The Otherworld Rebellion (War of Alien Aggression #9) Page 22

  "I never tried to make you into anything you weren't," said Devlin. "I only tried to show you the truth of our actions. Under your command, I followed orders despite what I knew was right and look where we ended up."

  "We won that war, a war we very easily might have lost."

  "Hundreds of thousands of dead humans," Devlin said. "80 billion Squidies..."

  "How you do go on about the 80 billion you killed. I ask you, Mr. Devlin. If you hadn't committed a crime of such staggering magnitude to the human mind, then would you have acted to honor all the dead of that war by insisting as you did at Shedir that we became something worthy of their sacrifice? Would you have had the courage to push back if I had not freed you first?"

  "They'll be coming now, coming to kill us in force. Expect a full invasion."

  "And we'll win."

  "How can you say that?"

  "This isn't Houston. Don't believe what Balthus Pavic's puppet, Mr. Samhain, tells you. He was sent to make you piss your pants with fear. And you should be scared, but not defeated. I know what happened in Houston all those years ago, too, Mr. Devlin. I know almost better than anyone. I was there. I led my companies of Staas Mercenaries into Houston in 2152."

  "You gave the orders there?"

  "No. Of course not. I was already running the entire military contracting division then. I observed. I can tell you, those miserable wretches in Houston had nothing to fight with and nowhere to run. That was a slaughter. This will be nothing like it. We have ships and a whole world at our disposal. Otherworld has a fighting chance. That's the one thing Martin Samhain will never admit to you because his job is convince you to give up. You should know better than to talk to him. I wasn't surprised when I heard he tried to kill you."

  Ram Devlin looked away from him then and didn't look back like there wasn't anything left to say.

  "Fifty-six Dingo QF-111s will be arriving on Helga's Hex. Gut and reflash their AI before you launch them or they'll shoot anything without a Staas transponder." His adopted father only nodded as he stared at the bottle.

  Hank turned to make for the hatch, and Devlin threw words at his back. "Why did you steal Scilla Price from the Hive? What is it between you two? Millet won't tell me anything."

  "That's my business."

  When Devlin spoke his next words, a gentleness in the voice struck a raw nerve in Hank, and he scorned internally what he perceived as pity. Devlin said, "You can't trust her."

  On his way out the hatch, Hank said, "I know," but he didn't understand why the muscles in his throat convulsed and he almost choked on his words as he left.

  Hank flew the skiff back to Absolom's Revenge himself. As he crossed the bow of his new ship, he was pleased to see the ruined, keel-side gun battery already removed. He knew they had another RM 6x360 railgun module for him. He just hoped Devlin wouldn't make his ship last priority. As he landed in her bay, he made a note to divert Helga's Hex to Absolom's Revenge before she unloaded her cargo for the rest of the ships so he could make sure this vessel was as well-armed as she could possible be for the coming fight.

  XO Millet met him outside the airlock hatch and brought him up to date on repairs as he walked through the cutter's narrow passageways and waited for the lift. "There's one other thing. It's more...delicate."

  "What the hell are you talking about?" His head had begun to pound. The clearzine patch was sounding like a better and better idea by the second. At this point, if it killed the headache, he wouldn't even mind the fifteen seconds of hell it summoned while cleaning his blood.

  "You left her locked in the Captain's Quarters."

  "My quarters," said Hank. "The hatch was locked."

  "She accessed the captain's data terminal."

  "How? You killed the ship's list of valid Staas Company command codes yourself. I watched you delete the files from the ship's core."

  "Apparently she'd memorized some kind of command codes that worked. We detected the access and removed it."

  "Goddammit."

  "I told you she was dangerous."

  "I already knew that, Mr. Millet."

  The lift doors opened and his XO didn't seem to want to follow Hank in, but apparently there was more to tell. Millet waited for the doors to close to say it. "She got off a burst transmission using the ship's omnidirectional antenna."

