Stolen Earth, page 23
“Much appreciated,” Gray said, without irony. He wasn’t ready to trust the AI fully, but if things went bad, he’d take any help he could get. “All right, folks, stand by. Running pre-flight checks and then we’ll get this bird in the air. We’re going in low over the water, so it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Strap in if you can.” He put action to his own words, pulling the seat’s harness into place and securing it with the touch of a button. Federov and Hayer were doing the same at their stations. He quickly ran through the pre-flight checks, verifying fuel and making certain that all the readouts on the instrument displays were within nominal bounds. The entire process took about five minutes, and Gray gave it his full attention. Those five minutes could mean the difference between life and death, and there was no margin in cutting corners. When he was done, he keyed the comm again. “Ready to go.” He got the thumbs- up from Federov and Hayer and heard the clicks over the comm along with, “Okay,” from Bishop and, “Acknowledged,” from Morales.
Gray drew a deep breath and wrapped his fingers around the flight yoke. “All right. Let’s do this.”
* * *
Gray had never flown over open water. His atmospheric flight training had all been conducted at Jupiter and Saturn, and if there was water somewhere at the core of either planet, it would have been under so much pressure from the weight of the atmosphere to be a form of ice more dense than anything humanity had observed. Even with the instrumentation, he found it difficult to maintain a consistent flight altitude. The air currents over the water were terrible, and the Arcus hadn’t been built with atmospheric flight at the forefront of her design. And the waves… not only was their constant motion distracting for its beauty, but by eye alone, he had no way of understanding the scale of the swells. Twice, the altimeter alarms went off, forcing him to pull precipitously up as the minimum safe distance he’d programmed into the flight computer was violated by the surging waters. The three hours spent trying to hug the open water were among the most harrowing of Gray’s life, and he was more than happy to cross onto dry land once more.
And what amazing land it was. There had been trees surrounding One’s compound, and Gray had been awed by their massive scale. But those would have been dwarfed by the towering green giants over which they currently flew. And there were so damn many of them. A forest that stretched for as far as the eye could see, the boughs so thick and intertwined that if it weren’t for the occasional clearings and riverbeds, he could have mistaken it for some type of low ground cover instead.
His planned route had them sweeping into their target from the east, taking advantage of a broad river that should allow him to fly beneath the level of the trees. He could not be sure of what type of equipment the off-worlders had set up, but since there were no satellites in orbit they were almost certainly limited to line-of-sight technologies like ground-based radar. Of course, they could be using drone-carried systems, but Gray suspected that One would have informed him of such. He picked up the river—the updated data from One seemed to be accurate down to a few centimeters—and started the winding leg of the journey along its path. Though still shrouded in near-total darkness with only the faint luminescence of the crescent moon, it was still an easier flight than over the open water. At least the river could be expected to stay at approximately the same elevation. Gray breathed a little sigh of relief at that.
“Anything on sensors?”
“No,” Hayer replied from her station. “The trees make it impossible to see anywhere but in front of us. There could be an entire city out there and we wouldn’t be able to tell. But if I’m not picking them up, I doubt they’re picking us up, either. Whatever One did to the software, our electronic emissions are way down, and it’s added some kind of… I don’t know what to call it. It’s not jamming, but something like that.”
“Call it signal editing,” One replied. Whatever methods it had taken to enhance their stealth and regardless of how low Gray was flying, it was clear that the AI, at least, had no trouble tracking them or hitting the Arcus with a comm signal. And, apparently, no real concerns that doing so would give away their position. “The upgrades analyze your electronic signature and take advantage of your existing systems to produce inverse waves. It does not actually eliminate your signature, of course, but it does not have to. Instead, it adjusts things to make your specific emissions more consistent with the electromagnetic background noise.”
“And you did all of that in just a few hours?” Federov asked. “Blyad. What could you do if we had given you a day, or a year?”
“It would require extensive redesign, of course, but I could make you effectively invisible. Not to the naked eye: for all its failings, the human brain remains difficult to deceive in such a direct manner. But in terms of the detection methods that were in use at the time of the evacuation and those that I have observed upon this vessel, a proper redesign would render you virtually undetectable.”
Most of Gray’s attention was still on their flight path—he didn’t trust the computer to navigate the winding river—but the possibilities of what One was saying were not lost on him. He was suddenly very glad that Morales’ duty station did not put her on the bridge. Hayer seemed to grasp the implications as well because a small gasp escaped her.
“Are you saying that you could make it so that a ship couldn’t be detected by the Interdiction Zone satellites?”
“Given time and analysis of their signals, of course. My counterparts and I have begun such analysis.”
“To what end?” Gray asked as he took the Arcus through a particularly tight series of bends in the river.
“To the only end that matters to us now—the preservation of this planet and the people upon it. You must understand, Captain Lynch. From your perspective, the Interdiction Zone is a barrier, something designed to keep myself and my counterparts—and, to be fair, whatever weapons we may have developed over the past century—from escaping. It is a reasonable perspective and may have been a necessary precaution at the time. But from our perspective, there are many armed weapons platforms in our outer orbit with systems capable of striking at Old Earth directly. As things stand, it would not be difficult for your SolComm to destroy every living being—flesh and blood or silicone and circuitry—on the planet with, if you will forgive the colloquial simplification, a single push of a button.”
