Winds of Vengeance (12 page)

He lunged forward, swinging to the side, hoping to evade Achilles’ shot. But his adversary was faster than him, his eyesight keener, his mind quicker. H2 had taken his chance, tried against the odds to get away, to warn Cutter and the others. But the stun beam caught him in the side. His body was wracked with pain, feeling as though he’d been turned inside out. Every nerve ending was on fire, and his mind was a jumble of confused thoughts. And then, mercifully, everything went dark.

Chapter Nine

Log of Admiral Nicki Frette

We are now five weeks out from Earth Two, following
Hurley’s
plotted course. I’d never expected to find anything this far in—
Hurley
had been maintaining normal communications when she was in this system—but still, I find myself disappointed. It is not rational—whatever happened to the vessel did so much farther out than this, so a lack of evidence now means nothing. I guess I’m just worried about what I might find. There are few good options. As much as I tell myself they could be waiting out there, alive and well in a damaged ship, I know that is the unlikeliest of all the possibilities.

Indeed, though I feel self-loathing even as I write this, to discover that the ship was lost with all hands as the result of some accident would be a relief, a good result in at least one way. Because if that is not the case, the likeliest alternative is a dark one indeed. For instead of rescued crews, we are likely to bring war back with us, another struggle, likely with some remnant of the First Imperium. Though it is also possible we could have encountered a new enemy. That may seem unlikely, but we know through bitter experience that man is not alone in the universe.

Whatever awaits us, however many misgivings plague my sleep, I will also note another feeling, one quite different from the dark reckonings of war and death. I look out at the stars, at the endless dark blanket of space. At the wonder of exploration, the worlds, the stars we pass by. I have been too long at a desk, too long removed from this grand spectacle. Though I helped to command a force of spaceships, issued orders to them on a daily basis, too often they sat parked in orbit, standing vigil. The republic has prospered these past thirty years, yet I realize now we have lost something.
Hurley’s
mission notwithstanding, we have done little to truly explore the space around us. We stand on the edge of a magnificent frontier, along a fringe of the most distant stars men on Earth could see as they stared up at the night sky. And yet, we have mostly remained in our adopted home system, almost ignoring the universe around us.

Perhaps it was the fleet’s desperate journey, the losses, the suffering. The survivors came to equate space with danger, death, heartbreak. Two-thirds of our number perished during those two years of struggle, and not a survivor exists who didn’t lose friends, comrades, family.

But this cannot be. Humanity has many failings, and a penchant for self-destruction that we cannot seem to leave behind us, one that even now threatens the republic. It has always been our curiosity that has sustained us, our need to explore, to expand…to discover that which we do not yet know. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we are surely doomed, to slow decay, if not to violent and cataclysmic destruction at our own hands.

I hope these thoughts will resonate, that my words will cause my fellow humans to reawaken our shared need to push out and explore, to grow in every way we can, and to learn all the universe can teach us.

I am indeed conflicted right now, beset by inconsistent emotions…my fear of what we will find struggling with the joy my soul feels at again pushing out into the great unknown. And there is one more thing, the bane of space travelers—and seafarers before them—the ache we feel, the longing for loved ones. Like most humans who have stepped onto a ship for a long voyage, I have left someone behind, and my heart aches for it. I have little to mend that wound, save the thought that one day we will be reunited. And as millions have in my place before, I focus my thoughts on that day…and set aside the emptiness I feel at being apart from the one who should be closest to me.

Bridge, E2S Compton

System G-23, Six Transits from Earth Two

Earth Two Date 12.11.30

“Scanners coming online, Admiral. I should have preliminary data in a few seconds.”

Frette sat in her chair in the center of
Compton’s
flag bridge, looking out over her small team. The real Compton had been supported by fourteen officers in
Midway’s
command center, sixteen if the optional stations were filled. But Nicki Frette’s command staff was six, and that included herself and the Marine guard posted at the door, more out of tradition than need.

“Very well, Commander Kemp. Report as soon as you have anything.”

The vessels of the republic were far more automated than those of the old fleet. Part of that was the inevitable adoption of sophisticated First Imperium artificial intelligence design…but mostly it was the reality faced by a young republic limited first and foremost by the size of its small but growing population. Barely seventeen thousand had survived to colonize Earth Two, and the various methods for accelerating population growth—promoting large families and encouraging frequent pregnancies, the quickening of annual classes of Tanks, even the experimental creation of the Mules—all had created their own resentments and political problems. And in spite of them all, the republic simply couldn’t spare the numbers it required to man ships the old way. There had been no choice, automation had been the only viable answer, especially for a people so traumatized by the fleet’s struggle that the maintenance of a strong military was the one thing everyone agreed upon.

At least it had been thirty years ago. The new generations, both Tanks and NBs, had grown up in peacetime. Even the attacks by surviving First Imperium squadrons had petered out by the time the oldest of them were old enough to understand. They had heard their parents and the rest of the Pilgrims speak ominously of dangers lying out in space…but many of them began to doubt such warnings, to believe that their fathers and mothers had defeated the enemy, and that only peace lay in the future. Their calls to divert government expenditures from the military to other priorities were growing louder, and Frette knew the election coming up could lead to drastic cutbacks and the mothballing of many of the navy’s vessels. It was a prospect that terrified her.

“Admiral, preliminary scans are clear. Looks like an oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarf. Possibly a binary system…looks like a main sequence companion star, but its way out on its orbit now, too far for detailed analysis.” Kemp paused. “I’m picking up three planets. Looks like one of them might have been habitable at one time, but they’re all cold hulks now.”

At one time…that’s a casual way to look at a couple billion years. We think of the First Imperium as old, but what…who…was here before them? Were there people who lived on that planet? Before their sun expanded into a red giant, and then collapsed into a white dwarf? Did they live their own lives, fight their own wars when Earth was a volcanic nightmare and man’s ancestors were bacteria swimming around in the primordial ooze?

