Reclamation (Book One of the Art of War Trilogy), page 37
No one spoke. No one breathed – except Josette. In fact, it was all she could do not to smile. She knew about the crusade fleets, of course; that was one of the perks of being so senior within UNIS. To hear it so plainly spoken, however, elucidated as fact and corroborated, was so exhilarating that she had to suppress a shiver of delight. Decades of planning were finally reaching fruition.
Eventually, Scarcroft stirred, wiping the sweat from his brow with a kerchief. ‘Do you mean to tell us that we face the prospect of a million provari ships in UN space within two damned weeks?’
Another silence seized the room, longer and deeper and more frightening than the first. Disastrously for Josette, even the President seemed to be wavering. No doubt he had anticipated his Joint Chiefs to be thrilled at the prospect of finally using all their expensive hardware. Instead, they were united in dismay, save Howarth, and the latter was losing credibility fast after the lapse of Frost. Josette felt her heart palpitate as the first signs of panic began to set in. Not now, she thought, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down her back. Not when we’re so close.
She cleared her throat. ‘Sir, if that is the case, then surely our only hope is to overthrow the Ascendancy regime before we are overrun. Attacking the Zecad might be the only chance we have.’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ Garrick snapped. ‘Really? We’re going to be taking advice from the Commissioner for Refugees now? On this military matter?’ His voice was so thick with venom his mouth was practically burning.
She took the barb, against her better judgement. Rage blossomed inside her, churning her guts and chest so hard and so suddenly that she thought she might vomit. Her hands clenched into fists underneath the table. All she wanted to do now was tell him what was going to happen, once the crusade fleets stopped. That would wipe that look off his face. Just wait, she thought, desperately trying to keep her fury from writing itself across her face. Just wait and see what happens when you pull back the tide. When you force the fleets to turn back. You won’t like it. The Ascendancy will be the least of your fucking worries then.
Frost interjected before she could blow everything in a fit of pique. ‘That was impudent, Strike Commander,’ he said, trying to salvage his standing. ‘Ms Chevalier is as competent and thorough as any UNIS operative we’ve ever had.’
It was a lie, of course, given that she’d performed her office deliberately badly, and she had to stop herself from snorting. ‘Based on my intelligence experience,’ she said calmly, utilising every ounce of her self-control, ‘the Xhevegan contingency seems like the only option we have left.’ She afforded Garrick little more than a glance.
They weren’t convinced. The atmosphere was toxic, and despite her repeated attempts to convince herself otherwise, she knew she was losing them. She had none of the Joint Chiefs on side, and even Howarth, the man who had personally crafted the Xhevegan contingency, was looking less and less convinced. Only the President had any kind of conviction, and he was half-mad.
But then, it was only the President she needed.
‘Anyway, what about Iyadi?’ Garrick asked. Now he was looking at Howarth. ‘What happened to him? You said so yourself but two days ago, he is the key. Have we taken anything from him yet? I presume you’ve got him somewhere; your little shoot up on Navem Sigma was public enough.’
‘When we have yielded viable intelligence from Iyadi, you will know, Strike Commander,’ Howarth replied. ‘Ms Johnson is liaising with the EFFECT teams as we speak. I am expecting her report momentarily.’
Josette cleared her throat absentmindedly, concentrating very hard on a spot at the back of the bunker.
‘Should we at least not wait to see what he has to say?’ Garrick pressed. ‘I feel like we’re making decisions – radical decisions – off the back of some very flimsy evidence. One thing we all seem to be forgetting, repeatedly, is that it was the damned kags who nuked a crusade fleet, yet we seem to be the ones picking up the tab!’ He was talking as though he were drunk. Josette had never seen the man so recklessly animated on anger.
‘We do not have time for that, Strike Commander,’ Aurelius said in a tired voice. ‘In any event, it is too late to back down now. UN civilians are being killed en masse. Uvolon is a goddamn fireball. The entire Kansubashi Empire is being systematically destroyed along with our 7th Fleet, and we have barely enough strength to support her.’