  Hank felt his nostrils flare. "There isn't much she could have told anyone about us that they don't already know. It's likely Staas Security surveillance proxies are watching from a discreet distance. They can already see where we are and how many ships we have."

  "If you say so."

  The doors opened onto what was still a beautiful sight. A Staas Company Cutter wasn't a glamorous ship, but it was a fully armored warship and this one had been taken in battle. Burke had been trying out the chair, but moved quickly when he saw Hank coming. The cutter lacked stealth, but he wearied of creeping about, always inferior to the forces at hand. With this ship, he could do more than hide and ambush the enemy.

  They didn't have anyone manning the comms station of the cutter's narrow bridge. He heard the beep sequence announcing a suspect transmission. Millet crossed the deck to see if it was a congratulations from one of the civilian ships or some kind of cyber-attack. "Incoming transmission. No identifier. It came in unencrypted on IR laser. The system isolated it. It's sitting in the buffer."

  "Don't trust it. Shunt it to a virtual workspace. Then, scan, emulate, and read the simulation."

  "I know how to treat suspect transmissions..."

  "Well?" he said without turning around.

  "Working on it... It's a graphic - a map. No, it's several maps. They span across the Alcyone, Beta Draconis, and Gamma Epsilon star systems and each of them is time-coded for a loop with corresponding annotations pointing out three locations in particular. I"m overlaying them for projection."

  "Send it to the tactical station."

  Once projected over the console to his right, it was easy to read. The map was wildly out of scale because it was made to show only a few important places in space and what happened there over the last hours. First, Otherworld and its two moons appeared in the Alcyone system along with a fairly accurate representation of the ragtag battle fleet gathered around the Doxy. The fifth planet, Ekkai, homeworld to Earth's allies had been represented. UNS destroyers had appeared in orbit along with a battleship to hold defensive positions in high orbit. The map also showed the adjoining Draconis system where Hank would have expected to see a battle group of Company and UNS ships on their way to counterattack Devlin's Privateers and the Otherworld forces, but it was well-nigh empty. He couldn't explain the lack of ships at Draconis coming to kill them any more than he could explain the more chilling section of the map that showed the adjacent Gamma Epsilon star system and focused on a sizable armada of Xihute warships making for the mouth of the Epsilon-Alcyone transit. Once they reached it, they'd exit into the Alcyone system in less than 11 minutes travel time. The transit would spit them out less than nine hours from Otherworld. Ekkai and the UNS battleship would be on the other side of the sun when they arrived.

  Millet sounded confused. "What the hell is this map? Are these fleet movements real? Where's the fleet coming to kick our ass? What are UNS warships doing at Ekkai if they're not attacking us? And what the shit is a Xihute battle group doing steaming at our doorstep when the fight is on the Long Front, three systems away?"

  "I don't understand this yet," said Hank as he heard the lift doors open and unfamiliar voices behind him on his bridge. It was time to put someone on that door, he thought as he turned and saw a pair of Human technicians wearing Legion exosuits and carrying cases full of gear with data cabling hung around their necks. They wandered in looking like they wanted someone to hang them with it. "Who the hell are you?"

  "We're here to rewrite your core with the new software. Don't look at me like that. I know it's not a good time. There isn't going to be a good time so let's just get this over with. You don't want the Co
mpany taking control of this beautiful ship with backdoors and remote command codes do you?"

  "How long?"

  "It'll take about seven minutes. We'll need to shutdown your reactor so we can do the whole shebang at once."

  "I don't like it," said Millet.

  "Would you rather Staas Company sends your reactor into critical overload?"

  Hank said, "Millet, I want you to make two, discreet copies of this data package so we don't lose it. Send the simulated images to my matchbox immediately and then, once all that is done, let the systems' crew their job. And put guards on the bridge during the repairs. I don't want just anyone wandering in here." He made for the bridge hatch and hoped Millet would have the data in his pocket by the time he got to the Captain's quarters where he'd left Scilla.

  "Where are you going?"