“Very well, Commander. Continue your scans. The mission parameters state
Hurley
should have left a status drone in this system.”

“Yes, Admiral.” Kemp focused on his displays. Frette’s tactical officer was a Pilgrim like herself, a veteran of the fleet’s great journey to Earth Two…and a very small group in the task force, at least beyond some of the ship commanders. His regular rank was captain, but he’d taken a temporary demotion to serve as Frette’s fleet tactical officer. The navy was rife with all kinds of ancient tradition and ritual, most of it nonsense in her opinion. But she’d long ago learned it was easier to humor such things than to waste effort fighting them. And commander was the designated rank for an admiral’s tactical officer. Frette didn’t give a shit about any of that, but Kemp was a traditionalist, and he’d requested the temporary drop in rank. Some silliness about his dynamic when dealing with the ship captains.

Frette had gone along with the whole thing, mostly because it seemed easier, and she had far too much on her mind already. But none of it mattered anyway. When Kemp spoke to the fleet’s captains, he did it in her name, and woe to the ship commander who questioned those orders.

Frette stared down at her screen, watching, waiting, hoping for word that the fleet’s scanners had found
Compton’s
drone. The small devices had a dual purpose, to leave behind a trail of status reports to any republic ships following
Hurley
. And to serve as relay stations for sending transmissions back to Earth Two. Research, mostly by the Mules, she reminded herself, had unlocked the secrets of communicating through the warp gates, opening the door to transmissions that effectively traveled faster than light. But even the Mules had been unable to match the ranges the First Imperium had attained. Signal attenuation was a major problem, and sending a message through more than six or seven transits required booster stations.

She was actually hoping they couldn’t find the device. If the probe had suffered a critical malfunction, or if it had been struck by an asteroid or other celestial body, it would explain
Hurley’s
failure to report. The loss of the probe would feed her vanishing hopes that they would find the lost ship intact, its crew alive…that all her fears of disaster and war were overblown.

“I’ve got the probe’s signal, Admiral. Accessing now.”

Frette felt her stomach tighten. She wasn’t going to say it, she wasn’t even going to think about it…but the chances that
Hurley
was still out there had just declined precipitously.

“Send it to my screen, Commander.”

“Yes, Admiral. Should be there any second now.”

Frette stared at the lines of text and numbers streaming by. Status reports, log entries, copies of previous dispatches to Earth Two. Everything that should be there. But no signs of a recent message.

“I want that probe brought in, Commander…and I want a full diagnostic done. Every system, every circuit.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Frette didn’t know if there was anything wrong with the probe—indeed, she suspected it would check out completely. But she had to know for sure.

*    *    *

“Max, I know you’re under a lot of pressure right now, with the election…and with the worries about
Hurley
…”

The fact that
Hurley
was missing was a secret as closely guarded as any in the republic. But Harmon didn’t hide anything from Hieronymus Cutter. With Compton dead, Cutter was without question the living man who had done the most to ensure the fleet’s survival. Indeed, there was no question in Harmon’s mind that the fleet would have been lost without the efforts of the brilliant scientist.

“What is it, Hieronymus? I’m never too busy for anything that is troubling you.”

“It’s the Mules.” He paused. “Max, you have to lift the Prohibition. I know the Mules are hard to relate too…and they can be arrogant and seem cold at times. But they have worked steadily for years, deciphering the technology of the Ancients. I couldn’t have done a tenth what they have in that time…we owe them for most of the tech we use now, for most of the science that has allowed us to build so much so quickly.”

Harmon sighed softly. “You don’t have to convince me. I never liked the Prohibition. I only agreed to it out of necessity…”

“And it was supposed to be temporary.” Cutter leaned forward. “Sorry to interrupt, Max, but we all know why the Prohibition came about…nevertheless it has been twenty-five years. Could you have imagined it would last that long?”

“No.” Harmon leaned back and put his hand on his head, trying to rub away the throbbing pain he felt. “No, I never expected it would still be in effect.”

“Worse, there has been no measurable support for its repeal in many years. The Prohibition has caused its own continuity. The other populations have all grown, and yet there are still only one hundred sixteen Mules. They have gone from a small minority to complete political insignificance.”

“That was never the intention, Hieronymus. You know that.”

“It was never your intention. I’m not so sure of some of the others.”

Harmon sighed again. “Perhaps you are right…and there is no question, I wish we had been more aggressive years ago, that we had repealed the Prohibition, allowed the creation of new Mules, even with some limitations. But we didn’t. There were always other priorities, other things that had to be done.” He paused. “What would you have me do now?”

“We have to do what’s right, Max. We have to repeal the Prohibition immediately.”

“That’s impossible. I don’t have anywhere near the support in the Assembly. And even the allies I do have are beginning to distance themselves. Right now it looks like I’m going to lose this election. Badly.”

“Then do it by executive order.”

“You know I don’t have that kind of power!” Harmon was shocked at the suggestion that he sidestep normal legislative procedure. “I doubt the Assembly would recognize the order, even if I issued it. And it would be the nail in the coffin on any chance I have of being reelected.”

“Is that really your priority now, Max? To preserve your political position?”

Harmon felt his friend’s words cut into him. “No, of course not. But do you think anyone who replaces me is going to repeal the Prohibition? Do you want the Earthers is a position of power, devoting all our resources to hunting for a way back to human space? And damned the potential danger if there are any residual First Imperium forces out there somewhere watching? Or the Human Society imposing their ideas of species purity? Where would that leave the Mules? I’d like nothing more than to escape from this office, but who can I hand the reins of power to? Who is there who will not lead us to ruin?”