Jezzibella morphed into her hero-worshipping early-teens persona. “Covering for Al?” her high girlish voice piped.
“Yes. Who else?”
“Come on, Jez,” Al grinned in mock-rebuke. “There ain’t no one else in the market for hellhawks, you know that.”
“I do.” Jezzibella looked up adoringly at him, and sighed.
“And without me, there’s no reason for New California to keep supporting them,” Al said.
Kiera’s attention moved back from Emmet. “Believe me, I’m very aware of everyone’s position. And their worth.”
“That’s nice,” Jezzibella said blandly.
“Enjoy your drink, babe,” Al said, and patted Kiera’s arm. “I got a small announcement to make before we sit down to eat.” He marched over to Emmet, and signalled the head waiter to bang a gong. The room fell silent, people picking up on the focused excitement in Al’s mind. “This ain’t the usual kind of speech to make at table. I ain’t got no stag jokes, for a start.”
Faithful smiles switched on all around. Al took another sip of champagne—damn, but he wanted a shot of decent bourbon. “All right, I ain’t gonna bullshit around with you. We got problems with the fleet, on account of it ain’t got nowhere to go. You know how it is, we gotta keep momentum going or the boys’ll go sour on us. That right, Silvano?”
The brooding lieutenant nodded scrupulously. “Some of the guys are getting close to the boil, sure, Al. Nothing we can’t keep a lid on.”
“I don’t wanna keep no fucking lid on nothing. We gotta give the bastards something to do while we build up stocks of antimatter. We can’t take over no planet again, not for a while. So we’re gonna hit the Confederation from another angle. That’s what I got for you, something new. This way we cause them one fuck of a lot of damage, and don’t get hurt ourselves. And we got Emmet here to thank for that.” He put his arm round the Organization’s reluctant technology expert, and gave him a friendly hug. “We’re gonna launch some raids on other planets, and break through their space fort defences. Once we’ve done that, we can sling a whole load of our guys down to the surface. Tell them, Emmet.”
“I’ve done some preliminary designs for one-man atmospheric entry pods,” Emmet said in a tense voice. “They’re based on standard escape boats, but they can descend in under fifteen minutes. That’s high gees for whoever’s inside, but with our energistic strength it shouldn’t be a problem. And they’re simple enough, that we shouldn’t screw up the guidance electronics. All the fleet has to do is create a window in the SD coverage long enough for them to get down. Once they’re on the ground, the good old exponential curve comes into play.”
“Without the fleet firepower to back them up, they’ll lose,” Dwight said bluntly. “The local cops will wipe them out.”
“It depends on how together the planet is, and how many soldiers we can shove down there,” Al said, untroubled. “Emmet’s right about how fast we can expand. That’s gonna cause the governments a shitload of grief.”
“But, Al, the Organization can’t expand as fast as ordinary possessed. We’ve got to have time to let Harwood and his guys vet the souls that’re coming back. Christ, we’ve had enough trouble with loyalty on New California, let alone Arnstat. If we don’t have committed lieutenants, the Organization’ll fall apart.”
“Who gives a shit?” Al laughed round at the startled expressions. “Come on, you guys! Just how many goddamn planets do you think we can run? Even the King of Kulu’s only got half a dozen. If I gave all you dopeheads one apiece to be emperor of, that still leaves hundreds of free ones left out there to screw with us. We gotta start levelling the odds, here. I say shoot possessed down to the surface and let the fuckers run loose. We can use all our hotheads from here, all the crap artists who wanna take New California out of the universe, send them, get rid of the assholes permanently. That way we’re solving two problems at once. Fewer traitors here, and planets dropping out of the Confederation. You retards grabbed what that’ll mean yet? It means less hassle for us. Every planet we hit is gonna scream to the navy for the same kinda help Mortonridge is getting. That’ll cost them plenty to provide. Money they can’t spend dicking with us.” He looked round the room, knowing he’d won them over. Again. His face reddened with the heat of victory, three tiny white lines proud on his cheek. That reluctant admiration he’d kindled in them proving he was the man with the plan, and the balls to see it through.
Al raised his glass high in triumph. And it was like a room full of krauts doing their knee-jerk fascist salute as the others held their own glasses up, fast. Jezzibella winked impishly at him from behind the back row, while Kiera’s face was drawn as she considered the implications.
“A toast. Goodbye to that goddamn pain in the ass Confederation.”
The Mindori ’s distortion field expanded outwards in a specific pattern of swirls, generating ripples in the fabric of space-time. They pushed against the hull, lifting it from the pedestal in a simple, smooth motion. Inside the large forward lounge, none of the six passengers noticed even a quiver in the apparent gravity field. They’d just finished their meal of mashed turkey granules, which was the only meat product Beth could hammer into a burger shape. Jed was ignoring the sullen stares that were getting flashed his way. Turkey wasn’t so bad after it had been grilled.
Gerald Skibbow looked up at the lounge’s big screen as the edge of the docking ledge slipped towards them. “Where are we going?” he asked.
Webster twitched in surprise, it was the first time he’d heard Gerald speak. The others stared at him, slightly nervous of what would follow. Even now, after all this time, he was still nutty Gerald to them. Rocio had privately confided to Jed and Beth he couldn’t make any sense of Gerald’s thoughts at all.
A small picture of Rocio’s face appeared in one corner of the screen. “I’ve been given a patrol flight vector,” he said. “It’s not a very demanding one, we’ll never be more than three million kilometres from New California. I suspect it’s a trial to see if I do as I’m told. I have just filled my reserve bladders with nutrient fluid, if I was going to leave, now would be an obvious time.”