  "The 'adventuress extraordinaire' sent out a message earlier. These maps are the response. I think she was asking for this set of fleet movements. Now, I need to find out why and what it means."

  *

  The captain's quarters, Hanks quarters, were small and the air had retained the scent of human congress. His first step into the compartment, it got up his nose and reminded him of the pleasure they'd shared not much more than an hour ago. Scilla wore her suit liner and she'd been gearing up into an exosuit, but stopped dressing when he entered.

  "That was a very stupid thing you did," said Hank. "Millet and the rest of my crew won't ever trust you if they think you're spying on them."

  "I'm spying on you," she said. "And it wasn't stupid. In fact, it was exceptionally clever what I did. You replaced the command code file with your own and I used one you didn't even know existed. It's a good thing you've got Legion crews to rewrite the ship's software. Who knows how many more sets of undocumented command codes there are for critical systems on this ship?"

  "You sent a message, a burst transmission on the omnidirectional antenna."

  "Did you get the reply?" She barely had to look at his face for a moment before it looked as if she knew. "You did."

  "It shows the positions of the warships across three systems including this one."

  "Oh, good. I was hoping they wouldn't half-ass it just to get to lunch early."

  "Who is they?"

  "Oh, for god sakes, Hank. I work for 4SI. Who do you think they is."

  "This map came from Balthus Pavic then."

  "It came from a team of aides. He told them to send it here."

  "Can I trust the information on this map? Are the positions of these warships accurate or is this a ruse?"

  "Honestly, Hank, sometimes we lie, but this isn't one of those times. You can trust the disposition of ships on that map because Pavic wants you to know what you're facing."

  "Why? So we can surrender to him in return for saving us from the Xihute?"

  "Perhaps if you actually let me see the map he sent then I could tell you. That only seems fair, yes?"

  "He's got the seeds of a revolution on Earth and everything to gain by crushing us to show them what will happen if they revolt. He doesn't want to help us."

  "If you insist... Ignore the maps if you want, but I don't think it's a good idea." It surprised him how she turned away and faced the bulkhead then. It almost seemed as if she were making a concerted effort to not look at him and ignore him completely while he decided what to do. "It's up to you," she said. "Is there a shower on this thing?"

  26

  The Doxy

  Orbiting with the 2nd moon

  The curving, chitin bulkheads of the Doxy's Shediri-built sections now offered more human-friendly environments for visitors, including compartments with nitrogen instead of neon in the atmo, but Dana Sellis wasn't lucky enough to find herself in one of those today. Ambassador to War, Ix, had built himself a private chamber equipped with counter-surveillance suites including a form of field-based EM signal interception as an extra layer around the entire thing. She just wished he'd made it with better ventilation.

  The Shediri could go without respiration for days if they had to, but the air in Ix's chamber of secrets was getting stuffy. The curving walls forced them all around the three-meter-wide data center, as if the room was designed to bring whispering chitin jaws close to aural membranes and ears.

  She shifted on the alien seating mound and looked up at the Ambassador. He'd been seated on a higher mound to better reflect his prestige. The bug's 58 little legs rippled with waves as he swayed his torso above her, clacking and gesturing at the map projected between them from Hank Devlin's matchbox computer. "I understand nothing," the Shediri's translator said. "Interrogative: Disinformation intended to confuse?"

  Asa Biko looked incredulous. "How can we possibly trust this information if it really came from where you say?" He didn't add the next question, but he was thinking it. Dana had known him long enough to be able to read his face. Biko didn't trust Hank if he'd been talking to Pavic. "Why would the man in charge of Company Internal Security be interested in helping us?"

  Ram said, "We'll have to decide to trust it or not because we don't have time to verify it for ourselves. We already pulled all our ships from the eighth planet to the third planet. By the time we got ships out to the Epsilon-Alcyone Transit to hunt for the Xihute and confirm their offensive, they'd be in our system already."