‘But we know that Iyadi had UN help!’ Garrick shouted, looking at Howarth. ‘You said so yourself that the destruction of the Tiberean Mission Station could have been engineered. I thought this Karris Haig character was being arrested? Isn’t anyone interested in what he has to say either?’
Josette sat up sharply, adrenaline firing through her system. She didn’t know Haig had been arrested. That was a serious complication. He knew the entire plan, and she knew that he would never commit suicide like they’d agreed. She had less time than she’d anticipated.
‘No,’ the President said tersely, holding up a hand. ‘Whatever the kaygryn’s or the traitors’ motives were is no longer important. Too much human blood has been spilt by the provar to back down now. The time for peace has passed.’
‘The time for peace has passed? At what cost?’ Garrick exploded. ‘Unprecedented, full-scale, Tier-Three war! How many millions will die then?’ He searched the ceiling as if trying to find some kind of divine explanation. ‘How can you be this stupid? I just… I just can’t understand it!’
‘Strike Commander Garrick!’ Aurelius roared. ‘You will not address me in–’
‘You’ll kill us all, old man!’ Garrick screamed, spittle flying from his lips as he thumped the table. ‘And for what?’
‘John–’ Scarcroft began in a placatory tone, but Garrick was unstoppable. He lurched out of his chair, fists bunched, and strode over to Aurelius, his eyes bloodshot and frenzied. Josette had to suppress another laugh. The maniac was going to get himself killed.
‘No! Please – wait!’ Scarcroft wailed as Mantix-clad guards burst through the door, summoned by the President’s IHD alarm. Garrick had managed to get his hands around Aurelius’s paper-thin throat when the first shot was fired. The hollowpoint tungsten slug tore off everything from Garrick’s nose upwards in a shower of skull and brains, and Pike, whose outstretched arms were moments from pulling the Strike Commander away, were showered with gore.
‘Gah! Je… Christ!’ Pike gasped, flapping his arms about as the blood soaked in. Everyone was on their feet now, shouting and diving for cover as ten more deafening shots blew Garrick’s collapsing body to bloody bits, ripping fistfuls of flesh out of his torso and scattering them across the table and polished black floor. Josette put on a good show for her former lover, ensuring she was still screaming when the railguns stopped. It was much easier, as it transpired, to observe a violent murder than to commit one.
The guards immediately set to fussing over the President, but he swatted their armoured hands away, eyes wide, clearly struggling for breath. ‘Howarth,’ he gasped, rubbing his bruised throat, his eyes fixed on the remains of Garrick. ‘Give the order.’
Howarth and the rest of the bunker’s occupants were in no fit state to do anything. With a cacophony of gagging, choking, wailing and expletives, they pressed themselves off the floor, trying to avoid the steaming remains of their former colleague with both eyes and hands.
‘What have you done?’ Scarcroft cried, holding a hand to his forehead. ‘John… Jesus Christ, John…’
‘Howarth!’ the President snapped, ‘For God’s sake! Give the order now, that’s an or– I’m ordering you to give the order, understand? Those provar fucks will see who’s laughing at the end of this.’
I will be, Josette thought, watching dispassionately as Garrick’s blood slowly flooded the bunker floor. His expiration couldn’t have worked out much better for her, if only in terms of timing. He had been asking all the wrong questions, after all. She’d never have guessed that, in the end, he’d turn out to be the most competent man in the room. It was a fact which did not reflect well on the rest of them.
‘Howarth! Damn it, Karl, answer me!’ the President shouted when the man continued to ignore him.
‘Sir,’ Howarth said, snapping out of his daze and climbing back out of his chair and to his feet. At no point did he take his eyes off the two guards. When he spoke, he did so distantly. ‘Once that order is given, it cannot be rescinded.’
‘I don’t want to have to tell you again,’ the President said in a crescendo forced by contracting stomach muscles, then bent over suddenly and vomited down himself.
