Empire of the Fallen, page 27
‘Ah, we’re fucked,’ Cox announced over the narrowband, his voice strained.
It was an assessment that was difficult to disagree with. If the kaygryn had time enough to hit them with low-orbit rail strikes, that meant the UN had lost control of Cobalta’s voidspace entirely. That meant that a massive portion of the UN Fleet’s total strength had just been obliterated. It also meant that whatever meagre garrison remained on UNAF Cobalta now had to fend off tens of thousands of kaygryn, many of whom inexplicably had Imperial equipment, completely alone, with unopposed hostile forces in orbit above.
‘Jesus, what the fuck are those?’ Cox suddenly asked, the bewilderment in his voice setting Vondur’s teeth on edge. He pulled up a VL feed at the sergeant’s behest, to see enormous conical landers slowly descending to the surface on gargantuan fusion engines blazing white hot in the evening air.
‘They’re here,’ Vondur said, eyes wide. ‘Jesus… the invasion: it’s begun.’
LONG KNIVES
‘The UN politician is the most resilient parasite in the galaxy. There is no other creature in existence that is so utterly redundant and yet persists—even thrives.’
UN political commentator Rebel Zapler
She was fine, of course: a little shaken, a little bruised, mildly hypothermic, but fine. The impact gel had done its job, and her IHD had blunted the emotional trauma with stimulant programs. It took a lot more than that to kill a citizen of the UN.
What couldn’t be cured was Constance’s fury.
She stalked the drone-crammed corridors of Carrington Manor, its already heightened security even higher, though an artificial calm pervaded the residence since she had banned all talk of the incident. An attempt on the life of the president, after all, was galaxy-wide news, and a host of round-the-clock news outlets, human and alien, were gorging themselves on the fresh corpse of the story like stim-wired hyenas. She had quickly grown sick of hearing about it.
She made her way to the drawing room at the southern end of the manse where Bill Pitt was waiting for her, eschewing the advice of the med techs who had attempted to insist she convalesce for longer—as if the opinion of a few quacks was somehow more important than her own. Pitt had been stuck in VMPD briefings for ten hours straight while incident control drones had recovered the wrecked Bluebird from the East Sea and reconstructed the crash from both its data logs and orbital surveillance satellites. She wanted to know what the results were.
‘Just get straight to the point,’ she said as she walked through the door, triggering the audio dampers. Pitt, who had been sitting in a chair, stood and whirled around in one graceful motion that hinted at his considerable unarmed combat abilities.
‘They found minute traces of organic explosives in the engines,’ he said, his features strained with tension. ‘The kind the provar used to try and kill you on Volteroth, if you recall.’
‘If I recall?’ Constance said scornfully. ‘Yes, I just happen to remember the last time someone tried to blow me up. How did it get there?’
Pitt shrugged, his attitude immediately hardening against her sarcastic repartee. ‘They’re going back through the data logs and orbital feeds for the last few days. Anyone who was near the Bluebird will be brought in for questioning. We’ll find the culprit.’
Constance exhaled. It was easy to forget that Pitt had nearly been killed too. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, motioning for him to sit down. She slumped heavily into the wing-backed armchair the Vulture had occupied barely a few days before. Pitt sat, though his jaw was set.
Not Pitt, she thought, my confidant. My only ally in this mess. I can’t lose Pitt.
‘That was rash of me. I’m sorry for snapping. Just a little wound up. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.’
‘It’s fine,’ Pitt said, and he smiled warmly, though it was still insincere. A month ago, they had successfully brought the Ascendancy War to a conclusion together on a shared understanding of principles so strong they were almost inseparable. They had been drifting apart on almost everything since then, as inexorably as tectonic plates—and the departure of the Last Chance Saloon had acted as a catalyst. He was losing faith in her, like the rest of them, and when she was in a foul mood, she could barely stand him.
‘Do you think it could have been—’
‘I don’t think one of the former Joint Chiefs tried to assassinate you, no,’ Pitt snapped.