“Are you going to?” Beth asked.
“No. The only place to go is the Edenist habitats and the Confederation. The price for their sanctuary would be cooperating with their physicists. And that would ultimately lead to the defeat of the possessed. I told you before, I need to find other options.”
“I don’t want to leave Monterey,” Gerald said. The screen was now showing the asteroid’s counter-rotating spaceport receding at a considerable speed. “Please go back and let me disembark.”
“Can’t do that, Gerald, mate,” Beth said. “Them possessed, they’d spot you inside Monterey in a flash. Give the whole game away. We’d all wind up like Marie, that way, and they’d punish Rocio, too.”
“I will assist you with Kiera in whatever way I can,” Rocio said. “But first, I must establish myself as one of her servile flock.”
Beth reached over and gripped Gerald’s arm. “We can wait that long, eh?”
Gerald considered her words; although he was sure his thoughts were taking longer to form these days. There was a time when he could give an instant reply to any topic or question. That Gerald existed only in his mind now, a memory that was hard to find and difficult to see. “All right,” he said. It was a tough concession to make. To have been so close to her. Just a few hundred metres. And now having to leave, to abandon her. It would probably be days until they could return. Days darling Marie would have to spend enduring the torment of that terrible woman’s control. The notions of what she would get up to with her captive flesh were horrible. Marie was a lovely little girl, so pretty. Always had lots of boyfriends, which he’d tried not to get upset and protective over. Back on Lalonde, sex seemed the only thing the possessed were interested in. And like every father since the dawn of civilization, Marie’s sexuality was the one thing Gerald never dared dwell upon.
It would be that, he admitted in his dark heart. Night after night, Kiera would allow some man to run his hands over her. Would laugh and groan at the abuse. Would demand hot physical violations. Bodies writhing together in the darkness. Beautiful, strong bodies. Gerald whimpered softly.
“You okay?” Beth asked. Beside her, Jed was frowning.
“Fine,” Gerald whispered. His hands were rubbing his perspiring forehead, trying to massage the pain inside. “I just want to help her. And if I could just get to her, I know I could. Loren said so, you see.”
“We’ll be back there in no time, okay, no worries.”
He nodded lamely, returning to pick at the food they’d given him. He had to get to Marie soon. He was sorry about everyone else’s predicament, but what Marie was suffering was unspeakable. Next time they landed at Monterey, he decided, it would be different. No details, but definitely different.
Rocio was aware of Gerald’s ardent, fractured anxiety sinking back under calmer emotions. That man’s mind was a complete enigma. Not that Rocio actually wanted to be privy to such tortured thoughts. Shame that he couldn’t convince Beth and Jed to stay on board by themselves. This entourage of people were making his position more complicated. Ideally, he’d like to winnow the numbers down again.
Now that he was clear of the asteroid, he began to accelerate. Modifying the distortion field to generate ever-more powerful ripples in space-time. He surfed them at seven gees, a secondary manipulation alleviating the force around the life support section. As the sense of freedom rose in tandem with his speed, he allowed his dreamform to blossom. Dark wings slowly spread wide, sweeping eagerly, sending motes of interplanetary dust swirling in his wake. He shook his neck, blinking huge red eyes, flexing his talons. In this state, he was perfectly at one with himself and life. It reaffirmed the conviction that Kiera’s hold over himself and his comrades must be broken.
He began talking to the other hellhawks, probing for emotional nuances. Building a pattern of those who thought as he did. Of the seventy currently in the New California system, he thought there were possibly nineteen he could count on for open support, another ten would probably side with him if things looked favourable. Several were playing it very coy, while eight or nine, led by Etchells and Cameron Leung, revelled in the prospect of following the Organization fleet into glory. Good enough odds.
Eight hours into his patrol, Hudson Proctor delivered new instructions. There’s an interplanetary ship decelerating towards New California,kiera’s lieutenant said. Coming straight in along the south pole, one and a half million kilometres out. We think it’s come from the Almaden asteroid. Can you sense it?
Rocio expanded his distortion field, probing where Proctor indicated. The ship slithered into his perception as a tight kink of mass, alive with energy.
Got it,he acknowledged.
Intercept them, and order them to return.
Are they hostile?
I doubt it. Probably just another bunch of idiots who think they can live where they want instead of where the Organization tells them.
Understood. And if they don’t want to return?
Blow them to shit. Any questions?
No.
Rocio changed the distortion field again, concentrating it on a small area just ahead of his beak. Power surged through his patterning cells, and the stress he was applying leapt towards infinite. A wormhole interstice opened, and he shot through, emerging from the terminus less than two seconds later. It folded neatly behind his tailfeathers, returning local space-time to its usual consonance.
The interplanetary ship was three kilometres away, a long silk-grey splinter of metal and composite. Standard configuration of barrel-shaped life support module separated from the drive section by a lattice tower. It was decelerating at two thirds of a gee, blue-white fusion flame spearing cleanly from its exhaust. Rocio was also aware of another wormhole terminus opening five thousand kilometres away. A hellhawk slid out, deflating its distortion field immediately, and drifting inert. He resisted the temptation to hail it. Shadowing him in such a fashion to monitor his conduct was very unsubtle.
A radar pulse triggered the ship’s transponder: according to the code it was called the Lucky Logorn . Rocio matched velocities with it, and opened a short-range channel. “This is the Organization ship Mindori ,” he told them. “You’re approaching New California’s Strategic Defence network without clearance. Please identify yourself.”