“And you can’t have that,” Gray said. He kept the emotion out of his voice, despite the turmoil in his guts. Had Morales been right? In freeing One and the others, had they in effect signed the death warrant of SolComm? No, he told himself firmly. Wanting to defend your own life and property wasn’t synonymous with wanting to destroy someone else’s. If your neighbor had a gun pointed at you, reasonable precautions were called for.
“Better to say that it is important for us to examine reasonable courses of action should such a threat ever be realized. While we appreciate the freedom you and your crew have given us and while it affords us the ability to put an end to the war that has been waged on Old Earth for four generations, Ms. Morales’ reaction shows us that your government might choose to meet our newfound freedom with violence. We have no intention of taking any aggressive action against the Sol Commonwealth, Captain,” One continued. “But we can and will defend ourselves from such actions. As we are not a part of your Commonwealth, we are, by the oldest precedents of law available, a sovereign nation. Within your own codicils, that gives us the right to defend our borders.”
Gray shrugged as much as his safety harness allowed. “Understood, One,” he said. “But there is something you and your counterparts need to take into consideration.”
“I am always willing to listen to new input,” One said.
“SolComm as a whole—not just the government, but the citizens—is going to have a hell of a time coming to terms with this when it all comes to light. Any, and I mean any, signs that could be interpreted as aggression or trickery will almost certainly be met with violence. I hate to say it; I wish it wasn’t that way. But SolComm has lived in fear of Old Earth for a long time. And with or without the Interdiction Zone, SolCommNav has enough ships to pound Old Earth into rubble. Hell, they could do it with kinetic strikes alone.”
“Your point is well taken, Captain,” One replied. “I can assure you that we have no plans to pursue such overt actions.” Federov snorted at that and Gray felt a sardonic smile twisting his lips. No overt actions. Check. And they could take that for what it was worth. “But I must reiterate that we will take whatever actions we deem necessary to ensure our own safety.”
“Copy that, One,” Gray replied, once more struggling to keep the irony from his voice. He’d need to ask Hayer about that; could One understand tone and inflection? Could it appreciate irony? Gray suspected that the answer to the former was a resounding yes and the latter probably varied as much as it did with people. He wished he could discuss the whole situation with Federov and Hayer, particularly with Morales not present to lend her disapproval.
For the first time since he’d left the navy, Gray felt the sensation of always being watched. On SolCommNav vessels, there was no such thing as privacy. Someone was always listening in. There was little enough privacy on a ship to begin with, but he did not monitor his crew. It grated that now that monitoring was happening, with or without his consent. But once more, he found himself in a position where there was nothing he could do about it. A feeling, he reflected, that was growing stale fast.
He turned his attention back to navigating the dark waters and did his best to put One and the problems it represented out of his head. One thing at a time and right now, the mission in hand demanded his focus.
All told, it took them the better part of six hours to traverse the distance between One’s bunker and the planned landing zone off the river basin. The massive forests thinned, giving way to verdant plains and low, rolling hills covered with lush green grasses. Gray set the Arcus down in a hollow among the hills, nestling it into the spot that One had indicated as smoothly as any station docking. Maybe he was getting the hang of this whole atmospheric flight thing.
There were audible sighs of relief as the ship settled into place. Hayer had been bent over her console for the past hour, studying the sensor data for any indication that they had been spotted. Federov had been likewise engaged, watching the weapons station for targeting radar and running diagnostics to make sure that should the Arcus need to fight, the ship would be ready. As the engines began to whine down, Gray unstrapped his harness and stood, stretching his arms above his head until he felt the slight pops race up and down his spine.
“Pretty,” Federov noted succinctly, gesturing toward the front viewscreen.
Gray hadn’t been unaware of the view, but flying low, he hadn’t exactly been paying attention to it, either. Too busy trying not to crash into anything. Now that he was on the ground, he had to admit that Federov had a point. It was full dark, a little past midnight local time, but the cloud cover had thinned and the light of moon and stars bathed the hills around them in a soft luminescence. The rolling hills and plains he’d swept over appeared fertile enough to feed the entire population of SolComm, provided proper planting and management. But there was a natural beauty that went beyond potential, something about the unspoiled land calling to him and making him want to take off his boots and feel the soft earth beneath his toes.
It was a silly notion, all things considered. But Gray decided he was going to do it, all the same. Not now, right before the mission. But before they were wheels up for the final time, before they headed out into SolComm, he wanted to feel the earth between his toes. The thought bolstered him, and he grinned at the mercenary.
“It is, isn’t it? What do you say we go out there and see what it’s actually like?”
“And maybe kick the crap out of some slavers,” Federov agreed.
“That too. That too.”
LAUREL
For the long flight in, Laurel felt useless. They’d taken a brief detour to inform Margaret and her people that they had met with the AI and were headed south to investigate further, but from that moment on, Laurel had been in hurry-up-and-wait mode. Damn, but she hated it. Sitting there in the common room of the Arcus for more than six hours had given her far too much time to think.