Constance looked at him from across the room. So, he was still annoyed about that, then. ‘I did what I had to,’ she said. There was no trace of apology in her voice this time. ‘They are going to put a motion forward to have me dismissed. How can I have people around me like that, advising me? Even you can see that.’ With your simple, military brain.
‘Because they are the best generals we have,’ Pitt said, ‘the very reason why you selected them in the first place. You may not like them, and they may not like your politics, but they are our best chance of resisting the Kaygryn Empire. We are receiving reports from both the Ascendancy and the Outer Ring of Imperial attacks, and you’ve beheaded UNAF and JIC at the exact time that we needed them. Ellisburg, Foster, Kessler, Tavistock… these people between them have more direct, wartime military and intelligence experience from the last six months than any of the other thousand four-star generals in the UN Service combined.’
‘And for all we know, they were planning a bloody coup!’ Constance shouted.
‘Really, Andrea, that is beyond the pale—’
‘You don’t get to speak to me like that, Bill,’ Constance snapped. ‘Look at the facts: they don’t agree with my presidential policies; they don’t like the draft—’
‘No-one likes the draft! The generals don’t like it because they have to deal with shitty green soldiers with nothing but VR experience getting in the way, and the people don’t like it because you’re forcing them to go to war!’
‘You’re damn right I’m forcing them to go to war!’ Constance shouted. ‘Until a week ago, no-one even fucking believed me when I talked about the Kaygryn Empire. Now planets are being attacked and thousands of people are dying and mark my fucking words, in two days’ time, everyone will start complaining I never did enough! I am sick to death of being the bad guy in all of this when history will judge me the only sane person in a field of lunatics! These generals will drive the UN into the ground. We need thousands, tens of thousands, millions of soldiers to fight! I want entire colonies armed and ready to resist, and I will drag every man and woman and child I have kicking and screaming into the breach if it means the UN resists subjugation!’ She held out a finger. ‘One, I have an unprecedented military crisis; two, I have disgruntled Joint Chiefs at odds with my policies and manoeuvring to have me ousted; three, barely two days ago I was nearly vaporised by a bomb which I bet was planted on United Nations Solar Operations Command Headquarters. You cannot be so blinkered, seeing what you have seen, doing what you have done, to think that these people are above this.’
She stared at him, eyes wide, nostrils flaring, daring him to contradict her. Instead, he just shook his head. ‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said softly. ‘I simply don’t know.’
Constance found she took no pleasure in his capitulation, and a tense, uncomfortable silence passed between them. ‘Bill, I need you on my team,’ she said eventually. ‘I trust you more than anyone.’
Instead of reassuring her, as he often did, he looked suddenly grim. He paused for a moment, his mouth working around the impending question like a fatty glob of meat. Eventually, he asked, ‘Have you heard of a company called North Star Terraforming and Agriculture?’
Constance cleared her throat, wrong-footed by the question. ‘Uh, yeah. Yes, I have. We buy a lot of food from them. We have agricultural production contracts. There are public documents,’ she added, ‘the procurement process is not a secret.’
Pitt shook his head.
‘NSTA has a subsidiary called AeroDyne. They manufacture electronic components, airframes, and arms for a range of military and civilian buyers.’
AeroDyne, Sauben, Gorman-Valstar… these were all names that Constance knew, of course, because they sold weapons to the UN. Hell, the UN owned a controlling stake in GV. She’d met with senior executives from all three companies at the start of the Ascendancy War for a dozen rounds of mutual backscratching.
‘Yes, I know of AeroDyne,’ she said guardedly.
‘One of the weapons that AeroDyne manufactures is the DOS Hornet. The DOS stands for Direct Orbital Strike. It’s a missile that contains a concentrated load of hydrogen fluoride gas. On a fine day with a light prevailing wind, it can cover an area of about twenty square kilometres with ninety per cent fatalities. It is a Designated Terror Weapon under Galactic Naval Protocol, and has been banned for many years. Have you heard of it?’
Constance shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t,’ she said, and it was the truth. Why on Earth would she have, and what on Earth was the man driving at?
