverse course; they assumed this was their
best chance to intercept the Meme scout ship.

Absen felt less confident – for example, what
if the enemy came from a different direction from the Plague
probes? If he had been in the aliens’ shoes – if they had shoes –
he would have had the biological torpedoes deliberately approach
from another angle.

As soon as Brisbane ground control turned the
ship over to him, Absen ordered the Master Helmsman to cease
acceleration and begin his post launch checks. The people aboard
sighed with relief. For many of them this mood was short-lived as
they reached for and used motion-sickness drugs and emesis bags in
the weightlessness of microgravity.

The captain hit the control that tipped his
chair-couch to a more useful angle, then issued commands.
“Engineering, run a prime diagnostic sequence. Take as long as you
need. The enemy ship hasn’t been detected and intel says they
should be able to give us a good two weeks warning. Once that’s
done, spin the ship up very slowly.”

While his crew was all experienced naval
personnel, they were also the greenest – the first – the
only
Space Navy in the solar system. Except for six
cyberware-implanted military astronauts contributed by six
different nations, none of them had ever left Earth’s atmosphere.
The most important thing right now was to shake the crew down, to
identify the inevitable problems in this wildly experimental
design, and try to forge them into an effective combat team.

Absen touched an icon on his chair’s pad.
“Medical,” he snapped into his comm, “give me a report in ten
minutes.” Another touch rerouted his words. “Colonel MacAdam, how
are your Marines doing?”

“Cycloning and dreaming of available
groundsheets, sir.”

Absen could hear the faint sounds of laughter
near the Aussie’s microphone.
Must be some kind of obscure
down-under slang. I knew I should have put more effort into
establishing a relationship with him, but there was just too much
to do. Well, no time like the present.
“Outstanding,” Absen
drawled, then switched to the man’s private channel. “Colonel,
dinner’s on me in the Captain’s mess at 1800 hours. Bring any of
your officers who know a fork from fornication.” Then he cut the
circuit, carefully rationing his irritation.

“Sensors, full systems test and report what
you see,” he went on. “Beams, you are weapons free on preselected
targets as briefed. Guns and missiles, you are weapons hold, I say
again, weapons hold.” The lasers soon began destroying some of the
thousands of pieces of space junk swarming around the Earth,
providing both practice and benefit to future travelers.
Orion
wasn’t going to add to the debris with its own
practice projectiles until well away from Earth. Besides,
ammunition was not as abundant as electricity.

So it went for hours as they ran through
their procedures, tested their equipment, sorting out the painful
chaos and friction of a new ship and crew.

Three unfortunate souls died within the first
hour. One managed to somehow override an airlock and breathe
vacuum. Two crushed themselves helping to manhandle one of the two
ship’s pinnaces within its flight bay, mistaking lack of weight for
lack of mass. Five hundred fifty tons of “small” spacecraft
squashed weightless crewmen against a bulkhead just as easily as it
would have on the ground.

If they had only waited until some spin was
put on the ship, that might have been avoided. Absen made a note to
reprimand the officer in charge of that detail and was soon
relieved to feel a tiny bit of apparent weight returning to
everyone.
Orion
spun up slowly, carefully, in stages, as
each increase in force created new problems. Bubbles in water pipes
caused pumps to spin wildly as they lost suction. Things fell and
shifted. Human orientation changed as floors became bulkheads,
hatches became doors, ladders were moved and reattached.