Howarth shook his head in disgust and strode out of the bunker, eyes glazed as he communicated over his IHD. Scarcroft sat down heavily, head in hands, while Pike staggered through to the toilets on the far side of the room, sleeves dripping blood. Frost just stared uselessly into space. Josette studied them all with barely concealed contempt. These men formed the nerve centre of the United Nations. It was plainly obvious that they didn’t have the stomach for what was to come. Not that it mattered of course. With any luck they would be killed within a year, hauled up in front of a baying mob of provar and publicly executed.
She realised, at that point, that she’d quite inadvertently forsaken her façade of grief and quickly set to great heaving sobs. It wasn’t too difficult. Violent death at such close range was hardly a pleasant experience. She ran Countershock from her IHD as well, to make her hands tremble.
‘Fleet Marshal,’ the President said, eyes and nose streaming with acidic mucus from where he had been sick. ‘I want ships in Folhourt’s orbit within the next twenty-four hours. As many as we can spare.’ He too was visibly shaking. ‘If necessary we will nuke their damned homeworld to slag.’
Scarcroft shook his head, seething, and ripped the fleet marshal’s stripes from his epaulettes. Wordlessly he threw them down on the table and strode towards the exit, eyes red-rimmed.
‘Fleet Marshal!’ the President screamed after him. ‘Damn it man, get back here or I will have you flogged!’
Scarcroft paid him no attention. Within a few seconds, he was gone.
‘Josette,’ the President said in a ragged voice, turning to her. He was looking more and more desperate. ‘Bloody Christ, do something. You and Frost, run the op. Take over from Howarth. I don’t trust him.’
Frost locked eyes with Josette. He seemed uneasy, but she knew him to be too spineless to refuse the President.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said eventually, his voice strained.
‘And have the fleet marshal arrested. I want him in a cell, do you hear me?’ he stabbed a finger into the table. ‘In – a – cell.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Josette replied when Frost didn’t, making sure to dab her eyes. ‘I’ll take care of it.’ She realised then that she might have to kill them all herself. Try as she might, she would not be able to contain the intelligence gained from both Iyadi and Haig indefinitely. Together they knew every aspect of the plan. No matter how hell-bent the President was on a war with the Ascendancy, if he knew the truth, it would be enough to bring an end to the hostilities.
‘Come on,’ Frost said to her, doing everything in his power to avoid looking at Garrick’s body. Josette nodded, climbing to her feet.
Not long now, she thought, as they made their way to the exit. She checked the time on her IHD.
The UN had just entered its twilight.
PINNACLE
‘May the gods forgive you for what you have done, for I cannot.’
Anonymous, thousand-year-old provari transmission intercepted by the UNS Aries. Context and origin unknown
There would be no blackworld for Karris Haig. Instead, it was the arid air of the UN Fleet Command North Africa terminal that scorched his throat.
Ten hours before, he’d been sitting down to dinner with both kaygryn and human friends on Phaetonis, and spirits couldn’t have been higher. The plan was advancing apace, and with the exception of the death of his friend Dr Sorper and the disappearance of Lyra Staerck, the situation was snowballing much more quickly and with much better results than any of them could have anticipated. They had toasted their successes, laughing and contented, and they’d discussed the next phase of the plan with cautious optimism.
Ten minutes after that, all of them were either dead, dying or in the process of being abducted, and he had been dumped into the back of an EFFECT Manticore with an IHD damper strapped to his head and a leg pulsing with untempered agony where one of the agents had thrown a pan of boiling water over it.
No, there would be no blackworld for him. Not with their bunkers and manacles and low-tech medieval methods. His torture would require something much more refined.
His captors dragged him across the scorching concrete of the terminal landing platforms and manhandled him into the back of a waiting jeep bearing the Fleet insignia. He landed hard on the open, searing flatbed, and a few moments later the engine grumbled into life with a throaty roar. The doors slammed, and then they were moving across the wide landing platform and making for the terminal proper. The cords of his neck bulged sorely as he craned his head upwards and watched as the EFFECT shuttle disappeared into the distant, shimmering haze.