When Pitt spoke, it was in a quiet, measured, and strangely melancholy voice. ‘Hydrogen fluoride gas is one of the most toxic compounds known to man. It severely burns skin and mucous membranes. If inhaled, it destroys the lungs. It makes people go blind. In high doses, it shreds your cells and stops your heart. If you don’t die quickly, you die slowly, in agony, your lungs filling with fluid, your skin and eyes burning, your throat on fire. I have seen it in action on a dozen battlefields. It is a despicable, cowardly and inhuman way to wage war, in any circumstances.’
‘Bill, I know few of us could claim the moral high ground in the War, but I really don’t see what—’
‘Andrea, one of my men reported to me yesterday that three kaygryn nations in the Gull Crest have been hit with DOS Hornets. Three colonies in as many days.’
Constance’s stomach soured like she’d just stepped off the edge of a tall building. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I mean that many hundreds of thousands of kaygryn civilians are dying, as I speak to you now, because someone has been dropping tonnes and tonnes of hydrogen fluoride gas on them from orbit.’
The Vulture. Pitt knew—or if he didn’t know, he was getting close. Constance, hardened by months of largely amoral warfare, forced away images of confused and terrified kaygryn as they choked and writhed and rattled their way into the afterlife.
Better them than us. I do what I do for mankind. History will judge me.
‘I don’t know anything about it,’ she said, so convincingly she surprised herself. Somewhere, deep down, the last few strands anchoring her soul to her body snapped, and it floated away.
Pitt nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said simply. ‘Well, I’ve taken up enough of your time.’ He recovered his beret from the table next to his chair.
‘Bill,’ Constance said, standing up. He stopped and looked at her. It was a look she couldn’t put her finger on. There was no trace of distrust there, no insolence or anger. Had he really just swallowed her denial unquestioningly? ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter,’ she said after several seconds of uncomfortable silence, and he turned and left the room.
She sat down, her features creased in angry bafflement. It was unlike Henrikson to be so lax. The man had evaded detection for months; how could Pitt possibly have discovered the attacks on the kaygryn?
‘Bloody branded missiles,’ she said aloud to herself. These military corporations were so proud of their sleek, phallic instruments of death that they couldn’t help but splash their corporate logos across them. She made a note in her diary to speak to the CEO of AeroDyne, then stood up again as an IHD reminder popped into her vision. Her next meeting had arrived.
‘Enter,’ she said, and in stepped a man with the bullish frame of a SPECTRECOM operative. He was tall and muscled, his body taut and straining against the fabric of his clothes. He was wearing a pair of beige chinos and a white shirt, open at the collar. His black skin was folded and marked with Special Warfare implants, and caught at the right angle, his eyes shone like a cat’s.
‘March,’ the man said and held out a hand.
‘Andrea,’ she replied and shook it. ‘You come recommended by Commander Henrikson,’ she said, looking mostly at the floor. Dealing with these Special Warfare operatives was like handling wild animals; she never felt completely in control.
‘I’ve worked with Commander Henrikson on a number of operations,’ March said. Constance waited for more, but there was none.
‘Well, Mr March… You’ve got what I asked for?’
March nodded. There was something comforting in his economy of language.
‘And I needn’t remind you that this is classified beyond measure. As in, you shouldn’t be speaking about this to anyone except me and your team.’
‘Yes, Ma’am,’ March said. It was like talking to a machine.
‘All right then,’ she said, pointlessly checking the room’s audio dampers were still functioning. Her palms were greased with sweat, and she wiped them on her dress. This was by far the most illegal thing she had ever done. If this ‘March’ character ever betrayed her, she would be finished. In fact, she’d be impeached, convicted, and probably executed for tyranny.
‘Show me,’ she said, her mouth dry.
‘Not here,’ March said. ‘In a sync with a secure connection.’