  She said, "This system is something of a crossroads. It makes sense the Xihute would want an outpost here. That I can understand. But this map shows a UNS battleship and destroyers in high orbit over Ekkai, on the other side of the system. They're not poised to strike at the Xihute. They're deployed defensively."

  Chun nodded. "Well, deploying defensively make perfect sense if they're not planning on attacking anyone now."

  Ix's translator had difficulty keeping up then. The Ambassador to War raised two of his arms and gestured at the fifth planet on the far side of Alcyone. "Interrogative: Why reinforce Ekkai? Interrogative: If Earth knows the Xihute are coming then why not intercept now?"

  "It's not time yet." It was the first thing Garlan Foet had said since he got here and he didn't look happy about it. "I get it now."

  "Don't keep us in suspense."

  "Between the UN ships and the Ekkai's home fleet, they've got enough firepower over the fifth planet to hold of the incoming Xihute ships at bay. It would, of course, be suicide for the Xihute to try and take Ekkai. But they're not going to Ekkai."

  "They're coming here," said Ram.

  "And Earth is going to let them. At least for now," said Foet. "It ends the rebellion quickly."

  "Interrogative: Is it not simpler to attack Otherworld with Earth forces at Ekkai?"

  This part might be hard for Ix to understand, thought Dana. Ix knew a good deal about Humans, but Shediri still had trouble understanding the internal conflicts in human society. Ram began slowly. "The Xihute broke through the lines. The Company could kill us themselves, but letting the Xihute do it presents advantages. Simply put, killing other humans is...unpopular. And they found a way around that."

  "More explain please," said the bug.

  Hank said, "Humans rebel against their power structures from time to time, most unlike Shediri. Crushing a rebellion has certain political benefits and certain costs as well. The costs can be measured in terms of public support. While ending a rebellion through a display of overwhelming force serves to dissuade the discontented from revolt to some degree, it also strengthens the public perception of an adversarial dynamic between Government and the people. This leads to the problem coming back in very short order."

  "Blood calls blood," said the bug.

  "Yes...indeed," agreed Hank.

  Biko said, "Even Staas Company wouldn't abandon thirty-million people like that. The Xihute will kill ten times as many as the Company's revenge would."

  Chun, eyed the battleship at Ekkai like it was his own. "They'll sortie the battlegroup over Ekkai, maintain defensive deployment at Draconis, and likely chase the Xihute out of the Alcyone system and back the way the
y came once we're dead. The press will call it victory and poetic justice."

  "We're not going down as easily as they think," said Ram.

  "The Xihute have sent a battle carrier. Do you have any idea how big that thing is? They're expecting to face more firepower than we can throw at them."

  "We've got more than a few surprises for them. They'll want us to engage them on the way here, but we have to wait until they achieve orbit to strike. It's the only way to maximize the our damage potential. It's possible to defeat this battlegroup, but only if we fight them at close range and in orbit over the planet."

  "That means they'll be able to begin bombardment and launch drop ships to the surface until we engage them. They'll launch fighters, too; we risk losing control of orbital space entirely. We could lose the whole planet pretty quickly," cautioned Chun.

  "The Legion's snub fighters were made to hold orbital space. We'll launch all of them into the fight before the bombardment. They'll handle the Xihute's fighters. The battle carrier and its escorts are what we'll have to worry about."

  Chun said, "New Madras and the other cities are preparing defenses, but they won't be able to hold long. Even if the cities survive the bombardment before the Xihute warships are engaged, they'll likely be overrun by ground forces. Developed areas near the Legion's compounds and planetary defense batteries will probably be treated as targets as well."

  Ix said, "Interrogative: Bofor's station?"

  "Company personnel are running for Ekkai," said Garlan. "Everyone else is going to the surface. They're still evacuating, but Bofor's should be mostly empty by the time the Xihute arrive. It'll be impossible to defend from fire. I've already sent crews to salvage some railgun blocks and turret-mounted 4x140s from the defensive rings so we can mount them on the junks and small craft."