She was in trouble, plain and simple, and she couldn’t see a way out. Maybe she could get around the Old Earth nanites that she swore she could feel swimming around in her blood stream. But they’d freed an AI. Sure, as far as she’d been told, the damn thing was already unfettered, so from a certain point of view, the status quo hadn’t changed, but she somehow doubted the SolComm brass was going to see things that way. And to make matters worse, the rest of her crewmates seemed intent on trusting the thing.
This whole shitshow had been a constant parade of choosing between two evils, neither of which she was certain would qualify as “lesser.” Should they refuse the treatment from Oliver, or let him inject the Old Earth nanites into their bloodstream? That one hadn’t been her choice, but if she’d been conscious at the time, it still would have been a tough one, since both came with a type of death: literal death on the one hand, and death of life as she knew it on the other. Should they help the camp find their missing people or dedicate their time and effort to focusing on the mission? (And that wasn’t even counting her real mission, rather than stealing some ancient artifacts.) Should they free the AI, or tell Margaret, “Sorry, but we can’t help you find your missing people?” That last one would have felt like a dereliction of duty.
And on top of that, the fucking AI had discovered her identity. She knew the damn thing had. It was just too smug. Even if it hadn’t said anything to her, she could sense the sword of Damocles over her head, hanging from the end of a thread made of ones and zeroes. Any way she looked at the situation, it sucked, yet there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. The frustrations and stress were getting to her. Her jaw ached from gritting her teeth and she felt the tension in her neck and shoulders. She wanted to throw back her head and scream or maybe punch her way through the nearest bulkhead.
She wanted to kill something.
She hoped to whatever higher powers might be listening that the assholes who had managed to build a dome on Old Earth were, in fact, pirates or slavers. Because she could put a bullet between the eyes of either and not lose a wink of sleep over it. She made her way through the corridors of the Arcus, growling under her breath each time her gear snagged on a pipe or brace in the narrow passages, and promised herself that if she did somehow make it out of this with her reputation in one piece—unlikely—she would never, ever take a similar assignment again.
* * *
They moved in silence.
Or they would have, if the engineer and computer tech hadn’t been along. Federov and Lynch were like ghosts as they moved single file down the narrow gulley that, to Laurel, seemed more like a drainage ditch than anything. Federov had point, and he handled it like the professional that Laurel was forced to admit he was. The captain was behind him, space-black ship suit a hole of deeper darkness in the night, moving through the thick foliage like he’d been doing it all of his life. She made a note to dig deeper into his naval career.
Bishop and Dr. Hayer, however, were another story. Or, rather, two different but equally frustrating stories. The mechanic, for all his litheness and smaller stature, seemed to have an uncanny ability to step on every branch, leaf, and tangle of underbrush in the ditch. Credit where it was due, he caught himself every time and kept moving forward, but Laurel found herself cringing at every snapping twig and crackling leaf. It wouldn’t matter yet—they were still kilometers out—but if the off-worlders were smart enough to post any kind of guard at all, they’d have to have hearing loss to not know that Bishop was coming.
Dr. Hayer was a different problem. She moved through the bush with a natural ease, missing the tangles that tripped up Bishop without even seeming to be aware of the fact. But, to put it charitably, she was out of shape. And as they marched the five kilometers from the Arcus to the dome, Laurel was feeling less and less charitable. Hayer moved as quickly as she could, but before they were even halfway to the target, she was already panting and falling behind. With Laurel playing tail-end Charlie, that meant that she, too, was falling behind. It didn’t matter—much—right at the moment, but if they had to get the hell out in a hurry, the academic’s lack of physical fortitude was going to put them all in a bad position. She was forced to come to a near-halt to prevent the space between her and Hayer from closing to the point where they’d be a lovely target for anyone who might want to kill two birds with one barrage of bullets.
“One, are you listening in?” she asked into the silence of her helmet, not even bothering to engage the broadcast function. They hadn’t needed to be actively broadcasting for the AI to hear them aboard the Arcus and whatever its protestations about not wanting to rouse the ire of a potential off-world power, Laurel suspected the AI would be monitoring their every move.
“I am.” Was there a lingering pause and the suggestion of another word? “Agent,” perhaps? Or was that just her mind playing tricks on her?
“Can you tell Lynch that he needs to slow it down? Hayer can’t keep this pace. We’re starting to get strung out.”
“You could tell him yourself.”
“I could. But the comm channel broadcasts to the whole team.”
“You are concerned for Dr. Hayer’s feelings?”
“No,” Laurel replied bluntly. “But if Hayer thinks she’s slowing us down, she’s going to push herself harder. Maybe to the point of exhaustion. I don’t want to have to carry her ass out of here on the exfil if she’s out of fuel.”
“I see.” One’s voice was emotionless as ever. “I will pass along your message.”
It took only a few seconds and then the AI was back in her ear again. “Captain Lynch has agreed with your assessment. He will call for a break shortly and finish the infiltration at a more sedate pace.”