‘Okay,’ she said, and she led him out of the room and through the corridors of Carrington. Special Warfare operatives and provar moved through the corridors, lugging equipment, studying holos, or maintaining a constant scangrid for infiltrating drones and Sprite-suited espionage agents. After a few minutes, they came to a sealed chamber and entered. A rack of syncs on a closed server lined the back wall. She climbed into one while March climbed into another, and she strapped herself in and let her IHD synchronise with the capsule. After a few seconds of screeching data chatter, she was standing on the corner of a street in Arrengate. March, wearing a pair of jeans and a battered winter jacket, stood next to her. A scarf hid the lower half of his face.
‘When is this?’ she asked, her breath streaming away from her mouth.
‘This is yesterday,’ March said.
Constance studied her surroundings. It must have been early afternoon, a few rays of cold sunlight piercing the perennial slate-grey cloud cover of Arrengate. Around them, huge hab blocks towered into the sky. Advertising holos covered every surface, filling the streets with artificial light.
‘Telmun Square is over there,’ she said, turning to her right. Though the view was being blocked by a skyscraper, the Assembly Building was only half a kilometre away, a cathedral to modern democracy. She snorted at the thought.
‘There’s your man,’ March said, pointing across the street. A nondescript, middle-aged woman in a smart suit walked down the road. She was highlighted in red.
‘What do you mean?’ Constance asked.
‘That’s General Foster,’ March said. He sounded disinterested. ‘He’s wearing a Moulder. It’s like a Sprite.’
‘Good lord,’ Constance said, fascinated by the technology, appalled by Foster’s duplicity, and slightly amused by how ludicrous he looked. ‘Where does he go?’
‘Into this block,’ March said. ‘Come on.’
Constance’s pulse rocketed as she shot free of the floor and floated up to the penthouse suite of the block. She passed without hindrance through the matte-black wall and found herself standing in a lavishly appointed apartment with a panoramic view of Arrengate. In the centre of it was the leader of the Human Democrats, Alexander White, clasping hands with Foster. At some point in the intervening minutes of real time, Foster had evidently ditched the disguise.
‘How are we seeing this?’ she asked.
‘Microdrone,’ March said.
‘Doesn’t White have countermeasures?’ she looked over. March’s face was the definition of distaste.
‘Yes, he does. We’re replicating their telemetry to indicate nothing is wrong. Actually no, that’s not true; we’re indicating that his countermeasures are neutralising roughly three incursion attempts an hour, which is about in line with what his security team has to deal with.’
‘Remarkable,’ Constance said. ‘How else could you have done it?’
March shrugged. ‘We could have killed his entire security detail and run the feed ourselves.’
‘Right. Well, this way is better.’
March grunted.
The holo sped up for a short while, giving both White and Foster comically high-pitched voices like demented children; then the recording slowed to real time, the two men reclined, and White poured them both a drink.
‘What a prick,’ Constance said, looking at the Leader of the Opposition with pure venom. The man was old, older than her, closer to Aurelius’ age, with a neat mop of white hair and a handsome, hairless face subtly chiselled into its current shape by a regen pod. He had led the Human Democrats for seven years, and though widely derided as a tub-thumping populist by the intelligentsia, he commanded pan-UN support for being a xenophobic ‘straight-shooter’. In the Outer Ring, the man was practically a god.
Constance studied the scene, suddenly unsure whether she actually wanted to hear what she was about to. It was one thing to suspect what your enemies were saying about you; to hear it spoken, unguarded, from their own lips, was quite another. Suspicion, no matter how well grounded, was never certainty.
‘So what’s the process?’ Foster asked White.
‘Well, as you know, you aren’t allowed to talk at the Assembly except for questioning in front of a subcommittee,’ White said in his healthy, agreeable baritone. ‘What I can suggest is, given the grave circumstances facing the United Nations, you be allowed to address the Assembly on the nature of the threat we face. It’s rare but it’s not unheard of. I could carry any vote proposing it. You can set out what you’ve told me, but you wouldn’t talk about Andrea’s presidency—that you would leave to me. If anyone suspects the military is behind this, they’ll call it a coup and you will push us further away from our goal than we ever have been.’