Fleet Command North Africa was a staggeringly large complex. Alongside the space elevators and landing pylons common to all spaceports, there was also a vast manufacturing installation and an equally vast trading hub that shipped most of the Earth’s state-sponsored goods offworld. Thousands of vacuum-capable shipping containers lay stacked about the place like a blocky, multicoloured sea, rusting in the salty arid air blown in from the Atlantic. From his position, Haig could see hundreds being loaded into the gaping maws of heavy landers and more still being packed away into freight warehouses or carted into space elevators.
The jeep followed a road that was marked on the asphalt in bright turquoise paint, taking them through a gap between two huge warehouses criss-crossed with cable-choked I-bars, antennae and satellite clusters. The hot air was not much more pleasant when it was moving, and for the longest time Haig felt as though his skin were being scoured off his body by wind-driven grit. Then they were enveloped by a large shadow, and he craned his head up once more to see that the jeep was slowing in front of a large, rectangular building.
His head dropped back onto the hot metal of the flatbed with a hard thump, and his stomach soured with adrenaline. The building was unremarkable, little more than light grey concrete soaking up the afternoon heat, but he knew it well enough. Below the baking hot, gaudily marked asphalt was Pinnacle, a Fleet Intelligence installation specifically tailored to the interrogation of UNBTs – United Nations-Born Terrorists.
Josette had warned him about this place during one of their very brief meetings. She had told him what she knew, which hadn’t been much. The gist of it had come down to two things: once you were inside, they could make you tell them anything they wanted to know; and once you were inside, you rarely came out again.
He had Brain Viper installed, an IHD program that would kill him immediately on activation in what was alleged to be a completely pain-free manner, but once the EFFECT agents had smashed down his door, his courage had leaked out of him like so much urine from his bladder. The IHD damper they slapped onto his head detected and neutralised precisely that kind of program, and they had fitted it to him in a matter of seconds. His only hope now was that Josette could get the Joint Chiefs or the President to authorise the attack on the Zecad before he gave up their entire plan.
The jeep rolled to a stop outside the building. The two EFFECT men, the sun glinting off their mirrored visors, hoisted him bodily out the back of the jeep.
‘You stink of piss,’ one of them said, gripping him tightly by the arm with an exoskeleton-powered gauntlet. The servos of the suit whirred and hummed quietly as they frogmarched him across the asphalt, the heat of it cooking his feet inside his de-laced shoes. He could think of nothing to say in response as they thrust him through the entrance. Instead, he started to cry.
‘Quiet,’ the other agent snapped. When he didn’t stop crying, the agent shook him roughly by the arm. ‘I said shut up. You brought this on yourself, kag-lover.’
Immediately through the entrance was a long, pillared hallway of blue and white marble, a row of potted plants and a pair of triple-barrelled Sphinx autosentries. As soon as they stepped across the threshold, a deep, electronic warning issued from somewhere in the hallway, and a three-metre holo sprang into life displaying a sad face. Haig recoiled violently and would have bolted had he not been held fast in the vice-like grip of the EFFECT agents. Instead, he waited for a pair of agonising seconds while one of the agents pacified the Sphinx, and the sad face became a smiley one.
‘One word from me and those things cut you in half,’ the agent on his left said, gesturing towards the sentries. ‘Pretty cool, huh?’
They carried on down the hallway, the only sound their echoing footsteps and the slow whirr of the sentry turrets as they tracked the three men across the marble tiles. Haig looked to see that the hallway extended all the way up to the roof of the building, where a row of windows allowed him a plaintive glimpse of the unbroken cerulean sky. They were the only source of light in the hallway, creating parallelograms of sunlight that illuminated motes of dust floating in the quiet air. Haig watched a distant freighter crawl across the sky and wished more than anything that he was on it.
Their journey across the hallway ended in front of an elevator, which opened automatically on their approach. They stepped inside, the doors closed and they sank almost imperceptibly into the bowels of the facility. The journey took thirty seconds. Once the doors opened again, Haig was confronted by a white, cube-shaped room, featureless save a stainless steel table and an inverted black pyramid attached to the ceiling. There were no doors except the one that opened into the elevator. Haig’s features creased in bemusement.
